by L D Inman
When his com alarm went off early the next morning, Barklay found himself wishing he had not made this sparring appointment for before first watch. But if he wanted to maintain a modicum of privacy, there really was no other choice. It was better than fitful sleep full of unpleasant dreams, at least.
He got up, pulled on a fresh singlet and training knits, shrugged into his fatigue jacket pulled from his closet, and lumbered blinking over to the arena complex.
Speir was already there, of course, dressed the same as he was and examining a foil from the rack. She turned to him as he came in, her gaze sharp and alert. Did she have any idea how much nascent power was in that look of hers? Barklay was fairly certain she did not. In time she would realize it, he knew; then she would learn to direct it. She had already made such a beginning with her voice, he had observed; people were often halfway to doing what she told them before they registered the authority in it.
But at this hour even Speir’s voice was a little rusty. “Good morning, sir.”
“Good morning, Lieutenant. Have you found a foil to your liking?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then I’d better choose one.” As he did so, Speir sat down on a bench and began to tape her hand in a deft protective cross.
When Barklay had found his foil and a headguard, he came to the circle where Speir already waited with hers. They bowed to one another and donned their headguards. “I understand you had some instruction in the foil before you came,” he said, firming the straps of his.
“I did, sir, when I was in primary school. Later on I joined a course-running club, and that absorbed more of my attention. My teacher still keeps a court, though, and I’m always welcome there.” Barklay had little doubt of that. “What I learned there was a bit more academic than what we do at Ryswyck.” That wasn’t surprising either, and when Speir took up a guard position a moment later, Barklay could tell exactly what school she’d been formed in.
“Well, then. Let’s see how well you’ve adapted to the Ryswyckian tradition.”
They began the play. Speir’s “academic” moves should have made her easy to read, but of course Speir had been paying attention in sparring court. She had learned to use the whole circle and knew not to be drawn into Barklay’s range. And clearly she had years of comfort with the discipline: as with any other format she fought in, there were no showy flourishes to train Speir out of, no hesitations when she had an opening for attack.
All the same, Barklay found that she was expecting a barrage of blows from him, and was not prepared for him to whip under her guard and strike home with a small, neat movement. She acknowledged the touch and fell back; when they engaged again, he tried the same move, and was so successful that he stopped and dropped his point, so that Speir nearly cannoned full-tilt into him.
“Speir,” he said, “you’re not guarding that line at all. Are you not watching? Here—” He started to show her the parry.
“I didn’t come down here for a lesson, sir,” Speir said, her spine straightening. “I came down here to fight. If I miss the parry, I miss the parry.”
She was glaring at him through her headguard. He regarded her thoughtfully for a moment, and then said: “Most fights are also lessons. But all right. As you wish.”
They went back to guard and started over. And Barklay obliged her. He did not hold back to spare her, but mounted attack after ruthless attack. All the same, he did not use the same attack over and over, but returned to his first successful move when he judged she had ceased to expect it; she had found parries to some of his attacks and even made a riposte once that almost succeeded, but this vulnerability continued to stump her. After the sixth failed parry she leaped clear of his touch and backed out of range, catching her breath and blowing it out in a sharp burst. Barklay retired and waited.
“You are waiting for me to master my frustration,” Speir said, angrily. “Would you do that for an enemy?”
“I might,” Barklay said. “After all, an enemy is only a friend who wounds you.”
“And a friend is only an enemy who aids you,” Speir snapped. “Stop talking nonsense and defend yourself.”
She was angry. And all the more, Barklay suspected, because she had not unsettled him yet: she had yet to prove her larger point, and was running out of patience. She wasn’t Douglas. Douglas, who never lost view of his ultimate aim, who could make leverage out of his deepest defeats. Her gifts were other than that.
“If I give you the opportunity to open time and distance,” he replied, “are you going to take advantage of it—or are you going to waste time complaining about my motives?”
Speir was caught up for a moment in a twitch of fury—but then she stopped, and drew a longer breath. He saw the brief flash of her smile under her headguard. “Most fights are lessons,” she repeated, and Barklay saw that she had recovered her warmth of humor. “I’ll bear that in mind.”
She bowed to him, foil across her heart in the Ryswyckian acknowledgment; he saluted her with blade whistling down.
They played a few more touches; then the distant chime of the carillon warned them that their time was up.
Speir pulled off her headguard and wiped her sweaty hair off her face. “We’re not finished,” she said.
“By no means,” he agreed. “Shall we schedule another?”
“When you will, sir,” Speir said.
She did not smile, but her voice was warm.
~*~
Despite the early start, Barklay was energized by the sparring appointment for the rest of the day. It was rare that he had the opportunity to do any sparring himself that was not aimed at teaching, and he realized suddenly that he missed fighting. He missed giving himself over in battle—and the unhappy turn of his field career had blotted out that single-eyed joy. He had Speir to thank for that: Speir, whose ambition was to be an honest soldier, who sought for that joy of combat as spring leaves sought the sun. He was determined to protect that ambition. Even from himself.
After the first break, Barklay left his office and pursued a search in the classroom block till he found Ahrens, who was still talking to a cadet while reordering a set of schematics on the projection. Ahrens glanced up, but Barklay waited politely till the cadet had finished his conference before fully entering the room.
“Yes, sir?” Ahrens said.
“Lieutenant,” Barklay greeted him. “Lieutenant Stevens has agreed to take up a captain’s commission on the teaching staff, starting next week. I’m going to call a rota captains’ meeting for tomorrow to talk about his replacement. Can you be ready to talk about likely prospects for promotion in your own section, and give an assessment of the people coming up in your field of study?”
“Certainly, sir,” Ahrens said. He hesitated a moment, and then said: “If you want me to, I could make myself available for a similar commission after I finish my course of study.”
Barklay shook his head. “I offered a commission to Stevens because I had no other choice; but I don’t want to get into the habit of letting my best officers progress no further than a permanent teaching post at Ryswyck. I’m going to advise you to seek a good commission outside Ryswyck. Ilona ought to make the most of your expertise.”
“Yes, sir.” Ahrens frowned, and his shoulders sketched a gesture of troubled relief. He had grown a great deal in the last six months, Barklay had observed: he had risen to the challenge of his added responsibilities and was now a serious and dedicated soldier and teacher. He would be an asset to anyone’s outfit, Barklay thought. Hear me, Alban: these are good soldiers I’m sending you.
Barklay drew breath to reassure Ahrens about the future of Ryswyck’s teaching staff. But he was interrupted by the tentative knock of a cadet runner at the doorway. “General Barklay, sir. The open-line call you requested from General Inslee has come in.”
“Ah. Good. I’ll go and take it in my office. Thank you, Cadet. Thank you, Lieutenant Ahrens.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Barklay we
nt back to his office and coded himself into his com-deck. “General Inslee. Thank you for taking the time.”
“General Barklay. It’s no trouble,” Inslee said.
“I am sorry we did not get to speak last month, but I did appreciate your messages. I take it you are still not in a position to send any teaching officers my way.”
Inslee shook his head. “Same status as last year, I’m afraid. But I thank you for sending me Captain Douglas.”
Barklay tried not to be too transparently eager for the opening. This was why he had called, after all; but it wouldn’t do to pry too blatantly. “I trust he is shaping well.”
“Oh, yes,” Inslee said seriously. “It’s clear he’s going to be a very valuable officer.” Then added, with dry humor: “You got any more like him?”
Barklay chewed his lip. “What exactly are you looking for?”
“Well, I can always use training officers. But those are relatively easy to get. Good weather officers are less plentiful. I could really use one to help oversee the data collection for this sector.”
Barklay went still for a moment; then breathed again. Here was the unknown solution he had been feeling his way toward. “I…might have someone suitable soon. Could you pull together a post description and send it over? I’ll take a look at it and talk to some people.”
“Certainly,” Inslee said. “I’d be grateful if you would. The department really needs someone steady and thorough to support the senior staff.”
With a final promise to get him a post description by the end of the week, Inslee signed off. Barklay sent out a message to the rota captains and Marag calling a meeting the next morning; it drew Marag to his office before the carillon chimed lunch. Barklay welcomed him and got up to make tea and sit down with him at the conference table.
Marag got right to the point. “So Stevens accepted the commission.”
“He did. He’ll be under your supervision teaching supply management, and—unless you have objections—I’m putting him in charge of the arena schedule as well. I’ve also got an idea of making him the permanent liaison to Ryswyck farm—he can practice actual management that way and build up credit toward a later commission.”
“He has the experience for it,” Marag agreed. “He’d be a natural choice.”
“Good. I’m glad you agree. Now,” Barklay said, “at the risk of being too blunt—I want to get Ahrens into a decent post when he finishes his course of study. Is there any place for him surrounding the Bernhelm project?”
Marag shifted in his chair; fiddled with his teacup. “I’m afraid, General Barklay,” he said finally, “that I’ve either been cut out of the security bracket myself, or the mission has stalled. Or both.”
Barklay refrained for the moment from commenting on Selkirk’s wasteful treatment of Ryswyckian resources. “Or both?” he repeated. “What gives you reason to believe the mission has stalled?”
Marag picked his words with care. “Well, sir…I believe that Commander Jarrow had been well within the security bracket on that mission. I…recognized his style on the maps I saw, and when I went to the capital for that consultation, he seemed to understand exactly what I was going for without being told.” And if Jarrow was out of favor, it could have slowed down the planning process. Marag did not draw the conclusion out loud.
Slowed down the planning process—or brought it to a screaming halt, Barklay thought. Marag still didn’t know that Jarrow had leaked highly classified data; he probably thought that Selkirk was merely hoping to find a replacement cartographer to fill Jarrow’s role. In any case, the Bernhelm mission would be no use as a vehicle for Ahrens’s promotion.
“But if you want me to ask around for a good engineering post,” Marag went on, “I’ll make a few discreet inquiries. I assume you don’t want me to lean on anyone in your name?”
“I’m maintaining a low profile for the moment,” Barklay said dryly.
“Understood, sir,” Marag said with a sigh.
~*~
General Inslee did not forget to send the post description for his commission offer in the weather corps at Cardumel; in fact, the description arrived a scarce two days after their conversation. Barklay separated it from his other dispatches and smoothed out its creases on his desk.
If there were any justice, Barklay would not be hoping to place Speir in a bleak post with little upward mobility, any more than Douglas. If there were any justice it would be Speir rising in the capital—her home district—possibly even helping with the maps for the Bernhelm mission, or something equally important. But even if Selkirk hadn’t stopped responding to his messages, it would be too dangerous to send Speir to the capital. She’d been Jarrow’s student, even if only for a short time; she was close to too many secrets. Jamis Leam’s work, both across the strait and here, had assembled a body of intelligence that Speir almost certainly knew nothing about; Barklay had never met the man, but he had contributed to his fund of knowledge whenever Selkirk asked, till his medical retirement. Barklay doubted the Bernhelm mission would even have existed but for Leam; what a cruel irony that his handiwork should so stifle the career of his daughter, when it ought to have bolstered it.
Yet it would not do to blatantly maneuver Speir into taking the Cardumel post. She deserved at least the semblance of a choice. So, even before Inslee’s dispatch arrived, Barklay had done some careful study of the postings lists. There were a few postings outside the capital close enough to Speir’s interests to be worth showing her, though none of them were particularly attractive. Cardumel’s attractions did not suffer by comparison: and it had one attraction no other post could offer.
Barklay pulled the post descriptions and gathered them together with Inslee’s dispatch. Then he called in Speir for a conference.
“I know you said you weren’t in a hurry, Lieutenant,” he said, looking up at her where she stood next to him at his desk. “But some post descriptions have come in that you might wish to take a look at. But there is, as you say, no urgency about it.”
He handed over the sheaf of documents; watched her flip through them slowly. Saw her pause at the one in the middle before going on. She came back to that one and read it more carefully. Then she looked up at Barklay, her gray eyes clear and shrewd.
“Do you have an opinion about any of these, sir?” she asked him.
The best way to hide from Speir was not to hide at all. “They’re all pretty well below your level,” Barklay admitted. “If a better opportunity presents itself you should definitely make the most of it.”
“One of these is at Cardumel Base.” Speir added bluntly: “Where Douglas is.”
“Yes,” Barklay said. “I spoke to General Inslee. He said he wouldn’t mind having another officer of Douglas’s caliber on his staff.”
And if he had any luck at all, Speir would not realize that Inslee said that before sending out the post description, and not after.
But of course it didn’t matter: Speir had not lost sight of the point. “Is that what you want, sir?” she asked him.
He must not lie. “What I want for you,” Barklay sighed, “is something I don’t see available right now. You should make your own decision, Speir. You know your interests better than I do. And you have time to think all these over—the closing dates are all some time from now.”
To his relief, Speir nodded.
“You can keep these for your reference, if you wish,” Barklay said.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Now,” he said, relaxing in his chair, “would you be available for a sparring appointment early tomorrow?”
He had already checked her schedule and knew she was free at the hour they had used before.
“Yes, sir,” Speir said. “I can meet you then. Still foils?”
Her good faith was like the bright shelter of a greenhouse; it was shameful to accept it and lie to her. “If you would oblige me,” Barklay said.
“My pleasure, sir,” said Speir.
By then, may be
, he could swallow the taste of guilt in his mouth.
~*~
It was Barklay who was first to the training room the next morning. Speir arrived yawning and brushing rain off her hair, but one glance at his mischievous poise and she shook herself alert.
Indeed, Barklay had prepared for her an unpredictable gallimaufry of approaches, and deployed them one by one with an air of impish experiment, as much as to say: Let’s see what you do with this one! But by this time, Speir had realized that it was going to take more than one or two appointments for her to get to the last of his subterfuges. And the very fact that they were sparring privately—a luxury Barklay permitted to few of his students—underlined the regrettable truth. Barklay liked getting away with things. He even liked breaking rules of his own devising; perhaps half the fun of setting up those rules was to find creative ways to break them himself.
It was probably, Speir reflected as she came to guard for the fifth time, one reason why he had not made further progress assimilating Ryswyck into the rest of the service: he didn’t really want its transgressive presence to be resolved. Did Barklay even know this about himself? Speir doubted it.
They engaged. She had learned quickly that if she did not control the distance at the outset, he would get the better of her before she could blink. She hadn’t yet succeeded in landing an attack, but she had held him off for a few sustained touches, and made one riposte in seven attempts. She was getting better, working out of her rusty familiarity with the weapon; but then, so was he. This time, he eluded her lunge, locked out her line, and struck all in one vital juggernaut of a motion. Speir fell back to the mark.
“Have you thought any further about who you want for your successor?” she said, as she raised her point to guard position.
Barklay, already on guard, straightened and dropped his point. “I know who I want for my successor,” he said, after a moment. “But getting him seems like an insurmountable difficulty, just now. On guard!”