The Exiled Blade (The Assassini) - By Jon Courtenay Grimwood Page 0,90

like a man. She asked what he imagined she’d wear under it. The answer turned out to be in the third box. “It’s light,” she said, taking the undershirt of mail.

“Star iron. We keep a collection.”

It seemed the krieghund sought fragments of broken stars and hoarded them until new armour was needed. Then the dark and twisted lumps were added to molten steel, along with the charred skull of a wolf and a rusty nail. The resulting steel could be beaten so thin it had half the weight of ordinary plate.

She doubted Frederick should be telling her Wolf Brother secrets but thanked him all the same. He seemed so proud of his clan’s cleverness. After the mail shirt came an open-faced helmet, vambraces for her arms, thigh guards and knee guards and a pair of half-gauntlets.

The second-to-last crate contained white leather trews, a white jerkin, padded inside with folds of fabric, and gloves to fit in the half-gauntlets; all the sizes looked right, and it felt strange to realise Frederick had been watching her more carefully than she knew. Holding up the white leather doublet, she smiled.

“Try it on,” he suggested.

She shook her head, looked at the breastplate and hesitated . . . Her undergown was decent and it wasn’t as if she planned to put on full armour. She didn’t even need to put on the doublet to see if the breastplate fitted. Dropping the fur-lined houppelande from her shoulders, she stepped out of Alexa’s old gown, realising too late her undergown was thinner than she remembered.

“Let me help,” Frederick said quickly.

The metal was cold on her chest, the shoulder plates so hard at the edge of her upper arms that she shook her head. The vambraces chafed her wrists but she left them in place. The armour scalloping her hips was as heavy as a weighted belt. She and Frederick looked at the thigh guards and decided simultaneously that buckling them on might be a step too far.

“Now this,” Frederick said. He opened a crate longer and thinner than the others and she knew before he dipped his hands into the straw what it held. She’d fought with sticks as a child, and Aunt Alexa had insisted she learn to handle a dagger, but she’d never studied swordplay or watched a tournament. Uncle Alonzo liked his jousts, and that was reason enough to despise them.

It was a three-quarter sword, maybe slightly smaller.

“Let me show you how to hold it.”

Frederick stood behind her and his breath was warm on her neck as he put his arms around her and folded her fingers around the wire-wound hilt. The inside of his elbow brushed her breast where her breastplate scooped low and would be hidden beneath shoulder armour. Neither of them seemed to notice. Well, he didn’t. So she held her peace as well.

“Now lift it so . . .”

She struggled to raise the sword above her head. The weapon was heavier than she expected for all it was in the newest fashion and smaller than the swords old men used. Frederick stood right behind her now. She could feel him bump slightly against her back and buttocks. He noticed her unease because he stepped back and she almost let the sword fall down.

“Find its balance point.”

He was behind her again but careful not to touch anything except her hands, which he moved slightly up so the sword was exactly above her head.

“Keep it like that . . .”

Stepping round her, he drew his own sword and she recognised the WolfeSelle with a shiver. The krieghund totem had a new handle. That was why she hadn’t recognised it when sheathed.

“Only until Leo is old enough,” Frederick said.

Giulietta’s lips twisted. Frederick was guarding the blade until Leo came of age and assumed command of the Wolf Brothers. She had her own opinions about that. What made her eyes well up was simpler.

“We’ll find him,” Frederick promised. “I swear.” He looked at the sword trembling in her upraised arms and smiled. “Now strike down to one side. Don’t tell me which. I’ll show you a block.”

“Ready?” she asked.

He grinned. “Always . . . Make it a real blow.”

She swung her sword to the left as hard as she could – but he was there first, sparks exploding from their blades and the clang of steel so loud it deafened both as it echoed from the study walls. Her door smashed open and the man on guard rushed in, his halberd levelled and his