Page 22 of The Man with the Violet Eyes

“Yes, yes, I’m well aware, Nicolo, but you’re wasting your breath.”

Nicolo didn’t appear to appreciate being interrupted but patiently waited for the prince to finish his comment before he responded. “Reprimanding you isn’t why I came,” he corrected Balduin.

“Ah, you’ve realized that’s a lost cause by now, haven’t you?” the prince laughed.

Nicolo nodded. “I came to inform you that I don’t think those were peasants last night.”

“Call them what you like,” dismissed Balduin as he threw his linen tunic over his narrow shoulders and then busied himself with the drawstring at the top. “Common people, citizens, sweaty malcontents. It’s all the same.”

“They were trained,” said Nicolo.

Balduin pointedly looked at me then. “Anyone can learn to fight.”

“Not like this.”

Balduin shook his head. “You worry about everything, my friend.”

“And you worry about nothing.”

“Yet see how much happier I am,” pointed out Balduin. “I tire of this conversation.” Once he’d pulled his boots on, he faced Nicolo with a large smile. “Come on. Let’s go for a turn-about the battlements before lunch.”

***

A ‘turn-about the battlements’ ended up meaning a race around the Great Castle’s skirting wall, which still stood although it had ceased to have any real purpose as the Great Castle was surrounded on all sides by more castle.

Nicolo and the prince stripped off their shirts and jerkins, and removed their boots so they stood barefoot, clad only in their hose.

Nicolo looked at me. “Keep up.”

“On your marks, get set… Go!” Balduin called out.

They both sprang forward, holding nothing back, running hell-for-leather along the narrow walkway that surrounded the skirting wall. I was right behind them.

A pair of guards threw themselves to one side, saluting as their social betters charged past. The prince and his closest friend bounced off walls as they took the corners, barged past guards and scrambled over obstacles, each trying to get the better of the other, though they remained remarkably even-paced. I was able to keep pace with them, most likely because they wasted inordinate time in useless feats and I simply caught up with them each time.

In places the walkway climbed and the two men rattled up steps, their bare feet slapping on the stone as I kept the pace behind them. Sometimes a tower got in the way and the race continued through it, and I could hear cries of surprise and the occasional crash of overturned furniture from within.

I paused in one such room and found myself standing beside a pair of guards.

“Do they do this often?” I asked them.

But the guards didn’t even look at me, their eyes never leaving their charge. Perhaps they were confused and thought I’d escaped the circus, as Balduin had noted. I supposed I couldn’t blame them; their lives depended on keeping Balduin safe and, thus, all other distractions were ignored.

As to my reason for being here—namely to murder Nicolo—I felt I’d learned more about him in the few hours that I’d been his squire than I had in all my nocturnal spying missions. Currently, I was learning he was extremely competitive with the man he treated almost as a brother (a brother who could have him killed with a word, but a brother none the less). Though, I would say Nicolo took up the part of ‘older and much more discerning brother’ than did Balduin. Regardless, they jostled on the narrower sections of the walkway, they pushed each other good naturedly and even tried to trip one another. But it was all done with smiles on their faces—smiles and beleaguered breathing—well on the part of Balduin, anyway. For Nicolo’s part, he didn’t even appear as if he’d done more than walk. Something I found quite perplexing because even I was tired and I hadn’t taken nearly as much exercise as they had.

As they reached the final straight, they were neck and neck, and both giving whatever they had left in that final sprint. It looked as if Nicolo was the more comfortable of the two, but at the last moment, Balduin edged ahead and it was the prince who claimed the prize of winner.

The two bent over double, gasping to get their breath back (something I believed was an act on Nicolo’s part because as soon as he stood up, he seemed completely unwinded). For all the ease and indulgence of their lives, I had to admit they were both well-made men. I’d already admired Nicolo’s handsomely muscled torso, but it was nice to see those muscles in action, and Balduin’s body was almost a match to that of his friend, though Balduin was smaller and shorter in stature. I suspected that neither would have achieved or maintained such physiques without the other to compete with.

Balduin straightened and held out his hand to one of the guards who handed him a towel and did the same for Nicolo.

“Has the bell chimed for lunch?” asked Balduin.

“I didn’t hear it,” replied Nicolo. “Charlotte?”

“No, Master” I confirmed.

Balduin beamed. “Excellent. What say we hit the ring?” He faced me then. “I should like your squire to also attend.”

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