10

"Again," Hissune said, swinging about to face Alsimir and the other knight-initiate. "Come at me again.

Both of you at once this time."

"Both?" said Alsimir.

"Both. And if I catch you going easy on me, I promise you I'll have you assigned to sweep the stables for a month."

"How can you withstand us both, Hissune?"

"I don't know that I can. That's what I need to learn. Come at me, and we'll see."

He was slick with sweat and his heart was hammering, but his body felt loose and well tuned. He came here, to the cavernous gymnasium in the Castle's east wing, for at least an hour every day, no matter how pressing his other responsibilities.

It was essential, Hissune believed, that he strengthen and develop his body, build up his physical endurance, increase his already considerable agility. Otherwise, so it plainly seemed, he would be under a heavy handicap pursuing his ambitions here. The princes of Castle Mount tended to be athletes and to make a cult of athleticism, constantly testing themselves: riding, jousting, racing, wrestling, hunting, all those ancient simpleminded pastimes that Hissune, in his Labyrinth days, had never had the opportunity or the inclination to pursue. Now Lord Valentine had thrust him among these burly, energetic men, and he knew he must meet them on their own ground if he meant to win a lasting place in their company.

Of course there was no way he could transform his slight, slender frame into something to equal the robust muscularity of a Stasilaine, an Elidath, a Divvis. They were big men, and he would never be that. But he could excel in his own way. This game of baton, for example: a year ago he had not even heard of it, and now, after many hours of practice, he was coming close to mastery. It called for quickness of eye and foot, not for overwhelming physical power, and so in a sense it served as a metaphor for his entire approach to the problem of life.

"Ready," he called.

He stood in a balanced partial crouch, alert, pliant, with his arms partly extended and his baton, a light, slender wand of nightflower wood with a cup-shaped hilt of basketwork at one end, resting across them.

His eyes flickered from one opponent to the other. They both were taller than he was, Alsimir by two or three inches, and his friend Stimion even more. But he was quicker. Neither of them had come close to putting a baton on him all morning. Two at once, though—that might be a different matter—

"Challenge!" Alsimir called. "Post! Entry!"

They came toward him, and as they moved in they raised their batons into attack position.

Hissune drew a deep breath and concentrated on constructing a spherical zone of defense about himself, impermeable, impenetrable, a volume of space enclosed in armor. It was purely imaginary, but that made no difference. Thani, his baton-master, had shown him that: maintain your defensive zone as though it is a wall of steel, and nothing would get through it. The secret lay in the intensity of your concentration.