Not Quite Scaramouche

by Joel Rosenberg

  Pirojil was already trussing up his own opponents, and quickly had them bound, with their own cloaks tied around their heads. Kethol was only a little slower.

  Erenor's fingers worked quickly in the dark as he moved from one man to another, quickly stripping each not just of pouch, but of other valuables: one man's silver belt buckle; another's bone-hilted belt knife; a third's bootheel, which turned out to be a cache for several leather-wrapped coins.

  Pirojil smiled. Erenor had a taste for this sort of theft – something that Pirojil had never doubted any more than Kethol had – but he also had a talent for it. Not just the setting up part, but the cashing in, as well.

  It wouldn't do to leave the Tyrnaelians trussed up until morning – that would announce robbery, rather than fight.

  Kethol beckoned to Erenor and Pirojil to get going, and Pirojil backed slowly out of the alley while Erenor set off at a brisk pace.

  By the time the three of them returned to the rooms they rented just down the hill from the imperial barracks, the patch and soft cap had been returned to Pirojil's pouch and belt, as had the false beard; Kethol and Erenor were out of their disguises and dressed as soldiers, as well.

  They passed through the common room in company, singing in off-key, drunken harmony a song about a captain and a mule. It drew glances and glares from all and sundry, but it was far better to be seen coming back from a night of drinking than to be remembered as skulking in, as though they were trying to hide something.

  That entrance had been Erenor's idea, and Erenor did have his uses. Which probably had a lot to do with why he was still a simple soldier of Barony Cullinane – although not as much so as the fact that Pirojil still had most of his spell books safely hidden away.

  Singing and weaving, they made their way down the hall to their rooms, where a wrought-iron pot of thick, meaty-smelling soup burbled quietly on the small brazier in front of the empty fireplace. A half-dozen wooden bowls and spoons were stacked on the mantelpiece above the fireplace, and the dirty ones had been taken away.

  The wall lantern lit, the door shut and the bar dropped, Erenor and Kethol donned leather gloves and carefully, silently, lifted the cauldron of soup and set it aside, then did the same with the brazier.

  Pirojil quickly removed the cover to their hiding place, and sketchily sorted through the collection of coins and jewels and the odd, irregular lump of gold or silver. He would trust Kethol with his life, but Erenor was, at best, an only partly known quantity. Yes, Erenor had saved all their lives in Keranahan, but he had been part of that all – self-preservation and loyalty were two different things. Right now, Pirojil would trust more to the fact that he had the most important of Erenor's spell books quite safely hidden away than he would to any protestations of personal loyalty.

  He actually had gotten to like Erenor, if only a little – but trust him? No. He could trust Erenor to do what Erenor thought was in his own best interest, and that was good enough, all things considered.

  The cache was re-covered, and Pirojil ladled out a bowl full of soup for each of them, himself last. He raised his own bowl in a toast, then sipped at the soup, not bothering with the spoon. It was thick and salty, the vegetables reduced by endless hours of cooking to an indistinct, but tasty, mush.

  In the flickering light of the wall lantern, the three set their weapons and accoutrements aside, and more collapsed than lay down on their sleeping pallets.

  You didn't get rich on an ordinary soldier's pay, and it made sense to keep an eye to the future. It was, after all, entirely possible that Pirojil would make it to old age, as unlikely as that had seemed at times. It would be nice to have something to count on, preferably to stack high on a table and count.

  Yes, there always would be a place for loyal retainers with the baron, but as raw and unpleasant as a soldier's life could easily be, neither Pirojil nor Kethol would ever be of a mind to trade that for the lot of a household servant.

  It was one thing to put your sword and your body between those you were sworn to protect and danger, and it would be another thing entirely to haul slop buckets up and down stairs at the command of some old woman, or, worse, some man who had never set foot on blood-soaked ground.

  But a little bit of money put away here and there could add up, and if the source of a fraction of it was Tyrnaelian soldiers who had been looking to beat and rob somebody, that wouldn't bother Pirojil any.

  Yes, money was money – but it did matter how you got it. He would no more steal from the baron than he would from Kethol – if you had no personal loyalty, then you had nothing – but the decurion and his friends had been fair game.

  And, besides, it wasn't quite stealing – just a not-quitefair application of deception, with an illusion or two thrown in.

  Kethol, only one of his boots off, was already fast asleep, his snoring regular and reassuring. That was a strange thing about the rawboned redhead: he would snore and stir all night long when they were quartered in the city, or in the barracks at the baron's keep – but put him on cold ground, wrapped in blankets, just out of sight of a road, and he would sleep silently, waking at the slightest touch or out-of-place sound.

  Erenor sipped quietly at his soup. He was a good-looking, well-muscled man, with his smile that was often too easy and rarely sincere, but Pirojil had long since given up hating handsome men simply for being handsome, as most of the time they gave him additional reason, anyway.

  The trouble was that he wasn't Durine.

  Durine was dead, and Erenor was only his replacement in title, not in function. His swordsmanship was coming along quickly – too quickly; Pirojil suspected that Erenor's background included some work with the sword, despite the wizard's protestations to the contrary – and he had a steady hand and a good eye with a crossbow, although he would never be a longbowman. And even though most of the spells Erenor had mastered were illusions – seemings, mostly trivial ones – there were advantages to be had for Pirojil and Kethol to be partnered with a wizard who was not known to be a wizard.

  But Pirojil ate his soup slowly, and waited until he was sure that Erenor was asleep before he set his bowl down carefully on the packed-dirt floor, and lay back, covering himself with his cloak, and then pillowing the back of his head on his hands.

  Pirojil wouldn't have traded a hundred like Erenor for two-thirds of a Durine, but, then again, that hadn't been his choice. Durine was dead, and Erenor was of some value, and there was a distinct advantage for Pirojil and Kethol to

  be partnered with a wizard, even if the wizard was, like Erenor, not much of one except when it came to illusions.

  He lay there a long time thinking about that.

  He was never sure whether he had actually slept or not when there was a loud knock on the door, followed by three short knocks, then two more.

  Kethol was on his feet a fraction of a heartbeat before Pirojil, with Erenor lagging far behind.

  "Who is it?" Kethol asked, at Pirojil's nod.

  "Messenger," came back through the door. "From the imperial proctor. You are summoned to his presence; he said to tell you that he has an idea."

  Pirojil frowned. There were worse things in the world than Walter Slovotsky with an idea, but not many.

  But there was only one possible answer, and Kethol beat him to it: "We're on our way."

  Part I:

  Biemestren

  Chapter 1

  Earlier, the Proctor

  and the Emperor

  Life is a series of unplanned accidents – largely because nobody asked my opinion. Me, I'd rather it was a series of planned accidents, and I can think of a few people I'd very much like to plan some for.

  – Walter Slovotsky

  It would be infuriating to a lesser man that the emperor didn't see things his way all the time. But Walter Slovotsky wasn't, at least in his own opinion, a lesser man. Besides, life would get boring if everything was easy. Life wasn't boring. Life was, sometimes, far too much the contrary.

  "My
point, do you think?" the emperor more said than asked, lowering his practice sword, his voice level and even, although maybe there was a hint of a challenge in it. Slovotsky wasn't sure.

  But the emperor's point? That would depend on what rules they were using, if any. By standard practice rules, no point had been scored – Slovotsky's springy practice sword had touched the emperor's leather chest plate within a heartbeat of when the emperor's own sword had scored on Slovotsky's left biceps. Had it been a real fight, Slovotsky would have come out with a painful if not disabling wound, and Thomen Furnael, Emperor of Holtun-Bieme, would have had his belly pierced deeply and would not be wondering at all whose point it was.

  This style of sparring encouraged defense, and waiting for an opportunity to score a touch, some disabling wound to the arm or leg that would, in a real fight, slow an opponent down enough so that you could go in for the kill safely. Slovotsky's personal preference for that sort of thing was to anchor a foot or leg with a thrown knife from a bit more distance.

  If he had to engage in a sword fight at all.

  That wouldn't be anything close to Walter Slovotsky's preferred method of settling a serious argument. A well-sighted rifle at one hundred yards was far preferable, and if the opponent was missing a leg, blindfolded, hobbled, and tied to a stake with a nice circular target pinned over his heart, that would make it all the better.

  But in life, enemies were rarely considerate enough to arrange things so conveniently, alas. Sometimes – too often – they weren't even considerate enough to identify themselves. Even to themselves.

  It made for more complication than one would like; it made the dowager empress's naked hatred almost refreshing, by contrast. Almost.

  "Perhaps you didn't hear me," the emperor said, irritated. "I said, that I thought it was my point."

  "No, I don't think so," Walter Slovotsky said. He raised his practice sword again in salute. "Or perhaps you're changing the rules on me here when you allow me to change them on more important things?"

  He couldn't make out Thomen's facial expression through his mask, but a stiffness in the shoulders and posture said that he caught the emperor by surprise. That was a good thing, in moderation. Moderation had its virtues; there was a reason that the term in Dwarvish for dwarves meant "the Moderate People," and Walter Slovotsky liked dwarves, generally.

  Not that Walter Slovotsky was a big believer in moderation for himself. Nor even a moderate believer in moderation, come to think of it.

  Thomen didn't answer, at first, then: "Very well. Your point it is." His breath was coming in audible pants, and he removed his mask for a moment as he walked to a side table and poured himself a goblet of water and drank it in one large gulp before setting it back down.

  He was, for all his flaws, a handsome man, strength of will showing in the bones of his face, and in the too rarely blinking eyes that seemed to miss nothing. His hair was black, jet black, the black of a raven's wing, but his close-cropped beard was shot with gray, as though he was only giving in by stages to the pressures of the Silver Crown and throne of Holtun-Bieme.

  But as he returned from the side table, there was still that spring in his step that had been too long absent, and Walter Slovotsky wondered if the cause was the program of rest and recreation that Walter and Bren Adahan had talked him into, or whether it was the admittedly lovely Lady Leria that Kethol had brought back from Barony Keranahan.

  No reason it couldn't be both, of course.

  "Have at it, shall we?" Thomen asked, replacing his mask.

  He was loosening up some, granted, Slovotsky decided, but somebody really ought to do something to remove that metaphorical broomstick he had stuck up his butt.

  The throne room was empty, well, as empty as it got.

  The Kiaran tapestries still covered the walls; if you squinted, you could almost have believed that you were in a green glen, surrounded by capering fawns frozen in mid-leap by some artistic wizard.

  The throne itself and the smaller one next to it for the dowager empress – the old, and mean, vicious one, not Andrea Cullinane – remained on their podium, and the long banquet table had been separated into component parts, smaller tables that interlocked at their ends like jigsaw puzzles, and stacked in pairs, top-to-top, in the corner farthest from the great hearth. The thick carpets had been rolled up and carried away to be beaten in the open air, and replaced before Parliament met.

  But there were no guards or servants, although the latter were as close as the pull of a bell-rope, and the former as close as a loud yell for help.

  But Walter Slovotsky was one of the few people allowed to come into the emperor's presence either armed or unescorted, and one of the very few allowed into the presence both armed and unescorted – that came with the job of imperial proctor – and neither he nor Thomen particularly wanted House troops to see the emperor lose a point in an embarrassing way.

  Or, for that matter, to see Slovotsky himself do so. For the emperor, it would be undignified, and Slovotsky had his own legend – read: unwarranted reputation – to maintain.

  Besides, as much as such a thing was possible under the circumstances, Slovotsky and the emperor were friends, and friends could always use some time to themselves.

  Straw had been scattered over the bare stone floor, to make the footing more treacherous. In a real fight, you could never count on having good footing beneath you, and Murphy – who, Walter Slovotsky explained to the locals, was the Spirit of Fighting and Battles on the Other Side, which was more true than not – would make sure you never did.

  Thomen raised his sword in salute, which Slovotsky echoed, and they closed again. This time, Slovotsky tried to draw an attack, but Thomen read the spacing between the two of them better than Slovotsky had, and closed with a quick bounce that led him parry Slovotsky's counter, and then score easily on Slovotsky's sword arm before bouncing back out of range.

  "Not bad." Walter Slovotsky stepped back and pulled off his mask. There had to be something more comfortable than this boiled-leather hood, ventilated with barely enough slits. An Other Side fencing mask would be ideal, but that would require stiff wire mesh, and New Pittsburgh was far too busy with more important production.

  Eventually. There were other uses for wire mesh, after all. It would be nice to have all the windows of the castle unshuttered on a hot afternoon, and let the breeze blow through without turning it into a refuge for every bloodsucking bug in the Middle Lands.

  Slovotsky had to force himself not to scratch at the maddeningly itching cluster at the base of the back of his neck. The fencing mask had been rubbing at the bites, making them worse than usual.

  It had all been much worse last night than usual, and Slovotsky and Aiea had spent too much of it alternately unshuttering their window when it got too hot and stuffy, and then closing it when the mosquitoes took the open window as an open invitation.

  Well, if nobody else was going to do it, Slovotsky didn't mind confronting the wizard. Walter and Henrad went way back, after all.

  "Again," the Emperor commanded, lowering his own mask. "Have at you," he said, in English, the words slurred.

  "Gesundheit."

  "Eh?"

  "Oh. That's English for 'As you would have it, my Emperor.'"

  "A compact language, this Englits of yours. I should make it a point to learn more of it."

  "It has its virtues," Walter said, moving in. "Baron Minister Adahan has noted that one, on more than one occasion."

  They were well into a complicated sequence of counter, riposte, and counter-riposte that was, Slovotsky thought, destined to end with the emperor's blade just enough out of line for Slovotsky to beat it to one side, when the door creaked open behind him.

  That was enough of a distraction that Thomen was able to judge the distance better than Slovotsky could, and ended the point with a well-judged stop-thrust that actually stung.

  Slovotsky managed a too late parry, and spun around in annoyance, prepared to give whoever it was
a few choice words about interrupting.

  He was only slightly surprised and vaguely disappointed to see that it was the dowager empress herself, a thin smile on her pinched face as she silently tapped her fingertips together in applause.

  Well, a dowager empress, at least: Beralyn Furnael, the Emperor's mother. It would have been a lot nicer to see Andrea Cullinane, the late emperor's widow. It wasn't just that Andrea was as lovely from skin to bone as Beralyn was ugly, although that certainly helped things.

  "Well struck," she said. "Well struck, indeed."

  Thomen had his mask off and his sword tucked under his arm as he walked swiftly to her for a quick and dutiful kiss.

  "Good afternoon, Mother," he said. "You're looking well today."

  She chuckled thinly. "Bieme and the whole Empire are fortunate that you can lie so easily and so well, Thomen. Truth is only an occasional tool of statecraft."

  Actually, she looked about the same way she usually did, a collection of lumpy flesh covered in black muslin, topped by a sagging-jawed face that was itself framed by a tight helmet of gray hair fastened in a severe bun, small, piggish eyes softening only for a moment when she looked at her son, but hardening into an unconcealed look of hatred when she turned to Slovotsky.

  Truth was an occasional tool of statecraft, after all.

  "Good afternoon, Beralyn," he said.

  "And to you, too, Lord Proctor," she said, ignoring the familiarity. "Are you not going to compliment me on my appearance, as well?"

  Damned if I do, and damned if I don't. Slovotsky gave a slight bow of admiration. "I don't recall ever having seen you look healthier and more vigorous," he said.

  Let her make what she would of that.

  She barely sniffed. "I have some matters I wish to discuss with my son," she said, characteristically coming to the point right away. Beralyn was capable of subtlety, but she didn't waste it on the likes of Walter Slovotsky.

  "Then I'll either beg leave to take my leave of the two of you – or maybe just go," Walter said.