it stung nonetheless. His father's mail shirt weighed heavily on his shoulders, slowing him down.
The bystanders had stopped with their shouts of encouragement, or he had stopped hearing them.
'You're predictable,' his opponent said matter-of-factly as they broke once again. They circled each other warily. The man, Alymere realised sickly, was barely out of breath. 'Your body announces your intention whenever you so much as think about countering. You over-compensate, you lean, putting too much weight on your right foot. It's obvious if you know what to look for. It'll also get you killed.' The man's wooden sword darted in, cracking off Alymere's shoulder. The impact forced several of the chain links into his skin. He felt blackness well up, threatening to drown him. He backed up a step, doing his best to shake it off, and brought his own sword to bear, aiming a scything swing at his opponent's skull. The wild swing was easily dealt with. It was never meant to connect. It was only meant to buy him a few precious moments of respite, and in that it succeeded. 'You're quick, I'll give you that, but you're crude,' the man said. There was no hint of mockery in his voice, but still Alymere flinched at the words. The words stung, but only because they were true. 'You don't read my body, you're so intent on the sword, so you are always reacting and on the defensive, instead of watching my body, reading my intentions, predicting and countering accordingly. There's no doubt you've got some skill, but as I said, you're crude, and your mastery of the sword is lacking. In short, there is much yet you need to learn.'
Alymere swallowed hard, his pride urging him on. 'And you talk too much!' he said, throwing himself forward. He slashed at the air between them wildly, once, twice, three times. The man skipped away from the blunt sword, rocking back on his heel as the third swing whistled past his face.
Alymere had let himself get riled, and in turn had left himself exposed.
The man came on again, smiling this time.
Alymere grunted, expecting a blow to the chest, a jab or a thrust, something to take advantage of his imbalance, but instead, going against everything he could reasonably have anticipated, the man dropped to one knee as though ceding the bout.
Alymere hesitated, and his opponent whipped his sword around to crack off his ankle, bringing stunned tears to his eyes. Alymere threw himself to the ground, scrambling away before the wooden sword could smack down across his shoulders.
Another furious blow swept in, this one coming in high, with the blazing sun behind it. He mistimed the parry and took the full weight of the blow on his forearm.
This time, when the sparring sword went spinning away, his opponent offered no concession. He closed the gap between them quickly, reversing his blade to deliver a stinging rap across the side of the skull that left Alymere's ears ringing and his eyes watering.
'Enough!' someone bellowed from the side-lines. Alymere didn't recognise the voice. He sank to his knees gratefully and lowered his head.
The wooden sword lay in the dirt a few feet beyond his reach. Trying to focus on it, he shook his head. A wave of nausea rose up inside him, and the horizon canted treacherously, the world and his grasp on his place within it rushing away from him. He fell, reaching out blindly to catch himself, felt the welcoming impact, and tasted the dirt on his tongue. He lay still for a moment, trying desperately to gather his wits, then lifted his head.
He saw the man's back as he walked away from him, leaving him lying in the dirt, and felt impotent fury rise up like bile. Without thinking, Alymere leaned forward, scrambling in the dirt until his fist closed around the sparring sword, and surged to his feet, closing the gap between him and his opponent in five unsteady steps. Even as the crowd shouted out its warning he delivered a savage blow across the back of the unsuspecting man's shoulders, driving him down to his knees.
Before he could deliver the
Bors growled, 'You will never do that again.
Alymere was shaking. He stared down at his bloody knuckles, trying to understand what he had done.
'There are no answers there, lad,' Bors said, his tone softening, but only slightly. 'The king was watching, and half the knights of Camelot, and what you showed them was that you don't know when you're beaten. That makes you dangerous, lad. Courage is a good thing; spirit is a good thing. Being able to dig deep and fight on even when you're hopelessly outmatched is a good thing. There's no shame in being beaten by a better man. But listen to me now, because I may never say a more important thing to you: there's nothing but shame in striking an unarmed man, and from behind no less.'
It was the disappointment in his voice that cut Alymere. It was worse by far than the anger. In defeat, Alymere had revealed more about himself and his nature than a hundred victories might have. He pulled his father's tabard off over his head and screwed it up in his fist. In less than a day he had brought shame to it, to his father, to Baptiste and to everything he held dear. He had let them all down. He lowered his head, unable to look Bors in the eye as he said, 'I'm sorry.'
'Then maybe there's hope for you yet.'
Four
The third surprise awaited Alymere in the Great Hall that night.
He had spent the remainder of the day with Bors. The big knight worked him to exhaustion and beyond, pushing him every step of the way. They ran for miles across the open ground, side by side, Bors urging him to dig deep and find another burst of speed, to stretch his legs, to push on, and then, bathed in sweat, they stripped to the waist and began sword practice. Bors tried to explain how the body moved, demonstrating the most common moves he was likely to face so Alymere could learn to read his intentions before the blows came. Bors delivered cuts and thrusts, urging Alymere to watch his legs and torso for tell-tale signs of where his strength was being directed. It was enlightening. And as the day wore on, Alymere began to make sense of what his opponent had meant, but making sense of it and being good at it were two distinct things. When Bors put him through his paces an hour before sunset Alymere was disarmed again and again and again, the knight sending his wooden blade spinning with a roll of the wrist or a rap on the knuckles. Each time, though, Alymere came a little closer to anticipating the move before it caught him.
Bors seemed pleased as they packed up their things.
As they walked back through the bailey into the castle it seemed almost as though the morning's bout had been forgotten and Alymere walked tall, new-found pride in each step. He belonged here. He might not be the knight his father had been, and he might still have a lot to learn, but neither was he the boy who had embarked upon this journey only a few days ago. He had changed.
One of the guards drew Sir Bors aside as they approached. Alymere couldn't hear the words being exchanged, but Bors returned with a face like thunder. He pushed open the great double doors, grinding them back heavily on their iron hinges, and strode into the hall. In that moment there was no doubting Sir Bors's nobility. He commanded the room and seemed to stand a head taller as he swept down the central aisle toward the great Round Table that dominated the middle of the vast chamber. Alymere hurried five steps behind him, eyes everywhere as he tried to absorb it all. He had imagined this room, but never in his wildest dreams had he come close to the reality of it.
Huge kite shields hung around the wall, a hundred or more, each painted with a distinct crest. Baptiste had schooled him in the coats of arms of all the noble families of Albion as well as those of Breton and beyond. Ignorance, the man had always maintained, was worthy of scorn, nothing more. So now, as he walked into the Great Hall, Alymere found himself naming the devices in his head as his gaze moved from one to the next; Sir Dodinal the Savage and the brothers Sir Balan and Sir Balin, Sir Helian le Blanc, Sir Clariance, Sir Plenorius, Sir Sadok, Sir Agravaine of Orkney and Sir Ywain of Gore among so many of the others. It was a humbling sight; one that reminded him very much of his place. Here he was, surrounded on all sides by the shields of every knight who had ever taken the vow of fealty to Arthur; of every knight who honoured the tenets of chivalry and upheld them to the highest order; of every knight who had risen to take a seat at the fabled Round Table through the years since its formation. Here, in this room, was the true history of Albion.
And among them, Alymere saw his father's leaping stag on the wall. He swelled with pride at the sight of it,
