“I don’t think we have a chime to spare, Mist, still less a day.” A handful of D’Olbriot men had come to back Stoll. Den Thasnet’s men were spreading out around the practice ground.
“Are they looking for a fight?” Fyle scowled. “Right here in D’Olbriot’s own sword school?”
“Which would do your Sieur’s case in the courts no good at all,” Mistal pointed out with growing concern. “With the right advocate, it could do him considerable harm.”
“Either I meet this so-called chosen and risk dishonouring the House by losing or we all dishonour the name by being dragged into a fight.” I tried my bruised hand carefully. “We’ve been set up for knocking down like bobbins on a loom, haven’t we? I’ll have to meet this challenger. No, Mist, hear me out. There are too many women and children around, and too many men all but drunk to risk a brawl.”
I turned to Temar. “I’ll borrow your sword again, if I may? If trouble does start, get him out of here.” I nodded at my brother. “Mist’s no use with a blade, and if there is a mêlée someone could finish the job that dagger started on you.”
Temar’s nod was grudging but that was good enough for me. I wouldn’t trust him not to try some half-arsed heroics on his own, but with Mistal to protect the odds were better than even he’d keep himself out of danger.
“Right, Fyle, tell Den Thasnet they’ve got an answer.” I swung my arms to get the blood flowing again, refusing to acknowledge the fatigue threatening to blunt my edge, wondering if I had time to go for a piss. Whoever was behind this had timed their move very cleverly, the bastards. “Mist, have you got any leaf on you?”
“Since when do you use it?” He held out his wash-leather pouch.
I grimaced at the bitter taste overlaid with sickly sweet honey spirit soaking the leaf. “Does this stuff really wake you up?”
“It keeps me awake through both halves of a night reading legal precedents.” Mistal smiled but his heart wasn’t in it.
I mastered the impulse to spit out the revolting pulp and wondered how long it took to warm the blood. I daren’t delay, not if we were going to avoid a free-for-all. Stolley was puce with anger and Fyle virtually had to drag him away from Den Thasnet’s man. I walked out on to the sand.
The so-called chosen Dagny appeared, walking straight past Fyle without even greeting him. Fyle took a step after the man, furious. It’s the provost’s privilege to grant permission to fight on his ground to anyone answering a challenge. I waved him back. The discourtesy meant Fyle was quite within his rights to stop the fight but there’d be more blood on the sand if he did. The Den Thasnet trefoil was dotted in threes and fours all round the practice ground by now and a worrying number of men who’d shown no badge earlier now turned kerchiefs to reveal that same flower at their throats.
Dagny stood in the centre of the practice ground, sword eager, a crooked grin lifting one side of his mouth. Walking round him in a slow circle, careful to stay beyond reach of his blade, I kept my face open and friendly.
“So Den Thasnet chose you because you’re good against wolves?” I spoke as I was directly behind Dagny and he took the bait, wheeling round. Good, now he was reacting to me.
“That’s right—”
I cut him off. “How about real men?” I levelled my sword and he matched it immediately. I thrust at his chest, stepping to the side to avoid his counter thrust, rolling my blade hard over to force his down. I took a pace back, but he kept coming. He was fast, barely older than Temar, with all the fire of youth and a cocky smirk. Let him grin; I had years about the business of fighting behind me.
But this Dagny was suspiciously fast on his feet. He thrust, leaving himself open, but his attack was so furious all I could do was get clear, parrying as I did so. We circled each other and I studied his eyes. They were hazel, not so unusual in a man from Ast, where Tormalin blood meets exiled Lescari and wandering Dalasorians. But Dagny’s pupils were mere pinpricks of darkness. That might have looked normal enough in the noon day sun, but here in the shade I was chary.
I thrust and Dagny parried with a move the very echo of his first riposte. I turned his blade, but this time I stepped in close, getting inside his guard as he left that self-same opening. I let go my sword with my off hand and grabbed his, crushing his fingers brutally against the hilt as I used my own blade to turn the edge of his away. Dagny stumbled in surprise, his grip broken, and I rolled my arm over his, twisting his body until I locked his captive elbow tight against my chest, his blade pointing impotently at the sky. He had to bend from the waist to keep his feet so I kicked some dust in his face. He spluttered and coughed.
“Do you yield?” I asked genially.
“Never,” he spat furiously.
I twisted his wrist, ignoring the protests from my swollen hand. “You yield or I break your arm off and shove the bone end up your arse.”
That won a laugh from everyone close enough to hear, everyone but the one Den Thasnet’s man in the corner of my eye.
“Yield!” I repeated with menace. Dagny’s only response was to claw at my feet with his free hand so I stamped on his fingers. Whoever had trained up this animal hadn’t taught him the first thing about formal bouts.
“First touch to Ryshad Tathel!” Fyle came out on to the sand, face like thunder. Den Thasnet’s men raised a storm of protest but shouts from everyone else drowned them out. I held Dagny until Fyle had taken both swords and then I sent the boy sprawling in the dust.
“When you’re called on to yield and you’ve no hope of a counter, you cursed well yield, you ignorant turd! Doesn’t Den Thasnet train his dogs?” Fyle laid both swords down well apart before storming off, snarling abuse at Den Thasnet’s spokesman. “You call that chosen, shitting on my school with behaviour like that?”
I was watching Dagny, back on his feet as soon as the provost’s back was turned, dirty face twisted with resentment.
“Didn’t want Fyle to smell your breath?” I taunted him.
“I’m not drunk,” he scoffed.
“Better for you if you were.” Dagny hadn’t wanted Fyle to smell the sweet piquancy of tahn hanging round him. No wonder he’d stayed outside, surrounded by Den Thasnet men presumably bribed to lose their sense of smell. Fyle would have thrown Dagny off the sand and clean out of the sword school if he’d realised the boy was flying high on the little berries.
Dagny was no chosen man; I doubted he’d ever been sworn. The best a recognised lad could hope to get away with was a taste for chewing leaf or thassin, and I knew from personal experience that Fyle and all the provosts reckoned to break any man of a thassin habit before he was sworn.
I picked up my sword without ever taking my eyes off Dagny. I could call off the fight, accusing Dagny of coming on to the ground drugged. I’d have the support of every man here, bar those of Den Thasnet. But the air was growing thicker with tension and hostility and it was grapes to goat-shit that every man here would want to kick some humility into Den Thasnet hides if I showed their man was doped with tahn. Then whoever wanted a brawl here would have one, wouldn’t they?
Dagny turned his back on me as he went to retrieve his weapon, too focused on doing me harm to think about his own safety, I realised. The tahn was doing that, pinning his will on the one thing he’d had suggested to him, buoying him up with exultant confidence in his own abilities.
“Have at him, Rysh!” A voice shouted, one I vaguely recognised from D’Olbriot’s barracks.
Dagny whirled round, sword flailing. Derisive laughter burst out all around and Dagny looked at me with sudden hatred burning with tahn-induced paranoia. Now it was my fault he’d shown himself up as an ignorant yokel, not realising no man of honour would attack an opponent’s unknowing back.