Chapter 135

"Laird Frang, your wife says Lady Ailene is ready to accept visitors now and there was a meeting you needed to have," a maid informed him. "She said you should meet in Ailene's bedroom. She's prepared to greet visitors now."

"Thank you, lass. Has Bjarkë been informed?"

"Yes, Laird. You're the last of those I was told to fetch."

"I'll be right there. Please inform your mistress."

"Aye, Laird. Right away."

Frang closed the books, and ended his conversation with Mr. Craig, setting up an appointment to meet with him again tomorrow. He went upstairs and found everyone else gathered in Ailene's room, Isobel, Ailene, and Bjarkë.

Bjarkë said, "The rooms next door are vacant with guards outside the door, and the room below this one is entrusted to Cyrus McTeague."

"Aye. Why don't you tell us about Thorburn's and Stuart's hunting trip?"

"Well, it was successful as far as it went," Bjarkë said. "They found the situation to be much the same as it was described by Teárlag. They were able to find the tunnel and get into the dungeon. The primary door to the house is steel and would be nigh impossible to get into and the private stairs to Blackthorne's rooms appeared booby trapped. From first appearances, they don't think it's a feasible way to get into the manor and would result in our men being trapped and attacked from two sides until they were killed or forced to surrender, which would be the same as dead if Blackthorne got his stinking hands on them. Thorburn's considering how we might be able to use the information to our advantage, but it doesn't look like we're getting in through the tunnel."

"Neither of them suffered any injury or discovery?" Ailene asked.

"Nay, lass. Both in and out without being noticed. When they came back, they found a spy outside the Keep and killed him. Thorburn's started regular patrols in the woods outside the walls to root out the rats."

"Thank God. I was so worried," Ailene said. "So we're no closer to a solution to our Blackthorne problem than we were before?"

"Well," Bjarkë said. "No intelligence is ever useless. It merely eliminates the impossible which makes you look into other options."

"It sounds to me as if Blackthorne is impregnable as long as he remains within the manor," Isobel said. "Unless you can catch him outside, he may be safe from anything we might be able to do."

"Possibly," Bjarkë admitted, "though I'm not the tactician Thorburn is, so he might have some other ideas up his sleeve."

"How are you doing, Ailene?" Frang asked.

"Well the willow bark tea is helping with my headache. It's still there, but not nearly as bad as when I first regained consciousness. I'm still drinking some," she gestured to the cup beside the bed, "and the bath helped relax me. Other than having to stay awake, I'm doing much better."

"You don't think we'll need to be drilling into your wee head then?" Bjarkë said.

Ailene laughed. "No, uncle. I don't think it will be necessary."

Frang sighed in relief. "I'm so relieved to hear it. The carpenter drilled three holes in the cow skull and had a difficult time stopping the drill after punching through the bone. It tended to go through at least half an inch after he opened the hole."

"There's nothing to tell him he's about to go through the last of the bone with an empty skull. Makes it more difficult. Built up blood would start to flood out of the hole when he was close. It would give him warning the hole is made," Ailene said.

"Still. I'd hate to tell Stuart a carpenter was drilling holes in his wife's head," Frang said.

They all laughed.

"Have you had anything to eat?" Frang asked.

"I had some soup after my bath," Ailene said. "Don't feel much like chewing yet. I'll have more for supper. Really, you can stop worrying so much about me. I'll be fine."

"Still scared hell out of me," Frang said. "Your next helmet's going to have some metal on it."

"Wouldn't do any good," Ailene said. "Might even make it worse. The brain still bounces around inside the skull and the metal has no give to it. You'd be better off making thicker leather to absorb more punishment. It has more give. I trust Bjarkë won't hit me as hard next time."

"Are you sure you should still fight me, Ailene? I'll do better guarding my stroke, but it's still dangerous."

"Frang was right. I'm not always going to be on a practice field. If I'm to defend myself properly, I need to fight a variety of weapons and even learn to fight more than one foe. I certainly won't go again until I'm sure I'm well, but I've got to learn. Anyone can get injured on the practice field. I've patched up more than my share of nicks and bruises."

"But you're our main doctor. Who's going to patch you up?" Frang asked.

"Isobel is quite competent for the little things, and if I'm conscious, I can guide her through anything needs to be done. She's a better stitcher than I am."

"Thank you for your confidence, but I'm not nearly as good as you are," Isobel said.

"But you are sufficient. You did fine today. You knew to hold my hand, speak to me, bathe my head and neck, and use smelling salts. That's all I could have done. It's not like I've drilled holes in anyone's head before."

"You did know enough one might have to be drilled. I wouldn't have known that," Isobel replied.

"It's a port of last resort. Even that might not have saved me if it was necessary, but it's the only thing left to do."

"Well, I suppose I should see about supper," Isobel said, "if there's nothing more to discuss here. I'll take my turn at keeping you awake tonight at bedtime. Frang can keep you company until supper, and Bjarke afterward. We'll use Jinny later tonight."

"Good," Ailene said, "I needed to discuss my fight with Frang to see what I did right and what I did wrong."

All the others left and Ailene asked, "Well, how did I screw up?"

"Actually, you did very well. Bjarkë was beaten and he knew it. You got him five times right around the heart. I was surprised you did as well as you did for your first time."

"But he still laid me out, so I did do something wrong."

"Well, you did become a little over confident towards the end. He gave you a peek at an opening you thought was there, and you took it, which gave him an opening, but only by sacrificing his arm. The fault's more mine than yours really," Frang said.

"How so?" Ailene inquired.

"Because our exercises have been conducted on the practice field and nowhere else. It's flat, even ground and fought under ideal conditions. You're never going to be fighting for real under those conditions. There's going to be rocks and trees, and other people. The ground will be sloping up or down or have dips. The weather could be raining or the sun hot. You're likely in a dress instead of pants and no protection for your breasts or head. You might be in slippers instead of shoes. The surface could be wet and slippery instead of dry. Real fights are chaotic, uneven affairs with things going on all around you. You can't concentrate only on the opponent in front of you. You have to be aware of everything around you."

"So we need to start training for the reality instead of the ideal," Ailene said. "Place obstacles on the training grounds, rocks and sticks, and have more people around, maybe with sticks or switches to hit you and remind you to keep awareness all around. Start training in the rain and in the weeds and trees and thickets."

"Yes, but there's more," Frang said. "There's no substitute for experience. Bjarkë's been tested in the fires of real battle. When faced with an impossible situation which he couldn't win in the usual way; he looked for the extraordinary way. He surrendered a part of his body to give him the opening he needed. He took a stab to the arm to save one to the heart. It would have hurt and injured him severely, but he would have survived. It's contrary to what you've learned, which is to protect yourself from any injury. He knew what to do based upon his experiences in real world battles. Would you have allowed yourself to lose an arm to protect your life?"

"No, probably not. Bjarkë said something similar himself. Better a wounded wing than a stuck heart, is what he said."

"Exactly. He's been in life and death situations which forced him to make unnatural choices to save his life. He recognized he was beaten in the usual way, and looked for the unusual; the sacrifice. It's something you don't learn on the practice ground where no one's really trying to kill you. It's just drills. In real life, you'll look for anything; dirt in the face, something to hide behind, or block a stroke, an obstacle which may trip your opponent up, or surrendering an arm to save your heart. I fought two duels where a stone determined the result. I tripped on one and fell down going backward and my opponent didn't notice immediately and fell onto my rapier as he lunged for where I was. He died, slowly, as my blade pierced his intestines, merely by accident. In the other, my opponent tripped backward, though I noticed and managed to stay upright and nicked his arm. It was only a duel to first blood, so the fight ended without further bloodshed. Either could have gone the other way. I might have ended up dead both times. One, the stone save me from a superior opponent, the second was more even but could have ended deadlier than it did, being evenly matched."

"Can you design training to account for those things?"

"I can, somewhat. We still have to use practice blades, but maybe, the fight ends as soon as someone makes what would be a killing blow, to remind you of deaths finality. And we immediately try to recreate the battle and the conditions to determine if there was anything out of the ordinary you might have done to stave off death."

"Then that's what we do," Ailene said. "I want to be prepared for reality."

"We'll start in a few days. As soon as it's safe for you to do so."

Jinny knocked on the door. "Supper's on," she said.

"Will you be eating in bed or will you be coming down to supper?" Frang asked.

"I'll come down. I should move around, get my blood flowing, see how badly my head hurts when I do. If you would be so kind as to help me down the stairs, make sure I don't get dizzy and fall, I'll get by."

"Of course, Lady."