The Blade Itself

sparkling, lapping water in the moat, and his mind was elsewhere.
    Ardee. Where
else was it ever? He had supposed, after that day when West had
warned him off, after he had stopped seeing her, that his thoughts
would soon return to other matters, and other women. He had applied
himself to his fencing with a will, attempted to show an interest in
his duties as an officer, but he found himself unable to concentrate,
and other women seemed now pale, flat, tedious creatures. The long
runs, the monotonous exercises with bar and beam, gave his mind ample
opportunity to wander. The tedium of peacetime soldiering was even
worse: reading boring papers, standing guard on things that needed no
guarding. His attention would inevitably slip, and then she would be
there.
    Ardee in
wholesome peasant garb, flushed and sweaty from hard work in the
fields. Ardee in the finery of a princess, glittering with jewels.
Ardee bathing in forest pools, while he watched from the bushes.
Ardee proper and demure, glancing shyly up at him from beneath her
lashes. Ardee a whore by the docks, beckoning to him from a grimy
doorway. The fantasies were infinite in variety, but they all ended
the same way.
    His hour-long
circuit of the Agriont was complete and he thumped across the bridge
and back in through the south gate.
    Jezal treated
the guards to their daily share of indifference, trotted through the
tunnel and up the long ramp into the fortress, then turned towards
the courtyard where Marshal Varuz would be waiting. All the while,
Ardee was rubbing up against the back of his mind.
    It was hardly as
though he had nothing else to think about. The Contest was close now,
very close. Soon he would fight before the cheering crowds, his
family and friends among them. It might make his reputation…
or sink it. He should have been lying awake at night, tense and
sweating, worrying endlessly about forms, and training, and steels.
And yet somehow that wasn’t what he thought about in bed.
    Then there was a
war on. It was easy to forget, here in the sunny lanes of the
Agriont, that Angland had been invaded by hordes of slavering
barbarians. He would be going north soon, to lead his company in
battle. There, surely, was a thought to keep a man occupied. Was not
war a deadly business? He could be hurt, or scarred, or killed even.
Jezal tried to conjure up the twisting, twitching, painted face of
Fenris the Feared. Legions of screaming savages descending upon the
Agriont. It was a terrible business alright, a dangerous and
frightening business.
    Hmmm.
    Ardee came from
Angland. What if, say, she were to fall into the hands of the
Northmen? Jezal would rush to her rescue, of course. She would not be
hurt. Well, not badly. Perhaps her clothes a little torn, like so? No
doubt she would be frightened, grateful. He would be obliged to
comfort her, of course. She might even faint? He might have to carry
her, her head pressed against his shoulder. He might have to lay her
down and loosen her clothes. Their lips might touch, just brush
gently, hers might part a little, then…
    Jezal stumbled
in the road. There was a pleasant swelling building in his crotch.
Pleasant, but hardly compatible with a brisk run. He was nearly at
the courtyard now, and this would never do at fencing practice. He
glanced desperately around for a distraction, and nearly choked on
his tongue. Major West was standing by the wall, dressed to fence and
watching him approach with an unusually grim expression. For an
instant, Jezal wondered if his friend might be able to tell what he
had been thinking. He swallowed guiltily, felt the blood rushing to
his face. West couldn’t know, he couldn’t. But he was
most unhappy about something.
    â€œLuthar,â€

Next
    â€œI notice
you have a new secretary,â€

Better than Death
    â€œWe’re
looking for a woman,â€

Sore Thumb
    Logen leaned
against the parapet, squinted into the morning sun, and took in the
view.
    He’d done
the same, it felt long ago now, from the balcony of his room at the
library. The two views could hardly have been more different. Sunrise
over the jagged carpet of buildings on the one hand, hot and glaring
bright and full of distant noise. The cold and misty valley on the
other, soft and empty and still as death. He remembered that morning,
remembered how he’d felt like a different man. He certainly
felt a different man now. A stupid man. Small, scared, ugly,