“My lord,” said Leimanos. “Please… your leg might fail you..”
“Leimanos, I don’t correct you in matters that concern your own honor. Don’t correct me in matters that concern mine.”
They handed over a dagger reluctantly, and I walked back to Quintilius. He stared.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.
“You are unaccustomed to my sword,” I said, “and, if you will forgive my mention of it, you are somewhat older than I. Please allow me to even the balance.” I felt suddenly and overwhelmingly happy, light-headed with the old wild thrilclass="underline" my life in my hands, death before me, and glory either way. It was an intoxication I hadn’t expected to feel ever again.
Quintilius almost refused the advantage-but couldn’t bring himself to, and the fact that he couldn’t enraged him. He gave a sudden howl of fury and leapt forward, swinging the sword into the air.
I could have stabbed him as he jumped, but I didn’t want to kill him and I was wary of his unorthodox method of fighting. I leapt sideways-to my right, so as to land on my good leg-and stepped back quickly. The sword came down, then heaved up again, and he ran after me, waving it wildly above his head. I jumped to the right again, then, since he was almost on top of me, hurled myself forward. He spun about; again I might have slipped under the sword, which he was holding insanely high, but I didn’t want to strike to cause serious harm. I jumped right, nearly crashed into the house wall, and jumped forward and to the left. I had to land on my bad leg this time, and it gave for a moment; I pushed myself up desperately-and saw that Quintilius had brought my sword down on the ground where I’d been, and buried it edgewise in the earth. I was astonished, and somewhat concerned for the blade. He heaved it out, bellowed, and ran at me, swinging it sideways this time. I dropped flat on the ground, and it whistled over my head; Quintilius tripped over me and fell. I rolled and got to my knees; he managed to sit up and swung the sword back at me, one-handed now. I caught it on the dagger and pushed. The knife slid up the sword-blade, over the guard, and sliced the backs of his fingers. He yelled and dropped the sword, then, to my amazement, balled his bleeding hand into a fist and slammed it into my face.
The world went red and black for a moment, and I heard behind me the angry roar of my men. Disbelievingly, I put my hand to my nose. Quintilius staggered to his feet. I covered my head just in time to keep the next bare-fisted blow out of my eyes. My left arm went numb. I struck upward with the dagger, blindly, and at the same time shoved toward him. Both the dagger and my shoulder hit something. He grunted; I dropped my arm, saw that the dagger had only sliced his sleeve but that the shoulder had caught him in the stomach.
This was no sword-fight. I grabbed the arm nearest to me in a wrestling hold and rose, throwing him over and onto his back with a thud, then turned, dropped to my knees on his chest, and put the dagger against his throat.
For a moment I thought he was going to try to rise anyway, but he didn’t. He lay still, gasping, and looked at me without expression. I wiped my nose with the back of my numb hand, and saw that it was streaming with blood. “What sort of fighting was that?” I asked.
“Shut up and get it over with!” he returned.
I took the dagger away from his throat and got up. “You did not even know how to hold a sword!” I said, still hardly able to credit it. I looked around for my sword, limped over to it, and picked it up. It was covered with dirt.
Quintilius sat up slowly, clutching his stomach, still gasping for breath.
“Look what you have done to my sword!” I told him, wiping my nose again.
Longus started to laugh. I felt a fool.
“Don’t you laugh at me!” Quintilius shouted-and gasped again. “Damn you!” He rubbed his stomach.
Longus offered him a hand to help him up. “I wasn’t laughing at you. You’re a brave man indeed, to fight Ariantes when you don’t even know how to hold a sword. He’s killed more men than you’ve got teeth in your head-ask his followers about it sometime. I wouldn’t fight him, and I’m a decurion. But I hope now you’ll admit that the lady has the right to say who is and who isn’t allowed in her own house. If you make him fight you again, he’ll probably insist on doing it blindfolded.” He pulled Quintilius to his feet and looked around for something to bandage the cut hand with.
Leimanos came over and took the sword away from me. He rubbed some of the dirt off and began examining it carefully for chips in the blade. Another of the bodyguard collected a handful of wool to mop up the nose-bleed. Then Pervica came over with a woollen rag instead. “You had better come into the house,” she said quietly. “It’s too cold to stand about in your shirt, and you should lie down with your head back.” I nodded and, pressing the rag to my nose and feeling a complete idiot, went back into the house.
A few minutes later I was lying on the carpet I’d brought, with my head back, and Quintilius was recovering on the couch while the rest of them stood about the dining table. Leimanos had found another use for the handful of wool, and was cleaning my sword. “People who cannot hold a sword have no right to expect a scepter-holder to fight them,” he said. He did not direct his comment to Quintilius, but he was careful to speak in Latin. “Herdsmen who cannot fight should keep silent before noblemen.”
“He is not a herdsman,” I said, through the rag. “He is a farmer. He owns land. Probably he has herdsmen working for him.”
“He fights with his hands, like an animal. I do not believe he even owns a sword.”
I shrugged, as well as I could lying down. “He owns a house, and probably he spends any surplus on it, instead of on swords. He owns a farm, and he spends his time working on it, and has no time to learn war, and expects other people to do any fighting that is needed. He is a Roman, Leimanos.
“ ‘Beyond the stars will stretch his lands
Beyond the paths of the sun and years
Where heaven-bearing Atlas stands
Turning the earth between his hands
On its axis of stars that burn so clear.’
“Or so say the Romans.”
There was a moment of silence. “Where the hell did you learn to quote Vergil?” asked Longus.
I didn’t answer. I felt foolish and depressed. My grand heroic gesture had ended in a fistfight, and I was realizing yet again the terrible gulf between the world we had inhabited before and the world we lived in now.
Pervica came and knelt beside my head. “Thank you,” she said. “You could have killed Cinhil and you took terrible risks to make sure you wouldn’t.”
“I would have been very ashamed to have killed a man who cannot even hold a sword,” I replied.
Quintilius made an inarticulate noise of anger and resentment.
“I… I have something that we found on the riverbank, that we thought was probably yours,” Pervica said, after a moment. “I think the water’s spoiled it, but I was meaning to give it to you. I’ll go fetch it.”
She left, and Longus took her place. “Can I just make sure that the nose isn’t broken?” he asked.
I lifted the rag and he inspected it. “No lasting damage,” he announced cheerfully. “You ought to wash your face: your beard’s full of blood.”
The bleeding seemed to have stopped, so I sat up and looked for something to wash my face with. Leimanos brought the bowl of water he’d been using to wipe the mud off my sword.
Pervica came back into the room carrying my bow case. “Is it yours?” she asked, holding it out to me.
I took it; as my hands touched it, I remembered Aurelia Bodica saying, I’ve given you the bow because they’ll think you were hunting- and her giggle as she pushed me toward the water. I sat still, staring at the water-stained red leather.
“What’s the matter?” asked Pervica.
“I remember drowning now,” I answered. I unlatched the case, opened it, and took the bow out to examine it.