17.1
Jewel was now more than familiar with the feeling growing in her middle just ahead of her hips. It shifted with a familiar and building heft, as she walked at the front of her party towards Arva and the Thurzó Demesne of Mokoshbork.
Eleven days striding half the lit hours of the hungry summer northward made her intimately aware of the growing weight beneath her scales. Paul had wisely only commented on it a few times in the nights where they could find sufficient accommodations to not risk being overheard through the cloth walls of a tent.
Jewel was going to lay more eggs.
If her last clutch and the feeling of the added weight and girth was anything to go by Jewel suspected it would be another trio.
It added even more frustration and confusion to her thoughts of late, a pressure inside her growing to be almost painful in her fury, once again she was heavy with egg and still she had no solid idea as to what possible reason for it there could be!
All of it and other matters spoiling her mood on what should have been a wonderful occasion as they made a journey of near pageantry to her Sister’s Wedding.
But all of Jewel’s duties and the unreliable misery of becoming gravid for no discernable reason clouded the spirit it should have been done in.
Her letters to Erhard and the rest of Mathias’ Leuhtą project on the insights she had gleaned from her remembrance of Gem, of the seemingly shared nature of their souls and her thoughts on the split nature of Wyrms and their spawn in spirit had apparently excited the wizard but little more than confirmation had arrived before they needed to head north.
Worse yet, without Gem to act as intermediary, Smithson had grown distant from her, closed off in a way that hurt even more. Almost as bad as the wailing that her friends and family in Valasect had performed when she arrived with news of the death.
She’d had to attend to it herself, to mourn her own death with not only the mothers that wished to share her pain but also the men and women that had played with Gem as children. Even Bethica’s children had joined her, alongside the venerably aged but thankfully still clear eyed Celsus.
It had not sat right at all with her, not the burning of her spawn’s body in Rochford, not the words of the priest to wish her soul to its final resting place with the Veles, not the crying voices that joined her in howling misery into the night.
Gem was dead, yet she was not! And now Jewel was already heavy with three more ‘daughters’ and her first spawn had not even survived three decades! Would the twins perish even sooner due to their rapid growth into maturity?
Jewel did not know.
It made the core of their party a morose group, Imre, Gwenn, Smithson, Jewel and Paul had to try and appear properly high in spirits for the other guests. Jewel might be excused for her mourning the loss of a daughter.
But Smithson was her captain, Gwenn and Imre betrothed heading to their marriage and according to the elder Thurzó’s letters were anything to go by the abdication of the County to the young man. Even Paul was expected as her husband to have a less morose bearing then they were maintaining.
Yet anyone with eyes or ears likely could see how false their smiles were, how little they engaged with the pageantry at each city and manor of Arva. How strained Gwenn’s acceptance of gifts from her husband’s soon to be vassals were.
The entourage had grown in their passage too. Invited guests followed them north, swelling the numbers with not just Imre and Jewel’s staff, but five full households of nobles and their families so far.
At least the family bouts continued.
Gwenn had been reluctant, uneasy from the memory, but Jewel knew her sister, she insisted the twins spar with her and Imre. However at her sister’s insistence Jewel’s spawn fought with a handicap.
They were only allowed one training sword between the two of them facing Gwenn and Imre each fully armed. In spite of that it was still only barely enough when Jewel was present to unify all of herselves.
And Gwenn would not accept that Jewel failed to give more than her all in a bout. At least it made for a fine showing for the guests and Imre’s future vassals.
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“The two of them fight as one, I suppose that we can expect both of them on the field of battle in the next war.”
“Against beast spawn, with only one sword between the poor things?”
“Did you not see the earlier bouts before the Heir and his betrothed took the field?”
“No?”
“The two of those things fully armed fought off my captain and a dozen of my best men! And look at how they pass the sword between one another, covering each other’s weaknesses, nevermind the heir and his new martial woman, if I had a dozen of those beasts I could take on a hundred knights!”
Jewel kept her face sombre, no serene smile, her heart was not in it, and at least the word of her mourning could allow her that much.
She swung as her twin-selves, a strike towards Gwenn on her weaker side, blocked as she expected from her sister, but also a lunge from the currently unarmed twin to slip under a blow from Imre. The motion went into a dip and upswing that had both spawn having to step back and away or take a blow to their stomachs with the dulled steel of the training swords.
Gwenn was on them now, trying to capitalize on the now disarmed twin, but a dip and weave was followed through with a scaled forearm pushing against her sister’s wrist. A full lunging stab towards Imre’s side, a glancing blow that would not risk piercing his armor, but more than enough to mark a lethal blow in a bout.
Also a heavy bruise that would teach him to not underestimate his opponent’s guard.
Imre had no protections from mortal weapons like Paul had. That goddess’ blessing actually made it frustratingly difficult to train her man. He never bruised in training, hitting Paul with even a wooden stick cut or fashioned in any way for balance slid off him even if he wore nothing at all, nevermind armour. Hilariously though naturally fallen branches gave him no defense until something broke them in a way sufficient to count as ‘shaped’.
Imre had none of those blessings to hamper his training but it also meant that her sister’s husband needed the skill all the more.
Gwenn had recovered and was wary of the open hands that could have gone for a grapple now.
“A grosz and a half on the wyrmspawn.”
“I’ll match that, a grosz and a half on the Heir and his Martial Woman.”
Jewel closed her wyrmish eyes, focusing on only the senses of the Twins. The fury of her sister had cooled over the days back to the hard focus needed in a fight. Her anger towards Jewel, Gem, all of her selves for keeping it secret still there, but no longer burning away her sense and judgement.
Gwenn was still angry, but she still embraced them as her sister in spite of it after every spar.
Another parry against Imre’s sword, then in the same move one twin lets go of the hilt while the other takes hold, a lunge carrying the swing forward into another blow sweeping up and over, clashing hard enough against Gwenn’s block to echo. Her sister had spared Imre another bruise to the ribs.
Jewel’s now disarmed self stepped under and over into the boy’s guard, while the sword wielding twin slid back and then forward for another blow. Gwenn had a choice, and she took it, nudging Imre with a hip to get him into motion with it.
She saw what her sister was setting up for them all, ah yes, that would be for the best, good.
Jewel lunged with both of the twins, one going for a grapple to relieve Gwenn of her sword, the other going for what would have been a lethal blow with properly sharpened steel.
But in a motion that was too fast for the eye to track, the betrothed pair moved together, Imre taking the opening that Jadwiga left open in her attack on Gwenn, while Jewel’s sister went for a blow on Eunika in her grapple with Imre.
However just before Gwenn’s blow could mark the unarmed Twin and just as Imre was letting out a heavy breath from the blow of the sword’s flat to his chest Eunika had taken the hilt from her twin and lunged forward, throwing herself into Imre’s blow in what would have likely ended a man.
Jewel was pretty sure the twins could have fought and slain men even with the mortal wound she theoretically just received, but the most important thing was that she had managed to deliver her own blow to Gwenn.
And with that the match ended.
A proper draw, two on two, one side with only a single sword between them.
The smell of all four combatant’s sweat was heavy in the air, Gwenn and Imre were soaked through into their armor, Eunika and Jadwiga only a bit damp in their battle dresses from the heat, leveraging Gem’s trick of breathing deeply and fully through their bones to help spill the hot summer sun.
Jewel opened her largest self’s eyes and spoke clearly and solidly. Just to disperse all ambiguity.
“It is a draw.”
Her declaration had all the nobles and footmen that had been passing bets between them that afternoon groaning in disappointment.
She’d have to make sure the matter of wagers was established well before tomorrow's training. It was improper to start such a pool in the middle of a fight.