Framed in crumbling velvet and fragrant wood, the sword gleamed in its case like a jewel. Gramis carefully removed it with one hand and lifted it into the light, considering it gravely. "It is nearly as old as House Solidor itself. My grandfather bore it, and his brother and their father before that." He turned his wrist, and the blade and brilliant filigree guard caught the light dramatically. "Carrying a sword as a symbol of office has fallen from fashion in the meantime. But a blade such as this deserves better than to be treated as jewelry. It is no mere sword of state; it draws upon the same well of strength as our family, power in truth as well as in name, striking down foes and showing mercy to those deemed worthy." He carefully turned it in his grasp, offering it hilt first. "It is named Joyeuse, and I hereby bequeath it to you, beloved son."
Larsa accepted it in both hands, and after a moment he held it in just one. It was not as heavy as it looked. "May I prove its equal," he said, his throat dry.
---
"I am glad," Vayne said, later that day. He sat at his desk, ostensibly writing a letter, though most of his attention was on his brother. "It's about time you learned a weapon."
"It is not exactly what I had in mind," Larsa confessed. In one of the room's high-backed visitors' chairs, his feet barely brushed the floor. "You carry no sword."
Vayne shrugged. "We can't all walk the same path."
"Joyeuse is one of the House's greatest treasures. I don't understand why Father would give it to me now. I'd never even held a sword before today."
Vayne smiled a little as his pen crossed parchment. "He hopes you will do well by it. It's been collecting dust for a few years now."
Larsa was silent for a few moments, watching his brother's quill. "It is... overly generous. I fear his motives are political."
Vayne stopped writing and looked up.
"I know how the Senate watches him and us for any hint of weakness. He wishes for me to look stronger than I am, bearing our family's sword." He looked down at the carpet, where the toes of his boots rested. "Invoking the power of emperors past."
"That is a very fanciful way of looking at it," Vayne said. "It is not a magic or fated sword, like the ones in those stories you like so much. If we're to outwit the Senate in their scheming, we'll do so by superior politics." He tapped the quill against the lip of the ink well thoughtfully. "And if that involves hauling out Joyeuse again, so be it."
"As was my point." Larsa sighed. "A few years, you said? Father said Emperor Mercoth was the last to carry it."
Vayne was silent as his eyes scanned his writing. "Hm." He signed his letter with minimal flourish and set down his pen. "I will speak to Drace about appointing a fencing tutor. It's a shame; that sword's companion was lost ages ago. We'll have to have a new one commissioned for you."
---
Gabranth had served as Larsa's primary guard for nearly as long as the boy could remember, but as with all things this past year, this had been subject to turmoil: he had been promoted to Judge Magister some six months past, and now Larsa's escort tended to be an affable and largely uninteresting judge named Hausen. Larsa found Hausen almost disappointingly easy to lose in crowds.
Judge Magister was an extremely important position to hold in House Solidor's guard, and Larsa was glad for Gabranth (who, while a foreigner, had won favour with Larsa's father many years ago; the emperor was willing to overlook race for his more talented servants), but though he was still technically in Gabranth's charge he almost never saw him anymore. He underwent nearly three weeks of lessons from the fencing teacher Drace had presented before he was able to call upon the opinion of the man whose view he felt was paramount.
Larsa rather feared this scheduling conflict was deliberate, but he said nothing about it.
He could not hang the sword at his hip quite the way it was supposed to; its blade was longer than his legs, and the elaborate hilt did not fit under his elbow. He manged to adjust how the sheath tucked through the wide belt so its tip cleared the ground at a sharper angle. It served, but it made him feel very small.
"Better small and well armed than otherwise," his teacher said cheerfully. "And you won't be small forever." She sparred with him gently, equipping him with a lighter epee, and made him run through stances and drills with his sword proper. Her reluctance to cross blades with him while he held Joyeuse did not escape his notice, and he did not blame her; he was afraid to do so much as breathe on it, much less strike anything with it.
By the time Gabranth returned to Archades long enough for an audience with his youngest lord, Larsa's palms were reddening in a pattern he recognized as sword calluses. Though his gloves covered them, he felt a renewed kinship with his old guard and could barely avoid grinning ear-to-ear when he saw him. "Welcome home, Judge Magister," he said happily, inclining his head respectfully and offering his hand.
"My lord, thank you." Gabranth removed his helm in Larsa's presence from long habit (he had found even the regular judge's masks frightening when he was little) and knelt briefly, pressing the boy's gloved knuckles to his lips. "I regret my long absence."
"As do I! I've much to tell you."
"Some of it proceeds you, I think." He stood smoothly and tucked the helmet under his arm. "Your father does you great honour, entrusting you with your family's pride and safety."
"Oh... yes." Larsa hadn't really thought of it that way. "I had hoped to surprise you."
Gabranth smiled fondly. "I daresay you will yet surprise us all."
Larsa could not hide his grin at that.
---
They met the next day after breakfast in one of the courtyards. Larsa tried to believe that he did not look silly with Joyeuse on his belt, and Gabranth gave no sign of amusement; he only tilted his head curiously at the sight of it. Larsa drew it from its sheath and carefully offered it hilt first, as his father had, and Gabranth accepted it gingerly.
"It is a very fine sword," he said after a minute or two, testing its weight and balance. He looked faintly troubled.
"It is a very famous sword," said Larsa, no more at ease.
Gabranth glanced down at him briefly and then back to Joyeuse. He didn't seem to like the way the quillion wrapped over his hand. It did look a little ridiculous in his grip, though Larsa couldn't precisely think of why. "One-handed," Gabranth murmured. "Have you a buckler, then?"
Larsa shook his head and reached for the hilt at his other hip. It was a lovely main-gauche, though it did not match Joyeuse; his commission was still in progress. Gabranth took it and examined it, but his frown only deepened. "I don't understand."
"It's a companion dagger. Well," he added, "it's a stand-in. Duke Mortol dropped Joyeuse's companion in a river during the Battle of Effingham. Or so they say." He watched Gabranth struggle to find a grip that was satisfactory, for the most part attempting to hold the dagger upside down. "That's not... ah."
"Show me," said Gabranth, offering both weapons.
Larsa demonstrated the beginning stance he had spent weeks at pains to perfect, leading with his left foot and the dagger and keeping the sword back. Gabranth eyed Larsa's feet and circled him quietly, examining the manner in which the boy held himself. "What is the purpose of this, then?" he asked, motioning to the main-gauche again.
"To parry and deflect." As he spoke, he pushed an imaginary sword aside and stepped in to thrust the air with Joyeuse.
"Defense, then."
"Yes."
Gabranth crossed his arms and considered. "I don't see why you aren't being trained with a shield. You should be able to parry with the sword and block and strike with a buckler as a last resort."
Larsa shrugged a little. "There are no shields in fencing."
"Aye," Gabranth sighed. "This is not swordplay as I know it."
"It's not exactly as you've described it, no." Larsa looked up. "...don't you carry a companion blade now? I thought all the Judges Magister did."
"I... suppose you could call it that," Gabranth said.
"How do you use it, then?"
Gabranth reached for the dagger, and Larsa granted it. Facing away slightly, Gabranth again held it with the blade pointing down, but now he cocked his wrist so that it ran parallel with his forearm. "To block," he said, "but to guard the arm, not to extend it. It takes some skill," he added pointedly.
"Ah," Larsa said. "Well."
Gabranth flipped the dagger in his grip with a twist of his fingers. "I don't like this," he said with an air of finality. "It puts you at risk for more injury than it protects you from." He frowned thoughtfully. "This is not the original?"
"No. We have a smith researching it so one can be forged to match. I'm just learning with that one." He held his hand out, and Gabranth again returned it; Larsa sheathed the short blade and hesitated. "What should I do, then?" he asked softly.
Gabranth tilted his head and gazed into the middle distance for a moment. "...let me think on it. Continue to train as you have been; I can see it's done you well."
"All right." Larsa took a deep breath and motioned to himself generally. "Well, what do you think?"
The man was silent, taking in the sight of a boy with an empire's treasure slung at his hip. "...it suits you." he finally said.
---
It went without saying that Larsa did not pass along Gabranth's opinions to anyone -- it would lead to nothing but more scheduling conflicts. Larsa did as he was told and continued to practice with the companion dagger, though in his heart he had lost faith in it. It did not match Joyeuse at all, and as his tutor began to have at him more seriously, he found that wielding two blades confused him a little.
"You were lucky," he said to his brother at tea one afternoon.
"I assure you, my own training was no easier," said Vayne. "I bore far more bruises than you do."
Larsa was nursing a sore shoulder from a poorly executed parry and found this hard to believe. He bit into his toast and frowned down at his teacup.
"I hope you are attending your other studies with equal enthusiasm," Vayne said mildly. Larsa shot him a slightly guilty look, and Vayne smiled.
"Dedication, always," Larsa said, "but enthusiasm I have lesser control over."
"It will have to do. I admit I'm surprised, though. You usually have nothing but good things to say about your curriculum."
Larsa took another bite of toast, chewed, and swallowed before he answered. "At the moment I am reading A History by Eldea Elias."
"Oh." Vayne smirked. "Yes, I seem to recall A History."
"And by reading, I mean wading." Larsa sighed. "You'd think a subject as potentially fascinating as the rise of an empire would inspire one to use a paragraph break now and again."
"I don't think they were considered fashionable when the book was written." Vayne set his empty teacup back on the saucer. "You are forgiven for avoiding your history tutor, then, but much more of that and Drace will have to go complaining to Father. And she has better things to do."
"Indeed." Larsa reached for the pot and poured Vayne another cup of tea before the attending servant could move from her place at the door. "Well, I wanted to ask him something anyway."
"Oh?"
Larsa leaned his elbow on an armrest. "...the Battle of Effingham was a long time ago."
"Indeed it was," Vayne said with a raised eyebrow.
"So... why hasn't a companion for Joyeuse been made before now? Even if the sword has only been carried ceremonially since, it's strange that the dagger has gone unreplaced for so long."
Vayne frowned a little and didn't answer immediately; he sipped his tea and looked thoughtful. "I don't know," he said. "It is not that we have gone without. Mercoth has a companion blade in that portrait in the north wing. As does Perlith in his, come to think of it."
"Yes," Larsa said immediately. The paintings in question were so familiar that he hadn't even thought of them.
"But the hilts are different," Vayne said after another moment of thought. "They are not the same blade."
They fell into a companionable silence then as Vayne drank his tea and Larsa finished his toast. Larsa was thinking that he would have rather liked Mercoth's dagger -- it had an unadorded crossbar and would have been easier to sort out from Joyeuse than the overly fancy thing he had -- when Vayne smiled and said, "Well, it's no great mystery."
Larsa blinked. "No?"
"Joyeuse has been in the family for generations; it was old even when House Solidor founded the Ministry of Law. It is of course a great honour to carry it, but..." He paused. "It must be a comfort to carry something of your own as well. Something... less eternal."
"...ah."
Vayne set his teacup down with a soft chink of china against china. "Your sword is our family's sword. But what you carry with you will be yours alone, whether you chose to pass it to your children or not. As such, you are both part our tapestry and one of your own hand." He smiled. "There is power in that."
Larsa swallowed.
"I do not envy you," Vayne said. "I prefer my own hands."
---
About a month later, Larsa received a note from Gabranth which bade Larsa meet him in the salle that evening. That sounded promising.
Do not bring your father's sword, the note added, almost as an afterthought. Well, thought Larsa, if you put it that way.
When he arrived, he found Gabranth bearing what appeared to be a pistol box and an armful of old foils. He supposed his attention ought to have been on the former, but the latter startled him so that for a moment all he could was blink. "Are all those necessary?"
"Mayhap," shrugged Gabranth. "Come here, I think I've found a suitable compromise for you."
Larsa sincerely hoped Gabranth's solution was not a bale of swords and stepped forward cautiously. Gabranth laid the foils down beside a bench and unlatched the box; from it he produced what Larsa thought for a moment was a measure, but he quickly saw it lacked moving parts. To that, he had no idea what it was.
It did indeed have a handle -- hilt? -- somewhat like a pistol's grip, but the body consisted of what looked like a short sword split and twisted into a stylized S shape. Through the center of the 'blade' ran a slender, hollow cylinder, and another, smaller one shot the back end of the S. Larsa reached for the thing carefully and found to his surprise that it appeared to be made of solid brass. "What is it?"
"A break." Gabranth took it from Larsa's right hand and pressed it into his left, urging him to hold it more or less has he held his dagger. The hilt angled back so that the body of it seemed to emanate more from his arm than his hand. "'Twas the only thing I could think of that was similar to what you demonstrated, but it will be far more useful to you than another blade."
Larsa tested its weight; it was heavier than Joyeuse. "What is a break?"
"I'll show you." Gabranth plucked it from Larsa's grip and replaced it with a foil. Stepping back, he fell into an approximation of Larsa's beginning stance, leading with the break defensively. "Have at me."
Larsa bit his lip and backed away a little, considering, before stepping in with a downward arc of his blade. Gabranth blocked it effortlessly in a manner essentially identical as one would with a dagger; before Larsa could retreat and attack again, Gabranth took another step forward and twisted the break, locking the weapons together within one of its odd curves. Larsa gasped, startled by the proximity, and was wholly unprepared when Gabranth twisted the break the other way, snapping the foil over the hollow spine.
"A break," he said, stepping away and leaving Larsa to stare at his broken sword dumbly.
"I..." Larsa looked up at Gabranth; the man was far less intimidating without his armour, but outside of it his arms were visibly ropey with muscle. "Gabranth, I can't do that!"
Gabranth blinked. "How no?"
"I'm not strong enough! Perhaps if I only ever find myself in combat against foils, but I'm not even sure about that."
Gabranth relaxed noticeably and smiled. "My lord," he said, "you grow stronger by the day. Hopelessness does not become you." He offered the break to Larsa, and he took it, feeling his muscles tighten with its weight.
"If you have such confidence in me," he said softly, "I suppose it is my duty to live up to it."
"It is your duty only to live up to your potential. You will never do so as long as you favour things you can master on the first try."
Larsa considered this gravely. "Indeed," he said. "Let's get started, then."
---
He continued in this manner, letting his tutor teach him the dagger and practicing with the break on the odd evenings with Gabranth. His commission was soon completed, and it was indeed a beautiful piece, every bit worthy of its mate; Gabranth encouraged him to wear it with Joyeuse to ceremonies and other formal functions, but begged that he carry the break when he might actually have need of his sword. As the weeks went by, Gabranth showed him how it could also be used to ruin a shield and shatter a helm, though the best Larsa could yet do with it was twist a sword from his opponent's grip.
One afternoon he ran through drills in the courtyard outside his father's study with Joyeuse alone, willing difficult footwork to become instinct. Hausen sat nearby and read a book. ("I'm afraid I don't know much about fencing," he'd said. "I'm a spearman, myself."
"Do not trouble yourself, I have too many critics as it is."
"Of course, my lord.")
The sound of the water in the fountain lulled Larsa into losing his sense of time, and he was startled to hear a door open behind him with a soft click. He turned to see his father standing in the doorway.
"Surprised was I after a long day arguing with the Senate to find a fine young swordsman in my veranda, felling demons the rest of us are too mundane to see," Gramis said, smiling.
Larsa fell out of his stance and grinned sheepishly. "Sorry."
"Not at all. I had meant to seek you out anyway." He turned to Hausen. "A moment with my son, please, Judge."
Hausen bowed to them both and slipped back into the building without a further word; Larsa straightened himself and sheathed Joyeuse, grateful that it did not catch on his belt.
"How has my grandfather's sword been treating you?" Gramis asked, moving to take the seat Hausen had vacated.
"Well," Larsa said. "It is surely the finest blade in all Archadia."
"I don't know about that, but it certainly the finest sword in our possession. It does my heart good to see it in your hands."
Larsa stepped closer to his father and hesitated. "My tutor tells me I am doing well for one with four months' instruction."
"Indeed," Gramis said, "I would expect no less."
"Even so, I am yet a beginner." He rested his hand on Joyeuse's pommel. "And will be for some time. I... am not sure I deserve so fine a blade yet. I do not do it justice."
Gramis raised his eyebrows. "No? Hmm."
Larsa pressed his lips into a straight line as Gramis made a show of mulling over this. "It seems to me," Gramis finally said, "that one wise beyond his years addressed this very issue to me once, but I suppose it's possible he doesn't remember."
"...I'm sorry?"
"How did it go? 'It is the hand'? Something like that."
Larsa frowned at his father, at a loss. But the words jostled something in his memory; he blinked hard as recognition finally dawned, and then laughed in delight before he could stop himself. "Father!"
Gramis reached out and laid a hand over Larsa's on Joyeuse's hilt. "You cannot do justice to this sword; it can only hope to do justice to you. In your hands it has no history: it is only itself, as you are yours. Go forth together."
"Thank you," Larsa said. "Thank you."
---
When Larsa was very little, his very favourite story in all the world was that of The Man Without Blood. In this story, a boy about his age (and he was always about his age, no matter when the story was told -- that was part of its appeal) finds a pitted bronze sword under the stones of an old riverbed. He asks each of his brothers what he should do with it: one tells him to sell it at the bazaar, another tells him to melt it down and make a new, whole sword. Then his third brother, the eldest, tells him to look for where the river has rerouted itself and to follow it to see where the sword had been trying to go, and this the boy does.
The boy meets many strange friends and foes following the flow of the river -- the story tended to give a different sampling of his adventures on the retelling, which was another good reason to beg for it now and then -- and whenever he is in danger, his sword comes alive in his hands and fights for him, guiding his hands where they must go. When the river spills out into the sea, the boy finds a cave with an old man within. The man tells him that his sword is magical, and he must not give it to anyone, no matter how much they offer him in trade.
But I am sure this sword has been looking for you, the boy says.
It doesn't matter, says the old man. It is only a sword, it does not know what it does.
Please, says the boy, I have come a long way.
So you were warned, says the man. He pulls his cloak back to reveal a terrible hole in his chest, and the boy sees that the man has no blood. He pulls out the sword, and it again comes to life within its master's hands; it plunges itself into the old man's heart, exactly where the strange wound is. At that, a terrible transformation takes place, for the sword is the man's blood, and reunited with its heart it turns him back into what he truly is: Dreki, lord of all dragons, thought long dead.
Boy, I thank you, says Dreki, long have I searched the world for what was mine, for my heart in time grew sick with its blood's thirst, and sought to cast it in the sea at the far shore; I tried to return via the river, but the heat of my anger boiled it away. We have had many adventures until now, you and I, and I protected you. You have a debt to me, but think me not without gratitude: You shall live, as long as you never leave this cave. All else dies.
The boy thinks of his brothers and despairs. Nay, he says, I cannot let you go.
Dreki leans down until his chin lies press'd to the ground, so that he and the boy may see eye to eye. How will you stop me? he asks. You are only a little boy, and you have no sword now.
And thus the boy strikes Dreki in the eye with his fist alone, and though it was not he who led his sword in their many battles, the journey has made him strong. His hand hits the bone behind the dragon's eye, and Dreki dies.
Tis not the blood, but the heart. Tis not the blade, but the hand.
"What a strange story!" Vayne said, after a very young Larsa breathlessly recited it at dinner one night. "Where in the world did you hear it?"
But Gramis only watched his youngest with a sudden new interest, smiling slowly as the boy gestured enthusiastically with an imaginary sword of legend. His heart and his hope.
