The others laughed; he polished.
Durand considered his strange place among these men. There were mistakes. There were small victories. But it was all built on rotten ground, and a word could destroy it all.
Under the circling pressure of his oily rag, the red webs seemed to give way, though it was hard to be sure in the
dark. Littl
e light escaped the ring of turned backs around the fire. He felt the nicks and scratches in the steel as he rubbed his way down the blade. His fingers found deep, puckered notches where edge had met edge on the battlefield. Long scores chased the blade where split chain links had screamed down its face. A great many men had likely wielded the thing, and many were likely dead.
Shouts erupted in the circle. Black shadows were wheeling.
Durand was halfway to his feet when the uproar collapsed into laughter and groaning. Two swordsmen swung and danced in the circle.
"Very good," Coensar's voice said, quiet but clear. The captain was circling, a wooden sword in his fist.
"You'd best shut up, Captain, or he'll have you," a brave soul jibed.
Frantic clattering leapt over the whoops of the crowd.
One-eyed Berchard glanced over his shoulder, and spotted Durand, waving him in.
Beyond the blaze, Coensar stood with Sir Agryn lying at his feet. The captain thrust his ashwood sword into the turf, and, bending, offered the man his hand. "I think you let me have that one, Agryn."
"You're wrong."
Coensar hauled the one-time knight of the Septarim to his feet
"I forget how dangerous a man you are."
Berchard shouted in: "For a priest."
'Those old ghosts taught you a few things."
"Litde to do with the sword, if truth be told," said Agryn. "It has been a long time."
Coensar quirked a rare smile, and, as he stood back, spotted Durand's arrival. "Durand, shield-bearer," he said. The wary eyes of the others settled on him as well, shadows cutting deeply. Coensar stood for a moment, his hand idling on the butt of the ash sword. "I hear there's a horse tried to take you from us."
"Aye," Durand said. Guthred had said at least that much. There was a snicker or two. Someone coughed. "But you are well enough now?" Coensar said. "Aye...."
Coensar held out a hand to Agryn who gave up his wooden sword to his captain.
"Everyone tries me one day," Coensar said and held out the sword, its handle suspended between them. Whatever the game was, Durand closed his hand around the hilt
"Best of three touches, then," said Coensar.
The gang leapt on him. Grinning shield-bearers tugged and jostled him from all sides, and suddenly he faced one of the most infamous swordsmen in the Atthias.
Durand raised the hardwood blade, thinking that it didn't take much to drive thoughts of magnates and treason from a man's mind.
"Good," the captain concluded, and crouched, facing Durand over the fire. His eyes took in every hint
of
stance and style Durand betrayed.
Durand circled behind a borrowed shield. Practice swords were good for cracking heads and breaking elbows—teaching hard lessons. Coensar's cool, glass-splinter eyes flickered above the fire, while Durand waited.
"If he waits long enough," Berchard rumbled, "old Coensar may nod off."
The circle laughed.
The fire's heat tightened Durand's face. Striking first with an opponent like Coensar was charging blindly into a house of snares. Unfortunately for Durand and his sound strategy, Coensar would not attack, and the mockers were not on Durand's side.
Durand stared over the rim of his shield. Knowing better rarely did a man much good.
"Have we time to fetch a bench?" someone said.
With a muttered curse, Durand changed his grip and darted. He used speed and reach to dodge the fire in one careering lunge. As the wooden bat whisded down, Coensar wrenched his shield high. The whole crowd flinched at the shock of the impact.
Durand had hardly started his grin, when he felt a punishing jab under his ribs. It might have been a horse kicking him.
"One," was all Coensar said, stepping so that the fire was already between them once more.
Durand sucked a lung full of air and forced his attention back to his opponent, only to catch a subtle wavering of Coensar's shield. Durand might be winded, but the captain looked to be working a set of jarred fingers.
Coensar circled backward to keep the fire between them, and Durand waited, taking a lesson
from
Lamoric's fight at Red Winding. Suddenly, he saw a misstep. In an instant, the captain's shield boomed yet again. This time, the wily swordsman's hissing counter clapped Durand's jaw shut.
Durand staggered through real sparks and the ones behind his eyes. His tongue felt thick as dead fingers in his mouth.
Coensar, however, had stood up. "Hmm. I think I see it." Durand fought to stay upright, watching the other man warily.
"You're a sight quicker than I'd have guessed, but you're missing something." His voice was quiet.
Durand couldn't muster his thoughts to make any sort of reply.
"Long ago, I learned that when you must attack, the first swing rarely scores. A good swordsman shows you two faces. Get on him. There's no harm swinging first, but you're not going to reach past a shield—lest your man's drunk or asleep. Every peasant knows to plow before he plants.
"Here." The captain dropped into his fighting crouch once more. "I ask you: try my head."
Durand had heard hard-jawed sergeants say the same in a thousand bruising lessons, but he hefted the sword regardless.
Coensar said, "Do it now."
Durand steeled himself to make a good show of it. Tugging a sharp breath, he hauled the wooden bat high and yanked it whistling down to clop the captain's skull shut.
The shield's edge caught it.
The captain nodded coolly.
"You knew what I must do. Yes? The ground is poor. We're in a tight spot There's hardly room to dodge a cut like that. I had no choice but to take it on my shield. You forced my hand. With my shield up there, I'm half blind. If it's a feint, you've got my ribs. My knee. If it's not; my eyes?" He inclined his head.
"If you know what I've got to do," continued the captain, "you've got me. Force and anticipate. Show the man an opening, but be waiting for him when he tries to take it"
Durand nodded.
"Now," Coensar said. "It is best of five touches." Durand raised his shield.
And, though he managed to make Coensar work for each of his bruising "touches," he lost.
The captain shook his head. "You're quick for the size of you." Durand grunted.
Coensar raised an eyebrow. "Call me a liar, ox, and it's real blades next."
"Now that's an idea." Lamoric grinned from the circle, and Durand took a prudent step into the background. "Sharps might add a thrill to the proceedings." He slipped his sword from its sheath and held it, his palm inverted, high over the rest. Durand wondered if the man were drunk.
"Any takers? Agryn?" The blade seemed to flicker, now pointing at its prospective victim. "I have hired the best. I'd like to see what I've bought. Come along, Agryn. Let's see what those ghosts of yours have taught you."
Agryn blinked once. He seemed to eye all the others for the briefest instant, as though deciding whether any of the others might be better suited. There was Badan, Berchard, Coensar. Instead, Agryn hauled his own blade from its scabbard. Lamoric's face split in a smile, and both men raised shields.
"Right then," said Lamoric. "On your guard!" He started his sword into a series of wheeling lunges, drawing flame into the glittering eddies of the blade. Agryn skipped backward, scattering the crowd. This was a thing that got every man's heart pounding. Agryn's sober demeanor belied great agility.
Lamoric put more and more behind each leaping swing of his blade until he could hardly stop himself. Then Agryn struck, hopping inside one fiery arc, his shield high, and, in an instant, Lamoric's weight poised on the tip of Agryn's sword. Everyone watched for blood to well from the neat slit in the man's surcoat.
None came.
'Two swings too many, Lordship," Agryn said. Lamoric grimaced and made a great show of extricating himself from the sword's point.
Coensar nodded, his manner serious. "You must be as quick to abandon a trick as you were to try it."
The young lord's fingertips found the split weave of his surcoat for the first time, and the wild glint left his eyes. He was panting. "Yes," he wavered. "I do see. These mock combats.
I'm not sure I can trust myself these last few days. A man dares too much." With a sharp intake of breath, he bared his teeth in good humor.
Durand caught Guthred staring at him from among the men standing across the fire. The man did not look away.
"Would anyone else like to try their master's sword?" Lamoric said.
He glanced around the circle, then spun back on Durand. Scarred and stubbled faces turned. Durand felt a jolt of fear. He liked the sticks, if he had to choose. Real blades were another matter. It was not that he was afraid of the edges— everyone was afraid of the edges. You couldn't swing. A shield-bearer who maimed his lord did not live long.
"If you insist, Lordship," he answered, eventually.
It seemed Lamoric had noticed Durand's slow response. "Afraid you'll hurt me, are you?" asked Lamoric.
Something in Durand's face must have answered.
"Very well then. Commendable loyalty. But I mustn't let the new man off so lightly. Perhaps we can find someone else for you to play with." A touch of the playful glitter returned to his eyes. "What about Sir Ouen? I don't think Ouen would be much offended by a scratch or two."
The scarred faces laughed.
At first, Durand could not match the name to a face, and, for a moment, there seemed to be no one answering to it. Then something moved in the circle of smiling knights. Huge hands settled on shoulders, and a knight like a carthorse strode into the circle. His shaggy, grinning head loomed over the others as he stepped into the firelight. A knot of stitches still held one eyebrow together.
Durand had dragged this giant from the field at Red Winding. When the man smiled, every one of his front teeth flashed gold.
Guthred was still watching.
"Yes," Lamoric said. "Now we'll see what our man is made of." The grisly pun registered. "Well, Heaven forefend. But it can be so hard to tell in the chaos of a battlefield."
Though Sir Ouen had a lean chest and a potbelly, his arms looked to have been strung with the bow-cords of a siege engine. He drew a sword of war, four feet long.
"I suggest," said the man, "that you get yourself into a good thick gambeson. I don't play gentle."
"After you," Durand said, and, as the smirking giant gave a nodding bow, he followed the man from the circle.
In the dark, Durand decided that he was insane. This was pride, and nothing else. He had seen Guthred's eyes on him, knowing. Coensar had beaten him. Now, Lamoric had singled him out to meet this Ouen.
While Sir Ouen found his tent, Durand dug among the tumbled packs where Guthred's lads had heaped the shield-bearers' and servants' gear. Finally, his hand closed on the weighty bundle of his armor among the blankets and loose tack. Ouen had said "gambeson," so Durand could wear nothing more—not without showing himself to be a coward. Leaving the security of iron mail behind, he hauled the stinking padded coat over his head.
Beyond the meadow and its rings of firelight, something dark was moving—a midnight storm prowling like some soot-gray cat around the Bower. There was no sign of wind or bad weather over the meadow itself. He was trapped and trapped again.
He tugged the cold stiffness of the canvas straight and turned back toward the fire to find that the gap-toothed ring of knights and shield-bearers had multiplied. "Hells," Durand said. This was not just another knight or two gathered from the neighboring camps. There were flashing gowns around the fire now. Three of the lady's maids from the castle stood in the growing circle. Ouen stood, smoke boiling as he limbered his arms, whipping the shield and massive sword around like toys.
It had turned into a fairground wrestling match—or a public whipping.
"Host of Heaven," Durand muttered. For a stolen instant, he closed his eyes. When he opened them, he saw a new figure in the crowd, small but straight-backed—beyond the fire was a familiar face framed in crimson. The girl from the stream, leagues and worlds away, held his eye. He could hardly breathe.