"Because you're not good enough yet," said Tal. It might have been true, but Sivana's eyes narrowed. She suspected the real reason.
"You're not going to hurt us, Tal."
"I'm not worried about hurting you," he lied.
"Then show me that parry you say I botched," said Mallion.
That sounded reasonable. There was no danger in demonstrating a parry. Tal agreed, inviting Sivana's attack and catching her blade, binding it, and parrying just barely outside her line of attack.
"You don't want to go too far," he said. "Otherwise, you have to move too far for the counterattack.
"Show me the counterattack," said Sivana.
"Not today," said Tal.
Despite his reticence, Tal wanted nothing more than to fence. More honestly, he wanted to fight. He loved the contest, the trick of outthinking his opponent, then driving home the determining thrust.
He just couldn't be sure he'd hold that thrust in check.
The feeling was strongest just before the full moon. Sometimes his arms craved impact and his legs wanted only to run after a foe and catch him. Sometimes he wished Rusk were not only alive but back in the city, rushing toward him. He felt his jaw clench and bite, wanting to feel a hot rush…
When such thoughts took hold, Tal shook his head so hard his hair stung his face. He stretched his arms as far as they would go, then let them hang loose at his sides, his fingers stirring in an invisible current.
Tal practiced with Perivel's blade only alone, at night. If Lommy was watching, he'd use one of the practice swords instead. But when the tasloi ran off to join his brother, Tal took the monstrous sword out of its canvas bag and fought imaginary foes with lusty abandon until he noted and corrected his own mistakes. Much as he chided Mallion and Sivana, he berated himself when he caught himself blurring the lines between real fighting and choreography. Perivel's sword should be used only for fighting, he decided. Not only was it too dangerous for play but it seemed made for killing. It had a purpose.
Tal found that he could wield the weapon with increasing ease, and he noted with satisfaction that his muscles had grown not only harder but sharper. The scars of Rusk's attack had flattened with his stomach. They were still visible through his thick body hair, but perhaps they were not so ugly anymore.
One night, Tal paused in his drill to stand before the mirror to admire himself, stripped to the waist and gleaming with sweat. He liked the way he looked and considered telling Quickly that he was willing go shirtless on stage again. Rehearsing the conversation in his mind, he realized how truly vain he had become-or how vain he had always been.
Even though he was alone, Tal flushed with shame. He didn't like to face his own failings, especially those that he despised in Tamlin, his conceited older brother. In some ways, the brothers were not so different.
One night in late Uktar, just before the Feast of the Moon, Tal paused in his solitary practice. Something he couldn't identify seemed out of place. He couldn't hear Lommy and Otter, but that was not unusual. Sometimes they were quiet, even at night. Then Tal realized he had just felt a brief coolness on his naked back and caught a fresh whiff of the pre-dawn air. A glance told him that both stage doors were still closed, but he realized that one of them had been open seconds earlier. An intruder had entered the playhouse.
To his relief, Tal saw Perivel's sword on the makeup table, where he'd left it. An assassin would have removed the weapon first, so maybe the intruder was merely a burglar. He would be a disappointed burglar, since Quickly removed the admission funds to a vault in her tallhouse each night. He'd be a regretful one, too, since Tal intended to find him.
Tal saw no one backstage, and he heard nothing unusual. His sense of smell had grown keen over the past ten months. When he sniffed the air, he detected only the usual odors of the Wide Realms: water reeds, lime, and horsehair from the thatched roof, oak beams and plaster from the walls, powder, greasepaint, and linen from the dressing tables, even nuts and orange rinds from the ground beyond the stage doors.
Despite the evidence of his senses, Tal was certain someone besides him and the tasloi was in the playhouse. Sword in hand, he stalked the unseen intruder, pausing every few moments to listen and sniff. He peered into the shadows between the larger props and scenery that lined the walls. Not even a rat emerged.
Tal looked over the backstage area again, hoping his threat would make the burglar nervous enough to break and run. No such luck.
Then Tal noticed one of the royal guards staring at him. Mallion always put the practice masks over the heads of the guards when practice was over. And now, four masks and a barefaced guardsman stood motionless against the wall.
The ruse amused Tal even as he pretended not to notice it. He feigned interest in the costume hampers while observing the masks out of the corner of his eye. None of them moved as he poked the baskets with the tip of his sword. He prepared to rush the intruder. He needed just a few more steps…
"Wait," said a muffled voice from the fourth mask. It was a woman. "I know you can see me."
Tal moved to stand between the intruder and the nearest outside door. "Show yourself," he said.
The woman came out from behind the mannequins. Beneath the practice mask, her clothes were all dark gray, from gloves to tightly laced boots. Tal could see nothing else about her except that she walked with a confident grace. Awfully sure of herself for a captured burglar, he thought.
"Who are you?" he said.
"An admirer," she said.
"A secret admirer, it would seem."
The woman inclined her head. Tal wondered whether the gesture came with a smile under the wicker mask. "I've been coming to the plays lately," she said. "You are very talented."
"Thank you," he said. "And you are very mysterious."
She made an elegant curtsey. Charmed by the gesture, Tal bowed in return.
"I'm fairly sure you're not here to kill me," he said, "and there's nothing worth stealing. But you know that, don't you? Why are you here?"
"I mean you no harm, Talbot."
"That's not an answer."
"I'm just here to watch you for a while, to make sure you are all right."
"Thamalon sent you, didn't he?"
She didn't answer. Perhaps Tal's guess was wrong, or perhaps Cale was involved. His father's butler was as mysterious as they come, and Tal had often suspected that the man had some sort of criminal connections.
"Perhaps I merely wanted to learn why you've disappeared from the rest of the city. You spend all your time here these days."
That was true. Except during the full moon, Tal went to his tallhouse to eat, bathe, and sleep before returning to the playhouse. His absences had begun to irritate Eckert, whose fussy reminders had been replaced by a moody silence. Perhaps this stranger had been sent to spy on him because Eckert had too little to report to Tal's father.
"I've been busy," he said.
"Busy fencing alone at night? Are you expecting a fight?"
That was a question Tal hadn't seriously considered before. Chances were good that Rusk wasn't dead, but Tal didn't expect him to come back to the city.
"It's best to be prepared if one comes unexpectedly," he said. "After all, you came to me, didn't you?" He nodded toward the practice swords and raised his own to point at the woman's head.
She put a hand on the hilt of one of the wooden swords. It was little more than a slightly curved staff with a cross-guard, its length marred with thousands of dents and scratches. "What will you give me if I hit you?"