In better times, Baozhai might have laughed at that. Things being what they were she only pressed her lips into the ghost of a smile—but I knew from her posture she appreciated the levity. “With all due respect, Lady,” she said, “I do not run from challenges, either. The Bronze Palace will be ready.”
She was right, of course. Baozhai is one of a precious handful of women who makes things true by saying them aloud. Just as I always believed you when it came to our future, when it came to swords and ink, I always believed Baozhai when it came to the palace. The flurry of servants preparing for the visit was chaotic, at first, but only as bees flitting about their hives are chaotic to anyone but a bee.
We had two days to prepare for the tournament proper, but less for the early arrivals. Some lords like to impose upon others for as long as they possibly can. This is true for my people, as well. During the Festival of Manly Arts, there is always one chief who arrives four days too early so his people can have their fill of candied horsemeat.
After you sent your letter back with the messenger, only two hours passed before the first Xianese lord arrived. His name was Lord Shu, ruler of Xian-Shu, which lay on the western coast. Baozhai was not concerned with impressing him; I overheard her lamenting the dilapidated state of his own holdings at dinner once. The Bronze Palace on its own was spledid enough to humble him. His retinue consisted of his wife, young daughter, and two adult sons.
Both of whom were fool enough to challenge you. Foolish of them. You were already upset, and you needed something to do to let off steam.
Shu Huhai, the elder son, went first. In place of the straight sword favored by most Hokkarans, he used a club nearly as tall as you were. The thing was thick as my forearm and plated in steel. I’ve no idea where he found it or where he got the idea it would be useful in battle. It weighed as much as a child.
Shu Huhai stood tall enough that you had to crane your neck to look at him, and broad as two Hokkarans across. When he entered the dueling ring, he grunted and growled, and rolled his head from side to side like an animal.
“You do not wear any armor, Lady of Ink!” he shouted. “Have your servants fetch some for you, you will need it!”
“I will not,” you said.
And, yes, you stood in that same peacock dress. Your delicate, bare feet met the fresh-tilled ground. If it were not for the sheath in your hand, you would not look like a warrior at all.
“You fight me in your court frippery?” Shu Huhai said.
“I will have you know this dress was made for me by the finest tailor in Xian, and given to me by one of my best friends,” you said. “But, yes, I shall fight you in it. And I will win, without a single feather hitting the ground.”
“Very well,” said Shu Huhai. “You face your defeat bravely, and I admire that in a woman.”
It was predictable of him to heft up his club. For his first strike, he twisted at the hips just to get enough momentum going. An amateur move. Hips and shoulders give away a strike before it’s made. To be so graceless and brazen … well, it made your job very easy.
For the club was so heavy that it took him a moment to lift it, and in that moment, you ran toward him on his off side. With a flash of your blade, blood spurted from beneath his arm. By the time he’d staggered back into his stance, he’d already lost, and you were flicking his blood off your mother’s sword.
He stomped away as loud as he stomped in.
“You face defeat with cowardice!” you called out with a grin. “I admire a man who knows his place!”
Your second duel that day was with Shu Guang, the younger son. He was tall as his brother, though not so broad. Our age, I think.
When he entered the dueling ring, he had the sense to bow to you. “Lady of Ink,” he said. “I am honored to face you today.”
“You will be just as honored when you leave, Lord Shu,” you said. “Let us make this quick.”
And quick it was. Shu Guang fought with a straight sword. Not so thin as the Hokkaran one—this was a tapered thing, thin at the hilt and broad at the tip, made for slashing rather than piercing. Apparently no one informed him of this, as his opening stroke was a thrust for your stomach. You parried it with your sheath and knocked him in the nose with your pommel.
I admit I laughed watching it. You broke the poor boy’s nose for first blood. He was, by far, the most approachable of all the suitors that came for you that day—and you broke his nose.
Shizuka, my darling Shizuka, I wonder at times how you have not broken my nose. But then again, you have tried to kill me.
But on that day, when your first two duels were done, I stood at your side.
“How many more can there be?” you said. “If they are all so unskilled, I can duel fifty. But if they are not…”
“Eighty,” I said. “Challenging.”
I said it warmly, to try to distract you from the gravity of the situation. You have always preferred a challenging fight, but you do not often meet someone who can offer you one.
Your smile was so slight, it might’ve been a trick of the light.
“Shefali,” you said. You entwined your pinky with mine. Such a small gesture—but if any of the lords present saw, it’d mean rumors. “What if I lose?”
I looked down at you. You hold yourself with such dignity that I forget how small you are. You are a phoenix crammed into a woman’s body; you are fire shaped into flesh; you are the sky at sunrise; how is it that you are so small?
But before you are any of those things, you are a woman. And you were a girl then, not yet eighteen. An orphan in expensive clothing; a girl facing the threat of a marriage she did not want.
I had to keep you safe from all this.
Yet there was nothing I could do. Only stand at your side and cheer you on as the duels kept coming, one after another. Besides Lord Shu’s sons, there were ten more on that first day. Twenty on the second. None of them posed you any real threat; you dispatched them all with a single stroke each.
One-Stroke Shizuka, they began to call you when they thought no one was listening. I’ve heard that name even here.
Yet despite the ease with which you fought, the stress wore on you. Whenever someone arrived, you’d have to perform a different version of the Eightfold Blessing, accept whatever gifts they offered, and keep a smile on your face, knowing they’d come only to conquer you. To own you. To brand you like a wayward mare.
I stood at your side through all of it. You could not touch me, you could not hold me, but you spoke of me whenever you could.
“This is my dearest friend, Barsalyya Shefali,” you’d say. “You have not greeted her; is it customary in Xian to ignore demonslayers?”
I never knew how to react when you did this. How to stand. Was I supposed to straighten my back and shoulders, bring my legs together like a good Hokkaran girl? Was I to remain bow-legged and silent, your dark shadow?
All I knew was that you needed me. So I forced a close-lipped smile when the dignitaries butchered my name. I nodded when they thanked me for my service, not knowing what that service might be.