I've published the book! Arthur's Witch: The Priestess is now available on Kindle and Smashwords, and you can download the sample for free, so it's gotta be worth a look! The blurb is below.
Morgan le Fay is a woman shrouded in infamy. The original wicked witch, she is responsible for bringing the golden age of Arthur to a catastrophic end. Though evil guile, ruthless ambition and petty jealousy, she stood against the light of Britain's first Christian King, her own brother. She watched an entire kingdom burn. A subhuman monster who consorted with demons and became the Devil's mistress.
Or a woman shrouded in mystery. The original fairy godmother, she is responsible for creating the golden age of Arthur from the ground to the ramparts of Camelot. Though passion, purity of spirit and selflessness, she stood against the religious perversion which invaded her homeland and corrupted her King, her own brother. She protected an entire kingdom as a mother would a child. A High Priestess whose name and legend have been besmirched and besmeared by lesser men.
Her own story. Now told.
A/N: This chapter is dedicated to Serena Kenobi, with my congratulations. She knows why ;) And also thank you to theamerican91, for giving me a kick to get this chapter out.
Chapter Twelve—Fencing
Diana was welcomed by Alfred in a manner which convinced her that the elderly butler was not like other domestic servants. He made it clear that she was welcome, but was grace and solemn—he understood she was making a sacrifice to be here. She appreciated his appropriate response to the situation, though she still could not place him. if he was not an ordinary domestic, then what exactly was he? Her own sense of propriety stopped her from asking outright, so Diana merely resolved to be more observant, and see what she might pick up.
Bruce, she was told, awaited her in the drawing room, after she had freshened up and inspected the layout of her apartment. She went upstairs with a little trepidation, unsure of what she would find. To her strange satisfaction, everything was as ostentatious and gaudy as she expected it to be. Ebony and mahogany furniture, richly upholstered; ivory and silver trinkets pointlessly scattered across every surface; hand-painted Chinese silk wallpaper and heavy damask drapes at the windows. Singularly, Diana would have examined each object with indifference and contempt—altogether, the effect was quite eye-watering.
"Does it meet your approbation, Miss Prince?" Alfred asked, his eyes positively twinkling.
Diana's mouth quirked into a smile before she could stop it. "It's … everything I imagined."
"The master will be pleased." He pointed to a bell pull by the door. "Should you need anything, please just ring for me."
"Thank you, Mr Pennyworth."
He bowed and left her to wander through the other rooms with just as much wonder and amazement, before removing her coat and bonnet and heading downstairs. She entered the drawing room and found Bruce Wayne standing by the window. She entered silently, and did not make a noise, but even so he knew she was there. Or at least, his back did.
"How do you like your rooms, Miss Prince?"
She nodded. "As hideous as expected."
He turned with a smile. "I'm so glad to hear it. Would you care for some wine?"
"Thank you, yes."
He poured out two glasses of crimson liquid and handed on to her. If there was to be an awkward, quiet moment, Diana thought, it would be now. It was not only her who had changed her life for this. There probably had not been a woman living in this house since Bruce's mother, all those years ago. She briefly wondered if she would ever be in a position to ask. No, she realised, looking at him now. There would never be a time for such enquiries. Such information, such personal detail, could only ever be volunteered.
The moment, however, was eclipsed by Bruce handing her a flat piece of paper. When she looked at it, it appeared to be some kind of timetable. "What's this?" she asked.
"Your schedule for the weeks ahead," he replied, pronouncing the 'sch' in a way strange to Diana's eyes. America pronunciation, she assumed. "I thought we could go over it for any problems."
"It seems to be a little like going back to school."
"In a way, it will be. There is certainly a lot to learn."
There was indeed; shooting, languages, archery, unarmed combat and more riding. The riding was less frequent than other activities, presumably because she had already proven her proficiency in that.
"I'm to learn Russian?" she asked.
"Yes. There may be occasion to travel there, and at least one of us will need to speak Russian."
"You do not speak that either?"
"No. But as you are already familiar with the Cyrillic alphabet, it would be easier for you to learn than I."
"Who will be my tutor, if you do not speak it?"
There was the soft clearing of a throat from the doorway. "That will be me, Miss Prince."
Diana stared between butler and master for a moment, before realising she was being impolite and closing her mouth. "Indeed? Very well, Mr Pennyworth. I look forward to your instruction."
"He's a hard task master, I warn you" Bruce commented with a small smile. "But something tells me you did not expect this to be easy."
"Anything but, I assure you."
"Then I look forward to working with you, Miss Prince. I believe our first lesson is scheduled for tomorrow at nine in the morning. Please endeavor not to be late." He bowed and shut the door behind himself before Diana could further conceal her surprise.
"He is not like any other servant I have ever met, Mr Wayne."
"I confess it has been a very long time since I thought of Alfred as any kind of servant. After my parents were killed he became my legal guardian. Since I was eight, he has raised me."
"How very extraordinary."
"Not really. At least, I doubt you will think so once you get to know him."
Diana caught the faint note of warning in his voice, and listened to it. This household was going to take some time to get used to, clearly. Diana hoped she had never treated any of her servants unkindly, but she had always followed propriety. Etta had been the only one she treated with open affection, and even that, to a certain extent, had ceased once Dina had become mistress of the house.
"So, what is the rest of my schedule like?" she asked.
"Equally busy."
"What is 'unarmed combat'?" she asked. "How can anyone fight without weapons?"
"Very easily," Bruce answered, "with the right technique, master and enough patience. I am the most skilled man in the kingdom in this form of combat. In China it is very widely practiced."
"Have you been there? To China, I mean."
"I lived them for some years, in the Himalayan Mountains. Then I went to India, Arabia …"
"Have you ever travelled back?'
His eyes darkened. "Once."
To fill the awkward pause that created, Diana asked something that had been playing on her mind. "Mr Wayne, tell me—in this role, this spying, will I need to kill? To assassinate?"
It did not work to relieve any of the tension; the moment the word 'kill' left her lips, Bruce's expression grew even more grave. "Miss Prince, I must make one thing very clear to you: I never kill. Even if I know my intelligence may lead to to wars and such, no one under my command ever takes life."
"Then I am relieved."
"Good."
"But has there never been a time when you have felt the temptation?" she asked. "I know I have wished for revenge, and I have only half your motivation."
He leaned back a little in his seat. "You are bold, Miss Prince."
She remained silent, unsure why she had been so. She did not know him anywhere hear well enough to ask such a personal question. But something about the idea of him treating her as anything less than an equal rankled with Diana. He had not been so discourteous yet, but she wanted to nip every possible bloom of condescension in the bud.
Finally, Bruce nodded. "I have wished for revenge, true enough. As a child, and a young man, I wished for very little else. But I realised that simple revenge would be … not enough. It would avenge my parents' lives, but it would do nothing to stop what happened to me being repeated, time and time again. Only by doing this, only by preventing such murders and unhappiness could that happen. So I have dedicated my life to it."
"All very understandable," Diana acknowledged, "but it does not explain why you do not kill those you fight against. It would be the most effective way of stopping them."
"For the simple reason that doing so would make me no better than them. And," he added with a confident smirk, "there are far more efficient tools than death at my disposal—and these, you will learn."
"I look forward to it."
"But first—a tour of the house."
She raised an eyebrow. "May I not explore on my own?"
"Of course, but there are certain areas that you will never find on your own. Particularly the cave."
Diana stopped. "The cave?"
"Yes. Well, more of a cavern really. The entrance is through the study."
She followed him up to the study on the first floor, full of curiosity. When they got to the study, it was not diminished—the room had only one door, and nowhere could Diana see the entrance to another chamber. When she pointed out as much to Bruce, he only shook his head and moved to the tall grandfather clock that stood against the wall. Opening the glass face, he moved the hands so that they read ten minutes to eleven. With a small clicking noise, there appeared a gap of about half an inch on the left-hand side, enough for one's fingers to gain purchase. This Bruce did, pulling the clock outward on smooth, previously unseen hinges. Behind the clock was a tunnel, descending into stairs that wound down.
Diana looked at Bruce, her jaw slack. "My goodness. You are full of surprises, aren't you?"
"I do try to be," he answers, moving over to light a candle with a taper from the fire. "If you do not mind, I will go first. There are certain booby-traps."
"Booby-traps? Great Hera."
"That's an odd turn of phrase," he remarked.
"Another legacy from my childhood."
"I take it, then, you will not wish to attend church everySunday?"
"No. The Christian faith has never brought me much succor or comfort, Mr Wayne. I could easily never go back to it."
He nodded, but said nothing before leading them down the staircase. It spiralled underground; Diana had not thought that the walls of the manor were so thick as to conceal an entire staircase, but down they went. Their progress was necessarily slow, as Bruce kept stopping to light candelabras on the way down, illuminating their path. Finally they reached the bottom of the steps, and were faced with a door that looked positively medieval in nature; dark oak and studded with iron.
"How long has this been here?" Diana asked.
"It's relatively recent. The cave, of course, in natural and has existed for thousands of years, but I installed the entrance to it some years ago, when all this started."
Diana made a small note of that. Judging by what she had already seen, Bruce certainly had a flair for the dramatic. The door required no key—though it did require being kicked—to open, and the groan it made as it swung outward echoed, revealing that a vast space lay beyond. Bruce passed the candle to her and went inside.
"This is impossible to light with nothing but candles," Bruce explained, "so I've had to come up with a better alternative."
"Which is?" Diana asked, moving over to him.
He was fiddling with a complicated copper apparatus, twirling wheels around and pulling levers. "Pressure's alright …"
Finally he took hold of one small wheel and turned it clockwise. Diana had lost all interest a while ago, as her eyes adjusted to the gloom and she made out a little more detail. Stalagmites and tites loomed from the dark, or thrust upwards, made smooth by centuries of dripping water. There were the jagged edges of vast pits and crevices not too far from where she stood. In fact, chillingly close, she thought, deciding not to move from where she stood until she could see where she was moving. What was most curious though, were the tiny, pale blue lights that Diana could see dotted around the walls, grouped together and glowing faintly in the darkness. As Bruce finished whatever she was doing, the blue became orange, and then yellow, increasing in volume and brightness until most of the cave was illuminated brightly.
Diana spent a moment looking over it. "Gas."
"Very good."
"Is there a natural source underneath the manor?"
"Yes, a pocket almost a mile down, in fact. I use that to light the house, and I intend to work on a heating system when I have time. Possibly in my retirement," he added, with a little bark of retirement.
"Is it not dangerous?" she asked. "Surely there must be a risk of explosion."
"A slight one, but I've just set up several fail-safes and other precautions. That's why the damned things take so long to turn on."
"Ah. I did think you were rather making a mountain from a molehill," she teased.
He quirked an eyebrow. "Am I going to have trouble with you, Miss Prince?"
"Oh, very great I should think."
He smiled. "I thought as much. What do you think?"
She looked around the newly-illuminated cave. It was, as she'd suspected, vast. There seemed to be several clearly divided sections to it. On their left, an area about twenty five feet across, with some kind of bamboo matting on the floor and a weapons rack on one side. Though, aside from a few words, Diana recognised none of the weapons.
"Souvenirs from your travels?" she asked.
He nodded, moving over to them. From the weapon rack, he picked up what looked like a pair of small metal stars. Diana came over to examine them, finding that they had extremely sharp edges. "They're called shuriken," Bruce said. With a flick of his wrist, he sent them flying across the room to land, quivering, in the bamboo wall of the practice area. The suddenness of the movement caught Diana by surprise, and she started a little. Bruce smirked. "Very useful for incapacitating enemies at a distance of about fifteen feet."
"Impressive."
"We'll get to them."
He motioned for her to follow him to another part of the cave, where there were yet more technological marvels to look at. In one corner, Diana's attention was caught by a tarpaulin-covered object, and she moved over to it.
"What's under here?"
"A … hobby. I'm working on an internal combustion engine."
"Combustion? You mean an engine powered by an explosion?"
"Well, a very small, very contained one. But if it works, then it could have a vast number of applications. Transportation for one thing—if fitted to vehicles it could almost eliminate pollution in towns and cities."
"You imagine horseless carriages?"
"Eventually, one day. When I can get it right. At the moment it is nowhere near ready. The explosion is … somewhat less than contained."
Diana smiled at that, then let the covering fall back into place. "Then I shall leave it alone for now."
"This is where most of your combat training will take place," Bruce explained. "I assume you know little about armed or unarmed fighting, but please correct me if I am wrong."
"You are wrong indeed," Diana said warmly. "I cannot use a pistol, true enough, but I how how to hit a man and I know the rudiments of fencing."
"When you say you know how to hit a man …"
Diana's gaze darkened dangerously, though there was more than a small twinkle in there too. "Would you like a demonstration, Mr Wayne?"
All her life, that tone and look had been enough to ward off the attentions of more timid men, no matter how amorous. Not so this man, apparently. Diana could not remember the last time she had had her bluff called, but now it was being.
"I would be delighted, Miss Prince."
They moved to the training area, Bruce essentially standing there doing nothing, waiting for Diana to strike him. She frowned, dropping her hands. "Mr Wayne, I hardly think this is an effective demonstration of what I can do."
"Actually, it is. I will stop you before you make contact with my body, and this will give me chance to observe your form. Now, please, hit me."
Diana raised an eyebrow, but did adopt the right stance, shifting her weight onto her back back and lowering her centre of gravity slightly. She raised her hand, balled it into a fist, and then stopped. "Just … hit you?"
"Just hit me."
"Very well."
She aimed for his shoulder, and right until the last moment, Bruce stood very still, relaxed, completely unconcerned. Right before her fist made contact, his hand managed to come up in the blink of an eye and deflect her blow. Surprised, Diana tried again, with the same result.
"Put more strength into it."
She doubted that would make much difference, but did as he instructed, and struck again, only to have Bruce block her again. And again, and again. Diana did not, as her perhaps expected, become frustrated and attempt wild blows; it would avail her absolutely nothing and exhaust her besides, so she decided a feint was in order. She aimed for his shoulder again and then, once he tried to block, changed her route and hit him squarely in the nose. The blow was a shock for both of them, but only one of them ended up on his backside.
Diana had to laugh at the utterly stupefied expression on Bruce's face. "Something tells me that is not a common occurrence, Mr Wayne?"
He accepted her offer of a hand up. "Indeed not."
"So, how was my form?"
"Not bad. The next time, we will try in a sparring situation, and see how you fare in actual combat."
"Very well."
"Can you handle a rapier?"
"Yes. But I think for your safety it might be better if we use foils."
"I thought you said you only knew the rudiments."
She shrugged and flourished the foil a little as he handed it to her. "It was one of my father's favourite pastimes, and my mother encouraged it." She adopted the appropriate pose. "En-garde."
Diana had not lied—Hector never had taught her much more than the rudiments, but she had a natural talent for it, and easy grace with a sword in her hand. Now facing Bruce, she felt at ease for the first time since entering this strange, labyrinthine house.
They fell into the rhythm of any fencing match—thrust, parry, block, feint, both of them content to test the limits of the other one before doing anything in earnest. Bruce was very quick in doing this; after barely ten seconds of combat, he had already assessed much of her capability, Diana knew. She had, naturally, done the same to him. He was broad, powerful, which ordinarily would have meant her slighter build would give her the speed advantage. Not that she was considered slight by the standards most women were judged by. She was however, stronger than most women. Once they had been made properly aware of one another, Diana attacked truly. There was no warming up slowly into the match—they moved at equal speed and strength, blades flashing silver in the soft gas light. It was very easy to enjoy it; it had been a long time since she had fenced, even longer since she had enjoyed an equal opponent. They were very evenly matched, at least for the first several minutes of the fight. Until Diana started pulling her own moves out of her arsenal. They were probably illegal moves, but the rules of pure fencing had been forgotten a while ago in the enjoyment of it, for both of them. If there were points being scored, they were no longer fencing ones. Time passed quickly, with both of them steadily exhausting themselves. By the time Bruce raised his foil, and his free hand, Diana was drenched in very unladylike perspiration, and very much in need of a bath.
Realising this, she felt embarrassed. That had not been overly dignified.
"Well, in traditional fencing you may indeed only only know the rudiments, Miss Prince. But I would hardly call you a novice."
"Thank you. I am sure there is room for improvement though."
"In me, definitely. I would say you will be teaching me as well as I you."
"Again, I thank you."
"Come. I am sure after that we could both use some refreshment."
Diana heartily agreed—noting with some pleasure that Bruce took longer than her to regain his breath.
A/N: Review please!