It is an unusually cold day. The wind blows like vapour off of ice and the white city walls appear too cold to touch, like they would shatter skin. Despite the weather, however, and urgings of their tutor to stay indoors, Boromir and Faramir are engaged in a practice bout. They wear a few guard-pieces of hammered leather armour and use old, blunted swords. Their father dresses in a cloak lined and trimmed with fur, and watches his sons fence.
Boromir does not think about the cold air around him, and the colder metal of the sword in his hand, although his sharp exhalations swirl above his head like white pipe-smoke. He is thinking about what he would do in a real fight. After he attacks, he runs through his head what he would have done if Faramir had been a real enemy, or someone he had to kill. Mostly he decides that it would be easiest to hamstring him behind the armour and get on with it. Faramir feints to his knees and attacks to his shoulder. Boromir blocks the latter and ripostes to the leather covering his brother's chest. Then he thinks that, an unshielded man would be dead. He imagines pulling his sword from above his brother's sternum. He is horrified. His brother uses that time to score.
Faramir does not think about the cold air around him, and the colder stare of his father, although his hand is numb and seizing desperately around the sword-handle. He is thinking about the sword itself, the old leather grip that crumbles under his hand, and the blunted edges and the rounded tip. He knows that the arms-master does not spend his time dulling blades to make them suitable for practice. Once the sword had been sharpened carefully, its edges knife-fine, new leather fixed to its handle. And then another hand had wielded it for years, years enough to rub the black grain off the grip. The keen edge had been worn in a single battle, the point rounded stabbing strong shields, the edges blunted running through flesh and hitting armour, and at the end of that battle the sword's owner had not put it to the whetstone. Boromir feints high and strikes low, and Faramir parries clumsily with his dead-man's sword. He forgets the riposte.
Denethor is shivering in the cold, watching his eldest win the bout with an unashamed pride. One needs no knowledge of swordplay to see that Boromir is the more experienced and the more talented, talent which is not necessarily attributed to experience. He handles the sword well, which is to say with familiarity, as if he is aware of what to do with the blade on an instinctual level. Against Faramir, who is younger and smaller and altogether more horrified at the sword than Denethor can easily condone, Boromir's victory is assured. Boromir advances, swinging the sword in a way that serves more for drama than purpose, and feints high. Faramir brings his sword up to parry and in the next instant Boromir lunges, striking lower. Faramir forgets himself completely and ducks.
Denethor's sons are very much alike, despite the age difference. He can see already that Faramir's fencing is as clever as his brother's even if he hesitates and frowns before he moves. One day he will apply his lessons without thinking. One day they will be evenly matched, which is a thought that makes Denethor's face hot despite the cold wind. The only thing seperating their styles, he muses, quickly remembering the occurrences of the bout, is that while Boromir feints high and strikes low, Faramir feints low and strikes higher than the current strength in his wrist allows. Swordsmen and soldiers will always feint, but Denethor cannot imagine which method is the most honourable.
