Rosemary Jones: Cold Steel and Secrets Part 1

“Is this Elyne one of the leaders of the Nashers?” Sarfael asked.

“Well regarded, perhaps, and trusted with certain plans, but the true leaders meet elsewhere. Still, she could well advance within their ranks. I deem it best to nip that ambition before it blooms. Or prune it in such a way that it serves our interests and not theirs.”

“Then I go and cross my humble sword with the lady. I trust you will have hot water and clean bandages waiting should I not succeed.”

Dhafiyand scowled at him. “Better I should have a horse and carriage waiting for us both. Lord Neverember dislikes constant failure and the continued growth of the Nasher’s ranks must rankle.”

Sarfael permitted himself a wide grin at the spymaster’s tirade. “The only one rankled is yourself. As you said, our Open Lord of Waterdeep finds the lady charming. Further, he would only notice a rebellion if it took place directly under his nose. That is why he pays you and the excellent general to keep order in Neverwinter: she in the open streets and you in its shadows.”

“Go on. Flattery will not increase your fee. And, before you make your bow to Elyne Tschavarz, clean those boots. The lady will be more impressed.”

Sarfael cocked a leg and examined his boots. Trust the old man to notice everything while pretending to pay attention only to his papers.

“They are a trifle filthy,” he said.

“Mud to the knee. You look as if you have been grave robbing yourself.”

“No, just grave digging. Or reburying, if you prefer.”

Dhafiyand snorted, a surprisingly inelegant sound from the spymaster. “I will expect your first report within three days.”

Sarfael bowed himself out of the door with a flourish, but Dhafiyand’s head was bent over his documents and he paid him no heed.

The school, if it could truly be called such, was located in a warehouse near the docks. A sharp yeasty smell proclaimed its past affiliation with the abandoned brewery next door.

Vats were shoved against the walls, some painted with targets or wreathed in straw bundles, and many scarred with blows from throwing axes and broadswords. Racks of weapons, primarily swords of all sizes and types, were scattered around. Sarfael wondered that Dhafiyand would allow so many to rest in the hands of suspected rebels, but a closer glance at the blades showed them to be blunted, nicked, and, in general, of poor quality. Such swords would quickly shatter against Tarnian shields and armor, and the mercenaries certainly carried better blades for their patrols of Neverwinter.

The center of the floor was ringed with various circles marked out with white stones. Within each circle, a pair of combatants traded blows, high or low, quick or slow, as instructions were called out by a young lady standing in the center of the floor.

“Half thrust, high, disengage, full thrust, low, disengage, hold firm, point over blade, thrust out, cross blade, recover,” she chanted as the students hit their swords lightly together and than stepped apart.

Sarfael watched for a few moments, and then slowly began to clap.

The lady glanced at him. She threw her hand up in the air, signaling a stop to the others.

“You find their actions worthy of applause?” she said as she walked toward him. Sarfael noted that Dhafiyand’s earlier report of Elyne Tschavarz was absolutely correct. She was indeed quite pretty. Tall and slender, with red hair bound neatly in braids that hung down her back. She wore a black leather waistcoat with small dark buttons-a swordswoman’s waistcoat, affording no shining brass button targets, but heavy enough to turn the point of a lighter thrust. Leather guards, ringed with steel, protected her wrists and her throat. Her boots were very high, covering the vulnerable knee, but low heeled to allow for quick movement and good footing.

Himself, he favored a narrower sleeve than she sported, although he had known swordmasters who claimed such billowing sleeves helped obscure the angle of the elbow and the intention of the blow. He found watching the eyes a far better predictor of a fight than any movement of the arm. Right then, the lady’s green eyes were narrowed and noting his own accoutrements as closely as he had cataloged her trappings.

“I find the attention to their teacher admirable,” said Rucas Sarfael with as deep a bow as any lord in Waterdeep ever made to a fine lady. And while his head bobbed down, his eyes darted around the room, noting the doorways to the left and right, and the crowd of students, all armed with practice blades, gathering like a storm cloud at the lady’s back.

“And how do you find the teaching?” she asked with a tilt of the head that was both charming and, from the way the students behind her came to an abrupt halt, a well-known signal.

“That is what I would like to learn,” said Sarfael. “If allowed.”

“This is an open place, where any are welcome,” she said with fair grace for a set speech obviously well-rehearsed. “We practice for our own pleasure and health. No intentional drawing of blood, no dueling. We keep to the law and, if the law is broken, the student is expelled permanently.”

“But not fatally, I hope.”

“Of course not,” she said. “Have you heard reports otherwise of us? Some false rumor that we encourage dueling? Or perhaps a questioning of our ideals and politics.” Her hand remained curled around the hilt of her sword and her look never wavered from his face. Her stance was that of a fighter ready to draw her blade.

One eyebrow flew up as Sarfael contemplated the lady. She was, quite obviously, no idiot. No doubt the spies that Dhafiyand had sent earlier played the game as one might expect, acted the innocent fools or protested a shade too much their loyalty to Neverwinter’s past.

Well, then, he decided in the instant, he would try a different way. Show himself to be skilled and clever, an obvious rogue, and thus, by inference, not a subtle, spying one.

He grinned broadly at the swordmistress. “I have no knowledge of your politics, being somewhat newly arrived in the city, and I find dueling tedious. I came here because I was told that Elyne of Neverwinter was so lovely that even the great Lord Neverember had smiled to see her dance. Perhaps, too, I sought the making of a few friends to welcome an exile back.”

The lady blinked a little at that torrent of words. Ladies often had such a reaction to him, although most wore a warmer expression than the one displayed by the well-armed redhead.

“An exile returned home?” Elyne asked.

“The son of one. My mother’s family fled the city before my birth.” He considered and rejected in the space of the breath claiming an actual childhood in the city, but a foreign birth seemed harder to disprove. “She, unfortunate woman, perished long ago, when I was quite young.” And thus he might blame any lack of knowledge of Neverwinter on being an orphan. Besides, the lady might be more sympathetic to an orphan. But given the hard look in her green eyes, Sarfael doubted she cared about his supposedly parentless state. He concluded his completely false tale: “But I grew up listening to her stories about the City of Skilled Hands, the Jewel of the North, and long desired to see her birthplace.”

“So, a son of Neverwinter?”

“Indeed, a loyal son,” he answered with great emphasis on the last word. “Or would be one. If I decide to stay in the city.” There, that surprised her. She expected him to claim immediate love for the place. One did wonder what sort of fools Dhafiyand had sent there before him. A good lie, as Sarfael could have told them, required a certain confounding of the listener’s expectations. “One can never predict tomorrow’s adventures, no matter how much one might protest and gnash one’s teeth, or so I have found.”