On Mount Alyppia

Lessons

Augustu Primo missed his fencing lesson that next Thursday, because of a nasty virus that was spreading through some of the richer families. The disease was not fatal, but it was nasty and painful and catching, so young Augustu would not be attending lessons of any kind for some time. Gregor was glad for it. The boy was a fool. The next session of the day was that of Leonid and Assuntina, who came first on Mondays and second on Thursdays, but they were not due for another hour and a half. And so, there was nothing to do but wait.
A nervous sort of restlessness had been sweeping over the city. The summer was nearing its end, and everyone was hot and tired and tense. People were murmuring, about sickness and earthquakes and trade routes. Rumours were circling, about a nymph visiting the Prince, and Alyppia planning to attack. Gregor thought it utter nonsense, but the restlessness was seeping into his bones. He needed to do something.
"Where have you been?" he asked the girl, who was just now slipping into the courtyard for the first time since she'd carried off his breakfast dishes. Her face was flushed.
"Washing dishes, for cook," the girl soft but clear way of hers, walking drag the rack of swords out of his shack, to polish them. She probably polished them more than they needed it, but at least it gave her something to do.
"Should I talk to cook again?" he asked her. "If she's bothering you, you tell me."
The girl shook her head. "Scullery maid's sick," she said, offering it as an explanation. Brief, as was everything she said. A sword fell off the rack as she pushed it against a wall, and quick as lightning, as if she was barely thinking about the motion at all, the girl grabbed the blade by the handle and flipped it midair, then caught it again and put it back in its place.
Gregor blinked. The movement had been smooth, effortless. The technique had been perfect. Even her stance was good...
"Bring me that blade, and one of mine," he said suddenly.
The girl glanced over, but she didn't hesitate. She rarely did. Didn't disobey, didn't second-guess, just picked up a blade in either hand and held both out. Her grip was perfect with both her left and her right, he noted.
"Are you right handed or left handed?"
The girl shrugged. "Neither."
Gregor raised an eyebrow. "Neither."
She shrugged again. "Don't use one more'n the other."
"Hmm," Gregor said, stroking his whiskers. "That doesn't mean neither, that means both. Like me. Here, hand me the longer one."
She did, eyeing him with a perplexed look.
"Take a fighting stance," he ordered.
She was beginning to understand, bright as she was. She did as he said, one foot in front and one foot behind, holding her blade out. Almost perfect. Gregor tapped her elbow with his sword tip, adjusting her stanc until it was perfect.
"Is your stomach tightened?" he asked.
A nod.
"Good," he said. "Now, attack me."
This time, she did hesitate.She made no move to attack, just looked at him, her sword tip lowering an inch.
"Come, I know you know how," he coaxed. "You've watched me teach dozens of beginners. Attack me."
"Why?"
"Why not?" Gregor replied.
The girl looked down for a moment, then righted her stance and lunged.
Gregor dodged her easily, throwing her off balance. "Good," he said. "Move your front foot first, keep your balance, and-"
"-strike when least expected," the girl finished, parroting back the instructions he gave every time.
"Yes."
She studied him with her one dark eye. "Should I attack again?"
He nodded.
She did.
She was skilled, he noted. Unexperienced, knowing the theory and not the practice, her muscles largely undeveloped, but... Skilled. And determined. She only froze when her headscarf tumbled off her head as she nimbly stepped back, fluttering to the ground, her white locks flying free.
The girl stopped, a hand flying to her head, nearly dropping her sword in her haste. She knelt to grab her scarf, fumbling to untie the knot and wind the red cloth back over her head.
"Leave it," Gregor said.
The girl glanced up, unsure.
"No one comes back here, no one will see you. Leave it. It's too hot to cover your head, anyway."
The girl bit her lip, but but tucked the scarf into her breeches, twisting her unnatural hair into a knot at the back of her neck and picking up the sword to start again.
Gregor's mind flitted back to his own children as he dueled and corrected, which was odd. He had taught dozens of young people to fence, and none of them had ever made him think of his children. Boria, who had run off at sixteen and come back long enough to die in childbirth, a purple-eyed baby all that was left of her. And Marco, who owned six trading ships and hadn't spoken to them in years. Neither of them had taken to fencing. Their mother had spoiled them, and they prefered things that didn't require sweating. Still, teaching the girl gave him the feeling he'd dreamed of getting when he'd thought about teaching his children.
Gregor had planned on continuing until the girl said she was tired, but she never did. She kept going; face flushed, limbs trembling, sweat dripping from every pore.
"That's enough," he said when he saw she was straining herself. "Stop."
She did, breathing heavily, her grip so loose her sword clattered to the ground. Gregor nodded towards the water bucket, which she filled and tried to give him. He handed it back to her.
"Drink," he ordered. "And then go sit down. You're overheated."
The girl took a long drink, nearly draining the bucket, then handed the rest to him. He accepted this time.
"Gregor?"
Assuntina stood at the doorway in her fencing garb, looking at them curiously. Not at them, Gregor realized, but at the girl. At her hue-less hair.
The girl snatched her scarf from where it was tucked at her waist, twisting and tucking it over her head before they could blink. She put both swords and the water bucket back in their place, bobbed her head, and fled the scene, running towards the servant's quarters.
"Is she alright?" Assuntina asked, concerned. Leonid had come up behind her.
"Embarrassed," Gregor said. "Start your drills."
Gregor found the girl crouched in the tunnel-like passage between the courtyard and the kitchen, breathing heavily and tying the scarf even more securely over her head, in a complicated pattern of twists and tucks and knots.
"I'll be a minute," she said, her voice thin and strained. She spoke so little, he sometimes forgot how poor her speech was. That she spoke like the street urchin she was.
"No need," he said. "The swords are in no danger of rusting. You, however..."
"I'm not a sword. I won't rust," she said softly, and sullenly.
"No, indeed. Why are you weeping?"
"I'm not. I don't."
"You have no need to fear, you know," he said. "No one here will harm you."
The girl scoffed. "'cept cook," she said. "And the maids. And I'm not in here all the time."
"You could sleep on my roof, if you really wanted to."
The girl scowled. "You never much minded me before. Why now, all of a sudden? Why act as if you care?"
He had no answer for her.
"If it's 'cause 'a Violetta, and my eye, you don't have to. All I did was stomp on some snatcher's foot. You don't have to act all nice."
Gregor frowned. "I wasn't nice before?"
The girl was silent. "You don't even know what my name is."
"Your name's Arista."
The girl looked up at him with surprise.
"I started paying you more heed after the maiden-snatchers, that's true. If you want me to stop, I can. But you're one of the few whose company I tolerate, and perhaps even enjoy. Don't downplay that."
The girl stared up at him with an expresson that was guarded and half-wild, but behind the too-big eye sockets and sharp cheekbones was a sort of hope. Gregor wondered what sort of a place the world was like from her eyes. Or eye. Still a child, the girl had no help, no guidance, her future as bleak as her past had been. It was no wonder she looked with wariness towards anyone who spared her the slightest bit of kindness.
"Why?" the girl demanded finally.
"No one does the swords half as well as you do," he said, only half joking. "Come."
The girl took another shaky breath and promised to be there in a moment, which was all that could be hoped for.
Gregor walked back to the courtyard and set Leonid and Assuntina agains eachother. The girl slipped in after he had.
He could have imagined it, but he saw Assuntina's gaze skipping curiously to the girl's slight form, head tilted and eyebrows furrowed.

Hello! Thanks for reading! Vote and comment if you're enjoying the story!
~Amanda