The Privilege of the Sword (15 page)

I called downstairs, “May I choose any one I want?”

“No.” His voice was firm but amused. “Try the twisted basket hilt; it’s probably closest to the right weight for you.”

I stood at the top of the stairs. They were horribly steep, not much more than a pitched ladder, really. If I slipped or stumbled, the sharp edges in my hand could turn against me.

“Had I better find a scabbard?” I asked nervously.

“Bottom of the same chest. Leather, and not too gaudy, youngling.”

Getting the long sword into the soft scabbard was a bit like getting a bootie onto a baby’s foot: neither was very interested in helping, though in the end they fit together just fine. I came carefully down the steep stairs.

“Don’t I need something to stick it in? I’ve got a belt, but there’s a hanging thing, too, isn’t there?”

“Oh, dear,” the man sighed. “He wasn’t thinking, was he?”

Whether he meant the duke or Venturus was all one to me; I was just glad he didn’t think it was my fault. Reaching for his staff, the man rose suddenly, and I jumped, clutching the sword to myself. To my surprise, “I’m sorry,” the man said. “I’ll try to move more slowly, until you learn me better. I was just going to get you a hanger.”

He stood closer to me than Venturus ever had, fitting the sword’s hanger on my belt, and the sword in with it. His fingers were steady and sure, like a stableman’s harnessing a horse; he didn’t even have to look, and I felt his breath warm across my hair. When he moved away, there was a part attached to me that had not been there before. It moved when I moved, like a cat’s tail—though without any of its grace!

He put a loaf of bread on the table, and a block of yellow cheese. When I sat on the bench I had to move the sword out of the way to keep from sitting on it, which wasn’t as easy as you’d think. I looked to see if the man was laughing at me, but he was cutting bread. It was good bread, and the cheese was good, too.

“What about a knife?” he asked. “Did he give you a knife, at least?”

“I—I have a penknife.” It had been a New Year’s gift from my brother.

“No sword, no knife…Use this.” He handed me his. It was well worn and rather ugly, with a plain wooden handle, but the blade very bright and thin with repeated grinding.

“I couldn’t take your knife,” I began to demur politely, but he interrupted, “I’ve got more. One with a dragon’s head, one like a falcon…I won’t miss this one. Don’t lose it, though; wear it on your belt.” He caught my moment of hesitation as if it were a ball I’d thrown. “—In a sheath, of course. Oh, dear.”

When he got up from the table I jumped and fumbled for my sword, which took the bench up and over with it. This time, he did laugh. He sounded so helpless, as if I’d just crippled him by telling a brilliant joke very well, that I laughed, too.

“Never mind,” he said when he could speak again. “You’re just going to give yourself a stomachache. Learn to walk with it, first, and then we’ll see about defending yourself.”

I was so horribly grateful that I had to stand up for my pride. “I can fight. I fought Master Venturus.”

“Did you? Who won?”

“He did,” I mumbled.

“Good. Then it was a real fight.” He put the bread and cheese back in the cupboard. I swept up the crumbs. “There’s milk in a pitcher in the stream,” he said, “and sometimes beer, when they remember. Well water’s in the courtyard—it’s a bit of a haul, so I keep a bucket by the door. Don’t drink from the stream; the cows step in it. It’s all right for washing. You can go off exploring now if you’d like; you must be cramped from the ride. Just don’t go in the field with the bull. Oh, and I’d stay clear of the village; I don’t think they’re ready for you.”

I concluded regretfully that he was right, which was a shame, since they could probably tell me all about him. But I knew our own villagers. They would not warmly receive a girl dressed as a tumbler, and I bet the Highcombe folk wouldn’t either. So I followed the stream into the woods instead, and found a little waterfall and a blackberry thicket with plenty of berries left, and an empty bird’s nest floating in the water.

I came back as the shadows were long across the fields, my favorite time of day. The man was standing in front of the cottage, wearing nothing but a shirt over his breeches, sword in hand. I waved, but he didn’t wave back; instead he turned and did something like a dance that wasn’t, because the sword was flashing about in a determined manner, and when he stopped, you had the impression that he had won. I took a deep breath and went forward.

“Are you ready?” the swordsman asked.

“Wait—” I fumbled, and wrestled my sword out of its sheath. I was on guard, and so was he. And then things were happening very fast. He’d move, and I’d find his blade within my guard, and I’d think of the parry I should have made if only I’d seen him coming in time, but by then he’d struck again somewhere else. After a bit of this, at least I was ready to do
something
when he moved, even if half the time it was something that left me poking into thin air while he came at me again. Of course I never came anywhere within his guard; I only had to think about it for him to be right where I wanted to attack. As if he were weaving a fence around himself with his steel.

At last he stepped back and put up his blade, and I saw it just in time to keep from making a fool of myself by trying to skewer him.

“I take it,” he said, “you’ve never killed anyone.”

“Oh, dear no!”

“Just checking.” He turned and went in the house. He wasn’t even panting. I went and washed my face in the stream. And then went in to supper, which was vegetables boiling on the hearth. And bread and cheese.

But on the plain wooden table were a pair of candlesticks, silver dragons supporting the candles with their mouths. At each of our places was a wineglass flecked with gold, whose stem was a twisting dolphin.

“How beautiful!” The words escaped me. He held his glass by the stem, stroking the fragile curves familiarly. I could almost feel the cool, smooth glass just by watching him.

The vegetables needed seasoning, but I was hungry enough not to care. When I finished eating, suddenly I was so tired I could have put my head right in my empty plate.

“Sleep upstairs,” he said. “I’ll help you carry your things.”

I wrestled myself and my gear gingerly up the narrow stairs, holding the candle.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “There’s a pot under the bed; you don’t have to risk breaking your neck in the dark.”

I grinned, then considered that since there seemed to be no house servants I’d have to empty the thing myself. Not down the ladder-stairs, please! Maybe out the window. There were two: a large one with shutters, and a little round one over the bed. It glowed red with sunset, like stained glass.

He reached out and shuttered the window. As with everything else he did, his movements were economical and practiced. Suddenly my heart started to beat very hard. This was his bedroom. Did he know I was not a boy? He did know, didn’t he? I could sleep in my clothes. I had a knife, but I’d better not try it. I remembered his hands on my belt, his breath in my hair, the sharp tip of his blade dancing around me. Maybe it would be all right. He was so quiet.

“Take the belt off,” he said, “sword and dagger all at once, and try not to drop them. Hang the whole thing on that hook, then you can put it right on in the morning.”

With cold fingers I complied. Of course I dropped the whole kit on the floor: the sword pulled one way, the dagger another, slipping along the belt. It was hopeless.

“Never mind.” He smiled. “Good night.”

He was on the stairs before I had the wit or the breath to object politely, “But where will you sleep?”

“I’ve got a pallet by the fire. It’s fine. I get up during the night; this way I won’t disturb you.”

I heard an owl cry once, and then I was asleep.

D
RESSING THE NEXT MORNING,
I
FOUND A TINY RIP IN
the sleeve of my jacket, as if it had caught on something sharp like a nail. Betty hadn’t packed me any needle and thread; it was my turn to mutter, “Oh, dear.” The swordsman apologized. “That was me, I’m afraid.” He seemed annoyed. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to touch you at all.”

He had caught my jacket once in the entire bout with naked blades. I didn’t think Master Venturus could do that well. Maybe he could. Fabian certainly could; he could even put out a candle flame. Maybe everyone could but me, even those showmen dueling at the duke’s party.

“Let’s go find some practice weapons,” the man suggested. “I don’t want to tip my good steel, and you’re bound to knock it about some at first.”

That was when I found out there was another door to the house. It was next to the hearth, and I hadn’t even noticed: a piece of the wall with a handle and hinges. We passed from the modest cottage into the marble grandeur of the great house at Highcombe, like moving from one dream to another. A great hall with ceilings twice as high as the entire cottage. Useless, decorative space, and everywhere there was furniture shrouded in sheets, tall windows shuttered.

“Does he come here ever?” I wondered aloud.

“Oh, sometimes. He doesn’t like the country much.”

We found the old armory, full of antique weapons and country things like boar spears. My teacher picked us out some old, blunt practice swords, and we started back through the hall.

Suddenly, he grinned at me. “Hey!” he cried. “On your guard!”

I raised my sword, and he retreated before me. “Don’t worry,” he called, “I’ll keep falling back—just come on!”

And so I advanced on him, all the way down the long gallery, driving the master swordsman back with my clumsy tipped blade, sweeping past the portraits and landscapes, the swathes of sheeting, the covered mirrors, over the polished parquet.

He fetched up against a door, his face bright with laughter, and spread his arms open to me. I sighted my spot, to the left of his breastbone, and lunged—but he deflected the point with the tiniest of motions and my sword jarred in my hand.

“You want to relax your grip,” he said, “but that was good: a nice, clean attack.” He was laughing, looking back down the length of the hall. “God, I’ve wanted to do that ever since I got here! Thank you.”

As the doorlatch behind him clicked, he spun, weapon raised. The woman coming through the doorway screamed and dropped her tray. He jumped back, and I chased after the rolling silver goblets while he said, “I’m so sorry,” and she gasped, “Oh, sir! Oh, sir!”

It was awkward having no apron to collect them in. Boys don’t need aprons, do they?

“This is my new student,” he said, and to me, “Marita is the housekeeper.” I was grateful to him for not revealing me as the duke’s niece; it would have been all over the countryside by nightfall. As it was, she just looked hard at me, registered my sex and decided not to do anything about it. Then she took her silver and curtseyed. “I’m sorry to disturb you, sir,” she said, for all the world as though he were some nobleman, and not the tenant of a tacked-on two-room cottage. “Is everything in order?”

“Yes—no, wait, we need, what was it? Needle and thread.”

She curtseyed again.

I suppose being able to kill people was enough to make them very polite to you, but I couldn’t help wondering. “Are you a lord?” I asked when she was gone.

“Me?” His smile flashed white. “Hardly.”

And that was all. He dressed very plainly, he wore no rings. He did not speak like a countryman. But neither did he sound educated, and there were no books where he lived. Nothing but swords, and precious things.

“I expect you have killed a great many people,” I said at dinner in my best grown-up conversation voice.

“Yes, I have.”

“Is it hard?”

He looked out past me. His eyes were unusual: blue, almost violet, like the heart of a candleflame. “Killing them instantly is hard. You want a blow to the heart, which is tricky, or through the windpipe, or through the eye to the brain, but people don’t like to see that.” I began to be sorry I asked. I put down my food. “Disabling them is easiest; they may die later, from infection or loss of blood. It’s less satisfying. But it takes a lot of force to kill with one blow. You’d be surprised. I’m not sure you’ve got the strength yet. Even to pierce a lung…I could give you some exercises. Did you mean dueling, or street fighting?”

“Neither,” I whispered. “I don’t want to kill anyone.”

“Then put your sword away,” he said mildly, “or you will be killed.” I shot a look up at him, but he merely looked interested.

“I don’t want it,” I blurted. “I never wanted any of this!”

“Really?” He considered me with his head tilted. “Then what do you want?”

I thought of gowns and balls, and of sewing and housekeeping, and of swordsmen and towers…. Nowhere could I see myself. “Nothing! I wish I was dead!”

He did not mean to laugh, but I could hear the stifled breath. “How old are you?”

“Fifteen. And a bit.”

“Hmm. When I was sixteen I left home and went to the city. I didn’t know what I wanted, either. But things kept happening to me. It was interesting, and I found I could manage.”