A-Master-Of-Merchants-Sons
Itzel Vargas had once been the finest blade in the city of Sallowmere, and now she taught the fat sons of cloth merchants not to stab themselves in the foot.
The salle smelled of chalk and adolescent sweat. She stood with her arms crossed while young Perrin lunged at the pell like a man swatting a wasp, and she did not correct him, because correction cost extra and his father had paid only for the watching. This was what the duel four years ago had left her: not dead, which had been the wager, but worse — disgraced, her name struck from the Guild rolls, her reputation handed over to the gossips like a coin to a beggar. She had spared the man she fought. The city had never forgiven her for it. In Sallowmere a master who would not kill was a master who could not, and a master who could not was nothing.
So she watched Perrin flail, and counted the hours until she could close the shutters.
The girl came in at the last bell, breathless, hood thrown back, no older than the merchants' sons and twice as serious. She did not ask whether this was the salle of Itzel Vargas. She said it like an accusation. "They told me you were finished," she said. "I came anyway, because everyone else is afraid."
"Of what?" Itzel did not uncross her arms.
"Of the Margrave's man. Sabre Aurelle." The girl's chin was up, but her hands had found each other for company. "He has named my brother a thief.