"Now if this'd been a real attack on you, this lad would've been laid on the ground, too. Hit to his head with my forehead, then a knee to the stomach and then a kick to the groin, he'd be on the floor and you'd be unprotected." He stared into the stunned and angry eyes of his victim, and tried to convey that he was rather sorry he'd done this but also not at all sorry, because these fellows were supposed to be protecting Rosamund, not making themselves victims.
"Not quite unprotected, I think," came the cold reply right behind him, and he felt the prick of a knife at his kidneys. He grinned.
"Good!" he said. Then he snaked his arm around, grabbed the side of her hand and twisted. The knife fell to the floor and she gasped a little, though he had tried to be careful. "I'm fair glad that you know to defend yourself. But I want to teach you how to be better."
He let go of her and her Guardsman at the same time, and jumped back out of immediate range of a punch or a weapon. The man instantly started to draw his sword, but Rosamund stopped him with an outstretched hand.
"No," she said. "I don't think Siegfried had any intentions of doing anything other than giving us a very pointed lesson. If he'd meant any mischief, you two would be dead, and I would be dead or on a horse by now." She massaged her wrist gingerly. "You have a strange way of trying to impress a woman, Prince Siegfried."
He shrugged. "I'm not trying to impress you." Then he grinned sheepishly. "Or — all right, I am trying to impress you, but I'm not trying to impress you like the others are. I wanted to make sure you could see that I know what I'm doing, and that you and these good fellows aren't really prepared to deal with a nasty scoundrel with no compunctions about anything. We both know it's not going to do me any good if something happens to you before this contest is over. So can I show you some low fighting tricks that a Captain of the Guard won't teach you?" He glanced at the red-faced Guardsman, and the one on the ground, who was starting to sit up, shaking his head and feeling his chin. "All three of you?"
The Princess eyed him for a moment, giving him the first really measuring look that he had gotten from her, then nodded. "All right. You may. I have a bit of time that I can spare, and it is clear it will be time well invested. Let me go and change, and I will send someone for you here."
He waited patiently, and in what he had come to think was a remarkably short period of time for a woman, a servant came to fetch him. The servant brought him to a room he recognized as a wealthy man's toy, a place indoors meant to practice sword work. Only a very, very wealthy person could afford a room with absolutely nothing in it but a pile of thick pads in one corner. Only the amazingly wealthy could afford the walls of mirrors. Or the multicandled things that lowered down from the ceiling to shed an even light at night. The Princess was waiting for him, with four guards this time; she was very sensibly dressed in buff-colored breeches and a linen tunic, a pair of sturdy boots, and with her hair braided up and pinned to her head.
The surprise was that the Godmother, in her guise of the Queen, was also there. She looked shockingly out of place in this very purposed room, in her elaborate black gown of the finest of silk and knitted lace. He grinned, and bowed. He decided on the spur of the moment that now was the time to let her know what he knew. He walked up to her, where she stood apart from the rest. "Hello, Godmother," he said cheerfully, in a voice too low to carry to the guards. She probably did not want them to know what she was, and she wouldn't thank him for letting the secret out of the bag.
The woman's eyes widened, but she gave no other indication that he had surprised her. Instead, she granted him a slow smile. Good. She wasn't angry. It wasn't wise to anger a Godmother. Anyone who could casually distribute cursed objects the way she had was someone he did not want to cross.
"And if I say that you are smarter than you look?"
"I'll thank you for it. Do you need any lessons?" he asked, with an inviting tilt of the head.
"Not really. I have magic." She flexed her fingers, and little crackles of lightning ran across the back of her knuckles. "But I am very interested in what you can show Rosa."
He nodded, and becoming all business, he turned back to face the waiting young woman and her entourage. "Then let us begin with the most common way someone is likely to attack the Princess. When she is alone, because she is in a great hurry, and in a passage she thinks is safe."
Rosa was not, and never had been, what anyone would consider fragile. She had gotten her share of bruises learning to handle sheep, she had fallen from jumping horses, she had gotten burns learning to cook over a hearth fire. But today she had learned that she was not nearly as hardy as she had thought that she was, and rather than making her feel frustrated, angry or afraid, the realization filled her with elation, because it meant that Siegfried was not holding back with her. He respected her enough and, for whatever selfish or unselfish reasons, wanted to see she was good enough to protect herself. If teaching her that meant that she got hurt, well, that was the cost of knowledge. She had known all her life that nothing in life came without a cost. She would far rather have a bruise now than face the Huntsman again and be unable to stop him or run from him.
One thing was certain. If the Huntsman ever attacked her the same way that he attacked her before, he was definitely going to have a broken instep, probably would have the most painful goolies in the history of the Kingdom and might even be choking on a broken windpipe, for those were the three moves that Siegfried had taught her to master today. They were shockingly simple. It had never occurred to her that simply smashing her foot down on his instep would break every bone in it — but he proved it by showing her how the same blow would break a thick bit of board, and foot bones were ever so much more delicate.
"If you're wearing a shoe or a boot with a heel to it, all the better," he'd added. "Like a riding boot. Concentrates all the force on a smaller place. And you might not think it, but I can tell you, there's only one pain that's worse than a broken foot,"
Then he showed her how, when instinct and pain made the man bend over, to smash the back of her head into his nose. Even if she didn't break it, she'd give him more pain at the cost of very little of her own.
And then, while his hands were coming up to cover his face, how to pivot and bring up the knee, or smash the point of her elbow into the windpipe.
Then run.
"And shout while you're doing it," he told her, over and over. "Shouting keeps you from getting frozen with fear. Besides, you never know who might be about. This is a big place with a lot of people in it. You never know who might be taking a shortcut, or who might be where he's not supposed to be. If anyone hears you, even if they don't come to help you themselves, say it's a little lad or a scullion-girl, they'll probably run off to get help. And even if there are two to grab you, and you get carried off, people will know right away, and pursuit will be on your attacker's heels instead of an hour behind. Now, let's try this again, and shout this time."
Lily watched from the sidelines with a face thoughtful and approving. Rosa was rather amused at that. It looked as if Lily had decided that Siegfried was going to be worth cultivating after all.
When they ran out of every bit of time that Rosa could spare for the lesson, she was sure of one thing; she wanted another. In fact, she wanted a lot more than that. She wanted a lot of lessons.
"Think you can spare me more of your time again, Princess?" the Northlander said as she pinned her hair back up again and tidied herself. "We've only just begun what I'd like you to know." He eyed her Guardsmen again. "No disrespect to your men, Princess, but they're trained for war, not for fighting the sort of lawless scum I've been trained against, the kind that'd rather take you from behind. And that's the kind you've got to be wary of."