"I hope he kills you," she said calmly.
"Of course you do," he replied. "Nobody can blame you for that. And now you'll have to excuse me. I mustn't keep them all waiting any longer."
He left the tent. She stayed where she was. It was her duty to be there, watching the fight; Valens needed his witness, regardless of the outcome. But she stayed where she was. "There you are," Valens said, as the tent-flap parted. "I was starting to wonder where you'd got to."
Daurenja took a few steps forward, the crowd of bewildered onlookers shrinking away from him as he moved. Then he stopped, like a ship dropping anchor. Valens noticed he'd shifted his grip on the rapier: two fingers in front of the cross now, instead of just one. He wants to be me, he thought, right down to the smallest detail.
"I suppose we'd better get started," Daurenja said. "Do you want to bother with seconds and marshals? Strictly speaking-"
Valens lunged. As he committed his body to the movement, he knew he'd got it wrong; he could hear the sergeant click his tongue, too much left shoulder, but of course he was out of time. Daurenja raised an eyebrow as he sidestepped, not bothering to raise his sword, though Valens had left himself open to a lethal riposte. He recovered to the back guard as quickly as he could, but it was a scramble, open and shameful.
"No seconds, then," Daurenja said pleasantly. "That's fine."
Immediately, he changed shape; there was no perceptible movement. Now he was straight-backed, his feet just under a shoulders' width apart, right foot pointing at Valens, left foot behind and at ninety degrees; his sword-arm held out at shoulder height, very slightly bent at the elbow. He was a fencing-manual illustration of the circular fight, unbreachable defence, every attack countered in time, with two dimensions of distance.. The sergeant hadn't even tried to teach him the circular fight; it was far too difficult to learn, unless the student was really committed. Instead, he'd been taught the linear fight-low right hand, all major developments in double time, a debate rather than a conflict of inflexible assertions. Suddenly, without fear but with depressing certainty, Valens realised he'd made a very bad misjudgement. The only way you could win against the circular fight was if your enemy made a mistake.
Daurenja smiled at him, and he felt a furious urge to lunge again. That, of course, was what Daurenja wanted him to do. As he lunged, pursuing the straight line, Daurenja would take a small step, not back but sideways, his feet following the invisible circle, and as he stepped and Valens' sword punctured the empty air where he'd just been, all he'd need to do was poke gently, and Valens' own momentum would drive him on to the sword-point, a plank hammering itself against a nail. So, he couldn't attack, and Daurenja wouldn't attack, because the circular fight is all defence and reaction; all he could do was stand in the back guard (which you can't do for very long before cramp sets in, and a fencer with cramp is as good as dead), hesitating, unable to do anything, ridiculous, a joke…
He felt his back twinge. Weeks lying in bed; even when he was in the peak of condition, he couldn't have held this contorted stance for very long. He knew what he had to do: relax his hand, let the sword drop from it like an apple from a tree, then take two steps back and apologise, because there was no way he could carry on with the fight, let alone win it. The only other choice was to lunge, keep on lunging until Daurenja stuck him and he died, and that was no choice at all. He scrabbled through the archives of his mind, every exhibition bout he'd ever seen, every stupid book he'd ever read, for some ploy or trick that could beat the circular fight: all the special plays, for the advanced class only, the volte, the pass in single time, the boar's thrust. Absolutely nothing.
Oh well, he thought; and he leaned forward a little, bending his right knee, extending his arm, edging himself forward into distance, until the needle tip of Daurenja's sword was so close to his face that it blurred. It was ridiculous, but it was the only thing he could come up with: tempt him beyond endurance until he attacked, and then, in the thousandth of a second available, try and think of something. He saw his face, reflected, distorted, in the polished cup guard of Daurenja's sword. So much distortion, he could barely see the grotesque red swelling around the wound: lies that rectify, two wrongs making a right, necessary-
Daurenja moved his hand. It was just a little twitch. The proper name for it was the stramazone; using the tip of the rapier to scratch a cut. No force; but the pain of the sharp point in the inflamed mound around the wound stunned him. He heard his sword clatter on the ground-his eyes were closed-and a fraction of a second later, the ground hit him. The other noise was someone screaming. He had a pretty good idea who that was; but he didn't associate the sound with himself particularly. His brain seemed to clench tight, and that was forcing the air out of him, a simple mechanical process.
"Get the doctor," a voice said; a calm, safe voice, a sensible friend not yielding to panic. He thought: I've lost. That's Daurenja's voice, and I'm grateful to him for making them get the doctor. Then the pain flooded out that thought too, and there was no space left in his head for anything. "I'm sorry," Daurenja was saying. "I really didn't want to cause him so much pain, but you'll appreciate, I had to stop it somehow." He smiled. It was almost charming. "My fault," he said. "I overestimated him, as a fencer."
She heard herself thank him; and later, she thought: a compassionate man, resourceful, he stopped the fight without doing any lasting damage. I owe him my husband's life. A good man; he turned pain to his advantage, but he used it to save the life of his enemy. What was the phrase? Necessary evil.
She didn't go back to the tent. She told herself it was because she didn't want to get under the feet of the doctors while they were treating him, but that was nonsense, of course. It was just a scratch, by all accounts, all it needed was cleaning and a light dressing. She told herself: I don't want to be there, he won't want me to see him lying there, beaten. That was a good reason, but not the true one.
Instead, she wandered through the camp, not bothering to notice how people stared at her, got out of her way. The truth was-it was stupid, she could hardly believe it, but she had to accept it; the truth was, she couldn't love him any more, not now that he'd been beaten, by that creature. He'd chosen, as he had to do, between her and his duty; he'd made the right choice, even though it meant breaking the wings of their love, but on the strict understanding that he'd win, that the victory over evil would justify the betrayal. She thought about that. Suppose you did a bad, terrible thing, for the right reason, the end amply justifying the means, but then you failed. The good evaporates, leaving the evil behind. He'd risked death, risked her only chance of happiness, their unborn child's future, everything, in order to stop the monster, but he hadn't stopped the monster, if anything he'd made it stronger. The intention was good enough, but the outcome was disastrous, and so…
So, instead, she'd thanked the monster for sparing him, but what he'd given back to her was spoiled, unacceptable; and Daurenja had done the right, the noble thing, but he'd turned it into waste and evil. It was ridiculous, but it had happened.
She went back to the tent. The doctor was just leaving. "He's asleep," he said. "Try not to wake him up. God only knows what possessed him to go fighting a duel in his condition."
"So it was the wound, then," she said. "Why he lost, I mean."
The doctor looked blank. "I really couldn't say," he said. "It can't have helped, anyway. The main thing is, there's no real harm done, it's just a-"
"Thank you."