Page 85 of Play of Shadows

He was the only master of his day who understood the true essence of the duel, Corbier insisted.

Which is?

Once again the Vixen came at me, opening with a false lunge that she promptly turned into a leap to my right side. At the lastinstant, she pirouetted to slash at my neck, leaving me no time to get my own blade up to block. I was forced to protect myself with nothing but an open hand. The Vixen smiled as she returned to the opposite side of the circle. I looked down and saw blood flowing freely from the sliced skin on the palm of my left hand.

Excellent, Corbier said.Now, where was I?

Explaining how the fact that we’ve been wounded four times works in our favour.

I felt the corner of my mouth rise in a smirk.To be honest, the first three weren’t all that helpful, but this last one will be sufficient.

Sufficient for what?A terrible thought occurred to me: when Corbier had left Pierzi’s fortress, he’d just witnessed the deaths of the woman he loved and the children he’d never known were his. He’d fled only because Ajelaine had begged him to, but in his heart, his dearest wish had been to end his own life.

Is that what this is?I asked the muddled collection of memories that were now controlling my limbs like a mad puppeteer.You’ve a death wish?

Every duel ends in death, Damelas; that is what Errera Bottio teaches us. Those who care too much whose death it is will always lose. That is the gift I give you now. It is the gift your grandmother was born with, the gift your grandfather only partially understood and one that you have run from your entire life.

‘You’re bleeding a great deal, my rabbit,’ the Vixen said. Her forehead glistened with a faint sheen of sweat from her exertions, but she moved with no less speed and grace.

‘What, this?’ I asked, holding up my bleeding palm. ‘I’ve had worse paper cuts.’ My own words this time. The banter I could handle without Corbier’s help. It was the sword fighting that was the problem.

She laughed, a lightglissandoon a silver flute. ‘Come now,you’ve shown us all what a fine actor you are, but the performance grows wearisome. Set down your blade and I pledge to grant you time to finish your prayers before I send you to the gods.’

Corbier barked his own laugh, deep, like the rumble of a war drum. ‘Can all these fools really fearyou, my Lady Fox? Can it truly beyourface that faint-hearted fencers conjure in their nightmares? What use is all your skill, all your training, when, with every move you make, it becomes more and more apparent that you have never learned the first rule of the sword?’

‘A great many men before you thought the same thing,’ she countered. ‘Out of courtesy, I will see to it your grave is dug next to theirs.’

Corbier drew my smirk wider. ‘Yours is a dull sort of evil, isn’t it, little foxling? Banal, pedestrian. The blunt brutality of one who has spent so long pretending to be merciless that you have forgotten you have never experienced true cruelty yourself.’

‘And yet you haven’t had the courage to thrust even once. Will you not demonstrate this devastating savagery you keep promising me? Come now, my rabbit, how much longer must I wait?’

Corbier stopped me from moving and let my point drop low again as he squeezed my left hand into a fist. ‘You need wait no longer, Lady Fox. Listen you to the ticks of the clock. Count down from three and you will meet the good God Death for the first and last time.’

She stared at me in disbelief. To announce the time of an attack was surely to guarantee its failure. ‘Three,’ she said.

I nodded approvingly. ‘Go on.’

‘Two.’

‘Almost there. Remember the faces of all those lesser men and women you have killed in the duelling circle with your bravado and your tricks, for you’ll be reunited with them soon.’

The Vixen brought her sword into guard, standing light on the balls of her feet. ‘One.’

Nothing happened.

What are you doing?I asked.

But Corbier was silent.

Everyone in the room– the guards, Captain Terine, Beretto, Rhyleis– were all held frozen by the spell of this moment. And still I didn’t attack. I felt something strange happening in my sword hand and glanced down to see that it was trembling.

Corbier?

There was no answer.

The confusion and sudden panic must’ve shown on my face because Ferica di Traizo began to laugh. ‘Oh, my darling rabbit, what a performance you ga—’

Without warning, without so much as a hint of preparation, the shaking was gone, and though everything that followed took place within the same tick of the clock Corbier had promised, to me it all felt slow, almost languorous.

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