Marmaduke smiled. “I have been called worse.”
Chapter 23
“See yourself in finest mail,” Marmaduke encouraged James a short while later, then when sweat ran down the young lord’s face and his sword swings and thrusts began to lose aim. “Every inch of you shining brighter than the sun, the hiss of your blade cutting the air,” he added, stepping back, opening his arms wide. “Come for me. Let your sword-craft take over.”
“I am learning sword-craft,” James snarled, and took a wild swing at Marmaduke. “You taunt me.”
“I want you to fight.” Marmaduke blocked the slashes, the ring of steel echoing in the vaulted storeroom. “Women love warriors,” he tossed out, circling the younger man now, forcing him to parry lightning-quick strikes. “Your lass is fiery. She would reward you well. Think how much your prowess would please her. The praise she’d heap on you. Her passion-”
“Enough!” James lunged, his surprisingly strong blow ringing against Marmaduke’s blade, the impact sending a jolt up Marmaduke’s arm. “Lady Rhona-”
“She is the prize.” Marmaduke leapt back and tossed his sword high, catching it by the hilt. He grinned. “That trick, too, I will teach you. But later, after a bit more practice.”
“You are mad.”
“Nay.” Marmaduke shook his head. “I understand the importance of pleasing a lady.
“Now, come,” he finished, again taking up a fighting stance. “Let us continue.”
“Beast,” James muttered, slicing air. Then he leapt forward, sword ready, as he blocked or countered Marmaduke’s tireless thrusts with ever greater skill.
Until low-voiced bickering reached them from the stairwell and Marmaduke backed him against the well house.
“Foolish lad.” Marmaduke cast aside the blunt-tipped practice sword and dragged the back of his hand over his sweat-slicked brow. “You would be dead now were I a true foe.”
Panting, James ignored him, his attention on the shadowy arch of the stairwell.
The voices neared, still arguing. One a man’s deep grumble, the other a woman’s.
And she was clearly winning.
“The salt beef is full o’ worms,” the man groused, his exasperation echoing off the undercroft’s thick walls.
“There must be something,” Lady Rhona’s voice insisted. “We cannot have a wedding without a marriage feast.”
And then the two of them reached the bottom of the steps. Rhona froze, her jaw slipping as she stared at James, surprise on her pretty face. “I thought I heard swords, but when the noise stopped so abruptly, I figured it was just our castle ghosts.”
“Ghosts,” Eoghann scoffed. “The only wraiths hereabouts – if there are any – would be too weak from hunger to go about clashing swords.”
“Then we’ll just have to be sure that every table at the wedding feast groans beneath enough hearty fare to fill the bellies of all Dunlaidir’s residents.” She beamed at the seneschal. “Past and present.”
Her words drew a snort from James. “Eoghann’s right. We dinnae have ghosts.”
“So?” Marmaduke leaned in, lowered his voice. “If the notion pleases the lass, you’d be better served not to laugh.”
Rhona came over to them then, the seneschal close on her heels. She smiled at James. “It’s good to see you swing a sword again. It’s been a while.”
“Perhaps I’ve decided to change that?” he said, pushing away from the wall. In his haste, he stumbled and the practice sword slipped from his hand.
He froze, his gaze going to the blade’s blunted tip.
A squire’s learning tool, not a man’s.
Marmaduke’s heart twisted at the young lord’s blunder. With lightning speed, he used his foot to flip the sword into his hand. Rhona noting the blade’s impotence would only cause James further shame.
And so…
As quickly as he’d seized it, Marmaduke tossed the sword, rounded tip and all, into a dark corner where it landed with a metallicthwankon a pile of haphazardly-stacked crossbows.
