EL BK5 | Chapter 32 - Brave, for a Peasant. (Patreon)

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Achaicus Klein

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The distant gong of town bells held a small portion of my attention as I swept aside an incoming strike. Metal clanked and slipped, sending a glint of light across the grass as sword met sword. The impact jarred down the length of the weapons, and Halle lost her grip. Her blade flung away, narrowly missing Charles as he rounded into a secondary attack past her.

I twisted away, deflecting him with the flat of my sword to avoid damaging the fragile mass of his body. He stumbled and fell with a grunt, leaving both humans disarmed at my feet. I pressed my fingers to my temple with a disheartened tsk. How could I ever teach them if the pair couldn’t learn to coordinate? Halle’s next exam was rapidly approaching, and Charles was gaining no more control over his power for all the books he had read.

“You must try harder,” I urged, kicking Halle’s sword back to her.

“Yes my Lord,” she answered without hesitation. Her brow, beaded with sweat creased into a stern frown as she wiped her hair back with the back of her arm. 

The girl wasn’t badly trained, but she lacked experience. Somehow, she hadn’t trained as much as the others had. Was that why she trained alone during the night? Was her previous owner occupying too much of her time with menial tasks? Did he not understand how humans must practice? I thought of how often I had watched Calla and Eric train, relentlessly, day or night the keening of their swords echoed off the stones.

A brief stab of longing reached my heart as I thought about the past. Dunkel Castle had been my home for so long, and I had left my brother to run both castles all on his own… 

“I think I must be reading these books wrong or something, I can’t get the magic to work,” Charles grumbled his complaints as he picked himself up. Red sparks electrified his fingers, uselessly like flame touching water and spattered outward in a manner that would have been effective only for starting a forest fire.

“Your mind is not sound enough for the magic. You must practice your meditation more,” I told him in no uncertain terms. 

Charles had trouble finding his centre. Fortitude of the mind makes fortitude of energy the words echoed in my mind like a distant memory. I too had struggled with controlling my magic and Markos had held me back to ensure I learned the correct way to channel my energy. Even so, there are times I still struggle to match with my brother. Another difference between us, his inner peace must be far greater than mine.

“Maybe you’re just too strong for them,” a familiar voice called from the edge of the training field. 

Miss Maiden, as I had begun to call her for lack of knowing her name, waited on the small viewing platform overlooking the training fields. Her bright ametrine eyes seemed more purple than yellow today. They glistened with deep, mischievous delight as if holding in a personal joke and the faintest hint of a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

I straightened, dusting myself off. “I’ll have you know I am well aware how to train humans, thank you for your input.”

She tilted her head to the side. “Do you? Why thank you ever so much for ‘informing’ me. I had heard you no longer had a human pet. I feared you might have forgotten what they are like.”

My jaw snapped shut. Awfully rude for a servant.

The forbidding smile spread into a smirk as her eyes narrowed with knowing entertainment as she leaned forward against the railing. The slight adjustment pressed her bodice into her chest and the fabric tightened against her curves. I might not have noticed at all, if it weren’t for the contrast between her pale skin, and the dark fabric of her dress.

In a moment of undignified behavior, I was staring too low and I felt my neck grow warm when I realised. Surely she didn’t notice the cut of her dress? A platoon of guards arrived for training drills, and I moved to the woman, subtly blocking her from their direct line of sight. 

Only then did I see the stack of paperwork hugged against her body. She must have been running errands for her Lord. “Shouldn’t you be elsewhere?” I demanded.

The woman readjusted her position for a more modest one. “Is that an order for me to leave, my Lord?”

“You wouldn’t want to keep from your duties now would you?”

“Ah, but if I did not stop, you would only be growing more frustrated with your Pets, would you not? You should ask the other lords to lend their Pets for training. They stand no chance against you.” The hint of playful guile left her voice as she gave the advice in earnest.

“What good would that do? Halle was already training with the others.”

Miss Maiden shook her head. “No. Lord Hartwin believed she would pick up bad habits to do so.” 

I glanced back at my humans. Charles wasn’t skilled enough for Halle, but neither was she skilled enough to spar with me. Perhaps this lady had a point–

A hand under my chin evaporated my thoughts as she turned my face back toward her, tilting my head up with two slender fingers. “Otherwise, you could try taking your shirt off. Perhaps it would give her some focus?” The taunting hint had returned to her voice. 

Too taken aback to respond with any level of intelligence, I glared up at her until I could force myself away. “It’s impolite to touch your superiors,” I muttered, indignant, as I held her wrist.

“But my lord, you are the one holding onto me now, are you not?”

I let go with a short irritated sound. “Only to get you off!”

“Ahh, such a shame then. It seems you didn’t like my idea.” She recovered as if uncaring for my protests. 

“Wearing a shirt or not makes no difference to training,” I scowled.

“I disagree. I think it might make all the difference from where I’m standing.”

My eyes narrowed. What did she mean? I looked down to measure the height of the platform and the railing, not all that different from ground level.

She watched as I did the calculations, and to my surprise, gave a laugh. The girlish sound caught me off guard and my attention snapped back to her.

“Something funny to you?” I demanded.

“Very much so,” she confirmed. “Tell me, is your high, clothed, lordship occupied this evening?” 

“I am occupied every evening. Unlike those who seem to keep others waiting.” I answered with a pointed gesture to the paperwork she carried.

“Well, if you should find the time, I will wait for you by the fountain in the rose garden. There are herbs I have to pick under the moonlight, and I trust your company would keep me safe while I do so?”

My heart fluttered with the suggestion, but I tempered it. I would not have the time to waste with this servant on her errands. “I will be meeting with my grandfather this evening. You should have to ask your Lord to accompany you. Or have him send a platoon of guards.”

The woman took a breath in, unhelpfully for the way it raised her chest, and exhaled with a sigh of exasperation. “It’s no matter, I shall wait until the moon crests the horizon, and then I will go by myself. Do take care with your training.”

Her hair caught the sunlight as she turned in an abrupt arc, and she was gone before I could gather my wits to argue. Surely she would not be so foolish to go into the forest alone? Deciding she did indeed look foolish enough, I braced both hands against the railing with the intention of vaulting it to go after her, when the flat clank of metal and the scent of blood stopped me. 

Halle had failed a dodge and Charles had cut deep into her leg. I should never have let them spar with true blades. 

*** 

I sat in the infirmary beside Charles and his jiggling leg with my clothes crusted in a layer of dried blood. I’d had to carry the girl to the infirmary, and now she sat with tears brimming in her eyes as her wound was stitched. She’d accepted no pain treatments as a self imposed punishment, pointless really, but she was insistent.

“Stop,” I commanded lightly, placing a hand on Charles’s knee to stop his jiggling. It did not stop his trembling.

“Sorry,” he sucked in a tense breath. “I just keep seeing the sword sink into her thigh. I’m pretty sure I saw bone.”

The eyes direct the weapon, he would likely not forget what he had seen. “It is not your fault. Put it from your mind.”

The man looked at me with the wide grey eyes of a human and I was reminded all at once how young he was. Only in his twenties when we met, he hadn’t yet reached his hundredth birthday… I cringed internally to remember how I had been as a young teen. Far too childish. Especially in how I treated humans.

“Ah, I don’t think I can think of anything else.” he admitted, beginning to fidget again.

Halle made a small pained sound as the nurse pulled a stitch tight and Charles turned to me with renewed determination. 

“Who was that woman you spoke to?” he asked, forcing himself not to look in Halle’s direction.  

Not what I had meant for him to distract himself with. “I don’t know her name. She is a servant.”

“What did she want?” he cringed when Halle whimpered again.

I glanced over to check, the nurse was almost done. His magic glowed at his fingertips as he pulled the last of the exterior membranes together.

“She wished for an escort outside of the castle,” I answered, distracted.

“Are you going to go?” 

I scoffed at the notion. “Of course not. I have far more important things to attend to.” —that is what I had told Charles hours before climbing out my window onto the roof tops.

With my humans safely tucked away for the night, I arrived at the water fountain when the very first of the moon began to rise. Sitting on the edge of it watching the reflection of the moon glitter across the ripples in the water as beautiful silvery fish glided beneath the surface, I waited. 

I waited until the stars glowed and my breath steamed the air. I had never been intended to meet with Ælfric, it was a simple lie I had told her… but maybe she believed it? And would not bother to wait for me, or maybe she had never intended to come at all?  Feeling increasingly foolish as I waited, I began to doubt until the soft scuff of boots on pavement approached. 

“I must be very fortunate, for his Lordship to forgo a meeting with the Grand Duke for me,” her voice was like the promise of frost in the morning. Sweet, soft, and dewy.  

“Hardly. I came to watch the fish.” I replied indignantly.

She sat beside me. “Oh, so fish are more important than the Grand Duke?”

“They’re more important than you.” 

Her arm interlocked with mine. “And here I was led to believe Nathaniel was the rude one.”

I looked down at her thick sleeve against mine with disgust. “We are both rude, that’s why we’re twins.”

“So you admit it then?” As she spoke she stood, dragging me to my feet with her. “Brave of a man to admit his faults.”

“Whoever said it was a fault?”

Another of her bright laughs escaped and I listened to the sound with mild amusement. This woman was brave, for a peasant...

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