“I beg pardon that I am late. I was detained. But I am ready to begin now.”
“How do you feel?” The question came from Burrich, asked with genuine curiosity. I turned to find him regarding me as sternly as before, but also with some puzzlement.
“Stiff, sir. A bit. The run up the stairs warmed me up some. Sore, from yesterday. But otherwise I am all right.”
A bit of amusement quirked at his face. “No tremors, FitzChivalry? No darkening at the edge of your vision, no dizzy spells?”
I paused to think for a moment. “No.”
“Be damned.” Burrich gave a snort of amusement. “Evidently the cure has been to beat it out of you. I’ll remember that the next time you need a healer.”
Over the next hour he seemed intent on applying his new theory of healing. The heads of the axes were blunt ones, and he had bundled them both in rags for this first lesson, but that did not prevent bruises. To be honest, most of them I earned with my own clumsiness. Burrich was not trying to land any blows that day, but only to teach me to use the whole weapon, not just the head of it. To keep Verity with me was effortless, for he remained in the same room with us. He was silent within me that day, offering no counsels or observations or warnings, but merely riding with my eyes. Burrich told me that the ax was not a sophisticated weapon, but was a very satisfactory one if used correctly. At the end of the session, he pointed out to me that he had been gentle with me, in consideration of the wounds I already bore. Verity dismissed us, and we both went down the stairs rather more slowly than I had come up.