Crossed Swords

The worst thing about Cedric Hawricks was not that I had never beaten him.

That would have been frustrating, certainly, but losing was something a person could eventually correct. You trained harder, figured out what you had done wrong, tried again the next morning, and kept doing that until something finally clicked.

No, the truly infuriating part was that Cedric never looked as though he were actually winning.

Our wooden swords met for what must have been the twentieth time, and the impact rattled through my wrists hard enough to make my fingers ache. I staggered backwards half a step, boots scraping against the cobblestones beneath us.

Cedric did not.

More importantly, he wasn’t even breathing heavily.

There should have been some sort of rule against that.

A few strands of blonde hair had fallen across his forehead, which was apparently the only concession he intended to make.

I had spent most of the morning throwing everything I knew at him; my shirt was beginning to cling unpleasantly to my back, and each breath scraped a little harder against my throat. The man standing opposite me, meanwhile, looked almost exactly as he had done when we started.

Calm.

Completely, unbearably calm.

“You’re glaring again.”

“I’m concentrating.”

“You have a very threatening way of doing so.”

“I wouldn’t have to concentrate this hard if you weren’t so difficult to hit.”

“That sounds suspiciously like my fault.”

“It is.”

“I’ll try to live with the guilt.”

My fingers tightened around the hilt.

He was doing it on purpose.

Cedric had been teaching me for three years, which at my age amounted to a disturbingly large portion of my life. That had also given him plenty of time to discover exactly how irritating he needed to be before I stopped listening to good advice.

Unfortunately, the answer was not very.

I raised the practice sword again and forced myself to slow down.

There had to be something.

Cedric’s stance hadn’t changed much since the spar began. His shoulders remained loose, his right foot slightly behind his left, and the wooden sword rested across his body with the sort of casualness that would have looked sloppy on anyone else.

On Cedric, it looked mostly insulting.

Three years of being struck, tripped and corrected had taught me the smaller details too: the way his weight shifted before he closed the distance, the slight turn of his wrist when redirecting a blow, even the faint tightening around his clear blue eyes whenever I managed to do something he hadn’t expected.

Knowing all of that should have made beating him easier.

Instead, it had mostly improved the accuracy with which I understood my defeats.

Cedric shifted his left foot, lowering his sword just enough to expose the space beside his shoulder. Ordinarily I would have attacked immediately, because wasting an opening seemed roughly equivalent to finding loose change on the side of the road and deciding whoever dropped it probably didn’t deserve to lose it.

This one felt different.

Cedric did not make mistakes that conveniently.

I remained where I was, studying the gap while he made absolutely no effort to correct it. One of his eyebrows rose, which was either encouraging or worrying; with Cedric, those two things had an irritating habit of looking exactly the same.

“You did that deliberately.”

“Did what?”

“Your sword. You lowered it.”

Cedric glanced towards his shoulder as though the discovery had surprised him too.

“So I did.”

“You want me to attack there.”

“Then why haven’t you?”

That was an excellent question, and I disliked him for asking it.

If Cedric wanted me to attack, attacking was probably a trap. Except he knew I would realise that, which meant perhaps the real trap was making me hesitate until the opening disappeared. Unless he knew that I knew—

“You’re thinking too much, Leon.”

Of course he noticed.

His mouth twitched, and I lunged before he could say anything worse.

The opening vanished the moment I had committed to it. Cedric knocked my sword aside, but I let the force turn my shoulders and came back towards his ribs before he had fully reset his guard.

Blocked again.

I followed him anyway, and for several exchanges the only thing I cared about was keeping him moving. Every impact stung my palms, yet Cedric was finally giving away ground, and after years of losing I had become willing to accept victories in extremely small portions.

Another strike forced him backwards, and his eyes sharpened.

I noticed the difference and became far too pleased with myself.

A second opening appeared beside his ribs, but the memory of the first reached me before my feet could make their own decision. Cedric had already fooled me once that morning; allowing him to do it again would turn an embarrassing mistake into a habit, and he collected my habits with far too much enthusiasm already.

I hesitated, and Cedric attacked immediately.

So that was what he wanted.

The blow forced me into an awkward block, but his ribs were exposed again the moment our swords met. This time I understood—or at least understood enough to become dangerous to myself.

He expected me to wait, but I attacked instead.

For one glorious instant, nothing stopped my sword.

I could already imagine Cedric’s expression when I finally hit him. Three years of wondering had given me plenty of time to prepare for the occasion, although most versions involved considerably more shock and admiration than reality was likely to provide.

Then he stepped aside.

My blade cut through the empty air, my front foot landed too far ahead of me, and Cedric’s boot found the exact place behind my ankle where a boot should never be allowed to go.

The sky replaced him.

A moment later, the ground made its opinion known.

I landed hard enough to drive the air from my chest while my sword bounced away across the cobblestones. Getting up would have meant acknowledging the complete failure of my brilliant plan, so for several seconds I remained exactly where I was and concentrated on the more urgent business of breathing.

Cedric eventually appeared above me.

“That was better.”

“You threw me.”

“I did.”

“And that’s better?!”

“You noticed both traps.”

“I also fell into both traps.”

“The second took longer.”

I considered this insultingly optimistic.

Cedric offered his hand, and after a moment I accepted it. Pride was important, but my back hurt enough that pride could look after itself for once.

As soon as I was standing, he handed back my sword.

“You’re treating an opening like an answer.”

“It was open.”

“Yes.”

“So I attacked it.”

“And?”

“And then you cheated.”

Cedric laughed.

“I moved.”

“You moved unfairly.”

“I’ll remember to stand still next time someone attacks me.”

We moved into the shade beside the yard, where Cedric rested his practice sword across his knees.

“When I lowered my guard the first time, what did you see?”

“An opening.”

“And why was it there?”

“Because you wanted me to attack.”

“Good. That’s the difference.”

“Between what?”

“Watching and analysing. Watching tells you what someone is doing. Analysing tells you why they’re doing it.”

That sounded simple enough when nobody was trying to knock me over.

“So whenever I notice something, I ask myself why they did it?”

“Until you have a useful answer. Preferably before old age, because people trying to hit you are notoriously inconsiderate about waiting.”

That version I could understand.

Cedric picked up a small stone and placed it on the wall between us.

“Suppose I want this.”

“The stone?”

“It has sentimental value.”

“You picked it up two seconds ago.”

“I form attachments quickly.”

I stared at him until his expression finally gave way to a sigh.

“Fine,” I said. “You want the stone.”

“If I walk straight towards it, you know exactly what I’m after. If I make you move away first, however, I don’t need to fight you for it at all.”

I looked at the stone again.

“So instead of waiting for an opening, I make one.”

“Exactly.”

The idea settled into place with annoying ease. Cedric had a way of making something sound so obvious only after I’d spent an entire morning trying to prove that it wasn’t.

“When did you learn about this?”

“A long time ago, but I’m sure you’ll get there eventually.”

My mood improved immediately.

“So I can still beat you.”

“One day.”

“How far away is one day?”

“That depends on how quickly you learn.”

“What if I beat you tomorrow?”

“Then I’ll retire in disgrace.”

That sounded like a perfectly reasonable goal.

“I’ll do it tomorrow, then.”

“I suspected you might.”

A distant bell sounded from somewhere beyond the estate before I could negotiate the conditions of his retirement.

Cedric stood and glanced at the dust covering me.

“You should clean yourself up before dinner.”

“Mother won’t mind.”

His silence lasted long enough to make that lie embarrassing.

“She might mind.”

“She definitely will.”

“Then why did you say she wouldn’t?!”

“I was hoping that confidence might change reality.”

“Has that ever worked?”

“Not yet.”

We headed towards the manor, leaving the training yard behind. Halfway across the gardens, Cedric glanced towards the building ahead.

“Your father asked that you be on time. He has something he wants to discuss with you.”

My steps slowed.

Father did not usually schedule discussions in advance. If I had done something wrong, he simply told me; if it involved my lessons, whichever tutor I’d disappointed normally arrived first and made the situation obvious.

I searched through the previous week for anything worth confessing, but nothing serious came to mind.

“What did I do?”

“As far as I know, nothing.”

“As far as you know?!”

That was worse.

If Cedric only knew some of it, then Father had probably told him something already, which meant this had been planned for a while. Unless Cedric was only pretending not to know because Father had asked him not to say anything, in which case asking Cedric was useless—but if he did know and was refusing to tell me, then whatever Father wanted to discuss had to be important, and if it was important enough that—

“You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“Thinking too much.”

After everything he had spent the entire morning teaching me, that seemed particularly unfair.

Naturally, it only made me more curious.