Lachlan in the practice yards of Morea.
He bounced back and cut again. She made sure to slip her front foot and sure enough, he cut at her leg.
He saluted her. “It’s such a pleasure to find that someone is paying attention.” He cut at her head—left/right in two tempi.
She covered and covered, but the second was sloppy and late.
He did it again, faster. But she was ready and made both covers.
He thrust.
He left the needle sharp point of his arming sword at the laces of her pourpoint. “Up until that point, you were positively excellent, except your sloppy draw.”
All she could think was,
How can anyone be that fast
?
From that point until they were summoned to breakfast, he made her draw her sword and return it without looking at her scabbard. She put the point of her sword through the web of her left thumb and cursed. He made her continue, and she hated him.
Father Arnaud came out in his black pourpoint. It was a handsome garment for a priest sworn to poverty—black wool velvet, closely embroidered in organic curves that emphasized his physique, which was excellent even by the company’s standards.
“You’re my third customer this morning,” the captain joked, waving his sword at his confessor. “Nell, don’t be angry. You are coming along nicely. But if you fumble your draw you never get to test your swordsmanship, because you’re dead. And if you can’t sheath your sword while you watch your opponent—” He shrugged. “You might still be dead.”
Nell bent her knee to the captain. “Thank you, my lord, for the lesson.”
Ser Gabriel nodded his head. “Every morning, now, I think—you and Toby.”
She had moved from anger to floating on a cloud. Praise? For her use of arms? Training with Ser Gabriel his self?
Nell wanted to be a knight. So badly she could taste it. And she knew she’d just moved a rung up that ladder.
“She pricked her hand,” Ser Gabriel said to Father Arnaud.
The priest smiled. It was a happy smile, a joyous smile. “May I see?” he asked.
She held out her hand.
He made a face and said, “
In nomine patris
,” and her hand was whole. Just like that. It didn’t even hurt.
“My God!” she said, shocked.
“Yes,” said Father Arnaud. He beamed.
Breakfast had been called twice, but one of the advantages of being the captain of a rich company of mercenaries is that you know someone will keep your food hot.
“He doesn’t threaten your beliefs?” the captain asked as he stepped to the right, trying to baffle his adversary’s patient attempts to change the tempo.
Father Arnaud smiled. “Not in the least,” he said. “If belief were easy, everyone would do it.”
The captain’s sword flicked out. The two men were wearing steel gauntlets as a concession to the sheer danger of sparring with sharps. Father Arnaud twisted and flicked the captain’s blade up and to his own right but his counter-cut found the captain out of distance.
“He scares the crap out of me,” the captain said. He cut down from a high inside guard—
sopra di braccio
—but it was a feint. Father Arnaud pulled his hand back but the captain’s blade wasn’t there anymore, but describing the almost-lazy arc of an envelopment. Father Arnaud slipped it with a wrist-flick to find that it, too, had been a feint.
“That’s it,” he said with the captain’s sword at his chest. “Now I knowyou are the spawn of Satan. No mortal man can use a double envelopment with a war sword.”
The captain laughed so hard he had to go down on one knee. “You should fight my brother,” he said, breathing like a smith’s bellows. “They must have searched your entire order for a man so good with both weapons and flattery,” he wheezed. “Hah!” He laughed again. “It was pretty good. I was afraid… I don’t know.”
“You are a curious man,” Father Arnaud said. “You were afraid that I would be hurt by your friend the dragon. Instead, he healed me, and in more than just my own