‘Thirteen matches, and each time you’ve tried a different style of fencing. What are you up to, Falcio?’
I smiled, which was a mistake because I was huffing and puffing so hard that spit came out the sides of my mouth. ‘Can’t you guess?’
His eyes narrowed. ‘If you were any other opponent I’d assume you were trying to find a style that I’d have difficulty countering.’
‘Sounds like a smart enough strategy.’
‘Except you know perfectly well that there are none that would achieve that objective.’
‘Must be something else then. Ready to begin again?’
‘A moment,’ he said, stepping back as if he needed a wider view of me.
Watching Kest try to figure something out is oddly mesmerising. You don’t normally see someone look at the world with such perfect focus that he doesn’t bother to hide his own thoughts – you can practically see them drift across his forehead like clouds. I especially enjoy watching Kest when I’m absolutely certain he won’t figure it out, because Kest is congenitally incapable of believing he can’t come up with the right answer.
‘I believe I have it,’ he said.
‘Do you mind if we talk and fight at the same time?’ I asked.
‘As you wish.’ He came into guard. ‘Since you know there’s no one style with which you can beat me, it’s possible that the reason for all these bouts is you’re trying to identify a set of moves and attacks I’m less skilled at defending against, and thus construct a sort of mélange with which to defeat me tomorrow.’
I delivered what I thought was a lovely triple-lunge, shifting targets with each one, my steps short, both to keep me from extending myself too far and to trick him into backing up more than he should. It’s a style they use in the desert whilst fighting on sand, which has too much give to allow you to do long lunges.
Kest had no trouble dealing with my magnificent triple-lunge, of course.
‘This won’t work either, Falcio.’
‘No?’
He batted my blade aside and pulled the same manoeuvre on me. Even though I absolutely knew it was coming, I still didn’t manage to evade him, and he struck me three times, his touches so light he wouldn’t have dented the skin of an overripe strawberry.
‘No,’ Kest said, ‘Falcio, this isn’t arrogance on my part; I’m just telling you there’s no—’
I whipped my blade in a wide arc, going for a circular cut at his temple, and just as he brought up his blade to parry, I dived forward, rolling to his right and coming up on his unguarded flank. I began a thrust that should have hit him, but he batted it away with the back of his hand even as his own sword came right at my belly, too fast for me to parry and almost too fast for him to stop in time.
‘Damn it, Falcio! You’re going to get yourself killed tomorrow—’
I waved him off. ‘I’ll be fine. I can’t very well be the First Cantor if I’m dead, can I? So I’ll just have to win.’
He stepped back and stared at me again. ‘You aren’t trying to find one style and you’re not trying to create a new one.’
‘Really? Then what am I going to all this trouble for?’
He smiled. There was some admiration there. ‘You’re using all these different forms to see if you can triangulate a vulnerability that wouldn’t show up if you used just one style. That’s very clever.’
‘Well, I don’t know what triangulation is, but I’ll accept the compliment.’
This time, I didn’t ask if he was ready; I just went at him, using all the styles we’d used, but putting pressure on his defences on the same side and at the exact height where he tended to be weakest with his parries. For a brief instant, I nearly had him – but he got out of the way. I wasn’t letting him – or me – off that easily, though, so I did a grand jeté (basically a big leap that looks rather poncy) and came over the top of his blade. He countered, and yet again beat my blade aside as he brought his own into line. Unfortunately for both of us, I’d been coming at him too fast for him to pull back in time.
‘Saints, Falcio!’
I looked down at the blood starting to trail from my belly down the line of his blade. ‘Just a scratch,’ I said – well, moaned.
‘You bloody fool!’ he said, carefully withdrawing the half-inch of steel from my side. ‘If I’d been a fraction of a second slower or you faster, you’d have impaled yourself!’
‘Sorry to inconvenience you,’ I said, grabbing for a clean cloth and pressing it to my side. ‘I’m afraid that will have to be all for today.’
‘Falcio, you can’t compete tomorrow, not like this. You’re exhausted and wounded.’
‘A few stitches and I’ll be fine by morning.’ I tried to sound insouciant, and before he could argue, I turned and headed out of the hall.
He shouted at me, ‘If it comes down to you and me, Falcio, and you know it will, presuming you don’t die of infection overnight, I’m going to beat you. I didn’t set the rules, but if the King believes the finest swordsman should be the First Cantor then that’s exactly what I’m going to be!’
It wasn’t like Kest to yell and I felt bad for upsetting him. Still . . .
I paused at the door and turned back for a moment. ‘You’re going to lose tomorrow, Kest. You may well be the greatest swordsman in the entire country, but you’re going to lose and you’ll never even know how I did it.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Victory & Defeat
You would think from the number of people who have asked me over the years how I could possibly have beaten Kest in a duel that I must be blind in both eyes and perpetually drunk. It’s not that they think I’m incompetent – after all, you don’t survive as many swordfights as I have without developing something of a reputation as a fencer. It’s just that everyone is convinced that Kest is better than I am.
That part is undoubtedly true.
The thing is, I don’t rely on skill alone in a fight – I never have. A duellist who spends his life trying to be better than all his opponents either turns out to be a once-in-a-generation swordsman like Kest or, more likely, ends up dead by the age of twenty-five. I’m somewhat older than that, and I’ve survived because I never try to be better than my opponent. I find a way to make them defeat themselves.