Ryswyck

by L D Inman

  She was, though; she felt sure she would be able to master this fault, to compass it and outlive it. It was just that she hadn’t done it yet.

  It was just that she shouldn’t have to.

  The only chance Speir would have to talk to Douglas would be if she joined his meal rotation. So she got Darnel to split her shift, gambling that Douglas would be less likely to skip his lunch than his supper. Sure enough, when she entered the mess she saw him at a table, slightly apart from his neighbors, eating stew with his gaze lost in the distance. She went to get a tray of her own before he could notice her entrance. He would have heard by now that Barklay had been on the island; he would know why she wanted to see him.

  Her stomach was in knots, but she set her tray down opposite him with an air of decision and picked up her spoon. Douglas didn’t attempt to escape; instead, he looked up at her and gave a sour little sigh.

  “So, then,” he said, “what does Barklay want?”

  His hostile irony did not hesitate to include her in its swath. With an effort Speir refused the bait. “He is convening a council,” she said calmly, “to make decisions about Ryswyck’s future so that he can step aside.”

  “A thing he should have done a year ago,” Douglas said, spooning up a bite of stew.

  “He asked me to be on it,” Speir went on, doggedly.

  “Of course.”

  “He wants you, too.”

  Douglas gave a little grunt. “He should have asked me a year ago.”

  “Well, he’s asking you now.”

  “It’s a fair step from here to the Academy.”

  “He says he’s got Inslee’s permission to borrow us for a few weeks.”

  “Has he, now. All that’s left is to secure our cooperation, is it? Are you going?”

  “I am.”

  “And he set you to convince me.”

  “He tried,” Speir said flatly. “I refused. I’m just delivering the message.”

  This did not conciliate Douglas in the least. “I see,” he said. “And how soon does he want his answer?”

  “I didn’t undertake to bring him your reply, so I don’t know.”

  Douglas buried his gaze and his spoon in his stew, and did not answer. Speir’s patience frayed.

  “As it is, I barely undertook to deliver the message in the first pl—”

  His head was up and he was speaking before the words had finished leaving her mouth. “Aye, but you still didn’t say no, did you?”

  “Douglas—”

  “On what merit did he get you to agree? For Ryswyck’s sake, was it? Nothing at all to do with him?” His sarcasm made the question practically rhetorical.

  She leaned forward and spoke quietly. “You used to care what happened to Ryswyck.”

  “So I did,” Douglas agreed, stirring up his stew again.

  She recognized the signs of Douglas digging in his heels. “What happened between you and him?”

  “Nothing,” Douglas said, but she had seen him flinch at the demand. “I just gained a little perspective, is all.”

  “I’d find that easier to believe if Barklay weren’t so afraid of speaking to you directly. So I repeat: what happened?”

  When he didn’t answer she said, even more quietly: “Douglas. I have a right to know.”

  “For what?” he hissed, glaring up at her again over his bowl. “To keep your self-appointed task of carrying his water from the dam to the channel? Well, Barklay’s the one who broke the channel. Ask him.”

  Remotely, Speir knew that that had angered her, and that she would feel it soon, like the report after the shot. “I did. He said it’s yours to tell.”

  “So generous of my privacy, Barklay is. It only happens to coincide with the cowardly way out.”

  She drew breath to retort, but he pinned her with his eye and went on. “Since you want to know,” he said, in a voice almost too low to hear, “what happened is, he made use of me. And I would have accommodated that. But then he laid tenderness over the lie, and that was too much. So I asked him to end it.”

  There was a brief silence. Douglas’s spoon trembled and then steadied in his hand.

  “And did he?” Speir asked.

  “He did. Does that absolve him, you think?”

  A desperate note in his sarcasm now. She’d hit him hard. Speir had a sudden vision of what it must have been like, of Douglas standing in the glow of those white drapes and asking Barklay to let him go. She knew she must not let her compassion show in her face; but it was already too late. He flinched, more visibly this time, and bent his head again.

  “When was this?” she asked.

  “A few weeks before I left.”

  Speir thought of those last few weeks, remembered the constraint, the fraught gentleness between Barklay and Douglas, the way they had both turned to her. And yet told her nothing. Tenderness over the lie. Here was the truth: here was Douglas picking up his spoon and shutting her out of his soul. “I thank you for the message,” he said briefly. And then went on eating as if she wasn’t there.

  If she wanted to resist, she would have to keep up the pretense and start eating, herself. But Speir couldn’t do it. She got up abruptly, taking her tray, and in the midst of looking for another place to sit down and eat, found herself abandoning her tray at the hatch and leaving the mess without looking back.

  Her feet carried her to the training room, where she pulled off boots, jacket, and shirt, and went to the bag-bar barehanded. Her fists thumped satisfyingly into the leather.

  Of course Barklay would have known what would happen. He’d flown in, laid upon her a burden of truth he had no right to ask her to carry, and then sent her to Douglas with his message knowing how he would receive it. Thump. Thump. Thump-thump.

  He should have told Douglas himself. All of these things, he should have told Douglas, and left her out of it. But he’d been too afraid of losing Douglas’s good opinion, and too certain of keeping hers. Thump-thump-thump.

  You still didn’t say no, did you? Douglas couldn’t know how deep that stung. Or would he care if he did? Thump. Thump. The truth was, he was happy to scarify her in Barklay’s absence; and she was mortified to discover the precipitous limit to her generosity. Thump thump thump thump thump.

  “Speir,” said a harsh voice. Douglas’s voice. She ignored him and pounded on.

  “Speir!” He shoved the bag-bar out of her reach. She stopped mid-swing and glared at him.

  His dark eyes challenged her. If he was so fond of the truth, then, she would give it to him. But what came out of her mouth was: “You left me alone. In the dark!”

  “You were fine!” he shouted back. It wasn’t a defense. It was an accusation.

  If you’d bothered to tell me the truth, you’d have discovered how not-fine I could be. But all that would take too long to say, so Speir punched him in the face.

  He punched her back. Hard.

  She turned her fall into a twisting somersault, but he was already coming for her, and she was forced to leap back before she could get distance and purchase to hit him again. The first one wasn’t solid, but the second bloodied his nose. It wasn’t enough. She lunged for him again.

  And took a blow to the stomach that sent her sprawling. She rolled clear and lurched to her feet, trying to breathe, and saw him shucking off his jacket and shirt, kicking boots off to the side. Right then, he was going to fight her properly.

  Equal in singlets, trousers, and socks, they went for each other with no more reserve. Speir took a left to the mouth that left her tasting blood and fire: she drove hard for his solar plexus and he reeled back several steps before getting his feet and breath back. His ruthless return punch put her on the floor; she rolled instinctively away from his feet and got upright in time to duck another blow and turn the motion into a head-butt that returned the favor.

  She wasn’t hurting him enough. He was too good at eluding her blows and he had the reach to ring her sight and hearing without taking any damage himself. Losi
ng patience, she rushed him, and he sidestepped; she evaded his blow just in time and grasped his elbow to draw him past and plant a foot in his backside. He rolled neatly back to his feet, and it was about then that she grew aware that they were no longer alone in the training room.

  They weren’t alone; they had an audience. Speir didn’t have time to look round—she didn’t have time to dodge. The blow drove her hard to the floor; she staggered upright and ducked, then rushed him again and was lifted off her feet. He was going to throw her down, so she used her weight to topple herself behind his shoulder and drive both fists into his back at kidney height. He emitted a pained grunt; his knees crumpled, and they collapsed together with Speir on top.

  It was her last good blow, however. He knocked her down three times in succession, and she got up more slowly each time. He waited for her and then hit her again. Determined to outlast him, she struggled up, aimed a strike, and took a hard one in return. There was a many-voiced groan in the room as she went down.

  Speir huddled herself with her knees and her head on the floor; got up hand by hand and foot by foot, staggered around to face Douglas. He stood there panting, bloody-faced, patient to deliver his next blow. It was maddening: she was at the end of herself and she hadn’t done him nearly enough damage. Speir lifted her hand and gave him the fiercest, bitterest, of Ryswyckian salutes.

  “You’re not finished,” he said, roughly.

  “Can’t go another round like this,” she answered, swallowing blood down the back of her nose.

  “Sudden death? One blow each?” was his suggestion.

  She considered, her ears still ringing. “All right,” she said. “As victor of the last round, you go first.”

  “As victor of the last round,” he said with biting courtesy, “I defer to you.”

  “That being the case,” Speir said, “I insist.”

  He nodded, slowly. They circled close to face one another within reach.

  “And if you pull your punch, Douglas, I will never speak to you again,” she ground out.

  “Don’t worry.” He gave her a thin, bloody smile.

  “Do I look worried?” she said.

  They stood, facing off. There was a stillness; then he moved in a flash and his fist connected. She tried to move with it, but it still set off a dark-bright explosion of pain and she collapsed heavily to the deck. More groans from the men watching.

  It took three tries and several stumbles, but she found her feet at last and turned to face him, weaving.

  “All right?” Douglas grinned. “How many fingers am I showing?”

  It was probably two fingers he was holding up. Speir held up her own two fingers, turned round in a rude gesture, and he uttered a small laugh.

  She stood before him, waiting for the dizzy ringing to subside, waiting for the quiet to pool within her. Both her hands were bloody, the right slightly worse than the left; she curled them closed and tucked them together, hiding her intent. She closed her eyes; found the last, bottomless secret that quelled her vertigo and evened her breath. Felt Douglas standing before her, tracing his breathing outline with her thoughts. Opened her eyes.

  Her leap was fluid, her hands moving together and then out of symmetry, and her right found his jaw at the perfect point of leverage. He went down limp, his arm rolled, his hand fell open, his eyes lidded shut.

  There was a snap in her head, a not-sound like her eardrums cracking, and she could now see and hear all the others in the room: soldiers and officers, gathered at a safe distance, watching. At the back, tall General Inslee muttering to Captain Amis before shouldering out of eyeshot. She and Douglas were no longer caught up together by themselves. Which didn’t mean that all eyes were not still on them.

  Speir limped slowly, feeling all her blooming bruises, to where Douglas lay. She knelt heavily and put two fingers on his brow, to hold his head steady. Spoke his name, then repeated it steadily till he began to respond.

  “Don’t move yet,” she told him when he groaned.

  Douglas didn’t open his eyes. “How long,” he slurred, “was I out?”

  “Not but a nine-count, I think. Do you feel that?”

  His hand twitched where she pinched it. “I feel everything,” he said.

  It hurt to smile. It hurt even more when he dragged up his hand to flap her a drunken salute. The men watching raised a cheer, small in comparison to a Ryswyckian crowd, but the sound still brought Speir comfort.

  Douglas opened his eyes and began to turn over so he could get up. “You shouldn’t move,” she said, “till we know your neck’s all right.”

  “Neck’s fine. To speak of miracles.” He raised his head from the floor, and swallowed a little moan. “But I’m going to need a basin.”

  Speir looked up. A young corporal jolted when she pointed at him, followed her finger to the small waste-bin by the door, and hastened to bring it to her. She had it standing ready by the time Douglas got himself raised on one elbow. He got as far as standing on his knees before he had to grasp the rim and double over it. When he finished retching, he spat in brief commentary, and then added, “Didn’t think much of that lunch anyway.”

  Speir helped him slowly, with several tries, to his feet, where he stood unsteady, his arm draped over her shoulders and hers bolstering his waist. She took the bin in her free hand; the infirmary would have proper basins, but there were three corridors between here and there. The men who remained—those who hadn’t already tumbled out to spread the tale of this match far and wide—parted silently to let them pass through the door.

  As they stumbled together along the corridor, Speir said: “How much trouble d’you reckon we’re in?”

  “Are you joking?” Douglas said. “What we did to each other’s nothing to what we just did to the handbook.”

  It hurt to laugh, too.

  “We may both wind up back at Ryswyck after all,” he added, for once sounding his old cheerful self.

  “Or directing traffic in Linhalt Square,” Speir said.

  He must have heard the worry underlying her tone, because he gave her shoulder a little squeeze where he clutched it with his bloody hand.

  ~*~

  Inslee had been eating his lunch at his desk when Beaton tumbled in with the news.

  “Sir, come quick! Douglas and Speir are beating the shit out of each other in the training room.” Beaton’s usual urbane confidence was scattered, and he breathed quickly. Inslee glared at him.

  “I forbade them to spar with each other,” he said. “What the hell are they—”

  “Not sparring, sir,” Beaton said breathlessly. “They’re fighting.”

  “Well, then, have somebody part them,” Inslee said, growing more irritated. “And send them to—”

  Beaton gave him a look that clearly said I’m not getting in between them, are you crazy? “You’d better come, sir.”

  With a sharp exhalation Inslee rose to his feet and followed Beaton down the corridors to the training room. With one glance he took in the gathering audience of junior and senior officers and the situation in the ring. Beaton was right, this wasn’t a sparring match. Inslee thought quickly, his eyes on the two combatants.

  Captain Amis ducked behind two others and edged over to him. “Sir,” he said in an undertone, “I don’t think one person can stop them, unless it’s you. What do you want me to do?”

  Inslee didn’t take his eyes from Douglas and Speir. “Amis,” he said quietly, “is the training room recorder on?”

  Amis blinked. “Yes, sir, it usually is. But—”

  “Go and check it for me, will you?” Inslee murmured.

  “Then—you’re not going to stop them, sir?” Amis said, aghast.

  “No,” Inslee said, “I’m not. I’m going to watch and see what happens.” They could apply disciplinary measures to the survivor later, but he refrained from saying that. “See that this impromptu combat match is recorded, and copy it over to my com-deck.”

  “Yes, sir,” Amis said,
and began making his way over to the control panel in the corner.

  Inslee folded his arms and absorbed the scene with intense concentration. They had gone past the stage of continuous contact and begun circling one another, catching their breaths before they closed again. But when they did, they moved swiftly. Yes, let’s see the vaunted Ryswyckian technique, he thought. And they obliged him: Inslee could follow both their movements and their strategies, but he doubted half the men watching could. How many times had he admonished his trainees not to waste energy with vocal noises or flourishes on blows? How often had he sighed over telegraphed punches and mis-centered balances?

  They were fighting in a mutual controlled rage, sparing one another nothing. Inslee could see that Douglas outclassed Speir in weight and reach, and expected that very soon he would overbear her; but Speir was both versatile and unrelenting, and Inslee suspected that Douglas was able to dodge some of her blows only because he was familiar with her fighting style, not because she moved slowly enough to be read.

  However, Speir was the first to grow tired, lose her temper, and make a mistake: Inslee prepared to wince at the impact when Douglas threw her to the floor—but winced instead at the kidney-punch she delivered, and they both went down.

  As he expected, Douglas wore her down eventually, but what amazed him (and amazed his officers, from the murmurs they made) was her sheer will to get up from any blow. She hit the floor with a sound like bones breaking, and he stood back while she lurched again to her feet, an unspoken courtesy which she accepted as a matter of course. Then she got in two good blows before he landed a punch that threw her out of the ring in a heavy backward skid.

  This time she took longer, and when she finally got herself steady on her feet she stood up straight and saluted him. Though Inslee couldn’t hear what they said to one another, he could understand the parley well enough when they faced off within reach of each other, both breathing hard and deeply, both bleeding.

  Douglas swung first at her undefended face, and she went over and hit the floor hard; Inslee heard a groan from the men watching, that ended in a suspended collective breath as she struggled to rise. It took three tries before she staggered to her feet and returned to the mark; Inslee saw Douglas’s solicitous gesture, and then his grin when she returned him a rude sign. She grew still, standing before him, and they all waited.