I shall face that if, and when, I am sworn for life to the Sisterhood, should that day ever come. By then, maybe, I will know what I can do and what I cannot.
Clea saw her troubled look and patted her shoulder. “Never mind, you will learn. Now get over there and practice. Betta, take her and show her the first practice moves so she won’t be so confused; time enough later to throw her into a group of beginners.”
Now that somebody had bothered to inform Romilly what they were doing and why, it went better. She began to realize, then and in the days that followed, that when she faced another woman in these sessions, she could read, by following tiny body and eye movements, precisely what the other was going to do, and take advantage of it. But knowing was not enough; she also had to learn the precise movements and holds, jabs and thrusts and throws, the right force to use without actually damaging anyone.
And yet, in men’s clothing, I travelled all through the Hellers. I would rather live in such a way that I need not be prey to any man.
Yet there was pride, too, in knowing that she could defend herself and need never ask for mercy from anyone. Later the lessons in swordplay seemed easier to her, but they brought another fear to the surface of her mind.
It was all very well to practice with wooden batons where the only penalty for a missed stroke was a bad bruise. But could she face sharp weapons without terror, could she actually bring herself to strike with a sharp weapon at anyone? The thought of slicing through human flesh made her feel sick.
I am not a Swordswoman, no matter what they call me. I am a horse trainer, a bird handler . . . fighting is not my business.
The days passed, filled with lessons and hard work. When she had been there for forty days, she realized that Midsummer was approaching. Soon she would have been absent from her home for a whole year. No doubt her father and stepmother thought her long dead, and Darren was being forced to take his place as Heir to Falconsward. Poor Darren, how he would hate that! She hoped for her father’s sake that little Rael was able to take her place, to learn some of the MacAran gifts,- if Rael was what her father would have called “true MacAran”, perhaps Darren would be allowed to return to the monastery. Or perhaps he would go as she had done, without leave.
A year ago her father had betrothed her to Dom Garris. What changes there had been in a year! Romilly knew she had grown taller – she had had to put all the clothes she had worn when she came here, into the box of castoffs, and find others which came nearer to fitting her. Her shoulders were broader, and because of the continuous practice at swordplay and her work with the horses, her muscles in upper arms and legs were hard and bulging. How Mallina would jeer at her, how her stepmother would deplore it – You do not look like a lady, Romilly. Well, Romilly silently answered her stepmother’s imagined voice, I am not a lady but a Swordswoman.
But all her troubles disappeared every day when she was working with the horses, and especially for the hour every day when she worked with the black stallion. No hand but hers ever touched him; she knew that one day, this would be a mount fit for the king himself. Day followed day, and moon followed moon, and season followed season; winter closed in, and there were days when she could not work even with the black stallion, let alone the other horses. Nevertheless, she directed their care. Time and familiarity had changed the strange faces in the hostel to friends. Midwinter came, with spicebread, and gifts exchanged in the hostel among the Sisterhood. A few women had families and went home to visit them; but when Romilly was asked if she wished for leave to visit her home, she said steadily that she had no kin. It was simpler that way. But she wondered; how would her father receive her, if she came home for a visit, asking nothing, a professional Swordswoman in her tunic of crimson, and the ensign of the Sisterhood in her pierced ear? Would he drive her forth, say that she was no daughter of his, that no daughter of his could be one of those unsexed women of the Sisterhood? Or would he welcome her with pride, smile with welcome and even approve of her independence and the strength she had shown hi making a life for herself away from Falconsward?