Chapter 19: All is Well

If my mornings belonged to the Master of Coin, then my afternoons belonged to the practice yard.

I would have worked on my projects, had they needed any work. My next few acquisitions were already decided, but I needed to wait a few days for the situation to deteriorate and drive the costs down. 

My taverns would have a list of their most common singers ready by the time I met with the owners of the soon-to-be troubled taverns. And my translation project was something best done at night.

After all, who needed to translate the Seven-pointed Star into an ancient Valyrian dialect predating the first war with Old Ghis? That was the kind of thing somebody paid a forger to create if, purely hypothetically, they needed some 'evidence' about religious precedent.

For now, training was a good, and productive, use of my time.

And given how much I had struggled even making it to second place in the melee at Duskendale, I desperately needed it. If my growling stomach was any indication, however, I needed food just a bit more urgently. Luckily, the kitchens were not too far from the training yard, so I was able to grab some bread and eat it on the way.

I arrived in the bailey given over to the squire's practice yard without trouble, and I wasted little time shrugging into a padded jacket and grabbing a shield bearing the distinctive heraldry of my house. 

A padded cap was quickly tied onto my head with familiar ease, and I donned a protective great helm. I would have grabbed the hammer from the weapon rack, too, but it was mysteriously missing. Someone else must have taken it.

Grabbing one of the far more numerous swords, I entered the training yard prepared to drive myself to the point of exhaustion. Sure, I was less experienced with the blade, but that just meant I could use the practice.

Looking around the yard, there were a handful of squires already paired off in their own fights, usually against someone in their own age group. The rest were doing their own thing, swinging at a straw target, running laps, climbing ladders, and other basic exercises.

My goals, however, were more aligned with the former group than the latter.

There, the older squire swinging at a quintain, he would serve. His padding bore the distinctive heraldry of house Costayne, the silver chalice on black quartered with a black flower on yellow. He should prove an adequate opponent.

"Costayne!" I shouted in greeting, interrupting the young man in his training. His blow landed with a resounding crack as his wooden sword met the wooden core of his target. Only then did he turn to face me. Well, glance over his shoulder to look at me. "Care for a fight against something that can hit back?"

"Bold words, your Grace," he said in reply, turning fully to level his sword at me. "Let us see if your skill can match them."

I let him advance closer towards the center of the yard to give him enough room to fight me properly.

Almost immediately, he began his offensive. Raining down blows on me, aiming mostly for my head, he tried to drive me back against a wall. Taking the hits on my shield, I knew I could hold out for a comfortable amount of time, but that was no way to win. Just as you could not lose if you did not get hit, you could not win if you did not attack.

I swung for his head in turn, knowing that attacks to the body would be as good as harmless with the padding we both wore. Thrusts would work, true, but those were too easily handled by a shield.

Unfortunately, our strategies only led to what my mentors might have once called a 'see-saw', a repeating loop of nearly identical attacks and blocks. But that was decades in the past and several centuries of advances in melee combat techniques removed from now.

Which meant I had to improvise.

I caught the next blow on my sword. His body language shifted in surprise as I broke our previously established pattern. His wooden blade slid down as I trapped his weapon with my guard, leaving us both with shields.

Or, as I preferred to call it, my secondary weapon.

The narrow tip of my shield slammed into the squire's gut driving the breath from his lungs. He staggered back, swinging his shield into position to cover his torso. Unfortunately for him, this left his head vulnerable to a swing that rang his helmet like a bell.

A second strike and he collapsed into the dirt.

"Well fought," I said amiably, offering him a hand up.

"Well fought," he agreed, before making his way to the exit of the training yard. Was he done already? I had been hoping for another round or five. After all, if one fight was good, then two were better.

I cast about for another opponent, finding nothing but more squires occupied with their own activities. Very enthusiastically, I had to say, almost as if they did not want to fight me.

Odd how that worked.

Luckily, a boy in Darry livery was a bit slow to turn away.

"Darry!" I shouted a challenge to the squire, and he froze in place. Slowly, he turned around as I approached. "Face me!"

His shoulders seemed to slump briefly, but he recovered his poise as he approached. Much better. Where was the fun in fighting someone who did not want to fight? What was there to learn?

This squire fought fare more cautiously than the Costayne, content to hide behind his shield while only occasionally swinging at my head with his sword. A feint to his head left his torso open for a slash to the gut. He managed a panicked parry with his sword, but that did not protect him from the shield that slammed into his head.

He, too, collapsed to the ground. I moved to help him up when a hand clapped on my shoulder.

"Enjoying yourself, your Grace?" My shield twitched up in response to the unexpected contact, but I suppressed the more extreme adrenaline-fueled response. I recognized the tones of my distant cousin, and it would not do to lash out violently.

"I was about to," I grumbled, turning to face Corlys. The man was dressed much as I was, though his jacket bore the seahorse of his house instead of the dragon of mine. "Unless you're here to join me in training?"

"I think not," the knight shook his head with surprising vigor. Come now, I was hardly that bad to fight. "For a knight and a squire to fight would be unseemly." Was that why some of the knights at Duskendale had been so abrasive? Or had they been looking for excuses to heal their wounded prides?

"For a knight to lose to a squire, you mean," I retorted, my smile coloring my words. Yes, that was an explanation I could live with. "If not for training, then what brings you here?"

"Your sisters were worried about you not joining them for lunch," he explained. "Princess Daella asked me to check on you."

Wait, Daella? Shy little Daella?

"Daella did?" I asked slowly, taking care not to let myself sound surprised, and taking slightly more care to not let my pride in her progress show. Oh, how far she had come. Once deathly afraid of strangers, now she spoke to Corlys for something as banal as tracking me down? She deserved some praise for that.

"Aye, she did. You can tell her how well I did at dinner," Corlys said jovially, reaching into his belt to retrieve a pair of waterskins. At least, I hoped they were waterskins. "Care to join me for a drink? You haven't told me how your little expedition went."

"I suppose I can take a break," I allowed, and followed the knight out of that particular bailey, through a small gate into one of the adjoining gardens. Usually, these were reserved for smaller social engagements, turning the sea of green into an archipelago of riotous color, but for now it was largely empty. No doubt due to the day's rising heat.

"And?" Corlys passed me a skin, tearing the stopper out of his own with his teeth. "You were gone for days, and His Grace is still absent. Not the best outcome, if I were to judge."

"It all worked out fine," I said, taking an experimental sip from the offered skin, and was pleased to note it was water. Clean, refreshing water. "I have a dragon, joined the melee and the joust at Duskendale. Placed second the former and won the latter, though father and Maegelle were there to witness the tourney."

"Maegelle?" Corlys looked confused for a moment. "Did she claim a dragon, too?"

"Dreamfyre," I confirmed. Seeing an ambitious look start to creep onto his face, I opted to put a stop to whatever scheme was in the process of concocting. "I suspect I may have a wedding to look forward to before too long."

"You had better if she tamed a dragon to chase you down," Corlys said, giving me a good-natured nudge, looking none the worse for the news. Had I misread him? No, of course I had. "So you do have some good sense. Had I known that I would have brought something stronger to celebrate."

"Might still be a good idea." My mind returned to the lessons of that morning. "Some of the breweries along the Blackwater Rush may struggle to fill their orders in the coming weeks."

"Oh?" That got his attention. The Velaryon was a merchant at heart, after all. "Care to elaborate?"

"Heavy rains along the Blackwater. I happen to know that quite a few breweries are located on that river and sell to taverns in the city," I said by way of explanation.

"I take it you will be using your earnings to take advantage?" He asked, and I suppressed a grimace.

"Sadly not. My earnings were limited thanks to… extenuating circumstances," I admitted. "Involving a very bored dragon."

"There is a story there…" he hinted, taking a long pull from his waterskin, inviting me to elaborate.

"Indeed there is," I acknowledged, taking an equally lengthy drink. Corlys gave me a cross look, but one lacking any actual heat, and one I matched with a grin of my own. "The Cannibal interrupted the joust. I chased it off, inspiring the other knights to yield."

"That is significantly less exciting than I expected," Corlys grumbled, shaking his head in disappointment. "Although, if you're still interested in making some coin, you could join me on my next trip to Yi-Ti. It's a lengthy trip, make no mistake, but with your existing wealth, you could easily add another ship or three to the expedition. Good, clean, easy coin. If you have a good captain leading the effort."

"And all the more coin for you, too," I observed. Corlys at least had the grace to look abashed. "Why not ask my father to fund your next trip?"

"He declined the offer," Corlys explained, his tone bitter. "Even after I told him just how much coin such an expedition would earn."

I chose not to tell him of my father's words of caution regarding him and his ambition. While it might soothe his wounded pride about his skills of persuasion, the chances of planting seeds of a more... actively antagonistic nature were too great.

"Maybe you should see about getting married yourself," I joked instead. "Use the dowry for something profitable."

"Perhaps I shall," he allowed. "Tell me, is your prayer group open to more distant relatives?"

And wasn't that a phrase I was terrified to hear.

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