Chapter 9: Aria and the Swordsmaster's Courtyard

The training yard was, according to the schedule posted beside the eastern armory door, reserved between the hours of six and nine in the morning for the garrison's junior officers, between nine and noon for the senior guard rotation, and between noon and three for the personal use of any nobleman of the third rank or above who cared to maintain his form. The afternoon hours were not listed. This was either an administrative oversight or a considered policy, and Aria had decided, on the strength of two days' observation, that it was neither — it was simply that no one had imagined, when composing the schedule, that the category of persons who might present themselves at the training yard at half past three required notation.

She pushed open the gate at half past three and was met by the swordsmaster.

He was a broad, grey-haired man of approximately fifty, with the bearing of someone who had spent three decades persuading other people's bodies to do things they were reluctant to do, and the expression of someone who had just encountered an obstacle outside his usual professional taxonomy. He looked at Aria. He looked at the sword she was carrying — her own, retrieved that morning from the weapons case by the simple expedient of waking before the household and removing it before anyone had arranged opinions on the subject. He looked at the yard behind him, which was empty.