A Lesson for the Cyclops (3 page)

The Cyclops fled the tent. As she ran across the grounds, she fervently hoped D’Arbignal would not repeat that bit about being the “greatest swordsman in the world” within earshot of Alfredo.

The sun was setting as the Cyclops approached the tent she shared with Pahula. Her thoughts were in turmoil, and her heart pounded. An odd mixture of exhilaration and melancholia filled her. It was as though she could half-see the future, and it would be exciting yet tragic, much as her life had been.

She entered the tent, only to discover Alfredo ransacking her belongings. The tent was a shambles, with her possessions strewn all over the ground. Alfredo had taken a knife to her pillow and was shedding straw everywhere as he dug into it. Under his breath, he was cursing.

“Damn her, damn her, damn her,” he mumbled.

She gasped and Alfredo spun, his knife at the ready. As soon as he recognized her, he sprung at her and placed the side of his knife along her face.

“Where is it?” he said, his breath foul. It was the closest any man had stood to her in years. “Where did you hide it?”

She knew to what he was referring, of course, but she stammered, “Hide w-what?”

He pressed the blade against her face and she inhaled sharply.

“Don’t play coy with me,” he hissed. “You’re not smart enough, and as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, you aren’t pretty enough. Now where did you put that rapier?”

Trembling, she raised her arm and pointed to a spot beside her cot. The rapier was not there.

“Don’t lie to me, freak! Where is it?” He pressed the knife harder, and she felt a rivulet of blood run down her cheek.

“It was th-there!” she said, terrified yet oddly aloof from her fear. “I sw-swear it!”

Alfredo glanced at the spot one more time, and then withdrew the knife. She had started to relax when he backhanded her across the face. She collapsed to the ground.

“Fool!” he said and stormed from her tent.

After a minute had passed and Alfredo had not returned, the Cyclops opened the trunk at the base of her cot. Its contents had obviously been routed through, so it took her a little while to find what she sought.

She withdrew the small mirror she had buried at the bottom of the trunk, and looked at her reflection for the first time in recent memory.

She was hideous, as always. The small nick Alfredo had taken out of her cheek did nothing to worsen her already appalling ugliness. Her stringy white hair was useless to conceal the ghastly pallor of her skin, the obvious absence of a nose and second eye, but she tried her best. She arranged her hair this way and that, but it was to no avail. She was the most hideous thing on two legs, and no amount of primping could change that.

She returned the mirror to her trunk and headed for the opening in the tent. She stopped before exiting it, however.

She fished her hand up under her skirt and retrieved the burlap sack from around her waist: D’Arbignal’s bag. She reached into that bag and withdrew D’Arbignal’s rapier.

Alfredo had been half-right: she certainly wasn’t pretty enough to play coy with him. She was, however, smart enough. She had known that the one place no sane man would ever search had been beneath her clothes.

“… so all I could do was roll.” D’Arbignal’s voice filled the campsite as the Cyclops approached Marco’s tent. It sent a pleasant chill through her, and she shivered with excitement. “So I rolled to the left and I rolled to the right, keeping them off-guard and unable to land a single true blow. I snatched my rapier from the brigand holding it captive, and rolled my way to victory!”

The Cyclops heard Conchinara’s laughter, like the tinkling of musical bells, and her heart sunk. Conchinara was
still
with him?

The Cyclops despaired at the unfairness of the situation. Conchinara already
had
a man, and now she had two, while the Cyclops went to sleep at night with nothing but her now-shredded pillow to give her comfort. She knew it was too much to ever again hope that a man as worldly and handsome as D’Arbignal could ever desire someone as hideous as herself, but was it too much to hope for a male friend, one who could somehow tolerate being in her presence without first extinguishing all the lights?

Oh, wait. Of
course
it was too much to hope for, or hope to deserve.

“Now I know that story can’t be true, Mister D’Arbignal,” Conchinara mock-chided him. “I think you think me naïve.”

“Not at all,” D’Arbignal was saying as the Cyclops entered the tent. “I swear the entire story is true! Indeed, you must have an ill impression of
my
character, if you think—ah, my rapier! And my bag!”

He looked like he was recovering nicely, though he was still pale, and his forehead was dotted with perspiration. His shirt was still off, and the Cyclops caught herself marveling at his muscled and nearly hairless chest. And oh, he was lean! Just beautiful, functional muscle everywhere and not a bit of fat anywhere to be seen.

She entertained a brief fantasy. She would like to fall asleep with her head resting on that chest. Oh, to feel his heart beating beneath her head, to be lulled to pleasant dreams by the rhythmic rising and falling accompanying his breath.

D’Arbignal coughed.

“Ah, my rapier!” he repeated, only louder. “And my bag!”

Conchinara laughed, and the Cyclops blushed, realizing she had been caught daydreaming.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “What?”

“Ah, my rapier?” D’Arbignal said. “And my bag?”

“What? Oh!” The Cyclops realized she was holding D’Arbignal’s gear. Idiotically, she extended them towards him as an offer.

“I guess it’s time to get up,” D’Arbignal said, moving to sit up in his cot.

Conchinara placed a gentle hand against his bare chest, and left it there. “No, Mister D’Arbignal. No, no, no. You need to keep resting.”

She pointed at the rapier and the bag.

“Cyclops—” she started to say.

“Maria,” D’Arbignal said.

“Pardon?”

“I believe the lady said her name was Maria.”

“What? You mean—Oh, of course.” Conchinara recovered quickly. “
Maria
, please leave Mister D’Arbignal’s possessions on that table.”

Conchinara gazed at D’Arbignal with lustful eyes. “And then, please leave us. We have much to … discuss, he and I.”

“We do?” D’Arbignal said, grinning.

Conchinara placed her hand on his chest again, and then traced her fingertips softly over its surface.

“Oh,” D’Arbignal said, reconsidering. His eyes were on Conchinara’s, shining. “Yes, I’m sure we can find something to fill the idle hours this evening.”

The Cyclops felt transfixed by heartbreak and humiliation that left her rooted to the spot upon which she stood.

“Excuse me, uh”—Conchinara fished for the Cyclops’s name—“
Maria
. Would you be kind enough to give us our privacy?”

Overwhelmed with shame, she moved to depart.

“Thank you, Maria,” D’Arbignal said. Strangely, there was kindness in his voice. And my, how it thrilled her to hear him speak her old name!

“It was nothing,” she said, thinking of her destroyed sleeping quarters and the hours of cleaning and repairs she’d have to put in before she could sleep. “Nothing at all.”

As she left the tent, D’Arbignal was saying softly, “Now, what shall we speak about, I wonder?”

“I’m sure we could think of something,” purred Conchinara.

A single tear trailed down the Cyclops’s face, and she brushed it off as the tent flap closed behind her. She turned to head back to her tent, and was startled to find Alfredo standing before her, glaring.

“I take it the man’s rapier found its way safely back home?” he said.

“Y-y-yes,” the Cyclops said. And then, not to spare Conchinara but to spare D’Arbignal, she added in a loud voice, “Your
wife
had me leave it on the table for him until he’s feeling better.”

Alfredo shook his head in disgust. He shoved the Cyclops out of his way.

As she started towards her own tent, she heard D’Arbignal’s voice from within the tent: “Wait …
wife?”

The Cyclops was cleaning up the shambles in her tent when she heard the sound of ringing steel outside. She ran out onto the grounds prepared to beg for D’Arbignal’s life. Alfredo loathed her, and likely, she could turn his fury from the wounded D’Arbignal onto herself. He’d be cruel to her, of course, but she’d weathered worse on many occasions.

“Well played, D’Arbignal,” Alfredo called out, laughing in delight.

Astonished, the Cyclops staggered into the clearing near the stables to find D’Arbignal and Alfredo grinning like children. Their rapiers whizzed through the air as they lunged, parried, and riposted with dizzying speed and complexity.

“High praise, indeed,” D’Arbignal said, his own orange rapier a blur. “That compliment, coming as it does from a true master of the blade as yourself, means the very world to me!.”

The Cyclops simply had not been prepared for this sight. She stared at them stupidly.

“I mean it. You’re brilliant,” Alfredo said. “Who taught you?”

“You’re looking at him,” D’Arbignal said with a modest bow.

“No, that can’t be. Self-taught?” Alfredo said. “No, I don’t believe it. You’ve obviously trained under a master.”

D’Arbignal laughed, his brilliant teeth shining in the firelight.

“Let’s say that I’ve trained under
many
masters … one duel at a time!”

Alfredo grinned. “I take your meaning, sir. As sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, I do take your meaning.”

“You’re a pair of fools,” Conchinara said, eyeing them with indignation. She stood outside the entrance to Marco’s tent, her slender olive arms crossed in front of her chest.

Excluded from experiencing life as a real woman for longer than she could remember, the Cyclops was a keen observer of their rituals and gestures. She watched them from the outside, like a starving woman watching diners eat an expensive meal.

So she recognized the look in Conchinara’s eyes. She had been scorned, and not even for another woman—but for her own husband! It had taken only the offer of swordplay to break her hold over D’Arbignal, and she hated them both for it.

Alfredo was the Master Fencer, perhaps one of the deadliest men in the world. Yet the Cyclops worried that Conchinara was a greater danger to D’Arbignal.

Then D’Arbignal made an error. He pivoted forward on his right foot, squaring his torso to Alfredo. Alfredo capitalized on this and pressed the end of his blade against D’Arbignal’s chest, right above his heart.

D’Arbignal swore and withdrew a step. He saluted and sheathed his rapier.

“I concede the hit, sir,” he said, his expression pained. “The better man has won. We must fence again, and soon!”

“Agreed, sir,” Alfredo said, saluting. His shirt was drenched, and he had to keep wiping his brow with his sleeve to keep the sweat from running into his eyes. “It’s rare that I get an opportunity to spar with such a skilled opponent. I do hope you will consider joining our circus.”

The Cyclops’s heart leapt at the words. She silently prayed that he would accept. Oh, to have him around all the time!

She noted the lustful avarice in Conchinara’s eyes, and that feeling of mixed excitement and melancholia returned. The Cyclops feared that were D’Arbignal to join the circus, it could only end in tragedy.

“I’d consider it an honor, Alfredo,” D’Arbignal said with a bow. “If invited, I’d be delighted to join you.”

“Consider yerself invited then.” Marco walked into the clearing. He rubbed his hands together greedily, visions of golden coins no doubt dancing behind his eyes. “People’d come from miles t’ see the two of ye fence. Would ye be innerested in staying on as a Fencing Apprentice?”

D’Arbignal grinned, and his eyes gleamed with a mysterious mirth. “I have to admit that I’ve always been intrigued by acrobatics…”

Gilliam, the Head Acrobat, had been watching the show with a bored expression. D’Arbignal’s comment, however, caught her attention. Her eyes narrowed.

“Instead of fencing?” Alfredo asked, incredulous. “You are joking, certainly.”

“Perhaps
in addition to
fencing?” Marco suggested.

D’Arbignal bowed again. “I like the way you think, Marco. Yes, I’d be delighted to accompany your fine troupe, to fence and perform acrobatics.”

“So you’re an acrobat, then?” Conchinara said.

“Not yet,” D’Arbignal said. “But how hard can it be?”

“Confound it!” D’Arbignal complained, bouncing on the safety net beneath the high wire. “This is trickier than it looks!”

Gilliam rolled her eyes and sneered.

“Poor dear,” she taunted, “perhaps you should console yourself with your metal toys and leave the acrobatics to the professionals.”

The Cyclops grimaced. She had been sitting by the perimeter of the tent, eating her lunch and covertly watching D’Arbignal train.

Gilliam was circling the safety net, gesticulating arrogantly with her hands. She was a tall, lithe brunette with an aristocratic nose and an arrogant chin.

“I honestly don’t know what to do with you, Mister D’Arbig­nal—”

“I told you, it’s just D’Arbignal,” he said.

“—but Marco says I should try to teach you, and I’m doing as well as can be expected with such … rough materials as these.”

D’Arbignal jumped to the ground from the netting, his face red from exertion and, perhaps, embarrassment. His hand reached for his rapier, but he had removed it before the training started.

“Ah, there he goes again,” Gilliam said. “Like a baby whining for his mother’s teat you are with that sword.”

His jaws clenched in anger. He raised a fist and seemed about to say something, and then changed his mind.

“By the gods,” he said, suddenly smiling, “you’re absolutely stunning when you’re cruel!”

Her head recoiled as if she had been struck.

“More childish babbling,” she snapped. “Now you get back to work.”

D’Arbignal mimed blowing her a kiss. “Only if you promise to insult me some more.”