She nodded but said nothing else.
That night I lay awake thinking about the day’s events, the people I had met and the feel of Drusl’s hand under mine. In the stillness of the night I heard my master rise from her bed and leave the room. Curious, I counted out twenty my-masters and then I followed her. The castle was quieter in the night. Thankful moved through the corridors like ghosts; they did not acknowledge me or I them as I was drawn in the wake of my master, drifting along behind her on the lingering, spicy smell of the greasepaint she used to paint her face. Around the castle we went, around and down, past the kitchens and the steep tunnels which led to the buried chapels. Twice I saw figures in the shadows and twice, thinking it was my master, I nearly let an excuse leap out of my mouth, but it was only thankful, grabbing a quick sleep upright against the wall and, in one case, a couple of blessed having an illicit liaison in an alcove.
Her route took her out of the castle and I could no longer follow her scent—a quick breeze stole it from the air—so instead I followed the damp outlines of her feet on the scrubby grass, and when she left the grass I followed the subtle disturbances of the sandy ground left by her tread. Eventually, I found myself in a courtyard that I had not known existed—it was at the back of the castle, reached through an archway that had once been a door. A pair of stone eyes looked out angrily from the top, as if annoyed at my intrusion. Above the door was a window, shadowed by the bulk of the castle. I climbed the wall and hid in the empty window so I could look down into the courtyard. Plainly, it had been inside once and where there had been a grand corridor was now a pile of rubble, thick with dead vines, brown and starved crisp by yearsage.
From a doorway opposite a woman emerged, dressed like a slave. I do not know where she had come from, or how she had got there because, like everyone, I barely paid attention to slaves. Slaves are simply another part of a cruel world, much as hunger and sourings are. I could have walked past this woman a hundred times in the castle and not seen her, she had a face so unremarkable I would have struggled to recognise her if I saw her again the next day. The woman moved long hair from her face, some accident or violence had taken half her hand—the little and third finger were missing.
She was not a slave, of course, as no slave carried a longsword and stabsword, or walked like a maned lizard. I knew what she must be—assassin. She gave my master a nod and my master returned it.
“You are Merela, the Barren?” My master nodded.
And you are Sayda, the Halfhand?” The woman nodded.
They drew their blades.
“Let us see who stays then,” said the woman.
Sayda Halfhand attacked first, a slicing pass at neck height that my master ducked, swatting away the stabsword thrust that followed. I watched, rapt. I had never met another assassin, never seen another work. I knew that they existed and were few and far between but had always taken for granted that they were like us, used our methods and styles, but this woman showed me I was mistaken. Where we were about speed and attack she was about solidity and defence; she stood like a rampart, barely moving from the spot she occupied as she cut and thrust with her blades.
My master was a whirlwind, her opponent a mountain, and for the first time ever it occurred to me my master could lose. I drew my blade. As I did, a movement caught my eye. Hidden in an arch, high up the broken wall on the other side, was Sayda’s apprentice. Little more than a shadow, but I could make out the bow that she drew and aimed at me. And the shake of her head she gave me. I returned my blade to its scabbard and the bow was lowered.
Below us my master’s blade worked, only to be batted away by a longsword. A return thrust to her midriff and she let herself fall out of the way, the Drunk’s Tumble. She turned the fall into a roll which she continued, forward and round, forward and round, her blade flashing and glinting as she struck out and each time she found her blade met. Very quickly, my master ceased to use the iterations I had grown up learning and the fight became an interpretation of our style through pure reaction, a blade quick thing. On occasion I saw the route of a move. This move used a stance from the Carter’s Surprise, that move a version of the Quick Steps, but it was far removed from what I knew, not once did my master use any of her tricks, or Sayda Halfhand use any either.
The strangest, eeriest, thing was that this fight took place in almost complete silence. There was no talking, no grunts of effort or exhaustion, and although I had thought my master’s opposite’s style was dull, together she and my master were a symphony of blades, a quickstep of cutting edges and chinking parries. Her way was not my master’s and my master’s was not hers, but neither was one method inferior to the other or one opponent less skilled. I had thought my master had no equal, but here she was.
And then the killing blow was struck.
I saw the space in Sayda Halfhand’s defence, saw the dummy thrown by my master and saw her opponent take it. As my master’s blade rushed to the kill I felt sad, sad that this quiet and skilled woman would die here so that we could protect Aydor.
But she did not die. The blade never so much as touched her skin, only paused a hair’s breadth from the woman’s throat. The dance went on: twice, three, four times I saw moments when my master could have finished her opponent. I became more used to this new style as I watched—deconstructing it, considering how I could add it to my own repertoire. I saw times when Sayda Halfhand could have ended the fight but did not, and I realised this was not the duel to the death of Riders, out to seek revenge in blood for an insult. This was a competition of equals. A bloodless decision was being made as to who had precedence here.
Abruptly, and without warning, the two combatants parted. Sayda Halfhand smiled, sheathed her sword and bared her throat to my master, who put her blade to her opponent’s throat but did not cut, only whispered something into her ear which made the other assassin’s smile widen slightly. As she did, I caught a movement in a broken doorway opposite and I found my double once more, little more than the gleam of a pair of eyes in the dark, but she, or he, was there. Somehow she had come down from the arch without me seeing, and she watched me as I watched her.
“Two weeks,” said Sayda Halfhand. “And if it is not done I will presume you have failed and return.”
“Very well,” said my master.
The woman walked away and my master remained standing in the middle of the clearing.
“Girton,” she said quietly, “you can come out now.”
“Oh.” I jumped down from the window, rolling to absorb the impact and so as not to pain my club foot too much. “You knew I was there?”
“Of course.”
“Why didn’t you kill her?”
“Why would I?”