CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 33

All the civilized world knows my father, Lord Romeo Montague, is the best swordsman within the northern city-states of Verona, Venice, Padua, and Florence. What they didn't know was that he was a man who liked children and enjoyed teaching them. To learn from my father was to laugh a lot, to watch him deliberately make a fool of himself to lessen the sting of being clumsy or slow, and, for me, to be sternly punished and then chided for losing my temper.

Let me be clear, I lost my temper with myself for being careless, and possibly as a hangover from my earlier tantrum about the prince, but in my fit I threw down my two daggers and Papà at once slashed at me with the blunted sword and left a welt across my shoulder and chest. My eyes filled with tears at the pain, but the tongue-lashing he gave me for ever letting down my guard left the real scars.

I would remember.

When I had recovered myself, I noticed the silence. Papà stood back from me. Mamma and my brother and sisters sat on benches placed around the hedges and watched without saying a word. I didn't know if they were embarrassed for me, or amazed I'd been so stupid, or more amazed that Papà had been so ruthless.

My gaze shifted to the side. Gardener watched, and I saw in him the belief I'd told Papà about the sabotaged branch, and the visitors who had populated it.

I picked my blades up off the ground, faced Papà again, and said, "Please teach me."

He leveled his most stern gaze at me. He loved me, I know, and all his intensity was focused on keeping me alive. "With a blade in your hand, you can't afford to fail. Never can you afford to fail in a sword fight. You have a family who loves you. You have a future. You're our oldest daughter, born of our first love. You must never ever allow someone to goad you to anger. A sword fight—any kind of fight—with a true enemy takes it down to the basics. Is it you or them? It must be you. Take up your sword. Engage your brain. Bring everything that you are and know to the battle. If someone must die, it will not be you."

"Never me," I repeated. "Engage my brain."

"Not your emotions!"

"No temper."

"You're a Montague. Of course you have a temper. But in a battle, that temper must be detached. Think of yourself as a blade that has been fired, pounded, folded, shaped, and slowly cooled. You have strength. You have an edge. It's not the weapon you hold in your hand that matters. You are the weapon." He viewed me with narrowed eyes. "You understand?"

I did, and I nodded.

"Now cross your blades together and meet my slice—"

We did it in slow motion, his blade swinging high above my head, then down.

"Tell me what could go wrong," he said.

As the blade slowly descended on my crossed blades, I realized, "If your swing is strong enough, you could separate my blades and slash me from above."

"Good!" he said. "If you think that might happen—"

"I use one dagger to direct your blow harmlessly off to the side."

"Then?"

I didn't have to think. I knew. "I surprise you with a thrust from the other blade"—I thrust and barely touched—"through the chest."

"That's my daughter." He touched my cheek, dropped his sword, and fell to the ground with a shout of, "I've been killed by a girl!"

My sisters leaped up and applauded.

Cesario shouted, "No, Papà! Pick up your sword!" He ran toward Papà's prone figure and pummeled his chest.

Papà wrapped him in his arms and rolled him over and over, laughing uproariously until Cesario laughed, too.

After that, Mamma allowed him to teach the younger children, and with them he was his usual cajoling, charming self, and I understood why he'd been so stern with me. I was the one in danger. I needed to control myself to save my own life . . . and the lives of everyone I loved.