Chapter 27

“Nay!” Feiyan screamed, jolting Jenefer out of her peaceful nap.

Jenefer sat bolt upright and fumbled in panic for the bow that wasn’t there.

But Feiyan’s face wasn’t marked by fear as she glared out the window. It was full of outrage.

Jenefer sighed in exasperation. Her cousin wasn’t being killed after all. She slumped back onto the bed.

She’d spent half the night awake in the nursery, coaxing Miles out of tears. Every time she’d put him in his wee bed, he’d cry to be held. In the end, she’d curled up on the nursery floor near the hearth and fallen asleep with him in her arms.

Now, back in Morgan’s bedchamber, satiated from a breakfast of oatcakes, ruayn cheese, and watered ale, she’d hoped to garner a few hours of serene slumber.

Feiyan, however, seemed determined to destroy that serenity.

“Fool!” she was yelling at someone in the courtyard.

Jenefer groaned. “Feiyan, must you?”

“Nay!” Feiyan cried again at some unseen enemy. “Oh, nay!” This time she sounded truly distressed, as if someone were drowning a kitten in the castle well.

Jenefer edged up onto her elbows. It was useless to try to sleep.

“Odin’s blood, Feiy, what is it?” she grumbled.

But Feiyan’s attention was riveted to whatever was happening in the courtyard. Her fists were clenched on the sill, and she chewed at her lip.

“Feiyan,” she repeated, “what’s wrong?”

Feiyan cringed. Her jaw dropped in outrage. She angrily ground her teeth.

With a resigned, impatient sigh, Jenefer got up and joined her cousin at the window.

“Look!” Feiyan snarled, stabbing a finger toward the activity on the ground below. “Just look!”

Jenefer rubbed her eye with the heel of her hand and followed Feiyan’s gaze. Then she drew her brows together. “That looks just like your sword.”

“’Tis my sword.”

Of course. It was inevitable someone would retrieve Feiyan’s curious abandoned weapons from outside the keep. Four burly men-at-arms were currently taking turns, swinging the strange, narrow blade around, examining its curved edge, hacking at a straw target.

“What are they doing with it?” Jenefer asked.

“Exactly!” Feiyan huffed. Then she cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled down, “Halfwits!”

That finally got the men’s attention.

“Bloody fools!” she added.

They stared in silence.

“Dunderheaded clods!”

At last, the one wielding her sword took offense. “Hey now, lassie! There’s no need to—”

“You’re doing it all wrong!” Feiyan shouted.

“What?” he yelled back.

“I said, you’re doing it. All. Wrong!”

“Am I now?”

Predictably, the knights elbowed each other, snickering at the idea of a wee lass daring to tell a pack of seasoned warriors how to fight.

“Well, lassie,” the man jeered suggestively, “why don’t ye come down and show me what ye know about handlin’ three feet o’ steel?”

The others laughed uproariously at his crude humor.

Feiyan ignored their crassness. “First of all, you don’t swing it like that. You have to use it like a blade, not a bloody sickle.”

The men stared, dumbfounded.

She continued. “And you don’t hack haphazardly at your target. You only waste motion that way. Watch.” She leaned out the window and, as if holding her sword, made a slow, smooth, slicing motion in the air. “’Tisn’t a claymore. ’tis a fine, sharp dao that cuts with ease. It requires finesse, not brutishness.”

To Jenefer’s surprise, though the men around him were chuckling, the knight holding the sword attempted to imitate Feiyan’s movements.

“Aye, like that,” Feiyan said. “You see? It takes very little force.”

The man repeated the movement.

“Keep your elbows close in,” Feiyan said.

He did.

“Now try it on the target.”

He brought the sword down in a graceful arc, easily slicing through the corner of the straw.

The others oohed and ahhed.

Another man held up one of her steel stars. “What about this?”

“That’s a shuriken. You throw it like a dagger,” she called down. “Pinch it between your thumb and first finger. Aim at the target, and give your wrist a quick flick.”

He flung the star forward, vertically.

Unfortunately, he missed the target.

Fortunately, he missed the other men-at-arms.

“Sideways,” Feiyan said, “a sideways flick, like you’re casting grain to hens.” She flicked her wrist sideways, parallel to the ground, to demonstrate.

The man nodded, retrieved the star, and tried again. This time, the star stuck in the lower corner of the target. The others cheered.

“That’s it,” Feiyan said with satisfaction.

Jenefer looked at Feiyan in wonder. She thought her cousin would be upset that her beloved weapons were in enemy hands. But the daft lass was more concerned that they were using them improperly.

Continuing to observe, Jenefer could see these Highlanders were skilled indeed. They might be wild, ferocious, unruly. God only knew how Morgan managed to mold them into a disciplined fighting force. But they were eager to train and fast to learn. Though at first they’d laughed at Feiyan, they listened to her now with as much respect as they would a commander.

But it seemed careless on Feiyan’s part. Jenefer wondered how her cousin would feel if one of these men used her weapons to kill a Rivenloch knight.

On the other hand, the knights of Rivenloch were formidable foes. And once the Highlander saw he was outnumbered, he’d probably choose to negotiate rather than wage battle.

Besides, Feiyan seemed to be enjoying herself. Though she’d no doubt rather train on the ground with her newfound apprentices, at least shouting directions down to them from the window relieved her boredom.

Unfortunately, it also awakened Miles next door, who began whimpering.

Jenefer suspected Bethac would come calling soon.

Feiyan beckoned the men closer to the window so she could teach them to use her spined fan.

Jenefer shook her head and crossed the room. When she cracked open the bedchamber door to peer into the hallway, the young guard posted there nodded toward the nursery. Apparently, Morgan had granted permission for her to tend to the babe.

Bethac answered the nursery door with the bleating child in one arm. “Thank ye for comin’, Miss. I fear wee Miles won’t have anyone but ye.”