His teeth flashed in a brilliant smile and I found myself surprised once again, in spite of their familiarity, by his radiant, wholesome good looks. "Shall I try?"
Well, he tried, and I had my hands full trying to beat him. His strength and resilience took me completely by surprise, and the fury of his attack made me forget within moments that I was pitted against a boy, "a mere child" as I had called him the previous day. He backed me up soon after we began by deflecting one of my blows and stepping inside it, forcing me to leap backward to safeguard my ribs. Once he had me on the retreat, he kept me there, reacting to his whirlwind attacks from every direction, so that I had no time to develop attacks of my own. Finally I gulled him by leaping back from one of his blows and allowing the impetus of his missed swing to take him sideways, opening his right flank to my attack. I threw myself back towards him, and I pressed home my advantage as though I were fighting Ded or Rufio, no thought in my mind of decreasing my drive because of his youth or lesser strength. I forced him to take one pace backward, then another, and then a third, which brought him to the steep edge of the slope beyond the drill ground. There I caught his whirling blade high on my own, stepped in close and smashed him with my chest, pushing him over the edge to where he slipped and fell to one knee.
I grounded my weapon immediately, deeply grateful for the opportunity to do so, and held out my hand to help him back to the level field, where he stood watching me, clearly prepared to continue. I had to force myself to breath evenly, when I wanted to pant and puff like the old man I felt myself to be. Eventually, when I was sure I could control my voice, I spoke.
"Good. Now I think you're ready for the next stage."
He simply stared at me expectantly, knowing that this was an important moment but with no idea of how it was or what it might involve.
We had had the two new Camulodian swords by then for several years, and in all that time none but myself, Dedalus, Rufio, Lucanus, Shelagh and Donuil had seen them; Shelagh and Luke only because they had been there when the swords arrived. It had seemed safer to all of us, from the beginning, to keep their existence secret, and we had been extremely conscious of the need for care in how we handled and transported the weapons, and in where and how we actually used them. In use, as we had discovered that first day, they rang with a clarion sound that was unique and astonishing and audible from great distances, and so we had been at pains to find a practice spot that was unlikely to be discovered by curiosity-seekers, such as inquisitive young boys, attracted by the ringing of the pure iron blades.
That we had found the place very quickly was due more to sheer, blind fortune than to any form of scientific questing: Dedalus had almost fallen headlong into it on the morning of the day the swords arrived. It was little more than a deep cleft in the rock face below the escarpment on which the fort was built, but it had high, vertical walls that contained the noise we made and a level, grassy floor that was both wide enough and long enough to suit our purposes perfectly. To reach it, however, involved almost an hour of travel from the fort itself, first down the road to the valley below, then along the accumulated scree at the bottom of the cliff face to where a dense clump of hawthorn concealed the narrow entrance to the cleft.
We kept the swords there, in situ, most of the time. When they had to be transported to and from the fort, we moved them in plain sight, wrapped in cloth in the bottom of the wagon, which was normally full of tools and pieces of equipment. No one had ever paid the slightest attention to them.
Now I led Arthur back to the wagon and hauled the long, cloth-wrapped bundle from the wagon bed, unwrapping the swords and handing one of them to him, hilt first. He was speechless, entranced by the lethal beauty of the weapon in his hands. It was far from being the first sword he had ever held, but it was the most fearsome. For almost two full years now, he and Gwin, Bedwyr and Ghilly had been working with Roman short-swords, traditional gladia made decades earlier by Publius Varrus. All four boys were adept in their use, having learned the basic disciplines of cut, stab and thrust in the traditional manner, "fighting" a solid practice post sunk in the ground and working from behind the shelter of a heavy infantry shield. That training was the practical reason for the daily use of the wooden staff Arthur now used so effectively: the heavy ash or oak staves were designed to be twice the weight of the swords they represented, so that when a warrior held a real sword in a real conflict, the weight of the weapon would seem negligible compared to what he was accustomed to.
As I stood watching him, Arthur raised his eyes from the sword he held, looking first at me, then turning his eyes to where the four practice posts were sunk into the earth at one end of the parade ground.
"No," I said, knowing what he was thinking. "Not that. Practice posts are useless for these swords. The weapons are too long, their arc too big. Cavalry swords require and demand an entirely different technique, and that's what you'll be learning from now on. You've been learning it already, for the past few years."
He gazed now for long moments at the weapon he held, the lower third of its blade resting on his open left palm, and then he looked me in the eye. "This isn't like any of the cavalry swords I've seen before. Where did it come from?"
"From Camulod," I replied. "Carol made it, and it is a cavalry sword, just like the others, yet very different. It's longer, heavier and above all sharper and more dangerous. You'll find there's more discipline attached to the use of this sword than to any other. All the rules apply that apply to other swords you've used, but there are new, additional rules that apply to these particular weapons. Ded and Rufio will continue to be your teachers, and from time to time I'll be working with you, and so will Donuil."
He was hefting the sword as I spoke, looking at the blade that stretched out from his fists.
"One other thing should be obvious. You won't be using this in quite as many ways as you use your staff. The only time you'll use it two-handed is when both hands are on the hilt. Try closing your fist over any part of that blade and you'll lose your fingers. Now, let's see those exercises again, using the sword."
He went through the entire sequence of exercises again, very slowly at first as he adjusted to the novelty of the feel and heft of the new sword, then with increasing confidence, until I could no longer see the hesitations where he had eliminated moves that involved catching the end of his weapon in his left hand to block a downward chop or deliver a full torso thrust. He did not say much, but it was evident that he was fascinated by the task that now lay ahead of him: the mastery of this new sword. I resisted the temptation to cross blades with him then and there; there would be time aplenty for that in the days ahead.
That same afternoon, I instructed Mark to set up four practice horses—Arthur, as I had known he would, had been most insistent that his friends be permitted to enter on this new phase of training with him. His reasons for insisting, however, had pleased me greatly. What point was there, he had asked me, in his graduating to the next phase of his training alone? Without the shared participation and the assistance of his friends, he would have a more difficult and trying time mastering the new techniques, and their friendship might suffer because of it. With their equal involvement, however, the effort would be lessened by a factor of four, since they could all work together. Even Ghilly, he pointed out, who was not yet twelve, had earned the right to move ahead and would not let either his youth or his lack of muscle hold him back from taking his rightful place among the four. I had listened, shrugged and agreed with him.