She gnawed at her lip and carefully put her small hand in his.
"Now push my hand to the floor."
She tried. She made him resist harder than he had expected, but he held, even when she threw her shoulder into it unexpectedly.
She sat back frowning.
"Do you want to try to hold me off?"
"You said don't engage."
"Sometimes you have no choice. Sometimes there are five and six of them and you haven't got a damn choice. Sometimes they come in numbers larger than that, and sometimes there's no room to back up, you've got to take the room. I've taught you the moves a woman can do. But there are some you can't."
"Try me."
"What you want is impossible, girl. A man doesn't have to be better than you to beat you. He just has to be stronger and half as good—and that means some damn door guard can lop your head off. That means some ox of a line soldier can bash a cheap sword right through your guard and if he doesn't get you on that one his partner will, from the back. That's the way it is in the world. You're not strong enough. You can't do everything with the blade and you can't evade everything that comes at you."
"All I have to be is good enough for one."
"You're out of your senses. You won't get that far, you'll die in a damn ditch, for nothing. If you're lucky."
"I'm not afraid."
"You're a fool, then! Or a liar."
"You swore you'd teach me. If you haven't been teaching me right, you're breaking your word." Her eyes glittered with unshed tears. "And you'd be a liar, master Saukendar."
"Damn you."
Her chin trembled. And she stared at him in defiance.
"Listen to me, girl. Listen. If I hit you all-out, as can happen, I'll break your bones. Right across the shoulder. First honest match, snap, there goes the arm. Is that what you want?"
"If you teach me so you can hit me, that's the way it is, isn't it? You want me to get killed."
"You damned little fool, I'm telling you it happens."
"You gave your word."
"I told you how that happened. Listen to me. You're good. You're very good. But you can't do the things you want. You can't change nature. Forget this crazy notion of yours. You've got a roof over your head. You've got a warm bed. You can stay with me as long as you like." He took a deep breath and took the chance, out loud, the way he had been thinking it—hell with his heritage, the things they would say in Cheng'di. Hell with the look his father would give him, if his father were alive to see it; but his father, thank the gods, had not seen a good lot else that had happened, either. "As my wife, or as close to that as matters for anyone. It's not a bad life here. Is it?"
"No," she said sharply, scowling.
"No, what? What are you going to do else? March on Gitu's castle? Be a damned fool? They'll cut you up for dog meat."
"You swore an oath."
"I made a simple promise! It doesn't count, to a madwoman!"
"No, you said you swore. And so did I, master Saukendar. I swore an oath too. And you'll teach me."
He gnawed his lip, glaring at her. "You're a damned hard-headed bitch."
"I swore. And I'll do it. And you will. You'll teach me the right way. You won't cheat."
"I didn't cheat!"
"What else is it, if you held back on me?"
"Damn you for a fool! You want your bones broken?"
"I want justice, master Saukendar. I want you to do what you promised. If you can't teach me any better than that, it's your fault, isn't it, master Saukendar?"
"Fool, I say! It happens. It happens to men and the best of them. What chance do you think you have? You get tired, girl, you get tired and you make a mistake, you get hot in the damn armor, you can't pick your footing, some damn footsoldier guts your horse—what in hell do you think you're going to do then?"
"You can teach me that. The way you promised."
"Fool," he muttered, and said nothing else for a long while. Finally he passed out of the mood to say anything, and went over to his mat and undressed, not caring about her sensibilities, deliberately defying her presence, and walked over to the hearth to pour a little rice wine and to heat it.
"Want any?" he asked brusquely, looking her direction. But she had gathered up the dishes and she was putting herself to bed, clothes and all.
"No," she said without looking at him, tucked under the quilts with her back to him and pulled them over head.
"It's going to be a long winter, girl. Drink some wine with me. We'll talk about the court. Talk about whatever you like."
"No." From under the quilts.
He stood there thinking ungentlemanly thoughts a good long moment, while the wine heated. Then he took the wine-pot and blew out the light.
"I'm going to my own mat," he said in the dark.
No answer from the other side of the room.
So he sat down in the dark and drank the wine down to the bottom, and tried not to think about her, the sword that had nearly crippled her, or Chiyaden and ambushes of ungrateful peasants.
He kept seeing that moment behind his eyelids. He saw the first man he had ever killed. He saw a score more after that, and the wreckage a sword could leave of a man. Good men. Maimed and screaming in the dirt.
He had himself another woman and he was as helpless to reason with this one as with the first.
He should have slept with Meiya, he told himself, the first time the idea had ever crossed his mind. There would have been scandal. A quick marriage. And Meiya, no longer virgin, before the Emperor had ever taken the notion to claim her for his murdering fool of a son, would have been safe from everything that had happened to her at the hands of her husband.
He should listen to no nonsense now, should take the direct course with Taizu, go over there and show her what a man's strength was worth against her prudery: she would warm after a night or two, would come to sense, would find a gentleman's ways different than the men she had known—
It all seemed very reasonable. Until he thought about Taizu.
Until he remembered what she would say to him at the critical moment:
You gave your word, master Saukendar.
"How's the arm?" he asked her at breakfast.
"It's fine, master Saukendar."
He ate a few more bites.
"I can do my lesson today," she said.
He said nothing.
"I'm not stiff, master Saukendar. There's nothing wrong with me. You mostly missed me."
"I pulled it, dammit. I laid myself wide open pulling it, I risked my neck stopping, let's get the thing right, shall we?"
"I wouldn't have hit you—"
"Then what in hell do you think you're holding a sword for?"
Taizu had her mouth open. She shut it, fast.
"All right," he said, glaring at her. "You want me to teach you like a man, you've asked for it."
The skirts of the armor came to her knees. "It's heavy," she said, swaying as he cinched it in with ropes about her waist, crossed around her chest, because it had to overlap to fit; and he had padded up her arms and her legs with leather wrappings and old rags, because the armor-sleeves and the shin-guards were impossible.
"You want me to teach you," he said.
"What are you going to wear?"
"I'm not worried," he said. "You're the one apt to lose a hand." He stood back, took up his sword and pointed at hers. "There you are. On your guard."
She staggered a little in the moves. But she steadied.
He put her on Jiro's back on the next day and let her have the feel of riding in that weight of metal, when before, she had only sat Jiro bareback when he was lazing about the pasture. She did not fall off. But Jiro was on good behavior.