Peter Beagle - The Folk Of The Air

Felix Arabia protested, “We don’t all worry about our hands.” He nodded toward Matteo, already practicing feints and countermoves with his shield. “Look at him, he’s ready . Come the next Whalemas Tourney, he’s going to be out there pounding on anything that moves.” Matteo looked over toward them and grinned like a summer-camp photograph.

John Erne chuckled unmaliciously, turning away to check the wrappings of his sword hilt. “He won’t, you know.” Farrell noticed that his teeth were odd sizes—an assortment rather than a set—and that his nose had been broken at least once.

“Musicians have to practice,” John Erne said. “I never met a real musician who wasn’t a miser with himself. They’ll never come all the way with you anywhere.” Farrell stared at him, and the combat master went on, “They know how to learn things. Your friend there, I’ll teach him how to do a weapons pass, or how to use his shield in close work, and he’ll pick it up faster than the rest of the class, because he’s accustomed to thinking about technique. But frankly, I wish he wouldn’t bother with it. He’ll just be learning how to do something; the better he gets, the more I’ll get angry, and he’ll never understand why. I really wish he wouldn’t bother.”

“My goodness,” Farrell said slowly. He felt himself smiling, thinking of Julie. He said, “You’re like me.”

The flat yellow gaze considered him more reflectively this time. “Am I? I don’t have any room for more than the one seriousness, if that’s what you mean.” He shrugged gracefully, rolling his beard between two fingers. “I’ve had a local reputation for a long time as a sort of knowledgeable nut. People invite me to their history classes, and I give demonstrations and talk about extinct attitudes. I talk about chivalry, honor, prouesse , and playing by the rules, and I watch their skins crawl.”

Farrell was startled to feel his own skin stir with the words. Hamid said easily, “Well, you make them real edgy, John. This is Avicenna, they just like theoretical violence, rebels in Paraguay blowing up bad folks they don’t know. They like the Middle Ages the same way, with the uncool stuff left out. But you scare them, you’re like a pterodactyl flapping around the classroom, screaming and shitting. Too real.” The round eyes seemed to flick without closing, as parrots’ eyes do.

“A dinosaur. You think so?” John Erne laughed—a rattle of the nostrils, no more. “This is my time.” He leaned forward and patted Farrell’s knee hard. “This is the time of weapons. It isn’t so much the fact that everyone has a gun—it’s that everyone wants to be one. People want to turn themselves into guns, knives, plastic bombs, big dogs. This is the time when ten new karate studios open every day, when they teach you Kung Fu in the third grade, and Whistler’s mother has a black belt in aikido. I know one fellow on a little side street who’s making a fortune with savate , that French kick-boxing.” Farrell watched the combat master’s face, still trying to determine how old he was. He appeared most youthful when he moved or spoke, oldest when he smiled.

“The myriad arts of self-defense,” John Erne said. “They’re all just in it because of the muggers, you understand, or the police, or the Zen of it all. But no new weapon ever goes unused for long. Pretty soon the streets will be charged with people, millions of them, all loaded and cocked and frantically waiting for somebody to pull their trigger. And one man will do it—bump into another man or look at him sideways and set it all off.” He opened one hand and blew across his palm as if he were scattering dandelion fluff. “The air will be so full of killer reflexes and ancient disabling techniques there’ll be a blue haze over everything. You won’t hear a single sound, except the entire population of the United States chopping at one another with the edges of their hands.”

Farrell asked quietly, “Where does that leave chivalry?”

Matteo dei Servi and another student had begun to work out with their swords and shields, circling each other with the peculiar hitching stride that the combat master had employed. They carried the rattan blades well back and almost horizontal, at helmet height, and they struck over the tops of their shields in the rhythm of fencers, turn and turn about. John Erne snapped his fingernails sharply against his own sword as he watched them.

“A dead art form,” he said, “like lute music. As unnatural to the animal as opera or ballet, and yet nobody who puts on even cardboard armor can quite escape it—any more than you can escape the fact that your music believes in God and hell and the King. You and I are what they used to call witnesses, vouching with our lives for something we never saw. The bitch of it is, all we ever wanted to be was experts.”

Abruptly he turned his head and called to the two warily parrying students, “Single-time now!” They faltered for a moment; then the tempo of their fighting doubled, each man guarding against a cut as he delivered one. John Erne said, “There can’t be a dozen fighters in the League who haven’t been through this room. I have trained men to use the broadsword, greatsword, dagger and buckler, maul, flail, mace, the halberd, and the war axe. Some of my students could survive now if you dropped them back into Visigoth Spain or the Crusades.”

“So long as they didn’t drink anything,” Farrell said, and Lovita Bird added almost simultaneously, “Long as they could bring their cassette players.”

The combat master looked at them without answering. Matteo’s adversary aimed a sweeping forehand slash at his head, but Matteo caught it on his shield and moved in to strike where the man’s shield had swung away from the body to counterbalance the roundhouse blow. It sounded like someone jumping on a mattress. The student coughed and bent forward slightly.

John Erne called, “You are less by a leg, Squire Martin.” The young man stepped back, turning a gasping, angry face toward the three watchers. “It wouldn’t have cut through the armor. It has to cut armor.”

“Nay, of us two, who’s to be the judge of steel?” John Erne replied mildly. “You’re down a leg, Martin.”

The student shrugged and lowered himself to one knee, slow in the thick clothing. He crouched behind his shield, exposing nothing but his sword arm. Farrell expected Matteo to strike at that, but he chose to attack over the shield, punching blindly for the tucked-down head and almost compelling the kneeling man to cut at his shoulder. John Erne sighed faintly.

There was no need for him to call a wound; Matteo immediately dropped his shield, switched his sword from right hand to left, and came on more cautiously, trying to take advantage of his foe’s limited reach. But he was carrying the sword too high against a crouching opponent; when the logical swipe at his legs came, he had to jump back and launch the return blow while still off-balance. The effort brought his head down within range of a desperate lunge and strike, as his own sword whacked home on Squire Martin’s motorcycle helmet. John Erne shouted furiously, “Double kill!” and both fighters collapsed in proper style, rolling pitifully onto their backs. Martin, his faceguard knocked loose, rubbed at his runny nose.

“Dear God,” John Erne murmured. He stood up, twiddling his beard again. The ropy, boyish body had not slackened for an instant of the conversation.

Hamid said, “John. Tell the man why you won’t have anything to do with the League. You could have taken the whole thing over long ago.”

The parrot gaze moved from him to Farrell and back again, the face remaining as serene as a clock’s face. “I have a better League here,” John Erne said. He tapped his forehead just above the tail of one spiky eyebrow. “I like mine much better.”