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assassins out to kill the Promised Warrior, and the argenten had assured him
that he was safe here in the Seat.
Yeah, sure.
Well, it was just as well Ian wasn't this Promised Warrior person, and the
sooner he could meet with this Table and tell them that, the sooner this was
done.
Still, the surroundings were pleasant, even if you didn't include Marta.
The Vandestish went in for simple names here, which Ian found pleasant, if
sometimes confusing. The city itself was the Seat; the triangular section of
the city that sat between the two rivers was the Seat; the keep itself was the
Seat; and the large residence that sat high on the northeastern corner of the
inner ward was also the Seat when somebody talked about the Seat, you had to
infer from the context which one was meant.
Even with the Seat within the Seat within the Seat the Keep the names were
simple. There was the Seat, of course, and the Hall, where the Table met. Or
was. Or met and was. The Hall, diagonally across the lawn, was a long, square
building whose only walls appeared to be the close-packed columns that would
have reminded him more of pictures of the Parthenon if these columns had been
less slender and hadn't been covered with an interlace of stone vines and lush
greenery.
The Residency was the other big building in the Keep; it was where Ian and
company had been put up, along with some other visiting nobles who didn't have
the rank to claim a seat at the Table.
Unsurprisingly, the rulers of Vandescard did well by themselves.
The inner ward of the Seat had been landscaped and planted over the years,
until it was more sculpted garden than lawn. Ancient hedges, dense clumps of
green, had been carved to allow flowers to grow in their centers, as though
the hedges themselves were huge vases. A single stream from one fountain arced
high into the air, constantly splashing into another fountain, while the spray
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kept the leaves beneath glistening and sparkling in the golden late afternoon
sunlight.
All in all, the long veranda that ran across the width of the Residency
wasn't a bad place to spend a sunny afternoon, in the shade of the veranda's
roof, a nice breeze cooling him, doing something Ian was starting to enjoy
again: fencing.
There were times when this sparring was just too easy.
It was the converse of one of the basics of sword-fighting that Ivar del
Hival and Thorian Thorsen had taught Ian, a variation on an old truism épée,
that the wrist of the sword arm was the fulcrum around which a duel could
easily spin.
Years of perfectly good training for dueling and war had also taught Burs
Erikson that the key was the wrist of the sword hand. With real weapons, a
touch to the hip or thigh or to the shoulder of the free hand would slow you
down, but it would take deep penetration to even threaten to end things right
away. A wound to either leg particularly the kneecap, but anywhere from toe to
thigh could do very nicely would slow you down.
But any injury to the wrist would end things right away, and an injury to
anywhere else on the sword arm would leave the wrist vulnerable.
The wrist wasn't just the most important target, it was the most exposed. Any
lunge, any thrust, by its very nature, brought your wrist forward, making it
the closest possible target to your opponent's blade.
That made space important. Control the distance between you and your
opponent, and any time that you could get him to extend himself, that exposed
his sword arm, at least to some extent.
So, Burs Erikson, like most duelists most of the time, set most of his
strategy around the wrist, both his and Ian's. His favorite deception was to
bring his blade just a trifle out of line, thereby almost offering his wrist,
trying to draw an expected attack for his riposte. Once he had committed to
that, there were any of a number of ways for Ian to score his touch, the
simplest of which was simply to counter-riposte.
But if Burs Erikson was ready for that... well, that would give Ian a chance
to use some of the options he was considering.
So Ian varied his game, first with a carefully timed stop-thrust that caught
Burs Erikson on the attack, moving to an engagement and cut-over, and
finishing with an ugly-looking boar's-head squat-and-lunge that would
certainly have got him kicked in the face and then skewered like a marshmallow
in a real fight, but this time allowed him to get the touch on Burs Erikson.
Burs Erikson was ready for another point and the smile on his face said that
he was at least learning to take defeat with good grace but Ian held up a
hand.
"Enough, please," he said. "Be so good as to have some pity on an older man."
He flopped down on the stone bench next to the railing, and gratefully
accepted the tall mug of cold water that Marta handed him without being asked.
It was amazing how quickly fencing could leave you winded. It wasn't just the
physical although the bouncing back and forth got tiring, very quickly it was
the need to be focused, concentrating at every moment. One break in
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concentration, one instant of wandering attention, and it was all over.
Accompanied by two guards, Arnie Selmo walked out of the Hall, through the
darkened archway, blinking in the sun. The two guards dropped out of step and
took up positions on either side of the arch.
"Just spent a couple of your silver marks," he said, his voice low.
"Buy anything interesting?"
Arnie nodded, as he dipped two fingers into his shirt pocket and brought out
a folded square of paper. "I think so," he said.
Ian's hand shook as he accepted it. This wasn't local paper. Paper hereabouts
didn't have that distinctive ripped-loop edge that you got only by tearing it
out of a spiral-bound notebook.
Printed in bold letters, the outside read:
For Ian Silverstein, omfray ishay oomieray
Ishay? Pig Latin. Ian grinned. Looked like Torrie had come after him, after
all.
Eetmay atway ethay ornercay ungday and oncoursecay undownsay,it said.
Ivar del Hival was at his elbow, trying to see what he had.
He passed it over to him, and watched the big man's forehead wrinkle.
Well, for once he didn't know everything.
"You think there's any chance I can get out into the city?"
Ivar del Hival pursed his lips. "I don't know for sure what orders the guards
at the front gate have about letting you out of the keep, but..." He shook his
head. "You probably ought to check with the argenten "
"Or I can assume that it's easier to get forgiven than to get permission."
Ian stripped off the sweat-stained shirt and mopped at his chest and
underarms. A fresh white runic lay folded on the chair next to Giantkiller in
its scabbard. He slipped it over his head, shrugged into it, and belted
Giantkiller around his waist. "Let's see."
He beckoned to Marta, who rose and walked to him.
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