Spirit of the Sword: Pride and Fury (The First Sword Chronicles Book 1) (26 page)

Our Amy looks as though she's gotten pretty fierce since then,
Michael thought.

"Will you help me get my armour off please?" Amy's voice was quiet, yet in the silence between them seemed to ring as loud as a temple bell. "Normally a squire would help me. Actually we used to help each other, I mean-" Amy sighed, her head bowing for a moment. "I can't lie to you Michael, to your lord perhaps but not to you. The truth is, I'm not actually a knight. I was never knighted by Ser Viola or anybody else. I'm a squire and that's all I'll ever be now." Her eyes closed as she sighed again, "But whatever I am, I still need help getting this armour off. I've been wearing it every since I arrived here and it's starting to drive me mad."

Michael nodded, and began to work undoing the straps and clasps that held the carefully interlocking pieces together. At first he was clumsy, slow, but Amy's voice was gentle in her correction and under her instruction he was able to disarm her with something approaching confidence, stripping her gauntlets and vambraces, her sabbatons, greaves, poleyns and cuisses. Each of the plates was so heavy; Michael knew that he would never have been able to bear all of that weight on his shoulders. Even the smallest parts of her armour, the besagews that fitted under her armpits, the cowters that protected her elbows, made his hands tremble. When it came to the truly heavy items like the plackart that protected her belly or the plates of her cuirass, Michael found he could barely lift them at all. And yet, the feeling of them beneath his fingertips was so...perfect. It was not too smooth, it was not too coarse, it had the texture of history behind it without seeming decayed or rotten. It felt old, but not worn, rugged by not rough. He spent several long moments just running his fingers over the segments of armour, just taking in the texture of them beneath his skin.

"How are you able to bear up under all this?" he asked. "And how come it weighs so much? And how were you able to punch right through that door? And how did you come to live among the naiads? Amy...there are just so many things I don't understand."

"This armour was made in the First Age from the shells of godcrabs, the from which all the best armour of those days was carved," Amy said. "All the godcrabs were killed during the rebellion of the Eldest One and the wars with the undine, and the newer armour is all made using chitin and the bones of sea serpents. But this, this is the true armour of a knight and it has been the property of the line of Niccolo since its foundation; being chosen to bear it is an honour." She said it in a plaintive way, as if daring him to contradict her. Michael felt no urge to do so, he had always felt their Amy deserved better than she'd got.

"And I can put up with the weight the same way I was able to live under the water with the naiads... because I am a naiad. Half naiad, anway," Amy said, quietly, as if hoping that the news might pass unnoticed. "And I've inherited their strength, or some of it. So I can breathe underwater for as long as I like, and I can wear their armour and wield their weapons and fight like they do."

Something like this had obviously been coming ever since Amy had turned up dressed like a naiad and calling herself a knight. But even so, hearing it from her very lips was a surprise, and one that raised as many questions again. "Half naiad," Michael said. "So that means that one of your parents was a naiad all the time."

Amy was wearing a hauberk made from some kind of mail under her armour - possibly bone or shell again, Michael didn't know - and under that an undershirt of green scales with a collar that reached almost to her chin. She smiled slightly as she reached up and pulled the scale collar down, revealing the gills she had always had on the sides of her neck, the gills that had made her life miserable as a child. Amy said, "Turns out my father had a set of these as well."

Michael was vaguely aware that if his eyes got much wider his eyeballs might fall out, but could not find it in him to do much about it. Half naiad. He supposed that it had been staring him in the face all this time, but he had never considered it. He had never thought that something so wondrous would come to his home town, would bless him with her presence; would call him friend. To imagine, that the girl next door had been touched by godhead.

"Gabriel's wounds, our Amy. So the prince and the Naiad really did come again to Miranda's Rock. I always knew it." Michael averted his eyes from the divine emissary before him. "On behalf of the people of Corona ma'am, I apologise for the cruel and brutish manner in which you were treated by some of my neighbours."

"Stop that," Amy said sharply. "None of that, I know you. Once you start you'll never stop. I'm still your friend you know, I'm still Amy."

"Yes, but you're also an emissary of God," Michael said. "Reverence is your due."

"Start grovelling and I'll break your nose," Amy said. "I'll take that from others - maybe enjoy it even - but not from you, Michael; never from you. We're more to each other than that. Aren't we?"

Michael looked back at her, saw the concern in her mismatched eyes, and smiled. "Of course we are our Amy. Always." It would take some getting used to, his friend being one of Turo's children, a servant of the Sea God himself, but she was right: she was also the girl who had brought Felix out of his shell, who had run crying to Michael when the other boys bullied her, who had given them both the first kiss on the cheek that didn't come from their mother. And she had come back, because he needed her. Just because she had become something more than Michael could comprehend didn't change the fact that those things had happened. They didn't make his feelings any less real.

And so, with that in mind, Michael squared his shoulders and asked the question that had been hovering between them all night. "Why did you leave, our Amy?"

Amy was silent for a moment. "Michael, do you remember that day?"

Michael had no need to ask what that day was. “I’ll never forget it.”

“When those men came, when they came for him...all I could do was scream. I stood there and cried and I did nothing and Felix…I was useless. Felix needed help and there was nothing I could do. I was helpless.”

“No more than I was,” Michael said.

Amy shook her head. “You tried, Michael. When you ran out the door I couldn't even tell you they had a man there waiting for you. And you kept...you tried so hard. I thought they'd killed you there was so much blood. But they didn't have to hurt me at all, they just ignored me. That’s why, that’s why I didn’t speak to you at the funeral, or say goodbye or anything. I was afraid that you’d blame me.”

“That I'd blame you?” Michael said. “Amy, the only reason I didn’t try to comfort you or nothing when you where crying your eyes out at the funeral was because I knew that you blamed me. And if you didn’t then you should have. And I know it was terrible of me to leave you sobbing like that, I should have done what I could like our Felix would have wanted, but I didn’t have the courage and I’m sorry for that. I should have died that day. I was his big brother and all I had to do was give my life for our Felix and I didn't do it. That's my fault, my responsibility and I know that but... God help me, I didn’t have the guts to hear it from you, true or not. And so I left you there, crying, and I didn’t say anything to you before you left, and I’m sorry. I was just... too much of a coward.” He looked away from her, and didn’t turn around again until he felt the tight embrace of her arms as she enfolded them around him.

“Michael, I never once thought that it was your fault what happened to Felix,” Amy whispered into his ear as she leaned her head on his shoulder. “It's on the Crimson Rose, all on them.”

Michael knew she was wrong, knew that a man took care of his family even if it cost him his life, but it just felt so wonderful to hear her say she didn’t blame him that he didn’t have the heart or stomach to say she was wrong. He eased one arm around her shoulders. “Thank you.”

“And so, after the funeral,” Amy continued, her voice trembling. “My father told me, he told me that he was a naiad, like I said.”

"What was he doing living like a human in Lover's Rock?” Michael asked.

“He was sent to make sure that men where still keeping their end of the Sea Covenant, making sure that there were still men of worth in Corona. And he fell in love with my mother, and that proved it to him. And then they had me, and came to Lover's Rock. And I met you and Felix, which proved it again.”

“Eh?” Michael said. He remembered Amy’s old man had always been kind to him and his little brother - even when Michael had yelled at him like a brat over some of the restrictions he hedged around Amy - but to think that he’d held them up as some sort of pair of paragons was just ridiculous.

“The two of you where the kindest, bravest people I’ve ever met,” Amy said. “You always seemed so fearless to me that it made me brave as well. I think... I think that’s what real courage is. And that’s what I wanted to be like; I wanted to be able to hide my fear so well that nobody would know I was afraid. I wanted to be able to protect people the way you and Felix had protected me when we were little.

“Father understood that when I told him. And so he took me home, to his home at Seafire Peak. And he got me taken on as a squire to Ser Viola, a serpent knight sworn to the line of Niccolo. I'm his descendant, you see: Niccolo, one of the twelve sons of Turo, who perished on the Field of Shattered...on the Field of Broken Chains.”

Michael chuckled. "Not just a naiad, but a lady too? And actually descended from Turo? From God himself? You know you really shouldn't be associating with one so common as I any longer."

"I told you to stop that," Amy snapped. "And so I learned to fight there. Hunting giant squid, fighting undine and keeping the sea guard."

"The what?"

"As part of the Sea Covenant, naiad warriors watch the coast and make sure that no sharks or sea monsters or such get by to attack the coastal villages. An ancient duty, part of the original agreement between Simon and Lord Turo. You know, some nights I used to sit up on the rock watching the town, hoping for a glimpse of you."

"That was you?" Michael said. "Those times when I'd think I'd see someone up perched on the rock, but whenever I looked again there was nobody there; it was you all along?"

Amy gave a sort of chuckle as she nodded. "I couldn't let you know though, it was against the rules.

"It was ten days ago that Lady Silwa came to me in a dream, and told me what had happened to Miranda. She asked me to help you out, and so I came. Borrowed the family sword and armour, thought they might be useful. I also borrowed one of the family war serpents to carry me here; you can't swim in this armour, that's why battles are fought on the sea bed unless you're a rider. Ooh, that reminds me, I've got a bit of a present for you, here." Amy reached into her back and took out a rolled up suit of serpentscales. "I notice that you're not wearing much armour apart from those manicae on your arms."

Michael shrugged. "The crowd likes to see a bit of blood, and I wouldn't be able to move as easily in a cuirass or anything anyway."

"Put this on," Amy tossed him the serpentscale. "It weighs nothing and fits like a second skin. I think that's magic because it certainly isn't tailoring. It won't stop a sword being rammed right into your gut, but it will stop a glancing blow, dull a cut, and I'd feel better knowing you had it on. You can wear it under your clothes so nobody will know."

Michael weighed it in his hands. "Thanks."

"Well, aren't you going to put it on?"

"I'm not getting undressed where you can see, for shame our Amy."

"I've got my eyes closed," Amy said, closing both of them.

"Oh, okay," Michael turned away and began to take off his long tunic.

"Nice bum."

"Amy!"

"Sorry," Amy said with a grin. "I couldn't resist."

Michael pulled on the scale armour suit, and with a little help from Amy he fastened the clasps up the back. It was, as she had said, like wearing more skin, and he didn't reckon it would slow or impede him at all.

"Thank you."

"It was nothing," Amy replied.

"Not for this... for everything. Amy I won't ever be able to thank you as much as you deserve, for coming back for me."

"That's just it, isn't it," Amy said, "You'll never have to, though you could help me to get this lot off as well." She was referring to her hauberk that covered her from shoulders down to knees. Michael helped her get it off.

"I have to say," Amy said. "Extraordinary strength or not it's a relief to take it all off, even if I do have to put it all on again in the morning." Michael helped her ease the mail off her head and lay it out next to the rest of the armour. All that she was wearing now as a suit of scales, sea serpent scales if Michael didn't miss his guess, that covered her from ankle to neck. Michael looked upwards as soon as he realised how tightly this suit clung to Amy, revealing things it would not have been proper for him to see.

"Michael, what are you - oh God," Amy made a sort of startled squeaking. "Lord Turo I forgot. Well don't just stand there, turn around."

Michael obediently faced the other way, closing his eyes, "Haven't you got anything in a looser fit you could put on?"

"No," Amy said. "I told you, I forgot. The armour's all I have."

"How could you just forget about clothes?" Michael said.

"Because I haven't had to..." Amy sighed. "Naiad's go around naked, as a rule. We only dress for battle."