thunder came a moment later, booming and reverberating, the sound of the gods throwing a tantrum. Jean could barely imagine what it must be like atop the Five Towers, now just a series of hazy gray columns lost in the sky behind Don Maranzalla’s right shoulder.
“Enough, Jean, enough. You’re passing fair with a pigsticker; I want you to be familiar with it at need. But it’s time to see what else you have a flair for.” Don Maranzalla, who was wrapped up inside a much-abused brown oilcloak, splashed through the water to a large wooden box. “You won’t be able to haul a long blade around, in your circles. Fetch me the woundman.”
Jean hurried through the twisting glass maze, toward the small room that led back down into the tower. He respected the roses still—only a fool would not—but he was quite used to their presence now. They no longer seemed to loom and flash at him like hungry things; they were just an obstacle to keep one’s fingers away from.
The woundman, stashed in the little dry room at the top of the staircase, was a padded leather dummy in the shape of a man’s head, torso, and arms, standing upon an iron pole. Bearing this awkwardly over his right shoulder, Jean stepped back out in the driving rain and returned to the center of the Garden Without Fragrance. The woundman scraped the glass walls several times, but the roses had no taste for empty leather flesh.
Don Maranzalla had opened the wooden chest and was rummaging around in it; Jean set the woundman up in the center of the courtyard. The metal rod slid into a hole bored down through the stone and locked there with a twist, briefly pushing up a little fountain of water.
“Here’s something ugly,” said the don, swinging a four-foot length of chain wrapped in very fine leather—likely kid. “It’s called a bailiff’s lash; wrapped up so it doesn’t rattle. If you look close, it’s got little hooks at either end, so you can hitch it around your waist like a belt. Easy to conceal under heavier clothes…though you might eventually need one a bit longer, to fit around yourself.” The don stepped forward confidently and let one end of the padded chain whip toward the woundman’s head; it rebounded off the leather with a loud, wet whack.
Jean amused himself for a few minutes by laying into the woundman while Don Maranzalla watched. Mumbling to himself, the don then took the padded chain away and offered Jean a pair of matched blades. They were about a foot long, one-sided, with broad and curving cutting edges. The hilts were attached to heavy handguards, which were studded with small brass spikes.
“Nasty little bitches, these things. Generally known as thieves’ teeth. No subtlety to them; you can stab, hack, or just plain punch. Those little brass nubs can scrape a man’s face off, and those guards’ll stop most anything short of a charging bull. Have at it.”
Jean’s showing with the blades was even better than his outing with the lash; Maranzalla clapped approvingly. “That’s right, up through the stomach, under the ribs. Put a foot of steel there and tickle a man’s heart with it, and you’ve just won the argument, son.”
As he took the matched blades back from Jean, he chuckled. “How’s that for teeth lessons, eh, boy? Eh?”
Jean stared at him, puzzled.
“Haven’t you ever heard that one before? Your Capa Barsavi, he’s not from Camorr, originally. Taught at the Therin Collegium. So, when he drags someone in for a talking-to, that’s ‘etiquette lessons.’ And when he ties them up and makes them talk, that’s ‘singing lessons.’ And when he cuts their throats and throws them in the bay for the sharks…”
“Oh,” said Jean, “I guess that’d be teeth lessons. I get it.”
“Right. I didn’t make that one up, mind you. That’s your kind. I’d lay odds the big man knows about it, but nobody says anything like that to his face. That’s how it always is, be it cutthroats or soldiers. So…next lovely toy…”
Maranzalla handed Jean a pair of wooden-handled hatchets; these had curved metal blades on one side and round counterweights on the other.
“No fancy name for these skull-crackers. I wager you’ve seen a hatchet before. Your choice to use the blade or the ball; it’s possible to avoid killing a man with the ball, but if you hit hard enough it’s just as bad as the blade, so judge carefully when you’re not attacking a