His opponent was a little bit of a surprise, one of the twenty-year-olds who Tier had pegged as the worst kind of troublemaker, the ones who sat by and let other people do their dirty work. Nehret was not one of the boys who usually found themselves in duels.
Watching them closely, Tier could see signs that both of them had been trained to sword since birth, as many noblemen were, but they were trained as duelists, not as soldiers.
When he’d seen enough, Tier turned to the boy on his right, “May I borrow your sword?”
The boy flushed and fumbled, but handed the weapon over. When Tier asked the boy on his left for his sword also, that young man laughed, drew with a flourish and presented it to Tier on one knee. With a short sword in either hand, Tier walked into the makeshift combat floor.
He watched closely for a moment, staying out of both opponents’ immediate line of sight as he tested the swords he held for balance. They were lighter than the one he’d left in Redern and of a slightly different design—made for letting blood rather than killing, he thought.
Finished with his preparations, he darted forward and attacked. Toarsen lost his sword altogether. Nehret kept his blade, but only at the cost of form and balance. He landed ignominiously on his rump.
“If you’re going to fight,” said Tier. “At least do it right. Nehret, you lose power because your shoulders are stiff—you’re making your arms do all the work.” Tier turned his back to Nehret, knowing from the past few days of observation just how well the boy would take being criticized and what he would do about it.
“Toarsen,” Tier said. “You need to worry less about trying to scratch your opponent, and more about defending yourself. In a real fight you’d have been dead a half dozen times.” He turned and caught the blade Nehret had aimed at his back.
“Watch this and see what I mean,” continued Tier as if he weren’t fending off the angry boy’s blows. It wasn’t as easy as he made it look. “Nehret is extending too much—ah, see? That attack is what I was talking about earlier. If you’d had your body behind it instead of just your arm it might have accomplished something. Look, he wants to really hurt me, but he’s been so trained to go for touches rather than hits that he doesn’t stand a chance of hurting me beyond a scratch or two. That’s the problem with too much dueling, you don’t know what to do in a real fight.”
Tier put his left hand behind his back to get that blade out of his way. Then he turned the blade in his right so that when he hit Nehret he didn’t take off his arm, just numbed it so the boy lost his sword.
Tier tapped him on the cheek. “By the way,” he said, “never go after an opponent when his back is turned unless there is more at stake than your pride.” Then he turned his back to Nehret again, knowing that he’d gone a fair way to reducing the amount of influence the boy had upon the other Passerines in the last few minutes. “Toarsen, why don’t you try a round against me?”
After the council meeting, Phoran found that he was quite popular. People followed him wherever he went—to his bedchamber if he didn’t get the door shut fast enough. Tradition would keep all the Septs at the palace until just before harvest; if they kept this up until then, he’d have the whole lot of them thrown out. Finally, having had enough of the fawning, resentful Septs, Phoran sent for Avar to go riding with him.
He’d been avoiding Avar, since he’d put words to the fears he’d always had. It was poor payment for the Sept’s swift support during the council meeting, and Phoran had to do something to change it.
In the stable, he mounted without aid, but he had other things on his mind and took little note of it. For hours he dragged Avar from one merchant guild master to the next. It was not out of the ordinary for the Emperor to visit a guild master’s shop—an emperor would hardly buy goods from a lesser man. If anyone was watching Phoran—and he thought there was at least one man following them—they would see that Phoran purchased something at every shop.
Phoran knew all the guild masters of course, but this was the first time he’d set himself to be pleasant to them. After they left the Weavers’ Guild, Avar gave in to the curiosity Phoran had seen building all morning.
“You don’t need a bed hanging,” said Avar. “You could care less about silver candy dishes and tables with fluted legs. Just what are you doing?”
Phoran had come to believe Avar innocent of anything other than being assigned to keep the Emperor company and told to keep him occupied. Even so, he didn’t quite trust his own evaluation. He should not have had Avar come with him.
Blade tossed his head, and Phoran let his reins slide through his fingers then gradually shortened them again to keep a light hold on the stallion. “After my uncle died, who told you to befriend me?”
Avar stilled.
“It’s all right,” said Phoran, though he watched the crowded streets rather than Avar. “I just would like to know who it was.”
“My father,” said Avar. “But it wasn’t—”
“I suspect it was,” said Phoran ruefully. “I was, what, twelve? And you seventeen. It would have been an unhappy chore—and I thank you for it.”
He took a deep breath and chose to trust. “I’m trying to build some kind of a power base. The Septs will require a lot of work on my part before I know who will back me and why. But the city is as important to the stability of the Empire as the Septs. I thought it would be good to find backing here, where the Septs are too proud to look.”
“I do like you,” said Avar quietly. “I always have.”
“Ah,” said Phoran, for lack of anything better to say. How could Avar have liked him when everyone, including Phoran himself, had despised him? What had there been to like? But Avar had done his best to forward Phoran’s plans, and for that, and for so many years of duty, Phoran owed him the chance to keep his white lies.
They rode in silence to the shop of the master importer, who brought goods from all over the Empire and beyond.
“Is Guild Master Emtarig in?” asked Phoran of the boy who manned the shop.
“Not now, sir. May I help you?”
He was new, this boy, and Phoran doubted that he knew even who it was who entered the shop. Phoran was dressed in riding clothes without imperial symbols—there was nothing to say who he was except his face.
“Boy,” said Avar, gently enough, “tell your master that the Emperor awaits him in his shop.”
The boy’s eyes darted between Phoran and Avar, trying to decide who was the Emperor. At last he bowed low to Avar and scuttled through a curtained passage and, from the sound of his feet, up the stairs to the master’s private lodgings.
Phoran began sorting among the items on the laden shelves and hid his smile. Avar couldn’t help that he looked more like an emperor than Phoran did.
By careful negotiations with the other guilds, the importer’s guild members could sell items that were not made in the city. There were beautifully tanned skins of animals Phoran had never seen—and likely never would. Valuable blown-glass goblets stood on a high shelf where no one was likely to knock them off accidently. Phoran was fingering a handful of brightly colored beads that caught his attention when he heard the boy leap back down the stairs.
He didn’t turn until the guild master said, “Most Gracious Emperor, you honor my shop.”
“Master Willon?” Phoran said with honest delight. He had to turn back to put the beads away. “I thought that you had retired to some gods’ forsaken province, never to return to Taela?”
“Careful, Phoran,” said Avar, who was grinning. “He went to Redern, which is part of my Sept.”
“And Leheigh is truly a gods’ forsaken place,” agreed Phoran. “What business brings you back? I hope that there is nothing wrong with Master Emtarig.”
“My son is well,” said Willon. “But I have not seen my grandchildren in too long. I thought it was time to visit. My son is out to the market to speak with the Music Guild about a drum I brought back with me. Also, I had some people to see here.”