Wren had, of course, seen cottagers wielding scythes in his father’s fields, but had never before taken one up himself. If his father could see him now… The thought brought a smile to his lips, as he considered the apoplectic fit that would ensue.
Back and forth, back and forth, sliver by crescent-moon sliver, Wren carved through the thorns. By the halfway point his shoulders had begun to twinge; by the end of the work some hours later, a low burn had settled into his arms and back.
“We’ll continue on the morrow,” the ambassador decreed as Wren ceased scything.
Wren straightened up with a grimace. While the ambassador’s regimen of running up the warren-tower stairs had done miracles for his stamina, it had not yet undone a decade of hunching over a desk.
He wondered, too, as the ambassador led the way back through the tunnel of briars to Blackthorn cottage, how a fae with so deadly a reputation had acquired the knowledge of practical scything. At length this wondering grew so great he found it impossible not to give it voice.
“Were you a farmer?” Wren enquired, wary of giving offence.
“Oh no, I haven’t the talent,” the ambassador demurred. “However, a dear friend of mine lives in a little village, which I’ve visited in harvest time oft enough. She taught me how to swing scythe and flail.”
“And the rapier?” Wren couldn’t keep from asking.
The ambassador laughed. “Learnt long before I met her.”
The ornate rapier yet hung from Wren’s hip—had done so throughout the scything lesson. He gestured to it now with his free hand. “If I’m to fight the solstice duel with a scythe, then…”
The ambassador gave a sympathetic nod. “I’m afraid we must wait until after the solstice to continue your lessons in swordplay. Still! Something to look forward to.”
Wren, who’d intended to suggest returning the rapier to the ambassador, hesitated.
The ambassador smiled. “You’ve given me the gift of letters. It’s the very least I may do to repay you.”
A wiser man might have kept his own counsel. Wren, however, couldn’t prevent himself from replying, “It costs me far less than you value it.”
Still the ambassador smiled. “All the better for you, m’lord.”
“If I may ask,” Wren said, emboldened by the ambassador’s ability to take every foolish thing that fell out of his mouth in stride, “why did you want the gift of letters? It aids me in my vocation, certainly,” he added, “but you seem to get on very well without it.
The ambassador hesitated long enough for Wren to fear he’d given offence at last. Yet when the ambassador did reply, his words carried an apologetic tone. “It’s not considered worthwhile to teach the skill to superfluous heirs.”
Primogeniture, Wren supposed. It hadn’t affected him personally, as the solitary offspring of a gentleman, but he’d heard tell of the misery it inflicted on the second sons he’d attended school with, and seen how it fell out in the estate affairs he and Mr Grigsby had untangled in their career in Staple Inn. Though it’d never yet prevented a mortal man from learning to read, so far as he knew. “You have many elder brothers?”
“Sisters,” said the ambassador. “All of whom bring glory to our mother. Whereas I, as a son, am shaped only for shame.”
Not primogeniture, then. Wren had much to learn yet regarding fae inheritance law. “I see.”
“I never thought I’d find the opportunity to acquire my letters,” the ambassador went on. “Until! A mortal clerk is crowned the Holly King, and better for me, an acquaintance informs me said Holly King wishes to learn the art of combat. Trading art for art seems fair enough, and so I offer my services. And here we are!”
For indeed, they’d just arrived at the humble cottage in the heart of Blackthorn.
~
“While not designed for combat,” said the ambassador when next Wren met him in the training meadow, “there are certain benefits to the scythe. It has considerable reach. Its sweep will encourage your opponent to keep their distance. And the curvature of the blade does nicely for disarming.”
Wren, with the scythe in his hands, saw no reason to disagree. Though he wondered how the slender silver rapier the ambassador held would stand up against the more substantial oak and iron.
“As it cuts down wheat, so may it cut down your opponent.” The ambassador fell into a fencing stance with the ease of a clerk falling into an office chair. “Begin!”
A moment passed in bewildered silence.
Wren blinked. “What, just have at you?”
“Indeed!” the ambassador chirped.
The ambassador, while rather shorter than Wren, stood taller than briars or wheat. Given this, Wren raised the scythe to the height of his waist. He felt the difference in its weight at once. Still, he swung it.
