‘You will if I make it true. Now keep up with me. If you can,’ Deeds said with a grin. He whipped the reins back and forth and his horse bunched its back legs and launched at a gallop.
16
Spear
Tellius paused in the doorway, looking thoughtfully at the man who had caused his most recent troubles. Prince Louis of Féal lay shrouded in bandages. His head was wrapped tight, covering all his hair and one eye. The dressings on his hand had been replaced and were a touch smaller than before, in a clean white lump like a mitten. More strips wound around the young man’s chest, while a sheet covered his legs.
The prince sensed he was being watched and turned. His remaining eye glinted as he recognised Tellius, though the older man spoke before he could.
‘You asked to see me?’
‘Asked? I yelled, didn’t I? Until I was hoarse!’ the prince retorted. ‘No one tells me anything. Why am I being ignored?’ He winced then and shook his head, humiliated by the note of pleading he had heard in his own voice.
‘My apologies. I have been … a little busy,’ Tellius said. ‘Your wounds were very serious. Would you have had us bundle you into a coach, still bleeding through your bandages?’
Tellius entered the room and closed the door behind him, then half-sat on the edge of the bed. The prince made an attempt to appear unruffled, but he was weak and battered and terribly vulnerable. It hurt his pride to acknowledge it.
‘I am well enough to travel now,’ Louis said firmly. ‘If you will send Lord Harkness to me, I will arrange a carriage and everything else.’
‘Ah. Lord Harkness was escorted out of the city a week ago,’ Tellius replied. ‘Along with a surprisingly large number of Féal men and women.’ Tellius smiled tightly, watching the prince as if he were a specimen pinned to a board. ‘Your father’s army began to move around that time – just when the news of your injuries would have reached him. Your Lord Harkness became then the citizen of a hostile foreign power, so we sent him packing. I could have executed him.’
‘But you thought it might antagonise my father further,’ Prince Louis said.
There was both spite and weariness in his expression, but it was hard to read him. Tellius thought he was probably still running a fever. The young man was certainly flushed and sweating. He made a note to ask Master Burroughs about it as he left.
‘You know, Louis …’
‘“Your Majesty” is still the correct term,’ Louis said.
Tellius shrugged.
‘Your Majesty, it takes time to get an army ready to move, did you know that? An army has to eat, so food and cups and bowls need to be stacked ready, with cauldrons and tables for all the preparation. Chopping vegetables just once to feed a thousand men is a massive undertaking. For ten thousand, can you imagine? It’s like a town on the move. Eighty thousand? More?’ Tellius was watching the prince’s reaction to his words, reading him.
‘What do I care?’ Louis said, though Tellius hardly paused.
‘When a march is called, all those things need to be packed away and put onto carts. Now, if an army has been in camp for weeks or months, it only gets worse. Some of the officers will be living in the nearest town, for example.’ Tellius waved a hand. ‘No matter, they can be summoned quickly enough. But new supplies still have to be purchased – and checked, in case the victuallers and merchants are putting sawdust in the casks instead of salt meat or millet. At the back of every army, there’ll be someone selling food or weapons or even iron nails stolen from the blacksmith. So everything has to be checked and rechecked. It takes time, do you understand?’
‘I don’t understand why you are wasting my time with it,’ Louis grated. ‘I say again – what do I care?’
Tellius nodded.
‘Exactly! I imagine such things are beneath the concern of a royal prince. My nephew would have been the same, I should think. For men like yourself, and of course your father, orders are simply given and then they are carried out.’ Tellius scratched his nose in thought. ‘Yet I cannot help wonder how your father’s army could have been ready to move without the slightest delay. I had men in the hills, son, watching. Half a dozen of them, all keeping an eye on your father while you bribed and blackmailed the votes on the council.’ Tellius paused a moment, smoothing away an old anger before he went on. ‘I wondered then if you were a distraction, keeping our eyes on you while he crept closer. Yet he didn’t move a step. He remained in camp, until those birds reached him with news of your injuries. And then – his entire army lurched into movement. It’s almost as if your father was ready to attack before he had reason to, do you see? Can you explain that to me?’
Prince Louis looked steadily back. His father was coming and he had not forgotten the man peering at him was his enemy. His eye and his hand would heal eventually. He’d be lesser, but he’d live. If he betrayed his father, however, there would be no hiding place. His experience had shown his father’s reach. After a time, Louis spoke clearly and slowly, as if to a child.
‘My father is fighting a war to his north – against a more terrible foe than you will ever know. I imagine he was ready to march against them when the news came in.’
‘So you think he will ignore that threat from the north to attack Darien?’
The prince gazed back without replying and Tellius shook his head and sighed.
‘I wonder. Or could it be that your father intended all along to attack us, even before you were hurt? Does that sound possible? Or is he truly risking his army for personal vengeance? No, something is not right here. What could it be?’
The young man remained silent, understanding this was an interrogation of sorts. He flinched when Tellius leaned in and plumped his pillows for him.
‘There. Comfortable? I wonder if you can help me, Your Highness. Your father knows you are in Darien. If his intention is to take revenge for the wounds you have suffered, he must know you might not survive his attack.’
‘Doctor Burroughs! Help!’ Prince Louis roared suddenly.
Tellius sat back and waited until the young man was certain no one would come.
‘There’s no need for that, Your Highness. You’re in no danger, as it happens. There is no benefit to us in killing you. If your father reaches our walls and demands your safe return in exchange for peace, I’d look a little foolish if all I have is a corpse, wouldn’t I? No, you are as safe as anyone in the city, at least until we know your father’s intentions – and his battle strength. Yet it just eats away at me. I can see there is something off, but I can’t work out what it is.’
Tellius tapped his lips with a forefinger as he stared at the younger man and thought.
‘And still I wonder – for all the wealth and boundless power you must have at home, could you be tempted? You showed me you were a sharp operator, ruthless and quick to react. You know my word is good, Louis. What if I offered you a patent of nobility? For Darien to have not twelve, but thirteen families on the council? Freedom. A title, land, licences to continue your gambling houses. There is a new road being built into the east. You could have first pick of trading opportunities there. Despite your wounds, you are very young. With such a start, you could build an empire.’
‘In return for betraying my father?’ Louis said. His hand throbbed and he knew that a single eye would mean he would never again be feared as a swordsman. His father had taken a great deal from him and the offer was more tempting than Tellius could possibly know. He squeezed his eye shut and a tear escaped his lashes.
‘Are you so afraid?’ Tellius said softly. ‘Is his army so terrible?’
‘You don’t know,’ the prince murmured. ‘Darien cannot stand against him. I have seen it before. I have seen cities burn.’ He leaned back against the bed and sobbed, for all he had lost, for all that was still to come.
Taeshin looked sceptically at the older man. Elias had white bristles on either side of his chin, with more grey at his temples. He looked wiry and strong, but he had to be fifty. For an unarm
ed man to beckon a Mazer swordsman half his age was peculiar enough to give Taeshin pause. The thought made him wonder what Marias would say about him taking up a blade in earnest. She had not minded the training sessions he’d overseen at the school. Taeshin had a skill and they had to eat. They could not live on the proceeds from the work she and the Fool did in the laundry, not and have Taeshin keep his pride, anyway. Yet there was a difference between training children and drawing a blade to kill. In class, he could smile on occasion, or congratulate one of the better pupils. In battle, he was as cold and different from that gentle teacher as the soul that had made him its slave two years before. He expected Elias to sense the danger as Taeshin stood before him with a bare blade in his hand, swishing it through the air. Men facing a living weapon tended to tense up, or back away, or tremble. Elias merely stood there.
‘Well?’ Elias said. ‘Show me why he picked you. I already know why he picked me. Don’t hold back – you will not touch me. Let’s see what you have.’
Taeshin put aside all other distractions, including thoughts of Marias. He came forward at the careless speed of a master athlete, sparing nothing. In his youth, he could turn and drop and twist with no fear that his knees or back might ‘go’. Instead, he just moved and expected everything to work. Which of course it did. There was a reason the Mazer steps were known as ‘dances’ and kept secret from their enemies. The patterns of muscle and balance were breathtaking, like a cat leaping, or a dog snapping a bird from the air as it whirred overhead. Taeshin attacked and Nancy’s eyes went wide as she watched. She had stood alongside swordsmen before, but the only Shiang master she had seen was Tellius himself, in the midst of fire and smoke and chaos. She had not quite appreciated how beautiful danger could be.
Elias slid aside from the first lunge as if Taeshin waded through treacle. He reached into moments ahead and had begun to strain for the limits as soon as Taeshin drew the blade. Elias had seen Mazer swordsmen before and he knew how fast they were. His knack gave him time to think, but he always feared a possibility where all paths led to injury or death. Taeshin’s advance seemed like a spider of moving shadows, with all the moves he might make branching out. Elias had time to see each final choice and lean or step away from it, though the young man was extraordinarily quick. Chances were, the rattlesnake speed would lose its edge in just a few years and be almost gone by forty. Yet Tellius had made a good choice in Taeshin.
Elias moved around the open space as Taeshin began to heat up. The younger man had good discipline, Elias noted to himself. Though a dozen attacks had failed, there was no wild flailing, no over-thinking himself into a panicky blow. Of course, all Elias had done was avoid the blade to that point. He believed it was probably true that you never truly knew a man until you fought him.
Elias moved into the attack. Instead of just avoiding the blade, he blocked Taeshin’s striking arm over and over, stepping in or to the side, knocking him off-balance. Even then, Elias struck only lightly. He had no wish to break the young swordsman’s confidence.
‘Enough,’ Elias said at last.
He was sweating by then and was pleased to see Taeshin was as well. The young man had a look of awe on his face, but he stepped out of range and sheathed his sword, then dropped to one knee with his head bowed.
‘No, please, stand up. We don’t …’
Elias found himself blushing. There was a beautiful woman watching their little display. He blushed deeper when he realised he had been trying to impress her like a little boy. Goddess, he was too old to be a fool!
‘How did you do … that, whatever it was?’ Taeshin said as he stood. ‘I have never seen anything like it. Believe me, I did not hold back.’
Elias hesitated. His best protection lay in never explaining his knack to anyone. The more who knew and understood it, the greater the chance someone would find a way to counter what he could do. Yet Taeshin and Nancy were to be his companions against unknown enemies, in darkness. He had to trust them.
‘I call it my knack. I look ahead, just a little, into future choices. I cannot see them until you decide to act, but when you do, I can see it coming – and move aside.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Master Taeshin, you are a superb swordsman. I can see why Tellius asked for you.’
The young man bowed again in reply, the instinctive response to one of great status and honour. Elias sighed and turned to Nancy, standing there. She was smiling in a way that made him uncomfortable, as if she were a cat watching mice playing. Had her hair moved in quite that way before? Elias wasn’t sure. It shifted in tiny amounts, as if a breeze played around her. Her skin too seemed brighter than when he had seen her first, with the blood close to the surface. Had she been so beautiful before? It wasn’t the kind of thing a man failed to notice, not usually. Elias sensed Taeshin’s focus intensify as he became aware of her in turn.
‘And you?’ Elias said. In the presence of beauty, he ended up being gruff, his tone almost angry, as if she trespassed on a more serious conversation. ‘What good are you?’
Nancy smiled and raised her hand. Elias felt his eyes grow wide.
Vic Deeds was exhausted. In his youth, he’d ridden a hundred miles once, for a bet. With a bit of experience and a different horse every twenty miles or so, it was the sort of thing any eighteen-year-old could do in a night. Recovery was swift for the young. Messengers who had to do it twice a week became astonishingly proficient – and needed hardly any time to sleep and eat before they could go out again.
Deeds surreptitiously rubbed the base of his spine, where the skin had been scoured away. He was not that man, or no longer that man. He could hardly believe the age of thirty had sneaked up on him, lying in wait like a damned ambush. Nor how his lower back had betrayed him, where once it had just worked. It was true he’d fallen hard a few times over the years. He’d been robbed and beaten up once or twice, yes. Those things all took a toll on a man. But what sort of milksop would he have been if he’d never lived the wild life? A milksop with a lower back that didn’t feel as if a red-hot poker lay on it, he supposed.
He could see Bosin was actually asleep in the saddle, which was some comfort. Deeds took it as a win that he had remained awake longer than at least one of his companions. He enjoyed small contests of that sort with other men, though it produced better results when he didn’t tell them. The big swordsman lolled as his horse ambled along and yet somehow never fell off. Hondo had said something about Bosin being brought up in the saddle by some nomadic herdsmen, but Deeds suspected it was one of those Shiang attempts at humour, the sort of wild tale told to a stranger that he was meant to swallow whole.
Hondo remained alert, of course. That was one thing Deeds had come to expect from the sword saint. Even from sleep, Hondo could roll from his blanket and come up with his hand on a sword hilt. It was as if his mind never fully relaxed. Deeds wondered why Hondo hadn’t gone insane over the years, and then spent some time wondering if he had.
The road had been fairly empty for the last dozen miles heading into Darien. Deeds could feel his own weariness furring up his thoughts, but he didn’t think they’d passed a cart for a while. He couldn’t understand how there could be a trail of them snaking back from the city walls. It made no sense. Deeds reined in and Hondo trotted over to Bosin, slapping him lightly on the arm to bring him alert. All three of them came to a halt with the moon rising above the city. Hondo was in the process of turning back to ask a question when Deeds understood.
A line of stragglers wound around Darien – a ragged-looking trail of people. Some of them wrestled overladen carts over rough ground, while others were on foot, their heads bowed as they trudged on.
‘The other gates must be blocked for them to make their way to this one,’ Deeds said. It was irritating, to say the least. He’d ridden across hills and rivers, plains and forest. Like a man finally reaching a place to pee, his need had become exquisite with the city in sight. He wanted to go home. He wanted to collapse in a room at the Old Red Inn, with his p
ay safe in a pouch. Then he wanted to find Tellius and squeeze him a little. If something was important enough to summon him home, it would be worth paying for.
‘Come on, gentlemen,’ Deeds called to the others, then raised his voice to be heard for a hundred yards. ‘Make way there. We are on city business. For the war effort. Make way, damn you!’
The crowd parted in confusion, responding to the man who sounded more important than they were. Deeds harangued anyone moving too slowly and made his way to the eastern gate, where the guards were watching his arrival with a jaundiced eye. Even they were not certain enough to challenge him, which is what Deeds had understood from the moment he’d read the letter calling him back. War broke the rules. It threw normal courtesies into the air. It was, in many ways, the way Deeds preferred to live.
‘Gentlemen!’ he greeted the guards with a wide smile. ‘You’ll want to send a runner to Speaker Tellius. Tell him the gunfighter has returned. He will find me in my room at the Old Red Inn.’ Hondo cleared his throat and Deeds looked back at him. ‘Very well. Tell him the sword saint has returned also.’ Deeds looked further to where Bosin was watching him in the gloom, his features shadowed. ‘And his ox.’
‘Right you are, sir,’ the guard replied. The name of Tellius had eased the last trace of suspicion from his face. It was just moments before a runner was racing off through the dark streets.
‘Come, Masters Hondo and Bosin. My fortune and patent of nobility will not earn themselves.’
Deeds dug in his heels as the guards stepped aside and raised the barrier across the narrow gate. Hondo saw how each of them bowed his head respectfully as Deeds rode past. The man was infuriating, but he had brought Bosin back. That was all that mattered.
As Hondo left the walls behind, riding alongside Bosin, he found a sense of peace settling on him that he had not expected. He had ridden hard, with little chance for conversation. Even thought had been beyond him for most of the journey, as he’d concentrated on the road and speed and not breaking his neck. Yet the moment he passed through the gate, Hondo felt chains fall away. He was back in Darien. To his surprise, he was delighted about it.
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