The Heart Wants What it Wants
by Matthew Lee
Copyright 2016 Matthew Lee
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In an age long since forgotten, by a sapphire ocean that stretched unhindered to the far horizon, there was a sunlit country whose people lived for celebration. The kingdom of the Genevine was a land of gently rolling hills and dappled forest glades, of bright mornings full of promise and golden evening sunsets in which to look back on the day's adventures and laugh with joy.
The Genevine shared willingly of their bounty with any who asked, but knew full well that some saw such generosity as a sign of weakness. To discourage any wolves who lurked about their gates, they were at pains to impress upon on their neighbours that should they think this sunlit kingdom an easy mark, ripe for conquest, they would have nothing save a rude awakening in return.
To that end the Genevine cultivated a passion for all the myriad ways one man could best another in combat, along with music and painting and weaving and the gentler arts. Their love of celebration meant they favoured individual displays of skill over war-craft in general, for they believed even fighting was at heart a performance of a kind, save on a larger stage, and with a rowdier audience.
Thus was every Genevine child taught that displays of martial prowess were either a standard they should devote their every waking moment to achieving, or a triumph to be applauded. Thus did they learn that a sword was more than a tool for taking another man's life; that even the rudest example of the blacksmith's art could be a thing of beauty in the hands of a true blademaster.
In the greatest of the Genevine cities, by the shores of the sapphire ocean, there lived one of these children. She was named Luca Contarini, daughter of Fantin, who was one of the pre-eminent blacksmiths of his day. Luca loved her father, and knew from an early age she wanted nothing more than she desired her father's skill at the forge. There was no law that said she might not have it.
But the Genevine were only human, and prey to human frailties. Many among them believed women had no place learning war-craft, and ought to be content to support the men so inclined. When Luca first began to study at her father's side, this strange apprenticeship drew merely idle jests, but when word spread Fantin thought his daughter might make a true blademaster in time, these insults took a darker turn.
As Luca grew up this newer, more poisonous vitriol began to wound her deeply. True, she cared little for pretty baubles and bright colours and delicate things but to be told that as a flawed example of her sex she did not merit them, regardless of how she felt? This was a barb that tugged at her with particular cruelty, as if she had transgressed against some enigmatic feminine ideal no-one had ever thought to explain.
Now Fantin's wife had died when Luca was still a baby, so the master smith considered it his duty to provide his daughter with anything she might ordinarily have requested from her mother, and he was in a position to provide no small amount. Though Fantin was not and never would be nobility, the doge had personally praised his work, and warriors came from far and wide to request commissions of his smithy.
So it was that Giacomo Gatani, bursar of the city, made it known he wished to hold a splendid ball to mark the year his son Christofalo came of age. Fantin, who sensed a little of his daughter's anxieties, tentatively put the question to Luca of whether or not she wished to attend. Luca told her father that she did, for she greatly desired to see if the world families such as the Gatani inhabited was everything she imagined.
Come the night of the ball, Fantin wore cloth of green and gold, and for his daughter he commissioned a dress of much the same hue, but cut simply and more restrained than was the fashion among the nobility. Many of the guests wished to greet Fantin in person, and rather than bore his daughter the master smith permitted Luca to wander the grounds unattended, to go where she would and take in the house of the Gatani at her leisure.
In truth Luca thought the house was very beautiful, and all the bursar's antiquities very fine, yet for all that she found nothing there that spoke to her in the way she had hoped. Though she was curious how one came to appreciate the delicate, the brightly-coloured or the prettified, she had no friends among the assembly to explain how she might learn. So in time she sat by herself and prayed wearily that the festivities might be concluded.
Presently five girls passed by in a laughing chorus, but when they saw Luca they stared at her, and Luca's heart sank. She could not name any of the quintet, but felt she knew them, nonetheless. They were all plainly the sort of people who considered it their duty to attend celebrations such as these, to serve as decorations of a sort; ornaments that served little purpose but to compliment the men there present while they discussed manly pursuits.
And given she was no beauty, and with her father's renown Luca was also well aware these girls more than likely knew full well who she was, and she could see they did not love her for it.
“I thought the master smith had fathered a son?” one of the girls said.
“So did he!” another answered in a stage whisper. “And he's still not entirely sure. Why else would he pick a name for her that's neither one thing nor the other?”
“I'm right here,” Luca said wearily. “You see me, I know you do.”
“Hark at her begging for attention,” the second girl said. “Perhaps she's not the master smith's daughter after all; merely a street performer the guards let in by mistake.”
“I could hardly do worse than your half-hearted clowning,” Luca retorted.
“You dare?” the girl snapped. “Why are you even here? Shouldn't you be sweating over the forge, you ape?”
“More like a pig,” another of the girls said. “I saw her wander past the dining table, looking confused. Perhaps the cook might fill a trough instead?”
Two more of the girls made farmyard noises, and all their little company laughed.
“Pig, or ape, or any other beast besides,” Luca said angrily, “apparently I have better manners than you. I was invited, as were you. I have every reason to be here.”
“You have no reason to be here,” the first girl said. “We came hoping to catch the host's eye, or his son, but you? An ape like you turn Christofalo Gatani's head? As well expect a cat to marry the doge's heir. Begone, ape. Shamble back to your forge, and trouble your betters no more.”
And the five of them departed, clearly well pleased with themselves.
Luca did not speak to her father of what had transpired at the ball, and Fantin took his daughter's silence as evidence of quiet contemplation rather than some inner turmoil. Yet while Luca thought long and hard indeed, she was consumed with frustration over what the other girls had said. Had they all been men, it could legally have come to blows, but she knew that had she lashed out there would surely have been dire consequences.
Yet there had to be some way she might demand redress, some way to prove she was their equal. Not, perhaps, in that world of brilliant colours and stinging retorts, though Luca decided that if these girls could flourish in such a rarefied atmosphere, they were welcome to it. No, she would divine some other arena in which she could compete: one where, should she prove victorious, they would be unable to ignore it.
As it happened, Fantin also amassed antiquities, after a fashion. Not for the master smith a collection like that of the Gatani, but a handsome array of weaponry from countries spread across the known world, swords and spears and axes and other, more exotic blades they had no name for. Luca was fond of
playing with these mysterious relics, imagining the grisly uses to which they might be put.
This was not merely idle fancy. Fantin was not above letting a piece go, on occasion, perhaps to raise funds for the smithy in hard times, or to bank a favour from some noble who shared his interests. He would pore their libraries himself, consult with other smiths or blademasters, passing down or retaining knowledge as the opportunity presented itself. He even deferred to his daughter, if Luca's theories seemed as sound as any other.
What drew the greatest number of these distinguished customers was the winter carnival, where men-at-arms did battle for the entertainment of roaring crowds, all of it part of the ancient rites to ward off the spirit of the season and hasten the coming of spring. Few now gave much heed to the ritual aspect, but the festivities went on for days, and both huge sums of money and limitless prestige were frequently at stake.
A sword that set its wielder apart from the competition could not, of course, win the tournament by itself, but it could win over the hearts and minds of the crowd, make a name both for the bearer and the procurer. Fantin's renown meant