"Sir—are you going to—?" Alarm in their tone, as it should be.
"Go and do what I told you." Habit of obedience sent them on their way without more questions. The air in the salle was cold; he felt his skin drawing up into gooseflesh, felt the urge to shiver. Instead he drew a little heat from his magery, the least he could. He would need his strength elsewhere. By the time the two seconds had returned with the swords, he had taken off his boots and socks and stood barefoot on the cold stone floor, and bade Semmis do the same.
The young man's body was symmetrical, well-muscled, his skin smooth, unmarked with anything but a narrow scar on one shoulder. Semmis looked a little pale, as well he might, half dressed and barefoot in a cold salle and facing he knew not what challenge from his Knight-Commander.
"I have issued no challenge," the Knight-Commander said, as the seconds emerged with swords and silence held the room. "Yet." Silence deepened. "Semmis, take the sword my second hands you." He walked over to the seconds. "I will take the one your second hands me...now bow to the seconds." He turned to the others. "Half of you to either side, against the walls. Take off your boots, all of you: they will outline the dueling ground. And you, Parin, you will be the master, the one who gives the command to begin, and cries hold when blood is drawn." Parin nodded, looking eager. "You seconds, you will now mark the ground, and if either of us retreats outside it, the duel ends to that one's dishonor. Karden, be ready to bandage any wounds. I prefer not to drip on the floor, nor do I wish to spend the afternoon on my knees scrubbing it clean." He grinned at the others. No one grinned back.
Quickly the seconds outlined the space he pointed out with discarded boots and socks. The Knight Commander stepped inside it; Semmis, he saw, had also stepped in, and was now flushed a little.
"Duels are ordinarily fought outside," the Knight-Commander said. "Often at dawn, sometimes at night, in a ring of torches. Rarely in midday, always in secret, because as I reminded you, Gird forbade dueling. What does the Code of Gird say?"
Several repeated it, almost in unison.
"Indeed."
Before him, Semmis' expression had gone from confusion to wariness: he was beginning to believe this was real.
"Semmis, I challenge you to a duel. There is no offense; I needed someone to use as an example, and you are slightly better with a sword than Joris." He was also one of the more level-headed students, and should thereby take longer to reach the mindless stage of combat. "If you do not accept, you will be known as a coward hereafter and disgraced before all. You will not become a Knight of the Bells. Respond."
A twitch, no more, of Semmis's mouth, then he answered. "Knight-Commander, I accept your challenge."
"Are you satisfied with your weapon?"
"I am, sir."
"Are you satisfied with your second?"
"I am, sir."
The Knight-Commander glanced at Parin. "Your cue," he said.
"On guard!" Parin said. His voice cracked on the second word; from the corner of his eye, the Knight-Commander saw that he flushed, embarrassed. The Knight-Commander raised his blade, pointed it at Semmis's chest. Twelve paces away, Semmis's blade pointed at him, only the slightest tremor tossing light down the blade.
The Knight-Commander knew, none better, what Semmis felt as he saw that point aimed at him, those sharp edges gleaming. He knew how aware Semmis would be of the cold stone beneath his feet, the light from the high eastern windows, the movement of the air, those who watched...and he saw the moment when Semmis's focus cast all that out, as he himself had cast out awareness of snow, encircling trees, nervous horses stamping and snorting, the whole vast scale of life that had never seemed so large or so fragile, the first time he had faced a naked blade.
In that moment, the Knight-Commander sprang—slower than in his youth, but with all the authority of a man experienced in battle. To his credit, Semmis did not retreat or falter; his parry was strong, his riposte quick. The Knight-Commander's parry moved it aside, and his own riposte caught Semmis on the forearm, just as he'd planned, on the outer side, away from the dangerous arteries. Still, the wound bled.
Parin cried "Hold!" a moment after he should have; Semmis, still moving, had made his riposte and caught the Knight-Commander above the elbow, near the shoulder, when his parry did not clear.
"Hold!" Parin cried again, louder, and this time Semmis dropped the tip of his blade.
"Wipe the blades first, Karden," the Knight-Commander said. "Then with a clean roll, bind Semmis's wound and mine."
The others, backed against the walls of the salle, stared, some of them muttering to one another. The Knight-Commander felt his blood making its warm tickly way through the hairs on his arm. He could smell it: iron and meat. Karden seemed unduly slow about bandaging Semmis's wound, and the Knight-Commander's second, Nellrin, grabbed a bandage roll from the sack at Karden's feet and brought it to him.
"Sir—should I wipe it off first?"
Nellrin had not been outstanding in the wound-tending class.
"Cut off four hand lengths with your dagger, make a pad large enough to cover the wound, put it on and then start wrapping it with the rest. Snugly. Once down, once up, then tie it off, cut the excess off and use that to wipe up."
"I'm sorry if it hurts you—"
The Knight-Commander shook his head, and watched the others. Flushed faces, paler faces, mouths a little open or firmly shut...which reacted which way? Soon enough his wound was bandaged, and he walked back into the marked area. Semmis stepped in almost at the same moment. The Knight-Commander looked at him. No confusion now, no sign of fear. The blue eyes blazed with eagerness, with the desire to attack. For himself, the Knight-Commander felt the beat of his own heart, the stiffness of his joints. This would be, he thought, the last time he dared give this particular demonstration. He knew himself to be slower, older, and in more danger. That did not matter. These boys—young men—could not learn this lesson any other way. Young men—and he remembered his youth very clearly—must see for themselves, feel for themselves.
"On guard!" Parin said, sounding a little hoarse with the effort of keeping his voice deeper.
Once more the Knight-Commander moved forward, this time a little slower. Semmis took that opportunity, attacking fast. A stop-thrust would have fended him off, but a stop-thrust with these weapons would likely kill; the Knight-Commander chose instead a flurry of unusual parries to counter the flurry of straight-forward thrusts, but very soon Semmis made another touch, another wound.
"Halt!" Parin said.
The Knight-Commander felt his heart pounding in his chest; his breath burned in his lungs. This time Karden came directly to the Knight-Commander, concern on his face. "Sir—"
"I am merely a little winded, Karden, take no notice. Too many breakfast pastries." He watched Semmis, marked only by the first wound; the young man was alert, eyes bright, swaying a little like a snake planning a strike. His one wound had stained the bandage but certainly was not bleeding fast. His own...he did not look to see, though he felt it was more serious.
Nellrin hovered near him. "Sir...as your second...will you not consider a yield?"
The Knight-Commander looked at the others. Had they seen enough? Not quite. To Nellrin he said, "Inquire of Semmis's second whether his principal is inclined to cease."
He watched Nellrin approach Galdin, and Galdin approach Semmis. Semmis listened, then shook his head, and grinned at the Knight-Commander, a grin full of confidence and eagerness to continue.
No. The lesson was not complete. And he must be very careful, for all his experience would not completely make up for his aging body. He owned himself tired now, and knew he had not much longer to fight. He must not let Semmis kill him.
He moved into the ground again, not trying to conceal his tiredness. Would Semmis notice? What would it mean to him if he did? Some became wilder with the scent of blood and some calmer. Semmis, somewhat to his surprise, looked wilder. So, then.
At the "On guard," t
hey both moved; the blades clashed. The Knight-Commander parried once, twice, managed a riposte that slid off Semmis's good parry, and barely escaped a wickedly fast reversed attack. His breath came short now, and he thought with regret of the extra honey-cake he'd eaten at breakfast. Too many breakfast pastries indeed.
Semmis bore in again, intent. From the spectators, a low murmur, a louder cry, almost a complaint; the Knight- Commander could not catch the words over the pounding of his heart, the breath that tore at him.
But Semmis stiffened, stood up, dropped the tip of his blade. His expression changed. "No."
The Knight-Commander straightened slowly as his back twinged, and struggled to steady his breathing and his voice. "No?"
"Sir, I am sorry," Semmis said. "But no. I will not fight you longer. I will not wound you again. It is not a good thing—a right thing—to do. I honor your courage and...and I think...I do understand the lesson."
The Knight-Commander smiled. "Then it is worth a little blood spilled," he said. He reached out and Nellrin took his blade. Another long breath. "Especially if it is mine." He turned to the others. "Let me see if the rest of you do...consider what you felt as you watched. Some of you—" he picked them out with his gaze—"were eager to see the fight; you had in mind whom you wanted to win, did you not?" Shamefaced looks: they knew who they were. "You are those most likely to participate in a duel or some other adventure because it is exciting. Know that about yourself."
He looked around again, once more picking out those who he meant with his gaze. "Some of you were shocked to have the Knight-Commander tell you to do something forbidden, something against the Code...but you obeyed. You can be swayed by one in authority, and possibly by a mob as well, to go against your training. And some of you, again, were worried the whole time, knowing it was dangerous, that Semmis or I might take harm...and toward the end, you saw that Semmis was excited, fully engaged, and I was tiring..."
He looked again at Semmis, now shivering a little as his sweat dried in the chill air. "What did they say, Semmis, did you hear?"
"Someone said 'murder' sir, but...but in truth I had already thought it and yet I was attacking...I never thought I would be willing to hurt someone I respected, just because I had a blade in hand." He handed his blade to his second, and knelt before the Knight-Commander. "Sir, truly I am not worthy to be a Knight of the Bells, and you should remove me from the list of candidates."
"On the contrary, Semmis, you are very worthy. You showed courage and self-command both. Get up, lad, let us shake hands, and get your shirt on. So will I."
The Knight-Commander needed assistance to regain his shirt, and it was over his head, obscuring his sight, when pounding came at the doors. He yanked at the neck opening with his heart hand and looked out to see—not the Marshal he expected—but the king himself in the doorway. No one moved for an instant. The king stood there, flanked by his personal guard, saying nothing.
The Knight-Commander, his injured arm at a painful angle with the sleeve only half-on and his second, the hapless Nellrin, frozen in alarm, hissed "Sleeve!" at Nellrin, who hastened to pull it into place, hiding the bandages. "Surcoat," he said then, and Nellrin reached for it, too late.
"Wait," the king said, and Nellrin froze again. Down the length of the Salle he looked at the Knight-Commander and the Knight-Commander looked back. "You," the king said. "Again? And how much damage this time? And which one?" Now the king's gaze swept the salle.
"They will not tell you," the Knight-Commander said, before anyone could. "Nor will I. Little enough damage from the blade. The years have wounded me far more." They both understood that; the king's gaze wavered for a moment.
"And is your lesson finished for today?" the king asked.
"Not quite," the Knight-Commander said. "Gentlemen, we will convene again after midday; make your bow to the king and dismiss yourselves to study and a meal."
When the young men had left the salle, the king came nearer, shaking his head. "Beclan, my dear cousin, you must not go on with this...one of them will kill you and then..."
"And then he must die. Yes. I know. This is the last time."
"You said that last year."
"Indeed. But I have trained harder this year and I thought I could...I had concerns about some of them." He sighed, wincing at the catch in his breath.
"You will see my physicians," the king said. "My quarters?"
"Here, if you please. My office has a fireplace, and it is warm and...I do not wish to climb stairs."
The king's expression changed; he sent a guard running to find the physician and he himself offered an arm to the Knight-Commander then helped him down the salle and a short passage to the inner office. A fire did burn there; the room was warm, and the Knight-Commander's yeoman-marshal stood ready.
Off came the shirt again, then his yeoman-marshal took a robe from the warming stand to cover him until the physicians arrived. At the king's command he sat in the chair nearest the fire, glad to do so. The faces of the knight-candidates passed by his inner eye, from the most junior, just in from squiring someone, to the seniors nearing their knighthood ceremony.
What should he do about the baron's son and the Marshal's son? For a Marshal's son not to be knighted with his class was...a scandal in the making. For a Marshal's son to make a bad knight, a knight who thought more of his own fame than Gird's law...was worse. Parin had made mistakes as director of the duel—not unusual, for he had no experience. But what kind of mistakes? What did they mean? As for the baron's son...he would need to explore the roots of the young man's distrust of magery. It must not be hatred.
"He should be lying flat!" That was the king's physician arriving in a pet, as he often was. "This is not the proper—well, then the desk. Move him!"
The Knight-commander opened his eyes and tried to stand, but his knees failed him. Many arms caught him, lifted him, and laid him on his great desk, the only thing he had taken with him from Verrakai's country house.
"Gird's guts, did none of you keep an eye on the wounds—these bandages are sodden!"
The Knight Commander closed his eyes against the lamplight. The surgeon would scold, and probe the wounds, and it would hurt—better not to watch. Better to ready himself for the pain. He didn't think it was that bad, really.
The surgeon's shears tugged at the bloody bandages; he held his jaw clenched. Somewhere in the next phase—the washing out, the packing with herbs, the sewing of the lesser wound—he drifted off, only to wake later with a throbbing head and too many lights in too large a room. His mouth felt furry and tasted foul.
"Lie still." Not the surgeon's voice, but another he knew, the Marshal-Judicar. In the old days, when he himself had been Duke Verrakai, Selis had been one of his squires and from there gone to Fin Panir. "By ill-luck, or a lesson from Gird about the non-wisdom of old men dueling youngsters—or dueling at all, for that matter—your opponent nicked a larger blood-vessel. Gird has granted a healing of your recent wounds, but...old friend...the surgeon says you have strained your heart beyond repair."
He did not feel like talking, but he had to make some answer. He opened his mouth; the Marshal-Judicar lifted him a little and offered a cup. He sipped cautiously. Water only.
"I am old," he said. "And perhaps foolish."
"Definitely old and very definitely foolish." The Marshal-Judicar shoved a pillow under his head, so he no longer lay flat and could see the room with less effort.
"Where is this?"
"The royal apartments. The prince—Camwyn's room."
Camwyn, the prince struck down by iynisin, whisked away by a dragon, who had never returned and would now—if he lived—be an old man himself, though not as old as the king or the Knight-Commander. Other memories returned. "My class...is it past midday?"
"Long past. The king himself took your class, and lessoned them well. They came out of it like whipped puppies, tails well between their legs."
"No!" He remembered now why that was wrong, a bad idea...he
could not find out what he must know before the final list went in, if all were too cowed by the king to reveal what he needed.
The Marshal-Judicar shrugged. "You know the king—"
He did. He knew the king and the king's justice very, very well. And he had not been there to protect them. He tried to sit up; his heart throbbed; his chest ached. The Marshal-Judicar leaned closer.
"No, you must not. Lie still. There is a potion you must take—"
"But the class—"
"Will fare as it fares. I am going there shortly, but first, I promised you would drink this."
Another cup, gold. The king's own, he recognized. He met the Marshal-Judicar's gaze, wondering if...
"It is not that," the Marshal-Judicar said. "Only it must be kept in gold, or it changes in the vessel."
There were other gold cups in this palace. Still, he had no choice. He sipped, finding the potion bitter under the sweet wine with which it was mixed. He drank it down, and let sleep take him again.
On his next waking, once more with furry, foul-tasting mouth, the king sat facing him, in a chair beside his bed. The king's physician lifted his shoulders, put another cup to his lips, and he drank a few swallows of water. His chest did not hurt; his heart beat quietly, as it should. Mikeli, the king, looked stern as usual, but his expression softened when the physician nodded to him.
"You will be with us awhile longer, Cousin, and for that I am truly grateful."
"I share that gratitude," the Knight-Commander said. "How may I serve you?"
"By staying alive," the king said, in a less tender tone. "By not being a fool and killing yourself to no purpose."
"I had a purpose," the Knight-Commander said.
"To teach them dueling was wrong—"
"No, sir king. To teach them to know their own weaknesses, especially the ones that seem strength." He took a long breath, luxuriating in the lack of pain as he drew it. "To be sure we knight none who will in time betray the Bells, or you."