CHAPTER TWELVE

A LESSON IN THE SWORD

CAZIO WOKE, wondering where he was, chagrined that he had dozed. Without moving more than his eyes, he quietly took in his surroundings.

He lay in a small copse of olive trees, through which the stars twinkled pleasantly in a cloudless sky. Not far away reared the shadow of the Coven Saint Cer.

He sat up, rubbing his eyes, reaching instinctively to see if Caspator was there, and felt reassured to find the familiar hilt next to him.

What had wakened him? A familiar noise, it seemed. Or had it merely been a dream?

Memory came lazily, but there wasn't much to remember. When the girls left Orchaevia's fete, he'd taken a walk into the countryside. He'd never been afraid of the dark, and felt learning to move in it, to sense the unseen, could only improve his fencing skills.

Why and how exactly his footsteps had taken him to the coven, he couldn't say. He'd just looked up and there it was. Once there, he'd pondered what to do; it was too early and would have seemed far too eager on his part to try to get Anne and Austra's attention. So he just stared up at their tower for a while, finally rationalizing that the best hunter was the one who knew the habits of his prey. That being the case, he would observe and perhaps catch a glimpse of them. And after all, it was a pleasant night—not a bad one to spend beneath the stars. No doubt z'Acatto was wandering drunkenly around the triva, spoiling for an argument, and if Orchaevia found him, he would be forced to report on his success or failure with Anne. Avoiding that conversation was one of the reasons he'd gone on his nocturnal stroll in the first place.

With those thoughts in mind, he'd found the olive grove and waited. A lantern eventually brightened the tower, and he watched the shadow play of the two girls at the window— discussing him, no doubt.

Then the light had gone out, disappointingly soon, and he'd closed his eyes for a moment—

And slept, apparently.

He congratulated himself on avoiding a close call. How foolish he'd have seemed if he'd slept until morning. Anne might have seen him and thought him become what Orchaevia claimed he was, a lovesick fool.

Even thinking the word startled him. He, Cazio Pachiomadio da Chiovattio, lovesick.

Ridiculous.

He glanced back up at the tower. No light showed in the window, but then why should it? It must be well into the morning by now.

The noise that had awakened him repeated itself, a bell ringing, and with sudden interest Cazio realized that something was going on at the coven. He saw torches all along the battlements, most of them moving at what must be a frantic pace. He thought he heard horses, too, which was odd. And faintly, ever so faintly, shouting, and what might be the occasional sound of steel.

He sat up straighter. No, by Diuvo, he did hear steel. That wasn't a sound he was likely to misplace.

That took him straight from muddled to wide awake, and he sprang to his feet with such haste that he bumped his head on a low branch. Cursing, he found his hat and donned it, took the cloak he'd been using as a bed and pinned it back on.

Who was fighting in the coven? Had bandits attacked the place? Crazed rapist vagabonds from the Lemon Hills to the south?

He had to know. He began striding toward the left, where he supposed the gate was. If it was naught—some strange exercise to celebrate the Fiussanal—the worst they could do was turn him away.

He'd gone no more than fifty pereci when he heard the drumming of hooves in the night. He stopped, cupping his ear and turning this way and that until he determined that the noises came from the very direction he was going—and they were getting louder. He watched for torches—who would ride at night without torches—but he saw none. A slice of moon was half risen, the strangest color he had ever seen, almost purple. It seemed to him he'd heard that meant something, but he couldn't remember where. Was it a verse?

The shadows of two, perhaps three horses appeared against the paler walls of the coven. They rode at full gallop, and there was much metal in the sound, by which he reasoned whoever it was wore armor. They passed nearby but did not stop.

Rapist vagabonds from the yellow hills wouldn't wear armor. Only the knights of the meddisso were allowed armor.

Or knights from an invading army, who did not care what the meddisso allowed.

More intrigued than ever, Cazio changed his direction, setting off at an easy lope after the horsemen, Caspator slapping at his thigh.

“I've always wanted to try one of these vaunted knights with their great clumsy swords, Caspator,” he confided to the rapier. “Perhaps tonight I'll find my chance.”

The riders were easy enough to follow, for they soon entered the wilder growth around the hill, where he had first met Anne. There they were forced to slow their mounts, which fact Cazio could tell from the frequent crashing and breaking of limbs. Now and then he caught the sound of some outlandish tongue.

A new suspicion took root in him, an exciting one. Perhaps Anne's foreign lover had come for her after all. Cazio knew the girl must have some secret way in and out of the coven, near the pool where he had met her—and that was the logical place for a rendezvous. If such was the case, this might indeed prove amusing.

He checked himself, realizing that the horses had stopped, and that he had almost walked right into them. He could vaguely make them out—two of them—through the trees, the purple light of the moon reflecting from burnished armor.

“Unnut,” one of the men said, in a clear baritone. He sounded bored. “Sa taujaza ni waiht,” he added.

“Ney,” the other replied, in the same ugly, incomprehensible jargon. “Wakath! Jainar, inna baymes.” He pointed as he said this, and in the next instant they spurred the horses into motion again, but this time going in different directions. Furthermore, Cazio saw what the man had been pointing at— two slim figures in robes crossing a clearing in the moonlight.

The knights were trying to circle their quarry. With horses and armor, they had a harder time in the trees than those on foot, but it would be only a matter of time if the knights knew what they were doing.

Cazio heard one of the running figures gasp, a distinctly feminine sound.

He drew Caspator and ran, tearing a straighter line through the brush than the horsemen. In a flash of moonlight, he was certain he saw Anne's face.

One of the mounted men tore from the trees right on top of him. The smell of horse sweat filled the swordsman's lungs, and for the briefest instant the very size of the beast touched a tiny chord of fear in his heart. Incensed that he should be made to feel so—and angry that the knight didn't even seem to have noticed him—Cazio leapt up and struck the man high in the chest with Caspator's hilt, holding it two-fisted. It felt like slamming at a run into a stone wall, but the knight yelped and rolled back off the horse, falling with one foot still in the stirrup. His helm knocked hard against a rock, and the horse slowed to a stop. The man groped feebly.

Cazio reached down and yanked off the helmet, spilling out long hair the color of milk. The face seemed very young.

“My apologies, casnar,” Cazio said. “If you wish, we may duel when I've finished with your friend. For the time being, though, I must assure honorable conditions rather than assume them.” With that he struck the man a blow with his hilt, rendering him unconscious.

Pleased with himself now, Cazio continued after the girls.

He caught up with them as they hesitated at the edge of the trees, probably trying to decide between cover and a run across the open country.

“Anne! Austra!” he hissed.

The two spun, and he saw it was indeed them.

“Cazio?” Anne asked, sounding hopeful. Then her voice sharpened in pitch. “Stay away from me, you—what have you to do with all of this?”

That took him flat-footed. “What? Why, you—”

But in that moment the second knight broke from the trees. Cazio tossed Anne a contemptuous glance as he planted himself in front of the mounted man. He was emerging from between two trunks, so he would have to come through Cazio to reach Anne and Austra, or else back out and try another way.

“Will you fight me, casnar?” Cazio shouted at the knight. “Do they make men where you come from, or just rapists of helpless women?”

The knight's visor was up, but Cazio couldn't make out his features.

“I don't know who you are,” the knight said in an accent that suggested he was trying to swallow something and speak at the same time, “but I advise you to stand aside.”

“And I advise you to dismount, sir, or I shall impale your fine horse, something I do not wish to do. You may continue to wear your turtle shell, for I would not disadvantage you by asking you to fight fairly.”

“This is not a game,” the knight growled. “Do not waste my time, and I will let you live.”

“A lesson in dessrata would not be a waste of your time,” Cazio replied. “At least you will have something to mull over, whiling away the long hours in hell or curled weeping on your mother's couch—depending on how merciful I am.”

The knight didn't say another word, but dismounted, taking a shield shaped like a curved triangle from the side of his horse and drawing an incredibly clumsy-looking broadsword with his free hand. He closed his visor and advanced toward Cazio at a walk. Cazio grinned and settled into a broad dessrata stance, making passes in the air with his blade, bouncing on his knees a little.

The knight didn't salute, or strike a stance, or anything of the sort. When he was within two pereci he simply charged with the shield held in front of him and the sword cocked back on his shoulder. That startled Cazio, but at the last instant he did a quick ancio, swinging his body out of the way and leaving his point in line for the knight to run into.

Caspator slid over the shield and arrested against the upper part of the breastplate, where the steel gorget stopped the point. The knight, unimpressed by this, swung the shield backhand, forcing the rapier up and slamming Cazio's forearm into his chest with such force that he left the ground. He landed on his feet but nearly didn't keep them under him, stumbling back as the knight quickly overtook him, sword still cocked. Cazio found his balance just in time to parry the overhand blow, which came with such force that he nearly lost Caspator, and his already abused arm went half numb with shock. Without thinking, he riposted to the thigh, but again all he got was the sound of steel on steel. It gave him time to recover, however, and he danced back out of range while the knight brought his sword back up.

Cazio recalled something z'Acatto had told him once, something he hadn't paid too much attention to at the time.

“Knights in armor don't fence, boy,” the old man had said, after taking a drink of pale yellow Abrinian wine.

“Don't they?” Cazio had replied diffidently, whetting Cas-pator's long blade.

“No. Their swords weigh eight coinix or more. They just hit each other with them until they find out who has the better armor.”

“Ah,” Cazio had replied. “They would be slow and clumsy, I imagine.”

“They have to hit you only once,” z'Acatto had replied. “You don't duel knights. You run from them or you drop something very heavy on them from a castle wall. You do not fence them.”

“As you say,” Cazio had replied, but he hadn't been convinced. Any man with a sword could be beaten by a master of dessrata. Z'Acatto had said it himself, in his more sober moments.

The thing was, this knight wasn't nearly as slow or clumsy as he ought to be, and he did not fear being struck by Caspator in the least. Cazio kept dancing out of range, trying to think. He'd have to hit him in the slit of his mask, he decided, a challenging target indeed.

He tried that, feinting at the knee to draw the shield down. The armored man dropped the shield incrementally, but brought it back up when Cazio lunged, pushing the rapier high again. Then that huge cleaver of a sword came whistling around the side of the shield, a blow aimed to cut Cazio in half at the waist. It would have, too, but Cazio coolly parried in prismo, dropping the tip of his weapon perpendicular to the ground with the hilt on the left side of his head, guarding that entire flank.

Another rapier would have been deflected harmlessly, but not eight or nine coinix of broadsword. It beat Caspator into him, and all of the air out of him. Cazio felt and heard ribs crack, and then he was off his feet again, this time flopping painfully onto his back. He grabbed his side and it came away wet; some edge had gotten through. The cut felt shallow, but the broken ribs hurt so badly it was nearly paralyzing. The knight was coming toward him again, and he didn't think he could get up in time.

It occurred to Cazio that he might be in trouble.