Rigidity means a dead hand, flexibility means a living hand. One must understand this fully.
That was from the book that Marian liked so well. Very true, like most of it… although there was something repellent about that Miyamoto Musashi, an unhumanness. She could not imagine him dandling a baby, or carving a cradle on a winter's evening, or sitting beneath a tree after the harvest drinking beer and singing with his friends. His words felt like a man with a single huge eye who did nothing but see just one thing.
But he saw that one thing very clearly…
Marian's bokken came up to jodan no kame, over the head with hilt forward. Her hands stood wide-spaced on the long hilt, gripping lightly with thumb and forefinger, more firmly with ring and little fingers, delicate as a surgeon's hold on a scalpel. Swindapa moved forward from bent knees, both feet pushing at once as the sword came up, twisting her wrists as she thrust for the face. That put the cutting edge uppermost, a strike at the vulnerable tendons of the inner wrist at the same time as the point menaced the eyes, motion smooth and fast with a hunza of exhaled breath.
The other's head turned, just enough to let the point of the bokken slide over the enameled metal of the flared helmet. The sword came down one-handed, the fisted right hand snapping aside to put it out of danger for an instant. Then both slapped onto the hilt and she cut from the side, looping up to slice at the younger woman's armpit. Swindapa bounced backward, in again; Marian was using minimal movements and counterattack against her partner's youthful speed and endurance. The Fiernan felt herself grinning as she fought despite the savage concentration of effort and will; this was as beautiful as a Star-Moon dance, in its way. That was how she'd seen it that first time, watching secretly at night as Marian performed kata with the sword on the deck of the Eagle. Dancing with the silver steel beneath the Moon…
There was a final clatter and crash of wood on wood, on steel armor, oak blurring in fast hard whipping arcs. Marian relaxed one leg, pivoted as she fell-stepped aside and snap-kicked the other on the back of a knee. That was hard to counter, wearing the weight of the armor; Swindapa went crashing on her back. Winded, she brought the sword up just a fractional second too late. Marian's came down in a flashing overarm stroke, left hand sliding down the back of the blade for an instant to add force, then clamping on to the hilt as the bokken came to rest across Swindapa's throat, motionless. Swindapa rolled her eyes to the side and met her partner's, grave and dark as she kept the crouched bent-legged posture for a further instant.
"I think that's pretty unambiguous," the Fiernan said.
"Sometimes I think you let me win, these days," Marian grumbled.
"Oh, I would, except that you might get hurt in a real fight if I did that," Swindapa said, grinning.
They knelt facing each other, laid down the blades and bent their foreheads to the ground between their hands, then sat back on their heels and emptied their minds, letting their breath go slow and deep. Marian said she used the image of a still pond to quiet her inwardness. That was hard for the Eagle People; they were always… busy… inside.
Swindapa listened to the Silent Song, the song that the stars danced to with their mother the Moon. Sometimes it was hard to hear it, but then you must try less, not more, and it came.
Voices murmured outside the canvas cubicle; Raupasha recognized King Kashtiliash's. Her hearing was still very sharp.
"You did not know, my brother?" he said in that bull rumble. Then Kenneth Hollard's voice, a murmur she couldn't make out.
"Among the Mitanni, a ruler must be perfect in body-at least, must have the use of all their limbs and senses. I grieve, too. She has served my House well, and she was brave and very fair-such another she-hawk as my Kat'ryn, with an honor I once did not believe a woman could hold."
Words I would much have given much to hear, Raupasha thought. I have given much for them. I have given all I have, save my life-and that would be a little thing beside the cost. Then: No. I did what honor required. I must not count the cost. Ah, but that is hard!
Hands touched her face, and she flinched an instant before steeling herself.
"The burn will heal faster with a light gauze covering," Justin Clemens said gently, putting down the mirror he had been holding for his patient.
Raupasha daughter of Shuttarna let her head fall back on the pillow; it still felt odd, shorn. So is the fleece of all my hopes shorn and lost, she thought. The words did not hurt much, no more than the dull background ache of her face and hand and side.
Clemens's hands were as gentle as his voice as he administered the ointment and laid the light covering on the left side of her face. The message of the mirror was burned into her, the thickened red scar tissue, the empty, sightless white eye.
"Will the healing… make the skin better?"
"Somewhat," Clemens said.
She turned her head-knowing she would have to learn to do that to see, with only her right eye-and watched his face. It held a compassion that hurt like fire, but also honesty.
"The scars will become less red, but the tissue will remain thick and rigid over about a third of your face."
Feather-light, his finger traced a line from one cheekbone across her eye to the forehead.
"Nor will the hair grow back here. I am very sorry, Princess, but all I can do is give you an ointment that will keep the damaged skin supple."
"Thank you," she said; he touched her shoulder once as he gathered his instruments.
"This will help you sleep," he said, and she felt the sting of an injection in her arm. A curtain seemed to fall between her and the pain, as if it was still happening but to someone else.
"My thanks again," she murmured, as he led on his rounds.
There are others who need his care more than I. Those with no eyes at all, or faces; those lacking limbs; those with worse woundings who yet could not die-it was not altogether a blessing, the healing art of the Island folk. It could save you for a life that was worse than death.
But at least I may weep alone. There was another murmur of voices outside, and Clemens saying something in a grudging tone.
Then the canvas door was pushed aside again, and she must be brave again. Then she saw who it was, and her hand made a fending gesture.
"No-" she said.
Kenneth Hollard came in and sat on the stool by her cot, catching the hand between hers. "Hello, Princess," he said calmly. His eyes did not waver…
Well, he is a warrior. He has seen worse. But not on the face of a woman who-I hoped-he looked upon with the gaze of desire.
"Hello, Lord Kenn'et," she said listlessly.
"Is the pain very bad?" he said, a trace of awkwardness in his voice. This too must be endured…
"No," she said.
"You-" he cleared his throat. "You did very well. You may have saved us all."
And I won his gratitude, when it is useless, she thought. Then, thrusting the bitterness away: I would have given my life for his, she thought. What I had to give, I gave. Let it be enough. Let him remember me… perhaps name a daughter for me. It is enough.
"Thank you," she said. "My father-and my foster father-would not be ashamed of me, I hope."