For some time Aliver managed to fend him off without taking a touch. He did so with motions slightly more frantic than he wished, quick jerks and clumsy shifts of his feet and exhaled breaths, convolutions of his torso that just barely kept him out of reach. The ash sword felt comfortable enough in his hands, but he realized that he rarely found a moment to drive an aggressive strike. He was all countermovements. What he wished to do was find a still moment to fall into a familiar sequence from his training. He fixated on the twelfth movement of the First Form, wherein he would slip away from a sweeping strike coming in from the left; step forward and block the inevitable return; push his opponent’s blade down and to the right, crossing beneath his knees; and then slice upward diagonally into the right side of his torso. With such a cut Edifus had managed to spill his opponent’s viscera in looping knots that caused the man to pause long enough to set his head in the perfect position to be lopped off a few seconds later, an unnecessary flourish, really, but one Aliver had often imagined.
Three times he began this sequence, but each time Hephron stepped out of it and changed his attack. On the last instance he did so with such speed that Aliver cringed beneath a round sweep that skimmed the crown of his head. Had he taken the force of this directly, he might well have been knocked unconscious. No instructor had ever swung at him like that. He heard one of the others say something, a jibe followed by a rustle of laughter. He realized just how silent they had been up until then, no sound in the room save for the swish and shift of their slippers across the tiles, the grunts of their efforts, and the dry cracks when the wooden blades met.
Aliver found himself backing, backing, barely able to slap away Hephron’s blows, needing space, and then space again. He expected to meet the wall of youths behind him, but they moved with him, the circle staying fixed around them. It even opened as the movement brought them to a pillar. He knocked the granite base of this with his foot. He half lowered his sword, for a moment thinking this was reason enough to pause. He glimpsed the possibility that they might halt this exercise, smile and joke about it, no damage done. But Hephron swung, his blade slicing below Aliver’s chin and striking the stone pillar.
The prince stumbled backward. He caught himself with his free hand and pivoted on it. Upright again, he remembered the anger that had started all of this. Hephron, the arrogant fool! It seemed absurd that he would strike at him that way, as if he wished to shatter his windpipe. He caught sight of Melio, who at that moment stood on the far side of the ring, his face ridged with concern. That annoyed him also. He wanted no sympathy. He raised his sword above his head and yanked it down, wishing to pound Hephron beneath it. Even if the hit was blocked, he meant to press such weight behind it as to batter him down with fury alone.
But Hephron seemed to know this was coming. He slid to the side of Aliver’s downstroke. He snapped his sword in a quick blow that bit the prince just at the edge of his shoulder, at the joint where the bones met. From this the boy twirled away, swung around in a complete circle, and caught Aliver-who had frozen in a twist of pain-at the midpoint of the other arm, with a force great enough that a real sword would have severed the arm cleanly. Aliver cried out, but Hephron was not done. He drew his sword back into his chest and lunged forward, pushing his weight before him and thrusting his arms so that the blunt wooden point of his sword hit Aliver’s chest at dead center. Already convulsed with two-armed pain, the force of this last strike rocked the prince back onto his heels and dropped him onto the mat.
Hephron’s smile lifted every component feature of his face into use. His eyes overflowed with such smugness that a single person could barely contain it. “You are armless, sir. Not to mention dead. What a strange outcome. Who would have guessed it?”
Moments later, Aliver surged out into air red faced and angry, more so at himself than at Hephron. How foolish of him! He had lowered himself by acknowledging Hephron’s taunts, in challenging him, by losing so completely and-almost worst of all-in showing all of them his frustration. Behind this he knew he had played a hand he had not needed to. All the mystery of his possible skill had vanished in a few strokes. He knew they were all surrounding Hephron even now, clapping him on the back, praising him, laughing at their dandy prince. How could he ever go back there again and dance through his choreographed motions while all the others watched him from the corners of their scornful eyes?
Melio caught up with him as he pounded up a long staircase. “Aliver!” he called. “Wait for me.” Twice he touched the prince’s elbow, only to have his hand ripped away. At the top of the stairs Melio jumped in front of him, threw his arms around him, and dragged him to a halt. “Come on. You care too much about this. Don’t do it. Hephron’s nothing.”
“He’s nothing?” Aliver asked. “Nothing? If he’s nothing, then what am I?”
“The king’s son. Aliver, don’t walk away. And don’t pity yourself. Do you think that little fight matters? I will tell you something.” Melio drew back a little, but pressed the palms of his hands on the other’s shoulders, as if indicating that he was letting go but not yet doing so. “Okay, so the truth is you are no match for Hephron. He is good. No, wait! But don’t let that bother you. Aliver, he envies you in everything. Don’t you know that? His swagger is a pretense. In truth he wishes he were you. He follows you with his eyes always. He listens to every word said by or about you. At lessons when he sits in the back of the class, he pins his eyes to the back of your head as if he wished to drill inside you.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that Hephron is a thin person. He knows this himself and he envies you. You are a prince and your family is wonderful. You have a beautiful sister… Okay, I am joking with you. It’s true, but I am joking. Hephron may grow into an enemy, or he may yet be a great friend. But for now, give him no feeling of triumph. Forget about that.” Melio motioned vaguely at something behind him. “Come back tomorrow as if nothing happened. Joke about it. Let him know that the small things he can do to you wash off like mud on your boots.”
The air had grown chillier with the approach of dusk and both young men felt it fill the silence. Melio withdrew his palms and rubbed his bare arms with them. Aliver looked away, his gaze settling on a square of fuchsia sky framed between the cold shadows of two buildings. The silhouettes of three birds flew through the space like darts in pursuit of one another.
Aliver heard himself say, “It just makes me look so stupid. I am mad that I let it happen. Made it…happen. You don’t know how it is for me.”
Melio did not disagree. A few moments passed in silence, and then the two of them, responding to the cold, mounted the next set of stairs and progressed slowly up. “Everyone loses a duel on occasion, and all of them back there know that. But how many of them could…” He searched for the words to say what he had to delicately. “Well, how many of them could embarrass themselves like you just did and find the courage to shrug it off? That’s another way to show strength, whether they ever admit to noticing it or not. And do not pout. The expression does not suit you. Aliver, you are skilled with a sword. And your traditional Forms are better than anyone’s. It’s just that you know only the Forms. Actual fencing is about making us adapt them, about splicing them together, forcing us to make up unthought-of combinations in an instant. You must let them flow together so quickly that it happens in a different place than conscious thought. Like when you knock a knife off a tabletop and manage to snatch it before it hits the ground. You cannot think about doing that; it just happens. That is what you must do when fighting. And then your mind is free to deal with other things-like just how you are going to place an upstroke in that bastard’s nut sacks.”