The Heart Wants What it Wants, Page 4

women would have made short work of her. But in raw skill alone she was their equal at the very least, and the wild gyrations of the frozen lake made up for her other inadequacies. Four of her opponents tripped each other, and slid into the water-tank as the ice yawned open hungrily. Luca's sword made six into five in the confusion, then four, then three.

  One of this trio was Jacobello Carara, and he bowed his head to Luca, as one warrior to another, then stepped forwards that they might cross swords but as their blades locked, the ice bucked treacherously and Luca slipped and fell. She caught a handhold as she slid along the floe towards the water-tank, but Jacobello closed in as Luca lay helpless, and as the young man raised his sword all she could think was: beg pardon, Chiara.

  Then someone boxed Jacobello's ears with mailed fists and booted him past Luca into the water-tank, and looking up she realised her saviour was Anzolo de Bastian. As the doge's son gave her a wicked smile and proffered a hand to help her to her feet, Luca's heart leapt within her.

  From that moment on it seemed there was to be no stopping them. Of course theirs was not the only battle in that great arena, yet a steady stream of opponents peeled off from around the frozen lake to challenge Luca Contarini and Anzolo de Bastian, and the master smith's daughter and the doge's son vanquished them all in turn, and the crowd screamed with delight.

  In Yamage, far to the east, the page began, as Luca dragged a finger along the scholar's tortured scrawl, women are expected to adhere to certain customs, should they marry into the warrior caste. Among those clans able to cultivate the mystical energies we know as bale-fire, a newly wedded couple are entrusted with a sword upon which practitioners have set a most fortuitous enchantment.

  Legend has it no man will be able to best the groom in combat, the book went on, as long as the bride continues to treasure the weapon in her husband's stead. Such a blade is this, may it please your excellency; the Heart's Desire.

  (Whoever the noble was who had once owned the sword – whose wife had carried it? – his name was now illegible.)

  Back to back Luca and Anzolo faced four of the northern mercenaries, three Bryndegaine and a Rask, their ancient enmities set aside, and all four men laughed as they closed in, and so did Luca and Anzolo laugh as well for the mad, frantic thrill of it all. The Rask struck at her, and Luca matched his blows, low, high, low, then she swept his feet from under him and he rolled down the ice as the slope lurched and tipped him into the water.

  Two of the Bryndegaine, great hulking flaxen-haired giants, swung at her left and right, and silently Luca marvelled these blows might have killed her, had they landed, but Anzolo threw his weight into her from behind and lent her the strength to block both swords with her shield, and though Luca's shield shivered finally into pieces she leapt and smashed one man in the face as he staggered, then planted her boot between the other's legs.

  And then Luca turned to see Anzolo steal the fourth man's sword with an almost contemptuous flick of his wrist, and the last of the Bryndegaine knelt to yield, and it was over, none remained to challenge them, in all truth it was over, and Luca was battered and bloody and it seemed she'd broken a rib or two and yet the screams of the crowd as she stood there beside the doge's son were so deafeningly loud Luca cared not at all.

  But of course it was not quite over. The tournament would crown only one person the victor, not two.

  Thus did Luca Cantarini, daughter of Fantin, bend the knee to Anzolo de Bastian, that she might hand him his rightful victory.

  Only to have Anzolo step forward, to grasp her by the shoulder before she could do anything, and shake his head.

  But he has to win, Luca thought. For what other reason did I return? What of the sword? And then in abject disbelief she saw Anzolo reverse his blade and smiling, offer her the hilt.

  The entire stadium of several thousand people fell silent in an instant at the sight of it. What should I do? Luca thought helplessly. She realised with horror that the doge himself and Chiara Matelizi had left the royal box, and made their way far enough across the ice for the ruler of the city to watch his son prepare to bend the knee, and his bride-to-be besides.

  What should I do? Luca thought again. Was the sword an expression of her love for Anzolo de Bastian? If so, why could he not find the strength to vanquish her? Was the sword ultimately her proof of his love for her? Was she really to bid him yield? Did she dare? And as she took the hilt from Anzolo's hand, Luca allowed herself to daydream, just for a moment.

  To vault in one giant leap into the ranks of the nobility: to court, and not merely be courted by the son of the doge. To prove herself more than a witless ape devoid of all refinement...

  And then she saw Chiara Matelizi, and the simple, childlike fear behind the younger girl's smile, too bright, too wide, and the sight of it was enough to break Luca's heart. She saw the doge, and understood how the old man admired her, yet mistrusted her already, suspected her of ulterior motives so byzantine Luca could not begin to unravel them. She saw Anzolo smile at her, and at last she understood.

  So it was that Luca cast the Tell-Tale Heart aside with a flourish, and set the sword spinning away across the ice, and then she pulled off her mask, knelt before Anzolo de Bastian, and let him do what he would.

  For a long moment nothing happened, and nervously Luca glanced up to see Anzolo meet her gaze, and his eyes were full of something like regret, but also open admiration. Then came the applause, building as Anzolo de Bastian raised his arms skyward, and then he pulled Luca to her feet again, and Chiara Matelizi threw her arms gratefully around Luca and the doge smiled at her, a grim smile, a warrior's smile, but genuine, as if to say; well done.

  And the applause built to a thunderous crescendo, yet standing in the thick of it, even with her injuries Luca Contarini felt something like real peace for the first time in her short life.

  “I still cannot quite understand it,” Luca said in the darkened smithy. “The book was very clear. And in truth Anzolo de Bastian was winning. But then so was I. The sword should have been responding to one of us.”

  “Should it have?” Fantin murmured as he bound his daughter's ribs by candlelight. “Do you feel, then, that you truly love the doge's son, or that he pines for you even now?”

  “You mock me,” Luca said, and she winced as Fantin prodded her too vigorously.

  “How astute my daughter is,” Fantin said quietly to the empty room.

  “In all truth I thought I did,” Luca said to herself. “Was I so wrong?”

  “Wrong?” Fantin said as he stood back. “Perhaps not entirely. But why were you so certain?”

  “It seemed the best way to show up those harpies at Christofalo's ball,” Luca said. “To prove I could be more than an ape. That I could walk in the same circles they walked, and make them ashamed to be so petty. And when I read, in that book, what gift I'd given the doge's son...”

  “Luca,” Fantin said gently, “Luca, my dearest child, that volume you perused was but an imperfect translation. The original text talks not of enchantments laid on the sword, but of make-believe, illusion, comfort for the credulous. It talks of married couples fearful their bond would not last, given one or the other risked violent death day in, day out, and how this inspired the custom of a gift to strengthen their marriage against any possible calamity.”

  “But the magic,” Luca protested.

  “It is a purely symbolic gift,” her father said. “Its name, in truth, is the Tell-Tale Heart – a jest, blackly comic, wherein the smith who forged the weapon acknowledges a sword can just as easily separate two lovers as bind them closer together. A grieving widow can move on, given time, or a young bride, her husband gone to war, can seek comfort in another man's arms. There is no magic in that sword. There never was.”

  “Close your mouth, I pray you,” he added after a while.

  “What, then,” Luca said weakly, “did I just do?”

  “Won the acclaim of half the city, for one,” Fantin said. “By doing something unbelieva
bly foolish and impetuous, yes, but well enough I think people will be asking to learn the sword from you ere much longer. Did you but ask, I suspect the doge would grant you any one of quite a few favours besides. Some people will treat you meanly, will always liken you to an ape –”

  The master smith tousled his daughter's hair, and Luca grimaced.

  “But I wager,” Fantin finished, “that you have begun the kind of friendships, over the past few days, that should stand firm against such miserable slings and arrows.”

  “And I thought I did this all for love,” Luca said.

  “Perhaps you did,” her father said. “There is more to love, I think, than you imagined. The heart's deepest desire is rarely so easily divined...”

  He shrugged, and smiled.

  “And yet sometimes,” he said, “merely to ask of the heart what exactly it wants is to be guided towards an answer, whether you will or no.”

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  Cover art, legal stuff:

  To the best of my knowledge, all elements of the cover art for this publication were