“What! I have to tell my life story too?” complained Jenny. “Oh, all right. It’s still raining and we have nothing else to do. Betsy, you and Horace already know this, too, so you can take a nap if you want.
“My father Bjorn was a master swordsman, one of the best anywhere in Orilon. He trained the knights and men at arms for Baron Kipelsky in Nes, north of Irith. Nes is a small county, but it’s got some rich cities and ambitious neighbors. Baron Kipelsky had a good army, well trained by my father and me, as his assistant.
My mother died of some lesser plague when I was eight. Dad and I were both heartbroken. He helped me grieve, and I helped him. I used to hang around him when he trained the men and one day I picked up a sword and began swinging it. He gave me that ‘what the hell are you doing with that?’ look. I told him I’d like to learn what he was teaching the men.
“He tried to argue me out of it, but he kept coming back to remembering how tough mom was. He gave in and started teaching me sword work when I was nine. By ten I was learning along with the new recruits all about defending a castle gate. In the open, you have no defenses except your comrades and your own skills. On a bridge, your flanks are fairly safe, except from arrows. In a castle gate, you’ve got solid stone to cover your flanks. Perfect place to start training a new fighter.
“When I was fourteen he left me in charge of the castle guard when he and Kipelsky went off to war. We weren’t attacked so I had no chance to show my abilities. Two years later there was another war, and I was in charge at home again. The baron’s wife was really in command, of course, and there was an old knight who was castellan. Still, I commanded the men at arms at sixteen.
“We got besieged and that should not have been a big threat, but just before the enemy approached, a bolt of lightning during a big storm destroyed our wooden gate. Here’s several hundred hostile men wanting to take our castle, and the door is broken wide open. The baron had most of the best men with him, of course. I formed up the two dozen old men, walking wounded, and recruits in the gateway passage.
“The attackers sent out this huge guy, bigger than Horace, to demand our surrender. The baroness was up in the keep, safe and out of the way. The castellan was with her, too old to come down quickly. So it was up to me to give our reply. I passed through our lines and told them ‘We’re never going to surrender. Please go away.’ I took off my helmet to do this and they could see that a young girl was in charge. They laughed. They told the big guy to pound me into the ground. They called him ‘Troll.’
“I knew better than to waste time being scared. I also knew I couldn’t run back to my own lines. I put my helmet back on, faced him, shield in place, and swung at him. He was running at me with his sword out wide to the right, and his shield flailed wide open on his left. I guess he thought he looked scarier spread out like that, like a giant eagle swooping down on me. My sword went under the edge of his shield and into his gut. He dropped like a rock as I skipped aside. His friends stopped cheering. One blow from an itty-bitty little fighter killed their biggest man! And they knew I was a woman.
“After that they attacked, but their hearts weren’t really in it. If I was so good, how good could my men be? Plenty good enough to hold the gateway. They weren’t our best men, but they weren’t going to let me down that day. Next day the enemy heard that the baron was coming back and they left. Dad didn’t stop praising me for months.
“The baron supported the count loyally, which meant he fought a lot of battles. He won most of them, but no one wins all the fights. A big army from Tidan had invaded and was trying to take Whitby, our richest city. The battle was nasty, a couple thousand men on each side, no quarter asked or given. We lost the battle, our army was crippled, hundreds dead and wounded.
“My father was one of the dead. I was beside him guarding Baron Kipelsky when an arrow went through his visor and he fell. Even the best swordsman has no real defense against an arrow, and Bjorn knew that as well as anyone did. But it hurt to see him die like that.
“It hurt more to see our army being scattered by the Tidanese force. We lost most of our army, and the battle, but we kept Whitby. Largely because the Duke of Tidan was killed in the battle, too. That was the only good news for Nes. His army pulled back and we had a chance to rebuild our army.
“I expected to take Bjorn’s place training our new recruits. But Baron Kipelsky also died from his wounds. His son Kidalak was a decent baron, but he had spent the previous few years in Irith, trying to find a wealthy bride – he needed to build up the family treasury. Nes was wealthy, his family wasn’t. So he didn’t know my role assisting my father. The knights and men at arms told him how I knew everything Bjorn had taught, and was quite capable of taking his place. But Kidalak thought a woman shouldn’t be training warriors. He actually thought I might make them soft. Ha!
“So at eighteen I was left fatherless and out of a job at the same time. My mother had died years earlier, but I was always closer to my father. He wanted a son but settled for the daughter he had. He taught me everything he knew, and made up new techniques just for me. When Bjorn got tired pounding on his trainees, I took his place and wore them out just as easily as he did.
“Barons rarely like to be told they’re wrong. Having been away from the barony for so long, Kidalak had no real advisers there. He felt he was right, and that was that. There was no point in arguing with him. His own warriors told him what I would’ve, and he ignored them. So I went on the road.
“I took a job guarding a caravan going to Milom, a Free City between Irith and Ilo. The job didn’t pay very well, but it was money and honest work. I helped defend us against some brigands and the merchant liked my skill and courage. He promoted me to help guard his warehouse. It was a huge building, several floors, full of valuables. Rich fabrics of all sorts, and the finest furs took up a lot of space in the building. A special strongroom held gold, silver, and jewels.
“There were six guards on duty at all times, and at night we were locked in. We had food and drink and roamed through the warehouse looking and listening for burglars. I took a liking to one of the other guards, Owen, and we got married. It was convenient, both of us working at the same place. Everything was fine for a year, until some of the other guards quit and were replaced.
“The newcomers started acting as if Owen was nobody and couldn’t protect me. One night they ambushed Owen and killed him. They tried to jump me, but I had seen Owen’s body and was ready for them. At dawn when the merchant opened the warehouse I walked out carrying Owen’s body. I told the merchant what had happened and told him where to find the bodies of the other guards. I took Owen to the Temple of Death and arranged for his funeral.
“The merchant treated me well. He paid a handsome weregild for Owen and for Owen’s funeral, and offered me a huge raise if I’d stay. But I only stayed long enough to let him hire new guards. The place was never going to be pleasant to me anymore.
“I took to the road, trying out some of the rogue gangs. Most thought a woman was a nice addition, as long as I wanted to sleep with all of them, all the time. I got tired of correcting those buffoons, and found a gang of women. That should be better, I thought. How could I know?
“They talked about me the same way the men had. I didn’t even know women did that sort of thing together. Worse, they wanted me to pass their initiation test. They told me they hated men and liked nothing better than killing men, just because they were men. The test was for me to kill a young boy they had stolen from a nearby village.
“The boy was maybe ten years old and scared to death. I looked at him, shivering in front of all these armed and angry women. I looked at them, eyes bright with hatred, drooling in anticipation of the boy’s death. I told them I wouldn’t do it, and that they should return him to his parents. I asked them if they really wanted to get every family in the area up in arms against them, not to mention the local baron’s men.
“‘You’re weak and useless,’ said their leader, pulling out a dagger and putting it to the boy’s throat. ‘Watch how a real woman deals with this little man scum!’
“I had my hand on my sword’s hilt and, in one smooth motion, drew it and sliced up her arm. If I had had it out already, I could’ve come down on her arm and cut it off. But slicing it from elbow to shoulder worked just as well. She dropped the dagger, screaming in pain, and I cut her throat with the back swing.
“The others attacked me, but they were fanatics, not well-trained fighters. I killed three more before the rest ran off. The boy was still standing there, shocked to see all the fighting and blood, shocked to find himself still alive. He fell to the ground and groveled.
“‘Please don’t kill me, lady!’ he begged. ‘Don’t kill me! Help!’
“‘You’re safe now, son,’ I comforted him. ‘These women won’t hurt you again, and I will never hurt you. Where do you live? Take me to your house and I’ll make sure you’ll be safe with your parents.’
“Before we left, I gathered up everything of value and packed it on their horses. I brought it all to the boy’s parents and gave it to them. I told them what had happened, and which way the survivors had run off. The neighbors set out in force to find them. The parents wanted to give me a reward, but I only took one horse and saddle, just enough to pay for a few weeks’ travel.
“I was headed for the rogues’ tournament at Ongar. I had heard about the prize money, and about the betting. I figured I could do very well, winning the prize and winning lots of bets. The odds on an unknown fighter were always high, and the odds on a woman were out of sight. I made my bets all at once before the fighting started. I knew I could get the longest odds in my favor if no one had seen me fight.
“I watched all the other fights. I wanted to study my possible opponents before I fought them, to see their styles of fighting, and any weaknesses they had. As Vince says, they had lots of weaknesses. As the tournament went into its third day, I saw there was only one man I had to worry about. Vince was knocking his opponents down with hardly any effort. And I watched him carefully. How did he hold his shield? How did he swing his sword? How did he move around?
“Late in the afternoon on the third day we met in the final match. This was it, one fight, winner take all. Not two out of three, three out of five, fifty-one out of a hundred. One fight, one chance to win. We faced each other in the middle of the field, saluted each other, the judges, the crowds. We stood there looking at each other for a short moment.
“I had already decided how to handle him, and it worked just as I planned. I made a move I had taken from my father and improved. I knew he had never seen it, or anything like it. I knew he had never faced it because he was still alive. The move was that good. It never failed to kill. Of course, at the tournament, with wooden weapons, he’d survive, but I’d win.
“I swung my sword at his head and he reacted just as I had expected. I swung my sword back, but not as he had expected. My sword was inside his guard now, in a place he wouldn’t have expected it to be. It was where his shield couldn’t block it, where his sword was above mine and unable to block it either. He expected a back stroke toward his head again, but I brought my sword in tight and low. I hit him in his side with all my strength. He looked astonished and fell down. Two swings of my sword, and the fight was over. I collected my prize money, and the winnings from my bets.
“I had a big sack of money and hundreds of rogues all around me. I didn’t want to lose my cash. My new reputation might protect it, but I couldn’t count on that. So I brushed off the chalk and went into Ongar to the Temple of Pronustio, God of Commerce, and deposited most of it there for safe keeping. I went back to the tournament field, looking for a good bar to celebrate.
“And there was Vince, looking sheepish. He comes up to me and says, and this is the honest truth, the first words out of his mouth are, ‘Will you marry me, please?’ I was going to laugh, but stopped myself in time. That would’ve been very rude. But I didn’t know what to do or say. Was he serious? How could he be?”
“I was incredibly serious,” admitted Vince. “I hadn’t been beaten in a fair fight in years. I had to know what she knew about sword work. I decided the only way she’d teach me was if I was her husband. And I really wanted to learn from her. I told her that right there and then.”
“I brushed him off, but agreed to have a drink with him,” said Jenny. “We drank, had dinner, drank some more, talked half the night away. We talked about fighting, training, big battles we had been in, the skills we had learned. The techniques we had each invented. I realized he was better than I had thought, and was impressed that someone so good wanted to learn even more from me.”
“We met again the next morning,” Vince recounted, “and spent the whole day together. All the parts of the tournament that we cared about were over. I wanted to know about her, and tell her about me. I started out with the girl’s death. It wasn’t the start of my career, but that guilt was the most important thing about my life then. It still is.”
“That was a shock to me,” declared Jenny. “But he kept whipping himself over her death. I couldn’t hold him responsible for it, even if he did. I countered with my rescue of that small boy. I regretted mentioning it when I saw him thinking he should’ve done more for that girl. We talked about these things, and the rest of our lives all day long.”
“The next day we met up again,” Vince continued. “I was glad she was still willing to spend time with me and listen to me. So I told her my plan for a new type of rogue band, married couples only, and going after bandits and brigands mostly. I explained the need to have married couples to avoid the constant fightin’ among horny men. I told her I thought selling off the horses and gear of bandits would pay more than most rogues made from robbing towns and passersby on the roads. And we might get a reward from some towns for doing good, too.”
“I argued back against his ideas,” Jenny mentioned, “but he had an answer for most of my arguments. When he didn’t, we talked about it and found some solution. I was coming to like him and his idea of being rogues for good, sort of. He wanted to be a rogue, to live the roving life, but he didn’t want the evil that was so common among rogues. I found myself wanting the same thing. That led me to think about marrying him after all. So, on the spur of the moment, I said, ‘Sure, I’ll marry you,’ just like that.”
“I was flabbergasted,” laughed Vince. “Yeah, I had asked her, two days earlier. And we were agreeing on a lot of things about life and bein’ nicer rogues. But it still caught me off guard. Not so much I didn’t rush her off to the Temple of Eunetia, Goddess of Marriage, and get married immediately. The next morning I insisted she start training me.”
“For someone who hadn’t been trained by my father or myself, Vince was a very good fighter. He had no major flaws and the weakness I took advantage of in the tournament was both common among all fighters, and easy to fix if you knew how. I knew how, but I didn’t teach this to others I might have to fight. I taught Vince, of course. He knew I’d teach my husband all I knew, and I did. Just as I’ll teach you all my tricks. If you’re on my side, I’ll teach you to be as good as me. All you have to do is pay attention, learn, and practice.”
“Why do you work so hard to be the best fighter, Jenny?” asked Polly. “You’re already so very good. Barnabas never practiced trading; he already knew how to do it. Why keep practicing and training?”
“Mainly because the second best fighter in a battle is usually the dead one,” replied Jenny. “Bjorn didn’t want to train good-enough warriors. He wanted warriors who would win every battle. An individual fighter might get killed, because that happens in a battle. But he wanted to have enough very good warriors that the battle would go our way, despite a few losses. That’s how he raised and trained me. When I went out on my own, I realized that I had to keep working to stay better than any other fighter I might meet. I wouldn’t have an army backing me up. It was my skill against the world. There was no substitute for perfection. The alternative was, is, always death.”
“With that attitude, you can imagine how hard she trained me,” Vince stated. “I thought it would take longer, but after a month I was as good as she was. As close as two very different people can be, anyway. We aren’t the same in combat because I’m bigger and stronger, and I can use that to bash an opponent into the ground. She’s small, but she’s nimble, agile. She can dance around her opponent, dodging his blows, and moving her sword into openings he didn’t realize he had. I can’t do that as easily, and she can’t use brute force. But we’re both the best around.”
“Vince had been taking on three or four bandits at a time,” said Jenny. “Bandits start out as young kids wanting to be adventurers. Some become bandits raiding caravans, some turn to guarding caravans from bandits. Some do whichever happens to come along. They aren’t all terrible fighters, but they don’t tend to be very good with weapons because they don’t have to be very good.
“Vince would catch them by surprise and take one out right away. The others weren’t good enough to beat him, and he’d win. Together, we were good enough to take on bigger groups. Six or eight bandits were only a small problem. Vince could come up with a good attack plan and we’d just overpower them.
“Brigands were harder, of course. Their bands are usually larger and tougher than bandits. They’re not so much better trained, but they’ve survived a lot more fights than regular bandits, and have learned by surviving. Two against ten or twelve was hard, very hard. Vince could usually find a way to split them up and attack only a part of their force. Come back later and fight the rest. Maybe split them two or three times.
“Brigands paid well, because they had more horses and gear,” Vince explained. “And they often had some cash around somewhere. But we needed more help to take on the larger brigand gangs safely. We were sitting around in a tavern having a beer and talking about this when a man and a woman came in and sat down at a table near ours. They were dressed for the road, and dusty. I asked ’em if they’d like to join us for a drink.”
“It was Horace and Betsy,” said Jenny. “You two should tell your own story.”