Tamas put his pistol in his belt. “I suppose I should ask why you followed me out here?”
“I want you to train me.”
“I told you no.”
“And I think you should reconsider.”
“Why? Because you followed me into the middle of nowhere? That seems awfully foolish for any woman, let alone one of your station.”
“I left my guards halfway between here and the cottage.”
Tamas frowned at her. “Guards, or chaperones?”
“I’m not that young,” Erika protested. “If they were chaperones, they wouldn’t have stayed where I told them when I went into the woods to speak with a dangerous man.” The corner of her mouth went up, and Tamas could have sworn she was flirting with him.
“Why are you so eager to learn?” Tamas asked, getting control of himself. He could not let his guard down. Especially not with the young, attractive heir to a duchy.
“So that I can be stronger. Faster. Better than everyone else.”
Reasons similar to why Tamas had taught himself to use his powers. But he had done so by necessity. She didn’t need that. Was this some passing fancy to a noble’s daughter? “Is that all?” Tamas asked.
“All that you need to know.”
“I won’t train you,” he said. She was holding something back, but that wasn’t his concern. For the safety of them both, he could not become involved with her.
She seemed to ignore his statement. “What happened to ‘my lady?’”
“I won’t train you, my lady.”
“No, no. Don’t correct yourself. I’m curious, do you drop these pretenses when you go off alone?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.” Tamas steeled himself, unsure as to whether he should be offended.
“I think you do. I’ve heard cousins speak as if commoners are another race entirely. As if their subservience is part of the natural order. But you, out here, seem to defy that.”
“Nature has nothing to do with it,” Tamas blurted before he could stop himself.
“Go on.”
“I shouldn’t.”
“Go on, please.”
Tamas knew he was treading dangerous waters. No matter how forward thinking this young woman might be, she was still a noble. “Nature,” he said, “would not see one man or woman above another by right of birth. That is earned. And the duty of those who earn such a right is to protect those that cannot protect themselves.”
Erika paced the edge of the glade, watching Tamas through half-closed eyes. It reminded him of a big cat he’d seen once in a Gurlish shah’s private zoo. He wondered if he was the meat.
“You say these things as if you mean to do something about it,” Erika said.
“Change can only be affected from the top.”
“And?”
“And I intend to be field marshal someday.” Tamas could hardly believe that he’d said those words. Not here, not to her. He’d never spoken them aloud before to anyone he thought would matter.
Erika stopped pacing, a smile half-formed on her lips. “I’ll fight you for it.”
“Excuse me?”
“Fight me. A duel.” She removed a pair of wooden balls from her pocket. “I have two blossoms here. We’ll fight to the first touch. If I win, you’ll agree to train me when it’s convenient for us both. I won’t interfere with your campaigns or the rest of your life. If you win, I’ll leave you alone. You’ll never have to see me again.”
“I’ve seen you fight,” Tamas said. “I know you’re better than me.”
“But you’re faster. Your powder trance and the fact you know how to use it gives you a clear advantage.”
Tamas conceded the point. “Even if I thought I’d win, why would I agree when I’ve already refused to teach you?”
“I give you my word that you’ll be free of me if you win. And because you’ve been looking at my chest and ass every time you think you can get away with it.”
Tamas blanched. “You …” he snatched the wooden blossom from her fingers and fixed it to the tip of his small sword, his cheeks warm. He discarded his pistol and took up a position with his off-hand balanced to one side. “If that’s the case,” he said when he’d found his tongue, “Then why would I want to lose?”
Erika smiled and crossed to Tamas. He felt his cheeks warm further as he felt a tug on his belt, and he dare not look down. A moment later she stepped away holding one of his powder charges. She split the end with her fingers and licked the granules off her thumb. Not nearly as much as he’d imbibed, but it was enough for any powder mage to get a buzz. “Shall we begin?”
“Whenever you’re ready.”
Tamas knew he was fast. He had fought hundreds of men, both in duels and on the battlefield. In a full powder trance he could carve through half a dozen men in the blink of an eye and carry on with a charge, gore dripping from his blade. He’d always lacked finesse, but what he lacked he made up for in speed and strength.
It was different fighting a duel. He knew this. He had lost a few of those duels because of his own overconfidence. But he didn’t think that would be a problem now.
He leapt forward, determined to end this quickly. His sword was a blur, flashing in a shaft of sunlight.
He barely felt the gentle tap of his blade being parried to one side before the wooden blossom on Erika’s sword smacked him in the throat hard enough to leave him choking. He stumbled back, clutching at his throat, bewildered.
“Predictable and sloppy,” Erika said clinically. “You can be as fast as lightning and a good duelist will still beat you. How about this; you teach me to shoot and to use my powers, and I’ll teach you how to fence. Deal?”
Tamas had never been so easily beaten in his life. He tried to cough out a reply.
“Excellent,” she said. “I have time this afternoon. Let us begin.”
Three weeks after his first visit to the Iron King, Tamas was summoned once more to Skyline Palace.
The summons was more immediate-that very evening-and Tamas wondered how the king’s people knew he was in the city, or that he had been in Budwiel last time. Snow had fallen on the city but the palace and its gardens seemed to have been missed by the storm. The bushes were wrapped for the winter and the smaller fountains drained, the gardens much quieter than his last visit.
Inside the palace he was led past the royal chambers and into the king’s billiards room. Like all the rooms in the palace it had vaulted ceilings. The walls were red, the floors black marble, and the light provided by gas lanterns at regular intervals.
Manhouch studied the single billiards table in the middle of the room. He stood on the opposite side from Tamas, a cue held lightly in both hands. He did not look up when Tamas was quietly introduced by one of the royal concubines.
Tamas dropped to one knee ten feet from the table. “My lord summoned me?”
“Yes, he did,” the Iron King said distantly. “You may stand.”
Tamas adopted an attentive stance and wondered whether this would be a repeat of the last time. Was this another visit to annoy the royal cabal? Or was this finally something else?
Perhaps he’d changed his mind about helping Tamas with his hearing?
Manhouch slowly paced around the table, squinting at the one red and two white ivory balls. He tapped the end of the cue gently in one hand before he stopped and lined up a shot. The cue ball ricocheted along the flat walls of the table a dozen times, brushing the other two with each carom, barely moving them.
It was the type of shot that would have won him the night at any officer’s club.
Last visit Tamas had come away thinking that, despite the cabal sorceries that kept him young, the king seemed his advanced age. Slow, impatient, perhaps weakened by age. But now, watching him prowl around the table, his eyes focused, step light, Tamas reconsidered that opinion.