Page 41 of Sword Dance

The two blades met, ringing with an unexpectedly pure note, like a bell. Varazda was caught off-guard by it; Damiskos was too, but he recovered more quickly. He slipped his sword free and brought it down on Varazda’s arm, in what would have been a devastating slash if the swords had been sharp and Damiskos had put power behind it. Varazda jumped back, startled, and laughed.

Then he recovered, meeting Damiskos’s next attack with a stylish little flourish and a precision that Damiskos had not expected. They fenced a few more passes, Varazda clearly giving it everything he had, Damiskos not remotely so—just observing, learning his opponent’s limits.

If his life had followed its first trajectory and he had grown up as the son of a noble Zashian household, Varazda would have made an excellent swordsman. But he had not, and the skills he had cultivated were not all ones that mattered in an actual fight. His instinct was to sacrifice speed and force for style, and he was used to thinking only about his own movement, not predicting the attacks of an opponent. He was beautiful to watch, but he was no match for Damiskos. When Damiskos began to really press him, he gave ground quickly.

He was very fair-minded, though—or perhaps ‘considerate’ was a better word for it. His biggest advantage against Damiskos was that he was much faster on his feet, but he refused to use it. He would dodge Damiskos’s attacks, but without moving more than a few steps, effectively neutralizing Damiskos’s weakness.

Damiskos had sparred with other men, in the years since his injury, who had done the same, but none that he could remember who had done it so gracefully—without saying anything about it, without seeming to have to work at it. If he hadn’t been having so much fun, it might have brought tears to his eyes.

He swung in earnest, hitting Varazda’s blade with his full strength, once, twice, three times, driving him back. Varazda actually shrieked.

It was put on—he obviously wasn’t really scared—but it was very funny, and Damiskos lost all form and composure and burst out laughing. Varazda seized his moment and swatted him on the flank with the flat of his blade, not hard enough to hurt. The watchers hissed and hooted.

Varazda had not been joking when he had suggested he could learn something, and after this he insisted that Damiskos teach him a couple of attacks, and put serious attention into learning them. Damiskos suggested techniques that would take advantage of Varazda’s strengths: his height, his speed, his dancer’s ease of movement.

This part was less entertaining to watch, and their audience gradually melted away so that by the time they were both tired and the light was fading, they were alone in the courtyard.

“Thank you,” Varazda said, taking back Damiskos’s sword and making a crisper, more military version of his usual courtly bow.

“My pleasure,” said Damiskos sincerely.

They stood there for a moment, and it struck Damiskos suddenly that if they had still had an audience he would have had an excuse to lean in and give Varazda a kiss. But they didn’t.

It was time for Damiskos to be going in for a bath before dinner, time for Varazda to rejoin the slaves as they prepared for the evening. Neither of them moved from where they stood.

Varazda said, “It has been five years since you left your command, I think you said?”

“Five years in the autumn.”

“You must have been superb.”

Damiskos shrugged and looked at the ground in the middle distance. “I was good.”

“You’re very good now, even with a foreign blade.”

“Well, it’s a style of fighting I’ve always liked. And I liked to challenge myself.”

“I’m sorry they took that from you.”

Damiskos looked up, surprised. “What do you mean, ‘they’?”

Varazda’s eyebrows went up a fraction. “I don’t know. I must have misspoken.”

But Damiskos was pretty sure he hadn’t.

“Well,” said Varazda after another moment, “I must let you go in. I don’t think you want to join me in the slave baths—they’re one of the unimproved parts of the house. Rather ghastly.”

Damiskos chuckled, as he was obviously meant to do. “I am glad to be spared that.”

“I’ll see you later, then,” said Varazda.

Damiskos watched him walk away toward the door into the slave quarters. He felt a pull, somewhere in his soul, strong as a river running downhill, an urge to follow Varazda. He didn’t care how ghastly the slave bath was, what the slaves were having for dinner, or when they got to eat (he was used to a soldier’s life, after all). He just wanted to be near Varazda.

He hadn’t felt that pull, that helpless yearning, in years. But he had felt it before, often enough, when he was younger, and he knew well enough what it was. He could stop pretending to be in love with Varazda now, because he really was.

Chapter 10

When Damiskos imagined a lasting love, it had always been in the context of marriage or the army. If you had asked him five years ago what he wanted, he would have said he wanted both. If he had to choose, he would have chosen the wife, as the more respectable option and the one that came with the comforts of a settled home. That was why he had got into the habit of saying that he “preferred women.” If he didn’t have to choose, if he could have exactly what he wanted, he had always thought he’d want a kind and loyal wife at home, and a lover in the army, so that no matter where he was, there would be someone who was uniquely his, someone with whom he could share a deep companionship of body and soul.