Chapter 6 #2
Oste dipped into an alley leading closer to Saint-Sauveur Cathedral and the university just to the west of it.
The narrow path bore an explosion of greenery, with every pot set out on every balcony bursting with lavender and wildflowers.
It smelled as good as any summer day ought to, and he wondered why more people didn’t take this route, even though the cobblestones were as rickety and crooked as they were in the slums. He picked his way carefully over them; he’d memorized the stones during youthful gallivanting a long time ago, and knew where to step, even in his drunken state.
The falling sun bled the sky ahead, and it almost made Oste miss the figure in front of him. His gait slowed. His green eyes lifted. There was no mistaking it; the path ahead was blocked by a figure who blotted out the sky, basking in a halo of the flowers behind him.
The Duelist of Aix-en-Provence. Recognition made Oste’s eyes stretch wider.
It was no wonder he noticed his rival so late; the duelist was dressed in red, with a striped tabard decorated in various hues of the waning sky.
The figure blended in almost entirely, save for his mask.
It shimmered white like porcelain in the volto style, with nothing visible behind it save for a pair of light-brown eyes that looked at him inquisitively.
Any traces of hair were hidden inside a hood and floppy velvet hat.
For as distinguished as the outfit was, Oste found the token accessory to it the most interesting part of all, for the sword that the duelist wore at his waist was a plain, entirely ordinary swept-hilt rapier, as short as it was forgettable.
It didn’t have a hint of embellishment along its dull surface.
“You,” Oste breathed.
The duelist drew closer. He was always so careful with how he stepped, and did so with nary a sound. Oste had wondered before if the infamous legend was a local, same as he, with how easily he slipped in and out of the shadows.
His rival merely inclined his head and gestured to the sword at Oste’s hip.
Heat bloomed on his cheeks, and he broke their connection by letting his gaze fall down to regard the broken road. “Not today. Not for a while, I’m sure.”
The duelist tilted his head yet again.
Oste shrugged. “I’ve had too much wine.”
The duelist took a step forward, and this time, Oste was certain he wanted his footfalls to be heard.
Though the strange swordmaster was shorter and lighter than Oste, he let his boots fall onto the stones with combative thumps.
The noise made Oste flinch and look up again, where he found those light eyes narrowed back at him.
“Oh, yes,” he drawled. His voice was gravelly, as though heavy with sleep. “I turned down this alley to throw up in it.”
Based on the duelist’s frozen glare, he was certain his rival wasn’t amused.
Oste held out his hands. “I’m sorry for my habits, Maistre, but I still don’t think I’d be fencing you sober. My answer is the same.”
The duelist’s full mask caught the falling sun and glinted when he angled sideways, then gestured forward and pointed.
“I…” Oste started, and was alarmed by how quickly his voice caught. It garnered a cough out of him, and from its wake, he cleared his throat and finished, “…can’t. I’m not ready. I—I have to practice more, still. Put myself to work. And I am, I’m working steadily on it.”
The lie tasted bitter on his tongue. He nearly blanched, and the duelist appeared to have sampled it too, since he stepped so close either one could reach out and touch the other. Oste’s heart started to pound.
The duelist shook his head, and he felt at once the greater fool.
“My body isn’t yet to your standards,” he whispered, “and I am very loath to displease you.”
The two of them had only ever exchanged blows and bows.
Oste hadn’t touched the duelist, or been touched, so when the anonymous figure reached out and ran a hesitant, gloved hand down his right arm, the physician’s breath caught in his throat.
His already attentive eyes didn’t even dare to blink; they were as stuck as his mouth was—mildly agape, a product of his mesmerized state.
The duelist’s fingers started at his shoulder, then slid down the expanse of his arm. It was like he knew exactly where it hurt and where to prod, and Oste trembled like there weren’t layers of fabric and leather covering his scars and everything broken and wretched beneath.
He shivered, and then his breath jumped again and gurgled when the duelist moved that same hand towards his chest and ran his fingers across it until they landed on the crude angles where his ribs had been broken.
His body was a battered vessel in a broken temple, every pilgrim long since having moved on. Such was how he saw his soul.
Oste sobered quickly, but he still felt the molten heat from the alcohol and the summer warmth. He remained alert but planted to the spot, and raised no hand to stop the duelist from digging his thumb into the memory of the wound until it was uncomfortable enough for him to wince and twitch away.
His rival didn’t push it, instead letting go and taking his dominant arm in both hands and stretching it forward and out.
This made his cane fall out of his hand, and he drew his brows up, utterly hypnotized and completely malleable.
He allowed the duelist to nudge his stiff shoulder until it rolled back, position his elbow in place, then pluck and prod his fingers one by one until they were in the precise position he’d hold his rapier with.
He was hardly concerned with the correctness of his form.
His green eyes had landed on the duelist instead, not the placement of his fingers in some aggrieved proof that he could still hold a sword.
Oste spent too long looking at the duelist’s neck, hidden behind linen, and those light, lovely eyes that seemed to twist into a new expression every moment.
He was twitching with awareness of the masked extraordinaire’s attentive gestures and commands over his own skin, and he found his breaths growing more ragged with every second.
He hardly knew what had gotten into him. The heat, perhaps? His remorse?
Oste’s left hand began to creep towards the duelist’s nearest wrist. He slid his thumb over the surface of it, the skin just between glove and sleeve.
The duelist jerked, then let go of his arm to catch the other and immediately render his hand useless with a well-intentioned lock.
Oste tilted his head back and laughed in response.
“Do you have any idea how many dreams of mine you’re in?” he asked, tired and raspy. “In some of them, I manage to best you. But you usually beat me by kicking me off a tower, and then I wake up.”
Despite the doctor’s weight advantage, when the duelist abruptly gave his body a push and guided it with precision against the wall, Oste allowed it to happen.
He let the duelist pin his adventurous, wandering hand up against the wall, and offered an easy, aloof smile even as it happened. If he didn’t smile, he’d weep.
Oste’s voice came out in a husky whisper. “I’m sorry. You ought to stop coming for me.”
The duelist shook his head and kept him locked.
“I’m serious. I don’t know when I’ll use my blade again. I might not ever. There are better sorts you can get your fix with. Melchion and Balthasar in the confraternity have gotten pretty good.”
The duelist’s gestures became more animated and adamant, with head shaking that was far more aggressive and pointed.
The same fingers that held Oste’s wrist dug into his skin.
His own brows raised again at how charged it felt, and how desperate.
His body shuddered before he could control it, and he lowered his head in defeat.
“Indeed,” Oste whispered, “and if I was a crueler man, I’d blame you.
You, creator and confidant of all my envy for your talents and your freedom.
Do you know Icarus? You’ve given me a taste for the sun, moon, and stars, Duelliste.
I might’ve been better off without the fun we’ve had and the courage you put into my craven heart.
I’m afraid I’m a coward again. I am disappointing.
I am also uninterested in disappointing you. ”
A small, choked gasp caught in the duelist’s throat.
There was a time when Oste had pondered if the anonymous fighter even had a tongue, but there were sounds enough that this theory was buried.
He hadn’t anticipated how sharp those fleeting intonations were, high and unsure.
Something in its primal innocence quieted him then.
It was Oste’s turn to let go of a noisy shudder when, to his surprise, the duelist pressed his head into Oste’s chest. He watched, mystified, as the duelist then loosened his grip on Oste’s wrist and slid his hand up to hook their pinky fingers together and squeeze.
Oste was frozen on the spot for a long moment, but eventually squeezed it back.
He worked the rest of his fingers into the duelist’s grasp, where he was stymied by how small it felt in his, lithe and delicate.
He’d watched those fingers wrap around a blade so many times over, on the days he lost track of how much laughter he spilled when the precision in each digit had beaten him.
He hadn’t anticipated the touch of such a dangerous assailant to be so tender.
It occurred to him then that he could very well be doing so many tactics wrong by fighting with fire and force; this fencer fought softly.
When he let his head fall towards the duelist’s shoulder, the figure momentarily stiffened, then drew him into an embrace.
Even in the heat, it felt comfortable. Right.
Their bodies fit so perfectly together, and he was loath to let go and give it up.
He felt as greedy then as he did when he slid his thumb along the duelist’s arm.
Some Icarus he was indeed.