“But—”
“Just this once. There’s no one to see. Please?” Again that tip of the head, the pleading expression, then an impish grin. “I’ll bet you’ve always wanted to. Haven’t you?”
Miranda smiled. “As a matter of fact . . . I did sneak that one out once—” She nodded at the blade in his hand. “There’s something about it—knowing it’s old, knowing it was used by people long dead—”
“Yesss.” He drew out the syllable, nodding. “I thought so. Just as you enjoy old porcelain, or jewelry. Those who appreciate such things should not be forbidden the use of them. So you will humor me this once, Miranda?”
She glanced around, as if nervous of watchers. “I suppose—and after all, if we do break one, and Harlis finds out—as you said, he’s no fencer. He can hardly skewer me.”
“Well, my lady—choose your weapon.” Pedar set the blade he’d been holding back in the rack and waved her forward with an extravagant gesture.
Miranda reached, pulled back as if unsure, and finally took the blade he had just replaced, the longest of the foils, with a weighted hilt to balance it. He took its partner.
“Let’s complete the mischief,” Pedar said. “As I said, with such blades as these, our helms too should match. I’ve long fancied myself in one of these—had my armorer make a replica, but it’s not the same.” He tried on one, then another, until he found one that fit . . . the others had, as she knew well, inconvenient and uncomfortable lumps beneath the linings.
Miranda raised her brows at him. “It can’t be safe, Pedar—blades last, but old metal screening—”
“Pah! It will stand up to a blunted stroke, and if I cannot defend my face at least I’m not much of a fighter. Come, my dear . . . if you are nervous, you must wear your usual mask, but permit me my conceit. The only way you will strike my eye is with your beauty.”
It needed only that to erode the last grain of sympathy Miranda felt. She could have shot him where he stood, but she was not going to trial for the murder of a murderer.
Back in the salle, after they had clipped the buttons to the tips of the blades, Pedar moved out of the shadow to stand in one of the bars of sun, a glowing white figure with a shining golden-bronze head; the old helm gleamed in the light. She could not see his face through the pierced metal. From within her own mask, the world narrowed to the strip itself, and the opponent across from her. Could he see her face? She let herself smile now, with no guarding tension.
She brought her blade up in salute, as did he. Then he advanced.
They began with the formal introduction, the “Fingertips” as advocated by the fencing master Eduardo Callin, two centuries before. This allowed the fencer who wished a match to carry more meanings to suggest them by the quality of his touch, and this first contact, feeble to feeble, set up that possibility. Miranda’s blade tapped crisply, to signal no particular intent, but Pedar’s drew along hers, or tried to—the signal that for him, this match’s metaphor was Courtship.
Miranda could feel her lip curling, within her mask, and fought down the rush of anger. Here, at the ritualized beginning, she must maintain her ruse. At the fourth touch, her tip wavered a little—someone who had recognized his offering, and was not yet rejecting it. Thinking about it perhaps. His fifth touch, the last of the right-hand touches, attempted a spiral along her blade, which she did not allow, but did not bat away. That signified Shyness, not Rejection.
They switched hands for the next five Fingertips. His tip continued its swirl, a stronger plea of Courtship; Miranda allowed hers to droop, on the ninth and next to last. Uncertainty—the last thing she felt, but an emotion she hoped he would have for one last instant. Then the tenth—a clean tap by both to signal the end of that segment. She stepped back, as did he, and switched her blade to her right hand again. Another bow and salute, and they were into the next phase.
Miranda presented a quite ordinary opening in Fourth, and Pedar accepted. In a friendly bout such as this, there was no hurry, so they crossed blades in easy parry-riposte combinations for some fifteen exchanges.
“You’re so graceful,” Pedar said, his voice muffled slightly by the mask.
“You’re so quick,” Miranda said, out of her throat so that she would sound a little breathless.
“For you, I would gladly slow,” he said. His next stroke was slightly slower, and she met it just an instant late. If she could convince him to slow, if she could set a pace that lulled him into the wrong rhythm . . .
“I used to be faster,” she said. “I know I did—”
“It’s that blade, my dear. It’s heavy for you.”
“I need something—” She blocked his stroke, threw one intentionally slow which he blocked easily. “Against you, I need the extra length, and the stiffness—”
“Bah. I’m not going to press you harder than you can handle. You should know that, Miranda. When was I ever importunate?”
“You weren’t. It’s just—”
He stepped back and grounded his blade. “Come—let’s exchange blades. That was made for a man; you can tell by the weight of the hilt.”
“Besides, you want to try it,” she said, chuckling.
“True. Indulge me, my dear?”
“Very well. But I’m going to do more conditioning, I swear I am. I didn’t realize how out of shape I was. All those days of the funeral, and arrangements—”
“Of course.” He handed her the foil hiltfirst over his arm, with a bow. If only his courtesy meant something! She handed him her weapon with equal grace, and they exchanged places on the strip, as always after an exchange of weapons.
Miranda was sure she knew which of the old weapons had actually drawn blood. She knew nothing would show on analysis; she knew her belief was irrational and indefensible, but . . . the foil conveyed to her an eagerness for blood that matched her own. It had from the moment she first handled the old weapons.
They were just poised to begin again when her comunit chimed. “Milady—Lady Cecelia de Marktos called; she has docked and taken one of the personal shuttles.”
Cecelia coming? Bright anger washed over her. She had been so close; she might never have another chance. Why couldn’t Cecelia mind her own business? And where was she coming from? How many minutes did she have, now, to finish Pedar?
With an effort, she regained her concentration. She would figure out something . . . as long as it was over before Cecelia walked in . . .
She found it hard, at first, to conceal the speed the foil lent her. Beat, parry, parry, beat, beat. Her heart hammered, more excitement than effort; she dared not use her own pulse for a timer. She dared not wait too long, either.
She backed a pace, then another, then, with a quick disengage, lunged and made the touch. With contact, she twisted her wrist and pushed, taking Pedar’s tip on her left shoulder. Through her hand, she felt the faintest give to the tip.
“We’re both dead,” she said with a smile. The mask across from her gave no hint of Pedar’s expression; he stepped back as she did to salute and begin again.
Was the tip gone? The foil felt no different; she parried his next stroke, and his next, and then she heard it. The tip gave way, flipped by her blade’s elastic recoil into a parabolic arc; she had to drag her eyes away from it to check the break. Pedar froze an instant, then started to withdraw.
“I’m afraid a blade broke—” he said. She saw the tilt of his helm, as he looked to check his own, saw it move back.
She waited, until she knew he had time to see her blade, the sharp tip exposed by the spiral fracture.
“Miranda—?” For the first time, his voice was uncertain.
He was good; he almost parried the lightning thrust she sent at his mask—but he had dropped his arm, lost his rhythm, and responded that fractional second late. The tip of her blade—stiffer now and sharp—slammed into her target, a particular perforation in the metal of his mask. Around it, the weakened metal gave way, and she thrust on, the broken tip grating over the orbit’s rim into the eye she could not see, into the brain behind it, with a wrist motion that ensured more than a single damage track. Her blade snapped again, on the back of his skull, and quickly as she withdrew it, he was already falling.