Jan
ca’Vörl
JAN LET THE SWEAT POUR from him as he jabbed and
parried with his sword against an invisible opponent. Sometimes it
was Semini, sometimes it was his matarh, sometimes it was the ghost
of Fynn or ini, sometimes it was his matarh, sometimes it was the
ghost of Fynn or his great-vatarh. Jan let all his anger out into
the practice. He slashed, he spun, he thrust until all the ghosts
were dead and his muscles were burning.
Finally, he sheathed
his sword and stood with his hands on knees, panting. He heard
faint, ironic applause behind him, and he turned—beads of sweat
flying from damp hair—to see Sergei ca’Rudka standing at the door
of the practice room, with two gardai standing behind him. “How—?”
Jan began as ca’Rudka smiled.
“I asked your aide
Roderigo where you might be. I wasn’t allowed to come without my
friends, though,” he added, gesturing to the grim-faced and solemn
gardai flanking him. Sergei entered the long, narrow room, with its
polished bronze walls and the narrow row of seats along the other
side, the wooden practice swords in their holders in one corner.
“You’ve had a good weapons teacher,” Sergei said. “Though that’s
worth less than you might think.”
Jan took a towel from
the rack near the swords and wiped at the sweat on his brow. “What
do you mean, Regent?”
“You can have all the
technical skills—and you do—but they mean little when you actually
face an opponent who’s willing to kill you.”
The way ca’Rudka made
the comment, in a lecturing, superior tone, ignited Jan’s anger
again. They were all acting superior to
him. They were all telling him what to do as if he were too stupid
to understand anything himself. Jan sniffed. He tossed the towel in
the corner. “Show me,” he said to Sergei. “Prove it.”
“Hïrzg . . .” one of
the gardai hissed warningly, but Jan glared at the
man.
“Be quiet,” he said.
“I know what I’m doing.” Jan nodded his head toward the rack of
wooden swords. “Show me, Regent,” he said again. “Platitudes are
easy.”
Sergei bowed, as if
to a dance partner. Glancing once at the gardai, he strode to the
rack. Jan watched him—the man had the gait of an elder, and there
was a grimace when he bent over to pull out one of the practice
blades and examined it. “The great swordsman cu’Musa once said that
experience is often better than raw skill,” he said to Jan.
“There’s a tale that in a duel, cu’Musa once killed his opponent
with only a wooden blade. Just like you, his opponent was armed
with steel.”
The gardai both
started forward, reaching for their own weapons and putting
themselves between Jan and ca’Rudka, but again Jan motioned them
back. “You’re not cu’Musa,” Jan said.
“I’m not,” ca’Rudka
answered. He flicked the wooden blade through the air. It was a
clumsy stroke, and Jan saw how ca’Rudka held his hand on the hilt,
turned slightly underneath—his old teacher back in Malacki would
have immediately corrected the man, had he seen that. “With your hand like that, you have no reach,” he
would have said. But Sergei had already taken a stance—blade down,
his legs too close together. “When you’re ready, Hïrzg Jan,” he
said.
“Begin,” Jan
said.
With that, ca’Rudka
started to bring his blade up: slowly, almost awkwardly—an
amateur’s move. Jan sniffed in disdain and slapped the man’s blade
aside contemptuously with his own. But the expected resistance of
blade against blade was missing: ca’Rudka had opened his hand. He
heard the wooden blade clattering against the tiles of the floor,
saw it skittering away to hit the bronzed wall. Jan’s strike took
the weapon from ca’Rudka, yes, but without resistance his own
strike swept farther to the left than it should have, and Jan saw a
rush of dark clothing and felt ca’Rudka’s hands slap him lightly on
either side of his neck before he could react. The man was directly
in front of him, the metal nose so close that Jan’s face filled its
reflective surface. Ca’Rudka’s hands gathered in the collar of
Jan’s tashta and the man took a step, pressing Jan against the
wall. Jan’s sword was useless in his hand: ca’Rudka was too
close.
“You see, Hïrzg Jan,”
ca’Rudka nearly whispered, “a person who wants to kill you won’t
worry about rules and politeness, only results.” His breath was
warm and smelled of mint. “I could have crushed your windpipe with
that first strike, or I might have had a knife in my other hand.
Either way, and you’d already be gasping your last
breaths.”
He stepped away,
releasing Jan as the gardai grabbed him roughly from behind. One of
them struck ca’Rudka in the side with a mailed fist, and the older
man crumpled to a knee, gasping. “But you’re a better swordsman
than me, Hïrzg,” ca’Rudka finished from the floor. “I’ll admit that
freely.” The garda brought his fist back for another strike, but
Jan lifted his hand.
“No!” he snapped.
“Leave us! Both of you!”
The gardai looked at
him startled. They began to protest, but Jan gestured again toward
the door. As they bowed and left, Jan went to ca’Rudka and helped
the man back to his feet. “Are you really that poor a swordsman,
Regent?”
Ca’Rudka managed to
smile as he held his side, leaning forward and trying to catch his
breath. “No,” he answered. “But I made you think I was.” He took a long breath in through
his mouth and groaned. “By Cénzi, that hurt. I trust that my
point’s obvious enough?”
“That people might
lie and deceive me in order to get what they want?” Jan laughed
bitterly. “You’re not the only one trying to teach me that
lesson.”
“Ah.” Ca’Rudka seemed
to be considering that. He said nothing, waiting.
“My matarh and the
Archigos seem to think that now is the time to attack
Nessantico.”
Ca’Rudka shrugged,
then grimaced again. “Do you want to be admitting that to a
potential spy in your midst, Hïrzg? Why, I might send a note back
to the Kraljiki.”
“You
won’t.”
Nothing moved on
ca’Rudka’s face at that. He blinked over his silver nose. “Have you
considered that your matarh and the Archigos might be
right?”
“You’d agree with
them?”
“Honestly, I’d rather
that there be no war at all, that we settle our differences another
way. But if I were your matarh . . .” He shrugged. “Perhaps I’d be
thinking the same.”
“So you think I
should listen to them?”
“I think that you’re
the Hïrzg, and therefore you should make up your own mind. But I
also think that a good Hïrzg listens to the message even when he
has difficulty with the messenger.”
Jan looked away from
the man. He could see himself in the bronze mirrors of the hall,
his image slightly distorted in the waves of thin metal. He was
still holding his sword. He went to the wall where ca’Rudka’s
wooden sword had come to a rest. He leaned down and picked up the
practice weapon, tossing it to the man.
“Show me something
else,” he said. “Show me how experience beats raw
skill.”
Ca’Rudka smiled. He
took the sword, and this time his movements were fluid and
graceful. “All right,” he said. “Take your stance . .
.”