Hungerblade

Part Eight: Two Duels

                “A duel?” Jacques repeated.

                Julius Laminus grunted in affirmation. Nearly palpable excitement rippled through the knot of similarly outfitted young men arrayed around the armored senator.

                Jacques had grown used to this request; it was made of him all too often. “What offense have I given you, Senator?”

                “None,” bowed Laminus. “To the contrary, I am familiar with your reputation and hold you in the highest esteem.”

                “Hrm. You see my confusion, then. In my homeland, you see, a duel is traditionally fought in anger, to resolve a question of honor.”

                “I assure you that among those of my philosophy, the opposite is true. I would not seek to engage you in ritual combat except as a tribute to your warrior prowess, word of which has reached down through the snowy Althus Mountains to the seven hills of Romulus.”

                “In other words, this request of yours is to be taken as a compliment?”

                “You have cut to the meat of the matter.”

                Jacques ran his fingers through his hair. “So you are not insulted now, but if I was to decline, that would be like refusing a compliment, which would be insulting . . .”

                The Senator’s smile was hard and mirthless. “It is the duty of warriors to test their skills against one another, for the moral benefit of the populace.”

                The revelers at Circe’s fête had broken from their debaucheries to encircle the two men. Behind Jacques, the drummers, who had been providing an orgiastic beat for sword swallowers and writhing flame eaters, now commenced an anticipatory martial thumping.

                Jacques shrugged. “Far be it from me to deprive people of their moral education. What are the terms of the duel?”

                “We fight till first blood, or until a combatant yields.” Implicit in the Senator’s blunt speech was the fact that no Romari warrior worthy of the name would be so dishonorable as to yield, and that the latter option was only provided for the benefit of weak-willed foreigners.

                Jacques looked to Laminus’ son, Antonius. “May I borrow your sword, then?”

                All around him, expressions fell as they always did when Jacques adopted this gambit.

                “My sword?” Antonius asked. All eyes were now on the young man, who suddenly seemed unsure of his moment in the spotlight. He looked as his father for support.

                “Yes,” Jacques pressed. “I need a weapon other than Hungerblade, if I am to honorably enter into the contest your father seeks.”

                Julius Laminus imperiously cleared his throat. “If the tales are to be credited, much of your success in battle can be credited to the sword you carry.” Jacques grimaced, but nodded.

                “A fair enough statement,” Jacques admitted. “Hungerblade, like many powerfully enchanted items, seems to have a reputation all its own.”

                “It is my intent to test myself against the Jacques Gardien we have heard of, not his pale shadow. Do not defang yourself on my account, sir.”

                “Ah. My dilemma is this, Senator: you and I might understand the terms of our duel, but Hungerblade is never satisfied with first blood. When it is drawn from its scabbard, it kills. Unfortunately, Hungerblade does not discriminate between combatants. While you and I may be perfectly agreeable to the risk, trusting in our skills, everyone at this gathering is equally at risk. I am sure, as honorable warriors, neither of us would willingly put innocents in harm’s way. ” The senator considered the words, but Jacques knew he had already made up his mind.

                Laminus’ shoulders slumped. “It seems hardly . . . very well, then! Antonius, give him your weapon.”

 “I assure you, sir, that while my reputation does not approach that of my blade, I am an accomplished duelist.”

                “Enough boasts, sir. Allow me to prove you wrong.”

                Jacques removed his cloak and doublet, handing them to an attendant, who had appeared with outstretched arms while the senator removed his armor. He and Laminus retreated to an even, well-lit patch of ground. The mob followed. The music dropped in volume, but picked up in tempo. Jacques took Antonius’ gladius, slashing it through the air to test its weight and balance. The sword was shorter than Hungerblade, and much lighter. The weapon was two-edged, but Jacques knew it was primarily a thrusting weapon. Even a fight to first blood could be deadly. Romari runes ran down the length of the blade and around the hilt. Although most Jacques recognized as martial mottos, some were definitively enchantments. The symbol on the ricasso was especially complex and probably the heart of the blade’s enchantment. He doubted they would work for him as they were likely keyed to the senator’s bloodline or activated by word Jacques did not know. Well, he had wanted to fight without a magical blade.

Most of the guests had, by now, assembled around the two men, albeit at a distance. Some stood on benches for a better view, while others climbed onto the serving tables. Laminus barked orders to a priest, who uncurled his arm from a pleasure slave’s waist and tramped over to officiate. The portly man mumbled a brief dedication to Mars, then turned to each man. Several of Laminus’ entourage made symbols over their heart as the man continued, but most seemed annoyed at the delay in the festivities. Finally, the priest counted to three and waved a red scarf in the air, signaling the start of the match.

                Jacques let Laminus make the first move. The Senator circled him, waiting for a moment of advantage.

                “Strike him, father!” Antonius called.

                Jacques allowed himself to fall into an unprepared posture, in hopes of luring Laminus in. The Senator nodded, grinned, and declined the trap.

                “He is nothing without the sword!” cried another of Laminus’ stoics.

                Suddenly, Laminus charged. Jacques held for the moment of maximum advantage, then deftly combined moves, at once parrying and tripping his opponent. Laminus sprawled onto the lush lawn of Circe’s estate, but quickly flipped over to his back. Jacques came at him to aim the tip of Antonius’ sword at the Senator’s ear. The audience gasped. Laminus rolled, escaping the blow.

                Jacques let him get to his feet. Onlookers groaned unhappily at this show of mercy. It took Gardien a moment to understand their lack of sympathy for the local combatant. A crowd of libertines did not, it seemed, comprise the austere Senator’s natural constituency. Some actually cheered for Jacques to defeat their countryman.

                Jacques feinted at the Senator, putting him off balance. He danced backwards, slashing precisely, forcing Laminus back. Laminus mostly dodged, but ultimately blocked a blow with his sword. Sparks flew and Jacques felt a surge run up his arm. His fingers spasmed for a moment as his hand went briefly numb. Laminus looked embarrassed, and did not press the attack. So, the senator’s blade was enchanted. Had Laminus wished, he could have ended the duel at that moment, but he held back. Jacques nodded his head briefly in thanks at the slight pause, doubting if any on looker understood what had happened.

His hand tingled, but his grip was firm and his arm was strong. With a shout he lunged forward, stabbing toward the senator, who skipped backward out of reach. The crowd parted to make way for him, as Jacques shuffled forward, pressing the attack. Laminus continued to stay just out of reach until he slammed into one of the tables.  Jacques saw an opportunity—a chance to place an impressive yet relatively safe cut across Laminus’ arm, just above the wrist.

                Laminus’ face was flushed with more than exertion. Jacques chopped down, a dramatic move, but one he purposely aimed just beyond the senator. The crowd roared in delight as the foreigner’s blade deeply gouged the table. Laminus gouged Jacques in the ribs with his near elbow, rolling away and coming up to a guard position. Though the senator may have spoken unflinchingly of a test between equals, Gardien was too much the diplomat to humiliate a local leader in front of an unsympathetic crowd that was clearly more on his side than Laminus. He had already learned how quickly the most trivial news ricocheted through the capital. The mocking stories would begin immediately, diminishing the senator’s authority. He was, as he had just told Wigandus, not here to make enemies, either for himself or for Dotur.

                Jacques left an obvious opening for Laminus. The Senator, evidently expecting another trick, let it go by. Gardien moved in. A series of inconclusive feints and jabs followed. Their blades touched once with a shower of sparks, but this time Jacques was ready and the effect passed quickly. Then Jacques lunged, letting the Senator use one of his own tricks against him. Fighting the instinct to roll away, Gardien twisted and fell into Laminus, receiving a deep cut on the leg.

                The messenger stepped back and dropped his sword. Blood from the wound, flowed clearly down the front of his leggings.

                Antonius punched the air jubilantly. “Father has won!”

                Though not the crowd’s chosen favorite, the senator still received a decorous share of applause. Laminus favored them with a victory salute, after which the guests quickly returned to their food, drink, and amorous pursuits. Again the music changed, the drums dropping in volume until they were almost silent as flutes gently joined in.

                A cool, slim hand wrapped itself around Jacques’ and gently pulled him toward the villa. In doing so, Senator Circe pressed her body against his, as if Jacques required help standing. Her perfume smelled of honey and rose petals. Just as he had decided it would be unwise to offend one powerful senator by defeating him in combat, Jacques told himself that it would be less than judicious to push another away from him.

                “Let me get that wound tended to.”

                “It’s a shallow cut,” countered Jacques.

                “I’m sure,” she said. “You let him win.”

                “It wasn’t too obvious, I hope.”

                She pulled him, still wrapped around her warm, hard body, into the dimmer light of her villa. If anyone noticed the two disappearing from the festivities, they did not show it. Other couples were, in fact, slipping out of the light to find their own darkened alcoves. The walls of the villa were populated with painted figures of gods and heroes, rendered in the flat, perspective-free style still followed among the Roma. Jacques couldn’t stop himself from blushing at their activities, and hoped that Circe would attribute his reaction to his injury. As fond as the painters of his Gallusi home province were of the faintly-clad female form, the art of a Romari private home made their most scandalous works seem positively chaste.

                “I’d say most of the crowd believes that Laminus won without any assistance from you. So, well-played, Jacques Gardien. Sit yourself down on that couch and I’ll find a bandage.” Circe crossed through an archway and disappeared from sight. “Take off those leggings so I can get at the cut,” she called.

                Gardien complied. He set Hungerblade on a wooden table; it was blue, with images of sea creatures inked on it. Jacques thought about Isabelle, and hoped she wouldn’t worry for him, although he worried for himself. No, Jacques thought. This time, he would stay strong. His weakness for intelligent women had led him astray for the last time.

                Circe returned, bearing a tray. It held a roll of bleached linen, pieces of torn sponge, and various jars of clay and glass. She had shed a layer of clothing, discarding a filmy shawl that Jacques noticed only in retrospect, now that it was gone. The senator knelt beside him, to examine the cut.

                “You’re right; it is nothing.” She dabbed a clear liquid from one of the jars onto a piece of sponge and touched it to the cut. The liquid bubbled like acid and burned only slightly less. Jacques tried not to wince.

                “A simple purifying balm; it will prevent corruption from entering your blood. I should have predicted what Julius Laminus would do when he saw you, and forbidden him from dueling. But it would be like telling a frog to stop eating flies. The advice might be briefly taken, but will not stick.”

                “He’s not the first and won’t be the last,” Jacques said as he got his breath back.

                She laid her hand on Hungerblade’s scabbard. “Don’t worry. I have no desire to see that particular sword in action.”

                                Circe inspected the balm to see that it had dried on his skin, and then applied the contents of a second jar on a large ball of cotton, which immediately turned blue. As she pressed the damp cotton to his thigh the mass flattened and covered the wound entirely. Taking a second sponge, Circe wiped away a bit of the cotton, leaving the wound exposed, but filled with the blue cotton.

                “This will minimize the scar, but I think that such a thing would not be bad in your line of work.” Jacques nodded, but did not speak. He was enthralled by the medical skills of Romulus’ alchemists. Circe took a long strip of cloth and placed it in a copper bowl, pouring the contents of the final jar over the top. When she removed the cloth Jacques was surprised to find it was nearly dry. Wrapping it around his thigh several times, she smoothed the cloth into place where it held perfectly.

“And have you no wish to inquire after my meeting with the Emperor?”

“That is the standard opening question, is it?” She sighed. “I weep for the alleged subtlety of my people.”

                “In other words, you already know how my meeting with the Emperor went.”

                Circe took a towel and dabbed it in a clay jar. Starting at his ankle, she began cleaning off the blood which had run down his leg. Jacques was shocked to find the blood nearly leapt onto the towel as she rubbed it lightly over his leg. “You found his aspect strange and the purpose for your audience obscure. So much so that you wondered if he might be under a hex of some kind. This led you to consult a local magician, Ermanno de Abano, for a more thorough grounding in our local magical techniques. You overpaid him for his services, but I suppose that is the prerogative of a messenger from a wealthy and expansive empire.” She flung herself fetchingly into a couch within easy reach of Jacques’ divan.

                Jacques was tempted to ask if de Abano had broken their confidence, or if she had merely made an accurate guess based on her gaunt spy’s surveillance of their meeting. But if she was only guessing, his question would give her the confirmation she sought.

                “And is the Emperor under a hex?”

                “In my opinion, you mean?”

                “Unless you have direct experience that bears on the question.”

                He had to concede that her eyes were every bit the mesmerizing emeralds that de Abano had described to him. What he had not been warned against was the Platonic perfection of her clavicles, and of their irresistible relationship to her gently peaking shoulders.

                “My mother always told me: never ascribe to magic what can be explained by nature.”

                “Meaning?”

                She came closer. Jacques found himself estimating the precise distance between her lips and his.

                “Meaning,” said Circe, her gaze unrelenting, “that the exalted Nero is the bad issue of a an ever-worsening bloodline. He has succumbed not to sorcery, but to madness.”

                “And how might we know this for sure?”

                “Why ask the question? Never has an Emperor’s madness been a greater blessing to his empire. His spite and melancholy have turned inwards, and prevent him from wasting still-scarce resources on endless festivities.”

                “In his insanity, he has left the senate in charge.”

                Jacques’ pesky forelock betrayed him, falling over his face at a crucial moment. Circe seized the opportunity, brushing it back into place.

                “Yes,” she said. “So instead the imperial treasury is used to equip a neglected army, for the reconstruction of the capital, and the rebuilding of the eastern provinces ravaged by combat. What is there to say then, other than this: may the Emperor remain mad forever.”

                Jacques steeled himself against her charms. “I have heard it said that the senate is full of magicians. And that the vogue for magic was started by you.”

                “There is no other senator,” said Circe, “who will bind a wound for you for such a small price. I created those unguents myself.”

                “What price is that?”

                She tapped her wide, thin lips, poured him a goblet of wine and came in for her kiss.

                “Perhaps we should get back to your party,” he said as she leaned in.

***

                He awoke with his head pounding, tangled in snowy linen sheets. Sun streamed through an arched window set high in the wall. Blinking the sleep from his eyes, he was confronted, in daylight’s added clarity, by the distressingly frank wall paintings of a Romari boudoir.

                He’d spent the night with Circe.

To be continued...

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