When Angwar Bec grew too old to fight blood duels, she was still in great demand. She took every gig that came along, from ritual guard at nobles’ weddings to demonstration bouts at their coming-of-age parties; the money was good, and it kept her in steel and sweets, her two great passions.
Angwar Bec had a collection of blades that anyone would envy. Her love of cakes and pastries was so well known that her noble patrons would vie for the chance to amaze her with something new at the wedding feast after the ceremony, to which she was nearly always invited. One enterprising city baker had even named a cake after her: the “Angwar Bec” was a startling concoction of anise-scented sponge cake and burnt-sugar icing, filled with chestnut cream.
She did prefer chestnut to chocolate, which made the resident Kinwiinik cacao traders say that, whatever Angwar Bec’s mysterious parentage, she certainly wasn’t one of theirs.
All her life, people had asked her, What are you?
She knew what they meant: Who are your parents? And your parents’ parents? Did her tawny skin come from Danbar stock? Was her iron-straight, shiny raven hair a gift of some Chartili merchant prince, or his freed bondwoman, or perhaps a refugee from the wars of distant Seren? Had her Riverside whore of a mother found a Kinwiinik trick who actually didn’t like chocolate?
She knew what they meant. But she would answer:
I am Angwar Bec.
It wasn’t her real name. When she was a kid hanging around the docks below Riverside, she saw Angwar painted on the side of a ship from who-knows-where. She had no idea what it meant, but so far no one had come sidling up to her to tell her it was Serenish or something for Big Ass or Sea Snot or something. It had, to her, the feel of Victory.
Bec, she had just made up because it sounded good.
The truth was, she had no idea where she was “from.”
“One of my many lovers” was the way her mother had airily expressed it. Her mother enjoyed the phrase, used it a lot. It drove her crazy.
Her real name was Sophie Snell. Her mother—she of the many lovers—had been a singer in a Riverside tavern, who also helped out with cleaning when the boss needed it. Sophie had grown up playing under the tables of the Maiden’s Fancy and observing the clientele.
Night after night they came in: the students in their black robes from across the river; the true Riversiders stopping in at their local; the Middle City’s aspiring apprentices; slumming nobles from the Hill, all seeking the thrill of rubbing elbows and maybe more with each other.
The ones with the swagger, though, the ones everyone else made way for, those were the swordsmen. No one rubbed up against them without invitation, though everyone stared.
She decided she would be one of those.
Angwar Bec had trained long and hard to get where she was. She wasn’t too proud of what she’d had to do to pay for her earliest lessons, down in Riverside, but that was behind her now.
Now she had a snug little berth above a celebrated baker’s in the Middle City. She’d wake in the dark to the smell of baking bread, inhale deeply, roll over, and sleep until the bells of the shop’s first customers sounded over the door. Then she would rise, stretch, and begin her drill. She knew she need never go hungry again.
What had set her on the road to this comfort was her notorious and unquestionably ill-advised duel with Katherine, Duchess Tremontaine.
It was her very first paid gig, and it began as a joke: Angwar Bec the unknown swordswhatever, lucky to be invited to run practice bouts with some of the more experienced blades in the courtyard of the famous tavern the Sword and Cup, where they showed off their moves to draw the attention of possible patrons. For her, of course, it was always just the drills, never a genuine duel to get her name up on the betting boards, like the men.
And then some drunken young nobles, country mud still stuck to their boots, new to town and looking to make their mark, saw her and decided it would be hilarious to have this fiery dark girl challenge the young duchess at her own midwinter party.
So it was there, in the great courtyard of Tremontaine House, at the highest and most gracious point of the Hill, with the midwinter torches flaming and flaring, the nobles of the city glittering with jewels amid their floating furs, the smells of hot wine and bonfires on the air, the crackling wood eating up everyone’s wishes and regrets as fast as the duchess’s guests could throw the scraps of paper into the fire, that Angwar Bec bade farewell to her old life once and for all.
The first thing she noticed after she’d passed through the high, iron gates of Tremontaine House, spiked with gilded, wrought-iron flowers, was the cakes: tables of pastries, beautifully arranged on platters everywhere you looked. The nobles were ignoring them in favor of flirtation, conversation, and alcohol. What was wrong with these people? She lusted after those confections the way she’d lusted after the sword she bore, a perfectly balanced rapier of folded steel. She had spent her money on that, and not on the other, and so she had a blade to be proud of, but not much to eat lately.
Her mark, Katherine, Duchess Tremontaine, stood in a ring of flambeaux, receiving her guests. Most were coddled against the night cold in furs the colors of forest creatures, but the Duchess Katherine wore layers of brocade in bright jewel colors, laced with ribbons, fringed with bullion—her costume looked as if it would stand up by itself if the duchess stepped out of it. Impossible to fight in such a get-up.
The duchess didn’t look old enough to be the holder of so much money and power. She was so young! Twenty-five, if she was even that, the age when a working swordsman would still be at the height of their powers. She was not homely by any means, with a fine-drawn face and pointy chin; an intelligent face, set in an expression of cautious benignity; but the Duchess Tremontaine did not rank among the great beauties present. Her light brown hair was bound up on her head in an elaborate confection of ribbons and gold cord laced with jewels. It spoke of rank, not of availability.
Angwar Bec squared her shoulders, settled her cloak on them, and stepped forward into the circle of light around the duchess. This was it: her first paid challenge. There was an immediate hush, as everyone waited to hear what she would say.
“My name is Angwar Bec,” she announced, and oh, that sounded good. “I bear challenge to the Lady Katherine Tr—er, Talbert.” She’d practiced and practiced, but she knew she was going to screw that up! “To the Lady Katherine Talbert, Duchess Tremontaine of this City.”
The young duchess looked at her, long and evenly. She was shorter than Angwar Bec, but that did not seem to trouble her. “Upon what charge?” Katherine asked.
Here it comes, thought Angwar Bec. It was going to sound so stupid, especially now that she’d seen the lady so splendidly clad out here in the open among the glittering bonfire sparks, the glittering noble guests. She steeled herself to speak clearly and loudly.
“That she is really a man in a dress.”
There were gasps, and hoots, and chuckles. At least no one would think she’d come up with that herself. It was clear provocation from one noble to another, with a hired sword to deliver it properly.
The Duchess Tremontaine laughed with genuine merriment, throwing back her head so the light from the jewels danced. “That’s a new one,” she said. Without moving, she addressed the crowd: “Is anyone going to own it?”
Nobody was. Either the boys who’d hired her weren’t there, or they were chicken. It didn’t matter to Angwar Bec. This was her fight. She had the contract, and the Court of Honor would uphold it.
The duchess nodded. The entire courtyard was still. A few people were muttering amongst themselves, but nobody moved.
Angwar Bec had a sudden, horrible thought: What if the duchess did not take her challenge? Tremontaine surely had house swordsmen, men of skill and experience, one of whom would be happy to step up, claim the fight, and dispatch the intruder. She wouldn’t stand a chance. She would depart this life with her name unknown, never having tasted those little filled pastries with the red and white squiggles on top.
But the young Duchess Tremontaine spoke the formal words herself: “The accusation is false as air, false as the tongues that spoke it. I accept the challenge.”
Someone screamed. Her guests had come for a pleasant evening of music, nibbles, and conversation, not to see their hostess covered in gore. But there was also an undercurrent of excitement on the air. Angwar Bec felt it like lightning, like power: the men all ready for a fight, eager to see two women attack each other, already weighing up the odds and passing their bets; the women, some of them very knowledgeable followers of the city’s duelists, thrilled at the novelty of this.
“What are the terms?” the duchess asked.
“To first blood,” said Angwar Bec.
“Very well.” The duchess unpinned the capelet that covered her shoulders, letting it fall to the ground. She called for a maid to divest her of the rest of the brocade infrastructure, to unlace her skirt and her gilded bodice, and finally stood glowing in the firelight, strong and compact, in enough fine linen underthings still to keep her from the cold. Only her long brown hair remained up in its elaborate twists and bindings.
An attendant came running from the house with a sturdy leather vest and gloves, while another brought the Duchess Katherine’s own rapier.
Angwar Bec was impressed to see that the weapon was heavy and serviceable, not just a noble’s jewel. Until this moment, she hadn’t truly believed the stories of the lady who had fought real challenges against her peers on the Hill, and even studied, it was said, with the great St Vier. But when Katherine, Duchess Tremontaine, took sword in hand and assumed the stance, it was clear that it was all true.
Angwar Bec was pleased to see that the duchess did not bother beginning with the little fiddle-faddles that some people did, twirling and swirling the tip of their blade as though they were trying to draw flowers in the air, or follow the flight of a bumble bee. Such tricks were just for show; no serious opponent ever fell for them. In return she showed her respect for the duchess’s swordsmanship by not trying them out on her, either, even though Angwar Bec’s wrist and fine point control were some of her best skills. They’d do their work for her later.
But when, she wondered as they circled the courtyard, was later?
On the streets of Riverside, Angwar Bec had fought serious and sudden duels, the kind where speed mattered more than style, and the goal was to put your opponent out of commission before they could do the same to you.
That was not her purpose here. She had an audience here. Half the nobles of the city were now evaluating her technique, commenting on her style as they watched her circle the courtyard with just a couple of lengths of razor-sharp steel between herself and Katherine, Duchess Tremontaine. These were not practice blades. She knew how sharp her own was, and while the duchess’s had probably not been honed that very afternoon, neither was it likely to be dull.
So when she had her opponent’s measure, would Angwar Bec really lunge at the flesh under the white sleeve or the unprotected calf, penetrating the outer layer of cloth and skin to draw noble blood? The thought made her clench her jaw, so that her shoulder tightened and her arm lost its flex.
Oh, why in the Green God’s name had she been such a fool as to accept a gig like this for her very first paid and public fight? There was no way that it was going to end without her looking like either an incompetent blade or a Johnny-Go-Mad. If she lost, it was the end of her not-quite-started career as a sword for hire. If she won....
If she won, she knew where it would place her. She’d be typecast as a duelist assassin from the beginning, her only gigs coming from nobles seeking to draw other nobles’ blood. No well-paid, elegant show duels against other fine blades for her, just revenge jobs to the death until a better sword put an end to her.
Angwar Bec was not going to put a scratch on the noble Katherine, Duchess Tremontaine, not if she could help it.
The noble Katherine came in right past her guard in a beautifully fluid motion, which Angwar Bec’s stiff arm was slow to parry. She had to fall back, giving ground like a tyro. And the duchess let her. Katherine could have followed up immediately, could have won the bout then and there, but she did not, and it was clear that she did not. Clear to Angwar Bec, anyway, alert to the nuance of the tiniest fraction of speed, of breath, things invisible to the onlookers, who believed they saw two experienced fighters dueling at the top of their bent, fighting to win.
As Katherine let her regain her stance, it came to Angwar Bec in a flash that it did not matter to the duchess whether she won or lost. There was, after all, nothing really at stake for her. Her losing the fight would give the noble boys, Angwar Bec’s silly patrons, some notoriety if they chose to boast about it, which they surely would. But it would not affect the Duchess Tremontaine. Everyone knew she was not really a man. Even above the padded fighting vest that hid her figure, her face was smooth, her taut, elegant jawline gently rounded, as a man’s would never be. As her breath came more and more quickly, her lips parted to release the occasional grunt of effort in a woman’s unmistakable treble.
What was her game? Angwar Bec wondered. Was she just trying to show her guests a good time, not to end the entertaining bout too quickly? The duchess pressed her advantage, pushing Angwar Bec back across the yard. Was Katherine, in fact, simply the better fighter?
Fuck that, Angwar Bec thought. The Duchess Katherine knew the basics. She was skilled at the slow game, the careful and deliberate work of the practice studio. She had technique. What she didn’t have was fire. She had probably never fought to the death, never in her life.
Angwar Bec had fire. She had the will to win, and a skill born of more than mere technique. It was time to show the Duchess Tremontaine what she was up against.
The flurry of Angwar Bec’s attack was a glory to behold. The guests cheered as Katherine met her thrusts with parries, ripostes that Angwar Bec returned in kind, in a blur of movement. She decided to show off with a twist around her back, a flashy move that still kept herself guarded. And she heard the duchess laugh with delight.
They made their way around the bonfire, to the calls and screams of Tremontaine’s guests. The duchess’s breath was coming shorter now, her steps a little slower.
A trickle of sweat rolled down Katherine’s cheek. Angwar Bec gave her the tiny moment she needed to brush at it with one wrist while the other held off her opponent. The duchess grinned her thanks. Her parted lips were a very becoming rose.
The duelists went around a particularly weird and annoying cornice by the stairs into the house. Not knowing the terrain left the young blade at a disadvantage. She stumbled badly against the plinth along the foot of the wall, but never dropped her guard. And the Duchess Katherine patiently played her out, running through a very basic thrust for her to parry and riposte, while she got her feet back under her and was able once more to advance out of the shadows.
With no idea what had just happened, the guests were hooting their approbation of their hostess’s presumed triumph.
But Angwar Bec was beginning to have some idea of the Duchess Katherine’s game.
There, in the shadows, she spiraled her blade around the other woman’s, sliding them both up until their faces nearly touched.
“Hello,” Katherine said softly. “Have you noticed my weakness at defending from high right yet?”
And Angwar Bec understood that the Duchess Tremontaine was not planning to defeat an unknown young sword in her own courtyard, here in front of her noble friends. The lady was unwilling to throw the fight, but she was patiently waiting for Angwar Bec to defeat her.
“I’m about to,” Angwar Bec replied, which was really all she could do, given the brightness of the other woman’s eye, the exceptional flush of her cheek, and the sharp aroma of her breath.
“Let’s make your reputation now, shall we?”
And that, the young sword thought as she moved in for the definitive touch and disarm that later became her trademark, is what made a true noble. Knowing that you’d eat tomorrow, whether you won or lost your next bout. And that your opponent might not.
That night, in bed with the Duchess Tremontaine, Angwar Bec began her discovery of what it meant to be a success.
Katherine fed her cake after sweet cake. Bec ever after associated the taste of anise with the taste of Katherine’s skin, the chocolate crushed in her fragrant armpit, the raspberry dipped in her navel. The tang of her hard kisses had a flavor of their own.
But she found she liked the chestnut best.