Niel hesitated. The suspicious part of him was well aware that they could be trying to get him to a back-alley, where nobody could intervene with a murder. What they were saying was too good to be true, which meant it probably wasn’t. He was sure hecould take the little fancy one in a fight, but the tall man with the empty scabbard who knew Niel's language was an unknown. He moved with a warrior's grace.
Still. Niel needed work, and there wasn’t any here. Niel approached the wall slowly and paused outside the gate. The tall swordsman opened it and Niel peered through from the street.
Inside, on a gravel training yard, a dozen children aged ten or so formed two lines and drilled slowly with wooden practice swords, the weapons clacking sharply as they practiced thrusts and parries. The nimble-footed style seemed composed primarily of jabs, not cuts. A wall of trees to the children’s left cast shade on a small area beside the training yard. There, a group of older youths lounged around a stone table, laughing. One stretched against a tree, working her calf muscle.
“This is aschool?” Niel asked in disbelief. A tall, spidery man walked behind the row of sparring children, calling commands, and pausing once to correct a pose by poking at the child’s feet with a long stick, not touching him. The man was dressed in trim, well-tailored finery, hardly clothing Niel would have chosen to fight in.
“Please, friend northman,DoanPaolo wishes you to enter.”
Niel stepped inside. He could see the ground to the right of the training yard now. A long table held ceramic cups and jugs of water and two racks of weapons held wooden practice blades. Beyond that, a covered arcade walkway lined the side of a large multi-storied building.
“A whole school for teaching the sword?” Niel asked again.
“Is it not done thus, in the northlands?”
“No,” Niel said absently. “We train at home, and then we apprentice to a master. Some have sword tutors. But not…” a peal of laughter sounded from the older youths, behind the screen of the trees, at some joke between them.
Surely, combat could not be taught in a place as happy as this. It wasn’t brutal. The air didn’t smell like fear. He didn't see blood or anybody nursing an injured limb.
The man in red said another rapid flurry of words.
“There is nobody here now to teach this northman style. And the bag-men, they prize for their children to know many styles.”
Did they want him to teach? Would it pay well, or at all? He didn’t know the first thing about it. The techniques Niel’s teachers had used were ones he’d never inflict on anyone. But surely, he’d be better suited to teaching the sword than he was to loading boxes into a cart. And if it paid, he’d do anything.
“What’s a bag-man?” Niel asked, studying the form of the sparring children. He wasn’t familiar with the style here, but he could see one of them was getting awfully sloppy.
“Er… a man who… buy and sell many things? Many goods? Who makes a great wealth from trade.”
“Merchant,” Niel said.
“Merchant,” the tall swordsman agreed, clasping his hands behind his back. “The merchant children come for to learn, and the children of noblemen, so any person with money likes to send their children here to become known and to make the correct friends. We have now, even, fourth prince Zavindien’s children.” He said this with pride. Niel, who had grown up with a queen for an aunt, only shrugged. “DoanPaolo’s school is considered best in Cirancia. They come to Laticillo to learn. The morning with tutors and books and maps, the afternoon, with the blades.”
The spindly man overseeing the sparring children corrected the form of the one Niel had noticed getting sloppy.
“After this class, I teach the best of the older students in the sword-and-cape style,” Niel’s translator said. “You will teach one class instead, yes? And then, we will see.”
“Now? You want me to teach today?” Niel turned to look at him.
The swordsman shrugged, and spread his hands wide, palm up.
“If you would, friend northman.DoanPaolo cannot hire a man he has not seen teach.”
Niel’s mouth went dry.
“Alright,” he said. He hesitated. “Your practice swords aren’t right.”
“IfDoanPaolo makes to hire you, you will give instruction to the school’s woodworker.”
Niel nodded, and watched the rest of the class, trying to figure out what he could possibly do for an entire group of youths who’d never held an Enarian-style sword, in the span of a single lesson. Without evenhavingthe right swords to practice with. He ran through ideas as he watched, discarding memory after memory of his father shouting and Corin bearing down on him; and memories of Vulmar Cutthroat taking Niel aside and trying to teach him dirty tricks to survive the matches longer. And then, he remembered cold mornings spent in the small library at Mount Eyron, studying the gilded illustrations of blocks and strikes in his father’s training manuals. Fundamentals so basic Niel had memorized them before he lost his first tooth.
The children were dismissed, and trotted off to get water before filtering inside the large building. Through the windows, he could see other classes were happening inside. The shorter man in red silk settled onto a chair, legs crossed and ring-studded hands draped over them. Niel’s translator barked a few words, clapping his hands. The older youths lounging on the far side of the trees looked up in surprise, then ambled over. There were half a dozen of them, from perhaps the ages of fourteen to sixteen. Niel could feel them taking his measure. He stared backat them, unflinching as they took in his cheap, ill-tailored tunic, and the fact that he did not wear an empty scabbard on his belt.
One of them asked a question in Cirani, an eyebrow raised. The translating swordsman spoke back sharply, as if reprimanding.
“What’s he saying?” Niel asked.
His translator clicked his tongue.
