Chapter 3- Swords and splinters

“How about a fight James?”

“What are you talking about? I come for a friendly visit and the first thing out of your mouth is that?” James stared hard at Jarod to see if he was serious. The other man leaned against the fence with one leg up on the bottom rail. He just grinned back at James with a sly look on his face but said nothing. “Besides,” James continued, “you would easily beat me. I’m no match for you with swords or fists.”

“I don’t know about that,” answered Jarod. “I think I know what kind of fighter hides behind that simple disguise of schoolmarm. You’ve never said so, but I’m thinking you have a very real reason for wearing that sword you try to hide under your cloak.”

James didn’t answer any of Jarod’s prying comments. He had learned early on as a Watcher that there would always be those that thought they knew some part of the secret that he carried. He found the best way to respond to those questions was to ignore them. Arguing the point only brought more attention to the situation.

Jarod seemed unfazed by James’ silence.

“I wasn’t talking about me anyways. I meant the boy. How would you like to fight the boy?”

James looked up sharply.

“What do you mean fight the boy? The boy can’t fight.” James knew that Jarod was getting to something, but he seemed in no hurry to find his destination.

“Two years ago, when you brought me that scrawny lad you would have been right. The boy could take a beating, but not give one. He was tough enough, but he was only good as a target for someone else’s fists.”

Jarod settled against the fence as he prepared to tell the story. James was impatient to see what he was getting at, but he knew there was no hurrying Jarod when it came to a good story. Or to a bad story that a little discretionary embellishment could turn into a good story for that matter. When it came to storytelling, Jarod was in his element. The only thing James could do was to sit back and be entertained.

“I send the boy out on errands. It helps me continue working without interruption. If I need something from the smith or to deliver some piece of lumber that I’ve turned into a one-of-a-kind genuine work of art. Whatever. The boy makes a good second pair of legs for things like that.

“Anyways, one day he comes back to the shop late in the day. I only sent him over to the alehouse for a jug of beer. It was a hot day and I had worked up a powerful thirst that only a good jug of beer could handle. He was slow in coming back. A trip like that should have only taken fifteen minutes or so. I was getting mighty sore with that boy when two hours had passed and me just wasting away with thirst. I figured that boy had done gone and helped himself to my beer while I was here working hard. I started planning all the different ways I would beat that boy when he came back, when at that moment, he came stumbling through the gate.

“Wouldn’t you know someone had already given that boy a beating?” Jarod either paused for effect or to look up at James to see if he was still paying attention.

“I assume this story will eventually prove worth my time?” asked James.

“Sure it will, if you will just hold onto yourself and be patient. You can’t rush a good story any more than you can rush an old mule.”

“Especially when the old mule is telling the story.” That earned James a glare.

“Now, where was I?”

“Someone had given him a beating.”

“That’s right! In he walks through the gate looking like he had been chewed on a might by something with large teeth and then spit out. Covered from head to toe in dirt and blood. I was surprised the boy was even on his feet. Comes to find out that some of those fine students of yours over at that school came into town to pay their respects to the boy.”

Jarod saw a dark look begin to form on the face of his friend and decided he should hurry his story along.

“Well that wasn’t the last time the boy took a beating. It seems some of the boys here in town saw how much fun it was to beat up Ethan that they thought they would have some fun too. I would send him out to have my blades sharpened and he would come back with a black eye. I sent him to collect a broken chair and he comes back broken himself.”

“Why haven’t you ever mentioned this to me on any of my other visits?”

“I feel a man should learn to take care of himself. The boy never asked for my help. He’s right fond of what he considers his independence. He don’t need me tattling to you about his business. Anyway, once things looked to get ugly, I insinuated myself into the situation.

“I decided that if he were to be of any use to me at all as an apprentice, then he shouldn’t spend half his time lying in bed recovering from his latest friendly conversation with the local boys. I decided to teach the boy how to take care of himself.”

“Very charitable of you.”

“Of course it were. I’m that kind of person, you know. Anyway, I took him out in the yard in the evenings and let him practice hitting me. He weren’t any good at it. And me, I slapped at him a bit as well to teach him the value of guarding his face. Turned out the boy could learn.” Jarod looked up at James with a mock look of surprise on his face.

James thought Jarod was looking for a reply, so he gave him one.

“He’s a bit down on himself, but he’s not dumb. I’ve got him reading books that have older students at the school scratching their heads. And he seems to know the point of all the words he reads.”

“He is surely not ignorant,” responded Jarod. “He can learn if he sets his mind to it. He shows me that every day in the shop. The boy is a natural at working the wood. He picks up things I teach him and then does them faster than I do.

“But that’s not all he learned. He learned that his hands made fists, and then what to do with them afterwards. Granted he still can’t keep up with me if I give him a serious go, but he’s not half bad.”

James knew this to be a high compliment indeed. Before his days as a carpenter Jarod was a soldier. And not just a warm body on the front line. Jarod was a leader of men. He quit the King’s army a few years earlier after several winters fighting in the Northern Wars. Although he had never spoken of it, James recognized that Jarod had seen things that made all desire for war leave him. He put down his sword and took up a hammer and chisel. But James still saw that behind the friendly manner and the nail apron was a trained fighter. A warrior that could kill easily and quickly if he was of a mind to. For Jarod to say that the boy could fight deserved real consideration.

“When he stopped thinking that his hands were only good for swatting at flies, he stopped coming home with blood on his face. Some on his knuckles sure, but none on his face.

“He wanted me to teach him the sword as well when he learned that I was a soldier, and seeing his desire to learn, I taught him a bit. We would spar in the yard with wooden swords until late in the evening. He was a might clumsy at first, but he got better. What was hard for me to teach him was the heart of a warrior. The boy was too soft. But as he continued to scrap with the local boys, he began to learn a little ruthlessness. Not true malice mind you, but the notion that when you fight, you don’t just use your hands and feet, but you fight with everything within you. You fight to win.”

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Jarod paused and looked up at James seriously.

“He began to learn that lesson and we had to put the swords away.”

“Giver’s sake, Jarod! Are you turning the boy mean?”

“No James. He is still as sweet spirited a kid as you will ever meet.” Jarod’s piercing gaze locked onto James’ face and he said slowly, “We stopped because I was afraid he would accidentally kill me.”

~

Ethan stepped back from his work and admired his creation. He had been working in his spare time on a wooden case for Meli to take with her on her travels. Both the top and bottom of the case were made of one piece of wood. He had spent many nights shaping them into the perfect traveling kit that a healer would need for all her necessary potions and such.

Truthfully, he didn’t even know what healers used in their trade. Maybe they didn’t use potions or ointments at all. Maybe they just used their Gift alone and had no need of special things or a kit to carry them in. But he liked to think that he would be doing something nice for Meli that she would appreciate.

She was starting her last two years at the school and for someone gifted as a healer that meant that she would begin traveling. Other students with other gifts would remain at the school during their final years of apprenticeship, but healers needed practical experience, so, they traveled with a teacher from village to village treating every ailment from broken limbs to runny noses. Ethan was not looking forward to the day she would leave. He liked having her close. Even when she finished her studies as a student she would still travel as a healer, while he remained in Flagon as an apprentice or hopefully a tradesman one day.

The easy, careless friendship he had with Meli would end. Over the past couple of years, she had visited every week on her day off from her studies and she brought him some nice pastry or sweet from the school every time she came just like she said she would. Their fragile friendship had grown into a comfortable one. Ethan looked forward to the end of every week when he would see her. Sometimes they would go throw rocks in the creek. Sometimes he would show her what piece of furniture he was working on. Sometimes they would just sit and she would talk about all that she was learning is school. He didn’t care about the schoolwork, but he did like to hear her talk. But now she would move on and leave him here. He knew it was coming, but he hated to think of it. In truth, he had come to think of Meli as much more than a friend, though he had never said so. He wouldn’t know how to have that kind of conversation anyway. And there was no point to it. There was nothing that he could do to change the course of their lives that would inevitably lead them apart.

So instead, he made a box and hoped she would have a use for it. He poured all the affection into crafting it that he would never have the opportunity to show her. It was a beautiful box. It was the best work he had ever done. Small enough to easily carry around, yet with room enough inside for several essentials. There were no hard corners anywhere on the outside, only smooth curves. He had also taken the extra time to careful carve leaves and flowers into the top of the box. And now he was finished.

As he was still admiring his work he was interrupted by a shout.

“Ethan, grab the swords!”

Ethan turned to question Jarod. They hadn’t worked with swords in some time and certainly not during the middle of the day. But as he looked out into the yard he saw that Jarod wasn’t alone.

“James!” called Ethan as he ran out of the shop to the yard where the two men were standing. “When did you get here?”

“I only just arrived,” replied James as Ethan shook his hand vigorously.

“How long can you stay?” Ethan hoped James couldn’t hear the anxiety in his voice. He only saw James a few times each year and never for as long as he would have liked.

“Not long I’m afraid. I’ve just come from the school. I had to let Proctor Merrin know that I will not be able to teach this year. I have important errands in the North that will keep me busy for months to come. But I would not come so close to Flagon without dropping in on my favorite student. How have you found the plays of Reemer?”

“I don’t much care for his stories, but I love the way he tells them. It’s amazing how he says so little in such big ways.”

“You may not think much of him as a playwright today but wait until you want to woo that young lady friend of yours and then I think you will find infinite inspiration from the words of Mr. Reemer.”

Ethan knew his face was burning red even as James stood there grinning at him and Jarod gave him a knowing wink. Before he could begin blatantly denying the insinuation, Jarod saved him.

“Let’s not talk of such things as a simple soldier and carpenter cannot understand. Instead, let’s have a more engaging activity. Ethan, go grab the wooden swords like I done hollered at you. We want to show schoolmaster James what other kind of learning you’ve been at.”

Ethan smiled thankfully at Jarod then turned and ran back to the shop to grab the sparring swords. Ethan was excited for the chance to use the swords again. He had enjoyed learning from Jarod and had been disappointed lately that Jarod had been too tired to practice with him. He also wanted to show James what he had learned. He grabbed the swords and rushed quickly back out into the yard. He stopped a few paces from the two men and stuck his sword point down in the soft dirt of the yard. He then walked over to Jarod and held out the other sword to him handle first. Jarod just smiled back at him with a strange twinkle in his eye but made no move to take the sword.

“Not me, boy. You get to have a go at teacher James. Now’s your chance to get back at him for making you read all those thick books.”

Ethan looked over at James in surprise and saw that he had taken off his cloak and was waiting with his hand outstretched for the sword. He swung the sword around to James then ran back to his own sword with excitement. Now he would really get to show James what he had learned.

Jarod stepped back to lean against the fence and said, “Well sword masters, have at it. Just take special care not to hit the innocent bystanders.” He laughed at his own humor but watched much more closely than his calm demeanor pretended.

Ethan moved forward to engage James with confidence. He had learned a lot while practicing with Jarod and was eager to show James what he could do. They tested each other with a few thrusts and strokes before they genuinely started sparring.

Ethan was so happy to see James and to try and impress him with his skills that he fought a little too eagerly and the swords cracked together loudly as they sparred. As much as he felt he could do with the sword it took a few minutes for Ethan to realize that he couldn’t gain any ground on James. Each time he attacked James countered well, too well for a school teacher. Ethan began to see James with new eyes.

“Stop playing patty fingers, you ladies, and fight!” hollered Jarod as he watched.

Ethan couldn’t help but rise to the challenge. He now saw that James knew how to fight with a sword, so he began to step into his attacks with renewed vigor. Again, James easily deflected his advances. Ethan felt that James was just toying with him. He didn’t want James to see him as just a boy, but as a man and the only way he felt he could accomplish that was by driving James back to the fence. He stopped grinning like a kid and began to focus his thoughts on the motion of the sword as he struck again and again. He was determined to be treated like a man.

~

At first James merely played with Ethan as he came at him grinning like a kid with a wooden sword. Soon however, he could see that Jarod really had taught him quite a bit. Ethan was eager and rash, but he seemed to know what he was doing. James defended easily, but he had to stay focused on his defense.

He heard Jarod egging them on from the fence and was about to holler back at him when he noticed a change in Ethan’s demeanor. The boyishness seemed to melt away and was replaced by a look of focus. He understood now what Jarod meant when he said the boy had learned that you fight to win.

Ethan struck again and again and James could feel each blow grow stronger and stronger as the swords came together. He stopped countering as he should because he was amazed at the transformation he was watching take place before him. Ethan had not grown stronger or more agile in the few minutes that they had been sparring, but his blows were becoming more and more difficult to block. James found himself reaching for his gift, not to attack with but to defend with.

James was gifted in combat. Where his skill left off, his Gift took up. He called on his gifting to shield him from the reign of blows Ethan was delivering. Ethan struck a blow and this time James’ sword arm did not bend with the blow, but held fast, immovable. He watched astonishment flash in Ethan’s eyes only to be quickly replaced by determination.

Ethan’s sword kept crashing down against his own and James felt something he had not felt in a long time. He felt something hammering not at the wooden sword he held, but at the shield his gift had raised. With each blow of the sword he felt another gift crash against his own. Not focused and trained, but raw and unaware. He watched in awe as he realized Ethan was using a gift he didn’t even know he had and he was using it surprisingly well!

The swords cracked together again and again while Jarod had gone silent. There was no finesse, no strategy involved anymore except the strategy a hammer employs with a nail. Ethan hammered down with wooden sword and raw power against the unseen shield James had called forth.

Ethan suddenly grunted loudly and swung with all he had. Both swords splintered on contact with the crack of an explosion. James stood wordlessly, eyes on the panting boy in front of him. Ethan held the broken handle of the sparring sword, breathing hard with a dazed look on his face.

“Just as I figured. Neither of you ladies knows the first thing about fighting with swords,” said Jarod disinterestedly as he ambled towards the house. “And make sure you clean up all those splinters from the yard before you girls come into the house for supper,” he hollered over his shoulder as he disappeared through the doorway.