'Did I hear aright?' she said. 'I thought I heard it say it will fight.' 'I will fight!' said Sarazin. 'With what weapons?' said Tarkal. 'Swords, of course,' said Sarazin. 'Swords and shields.'
The reply came naturally, for these were the weapons ne used when training with Thodric Jarl. Training for battle. Training for war.
'You mean to fight with shields?' said Tarkal, incred- ulously. What kind of daffing is this?'
'Swords and shields,' said Sarazin. 'I can bear the weight, even if you cannot.' 'He means it,' said someone. And there was a titter of poorly suppressed laughter. 'Shields, then,' said Tarkal.
And grabbed the reins of Sarazin's horse, and galloped away.
'Hey!' shouted Sarazin. 'Hey! Hey! Come backl' Laughing, they jaunted away with a jingle of sharps and spurs. Sarazin was left to walk back to Selzirk. Which he did. Counting the paces. With every step, he added details to Tarkal's death.
CHAPTER TEN Come, daemon of war, enchant my sword, That dead as daddock may my enemies fall, Their uninhabited bodies sprawl To fields where carrion crows May glutton their blood as potage. I will be a hero, And wage to war forever in foreign fields: For my mother-in-law guards the gates of my return.
– Saba Yavendar, 'Hero Talk'
When Thodric Jarl heard of the duel, he cursed Sarazin for a fool. Jarl, the Rovac warrior who had taught Sarazin weaponwork during his long captivity in Voice, knew full well that Farfalla's son was unready for combat. Oh, he had exchanged cuts in duels in Voice, for sure. But that was mere sport undertaken for the sake of scars. This was a matter of death. 'Still,' said Jarl, 'what's done is done.'
After making formal arrangements for the fight – which would take place on the morrow's dawn on the palace battlements – Jarl worked Sarazin hard, thinking fatigue better than fear.
'I'll be wrecked by tomorrow,' said Sarazin at one stage, drenched with sweat from sparring. You're young,' said Jarl. You'll live.'
Jarl, being the war-wise veteran that he was, thought it best to deny Sarazin the leisure that would allow fear to unman him. Wine and women he saw as equally dangerous before a fight, for they comfort, pleasure and relax, mellow- ing the world – whereas battle thrives on bone-cold hatred.
'We have but an evening,' said Jarl. 'That's no time at all. Concentrate! Think combat!'
With Jarl setting the pace, they practised. Not with the dance-light rapiers with which Sarazin had duelled in Voice, but with war weapons of Stokos steel. Strong blades, light enough to be wielded with one hand but heavy enough to cleave through leather and bone. Swords built for endurance in war, blade and tang forged from a single piece of firelight steel, free from weak points such as welds and rivets. While Sarazin's blade was a gift from Lord Regan, Jarl had won his own on a battlefield.
'Likely your nobleman knows no shieldwork,' said Jarl. 'He won't be used to the weight, or trained for it.'
Why?' said Sarazin. 'Surely Tarkal has his place in Chenameg's army.'
'Chenameg has no army,' said Thodric Jarl. 'So Tarkal has never trained for war. So how will he fight?'
'Duelling style. In and out. In and out.' "Yes. Quick as a frog after flies. What will his feet be doing?'
'Quickwork also' said Sarazin. 'In and out, in time with his blade.'
'Right! So watch. Wait. Brunt him with the shield. Let him exhaust himself. Then, when you get a good chance, strike. Hard! But not at his head, mind. Nor at his shield. Strike for his sword.' 'Why?'
'Likely as not, he'll bear a flimsy Chenameg duelling sword. I've seen no firelight steel with this embassy. Since they do no soldiering in Chenameg, all the stuff of local make is designed for fashion.' 'But sharp regardless,' said Sarazin.
'Sharp, yes, but weak. Likely blade will be riveted to the hilt. That's weakness. Sword against sword, you can likely break him.'
'If I'm going to try that,' said Sarazin. 'I don't think I'll use Lord Regan's gift. I'll use my second-best sword. It's strong enough, I think. I've given it a name: Onslaught.'
'A good name for a good weapon,' said Jarl. 'But second- best is not good enough for tomorrow. You'll use the weapon Lord Regan gave you.' 'But I might damage it! It's fearfully valuable!'
Jarl laughed, and clapped Sarazin on the shoulder. Feeling the young man's linen wet with sweat.
It's your liver to worry about,' he said. 'Never your steel. That's war. Listen: here's a lesson for your life. Always take your best steel to war. Best sword, best horse, best boots, best men. Expense saved means nothing to a corpse.'
Lightly he spoke, yet his words brought home to Sarazin the reality of the doom which faced him. As Jarl took Sarazin through a series of stretching exercises, Sarazin realised that this time tomorrow he might be dead. He tried to imagine his death, but found it impossible. The world was but an extension of himself – so how could the world exist if he did not?
– Yet once, before I was born, the world existed without me. Or so it claims.
The thought was so improbable that Sarazin – not for the first time – doubted that the world really existed. Quite apart from its denial of the centrality of Sean Sarazin, there were other things about the world which struck him as unreal. Mortality, for instance.
– A world of people, all doomed to certain death. How could that be possible? If all flesh were truly mortal, how could there be laughter?
– If the world were a fact, and death universal a fact in that fact, surely the streets would run screaming from dawn to dusk. To be born, just to die? What kind of reality is that?
As he had done in the past, Sarazin conjured with the notion that perhaps he was really a god, dreaming. That he would wake, shortly, and resume his true life of power and creation. Death? A word beyond meaning.
This ends our training,' said Jarl, for Sarazin had worked through the last of his stretching exercises while doing his thinking. 'I judge you tired enough to sleep by now. Mind you do! A warrior gets his head down and sleeps whenever the chance is given. That's one of the first lessons of war!'
But, though Jarl had thought Sarazin tired enough to sleep, Farfalla's son lay sleepless long, staring at the dark, conjuring with skulls and bloodclot disaster.
Throughout the night, Thodric Jarl slept soundly on a pallet outside Sarazin's door. If the young man had been fool enough to venture forth to search for card companions or other distractions, Jarl would have woken on the moment. As it was, his guard duty proved eventless.
Sarazin did in fact divert himself. With wine – yes, and with Amantha's flesh. And (lust cruel, direct and shameless, like something done by the body of one insect to another) the very heat of his mother herself. But all this, of course, took place within dream's world of delusions.
Sarazin was still sleeping, still dreaming, when Jarl shook him awake. The young man who would be king startled awake. Smelt the roughwork sweat of the Rovac warrior. It's dark,' said Sarazin.
'Yes, but near dawn,' said Jarl. 'Rouse yourself. It's a great day for it.' -A great day to die.
To his discomfort, Sarazin found he had diarrhoea. He refused breakfast, but accepted the cup of hot green tea which Bizzie brought him. Tea was drunk by few people in Selzirk, but Sarazin indulged himself in it daily. Every morning its savour conjured up memories of Voice, and he wished himself back in that city. 'Fighting, are we?' said Bizzie. Well, good luck to you.' Thanks,' said Sarazin.
Grateful, despite himself, for such good wishes, even though they came from the low-bred mother of his bastard brother Benthorn.
'Get this inside you,' said Jarl, offering Sarazin a tot of rum to follow the tea. 'I thought you told me never to drink and fight.' 'A smahan of rum will do you no harm. Drink I'