Filippa had taken me to the gardens. ‘The ambient mana will help with keeping time,’ she had said. It made some sense. I could feel as well as hear mana, so if she planned to do something with her mana and use the ambient mana to amplify it, then so be it. She stood opposite me on a path of paving stones. We had on the same clothes as we did inside—something about it not mattering for our first several attempts at this.
Filippa walked up to me and stood by my side and faced the same direction.
“This,” she said, “Is called the bassadanza. It was one of the older dances we continue to do during balls, but it is fading out and being replaced with newer dances from Magacitta.”
“The same place as where your glasses are from?”
“Yes, I’m told there’s an individual there who is slowly revolutionizing the culture of Magacitta, and of course there is bleedover to the other cities from trade. For example, one of the dances we will cover is called waltz, and it is fairly new here in Fortenna, but has been danced for a couple decades in Magacitta.”
“Waltz? Weird name. But so is bassadanza.”
“Do you have any experience dancing, Signore Wright?”
“I do, Stephanie and I danced on occasion, but I doubt it’ll be relevant to whatever you have to teach me.”
“Perhaps. But if you already have a sense of rhythm, then it will help in learning these new dances. So, the bassadanza. It is a slow, methodical dance, commonly done to 6 beats in a timing of 4. I will move without you at first, then I will guide you on your steps.”
Filippa started counting, giving me an empty 6 count to start, and then when she started back at one again she started moving. The first two steps were slower, stretched out so that the two of them covered a single measure of 6. The next measure had 3 steps in it with a pause at the end, and the third measure repeated it, then into a turn, and did the same steps back to me.
“Ah, Dama Fiametta, you are just in time. I have just finished showing Signor Wright the steps of the first section of the bassadanza,” she said.
I turned my head and saw Fiametta wearing a form fitting sleeveless dark blue dress. It had two slits on the sides to give her legs freedom of movement, and she wore black stockings underneath. Her heeled boots thudded softly against the pavers of the garden’s walkway. Her long chestnut hair was up in a messy bun. Stephanie wore her hair like this anytime we were doing chores around the house. My heart clenched at the memory. I closed my eyes, and let out a slow breath. One day at a time.
“Filippa, I’m glad I didn’t hold you up. Jack, don’t worry too much. Filippa also taught me to dance when I first earned my knighthood.”
Interesting. I filed that information away. None of the women around me liked to talk about themselves, so getting little tidbits here and there helped shape who they were in my mind.
“Alright, all together now, in a line. I’ll count it out. Jack, don’t look at your feet. Just move how you saw me move earlier. One two three, four five six” said Filippa and as she was starting the count again, the three of us moved our left foot forward in the same movements she showed me earlier. We did the two slower steps and then the two sets of three quicker steps, and then turned in time before repeating the pattern back down the way we came.
“Alright, the reason I’ve asked Fiametta here to help is because this dance is always done in threes: one man, and two women. The man stands in the center, and holds the hands of the two women and all three of them do these steps. After we do a full set like we just did, is the reverenza. Her majesty won’t be dancing during this style of dance, and so we bend slightly towards Her Majesty.
“Next, is the circling. First, you and the woman on your left, me in this case, will circle each other. You will release Fiametta’s hand and my hand, pivot towards me and grab my hand with the hand that previously held Fiametta’s. Then we will do two of the slow steps and one set of the quick three steps. By the time we do these, we should be exactly where we started, then you will let go of my hand, and grab Fiametta’s to repeat the circle with her. Got it?”
“Uh, maybe?”
“Great, we’ll give it a shot starting from as if we just finished the reverenza. One two three, four five six.”
I pivoted, grabbed Filippa’s hand, kept the rhythm while doing the steps, then swapped off to Fiametta and did my rotation with her. It wasn’t too bad, but that was with Filippa counting time. I wasn’t confident in my ability to do this to music.
“Next we’ll do the full thing, but interspersed. We’ll move forward, then turn, then reverenza, then circle, then repeat the sequence as we move back to our starting point.”
And so it went. There were a couple more sequences that Filippa had to teach me, but there were no more unique moves to learn. It was just about putting it all together and keeping the timing. The difficulty escalated when she introduced music, as I suspected it would.
Filippa vibrated her mana and gardens reflected a resonance back at her. Fiametta did the same and synced up with her. Together, the two of them were able to create the sound of a small minstrel band. It was beautiful mana work. To think they could make such music with just their control: harmonizing with each other then getting counter harmony back from the mana dense garden. Have they done this before? This is so impressive. To just be so intune with—
“Signor Wright!”
“Jack!”
They both called out to me, waking me from my thoughts. “Sorry, ladies. I… what you’re doing is incredible. The delicate control over your own mana vibrations and resonance, to be synced like this is…”
Filippa cleared her throat. “Signor Wright, what did I say earlier about compliments?”
“I’m sorry, Filippa, but just this one time let me gush. This is… a work of art.”
I couldn’t help myself. I closed my eyes, felt their mana pulsing from each of them, then bouncing back from the flowers and greenery. Then I added my own mana. A through line, a melody that was both egocentric, but also complementary.
“JACK!” Fiametta’s hand gripped my shoulder firmly, ejecting me from the flow I’d entered. “Never do that again!” she practically yelled at me. There was something in her eyes. Not quite fear but close, very close.
“Why not?” I asked. She bit her lip and looked away, as if ashamed to answer.
“Because,” Filippa began, “you will be kidnapped and turned into a breeding stud. What you just displayed is a rare power.”
“But the two of you are doing the same thing!”
Filippa shook her head at me and looked at me, almost pityingly. “You will need to ask her majesty for more details as she has said she wished to be your cultivation guide, your mana partner. But what I can say is that Fiametta and I are both G notes. You are a D. You should not be able to resonate in key with us. If you thought flirting would lead to kidnap and rape, this… would be much, much worse. I do not know if there is currently anyone alive who can do this because if they can they have kept it secret.”
“I’ve always been able to do this. It’s how—”
Filippa crashed her mana into me like a battering ram and I stumbled back a few paces. “Do not tell us anything else. We do not need to know. No one needs to know except her majesty, and I suspect she already does.”
This didn’t make any sense, and I was angry at things not being explained. “This is stupid. Fuck this. Fuck you. I’m done.” I turned and stormed off. I immediately regretted my words, but this intense rage had bubbled up from nowhere.
No, not from nowhere. You know where it’s coming from. You are weak. You couldn’t protect Stephanie, and now look at you.
I was practically running now, turning corners and heading deeper into the gardens.
Coddled and treated like a child because the world down here is so much bigger than you… I roared a yell and pushed all my rage and frustration into my mana and flung it outwards. My mana hit giant green bush walls, then bounced back to me. I seized it, then carefully moved it in a slow and deep melody. I threw my hands out to better articulate my song, and with my hands as brushes, I painted a dirge—my eulogy for Stephanie and an elegy for everything I once knew.
I closed my eyes, and let the mana take me on the journey as I orchestrated the symphony of my loss—of my death. I twirled around, hands flowing, and I was lost to the harmony, while the counter harmony swallowed me, dragging me into its depths. My hands traced the outlines of her face, fingers threading through her hair. Deep breaths in, and I could smell the promise of her scent: telling me if I opened my eyes she’d be right there. I swung my right arm down, a parry covering Bill’s flank. Notes of mana vibrated in the air, sounding off Claudia’s callouts, keeping us aware and present in the fights. Another deep breath, and Stephanie and I were walking past her favorite food stall. ‘Just one meat pie won’t ruin dinner!’ Tears were flowing down my face now, and it became too hard to keep the mana from becoming discordant.
I see now. It shouldn’t be this hard. I shouldn’t be able to do this.
I slumped to the ground.
That’s why it was so easy for them. Every step along the path was a new note, and I’ve been playing with mana as if I had the entire scale available as long as I could concentrate hard enough.
That isn’t normal. I’m not normal.
I hunched over and clawed at the dirt beneath me.
“I miss Stephanie. I miss my life before this. My home. The stupid adventurer’s guild. The slow grind in the dungeons. Bill. I want to go home.”
Arms wrapped around me from behind. I looked down and recognized Fiametta’s wristwraps that she had been wearing. Her face settled next to mine, chin resting on my shoulder. “I do not have the same mana control as her majesty, but if you let my mana in, I can soothe the pain.”
Not having the energy to speak, I nodded. Instantly, I could feel her mana wrap around me. It wasn’t the soothing blanket that felt like your favorite pair of pants that Ippolita’s mana felt like, but it wasn’t bad either. It was like sitting by the fire on a cold winter’s day. It was sharing a pot of warm stew and ale with your party after a dungeon run. Warmth and camaraderie, that was what Fiametta’s mana felt like. I couldn’t help myself; I leaned back into her and tilted my head back to rest against her, needing the comfort she provided in the moment. The tears had stopped, but I could feel them like daggers resting in a wound.
“It was a beautiful song, by the way. I can tell you loved her, and that you miss them, all of them.”
I didn’t say anything, just reached up and grabbed one of her arms with my hand and squeezed it gently.
“No one can replace what you’ve lost, but with time… you can build something new. You are a mage. You will live a long life, and so will the rest of us.”
“Stephanie was a mage, too.”
“She was.”
I squeezed her arm again, a little harder this time. I needed to feel she was real, that she was there. It felt silly to think, but I needed to know I wasn’t alone in this garden, even if Fiametta was practically a stranger.
“I’m just so angry,” I said.
“I know. You are angry because you are weak, and you have never been forced to be strong.”
“But now I have to be strong.”
“But now you have to be strong,” she affirmed.
“I want to be. I need to be.”
“I will help, and so will others. Her majesty, of course, will no doubt want to help as well.”
We sat in silence for a few moments. Me enjoying her warmth, and she… I didn’t know. Enjoying comforting me, perhaps.
“Why help me?”
“You are thinking it is because you are a man? Because you are a human pureblood? Because you are special?”
I nodded.
“These things may be true. I cannot speak for anyone but myself; my motivation is noblesse oblige. I forget which city coined the term, but it is a philosophy all of the principesse have and have tried to engender in their nobility. The idea that those of means help those without.”
“So I’m a charity case?” She laughed at me. Even her laugh was warm.
“No, Jack. You are not a ‘charity case’. You are a man in need, and I am a knight. A knight that possesses the ability to help, so I will help. To be your friend and companion and to be a reason you find happiness here on the surface are things I want, of course, but I want to help because that is what embodies the ideals I live by.”
I sighed and relaxed into her more.
“I owe you both an apology for lashing out. I’m sorry Fiametta.”
“Don’t give it another thought. Losing someone is hard.”
“Have you lost people you care about?” I asked. She went silent on me for a few beats.
“Yes. Comrades. We fought together. It was an expedition that suffered abnormally high casualties.”
“What happened?”
“Snap decisions made from stale information. But enough about me. Let’s get you up and back to Filippa. Knowing her, she’ll think this was all her fault,” she said. She let me go, and we both stood up. I turned to look at her.
“Do you know her well?”
“As well as she lets anyone, I suppose. She’s older than me by a century, but we’ve been working together for about 70 years now.”
“Is it rude to ask a woman her age down here?”
“No, that’s a thing for men, and even then it’s a weird custom considering how long our lifespans are. I never quite understood it, but men can be simultaneously exceedingly vain and self conscious.” I couldn’t help it; that got a laugh from me.
“I like seeing you smile.” She said and immediately held up a hand to forestall any comment I had. “I know you are hurting. I know smiles are hard. That is why I like seeing them. It shows me you’re still fighting—that you haven’t given up.” As she finished, a small, quiet smile of her own appeared on her face.
Filippa coughed from behind Fiametta. “Excuse me, Dama Fiametta. Signor Wright, but I’ve come to apologize.”
“Please, no Filippa. It’s my fault. I projected the anger I’ve been feeling at myself and my own helplessness at you and Fiametta. I’m sorry. I would like to continue learning from you, if you’ll continue having me as a student.”
Filippa gave me a small half smirk that I was coming to suspect was a signature of hers. “Of course, Signore. It would be my pleasure. We can continue the lesson here. The high bushes of the hedge maze we’re next to should suffice for Fiametta and I to play with.”
Our bassadanza practice continued until lunch time at which point Filippa excused herself to do her other duties and Fiametta begged off saying she had errands to run before the afternoon. I decided a quick wash was in order before I sat down to eat lunch in my room.
Fiametta in her dress.