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remix_redux2007-04-15 03:51 am
Fic: The Fickle Nature of Swordsmen (the blood and scar remix) [Swordspoint; Richard/Alec]
Author: Ria
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kessieSummary: Swordsmen are fickle creatures, but not without reason.
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Swordspoint
Disclaimer: The characters are belonged to Ellen Kushner; I am merely borrowing them for my own amusement for a while.
Warnings: Allusions to character death
Spoilers: Spoilers speciic to Swordspoint; vague allusions to The Privilege of the Sword
Original Story: Rhythms by
rm.The Fickle Nature of Swordsmen (the blood and scar remix)
Swordsmen, a scholar once wrote, in a paper which was mocked by his academic peers and later dismissed, are fickle creatures. It is most unfortunate, therefore, that they are also fickle creatures who bring death in their path; a great disturbance to all.
Alec reads this out to him with brutal glee, his eyes glittering when he finishes. “Ha,” he says, “you, fickle.”
Richard doesn’t immediately reply, gazing down at the sword in his hand. Light from the window catches against the flat of the blade and he slowly tilts it so the reflection moves slowly across the wall. If he were more melodramatic, he would say that the sword looked like a fiery blade right then, of vengeance and justice, but he’s never been that melodramatic. That’s something a person from the Hill would do, really.
Alec raises an eyebrow and then quotes something, lines from a poem or a play, the words rolling smoothly in his elegant, slow drawl, and it’s exactly what Richard knew he would do. He sighs.
“I’m not fickle,” Richard says, blinking. He moves to sit down and begins the daily, comforting task of cleaning his weapon. The sword shines as he works, its own gleam, and he can almost stop thinking. Almost.
He tells himself that not being fickle does not mean being stubborn, or naïve, or foolishly believing that he was a law onto himself, far above those who proclaimed themselves keepers of the law – or the nobility’s wealth, at least.
He remembers the way Alec was after Horn, stupid, stupid, dead Horn, had got him, and a shudder crawls down his spine before he can help it. A law onto himself, indeed.
He looks up to find Alec watching him, his expression careful and almost empty, but he doesn’t say anything. Perhaps it’s for the best. Richard contemplates asking him if he still remembers Horn, still remembers being kidnapped and then gorging himself on Delight until he didn’t know whether up was down or right was left.
He doesn’t ask. Richard knows that he’ll get his answer that night, when Alec whimpers against his neck, nails scraping down Richard’s back as his hands grapple against him, his voice breaking into a sobbing keen.
It will be answer enough.
“You’re not fickle,” Alec says at last, a peculiar expression crossing his face which makes Richard wonder if he regrets reading the article to him, now. “No one respected that scholar, anyway.”
Richard pretends not to hear so he doesn’t have to answer.
The blood tells the stories that Richard will not. Alec is not alarmed at the sight of Richard covered in blood; it usually belongs to someone else. Nothing to be afraid of, there; easy to wash off and then, suddenly, it’s as if it never existed at all.
Blood tells very short stories.
The scars are a different matter, though he has very few of them. It reminds him, and Alec, of a time when he was not known simply as St Vier, a time when winning a challenge was not just a matter of course. It still isn’t, but now Richard has the weight of his supposed reputation behind him.
He supposes that they also remind him that he is still alive. He lives still.
Scars tell a much longer story, and Alec pays as much attention to them with his mouth as he does to the rest of Richard’s body.
Together, blood and blade tell of a terrible song of pain and death, and the scars are a reminder of what the swordsman missed by a hair’s breath, a quick step, a lucky turn.
Richard does not forget, just like he always kills with a swift blow straight to the heart.
“You and I,” Alec murmurs drowsily, one morning after a job when Richard cannot find it in him to move and Alec can care less, “will live forever.”
Richard is too far gone in the act of dozing off to answer, or even to properly decipher the sentence. But, he muses, as sleep overtakes with Alec curled against him, breathing evenly, he will think about it eventually.
By then, it is too late.
The sword does not kill; it is the swordsman wielding the blade.
For every parry and twist and sidestep and lunge, there are ribs of hair delicately parted from the scalp, trickles of blood sliding down a high cheekbone, sweat beading on an upper lip, and a rip in a faded shirt.
For every defense against another move, another blow, each sidestep leading to the inevitable conclusion of being backed against a corner with no way out, there is only one way it will end.
He does not bring the death, but the swordsman still kills.
The patron brings the death when he contacts the swordsman for a job.
Richard has never worn gloves, for gloves are a hindrance to him, an interruption in the seamless movement of sword and body.
He did not wear gloves the night he killed Horn. For him, at least, that would have been an insult. Perhaps, too, for Horn.
When they are far from the Hill, and Riverside, and Scandal, it is different.
Richard still practises every day, cleaning his weapons with as much tenderness as he gives Alec’s body.
Alec is still amused at their exit.
“For once,” he says, “they were more concerned about me than about you.” He points dramatically up at the sky, sprawled on his back on the grass, staring up at clouds which do not exist in this part of the world.
Richard does not reply, and then Alec says, “They were all so very stupid.”
To fear the Mad Duke rather than St Vier is always a mistake, to everyone except to Richard.
He may have considered himself above the law and above the Hill once, when he was very young and very stupid, but it was Alec who outsmarted them all, not Richard.
The nobles never stood a chance.
Richard may have held the sword, but Alec held the shield, the smile, and the invisible noose that threatened to choke them all.
Tremontaine.
Fools, all of them.
St Vier does not die by the sword; he is not known as a swordsman when he closes his eyes for the last time. Oh, everyone knows the rumours of who he used to be, might have been, but no one, except for the Old Duke, knows the truth.
He dies in a country in which he was not born, where he lived a (mostly) quiet life with a man their neighbours were almost positive used to be a duke, back in the day.
They tended bees, and he polished an old sword at noon every day.
He dies peacefully, but not alone.
Whether this was an honourable enough death for him, only St Vier knows.
Someone asks him once, when Alec is old and dying and desperate, if St View died an honourable death.
“He died,” Alec replies. “And he’ll live forever. It was enough.”
They don’t understand, except for Katherine, and everyone else knows better than to ask.
The paper, written by a scholar that was never respected much during life or after death, ends as such:
Swordsmen may be fickle, but that is only because they have sincere reason to be. Now, in a time when Kings no longer exist, the nobles consider themselves the rulers of all that is important to them and, as such, their standard of living must be maintained at all costs.
In short, they must be unsullied, and this is where the swordsmen are needed.
If swordsmen are fickle, it is only because the nobles smile in a such a way that they hold an unsheathed dagger behind their backs.
Someone has to be honest when they kill, after all.
Alec never read that part out to Richard.
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Also, I love the scholar device, I feel like there's a whole avenue that could go down that would brig in the FotK world.
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I'm still not sure where the scholar device came from, but I was thinking about Alec and his scholar robes, and it seemed to make sense. And from there I was thinking up all the old eccentric, madcap scholars I could invent down the line...
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Very nice.
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