The Censor's Hand: Book One of the Thrice~Crossed Swords Trilogy

by A. M. Steiner

  “Matthew, I didn’t know you were our guest.” Anna descended into the hall, still wearing her nightdress. “My silly husband hasn’t poured you a drink. How rude.” Peacock Matthew stood sharply, removed his red hat and bowed.

  “Anna, milady,” he said, straining to sound genteel.

  “You do me great honour, my Lord,” Anna said in a parody of nobility, and curtsied extravagantly, “but none of us Turbulence girls will ever be a lady.” Anna sashayed to the pantry and poured out three glasses of sweet sherry. Her nightgown was translucent in the hearth light and Jon watched Matthew’s gaze trace the curves of her body.

  “I hear we owe you some money,” she said innocently.

  “I’m afraid so,” Matthew said, rolling his hat in his hands. It was the first time Jon had seen him look embarrassed. He hadn’t thought the man capable. Anna went to Matthew, handed the Sharks drinks. They thanked her in unison, “Mrs Miller.” Then she gently pushed Matthew back down into the chair, her finger on his chest and handed him the last glass. Jon felt a pang of horror as she perched on his knee. She looked at Jon with fierce, defiant eyes. I shouldn’t have shouted at her, Jon thought, and hoped that she knew what she was doing.

  “How much?” she asked sweetly. Something hardened in the Peacock’s face.

  “All of it. More than you’ve got. I’m a businessman, Anna. I can’t let this go. I’ve got my respect to think about.” Anna’s lips pursed in concentration.

  “Why do you want the mill, Matthew? What use would it be to you without a miller? We’d have to leave Bromwich.” She brought Matthew’s face close to hers. Their gazes met and she looked deep into his eyes. Matthew gulped.

  “What do you suggest?”

  “That we work for you. My husband has told me that you’ve lent us something that will turn the mill around. We’ll live here and we’ll pay you a rent.”

  “Ten pounds a week,” Matthew said.

  That’s impossible, Jon thought. We’ll be slaves until the profits run out and then they’ll take the mill anyway. Problem was he didn’t have a better idea.

  “Three,” Anna said. “There’s no point in making an arrangement if it can’t be kept.” She cupped the Peacock’s hands in her own, as if she were a pilgrim seeking a blessing. Matthew pondered this, looked at Jon quizzically.

  “Five it is. Starting a week today,” Matthew declared. He took Anna’s waist and lifted her from his lap, clicked his fingers. “Lads, it looks like we’ll have to find our entertainment elsewhere tonight.”

  “Thank you, Matthew,” Anna said softly.

  After they had left the mill, Jon and Anna stood awhile in silence. What she had done was necessary. It had saved them. But that didn’t make it any less humiliating.

  Jon sucked on his teeth. “Five pounds a week. It’s impossible.”

  “We’ll find a way – together.” Anna reached out her hand and he took it.

  “Together,” he said.

  “Now tell me about Dan.”

  A new man

  Daniel rehearsed his new identity as he rode north. Passing travellers took him for a madman as he babbled to himself astride his horse, but by the time he had reached the inn at Lymm, he was sure he could answer to the name Edmund Sutton without hesitation.

  Lymm was a weaving town, and so the following morning he bought several cases of gentleman’s attire from a fashionable outfitter. Lang’s coin was plentiful, but it still pained Daniel to accept the prices that he was offered without haggling over every button and stitch.

  In the fortified tavern at Carus, another two days up the highway, he practised a moneyed accent as he played a game of dogs and jackals with a bored notary. He wagered shillings for the first time in his life, and enjoyed it less than he expected – until somehow, between tipsy and intoxicated, he got lucky on the last round of the game and threw four tails. He treated the house to a barrel of scrumpy with his winnings, delighting the farmers, merchants and mercenaries who drank there.

  As the evening wore on, he was called from table to table to join in idle banter, asked to sympathise with common concerns and answer questions about affairs in the South. There was no denying the conversation, and it was good practice, but every slip of his accent or word of Bromwich slang felt like a stab to the chest and he prayed that the lapses in his fakery had gone unnoticed. Later that evening, when a farmer stood on a bench and called upon the assembly to give thanks to the ‘young lord’ he looked about to see who they meant and blushed with pride when the realisation came. The drinkers mistook his confusion for intemperance and roared in approval. At the end of the evening, glowing by the fire, he felt confident enough in his new persona to burn Lang’s notes in the tavern’s hearth.

  Daniel expected to reach the Verge in two more days, horse and weather permitting. He had read that the roads north of Carus were lonely and dangerous; there were still wild animals in the North, and men who lived in the lakes and forests who had never known honest work. They would not hinder an armoured carriage but a young esquire, dressed in new silks and travelling alone, would be a tempting target. Lang’s well-crafted traveller’s case felt like a bullseye strapped to the back of his horse.

  He rode tall with his hand resting on the pommel of his mortuary sword, and ate in his saddle. The travellers he had met at Carus claimed that the northern countryside was the most beautiful in the world. He would have preferred a featureless plain. He put the scouting techniques he had learnt at the seminary to hard use, inspecting every patch of waving grass, rock or tree for a hint of hidden villainy. When he reached the shore of Vinands’ Lake, the longest in the land, he perceived it only as a natural barrier to protect his left flank and hoped that the light reflected by its fish-scale waters would blind observers to his presence.

  After two long days of watchfulness, he was overcome with fatigue. He had barely the energy to tether his horse in the stables at Galava. It was a prosperous market town for the local wool trade, so its inn was both expensive and flea-infested. He noticed the subtly different posture of the northerners, the hangdog expressions of the men, and the way the women held their heads back and high, as if in readiness for a rebuke. Feeling tired and unwelcome, he ordered a private room and supper in his rich man’s voice and watched the innkeeper’s wife suddenly become more smiling but less friendly. He fell asleep before his food was brought to him, and was not even roused by the serving girl’s clamour at his door.

  Dawn the next morning it was raining lances, which pleased him greatly. The criminal fraternity were unfamiliar with early rising, and lacked a fondness for foul weather. He signed his new name in the inn’s guestbook, paid the innkeeper an undeserved and memorable tip, and set out upon the final stretch of highway.

  The man who emerged through mist and horizontal rain at Hardknott Pass, his riding hood pulled tight around his head, was Edmund Sutton Esquire – and there was not a soul within two hundred miles who would claim otherwise.

  Second best

  The Verge’s library was legendary, reputed to encompass more tomes and manuscripts than every other in the Unity combined. Some claimed that its collection equalled that of the maze-like Library of Rhakotis, destroyed by fire in ancient times. So when Miranda arrived at a room little larger than a reception, with the appearance of a ticket office, and apparently devoid of books, the only logical conclusion she could draw, despite the sign outside that clearly stated ‘Library’, was that she had made a mistake.

  Its occupants were a stiff-faced couple who sat behind an oil-smooth slab of black rock. If it was not for the woman’s lace bodice Miranda might have taken the couple for twins. Their grey hair and wrinkled faces were peaked with tall hats, from the brims of which hung a multitude of differently coloured lenses.

  Miranda knocked and entered. The lady rotated the brim of her hat until a clear glass monocle dangled in front of her, and plugged it into her face.
The gentleman beside her mounted a pair of clouded onyx spectacles on his modest nose and his expression blossomed into a crude leer.

  “I seem to be lost,” Miranda said. “Could you direct me to the library?”

  The man pointed to the ceiling and then the ground at her feet.

  “During the day I am the librarian and this gentleman is my assistant. At night our roles reverse,” the woman said.

  “Thank you for explaining,” Miranda replied. “Where are the books?”

  “Safe and sound,” the librarian said, and pointed to a barely visible rectangle etched into the wall behind her. It looked like an engraving of a letterbox. “This is not the sort of library where anybody can borrow anything. Gods know what that would lead to.”

  “Or what gods that might lead to?” her assistant added.

  “I wish to impress the masters. I can read Unitarian, Oenic, Hesperian, Imperial, Old Imperial and Omek. My Frankish is passable.”

  “You wish to learn another language?” the librarian asked.

  “No,” Miranda said, struggling to maintain her gracious smile, “I wish to learn more about the cunning. What would you recommend for a beginner?”

  “That would depend very much upon the beginner,” the assistant said.

  “The best books about cunning are the thin ones,” the librarian added.

  “Short, easy to digest. That sounds perfect.”

  “No, not short, spread thin. Voluminous but with very little content.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  The librarian adopted the tone of a teacher at a school for the hard of learning. “Books about cunning cannot be like ordinary books. If they were, who would believe in their power? A passable grimoire has maybe six ideas in it, described over five hundred pages of incomprehensible jargon.”

  “The very best are the size of a serving tray and five inches thick,” the assistant said. “They contain maybe half an idea. Nothing practical.”

  “Coded messages and enigmatic diagrams. Misleading pictures of plants and animals.”

  “Red herrings,” the assistant chuckled, “Yarmouth capons, golden hares.”

  “I don’t...” Miranda started.

  “Obscurantism,” the librarian snapped. “A person can hardly be considered an expert if everybody can understand what they are saying. The same applies to books.”

  The assistant adopted a kindlier tone, although still patronising to Miranda’s mind. “Nothing inspires confidence and respect like an accurate quotation from an obscure book.”

  “From the masters?”

  “From the magic.”

  Miranda was baffled. She decided to change tack. “Is there a compendium, maybe? A list of recommendations I could choose from?”

  The assistant rotated his hat and donned a pair of lenses the colour of summer grass. He rifled about under the desk and eventually produced a huge scroll, which he unrolled before her.

  “This is a list of the books that have identifiable titles,” the assistant said.

  “Or authors,” the librarian interjected.

  “Or can otherwise be described pictorially.”

  Miranda scoured the scroll for texts that might be of use to her, without the first idea of which those might be. Most were denoted by little more than strange symbols. Of the names she recognised, none were available. Duauf and Kagemni were on loan to demi-masters. Alhazared had been withdrawn. Merikare was a good choice, the librarian explained patiently, but had been borrowed five years previously and neither the book nor the master who had loaned it had been seen since. Voynich was forbidden.

  In the end, Miranda chose three at random: a bestiary, a guide to alchemical marriage, and an encyclopaedia of fairy pageantry. They appeared out of the strange portal behind the librarian as soon as she mentioned their names. She left the small room with her small selection of second-choice writings and absolutely no idea what purpose they might serve.

  “Lady Miranda.”

  She nearly ran into the tall man, long-necked and sharp-nosed – had to swerve to avoid scattering his clutch of books.

  Adrian Lavety.

  He composed himself and bowed stiffly. Miranda curtsied deeply – however little Adrian deserved the politeness. The Lavetys were one of the oldest families in the Unity: southern barons, distant cousins of Her Grace. A Lavety had been the high priest once, a long time ago, which explained why Adrian’s smoking smock referenced the stitching of a godsworn’s cassock. Etiquette aside, they had studied together at Alchester.

  “I did not see you amongst the carriages,” she said.

  “Gods, no. I travelled here upon my own convenience, direct from our estate. I have little appetite for the chatter of these university types.”

  That was a lie. His father’s opinion of the transportation was a more likely explanation. Adrian had probably been delivered to the Convergence in an armoured carriage accompanied by a squadron of horse.

  “Do you find your fellows boorish?” Miranda asked.

  “Frivolous. They care more for entertainment than advancement.”

  “I know what you mean. I’d expected to be dazzled by intellects. It was terribly disappointing to find myself still to be the cleverest in the class.”

  “We are no longer at university, Miranda, and you seldom were.” Adrian was trying to make some point about her private education, the tutors that Mother had provided to help her with examinations, as if he had grounds for true complaint! Miranda’s results had been unsurpassed, yet he had been the one to win first honours. As a woman, Miranda could not even hold an ordinary doctorate.

  “A ward of the duchess could hardly be expected to live amongst so many young men,” she said. “The innuendo would be ruinous.” She smiled at him gamely.

  “Whose idea was this anyway? What do you hope to gain by your presence here?”

  “I am here by Her Grace’s command.”

  “Of course,” he said, meaning ‘nonsense’, though whether that applied to her attendance or her explanation of it was unclear.

  “Do you disapprove?”

  “You’re a very clever girl,” he said, and she strained to find the insult hidden in the compliment.

  Finding none, her attention turned to the stack of books he carried. They looked promising; she had already spotted Kagemni tucked into the middle of them.

  “Are you returning those?” she asked as sweetly as she could manage. Lavety looked closely at Miranda’s small collection and compared.

  “I was about to, but I think I’ve changed my mind.” He bowed again, even more grandly than the first time, and departed, his books clasped tightly to his chest.

  Finding a way

  Pigeon pudding was Jon’s favourite meal, so he tried to enjoy the taste of it. He glanced up between each joyless spoonful, hopeful that Anna might say something to calm his mind. A small bone caught in his throat. He coughed it out and balanced it on the edge of the table.

  “We can’t afford this. We should stick to soup.”

  “Dan wouldn’t go without a reason,” Anna said. “Maybe he’s gone soldiering in the North. Plans to send us his wages.”

  “A pound a month? How would that help?”

  Anna stared at her bowl, shuffled some food around its edge with an iron fork. Her cheeks reddened and the energy of her anger reminded Jon of when she was young. She had been the prize that every man in Turbulence had fought over, with fists and flowers. He still thought her beautiful, especially when she was angry. Maybe that was why she won all of their arguments.

  “You did well, love, to get him down to five pounds a week, you really did. You always drive a hard bargain.” He tried to smile but it came out as a smirk.

  Three floors above, the mill’s grindstone turned ceaselessly. The carousel horse was working better than he could have hoped. T
he mill’s hoppers bulged with the grain he had bought with the last of his savings. The problem was there were no customers. Sacks of unsold flour slouched in the storage room, slowly going off. Jon would lose more money this week than he had the last. In a few days, Peacock Matthew would send one of his men to collect the first payment and there were no valuables left to sell.

  “What are we going to do?” Anna said, shaking her head, staring at her food.

  “I’ll find a way, I always do.”

  “Peacock’s just playing with us.” She pushed her plate away, food uneaten.

  She might be right, Jon thought. It would be just like him to warn off the bakers, to try to speed things along. Maybe it was for the best – a quick death rather than a slow one.

  “Then why did he agree to a deal in the first place?”

  “Isn’t that obvious?” Anna looked at him as if he was mad, or a fool.

  “No it isn’t,” he shouted, pushed back his seat, threw his napkin over the remains of his meal and stalked out of the room.

  When his head had cleared, he found himself on the reefing deck, the city at his feet, gulping down deep breaths of cool evening air. He rested his chin on his thick arms and looked out over Turbulence’s half-tiled roofs and rickety chimneys. Maybe one window in five was unbroken. He shut his eyes and let the sinking sun warm his face.

  A memory came to him. Once, when he was a small boy, he had come home weeping, with a black eye. Father, sober for once, had sat him down and explained that Turbulence had not always been the roughest part of Bromwich, that before the factories it had been a middling sort of place where merchants built substantial houses with the profits from workshops. Back then, it had possessed another name, something leafy-sounding. Jon couldn’t remember it any more. Father had told the story by way of an apology, as if Turbulence’s genteel past could somehow make his face hurt less.

  It was all bullshit.

  As far as Jon could work out, his father had been lured to Bromwich, the middle city of the Unity, by the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to buy a windmill from an imprisoned debtor at a distressed price. He hadn’t stopped to think why the man might be in debt, of course. Now the mill was as much a burden as Mother was. If Father had made one good decision in his life, it was marrying such a forgiving woman. Until Dahlia was taken. Until Mother’s body had shut out the world to protect her from the misery of it and Father had hanged himself in shame.