Moving Targets and Other Tales of Valdemar

“I suppose. By all accounts, Dromis himself is a ruffian, and brutish fencing masters turn out brutish swordsmen. There’s no great mystery in it.”

“The mystery lies in how they win duel after duel. If you’d seen that feint—”

“Yes, you said it was very pretty.”

“Better than pretty. Perfect. Even you would have gone for the parry. But Alsagad didn’t.”

Marissa sighed. “I admit, I’d love to find out exactly what Dromis teaches that makes his disciples so formidable. Hell, I may need to find out to go earning a living. Students have started leaving me to study with him. I imagine it’s happened to you, too.”

“Now that you mention it.” I took another swig of the tart white wine. “And maybe my students are wise to desert me, if I can’t prepare them to defend themselves.”

Marissa rested her callused fingertips on the back of my hand. “People die in duels for all sorts of reasons, including sheer bad luck. Falnac’s death is sad, but it’s no reflection on you.”

“It is if Alsagad cheated and I didn’t catch him. I’m supposed to be an expert on every aspect of dueling, including treachery and sleights.”

“Is that what you think? Dromis is helping his pupils cheat?”

“They win and win and win, don’t they, even when facing swordsmen with more experience. How else can you account for it?”

Marissa took a drink, then wiped her mouth on her sleeve. “I don’t know. It’s hard to believe that Dromis’ system is really so much better than everybody else’s. Maestros may claim to know secret invincible techniques—I’ve done it myself to drum up trade—but you and I know that’s mostly rubbish. There are only so many ways to stick a blade in another man’s carcass.

“But if Alsagad did cheat,” she continued, “I don’t see how he could have managed it except by magic, and I assume you were on guard against that.”

“Yes.” For a moment, reminded of its presence, I felt the round shape of the talisman beneath my shirt. It should have grown hot if Alsagad were carrying a beneficial enchantment on his person or sword, and cold if anyone had cast a curse on Falnac. “Still, I’m not a wizard. It’s possible someone slipped something past me.” I suddenly wanted to be sober, and took a deep breath in a futile attempt to become so. “I’m going to find out.”

“Stick your nose into Dromis’ business, you mean.”

“Yes. If he and Alsagad conspired to deny Falnac a fair fight, then they truly are murderers according to city law, and I’ll see them hang for it.”

“Thus mending our tattered reputations and drawing our strayed students back to us. I like the idea in principle, and you do have a knack for solving puzzles.”

Or at least I’d had some luck at it. Enough that, when people sought my services as a hiresword, a trade I still practiced from time to time to supplement the money I earned teaching, it was often as much for the sharpness of my eyes and wits as the keenness of my blade. “Why do you say you like it in principle?”

“Because I’m sure Dromis is at least as jealous of his secrets as any other maestro. And if his methods empower his students to kill yours, then it’s possible they would also enable him to do the same to you. So watch your back.”

I tracked down Olissimal where I should have expected to find him: in the mansion of Falnac’s kin. I had no doubt that, supported by his ivory crutches, he’d hovered over the boy’s corpse for a long time, ogling the wounds. Now, gray eyes bright, twisted, stunted leg propped on a leather footstool, he sat in a corner savoring the more rarefied nectar of everyone else’s grief.

My mouth and stomach sour from last night’s overindulgence, I felt an urge to grab him and drag him out of the room, but of course that wouldn’t do. Instead, I paid my respects to Falnac’s parents. Who didn’t reproach me, unless it was with their eyes.

Afterward, I approached Olissimal with at least a semblance of the courtesy due a scion of one of the Fifty Noble Houses. “Master Selden,” he said, the corners of his crooked mouth quirking upward, “I didn’t expect to see you here today. Come to collect for the boy’s lessons?”

I took a breath. “I came to express my sympathy and talk to you.”

“Truly?”

“If you’ll favor me with a moment of your time.”

“I suppose. It’s just that you surprise me. You are, after all, the same fellow who called me a degenerate, forbade me to observe the classes at your academy even when I offered to pay, and threatened to whip me if I ever dared watch one of your pupils fighting a duel.”

So I had. Many men who are not themselves warriors are interested in the martial disciplines, and generally that’s all right. But it had always been plain to me that Olissimal’s fascination rose from an underlying thirst to witness killing and mutilation, and while such passive cruelty was relatively harmless, it repulsed me nonetheless.