"En garde!" Valentine shouted, and slashed at his son's face.
It was a backhand stroke, and the tip of the blade drew a red line on Kenneth's left cheek. There was no more pain than from a razor cut. He touched his cheek with his free hand and looked at the blood on his fingers.
"I said en garde, sir," Valentine said. "Raise your weapon."
Kenneth slowly did so.
"Are you ready this time?"
He nodded.
"Then fight, damn you." Valentine slashed again, not quite as quickly. Kenneth parried the move, felt the clash of blade up through his wrist. And here, the blade was coming at him again, and he parried once more, and again, and again... and his father's blade tore through the fabric of his sleeve. This time he felt some pain, and a wet heat as blood ran down his arm.
"Again." And once more the sword was flashing in his face. He got the blade up just in time. But no sooner had he fended off the first thrust than another was coming at him. And another, and another.
Parry, riposte. Sixte, seconde. The words flew around in his mind, mocking him. I'll bet you wish you'd studied now, they said. Frantically, he tried to remember, but it just wasn't there. If you had to think about it, you were already too late. Your body must simply respond. Thinking was for the attack, and it would be a long time before young Kenneth was ready for that. The best he could do was try to keep his blade up, try to keep it between his body and the slashing, hungry steel that had a life of its own. That's what it had to be. His father could not be trying to kill him.
He felt pain again. This time it was his hip. A thrusting wound, this one hurt more than all the others put together. Others... how many were there now? Five? Six? He had lost count.
He was blinded by sweat. He stopped, turned his back, wiped his face with his sleeve. Then he turned around and tried to smile.
"I yield!" he shouted. "The first lesson has gone badly for me, I admit it. But I'll work all night, and you'll see a new man for lesson number two." He dropped his sword. "Now, do you want to do some blocking on that scene? Maybe we should get Tybalt in here to help."
"Pick up your weapon, sir."
"Father, I—"
"Your weapon, sir!"
Slowly, Kenneth reached down and took the bloody hilt.
"En garde." And once more the blade flashed.
As usual, his father was right. This was the perfect way to teach swordsmanship. If the pupil survived it.
Within an hour Kenneth had improved markedly. Like all his father's methods, it was a simple process. The student made a careless move. The teacher showed him the error of his ways in the form of a small cut. The student tried another approach, which was a little better. No cut. Again the teacher offered the same move, and the student found a variation that actually might give him a small advantage. Then the teacher varied the first move. Once more, a cut. Again. Not so good, Kenneth; another cut, deeper this time. Now don't think, let your body remember what you did wrong last time, what you did that resulted in pain. Your body will remember and find a way to avoid the pain. Here it comes again—
—and that was much better. No pain. Try it again. No pain. Again.
Now, try this....
The pain in Spain is mainly for the slain.
Again.
With a spiraling motion worthy of Errol Flynn, John Valentine's blade twisted the sword from Kenneth's hand and sent it flying into the wings. "Get it," he said.
"Father, could we have a break?"
"Ten more minutes. Go."
Kenneth didn't move for a moment. He was barely able to stand. "Son," Valentine said, gently. "You brought this on yourself. I know it hurts. I went through this with my father, and I'm the better for it. Soon you'll be disarming me, and the audience as well. But in the meantime it is going to hurt. At the end of the day we'll have you patched up. And we'll start fresh tomorrow."
Patched up.
Tomorrow. What a frightening thought.
"Now go get your weapon."
Kenneth turned and trudged toward the curtain. He was afraid that if he reached down to pick up the sword, he would simply pass out. He did bend down for the sword, and his head did swim, but he did not pass out.
And then a strange thing happened. Kenneth reached for the saber—
—and Sparky picked it up.
It was invigorating, just being Sparky again. He was still hurting, badly, and he was still weak, but in the ways that mattered Sparky was strong. He didn't really know who this Kenneth person was, but he knew he was weak.
And he knew John Valentine was weak, in the ways that mattered.
So Sparky forced himself to stand erect, stiffen his spine. He lifted his chin and he strode back to center stage. Holding the saber with both hands, he raised it high, and plunged it down into the stage. He let it go and it quivered there, the point buried in two inches of wood.
"I quit," he said.
Valentine cocked his head slightly, as if not sure of what he had heard. Then he shrugged good-naturedly.
"All right. Maybe I'm pushing too hard. We'll resume tomorrow."
"You didn't hear me. I quit."
"You quit."
"You want me to spell it for you? I quit the swordsmanship lessons. I quit Romeo. I quit Shakespeare. I quit acting. I quit."
Valentine turned away and his body sagged. He rubbed his forehead with one hand. He sighed deeply. It was silent-movie acting, every move deliberate and exaggerated. Sparky studied Valentine's back. He imagined pulling the sword from the stage and thrusting it between the shoulder blades.
No. That wasn't the way.
Valentine turned around.
"You quit. Just like that. Suddenly twenty years of—"
"Twenty-nine years. I'm twenty-nine. You've been teaching me since I was in the cradle."
Valentine laughed.
"Make it thirty, son. Count the nine months in the womb."
"In those thirty years," Sparky said, unperturbed, "there is one thing you never did. One thing you neglected."
"And what would that be?"
"You never asked me what I wanted to do."
Valentine laughed. He made a grand sweeping gesture with his sword, and a courtly bow.
"So, my son, tell me. What do you want to do with your life?"
"I don't know," Sparky admitted. "I've never had time to think about it. You never gave me any time."
"Go on. This is fascinating."
"You never asked me anything. Your plans were always 'our' plans, but I was never consulted."
"You are a child."
"I was never a child. I never had a chance to be one. I was a pretty fair performing monkey, though. 'Put a dime in the cup, folks. Watch little Kenny recite from Shakespeare. Perhaps today he'll get through it without shaking and gasping for breath.' "
"Do you believe that's how I thought of you?"
"No. No, I don't, Father. I think you thought of me, still think of me, as an extension of yourself. Any glory I earn is your glory."
Once more, Valentine laughed. But he sobered quickly, and looked intently into his son's eyes.
"No, my son. It's much more than that. You are me."
"In your mind, maybe. Up until today, maybe. But I've had enough, Father. I quit. I'm going to walk out of here, and from this moment on I make my own decisions."
Valentine looked into his son's eyes, and they did not waver. At last, almost apologetically, he sighed deeply and spread his hands.
"I simply can't allow that."
"You'll have to stop me."
"I will, son. I will."
Sparky stood his ground. The sword still swayed slightly between them, a steel gauntlet, an intolerable challenge.
"Now take your weapon, and take your position. We still have ten minutes of lesson to get through."