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So let them see, these stick-swingers and scythe-fencers, how a gentleman did it. Let them see the root from which the other schools of fencing had sprung. The rhythm was set, point control was absolute, and they moved through their opening challenges like two dancers in perfect grace and counterpoint. Vandien felt he was getting the man's measure; he would rely on finesse and maturity, would wait for Vandien to become over-eager and make some childish error. Fol. How many times had he tried the youthful Vandien that way? Yes, and won that way, too, he reminded himself. He leashed his eagerness.
The Duke was watching. He could not spare a glance, but did not need to. He could feel the man on the edge of his seat, almost hear him muttering to himself. He had never seen the like of this before, and never will again. The old Harperian masters are dead and their students scattered to the winds. Yet here, in this most unlikely of places, two have come together, and blades move as they were meant to, in rhythm and timing, passing by no more than a whisper, the clean tick, tick, tick of their metal as they touch in conservative parries, the honest thrusts that are swiftly turned and pass their targets by no more than the wingspan of a fly. It is beauty, and his heart sings with it, living only in this now to perpetuate this pattern.
But it ca
Vandien lunges full out, continues to fence. The new posture briefly confuses Farrick, but he adapts to it, and the exchanges continue. And every moment Vandien is testing, feeling, waiting - and there it is, a slight weakening of his opponent's wrist. Vandien lunges to his full extent, and Farrick replies, thinking he has him, but Vandien is no longer there. His free hand drops to the floor and braces him, carrying his body off to the side, and at the same time he lifts his weapon and his blade rises up, the tip to Farrick's throat, not entering the skin but dimpling it, and there is plenty of thrust left in Vandien's arm to put it through if he desires. If he wants to kill.
There is a silence. They are frozen at the center of the universe, in this moment, in this place. Their eyes are locked. Farrick stands still, the tip of Vandien's rapier pressing his throat, and Vandien is motionless, his body suspended just off the floor, supported by one hand, one knee bent and the other leg straight as he looks up at him. Then Farrick speaks. 'Fol's Thrust. My old master spoke of it, but I've never seen it done before.' A slow smile splits his beard. 'Damn me, I'm dead!' He puts his head back and laughs aloud.
And time began to have meaning once more. The tip of Farrick's blade slowly drooped to touch the floor. He stamped once, then drew himself erect. He stepped back, and gave Vandien time to stand, to step back. And then he accorded him the salute one gives to the victor, the meticulous lifting of the sword and the grave smile of acknowledgement. Farrick sheathed his blade, turned and began to walk away.
'Wait!' The Duke's voice rang out over the assemblage, breaking the silence that had held so many so long. He was on his feet, standing at the edge of the dais. His face was flushed, his eyes wide in his face. His mouth was slightly ajar still. He looked, Vandien thought, for all the world like a child who had been delighted by the seemingly impossible antics of a hedge-wizard.
Farrick halted, turned to the Duke. 'I concede the match.'
'As is right.' The Duke looked down at a red-sashed man who waited before the dais. 'To that one, the purse.' He lifted his eyes then, and they pierced Vandien with their anticipation and dread. 'To the other, the medallion. And bring him to my chambers this evening. We dine together.'
Vandien lifted his rapier in a slow salute that marked the second phase of their bout.
SEVENTEEN
They put Goat on Dellin's mule. Even after the boy awoke he seemed dazed, and sat blinking stupidly as a half-wit at anything that was said to him. His eyes didn't open all the way. His mouth hung slightly ajar and he stared at Ki's moving lips when she spoke to him, asking him if he felt all right.
'I ... think so. I am not sure.'
Even his words came slowly. Ki turned to Dellin. 'Did I hurt him that badly?' she asked anxiously.
'No. What you see is not the result of what you did, but the result of what his parents did to him. He isn't accustomed to having to listen to words and sort out their meanings. He's grown up listening to feelings and responding to what people felt toward him rather than what they said. Now, he has to learn. And more than that, he has to learn to feel his own feelings about things, without leeching the feelings of those around him.' The mule clopped steadily along between them, with Goat making no response to Dellin'scomments about him. 'Blinding him would have been a gentler thing for me to do to him,' Dellin commented sourly.
Silence spun out between them as Ki tried to comprehend the emptiness that must surround Goat now. The boy was alone inside his skull for the first time in his life. She glanced up at him; his eyes were fixed on the far horizon, and they were as empty and placid as an infant's. She found herself going back in her mind, trying to remember not what she had said, but all that she had felt toward Goat in the time they had been together. She winced. And how had it been for him those days in the wagon when she had despised him and Vandien had wanted to kill him? The sudden shame she felt weighted her lungs.
'Useless to regret it,' Dellin observed. 'Better to forget it. I will never understand the penchant Humans have for dwelling on past unpleasantness, and letting it shape the course of their future lives.'
'Do you always listen in on what people are feeling?' Ki asked, trying to keep a
'Only on those I regard as my patients,' Dellin replied calmly.
'I don't regard myself as needing healing, of Jore or any other kind,' Ki observed, and this time she let her voice carry her irritation. 'The only thing I need from you is your help in finding Vandien.'
'You don't wish to resolve this mixture of feelings you have for him, before you rejoin him? Don't you think you should examine why you feel so much anger with someone you care about so deeply? And what about the self-anger and denial you are constantly dealing with? Why does it distress you so much that you depend upon him, and why do you constantly battle to conceal from him and yourself the depths of your feelings for him?'
'No.' Ki's voice was flat.
'No to what?' Dellin asked, and she was pleased to notice a note of surprise in his voice.
'No to all of it. I don't need to understand what I feel for him; I've lived with it for years, and it seems to work well for both of us. If it isn't broken, don't fix it, my father used to tell me. No, Dellin, the most I want from you is to know where he is, so I can catch up with him. And then I have to find my horses and wagon. And find a way to put my life back on a paying basis.'