Cold Steel and Secrets Part 1 (neverwinter)

by Rosemary Jones

  The center of the floor was ringed with various circles marked out with white stones. Within each circle, a pair of combatants traded blows, high or low, quick or slow, as instructions were called out by a young lady standing in the center of the floor.

  “Half thrust, high, disengage, full thrust, low, disengage, hold firm, point over blade, thrust out, cross blade, recover,” she chanted as the students hit their swords lightly together and than stepped apart.

  Sarfael watched for a few moments, and then slowly began to clap.

  The lady glanced at him. She threw her hand up in the air, signaling a stop to the others.

  “You find their actions worthy of applause?” she said as she walked toward him. Sarfael noted that Dhafiyand’s earlier report of Elyne Tschavarz was absolutely correct. She was indeed quite pretty. Tall and slender, with red hair bound neatly in braids that hung down her back. She wore a black leather waistcoat with small dark buttons-a swordswoman’s waistcoat, affording no shining brass button targets, but heavy enough to turn the point of a lighter thrust. Leather guards, ringed with steel, protected her wrists and her throat. Her boots were very high, covering the vulnerable knee, but low heeled to allow for quick movement and good footing.

  Himself, he favored a narrower sleeve than she sported, although he had known swordmasters who claimed such billowing sleeves helped obscure the angle of the elbow and the intention of the blow. He found watching the eyes a far better predictor of a fight than any movement of the arm. Right then, the lady’s green eyes were narrowed and noting his own accoutrements as closely as he had cataloged her trappings.

  “I find the attention to their teacher admirable,” said Rucas Sarfael with as deep a bow as any lord in Waterdeep ever made to a fine lady. And while his head bobbed down, his eyes darted around the room, noting the doorways to the left and right, and the crowd of students, all armed with practice blades, gathering like a storm cloud at the lady’s back.

  “And how do you find the teaching?” she asked with a tilt of the head that was both charming and, from the way the students behind her came to an abrupt halt, a well-known signal.

  “That is what I would like to learn,” said Sarfael. “If allowed.”

  “This is an open place, where any are welcome,” she said with fair grace for a set speech obviously well-rehearsed. “We practice for our own pleasure and health. No intentional drawing of blood, no dueling. We keep to the law and, if the law is broken, the student is expelled permanently.”

  “But not fatally, I hope.”

  “Of course not,” she said. “Have you heard reports otherwise of us? Some false rumor that we encourage dueling? Or perhaps a questioning of our ideals and politics.” Her hand remained curled around the hilt of her sword and her look never wavered from his face. Her stance was that of a fighter ready to draw her blade.

  One eyebrow flew up as Sarfael contemplated the lady. She was, quite obviously, no idiot. No doubt the spies that Dhafiyand had sent earlier played the game as one might expect, acted the innocent fools or protested a shade too much their loyalty to Neverwinter’s past.

  Well, then, he decided in the instant, he would try a different way. Show himself to be skilled and clever, an obvious rogue, and thus, by inference, not a subtle, spying one.

  He grinned broadly at the swordmistress. “I have no knowledge of your politics, being somewhat newly arrived in the city, and I find dueling tedious. I came here because I was told that Elyne of Neverwinter was so lovely that even the great Lord Neverember had smiled to see her dance. Perhaps, too, I sought the making of a few friends to welcome an exile back.”

  The lady blinked a little at that torrent of words. Ladies often had such a reaction to him, although most wore a warmer expression than the one displayed by the well-armed redhead.

  “An exile returned home?” Elyne asked.

  “The son of one. My mother’s family fled the city before my birth.” He considered and rejected in the space of the breath claiming an actual childhood in the city, but a foreign birth seemed harder to disprove. “She, unfortunate woman, perished long ago, when I was quite young.” And thus he might blame any lack of knowledge of Neverwinter on being an orphan. Besides, the lady might be more sympathetic to an orphan. But given the hard look in her green eyes, Sarfael doubted she cared about his supposedly parentless state. He concluded his completely false tale: “But I grew up listening to her stories about the City of Skilled Hands, the Jewel of the North, and long desired to see her birthplace.”

  “So, a son of Neverwinter?”

  “Indeed, a loyal son,” he answered with great emphasis on the last word. “Or would be one. If I decide to stay in the city.” There, that surprised her. She expected him to claim immediate love for the place. One did wonder what sort of fools Dhafiyand had sent there before him. A good lie, as Sarfael could have told them, required a certain confounding of the listener’s expectations. “One can never predict tomorrow’s adventures, no matter how much one might protest and gnash one’s teeth, or so I have found.”

  His redheaded judge frowned at his deliberate emphasis of rebel terms, for he had said “gnash” quite as firmly as “son,” but she motioned for him to step forward. “Elyne Tschavarz,” she said. “My family stayed, although not without cost. Here you will find naught but loyal sons and daughters of Neverwinter.”

  “Save for Montimort,” said one brawny youth, clapping the shoulder of the skinny young man next to him. The one named Montimort twitched away from him with a scowl.

  “Oh, yes, none of us are sure what Montimort is,” giggled a blonde girl carrying a practice cutlass.

  “Enough,” snapped Elyne. “He comes here as my friend.”

  “I’m just as l-l-loyal to Neverwinter as any of you,” rejoined Montimort with a scowl at his fellow students. Alone, of all the students, he carried no weapon. His dress was notably shabbier than the rest, with a patch sloppily sewn across the knee of his breeches and his cuffs clearly frayed.

  A poor youth, guessed Sarfael, and one with an interesting hint of that pirate’s den Luskan in his narrow features and husky accent. One to watch closely, for the disgruntled outsider can become a spy’s best friend. The rest, he judged, were such as Dhafiyand described, young sprigs of Neverwinter’s much diminished nobility and wealthier houses.

  “So you’ve come here for a lesson?” Elyne asked, and the others around her snickered.

  “The first of many, I hope,” he answered with a flirtatious smile.

  She ignored that, as she had ignored his earlier flattery. She must have seen similar smirks many times. If he thought he could woo her secrets from her, he needed to reconsider his plans. “You always did set too much store on a grin and a wink,” Mavreen muttered in his head.

  “You may have nothing to teach me,” Sarfael said offhandedly. A puzzled expression flitted across her face-and he pressed his advantage at once. “But I am here, and I have nothing else to do for the moment.”

  “Very well,” Elyne snapped back. “Let’s see how good you are.” She motioned to the center of the floor. “Stand there and let the first lesson begin.”

  He strode to the center, and, at the turning motion of her fingers, twirled twice in place. She motioned him to stand still and then turned to the other students.

  “So, now you’ve taken a good look at him, how do you judge him?”

  The brawny youth swaggered forward. “Old, and perhaps not as quick as some.”

  Elyne looked Sarfael up and down. “Five-and-thirty at the most. The waist is trim, the shoulders and the back straight, he favors neither the left nor the right leg in his stance.”

  “Vain,” said the giggling blonde. “Look at the embroidery on his cloak and the polish on his boots. They look as if they were just shined today.”

  “Cleaned, and not long ago,” Sarfael admitted with a laugh, sticking out one leg to better show off his boots. “The cloak was a most recent purchase, as the one I wore yesterday suffered some
abuse. The seamstress assured me that it would find favor with Neverwinter’s ladies.”

  “Dangerous,” squeaked Montimort.

  Elyne smiled at the thin young man who stood close to her and nodded. “Note this one as a fighter, for his leather and harness are plain but well kept beneath that tawdry cloak. A man who pays so much attention to his gear knows how to use it.”

  Sarfael coughed lightly.

  “Yes?” said Elyne.

  “All correct,” he said. “Save my age. Nine-and-twenty, but I have lived rough.”

  She nodded. “Now turn and face the wall and describe three in the room as carefully.”

  He spun to the wall and reeled off the list: “To my left, there is the stocky young lad who called me old. He favors the heavy blade, the broadsword, and depends upon those wide shoulders to beat his opponent down, flat and edge, but little point work, for his feet toe in and he’s graceless in his stance.”

  A murmur from the crowd and whispers of “are you sure that you haven’t fought him, Parnadiz?”

  “As for the young lady with the light laugh and the blonde curls,” Sarfael continued without pause, “she prefers the short sword and the hidden dagger, one in her boot, the other behind her back. The pretty cloak around her shoulders is merely clipped to her collar, not fastened with a chain, so she might pull it off in a hurry and use it to confuse another’s thrusts. The harlot’s trick, or so I’ve heard it called in other cities.”

  There was a squeal of indignation at that, but the blonde was shushed. Sarfael checked over his shoulder for Elyne’s reaction. She looked more relaxed and slightly amused at the abuse he heaped upon her students. He judged her a lady quick to see the foibles of others, most particularly those she taught. But, judging by her earlier defense of the boy, there was one that she favored and he turned to him last.

  “Finally, I come to the youth called Montimort. His wrists are thin, his shoulders stooped, and I think he may be the most tricky of the lot, because, being a wizard, he would not depend upon the blade to defend or attack.” Another murmur among the students confirmed his guess as correct.

  “Enough,” said Elyne. “Turn and pick an opponent and a weapon.”

  He spun in place and pointed at the brawny youth with an angry flush mottling his cheeks. “Let him use his broadsword. And, as an apology for any insult to her honor, I’ll take the young lady’s cape and let her hold my own.”

  And then it was Elyne who raised one questioning eyebrow at such brashness. No doubt Dhafiyand’s other spies had not been so bold or so willing to expose themselves in a fight. Which, Sarfael judged, made him far less suspect in her eyes.

  Parnadiz stepped forward, his practice blade already up. “Give him your cape, Charinyn.”

  Charinyn pulled it off and tossed it to Sarfael. He shrugged off his own, giving it to her. Then he wrapped one corner of Charinyn’s much smaller cape in his left hand and nodded to Parnadiz.

  The boy rushed at him, much as he predicted, with a heavy downward stroke meant to strike hard upon the upper shoulder and cripple his left arm. Sarfael stepped lightly to one side, stuck out one of his booted feet, and tripped him into stumbling. The cloak swung unused from his left hand.

  With a roar and more dexterity than Sarfael would have guessed, Parnadiz kept his balance, whirled, and came charging back with a low sweeping blow to knock him off his feet. Sarfael sidestepped again, hopping neatly out of Parnadiz’s reach.

  Parnadiz backed up two steps and shook his head like an angry bull. “I thought you wanted to fight? Or will you keep hopping around? It’s most shameful to refuse to engage.”

  “Oh there’s nothing ignoble about escaping a blow to the head,” said Sarfael. Then he raised the cape high and shook it at Parnadiz. “This is just for show. As long as you’re looking at it, you’re not paying enough attention to me or my quick feet.”

  The boy grunted, circling left and then circling right. Sarfael stayed still in the center of the floor, tracking him only with his eyes. “I’m an old man,” he explained, pitching his voice so all could hear, “so I’m not given to such rushing around as you prefer.”

  Parnadiz feigned an attack from the left, and Sarfael did not move. The boy grunted then drove forward. Sarfael lifted his left arm at the last moment, let Parnadiz’s blade slide harmlessly beneath, and then dropped the girl’s cape over the lad’s head.

  Sarfael’s right hand snaked out, grabbed Parnadiz’s wrist, and twisted it hard enough to make him cry out and loose his grip upon the blade. Sarfael knocked the broadsword down to the floor, kicking it to the wall. Then, with a flourish, he pulled the cape off Parnadiz’s head and handed it back to the startled Charinyn.

  Disarmed and obviously disgruntled, Parnadiz scowled at Sarfael. “I thought you said it was for show.”

  “I lied,” said Sarfael. “I may do that quite often. Or I may not.”

  Parnadiz ran at a nearby rack and pulled out another practice sword. “A proper fight,” he challenged Sarfael. “Draw that sword on your hip and let us see what you can do.”

  “No,” said Sarfael.

  “Are you a coward?” yelled Parnadiz.

  “No more than most sensible men. Dueling is outlawed, young hothead, and your teacher says you hold to the law. Besides, if I draw my sword, it will all end with blood on the floor and somebody needing to clean it and somebody sent to fetch a healer. A poor showing for my first day among you.”

  “This lesson is done,” said Elyne, stepping between the two men. “Parnadiz, your anger will trip you as often as your feet. Control both, and stop rushing your attacks.”

  “I can protect myself,” Sarfael said to her.

  She shrugged her shoulders. “I am sure you can. But I must look to the welfare of all my students, even the reckless.”

  Sarfael bowed and moved out of her way. “Perhaps you and I can duel, for practice only, when the others leave.”

  She chewed her lip and looked him slowly up and down. “I think we have been dueling, have we not? But I’m not sure who has won.”

  “Perhaps we should call it a draw,” he said with a true smile. “For I have no wish for argument.”

  Elyne turned to her other students, gesturing to Sarfael. “This is not one who you can prick and then disengage,” she said. “If you mark him in a fight, be prepared to finish it for real. Now, return to your homes and, remember, what is learned here is for sport, not injury.”

  Sarfael let out the breath that he had been holding with a relieved but muffled sigh. The lady seemed inclined to take him as he wished, something of a rogue but no threat to her or her students. That argued well for him keeping his skin whole for that night at least.

  With backward glances, and much whispering, the others left. Only Montimort lingered, until Elyne drove him out with rejoinders to find his supper and come back the next day.

  Elyne walked the room, checking that all the practice weapons were aligned within their racks, rearranging the stones into new patterns for the next day’s lessons, and finally reaching for a long-handled broom propped in the corner.

  Sarfael gently lifted it from her hands. “A small payment for today’s lesson,” he said to her.

  “Oh I doubt that you learned anything from me,” she replied, leaning back on one of the practice butts and watching him sweep. He counted it another sign of victory that she let him do the humble chore.

  Still, he wondered how much she believed about his earlier lies of having family ties to Neverwinter. She seemed a cautious duelist, preferring to keep her opponent clearly before her. But, her hand was off her sword hilt, which showed more trust than the beginning of their encounter.

  “I did learn something today,” he said, trying to draw her out and assess her mood. “I learned that I show my skills too quickly. Pride made me boast, and that was foolish.”

  She shrugged. “Sometimes, it can save you from the fight. It made the others stop and think.”

  Sarfael said no more but
kept to his cleaning, making even strokes across the floor as he learned long before when he played the servant in a high-class inn that catered to a privileged and talkative crowd. Sometimes silence was better than questions for luring the wary into conversation.

  “May I see it?” Elyne finally asked. “That sword that you would not draw?”

  With a nod, he unhooked the scabbard from his belt and presented it to her with the hilt foremost. He knew the risk, to give away his weapon so easily, except he would never truly surrender Mavreen’s sword. However, he already judged Elyne to be an honorable woman, as evidenced by her earlier actions with her students, most especially the young Luskar, and he felt that the sword was safe with her. It was a feeling that surprised him slightly, for he rarely trusted anyone since Mavreen’s death.

  Elyne half turned away from Sarfael and drew the blade forth, carefully and cleanly, a practiced move to protect the edge.

  She held it balanced in her right hand, twisting only her wrist to examine it from all sides. Two passes in the air, high and low, and then she sheathed it with the same careful attention.

  “The balance is very fine and the edge exceptional,” she said. “But you have the height and the length of arm to carry a longer blade.”

  “You could tell that from the scabbard,” he rejoined, taking the sword back from her. “So why look so close?”

  “Some blades are enchanted, and the enchantment makes it worth carrying a lesser sword. But not this, I think. A well-forged rapier, nothing more, made for a smaller man or a woman.”

  “It was a woman,” he admitted with the utmost truth. Lies he always told with honeyed-tongue ease, but, for Mavreen’s memorial, the sword’s story never varied and his voice always sounded rough when he told it. “She died and I did not.”