Chapter 14: The Garden

"Last free night," Theron said.

He was sitting on the gatehouse step with the dogs, where the gold spears let him sit.

"His words," I said. "Not mine."

"Then he's coming tonight."

"He can't come in here. There are four hundred of your men in the yard."

"And sixty of his on the walls."

He stood up.

"Come into the garden," he said. "I want you holding something sharp."

The walled garden was behind the bath house, an old square of grass and fig trees and stone.

There was a straw target nailed to the far wall, with a hundred holes in it.

He'd set two legionaries at the house door and a dog at each corner.

Then he handed me his spear.

Ash wood, dark with the oil of his hands, a long bronze blade with a notch worn in the edge.

He put it in my palms and didn't let go at once.

His fingers stayed on the shaft beside mine.

He was looking at the blade, and then at my chest, just under the breastbone, and his face did nothing at all.

"Is it heavy?" he said.

"Yes."

I didn't say the rest.

That something under my ribs had gone cold.

He let go.

"Feet apart," he said. "Weight back. Not like that. Like you're about to slap someone."

I threw.

The spear went sideways, wobbled through the air, and stuck in a fig tree.

"That was a good fig tree," Theron said.

"You said slap."

"I didn't say slap the tree."

He went and pulled it out.

He came up behind me and set it in my hands again.

His hand closed over my right one, and his other went to my hip.

"Again," he said into my hair.

"You're not helping."

"I'm helping a great deal."

I threw.

It hit the bottom of the target, low and shaking.

I threw until my shoulder burned and my palms were raw.

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