got my sword.'
'So you haven't,' Valens replied. 'I'd go and fetch it if I were you.'
Orsea backed away a couple of steps, then turned his back as he crossed the stable and retrieved the sword. I could do it now, Valens thought; I could put the tip of my sword under my boot and snap off the button and stab him through the neck. There's nobody to see, everybody would believe it was a horrible accident. There'd have to be at least a month of formal mourning; we'd postpone the wedding, and then maybe there'd be a hitch; and she'd be a widow…
'Ready?' he called out.
Orsea turned to face him. He looked very pale and rather scared, and he was holding the foil all wrong. 'Ready,' he said.
'Right. Now,' Valens went on, lowering his foil until the tip rested on the flagstones, 'I want you to lunge at me. Straight at my face'd be best. There's an old saying in fencing; the way to a man's heart-'
Orsea lunged. At least, he took a giant stride forward at the same time as he stuck his arm out in front of him, but his foot caught in a crack where the damp had forced up a flagstone, and he stumbled forward, off balance, all his weight in front, windmilling both arms to keep from going over. Valens took the regulation step back and left, preparing for the volte he'd been planning, but Orsea's wildly swishing foil came out of nowhere, and the tip smacked on the flagstones, knocking off the button, before hitting him in the mouth. Valens felt the jagged edge of the broken foil slice along the length of his bottom lip like a knife.
Orsea, balance regained, was staring at him. 'I'm so sorry,' he was saying. 'I think I tripped on something, I didn't mean…'
Valens stepped back a pace-force of habit, to maintain a wide distance-and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. 'Perfectly all right,' he muttered. 'In fact, I'd have been filled with admiration if you'd done it on purpose.' But you couldn't have, he didn't add. 'That's the stromazone, by the way, what I was telling you about earlier. Nothing like a bit of pain to break the other man's concentration.'
Orsea lowered his sword. 'Maybe we should…'
'What, when you're just starting to get the hang of it?' Valens lunged; a slow, lazy move, slovenly, better signposted than the main road to Mezentia, but Orsea didn't move or parry or do anything. The button hit him in the hollow between the collarbones, the softest and surest target of all on an unarmored man; the blade, being a foil, bent like a bow. 'On the other hand,' Valens said, moving the sword away, 'that's probably enough for one day. If you fence when you're starting to get tired, accidents can happen.'
He sucked his lip until his mouth was full of blood, then spat. It was surprising how much it hurt, a little scratch like that. 'Are you all right?' Orsea was saying. He nodded.
'Which isn't to say,' he said, 'that it won't be awkward, so close to the wedding. Don't suppose I'll be getting much kissing done with a mouth full of stitches.'
If a man could die of embarrassment… Then Orsea would be dead, and no need to murder him. Valens started to smile, but the pain checked him. Snap off the button and stab him through the neck; well. Accidents can happen.
'I really am sorry,' Orsea was bleating. 'I did tell you, I'm absolute rubbish at fencing.'
'You were,' Valens amended. 'Now you're slightly better at it.' He reached out and pulled the damaged foil from Orsea's hand. 'Might as well ditch the pair of them,' he said. 'This one's not worth mending, and the other one on its own's no good. I never liked them much anyway.'
Orsea opened his mouth; he didn't need to speak, it was obvious what he'd been going to say. His first impulse had been to offer to pay for a replacement pair, but then he'd remembered that he hadn't got any money, apart from the allowance Valens made him. Buying a man something with his own money would be a uniquely empty gesture. 'It can't be fixed, then?' he said instead.
Valens shook his head. 'You'd need to re-temper the whole blade,' he said. 'Forget about it. One less piece of junk to agonize over leaving behind.'
(As he said that, he tried to remember if Orsea knew about the evacuation. But yes, he did; he'd been at the staff meeting. Of course, there was no guarantee that he'd been paying attention.)
'Suppose I'd better go and get cleaned up,' he said. 'I'm supposed to be meeting the princess in about ten minutes.'
He walked out of the stable, not noticing whether Orsea followed him or not. As he crossed the yard, he realized he was still holding his foil. He stuck it point downward in a stone urn full of small pink flowers and made his way into the main hall. Ten minutes; he sent someone to find the surgeon, and sat down on a bench.
'Don't ask,' he said, when the surgeon arrived.
'I wasn't going to. Was it clean?'
Valens nodded. 'Hurry up,' he said, 'I've got a date with a girl.'
'This is going to hurt a lot,' the surgeon said, threading his needle. 'Don't bother being brave just for my benefit.'
'I won't,' Valens said.
He managed not to scream, even so (the Duke is always brave, always for his own exclusive benefit). The surgeon snipped off the end of the thread with a little silver knife. 'Taking them out won't be much fun either,' he said. 'But there shouldn't be much of a scar. Be more careful next time.'
His clothes were covered in blood, of course. He dragged himself back up to the tower room, changed and slumped down again. He was late for his appointment (whatever the right word was for half an hour of diplomatically mandated flirtation) and the cut was hurting like buggery. Still, it'd be a good way to get the conversation going.
'You've hurt your mouth,' she said, as soon as she saw him. It was practically an accusation.
'Yes,' he replied. 'My own silly fault.'
'What happened?'
He shrugged. 'I got careless handling the goshawk you gave me, and she swiped me.'
She frowned. 'You should bathe the cut in distilled wine,' she said, 'to stop it getting infected. I'm surprised, though. I had hoped I'd trained her better than that.'
'Not her fault,' Valens said. 'I'm just lucky she didn't strike for the eyes.'
'That would have been very bad,' she said. 'You should have her killed.'
'Certainly not,' Valens said. 'She's a very fine hawk.'
'Yes. Even so.'
He smiled. It hurt to smile at her, not entirely because of the stitches. 'Besides,' he said, 'that'd be a poor way to treat a wedding present.'
She frowned again. She seemed to be finding him rather hard going. 'The hawk isn't my wedding present to you,' she said. 'My official present is two divisions of light cavalry, and my personal gift will be a suit of lightweight scale armor, a riding sword and a warhorse.'
'Oh,' Valens said. 'You've spoiled the surprise.'
She looked at him as though he was talking a language she didn't know. 'The gifts are specified in the marriage contract,' she said. 'I'm sorry, I assumed you'd have read it.'
'That's right, I remember now.' He could still taste blood in his mouth. It made him feel hungry. 'Anyway, let's talk about something else. This is the herb garden.'
'I know.'
'Of course you do. That one over there's mint; that's rosemary, and oregano.'
'Basil.'
'Sorry, basil, you're quite right. You know your herbs, then.'
She nodded. 'I read a book about them. We don't use herbs much at home, they're too hard to get hold of. Most of our meat is salted to preserve it, or smoked or dried. As well as common salt, we use wild honey and saltpeter, both of which are fairly abundant in our territory.'
'I see,' Valens said. 'Interesting,' he lied. 'You must find the meat here pretty bland, in that case.'
'Yes,' she said.
'Tell me…' He racked his brain for something to ask her about. 'Tell me what sort of food you eat in your country.'
She raised her thin, long eyebrows. 'Well,' she said, 'we are, as you know, a nomadic society. Accordingly,
