Ileth added a second hand to the sword’s handle and it steadied somewhat. “Not much fun, is it?”
“None of that!” Amrits shouted, hurrying forward with Rapoto just behind. “You kill him now, it’s murder!” She noticed he’d shifted the grip on his walking stick. The ogre-faced end was held down, but toward her.
“He’d have done the same to me,” Ileth said.
“He’s disarmed now,” Amrits said. “Put it down.”
Rapoto retrieved the weapon from her hand and Santeel hurried to pick up its mate and bring it to him. “You’re bleeding,” he said, leaning to glance at her wounded flank.
Santeel moved to stand between her and the watching men. “Cover up, Ileth.”
The physiker—was his name really Threadneedle?—joined the party around the former duelists. “The bandages and vinegar, if you please, Joai. Our novice here needs stitching up.”
“Get them off the dueling ground before you stanch the blood,” Joai called. “Bad luck if you don’t. An ill taint will enter the wounds and they’ll go septic.”
The dueling party turned and moved toward the spectators.
Galia passed her her overdress. “Can’t have you walking back through the gate in nothing but your shirt.”
With the duel over, the insults and blows and challenges exchanged in the kitchen would all be treated as if they’d never happened, but Ileth suspected life in the Catch Basin would be even more unpleasant. She wondered what new tortures Gorgantern would invent now, with injury piled on insult.
The physiker pronounced Ileth’s wound a “mere scratch” that a plain dressing would be sufficient to seal and set Joai to work cleaning it out with the vinegar before she pressed a dressing to it and bound it in bandage. He sat Gorgantern on one of the overturned boats and cleaned the bite with something from a brown bottle that made the aged apprentice howl, then put his assistant to work with needle and thread while he observed and gave advice.
Galia knelt and washed away Gorgantern’s blood in the lake.
Dath Amrits took Gorgantern’s mind off the stitching by standing before him. “Well, old sponge, you’ve landed in the camp soup this time.”
“Huh?” Gorgantern said, turning his uninjured ear to Amrits.
“I blew the whistle and you struck another blow. Not the mortal one you intended, fellow-me-lad, but it drew blood that a jury can see. You made it so easy for us. Me, two other dragoneer witnesses, old Threadneedle there who’s a strict Formist and wouldn’t lie if you hung him over coals. I’m calling a jury of Masters this afternoon and you’ll be out the gate in whatever clothing from the pauper’s bin will fit you at the stroke of midnight. Good luck to you. If you bear me any ill will, remember, you have only yourself to blame. I’m the owner of the loudest whistle in the Serpentine.”
“But-But I run the Catch Basin.”
“No fear,” Amrits said. “I’ll break the news to the fish gently. Head up, now. You can always try explaining to the jury how a disarmed wisp of a girl flat on her back in the mud presented a mortal threat that required you to stab her through the stomach. I wouldn’t advise it, though; they might refer you to the magistrate in Vyenn. I wouldn’t mind telling my story again to a jury with the power to have your head and your body buried separately. That’d be worth funking my laundry day entirely.”
I’ll never have to see Gorgantern again. She felt a dull relief wash over her, and her body seemed to be trembling. She willed it to stop, but her nerves ignored her. She wondered if Joai would give her brandy to steady her nerves even though the duel was over.
Amrits walked over to Ileth, whom Joai had put well clear of the dueling ground before setting to work on her cut.
“I told you to show a leg, but there’s such a thing as overstepping your orders,” Amrits said, holding her overdress so she might step into it, careful to keep the hem out of the dirt.
“She doesn’t need your patter now, sir,” Joai said.
“Sir, did I win or lose?” Ileth said.
“On the dueling ground you lost, quickly and decisively. Yes, you definitely botched it. A tactical loss, though, can turn into a strategic win, so let’s see how time and tide treat it. Bravely done, anyway. Here. Just in case the fact that you’re still breathing our salubrious mountain air isn’t enough of a reward.”
He extracted the dragon whistle from his bracing vest and, passing the cord lanyard over his head, handed it to her with a little bow. “With my compliments for standing against the Beast Gorgantern, Terror of the Catch Basin. Let’s hope you find a use for it someday.”
“Sir, I—can’t—I . . .”
“Don’t act like I’m trying to foist polished nickel off on you. It’s solid silver. Take it to the jeweler in town, he’ll tell you. Girls these days. Spoiled rotten. Good day to you, Joai. Why don’t you seal that wound up with some of your biscuit dough? It’s impervious to gravy—I doubt blood would do any better.”
With that, he turned on his heel so that the golden fringe on his cape flayed the air and walked back to the other dragoneers. Hael Dun Huss met her gaze and gave her a friendly nod before he turned for the path up to the shrouded Serpentine.
“That Amrits,” Joai said, watching the dragoneers depart. “I bet they pulled him out of his mother wearing a clown hat. Still, the Serpentine’s well rid of Gorgantern. No good having a wrinkled apprentice hanging about like an old hide. Some other novice can move up. Want that mouthful of brandy now?”
Ileth held the silver whistle in both hands, as though she were afraid birds would come and snatch it away. She wanted it, but some clear chunk at the back of her brain reminded her that the Masters were watching, one way or another, and she didn’t want to be thought the kind of person who needs a drink to get them through a crisis. “No, I-I’m . . . calm enough.”
“Rig yourself.” Joai sampled a swig. Her cheeks grew a little redder and she offered Ileth a conspiratorial wink. “I need calming down after all that.”
Ileth took a deep cleansing breath, looked out at the otters (who’d been frightened by the whistle blasts and were nothing but eyes and curious noses sticking out of the water), and shrugged. “I could be a lot calmer, if you understand m-my m-meaning.”
6
By dinner, the tale of the duel had reached all the Serpentine.
The wildest rumors passed up and down the creaky stairways of the Manor, like a nursery game of touchback that grew wilder at each contact.
“You didn’t really fight him naked?” Quith asked.
Ileth shook her head, adding an emphatic “No!” once she recovered enough to get the word out.
Quith leaned in close. “SDT just said you were in your sheath, but then later I heard that you were naked and she’d heard it from SDT and I thought maybe SDT didn’t tell me the whole story because the Matron was listening, but then—”
“Not naked,” Ileth said. “Santeel Dun Troot doesn’t even have it right; I had my shirt on.”
“Well, whatever, brilliant tactic. He must have been so distracted. No wonder you beat him.”
Ileth doubted her knobby knees would distract anything but a wading bird. “I didn’t beat him, he . . . he beat me. He struck me after the whistle. That’s why he’s up before the Masters.”
The Matron found extra duties for Ileth around the Manor, saying that as she’d indulged herself all day with the duel nonsense, well, she’d have to make it up at night. The other novices crowded around, saying it was deeply unfair that she could not enjoy a night of glory in the dining hall. Santeel told and retold the story. She’d stuck to the truth as far as Ileth could tell, except for the sheath business. For once, she wasn’t the trip-tongued girl who smelled of fish, but something like a Name.