The problem with that was that the jump threw him away from the wall. Not much, but enough that he wouldn’t be able to reach it again. He felt the cobbles of Gobelin Court below him, eager to smash his spine, as he stretched his arms nearly out of their sockets.
As he had prayed, the spearman was taken aback, seeing a crazy man leaping toward him. If logical thought was his guide, he would step away, watch Cazio grasp at empty air, and laugh as he fell.
Instead, the man reacted instinctively and thrust the spear at his attacker.
Cazio caught the thick shaft just above the wickedly pointed steel, and to his delight, the guard’s second reaction was to yank back. That pulled Cazio toward the wall, and he let go so he could catch the top of the edifice with his arms and upper chest.
The spearman, overcompensating, tumbled backward. The wall was sufficiently wide that he didn’t fall off, but with him down and his companion still a few strides away, Cazio had the time to jerk himself to his feet and draw Acredo.
Heedless, the second fellow lowered the sharp of his weapon and prepared for the attack. Cazio was pleased to see that he was wearing only chain, a breastplate, and a helm rather than a knight’s plate.
As the thrust came, he parried prismo and stepped quickly toward his opponent, lifting his left hand to seize the shaft and then flipping the tip of his blade up for a long lunge that ended in the man’s throat. If it hadn’t been for the armor, he might have tried for a less lethal spot, but the only other exposed place was the thigh, where his sword point might become lodged in bone.
As the man dropped his spear and whistled in despair through novel lips, Cazio turned to the first fellow, who was regaining his feet.
“Contro z’osta,” Cazio said, “Zo dessrator comatia anter c’acra.”
“What are you babbling about?” the man screamed, clearly distressed. “What are you saying?”
“My apologies,” Cazio said. “When I speak of love, wine, or sword-play, I find it easier to use my native tongue. I quote the famous treatise of Mestro Papa Avradio Vallaimo, who states—”
He was rudely interrupted as the man screamed and lunged forward, leaving Cazio wondering exactly how much training these men had been given.
He threw his rear leg back and dropped his body and head below the line of the attack while extending his arm. Carried by momentum, the attacker more or less threw himself onto the tip of Cazio’s blade.
“ ‘Against the spear, the swordsman shall move inside the point,’” Cazio continued as the man folded over on his side.
Here came another one out of the tower to his left. He set his stance and waited, wondering how many of them he would have to fight before the Craftsmen joined him.
This one proved more interesting, because he understood that Cazio had to come within reach. So he used his feet like a dessrator, allowing Cazio what looked like a good chance to close the distance, when in fact it was a ruse designed to make him commit to his own foolish charge.
Even more interesting were the shouts he heard coming from behind him and the next man running along the wall in the direction he was facing.
With a grim smile, he began teaching the rest of Mestro Papa’s chapter “Contro z’osta.”
Anne watched breathlessly as Cazio, in typical form, did the craziest thing imaginable and somehow survived.
Austra stood there, fists at her sides, growing whiter and whiter as the battle went on, until at last the Craftsmen appeared, swarming up the wall and joining the Vitellian. Then they split up and ran toward the towers. They appeared there a short time later, waving pennants.
Cazio had his broad-brimmed hat clutched in one hand.
“Saints,” Austra breathed. “Why must he always—” She didn’t finish but sighed instead. “He loves fighting more than he loves me.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” Anne replied, trying to sound convincing. “Anyway, at least it’s not another woman.”
“I’d almost rather that,” Austra replied.
“When it happens,” Anne said, “I’ll take your bearings again.”
“You mean if it happens,” Austra said, sounding a bit defensive.
“Yes, that’s what I meant,” Anne said. But she knew better. Men took mistresses, didn’t they? Her father had had many. The ladies of the court had always agreed that it was the nature of the beast.
She glanced back at the Sefry house. She and Austra had backed up to witness the action on the wall, but Mother Uun was still waiting in the shadow of her doorway.
“I apologize for the distraction, Mother Uun,” she said, “but I would be pleased to discuss the Crepling passage now.”
“Of course,” the old woman replied. “Please come in.”
The room where the Sefry took them was disappointingly ordinary. It had touches of the exotic, to be sure: a colorful rug, an oil lamp made of some sort of bone carved into the form of a swan, panes of dark blue glass that gave the room a pleasant, murky underwater feel. Except for that last feature, however, the room could have belonged to any merchant who traded in goods from far away.
Mother Uun indicated several armchairs arranged in a circle and waited until they were settled before she herself took a seat. Almost the instant she did so, another Sefry—a man—entered the room with a tray. He bowed without upsetting the teapot and cups he was carrying, then placed it all onto a small table.
“Will you have some tea?” Mother Uun asked pleasantly.
“That would be nice,” Anne replied.
The Sefry man seemed young, no older than Anne’s seventeen winters. He was handsome in a thin, alien way, and his eyes were a striking cobalt blue.
He then departed, only to return moments later with walnut bread and marmalade.
Anne sipped the tea and found it tasted of lemons, oranges, and some spice she wasn’t familiar with. It occurred to her that it might be poison. Mother Uun was drinking from the same pot, but since she’d touched the Sefry assassin and found him so wrong inside, she thought it possible that what was poison to a human might be pleasing to a Sefry.
Her next sip was feigned, and she hoped Austra was doing the same, although if her maid drank it, at least she would know if it was poisoned.
Horror followed swiftly on the heels of that thought. What was wrong with her?
Austra’s face crinkled in concern, and that only made matters worse.
“Anne?”
“It’s nothing,” she replied. “I had an unpleasant thought.”
She remembered that her father had had someone to taste his food. She needed someone like that, someone she didn’t care about. But not Austra.
Mother Uun sipped her tea.
“When we arrived,” Anne began, “you said something about watching someone. Will you explain that?”
In the dense blue light from the windows, Mother Uun’s skin seemed less transparent, because the fine veins were no longer visible. Anne wondered idly if that was why she’d chosen indigo for her glass rather than orange or yellow. She also seemed somehow larger.
“You’ve heard him, I think,” Mother Uun said. “His whispers are loud enough now to escape his prison.”
“Again,” Anne said impatiently, “of whom do you speak?”
“I will not say his name, not just yet,” Mother Uun replied. “But I ask you to recall your history. Do you remember what once stood where this city now stands?”
“I was a poor student in every subject,” Anne replied, “history included. But everyone knows that. Eslen was built on the ruins of the last fortress of the Scaosen.”
“Scaosen,” Mother Uun mused. “How time deforms words. The older term, of course, was ‘Skasloi,’ though even that was merely an attempt to pronounce the unpronounceable. But yes, here is where your ancestress Virgenya Dare won her final battle against our ancient masters and pressed her booted foot on the neck of the last of their kind. Here the scepter passed from the race of demons to the race of woman.”