The Wizard's Daughters: Twin Magic: Book 1 (6 page)

“Just inspecting the house. I want to be sure no one can get in here while you’re gone.”

“Oh. Well, that is what Father is building Fortitude for. Should anyone break in . . .”

Erich climbed down the side of the house and dropped to the ground, then brushed himself off.

“Well, better that no one can get in at all.”

“You are a man of many talents, it seems.”

“Aye. And forgive me, but you are . . . ?”

She smiled. “Ariel.”

“It is difficult, you must admit.”

Instead of answering, Ariel tapped the side of her nose.

“What?” he asked after a moment.

“This freckle here. Astrid does not have it.”

Erich leaned in, seeing the pale gray spot she was pointing at. He doubted he would ever have noticed. It was not obvious even now.

“Thank you.”

“It is a secret. Don’t tell Astrid I told you.”

“All right. I will not.”

Erich looked around the garden as Ariel returned to pinching dead leaves from her vegetables.

“Are you really a nobleman?” she asked a minute later.

He gritted his teeth for a moment.

“I am no more what than you see before you.”

“I heard you and Father last night. He said you were not of common birth, and you said, ‘No.’”

Erich was silent, and Ariel frowned at him. “I told you a secret. You must tell me one of yours.”

“I am not a nobleman.”

“But you were once?”

“I am a third son, and a dishonored one at that. That means I inherited nothing, neither title nor lands nor money. I am, again, no more than what you see here.”

“How are you dishonored?”

“That is another secret altogether.”

A small smile creased her face.

“I will tell you another of mine.”

“This is neither necessary nor wise. Sometimes it is best to leave the past be.”

“Astrid and I must marry the same man.”

Erich’s jaw dropped. “What?”

Ariel looked down and pursed her lips. “It is true. We have no choice.”

“But your father said last night you had not even met anyone to marry yet.”

“We have not, but it does not matter.” She looked up now. “You recall what Father said, about the Flow? How mages must marry?”

“Yes.”

“Our flows are the same. They are as identical as we are. We cannot even cast spells separately. That means the mage who matches me will match Astrid as well.”

“And there could not be another who might match you?”

“No. It does not work that way. When there is a match, there is a match, and that is the end of it.”

Erich stood there, stunned. He knew that among the Moors, pagans, barbarians, taking more than one wife was not unheard of, but in civilized society . . .

“Are you sure there is a mage who would do this?” Part of Erich wondered if this was a stupid question. One of them alone for wife would make a prize for most men; surely two would seem a bounty.

“The match is the match.” She forced a smile. “Now you must tell me something equally grave. What is your dishonor?”

Erich sighed and looked past her into the sky. “You must not repeat this. Not even to Astrid, let alone your father.”

“I promise.”

“I crippled my oldest brother in a duel.”

Her hand went over her mouth. “How?”

Erich walked away from her and leaned against the wall around the garden, putting his hand on his forehead. Ariel followed.

“You must understand I make no complaints about my upbringing. My family is wealthy. We had servants. I had no cares. Being a third son for most of my life was a relief. I had no real responsibilities. My eldest brother was the heir to the title, and my other brother would inherit things as well. That meant they needed to be trained in politics, law, court functions. All my father cared about my learning was the sword.”

♦ ♦

Duke Gerhard of Jülich-Berg spent much of his tenure as the head of the house squabbling and occasionally fighting with other petty nobles in the empire over rights to one patch of territory or another. He won some battles and lost others, and consequently wanted all three of his sons—Wilhelm, Adolf, and Erich—trained for war.

As the heir, however, Wilhelm was too important to risk in battle. Dying without an heir could have shifted the entire dukedom to another branch of the family, or possibly an entirely different family, and was thus to be avoided at all costs. Such events were an all-too-frequent cause of disputes in the empire.

With three sons, Gerhard felt it prudent to keep one in reserve, and thus it fell to Erich to be trained to lead the house troops, not because Gerhard felt him more capable or important, but simply that being a third son, he was expendable.

Not that Erich cared. Like most young boys, he found warfare exciting. He enjoyed swordplay immensely, far more so than his brothers. He also soon found that he was better at it than they were, even though they were older and larger.

Gerhard retained a respected swordmaster to teach his sons the arts of war, and Erich soon became his favorite—which meant he drove Erich twice as hard as his brothers and expected four times as much. This, not surprisingly, made Erich’s brothers very jealous.

In the early years of his childhood, they would regularly beat him bloody, using their greater size to overcome his skill. Lothar, the swordmaster, allowed them do it, because he knew it served as motivation. So—in a fury at his impotence—Erich would work even harder.

While his brothers studied with their other tutors, Lothar and Erich would spar until Erich’s hands bled. Lothar would tie lead weights to his wrists and make him swing bags of sand through the air to strengthen his arms until it felt like they would fall off. He would alternate tying one arm or the other behind Erich’s back until it no longer mattered which one he used.

Lothar made Erich fight with weapons he hated, with two blades of equal length or different, with swords that were too large and heavy for him, or poorly balanced, or otherwise unsuitable, all in the pursuit of teaching him to fight with his head instead of his blade. He taught Erich to do far more than swing a sword—he taught him how to win a fight by throwing blades, large and small, by tripping his opponent, by spitting, or throwing punches in the midst of duel or grabbing his opponent’s clothes. Lothar would do grossly unfair things like make Erich fight with a dagger while he used a longsword, or fight with his legs hobbled, or fight tethered to a post while Lothar danced freely around him.

In time, the long and ruthless training paid dividends.

One day, when Erich was fourteen, his brothers’ size was no longer enough, even when they fought him together. Erich thrashed them both, chasing them about the salon until they cried for mercy. They would make him pay for beating them in other ways, and Lothar promptly thrashed him in turn when they left so that the victory would not go to his head. But his brothers never again defeated him with the sword.

From that day forward, Lothar held nothing back when sparring with Erich. For months afterward, Erich went to his bed every night gritting his teeth against the pain of his bruises. His progress, paradoxically, seemed to enrage Lothar, who shouted at him over and over that he would die in moments should he ever need to defend himself in a real fight.

Lothar taught him the most dangerous moves, the means to cripple his opponents, to blind them, to kill with a single cut. And he did it by slapping his blunted blade across Erich’s legs, his throat, his face.

Erich could have succumbed to this abuse. But instead he redoubled his efforts, determined to win his master’s approval.

The moment came years later, long after his brothers had refused to continue sparring with him. He and Lothar were dueling with blunted rapiers and off-hand daggers. For weeks leading up to this, Erich had begun feeling he was at last approaching his master’s skill, though Lothar continued to defeat him in the end.

They fought for long minutes. Lothar threw one attack, then another at Erich, but he had seen all of these so many times and turned them aside easily. For once, Lothar could not penetrate his defenses. Back and forth they went, the sweat beginning to pour down. Erich could hear Lothar’s breath coming more heavily. He thrust, he charged. Lothar turned him aside. Then Lothar came at him—but too slowly, wearied. Erich put his foot out and tripped him, and as Lothar went down, Erich felt a surge of triumph. He thrust his rapier forward and Lothar spun, trying to regain his balance. He fell. Erich pinned him.

His master dropped his weapons, gasping, trying to catch his breath. All of a sudden, Erich saw him for who he was: an old, gray-haired man trying to keep up with a boy a quarter his age.

Lothar met his gaze. “I think we are done here. I have nothing left to teach you.”

♦ ♦

But as much as that victory meant to him, it meant nothing to his family. By the time Erich was eighteen, the reality of his situation had become clear. His brothers mattered, he did not, and they made sure he knew this. Erich would essentially be his eldest brother’s hireling when Wilhelm inherited the title. It was for his glory Erich would fight, not his own, and Wilhelm took great pleasure in reminding him of this fact constantly.

The matter came to a head one night at dinner when Gerhard was gone.

Both of them had been drinking, though Wilhelm much more than Erich. Erich had been talking about riding with the house troops, how the village girls had watched them in their fine uniforms.

“You will ride for me one day,” Wilhelm interrupted. “You will do my bidding. Those sluts will give you no mind when I ride past.”

Erich fumed. “As if you will ever bother to leave this castle and lift a finger to defend our lands.”

“Dog!” Wilhelm shouted. “You are a worm. An errand boy. You will do what I say when I hold the title. You will lick my boots when I tell you to.”

“I will bow to no one,” Erich muttered.

“What was that?” Wilhelm shot back.

Erich sat back. “I said I will bow to no one. Least of all a coward who sends me out to defend his lands because he cannot wield a sword to do it himself!”

Wilhelm erupted out of his chair, sending it flying backwards.

“You will defer to me! You will take that back and abase yourself or I will have your head mounted over the gate!”

“As if you could take it yourself! You have not defeated me since I had hair between my legs!”

Wilhelm lunged for one of the guards and tore the man’s sword from his scabbard. Then he came straight at Erich. Erich drew his rapier, deflecting the first blow, but the magnitude of what was unfolding at that moment exploded in his mind.

Until that night, Erich and Wilhelm had fought each other only with blunted weapons under Lothar’s tutelage. Now Wilhelm was coming after him with a real sword. Erich had only his rapier and no armor. If Wilhelm landed a single blow, he could easily have killed him.

Erich parried his drunken brother’s thrusts, but no one was stepping forward to stop this duel. When the point of Wilhelm’s sword laid a thin cut across Erich’s arm, he panicked.

He did not want to kill his brother, but he had to stop this. He drove forward, slashing at Wilhelm’s legs. One cut across Wilhelm’s thigh threw his brother off balance and left him exposed. Erich stabbed forward the way Lothar had taught him, cutting through Wilhelm’s hamstring. His brother howled in pain but somehow kept to his feet. He slashed his sword at Erich’s head, stumbling forward.

In a blind rage, Erich did not see that he had won the fight. He lunged again, and with a lighting-quick stab and slash, cut apart Wilhelm’s other leg. His brother fell to the floor, grabbing at his thighs as the blood flowed out.

At the last possible moment, Erich stopped himself just as he was about to thrust his rapier through Wilhelm’s throat.

Everyone in the room was staring at them in horror. All at once, it dawned on Erich what he had just done. This was not a battlefield. It was their dining hall, and the man bleeding on the floor before him was his brother.

“Kill him!” Wilhelm howled. “In the name of God, I order you to kill him!”

Erich flew from the hall, running for his quarters and barring the door behind him, knowing what disasters awaited when his father returned.

♦ ♦

Ariel’s pale face, if it were possible, had grown even paler.

“My father’s rage when he saw what I had done,” Erich said, “was unfathomable. He did not care what had caused the fight, only the result. I had, after all, threatened the line of succession by wounding Wilhelm so gravely. He disowned me that night and drove me from the house with barely more than the clothes on my back.”

“And you have never returned?”

“I dare not, even though my father is seven years in his grave. My brother, who is the Duke now, would have me killed. He has twice sent hired swords after me.”

“What you said to Father, about the dangers of your returning to Köln, it is related to this?”

“Our lands are close to those of Köln, and my family counts the city as an ally. There may be some there who will recognize me, and who might let my brother know of my presence. I must be very careful when we arrive in the city.”

Ariel nodded. “I will keep your secret. I do not think we should share any more of them, for now.”

She went to check on the hens briefly, gathering a few eggs, and went into the house.

11.

Erich’s warning to Hans, Stefan, and their friends appeared to have the effect he intended, and they no longer troubled Walther’s house or his daughters. One of the blacksmith’s apprentices arrived on the third day to tell Erich his throwing knives were finished, and he followed the boy back to the smith’s shop to collect them.

The knives were thin, unadorned strips of steel as he had requested. The smith had done a fine job. One by one, he tossed them across the shop into a post. All flew true but one. He tried that one a second time, and again it missed the target. After collecting it and examining it closely, he handed it back to the smith.

“The balance on this one is a bit off.”

The smith looked it over for a few moments, tossing it in his hand, and frowned. “I can fix it. Give me an hour or so.”