The Summer Palace by Lawrence Watt-Evans

learn to use a sword?”
    Whistler gave him a sideways glance, then looked down at the outstretched hand.
    â€œYes,” he said.
    â€œIt’s easier to practice with someone else,” Sword said. “If you help me out, I’ll teach you the basics.”
    â€œJust help you practice?”
    â€œAnd perhaps with a few other little things, now and then.”
    Whistler looked at the sword, then turned it as he had seen Sword do, and held it out, hilt first.
    â€œThat would suit me well,” he said.

[ 5 ]
    On his ninth day in the camp, the pieces for Sword’s leather pants and vest were bought and cut, but he had not yet sewn them; he had not yet managed to obtain fabric for his shirt, as he was paying for his materials by helping several old women with their work, and they were overcharging him shamelessly.
    The old women seemed to find him entertaining, and treated him almost like a pet. The nature of the work he was given was such that he spent much of his day in their company, and often found them watching him, giggling and chatting amongst themselves in the Uplander language, rather than tending to their own business.
    He knew that much of their amusement came from his ineptitude at the simple tasks they had been doing for years. He needed all day to pluck and scrape a single hide properly; Gnaw Gnaw or Stepmother or almost any of the others could do the same job in less than an hour, and probably do it better.
    He never did learn the names of any of the other old women beyond his original teachers; in fact, most of them refused to speak to him at all, beyond gestures and giggling. Whether they genuinely didn’t speak Barokanese or simply preferred not to admit it, he could not tell. He considered trying to trick a reaction out of them by saying something shocking or funny or insulting, but thought better of it; his situation was not secure enough to risk being rude in such a fashion.
    He had met several of the men in camp, too, though he was not permitted to work with them. In addition to the four whose tent he shared, he had talked with perhaps half a dozen hunters and a handful of men who had retired from that role. Where the old womentreated him like a marginally trainable pet, the men seemed to consider him a dangerous curiosity, to be watched intently, but from a respectful distance. They were fascinated with his sword; there were no Uplander swordsmiths, and so far as anyone there knew, the only other swords to be found on all the vast plain were a few ceremonial weapons owned by clan elders of one sort or another, none of them in the Clan of the Golden Spear. Sword’s practice sessions always drew a crowd, and a few of the men were visibly envious of Whistler, once the youth began assisting Sword and learning a little swordsmanship of his own.
    Young women and children watched, as well. The children seemed to consider it an interesting entertainment and nothing more than that; for the most part they did not share their elders’ fascination with Sword’s weapon itself, but cared only about what he could do with it. They paid little attention to him when he was not wielding the blade.
    The women didn’t seem even as interested in the sword as the children were; they watched his arms and shoulders, rather than the blade. Sword was used to that. He did not know whether the legends about the Chosen Swordsman’s magical skills in bed had reached the Uplanders, as they had almost everywhere in Barokan, but he recognized here the same wary but definite interest he was accustomed to seeing back home.
    Most of the adult clan members were paired off, and at the end of each practice session much of the crowd would drift away in couples, men and women with their arms around one another, but there were a few young women who did not seem to have male companions, and some of them seemed to be among those most interested in Sword’s performance.
    He would not have had any