Matt Tinwright would see that face again and again in nightmares.
Briony wriggled, trying to ease herself. The scarf she had borrowed from one of Idite’s daughters bound her breasts securely, but left an uncomfortable knot in the center of her back.
“Do the clothes fit?” Shaso had put on something similar to the loose homespun garments that one of the servants had brought to Briony. The pants were long; she had rolled them so they would not drag on the floor and trip her, but she was pleased to find that the rough shirt, though large, was not so big as to hinder her movements.
“Well enough, I suppose,” she said. “Why am I wearing them?”
“Because you are going to learn something new.” He was holding a bundle wrapped in oiled cloth, which he tucked under his arm, then led her down the hall and out to the courtyard. The rain had stopped but the sky was still heavy with dark clouds and the stones of the courtyard were wet. He gestured for her to sit down on the edge of the stone planter that housed the courtyard’s lone quince tree, bare now except for the last few shriveled fruits the birds had not taken. “That should be dry.”
“What am I going to learn?”
He scowled. “The first thing you must learn, like all Eddons, is to be patient. You are better at it than your brother—but not much.” He raised his hand. “No, do not think of him. I shouldn’t have spoken of him. We must pray that he is safe.”
She nodded, willing her eyes to stay dry. Poor Barrick! Zoria, watch over his every moment. Put your shield above him, wherever he is.
“I would not have chosen to teach you swordplay, had you not wished it and your father not have given in to your whim.” Shaso held up his hand again. “Remember— patience! But I have, and you have learned to fight well, for a woman. It is not the nature of women to fight, after all.”
Again she started to speak, but she knew the look in the old man’s eyes and did not have the strength for another argument. She closed her mouth.
“But whatever happens in the days to come, I think you will not be carrying a sword. You will not need one here, and if we leave this place we will go in secret.” He placed his bundle down on the ground beside him, put his hand in and pulled out a wooden dowel that was only a little shorter than Briony’s forearm. “I have taught you something of how to use a poniard, but primarily how to use it in combination with a sword. So now I am going to teach you how a Tuani fights without a sword. Stand up.” He took the dowel in his fist. “Pretend this is a knife. Protect yourself.”
He took a step toward her, swept the dowel down. She threw her hands up and shuffled backward.
“Wrong, child.” He handed the bar of wood to her. “Do the same to me.”
She looked at him, uncertain, then took a step forward, stabbing toward his chest, but unable to keep herself from holding back a little. Shaso put up a hand.
“No. Strike hard. I promise you will not hurt me.” She took a breath and then lunged. His hand flew out so quickly she almost could not see it move, knocking her hand aside even as Shaso himself stepped toward her, then put his leg behind her and pushed with his other hand against her neck. Just before she fell backward over his leg he caught at the sleeve of her shirt and kept her upright. He gently took the wooden rod out of her hand.
“Now you try what I have done.”
It took her a dozen tries before she could get the trick of moving forward at the same time as she deflected his attack—it was different than swordfighting, far more intimate, the angles and speed affected by the small size of the weapon and the fact that she had no weapon of her own. When the old man was satisfied, he showed her several other blocks and leg-locks, and a few twisting moves meant not simply to deflect or stop an opponent’s thrust but to loose the weapon from his hand.
The sun, climbing toward noon, finally made an appearance through the clouds. Briony was sweating now, and she had fallen down three or four times on the hard stones of the courtyard, bruising her knee and hip. By contrast, Shaso looked as calm and unruffled as when the lesson had first started.
“Take some moments to catch your breath,” he said. “You are doing well.”
“Why are you teaching me this?” she said. “Why now?”
“Because you are not royalty any longer,” he said. “At least, you will have none of royalty’s privileges. No men to guard you, no castle walls to keep your enemies away. Are you ready to begin again?”
She rubbed her aching hip, wondered if it was wrong to ask Zoria to grant Shaso a painful cramp—wondered if Zoria could even hear her, in this house of Tuan’s Great Mother. “I’m ready,” was all she said.
They stopped once for water and so that Briony could eat some dried fruit and bread that a wide-eyed servant brought out into the courtyard. Later, several of the house’s women gathered under the covered walkway to watch, giggling inside their hooded robes, fascinated by the spectacle. Shaso showed her more unarmed blocks, grapple holds, kicks, and other methods of defending herself or even disarming an attacker, ways to break the arm of a man half again her size, or kick him in such a way that he would fight no more that day. When the old man was satisfied with her progress he brought out a second wooden dowel and gave it to her, then began to work with her on the skills of knife against knife.
“Do not let your enemy get his blade between you and him once you have closed,” Shaso said. “Then even a backhand thrust can be fatal. Always turn it away, force the knife-hand out. There—see! If your enemy brings it too close, you can slash the tendons on the back of his hand or his wrist. But do not let him take your blade with his other hand.”
By the time the sun had begun to slide behind the courtyard roof, and the women of the hadar had found even their deep curiosity satisfied and had gone back inside, Shaso let her stop and rest again. Her legs and arms were quivering with weariness and would not stop.
“We are finished for today,” he said, wiping sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. “But we will do this again tomorrow and the days after, until I can sleep at night.” He put the dowels back in the oilskin bundle. Something else inside it clinked, but he closed the wrapping and she did not see what it was. “This is not the world you knew, Briony Eddon. This is not a world that anyone knows, and what it will become is yet to be seen. Your part may be great or small, but I am sworn to your family and I want you alive to play that part.”
She wasn’t sure what he meant, but as she looked at the old man and saw that for all his seeming invincibility his hands were trembling as much as hers and his breathing was short and rapid, she was filled with misery and a kind of love. “I am sorry we had you imprisoned, Shaso. I am ashamed.”
He gave her a strange look, not angry, but distant. “You did what you had to. As do we all, from the greatest to the smallest. Even the autarch in his palace is only a clay doll in the hands of the Great Mother.” He tucked his bundle under his arm. “Go now. You did well—for a woman, very well.”
The moment of affection disappeared in a burst of irritation. “You keep saying that. Why shouldn’t a woman fight as well as a man?”
“Some women can fight as well as some men, child,” he said with a sour smile. “But men are bigger, Briony, and stronger. Do you know what a lion is? It is a great cat that lives in the deserts near my country.”
“I’ve seen one.”
“Then you know its size and strength. The female lion is a great hunter, fierce and dangerous, a mighty killer. She brings down the gazelle and she slaughters the barking jackals that try to feed on her kill. But she gives way always before the male.”