by Jocelyn Fox
Molly considered. “Well, he doesn’t have a cane. But then again, he does seem like the type…” She shook her head. “I still can’t believe Banging Black gave me a C, after I spent all those hours writing that paper on the role of women in ancient Greek theatre…”
“Well, first of all,” I said dryly, “you’re the only one who ever called him Banging Black. It sounds dirty, so I’d appreciate it if you’d just stick to calling him professor.”
Molly looked affronted. “It’s a good nickname! You know, because he slams his cane onto everyone’s desks, and it’s not my fault that it didn’t catch on.”
“And secondly,” I continued, “women weren’t allowed to act in ancient Greek theatre, so maybe that’s why he gave you a C.”
“They should have let women act, though,” Molly replied. “That was exactly my point.”
I shook my head, smiling as I turned back to the book on the desk. “So what’s this…Godric…character teaching you all about, then?”
“Well, most of this is just histories of the Courts. The best histories are written in their Old Tongue. They adopted mortal language as their Common Tongue, back in the days when mortals visited the Courts. The Sidhe, they can learn languages in a heartbeat,” Molly explained, flipping through pages, as though I understood Sidhe writing and could peruse the contents. I put my finger down on a page that flashed by as I saw a picture, flipping back to the illustration. The style reminded me of the illuminated Bibles I had seen under the glass in art museums. I leaned in close over the book. The illustration took up the entire page. A golden-skinned woman with hair red as flames sat on a throne, and to one side there was a beautiful pale woman with raven-black hair. On the red-haired queen’s other side, there was another pale woman, almost a mirror image of the other except that she had hair so golden it was almost white. Both of the beautiful women standing by the red-haired queen’s throne wore crowns as well; and behind the golden-haired woman, there was a flaming sun, and a lush rolling green hill. Behind the dark-haired woman, a crescent moon hung in the sky, and the same rolling green hill shone silver in the night.
“Is that…Queen Elizabeth?” I said wonderingly.
“Hm,” said Molly, leaning over my shoulder. She looked at the opposite page, tracing the words as she read them. On the bottom half of the page, there was another picture. This time the woman with the white-gold hair had her hand on the shoulder of the red-haired queen, who was dressed in silver armor. The two women stood on a cliff overlooking the ocean, and in the misty distance there were ships bearing red banners. The ships clouded the horizon, they were so numerous, and as I looked at the picture I felt a thrill of fear that I was sure had come from the red-haired queen in armor. I gazed down at the picture and felt her fear at the ships sailing toward her land on the gray waters. Entranced, I turned the page, ignoring Molly’s protest, and in the next picture the red-haired queen held a gray sword that shone with an eerie glow, and the fair-haired woman stood beside her. The dark-haired woman had disappeared.
“Hold on,” said Molly. “Don’t turn the page again.” She put her finger down, tracing the words again. Her voice took on a grave, studious tone as she began to read aloud. “And Queen Titania gave unto the mortal Elizabeth the fealty of the Bearer of the Iron Sword, and with this power Elizabeth, the Queen of her own land in the Adjoined Realms, defeated a great host come to conquer her people. And in return Elizabeth withdrew her friendship from Queen Mab, and the mortals of her kingdom thought the night their enemy.” Her forehead creased as she continued. “After the death of Elizabeth the Iron Sword was lost. The True Bearer of the Sword did not reclaim her birth-right. There were no more…chords? That doesn’t make any sense. I can’t figure out this word, I’ll have to take it to Godric…”
“After the death of Elizabeth,” said a familiar voice, “the Iron Sword was lost. There were no more accords with the rulers of the Adjoined Realms, and the Great Gate was sealed, and discord was sewn between the Courts of the Night and Day.”
“Oh,” Molly said, still in deep thought as she struggled to read the book, “so that’s what this accent here means, it’s not chords it’s accords, it didn’t make sense that there wasn’t any music—“
I poked Molly in the arm, interrupting her scholarly ramble. “Hello, Finnead.” It had been Finnead who had finished Molly’s translation, standing a small distance behind us. I hadn’t heard him enter the room, but Sidhe walked as quietly as cats. I congratulated myself on greeting him without a stutter or blush. He had swapped his dark jeans and black t-shirt for soft boots and trousers, and a deep blue tunic. Now he wore his sword openly, strapped at his side in a well-worn scabbard.
Finnead inclined his head slightly. “Hello, Tess O’Connor.” He paused, then continued. “I’m glad to see you are well.”
I shrugged as best I could with my arm still strapped in its sling. “As well as can be expected, I suppose.”
His fathomless blue eyes regarded me coolly. “I see that you are educating Tess, Molly.”
Molly cleared her throat a little. “I was practicing reading when Tess came in, Vaelanbrigh.”
“Oh,” I said innocently, “am I not allowed to call you Finnead? Do I have to call you by your official title as well?”
A ghost of an aloof smile tilted up one side of Finnead’s mouth. He didn’t answer me, instead saying to Molly, “It is time for your lessons.”
Molly glanced out the window at the glowing trees. There were no clocks, so I supposed that the glow of the trees helped tell time in some way. “I was expecting Ramel to come by, since he’s been teaching me all this time…”
“Ramel told me that you were ready for more advanced lessons,” Finnead replied in his detached voice. I frowned a little. He seemed much more aloof in his own world than in ours. But perhaps that was really his true personality, and in the mortal world he forced himself to be more engaging. The difference, I thought, really wasn’t all that great anyway, because in the mortal world he had still been an aloof, coolly smug and altogether irritating sort of person—except after I’d saved his life, and he’d carried me in his arms as gently as a lover.
“The Queen thought it best for me to teach you,” Finnead said to Molly. After his greeting, it was as if I had suddenly turned invisible. I might as well be, I thought, because after all, I was only a mortal he saved out of some misbegotten sense of honor. With his honor satisfied and, I supposed, his reputation intact, he seemed to have forgotten my existence except to extend the courtesies and polite bits of conversation that were obviously expected here in the Court.
Molly walked over to the corner of the room and opened a wardrobe. She drew out her own belt and sword. I felt a small twinge of jealousy as she buckled the sword around her waist. She stopped and turned to Finnead and inclined her head. “I am honored to be taught by the Vaelanbrigh, if that is the Queen’s desire.”
I stood and walked over to the wardrobe. Molly looked at me with a wary expression. I looked inside the wardrobe. “Is that an extra sword?”
“Yes,” Molly said. “That one’s heavier. They weren’t sure at the armory which would suit me so Ramel had me take both. Now that I think of it,” she added hastily, sensing my intent and trying to head me off, “I should probably return it—”
I picked up the sword with my left hand, a bit awkwardly. “No need to return it,” I said to Molly with my best innocent smile. “If I’m here, I might as well learn.”
I saw Molly’s eyes flicker from me to Finnead, standing silently somewhere behind me. “I know you want to learn, but your arm…should you really be doing this on your first day out of bed?”
Leaning the scabbard against the side of the wardrobe and steadying it with my foot, I drew the sword out of the scabbard with my left hand, nearly slicing into my own leg. Drawing swords out of scabbards was no easy business, I fo
und out very quickly, especially when you are using your uncoordinated hand with your other arm in a sling. But I hefted the sword in my left hand, ignoring the clatter of the scabbard as it slid down to the floor. Somehow the weight of the sword felt right, even though my grip was awkward. My hand fit well on the pommel. I opened my mouth to make a remark to Molly, and suddenly I was aware of another body close to mine, a body that radiated energy.
“First of all,” said Finnead, “your grip is all wrong.” He reached out and rearranged my grip on the sword. My arm began to shake from holding up its weight. I clenched my teeth and ignored the burning in my muscles. “And second of all,” he said, his face very close to mine, his eyes boring into me like live coals, “don’t ever draw your sword in such close quarters again until you have received proper instruction.” He stepped away. “You could have killed someone.”
I stared at him, no witty reply jumping to my lips. Then I closed my mouth and nodded. “All right. You’ll teach me?”
Finnead turned toward the door and made a sound that could have been acceptance or annoyance. I took it as acceptance, and I couldn’t help but grin. Then I looked at the scabbard and at the sword in my hand, and my grin turned to a grimace. After watching me try to balance the sword against the wardrobe so I could pick up the scabbard, Molly batted me away and sheathed my sword for me. She buckled it around my waist, tightening it a little more than necessary. But then she looked up and caught the tail end of my smile, and she shook her head and smiled back.
As we followed Finnead out the door into the passageway, she said in a low voice to me, “Well, I guess every hero needs a sidekick.”
“Who says I’m applying for the position of sidekick?” I replied in a mock-offended tone.
“All the great superheros have one,” Molly said.
“What, you think you’re Batman or something? I’m no Robin,” I replied.
Molly smirked. We had to walk quickly to keep up with Finnead’s long strides. “I think you’d look great in green tights,” she whispered.
I grimaced. “Great. I get to make bad fashion choices and be the comic relief. Sounds like just the job for me.”
Molly laughed out loud. Finnead glanced over his shoulder and she hurriedly turned her laugh into a cough. I could have been mistaken, but I thought I saw a glimmer of amusement in his eyes before he turned back around. I felt the new weight of the sword against my hip, balancing the ache in my arm, and thought that perhaps I had something to offer in this strange new world after all.
Chapter 10
Apparently Finnead, even though he was such a great knight, couldn’t handle teaching two girls how to fight with a sword at once. Or he just didn’t have the patience, because after the first few attempts to teach me a simple drill, he looked at me and said hopelessly, “You have no talent with a blade.”
Molly glanced up from a short distance away, where she was performing her own warm-up drills gracefully, her sword arcing in crescents and figure eights. She continued her drills but I could see her watching us.
“Well, seeing as how sword-fighting isn’t exactly a marketable skill anymore in the mortal world, I haven’t really had much experience,” I replied. “And I’m not using my good hand.” I smiled a little. “Don’t tell me a Knight of the Court can’t teach me how to use a sword.”
Finnead shook his head. “For all the time I spend in the Overworld, I still forget that you don’t use both hands for everything.” As if to demonstrate his point, he tossed his sword from his right hand into his left hand, handling it with the same amount of skill and ease. “And the teacher is really only as good as the student most of the time.”
“Excuse me for being mortal,” I said under my breath. I lifted my sword again and tried the pattern he demonstrated, clenching my jaw in concentration and ignoring the sweat beginning to bead on my forehead.
Finnead had led us to a gymnasium-like hall, with a high ceiling and windows that were nearly the height of the ceiling. The floor was some hard, polished wood, or something that looked like wood. I wasn’t sure of anything anymore in this alien world. But the hall was thankfully empty, so no one but Finnead and Molly saw my clumsy first attempts at handling a sword.
“You keep shifting your grip back to the wrong way,” Finnead said, sheathing his own sword as he stepped close to adjust my hand.
“It’s probably because that’s how you hold a field hockey stick,” Molly offered helpfully from her little corner of the hall.
“I played in high school,” I said after rolling my eyes at Molly. A slight crease appeared on Finnead’s forehead. “Oh…you don’t know what field hockey is?” I grinned a little too gleefully at finding something that confused the almighty Vaelanbrigh. “When we go back to my world, I’ll show you.”
“Tess,” warned Molly.
I glanced at her and then kept the other part of my comment to myself, the part about Finnead getting to know what it felt like to be clumsy at something. I was relatively certain that field hockey would present somewhat of a challenge to him, even if he was a Sidhe knight. I amused myself with the mental picture of Finnead in a kilt, hitting the ball with the wrong side of the stick…and then my brief daydream ended rudely with the entrance of another Sidhe into the hall.
“Ah, Vaelanbrigh, you’ve beaten me to her!” called the stranger as he strode toward us from the opposite end of the hall. He was shorter than Finnead, but still taller than me, and solidly built. His wildly curly hair, though still dark, shone with a coppery glow, and his broad face seemed more open and friendly than any Sidhe I’d seen thus far. For the blink of an eye my mind lit up with recognition, an unconscious reflex that made me tilt my head in puzzlement, because I was certain that I’d never seen the copper-haired Sidhe before in my life….yet there was still a feeling of familiarity about him that I couldn’t quite place.
“Ramel,” said Finnead by way of greeting, tipping up his sword in a sort of casual salute. “Yes, the Queen instructed me to personally train the fendhionne.”
As soon as he uttered the word, I knew that he was referring to Molly. I wondered if that was the polite term for half-blood.
“Well,” Ramel said, his eyes lighting up as he noticed me, “I see you’ve brought another fair little fendhionne to train.” He said the words half-teasingly, so I couldn’t take offense.
“She doesn’t need to be trained,” said Finnead in a tighter voice, “but she came along.” He didn’t look at me as he continued. “And she is not a fendhionne. She’s a full mortal.”
Ramel shrugged. “So she is a fair little doendhine, then,” he replied lightly, catching my eyes and smiling slightly. I couldn’t help but smile back. “Would you give the task of teaching her to me, Vaelanbrigh?”
For a moment Finnead stood silently. With his back turned to me, I couldn’t see his face, but I did see Molly’s expression sharpen with interest as she observed the two Sidhe men. “If you want to teach her,” Finnead said finally, “you may. Perhaps it would be best if you did.” I thought I heard his voice soften with that last sentence, but then he drew back his shoulders, just enough for me to notice. “She isn’t a quick study, though.”
Though I tried to keep my expression inscrutable, Finnead’s words stung. It annoyed me that I somehow wanted his approval, and it annoyed me more that he was so flippant about dismissing my abilities. I’d never held a sword in my life, and after half an hour of instruction he’d deemed me talentless. I set my jaw.
“Well,” Ramel replied easily, glancing at me, “I’m sure she’ll have ample talent once she has the right teacher, Vaelanbrigh.”
Finnead lifted his sword and then balanced it point-down on the floor again. Molly was trying to catch my eyes, but I ignored her. If Ramel had taught Molly the basics of swordsmanship, surely he could teach me, and I would work as hard as I needed to make sure that I
wouldn’t embarrass myself in front of Finnead ever again.
As Ramel turned to me and our eyes met, another small thrill of familiarity ran through me. I brushed it away, thinking in irritation that it must have been déjà vu. “My name is Tess. If you didn’t already know.”
Ramel studied me for a moment, an unfathomable expression in his eyes—was it puzzlement? Then he nodded and smiled at me. “Ramel. I have a suspicion that you really don’t care about my full name and titles.”
I shrugged. “It’s my first day awake. I don’t know a lord from a loon in this place.”
Ramel smiled at me, his eyes twinkling mischievously. “Sometimes I don’t know the difference either.” He glanced over my shoulder at Finnead one last time. “Come on then, let’s give the almighty knight and his pupil some space.” He motioned to the other corner of the gym. Still holding my sword, I followed him to our new practice area. “All right. Let’s see how well you listen. There are three components to sword-fighting: the attack, the guard and footwork. Now, first things first, for the attack, there’s the thrust and the cut…”
I listened as Ramel explained the basic strokes, obediently mimicking his movements when he demonstrated. I went through the basic drills he taught me until each move was acceptable. Sweat began to run down my back, and my arm began to ache, but I still ran through the drills until Ramel told me to stop. He took my sword from me and tested its weight.
“We might want to get you a lighter sword,” he said.
“But if I practice with a heavier sword, will it make me faster, when I get a lighter one?” I asked, brushing the sweat away from my eyes and shifting my right arm slightly in its sling.
