The dust we had kicked up in the exercised yard hung in the still air and settled on my sweaty arms and face. The staff was weighing heavy in my hands and the sun was burning the back of my neck but Joseph called to me to start again. With a groan I hastily blocked his jab and swung a stinging blow at his thigh. He managed to block it and brought his staff up quickly to knock the mine wildly to one side. I managed to keep a grip on it with my other hand but he hooked me behind my back and caught me in the circle of his arms pulling me in close to his hard chest and smirking at me. He had been doing that all day as we practiced and it kept making me smile at his cheek. I twirled out of his grasp and feinted and struck until it felt like my arms were running with blood. Finally I held my hand up and thumped the end of that accursed stick onto the ground and leant on it trying to get my breath back.
"Water?" I croaked. I could feel my eyes straying to a crude stone trough in the shade of the kitchen wall. It looked wonderfully cool.
"A good idea." He grinned wiping his own brow and leaning on his staff. With a sigh of relief I loosened my long fair hair from its leather thong and hurried over to dunk my head and drink my fill. When I threw my head back to clear my hair from my face I felt the cool weight of it slap against the back of my already sweat soaked shirt. Little rivulets left cool tracks down my spine.
"You fight very well you know." He sounded genuinely pleased.
"Thank you." I shuffled sideways to make space for him. "I always did learn quickly. There are only so many ways to hit someone."
"I can see where you are coming from Lin. As you put it, it does not really lend itself to glory and skill." He smiled as he said it. A little cynical smile that quirked up the corner of his mouth and made his grey eyes crinkle at the corners.
He dunked his own head and came up rubbing the dust from his face and neck. As he stood I surreptitiously looked him over as the water ran down his chest and back. He was wearing only a loose pair of cotton trousers tucked into heavy leather boots, he had discarded his shirt when we had begun. His torso was compact, muscled in the way of a man who lives an active life. His movements were fluid with the unconscious economy that a good fighter possesses. Being not excessively muscled or tall his strength was deceptive and his skill with the staff was well known. That was why I had sought him out to train with.
I had been travelling from place to place for the last few years as a hired sword. A general fighter, body guard or soldier as the opportunity presented itself. It was a dark time in my life. I had lost everything. Ever since I roamed lost and alone, wishing to die but not possessing the courage to end my own life. A few months after being flung from my home I wandered into a village with no name. It was night and I hadn't eaten in two days. A man spotted me stumbling along and attacked me.
It was when my body was pinned against the gritty stone wall, with the pungent stench of old sweat stinging my nose and a grabbing hand forcing my skirts up that I found the strength of a cornered animal, the courage of prey. I failed to die that night. I failed to be degraded and used. I took my rage, my hurt, my betrayal and my grief and used it
I went too far. I looked down on his bloody corpse...that mangled face, and I knew what I had become. I took his knife and money belt and paid for a hot meal and a room for the night. I never looked back. My skills and strength began to grow. I was fast, strong and deadly. In the back of my mind I knew that as I went into every fight I was expecting to die. I wanted it, but I wouldn't die cheaply, my instincts wouldn't allow it.
It was a few weeks ago that I came to the town of Culberry to enter a tournament. It had a good prize for the victor. It was a miserable night, I wanted rest and food and nothing else. Corman chose that night to stride back into my life. He snuck into my room in the dead of night and woke me. I still don't know what he was thinking, I doubt he even was, but he took me that night. A long night of passion such as I hadn't experienced for years. I had let the love in me die as I thought he had. I awoke that morning as he slid his arm from under my head.
His heavily muscled back was turned to me as he sat on the edge of the bed, his head and shoulders bowed as if the weight of the world rested solely on him. He told me he couldn't stay with me. That he had left for my own safety in the first place. As he dragged on his clothing I shamed myself by pleaded with him to stay, to at least tell me why, but he refused. I caught his face gently before he opened the door and turned his face to look at me.
"So this is it?" I asked. I could feel the sorrow building but my eyes stayed dry. Perhaps my store of tears was spent.
"You let me think that you had died. Made me mourn you. Watched from afar as our house was taken away and I was left with nothing, only to come back when I don't need you, and use me for one night. Was I always something that was good for as long as it was convenient? No do not answer. I am finished. I did not think it possible but you have broken my heart again. You know nothing of what I have been through. I'm sure you can imagine what can befall a woman wandering alone on the roads."
"No!" He breathed. His voice deep and outraged. I felt true fury burst from me heart. He caught my hand and tried to pull me to face him but I snatched it away.
His face was stricken when I looked back. I turned away again, I didn't want to see.
"I left to save you." He began his voice constricted and getting louder. "You have no idea what we were facing."
"No I don't." I said picking up my clothes and putting them on quickly "but I know what happened. I think I would rather have died. No, I know I do."
