“Ha!” Snorri pointed to a sword hanging up back in the gloom under the awnings. “Smith!”

The smith emerged at Snorri’s booming, a short man, ugly with sweat, thick in the arms of course but with a surprising bookish look to him. “Evenin’.”

“I’ll test that blade.” Snorri pointed to the hanging sword.

“Repairing that for Garson Host,” the smith said. “Taking out the notches, putting a fresh edge on it. T’aint for sale.”

“Don’t humour him.” I nodded my approval at the man.

The smith bit his lip. I’d forgotten that Rhonish men always look for a chance to put a Red March man on his arse, and that common men like nothing better than seeing their betters knocked about. I would have been wiser to hold my tongue. Snorri might be a foreigner but at least he hadn’t committed the cardinal sin of being a foreigner from the country next door.

“Don’t s’pose Garson’ll mind if it’s three notches I knock out of the blade or five notches.” The smith went back and reached up to retrieve the sword.

Resigned to my fate, I dismounted and took the hilt that Snorri poked at me again. It happens that I’m not that bad a swordsman when my life’s not in danger. In the practice yard with dull blades and sufficient padding I could always hold my own well enough. More than well. But all those lessons went running down one leg on the only day I was ever called on to swing a sword in earnest. As we crashed in amongst those Scorron soldiers up in the Aral Pass, raw terror washed away all my training in an instant. Those were great big angry men with sharp swords actually wanting to cut pieces off me. It’s not until you’ve seen a red gaping wound and all the complex little bits inside a man all broken up and sliced open, and known that they weren’t ever getting back together again, and vomited your last two meals over the rocks . . . it’s not until then that you understand the business of swords properly and, if you’re a sensible man you vow to have nothing to do with it ever again. I remember nothing from the battle in the Aral Pass but frozen moments shuffled together—steel flashing, crimson arcs, horrified faces, one man choking on blood as he backed away from me . . . and the screaming, of course. I still hear that today. Everything else about the battle is a blank.

Snorri took his new sword in his uninjured hand and jabbed at me. I swatted it away. He grinned and came at me again. We traded thrusts and parries for a few moments, the clash of steel bringing much of the street to a halt, heads turning our way. Usually strength, while important, is not the prime factor in swordwork, even with heavier blades of the type we employed. The rapier is all about quickness, but even the longsword is more about quickness, once you have the strength to swing it, than it is about excess strength. Properly trained, a swordsman will benefit more from a small increase in skill and speed than from a large increase in strength. The sword is, after all, a lever. With Snorri, however, strength was a factor. He used basic enough moves, but blocking them made my hand hurt, and the first blow he put any real effort into nearly took the blade from my grasp. Even so, it was clear quite early on that I had more sword skills in my right hand than the Norseman had in his left.