by Jo Zebedee
She’d had enough of playacting. “Who are you?” she demanded.
He bowed smartly. “Sir Bluret mar Sudnik. At your service, my lady.”
It was a moment before Finesz recognised the name. “The knight sinister,” she breathed. Sudnik was one of the knights sinister who had kidnapped Ormuz on Kapuluan. Ormuz had told her as much. And for Sudnik to be here, now… Varä had indeed reported in to his masters before leaving Kapuluan.
But when? And how?
“We have our sources,” the knight sinister replied mysteriously in answer to her unspoken questions.
“Dear Lords,” said Finesz. “I know you’re supposed to be the spies’ spies, but you don’t have to talk like walking clichés. And your dress—” She indicated Sudnik’s outfit with an airy gesture. “Is that a lifestyle choice or do you actually think it makes you look, well, sinister?”
Sudnik set his jaw, visibly angered. “You are not,” he rasped, “making this easy.”
“I have no intention of making it anything, Sudnik.” The use of his family name alone was a deliberate insult.
The knight sinister ignored the affront. “We have come to take Baron Mateen.”
“No.”
“No? You’re not in a position to argue, inspector. I do you a courtesy by telling you.”
“You can’t have him,” she insisted stubbornly.
“You have not charged him, so you have no legal right to hold him.”
“Ah. Well. There is that.”
“There is no charge you can hold him on,” Sudnik continued. “He has not committed a felony.”
Finesz thought fast. “Failure to pay Imperial Tax.”
“His wages have been paid on schedule by the Admiralty and the necessary taxes deducted throughout the period of his mutiny,” countered the knight sinister.
“Failure to owe allegiance to his oath-holder,” replied Finesz. “In this case, defined as his superior officer: the Admiral.”
“His superior officer being a mutinous officer? It won’t wash, inspector.”
“High treason, then. Mutiny is a felony against the Person of the Emperor.”
“But he wasn’t disobeying the Emperor and you well know it. He reported faithfully on the Admiral’s every move. As he had been ordered to do.” Sudnik smiled smugly. “As I said, there is no charge you can hold him on.” He held up a hand. “And before you quote further regulations at me, you’ve held him prisoner for far longer than the allowed period.”
“Well, you still can’t have him,” Finesz snapped, forced to simply refuse the knight’s sinister request.
Sudnik took another step forward. Now he was no more than a stride from Finesz. There was something in his face, Finesz felt, that was cold and unlikeable. She had heard of the Order of the Left Hand—tales told in dark corners of the Imperial Court. Until meeting Ormuz, until becoming entangled in this conspiracy, she had never really believed they existed. Now she knew better. Rinharte had passed on the information she had learned from Plessant. Finesz found it fascinating, if somewhat hard to swallow. But it was easy to see their secretiveness had made them insufferably arrogant.
“You plan to stop me?” Sudnik asked, as if amused at the thought.
Finesz returned her hand to her sword-hilt. If she failed, there were still the four marines from Vengeful currently guarding Mubariz. “If I have to,” she told Sudnik.
“You would fail,” the knight sinister flatly. “I am a master.”
She swore under her breath. She was out-classed and had guessed as much from the moment Sudnik gave his name. Marine-Captain Kordelasz could perhaps defeat the knight sinister but the marine-captain had left Linna aboard Vengeful. Finesz had no choice. She drew her sword and turned side-on to the man before her. She held her blade at chest-height, parallel to the ground.
“You are a foolish woman,” Sudnik snapped. He pulled out his own sword in one smooth motion.
“Ma’am…,” said Assaun worriedly.
“Shut up!” Finesz barked at him. She had no desire to be run through but what else could she do? The Admiral had entrusted Mubariz to her custody and like it or not she followed the Admiral now.
Sudnik reached out with his blade, stepped forward and flicked the point in a complicated figure-of-eight. Finesz felt a sharp burning sensation on the back of her hand and almost dropped her weapon. He had jabbed her just behind the knuckles. She gritted her teeth and moved the point of her own sword to follow Sudnik’s.
“Come now, inspector. Desist.”
She lunged.
He parried her thrust easily and scored a line along her ribs with his point. Finesz hissed in a breath at the sudden pain. She flicked her wrist about and went for her opponent’s lower left quadrant. He blocked her on his basket-hilt and pushed her blade aside.
“Will you desist?” he demanded angrily.
“No.” She lifted an arm, wincing as the flesh wound stretched, to display the rent Sudnik had made in her clothing. “This sweater cost me a fortune on Shiki.”
“The Admiral will buy you a new one.”
They circled one another. Sudnik’s two henchman remained silent by the exit. Assaun watched them carefully.
“I don’t think the Admiral gets much opportunity to shop,” Finesz replied. The cut on her ribs stung fiercely. She could feel a line of blood snaking down to her hip, further ruining the wool of her sweater. “I’ll send a bill to your chapterhouse.”
“If you know its direction.”
“I’m a detective, Sudnik, I’ll find it.” She gritted her teeth and jabbed her sword, as if going for his shoulder. He twisted away, without dropping the point of his own sword.
“Yield, inspector.”
“No!” If Finesz yielded, she was obliged to do as Sudnik wished: lead him to Mubariz and hand him over.
“I will hurt you; I will reduce your fine clothes to rags.”
They shuffled around until once again Finesz stood before Assaun and Sudnik before his two colleagues.
“Would you yield in my position?” Finesz asked.
“No,” Sudnik admitted truthfully.
With a flurry of motion, he went for the hand holding her sword. Locking the tip of her blade in his basket-hilt, he slid his own along the length of hers and pushed his point through the flesh of her hand by her thumb. She screeched and immediately let go of her weapon. It hit the tiled floor with a defeated clatter.
Clutching her injured hand to her chest, she stared forlornly at the knight sinister. “Your hand may stiffen up for a week or so,” he remarked matter-of-factly as he slid his sword into its scabbard.
Blood dripped between her fingers, along her wrist and under the cuff of her sweater. The puncture was beginning to ache and she could already feel a tautness in the muscle.
“I would see Baron Mateen now,” ordered Sudnik.
“I didn’t yield.”
“Must I ask for your parole?”
“I can’t give it to you.” Custom be damned, she told herself. If she refused to give her parole, Sudnik would have to treat her as a prisoner and could expect nothing from her. It was… embarrassing, but what else could she do?
Sudnik sighed heavily. “You are making things difficult, inspector, but not impossible.”
At a gesture from the knight sinister, his two henchmen strode forward. One grabbed Finesz by the arm, while the other stood by Assaun.
“The baron is, I believe, in the pilot-officers’ quarters,” Sudnik said. “That way.” He pointed at the door through which Finesz and Assaun had entered the concourse.
As Finesz stepped into the corridor on the other side of the door, the knight sinister still gripping her arm, she heard a scuffle and a sudden out-rush of air behind. Jerking round, she saw Assaun deliver a punch to his captor’s face. The man stumbled back, his arms going up to protect his head from further blows. Assaun stamped on his instep, delivered a heel-kick to one kneecap and then
floored the knight sinister with an elbow to the midriff.
Finesz grinned. She stepped back and behind her own guard. He tried to prevent her. She swiped his feet from under him, wrenched her arm free as he fell and booted him in the head as his shoulder bounced off the floor.
Assaun had already tackled Sudnik. Diving at the knight sinister, he caught him about the middle as he tried to withdraw his sword. Sudnik landed heavily, Assaun on top of him. The troop-sergeant grabbed the man’s hair and raised his head. He slammed it down against the tiles. Finesz winced in sympathy. Sudnik’s skull made a loud thud.
“Ma’am,” said Assaun breathlessly, scrambling off the cold-cocked knight sinister.
“Yes! We have to get to Witan.”
They ran.
Behind them, they heard the knights sinister stirring. Sudnik barked an order thickly. The sound of booted feet drummed the corridor’s stone flags. Finesz and Assaun had perhaps a five-yard lead but it was enough. They dashed out of the terminal building and along the path through the square. Bouncing off one wall slick with ice-cold water, they dodged around the corner and burst through the door into the fighter wing’s mess. Ahead, standing at ease along one side of the corridor, were two figures in green and tan.
“Raid!” yelled Finesz.
It was the first appropriate word to pop into her head. It wasn’t strictly accurate but it did the trick. Both marines instantly came alert and turned towards the running OPI officer and troop-sergeant.
She heard the door into the building bang open and risked a glance back over her shoulder: Sudnik and his two henchmen. They ran silently, their faces fixed in expressions of determination. All three had their swords out.
Witan’s marines were armed with boarding axes. Neither could hope to match the knights sinister in skill. But what they lacked in prowess, they made up for in sheer bulk.
Finesz skidded to a halt by a marine, tripping as her boot-soles caught against the carpet. The marine put out an arm to steady her. The door to Mubariz’s suite opened and Marine-Corporal Witan and the fourth marine stepped out. Now the knights sinister were outnumbered. Finesz turned to Sudnik. He had slowed to a fast walk, was some ten paces away, at the border between wooden floor and carpeted officer country.
“Yield, Sudnik,” Finesz called, panting. She gulped in air. She had not run like that for years.
The knight sinister halted. He lowered his sword and scowled. The distinctive uniform of the marines—pea-green shell jackets over dun coveralls—clearly told him all he needed to know.
“And if I do?” he replied.
“You can join Baron Mateen,” Finesz said. “Otherwise, Marine-Corporal Witan and his men will crack some heads and we will have to find a secure storeroom somewhere.” She held up a hand—she had not finished—and took another gulp of air. “There are plenty of the duke’s men about. I can have Assaun fetch a platoon of household troops—or perhaps even Winter Rangers— in less than a minute. You can’t fight them all.” A slight embroidering of the truth: she had no idea how many men the mess contained. Or if they were within calling distance.
Sudnik considered Finesz’s ultimatum. Abruptly, he sheathed his sword. “We will leave,” he said. “You may keep Baron Mateen. For the time-being.” He spun on his heel and marched away, his henchmen a step each behind him. The door banged shut as they left the building.
Finesz turned to Assaun and smiled in relief. “Where,” she asked, “did you learn to fight like that?”
Assaun blinked. “Standard provost unarmed combat training, ma’am.”
“Ah.” Finesz was briefly at a loss. Not only were the OPI Provost branch a service unto themselves, but Finesz had no real idea of the training given to proletarian members of her own Enquiries branch. Herself, she had been educated in various investigative techniques. As a yeoman, licensed to carry a sword, it had been assumed she knew how to defend herself. “Well,” she said. “You did good, Assaun. I am grateful.”
With a gracious nod to Marine-Corporal Witan and his men, she pushed open the door to Mubariz’s suite and entered. She saw the baron standing by the window. He had his hands clasped behind his back and appeared every inch the Imperial Navy officer. Finesz cleared her throat but Mubariz did not turn. There was little to see through the window: a pair of maintenance sheds and visible between them a slice of the steppes surrounding the aerodrome. She wondered what had captured his attention. Perhaps he was merely reflecting on his imprisonment. She cleared her throat a second time.
“My lady,” Mubariz acknowledged.
“I’d like to apologise for that little contretemps. We were unprepared.”
Mubariz raised a hand: no apology necessary. “Who were they?” he asked. He turned slowly, a look of polite interest on his face.
“The Order of the Left Hand. A Sir Bluret mar Sudnik. Do you know him?”
“No. I have had no dealings with the knights sinister.”
“I’ll order Witan to be doubly vigilant. I don’t doubt Sudnik and his goons will be back.” She stepped further into the room, glanced about her and crossed to one of the two armchairs. Settling into it, she realised with some chagrin that her scabbard was empty. Her sword still lay on the floor of the terminal concourse. She would send Assaun to retrieve it later.
“May I ask you a question?”
Mubariz nodded. He seemed somewhat detached, divorced from the events centred about him. There was a calmness, a lack of concern, evident in the way he held himself. He had abdicated from the role he had played in the Admiral’s conspiracy, from the task he had been set by his masters, the knights signet. Now he was no more than a bystander, a witness to the events being played out.
Finesz wondered at that. Mubariz didn’t strike her as a passive sort, willing to let events fall as they may. She could see the bone-deep integrity that drove the man, the cloak of honour he wrapped himself in. That very characteristic should push him to do something, to take action. Sudnik’s unsuccessful bid for his freedom appeared to have no effect on him. Although perhaps “freedom” was the wrong word to use: Mubariz might well have been swapping one prison for another.
Perhaps Mubariz had behaved the same aboard Vengeful, stolid and indifferent during the heat of battle. It was certainly a quality the Imperial Navy valued, that coolness in action. The Imperial regiments, on the other hand, seemed to prize bravado.
“You spied on the Admiral for the Emperor: why do such a thing?”
“You’re questioning my loyalty to my commanding officer?” Mubariz sighed. He stepped away from the window, took a turn about the room and finished standing behind the empty armchair across from Finesz. Grasping the back of the seat with two hands, he frowned down at the unoccupied chair. “I felt her reasons for removing herself from the chain of command were demeaning in an officer of her calibre. She seemed driven by pique more than anything else.”
Finesz couldn’t prevent a smile. “Pique? The Admiral?” The notion was ludicrous.
“She had taken against Ahasz merely because he tried to force her into marriage and declared him a personal enemy. I could find scant evidence he was plotting against the Throne.” He looked up and caught Finesz’s eyes. “I admit I was wrong on that score. But… Captain Shutan—as she was—was sorely misused by her superiors in the Boundary Fleet: I acknowledge that much. Imperial Respite was a premier warship and Rear-Admiral Fisc used her only for the most trivial of tasks. But that was no reason to mutiny.”
“You did what you felt was right,” prompted Finesz.
“As did the Admiral.” Mubariz shrugged. “She possesses a tactical genius although she is weak on strategy.” He smiled grimly. “I didn’t doubt she would make Lord of the Admiralty one day, but it would be because of her political connections not her suitability for the rank.”
“Are any of the Lords of the Admiralty masters of strategy?”
Mubariz snorted. “Listigs, perhaps. But the rest? No. Political appointees
. The much-vaunted independence of the Navy is a myth. The cabal that commands it is only too happy to bow to the Emperor’s every whim.”
“So you offered to be the knights’ signet eyes and ears aboard Vengeful?”
“I did.” His face took on a determined expression. “I do not regret doing so. Events may have proved me wrong in one respect but I still feel the Admiral’s mutiny was unjustified. We spent six years commerce-raiding and forging secret alliances in an attempt to uncover clues to Ahasz’s manoeuvrings. And then along comes this boy and tells us everything we had been endeavouring to discover. There are easier and more appropriate ways of safeguarding the Empire.”
“But,” said Finesz, “it’s not about ease or appropriateness, is it? It’s about effectiveness. And if it were not for the Admiral or Casimir Ormuz, Ahasz would stand a very real chance of succeeding.”
Mubariz was a moment before replying: “We shall never know.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
A sleek pinnace silently approached the boat-deck’s entrance, inching nearer with short bursts from its gas-rockets. Tempest’s guide-lights washed across it, painting detail onto the shadowed hull. As Rinharte watched, the boat swung about, orienting itself to the troop-transport. It penetrated the force-curtain and the pinnace’s pilot, visible in the control cupola, gestured imperatively at the marines standing by the capstan. One dashed forward, a hawser slung over each shoulder. A second followed and assisted in attaching the cables to the pinnace. At a signal, the boat was slowly winched inside the troop-transport and into a berth.
Rinharte, looking down from the middle of the three tiers of docks, gripped the railing with both hands and wondered if the Admiral were upset with her. She had been ordered to remain aboard the troop-transport in the Linna planetary system. The pinnace carried a prize-crew and Lieutenant Gogos. The protocol lieutenant was not to take command of Tempest, that would remain Rinharte’s.
“We’re taking Tempest as prize?” Rinharte, surprised, had asked the Admiral over the command-circuit. What use could they have for an obsolete troop-transport? And who would pay them a prize for it?
