London 1605 – Whitefriars Fencing School

As Lucinda Evans crossed the piste at her father’s fencing school, a jug of quarter-ale in each hand, two things snared her attention in rapid and alarming succession, one leading inevitably to the other in the way most disasters unfold. The first cause of alarm was a tall, dark-haired Scotsman stepping inside the doorway, a man who disappeared six months ago, leaving her burdened with the weight of a troubled heart. The second was the blade of a broadsword whooshing toward her head. Three feet of hardened steel about to smash into her skull was not an object to ignore. She dipped beneath its arc and bobbed back to her feet, shaken, but miraculously still clutching an ale jug in each hand, the contents sloshing like a choppy swell against a little wooden boat.

“That was close! And ye dinna even spill a drop,” one of the young Scottish swordsmen called out as she steadied her balance.

She treated him to a look of scorn. “I am well versed in avoiding stray swords.”

“More’s the pity.” He nudged the fencer beside him with his elbow.

“Careless swordsmen and stupid clods are all in a day’s work around here,” she shot back. While her words were filled with bluster, in truth, the fault was all hers. She should have been watching. It was far too close for comfort. Father had impressed on her five hundred times or more how to safely cross a piste without risking life and limb. Two men locked in a fight are oblivious to what goes on around them, and while the weapons might be blunted, the weight and the force was not.

“Do you want this ale in your mugs or poured on your brainless heads?” She was in no mood to be trifled with after such a sudden and thorough rattling. By way of answer, all the fencers within reach held out their empty mugs, lewd jests and near misses soon forgotten in the serious business of quenching a thirst and studying the ongoing bout.

The long piste she had attempted to cross was the current scene of a fierce contest between a Scot and an Englishman, backsword pitted against broadsword, a battle of strength and slog more than technique. With her ale jugs emptied and her pride well dented, she weaved her way to the other end of the large training room where the initial source of her dangerous distraction stood quietly watching on.

Robert McCrae was as handsome and self-assured as ever. His dark curly hair was cropped to sit above his collar. He wore a plain green doublet, riding boots and breeches. His shoulders seemed even broader than she remembered. It was the near miss, she told herself, causing her stomach to tumble, but the closer she came to him, the more her heart hammered, matching the same frenzy as the clanging blades.

Six months and not a word.

She fixed her eyes upon him, torn between the enormous relief that he was not dead, while at the same time, wishing death upon him. Was it that hard to pick up a quill? He could have sent a message. Even his sister Rosalind had not known his whereabouts, only that he was somewhere abroad.

He held her gaze and reeled her in, the knot beneath her ribcage pulling tighter. Her feet came to a stop directly in front of him as if they knew where they belonged. Once she was within breathing distance, she looked past him to the solid oak entry door, preparing herself to speak. She had wished for this moment for so long, now it was here she was at a loss, her usual confidence completely deserting her. It was too sudden. No warning or preparation. A sword coming at her head was nothing in comparison. While her well-honed instincts had saved her from the blade, around McCrae her instincts turned traitor, pulling her toward the very things she should avoid. Heartache and complications.

She looked up and met his eyes. A moment passed between them.

The slap of two opposing waves.

“You’re back,” she said. Concern, relief, joy and accusation, all wrapped in two short words. At the surface, their meeting was calm and unremarkable, but underneath, the currents swirled.

“What happened over there? You could have been killed…” He moved his arm as if to touch her before thinking better of it, snatching it back to his side and curling his fist into a tight ball. The entrance to the fencing academy was far too public for touching. Even talking and looking would be noticed and commented on.

“’Twas your fault I was nearly hit! The sight of you after all this time.”

“I came as soon as I could.” His expression flickered with remorse, or was that merely her own wishful thinking? She had yearned for him and pined in his absence. Was it wrong to hope he had also suffered? Tensing her thighs, she anchored her stance. Robert McCrae made her as unsteady as an infant.

“Is that so? When I looked up and saw you I thought I saw a ghost,” she said. “Good thing I am not faint-hearted.”

He placed his right hand across his chest. “Lord forbid, I should test your heart?” His mouth twitched into a brief half-smile. Testing her heart was exactly what he did. His blue-green eyes held their familiar twinkle, vexing and delighting in roughly equal measure, but at the moment, annoyance far outweighed delight. She dropped the empty ale jugs to rest upon her right hip, clasping them firmly, the way a mother restricts the wriggling of a willful child. 

“What brings you back here?”

“Apart from your fair self? The usual pursuits.” There was nonchalance in his tone, and yet his hand tightly gripped the hilt of his sword. He always did that when he was uncertain or agitated.

“Any pursuits in particular?”

“I am here to train, to learn and to study. I hope to pick up where I left off.”

Nothing further was said for a moment as she examined his words like a piece of fruit, checking for what was hidden beneath the polished skin.

“Will you be staying in London for long this time?”

“I expect so, though as you are aware, I am entirely beholden to my uncle’s expectations.” He looked around the crowded training room like a sentry alert for an attack. From the corner of her eye, a few glances came their way, nothing overt, but a good reminder to be careful. Half of London was beholden to McCrae’s uncle, Lord Colin Cavendish. His informants were everywhere, Lucinda, reluctantly, being one of them.

“I should like to resume… instructing at Whitefriars.” The short pause after he said resume, gave his words an entirely different meaning. She took a moment to consider her reply. Words on a page were always black or white yet spoken aloud they could take on so many colors. “If your father would have me back?”

“I am sure it would be possible to continue the former arrangement. He is conducting a lesson at present. I dare not interrupt but a meeting this evening perhaps?”

“That would please me greatly. The usual place and time?” The hand at McCrae’s side was furiously intent on working at the fabric of his riding breeches. She studied the motion of his hand, imagining his long, elegant fingers in another situation entirely. Anticipation quickened her pulse. All the more reason to guard her words.    

“I see no reason to change the practice of the past.”

To listening ears their conversation should sound innocuous enough. She certainly hoped so, for in truth, she had just agreed, to meet McCrae alone, once his business with her father was done. That had been their previous habit. She shifted the jugs to her other hip, still watching and remembering the touch of his hand. Slowly her eyes traversed up the length of his arm until they reached the broad sweep of his torso, taking in the shape and scent of him until she lifted her eyes to face him. Their gazes locked again, two crossed swords, straining and testing.

“It has been too long,” he sighed. “Six months is an eternity.”

She looked away, gaze darting for cover, her face flushed and her mouth dry.

“I must go. I have work to do.”

London’s best regarded fencing academy did not run itself. That was the truth of it. Her duties lay here at Whitefriars, helping her father run the fencing school and her grandmother with the business of healing and birthing. She had long ago come to the conclusion that duty and desire were conflicting forces that rarely ever aligned. Like violence and tenderness, joy and despair, they spun on opposite ends of the same axis. She had learned to live with opposites just as she had learned to be a woman in a man’s world. No matter what the heart might long for, it was duty that ruled existence. There was no point expecting anything different.

A sudden roar of approval rose up which jolted her back to the crowded training room of her father’s fencing academy. The Scotsman had bested the Englishman, a result sure to cause heated debate in many a tavern on this balmy London afternoon. It might be King James’ fervent desire to unite England and Scotland into one nation, but when it came to the piste and the sword, the old tribes and rivalries remained.

The thistle and the rose.

Both bore beautiful flowers, but their stems were studded with prickles and thorns.

***

Escaping to the relative quiet of one of the storage areas, she busied herself with her chores, wiping down the used weapons and checking them for damage. Constant sweat could rust a blade, so everything was dried before being stored. The training area occupied a large room that would have served as the monk’s refectory years ago when Whitefriars was still a monastery. The high leadlight windows flooded the space with light, which was certainly helpful for keeping an eye on a sword. A row of adjacent filled-in cloisters served as their storage area, and it was to this darker space she retreated. Hidden among the racks of stacked and sorted weapons, her practiced eye swept over the contents. Swordsmen were not known for their patience; therefore, everything must be in the right place so it might swiftly be retrieved. There were long swords, backswords and bastard swords, rapiers and long English daggers, halberds and buckler shields, poleaxes and maces; every weapon an Englishman might conceivably use in battle, were all stored in this once-hallowed place.

For a time, her father feared the new peace with Spain might cause his student numbers to dwindle, but no such fears plagued him anymore. The place was full to bursting, perhaps even more so, than when they were theoretically at war. Men always liked to fight. There was a seductive lure in mastering a weapon. It took practice and persistence, which drew you back again and again. It also helped that Father was not stuck in the past like many of the other Masters of Defence. He had embraced the Scottish influx, even sharing his beloved academy with Ferguson, a master Scottish swordsman. Thus, a space had been made to store a selection of Scottish broadswords.

Without making a conscious decision to do so, Lucinda drifted to the Scottish section. She could tell the age of a weapon by the shape of the hand piece. She picked out one of the newest weapons, hidden in its own cranny between shelf and stone. This sword was hers, and it was a beauty. Robbie McCrae had given it to her to match a sword of his own. The grip fit her hand perfectly. The basket hilt was both intricate and protective. Tempted as she was to carry out a sword drill, she contented herself with simply holding the sword close to her chest. Please to God she would never need to use this in anger for the sword was a gift of love from McCrae. During his long absence she had made a habit of sneaking in here, secretly holding it as a reminder of his promise, hoping he would return to her.

Now he was back.

But could they go back? Would things be the same between them? And what would be the point? Nothing had really changed. There was no future for them. He could no more defy his powerful uncle than stop the rain. A faint rustle behind her prompted her to turn around.

“Thought I would find you here,” her father said “Was that McCrae you were talking to?”

“Indeed. He is back from his travels. He wants to resume where he left off.”

“Does he now?” Her father frowned as he adjusted a stack of buckler shields, placing them so the handles all faced outward.

“He is returning tonight to speak with you.”

“At his uncle’s request?”

“He did not say.”

Her father snorted in response. “Of course, he is here at his uncle’s bidding.”

Lucinda lowered her voice. “He indicated he wished to see me as well.”

Her father’s eyes narrowed, and he stroked the end of the stump of his right arm. “Be careful how you tread. I like McCrae well enough but his uncle…I rue the day I set eyes on him. Cavendish might own a share of this place, but he needs to be reminded he doesn’t own me.” He thumped a shield down, quite a deal harder than was necessary, an obstinate set to his face which she knew all too well.

She put a staying hand on his forearm. “You won’t do anything rash?” 

He brushed off her arm. “I am a reasonable man…unless someone forces my hand.” He repositioned the shield, more gently this time. “I haven’t told you this before, but Cavendish wanted me to spy on the Catholic swordsmen. When I refused, he threatened to throw you in prison. Waved around a warrant for your arrest for when you stabbed that scoundrel Spaniard.”

Lucinda winced at the memory. She did not regret stabbing the Spaniard. He was trying to kill her at the time and she only wounded him, but she did regret the aftermath and where it had landed her now.

“So, you agreed to spy on the Catholics too?” she said.

“Too?” Her father frowned.

“I meant, on top of everything else you do for him,” she hastily added. Fortunately, she was in the shadows and he could not see the surprise on her face or the flicker of remorse

“Spying and informing is no way for a man to act. Where is the honour in that?”

“He acts for the King. How could you refuse him?”

The hint of a self-satisfied smile played at the corners of her father’s mouth.

“I called his bluff. Cavendish might be a schemer, but he is no fighter.”

“For all his position and title, Cavendish is the outsider in London. He needs my approval to be accepted by the Masters of Defence; so I gave him a little warning. If he laid so much as a finger on you, I’d slash his sorry hide to pieces and throw his measly innards in the Thames.”

She looked at him in horror. “You wouldn’t!”

“It was enough for him to think I might.”

“Why didn’t you tell me any of this?” If he had, she might have avoided the predicament she was in. Cavendish had used the same tactics on her, threatening to have her arrested, ruin her father’s business, accuse her grandmother of witchcraft and destroy her friends in the Sisters of the Sword unless she did his bidding. Unlike her father she had felt compelled to comply.   Father shrugged, misreading the anguish in her voice.

“There was no need for you to know. It was dealt with man to man. I only tell you now to warn you. I know you cared for McCrae. That is the sword he gave you in your hands, is it not? You might think me a foolish old man, but there is not much I miss.”

He took the sword from her and examined the beautiful basket handle, adorned with a Scottish thistle and an English rose. “I’ll give McCrae this. He knows how to choose a sword. It is a beautiful weapon.” He turned the blade over, feeling its weight and balance despite the awkwardness of holding a right-handed weapon in his left hand. “Do you remember the first rule of defence?”

“How could I forget? You reminded me often enough.” She repeated the familiar refrain back to him. “Any weapon can be used both for you and against you.”

“Including love,” he added as he handed her the sword and turned to leave.

***

She held the hilt of the sword up to her forehead and groaned. Her father only knew the half of it. Did she still love McCrae, and did it even matter? When she looked in his eyes, she had felt the same tug, the spark, the urgent pull of attraction. From what she knew of love it was fleeting more than constant. It needed the right conditions to survive. In her twenty-one years she had come to a simple conclusion. Only duty was reliable. Duty got her up in the morning. Duty gave her purpose and kept her on her feet. As if to prove her point, her grandmother was calling out for her. Hastily, she replaced the sword in its cranny, setting fanciful notions aside to make way for work and reality.

“Coming,” she replied, wiping her hands on a cloth looped at her waist. Hurrying back to the training room she quickly found Grandma Jones, though from her manner, it was not quick enough.

“We need to go now.” Her grandmother’s voice was taut as she handed Lucinda a basket packed with supplies.

“Where are we off to?” Lucinda asked.

“Southwark. We’ll take a wherry across.” It must be truly urgent for her grandmother to spend money on the fare. As the large oak door shut behind them, she muttered, “I only hope we are not too late.”