“But, my lady!” Encina protested, bodily blocking the door. “It’s not appropriate!”
“Everything is covered, Encina,” I rolled my eyes at her. “Besides, I haven’t much to look at quite yet anyway.”
“That’s not the point! It’s the principle of the matter!”
“Then please explain it to me,” I replied, my own voice growing heated. “Because I’m having a very hard time understanding it!”
“Ladies are supposed to hide our bodies, not display them like… like common street whores!” she replied, growing red in the face. “Going outside only partially dressed would cause a scandal!”
I looked down at myself. Medieval clothing, especially women’s clothing, was a fair bit more complex than what I was used to. Even ‘partially dressed’, as Encina was claiming, meant that I had three layers of clothing on. Linen underthings next to the skin, covered by a pair of culottes and chemise, stockings and braes on my legs, and a billowy shirt. With the shirt’s collar laced and tied, not a single inch of skin below my neck was visible, and everything was loose enough that no distinct shapes could be discerned.
“My body is hidden,” I said, gesturing at my legs. “It’s not ideal, I know, but it’ll have to suffice until I can have something more appropriate tailored.”
“But… but, my lady!”
“Enough, Encina!” I snapped at her. “It’s my decision, and that’s final!”
The maid scowled at me and folded her hands at the small of her back. “If that is what you wish, my lady…”
“Thank you,” I exasperatedly sighed. The maid held the door open for me, allowing me to finally leave my bedroom.
I had feared that people would stare at me or make some comments as I made my way to the armory, but as far as I could tell, I received no more attention than usual. Though, whether that was because my style of dress was not as unusual as Encina was making it seem, or because none of the servants or guards wanted to raise the ire of a noble, I couldn’t tell.
‘The Emperor has no clothes,’ I thought, referred to the famous parable from back home. ‘Or rather, the Count’s daughter is underdressed.’
Finally I arrived at my destination; the armory. Or rather, the Salvorin family armory and salle; the armory for the guards, men-at-arms, and retinue knights was a squat stone building in the courthouse, attached to the barracks. This one was nestled in one corner of the keep, across the great hall from the kitchens and servants’ quarters.
Feeling a bit nervous, I knocked on the iron bound wooden door.
“Enter!”
Slipping inside, I closed the door behind me. Sir Brant was holding two arming swords by the quillons, using the light from the open window to examine them. After a moment, he turned towards me and said, “Good, you’re here…”
Pausing, he furrowed his eyebrows and frowned. “What in the Gods’ names are you wearing?”
“Something scandalous,” I snarked at him, my earlier irritation coming back with a vengeance. “Or so I’m told.”
He bit back a retort, snapping his jaw shut with a click. Looking me up and down with a discerning eye, he rubbed his bearded chin with one hand.
“Not the sort of thing a young noble lady should be wearing,” he muttered.
“Do you expect me to fight in a dress?” I asked with an edge to my voice.
“As a matter of fact, I do,” he replied.
I almost exploded on the man, my irritation crossing over into full-blown anger. Biting back my initial response, I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself down. “Please, explain why.”
“A swordsman -or a swordswoman, in your case- should train to fight in whatever style of dress to which they are accustomed,” he replied, sounding as if he was quoting someone or something. “If you have a suit of armor, I expect you to train in it. If you commonly wear a noble lady’s gown, I expect you to train in one.”
I have to admit, I was slightly taken aback. I had been expecting an argument based on morality or social expectations. Not a practical reason.
“This,” he said, gesturing at my current getup, “is not what you wear day-to-day, nor will you be able to get away with wearing something like this in certain situations. If you are attacked at a formal gathering, your attackers aren’t going to wait for you to change into something else.”
“... I understand, sir.”
“Good. It’s too late to go change, so this will have to do for today,” he continued. “Tomorrow, though, I expect you to wear what you usually wear.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now, your father has asked -not ordered, asked- me to take you on as my student,” he said. He took several steps and closed the distance between us until I had to tilt my head back to look him in the eye. “He explained your reasoning, and I’m not inclined to disagree; if you, indeed, inherit the County, and are required to lead men into battle, it would be best if you know how to protect yourself.”
“I’m glad you agree,” I said, smiling up at the man.
“Be that as it may, this is highly irregular,” he said, shaking his head. “Fightschools and duelling clubs almost never accept female students.”
“Almost?” I asked. “There are exceptions?”
“Only one that I know of. Salle Vanqua, a fightschool in Serezzia, has a class for young noble ladies and wealthy merchants’ daughters,” Sir Brant explained. “None of the fightschools in the Pommerlands have such classes.”
“Why do they have them there, but not here?”
“Serezzia is widely known as one of the most wealthy city-states in Etrushia, if not the whole of the Teranthian continent. Pirates, bigands, and other ne’er-do-wells often abduct young ladies and ransom them back to their families.” With a frown and pursed lips, he shook his head, expressing his contempt for such practices. “A dishonorable practice, to be sure.”
“So, the fightschools there teach the young ladies to protect themselves from abduction?” I asked, tilting my head to the side.
“To a certain extent, yes,” he answered, shrugging his shoulders. “Though the lessons are more about stealth and how to kill people from the shadows to make good one’s escape.”
“Lessons like that could be useful,” I said with a raised finger.
“They could, but such tactics are considered dishonorable for a knight,” he countered. “Wasn’t that your goal? To be a ‘Lady Knight’?”
“... it was,” I admitted, looking away.
“Then think no more of such tactics. A knight must face his foes in the open.”
“Does… does that mean you will teach me?” I asked, turning hopeful eyes up at him.
“I will,” he said, a small smile tugging at his normally dour face.
“Yes! Thank you!” I said, lacing my fingers and holding them under my chin for maximum cuteness. “Thank you so much!”
“Don’t thank me yet,” he warned, waggling a finger at me. “I shall not treat you any different than I would a young boy. I expect you to pay attention and work hard.”
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“I will!”
“I won’t accept any whining or complaining either,” he warned me, his voice stern. “Everything I have you do has a purpose. If you slack off or complain too much, my lessons will stop. Understand?”
“Yes, Sir Brant, I understand,” I said, solemnly nodding.
“Good. These,” he indicated the pair of swords he had been holding, “are blunted arming swords. Unless and until you specialize into a particular style of sword, you will train and spar with one of these.”
Sir Brant held one of the swords out to me, hilt first. I grabbed the short handle in both hands, expecting to have to strain to lift it. However, I was pleasantly surprised by how light it was; it wasn’t much heavier than one of my dresses, maybe a couple of pounds at most. Even this new body’s underdeveloped physique was more than sufficient to lift it without too much difficulty. Though, swinging it around might quickly grow tiring.
“It’s… not as heavy as I was expecting,” I commented, shifting my grip so that I held the hilt in my left hand and the dulled blade in my right.
“Of course it’s not,” Sir Brant agreed. “Did you expect it to be?”
“... yes, I did.”
“If it was, it wouldn’t be a very good sword, would it?” he rhetorically asked. “Let this be your first lesson, then. A light sword is a swift sword, especially if it is well balanced.”
“What do you mean by ‘well-balanced’?” I asked. “I’ve heard it in reference to swords before, but I don’t really understand what you mean.”
“Hmm. Well it’s…” he paused, and stroked his chin with on hand. “Well, it’s easier to show you. Watch closely.”
Sir Brant stepped back and turned to the side. He held his blunted sword by the hilt and extended it away from his body. With a flick of his wrist, he tossed it into the air. The sword rotated end-over-end, and Sir Brant caught it by the hilt once more.
“Here,” he said, tapping a spot about a hand-span in front of the crossguard. “Did you see? The sword rotated around this spot. This is the sword’s center of balance.”
“Huh…” I eloquently remarked, eyes wide.
“If a sword’s center of balance is closer to the tip,” he said, tapping the the rounded end, “the sword will cut and slice better, as more of the sword’s weight will carry into the target. On the other hand, the closer the center of balance is to the hilt, the more agile and responsive it will feel, and the more control one will have over the tip.”
“So… a sword with a point of balance towards the tip is better for cutting,” I said, mimicking an overhead slice. “While a sword balanced to the hilt is better for stabbing.”
Sir Brant critically eyed my haphazard imitation of a ‘Three Musketeers’ style of lunge.
“That is correct,” he nodded. “As such, what a swordsman means by ‘well-balanced’ depends more on their personal preference and style of swordsmanship than on some arbitrary measurement.”
“So, what style do you think I should use?” I asked.
“That depends,” he shrugged. “What are you good at, and how do you prefer to fight?”
“Uh… I don’t know.”
“Exactly, which is why we are starting with arming swords,” he said, smiling once more. “These swords are not specialized towards slicing, like a Maldhean sabre, nor towards thrusting, like an Etrushian spada. It’s a good weapon to learn from, and it is the most common type of sword in the Pommerlands.”
“I understand, sir.”
“Good. Now, first things first, we will start with the guard position,” he said, slipping into a typical sword-fighting stance. “Hold your sword up and away from your body, like this…”
“Oh… ow, ow, ow,” I complained, letting out a long, low moan as I rested my head on the cool table in the private dining room. My arms hung limp, disappearing under the table. My everywhere was sore, not just my arms, but they had certainly gotten the worst of it.
“Remember, you asked for this,” Valens said, his stern visage unable to entirely contain his amusement.
“Shut up,” I grumped.
Sir Brant had run me through drill after drill, showing me how to hold the sword, how to swing it at an imaginary target from practically every angle, how to properly thrust, and more. It wasn’t only slashing and stabbing, though; he’d drilled me in footwork, from a proper step-in to a quick retreat from an advancing foe, with side-step and dodges thrown in all at once. Every time I’d made a mistake, he’d made me sprint a lap around the salle. It wasn’t a very big room, but doing it so often really took a lot out of me.
I was certain I would have done a lot worse if it wasn’t for my background in boxing. The footwork was remarkably similar to what I already knew, and the slight adjustments I’d needed to make were much easier because of it.
The bad part about it was that my first instinct was to raise my fists in front of my face. This, of course, wasn’t a very good idea when holding a sword.
I had the black eye to prove it, too.
Still, despite my aching body, I felt that I’d made quite a bit of progress already. I was no master swordsman, and I knew that in a real fight, everything would be fast and chaotic until I got better. The hardest part would be the physical conditioning aspect.
I sighed and let out another groan.
“Don’t worry, dearest daughter,” Valens teased. “It’s only the first day. Tomorrow will be worse!”
“... I hate you.”
Valens chuckled with (to my mind) sadistic glee. “Hurry up and eat your lunch, Artesia. We have statecraft lessons this afternoon.”
I groaned once more.
From the Private Journal of Lady Artesia Salvorin, Countess of Balreeve
Scribe’s Note: This journal is, as of yet, untranslated and untranslatable. Whatever tongue or code Lady Salvorin used to write her private thoughts is unknown to us. The sole exception to this rule is the date at the beginning of each entry. Contrary to the body of text, these dates are in Pommeran.
While the Lady Knight did, indeed, keep a public journal, written in Pommeran, it is believed that her private thoughts were recorded here. This second journal of hers, despite the unfamiliar script and tongue, has been faithfully transcribed over the years in the hopes that someday, some individual may find some way to decode this work. May Selatura’s light shine on us all.
17th day of Thashasel, 1021 A.C.
I suppose I should begin keeping a journal.
Not out of some idle fantasy that, someday, it will be read and referenced by later generations, such as Julius Caesar's ‘Commentaries on the Gallic War’, though I have to admit the thought did cross my mind.
No, I’m writing this because I don’t have anyone to talk to. Not about this, at least.
My name, or I suppose I should say my original name was Levi Shriver. After a fatal car accident, I was approached by a literal goddess who offered me a second chance.
That’s how I came to be in the body of Artesia Salvorin. A young noble lady.
I’m sure I would be either laughed at or thrown into a madhouse if I told anyone. Or worse, if I explain that Selatura, the Goddess of the Moon, reincarnated me, I might be… I dunno, lifted into some kind of religious role. I really, really don’t want that. Knowing my luck, I might accidentally set off a Crusade or something.
The deal I made with that Goddess meant that I got to keep Artesia’s memories. I asked for that for three main reasons. First, so that I would know the language. If I only kept my own memories, how could I expect to communicate with the local people? Especially if I was going to a new world and not just some alternate timeline or something. I mean, it had to have been an entirely different world than my own; we didn’t have gods or goddesses or magic or anything. Or at least, it seemed like we didn’t. Some of the things she said…
I digress.
The second reason was so that I would understand the local culture. Placenames, gods and goddesses, references to tradition or religious texts, and so much more can be so difficult to pick up if you weren’t raised in a particular culture. Standing out by not understanding these references wasn’t something I was looking forward to.
Finally, I needed to know the people I would be surrounded with. Family, friends, ect. While I suppose I could have claimed amnesia, I didn’t want to have to keep track of lie after lie.
I suppose I should be lucky that the Goddess could actually make it happen.
This new world is so strikingly similar to the medieval period of my own history, and yet much of it is so different. Aside from things that should be obvious, such as language and culture, there are other differences that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is not Earth.
The most obvious example? The calendar year.
As far as I can tell, a day here is about the same length of time as a day back home, give or take an hour. If there is any difference at all, it’s small enough that it’s completely unnoticeable during day-to-day life. So, I’m working under the assumption that it’s the same.
The most interesting thing about this world’s calendar is that, unlike back home, it’s both a lunar and a solar calendar! Or rather, the lunar year and the solar year line up nearly perfectly. Back home, lunar calendars need to insert an extra month every few years to bring everything back into alignment with the seasons. That’s not the case here. There are twelve lunar cycles (new moon to full moon and back) corresponding to the twelve months of the calendar year. Each cycle is divided into five ‘weeks’, made up of six days, for a total of 360 days in the year.
It’s eerily similar to our own world, but everything has been synchronized. A 30 day lunar cycle, rather than a 28-29 day cycle back home. 360 days rather than 365 ?. The new moon always falls on the solstices and equinoxes. Like clockwork.
I suppose it should be expected from a world where a Sun God and Moon Goddess are very real beings, though. What better way to prove their existence than to adjust the workings of the solar system to align so perfectly?
Speaking of gods, the months of the year are named after the twelve most prominent gods in the Pantheon. Thashasel corresponds to the month of April, and is named after Thasha, Goddess of Fertility and Springtime. Velierissel corresponds to June, and is named after Velieris, God of the Sun. December is called Selaturasel, named after my own patron goddess Selatura. And so on, and so forth.
An interesting sidenote, here, is that the suffix added to each deity’s name on each month, -sel, literally means ‘moon’. ‘A Tura’ means ‘beloved of’. My patron goddess’ name literally translates to ‘Beloved of the moon’. Isn’t that interesting?
I’m getting tired, and I’m starting to show my inner geek. Time for bed.
A quick note on swords; The typical double edged one handed sword in the medieval period is often referred to as the Knightly sword, or an arming sword. It shares certain similarities with the Viking swords of the Viking age, but it's more accurate to call the medieval arming sword a further development of the late Roman spatha, which was in itself an elongated and narrowed gladius, initially meant to be used from horseback. The difference between a spatha and a Viking sword is in the fuller and the tapered tip.
The typical arming sword of the medieval era was approximately one kilogram in weight, or a little over two pounds. Longswords during the late Medieval and early Renaissance were only 1.5 kilograms, or about three pounds. To put that in perspective, an M4 carbine, a common service rifle in the United States military, is a little less than eight pounds when fully loaded.
Swords are much lighter than most people realize. Even a typical arming sword isn't impossible for a young child to lift and swing, and as strength and endurance develop over the course of a training regimen, their ability to use it will improve as well.
Contrary to popular belief (and most roleplaying games), swords aren't dependent on strength to wield effectively. Ironically, bows are not dependent on dexterity or agility either. In fact, it's the opposite; swords are better when guided by an agile hand, and bows are better when wielded by a strong person. The typical warbow of the medieval period would have a draw weight of around 100 pounds. The archer would have to be capable of pulling that bow to full draw in order to use said bow, and the bow needed to be that strong so that the arrow would have enough energy to pierce gambeson and chainmail armor.
Later sword developments, such as the creation of the Italian side-sword, the Spanish rapier, and the Scottish basket-hilt sword, would not be any lighter than an arming sword. A common misconception of rapiers is that they are much lighter, but this was just not the case. A rapier's blade was very narrow, but was as long as some longswords. With the elaborate hilts and handguards, this resulted in a sword that was the same weight as an arming sword (if not heavier), but whose weight was balanced very close to the hilt. The extra reach and the point control afforded by the balance meant that it was a sword that was heavily specialized for thrusting. It would not necessarily be an ideal weapon for a young girl.
Ironically, for someone with less strength, the longsword is probably the most ideal weapon. While it is heavier than an arming sword (at three pounds, as opposed to two pounds), a wielder can use both hands to swing it. That means that each arm only has to support 1.5 pounds per hand, which is less than 2 pounds in a single hand.
As for this chapter, I'm experimenting with journal excerpts. This is useful in a couple of different ways; first, it allows me to expand worldbuilding and exposition without interrupting the flow of a conversation. Secondly, it allows me to 'timeskip' more effectively without having to explain what happened in the meantime. That is, I can represent a timeskip using a series of journal entries, again without interrupting the flow of a particular scene or blasting my readers with a wall of text.
Hope you all enjoy!