All the other novices were heading in for afternoon meditation. Sekadi hated meditation. She had a hard enough time sitting still for lectures. Spending two hours on her knees seeking ultimate stillness was like torture.
She’d earn a week’s scullery duty for skipping it but it was punishment she’d accept gladly if she discovered something to help her regain her honor.
* * *
The novice dormitory was a stark contrast to the Mosuoe’s cloisters. Gold-stained tunics, having been tossed haphazardly at laundry bins rather than into, hung on them like bloody war banners. Shoes and parchments and even the occasional communication broach lay wherever their owners had dropped them waiting patiently for their eventual return. Beds were unmade, platters of food teetered precariously on the edges of cabinets, desks or any other vaguely horizontal surface. The place was the chaotic opposite to everything the Mosuoes strove to perfect.
Only the weapons, the crescent blades and scimitars of the novices, their knives and whips and spears hung in pristine readiness on pegs on the longer wall.
Sekadi bounded silently up the stairs to the senior novice’s room. It was only slightly less chaotic than the junior’s space below; Sekadi’s own cot being the center of this particular storm.
She crept to the nearest window and peered down at the practice circles. Sure enough, Mosuoe Nemisa and the big male were moving slowly to the center of the nearest one. Did they mean to spar?
No.
They continued to the other side of the ring, taking up positions on either side of the small pool.
The big male knelt, his sword laid naked and flat across his knees in the position of openness.
Nemisa said something– it sounded like “begin”– and then she walked off, never sparing the big male a backward glance.
#
The sun had almost been eaten by the horizon and still the big male had not moved. Sekadi had missed all her afternoon classes, all her scheduled spars. She was about to miss evening meal but she couldn’t break off from her fascination with him.
“Go down there,” said Mosuoe Nemisa’s voice suddenly beside her. Sekadi hadn’t heard her approach, hadn’t felt even the slightest disturbance in the air. “You want to know him, do you not?”
“I want to kill him,” said Sekadi.
“Yes,” said Mosuoe Nemisa. If there was amusement in her voice, Sekadi couldn’t say. “You’ve been trying. And failing.”
“Yes, Mosuoe,” said Sekadi, her voice suddenly thick.
“Why, do you think?”
“Mosuoe?” said Sekadi, still watching the big male. “Why do I try or why do I fail?”
“Either,” said Nemisa. “Or both. They are the same.”
Sekadi hated Mosuoe Nemisa when she was like this. It wasn’t often but when the mood struck her Nemisa could speak in the most infuriating riddles, totally opaque but whose solutions, once known, were embarrassingly obvious.
“I don’t know,” said Sekadi after a time.
“Battles are rarely won from a distance, Novice,” said Nemisa. “Go down to him.”
* * *
The novice dropped into a crouch before him on the opposite side of the little pool. He’d heard her approach, of course, just as he’d smelled her scent on the air and marked her as that same one who he’d almost killed the day before.
Her black tunic and leggings made the edges of her figure indistinct, like a shadow.
She carried a scimitar, fashioned in the style of Aganju the Maker, whose point she now dipped into the pool making small ripples. Her stance was a little loose, lacking the confidence of knowing her own center of gravity but he could tell she would have that knowledge soon.
Her face betrayed nothing, she’d learned that much, but her eyes danced with fires he knew all too well.
“Greetings,” he said when it became clear she would not speak first.
She still kept silent, watching him for a few more moments with predator’s eyes. Had she been older, he knew, or just a little more seasoned, his own hand would already have gripped the pommel of his sword.
“What are you doing here?” she said at last.
“At the moment?” said the big male. “I am talking to you.”
“You have dishonored me,” she said.
“The dishonor is mine, Novice,” he said.
“I’m going to kill you,” she said.
“You have tried three times, Novice,” said the big male.
“Those were tests,” she said, a little too quickly. “I had to see where your weaknesses lay.”
The big male said nothing for a time. He seemed to be fighting an urge to do something with the corners of his mouth. Then, “Had you not learned them during our first spar?” he said.
Sekadi had an urge then too. It had to do with plunging her blade into his throat. Though she still had no idea why, she resisted it.
“I needed more,” she managed finally.
“And now,” said the big male softly. “Do you know where I am weak?”
“You– “Sekadi knew she had to be careful not to reveal her intrusion into the Mosuoe’s cloister. “It is said that you were raised by humans, whom you chose one as a mate over one of the Orisha.”
“I have had two mates,” said the big male. “The first was of our kind.”
“And the other?”
“She was not,” he said.
“What happened to them?” said Sekadi.
She was sure she detected a shadow cross his face as the time stretched between them. He was so formidable to the eye and yet, when one got close, there were all his weaknesses exposed.
“The first died helping me seek revenge on my father,” said the big male with obvious difficulty. “And the other . . .”
He trailed off and Sekadi had the impression that he was struggling to hold something back, some large emotion perhaps.
“The other?” said Sekadi.
“The other was murdered by a coward,” he said.
“Not in battle?”
“Not really,” said the big male. “No.”
“That is not honorable,” said Sekadi.
“She lived a life of honor,” said the big male, defiant. “She was fierce in battle. She should not have died that way.”
“Do you think she will be accepted into the Hands of Olodumare?”
“I-” the big male stopped abruptly as if the words had
