The Marcher Lord (Over Guard) (36 page)

“Shall we keep to blunders, sir?” Corporal Hanley asked, not looking quite as thrilled as everyone else.

Ian was already thinking of what it would be like to have a whole quarter of a sovereign more than he did. Not so much for the money, but the feeling of having won it from everyone else. At least he had a couple moments of that idea, before he remembered Corporal Wesshire. The corporal had the natural build for swordsmanship. He was tall, broad enough to be strong, but not too heavy or dawdling to lose any speed for it. And Brodie had said he was a great swordsman the first night Ian had met them.

The others were talking in excited whispers, but
Ian waited as the captain and lieutenant briefly conversed about rules.

“
Keep to blunders. We shall keep it traditional then,” Captain Marsden said after their short conference. “Any sort of bodily touch with the sabre will win, which Lieutenant Taylor and I shall judge. We will be at either end of the boundaries. Anyone who strays outside of them will be disqualified. And I think we shall start from the end. Private Kanters and Williams will spar first. Prepare yourselves, we don’t have a good deal of time.”

First,
Ian thought as he stepped around and wiped his palms over each other. He had half-hoped, half-anticipated that the captain would slate him first. If he did win, Ian wondered if the captain would make him keep sparring until
he lost. But in any case, Ian was glad to start with Rory, and he liked the way his heart felt in chest and through his stomach.

“You make mince of him, Williams,” Kieran said to Rory.

“Don’t listen to him, Kanters,” Brodie called, “I’ve got my shilling riding on you.”

“Don’t spend your bob before you even start,” Ian said, grinning more at himself than Brodie.

“Step lively,” the captain prodded a little impatiently.

Their two officers having stepped to either end of them, the rest of their company gathering at one side,
Ian measured Rory out and the way to start at him. Rory was dominantly right-handed, so Ian would keep him turning on his left, or Ian’s right. And he would do it fast.

“
Touch them then,” Captain Marsden said, “you can walk all around once that’s done.”

They both obliged, meeting, shaking hands—Rory’s
hand feeling damp—raising and touching their blades once, then they both withdrew backwards. Rory much more aggressively.

“You were first in your class for marksmanship?” Ian
asked, something he’d actually been meaning to ask for a while. Ian made a quick, requisite glance toward the margrave’s daughters.

“Yes,” Rory said.

Ian smiled, trying not to sound taunting. “First in your class for swordsmanship?”

“Ready?” Captain Marsden asked.

“No,” Rory said, not nearly as quickly.

“Duel!”

Ian heard their company’s voices rise to the rhythm of the long, quick steps he took at Rory. His second came on, but not nearly as quickly or directly. The initial plan was to go hard at Rory’s left side, but seeing his second’s reaction, Ian kept his aim straight after Rory, even compensating some to follow Rory’s drift—

Raising his blade high,
Ian lunged the last bit and brought it down hard on Rory’s waiting blade. The blunders created a sharp, slapping noise on impact, the sound of the metal buried between them almost audible. And almost before Rory could regain himself, Ian swept around his second’s left side, striking high and horizontal, then again lower and again even lower.

Twisting around
him, Ian caught catches of Rory’s face, set and grim. And that’s about how Ian wanted it. He didn’t want to scare Rory, but he also wanted to show him how things were.

“Holy Baal,” he heard some
one saying in surprise. Kieran, Ian thought.

Even as Ian kept turning Rory, his arms
swinging in measured, nearly rhythmic strokes against Rory, Ian kept mostly to high attacks to give him the bit of extra weight. He could feel the definite edge Rory had over him in strength, but as long as Ian kept him on his heels, there would hopefully be no room for Rory to fully employ it.

The first handful of seconds having passed, Ian
found no real reason to change tactics. He was turning Rory with every step and every other stroke, pushing forward closer and closer at Rory, forcing his second to keep retreating.

And then so quickly
that Ian almost hesitated to take it, Rory’s foot caught a little on the grass and he lost his balance for a moment, nearly falling backwards.

There was disappointment in the way Ian’s next swing came slower, but
the efficient part of his mind quietly quenched that. Ducking in lower, Ian thrust his blade down toward Rory’s middle. The other man was able to half-knock it away, but Ian quickly parried that around and then wrenched it off to Rory’s side. Before his second could recover, Ian swept it hard and fast across Rory’s bent knee.

“Touch!”
Lieutenant Taylor called.

“That’s enough,” Captain Marsden broke in. “That was a stolid match, b
ut there’s no call for roughness.”

Taking a deep breath and realizing that he didn’t really need to breathe hard, Ian nodded. He guessed he should take whatever he could get from
the captain. He took a step forward and offered his hand to Rory, who took it and stood, looking more downed than hurt. Watching him carefully as Rory nodded and walked out of the center of the match, Ian couldn’t see any signs of a limp, even though he knew he had given Rory a sound crack.

It was good to know that
Ian had a stolid second.

“Privates, square off,” Captain Marsden said to Kieran and Brodie.

With a little less enthusiasm than they’d shown elsewhere in the competition, the privates moved across from each other in their company’s temporary arena while Ian made no excessive hurry to leave it. Picking up his overcoat where he had left it, Ian wiped at his face and was aware of the margrave’s daughters still watching them.

It had been a good, fast match. Thinking about it, he really
wouldn’t have asked for it to turn out any differently. He looked over at Rory, who was sitting on the ground at the end of the ring, looking back at him. But Rory quickly looked away.

“Begin.”

Turning back to the match, Kieran and Brodie started with no initial contact. They slowly circled each other, watching and occasionally making motions that the other would shy away from.

The rest of the match passed much the same way, Kieran growing more aggressive, but in a passive way that Brodie was able to mostly match. As it ended up, Kieran got a lucky tap in at Brodie’s shoulder as he was trying to duck away.

“Touch!” Lieutenant Taylor said.

“Well, that wasn’t terribly exciting,” Brodie said, grinning.

Ian idly kicked at the ground, wondering what kind of person it took to be happy after losing.

But as disappointing as that match was, the next
turned out to be much more fascinating for Ian.

“Right,” Corporal Ellis Hanley said, more to himself than any
one it seemed as he stepped into the middle. He didn’t seem nervous—expectant was the word that came to Ian’s mind. And not a good sort of expectant, as the corporal took long moments to absently eye everything but the other corporal, who calmly came in across from him.

“A good pair, I should think,” Captain Marsden said
, as the corporals briefly touched their swords. “The best of our company. We shall have to see how they match up tonight.”

“Ready here,” Lieutenant Taylor said from the other end of the match.

“Very well then,” Captain Marsden said. “Duel.”

For a moment neither did anything,
Ellis raising his sword a little higher, tighter, and Corporal Wesshire seeming to measure him out. Ian couldn’t read anything from his expression.

“Go on, corporal,” Brodie said, “have a game.”

Ellis began to step forward to do just that, but Corporal Wesshire was also in the motions a moment before. Bringing it to two precisely measured steps, Wesshire gave the opening swing. Ellis met it easily, Wesshire continuing with a couple more before Ellis got in one of his own, and then fell to getting every third or so swing.

Ian tried to focus on watching Corporal Wesshire’s form, and though he was impressed with the fluid, easy way
the corporal was leading most of the fight, nothing about it leapt out as extraordinary either. Except perhaps for the way that Wesshire was able to carry and transition a continuous series of smartly placed attacks, Ian couldn’t foresee much trouble if he tried to replicate what Wesshire was doing. Though of course neither was attempting anything too strenuous, hardly moving at all in fact—

Ellis suddenly bolted to one side after parrying
Wesshire’s sword at the other, his blade slashing down at Wesshire’s legs.

Bu
t instead of either getting hit or being forced back, as was no doubt Ellis’ hope, Wesshire easily countered the attack and actually stepped a little closer and around the other side of Ellis. Abruptly it was a completely different match. There was a furious few seconds of close quarters fighting, Ellis trying to hold his ground and keep up, but that was clearly beyond his ability, and he began to retreat.

Hanley
is competent,
Ian thought as he watched Wesshire continue to pursue the other corporal. Try as he might, Ellis was unable to regain any momentum or even slow Wesshire, who seemed content to match Ellis’ attacks so long as his were in the majority. Corporal Wesshire wasn’t moving all that fast, or even dodging all that fast, and during more than one series of blows he simply stopped for a moment and let Ellis’ blade swing through the empty air their pattern would have dictated that he would be occupying.

This, being something of a real match, had gotten the others quite built up. Ian
could feel it too, saw it well-etched even in their superiors’ eager faces.

Unlike the previous two matches,
which had shifted to relatively quick ends, Wesshire ended it much differently.

With a snap, Corporal Wesshire’s demeanor changed. Very suddenly his attacks were no longer soft, his force doubling without losing any of
its range or strategy.

“That’s it,” Ian said confidently, but only just loud enough that Kieran heard it, as the others were just now beginning to see.

And it only took all of perhaps ten seconds. Ellis was able to match the first few attacks, but steadily, surely fell further and further behind. It was as though Corporal Wesshire had only just now decided that he wished to win, though Ian really had no idea what he wanted.

Corporal Hanle
y made some sort of involuntary sound as Corporal Wesshire brought up their blades up and held them for a moment. Cleanly stepping around Ellis to the left and trailing his sword behind and above him, Corporal Wesshire flipped his sword around and behind him into Ellis’ back before he could recover.

It wasn’t a hard tap, but certainly enough to make Ellis jolt forward to confirm the touch.

“Outstanding!” Captain Marsden said. “A pure work—exceptionally graceful swordsmanship, Corporal Wesshire.”

“Thank you, sir,”
Arran Wesshire barely acknowledged as he stepped away, not bothering to look back at Ellis.

For his part, Ian thought Corporal Hanley handled it and the proceeding consolation well.
Ian added his own words of encouragement to the corporal as he passed, but his focus had already shifted to the captain. And while he wasn’t confident enough to call it, he definitely saw all the roots of admiration on the captain’s face that naturally led him to call on Corporal Wesshire once more, rather than pit another two of the privates against each other.

“Corporal Wesshire,” the captain said, “would you mind having the next go around against Private Anglas?”

“Of course not.”

As it followed, there was no
t much to mind. They touched swords, began, Kieran desperately, even angrily coming hard after Corporal Wesshire. But the corporal was easily able to beat him off, responding in kind fashion, alternating between soft and hard attacks that made it difficult for Ian to call what the next would be. And evidentially for Kieran as well. After fending off one easy attack, Wesshire suddenly repeated the attack in the same place with much more force, catching Kieran’s defense off guard. Kieran’s sword only somewhat slowed the corporal’s, causing it to ricochet and glance across Kieran’s shoulder.

“
Touch! Good show,” Captain Marsden said, “if not as good as the last. It isn’t to be unexpected with the matchings.”

The captain missed the dangerous look that crossed Kieran’s face.

“And last but not least,” Captain Marsden said as Ian’s heart accelerated.

“Great riches and power all lose their luster, but a friend is a treasure forever.”

—Chax saying

Ian didn’t actually hear whatever else was said. Walking carefully and not looking at Corporal Wesshire at all, Ian redrew his sword and walked to his place.

—tall arms, longer reach—keep his blows away from my center, le—don’t allow the previous matches to intimidate, they’re irrelevant to—but he’s more tired than he would be, use that
—I wish my heart wasn’t beating so hard—
Ian absently flipped his sword around in his dominant hand.
—don’t waste too much energy trying to push him, allow what I can handle, counter the rest—make sure to—

“Are you prepared, then?” Captain Marsden asked them.

Ian looked up and saw that Corporal Wesshire was extending his sword for the opening touch, to which Ian met it as emotionlessly as the corporal did. Ian was glad he had control over his face, was able to hide the fear that was threatening to—he stepped back three long steps as Corporal Wesshire did likewise—push itself at the edges of his mind.

Arran
Wesshire was quietly regarding him.

“All right, then,” Captain Marsden said, a slight betrayal of anticipation in his voice
—“Duel!”

Ian started forward, Corporal Wesshire not quite matching his pace. Two seconds, Ian thrust forward, quickly pulling it away as it was a dangerous opener and Wesshire easily parried it away. Sweeping it around fast though,
Ian brought it low from the opposite direction, to which Wesshire also effortlessly countered. He took another three, quick and successive attacks, Wesshire matching them efficiently and perhaps even a little ahead of Ian’s swing, the resistance the corporal giving hinting at his greater strength.

Worry—anxiety—Ian bit
down on those as Wesshire counterattacked, pushing him back a couple steps, but Ian couldn’t allow that, and quickly regained his attack again.

His strategy began to coalesce into something a little more des
perate than he would have liked in terms of morale. Not losing was first and foremost, which was a difficult idea to hold onto since it felt very impossible. But he knew he would be lost if he couldn’t believe he could win at all. So he decided to ditch ideas of outlasting Wesshire or waiting for a better opportunity. If he could hang onto the attacking, Ian would last longer even if he lost since Corporal Wesshire would hopefully not get a chance to attack him—

Wesshire took a sudden lunge into his area as he swept their blades momentarily off to the side.
Wesshire threw his shoulder down into Ian’s hard enough to send him reeling.

Unprepared
, and as much as that hurt, Ian ignored the shock and his general footing as he threw his sword in a very not elegant manner between them again as the anticipated follow-up and intended kill stroke from the corporal came. Blocking it well enough, Ian fired around a hasty swing across Wesshire’s neckline as hard as he could as he fell backwards. Wesshire blocked it, but was suitably hindered long enough for Ian to make a hard roll away and then to spring back to his feet while moving away from Wesshire.

To his ever-
brilliant credit, Wesshire was in stately pursuit, but his following attacks were much calmer. For a moment they settled to that, as though Corporal Wesshire was rewarding him for surviving all that with a respectful respite.

“Not so long,” Arran
Wesshire said, startling at least one part of Ian’s consciousness, “keep the strokes tighter. Only reach when it is profitable.”

Confused.

“Thank you,” Ian said, tightly, confused. But perhaps that was the point.

After a few more moments of tranquil sparring, the encouragements from the rest of the company momentarily slipping back into his awareness, Ian renewed his assault. It was intensely diffi
cult to try to reach around Wesshire’s defenses, long as his arms were, and it was impossible to get very far into the other’s middle. Try as he might, there was a perceptible perimeter that Wesshire wouldn’t allow anything into. Ian saw that now, and while he had relative opportunity—at Wesshire’s good graces, he thought—Ian spent the few moments of wits he had to watch the other’s movements more. And now feeling them. Ian tested at the edges of them, seeing how the other reacted, because there really was no good descriptor for the corporal’s style. Ian was relatively new to swordsmanship as it was, so he didn’t have a—

Wesshire took a sudden and harsh swing across his middle,
Ian’s sword blocking and momentarily being knocked off to the side. Ian skipped back, into a stream of dying sunlight that came fresh between some gap in the mountains behind him, but Corporal Wesshire didn’t readily follow.

“Will we be at it all evening?” Ian asked.

Wesshire didn’t respond, didn’t really move. He merely stared back.

“Come on,” Ian said, grimacing as he measured up the corporal’s stance,
the distance, use the sunlight
— “Come—”

Ian jerked forward and around, throwing his
sabre out at the corporal’s face as he reasserted his angle nearly directly between them.

Ian
was off just enough that the sunlight came full across Wesshire’s eyes, their swords flashing as Wesshire’s sought him, but Ian ducked just a little below it, wrenching his sword up at the other’s chest—

But We
sshire, squinting against the sunlight, half-dropped to one knee below Ian’s sword as Ian sought to regain his momentum and bring it back down on—

Then contact
came again as Wesshire’s blade came up against his, severely disadvantaged, though even as Ian pressed to take advantage of it, a sharp and fast parrying swept Ian’s sword hard and away from him.

Ian
was falling, half in the attempt to put his weight into his previous down slash, half because he’d lost track of his balance. Coming very near to falling all the way, Ian put his free hand down. It jolted hard against the weight of the ground at his wrist, shoulder, his attention still on trying to drag his sword back toward him, near—anywhere closer.

But it was too late, he knew, as surely as he was somehow able to trace the trajectory of Wesshire’s sword as it swung around in a tight arc, down along and across Ian’s shoulder, chest, Ian feeling the push that shoved him around before the collision and blooming line of pain.

It was hard enough that Ian was nearly pushed back down to the ground, but he caught himself, losing grip of his sword somewhere in all of this.

Wesshire stood
, not quickly, not slowly, back up into the streaming sunlight.

“Clever,”
the corporal said before turning and leaving Ian’s sphere of vision.

Ian
sat, holding himself up with his arm, staring at the ground. It was a few seconds after feeling all of that, he swallowed and looked up at the others. Some were clapping, they all seemed to be talking. Rising himself up with what he hoped looked like graceful dignity, Ian brushed the dust and dirt and bits of grass off himself and realized he had really expected that he would win. It had merely been the best possible outcome for him, so he had assumed it would happen.

Sparing a glance, he saw Corporal Wesshire calmly ignoring all of the bubble of excitement as he gathered his
things together. He nodded once in the general direction of the ones next to him and then started back toward camp.

Which also happened
to be by the general way of the margrave’s daughter, Ian thought bitterly.

“Well, how about that,
Kanters?” Brodie threw Ian his coat with his things in it. “It was a brilliant show.”

“Of course it was,” Kieran added, “
no one can lose with as much style as Kanters.”

“It takes a lot of practice,” Ian said, not really paying attention as he wiped at the sides of his face, and certainly not really enjoying their surprised laughs.

The others continued on, but Ian watched Corporal Wesshire’s progress as he reached polite hailing distance from the margrave’s daughters. He appeared as though he would have gone on, but Elizabeth had turned and was saying something to him. Ian watched, something unpleasant chasing at the tips of the end of every breath.

“Who cares anyway?”
Ian asked himself, his eyes straying over to the other daughter, who was shading her eyes and of course saying something now as well.

*              *              *              *

He wandered further beyond what his patrol probably allowed through the night. It was still, quiet save for the Mombosso walking. Fortunately, Rory either didn’t keep much of an eye on how far and long Ian strayed, or he didn’t care.

All
that Ian’s mind could do was go over the fight, over and over. Not even the first one against Rory, as noteworthy as that normally would have been. It was difficult to even call it to mind now.

He didn’t try to turn me much—I should’ve been doing that more—he seemed stronger on his high patterns—no, can’t judge that from what little I saw—what I saw seemed like
Ques fighting—like back at the academy—

The details, so many of them the more he dissected, and fast and uncertain the farther he went, kept circling around the question.
Because that’s all that really mattered.

How could I have
beaten him?

And then the anger, those feelings he hated.
Then the resolution.

             
                           
How will I beat him?

*              *              *              *

Sunday dawned bright and clear. Ian had been aware that it had previously been Saturday, but he had forgotten the Sabbath was going to follow.

So as it stood,
not much was left for traveling another day. Lieutenant Taylor prepared them a meal of eggs and left over fish. After that, they had some time of rest, and then they all generally assembled on a grassy area near the river and the trees where it was cool, especially in the morning air.

Captain Marsden was tasked with chaplain duties as th
eir company was too small to have one of their own. And as they sat and waited for him to begin, seated generally by ranks and seconds, Ian beside Rory, Ian found himself interested to hear what the captain would say. He supposed all of his feelings toward his superior would have been far more convenient, easier, if Captain Marsden wasn’t so knowledgeable.

And though it was a fiercely unspoken ordinance that everyone attend, only Will and one other Chax did, off to the side and far behind as they were.
The margrave’s daughters put on their formal best and daintily sat on a blanket laid out on the grass. Corporal Wesshire also attended, but he stood throughout it off to the side against a tree, his arms crossed.

But most n
otable was Lord Wester himself. He was never all that far away, but wandered apart from them, perhaps just within hearing.

“The Sabbath,” Captain Marsden began, after much clearing of his throat and his eyes wandering once after the margrave, “is a very solemn day, not because it is created by man, but by God. Then, as well, it is a very special day, not because it is created for God, but for man, for his rest and wellbeing.”

It was a good topic, as Ian thought. The air of restlessness on this particular Sabbath was still very tangible, and even though there was talk that they would move later in the afternoon, they would be staying for at least the morning.

But after
Captain Marsden’s clearly well-rehearsed preamble, his flow grew less concise, and he wandered a great deal. Ian didn’t think it helped much that he cited unexciting parts of the Old Testament for references.

Ian
did his best to listen but found it extremely distracting how distracted some of the others were. The women conducted themselves with polite attention, and most of their company as well. But Kieran and Brodie in particular kept wavering, glancing about when the captain wasn’t looking. Rory looked as though he was just trying to stay awake.

“Traditionally, of course,” Captain Marsden was saying, “the Sabbath was observed on Saturdays, but with the advent of Christ … and the rising, as it is, or rather was, falling on the first day of the week, we in Christendom have considered the Lord’s day to be Sunday. It is actually a very interesting tension between traditions in the early church …”

Ian watched the back and side of Kieran’s head, whom he had the best view of. The other private was staring off at the ground, eyes occasionally coming back to Captain Marsden with the touches of annoyance.

Staring, Ian observed Brodie doing something of the same
, who glanced over at Kieran, smiling at something Ian had missed. All of this was of course keeping with the kind of people they were. Ian couldn’t understand how someone could be a Christian and still—

Lieutenant Taylor cleared his throat
. Ian looked back at him and saw that the older man was glaring at him. Chastened, a little angry, he went back to staring at their captain.