The War Saint

Chapter 11 — A Way In

A bath every third day, and the baths worked. His training came loose all at once, as though something in his joints had been let out a notch.

A month of it, and Corin had the first three stances down.

Nine stances, the woman in the shadows had said. In order, two years to each, eighteen years to the whole of it. But that count was for a child's body still growing. Corin was eighteen and grown to his full height. He had the frame for all nine of them. He only had to be broken down first and built back up, and the medicines would do the breaking.

It hurt past describing. It also cut eighteen years down to a few months.

The nine stances answered one another, front to back, and until the ninth was set the strength they gave was small. Corin did not care. He put his head down and worked.

Lord Lucian had said he would have him moved into his courtyard. A month now, and not a word of it.

Let him have forgotten.

Corin let the breath go. If Lucian had forgotten, the stone that had been sitting on his chest could go down to the ground.

He did not want the post. Lighter work, better wages, a higher place among the servants — and one errand tacked onto all of it. Climbing into Lady Rowena's bed. His head ached at the thought of it.

——

That night he finished the stables and was about to start his practice when a servant boy came looking for him.

"You are Corin? Come with me."

The boy brought him out to a quiet corner of the yard. The thing a man fears most is the thing that comes walking, and Lord Lucian was standing there.

Corin's heart dropped a step. He let nothing show on his face, went forward, and bowed.

"This slave greets my lord."

Lucian waved the boy off, looked him up and down twice, and gave a small snort.

"I hear this past month you've been down to Sweetwater Lane every afternoon. Soft living, for a thrall."

"It was my lady's order, my lord. This slave did not dare stay away."

Corin made a wry face, and went on.

"Besides. Did my lord not send this slave to learn how to please a woman?"

"Mm. So long as you haven't forgotten."

Lucian nodded, and his face came back to something like good humor.

"And how far have you come?"

"This slave is dull, my lord. Cora sets it out very patiently, and still this slave has not learned it."

"Learned it?" Lucian's lip curled. "There's more in that trade than a month can hold. Never mind you — even I can't get under every skirt I fancy, and I'm the one born to it."

"My lord is high-born, handsome, and master of both the brush and the blade. This slave would not dare set himself beside my lord."

"Mm. That's a fair word."

Lucian nodded, pleased. He knew a flattery when he heard one, and it did not spoil the taste. Then his face changed and his voice went low.

"I told you before I'd move you into my courtyard, and put you where you could get at Rowena. But Rowena was born suspicious. If the move comes from me, she starts asking why."

"Then... this slave stays where he is?"

"Stays where he is? Of course you go."

Lucian's eyes came up hard.

"Only it can't come from me. You find the way in yourself. Better still, Rowena asks for you herself."

"My lord. How could that ever happen?"

"By the usual road, never. But there's a door standing open just now."

Lucian smiled, crooked a finger, and put his mouth near Corin's ear.

"A few days from now, the Marchioness of Greymarch is giving a feast. Rowena is invited. You'll drive her. Make it count — take a blade for her. Put a few footpads to flight. The kind of thing that gets a man noticed. When she offers you a reward, you ask for a post in her courtyard."

"My lord—"

"Do you hear me?"

"Yes, my lord. This slave hears."

Corin nodded fast and did not dare ask anything more. Lucian nodded back, satisfied, flicked out his sleeve, and strolled off with his hands behind his back — a man who happened to be passing.

Corin stood a moment, then went back to the stables.

He had understood his orders well enough. The difficulty was the rest of it. The manor kept its own coachmen. When Lady Rowena wanted the carriage, why would a stable t****l be the one holding the reins? And how convenient would that be — footpads on the road, at the right hour, with him standing there to be brave in front of her.

Never mind.

There was more in this than he could see. But Lord Lucian had given the order, and an order was an order. If the night came and the reins went to another man, that was not Corin's doing, and not a thing Lord Lucian could lay at his door.

Back in the stables he put it out of his head, took a long breath, and set his feet for the Elephant King Stance.

Past the first, the stances asked more than an empty mind. Each one had its own breathing, and the breathing had to be right. That half was harder for him, and it was the half that was holding him back; without it he would have gone faster. The fourth stance took a dozen tries before his body found it. Then he sank down into himself and held it as long as he could. Every time, the longer he held it, the more it gave him.

——

The next afternoon he went down to Sweetwater Lane, the way he always did.

Coralie had the water drawn and the herbs already in it, so he undressed and climbed in without a word.

It hurt exactly as much as the first time. It always hurt the same. And as before, she came in and got in behind him and put her arms around him, and held on, and stayed.

Her clothes were thin in the heat and soaked through in a moment. Her body came up warm against his back through the wet cloth, her breath at his ear, and his heart hammered at his ribs like a fist on a door. The pain went a long way off and stood there watching.

The bath did nothing to her. She had never trained the art, so the herbs had no quarrel with her blood — which was the only reason she could hold him through it at all.

He soaked an hour, until the medicine had gone into him, then climbed out and trained the stance.

Two hours short of sundown he stopped to rest, eating his way through meat and fortifying dishes with both hands while she talked him through the pleasing of women.

"That's about the whole of what I can teach you. From here it is yours to turn over, and yours to practice."

The light was going. The day's lesson was done, and she said it just like that, in passing.

Corin sat there a beat. Then it landed on him, and he felt himself sink.

Lord Lucian had set her to teach him how to please a woman. If the teaching was finished, what reason had he to come every day? And the two months Lady Rowena had granted him were down to their last one.

"Fool."

Coralie shook her head at the look on his face.

"A heart that plain, and you think you'll talk a woman into bed?"

"What?"

"Whether my teaching is finished is mine to say, not yours. If Lord Lucian asks, I'll tell him it isn't. And even if I were done with you — that wouldn't mean you'd learned a thing."

"True."

Corin caught it all at once, and his face lit.

"So I can still come?"

"Come when you like. Whatever hour it is, the door stays unbarred for you."

"Then I'll come every day."

He grinned, and let out a long breath.

Looking at that open, foolish face, something turned over in Coralie. Who ever said a plain heart could not get a woman into bed? What he did not know was that sincerity was the killing stroke. If she were not locked into that thing, she would have had this silly boy on her mattress a month ago.

The thought put her back in the dark. Only oxen and horses and pigs and dogs were kept locked up. What was she but one more head of stock?

"Cora. I'll get your bond-deed back. I swear it to you."

He had seen it come over her face, and he said it low and even.

The first thing she had taught him about pleasing a woman was reading her face. He was learning that one well enough.

"Cora. I'm going back."

The light was nearly gone. He took the road back to the manor the way he always did.

——

Four or five days went by that way, twice a day between the manor and Sweetwater Lane — hard on the legs, and sweet in the chest. For the sake of her bond-deed he drove himself harder than ever, and the Elephant King Stance came along, steady, a little at a time.

"Corin! Can you handle a carriage?"

That night, the lamps just lit in the inner court, the steward of the stables came across the yard and asked him.

Corin nodded, and could not think what the man wanted with it.

"Then it's you."

The steward grinned and gave the order flat.

"Lady Rowena wants the carriage, and every coachman in the house is out tonight. You'll take her."