Sniff.
He cracked an eyelid open, just enough to see her. She sniffed again, and a fat tear rolled down one cheek.
She was a rather pretty little thing, and the only one of his mother's ladies or maidservants who had managed to pick up Treesa's knack of crying without going red and blotchy. Vanyel knew that both Mekeal and Radevel had tried to get into her bed more than once. He also knew that she had her heart set on him.
And the thought of bedding her left him completely cold.
She sniffed a little harder. A week ago he would have sighed, and apologized to her, and allowed her to do something for him. Anything, just to keep her happy.
That was a week ago. Now - It's just a game for her, a game she learned from Mother. I'm tired of playing it. I'm sick to death of all their games.
He ignored her, shutting his eyes and praying for the potions to work. And finally they did, which at least gave him a rest from her company for a little while.
"Van?"
That voice would bring him out of a sound sleep, let alone the restless drug-daze he was in now. He struggled up out of the grip of fever-dreams to force his eyes open.
Lissa was sitting on the edge of his bed, dressed in riding leathers.
"Liss - ?" he began, then realized what riding leathers meant. " - oh, gods - "
"Van, I'm sorry, I didn't want to leave you, but Father said it was now ot never."
She was crying, not prettily like Lady Treesa, but with blotched cheeks and bloodshot eyes. "Van, please say you don't mind too much!"
"It's ... all right, Liss," he managed, fighting the words out around the cold lump in his throat and the colder one in his gut. "I ... know. You've got to do this. Gods, Liss, one of us has to get away!"
"Van - I - I'll find some way to help you, I promise. I'm almost eighteen; I'm almost free. Father knows the Guard is the only place for me; he hasn't had a marriage offer for me for two years. He doesn't dare ruin my chances for a post, or he'll be stuck with me. The gods know you're safe enough now - if anybody dared do anything before the Healer says you're fit, he'd make a protest to Haven. Maybe by the time you get the splints off, I'll be able to find a way to have you with me. ..."
She looked so hopeful that Vanyel didn't have the heart to say anything to contradict her. "Do that, Liss. I - I'll be all right."
She hugged him, and kissed him, and then left him.
And then he turned to the wall and cried. Lissa was the only support he had had. The only person who loved him without reservations. And now she was gone.
After that, he stopped even pretending to care about anything. They didn't care enough about him to let Liss stay until he was well - so why should he care about anything or anyone, even enough to be polite?
"Armor does more than protect; it conceals. Helms hide faces - and your opponent becomes a mystery, an enigma.
Seldasen had that right. Just like those two down there.
The cruel, blank stares of the helm-slits gave no clues to the minds within. The two opponents drew their blades, flashed identical salutes, and retreated exactly twenty paces each to end at the opposite corners of the field. The sun was straight overhead, their shadows little more than pools at their feet. Twelve restive armored figures fidgeted together on one side of the square. The harsh sunshine bleached the short, dead grass to the color of light straw, and lit everything about the pair in pitiless detail.
Hmm. Not such enigmas once they move.
One fighter was tall, dangerously graceful, and obviously well-muscled beneath the protection of his worn padding and shabby armor. Every motion he made was precise, perilous - and professional.
The other was a head shorter. His equipment was new, the padding unfrayed, the metal lovingly burnished. But his movements were awkward, uncertain, perhaps fearful.
Still, if he feared, he didn't lack for courage. Without waiting for his man to make a move, he shouted a tremulous defiant battle cry and charged across the sun-burnt grass toward the tall fighter. As his boots thudded on the hard, dry ground, he brought his sword around in a low-line attack.
The taller fighter didn't even bother to move out of his way; he simply swung his scarred shield to the side. The sword crunched into the shield, then slid oif, metal screeching on metal. The tall fighter swept his shield back into guard position, and answered the blow with a return that rang true on the shield of his opponent, then rebounded, while he turned the momentum of the rebound into a cut at the smaller fighter's head.
The pale stone of the keep echoed the sound of the exchange, a racket like a madman loose in a smithy. The smaller fighter was driven back with every blow, giving ground steadily under the hammerlike onslaught - until he finally lost his footing and fell over backward, his sword flying out of his hand.
There was a dull thud as he hit his head on the flinty, unforgiving ground.
He lay flat on his back for a moment, probably seeing stars, and scarcely moving, arms flung out on either side of him as if he meant to embrace the sun. Then he shook his head dazedly and tried to get up -
Only to find the point of his opponent's sword at his throat.
"Yield, Boy," rumbled a harsh voice from the shadowed mouth-slit of the helmet.
"Yield, or I run you through."
The smaller fighter pulled off his own helm to reveal that he was Vanyel's cousin Radevel. "If you run me through, Jervis, who's going to polish your mail?"
The point of the sword did not waver.
"Oh, all right," the boy said, with a rueful grin. "I yield."
The sword, a pot-metal practice blade, went back into its plain leather sheath. Jervis pulled off his own battered helm with his shield hand, as easily as if the weight of wood and bronze wasn't there. He shook out his sweat-dampened, blond hair and offered the boy his right, pulling him to his feet with the same studied, precise movements as he'd used when fighting.
"Next time, you yield immediately, Boy," the armsmaster rumbled, frowning. "If your opponent's in a hurry, he'll take banter for refusal, and you'll be a cold corpse."
Jervis did not even wait to hear Radevel's abashed assent. "You - on the end - Mekeal." He waved to Vanyel's brother at the side of the practice field. "Helm up."
Vanyel snorted as Jervis jammed his own helm back on his head, and stalked back to his former position, dead center of the practice ground. "The rest of you laggards," he growled, "let's see some life there. Pair up and have at."
Jervis doesn’t have pupils, he has living targets, thought Vanyel, as he watched from the window. There isn't anyone except Father who could even give him a workout, yet he goes straight for the throat every damned time; he gets nastier every day. About all he does give them is that he only hits half force. Which is still enough to set Radev on his rump. Bullying bastard.
Vanyel leaned back on his dusty cushions, and forced his aching hand to run through the fingering exercise yet again. Half the lute strings plunked dully instead of ringing; both strength and agility had been lost in that hand.