A Plague of Swords

by Miles Cameron

  Gavin didn’t sigh. He grinned.

  “So?” he asked. “I have scales taking over my body, my brother’s dying of the plague, my parents just died horribly, and my girl does not want a rushed wedding. She wants to milk the queen for every prize, because exile to a convent hurt her feelings. And I live in the shadow of my brother...”

  Gabriel looked up. “Did you ever read the plan?”

  Gavin laughed. “After Michael and Tom. I’m sorry, brother. But I notice things like that.”

  “Well, it’s all a dead letter anyway.” Gabriel sighed. “Here’s the new plan,” he said, and took an imperial scroll tube from his shirt. “Give it back when you’ve read it. One question first. Would you rather have command of this army, or rule Morea for six months?”

  Gavin had been about to scratch himself under his beard. Instead, he froze. “That’s a real question?”

  “Not only is it real, but you are getting first choice, brother.” Gabriel smiled.

  “Army,” Gavin said.

  Gabriel nodded. “I wonder how Aneas would do with Irene?”

  “You mean, given that he prefers men to women?” Gavin shrugged. “He has a partner, and good luck to them both.”

  Gabriel smiled. “I don’t really want to share all my thoughts, but if you do not want a woman to have a legitimate heir...”

  “Oooh,” he said. Gavin put a hand to his face. “Remind me not to try to kill you,” he said.

  “I find my reputation as a good man to be very handy when I have to do something nasty.” Gabriel shrugged.

  Gavin nodded. “You are going to try to have Blanche and the empire too,” he said.

  Gabriel nodded. “Yes,” he said.

  “You always intended to make yourself emperor,” Gavin said flatly.

  Gabriel shrugged.

  “Damn,” Gavin said. “That means you intend to have Irene killed.”

  Gabriel looked at him. Gavin nodded.

  “Right,” Gavin said. “You mean, I should shut up.”

  “I don’t want to kill her,” Gabriel said. “But I fear I have very few options.”

  * * *

  Outside, in the courtyard, the dragon’s girl had finished hanging laundry. She flashed Gabriel a smile even as Toby started across the yard to intercept him. But he was determined.

  “I don’t remember your name,” he said.

  “Don’t think you ever asked,” she said, lowering her eyes. It was not shyness, and she smiled, secure in her own powers. “You can call me Bess.”

  He nodded. “Well met, Bess.”

  She smiled. “I know you’re a great noble, but could you just reach me down that wee peg, Ser Knight?”

  He stretched up and got it. He handed it to her with a bow. “You are with child,” he said quietly.

  She laughed. “That ain’t much o’ a secret, Ser Knight! I can even tell you how it happens of a lass.” She smiled again.

  He bowed again and turned to Toby.

  “Princess Irene will receive you. And there is a set of messages. Ser Michael says, ‘now.’” He smiled at Bess. It was very hard for a young man to do otherwise. It was not that she was beautiful, it was that, a few months in kindle, she was just about the epitome of Hills femininity.

  Gabriel blew out a long breath. “I’ll be in the solar,” he said, and walked through the edge of the common room, waving, smiling, and moving like a knight through a swarm of foes. He made the side stairs and in moments was in his own chambers. He had three; an outer office that was also Toby and Anne’s room; a middle room with a fireplace and a superb window, that everyone called the solar, where Ser Michael sat writing and today, Kaitlin sat sewing on a bench by a purely honourary fire; and an inner bedroom.

  “Messages?” he asked without preamble.

  Michael looked up. “Nice to see you too. You know that if I succumb to temptation and commit patricide, I’ll have precedence over you, and it’ll be my turn to be rude all the time.”

  Kaitlin laughed. “I have missed the way you two talk,” she said. “I’ve spent months cooped up with women.”

  Gabriel was already reading. “Good God,” he said. “Oh my God,” he said. There was a lengthy pause. “Holy—! That means...” He turned over the parchment to make sure there was nothing on the back.

  “Kronmir?” Michael asked.

  “Sea monsters!” Gabriel said.

  “What’d Gavin choose?” Michael asked.

  “Army,” Gabriel said, reading a second sheet. “Damn! Perfect. Alcaeus, I love you.”

  “I told you so. I told you Gavin would take the army. You’ll have to leave Milus in Liviapolis. But I’m going. And so are Tom and Sauce.” Michael was growing increasingly bold. “And Kaitlin.”

  Gabriel looked up. “Good,” he said. His eyes passed over Kaitlin. “You know the risks,” he said.

  She looked at the baby in the basket by the hearth. Sniffed. And, without apology, began to change him. A servant appeared, and Kaitlin, who had begun life as a scullery maid, had no difficulty in handing off the old linen nappie and accepting a new one, pressed, and the bob of a curtsy.

  Gabriel wrinkled his nose. “Mmm,” he said. “Smells like Umroth ivory.”

  “Ewww,” Michael said. “That’s my son.”

  Kaitlin raised one beautifully dark and beautifully arched eyebrow. “Captain, I feel you are old enough to tell that this basket at my feet is the natural result of a dalliance. Like yours with Blanche, for example.”

  Gabriel’s eyes flashed.

  But his voice was mild. “Have you spoken to Blanche?” he asked.

  “Yes, and...”

  “Kaitlin, you are one of my very favourite people. If you see Blanche, pass her my invitation to a private dinner. But please do not interfere.” He met her eye squarely. “Please.”

  She sighed. “But you’ll take me with the company?”

  Gabriel nodded. “Unless Sukey recovers, you may be head woman, while also being Michael’s wife. Can you manage that? There may also be times when you have to be a great lady.”

  “I’m getting better at the lady part,” she said. “So is Blanche.” She looked determined.

  Gabriel had read the second document twice. “Alcaeus remains my favourite. Michael, send everything we know about the Odine to Kronmir. Numbers only from now on, no names said out loud, got that?”

  Michael was writing furiously.

  “Kaitlin, invite Blanche for dinner. Lest she think the worst, perhaps the two of you would join us in the solar for wine afterward.” He bowed.

  “Enchanted,” Michael muttered automatically.

  “Delighted,” Kaitlin said.

  “Ricard is becoming a master archer?” Michael said. He waved at the ink to dry it and then looked pointedly at Kaitlin. “Your layabout brother. He’s off with Aneas.”

  “Dan Favour is up to be knighted,” Gabriel said. “Aneas will need a resupply. By air.”

  “Who’d have thought,” Kaitlin said, looking down at her dress of embroidered linen.

  “Where are you going?” Michael asked.

  “I’ll drop in on Aneas, before I visit Princess Irene,” Gabriel said. “This is how I practice for fighting dragons.”

  * * *

  Ariosto was ludicrously happy to see him. Gabriel led his great beast out of a shed, walked him round and round a paddock, and then, with Anne and Toby’s help, got him tacked up.

  All things considered, he preferred open-field take-offs to dropping off towers. He was aloft in a few great wingbeats, and before the Inn of Dorling was lost below him, he was in the aethereal looking for his brother Aneas.

  Aneas was curiously difficult to find. He had always been adept at hiding, with a childhood penchant for ambushes and secrecy.

  He found the recent battlefield first, by the trace emanations of serious workings. The line of curse trees and the devastation they wrought was visible from a thousand feet up, and he read the battlefield the way a scholar would read an
ancient text, coaxing meaning out of a corpse, the hermeneutics of war.

  Ariosto began to unearth a grave and Gabriel told him not to eat. It had never happened before, but the griffon’s taste in meat was catholic, and Gabriel tried not to be shocked.

  What are these things? Ariosto asked.

  Gabriel looked at a horned one, the corpse two days old.

  “If you can cut it open, why can’t I eat it?” Ariosto asked.

  Gabriel had an answer. “Please don’t eat it,” he said. “It has some dark power attached to it.”

  “Oh.” Ariosto stopped. “Disgusting.”

  They had to walk a distance together to find a place from which Ariosto could launch, because of the trees and the undergrowth. Walking, the griffon was a figure of fun, and Gabriel had to keep turning his head to hide a laugh as the lion struggled to cooperate with the eagle. Running was better. Walking was not his best thing.

  But it allowed them to follow the whole course of the battle, and find Fitzalan’s grave. And his brother’s hermetical trail, faint but palpable.

  Then they were flying. He scarcely had time to be cold before they were over a campsite with a thin thread of smoke rising, and he banked carefully, going around as the camp went into a state of alarm.

  He wrote his name in red smoke and landed in a small meadow a hundred paces to the south.

  He was just dismounting when Aneas appeared in the distance, waving his arms. Gabriel was aware he’d landed in a great meadow of blueberries...the bushes were everywhere, the crop massive, and their landing had crushed the plants, so that Ariosto’s feet were stained blue. The griffon, a carnivore, was eating berries with passion before Gabriel had made his dismount.

  “Gabriel!” Aneas roared.

  Gabriel waved casually. He was untying the sacks of flour.

  “Gabriel!” Aneas called, this time with real urgency. Gabriel was pleased that Aneas sounded so excited. If army rumour was correct, Fitzalan had been very close to his youngest brother and...

  There was a flick of movement to his right.

  He dropped from the high saddle, and he and Ariosto turned together.

  Aneas was almost close enough to touch.

  The black bear stood almost as high as Gabriel’s shoulder, and was angry at being interrupted in an orgy of blueberry eating.

  “We almost landed atop it,” Gabriel said.

  Food?

  No. Leave the bear, Ariosto. Sheep at the inn in two hours.

  OK. Looks tough, anyway.

  The three of them, two dangerous men and a large monster, backed carefully away from the black bear. The bear went back to browsing the berries.

  * * *

  “You brought wine?” the female irk asked.

  Gabriel poured her some of the inn’s best Etruscan. “I thought you might be missing it by now.”

  “And flour and butter,” Aneas said.

  “What riches,” Lewen, the male irk, said. “Butter! Mankind’s greatest invention.”

  Aneas sat back, wine in hand. “This is luck, brother,” he said. “We made camp to have a swim and make a hard decision.”

  There was a slim young man who was brimful of power. Gabriel watched him for a moment, and was suddenly unsure—man or woman. But sure of their power. “I am Looks-at-Clouds,” the man said. “You are?”

  “Gabriel Muriens. This young sprite’s brother.” Gabriel smiled at Aneas. Aneas managed a sort of lip twitch. Far better than his usual careful passivity.

  “Ah!” the young man said. “You are the Red Duke?”

  Gabriel nodded.

  Looks-at Clouds nodded back. “Well then.” He looked at Aneas.

  “About this time yesterday, Orley split his forces again. He’s running north. Another party is running east.” He looked at the older war leader.

  Gabriel wished he had a pipe. He rose and bowed. “I am Gabriel Muriens,” he said.

  The big Outwaller smiled and rose and clasped his hand. “We all know you, Red Knight,” he said. “I am Pine.”

  The other Outwaller captain proved to be the very Giannis Turkos that the queen had just been praising. Gabriel couldn’t have told him from Tall Pine. He had the same eyes and wore a breechclout, leggings, and what might once have been a linen cote. Gabriel knew Turkos from the desperate days before Gilson’s Hole.

  Gabriel had learned that command often consisted merely of listening to the opinions of others and waiting to see which point of view held the most sense. He listened as they expounded their arguments.

  In short, Tall Pine and Turkos wanted to go home, and by pursuing the eastern fragment, they could get closer to home.

  Darkness was falling by the time they’d all spoken. He had to go. The waterfall to the east was increasingly attractive; a nice swim, a night without responsibility...

  “I must go,” he said. “There’s a great council fire lit at the Inn of Dorling,” he said to Tall Pine. “You should be there, and so should Captain Turkos, if Aneas can spare you.”

  Aneas sat back, relieved of responsibility.

  Gabriel looked at him. “Ticondonaga is back in our hands,” he said. “So the party running east can’t change that. I agree that I’d sleep better if this Orley were in the ground.” He shrugged.

  Aneas looked bitter. “But you’ve moved on.” He all but spat. “This is no longer the main effort.”

  Gabriel shrugged. “Actually, I meant nothing of the kind.”

  “Will you be emperor?” Turkos asked suddenly. “You’ve been acclaimed.”

  “Twice,” Gabriel said.

  Tessen laughed, and de la Mothe looked at his cup.

  “By my faith,” he said, “I’m drinking with the emperor.”

  “That’s why the wine is so good,” Tessen said.

  Gabriel looked at the imperial officer. “You know what?” he asked in Archaic. “I don’t know. I won’t marry Irene.”

  Turkos might have been appalled to be addressed so frankly, but he was used to Outwallers. “So don’t marry her,” he said. “The army acclaimed you. It’s an honoured tradition. And Irene tried to kill her father, or so I hear.” He shrugged. “I don’t think the army would ever support her.”

  “And you?” Gabriel asked.

  Aneas was watching him like a hawk.

  Turkos swirled his wine. “When you saved me and the fur trade last winter,” he said, “you showed you knew more about being emperor than any of the last lot. I loved Irene’s father as a man. As emperor, he was an empty vessel.” He shrugged.

  De la Mothe shook his head. “No one will ever believe I was hearing this,” he said quietly.

  Aneas looked at Gabriel. “You schemed for this from the first, didn’t you? Even when you went to Arles. You were working on becoming emperor even then.”

  Gabriel shrugged. “Would it make it better if I said there are many things I will not do to be emperor?” he asked.

  Tessen, the irk, laughed, and so did Ricard Lantorn. But the irk spoke.

  “It is better for me, man,” she said. “It is good you say this.”

  Lantorn just shook his head. “Christ, all I want is to be a master archer,” he said. “This is all over my head.”

  Gabriel nodded to him. “They’re giving you Wilful Murder’s bow. He died. Plague took him.”

  Lantorn’s tough face was crossed with a single pulse of obvious grief.

  He hid it. “Old bastard,” he said, and looked at the fire. Then he looked back. “Giving me his bow?”

  Gabriel nodded.

  Aneas knew how to be a good captain. “Go back with Gabriel, Ricard. I can spare you. Go and take your promotion.”

  Lantorn shook his head. “Nah. Savin’ yer pardon, Cap’n, I said I’d go wi’ you to get Orley, and I won’ go back now. I have a score ta settle fer my brother, too.”

  Gabriel leaned over so that his shoulder brushed his brothers. “He just called you Captain,” he said very quietly.

  He had a quiet conversation with
Ricard Lantorn, and then he went back to Ariosto. On the way back, he paused and took the imperial officer aside.

  Turkos looked shocked after Gabriel spoke to him at length. “You’d do that?” he asked.

  “I don’t want to kill her,” Gabriel said.

  Turkos shrugged. “I can’t tell you what would happen,” he said. He smiled. “Truth? I think you are postponing an ugly duty, like putting down a sick dog. But perhaps she’ll learn to sing hymns, too.”

  “She’s more a victim than a foe,” the Red Knight said.

  Turkos shrugged. “I could say the same of the Hurans I killed. Or of Thorn.”

  * * *

  The griffon launched out of the blueberries, and Aneas stood waving at a brother he’d once despised.

  Looks-at-Clouds put a hand on his shoulder. “If you allow,” s/he said, “I will stay you. Let Tall Pine go home.”

  Tall Pine spoke in Huran and then shook his head. “I go to the inn,” he said. “The Red Knight wants all the shamans, too.”

  Looks-at-Clouds shrugged. “Orley is more important,” s/he said.

  Now Tall Pine shrugged. “Good then. Now we swim, and then eat.” He smiled. “And we have butter.”

  * * *

  Gabriel landed in the slanting sun of late afternoon; still plenty of light in the sky. He didn’t change into formal court clothes. Turkos had steeled his resolve, and the conversation in the Wild had clarified what he wanted, and what he might do.

  He even managed a smile.

  Alcaeus’s mother Maria met him in the entry to the great pavilion of imperial purple. In truth, like the empire it served, it was a trifle threadbare; the central pole had clearly frayed the silk of the tent and been repaired a little too hastily, and the west side of the tent was faded from being left in the sun, or being badly folded. The gilt work around the door was tarnished and looked as if it had been pecked by birds, and inside, the tapestries were old and faded and the carpets were not as rich as they should have been.