by J. M. Frey
I ignore Pip in the hopes that Gyre will as well, that we can make this business between just us, and quickly over besides. “I have come to collect an item from you, Master Gyre, and I will not be told no,” I say instead.
“Oh? And why should I give anything of mine up to you so easily, spymaster? What good have you ever done me in return for something so precious?”
“It is not what I have done,” I say, tone carefully neutral behind my mask, “so much as it is what I have not said. For example, I have told nothing of Zellista and the lovely, pinching gifts she left all over your nethers to your fiancée, the doting Lady Niffier. If you would care to have me rectify that oversight, I would be delighted to do so.”
The boy goes dead pale under his velvet cap, hand shaking on the hilt of his sword.
“You wouldn’t!” he snarls.
“I would do many things far worse to ensure the safety of the kingdom I serve,” I intone. “Now, put the sword away and come talk to me in your study like a sensible boy.”
He thrusts his chin out, insulted, and I realize too late that I have played this situation wrong. I should have appealed to his vanity instead of insulting his virility. Stupid old Forsyth!
Instead of acquiescing, as I hoped he would, Gyre tightens his grip on his blade and aims the point at Pip’s throat.
“No,” he says. “No, I have the leverage. I have something of yours, now, and I won’t give it back until you vow that you will never tell Niffier, and that you will go away. Empty handed.”
“I’m afraid that won’t happen, Lordling,” I say.
“Swear and leave, or I will cut her!” he snarls, taking a step toward Pip and scratching her cheek with the flat of his sword.
“Oh, for god’s sake!” Pip huffs. “Are you two gonna whip out your dicks next and start comparing sizes? This is ridiculous.”
“Quiet!” both Gyre and I say at the same time, though I do it rather more to keep her tongue in her head than as the threat of harm he does.
“No,” Pip says, and the meaning of the single word is quite clear: you’re idiots. “Look, if this has to be a fantasy-hero pissing contest, why don’t you just settle this the old-fashioned way, mano a mano?”
“What?” Gyre asks.
“A duel.”
Gyre’s eyes spark with glee, even as I feel dread curling into my gut. Gyre turns away to meet the gaze of a whippet rake in mustard yellow, and they share a knowing look.
I grab Pip’s arm and haul her to my side. “Are you mad?” I hiss into her ear. “I’m not good enough to beat Gyre!”
“Yes, you are,” Pip hisses back. “I’ve watched him wave that thing around for five minutes, and he doesn’t look like he knows a thing about holding a sword. I’ve seen you fight.”
“It won’t be Gyre who fights, however,” I say mournfully, as Gyre and the rake in yellow turn back to us.
“Accepted!” Gyre shouts, and every man in the room breaks into applause. Gyre waves them to silence, smirking. “My champion against you, my impertinent young miss? Or your champion?”
“My champion,” Pip says firmly, pressing her palm to my chest.
“Very well. These are the stakes: if my champion wins, the Shadow Hand will vow never to spy upon House Gyre or its occupants ever again, and swears to burn all correspondence and missives mentioning my family and I. He will also leave here without the thing for which he came.”
“And if my champion wins,” Pip challenges him, “we’ll take the item, and your vow that you’ll come clean to your fiancée. Oh, and that you’ll go off the booze for a year, because, dude, I’m sensing some serious alcohol-driven rage issues here.”
Gyre’s expression grows thunderous, but he holds out his hand. Pip and Gyre shake on it, and then he withdraws his arm and, with a flourishing gesture, announces: “My champion, Under-Duke Quints Zerinus of Gadot, where he is his king’s swordmaster.”
Pip swallows hard, but gestures to me in turn. “And my champion, your king’s Shadow Hand.”
A murmur runs around the room, and some coins change hands. I can’t decide if I should be insulted or not. Especially since none of them seem to be betting on me.
“Let us adjoin to the lawn behind the house,” Gyre sneers, and, as one, the assembled party troops down the hall, descends the stairs, and heads out the kitchen exit.
“This is m-ma-mad,” I whisper to Pip once more, as we reach the fresh air. The young men begin to hoot and holler, forming a circle around the four of us, prepared, no doubt, to shove us back into the middle if Pip or I try to flee.
“It’s not,” Pip says back. “Good luck. I believe in you. You’ll be fine.”
Pip backs away, hand on her own hilt, though what she plans to do with that sword, if she draws it, I have no idea. We haven’t even had a lesson on how to hold it properly. Across from me, Gyre backs away, and Zerinus takes his stance.
“I am going to be the man who kills King Carvel’s Shadow Hand,” Zerinus brags, chest puffed up like a peacock.
“I certainly hope not,” I mutter under my breath. But he is younger. Faster. Probably more practiced and more skilled. It is entirely possible.
Before I can even salute with Smoke, Zerinus is jumping forward like a carp after a mayfly. Cheap! And impatient!
But, ah, I can see his training there. He must have worked under Sphyres in Gadot, who prefers to teach offense to the point of offense. A fine dueling blade is meant to slash and cut, not stab, which is why Sphyres teaches his students to do just that—it is unexpected.
Except when you are expecting it.
Zerinus’s blade aims for my eye slits. I dance to the side, avoiding the clumsily telegraphed lunge, draw my own blade, and bring up Smoke to parry. I add an extra downward slash to rip at the tendon behind his knee, and to my surprise, it connects easily. The rake howls and drops to the ground, clutching at his leg and bleeding profusely into his yellow trousers.
“I yield! I yield!” he screams, and I stare down at him in wonder, shaking with unused adrenaline.
“Oh!” I say, staring down at my writhing opponent. As one, his fellows flee. They have left him to, I presume, make new acquaintance with less unsavory fools. Only Gyre remains, and he stands still as statuary, too stunned to aid his champion.
“That was . . . hmm,” I say. I feel the frown form, unbidden. “Why didn’t he try?”
Zerinus’s wails are suddenly broken up with Pip’s obscenely inappropriate giggles.
“Try?” she asks. “Why didn’t he try? Dear god, your blade was flashing across the sky before his was fully parallel.”
“But I beat him,” I say, slowly, as one would to an obstinate child.
“Because you’re good, bao bei,” Pip rejoins in the same tone.
“No,” I demur, under my breath so none but Pip can hear, “I’m not. I could see that his swordmaster must have been Sphyres, and so I knew to duck. I could not defend, though, not as my brot—”
She smacks the back of my head. “None of that now, Shadow Hand. I thought we agreed, no more comparing yourself to that jackass.”
I rub my new hurt and frown deeper. “And so you will reinforce this lesson with pain?”
“If I have to.” She is smiling, and it is soft and lovely, the kind that makes the mud in her eyes sink away, leaving clear, admiring green. I want to kiss her so badly it is like a physical ache. Her eyes drop to my mouth.
“Shame. I fear I may be black and blue before this quest is done.”
“Of course. Your choice. Though, I can reinforce it with pleasure, too,” she whispers, and as if she had been reading my mind, she presses herself up on her toes, tilts her head back, and covers my lips with hers.
Oh.
She rocks back to assess my reaction, as much as she is able through the mask. I lower my head and sip at her mouth.
“Finally!” she groans, and the relief in her tone is just as much a shock as the puff of her air against my chin. I am too shocked by the feel
of her arms winding around my neck like tendrils, her fingers spread upon my skull through the hood, to move forward, but Pip doesn’t seem to notice. She raises herself up more and pushes another kiss onto my lips, her own cheeks brushing the sides of my mask.
And then Tritan Gyre, the silly whelp, turns on his heel and runs.
“Shit!” Pip says.
I whistle for Dauntless, and within seconds, I can hear the strike of his shoes upon the gravel of the avenue.
“We will catch up to him,” I assure her.
“You might not get the chance if he goes inside somewhere and locks the door,” Pip answers. She takes off after him.
All that jogging has a use after all, it seems. While Lord Gyre is swifter than Pip to start, her stamina is greater. Before he is even to the end of the garden, I can see him flagging. I would not have been able to catch up to him, when he is such a dot on the horizon, but Pip can.
Pip does.
And then she flings herself at his knees, and they are both on the ground in an ungraceful tangle of limbs and cloaks. Dauntless whickers beside my ear, and I wonder that I was so enthralled by Pip’s recklessness that I didn’t hear him stop beside me. I mount, then spur my horse toward them, fearing what Gyre’s sharp elbows could do to her face or ribs, or the softness of her belly. I needn’t have worried; by the time I am at their side, he is face down in the dirt and Pip is sitting on his thighs, his arms wrenched around behind him and wrists captured in her hands.
He is too busy attempting to catch his breath, nose and cheek smashed into the soil, to struggle.
“Ah, my Lord Shadow Hand,” she says when I pull Dauntless to a gentle stop. “Nice of you to join us.”
“Impressive, my lady,” I murmur, and then I crouch down by the young lordling. “You, Master Gyre? Less so.”
“What do you want, you blackguard?”
“Nothing too expensive or important, Lordling Dandy. I’ll take your cap-feather as my prize,” I say, pointing to his hat and making it sound like it was a spur of the moment choice. The young man’s eyes widen.
“No,” he says.
“Your champion yielded to me,” I press, folding my hands over my pommel and leaning down to meet his eyes through the slits in my mask.
I lean down low and pluck the silver quill from his hatband, glad that the mask keeps my expression of wonder hidden as the pendant shivers in my hand like it were really made of feather and cartilage. It is an incredibly wrought masterpiece, moves as if it were real, and I cannot believe it has been gracing the throats and lapels of the spoiled Gyre brats for so many generations, instead of being displayed in a museum.
“You can’t take that! It’s a family heirloom!”
“Strange place to wear an heirloom,” I reply, and tuck the quill into a leather wallet, then bury it deep in the secret pocket built into the inside of my waistcoat, my movements shrouded beneath the many shifting layers of fabric in my cloak. Pip mounts behind me and wraps her arms around my waist, pulling the cloak over her head to disguise herself once more.
“You cheated! You cheated!” he screeches as we leave him in our wake.
“It’s not cheating to know your enemy, Master Gyre,” I throw back over my shoulder. “Stay sober.” Pip presses her face against my shoulder blade to muffle her laughter.
We do not bother with any other stops, just ride back to the maze and, from the secret entrance, back to the tavern.
The darkened stables swallow the Shadow Hand and decant Forsyth Turn.
I pat the leather wallet in my pocket to show Pip it is safe, and then we turn to the warm dining room, drawn to the flickering lamplight and cozy shadows like a pair of sleepy wooden toy ducks trundling along in a toddler’s wake. Despite the general aroma of unwashed bodies, burned grease, and cheap tallow, there is something close and homey about the dining room. The tables are rustic, authentic—not ridiculous wealthy recreations of handmade, utilitarian peasant couture. The tabletops are scarred with the scrapes of a thousand metal plates across their surfaces, the dents of a hundred evenings of raucous laughter and pounded ale mugs and joyous drinking songs. The chairs are mismatched, wobbly, and worn smooth from a thousand friends sliding into them across from a thousand other friends, from dozens of lovers shifting them toward one another. The floor is clean swept, the lamps high and smoke-free, and the windows clear. The proprietor clearly takes pride in the establishment, and their love of the place—low, dark ceilings and crowded seating notwithstanding—imbues every bit of furniture and dishware and seems to have been, in turn, absorbed by the patrons.
“Well, that was certainly interesting,” Pip says, as we take a seat at a banquette along the front wall of the room. Her eyes gaze out the mullioned window, and her hands stray to the knees of her trousers, brushing away the dirt her tumble with Gyre crushed into the leather.
“Slightly more active than my usual pursuits,” I admit. “And perhaps a little less than honest.”
Pip wrinkles her nose at me. “You don’t actually believe that kid. You didn’t cheat.”
I lean close and lower my voice to a whisper. “Didn’t I? I played the game knowing things that Forsyth Turn would not.”
“Well, you weren’t playing as Forsyth Turn,” Pip replies, leaning in and lowering her voice as well. “If he thinks it’s unfair that the spymaster of the king won with knowledge he’s collected, then the dumbass shouldn’t have agreed to play the king’s spymaster.”
“True enough,” I allow, and I am chuckling loud enough that I lean back in my seat and it becomes full guffaws.
Pip laughs too. “And man, the look on his face when you just took it.”
“I wish I could have seen the look on his face when you tackled him,” I counter, and Pip stretches her eyes and mouth wide, pinching her eyebrows up in a decent approximation of the boy’s constipated scowl.
That sets us both roaring again, and half the taverna turns to see what is so funny, only to witness an awkward lordling and a well-heeled boy howling like farmhands.
The serving woman comes around and offers us a choice between ale, scrumpy, or wine. When she catches her breath, Pip elects to try the scrumpy, having no idea whatsoever what it is, and I stick to what I know and ask for the wine. We are given the further choice between beef or duck, and, to make things easy, I put enough money into the good woman’s hand to buy a whole duck, the trimmings, and a clean canvas square to carry away the leftovers.
While we wait, Pip unfurls her Excel and the tri-color-marked map, and we plan our route to the next Station, at Salt Crystal Caverns.
We toast to a Station well cleared when the drinks arrive, both in rough earthenware cups. Pip sips hers and her face lights with a grin. “Oh, yum, drunken apple juice!”
Dinner is excellent, for taverna fare, and Pip has a marvelous time eating with her hands. “Unheard of,” she says, when she admits her reluctance to just tear at the duck.
“We’ll buy a traveling fork and knife,” I say. “And the belt-pouch to carry them in. I forgot to pack some for us. I told you I was a rubbish adventurer.”
She kicks me under the table and smiles over the rim of her cloudy apple cider. “This stuff is . . . whoa,” Pip says. “I think I might be drunk already.”
“It’s a workman’s draught,” I say. “And so: potent.”
“Yeah, I’m getting that. Umf. I think I need to break the seal.”
I furrow my eyebrows at her.
“Use the little Reader’s room. The toilet?”
“Ah. They will be around the back, near the stables.” I gesture to a door that leads outside, beside the bar. “Are you sure you want to go alone?”
“I’m fine, bao bei! It’s a whole half a room away. I think I’ll survive. I’m a big girl.”
“If you insist,” I say.
“I do, in fact, insist,” she says and sashays in that direction, the alcohol making her face flush and her steps loose.
The men at the bar follow her exit with th
eir eyes, and I find that I am helpless to do otherwise myself. Pip certainly makes for an attractive sight.
It is so wonderful to see her happy.
I just wish the laughter rolling from her tongue would appear in her eyes.
Eleven
The first inkling that our peaceful night of celebration is running amiss is the way Pip’s whole face has gone white, her limbs trembling as she shivers her way down into her seat after returning to the table.
“Pip?” I ask. “What has happened?”
Pip’s body is oriented toward me, but her face, her gaze, is locked on the door through which she came. Her lips are curled in tight between her teeth; it looks painful.
“Pip?” I try again.
“I saw—by the bathroom, I saw—it was him. I saw—” She stops mid-sentence, tripping over her own words, and makes a small noise like all the air has suddenly been squeezed from her lungs. Her muddy eyes grow so impossibly wide that I fear they will fall right out of her head. She tugs hard on the collar of her jerkin and, with shaking hands, lifts her scrumpy and quaffs half of it in one large gulp.
“Saw who?” I ask, concerned now. “Gyre?”
Pip only coughs in answer, shaking her head. I turn to follow her line of sight, but there is no one there who seems to be glaring back, no one I even recognize. Just groups of men, some still in travel cloaks, mingling and causing a ruckus.
Pip looks a breath away from another spasm episode. What has she seen that has triggered this? The soldiers’ ailment didn’t jump upon her while she was facing down Tritan Gyre’s sword, so why now, in a crowded taverna that is the furthest thing from a battlefield? Unless this is some sort of delayed reaction . . . ?
I reach out carefully and touch her shoulder. “Pip? Are you well? Do we need to retire before you have another fit?”
She rears back as if slapped and turns a betrayed, scared expression to me. Then she withers, curling in on herself, hands on her face to hide what I assume is her shame, breathing deeply. She leans into my touch, seeking a comfort that I am all too happy to give, though it saddens me that it is required.
