FSF, April-May 2009

by Spilogale Authors

  "It's my house,” Richard said. “You're just charity."

  "Am not neither. I'm a servant. That's what it's come to. Fetch and carry for madam your mother, but at least I've got my pride, and what does she want all those books for anyway? And where's your daddy?"

  It wasn't like he hadn't heard that one before. “She left him behind,” he said. “He couldn't keep up. She likes the books better. And me.” Richard lifted a book off the shelf. He was supposed to ask permission first, but she wasn't around to ask. “There's pictures. Animals’ insides. Inside-out. See?"

  He found a particularly garish one. Last year he'd been scared to look too closely at it, but now that he was big it filled him with horrific delight. He thrust it suddenly up into the old man's face.

  But the old man reacted a great deal more strongly than even a very horrible picture should have warranted. As soon as Richard shoved the book at him he jumped backward, knocking over his chair, one arm thrown back, his other arm forward to strike the book from the boy's hand.

  Quickly the boy pivoted, drawing his mother's book out of harm's way. He had no desire to have his ass handed to him on a platter, the official punishment for messing up books.

  The old man fell back, panting. “You saw that coming,” he wheezed. “You devil's whelp."

  He lunged at him again. Richard protected the book.

  The old man started chasing him around the room, taking swipes at him from different angles, high, low, sideways.... It was scary, but also funny. There was no way the old man was going to touch him, after all. Richard could always see just what he was aiming for, just where his hand would fall—except, of course, that it never could.

  Not a screamer, Octavia let out a yell when she walked into the room. “What in the Seven Hells are you doing with my son?"

  The old man stopped cold. He drew himself up, carefully taking deep breaths of air so he could be steady enough to say clearly, “Madam, I am training him. In the art of the sword. It cannot have escaped your notice that he has an aptitude."

  Octavia put down the dead starling that she was carrying. “I'm afraid it has,” she said. “But do go on."

  * * * *

  Richard practiced in the orchard with a stick. His best friend, Crispin, wanted to practice too, but Crispin's parents had impressed upon him that lords did not fight with steel. It wasn't noble; you hired others to do it for you, like washing dishes or ironing shirts or figuring accounts.

  "But it's not steel,” Richard explained; “it's wood. It's just a stick, Crispin; come on."

  The old man had no interest in teaching Crispin, and anyway it might have gotten back to his father, so Richard just showed his friend everything he learned, and they practiced together. Privately, Richard thought Crispin wasn't very good, but he kept the thought to himself. Crispin had a temper. He was capable of taking umbrage for days at a time, which was dull, but could usually be resolved either in a fistfight or an elaborate ritual apology orchestrated by Crispin.

  Richard didn't mind that. Crispin was inventive. It was never the same thing twice and it was never boring—and never all that hard, really. Richard was perfectly capable of crossing the brook on the dead log blindfolded, or of fetching the bird's nest down from under the topmost eave by Crispin's mother's window. He did get in trouble the time he climbed up the chimney, because chimneys are dirty and his mother had to waste her time washing all his clothes out. But Crispin gave him his best throwing stick to make up for it, so that worked out all right. And Crispin's other ideas were just as good as his vengeful ones. Crispin was the one who figured out how they could get the cakes meant for the visitors on Last Night and make it look like the cat had done it. And Crispin was the one who covered for him the time they borrowed his father's hunting spears to play Kings in the orchard, when they forgot to bring them back in time. They never told on each other, no matter what.

  Crispin's father was all right, except for his prejudice against steel. He winked when the boys were caught stealing apples from his orchards, and even let Richard ride the horses that were out to pasture; if he could catch one, he could ride it, that was the deal (as long as it wasn't a brood mare) and Crispin with him.

  Crispin's father was Lord Trevelyan, and had a seat in Council of Lords, but he didn't like the City, and never went there if he could help it. Every Quarter Day, Trevelyn's steward brought Richard's mother the money her family sent from the city to keep her there. A certain amount of it went right back to town, to be spent on books of Natural History the next time Lady Trevelyan went there to shop. Lady Trevelyan was stylish and liked theatre. She went to the city every year. She did not buy the books herself, of course, and probably would have liked to forget all about them, but her husband had instructed that they be seen to, along with everything else the estate required from town.

  What mattered was that the money came, and came regularly. Without it, his mother said, they would have to go live in a cave somewhere—and not a nice cave, either. “Why couldn't we just go live with your family?” Richard asked.

  "Their house is too small."

  "You said it had seventeen rooms."

  "Seventeen rooms, and no air to breathe. And no place to cut up bats."

  "Mother, when you find out how bats can fly, will you write a book?"

  "Maybe. But I think it would be more interesting to learn about how frogs breathe, then, don't you?"

  So she always counted the money carefully when it came in, and hid it in her special hiding place, a big book called Toads and their Discontents. There were some pictures of Toads, all right, but their Discontents had been hollowed out to make a stash for coins.

  Shortly after the latest Quarter Day, the old swordsman disappeared. Octavia St. Vier anxiously counted her stash, but all the coins were still there.

  She gave some to him the next time he came and went, though. It had been a beautiful summer, a poet's summer of white roses and green-gold grain, and tinted apples swelling on the bough against a sky so blue it didn't seem quite real. Richard found that he remembered most of the old man's teaching from when he was little, and the old man was so pleased that he showed him more ways to make the pretend steel dance at the end of his arm—Make it part of your arm, boyo!—and to dance away from it, to outguess the other blade and make your body less of a target.

  Crispin got bored, and then annoyed. “All you ever want to do is play swords anymore!"

  "It's good,” Richard said, striking at an oak tree with a wooden lathe flexible enough to bear it.

  "No, it's not. It's just the same thing, over and over."

  "No, it's not.” Richard imagined a slightly larger opponent, and shifted his wrist. “Come on, Crispin, I'll show you how to disarm someone in three moves."

  "No!” Crispin kicked the oak. He was smart enough not to kick Richard when Richard was armed. “What are you stabbing that tree for?” he taunted. “Are you trying to kill it?"

  "Nope.” Richard kept drilling.

  "You're trying to kill it because you're scared to climb it."

  "No, I'm not."

  "Prove it."

  So he did.

  "The black mare's in the field,” Crispin told him when he'd hauled himself all the way up to the branch Richard was on, by dint of telling himself it didn't matter.

  "The racer?"

  "Yah."

  "How long?"

  "Dunno."

  "Can we catch her?"

  "We can try. Unless you'd rather play swords against trees. She's pretty fierce."

  Richard threw an acorn at Crispin. Crispin ducked, and nearly fell out of the tree.

  "Don't do that,” he said stiffly, holding on for dear life. “Or I'll never let you near our horses again."

  "Let's get down,” Richard said. He eased himself down first, leaving Crispin to follow where he couldn't be seen. Crispin got mad if you criticized his climbing, or noticed he needed help. The rule was, he had to ask for it first, even if he took a long time. Otherwi
se he got mad.

  Crispin arrived at the bottom all covered in bark. “Let's go swimming first,” he said, so they did that. On the way home, they discovered Crispin's little sister unattended, so they borrowed her to make a pageant wagon of Queen Diane Going to War with the garden wheelbarrow and the one-horned goat, which didn't turn out as well as they'd hoped, although that wasn't their fault; if she'd only kept still and not shrieked so loud, nothing would have happened. Nonetheless, it got them both thrashed, and separated for a week. Richard didn't mind that much, as it gave him more time to practice. All that stretching really did help the ache of the beating go away faster, too.

  The old man was going back to the city for the winter, where a body could get warm, he said, and the booze, while of lesser quality, was cheaper, if you knew where to go: “Riverside,” he said, and Octavia said, “That's a place of last resort."

  "No, lady,” he gestured at the cottage; “this is."

  But when she handed him the money, he said, “What's this for?"

  "For teaching my son."

  He took it, and went his way, just as the apples were ripening to fall. He came back the next year, and the next, and he stayed a little longer each time. He told them he had a niece in Covington, with four daughters ugly as homemade sin. He told them the Northern mountains were so cold your teeth froze and fell out if you didn't keep your mouth shut. And he told them the city was crazy about a new swordsman, De Maris, who'd perfected a spiraling triple thrust the eye could hardly follow.

  "Could you fake it?” Richard asked, and the old man clouted him (and missed). They figured it out together.

  Octavia gave him more money when he went. Maybe it was a mistake, because then he didn't come back. The old fellow might have just dropped dead, or been robbed, or he might have spent it all on a tearing binge. It hardly mattered. But she had meant him to buy a sword for Richard with it, and that mattered some.

  So she went up to the Trevelyan manor, to see what could be done. Surely, she thought, they had plenty of swords there. Nobles owned swords, even if they didn't duel themselves. There were ritual swordsmen you hired for weddings, and, well, guards and things.

  The manor servants knew her, although they didn't like her much. They were all country people, and she was a city girl with a bastard son and some very weird habits. Still, it wasn't their business to keep her from their lord if he wanted to see her. And so she made her best remembered courtesy to Lord Trevelyan, who was at a table in his muniments room doing something he didn't mind being interrupted at. Octavia St. Vier was a very pretty woman, even in a sun-faded gown, her hair bundled up in a turban and smudges on both her elbows.

  "You've been so kind,” she said; “I won't take much of your time. It's about Richard."

  "Oh, dear,” said Lord Trevelyan good-humoredly. “Has he corrupted Crispin, or has Crispin corrupted him?” She looked at him inquiringly. “Boys do these things, you know,” he went on. “It's nobody's fault; it's just a phase. I'm not concerned, and you shouldn't be, either."

  "Crispin doesn't really like the sword,” she said.

  His tutor had taught him about metaphor, but he realized that wasn't what she meant. He also realized that this poor woman knew nothing about boys, and that he should, as his lady wife often told him, have kept his mouth shut.

  "Ah, yes,” he said. “The sword."

  "Richard loves it, though."

  "I hear that he shows promise."

  "Really?” She said it a little frostily, as her own mother might have done. “Have people been talking about it?"

  "Not at all,” he hastened to assure her, although it was not true. People did notice Octavia St. Vier's rather striking boy—and the drunken swordmaster talked in the village where he got his drink, pretty much nonstop. But he just said, “Crispin's not as subtle as he thinks he is."

  "Oh.” She smiled. She really was a very pretty woman. The St. Viers might be a family of bankers, but they were bankers of good stock and excellent breeding. “Well, would you help me, then?"

  "Yes,” he said, “of course.” It was her eyes; they were the most amazing color. Almost more violet than blue, fringed with heavy dark lashes....

  "I'd like a sword, then. For my son. Do you have any old ones you don't need?"

  "I can look,” he said. He leaned around the table. “I'm so sorry. I don't mean to stare, but you've got a smudge on your elbow. Right there."

  "Oh!” she said, when he touched her. His thumb was so large and warm, and, “Oh!” she said again, as she let herself be drawn to him. “I have to tell you, I haven't done this in a very long time."

  "Ten years?” he said, and she said, “Fourteen."

  "Ah, fourteen, of course. I'm sorry."

  "It's all right. Yes, he's just turned thirteen. And may I have the sword?"

  "You,” he said gallantly, “may have anything you wish."

  * * * *

  Richard's mother brought him a sword. It was a gift, she said, from Lord Trevelyan—but he wasn't to thank him for it; she had already done so, and it would only embarrass him.

  Richard did not ask permission to take the sword to show Crispin. It was his sword now, and he could do as he liked with it. He had already polished it with sand and oil, which it badly needed. Truth to tell, Lord Trevelyan had had a hard time laying his hands on a disposable dueling sword. There were battle swords in the old armory, each with a family story attached. There were dress swords for formal occasions, but he knew Octavia would not be content with one of those. Nor should she be. The boy deserved better. For the first time, Trevelyan considered the future of his unusual tenants. Perhaps he should pay to have the boy trained properly; send to the city for a serious swordmaster—or even have the boy sent there to learn. Richard St. Vier was already devoted to Crispin. When Crispin came of age, he might have St. Vier as his own personal swordsman, to guard him in the city when he took the family seat in Council (a burden Trevelyan would be only too happy to have lifted from him) to fight his inevitable young man's battles over love and honor there, even to stand guard, wreathed in flowers, someday, at Crispin's wedding. Trevelyan smiled at the thought: a boon companion for his son, a lifelong friend who knew the ways of steel....

  Crispin was tying fishing flies. It was his latest passion; one of their tenants was the local expert, and Crispin had taken to haunting his farmhouse with a mix of flattery, threats, and bribes to get him to disclose his secrets one by one.

  "Look!” Carefully, Richard brandished his blade, but low to the ground where it couldn't hurt anything. It was not as razor-sharp as a true duelist's would be, but it still had a point, and an edge.

  Crispin nodded, but didn't look up. “Steady...,” he said around the thread in his mouth, anchored to one finger against his hook. “Wait—” With a needle, he teased at the feather on the hook. “There!” He held up something between an insect and a dead leaf.

  "Nice,” Richard said.

  "So. Let's see.” Crispin gently balanced his fly on the table and looked up. “So you finally got a real one. Is it sharp?"

  "Not very. Want to practice? I'll tip the point for you, don't worry."

  "Not now. I want to fish. It's nearly dusk. The pike will be biting."

  "I'll let you use the real sword.” It cost Richard something, but he said it. “I'll use the wooden one."

  "No, I tell you! I've been working all day on my Speckled King. It's now or never. I've got to try it!” Crispin picked up his rod, the fly on its hook reverently cupped in one palm.

  "Oh, all right. I'll come with you, then."

  Richard slung his heavy sword back in the makeshift hanger at his hip, and followed the lord's son out through the courtyard and down the drive and across the fields to where the river ran sluggish, choked with weeds. The afternoon was perfectly golden. He felt that it was meant for adventure, for challenge, for chasing the sun down wherever it went—not for standing very still and waiting for something small and stupid underwater to be fooled
onto the dinner table by a feather and a piece of string. Nevertheless he joined his friend on the riverbank, and watched Crispin expertly cast the line.

  It was true that the boys had already corrupted each other, in precisely the way that Crispin's father had meant. It was, for them, just another thing to do with their bodies, like climbing or swimming or running races—and with certain similarities there, as well; they experimented with speed and distance, and competed with each other. Fishing was serious, though. Richard prepared to wait. He wondered if it would distract Crispin, or the fish, if he practiced just a little, and decided not to chance it. Crispin fussed at the pole, and cast the line again.

  Gnats hummed on the water. A dragonfly mated with another.

  "Tomorrow,” Richard began, and Crispin said, “Shh! I think I've got one.” He raised the tip of his rod, and his line tightened. Richard watched Crispin's face—the fierce concentration as he pulled, released, tightened the line again, and gave a sudden jerk as his opponent lashed the surface of the water. It was a pike, a big one, with a sharp pointed snout, its jaws snapping with the hook. It struggled against the pull of the line, and Crispin struggled with it as it raised white water and then rose into the air—it looked almost as if the fish were trying to wrestle him into its own element, holding him at the end of the nearly invisible line, coming toward him, going away, dancing on the wind. Finally it spun in, a writhing silver streak of a pike that landed on the grass beside him with a desperate thud, enormous and frantic for breath.

  "Ha!” Crispin cried, viewing his prize as it gasped out its life—and “Ha!” Richard cried, as he plunged his blade fiercely into its side, where he figured the heart should be.