‘I—’ She was looking at the toes of her boots. ‘I was wondering how you were getting on, that’s all. Six pupils; is that good or bad?’
‘Pretty fair average, actually,’ he replied. ‘And, as you say, if I can keep it up it’s a fair living. Hard work, though.’
‘Are you any good at it?’
He shrugged. ‘Give me a chance,’ he said, ‘it’s my first day.’ He kicked off his boots and flexed his cramped toes. ‘I’ve been afflicted with five idiots and a Valkyrie, and I’ve taught them how to shuffle in a straight line without falling over. I reckon they had their money’s worth.’ He leant back in the chair and closed his eyes. ‘So what are you really doing here?’
Good question, at that. Of course, there was one reason why a young girl should fabricate an excuse to come and visit a man she hadn’t seen in three whole days - Athli
was
a young girl, after all, although it was something he’d not allowed himself to notice more than a handful of times in the three years they’d known each other. In fact, it was the only reason he could think of. Which could be - embarrassing.
‘You don’t think, do you?’ she replied petulantly. ‘Bardas, how many fencers do you think I clerk for? Have you ever stopped to wonder?’
He frowned. ‘You’re right, I haven’t. You’re good at it, no reason why you shouldn’t have a pretty good practice.’
‘One,’ she replied. ‘Until just recently. And then the selfish pig went and retired on me, leaving me out of a job.’
‘Oh.’ He opened his eyes. ‘Why didn’t you say?’
‘Well, of course, I should have said something. I should have said, Oh, no, you can’t retire, I need you to carry on risking your life at regular intervals so I can keep getting my ten per cent. Don’t be so . . .’
‘All right, point taken. In which case, if you’ll forgive me being ruthlessly logical, why mention it now?’
She gave him a nasty look. ‘Because I need to earn a living,’ she said. The nasty look evaporated, and was replaced by embarrassment. ‘So I was wondering. Trainers have clerks, don’t they? Have you got one yet?’
He shook his head. ‘Figured I could do that myself. But why would you want to give up the job you know just because I’ve retired? You’ve got regular clients who produce good work. There’s plenty of fencers who’d give anything for a client base like that.’
‘Oh, yes,’ she replied, looking at him steadily now. ‘Including their lives. Use your imagination, Bardas. Why d’you think I only clerked for you?’
He frowned. ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted.
‘Because you never looked like getting yourself killed,’ she said quietly. ‘Bardas, I don’t want to send young men to their deaths. I don’t think that’d be a very nice way to live. I only stuck it out with you because...’
‘Because?’
‘Because I trusted you,’ she replied sharply. ‘Oh, I knew that the odds were that one day you’d - lose. But not
needlessly
. Not...’
‘Not until I absolutely had to?’ He smiled. ‘I’m flattered.’
‘Anyway,’ she said briskly, ‘I asked you a question. Do you need a clerk?’
He thought for a moment, or at least made a show of doing so. Apparently he’d been wrong about the reason, which made sense. He didn’t really need a clerk, and he couldn’t pay her less than twenty-five per cent. It’d cut into his earnings and still be a meagre living compared with what she’d been used to, even if he had been her only fencer. (And what about that? Think about it later . . . ) On the other hand—
‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Provided you can pull in extra pupils and earn your keep that way. Based on my vast twenty-four hours’ experience of the training profession, I reckon I could train twelve as easily as six. What d’you reckon?’
‘How about a month’s trial?’ she suggested. ‘I’ve been in the training profession a whole day less than you, remember. I might not like it.’
Loredan grinned. ‘Oh, I think you’ll take to it all right,’ he said. ‘Because, when all’s said and done, it’s basically sending young men to their deaths. It’ll be like old times.’
‘Now then,’ Alexius said, ‘close your eyes, and then I want you to tell me what you see.’
The twins shut their eyes obediently; the male, Venart, with his face screwed up into that inevitable embarrassed-but-determined scowl a man always wears when he suspects he’s being made a fool of but daren’t give mortal offence by refusing; the female, Vetriz, with a rapt expression of pure bliss, as befits a nice girl having a wonderful adventure. Alexius shot a glance at his colleague; he looked scared half to death, and grey with pain. The Patriarch smiled thinly at him; he knew exactly how he felt.
‘Anything?’ he asked.
Venart said, ‘Um,’ obviously unable to decide what was expected of him. The girl shook her head.
‘Very well.’ That, of course, had just been mummery, to see if they were faking. Satisfied that they weren’t, Alexius took a deep breath, tried vainly to relax the steel clamps that were slowly squeezing his brain out through his ears, and—
The courtroom. This time, for some reason, the public benches were empty; no judge, ushers or clerks. Nobody there except the man he now knew to be Loredan, with his back towards Alexius, his feet nearly together and his right arm extended straight from his shoulder, holding out his sword in the guard of the Old fence; and the girl he’d done the curse for, all that time ago as it seemed; and—
‘Hello,’ Vetriz said. She had materialised quite suddenly in the small area of floor that separated the two motionless fencers. She walked round them as if they were statues in a square, admiring them.
‘I recognise him,’ she said at last. ‘He’s the advocate we saw the other day. Is the other one a lawyer too? I didn’t realise women did this as well as men.’
Alexius nodded. No sign of Gannadius either; but here at least his head didn’t hurt. ‘I don’t see your brother,’ he said.
Vetriz looked round. ‘He can’t have made it through, then. What about your assistant?’
Oh, what a pity he isn’t here to hear that! I’d never let him forget it
. ‘Apparently not,’ Alexius replied, trying to conceal his apprehension. ‘You know, this is very interesting. Do you know how you got here?’
Vetriz shrugged. ‘No idea. Same way I’ve got no idea how I make my arms and legs work. They just do.’ She looked around again. ‘Are we
really
here, or is this just a dream or something?’
‘I don’t know,’ Alexius confessed. ‘Usually it’s not like this, that’s the strangest part of it. Usually - I say usually, makes it sound like I do this sort of thing every day, and of course I don’t - usually you come in just before some crucial piece of action, either in the future or the past depending on why you’ve come. As far as I can tell, this isn’t either. For all I know, it could just be a dream after all. Or, if you really are a natural, perhaps you do these things in a totally different way.’
Loredan, he observed, was definitely breathing; so was the girl. But their arms weren’t wobbling as they held the guard, and
nobody
, no matter how many thousands of hours they’d spent practising the manoeuvre, can stand with his sword-arm outstretched for more than a minute or so without moving at all . . .
That was it. That was what they were doing; not fighting but
training
. . . And this wasn’t the courts, it was the big exhibition arena in the Schools, deliberately modelled on the courts so that when students took their final examinations here, they’d be in the most realistic setting possible.
The girl’s sword-tip wiggled, just the tiniest amount.
Extraordinary, Alexius muttered to himself; she’s plucked the picture from my mind and taken it back - or forward? No idea - entirely of her own accord. I have absolutely no idea how you’d set about doing that.
The girl made a little grunting noise, which Alexius recognised as pure agony, and her sword-tip wobbled again. It was of course one of the most fundamental - and arduous - of the fencer’s training exercises, the holding of a position for a specified time. From what he’d gathered, it taught you all sorts of useful skills and toned up the muscles like nothing else. Alexius, who knew perfectly well he couldn’t do anything of the sort for more than a few seconds, winced at the thought.
A wider, more uncontrolled twitch this time; and then Loredan lunged at her, moving much faster than Alexius’ eyes could follow. She parried almost as quickly and they fenced two or three returns of strokes until he knocked the sword out of her hand with a short, apparently effortless flick of the wrist. That done, he bent almost double, hugging his forearm and swearing under his breath.
The girl looked furious with herself, and said nothing.
‘If it’s any consolation,’ Loredan gasped, ‘that was really quite impressive. You’re getting the hang of it just fine.’
‘I failed,’ the girl grunted back. ‘I let you beat me.’
Loredan looked at her oddly. ‘Be fair,’ he said. ‘I’m supposed to be your instructor.’
‘Being good isn’t enough,’ the girl said. ‘You can be very good and still die, if the other man’s better.’ There was an edge to her voice that Alexius definitely didn’t like; neither did Loredan, by the look of it.
‘You know,’ Loredan said, ‘I’m so glad I retired when I did. If there’s one thing I could never stand, it’s perfectionists.’
The girl just looked at him, resentfully.
Definitely a menace, that one. Whatever possessed me to get involved with graveyard bait like that in the first place?
‘This is tremendous fun,’ Vetriz interrupted, ‘but shouldn’t we be
doing
something?’
Alexius looked up, startled. ‘What?’ he said.
Vetriz frowned. ‘When you were explaining all this stuff,’ she said, ‘you told me that when you go barging in on people like this—’
Alexius was about to say something, but didn’t. All in all,
barging in on people
was a very apt way of describing it.
‘—Isn’t the idea that you do something? You know, interfere. Right wrongs, set things straight. Or didn’t I understand it properly?’
‘Well, ordinarily—’ Somehow, Alexius couldn’t find the right words to explain. ‘You see, we aren’t here for anything like that. This is just an experiment, remember.’
‘Oh. Right. Only I thought, since I’d actually seen this man fencing, and here he is obviously in some sort of trouble with that truly ferocious creature over there—’
Once again, Alexius had the strangest feeling, as if he was being lifted up and frogmarched along a row of squares on a chessboard. ‘To interfere just for the sake of interfering would be terribly dangerous,’ he said gravely. ‘Not to mention, well, just plain wrong. We have no idea what the background to all this is.’
Liar, he told himself. And this is definitely getting out of control. Now it seems that dreadful girl’s enlisted in his fencing school; presumably she’s getting him to teach her how to kill him. If this turns out to be all my fault . . .
‘I see,’ said Vetriz. ‘So what would you like to do now?’
‘I suppose,’ Alexius said slowly, ‘we should be getting back.’
‘All right.’
—And he opened his eyes and found he was looking straight at Gannadius, who was almost comical in his terror. He scowled at his colleague to make him pull himself together, and glanced at Vetriz.
She still had her eyes shut.
‘Excuse me,’ Venart said diffidently, his eyes still screwed shut and his face still ludicrous, ‘but how much longer are we going to be?’
She still had her eyes shut
. If she stayed behind, did something there after he’d left - oh, in hell’s name, what
is
going on?
‘Gosh,’ Vetriz exclaimed, opening her eyes and smiling.
‘That was
amazing
.’ She beamed at Alexius, her cheeks glowing. ‘You
are
clever,’ she added. ‘I knew you could do magic really.’
Alexius’ head was hurting more than ever.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The outriders must have seen them before they entered the Drescein pass, because there was a full escort waiting for them at the other end.
‘You’d better be careful how you handle this,’ Jurrai whispered, as they emerged into the sunlight once more. ‘It’s the first time they’ve seen you as their chief, remember. First impressions count.’
‘It’s all right,’ Temrai replied softly. ‘I know what to do.’
He couldn’t help feeling, even so, that it was all rather silly; after all, the five riders who were waiting for them in advance of the main party were men he’d known for as long as he could remember. There was Basbai, holding the eagle standard and looking desperately solemn; Temrai could remember Basbai Mar chasing him all round the camp with a cattleprod (and catching him, worse luck) on the ill-fated occasion when he and Basbai’s youngest daughter had been about to embark on a little tentative research into the great mystery of adolescence. Ceuscai, now - tall, magnificent Ceuscai, five years older than himself and his champion and defender against the casual brutality of the playground; it wasn’t all that long ago that he’d finally managed to find the courage to presume to speak to Ceuscai as an equal. And what Uncle An thought he was doing in that crazy skins-and-feathers outfit - except that Anakai Mar had been the clan’s high priest for fifty-two years, and was rumoured to play chess once a year with the gods themselves.
He squeezed his heels against his horse’s flanks and left Jurrai to catch him up as best he could. The occasion called for a little pantomime; something he was just going to have to get used to.
When he was within a few yards of the five outriders he pulled his horse round, still at a slow gallop, and rode across the front of their line. As he passed Basbai, he reached out, grabbed the standard from his hand and raised it in the air, somehow managing not to fluff the pass or drop it. The hundred or so riders behind the advance party broke into a cheer - fair enough, it was a pretty piece of horsemanship, particularly since he was badly out of practice. He wheeled, raised the standard again, handed it to Basbai as he passed him, wheeled again and drew up in front of Uncle An, who winked at him out of an otherwise monolithic face.