by L D Inman
Perhaps it was in the pattern of her blows—
As she’d anticipated, Douglas suddenly intensified his attack, in a sharp downward cut designed to exploit their height difference. With satisfaction Speir responded by needling her own baton between his arms and breaking the trajectory of his blow. His grip was too strong for her to tear his baton away altogether, but she spun and got away clean, and the crowd shouted appreciation.
She rejoined the attack in her own burst of intensity, varying everything without pause or quarter, and actually drove him back several steps. He finally got a foot planted and riposted, but the position of her grip had placed her perfectly for a strike at his balance. Arching away from the point of his blow, she drove for his other shoulder and scored a direct hit, forcing him to step back to his planted foot. Still she did not hesitate; even as she measured the risk, the moment was in the past, and her baton was between his feet, and he was down.
The arena was ringing with shouts and stamping of feet. Douglas blocked her following stroke one-handed and rolled quickly back to his feet, but she kept coming, changing leads, giving him no chance to read her. He got briefly clear and raised his baton for a blow, but she plowed right into him with a bar-thrust against his breastbone. He dropped, and the whistle shrieked.
Speir backed up to the mark. Douglas struggled upright, bent over again wheezing, and finally came back to his own mark, in time to hear Marag call the round for Speir.
“Did I fix it?” she asked him.
“You fixed something,” he said. There was a glint of pleasure in his eye, and she grinned back. He saluted her smartly; she bowed.
The whistle blew for the third round. This time both of them came at each other in determined velocity. Blow after blow after blow, and Speir’s teeth started to hurt from the jarring impacts of baton on baton. She had better try to finish this quickly, if she hoped to win the match.
As she dashed forward to duck under his guard, she saw the moment when he read her intent, but it was too late to change course or ground her baton against his defensive attack. He swung his baton two-handed from one end; it slammed into her arm below the shoulder, and the treated wood broke cleanly in two, a visible mirror to the shock of pain that cut through her. The whole arena drew a loud breath and then went silent.
Leaning one-handed on her baton, Speir firmed her knees and kept standing; but now her left arm hung useless, numbness and pain radiating out from it like cold and heat together. She looked across at Douglas, who stood before her empty-handed, watching her closely.
“I see it,” she said, and was pleased to hear her own voice come clear and unstrained. “I’ve been dropping my shoulder on approach, haven’t I?”
He smiled suddenly.
“I am much obliged,” Speir said.
“Not at all.” He sketched her a small bow with his head. “Do you concede?”
“Hell, no,” she said.
His smile flashed to a grin and then sobered. “I’ll hurt you,” he warned her.
She shrugged her good shoulder. “All’s well. Go on.”
“Very well.” He nodded to her, and to Marag, who was waiting with his whistle on his lips, and turned to catch a fresh baton the attendant tossed over the side of the combat pit. Douglas tossed him back the pieces of the broken one, and though the round hadn’t ended, paced back to his mark to give Speir a moment to gather herself.
Her arm was either broken or the bone was bruised so badly the muscles had locked around it. She thought possibly the latter, because she could move it just enough to tuck against her side in a faint flexed curl. She shifted her one-handed grip on the baton up and down, thankful for the tape on the center grip and across her palm that gave her purchase against the sweat.
True to tradition, Douglas did not go easy when she returned to the attack. The muscles in Speir’s wrist strained to maintain the one-hand grip in what quickly became a set of defensive maneuvers. Forced to dance between his blows, she made him dance too as she aimed, once and then again, between his feet before darting clear. The crowd was on its feet in a mounting roar of cheers as the play continued.
She had an opportunity to feint, and could feel the physical habit Douglas had noticed tugging at her muscles. Oh yes, it was time that was corrected. Instead of following through, she danced backward again and blocked first a high and then a low thrust. As she did so, her eye encountered his: and the world was newly revealed.
Speir was well familiar with the buoyant joy of courtesy in combat; every Ryswyckian had some acquaintance with what it meant to give oneself wholly, in the bow of the head and the blow of the fist. But till this moment she had experienced it as a reality in which they all severally participated, each in their own inherent bubble of acquaintance with the ideal.
But now there was no bubble: there was the wide sacred compass around them, and a single inherence, and Douglas was in it with her. They fought in a mutuality so absolute that the air around them seemed to shimmer with it. Yes, this—this was what was meant—something already finished, already accomplished between them forever, and now remained only to be lived out in Douglas’s half-smile of guarded mischief, of the cries of their comrades from overhead, and further up, above the air of the dome, the sparkle of the free-broken spring sun.
They whirled together, describing the compass rose in their joyful fury, and then his baton snaked within her guard, and disarmed her. In the next moment she was whisked off her feet, and found herself looking up once more through a drift of sawdust, the point of Douglas’s baton riding her solar plexus as she heaved for breath.
“Now?” he said, as if they had been enjoying this argument since childhood.
Speir was trembling with exhaustion, and every inch of her hurt. She laughed. “All right,” she said, and brought up her good hand to salute him from the ground. The whistle shrilled, and Speir’s eardrums crackled with the deafening cataract of shouts from Ryswyck all around. She couldn’t hear Douglas laugh in return, but she could see his eyes crinkle wearily as he reached down to pull her up. It took a few moments and a good portion of his strength to get her upright and stable; when she stood on her own, he stepped back and saluted her with the utmost crisp generosity.
She thanked him with closed hand to heart. They turned, amid the whistling and applause, to salute Barklay once more; even at this distance she could see that Barklay’s eyes were lit.
Douglas picked up both their batons and hefted them lightly on his shoulder. He looked round for her, and they went together out of the combat pit, into a universe different from the one Speir left when she came into the arena.
For now she had a friend.
3
Commander Damon Jarrow arrived by shuttle two days before the service course was set to begin, during one of the last heavy cloudbursts of the spring. Barklay went out to meet him, carrying a rainshade. For himself he wouldn’t have bothered, but he wanted to know how the naval meteorologist, and pet of Alban Selkirk, would respond to being offered its shelter.
“No, thank you, sir,” Jarrow said; “my hood is sufficient.”
The preliminary greetings over, they set off across the drenched airfield toward the campus with Jarrow’s batman and the communications officer in tow; Barklay caught Jarrow giving him and his rainshade a supercilious glance, and smiled to himself in amusement. It was a good thing he hadn’t brought Marag to this rendezvous; Marag would have been visibly nettled at the subtle judgment implied, and spoiled Barklay’s fun.
Marag met them at the door instead, with a gratifyingly puzzled look at Barklay as he furled and racked the rainshade. “Captain Marag,” Barklay said, “may I make known to you our latest addition to the senior staff, Commander Jarrow, lately of Marston Naval Division at Central Command, and his assistant, Ensign Bright. Lieutenant Napier you know, of course. Commander Jarrow, this is Captain Marag, my lead instructor, who serves here on rotation from Amity Base.”
“Sir,” Jarrow acknowledged politely; in re
turn Marag’s bow was generous without being a contrast in extravagance.
“It is my pleasure to welcome you to Ryswyck, Commander,” Marag said. “If there is anything I may do to make your work here go smoothly, please ask.”
“Thank you, Captain,” Jarrow said. For a moment he seemed touched by Marag’s sincere gesture, but then recovered himself and smiled thinly. Don’t allow yourself to be charmed, Selkirk had probably said to him. Barklay stifled a sigh. Let Jarrow observe and report: he wouldn’t find any wrongdoing in Marag, at least.
“It is not yet time to go in to lunch. Perhaps we might have some tea in my office, and then Marag can show you the campus and brief you on senior staff arcana.” He smiled; Jarrow gave him a dry assent.
Bright was dispatched, accompanied by a passing cadet, to the senior and guest block to arrange occupation of Jarrow’s quarters; Napier was likewise sent to the com tower; and within another ten minutes, Barklay was serving Marag and Jarrow tea at his conference table.
“Now, obviously,” Barklay said to Jarrow, “I won’t be expecting you to hold up the service course duties on your own, in addition to preparing your regular courses for the next term. So I’m assigning a couple of very competent junior officers to help you manage the transition. They’ll keep you pointed with the service course schedule and brief you on the classwork and scoring for the cadets.”
“Thank you, sir.” Jarrow took a sip of his tea. Barklay had heard Jarrow spoken of as very conscientious and close-guarded, and if the dossier Selkirk had given him, along with Jarrow’s demeanor now, were any indication, the reputation was deserved. They hadn’t met before, but Barklay felt that Jarrow was already familiar to him, as if they had played this match long ago.
“You will find that most of the students’ interests revolve around the arena and sparring court,” Barklay said. “So if you wish to draw their attention, a reference to either of those things often serves as encouragement.”
“As a bribe, you mean?” Jarrow said.
Marag winced. Barklay answered, “If a mother’s reminder of a sweet after dinner is a bribe, may be. But you won’t find many students here who need direct manipulation to carry out their duties. Encouragement is usually sufficient.”
“I see,” Jarrow said. “You are very fortunate to have achieved such an ethos, sir.”
“On the contrary,” Barklay rejoined, “fortune has favored Ilona with so many teachable future officers.” Barklay caught Marag’s half-amused, half-reproachful glance, and put down his empty teacup. “In time, I am sure, the beauties of courtesy will reveal themselves in action to you. Now I must get some dispatches to Napier before he goes. I’ll let Marag give you your tour, and we’ll see one another again at lunch.”
As they were leaving Barklay’s office, they came upon Stevens in the admin room, collating a sheaf of files. A locking dispatch bag lay on the desk beside him. “Ah, Stevens,” Barklay said, “good. I have a few things to add to your bag for Napier. Commander Jarrow, may I introduce you to one of my rota captains, Lieutenant Stevens. Stevens, meet our new meteorology instructor, Commander Jarrow.”
“A pleasure, sir.” Stevens swept him a crisp Ryswyckian salute, which Jarrow answered with an equally crisp outward flash of palm in the manner of the Ilonian armed services. This disparity didn’t seem to perturb Stevens; but, Yes, Commander, we take your point quite clearly, Barklay thought.
“Stevens’s rota is currently on communications duty.” And thank wisdom Douglas’s isn’t. “If you need information given or received, he’s your man this week.” Or any other week. But Jarrow could find out who the rumor mavens were on his own time.
Stevens must have divined some of Barklay’s thought: he flashed a grin at all three of his superiors and said, “Always happy to oblige, sir.”
“Thank you, Stevens,” Marag said dryly. “Before you go up the tower, may I burden you with a few instructions for the service course?”
“Yes, sir, of course.”
Barklay excused himself to go and retrieve the dispatches for Napier. Inside his office he paused, slowed for a moment by a sense of unnameable inevitability, filling the room like the dim glow of the white drapes. He felt as if a change had taken hold, of him or of Ryswyck or both, the nature of which was yet unshaped in his understanding. And yet nothing had changed. In the untroubled privacy of his office, three teacups sat abandoned on the polished conference table. The plash of the rain bore on as ever. In the distance, the tower carillon chimed the change of watch.
He mustn’t make Stevens late. Action returned to Barklay’s pulses, and he went on to sit at his desk and thumb out the remaining dispatches from the file.
~*~
Douglas leaned toward the sill and watched the rain fall past the window panel, in heavy steady drops that sped down and were lost to view at the bottom of the tower. Across the floor the communications officer was briefing Lieutenant Artis; their voices rose and fell in a murmur that mixed with the rumbling hiss of the rain overhead.
Soon Napier would be finished and would descend the tower to take the shuttle back to the capital, leaving Ryswyck alone with its interloper. Douglas had been watching as Barklay came out to greet the new instructor, had seen him carry out the rainshade and seen the other refuse its shelter, and understood the significance of both actions. He sighed to himself. Courtesy may be its own worth, he thought, but it was depressing to see it so little effective against the animosity of people who were on their own side in the war. How much more fortitude would one need to offer courtesy to the enemy with no hope of return? He wondered if anyone could prevail on Commander Jarrow to get into the arena for a demonstration. Something had to be done; something that would lay the way forward for Ryswyck; something more than simply holding out till no one else remained standing against them.
The watch-bell chimed overhead; presently, as Douglas watched, Stevens emerged from the hulk of the administrative block, flipped his hood up, and began to cross the field to the tower. He was lost to Douglas’s view under the sill, and then the clack of the lift descending drew the attention of the others in the tower.
“Ah, good,” Napier said, “my dispatches are here.”
Artis also smiled; he was relieved for lunch.
Stevens emerged from the lift, scattering cheer and raindrops in all directions. “Good morning, comrades, I bring you sweet sweet information and the promise of sustenance. Lieutenant Napier.” Stevens saluted him, Ilonian-fashion, flinging drops behind the crown of his head.
“Lieutenant Stevens. Do you have my dispatches, then?”
“I do indeed.” Stevens was already drawing the dispatch-bag out of his dripping scrip. “Here you are. Let me find you something to wrap them in—”
“No, I have a cloak. It’ll be all right.”
“Good. Artis—”
Artis briefed Stevens on the state of communications at the tower, including Douglas and his errand (Stevens raised an eyebrow at Douglas but said nothing), and escaped with Napier down the lift.
“So I met the new instructor this morning,” Stevens said, taking over the com officer’s desk and laying out his brief and tablets.
“What’s he like?” Douglas asked, drifting away from the windows and making a check of the transmission screens as he came closer.
“Not one of us at all,” Stevens said frankly, without rancor. “But they say he’s smart and knows what he’s doing, so I expect it’ll be all right.”
Douglas nodded.
“Funny Barklay stuck you up here all morning minding secure transmissions.” Stevens gave Douglas a shrewd look.
Douglas answered only with a wry twist of the mouth and let Stevens draw his own conclusions.
Whatever Stevens’s conclusions were, he kept them to himself. “What’s on for you after this?” he asked, flipping through the displays on his com-deck screen.
“It’s my light day for duties, till the deluge hits. I have a tutorial with Beathas, then I plan to attend spa
rring court, then I’ve got kitchen cleanup after supper. Then this evening unless some crisis intervenes, I’ve carved out some study time. Speir promised to bring me her notes on the supply management presentation.”
“Aye, that was a good set of research papers. It’s too bad you missed it. So then, tell me,” Stevens said casually, “are the two of you sleeping together?”
Douglas shook his head. Stevens said, “Thought not,” and off Douglas’s quizzical look, added, “But this morning makes the third time someone’s asked me, so I thought I might as well go to the source.”
“Right. No. We’re friends, but not bedfellows.” Douglas glanced meditatively out at the rain. “Not that I’d say no, exactly, if she asked me.”
“If you did, I’d have you checked for brain damage,” Stevens said.
“And rightly so,” Douglas grinned. “Speaking of damage, what’s the word from the infirmary? Has Corda been released yet?”
“Not yet.” Stevens looked briefly grim. “Captain Wallis says the Surgeon’s orders are to keep him another day, till she can stop in to look him over. But he seemed comfortable with the prognosis, so I think all’s well.”
“Good,” Douglas said. “Rose has been worried about him.”
“Don’t blame him. That was a rough match to watch.”
“Aye.”
There was a brief silence, until Douglas noted that the last transmission had come up a confirmed receipt.
“You were going to bundle those receipt messages and shoot them down to Barklay’s com-deck, weren’t you?” Stevens said. Douglas nodded. “I can do that, if you like—and you can get down to lunch.”
“Thanks,” Douglas said. “I’ll not say no.”
