Busy, busy

"No, no, you have to tuck in your elbow!" Lucas called. "Freeze! Look at the way you're standing right now. Your opponent can meet your blade, then turn the wrist and nick your arm like this, see?" He lashed out, perhaps a little more harshly than strictly necessary, and struck Reinhold on the pit of his elbow with his wooden practice sword."

"Ow!" Reinhold exclaimed, rubbing at the now sore spot on his elbow.

They had only been sparring for a quarter of a bell now, but it was clear the young nobleman was tiring. Lucas picked up a water bag, took a couple of swigs, then tossed it at his new student. "Here, we'll take a break."

Reinhold gave him a thankful look and sank onto the ground, his back against the tree in the middle of the courtyard.

It had been months since Lucas sparred with anyone, and truth be told, he was feeling a little sore as well.

"Don't worry," he said. "Sword fighting is hard work, it's only natural to be tired. You'll get stronger, eventually."

Reinhold gave him a faint smile. "I thought we'd be doing drills and forms, I'm getting pretty good at those. This is way harder."

He was right. He held the wooden sword easily enough. Lucas had seen him working through some basic drills when he arrived, and he performed those with confidence as well. Whoever had taught him those, had clearly not believed he was ready for sparring yet.

"Drills are fine, as far as they go, but they have a tendency to condition your body into fixed patterns. In a real duel, if your opponent is any good, they'll notice those patterns and find ways around them."

Lucas sat down on the grass in front of Reinhold. "When I try to teach a new recruit, I put a sword in their hand and get them to practice against real opponents. Nothing teaches 'don't do that' better like a bruise. That said, it does work better when you pair up people at a similar skill level."

Reinhold gave a pained sigh. "It _would _be nice to land a blow sometime."

Lucas laughed. "I'll see if I can get a few more students for next time, then you can do all the fighting while I relax in the shade. Come on, let's practice for a little longer, and then we'll call it a day."

Lucas left the estate sore and tired, but satisfied, and a little richer than he had been in the morning. It felt good to finally get off his ass and do something other than reading all day. And, he supposed, grinning at himself, doing awfully depraved things with young Elves.

He had taken some inspiration from Eldwyn. She had thrown herself into her first job with such zeal that he almost felt deficient in comparison.

During the war, well-to-do Human families had been expected to educate their children in all the arts of war, from map reading to siegecraft, and from leadership to diplomacy. It hadn't been mandatory, but those who didn't were frowned upon at best, and outright accused of being Elf-friends at worst. Though the war was now over, the trend it had established had persisted.

And, truth be told, Lucas had had one stroke of luck: apparently veterans were a popular choice as teacher, especially officers who'd seen battle, and so he'd had little trouble finding his first student.

At first, he'd been worried about taking on a noble. His experience with Human nobility had varied widely. A few were competent, some were useless, but most were useless and didn't even realize it. He was glad that so far, Reinhold seemed to fall somewhere between the first and second categories. He was far from the stereotypical snooty, arrogant princeling he'd come to fear. If Lucas could find a few more students like that, this new career of his might suit him after all.