“I don’t have any more tonight.” I rummaged through my bag and found a slightly battered darupe. “You can have this. That’s all I’ve got.”
“I’m not choosy.” He dispatched the fruit in half a heartbeat and tossed the pit over the gate of the stall.
I squatted down beside the gate. “You’re not good at riddles, are you?”
He blinked in surprise. “What makes you ask that?”
“Just seeing the fruit pit… It sounds strange, I know, but it makes me think of a riddle.”
“Never thought I was good at ‘em. Never had much call to. But once I helped somebody figure one out. We did pretty good.”
As the stable lamp faded and sputtered, leaving us sitting in the dark, I told him about the things I’d found in my house. “… So what do you think? Is it the Lords’ puzzle or not?”
The voice coming from across the dark stall was more serious than I expected. “I’d say somebody is trying to tell you something. Somebody that maybe can’t come out and say it for fear you wouldn’t allow it to be said. Not the Lords, though.”
“A slave, you mean?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it’s not important the who, but only the what.”
“I can’t figure it out. I’ve tried all kinds of solutions using the names of the things, the sizes, the substances; I’ve tried to match their names with other words, but they don’t seem to fit together at all.”
“Maybe they’re just to look at. No secret at all.”
“That sounds like a proper half-wit.”
“Bring me another bag of jack, and I’ll take another guess.”
“Don’t count on it.” I stood up, brushed the straw off my legs, and gave Firebreather another pat. “I’d best go or I’ll fall asleep over my sword in the morning.”
“Did you ever get a swordmaster that could teach you proper?”
“No. I’ve not learned anything new in a month. My swordmaster is a fine fighter, and he makes me work hard. I suppose I’m just not the best pupil.”
“But you want the best sword fighter-one who can teach you and show you, not just make you sweat. Maybe the best one isn’t one of them-the warriors.”
“What do you mean?”
“I heard some of ‘em talking the other day about a new slave, one that fights with the warriors, you know, to practice.”
“A sparring partner? A practice slave?”
“That’s it. They said he’s the best they’ve ever seen. Stayed alive longer than any slave’s ever done before. They’re making him teach them what he knows and not just fight any more. Maybe he’s the one you need.”
“Maybe he is.”
On the next day I asked my swordmaster, Drak, about the practice slave who had lasted longer than any ever had.
“I’ve heard of him. He’s bound to the Wargreve Damon, but still does training matches with other warriors. He’s not likely to last much longer, though. He fights Vruskot this afternoon, and Vruskot hasn’t lost a match in two hundred years. He’s had the Lords burn the words yield and surrender from his mind so he can’t speak them even if he wanted to.”
“I want to watch the match.”
“It could be instructional. Vruskot is well known for his attacks. I’ll demonstrate his basic techniques so you’ll know what to look for. The match will likely be over so fast you’ll miss it.”
We worked until just after midday and then went down to one of the training yards just beyond the warriors’ court. A good-sized crowd of warriors, Drudges, and slaves had gathered on the open side of the yard. Others were jammed around the walls. I wasn’t used to crowds, and it made me uneasy, especially when they parted to let me stand at the front.
It wasn’t difficult to decide which was Vruskot. I had learned early on that the Zhid didn’t age. They remained the same age at which they had been transformed, and it took a considerable wound to kill one. But there was something recognizable about the oldest Zhid. They were like old trees with rough bark that you just knew had the hardest, thickest wood and had stood up through every kind of storm. Though he looked no more than thirty or forty, Vruskot was very old. He wasn’t tall, but he had exceptionally long arms, knotted with muscles. His thighs were like tree trunks, and like all of the Zhid, his eyes were pale and empty.
Lots of slaves were standing along the walls, most of them personal attendants of high-ranking warriors. I couldn’t pick out the one who was to fight. He must be huge and fierce to have lasted so long. And he would be controlled, not allowed to wander about. But the only slave who wasn’t someone’s servant was sitting by the wall with his eyes closed and his head bowed as if he were asleep or afraid. A chain ran from his collar to the iron ring embedded in the stone wall above his head.
Sure enough, when a Zhid detached the chain from his collar, he stood up immediately. He was tall, topping Vruskot by a head. His shoulders and arms were big, sun-darkened to the color of old leather and criss-crossed with scars, but he didn’t look half so strong as the Zhid. Although he was lean and hard, built well for fighting, he didn’t have the look of a warrior. He was just another slave, standing there barefoot and quiet as his hands were un-manacled, keeping his eyes cast down as if he were scared to look at a real fighter. They weren’t going to allow him armor, so he stood barefoot on the blistering ground while Vruskot donned a thick leather cap, greaves, and a light mail shirt over his well-used gambeson. I would have bet my eyes the slave could never even scratch Vruskot.
But everything changed when they put the sword in the slave’s hand. He raised his head, and you would have thought his skin had turned to steel. It wouldn’t have surprised me to see a sword strike glance off his bare arms, or his eyes shoot off sparks. The small round shield they gave him seemed hardly necessary.
Vruskot didn’t see it. He looked the slave up and down and curled his lip. Then he touched the tip of his sword to the slave’s collar. “Through here,” he said. “I’ll take you right through it. You’ve forgotten your place, dog meat.”
The slave did not even blink, which did not please Vruskot. “Position, slave!” growled the Zhid.
There was no slow beginning, no circling, feinting, or testing to ferret out weakness or crucial points of style. From the opening, they were in the full fury of battle. They used long-swords, striking so powerfully that you could feel the movement of air. Three times I had watched my father-the man I had believed to be my father, Duke Tomas, the Champion of Leire-take on the finest challengers in the Four Realms. I had thought there could be no one in the world that moved with Papa’s speed and grace… until that day in Zhev’Na. The slave made Vruskot look like an ox.
An hour went by. The noise of the crowd-chattering, the placing of bets, gasps, and jeers-had faded into a silence broken only by the sounds of the battle. The clank and scrape of the swords, the dull thuds when sword struck shield. Harsh, gasping breaths. Vruskot’s mail shirt chinked with his every move, and his boots pounded and scuffed the iron-hard dirt. The barefoot slave moved in silence.
Vruskot drew first blood, a slice to the slave’s forward thigh. The Zhid pressed his advantage until the crowd had to move away from one of the walls. But he was too eager, so intent on his own next strike that he mistook the slave’s acceptance of his blows for weakness. When the slave was almost to the wall, the two men close enough to smell each other’s breath, the slave beat off Vruskot’s next hammering strike with his thrusting shield-a move that made my own left arm hurt even to think of it-while at the exact same time whirling his own blade from high behind his head in a powerful counter. Vruskot had to step out or lose his head, giving the slave room to duck, step past, and pivot, leaving the sun in Vruskot’s eyes. The Zhid wasn’t slow either, despite his thick legs, and had his sword and shield up before the slave’s next blow could take him. The sweat poured from the two in rivers.