The old man sat on a stone bench that had been placed beneath the spreading branches of a cypress tree. A few rays of late afternoon sunlight filtered through the leaves, illuminating a wealth of white hair that curled luxuriously to stooped shoulders. The scent of grapes hung heavy in the air as they neared the final ripening, the vines beginning to brown as they sensed the approach of winter. The quiet hum of a thousand bees dancing among the lush vegetation, blending with the faint sound of the water where it lapped against the shore.
"Nico," the old man called, his voice a rasp. The hat his wife insisted upon lay discarded at his feet. "Bring your things."
"Papa," the boy protested, caught in the act of sneaking down the path to the village. "I was…"
"You were just going to the baker's girl, hoping she would let you beneath her skirts," Micheletto de Corella peered at his son, eyes dark blue beneath white eyebrows. When Nico's face flamed the old man began to chuckle. "Time enough for that later. Go, bring your weapons. I would see you with them once more."
Nico grumbled as he retrieved the weapons from the cellar, muttering curses about the demands of irascible fathers. It was always Move faster or Shoulders back or From your center. The other boys in the village were not encumbered by hours spent each day in practice. They had the freedom to explore, to race , and to chase after willing girls. Their sleep was not crowded by nightmares.
Although he had not yet reached his 12th year, Nico had grown tired of the course his life had been set upon. None of it was of his choosing.
The martial training had begun as soon as he could walk, when his father had placed a carved wooden sword in his hand. The shape of the blade had been imprinted on his earliest memory, double edged blade with the elaborately curved guard. From there they had progressed to blunts, shortened forms of the weapons. Nico parried and thrust and jabbed with them until the childish lines of his body had been replaced by lean muscle.
And the blades were not all his father and mother bade him learn. Languages and strategy, manners and poison blended in his mind, the disjointed melody of his youth. Each facet of his training sought to make him into a weapon that could be wielded as easily on the battlefield as in the halls where laws were made. Though his parents had moved in the shadows, he was trained to walk the line between worlds: a warrior and a scholar, an assassin and an advisor to princes.
Returning to his father's side, Nico arranged the weapons in a semi-circle on the ground at his feet. They flashed in the sunshine, the finest blades that could be purchased. When they had returned from Ferrara, his father had sent for the sword maker and had Nico outfitted with weapons fit for the wealthiest nobleman. It was a fortune in blades, perhaps his father's entire fortune, for each was blade perfectly balanced and honed to a razor's edge, lacking gaudy decoration but elegant and deadly in their deceptive simplicity.
"The sword," Micheletto called.
Nico bowed to his father and slid the sword into the sheath at his waist. In a flash of movement he withdrew it and began sliding through the guards: the prima, seconda, and terza, finishing with the settima, the point of the sword held diagonally along the outside of his left leg.
They had become so familiar to him that they were no longer forms; they had become battles fought against a single opponent. He could clearly picture the other facing him across the grass, movements quick as a striking snake, with curling dark hair and his sister Lucia's beautiful face. Faster! his shadow partner whispered, leading him through lunges and riversos, side steps and feints.
A rock sailed through the air. Without pausing, Nico struck it away with the flat of his blade.
"One dagger."
Nico stooped and plucked one of the black daggers from the grass. He crouched, then struck, trying to catch his adversary beneath the ribs with a low outside attack.
I am faster than you, the figure in black hissed. Stronger.
Nico dodged the blade aimed at his heart and tumbled forward, coming up behind and driving the blade between exposed shoulder blades. Sweat was beginning to trickle down his face, turning red hair dark.
"The small buckler."
Nico thought that his father's voice had changed and became concerned. They all watched the old man, who had seemed to fade by the hour after his last quest. Pausing as he bent to pick up the small round shield, Nico cast a quick eye to where the old man sat. "Papa?" he asked. "Should I call for Mother?"
"No," his father said, a half smile curling his lips. "Not yet. Your form is perfect, Nico, but guard this." He tapped his chest, and Nico was unsure whether he meant the font of all human emotion or his breastbone. "It is the greatest weakness. Now the small buckler."
Nico slipped the dagger into it's sheath and curled his left hand around the leather strap of the buckler. His forearms were beginning to ache from the exertion and the sun beat down with merciless heat upon his head. The light tunic and hose he wore allowed him freedom of movement, and he thought how wretched it would be to fight in full armor beneath a blazing sun. I will not, he silently told the man who watched him with an enigmatic smile, poised like a cat ready to strike. I will stay here and make wine and fish.
Fool, the shadow laughed, then slashed at him with his sword. Nico caught it the on the buckler, straining beneath the weight of it. Your fate is already decided.
With a mighty push Nico rose to his feet and brought his sword up, preparing to strike. A small noise, no louder than the flight of an insect, alerted him to the danger. He caught the thrown dagger with the buckler, interrupting it's path to the soft earth at his feet. The dagger buried deep in the wood.
"Good. Two swords."
Nico replaced the buckler on the grass and picked up the other sword. It was an exact duplicate of the one already in his hand. He flexed his wrists, warming them, and drew a figure eight pattern in the air. The blades hummed, coming alive in his hands.
Across from him, Cesare Borgia saluted with a single blade and began to circle him in the grass. From the time of his earliest memories, Micheletto had spoken of the man he called his "Master." It was only on the journey to rescue Lucia, when he had shed first blood, that Micheletto de Corella had finally named the man and told him of years spent in service to the Borgia family. From then on the form that Nico fought against began to take on a sharper image. Dark, curling hair would fly about his face. The smile was a wolf's, full of predatory delight. And the eyes were his sister's, golden as honey on a summer afternoon when she was happy.
Nico moved slowly at first, leading with his right hand. His opponent only had one sword, but experience had taught Nico not to be fooled by the appearance of weakness. When Cesare struck it was as if a whirlwind had been unleashed.
Will you defend them? the shadowy figure asked, striking at Nico's head and then his chest in a flurry of movements, metal clanging on metal.
Yes, Nico answered, and his voice had somehow become deeper, the tones of a man instead of a boy. Always. He brought the other sword to bear and they formed a liquid series of movements, dancing faster and brighter, like lightening when it struck.
Nico laughed, jubilant. This was what his father had always sought to teach him, the moment when the blades ceased to be weapons, and instead became an extension of his body. Like quicksilver they flashed, driving the sweating figure across the grass until he fell to his knees, a blade at both sides of his throat.
Cesare looked up at him, eyes full of things that Nico could not yet name. Slowly at first the figure began to fade, the black leather garb melting into shadow, golden skin no more than mist in the rising dusk.
There is nothing left we can teach you.
Nico flung his hair out of his eyes and began to grin. He had never felt more alive than at that moment, more filled with the utter certainty of his was no fisherman, no farmer. All that his father had sought to teach him made sense at last. Nico de Corella was a warrior. He would carve his own space in the world and none would ever dare harm that which was precious to him.
"Papa! Did you see?" He called, and then knelt to wipe the moisture from his blades. "With both swords!"
There was no answer. Nico straightened, swords laying forgotten on the grass.
"Papa?"
Micheletto de Corella had slumped forward, hands still clasping the gnarled wooden crutch he had used. Soft white hair blew in the breeze, curling around a weathered face and closed eyes.
He would have started forward, disbelieving, but a hand curved over his shoulder. His mother, the silent one in a family marked by its stealth, her face marked by the silvery fall of an ocean of tears.
"He is at peace at last," she whispered, and together they watched the light play across the dead man's face.
They buried him by the sea, and Nico could not hear the sound of the waves for the grief pounding in his ears. His eyes burned, as though acid flowed through his veins, but he could not cry. Crying for children, and he had done with those years.
"I would see you practice once more," the old man had said. A dying wish, a final command. As the priest droned on and on, saying kind, untrue things about the man that was his father, Nico looked to his mother, whose face had turned to stone in grief, and his sister. Lucia, the hidden one, all that remained of the Borgia legacy.
The danger to his family had not yet passed. Others would come, seeking to harm those he loved and Nico swore on his father's grave that he would see them safe.