1) Floataway Bridge
Formally known as the Fishermonger’s Bridge, Floataway is a pontoon bridge that stretches across the upper portion of the Aris. During especially heavy spring floods, it’s prone to break away from it’s moorings and drift downriver. The effort to return it to its proper place usually results in an impromptu festival, with games, food vendors and crowds of wagering spectators.

2) Little Furzon Bridge
Contructed of rope and wood, Little Furzon hangs suspended from the underside of the Great Furzon Bridge, providing quicker access between the lower levels of the city. As an unauthorized bridge, it is perodically removed by the City Watch, only to reappear again in a few weeks or months.

3) The Stepstones
The northern-most (upstream) bridge on the Aris, the Stepstones is a more elaborate construction than its name implies. The string of stepping stones, each about 2 feet in diameter, float on the surface of the water. The stones are anchored in the riverbed and to each other to ensure stability, but this bridge is only accessible when the river is running low, typically in the late summer and early autumn.

4) Bridge of Boats
Various city fesitvals ofen include a bridge of boats, wherein participants line their boats up across the river and connect them with planks. They’re usually decorated, depending on the theme of the event, and offer refreshements to partiers traveling back and forth across the “bridge.”

5) The Boys’ Bridge
Every three years, boys between 12 and 15 participate in a city-wide bridge building competition with two teams, Guilds versus Houses. The goal is to build, in one day, a temporary bridge across the river (the location changes each year) that must be sturdy enough to support the weight of someone walking across it. The bridges are removed when the event is completed. In the most memorable instance of this competition, the boys of the House team created a bridge with their own bodies, linking arms and legs with one another in the water while someone walked across their backs.

2) The Gatehouse
Every city, town and hamlet in the Surviving Lands has a Gatehouse, but Corregal has the only one that spans a river gorge. The Gatehouse is the western-most (upriver) bridge across the Cille, and is topped by a massive basilica that acts as a spiritual center for the city, and also houses the many people who serve there. Bridge and basilica are both built of gold-flecked granite, with a single 150-foot-high arch anchored in a tower on either bank. Both towers are accesible by boats on the river, but the main level of the bridge is along Cille Street on the south, and a series of stairways down from the High Bank on the north. The Gatehouse is more than just a place of worship: the Gates regulate the flow of spiritual/magical energies into the world. Without the Gates, the world would wither and die. Without the Gatehouses to monitor and control the Gates, the energies would flow unrestricted, (potentially) leading to a second Great Calamity.

(In a bit of synchronicity, the day I decided to write this post, one of my favorite blogs posted an article about an actual basilica built on a bridge.)

3)Daena’s Bridge
Daena was the twin sister of Evreme’s King Dynmor, but they argued and she departed the royal capital of Averest and took up residence in Corregal, then only a regional center (with a few dozen bridges). A fierce warrior with aspirations towards the Gatehouse Wardens, she refused Dynmor’s summons to return to court and marry the southern warlord princeling with whom he wished to make an alliance. The prince, taking her refusal as an insult, set out to capture her for himself, and set siege to Corregal. In a final battle on the bridge that now bears her name, Daena faced and defeated the prince, but took a mortal wound and died. In grief, King Dynmor made it law that thereafter no women would be permitted to bear bladed weapons. The bridge itself is closed to traffic, except for the anniversary of Daena’s death, on which the women of the city lay a tribute of flowers across it.

4) Great Furzon Bridge
The Tazan Empire conquered Evreme approximately 200 years ago, obliterating Averest and the royal line. They established their provincial headquarters in Corregal. Trying to win the support of the local population, while asserting their mastery at the same time, they began the monumental construction of the Great Furzon Bridge, the highest and longest bridge in the city at the time. Its wide span, lined with shops and businesses, remains a center of economic activity even after the revolution lead by Sieur Eristan Fleuracy ended the Imperial dominion 20 years ago. That the bridge was not torn down following the revolution. despite it’s constant reminder of their former subjucation, is a testament to the population’s respect for their bridges and bridge builders.

5) The Broken Bridge
Vallen’s Sun Bridge was the first major construction begun in the years following the revolution. Larger even then the Great Furzon Bridge, it would have dominated the riverscape and increased the prestige of the Vallen family a hundred fold. After ten years of construction it was nearly complete when a magical explosion tore it apart, killing over one hundred workers and three members of the Vallen family who were there on inspection. The culprit was discovered to be Sieur Javar Aderen, head of a rival House. Javar killed himself before he could be apprehended, and all that remains of Sun Bridge are the ruined abutments on either shore.

Cagen Thul had done her a favor, really. Whatever impulse had driven Mariesa to challenge the foreigner to a duel had not been born of experience with the sword. If the watchman hadn’t stepped in when he had, she would have humiliated herself nine-times more thoroughly than his public rebuke had done. She could just imagine the ridicule that would have ensued, had she actually tried to cross swords with the Jurati. With Barris and Tierce there to witness, no less.

But what had she expected, invoking Evod as she had?

Night had settled fully on the river by the time they reached home; even the towering mansions of the High Bank had surrendered the day’s last light. Down below, nearer the water’s edge, shadows thickened into blackness, with the lights on the bridges making dotted lines across the river. In on a quiet street that cut up from the south shore of the Cille, Fleuracy House was hidden behind high stone walls, indistinguishable from its neighbors save for the twin falcons carved into the ironwood gate.

The gate was open, and torches lined the vine-wrapped arcade that led to the house, an austere, three-storied structure half-carved out of the hillside itself. Mariesa ran past the steward standing watch with barely a word. Evod’s influence still curled around her tongue, and she was desperately afraid of what she might say, if she had to say too much. It wasn’t fair. All she’d asked for was a little misdirection, so that she might go unnoticed on the Blade. Instead, she’d found herself stepping out of the crowd, pretending a competence she surely didn’t own. But everyone knew that Evod, who was sometimes called the Master of Lies, had a devious sense of humor.

She crashed through the door into the house, desperate to reach her room before anyone could stop her. Instead, she nearly crashed into her father, who stood waiting in the pilastered entry hall. Eristan Fleuracy was nearly sixty, with grey hair and wrinkles on his face, but even so it was hard to think of him as old. Beneath his formal, grey-green tunic he was lean and straight-backed, and still quick enough to catch his daughter by the elbow as she tried to fly by.

He held her fast while he leveled a hard glare at the three who spilled through the door in her wake. Words weren’t necessary, under that gaze. Both Tierce and Barris flinched from the unspoken rebuke, looking even more like boys than they usually did. They’d been due back at sunset, Mariesa remembered, in order to attend the Bell Guard dedication at the Gatehouse. Her father did not often set curfews on the young men he’d taken into his House, but when he did he expected to be heeded. There would be consequences after tonight, she was sure. She might have felt sorry for them, if she wasn’t tied up with her own resentment at not being allowed to go herself.

“Five minutes.” He didn’t raise his voice, but reproach shaped his words like a whip. “Then I want you back down here, appropriately groomed and dressed. We can discuss whatever excuses you have to offer for yourselves in the morning. Go.”

They went, shoulders hunched, eyes to the floor. Tierce looked up at her as he passed her on the way to the stairs, a bemused expression on his face, but Barris hardly acknowledged her. His jaw was clenched so tightly she could almost hear his teeth grinding together.

Not until the clatter of their footsteps had died away did Eristan turn his attention to the stranger that still hovered in the doorway. Releasing his daughter’s arm, he surveyed the Jurati swordsman with a critical eye, taking in the brightly colored clothing and jewels, along with the expensive sword that hung at his hip. “Who are you?” he asked. “Has my daughter been out collecting suitors dressed like that?”

“Very funny, father.” Mariesa yanked the cap off her head, loosing her hair that had been trapped beneath. The long, dark hair fell across her face and obscured a rising blush. She did not welcome talk of suitors at the best of times, but especially not when she was wearing clothes borrowed from the cook’s son. “He’s here to see you.”

“Is that so?”

The Jurati swept forward with a bow. “Sieur Eristan,” he said. His eyes, a light hazel, glimmered almost golden in the lamplight. “I am greatly honored. My name is Romeric Esard. I bear a letter, from Anieve aira Berdenne.”

“Anieve?” The name caught her father off-guard. He stared at Romeric a moment, and the stern lines on his face softened. “It’s been a long time…”

“So she said, before I left her.” The Jurati held out a square of folded parchment. “She said also that it would not matter.”

There was a wax seal holding the letter closed, but Mariesa could not make out the insignia pressed into it. Her father studied it a moment before breaking it open.

“She asks that I give you a place in my House.”

Romeric straightened his shoulders, one hand resting on the hilt of his sword. “I have some skill with the blade, Sieur. I would be honored to wield mine in your service.” Somehow, he managed to say it without looking smug. He had a right to boast, after his victories on the Bridge of Blades, but he didn’t. Perversely, his casual self-assurance rubbed Mariesa the wrong way.

Neither was her father much impressed. He looked at the young man over the top of the letter with raised eyebrows. “Really? Anieve suggested that I send you to my farm in Barasti.”

Doubt flickered across the younger man’s face. “She said that?”

“She seems to think time shepherding goats would do to teach you some humility.”

“I…” It was the first time she’d seen him unsettled since he drew his sword on the Bridge of Blades. As Romeric stumbled over his response, plainly dismayed by this unexpected turn of events, she decided she might like him after all. Especially when, despite his consternation at the prospect of a career as a shepherd, he dipped his head to her father and said, “If you think that’s best, I will be guided by your wisdom, Sieur.”

“I think that I do not need a goatherd who likely does not know the difference between a goat and its own fodder. You can stay here. We’ll discuss our obligations—yours to me, and my own to you—on the morrow.” Eristan refolded the letter in his hand. “Do you have something else you can wear tonight?”

“I left my belongings with the barge—”

“Tierce!” Eristan cut him off, his shout reverberating up through the hall. A moment later, Tierce peered down at them from the top of the stairs.

“Sieur?”

“See if you can’t find something for him to wear tonight. You’re close enough in size. Go on.” He waved Romeric towards the stairs. “Be quick about it. We are late already.”

The Jurati, his relief almost palpable, bowed again and murmured a quick thanks. He took the stairs two at a time.

When he was gone, her father exhaled softly. “Well, daughter, do you think your mother will approve?”

“I think you could bring a whole clan of Grennish hill folk to live here, and she would not object. She’ll put her foot down if you try to send him to the farm though.”

He chuckled in rueful agreement. Lesina Fleuracy was relentlessly detached when it came to matters of the Corregal house, but she was dictatorial about how the farm was run. She was in Barasti now, in fact, three days to the northeast, overseeing the spring planting. She would not thank her husband for sending an untried popinjay to her as a farmhand.

“I don’t think Romeric Esard is his real name,” Mariesa said unexpectedly, so suddenly that she surprised herself along with her father. The thought hadn’t even been in her head before her tongue had shaped the words.

Evod again, she knew. But was he twisting her tongue with more lies, or had he given her a truth this time? The Liar was only one epithet he wore. He Who Sees was how most called him, or the Open Eye, but he was also the Grey Watcher, and the Honest Knave, and sometimes just the Spy. To him truth and lies were but different sides of the same coin he played with.

Mariesa’s father gave her a shrewd look. “You may be right. But Anieve would not have sent him to me if he was not trustworthy. Whatever his reasons are for hiding who he is, I don’t believe he means us harm.” He pinched the folds of the letter between his fingers, deepening the creases. “I’ll not trouble him about it. Nor should you.”

It was not an entirely reassuring response, but since she could not explain where her suspicions came from—or even if there was any foundation to them—she decided to let the matter drop. At least he was aware of a possible deception. But it bothered her, a little, that her father placed such trust in this unknown woman from his past. “Who is she?” she asked. “Anieve aira Berdenne. That means ‘of the honey crag’, doesn’t it? Is that where you met her? Did you…were you lovers?”

Sieur Eristan pursed his lips and considered her. “That’s a frank question for a girl to ask her father.”

She bit down on the inside of her lip, hoping she hadn’t gone too far. Growing up, he had always answered all her questions, even the uncomfortable ones. But she had never asked him something quite so personal before.

“I’ll give you an answer,” he told her then, “if you’ll tell me why you’re running about the city dressed as a boy.”

She opened her mouth, and then shut it again without saying anything. At her hasty headshake, Eristan nodded gravely.

“I thought so. Let’s just agree that some questions between father and daughter are better left unanswered.”

***

A short while later, Sieur Eristan Fleuracy left his house with the three young men in tow. From across the street, a woman watched them go. She was dressed in worker’s garb, with the badge of the Porter’s Guild on her shoulder, but that was mostly for convenience’s sake. In this city of stepped roads and terraces, most goods had to be carried by hand, and the Porters were the ones who did it. Porters could go anywhere, and were never questioned.

She recognized the foreign swordsman amongst the the Sieur’s charges, though he had changed clothes and now wore a badge on his shoulder, too. She’d caught the gleam of it in the torch’s light as they passed. Fleuracy’s twin falcons, no doubt. Her employer would be interested in knowing that, to be sure. Hopefully, the information would earn her an extra coin or two when she passed it on.

When the street was empty again, she slipped away from her hiding place. As she headed up the hill towards High Bank, she whispered a prayer to Evod. He Who Sees had a special fondness for those who watched from the shadows.

“Sieur Eristan wants us back before dark,” Barris reminded him, raising his voice to make sure he was heard over the enthusiastic clamor of the onlookers. The two of them stood side-by-side in the crowd that packed the bridge to the rails, all young men with House and Guild badges on their shoulders and swords at their hips. Barris was a head taller, which gave him a slightly better view of the cleared area in the middle where the duelists circled one another, though he didn’t look particularly happy about it. He had not wanted to be there at all, and his impatience with his companion was clear. “We’ll be late.”

Tierce pulled his attention away from the duel long enough to glance upriver, where the sun would soon disappear behind distant mountains. “Not that late. We could take Shinetower.”

The peal of sword against sword interrupted Barris’ next objection. Blades flickered back in forth in a swift exchange of blows that left him as mesmerized as everyone else on the bridge. “We’ll miss the dedication,” he muttered as the duelists pulled apart again, though there was not much conviction to it.

Frustrated by the heads still in the way, Tierce tried to elbow his way forward for a better view, but he had to settle for standing on tiptoe to see much. Cael Averre was having a hard time of it. The youngest son of one of the richest Houses in Corregal, Cael was an aggressive duelist with a reputation for overpowering his opponents in the first minutes of a fight. Tierce had personal experience of that, so it was with some satisfaction that he watched the Jurati swordsman rebuff his attacks with apparent ease. The sheen of sweat on Cael’s brow showed the effort was starting to wear him down.

In contrast, the foreigner seemed hardly winded at all, and this was his sixth—no, seventh—bout of the afternoon. Impressive.

“Look at that,” Tierce exclaimed, admiring the negligent flick with which the Jurati deflected a thrust, and then smoothly turned the move into a cut of his own. His blade moved with precision and speed, too fast to possibly avoid. Only at the last second did he pull the blow aside, the blade skimming so close to flesh that Cael must have felt the wind of its passing against his cheek. There was a shout of approval from the audience.

“Who is he?” Barris mused as the Jurati danced away once more from Cael’s blade.

“The son of an impoverished count,” Tierce suggested, the details spinning themselves out in his head even as he spoke. The Jurati’s flamboyant clothing—not to mention the fine blade he wielded—suggested something less humble than ordinary merchant-folk. And since Corregal had no hereditary aristocracy of its own, tales about foreign nobility always had a particularly romantic appeal. “His father gambled away the family’s wealth. All he had left was a sword with which to make his fortune, so that he can return home, restore his family’s honor, and claim the woman he loves as his bride.”

The story earned him some wide-eyed stares from the boys near enough to overhear him, but Barris only snorted. “You just made that up.”

“Of course.” Tierce grinned. “I usually do.”

Cael’s blows were increasingly irregular, and not just because he was tiring. He had stepped into the ring with the assurance of someone who seldom had to face defeat, but it was becoming apparent that he was not going to win this time. And, just as he lacked the finesse with which the Jurati managed his blade, he lacked the grace to accept his loss with dignity. He was swinging wildly, without any pretense of trying to pull his blows, as was customary in most matches on the Blade. The foreigner had fought six bouts already and not drawn blood once. The red-faced anger on Cael’s face, though, made it clear he wouldn’t be satisfied with anything less.

The Jurati, though he seemed to be enjoying himself immensely, wisely decided it was time to bring the match to an end. A feint to the right left an opening his desperate opponent couldn’t help take, and when he did, his sword slipped back and, with an unexpected twist, flicked the Cael’s blade out of his grasp. It skittered across the cobblestones so that several of the closer onlookers had to hop out of its way lest their toes get clipped. The Jurati, whose smile had never faded for the duration of the bout, grinned even more widely and leveled his blade at his disarmed opponent’s chest.

The crowd cheered uproariously, Tierce and Barris among them. Whatever lingering affront the locals felt at the presumption of the foreigner on the Blade was overcome by the splendid display of swordsmanship. You couldn’t not cheer when someone fought like that.

Unless, of course, you were the one who just lost.

“Where did you learn to fight like that?” Cael snarled at the Jurati. He was tired and breathless and humiliated, and, perhaps, the best retaliation he could think of was to cast vague aspersions on his opponent’s skill.

The Jurati’s face became serious for the first time. He lowered his blade, held it casually at his side as he considered Cael.

“Wardens Shore,” he said finally, his accent lending a particularly exotic air to the words.

There was a murmur of surprise from the crowd. The story about the Jurati that Tierce had been spinning in his head took an abrupt left turn. Wardens Shore was practically a legend, the site of a battle some five years past, where Jurati defenders had fought a desperate battle to protect their homeland from Khar invaders. They had managed it, against all odds, but only at great loss of life. But there was no way that the young man standing on the Bridge of Blades now could have fought then—he couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen years old at the time.

Cael curled his lip in disbelief. “You never fought in any battle!”

“Are you calling me a liar?” The Jurati spoke mildly, and moved not at all, except to shift his grip on the hilt of his sword just slightly. “Because if you are, you better be willing to pick up that sword again and prove it. And I promise you, I will not be pulling any blows this time.”

The lowering sun cast their shadows long over the bridge, and around them scores of watchers held their breaths, waiting to see what would happen. What had started as an afternoon’s diversion was in danger of becoming much more serious. But Cael had already been beaten once, and though he might be temperamental, he wasn’t an idiot. With unconvincing nonchalance, he forced his shoulders back and his chin up, and schooled his face into a disdainful glower. He did not say anything—he didn’t need too—and the crowd split in front of him as he walked away, stopping only long enough to pick up his sword from where it had fallen.

The Jurati swordsman waited till he was gone from the bridge before he let the affable smile slip once more into place. Then he gave a little shrug and flicked a stray strand of hair out his face. A ray of sunlight caught the silver-engraved blade of his sword as he lifted it. His eyes swept the assembly with implacable confidence. “Who’s next?” he said.

A buzz of voices rose from the crowd, all vague muttering and hemming remarks. No one was quite so confident of victory as they had been a little while before. Tierce had abandoned his own hopes of taking on the Jurati about halfway through the bout with Cael, but beside him he heard Barris murmur, “I could beat him.” Before he had a chance to even decide if he was going to encourage or discourage his friend, someone else spoke out loudly over the bridge.

“I’ll fight you.”

He recognized the voice even before he registered that it was a woman who had spoken. It was the way his heart skipped when he heard her that gave it away, just like it always did when he heard Mariesa speak.

“Is that…?” He grabbed at Barris’ arm to try and steady himself as he craned upwards for a better view, but Barris was already moving forward, shoving through the crowd more successfully than Tierce had managed it earlier. He had recognized her voice, too.

The Jurati’s head snapped around as the crowd pulled apart once again to let the new challenger through. Mouths gaped at first, and then protests started, scattered with catcalls and outright laughter. She ignored it all, stepping into the center of the ring defiantly with her head held high and her thumbs hooked over her belt. She was dressed as a boy, with her long dark hair hidden under a cap, which is how no one had noticed her sooner, caught up in the drama of the duel as they had been—though now that all eyes were upon her, it was impossible to see that she was anything but a girl.

The most beautiful girl in Corregal, as far as Tierce was concerned.

The Jurati did not look the least bit bothered. On the contrary, he seemed delighted as he inspected his challenger. “Well, well, well. I did not think you Evremes taught your women how to fight.”

She shrugged. “There’s only one way for you to find out.”

“You don’t have a sword,” he pointed out.

“Are you going to let a small thing like that stop you?”

“Absolutely not!” His gaze swept over the surrounding crowd just as Barris, with Tierce in his wake, at last pushed through the front row of onlookers. His eyes landed on them with a dazzling smile. “Lend her a sword, friends.”

Tierce found himself reaching for his hilt without even thinking about it…but before he could draw his sword, a booming voice rumbled over the crowd:

“I don’t think so.”

That voice everyone on the Blade recognized—except for the Jurati, of course—and when its owner, Cagen Thul, second in command of the city watch, loomed into view, many of those on the fringes of the crowd suddenly remembered they had somewhere else to be.

“You are done for the day.” Thul, who towered over even the tallest people present and was nearly as broad as he was tall, did not need to shout to make himself heard. His deep voice seemed to penetrate on a level deeper than mere sound, almost as if you heard him through the very pores of your skin. He leveled his repressive, black-eyed gaze on the Jurati, and told him, “Put your sword away.”

The Jurati looked as if he was about to protest, but then thought better of it. “It is getting late…” he muttered to himself. He made another bemused little shrug and slipped his sword back into its scabbard. He was soon lost in the crowd that was swiftly breaking apart.

“As for you,” Thul turned his attention to Mariesa, who had defiantly held her ground when everyone else found it expedient to depart. Barris and Tierce reached her side as he proclaimed his decision.“You will come with me to Blackbridge. It’s forbidden for a woman to take up arms within the city.” A mild sneer turned his lips. “And badgeless, at that.”

She met his gaze evenly. “I didn’t actually wield a weapon.”

Thul’s mouth twisted, and he opened his mouth to tell her what he thought of such a technicality, but Tierce interjected, “She’s not badgeless, either!”

The watchman paused long enough for Barris to add, “It’s true. She’s sworn to House Fleuracy.”

Thul’s grim eyes shifted to the two young men, taking in the badges on their shoulders. “Is this true?” He asked Mariesa, who shrugged, but didn’t say anything. “If you won’t prove their claim,” he told her, his words shuddering with the weight of the threat, “then they’ll go to Blackbridge, too, and face charges for misrepresentation.”

Tierce swallowed, and he felt Barris stiffen beside him. Corregal took its House and Guild affiliations seriously, and the punishment for misrepresenting someone’s membership in one or the other could be months in jail. He knew that he didn’t have to worry about that extreme right now, because he was telling the truth…but even the thought of spending one night in the half-sunken cells of Blackbridge gave him chills.

“Well?” Thul demanded, when Mariesa didn’t answer right away.

“Oh, fine!” With a sour look at Tierce and Barris, she reached into the neck of her tunic and pulled out a long chain, from which hung a smaller version of the same badge that each of them wore pinned to their shoulders. She held it up for him to inspect the engraving on it: the House Fleuracy falcon, differenced only by the addition of three stars that indicated that not only was she sworn to House Fleuracy, she was born to it.

The bridge was mostly empty by now, and those who were left were hardly more than twilight shadows, now that the sun had set. Thul studied the badge in silence, his eyes half lidded as he considered. He had no eyelashes, Tierce realized with a start—he’d never been close enough to the notorious watchman to notice it before. What was the story behind that, he wondered?

Finally, the big man raised his gaze from the badge, but it was Tierce and Barris he addressed, not Mariesa. “I have great respect for Sieur Eristan. I would hate to cause him any embarrassment by bringing this to his attention. I will not report this incident. However, you—” he jabbed a finger at the two young men, “will escort her to Fleuracy House. Immediately. It’s not safe for young women to wander the city in the dark.”

It wasn’t safe for anyone to wander the city after dark, Tierce thought, but he didn’t argue the point. He and Barris both nodded, and Thul, his duty done, left them there without another word.

“Just shut up,” Mariesa said before either of them had a chance to even try and speak. Tierce cleared his throat and looked away awkwardly, but Barris did not look so easy to put off. He opened his mouth twice to say something, only to shut it again under the temperamental force of her glare. He gave up finally and threw up his hands in surrender.

“Let’s just get home.”

“Excuse me…” The Jurati’s voice came to them out of the deepening twilight. His sonorous accent identified who it was as he approached, hands raised casually away from his swordbelt to indicate he offered no threat. “I did not mean to overhear, but…did the watchman there say that you are going to Fleuracy House?”

They stared at him as if he’d asked if they were going to visit Old Biarre, and not merely crossing the city to their home. In the wake of the confrontation with Thul, Tierce had all but forgotten the reason they’d been on the Blade at all. The reappearance of the foreign swordsman had him scrambling to pick up the dropped threads of the earlier story and wrap them all together neatly.

“Yes. Why?” It was Barris who finally answered, gruff and suspicious. The Jurati took no offense at his tone and offered a small bow.

“It is my great fortune, then, for it is to meet Sieur Fleuracy that I have come to Corregal.” Noting their continued suspicion, he added, “I have a letter of introduction…”

“You’ve come to meet my father?” Mariesa asked.

“Your father?” A smile spread across his face that was the same as the smile he’d worn when she first stepped forward to challenge him—a smile that wasn’t entirely decent, Tierce thought. “Then it is my very great fortune to have met you here tonight. My name is Romeric Esard.” The foreigner put out his hand and, after a moment, she put hers in it, fingers resting lightly on his palm in the traditional courteous manner.

“Mariesa,” she said, and pulled her hand away again, to Tierce’s relief. He was frowning, and Barris too, when she flicked her fingers in their direction and gave their names. The Jurati took no notice, only nodded politely to each of them before returning his attention to Mariesa.

“Will you permit me to escort you home? As the watchman pointed out, night is setting in.”

“I don’t need any escort.” She sounded more frustrated than angry, making Tierce wonder again what had sent her out here, dressed as she was, to try and duel a stranger on the Bridge of Blades. She glared at each of the three in turn. “But I guess I don’t have any choice. Come on.” She pivoted on her heel and strode away, not looking back to see if they followed or not.

Barris shot Tierce an aggrieved look, as if to say, This is all your fault. “We’re going to be so late,” he muttered aloud, and hurried to catch up with Mariesa. The Jurati went after him, bemused, and Tierce followed too, though more slowly. He seemed to have found himself in the midst of a story after all, and he wasn’t entirely sure that he liked it.

Yes, there were opportunities to be had on the Blade.

But the foreigner was only looking for a bit of fun.

Even before he drew his sword, he managed to call attention to himself. Blond and fair, he stood out amongst the dusky people of Corregal all the more for his outlandish clothes. Local fashion favored sleek cuts and subdued colors—his elaborately embellished, plum-colored shirt, belted at the waist with an embroidered sash, was ostentatious, to say the least. He wore too much jewelry, too, with gold and gems glittering at fingers, throat and ears.

Jurati, the word went round, with some derision. The islanders were renowned for drinking, gambling, and debauchery, not swordplay. No one took him seriously when he first started nosing around for a bout; they judged him to be some rich merchant’s son, too young and stupid to know what he was asking for. But he persisted, sauntering between the groups of young men gathered on the bridge in the late afternoon, offering unasked for opinions, and calling the reputation of the native swordsmen into question when no one would consent to spar with him. It was Donan Patt who finally gave in, hoping that if he humiliated the peacock quickly enough they’d see nothing more of him but his plucked tail as he ran off.

“What is the wager?” the Jurati asked, his accent making a lilting cadence of the words. The question was met with more scorn. A circle of onlookers had cleared around the pair, Donan’s friends, mostly, looking forward to seeing the stranger get what he had coming. Donan was not necessarily the most talented youth in the group, but his father was in the watch, and he was certainly competent enough to deal with this upstart.

“It’s against the law to wager on the Blade,” Donan informed him. The Bridge of Blades had many rules, necessary in a city where each of the ruling houses maintained what amounted to its own standing army. Bloodshed in the streets might be unavoidable when one house went to war against another, but on the Blade it could at least be contained. The ban on wagering kept tempers from flaring if a contest turned unfavorably for either party.

The stranger accepted this stricture with an easy shrug. “We fight for honor alone, then. ‘Tis better that way. Now tell me,” he said, pulling his sword from the scabbard at his hip. “Does our honor demand real steel, or must we duel with sticks like those boys over there?” He gestured to the far end of the bridge, where a pair of ten-year-olds in livery swatted at each other with wooden practice swords.

At the sight of the Jurati’s sword, a ripple of surprise moved through the circle of onlookers. An Arrenal blade, it was, the silvery engravings down its length thought—but never proven—to be part of a spell-forging that made them lightweight and ever-sharp. Magic or not, there wasn’t a man on the bridge, fourteen or fifty, who didn’t know the value of an Arrenal sword, and few who had hope of ever owning one.

Donan drew his own sword, solid, local craftsmanship without the elegance of the foreign weapon, but just as potent. He’d worked six months laying stone on the Meridian Bridge to pay for it, and he trusted it wouldn’t let him down now. “We can fight with steel,” he said. “You should know, though, that if you’re injured here, you’ll have no recourse to the law. Not even if someone died.”

It did happen, sometimes. But a man who drew his sword on the Bridge of Blades was expected to know the consequences.

“I am not so worried about dying.” The Jurati smiled, a little sideways tilt of the lips that was just shy of arrogant. “Nor for killing either.”

He bowed then, and, with a flourish of his arm, straightened into a position of readiness.

It was a shorter duel than anyone expected. Donan, not wanting to spend any more time than necessary, moved in quickly with a blow aimed high at his opponent’s shoulder. The Jurati deflected it easily and returned with a thrust that made Donan jump back to avoid the point of his blade. Before he had a chance to recover for another attack, the Jurati slid forward and, with two cutting swings to keep him on guard, brought the flat of his sword down on Donan’s wrist with a resounding thwack.

He cried out and dropped his sword. As it clattered onto the cobblestones, there was a moment’s incredulous silence among the witnesses, and then an explosion of consternation. Impossible, that a Corregal swordsman could be defeated by anyone so quickly, let alone by a Jurati fop. Some trickery must have been at play. Someone would have to step in and make things right. Donan Patt, clutching his bruised wrist along with his bruised ego, slipped off unnoticed into the crowd.

The Jurati just stood there, smiling complacently amidst the uproar as the young men on the bridge wrangled over who would get the next chance at him. Spinning his Arrenal sword around by the hilt,  he gestured his next opponent forward and said, “Who’s next?”