Weapons felt heavy when you were using them, even if they were in reality pretty light. That had been, perhaps, the first thing I’d learned when the Castellan had me pick up a spear to learn how to use it. It was something I’d always known would’ve been the case in the back of my mind since carrying something would be vastly different then swinging it around, but had never really thought about when consuming any sort of media depicting them.
The wooden training spear I held in my hands was no exception to that. There was a weight to it when I moved it and it was a struggle to keep it held in place, pointed towards Gervase who stood a decent few paces away from me. Something that had certainly not been helped out by my own relative weakness.
Still, I did my best to push through the ache in my arms that was familiar from just a bit ago, having faded away while I was recuperating only to return now. I was determined to not let the spear’s point touch the ground during the spar at least.
Gervase on the other hand, seemed to not have a single one of the issues I had with his own wooden training sword, holding it in some sort of stance with both his hands at his right side gripping the forward pointed hilt. Which made a great deal of sense considering both his age and experience.
He was even a good two heads taller than me, which felt a little off when in the past that had never happened to me once I had grown older. For a moment, I Idly wondered if I’d be anywhere near the same height I once was when I grew up for a second time before shaking the errant thought out of my head.
There were other things to focus on right now.
Not a moment later the Castellan who’d been standing off to the side took a step forward. “Alright, you both look to be ready. For Yolanda’s sake, I’ll be explaining some of the etiquette for a spar.” He said, turning right towards me in the process. “You’ve seen some of the guards here spar before, right?”
I nodded my head towards him since I had both seen them spar just recently and Isabella had seen it occasionally in the past, to which he smiled. “Good. This’ll be mostly like that, barring how Gervase will be limited towards not actually striking you, instead focusing on disarming you. Either by knocking your training spear out of your grasp, or by manipulating your training spear in such a way that it’d be unusable for you without harming you. You’ll figure out quite quickly what that means since it’ll be obvious in the moment. In any case however, once you either land a blow on Gervase or he disarms you, you’re both to return back to where you’re standing now before beginning again. Going until either one of you is unable to continue, or I say that it’s over. You understand?”
“Yes Sir.” I said in response while I forced away the anxiety within me. The rules themselves were heavily in my favor, but I had a feeling that wouldn’t end up mattering much when all was said and done. Spear against sword, which I’d been told by the Castellan was a matchup in favor of the spear on top of the weapon being far easier to use, didn’t exactly matter when I was still so inexperienced.
I wasn’t about to back down, yet it was certainly going to be an uphill battle to even land one blow.
The Castellan took a step back to the sidelines with a satisfied smile, contrasted quite a bit by the worried gaze of Eschiva. “Then begin whenever. You count it down from three to start the spars Gervase. And don’t let me see you holding back anymore than necessary in order to not hurt Yolanda.”
The teenager standing across from nodded with the same conflicted look on his face from earlier. “Alright then… Are you ready, Your Grace?”
No, I wasn’t. I was still struggling to move the point of the spear to exactly where I wanted it to be. The dress I was in had certainly not been made for me to move around as much as I had been today. And I could feel the eyes of the other guards surreptitiously watching us alongside the Castellan’s already piercing gaze. “Yes, I’m ready.” I said softly in spite of that.
“Three.” He began while I shifted my footing while he stayed relaxed in his own stance.
“Two.” I readjusted my grip on the practice spear while he tilted his head downwards slightly.
“One.” I took a deep breath, closing my eyes in the process while I felt the anticipation within me swell.
“En Garde!” With that shout from Gervase, I opened up my eyes as the spar began.
In an instant, Gervase had sprung into action, dashing right towards me. His training sword never leaving the guard he held it in while he strode forwards.
A spike of fear shot through me that I did my best to ignore while I inadvertently took a step back, doing my best to keep my practice spear pointed towards him. Strangely enough, he continued to approach me without a care in the world for the pointy stick I had held towards him. A little confused and acting more on instinct than trying to think ahead or on why he was doing that, I thrusted the moment I thought he came into the range of my spear in the same way I had learned underneath the Castellan’s eye.
That turned out to be a mistake.
The second I began the motions, Gervase’s training sword moved. One moment it was held at his side held in that guard of his and the next it was swiftly interposed between him and my training spear before I could react, shoving it to the side of him where it struck nothing but empty air whilst knocking me completely off-balance in the process with the force he used.
I nearly let go of the training spear at that moment, but I managed to keep from doing that and kept my grip on it, my recovery being a narrow thing while my arms screamed at me. But Gervase had not been idle and it was far too late for my recovery to mean anything as his left hand was now grasping the spear and forcing it downwards and its tip into the ground.
He flashed me a rueful smile, his training sword held far more casually in his other hand now. “I do believe that you’ve been disarmed, Your Grace.”
I sucked in a breath while he strode back towards where he’d been standing before it began, my heart pumping in my chest. That had taken, at max, six seconds. Six seconds for him to close the distance, break my guard while knocking off-balance, and to then disarm me.
That hadn’t been competitive, at all. Was there even supposed to be a purpose towards this?
Ironically enough, my opponent seemed to be thinking the same thing, giving the Castellan a confused glance.
For his part, the older man just simply arched an eyebrow at him. “What are you waiting on me for Gervase. Unless either of you are finished and unable to continue, which you don’t look to be to me, it’s time to get started again.”
For a moment it looked like he was about to say something else to the Castellan, though a second later he settled for a simple, “Yes Sir.”
He then turned towards me with an apologetic smile. “Well, Your Grace, are you ready to begin again? There is no shame if you need some more time before you begin again or wish to st-” Gervase suddenly cut himself off, but I had a good feeling about how he was going to finish that.
And boy, did it peeve me.
I knew what I looked like right now, alongside just how one-sided that first bout had been. And I knew that he probably didn’t mean any sort of legitimate offense with that, because logically speaking, I stood no chance against him. I understood that. But I felt a fire begin to ignite within me nonetheless and I had to resist the surprisingly strong urge to shout something not so pleasant back at him.
His eyes still scrunched up together when I couldn’t stop myself from visibly frowning however.
Instead of doing something stupid though, I forced myself to take a deep breath while stepping back into position since I had stepped back a little bit during the first bout. Being this angry from something like that was definitely not natural to me, but I’d channel it into much more useful determination and focus nonetheless.
“Start counting whenever, Gervase. I’m not so frail as to need time to recover from that.” I said as firmly as I could while I raised my training spear back up into position pointed towards him, managing to keep it a little bit steadier this time. Which really wasn’t saying much when my voice couldn’t carry any sort of edge with it, no matter how hard I tried.
Gervase blinked at me before nodding and beginning to count down once more. While he did so, I took the opportunity to figure out if there was anything I could to at least last longer than a few seconds despite the clear skill and strength gap.
Messing up a strike clearly wasn’t something I could do around him since a single mistake would be more than enough for him to close the gap with me. And the advantage I’d learned that spears held over swords certainly didn’t matter when it’s main benefit was nullified by the difference in our heights as I’d experienced.
I had no idea if it were possible for me to properly tackle either of those issues. Certainly not when I only had as long as it took his countdown to finish for me to come up with a plan. Maybe I should’ve taken up his offer for a moment to think through a strategy. It was enough to come to a simple realization however.
There was absolutely no reason for me to be static and try to hold my ground against him. I needed to move if I wanted any sort of chance here, and really in any sort of fight I might have in the future. Not unless I actually had a reason to keep me in place, which this time, was just to not move so much that I ended up outside of the area we’re sparring in.
And with that thought, there was no more time to strategize. “En Garde!”
Gervase again began by dashing right towards me, training sword held in the same guard as before. This time though, I was moving backwards while he pushed forwards. Awkward as the motion might be in a dress, it worked.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
He was still fast approaching of course, but it gave me an extra moment to figure out what to do,. Which in this case was pulling my training spear back closer towards my body. No point at all in keeping it extended when it only made my movement more awkward while making it an easier target for him to use to try and knock me off balance or disarm me.
Gervase to my surprise slowed down a little while he gazed at me, an unreadable look in his eyes in the moment. It didn’t last long though, when he abruptly sped up right as he entered the edge of my range.
This time, I forced myself to not instinctively try to keep him away by thrusting with my training spear, instead moving back and to the left while keeping my training spear pointed towards him. I’d made that mistake once, I wouldn’t be making it again if I could help it.
Better to have the implied threat of my training spear than to give him an opportunity to get closer if I missed or he deflected my attack like had happened last time.
There was of course still a problem with that strategy though. Namely, the ‘what if he just didn’t stop approaching me problem’ like Gervase was enacting right now. The answer to that was deceptively simple. I needed to punish him for thinking he could enter my range like he just did and use my training spear to strike at him. Of course, I had no confidence at all in my ability to execute that without him using it to his advantage and turning this into a repeat of last time.
I needed something else. And then it hit me.
The Castellan had established that all I needed to do was land a blow on him while he needed to disarm me without actually striking me. I’m sure what I was about to do would be frowned upon in an actual spar, but here it was the only chance I had that stayed perfectly in line with the established rules for this.
Maybe someone else would’ve been against doing what I was about to do, but I certainly wasn’t against using dirty tricks.
So instead of trying to ineffectually thrust my training spear at him to where he’d inevitably deflect it and make good on that opening, I did something much crazier. I pulled my spear as close to my body as I could pull off in the moment, to the point where the tip was only held a little in front of me, before suddenly charging towards him.
As I did this, part of me was wondering what in the world was going through my head, that this was risky at best, that I might force Gervase to do something stupid in an attempt to stop me. It was very much drowned out by the sheer exhilaration of the moment with all the blood pumping throughout my body and the fact that doing nothing would’ve just been a slower defeat at best, something that I just couldn’t tolerate when I had the chance to make something happen. Especially after his earlier insinuation.
In a way, it reminded me a bit of card games I’d played where when I was on the backfoot, I would relentlessly push for a chance to win that required me to get lucky over using those same resources to delay a loss. Just a lot more physical.
I could feel my heart pumping as the world felt like it was in slow motion. Gervase was clearly not ready for what I’d just done as he tried his best to shift gears from the movement I caught him in. For a moment, I legitimately thought that I might actually land a blow on him.
The next, I was blinking stars out of my eyes with my head somewhere softer than the ground, trying to figure out what had just happened and why exactly the side of my head was wrapped in a wet cloth and hurting as bad as it was. And ignoring the notification at the edge of my vision which decided now was a good time to show up for whatever it’s purpose might be this time.
Blearily, I flicked my eyes upwards to see Eschiva’s worried gaze melt into relief before shifting my head to find the livid Castellan absolutely tearing into a very ashamed looking Gervase with an ardour I hadn’t seen in the man before, all the other guards who had been training watching on with varying expressions on their faces.
Or at least he had been. The moment he noticed me actively looking at me compared to what I assume was me being momentarily unconscious, he rushed towards me with a deeply bowed head, dragging Gervase along for the ride with him.
“Your Grace!” He began, his voice filled with an unfamiliar level of dismay in it. “Are you alright?”
I slowly gave him a nod of my head, responding partially without thinking. “My head feels a little fucked, but otherwise I feel okay for the most part.” I softly said, only a second later processing that I had just swore in front of probably way too many people, and in English nonetheless since I had no idea what the Old French word for that was. That probably wasn’t a good thing.
The Castellan’s face twisted into a strange mixture of relief and confusion. “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard that specific word before, but it is good that’s all that you seem well for the most part nonetheless.”
Before my slightly sluggish mind could be thankful that he didn’t seem to know I had just swore, the Castellan fell to a knee in front of me, Gervase following suit a second later. “I must apologize for what happened nonetheless, but I must also ask permission to give mercy in what will happen to Gervase. He has erred, but he is filled with potential that while rough, will shine with time. That is not to say he will not be punished, but I do not wish to see him dead for what has happened.”
I looked between the two of them. A death penalty as the default for hurting me? God, my head was hurting far too much right now to handle this right now. So instead of answering right away, I took a moment to sit up properly from the weird lying down position I’d been in a moment ago. I idly noticed in the process that part of my dress now was covered in dirt which probably didn’t help matters at all.
Not that I cared much about it myself other than feeling a little bad since I was certain it was expensive. That was something for literally everyone else to do.
“So, before anything else, what exactly happened? It… isn’t exactly clear in my memories what specifically occurred other than somehow I got hit on the head, hard.” I began, both curious and wanting another moment for the pain in my head to continue fading.
The Castellan looked between me and Gervase before answering. “You… charged forwards towards Gervase and he reacted by striking you in the head with his hilt, from which you collapsed momentarily. Normally that’d be an acceptable course of action, but it both went against the rules of the spar and harmed you in such a way when there was no expectation of such a thing, Your Grace.” That added up. And the way he said the word charged… Well, he wasn’t wrong even if he wasn’t outright saying it.
I nodded slightly. “Alright. You don’t have to dance around my maneuver being far too reckless though. Really, I don’t know what I was thinking of doing such a thing and forcing Gervase into having to make a decision where it had been really easy for him to end up doing, well, what he did, to me. So you have my permission to give him mercy for it, not that I even blame him for this.“ I said, gesturing towards my own head. I really had let the heat of the moment get to me.
Just because it was smart and followed all the rules didn’t mean it was sensible after all.
The tension in the air that I hadn’t even caught onto initially instantly began to fade away, like I had just disarmed a bomb, all the guards in the area beginning to return back to what they were doing before. The Castellan himself sighing in relief before he lightly smiled with a small laugh. “Hah, thank you for your mercy, Your Grace. And even if your maneuver was unreasonably reckless, it does not mean I can just act like what had happened after it didn’t occur in the first place. Not when I had assured you wouldn’t be struck like that during the spar.
He said before standing upright again and looking down towards Gervase. “And because of that, you are to apologize to the queen before reporting to the stable hands after dinner. I expect you already know what will be asked of you there and that you are to do so until the end of Febrarius.”
The teen grimaced, presumably at the reporting to the stable hand thing and not apologizing to me, but nodded nonetheless. He then stood up before offering me a deep bow. “You have my deepest, most sincere apologies for my actions, Your Grace. I acted on instinct, when I should not have listened to them.”
He was certainly formal. I dismissively waved my hand at him. “Apology accepted Gervase. Like I said, I don’t blame you when I was the one who recklessly charged you. Mind helping me stand though?” I softly said while reaching towards him with my hand. I didn’t necessarily need the help, but it was something that’d be nice with the way my head was still aching right now.
For a moment, the teen blushed for some reason and looked very, very conflicted before he eventually came to a decision. He reached out and grasped my hand, pulling me back to my feet while I kept one hand on my head where the pain was the worst to put some pressure on it.
For some reason, the Castellan laughed at that, responding a second after I shot him a questioning glance. “My apologies, I just didn’t expect you to ask for that. I’m sure your etiquette teachers will be ecstatic with you when they hear about this though.”
Had I breached some sort of etiquette thing by asking for Gervase’s help to stand? Gah, I’d wonder about that later when my head wasn’t hurting and I actually cared about keeping to stupid etiquette rules regulating stuff like that when ‘nobody else’ was around to care. That ‘nobody else’ being other nobles and royalty. “Well, hopefully they don’t hear about this in that case. Thank you Gervase.” I said to him before turning back towards the Castellan. “So, what now?”
The older man rolled his shoulders. “Now, I presume you go back and get ready for dinner while I finish up here while dreading the coming conversation I’m certain to have about how I let you both get dirty and injured today.”
I stared at him for a moment, inwardly slightly disappointed despite what had happened. I guess that was that for the training today, which was fair enough. But that had been surprisingly exhilarating, in a good way. It had been nice to be physically active instead of the ‘normal’ lessons I’d had here and very interesting to learn the small bits I had about medieval fighting.
I wasn’t a historian, but it was genuinely cool to learn about this stuff.
Before I left though, there was one question I still had that I was really curious about and so I asked it. “Well, before I leave, why exactly did you have me and Gervase spar with each other? He was far more experienced than me, even with the handicap you imposed on him and I couldn’t figure out the purpose of it.”
The Castellan snorted. “Experience is relative. Better at fighting? Without a question compared to you, but he’s been working on his control and precision so that’s what this was supposed to be for him. As for you? This was more just to show the gulf between a properly trained guard or soldier and someone who’s not fought before so you could appreciate it. I believe it’s certainly worked in telling me that Gervase needs to intensify his efforts there and in showing that gulf to you. You did better than I thought however, Yolanda. You clearly listened to what I was telling you earlier on using the spear and adapted swiftly and decisively to his strategy against disarming you, barring that last thing you tried. It’s almost a shame I won’t be seeing you here again. You have legitimate potential.”
I felt myself preening at being told I had potential before his other words hit me and I tilted my head at him, the obvious occurring to me a second later. Of course he had no expectation to see me here again.
Why would he when I was an eight year old girl?
Well obviously I couldn’t let that stand if I wanted to do this more, so how to convince him?
“Why not?” I began, if only so that too much time didn’t pass while I thought before it became too awkward to bring up here.
The older man blinked before slowly raising an eyebrow at me. “Yolanda, I understand you are a clever girl which is why I was fine having you do this once, since I did believe it would legitimately benefit you to both satisfy your curiosity and to better understand the training of the guards and thus, soldiers in the future. But there is no need for you to train with us again and learn how to fight, not when there won’t ever be need for you to fight so long as you are the Queen of Jerusalem and those like us are here to protect you.”
From Eschiva who’d move by my side at some point without me noticing, to Gervase standing beside the Castellan, to even some of the other guards again. All of them were giving me looks of confusion at what I’d asked and the implied meaning behind asking it in the first place.
I idly wondered how many times I’d have to deal with this variation of reasoning while I tried to figure out how I could possibly sway him.
This song and dance was already getting old, and this was only day two.