Devices and Desires
Chapter One
"The quickest way to a man's heart," said the instructor, "is
proverbially through his stomach. But if you want to get into his
brain, I recommend the eye-socket."
Like a whip cracking, he uncurled his languid slouch into the taut,
straight lines of the lunge. His forearm launched from the elbow
like an arrow as his front leg plunged forward, and the point of the
long, slim sword darted, neat as a component in a machine, through
the exact center of the finger-ring that dangled from a cord tied to
the beam.
It was typical of Valens' father that he insisted on his son
learning the new fencing; the stock, the tuck, the small-sword and
the rapier. It was elegant, refined, difficult, endlessly
time-consuming and, of course, useless. A brigandine or even a thick
winter coat would turn one of those exquisite points; if you wanted
to have any chance of doing useful work, you had to aim for the
holes in the face, targets no bigger than an eight-mark coin.
Against a farm worker with a hedging tool, you stood no chance
whatsoever. But, for ten years, Valens had flounced and stretched up
and down a chalk line in ... read full excerpt from Devices and Desires ebook
