I could have used the edge. I could have aimed for her exposed face. But we were sparring.
'Enough?' I asked.
She said nothing.
'Medea?'
She extinguished her buckler and pulled the strapping off.
"What's on your mind?'
Medea looked up at me. 'I never wanted revenge/ she said.
"You told me you did/
'I know. And I suppose I did. Part of me. Revenge… it doesn't feel…'
'Satisfying?'
'Like anything at all. Just empty. Stupid and empty.'
'Well… I could have told you that. In fact, I think I did.'
I helped her up. We didn't speak for a minute or two as we put the weapons back in the rack and returned them to the underfloor store bay.
Then we took beakers of water from the stand, opened the pugnaseum's side doors and went out onto the sunlit terrace.
It was going to be a hot day. The sky was cloudless and the light white. The shade of the woods seemed gloriously dark and inviting. The distant inlet was hazy with glare and the sea glinted like diamonds.
'Ever since I was old enough to understand what Fayde Thuring did,' she said, 'I've wanted something. I've always presumed it was revenge.'
'Revenge is a disguise for other, more valid emotional responses,' I said.
She looked at me sourly. 'Stop trying to be my father, Eisenhorn.'
She might has well have slapped me across the face. I had never thought of it that way.
'I only meant-' I began.
'You're a very wise man/ she said. Very clever. Learned. You give people the most profound advice.'
'I try.'
'But you don't feel.'
'Feel, Medea?'
'You know things but you don't feel them.'
Birds twittered in the edges of the woods and the orchards. Two of the junior groundstaff were pressing the lower lawns with a heavy roller. I wasn't quite sure I knew what she meant.
'I feel-'
'No. You don't feel the content of your advice, most of the time. They're just wisdoms, without heart/
'I'm sorry you think that way/
'It isn't a criticism. Well, not really. You are just so driven to do what is… right, that you forget to wonder why it's right. I mean-'
'What?'
'I don't know/
Try/
She sipped her water. You fight the way Kircher tells you to fight because he says that's the best way to do it/
'It usually is/
'Of course. He's an expert. That's why you defeated me. But why is it the best way to fight? Using those weapons, for example?'
'Because-'
'Because he told you? He's right. But why is he right? You never wonder about that sort of thing. You never wonder what mistakes or decisions were made to arrive at that right way/
'I'm still not sure I follow you…'
She smiled and shook her head. 'Of course you don't. That's my point. You've spent your whole life learning the best way to do everything. Learning the best way to fight. The best way to investigate. The best way to learn, even. Did you ever wonder why those are the best ways?'