Thornbear (Book 1) (18 page)

At the Winter’s Dawn, the dancing tended to focus on peasant and country dances. Those were typically much more energetic and wild, with fast tempos and strong beats. The ball, by contrast, mainly featured staid court dances that, while beautiful, focused on slower, statelier patterns.

As he thought about it, his mind imagined what Alyssa might look like in a ball gown, or what it would be like to dance with her. He realized that perhaps the problem with the ball had been his age and his lack of a partner who truly interested him. In the past it had mainly been an occasion for him to dance with older women and relatives.

Moira broke in then, “What’s that look about, Gram?” She grinned as if she thought she might know what he was daydreaming about.

Before he could answer, a ringing caught everyone’s attention, and the Count stood up. Mordecai Illeniel held a gold goblet in one hand, and he surveyed the room as he waited for everyone to grow quiet.

After the room had gone still, he spoke into the silence, “As most of you know, Sir Cyhan has been our only knight for some years now, but at my urging he has finally decided to take a squire. In fact, after some consideration he has chosen to take not one, but two squires!”

The announcement brought a positive chorus of affirmations from the room, and those who hadn’t already taken hold of their cups did so.

The Count continued, “My congratulations go to Perry Draper, the son of our accomplished guard captain, as well as to Robert Lethy. You are both following a long tradition of honorable service and hopefully, someday, if you work hard enough, you may find yourselves as knights. I call a toast!”

Cups were raised and cries of ‘hear, hear!’ rang out. Perry and Robert were both urged to their feet and forced to make long bows while those nearest pounded their backs. Sir Cyhan rose and true to his nature gave what was probably the briefest speech in the history of such occasions, but Gram heard none of it.

He stared at his plate, his appetite gone. The flavor of his food had turned to ash. Looking around, he was grateful that everyone’s eyes were elsewhere, for it would have been taken poorly if anyone had seen the sour expression on his face. Wrestling his emotions under control, he raised his cup to his lips and put on a false smile.

Gram made it through the rest of the meal without embarrassing himself, but he did catch a few people glancing at him, sympathetic looks on their faces. Everyone knew of his mother’s prohibition, and while he knew they meant well, the knowledge of their pity only made him feel worse.

He found Cyhan waiting for him as he left the hall.

“I won’t be there today,” said the knight. “We’ll resume tomorrow.”

Gram nodded, unsure if his voice would work. Feeling numb he turned away, heading for the stairs. He wanted only to reach the privacy of his room, to escape.

I knew this was coming,
he told himself.
Why am I letting it bother me so much?

He stopped, having nearly walked over someone in his path. He started to apologize, and then he recognized who he had walked into. “I’m sorry, Irene.”

The Count’s younger daughter looked up at him. She was carrying Moira’s bear, Grace in her arms. “Don’t you think it’s wonderful for Perry?” said the girl, oblivious to his inner torment.

“Of course,” he said mechanically. “I’m very happy for him.”

“He’ll make a good knight someday,” she continued. “But I wonder if Robert is a good choice. He’s always so silly.”

It struck Gram as ironic hearing the nine year old call someone who was so much older, ‘silly’, but she was right in that regard. Robert Lethy was not only good natured, but very fond of pranks and pratfalls.

While trying to gracefully get past Irene, Gram caught sight of Perry leaving the hall, but what really drew his eye was Alyssa. She was standing close to the captain’s son, hand on his arm, talking animatedly to him as they walked out together.

Jealousy reared up, an ugly beast in his heart, teaching Gram yet another harsh lesson about himself. For a moment he wanted nothing other than to destroy Perry Draper, to humiliate him. It was a petty thought, and a new one for him. Seeing it, Gram was amazed at his own pettiness, yet despite knowing it was wrong, he felt it anyway.

Alyssa looked up then, catching his eye, and she smiled at him for a brief moment before returning her attention to the newly made squire.

“Excuse me, Rennie,” said Gram to the little girl still chatting away at him. “I need to hurry.” Slipping around her, he made his way quickly back to his apartment, not stopping until he had closed himself into his bedroom.

Drawing a familiar book from the shelf, he took the red stone in his hand before sitting on his bed. A long time passed while he sat there, seeking to banish the bitter jealousy in his heart, but he failed in the end. Staring at the ruby, he could only wonder what his father would have thought of him then. His mother had told him many times of his father’s kindness, describing him as a man with a boundless, gentle soul.

Father, I wish I could be like you.
It felt as though the stone pulsed in his hand, and a faint warmth spread through him. Eventually, he slept.

Chapter 16

The next day he found Chad Grayson waiting for him at the customary place where he usually met Sir Cyhan. Gram stared at him curiously, unsure what to say.

“He asked me to meet ye today,” said the hunter.

The new squires need him,
thought Gram. “I don’t need a babysitter,” he told the lean ranger.

“An I ain’t paid to be one,” returned Chad. “Follow me. If ye can keep from bein’ a snot, I might teach you somethin’.”

The older man led him across the field and onto the verge of the woods. “We’ll start here,” he said abruptly. “What do ye see here?” He pointed at the dry grass that bordered the forest.

“Grass,” said Gram.

“Anything else?”

He stared closer, straightening after a moment, “There’s some dirt under the grass.”

“Ye were born ta be a smart ass weren’t ye?”

Gram took a deep breath, forcing himself to relax. It wasn’t the hunter’s fault he was in a bad mood, or that his teacher had dumped him in favor of his squires. He might as well find out what the man was trying to show him. “What do you see?”

“There’s a rabbit warren close by,” said the hunter. “See the grass there, where it’s been nibbled back. That’s the way they chew at it.”

“Could have been a sheep.”

“Nah, they crop it close to the ground—like this,” Chad demonstrated by tearing off the majority of the grass, leaving only a small portion an inch above the dirt. “Plus, if ye look there, ye can see some rabbit scat.”

Gram was no woodsman, but he wasn’t a complete stranger to the wild either. “Might be deer scat.”

“The size is different, and the shape. Deer scat is generally darker, and a little more scattered, cuz it’s falling from a greater height. It’s a bit more oval too.”

The hunter led him into the forest then, stopping frequently to draw his attention to important signs. Despite himself, Gram was fascinated by the things the man saw in, what to him had been, featureless underbrush. As the afternoon passed into evening and they began to head back, he found himself with a new question, though.

“Why are you showing me this stuff?”

“I figured I’d give ya a chance at avoiding the next panther that wanted to snack on ye,” answered the hunter.

“That’s probably pretty unlikely,” said Gram.

“Yeah, that’s true,” replied Chad, “but then there’s bears, and wolves, and men.”

“Men?”

“That’s what he asked me ta teach ye, to track men.”

While that sounded like a useful skill, it wasn’t the sort of thing Gram had expected, nor did he understand the purpose of showing him animal scat in the wilderness if tracking people was the goal. “You’ve been showing me animal signs all day…”

The hunter spat on the ground, then pressed his soft boot into it. “Do ye see a track there?”

He stared at the spot. It was damp and the grass had been bent, but it was already rebounding. There was nothing resembling a boot mark. “No,” he admitted.

“Right,” said Chad. “Cuz there ain’t one, and I was deliberately pressin’ hard. In the real world a visible print is uncommon, so what you have to learn first, is to see what’s already there. Once you know what you should see, the differences begin to stand out. It’s like a giant book, but there’re no words ta follow. The story reveals itself through a hunnerd different indirect clues, an’ what you’re lookin’ for is what
isn’t
there.”

Gram frowned.

“Ye learn animal signs first, so you don’ mistake them. Ye learn to read the ground, to spot changes in leaf litter, in the way grass is bent, and ye have to know if that’s cuz a deer passed, or a man. Sometimes just looking at one place won’t tell ye, but if you know how to tell a game trail ye can figure out what’s what.”

“So I have to learn deer to track people…”

“You have ta learn
everythin’
to track anythin’ is what I’m sayin’”

***

Cyhan was there the next day. “Ask,” was the only word he gave in greeting.

“Why the hunter?”

“I was busy, and he has much to teach.”

“I don’t want to be a hunter,” Gram stated.

“How many men do you think he killed during the war with Gododdin?” said the big man suddenly.

“I don’t know.”

“Many,” answered the knight. “More than any other besides the Count himself.”

Gram’s eyes widened, “Really?”

The veteran ignored his question, asking another of his own, “How do you think he did that?”

“With his bow?” said Gram uncertainly.

Cyhan nodded. “The archers killed several times as many as were slain by swords, and he was chief among them.”

“He didn’t teach me anything about archery, though.”

The old warrior paused, then answered, “He will. He has much to teach, treat what he offers as a gift.”

“Were you taught to track?”

The big man nodded again. “Yes, but my teacher was not as skilled. Consider yourself lucky.”

After that his training with Cyhan changed again. That day he put away the reeds and began barehanded. Gram thought that might indicate an easier day, but it was far from the truth. He collected a number of interesting bruises as the day wore on.

The tone of their sessions was changing as well. Cyhan no longer remained entirely silent; he began using demonstrations, along with short explanations.

“You have learned silence,” he told Gram, “and that’s good, for silence is at the center of zan-zei. Now we begin to train your body and your mind.”

Gram understood enough to wonder at that statement. “Won’t that interfere?”

Cyhan’s face softened faintly, a sure sign that he had asked a good question. “Yes, and no. You will have to work hard to retain what you’ve learned, to keep the silence within. The silence is the animal, the unthinking part of you. It understands the world far better than your waking mind does, but in order for you to fight men, you must train your body. First I show you, then you practice what you’ve seen until your muscles remember it. Then your mind must forget, and allow the silence to control the flow.”

“It sounds like going backward and then forward again.”

“Exactly, now pay attention, there are four basic arm-locks you must learn…”

The week progressed with more of the same. Hours filled with demonstrations and practice, endless repetition, and then they would stop. Gram would come prepared to learn more, but Cyhan might only ask him to sit again, or stand, meditating on silence, until his body faded from his awareness.

Another week passed, and his teacher began to bring different weapons with him. One day it might be maces, or flails, the next day it would be the staff, or a great sword. In each case, as soon as Gram felt he had begun to get a feel for something, Cyhan would change the routine. They wore heavy mail on some occasions and nothing but simple clothes the next.

The constant change was sometimes stressful, but whenever Gram became frustrated, his teacher would stop, and then Gram would be made to meditate again.

Overall it was the most bizarre sort of training Gram could imagine.

“You never let me master anything,” he complained one day, during one of the rare moments that his teacher allowed him to speak freely.

“Mastery is an illusion that only serves to get you killed.”

“So I’d be better off if I never learned anything then,” said Gram sarcastically.

“I have fought for most of my life, and I have seen many ‘masters’. They are no different than anyone else, and they often die at the hand of someone who had never picked up a blade before. Mastery breeds confidence, and confidence leads to arrogance. You must learn enough to be confident, no matter what your weapon, or the place or time, but every fight must be treated as if it were the first, and last, fight of your life.

“When I met your father, he was already a master swordsman, and his skill was always greater than mine with a blade, yet he rarely got the upper hand when we sparred. Do you know why?”

Gram was surprised to hear the knight admit to any sort of inferiority, but he had learned enough to have a ‘feeling’ for the answer, though he couldn’t articulate it. He struggled for a minute before answering, “Because of the sword.”

“Yes. He fought with the sword. He had been trained his entire life, to fight with it, and he was brilliant. But battle is about more than a sword, and you must learn to fight with more, the entire
world
is your weapon.”

Even the mild criticism of his father irritated him, but the annoyance was tempered by Cyhan’s compliment. Gram had never heard Cyhan use the word ‘brilliant’ in any context ever before. He might say ‘good’ on rare occasions, but they were very rare. Normally, praise from the old veteran took the form of a neutral expression that indicated you might not be completely hopeless.

When they finished that day, he waited until they were walking back and asked a new question. “Did you like my father?”