Yet it was because Nico and Aleas were both outsiders that inevitably their shared condition each spoke to the other. It suggested something of similar ways. At times, the two young men would both laugh at something only they considered worthy of humour, or one would find his words supporting the other's in some heated group debate. Often they would find themselves paired together for want of anyone else. Still, that distance remained between them as it did with the others – Nico somewhat intimidated by this confident young man, while Aleas felt restrained by his master's wish that they stay apart.
For Nico, a natural loner, life here was not at all as he had imagined it, though it was hardly as if he'd had any clear notions of what to expect upon his arrival. But whatever dim expectation he may have entertained of this strange place where men trained as assassins, it was not this.
For hours each day he hacked at the air in the practice square, stabbed and garrotted straw-stuffed mannequins, concealed himself from imagined foes, poured arrows on distant targets painted as men. Yet so engrossed was he in doing well, in maintaining his reputation, in surmounting the challenges of each new exhausting day, that rarely did he pause to connect these actions with the reality of what they meant, or the path that he was now set upon. For he was carefully being trained to cross a threshold without thought or hesitation. Some day, he would be expected to commit murder in cold blood.
Still, that was not on any day soon, and meanwhile the practice eventually made him insensitive to such a prospect, and hard effort obscured his contemplation of what it was all leading to. After a while, Nico did not dwell on it further.
It was a pleasant surprise for him to find how much he began to look forward to his daily sessions of meditation. They took place twice a day, for a full hour each time. Some of the apprentices struggled with these sessions, mostly those who still held to religious beliefs other than Daoism, which was odd, Nico thought, since all that was required of the apprentices was a commitment to the Daoist practices of stillness.
Nico was hardly much of a believer himself, having rarely connected with the rituals his mother had forced him to sit through, performed by those droning monks in their smoky temple whenever he had been unfortunate enough to be dragged along. Yet now he began to look forward to these hourly sessions in the quiet polished-wood confines of the chachen hall, or outdoors in the courtyard whenever the weather was fine. There was little religion involved, he found, for the Rshun did not concern themselves with doctrine. They merely knelt there, with hands in laps, and concentrated on the soft inrush and outrush of their breaths until a chime sounded the end of the session.
In time, Nico found that stillness was increasingly attainable once he learned how to relax while still maintaining his focus. Afterwards, he would feel refreshed and centred; altogether more comfortable in his own skin.
Weeks passed before he remembered to write a letter home. Nico felt somewhat chastened that he had forgotten about his mother so easily. In his untidy handwriting he let her know that he was well, and filled the rest of the page with an account of the more mundane aspects of his new life. He carefully left out anything that might suggest how desperate certain situations had been.
Ash's old friend Kosh was happy enough to arrange for its delivery, and had it taken down to Cheem Port along with some of the Rshun who were travelling down to purchase supplies. From there it was passed on to a smuggler who made his living by running the Mannian blockade of the Free Ports. Nico hoped that it eventually reached her. In truth though, after that, he did not think of his mother often.
Every Foolsday they were given a day off, and were free to do as they pleased. On such days, when the others would team up in groups of two or three, Nico would leave them to their bantering and their small complicities and take himself off for a hike into the surrounding mountains, to spend some cherished hours by himself in their high clean splendour. It was like nourishment to him, to be this alone with his thoughts, which on those particular days, after a long enough walk, were mostly a form of no-thought, the same as when he had been a boy, and he had ventured into the foothills near their cottage for an afternoon just with Boon; times of peace, a way of finding quietness.
The routine of it all carved its own particular grooves in him. For a time, Nico looked neither backwards nor ahead.
*
One morning, before breakfast, Nico spotted a girl crossing the courtyard, and was startled enough to drop his pail of water to the ground. It was not simply that she was female that gave Nico such a start and set his heart hammering. Neither was it her appearance: a simple black robe which matched the hair that swept long and straight down her back, framing a sun-kissed face of sharp angles and large eyes. Rather, it was the way she walked, long-limbed and confident, with a swinging grace evident beneath her robe that captivated his male eyes starved of such a sight for so long. Nico forgot his bucket as he darted after her, watching her enter the door leading into the north wing. He thought quickly of some excuse to follow and discover who she might be.
Nico hurried through the door, and glanced to his left and right. She was gone. He even wondered for a moment if he had imagined her.
*
Over the next few days he saw her several times again. But each time it was merely a passing glimpse, and always he was engaged in training or on his way to training, and could not linger. It was frustrating, and he soon found that his eyes kept darting constantly from here to there, looking out for her.
'Who is she?' he demanded of Aleas, one evening at supper.
'Who?' inquired Aleas, betraying himself with a feigned tone of innocence.
'You know who! The girl I keep seeing about the place.'
Aleas flashed him a wolfish grin. 'That is not just a girl, Nico. That is my master's daughter, and you would be best to keep your eyes off her – let alone your hands. My master is fearfully protective.'
'Baracha's daughter?' Nico was stunned at such a thought.
'Nico, your liking or disliking of a fellow hardly affects his abilities to sire children.'
'Well, what is her name?'
'Serese.'
It was a Mercian name, and he said as much.
'Yes,' agreed Aleas. 'Her mother was Mercian. Why all these questions, or need I ask?'
'What questions?' he said, glancing away. But then he asked, 'How long is she staying?'
Aleas sighed. 'You sly, sly dog. Let me repeat myself, at the risk of sounding a bore. She is the daughter of Baracha and she is here for a few weeks visiting her father. When she is done, she will return to Q'os, since she works for us there. If, during her stay, she has been molested or accosted in any way – and by molested, I mean talked to, looked at, thought about while fumbling with yourself beneath the blankets – if any of these things have occurred between you and she in that time, then be assured, my master will take a knife to your balls. Look at him yonder. He watches us even now. He will have words with me later for even talking to you.'
Nico leaned back warily in his chair. He did not doubt Aleas's warning.
Even so, after Aleas had returned his attention to his broth, Nico scanned the dining hall to catch another glimpse of her, and felt disappointment when he did not gain one.
*
The next morning their paths finally crossed, and he instantly knew they were fated to have met. Nico believed in such things.
It was a Foolsday, therefore his day off, and he was entering the laundry room to wash some clothes before setting off on his customary hike across the valley.
There, in the steamy atmosphere of the cavernous room, she stood wringing out the last of her own washing. Nico halted in the doorway, unsure of whether to enter or leave.