The Court of Broken Knives

by Anna Smith Spark

  He’d had a sword, once, of course. A beautiful sword. Silver tracery on the hilt, and a single ruby the same black-red as his hair. A fine, thin blade, light as water, cruel as tears, the metal so dark it seemed to eat the light. A gift from his mother’s kin. In a fit of intense, wine-sodden melancholy, he’d named it ‘Sorrow’. Carin had laughed at him for days, but even after the drink had worn off the name had stuck irreparably. It just seemed to fit. The sword, and the way it felt in his hand.

  Which was something of a joke in itself, given what he’d eventually done with it.

  ‘If My Lord will see here, the grip?’ the armourer was saying. Marith pulled his attention back to the shop. The man held a short sword out to him. The hilt was plain metal, worked at the pommel with the design of a star. The blade was long for its type, tapered, a ribbon of brilliant white bronze. The grip, on which the armourer’s attention was focused, was bound round with red leather, cunningly wrought into the metal. A good sword. Marith took it and made a few strokes. It was bright in his hand. The blade made a very slight hiss as it moved through the air. A very good sword.

  Also a very expensive sword. He looked quickly at Tobias, who looked back at him and made a tiny, almost imperceptible shake of his head. Marith sighed. He sheathed the sword lovingly and handed it back. ‘It is a beautiful thing. But I’m afraid to say I am in need of something a little cheaper.’ Tobias’s hand flickered. ‘Quite a lot cheaper.’ Tight bastard, Marith thought.

  The armourer looked disappointed. The sword was whipped away and replaced in Marith’s hands with a more standard piece. Marith made a few experimental strokes again. Much less interesting. The other had been special, this was just a bit of metal you might use to kill someone. A good metaphor for his own change of status, then. So perhaps fitting after all. He could call it ‘Ruin’.

  Tobias got one too, and a long thin-bladed knife. They bought half-helms as well, light smooth things like eggshell that pressed on the scalp. His father had a great helm, the metal tempered black, surmounted by a leather plume in the shape of a dragon. It looked like a diseased face. He’d been frightened of it, as a child, until he realized that it was just metal and cow skin shaped to the skull. His father was still his father inside it, hot with sweat dripping down his forehead. No magic in it. No horror. Just a lump of hammered bronze. But he hated it. The idea of being enclosed in it. Trapped.

  Swords and helmets. Killing things. Marith paid carefully, the money shaking in his hand.

  They were walking back down a large, crowded street in one of the wealthier areas of the town when Alxine suddenly raised a hand to Tobias’s shoulder and said calmly, ‘Someone’s following us.’

  ‘What?’ Rate almost turned round before Tobias smacked him on his injured arm. He yelped in pain.

  ‘A woman. Wealthy-looking, with guards.’

  Tobias frowned. ‘I haven’t seen her.’

  ‘She’s only been around a little while. We passed her as she was coming out of a shop a few streets back. She started after us a few moments later, she’s quite far behind us still.’

  ‘Coincidence. She’s just headed the same way we are.’

  ‘No. She’s not even trying to conceal it. Turn round a moment, like you’re looking at that girl back there. See?’

  Tobias turned and caught a flash of expensive cloth, flanked by dark leather. The street was crowded, it was hard to see easily without being obvious. ‘If you say so,’ he said, confused and concerned. A woman. Why on earth would a woman be following them?

  He thought for a moment. ‘We carry on a few paces, take the next turning, go into the nearest shop. She’s still a good way behind us, so if we’re quick she’ll be confused and have to show herself. No point in us being subtle if she’s not.’

  The nearest shop down the next turning turned out to be a jeweller’s. A bell rang musically as Tobias opened the door, pretending to survey the wares inside. Gold and silver glittered on fat red cushions, illuminated by tall candles of yellow beeswax. Rate stared open-mouthed at the place. The shop-keeper bustled up from behind a curtained doorway, rubbing his hands as he caught sight of Marith.

  ‘Anything in particular you are looking for, young sir?’ he asked unctuously, waving his hand towards his display cases. ‘A ring for a special friend? A brooch for a cloak?’

  Whatever Marith was about to say in reply was lost in the noise of the door being flung open, the bell ringing like mad. A woman’s voice cried out. A young woman stood in the doorway, flanked by two men with swords. Short and fair-haired and plain. From the east, by her dress. High-born, by her dress, too. A high-born young woman from the east, staring at a high-born young man from the east with her face full of grief and pain and shock. Oh hell.

  Marith stared back at her. Went pale, a look on his face that was both horrified and laughing. ‘Landra?’ he said thickly. ‘What are you …? What are you doing here?’

  ‘You …’ Tears running down her face, her body trembling. ‘It is you … I thought … I was walking down the street … I saw … I saw you …’ She spat at his feet suddenly. Her lips curling back like an animal. ‘You’re dead! Dead! Your father swore … He swore on Carin’s grave. That you were dead. He swore!’

  A choking sound came from Marith’s mouth. ‘He lied. The Altrersyr lie.’

  ‘He swore! He swore you were dead! Dead! I came out of a shop, you were there. In the street. I saw you! But your father swore! Swore you were dead!’ She moved towards Marith, her arms raised. Tobias felt for a strange moment that she was going to embrace the boy. She struck him, screaming, cursing, spittle frothing at her lips. ‘Dead!’ she screamed. ‘Dead! Dead! Dead!’ The two guards with her drew their swords. They were both staring at Marith too, the same puzzled revolted faces. The taller of them stepped forward, raised his blade towards the boy, came at him. Rate responded almost instantly, leaping sideways with his knife already drawn. There was a crash as a display case fell over in a shower of gems. Marith stood still and blank, like he was waiting for the man to kill him. Gold bracelets rolled at his feet.

  Death and damnation. Of all the squalid ways to die: cut down in a tasteless trinket shop by a glorified footman.

  ‘Stop!’ Tobias shouted hopelessly, just as the woman shouted ‘Hold!’.

  ‘Hold, Mandle.’ Mandle froze, sword halfway to Marith’s chest, Rate’s knife halfway to his guts. The woman stood before Marith, staring up at him, hatred roaring off her. ‘Dying here like this is too good for you. Now I know you’re still alive, I want to plan your death. Do it properly. Not just see you die quickly now.’

  No answer. Marith’s lips moved but nothing came out.

  ‘This means war, Marith. Between our House and yours. You should be dead. Dead and rotting, like he is. When my father learns of this … War. You’ll all be dead. We’ll kill you all slowly. We will. Your father will regret his lies. You’ll regret he didn’t kill you as he said.’

  Marith finally came alive to her, and laughed.

  ‘Kill them, then,’ he said. His voice was bitter and cold, worse than it had been the previous night. A dead voice. Empty. ‘You think I care? You think I ever cared? But you won’t manage it. You’ll be the ones to die. Like he was.’

  The woman crumpled. Like she might fall to the ground and break. She tried to say something but her voice faded away. ‘You’re vile …’ she whispered at last, breathing hard through her teeth. ‘Vile. Prince Ruin.’ Then she straightened herself and stumbled out of the shop, her men following her, still staring over their shoulders at Marith. Tobias stared back at them.

  Silence. Rate bent down and began absent-mindedly picking up the scattered jewellery. The shop-keeper gave a low moan and slumped to the floor. Marith stood immobile, eyes bright.

  Tobias let out a long, pent-up breath. Turned to the shop-keeper, shrugged his shoulders apologetically. ‘No idea either, mate. Crazy bint.’ Desperately trying to sound casual. Or at least not like he was about to scream the place down and w
ring Marith’s princely bloody neck. ‘But no harm done, eh?’ Gestured at Rate: ‘My friend here’s putting your shop back together, aren’t you?’

  Rate quickly dropped the last of the jewellery onto a display table, added the gold brooch he’d palmed a moment previously. ‘See? All right as rain again. Nothing broken. We probably ought to leave now, though, yes?’

  They fled out of the door and away, Marith trailing behind them, face blank, needing the occasional nudge from Rate to keep him going in the right direction.

  Navala was sweeping the front step when they arrived back at the Five Corners. She looked at them – at Marith – curiously. In the last three days, she’d seen him arrive back injured and covered in blood, passed out drunk and covered in vomit and now trembling and barely able to speak. To Tobias’s profound irritation, she still cast him a long yearning smile when they came in.

  ‘You,’ he barked at Marith as soon as they were alone in the hallway outside their rooms. ‘Go in there, shut the door and stay there. Okay? Don’t even bloody move, for preference. You are confined there until given permission to leave. You,’ he turned to Rate, ‘go with him and make bloody certain he can’t get out.’

  Marith stared at him for a moment, then slunk off like a boy after a beating, trailing his hand along the wall. Rate followed him, a snigger on his face.

  Tobias pushed open his own door. A desperate need to sit down and close his eyes for a while, pretend none of this was happening. Alxine followed him, shutting the door behind him. Oh not now, Tobias thought wearily. Not bloody now. Let me have just a few moments free of the bloody lot of you.

  ‘So,’ Alxine said slowly, ‘care to tell me what exactly is going on here? The last couple of days have been a nightmare. And don’t tell me you don’t know, because you do.’

  ‘Don’t speak to your commanding officer like that,’ Tobias growled back.

  ‘Oh, come on, Tobias.’

  Tobias sank down onto his bed in exhaustion. ‘Okay. Okay.’ Things had gone beyond the point he could keep anyone in the dark now. And he probably owed it to Alxine, he’d known him long enough.

  He was just finishing when Rate came back.

  ‘He’s shut in,’ Rate said cheerfully. ‘Windows shuttered, door locked. Just sitting there anyway, staring at the wall, laughs a bit occasionally. You’re quite right, he’s cracked as a smashed pot, that one, divine blood or no.’

  Alxine said, ‘Oh, come on. You don’t believe that. How can he possibly be descended from some bogeyman? How can he possibly be related to a dragon? Does he look like a bloody dragon?’

  Tobias and Rate exchanged glances. Easy to forget, having known Alxine for so long, that he wasn’t from Irlast. Didn’t know the tales they did, or not as anything more than tales, anyway.

  ‘Let me tell you a story, then, Alxine,’ Tobias said. ‘A story about Marith’s family. Then maybe you’ll understand a bit.’

  Closed his eyes, seeing the wise woman in his village, the memory of her thin fingers like chicken bones moving as she spoke, the click of the bead necklace she wore, the younger children coughing and fidgeting, the smell of smoke from her hearth. Snot and greasy hair and her breath stank, but you forgot all that as she spoke, the magic of her words, the power of them, the images so clear in his mind and behind them the clatter of the loom as a rhythm, part of the story, part of the magic, weaving images like the cloth, so real he could see them. The great sacred stories, the god tales, the history of his world.

  ‘It begins … It begins with a woman, a princess, a descendant of the old gods, and she lived in a country called Illyr, on the shores of the Bitter Sea, on the edge of the world.

  ‘The kings of Illyr had been kings and more than kings since the world began. But the Salavene Wars came, the Godkings fighting, the ruin of Tarboran, the drowning of Caltath, and Illyr was brought low. And time passed, and it was a poor place, its land broken, and it was surrounded by enemies, with no strength left in its people to defend their homes. And the line of kings was weakening with the country, until all that was left was an old, sick man, and his young daughter, Serelethe.

  ‘Now, the Kings of Illyr had been gods, once, and enchanters later, and Serelethe had the power of witchcraft in her. And she resolved to use her power to save Illyr and make it again a rich land, safe and prosperous, with no enemies and no fear. But what could she do, a young woman with a sick father? What could she do?

  ‘What could she do? She called up the great powers, the dark powers, the things that live in the twilight, between day and night, between living and dying, that are neither alive nor dead.

  ‘And something heard her, and answered her, and came at her call.

  ‘Three days and three nights, Serelethe locked herself away in a high tower in her father’s fortress. Three days and three nights, great mists hung around the fortress, so deep no man could see further than his own hand. And nine months later, Serelethe gave birth to three sons.

  ‘The first to be born was a shadow, a demon, a formless thing of dark. And that had no name and no shape, and did not live. The second to be born was a dragon, red as blood, spouting flame. And that Serelethe locked away. And the last to be born was a man, or the semblance of a man, at least. And that was Amrath.

  ‘Amrath grew tall and strong and handsome, and by the time He reached manhood, He was the greatest warrior and warleader the world had ever known. He led the armies of Illyr to victory after victory, until He had conquered all of Irlast, save only the city of Sorlost, for that city is unconquerable, and will be till the end of the world. At Amrath’s word, the city of Elarne was burnt, and every man, woman and child within it died. At Amrath’s word, the palaces of Eralad were torn to dust and their lords buried alive in the ruins. At Amrath’s word, the fields of Gallas were sown with corpses, and the grass that grows there is poisoned still. There was not a man living who did not fear Amrath.

  ‘But at length the men of Illyr grew sated with gold and victory and blood, and they began to wonder what it was that they fought for. And the women of Illyr grew tired of seeing their sons and husbands and lovers go off to war. And the people of Illyr, men and women both, began to see that Amrath was a cruel man, and a bad king. For there was no justice in Illyr, no law and no mercy, only Amrath’s will and Amrath’s sword. So the people rose up and rebelled against Amrath, and sought to overthrow Him.

  ‘Amrath’s anger was woken, then, and He brought down fire and blood upon His own people, His own great city of Ethalden, whose very walls were built of gold. All of its people, He killed. Every one. And not a stone of its buildings did He leave standing.

  ‘But the destruction set free the dragon, His brother, which Serelethe had imprisoned beneath the fortress Amrath had built, that had stood at the very heart of the city of Ethalden. Huge, it had grown, in the dark place where Serelethe had chained it. Huge, and wild, and filled with nothing but rage and hate against Serelethe and Amrath and all men. It came down upon the ruins of the city and burnt Amrath’s armies with its breath, and tore them to pieces with its claws, and swallowed them whole in its huge mouth. And when none were left living, it came for Amrath.

  ‘Amrath fought the dragon for three days and three nights without ceasing. As the sun rose on the morning of the fourth day the dragon fell dying, bleeding from a thousand wounds. And Amrath fell dying also, His body broken in every bone and burnt in every limb. And thus ended His reign, in blood and burning. Thus ended the reign of Amrath, the World Conqueror, the greatest and the most terrible of the Lords of Irlast.

  ‘The power of Illyr was ended, then and forever, for weeds now grow in her fields and nothing lives where Amrath’s towers once stood. Amrath does not even have a grave, for no man dared to venture near to bury Him, but His body rotted away where it lay, and His bones were scattered by the birds.

  ‘But Amrath had a wife, Eltheia of Ith, heir to the Godkings of Caltath and Immier. The most beautiful woman in the world, she was. Her hair was the colour of summer ev
enings, and her smile was like the sun at dawn. And she had borne Amrath a son, Altrersys, still no more than a boy. And these two Serelethe took away from Illyr in a ship with sails of diamonds, and brought safely across the sea until they came to an island rich in timber and fruits and grains and herds. The people of the island were shepherds and wanderers, wild and simple, and when they saw Eltheia they were so overcome by her beauty and her brilliance that they made her their queen, and built for her the fortress of Malth Elelane, the Tower of Joy and Despair. And her son Altrersys was king after her.

  ‘And he was the first of the Altrersyr, the heirs of Amrath, the World Conqueror, the Dragon Kin, the Demon Born.’

  Tobias bowed his head dramatically, opened his eyes. Rate pounded the table. Alxine blinked.

  ‘I’ve heard the stories,’ said Alxine. ‘I just didn’t think they were quite so … true.’

  ‘They’re true all right,’ said Tobias. ‘The ruins of Ethalden stand proud in the sun, their stones rent and burnt by dragon fire, in the plain of Illyr where no grass grows. I’ve been there, I’ve seen it. Seen a dragon, too. And seen Marith kill it.’

  ‘And his family are … proud of all that?’

  ‘Extremely proud. Try very hard to live up to it, too. Hence our boy in the next room there.’ There was a low sound of sobbing through the wall as he spoke, like a fretful child.

  ‘But it’s … it’s horrible,’ said Alxine weakly.

  ‘Says the professional soldier and hired killer,’ said Rate.

  ‘I haven’t even touched on his mother’s family,’ said Tobias with a grin. ‘Some of the stories about them, they make Amrath look like Aralbarneth the Good. Kept things in the family more, though, that lot. Never really went in for world conquest when they could be at home torturing each other.’