Young men with pale drawn faces, uncertain eyes and nervous hands, sweaty brows and shuffling feet.
Lorenzo studied his students. Not a single real diestro among them. At least not yet.
Rui Faleiro stood near the center of the room, still grinning merrily with a glass of beer in his hand. “To your health, gentlemen!” He finished his drink.
Lorenzo saluted. Silvio saluted. Lorenzo assumed the classical destreza stance, tall and straight, sword held parallel to the ground. Silvio grinned as he settled back into a more relaxed pose, a casual stance that conveyed nothing about his skill but volumes about his confidence.
The Italian attacked. A slash at the face, a slash at the belly. Lorenzo snapped his wrist from side to side, swatting him away, and then assumed a similarly relaxed pose identical to his opponent.
Silvio stopped grinning. “What is this? You’re copying me? Are you giving up on your own style already?”
Lorenzo shook his head. “You’re a bit confused, young man. You see, I don’t have a style. Not really. Not as you understand it.”
The Italian glared. “Then what is all this, this school of yours? What is the Quesada style? The Madrid style? Is it really just a religious cult like they told me in Valencia?”
Lorenzo smiled and shrugged. “Actually, you’re not too far off.”
Silvio dashed forward to cut the leg, to cut the arm, to cut the chest. But each time Lorenzo slipped sideways and parried, always parried, never blocked, never stopped the Italian cold. Every slash and cut of Silvio’s blade was deftly pushed aside an inch here or an inch there. But each time Lorenzo fell back a step or two.
“Alonso,” Lorenzo called to the tall young man by the window. He was more skilled with a guitar than an espada, but he was still better than the others. “Why do we fight? For money? For glory? For ourselves?”
“No, sir. We fight for the ones who stand behind us,” the youth said, his fist over his heart. “We fight for those who cannot fight for themselves. We fight for those who should not have to fight. We are the line in the sand that cannot be crossed. We are the shield that will not break. We are-”
“Alonso, Alonso.” Lorenzo grinned and waved his hand. “Where are you getting all this?”
“Sorry, sir. Just something I was working on in my head. I thought it might do for a song.”
“No, no. It’s good. I should put it in the manual. Is there more?”
Alonso nodded earnestly. “We are the shield that will not break, the blade that does falter, and the knee that does not bend. May all the swords in the world shatter before us until war is only a memory and God’s peace fills all men’s hearts.”
Lorenzo laughed. “I like that. Very good, Alonso.”
“Thank you, sir. The first version was utter crap.”
“Language, Alonso.”
The youth covered his mouth. “Sorry, did I say shit again?”
“Language!”
Lorenzo grinned as the attacks came faster, the young Italian grimacing and grunting with each stroke. Now Lorenzo stood his ground and let the blows fall hard on his squared-off blocks. A crash on the right, a crash above his head. The youth was slight but strong and Lorenzo felt the ache building in his own shoulder. He stared into the Italian’s eyes, wondering what might be burning and turning in the youth’s brain.
Lorenzo shoved him back a step. “Are you hoping to make a name for yourself here? Am I so famous in Italia that defeating me would buy you a song?”
Silvio rolled his shoulder back and wiped the sweat from his brow. “It will buy me my own fencing school, a position with the guild, a place on the council, and then one day I will be Duke of Firenze. My entire career begins today, here with you.”
“Ah.” Lorenzo nodded. “I see. Well, good luck to you.” And he dashed backward two steps.
Silvio’s eyes went wide and he lunged. For the first time in three minutes of continuous swordplay, he lunged. The slender Italian blade leapt like lightning, a narrow flash in the white sunlight, the youth’s entire body taut and straight and driving toward the heart.
Lorenzo noted every line, every angle, every curve of the man’s body and blade. And he slipped beside it and let the point stab at the empty air, and then drove his own Toledo steel through the swept hilt of the Italian sword to pin the man in place. He leaned down and whispered in Silvio’s ear, “Thank you. I’ve been dying to learn Ridolfo’s so-called perfect lunge. I can’t thank you enough for saving me the journey all the way to Italia to see it.”
Then he jerked Silvio off balance, planted his boot on the Italian blade, and wrenched the youth forward. The Roman steel sheared off in one sharp snap.
Lorenzo backed away and sheathed his own sword. “Master de Medici, you can take your hilt and go in peace. But leave the blade. That’s forfeit. That’s the price of your lesson.”
Silvio stumbled upright and swallowed. “That’s it? That’s your style? That’s your vaunted philosophy of combat?”
“Yes.” Lorenzo pointed at the blade on the floor. “One less sword in the world. And maybe one wiser man in it as well.”
The youth sneered, threw down his hilt, and strode out of the hall.
The grinning students cheered. Lorenzo shook the hands offered to him, graciously accepting the overzealous praise, and then sat down to relax his tired arm and let some of the tension out of his back. As his students clustered eagerly around him, he watched Qhora slip out the door, giving him one last fleeting look before she left. He also watched Rui Faleiro slip out the same door behind her, but he wasn’t worried. These days, she carried four exotic knives on her person.
Well, four that I know about, at least.
Chapter 2. Qhora
She exhaled and wiped the sweat from her palms. Qhora had always been anxious watching Lorenzo fight with that tiny excuse for a sword, but ever since the wedding she could barely stand to see him in danger. Even in practice.
When did I become so weak and squeamish? He’s always been strong. He survived the plague and the wars. He survived me. And worse, I let him see how afraid I am. It’s this place. This miserable country. If he did die, then his students would leave, and his servants would leave, and I would be utterly alone. Just another childless widow forced into a convent for their stupid three-faced god.
She passed down a narrow corridor and stepped off into a small room where she would often go to read and practice her Espani domestic skills. On the little table lay her attempts at sowing and knitting, drawing and painting, and even calligraphy. She sat in her chair and stared out the window. That was another habit she had taken from Enzo. Staring out at the world in silent contemplation. She often wondered what he felt gazing at his wintry homeland, but she knew what she felt. Bored.
No hint of green except in the brief reprieve these people called summer. Two months of grass and stunted fruit trees. Qhora closed her eyes and tried to remember the rainforests, the endless jungles pulsating with life. The chirps and drones of millions of insects, the screams of monkeys, the songs of birds, the roars of the great cats. The Empire was never silent, even at night in the dead of winter. But here in Espana, one could imagine the world itself was dead. Nothing but snow and ice, a world drained of all color and sound except the pale slate blue of the sky and the dry rasping of the wind.
A knock at the door drew her attention to the older gentleman in the hall. Buried beneath layers of shirts and coats, it was difficult to tell what sort of build he had, but judging from the weak chin and soft jowls, she guessed he was little more than a scarecrow with a lump of fat around his belly and neck with no room wasted on frivolous muscle. Not a threat to m e, she thought.
He smiled. “Excuse me, Dona Qhora?”
The title still sounded strange to her even after a year of marriage. “Yes?”
“I’m Commander Rui Faleiro. I’ve come to speak with your husband on several matters of business. But I have a bit of a strange question for you, if you’ll indulge me.” His smile was false, but probably more from practice than actual deceit. “When we arrived a short while ago, we heard some strange noises coming from your stables. The boy out there said I should ask you about it.”
