Both girls raised their weapons and readied themselves for a charge. They froze, however, when the creature pressed itself to Mr. Bennet"s door and spoke.
"Mr. Bennnn-nnnnnet... Mr. Bennnnn-nnnnnnet... open uuuuuu-uuuuuup."
"I"m exhausted, woman," Elizabeth heard her father say. "Let me rest."
SIDE BY SIDE, JANE AND ELIZABETH STEPPED FORWARD, WEAPONS AT THE READY.
"Oh, I won"t disturb you. I just want a little company."
"You just want a male heir, you mean. And I"m too tired to give you one."
Jane gasped.
"Oh, my," said Elizabeth.
This was worse than finding a zombie in the house.
Mrs. Bennet finally heard the girls behind her and turned and screamed.
"What"s going on?" cried Mary, bursting from her room clutching a trident.
Kitty and Lydia stumbled into the hall next, the former holding a battle-ax, the latter brandishing a chamber pot (for she"d ignored the Master"s order and had left her cutla.s.s out in the dojo).
"Who screamed? Who screamed?" Kitty panted.
Elizabeth nodded toward the far end of the hall.
"Oh, ummmm... I"m afraid that was me, dearest," said Mrs. Bennet, and she straightened up and started smoothing out the wrinkles in her nightgown. "Your sisters startled me, that"s all."
"What were you doing out here, Mamma?" Lydia asked blearily, eyes half lidded.
Many"s the time Elizabeth had thought her mother impervious to shame, but now, at last, she saw a blush on the lady"s face.
"Just saying good night to your father."
"But you said good night to us all hours ago," Mary pointed out.
"Oh, hang it all! We"re doomed! Doomed!" Mrs. Bennet blubbered, and she dashed down the hallway to her bedchamber, knocking her daughters aside like so many skittle pins.
"Good night, Mrs. Bennet!" Mr. Bennet called after her from behind his firmly locked door.
Mary, Kitty, and Lydia lowered their weapons and began shuffling wearily back to their beds.
"If these are the fruits of matrimony," Jane said softly, "we owe Mrs. Goswick a letter of thanks."
Elizabeth trudged down the hall to retrieve the candle her mother had thoughtlessly left behind on the floor.
"Indeed," she sighed. ""Wedded bliss" would seem to be entirely overrated."
Countless times, she and Jane had exchanged similar sentiments after witnessing some unseemly scene between their parents. Yet, for the first time, the words felt strangely hollow to her.
She raised the candlestick to her face and puffed on the wick, but the little flame didn"t go out.
CHAPTER 13.
THE NEXT MORNING"S training began with the usual laps and dand-baithaks for everyone: for mustering on time instead of showing their devotion by arriving early; for breathing too loudly during morning meditation; for having their sparring gowns laced too tight; for having their sparring gowns laced too loose; for, in short, whatever Master Hawksworth could think up. The flimsiest of all the infractions was a.s.signed to Mr. Bennet, who was sent outside to run a hundred sprints across the grounds-backward-for supposedly blinking too frequently.
"Remember: Even one wink of the eye gives The Enemy time to strike," the Master said. "Now, go!"
Mr. Bennet had lingered a moment, expressionless, before bowing and heading for the door.
It seemed to Elizabeth that Master Hawksworth relaxed a bit whenever her father wasn"t around. He was less likely to dole out punishments from a corner of the dojo, leaving most of the actual demonstrations to Mr. Bennet, and more likely to take off his coat and vest and move. Sometimes, he merely demonstrated new stances. But other times-the times Elizabeth and her sisters loved most-he flew around the room showing off "ninja fighting styles" with names like the Striking Viper and the Tiger"s Claw.
So it was to be this day.
"The time has come for the Way of the Panther," the Master said, stripping down to his shirt sleeves. "The panther is powerful, but supple. Quick, but controlled. Fierce, but poised. You, too, must be all these things. Like so."
He bounced off the walls demonstrating the Panther"s Pounce. He sprang up into the rafters demonstrating the Panther"s Bound. He whirled in blurred circles demonstrating the Panther"s Swipe. And the girls watched in awe. His movements were so graceful, so beautiful, Elizabeth could imagine them more on the stage of a French ballet than in the middle of any battlefield.
And then the Master stopped dead in the middle of the dojo, suddenly still and stiff, not even breathing hard, and announced that it was time for the death move: the Panther"s Kiss.
He looked into each of the girls" faces, lingering longest on Elizabeth before moving on to Jane.
"You," he said, and his eyes went sliding back to Elizabeth even before his head turned toward her, as well. It was as if the two parts of him weren"t quite in alignment-clockwork gears no longer in mesh. "Up."
"Yes, Master."
Elizabeth stood, stepped forward, and let Hawksworth take her by the arm and spin her around so she was facing her sisters. Then he let go and slipped back behind her.
"The Kiss begins like this," Elizabeth heard him say. "Notice how I move slowly, smoothly. Not lunging but sliding-gliding in, so as not to startle my prey."
Something squeezed Elizabeth"s waist, hard, like a corset being over-tightened. By the time she realized it was one of the Master"s muscular arms wrapping around her, pinning her own arms to her sides, she felt his chest-his whole torso-brush up against her back.
"The left arm first, here, to prevent escape," Master Hawksworth said, pulling Elizabeth tightly against his body.
Elizabeth saw Mary stiffen and lean forward, taking in the demonstration with a peculiar intensity. Lydia and Kitty, meanwhile, were stifling grins, and even sweet Jane had a wicked gleam in her eye. It had been a hard time for them all, with many a tear, and Elizabeth would"ve been glad for the chance to give them some amus.e.m.e.nt if she hadn"t been so mortified.
"Then the right arm," Hawksworth said. "Like this."
He stretched his other arm out straight over Elizabeth"s shoulder, then bent it back, back, back until it was wrapped around her neck. Her whole body was pressing into his now, from her head to her heels. It almost felt as though he were a heavy cloak draped over her, or a bed upon which she was lying.
"Then," he said, "you squeeze."
The pressure on Elizabeth"s waist and throat grew, escalating from (she had to admit) pleasant but discomfiting to simply uncomfortable. Instinctively, she tried to squirm, to loosen the grip ever tightening around her, but Master Hawksworth was too strong.
"The quarry cannot move... not even to draw air," Hawksworth said. His head was so close to Elizabeth"s she could feel his breath blow over her ear as he spoke. "You can see why in some traditions this method goes by another name: the Python"s Embrace."
He went on talking, but Elizabeth could catch only the occasional word-"... hold... minute... black..."-over the buzz growing ever louder in her ears and the pounding of her own heart. She could see the expressions on the other girls" faces begin to change, their lascivious glee dying, eyes growing wide. The whole room began to go gray around the edges, a dark circle on the periphery of her vision tightening until Elizabeth seemed to be looking down a long tunnel with her sisters at the end. And then even they faded away, and all she could see was a distant smear of gauzy light.
"... sleep...," she heard Hawksworth say. "... death..."
The light began to go out.
Elizabeth wouldn"t let it.
She brought her right knee forward, then kicked her foot back and up with all the strength she had left. It was a variation on the Fulcrum of Doom her father had taught her. The Axis of Calamity.
It found its intended target.
"Oooo!" Elizabeth heard Hawksworth say very, very clearly indeed, and the Python or the Panther, whichever, let her go, and she stumbled forward gasping for breath.
Jane was instantly at her side.
"Lizzy! Are you all right?"
"Yes... yes, I think so."
With each lungful of air, Elizabeth"s world widened and brightened, until at last all the grayness was gone. And this is what she saw: Hawksworth bent over, head hanging low, hands in a most undignified arrangement. Mary was beside him, bending over to try to look him in the face.
"Master? Do you require aid?"
His first reply came out as a squeaky wheeze. Then he squeezed his eyes shut, took in a deep breath, and tried again.
"I am in no more pain than I deserve. Go. Find your father. He can take over your training while I... meditate on this."
"Master," Elizabeth said.
She started to ask what had just happened, if something had gone wrong, but she stopped herself. The student was not to question the master"s actions. She started, then, to say she was sorry for panicking, but she stopped herself again. A warrior doesn"t apologize.
Oh, how was she ever to truly talk to this man?
There was only one thing she could say, so she said it.
"How many dand-baithaks?"
"For you, Elizabeth Bennet?" Hawksworth said. "None. The fault was not yours. I let myself become... careless." He turned away and began hobbling, hunchbacked, toward the darkest corner of the dojo. "We will resume the Way of the Panther in one hour. Until then, leave me."
The girls bowed and began to file outside. Elizabeth left last, lingering in the doorway, unsure if there was more she still might try to say or more she longed to hear. Hawksworth settled himself, ever so slowly, into a stooped, cross-legged squat on the floor, his back still to her, and after a long, silent moment she moved on.
She found her sisters already gathered around Mr. Bennet.
"-and then she kicked Master Hawksworth in the...," Mary was saying. Her cheeks flushed pink, and she leaned toward her father, hand cupped to mouth, and whispered in his ear.
Mr. Bennet frowned... yet it seemed to Elizabeth his eyes were smiling.
"Why did you do it, Lizzy?" Lydia asked as she joined them.
"Yes, tell us, Lizzy!" Kitty said. "Were you cross or simply frightened?"
"I was being strangled. Need I really explain beyond that?"
"Didn"t you hear the Master say the Panther"s Kiss can be used as a "sleeper hold"?" Mary asked. "That he could bring you to the brink of unconsciousness without doing you any harm?"
"It is rather difficult to hear properly when being throttled," Elizabeth replied. "Shall I demonstrate?"
She brought her hands up toward Mary"s throat, and her sister actually blanched and hopped back behind their father.
"No, that"s quite all right, thank you."
Elizabeth dropped her arms to her sides, ashamed. She knew it wasn"t her younger sisters she was angry at, thoughtless though they were.
"The Axis of Calamity, eh?" her father said. "I"m sure that made quite an impression on the Master... and perhaps, I"m beginning to think, just where he needed one most."
"What do you mean, Papa?" Mary asked.
Mr. Bennet ignored her.
"Now, seeing as you"re back in my hands for the next hour, I"d say it"s time for something your training has, so far, entirely overlooked. Something I feel I owe you all, given the sacrifices I"ve asked you to make."
He paused until Jane finally asked the inevitable question.
"Which is what, Father?"
Mr. Bennet smiled. "Fun. There is, you will observe, a stag striking a most majestic pose upon that hilltop."
The girls followed his gaze to the east, and saw, not a quarter mile away, the great, antlered buck their father spoke of.
"Kiss it."
"Kiss it?" Mary said.
"Yes. Catch it and kiss it."
Lydia grimaced. "On the lips?"
Mr. Bennet shrugged. "Or the nose or the cheek or whatever else you might prefer."
"You expect us," Jane said slowly, "to catch a deer and hold it long enough to kiss it?"
"Oh, goodness me, no!" Mr. Bennet chuckled. "Not all of you. But your training has, I suspect, brought you further, faster than you think, and one of you might manage it-and whichever of you it is will get the rest of the hour off to do whatever she pleases."
Jane was already halfway to the stag before anyone else was even running.