Heartless Read online

  His attendants, clustered by the small north entrance of the palace, whispered among themselves and refused to look his way. The boy’s scowl deepened until it threatened to form permanent creases across his face. He assumed first position again and advanced, carrying the leading foot forward, toe pointed, setting it down heel first and bringing the rear foot up beside it – planting it ball first, as his master taught him. He lunged again and struck the dummy in the shoulder.

  It rocked about, its blank face spinning balefully before him, and Felix suddenly wanted very badly to whack it a few times over the head. His grip tightened on his sword, and he had to force himself to back away and assume first position again rather than take out his frustration on the inoffensive dummy. He wished one of his attendants swung on that pole.

  “Bad form.”

  Felix jumped and spun to his right. Prince Aethelbald stood a few yards away, his arms crossed over his chest. “What’s that?” Felix asked, frowning at him.

  “You presented your exposed back to your opponent,” Aethelbald said. He shook his head, his eyebrows quirked reprovingly. “You are, by all rights, dead. That was no retreat.”

  Felix rolled his eyes, swinging his sword through the air as he shrugged. “It’s a dummy.”

  “It’s your opponent.”

  “I highly doubt he’s going to take a poke at me.” Felix turned from Aethelbald back to his dummy and lunged again. He knocked it squarely in the stomach, and it spun in a complete circle. It was a satisfactory hit, and Felix felt better for it. But when he glanced Aethelbald’s way, the Prince of Farthestshore was still eyeing him critically. “What?” the boy demanded.

  “He would have disarmed you.”

  “What?”

  Aethelbald nodded to the dummy. “Were he alive, he would have disarmed you.”

  Felix sneered at him. “Everyone’s a critic.”

  “Yes,” Aethelbald said, “but no one else, I gather, has bothered to voice his criticism.”

  Both Felix and Aethelbald looked around the practice yard, and once more Felix had the sense that everyone had been watching him but had just in that instant turned away and now pretended otherwise. He glanced toward his attendants, who yawned and leaned against the wall, dozing like so many cows in a pasture.

  Felix turned back to Aethelbald and shrugged. “I’ve been trained,” he said. “And by the best fencing master in the kingdom, I’ll have you know.”

  “Not a soldier, I would venture,” Aethelbald said with a smile.

  “Common soldiers don’t train princes.”

  “Common soldiers would advise you not to drop your guard. Unless you wish to be skewered, of course.”

  Felix huffed, exasperated, and indicated the dummy with his wooden sword. “It’s not alive. It’s not going to skewer me.”

  “Which is why you should practice with someone who might.” Aethelbald uncrossed his arms, and Felix saw that he held a wooden practice sword in one hand. He stepped forward and stood beside the dummy, his arms limp at his sides, no more lithe and mobile than a dummy himself. But his eyes twinkled. “I can see by your face, Prince Felix, that you’re itching to hit me a good one.”

  Felix eyed him up and down, his eyes half closed. “You say my form is bad. Look to your own!”

  Aethelbald shrugged but otherwise stood still. “Hit me,” he said.

  Felix adjusted his grip on his wooden sword. “Will you salute first?”

  Aethelbald smiled again. “I’m a dummy, Prince Felix. Has a dummy ever saluted you?”

  Gritting his teeth, Felix assumed first position. He executed his attack with precision – his feet placed dead on, his arms extended in opposite directions, the point of his sword perfectly parallel to the ground. He was quick as a dart flying toward its mark, and even his fencing master should have been proud.

  But an instant later he found himself stumbling forward empty-handed, his arms spinning to catch his balance, and Prince Aethelbald stood behind him, motionless save for his sword arm, which slowly dropped back into place at his side. Felix whirled around and immediately shot glances across the yard. None of the guards looked his way, but who could say how many had watched the engagement? He turned on Aethelbald, trying to mask his anger. “How – ”

  “Where is your sword?” Aethelbald asked.

  Felix cast about for it and saw it had landed a good three yards away. He ran to fetch it, but Aethelbald called out, “You’re exposed again, prince.”

  Felix swept up his sword and stood with it before him, point at the ready. “I was getting my weapon!” he snarled.

  “Do you think your opponent will always give you that opportunity?” Once more the Prince of Farthestshore stood like a wooden doll, his feet rooted to the gravel. “Hit me.”

  Felix went on guard, his arms extended in a straight line in opposite directions, and lunged again. It was perfect, an artistic movement like a dancer’s performance on stage. Yet at the end of it, he stood disarmed once more, glaring in unconcealed fury.

  “Your weapon?” Aethelbald said.

  Felix retrieved it and lunged again. A third time he was disarmed. He grabbed up his sword, attacked, and lost. Glaring daggers Aethelbald’s way, he shouted, “You don’t fence by the rules, sir!”

  “Neither will your enemy,” Aethelbald replied.

  Felix took in the man’s horrible form. Aethelbald’s stance screamed inexperience, yet Felix noticed suddenly something in his posture that hinted otherwise. Though Aethelbald stood like a wooden block, his knees were ever so slightly bent, and something in the set of his shoulders implied strength and quickness. One might not notice such details if one had not experienced, in four successive encounters, being disarmed by a single stroke.

  Felix lunged again and was once more disarmed, but this time he snatched up his sword in an instant and attacked without preamble, forcing Aethelbald to move out of his wooden stance and actually engage him. But at the end of the engagement, Felix stood empty-handed.

  “What are you doing?” he cried, but now his voice held less anger and more curiosity. “You’re doing something I haven’t seen. What is it?”

  Aethelbald smiled, but though Felix looked for it, he detected no smug amusement, only pleasure. “I’ll teach you. Fetch your weapon. Watch your back, prince!” He slapped Felix lightly across the shoulders as he retreated. Felix rolled his eyes and groaned but took up his weapon again and whirled into a defensive stance.

  “Teach me,” he said.

  –––––––

  That morning Una woke freezing. Nurse scolded her, saying it was her own fault for letting in all that unhealthy fresh air when sensible people would have left the windows shut. Monster refused to leave his nest beneath the covers at the foot of the bed, obliging the maid to make the bed around him. Una wished she could join the cat there, keeping the quilts pulled tight over her head all day. She was cranky and ill-rested. Vague impressions of dreams haunted her, but she could remember nothing specific.

  It was all Prince Aethelbald’s fault, she was sure. She hoped he burned his tongue on his morning porridge.

  No lessons were scheduled for that day due to Prince Aethelbald’s visit. Una planned to while away her time in the gardens, penning odd thoughts in her journal as she thought them. But following a private breakfast and before Una could make an escape to the gardens, Nurse caught her and made her sit down to her tapestry stitching.

  “It’ll steady your nerves,” Nurse said.

  “I’ll impale myself.” Una’s skill with a needle was feeble at best and worsened by her strong dislike of the pastime.

  “Nonsense,” Nurse replied. Against this argument there could be no rebuttal, so Una took her place at one end of the large tapestry – which depicted a gory scene from the epic poem The Bane of Corrilond – and Nurse settled at the other end.

  A stony silence followed, for they had not yet forgiven each other for yesterday’s argument. With nothing but tedious stitching to occupy her
, Una could find no relief for her mind, which skittered back every chance it got to revisit that awful scene at dinner the night before.

  I did the best I could, she told herself over and over. I handled the situation with the most grace possible. What else could I have done?

  Clear as a bell, she heard Felix’s snorting laugh while the rest of the court had exploded in a flurry of whispers, all drumming her ears at once.

  Una shook her head, trying to drive out the memory, but she could still see Prince Aethelbald’s face as he’d knelt before her with such hopeful uncertainty in his eyes.

  What else could I have done? she asked herself again, poking violently at her tapestry. She stitched a troop of soldiers and townspeople fleeing the fire of a monstrous red dragon, which Nurse was busy working in the opposite corner. Una’s people looked more like beans stacked on top of each other, with twig arms and legs sticking out on all sides. She stabbed a bean man through the heart with her needle.

  She had babbled. In front of everyone, absolutely everyone, she had babbled! All the dukes, all the counts, all the ambassadors had listened to her stammer, “Um, yes . . . well, I mean, I’m sorry.”

  With those words she’d had the good sense, thank heaven, to close her mouth, take a deep breath, and try again.

  “Thank you, Prince Applebal – Aethelbald.” She had spoken slowly, getting the words out as neatly as possible. “I cannot accept your . . . your kind offer at this time.”

  Una winced at the memory.

  Aethelbald had risen from his knees, his face unreadable, and bowed again. “Thank you, Princess Una,” he had said. “I hope we shall come to know each other better. Perhaps you will think more kindly of my offer in the future.” With that, he had pulled his chair back up to the table and sipped his wine.

  That dinner would go down in history as the longest of all time.

  Una huffed through her teeth and yanked at a knot in her thread, which refused to pull through the fabric. She glanced up at Nurse, who was pointedly ignoring her.

  “I give up!” Una threw aside her work and marched through the room to her adjacent bedchamber, calling for a maid as she went. “Bring plenty of hot water!”

  Nurse sat up and lowered her own work. “Where do you think you’re going, Miss Princess?”

  “I’m going to give Monster a bath.” Una flung back the coverlet of her bed, exposing her snoozing pet, and before he had finished yawning, grabbed him by the scruff.

  If anything could distract her mind, bathing her cat would.

  –––––––

  Aethelbald and Felix stood side by side, Aethelbald demonstrating and Felix copying his motions. The steps were more complicated than any he had before attempted, yet as Aethelbald explained, Felix saw the underlying simplicity. At last, after many attempts, he understood; yet even so could not get his muscles to do what he told them.

  “In a true engagement,” Aethelbald said, “there is no room for artistry. No posing, no choreography. There is attack and defense, and you must be prepared at each moment for either or both.”

  Yet Felix watched in awe when the Prince of Farthestshore once more demonstrated the complicated steps that allowed him to transform instantly from wooden statue to breath of wind, avoiding Felix’s lunge and disarming him at the same time. If that wasn’t art, Felix couldn’t guess what was. Again, the boy stood beside Aethelbald and mimicked his motions.

  The sun slowly rose in the sky, and soon sweat dropped down every inch of Felix’s body. Yet he went on. Aethelbald took the offensive and lunged, and Felix attempted to put into play what he’d been taught. Time and again he failed and found himself disarmed and sputtering. But at last his motions were right, his timing correct, and he watched in triumph as Aethelbald’s sword flew through the air. He whooped and raised his sword above his head, twirling it to the sky. The next moment he was flat on his back, the Prince of Farthestshore kneeling on his chest and the wind completely knocked out of him.

  “Even disarmed, your enemy is dangerous,” Aethelbald said. “Remember, Felix.” He stood and helped the boy up. “You have earned a rest, my friend. Come.”

  Felix was flushed and exhausted as he followed Prince Aethelbald to the barracks. He realized suddenly that they had an audience. A lineup of guards stood along the fringes, whispering among themselves and pointing like so many gossiping ladies. Felix blushed, thinking what a fool he must have looked, but Aethelbald slapped him on the shoulder. “They’re impressed,” he said.

  “With you, perhaps,” the boy replied.

  “With you, Prince Felix. They’ve not seen such a soldierly performance from you before, I would wager.”

  Aethelbald led him to a bench against the outside wall of the barracks, and the two of them sat and stretched their feet out before them. Every muscle in Felix’s back and shoulders throbbed, but it felt good – in a painful sort of way. He closed his eyes and let his breath out in a puff. “Is that how they teach swordplay in Farthestshore?”

  Aethelbald chuckled quietly beside him. “You could say that.”

  Felix opened one eye and squinted up at the other prince. “Do your knights all fight like that?”

  Aethelbald leaned his head back against the wall. “My knights bring individual skills and fighting styles from their own countries.”

  “Your knights aren’t from Farthestshore?”

  “They are the Knights of Farthestshore. But their homelands are many and varied.”

  Felix pondered this a moment, thinking of the three strange men who had accompanied this unprepossessing prince into the palace dining hall the night before. “Where is Sir Oeric from?” he asked, remembering the enormous knight with the saucer eyes and rocklike hide who had greeted his father at the market.

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  “Yes, I would.”

  “No, you wouldn’t.”

  “Try me!”

  Aethelbald smiled sideways at the young prince. “Sir Oeric hails from the realm of King Vahe of the Veiled People, the far land of Arpiar.”

  Felix frowned. “You’re teasing me,” he growled. “Arpiar isn’t a real place. It’s a story. Arpiar is where goblins are . . .” He paused as his brain caught up with his words. “Is Sir Oeric a goblin?”

  “No.”

  “But stories say Arpiar is the realm of goblins. If anyone ever looked like a goblin – ”

  “And yet, Oeric is no goblin.”

  Felix sank into silence, pondering several thoughts as they spun through his head. A minute or two passed, and he became aware suddenly of voices just around the corner of the building against which he and Aethelbald leaned.

  “Stranger than I like,” the first voice said. “I’m not in favor of mysteries; I won’t deny it.”

  “Who are these people?” another voice asked. “They come from the Wood without a by-your-leave and take up residence in our king’s home. . . . How are we to know they’re trustworthy?”

  “They’re not our kind,” the first said.

  “That they aren’t.”

  “My grandmother told me,” the first voice went on. “She said, ‘Nothing good comes from the Wood.’ ”

  “And we all know the fount of wisdom your grandmother was.”

  “Well, I trust the old biddy!”

  The next moment two guards came around the corner. They stopped when they saw Felix and Aethelbald. Aethelbald remained where he sat with his eyes closed and his head back, looking soundly asleep. But Felix saw the guards exchange worried glances, then scurry past without even a bow for their prince.

  Felix nudged Aethelbald with his elbow. “They don’t like you.”

  Aethelbald grunted.

  “Where are you from, Prince Aethelbald?”

  “From the Wood, they’re saying,” Aethelbald replied.

  “But where are you really from? You say you’re the Prince of Farthest-shore, but is Farthestshore a real place?”

  “Just as real as Arpi
ar.”

  “That helps a lot!”

  Aethelbald yawned suddenly and stretched his arms over his head. “People fear the unknown, Prince Felix. They fear what they cannot understand.”

  “They fear you,” Felix said. “You and your knights.”

  “Just so.”

  Felix crossed his arms. “I’m not afraid of you.”

  Aethelbald raised an eyebrow, looking down at him again. “Perhaps you should be.” He got to his feet. “Come. Let’s see if your muscles remember what you’ve been trying to teach them this morning.”

  Felix groaned but got up and followed the Prince of Farthestshore into the middle of the yard. He drew his sword and swung his arms to loosen up his shoulders. But before he took position, he said, “You really intend to marry my sister, Prince Aethelbald?”

  Aethelbald swung his sword arm in an arc, then did the same with the other. “I hope to.”

  “She won’t have you,” Felix said.

  “Perhaps not.”

  “She doesn’t like you.”

  Aethelbald smiled wryly and took up his wooden sword. “I’d gathered as much last night.”

  “She won’t change her mind.”

  “Perhaps not.”

  “No, I know my sister.” Felix emphasized his words with a jab of his sword. “She doesn’t like you, and she won’t change. She’s stubborn as anything.”

  “But I am steadfast,” Aethelbald replied. “We’ll see who prevails in the end.”

  Felix snorted. “I’ll put my money on Una.”

  “As any loyal brother should. On your guard, Prince Felix!”

  Felix hardly had a moment to react before his sword was knocked from his hand and sailed across the yard. Yelping in surprise, he scampered after it and had just enough time to swipe it up and place it between himself and Aethelbald before the Prince lunged for him. He parried weakly, and the next moment Aethelbald’s sword swung around and froze a fraction of an inch from his neck.