“Keep trying, you’ll get it soon!” Her mother called from the back steps of the house, flashing the ten year old Cat a reassuring grin. Catilyn, knee-deep in unruly grass, was less than reassured, hefting the practice sword back up and getting ready for another pass at Richard.
“Pretend m’a tree, ’f that’ll help,” He teased. It was true, at least; the trees in her yard had suffered a rough fate at her hands, chunks missing and scars rehealing. If trees could talk, they’d have a hundred stories to tell of a dirt-covered little girl who swung a sword like it was an axe--and with the same amount of finesse as a lumberjack.
She swung again, taking a few steps forward to try and bridge the gap. Blocked. Low, for his legs. He moved back in the time it took her to swing. She was starting to lose her patience. They’d been at this for hours. High, to his arms; hit against the training padding the guards had lent him. She bounced back as he stumbled, her energy renewed. She glanced to her mother for approval. He knocked her down the moment her back was turned, sending the sword flying from her hands.
Cat twisted and turned under him, beating at the ground with her feet and at his arms with her hands. “Get off’a me! S’not fair! You’re jus’ bigger’n me!”
And he was; even at ten and twelve, Richard towered over her. He wasn’t an ideal sparring partner. Jon was lankier, more a match for her size, but he was always busy with his father. He was fourteen. More of an adult than either of them. He took all the responsibility for their group, and they were at least thankful for that.
“That’s enough of that!” Mina, on the other hand, was full-grown and a mother, taller and stronger than either of them. She lifted Richard off of her daughter with ease, setting him down in the grass to one side. She sat down and looked over Cat, checking for more serious injuries than a slightly wounded pride. “Think you can get up?”
Cat only cracked an eye open at her, still sniffling as she sat up. She sulked over to the back steps, plopping down in her grass-stained clothes (a shirt and trousers her mother had taken from her father’s closet--Cat doubted they would be returned now), her bottom lip still stuck out in a pout. Mina ruffled her hair playfully.
“You’ll get it soon, I promise. Here, watch.”
Mina swore up and down that she had never learned to fight, at least when her husband asked. She had been a merchant’s daughter. Merchant’s daughters learned to dance and read and sing, all of which Mina was quite good at. And, whenever Tristyn found her with Cat’s sword in hand, it seemed as if she was telling the truth. He’d sweep up behind her and wrap his arms around her waist, laugh when she told him that she was practicing, whisper that it wasn’t for women, especially not merchant’s-daughters-turned-baker’s-wives.
Cat and Richard knew the truth. Richard kept secrets more dutifully than any grown man, more even than Jon; where Jon had his own perceived obligations, Richard had none. So, when Mina took the ground and lifted the practice sword with a grace and ease that seemed out of place for the slender, graying mother, Richard took several steps back and raised his own. Cat was practice. Mina was reality.
The spar was over as quickly as it began; even in a dress and with a good ten years on him, Mina moved faster than Richard, faster than a snake, bringing the sword against his stomach, the back of his knees, shoulders--and, once he was on the ground, she rested it against his neck. Catilyn could only stare on in wonder as Mina dropped the sword and helped Richard to his feet again.
One day, she swore, she’d be just like her mother.
