by Jaida Jones
“I daresay you look much happier with that awful thing than in the company of your friends,” Caius said, after the third morning.
“What friends?” I asked, but I was grinning while I asked, and wiped the sweat off my brow.
The next morning, Caius was dressed all in blue—just to spite me, I figured, since there was no other reason for it. He opened the door and clapped his hands together. “Wonderful news,” he said, and immediately I was wary. “Well you needn’t look as though I’ve gone mad,” Caius continued, pouting enormously. “It’s only, I’ve found a better place for you! So you won’t break any more stools.”
“I’ve only broken one,” I said. The remnants of the stool in question—I’d stepped on it the day before—were piled in the corner of the room, far enough out of the way that I wouldn’t splinter the wood any further.
“Two,” Caius corrected me.
“Now, that’s not fair,” I said. “The other one’s barely cracked. It doesn’t count.”
“Nevertheless,” Caius said, “I’ve the solution to the problem. Why ever do you refuse to trust me?”
Because you’re a two-wheeled carriage, if you know what I mean, I thought. It didn’t matter whether I said it or not; Caius Greylace could sense an insult as sure as if you’d really spoken it.
“Well, you might as well just see it,” he reasoned, taking me by the arm and dragging me toward the door. “And I do believe you will like it.”
Letting Caius surprise me was a piss-poor idea, I thought, but suddenly, I was curious. He’d been almost tolerable the past few days. What if the Ke-Han air was getting to him, making him… sane? Well, saner, I thought, because he was still dressing like the belle of the ball, but there were some problems no amount of good weather could cure. Little lord Greylace was cracked.
But, as it turned out, I’d misjudged him.
“There,” Caius said, satisfied, after leading me through the twisting halls of the palace, enough so that I’d got thoroughly lost.
I didn’t know how he’d done it, but we were in a quiet, empty garden; the walls of the palace shielded it from the rapidly rising sun, and the ground was covered by bleached white stone. In fact, it looked a lot like he’d brought me to a place where I could train in the cool morning air, in private, in peace. Whether or not he’d done it for himself—giving me a better stage to make the show more entertaining—didn’t matter much to me.
“I thought so,” he said, judging by my lack of response. “And what’s more, I’ve brought visitors!”
That was where he lost me. For a moment or so, I’d even been grateful.
“Visitors?” I asked.
“I just couldn’t help talking about it,” Caius went on, as though I didn’t need any further explanation, even though, between the two of us, I wasn’t the velikaia. “Even though you do break stools, it’s quite enjoyable to watch. You see, my dear, I was in the middle of a fascinating conversation with Josette about Lord Jiro’s battle history—she is so wonderful to talk to about these things; you ought to try it sometime—and I happened to let it slip that you were in the midst of preparing for another war, or so it seemed, the way you were behaving. Then, because she looked rather alarmed at the prospect, I had to explain everything…which was when Lord Temur overheard our conversation and suggested that, instead of practicing inside your room and breaking all the furniture the Ke-Han had to offer, you might prefer to practice somewhere you can do it properly, and without splinters.”
“He suggested I practice here,” I said, caught up in the whirlwind of illogical progression that was just Caius’s way of going about his everyday life.
“Something or other like that,” Caius agreed happily. “Aren’t you delighted? They should be along any minute now, so you mustn’t look foolish or stumble and disappoint them. That would be awful; I’d be hideously embarrassed. And after I praised you so sincerely! Lord Temur is a war hero, you know, and trained in all manner of the martial arts. He’ll know whether or not you’re performing to the best of your capabilities. I think, if you’re subpar, you’ll be letting all of Volstov down.” With that, he smiled a very smug smile, obviously pleased with himself.
If he was trying to goad me, anyway, then it was working. The idea of looking like a fool in front of a Ke-Han warlord really got my blood hot.
Something told me that Caius had orchestrated the entire scene just to watch the audience interact with the actor; so that he, the grand director, could sit back and clap at our quaint performances.
But I’d wasted enough time already standing around and chatting with him. Whether Lord Temur came or didn’t come, I wasn’t going to let it stop me from taking advantage of the new space I’d been given, and I wasn’t about to stop practicing, when it was the only thing I could call my own in that forsaken place.
I hefted the sword—it still wasn’t heavy enough, but I was getting used to it, even though it meant I had to relearn all the steps to compensate for the shift in balance. That was what a good soldier was supposed to do. Improvise and adapt. This was the sword I had, this was the time I’d been given, and it hadn’t been so long since the end of the war that I’d forgotten what being a good soldier meant.
I began with the easiest steps, while out of the corner of my eye I saw Caius step back toward the wall—nowhere to perch and watch me here, just wide open space and the bleached white gravel beneath my boots. After that, I forgot all about Caius Greylace being there, and the possibility of Lord Temur stepping in to size me up. If I let anything distract me, then I’d let myself down, and that was that.
The gravel crunched loudly beneath my boots with each step, but at least there weren’t any stools around me to break; Caius was right about that being helpful. And, that way, I could swing a sword freely without worrying about getting it stuck in the beams above my head or the wall or something like that. Breaking a stool was one thing; cutting up the fancy room that the Ke-Han’d given me was another, a less pardonable offense, considering how prim and proper they were and how meticulously they’d decorated it with furniture meant for tiny children.
It felt good to be out in the fresh air, and it was early enough yet that it wasn’t humid. Still and all, I’d worked up a considerable sweat by the time Josette and Lord Temur did arrive, their footsteps on the gravel alerting me to their presence before I could pause in my routine to look up.
“That is Lord Jiro’s sword,” Lord Temur said, once I stepped out of the old motions, pausing to wipe the sweat out of my eyes and acknowledge my new visitors with a nod. Caius clapped happily and offered me a sip of water—he really had thought of everything. I accepted.
“Suppose it is,” I agreed.
“It is different from a Volstov blade,” Lord Temur added thoughtfully. “It cannot possibly suit you.”
“I’m learning it, anyway,” I managed.
“We hear you’re very diligent,” Josette said, looking composed and wide-awake, despite how early it was compared to the diplomatic mission’s usual waking hour. “Caius has been telling us all about it.”
“Has he,” I said. “How… gratifying.”
“We’ve been keeping tally on how many stools you’ve broken so far,” Josette added, for all the world like a schoolgirl teasing a poor country boy. In a way, maybe she was. It was just a different face from the one I was used to seeing her with, her politician’s face, gracious but humorless.
“I believe it was two at last count,” Lord Temur said. “If I recall the right number.”
“The general doesn’t think that the second chair counts,” Caius reasoned, almost as if he were taking my side in the matter but still managing to drive me crazy by insisting on calling me by my title. “But that’s neither here nor there, really; stools are replaceable, and we’ve distracted the good general long enough.”
Lord Temur bowed his head in brisk acknowledgment, and Josette went to stand by Caius’s side, next to the high white wall.
“Of course,”
Lord Temur said. There was no hint of mischief at all, either in his voice or on his face, when he added, “I merely thought that a practice sword might be of some use to him. They are, after all, slightly heavier.” And, like he was saying, “And I just so happen to have brought one with me—what a fantastic coincidence,” he produced one from behind his back: a heavy-looking wooden thing that’d been polished to within an inch of its life, except at the hilt, where it was rough enough that it wouldn’t slip right through your fingers. Maybe the polish was useful for practicing, though, since if you could hold on to something so shiny and slippery as that, you could probably keep proper hold of your sword in the midst of a battle, when everything, especially your hands, was slick and wet with blood.
“Delightful!” Caius said. “He’s been complaining about the weight all this time—haven’t you, my dear?—and I’m sure he’d be ever so grateful. Aren’t you, General?”
I gave him a look, even though I was beginning to realize the futility of it, and allowed myself to accept the offering from Lord Temur with grudging thanks. I had to admit, it would be helpful. He was a man who understood what it meant to be a soldier, at least, and I had to respect that.
“And,” Caius went on slyly, like the little snake he was, “he is often complaining of how it isn’t proper at all to spar without an opponent. I’m in perfect agreement, of course—but then, I’m no match for the general, so my opinion is rather worthless, don’t you agree?”
You could’ve cut the tension in the air with one slash of Jiro’s sword. Josette was giving Caius a look that I recognized all too well—it was the look I always gave Caius—so it seemed we’d figured everything out at about the same time, namely why Caius had been talking to her about my practicing and why Lord Temur had just happened to be close enough to overhear him while he was discussing it. The whole thing had been orchestrated like we were all puppets on a single string, one that was wrapped around Caius’s crooked little finger.
For someone who hadn’t been a soldier himself, Caius Greylace sure knew how to manipulate them. Then again, he probably knew how to manipulate anyone, but this was something real special. This was something else.
At the same time, from the look in his eye, I didn’t think the whole thing had been the result of an impulse that was purely selfish. In his own way, I realized, Caius thought he was doing it for me as some kind of a present or favor. I’d complained about having no room and no one to spar with, so he’d given me a better place to practice and someone to practice with.
The only variable in question was Lord Temur. What kind of pride did the Ke-Han have? And just how rash could they be when that pride was aroused?
Lord Temur was a soldier, and so was I. Caius had set things up pretty as a picture.
“General,” Lord Temur said at last; I could hear Josette’s breath leave her in a short, excited burst. “It would do me a great honor if you would deign to practice awhile with me.” And he bowed deeply.
I couldn’t see how there was any way to refuse, since we’d come that far. Josette would probably call it a setback as far as diplomacy was concerned, and Caius would sulk for days if I ruined all his best-laid plans, so I bowed to Lord Temur, just as low as was courteous, and not an inch below that.
“The honor’s all mine,” I said, thinking that if I was going to do this, I might as well do it right.
As it turned out, the sword Lord Temur wore at his waist was another practice one, made of dark, polished wood and about as lethal as the footstools in my room. I guessed looks were more important than function when it came to the Ke-Han way of things. Besides, there was that rule we all had to follow—no weapons carried by the diplomats, and even the warlords had to abide by that. That was probably why Lord Jiro didn’t miss his sword too much by letting me borrow it, if he knew I had it. Knowing Caius, that didn’t seem like a foregone conclusion.
But a wooden sword was better than no sword at all, I decided, if you came right down to it.
The gravel didn’t crunch as loudly under Lord Temur’s feet as he settled into a ready stance across from me. Being light on his feet that way meant he was going to be fast, but I felt the weight of the practice sword in my hand like some kind of reassurance against what was coming. I didn’t know how Ke-Han warlords fought in one-on-one combat, but I had a sword that suited me, and I was about to find out.
Lord Temur swung high first, the movement startling me so that I only just managed to bring up my sword to block it. It was that expressionless face that made it a surprise. The lords of the Ke-Han were normally so quiet and still, I hadn’t expected such a swift and sudden movement from him. It was a stupid mistake, and one I wouldn’t be making again.
He swung his sword next to the side and I parried it more easily, feeling the gravel shift and give way beneath my boots as I stepped back. Whoever kept the garden so neat and tidy was going to have their work cut out for them when we were through, I thought, and brought my sword around to swing at Temur’s ribs. He stopped me before I could get there, the sharp smack of lacquered wood against lacquered wood ringing out through the courtyard. I thought I almost saw a faint smile flicker across his face—and that was one mystery solved, at least. If you wanted to get an expression out of the Ke-Han, all you had to do was put swords in their hands.
“You fight very well,” he said, and there was something different in his voice this time, none of that underwater calm that all the diplomats radiated, like they were half-asleep.
I didn’t answer. It wasn’t Volstovic custom to talk during a battle, and I’d been trained to focus all my energies on one thing: looking for an opening.
It seemed as though Lord Temur had been trained to focus all his energies on one thing, too, except that thing was: Don’t show an opening because your very life depends on it. His sword crossed mine at every turn, like we formed the warp and weft of some violent tapestry. He drove at my skull and I knocked him away, feeling the strain in my arms like an old friend, long absent and well missed.
I might have shouted with the sheer joy of it, but I was too busy with each thrust and parry.
Lord Temur’s fine warrior braids had fallen in front of one of his eyes, and I was starting to feel like there was nothing I’d rather do but wipe my forehead since the sweat dripping down was starting to impair my vision.
I shook my head once, quick like an animal drying off, and out of the corner of my eye saw the sword arcing toward me.
I caught it hard on my forearm, stronger than the other one because it was used to bracing such blows with a shield, but I felt it all the way up to my shoulder, numb and strange all at once.
I heard Josette gasp—I knew it was Josette because it sounded concerned, rather than excited, the way it would have sounded if it’d been Caius—but Lord Temur only drew back as if to attack again, and I swung my sword hard back against him, searching for the opening I knew I’d find. It was only a matter of time.
I’d noticed one thing, at least, and that was the Ke-Han style of fighting focused on three parts of the anatomy—the head, the belly, and the hand. Lord Temur’s attacks were varied, but they had all the same targets. It wasn’t single-minded so much as it was damn stubborn, but almost beautiful in that. It was like he just assumed, sooner or later, he’d hit his mark, so there was no need to shift the target. Stubborn and determined and fierce.
I could live with that.
My arm was numb but my blood was hot, and I wasn’t so out of shape that I didn’t think I could take him. It was just a matter of figuring out his style. He wasn’t just some common Ke-Han soldier, and it wasn’t the kind of desperate free-for-all that a real battle inspires in a man. We weren’t fighting tooth and nail; it was kind of like a dance, only we were both hearing different music with different rhythms. It must’ve been something pretty to look at from the sidelines, each of us acting out his own steps while all the while trying to figure the other one out.
For example, we were even crouching different.
Lord Temur was lower, and he held his shoulders back; that changed everything, from his lunge to his swing. He put more from his legs into it, while I swung a sword mostly from my back.
I got revenge for my numb arm and tingling fingers soon enough when Lord Temur went for the head and I went for the stomach. All the air left him in one satisfying whoof of surprise, and he stumbled back, the gravel scattering every which way around his sandals.
“One-one,” I said, figuring that we were even.
Lord Temur’s eyes narrowed—and I knew that we were about to really start fighting. I tightened my hold on the unfamiliar hilt of the wooden practice sword, bracing myself, the blood pounding between my ears.
“Gentlemen.” I didn’t recognize the voice, but I was pretty annoyed that anyone would try to distract us when I was clearly so close to getting the upper hand.
“Oh!” Josette said, sounding shocked in an entirely different way than she had a moment ago.
Lord Temur didn’t seem all that inclined toward listening to the voice either, for all he stepped back swiftly to get out of range of my sword before darting in again, close and hard like he was through with being polite. I could understand why he’d be sick of it. He’d probably been polite all his life.
“Gentlemen,” the voice said again, and this time I thought I did recognize it, after all.
“Oh, your Imperial Majesty, isn’t it simply thrilling?” Caius said, sounding like he’d never seen anything more fascinating in his entire life—and like it was nothing out of the ordinary at all to address an emperor like that on a lovely morning while watching two diplomats go after each other in dead earnest during peace talks.
Lord Temur stopped short. I had to wrench my arm back into a feint at the last minute to avoid cracking his head open with the wooden blade. He dropped into a low bow immediately, which was what gave me time to turn around and see for myself what everyone was on about.
The Emperor was standing in the courtyard, flanked as he always was by his seven surly-faced bodyguards. I hadn’t even heard the gravel crunch with their approach. Was it later in the day than I’d thought? I wouldn’t have pegged the Emperor for an early riser, but maybe he had to get up early just to have the time to dress in all the layers he did. That day’s special ensemble was green on gold, which meant that he was wearing gold ornaments in his hair along with the jade. It was the sort of thing Caius would wear every day, given the opportunity and enough time to grow his hair.
