Chapter 5: Dueling
In any really good subject, one has only to probe deep enough to come to tears.
~Edith Wharton
Alice answered her door the next afternoon to find Casiphia there.
"Mirana tells me that you and I are both in need of sword practice to keep our skills, er, sharp," Casiphia told Alice as she came to the door. "If you are not busy now, I'm free for a bit."
"I see," Alice said. "Do I need to wear anything in particular?"
"No, the dress you have on should be fine. My skirts might be a bit encumbering, but I reckon it's good to practice in the sort of clothing I usually wear."
"Doesn't that get tiring, always having to think of such things?" Alice said as they set off to the throne room to retrieve the vorpal sword.
"Dear heavens, yes, it does," Casiphia said. "But until such time as Underland is completely united again, and Ilosovic is restored to a position of honor, that is my life and I may as well accept it."
Reaching the throne room, Alice crossed it to the suit of armor that held the vorpal sword in its arms, and took the weapon down carefully. It felt natural in her hand, and more than that, as though it were an actual part of her body. Remembering how she had initially resisted wielding it, Alice couldn't help but be surprised at how at ease with the vorpal she was now.
Then it was off to one of the smaller courtyards, where sunlight filtered through the heavy curtain of spring leaves overhead and splashed across the marble paving. There Casiphia led Alice through a series of sword actions, finding that the girl had forgotten some of her maneuvers but was able to pick them up again easily.
"Casiphia, Mirana said I could find you here, and I came to ask you about saddles—" Stayne stopped short at the sight of Alice and the vorpal sword, crossing the courtyard slowly to examine it.
"Alice, I do know this sword. Do you mind if I show you some of the more effective techniques with it that I know?"
Reluctantly, but not wanting to seem impolite, Alice surrendered the sword to Stayne. Complex emotions flickered across his features, triumph turning to regret to remorse to satisfaction. Surprised, she was, when he did exactly what he had offered to do and no more, showing her techniques, breaking each down into its component parts and making sure she could perform them smoothly before moving on to the next.
"Casiphia?" he asked. "Do you want to take a try with the vorpal?"
She shook her head. "You know how I feel about heavy arms," she said. "And I would rather practice with the sword I will be using." She thought for a second. "But I would rather like to hold it—I've never had that opportunity."
Alice handed her the sword and she took a few practice swings with it, then handed it back. "A little piece of history, it is. Or not so little, in any manner, I suppose."
Alice shivered suddenly. "No, Stayne, it's not because of you. Have you noticed how low the sun is getting? And it's cooling off quickly out here."
"True enough," Casiphia said. "I suppose we are finished for the day, then."
The three left the courtyard, and Alice took a side route to return the vorpal sword to its place in the throne room.
"How was that?" Casiphia put a hand upon Stayne's upper arm.
"It affected me more than I expected it to," he said. "I used that sword for many years—although I don't care to remember all the reasons why. It likes Alice, but it liked me too. It's a fine and exquisite bit of weaponry, and I suppose I should be glad I was ever able to get my hands upon it, being just a boy from the village and all."
"A most impressive boy, I have no doubt," Casiphia said. "A very tall blue-eyed boy of bravery and ambition and beautiful competence."
Ilosovic laughed. "I can't say that I've ever heard competence mentioned so glowingly before."
"You weren't engaged to Oran Cottonbaum, or you'd understand."
"He was competent enough when he tried to have us killed, or me, or however he had that planned."
"Trust me, that competence came along rather late in the game. And turned out to be rather useless, for that matter."
"Well, that entire incident did serve to clarify matters," Ilosovic said. "And I do rather like how you wear that Derringer."
Alice and Stayne finally had their conversation that evening after dinner, in a small audience room not too far from where the courtiers had after-dinner conversation and games. Alice couldn't shake from her mind the idea that she might need to call for help, and she insisted that they talk somewhere she could do so.
"We may as well do this," she said. "And without starting with polite conversation, because that would be pointless and distracting. Ilosovic Stayne, why did you try to make my acquaintance to attempting to seduce me, whether or not you meant it?"
"It always worked before," Stayne shrugged helplessly.
"And then accusing me of unlawful seduction, and then revealing my identity to the queen?"
"I panicked," he said. "Living so closely with Iracebeth made that easy to do. And can you imagine what she would have done if she had thought she was losing the man she loved to a foundling she had taken in? You only think you've seen her in a rage—I really have." His lips pressed together in a tight frown.
"If I had even once suggested that it is better to be loved than feared, I cannot even fathom what would have happened then. Those words, coming from me—I think she might have combusted then and there. Although I wasn't certain which was preferable myself, before the events of last year," he mused, almost to himself, then went on.
"I was certain I could smuggle you out of the castle before anything could happen to you, but when the situation got away from me, it seemed safest to play along until I could figure something out. I was not generally afraid of Iracebeth, but knowing my place was a sure way to ensure my own safety.
Of course I did want the vorpal back, you know that, and I wanted my chance at the Jabberwock. But then you took care of escaping yourself, which I was glad to see, and you know how matters progressed from there."
"I was almost executed!" Alice said, outraged.
"My dear, you would not have been executed. If half of the executions Iracebeth ordered had happened, she wouldn't have had a servant left. And this is even after the death of her husband, who used to creep down and release the prisoners at night. The woman had the attention span of a gnat, despite the size of her head."
"Hmph," said Alice, only somewhat mollified, and certain that Stayne might be mistaken about Iracebeth's intentions towards her.
"Casiphia tries to tell me I don't know you well enough to understand your motivations and she wants me to believe that you had complicated reasons for your actions," she went on. "And that at your core you are an honorable man, although I don't know that I have any reason to believe that."
"I've finally had time to think through what I've done and why," Stayne said. "I didn't have much time for introspection before, what with attempting to keep a step ahead of Iracebeth's demands and avoiding being stabbed in the back by her courtiers and riding herd over those wretched idiot Cards. I tried to be loyal to the person who had been my first love and my closest friend, and to me loyalty meant standing by her, regardless of what she chose to do.
"What would you have done with your life if you hadn't fallen in with Iracebeth?" Alice wondered.
"Nearly the same thing, I suppose. Being an orphan limits a boy's options in that regard, even if he is nearly old enough to take care of himself. I used to imagine being head of the White Guard. We know how that turned out."
Alice was beginning to feel uncomfortable, alarmed at the emotions Stayne was revealing and wondering if she should have started this conversation to begin with. Nothing to be done about it now, of course, so she went on as best she could.
"You've given me quite a bit to think about," she admitted. "But I still don't know what to think of you. I'm going to need some time to mull all this over."
"By all means," he said, sweeping her a sardonic bow.
Alice had expressed interest in seeing Casiphia's Derringer, so the lady-in-waiting took the girl out on the castle grounds for an impromptu shooting exhibition. Ilosovic accompanied them, ostensibly to keep passersby out of the way, but more in fact to watch Casiphia shoot. He had been surprised at how good her aim was, even though the courtiers practiced their archery regularly, and enjoyed watching her shooting.
He placed a cracked teapot carefully atop a low stone wall and backed out of the way. Casiphia showed Alice how the mechanism of the gun worked and cautioned her to cover her ears, then took aim and fired. The teapot shattered in a most satisfying fashion—and a blue-waistcoated blur burst out from behind the wall and bolted down a nearby path.
"Nivens McTwisp, off like a shot! Are you hightailing it to the castle?" shouted Stayne, chortling at his own joke. Casiphia and Alice exchanged a look, and Casiphia called, "Come over here so I can kick you."
Alice suddenly giggled. "A rabbit gun! Wouldn't that be lovely? You'd fire it and shoot rabbits instead of bullets."
"You could aim it at the front door when someone was knocking—it would be faster than waiting for rabbit staff to run to answer it," Casiphia suggested.
"Or fire it into the kitchens if you were in dire need of tea."
Sensing a presence, Casiphia looked back to find Stayne looming over her shoulder. "I suppose you want me to accept the blame for starting this little exercise," he said into her ear.
"Of course, dear. Isn't that why we brought you along?"
As Stayne shook his head and returned to the wall to collect teapot shards, Alice whispered to Casiphia, "I'm continually surprised at the way you speak to him. And how he never gets angry with you."
"Oh, we figured out those parameters early on, after we had established a level of trust in each other. He said something snarky about something, I said something snarky in response, and away we went. I think he rather appreciates having someone who will speak back to him, but who actually cares for him. I'm afraid that's rather a novelty," she said with a sad smile.
"Here," Stayne said, returning with the bits of broken porcelain and attempting to hand them to Casiphia.
"Oh no, dear, you went to too much trouble to get those. They're yours," she said.
"Alice?" he said, offering her the former teapot.
"No, quite all right," she said.
"Blast," he said. "Never a rabbit around when you need one."