‘You have good technique, Gredda,’ the man rumbled, ‘but your grip requires attention.’ The rest of the class laughed and the girl flushed angrily. The man placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘Do not worry. You fight well. Now let us retrieve your sword.’
He turned towards the tree and seemed to look right at Bel. ‘Ho, the tree!’ he called.
Bel grinned. ‘Ho, the ground!’ he called back.
‘Would you return Gredda’s sword to her, young lurker?’
Bel swung from the branch to hang in plain view. ‘With pleasure!’
‘Oho!’ said the man. ‘I might have known!’
As Bel dropped to the ground to grab the sword and go running around the long way, Losara simply drifted over the hedge.
The man turned to his students. ‘That is the end of lessons for today,’ he announced. ‘Gredda, wait for your sword. The rest may leave.’
The group broke up in different directions as Bel arrived, panting. ‘Your sword, m’lady,’ he said, going down on one knee and extending the sword towards Gredda. She snatched it back and strode off huffily. Then the gate soldier arrived behind Bel, red and breathing hard.
‘I’m sorry, Taskmaster Corlas,’ the soldier puffed. ‘He ran through the gate before I could stop him!’
‘Because you were asleep at your post!’ piped Bel.
The soldier went even redder, and not from exertion. ‘Why, you little cur! I ought to –’
‘Be calm, soldier,’ Corlas said. ‘The boy is here by my leave. Return to your nap …I mean post.’ He winked at Bel, who smirked.
‘Right, sir,’ said the soldier suspiciously, and turned with a frown to trudge back to the gate.
Corlas looked down at Bel. ‘Your grip on Gredda’s sword looked good,’ he said. ‘As if someone had taught you. But I know that I have never put a sword into your hands, my very young son.’
Son, thought Losara. This man is Bel’s father. My father.
‘The Throne once showed me how a sword is carried,’ said Bel.
‘Did he now?’ Corlas’s eyes narrowed slightly. ‘Well, did you know that I once beat the Throne in a joust?’
Bel shook his head.
‘I’d be careful who you get your advice from,’ said Corlas, and ruffled Bel’s hair. ‘I am not supposed to teach one so young, but if the Throne himself deems you ready …Well, would you like to learn what to do with a sword once you can grip it?’
Bel’s eyes shone, and Corlas chuckled.
Together they went to the armoury where, with the aid of an amused armourer, they found a wooden sword small enough for Bel to practise with. Back on the training field, Corlas began to teach the basics of swordplay. The boy learned quickly and well, seeming to have an instant affinity with the weapon. For hours they practised, neither growing tired. As the sun crossed the sky above, Losara wondered if there had ever been a deadlier six-year-old.
Yet I have no love for the blade, he thought. Was I supposed to?
The dream took him suddenly elsewhere, to a reedy river where frogs chirped, then a deep wood full of skeletal trees, then a mountain range on the edge of the world where rays from the rising sun shone between peaks like a bridge …Scene after scene came, flashing one after the other, blending into each other. The rush became overpowering and he reeled in the dark, his mind beginning to shred under the onslaught of everything .
A force had seized and contained him, halting his wild spinning. For a moment he felt squashed, then realised it was because he was inside his own body again. It was falling to the ground. He felt arms catch him, lift him and carry him out of the Breath. Looking up he saw Battu, with eyes like wells. He wheezed as air replaced the darkness in his lungs.
‘You spread too thin,’ said Battu gruffly. ‘There is only so much one mind can take.’ He kneeled by the gasping boy. ‘This is why I was there with you, why you must never go into the Cloud by yourself. Rest a moment, boy.’
Losara did as he was told, quietly pondering what he had seen. Away in Kainordas, his father taught his other self and did it purely out of love. Meanwhile, he had the Shadowdreamer as a teacher. Battu wasn’t his real father, yet he had taken Losara to raise as his own.
Why? he had wondered that day, for the first time.
The answer came to him on his twelfth birthday, when Battu had held a dinner for him and Heron.
‘Try these, boy,’ Battu had said, grinning sharkishly and sliding a bowl of quivering lumps across the table. ‘Marinated anemones. Have to be served fresh. I sent a whelkling on a special trip to Afei Edres just for these!’
Losara was already full, but there seemed no end to Battu’s appetite or his enthusiasm for seafood. Losara spooned a blob onto his plate and, with Battu watching intently, bit into it. The jellied flesh sliced cleanly into smaller pieces that slipped around his mouth, filling it with a briny taste. Losara found the meat unappealing, but he ate the whole thing.
‘A delicacy, master,’ he said.
‘Have more,’ said Battu.
‘I am quite full, master.’
Battu scowled and shoved a whole anemone into his mouth. ‘These are hard to come by, boy. I suggest you enjoy them while you have the chance. Not every day is your birthday. You may indulge yourself, I will not think less of you.’
Losara thought it best to eat another anemone, though he was careful to take more time with this one.
‘Good,’ said Battu. ‘If you’d been brought up in that foxy little wood I rescued you from, there’d be no fine food like this on the table. You remember that.’
‘Yes, master.’
Battu grew annoyed at this. ‘What’s wrong, boy? Is this meal not enough for you?’
Losara was confused by the outburst. He’d agreed with Battu, hadn’t he? ‘The meal is very nice, my lord,’ he tried.
Battu visibly tried to relax his features, and pushed another bowl across the table. ‘Spiced beef,’ he said.
Losara dutifully took a handful of strips and tried to appear enthusiastic about forcing them down. The Shadowdreamer had something hungry in his gaze that had nothing to do with food. It struck Losara that while Battu didn’t actually love him, the dark lord still sought Losara’s love. Why would that be? Why would the Shadowdreamer seek such a thing from a young boy?
Loyalty was the answer. Battu was trying to raise Losara loyal, which meant making Losara love him. Everything became clear. Whenever Battu had been ‘nice’, Losara now realised it was for a purpose. Whenever Battu attempted to appear ‘fatherly’, he was motivated by his own concerns. Battu had grown angry now because Losara had given him an agreeable ‘Yes, master’ when he wanted adulation, not meek compliance.
‘Wonderful,’ Losara said, slurping noisily on the beef. ‘Thank you, Father – I mean master.’ He feigned concern over the slip, but Battu seemed extremely pleased.
With the mystery of the fatherly guise solved, Losara found the tyrant incarnation of Battu even more troubling. While most would be moved beyond terror at the slightest chance they’d displeased the dark lord, the trouble for Losara was that he did not fear him. Battu put Losara in mind of a snake that needed to be handled with utmost care lest it lash out in anger. Even through Battu’s loudest tirades and harshest punishments, Losara had never truly been stirred. He’d learned to feign fear, especially if Battu was in a punishing mood, for he took no pleasure in pain and did what he could to avoid it. He often wondered what he’d lost in his division from Bel. Perhaps his ability to feel fear had been affected?