The Sword Saint

by C. F. Iggulden

  He crossed the street at a spot where dozens of men and women stepped between raised stones, with gaps for carriage wheels between them. For a moment, Prince Louis felt like one of them, lost in the flow of people. It made him want to laugh aloud and he caught the quizzical expressions of a couple as they passed, pulling their little daughter back before she walked right into him. The night was cold and clear, and he had arrived at Lord Harkness’ latest gambling house, ‘The Darien Lion’. The man had a knack for a name, it had to be said. Straight and honest, Harkness wagering houses brought a torrent of gold to his father. Prince Louis had been astonished not to find some similar enterprises in Darien, not at the level that might attract true wealth. Let the poor people of Darien keep their coin games and grubby tavern cards! He and Harkness ran a clean house. If history was any judge, they would repay the initial investment in less than a year. After that, it was all jam.

  His cloak was taken from him as he entered. Lord Harkness had been informed, of course, so that he stood ready to welcome the prince of Féal, bowing deeply. Half a dozen Darien men stepped forward to be seen and to greet him. Lord Aeris was first among them, dressed more finely than Louis had seen before. The man wore coat and trousers of his house white, with a glitter at the cuffs that could only be diamond studs. He looked … gaudy. Yet Louis smiled and clicked his heels as Aeris swept a low bow to him. His father had doubled the repayment, for the service of lending it at the right moment. More, they had allowed Aeris to buy a fifth share of the Lion, a stake that bound his fate to theirs as well as any chain. The new house Lord Aeris was building further along Vine Street was said to be a wonder of excess.

  Beautiful women watched from the gaming tables, looking up from those they were with to see who had arrived. Prince Louis wondered how many sweet little flowers would brush by him over the course of the evening. Women seemed attracted to power, which at the age of twenty-two both delighted and occasionally exhausted him. They liked him to notice them, to pat his arm and to laugh, showing him their throats and wrists. It was not such a great trick to pluck some of the finer blooms. For that alone, he would have considered the Darien Lion a delightful enterprise.

  Louis accepted a drink of something ice-cold and biting, with a twist of lemon peel in it, then wandered over to view the tables and choose his vice for the evening. As co-owner, he preferred to be seen in the public room, spilling light and warmth and laughter into the road. Everyone passing by the establishment would know they were excluded from something wondrous. The following night, they would take their savings and risk it, telling themselves they’d stay for one drink and go.

  The games on the second floor were just as lucrative, though for those who preferred to see a little blood on a white cuff. There were no laws against betting whether a man could watch his finger being bitten to the bone by a beautiful hostess without making a sound. Or wagering for and against two boxers, each with one foot bound to the floor. Harkness was the master of hazards of all kinds. He could spin odds on anything. Such events sometimes aroused other passions in those who watched. That had been its own revelation, Louis recalled. There were bedrooms on the highest floor of the Darien Lion. Louis kept a silver key to one on a chain at his waist.

  It was good to be alive that night, as always. To be in Darien, though, was a special joy. As Louis stood there and sipped, aware of the gaze of a blonde whose dress seemed to have been made for a smaller woman, he realised one reason he felt so content in Darien was that his father was so far away. The thought took some of the shine off the evening. Each day he spread his father’s gold and influence was a day closer to Darien being a territory of the kingdom, a vassal. On that day, he would have brought the kingdom of Féal into Darien and made them both the same.

  The prince raised his glass to the blonde, casting doubts aside. She left the side of the man she was with and began to make her way over. Louis showed his teeth as he smiled, rather hoping her companion might challenge him. He was in his prime, he reminded himself. Whatever the future held, he knew he would ride it and be young and strong and handsome for ever. If Darien had to fall to his father in the end, well, it made each day more precious until it did. He drained his glass and watched as a waiter prepared another on a tiny table, setting up the whole thing on the spot. Lemon peel spiralled into the air and appeared in a glass of clear liquor. Louis bowed his head to the waiter, giving him honour for a skill worth knowing. As he sipped and sighed, the blonde arrived as a pleasant distraction, pressing a delicious weight against his arm. The one she had left glared after her. Louis was aware of the man peering at the sword he wore, weighing his chances. He felt a tingle of anticipation. Instead, the fellow pushed through the crowd and vanished, taking his failing courage with him.

  ‘You are too beautiful for the table games and gawkers in this room,’ Louis said to his new companion. ‘May I show you the ones upstairs?’

  Deeds considered the problem of running. He had been a caravan guard before, though never with a destination so far beyond his usual haunts. It was one thing to escort a dozen carts of silver ore a few hundred miles to a foundry – quite another to cross forests and mountain ranges where no one even knew the name of Darien. Still, that sort of work often attracted men such as himself, without much in the way of ties. If they had families, they had probably abandoned them, or been thrown out. They liked to gamble and there were always one or two who liked to fight as well. In times past, Deeds had been those men. He still smiled at the stories he’d racked up over the years. Some of them were so dark, it was sometimes hard to remember what had made him laugh on the first retellings. He and one particular group of hardbitten roadmen had left one town in ruins. It had started when they’d set a feed store on fire, then the farmer had broken his neck clambering over a stile to chase them. The local men had turned out in force that night, to catch and string them up. Perhaps a dozen more had lain dead before the sun rose again. Deeds had come out of that with a few extra weapons and a fine gold chain he’d lost at cards the following week.

  For over a year after, there had been vague descriptions on posters and Deeds had been forced to take work picking hops for beer. About half of his group of ne’er-do-wells had been caught by bailiffs and king’s men, so he’d heard. He’d taken care to avoid the hangings. It was well known that experienced thief-catchers stood and watched the crowds. He’d stayed clear – and remained free. He frowned to himself, wondering if a man’s luck could just run out, the way it seemed to happen at cards sometimes. Deeds recalled the old royal palace in Darien and watching it burn down. He’d made it out, but he’d left more than a few sins in the flames, and perhaps a good part of his luck as well. Certainly his life had taken a turn for the worse since that night. Damn Aeris. Damn Elias. Damn Tellius and all of them who thought he could be sent here and there like a damned puppet. Deeds was his own man – and no man’s servant.

  He wrestled another iron peg from the ground, letting canvas sag and the tent rope fall loose. The Darien road was long behind, as were the forests he’d known a little too well a few years back. He’d never gone further east than those before, but the plains before the mountains were beautiful in their way. Not that he cared for beauty. On a proper road, a man had choices. He could walk home, for a start.

  It was typical of the heathens he rode with that none of them had seemed to appreciate the craftsmanship and labour of that thread of road cut through the wilderness. He’d asked when they were going to start building something like it and received only contempt.

  ‘Stuck-up Shiang bastards,’ he muttered.

  In all his life, Deeds had been a man others watched, usually a little warily. He had a look about him that suggested he might laugh at your troubles – the sort who might throw a wild dog into a crowded tavern, just for the fun of it. He’d always been treated with caution, or fear, which were almost the same things. To be discounted as a threat by the swordsmen and their ambassador was galling. Deeds gritted his teeth and yanked anothe
r peg with a heave, seeing that part of the tent lean to one side, while a Shiang servant named Chen glared at him. They had a right way to do everything, but the tent went up and the tent came down. That was all that mattered. Deeds glared back.

  Ambassador Xi-Hue insisted on his peach-coloured pavilion being raised every evening and dismantled the following morning. The rest of them slept on horse blankets or wrapped in a cloak under one of the carts. It was hard work and not the sort that Deeds enjoyed, to say the least of it. He might even have refused if Hondo hadn’t taken his guns while he’d washed in a river. There was treachery! The guns Lady Sallet had given him may not have been of the quality he’d known before, but Deeds had been shooting them in each morning, which helped to wake the camp nice and early. Hondo had said it was too noisy and hidden them somewhere Deeds couldn’t find. They’d had no right. He had enough cartridges and the weapons were his property. No right at all to take what had been his.

  ‘And if I ever get them back, you’ll be the first to know about it, Meneer Hondo, I tell you straight …’ he said to himself, grunting as he pulled out a peg.

  Sweat trickled down his forehead and when he wiped it, he could feel a smear of mud on his cheek. Four other men were folding and rolling sections of canvas ready for the carts that would carry them, brushing every speck of dirt away as they went. If they heard him speak, they’d learned not to begin an argument. Deeds tended to shove the Shiang servants out of his way, or help them past with his boot. He was sick to the back teeth with all of them. There was nothing in the world like dismantling a pavilion for turning men against one another, except for maybe civil war. Deeds wondered what would happen if he gave Chen a proper little tap to shut him up – and what the punishment might be.

  Something of that calculation must have shown in his face. The Shiang servant decided to move on, complaining about lazy men as he went past. Deeds weighed a handful of spikes in one palm, seriously considering just tossing them down and going home.

  He’d been promised astonishing pay, three times the usual rate. In the past, Deeds had enjoyed guard work – well, who wouldn’t? Fed and kept warm for a few weeks, with a nice fat pouch of unspent coin at the far end. Not that he’d actually seen any coins. The ambassador refused even to notice a servant, looking through him like he was a pane of glass. Hondo had discussed payment easily enough when he needed an extra guard back in Darien. On the road, he seemed to think talk of money was beneath him. The sword saint just walked away if Deeds brought it up – and of course the one called Bosin was a little too much of a worry to press harder. The big man seemed simple anyway.

  If Deeds just left them to their tea and breakfast and walked home, he had neither money nor guns. He’d starve to death after around two weeks of hard trudging, he reckoned, or perhaps be hanged for theft in some village where everyone married their sisters. Of course, he could just bide his time and continue to Shiang. The ambassador’s servants said it was at least a month away, though he thought they might be mocking him. Chen in particular had a sly humour in some of his glances.

  Deeds sighed and stretched his back where it ached from bending down, over and over. He’d fantasised at first about being young and free in a foreign capital, with guns on his hip and good money in his pouch. Old Tellius had described it as a chance for a fresh start – and for his enemies to forget about him.

  Talking to the Shiang servants had disabused Deeds of any notions of available women, however. It seemed the society that produced Tellius had very strict ideas about allowing women into the company of strangers. He’d be lucky even to see an unmarried one, so Chen said. No wonder Tellius had left.

  A sudden push from behind made him stagger into a rope, almost falling across it. Deeds caught himself and whirled on whoever had shoved him, only to find Hondo standing there.

  ‘You neglect your work, Master Deeds, while you stare at nothing. I will not tell Ambassador Xi-Hue that my servant is the one responsible for holding us up this morning! Move!’

  Deeds took a long breath. He’d had it up to here with being ordered around. He’d agreed to be a caravan guard, not some Shiang peasant. Darien didn’t even have slaves! Yet he’d been treated like one, just about. Food, sleep and back-breaking work. He should have known not to expect anything better from Tellius. The man wasn’t Darien-born. No doubt they looked after their own first. Deeds closed his eyes for a moment. Sod it. He dropped the bundle of pegs straight down, so that they clattered on the ground by his feet.

  ‘I think I’m about done, Master Hondo. So I’ll ask you for my pay and my guns. I’ll consider buying one of the horses with that pay, if you’ll give me a good price. Or I’ll walk. Either way, I’m finished. I didn’t sign on to be shouted at and treated like a f … like a skivvy. Still – I’m told you have honour, or what you choose to call honour, so I’ll be having my pay now, thanks. And my guns.’

  He snapped his mouth shut then, determined not to wilt under the man’s dark gaze. Hondo did not reply for what seemed an age and the other servants bustled on with storing the pavilion on its cart. Chen came over to collect the fallen pegs, his gaze and head averted in the presence of the sword saint.

  ‘Come with me, Master Deeds,’ Hondo said at last.

  Without another word, he strode away across the camp. Deeds hoped he was going to get the guns that were his by right, though he had a suspicion his luck wouldn’t change that quickly.

  To his surprise, Hondo stopped where Bosin was chopping logs. Wherever they found a fallen tree, Bosin would go out with his axe and break the thing up into smaller pieces over the course of an evening. It seemed to be his only hobby. One of the carts was already piled high with pieces of wood, covered in waxcloth to keep them as dry as possible.

  Up close, Deeds was reminded of the sheer size of the man he had shot and almost killed a couple of years before. Bosin was working with his shirt off and was a fine specimen. Deeds found himself holding in the slight belly he’d been developing back in Darien. The truth was he had lost that softness somewhere on the road, though he had not realised it.

  ‘Master Bosin,’ Hondo called. It did not do to stroll right up to a man busy with an axe.

  Bosin halted the upswing, his blade gleaming in the air. He sank the axe into the stump block and brushed dust and wood chips from his hands. Deeds saw one of them was wrapped in a blood-stained cloth, where the skin had split. It didn’t seem to trouble the man particularly. Perhaps it was his imagination, but Deeds thought Bosin’s gaze lingered on him, even as he replied.

  ‘Master Hondo,’ Bosin said. He clearly considered the conversation at an end and began to reach for the axe handle once again.

  ‘Vic Deeds wishes to leave, to walk back to Darien,’ Hondo said. There was something like urgency in his voice and Deeds looked askance at him.

  ‘Or to ride,’ he reminded the sword saint. ‘I don’t mind buying one of the horses. The piebald isn’t worth much, but she’ll carry me.’

  Hondo went on as if he hadn’t spoken, his gaze steady.

  ‘The man who shot you three times in the chest, Master Bosin.’

  ‘Hey!’ Deeds said sharply. ‘Old times – and forgotten. Self-defence, which you agreed.’ A whisper of fear came to him then. ‘Tellius said your word was iron, Hondo! Was he wrong?’

  Hondo turned his gaze on Deeds and the younger man almost took a step back.

  ‘No, he was not wrong. I guaranteed your safety. Though you shot Master Bosin in the chest three times.’

  ‘Well, you’re wrong then, aren’t you? Because he’d be dead if I had. No one survives three in the chest. Believe me, I would know. If I shoot a man, he damn well dies. So maybe it wasn’t even me who did it.’

  ‘It was you,’ Hondo said, ‘and he would have died, if not for the Canis Stone. I brought him to Darien and Doctor Burroughs looked at him. Bosin ran a fever that got worse and worse – and then the city came under attack. I knew what the Canis Stone would do, or I thought I did. I made the c
hoice anyway, for Master Bosin, because I needed him. Because your city needed him.’

  ‘And I’m sure we are very grateful,’ Deeds said. ‘But bringing it up now seems like needling a man who can’t defend himself, Master Hondo. In Darien, we call it water under the bridge. Understand? Like a river. You can’t go back to before. All of that – all of this, it’s just water under the bridge. So stop wasting my time, pay me what I’m owed, give me my guns and send me on my way!’

  Deeds was cold, damp and miserable. He’d been treated like a labourer for weeks, without respect, without a proper drink of alcohol even, though he noticed there was always wine for the ambassador. His voice had risen to a shout by the end of it as his frustration overrode common sense and caution. He knew very well that Hondo could have carved him to pieces, but he also knew the man’s convoluted sense of honour made that impossible. The thought emboldened Deeds. He raised his hand and prodded the air with two outstretched fingers. The sword saint looked at him in astonishment.

  ‘You gave your word, Hondo,’ Deeds said. ‘To take me as far as I wanted to go – and not one step further. To protect me like I was your firstborn. Instead, I’ve been treated like the help, like a kitchen boy you don’t much trust.’

  With each point, he jabbed his finger forward. Deeds thought he saw the man’s eyes actually darken and he began to reconsider.

  ‘Either way, I am finished. Give me what I’m owed and get out of my way.’

  Deeds sensed movement. He caught sight of the flash of silver as Bosin swung his axe with enough force to cut him in two. Then he was sprawling across the grass, thrown aside by Hondo as the man caught Bosin in a great embrace and went down with him, smothering the attack as they rolled on muddy ground.