Jon had been the one to find the body, swinging naked from the minstrel gallery, harmless at last. How many times had he punched and kicked that corpse before he had cut it down? Too many to remember.
Jon gripped the cold, pitted iron of the railing.
You promised Anna a plan, and she deserves one, so think of one. He dragged his fingers through his hair and pulled his beard into shape. There was no use in trying to fight the gangs, especially without Daniel’s help. Maybe Dan wouldn’t help anyway, if fighting were contrary to the law. Jon’s debt to Matthew was legitimate – as far as anything that happened in Turbulence was legitimate – and Daniel had warned him not to get involved.
He heard footsteps on the platform. Anna took a spot beside him, her back against the railing.
“We can’t be like this,” she said.
“Maybe you should stay with your family for a while, till I get things sorted. Country air might do Mother some good.”
“I’m not leaving. If the worst comes to the worst, I might be able to persuade Matthew to let us keep something.”
“Peacock will never have this mill. I’d rather see it burn.”
“That thing upstairs, the carousel – it wasn’t a bad idea.”
He touched her hand gently.
“So what are we going to do?” she said.
“If Daniel had made the grade, everyone would be buying from me. They’d be afraid not to.”
“It’s not our fault, or Daniel’s. It’s theirs.” Anna pointed towards the vast sails that turned lazily on the horizon.
“Here’s what I want you to do,” Jon said. “Start visiting temple every day, not just on Endays. Pray for us and for the mill, and to all of the gods, not just to the Mother. Wear your best shawl. Dance inside the temple.”
Anna stared at her feet. “Do you really think that the gods are going to help us?”
“Could it do any harm? Pray for greater luck. For a successful enterprise.”
She looked at him quizzically. “You’ve thought of something then?”
He smiled at her as reassuringly as he could and she went back inside the mill a little happier.
It was a lie. He didn’t have a plan. Maybe they do, he thought as he looked over the distant domes of the temples. There had to be a reason why the gods were so cruel to him.
Dahlia.
He discarded that thought quickly, fearful of where it would lead.
Something had to be done, and the only answer he could see lay with the dissenters. Barehill and his roughshod army. The substantial reward that the censor had mentioned. To collect it I need only learn where they hide, inform the censors and live to tell the tale.
That was a terrible risk, and not much of a plan. On the other hand, a stand-up fight with Peacock was no kind of plan at all. Jon considered his choices and whistled in appreciation of their poverty.
Poverty. The dissenters he had seen were the poorest of men. They followed Barehill out of desperation, not conviction. If Barehill were captured, they would end up branded, enslaved or killed. He told himself that they would have brought that upon themselves anyway, that they shouldn’t have got involved with the man, but it didn’t feel quite right. He couldn’t pretend that they didn’t need money, food or whatever else Barehill provided them with.
Family must come first, always. Family and the mill.
He fetched an old red scarf from the rag box in the loading bay, tied it tightly to the platform’s rail. The wind had gone flat again. The pennant hung flaccid, like a dead man’s tongue.
Part Two
Prosecutor Corbin
One last hill was crested and then Seascale Bay revealed itself, desolate and magnificent in the middle distance. Daniel’s journey to the Verge was nearly complete, without incident or mishap, and even the heavy rain could not dampen his triumphant spirit. The mountain bandits would have to stay poor and hungry. He whooped and dug his heels into his horse’s flanks, set off towards the Verge at a gallop, scattering clods of wet earth in his wake.
Just before Seascale Bay, he took shelter from the deluge in a covered bridge. It was being repaired by a team of carpenters. One of them sang a song of lost love as the crew chopped, hammered and sawed to the rhythm of the tune.
“Is it always like this?” Daniel asked, after the song had ended.
“It’s rained two days out of three since I’ve been here,” the closest said, his Lundenwic accent undiminished by the nails clasped between his lips, “but I only come up for the summer money. Ask Thomas.” He hammered down a board and gesticulated at the saw-man with his hammer. Daniel didn’t bother. He had only been making conversation, and he was already thinking about what lay ahead.
Peering out from under the bridge’s awning, he watched the Convergence sharpen into view as the rain subsided and the clouds lifted from the hillside. He rode his horse down the gently sloping highway towards the Verge’s stables. A crucifix had been raised on the last hillock before the dunes and a body dangled from it. Daniel cantered to the grisly landmark.
He guessed that the corpse had been exposed for about a week. It was tied by its forearms and ankles, naked apart from the small cloth that covered its modesty. The sea air had desiccated what the funeral birds had not eaten. A solitary seagull picked unenthusiastically at the leathery remains. The left hand of the corpse was missing, but Daniel could tell from the way the bone had healed that the injury was an old one. The Sigil of the Gods was carved into the head of the cross and, underneath, the name of the deceased, with a circle drawn around it to denote eternity. It was a sky burial, performed with all of the correct rites, offering the empty body of Adelmus, the murdered censor, to He-who-sails-the-wind.
The crucifix had been placed facing across the bay, and the hollow eye sockets of the deceased seemed to stare reproachfully at the Convergence. Daniel doubted the macabre exhibit could be seen from that far away.
He dismounted and tied his horse by its reins. Adelmus’s neatly folded uniform lay at the foot of the cross, weighed down with a small rock. There was only one glove, which made sense. The censor’s weapon, which should have been broken and placed on top of his clothes, was missing. There were few greater sins than grave robbing, and no man would risk the wrath of the gods for a useless sword or axe. The weapon must have been stolen when the censor was killed.
The theft angered Daniel more than the murder. The censor should not have allowed himself to be beaten in combat or caught unawares, but the theft of his companion weapon was an affront to the entire Brotherhood. Daniel hoped he would have the opportunity to hear the culprits howl with pain.
***
He left his horse at the stables that marked the end of the highway. Carriages embossed with the livery of academies were being serviced, cleaned and repainted in the yard. He demanded assistance and was provided with a porter who escorted him along the causeway to the Verge.
Daniel watched guiltily as the man struggled under the weight of his luggage, balanced on a reed pannier mounted high on his back, but his moneyed persona forbade the possibility of lending a hand.
The scale of the Convergence was a wonder. In a way, it reminded Dan of the factories of Bromwich. It was as if every one of them had been shoved together into a great pile by a clumsy giant. He tried to guess where inside the sprawling compound Prosecutor Corbin might be and how far advanced he was in his investigations.
He entered the Convergence through the wicket door built into its tall teak gates and reported to the small-windowed porters’ office that was located immediately within.
“Sutton. I am expected,” he said nonchalantly and leaned against the counter feigning boredom. An elderly porter retrieved a scroll from the rack behind him, checked for the name and frowned. Daniel’s gut clenched.
“I’m sorry, sir,” said the porter, “but I have no resemblance by which to confir
m you.”
“My papers,” Daniel said, giving a calm smile to hide his apprehension and offering Lang’s forged passport. The porter put on a pair of thin white gloves and unfolded it with care.
“Edmund of Sutton, son of Walter Sutton, twenty-two years of age and near six foot of height. Blond.” He looked Edmund up and down. “Lovely penmanship, sir. I shall escort you to your room.”
Daniel was led through broad service corridors to the demi-masters’ accommodation. He half expected goblins or flying carpets, and was disappointed to see only a press of hurried scribes and a youth in a shocking hat.
“You can go where you please, apart from the Masters’ Quarters. They’re strictly off limits, and you’ll have to leave that beauty in your room.” The porter pointed at the mortuary sword hanging at Daniel’s side. “Unless you’re headed back out, that is.”
Daniel shrugged indifferently.
He was given a twin room on the ground floor with a neatly made bed set against each wall. He could see no roommate’s possessions. The room was grander than a prosecutor’s chambers back at the seminary. He wondered if the luxury was ordinary or if it had been arranged by Gleame. He did not want to stand out. He stowed his blade on top of the wardrobe and directed the porter to put Lang’s travelling case and his own luggage on the spare bunk.
There was an envelope waiting on his pillow. The porter turned discreetly away as he unsealed it. A letter of congratulations from an imaginary relative. He ran a finger down the edge of the paper and felt for the tiny cuts that would spell out a message in the battle-code of the Brotherhood. Meet. Dusk. Fight. Room. The message was straightforward enough. In a few hours, he would meet Prosecutor Corbin in the fencing court. Daniel whipped a clean singlet, pair of trousers and slippers from his luggage.
If there is luxury here, he thought, I might as well enjoy it.
“My journey has been long and hard – I fancy a bath.”
***
It was buried deep within the island, although how far and in what direction Daniel could not tell. The porter led him from the oak panelling of the Verge’s inner corridors to tunnels of granite embedded with tiny crystals whose milky radiance confused his sense of time and place. The gently winding corridor seemed interminable. The only feeling of progress was an unnatural sensation like a soundless buzzing or drone that grew with every deepening step. Lang’s notes had given Daniel no guidance on how to react to manifest strangeness and so, while his mind boggled, he casually asked the porter if the long walk would be worth the effort. The spectacle that awaited him at the end of the stairway gave the answer.
The bathhouse was a natural cavern, open to the ocean and hidden from the bay. It was high and sheltered enough to avoid the sea spray and strong winds. Steam rose from the clear waters that filled the cave to the brim of its mouth. Beyond, Dan could see a horizonless grey where distant breakers met ashen clouds. The only sounds were wind and slowly dripping water.
A solitary swimmer shared the cavern – a splendid man who carved the length of the pool with elegant strokes. Through the swirling vapours, Daniel could discern the pool’s floor, an ages-old mosaic depicting He-who-sleeps-in-the-ocean. The primordial god was surrounded by men of all colours. The unlucky ones were being devoured by creatures of the deep.
Daniel smiled with joy. He had thought the bathhouse at Bromwich Seminary a luxury, even in winter when the ice on the tubs had to be broken with a hammer. Any water was preferable to the buckets and flannels of Turbulence. This was another world. He dismissed the porter and undressed quickly, piling his clothes onto a marble bench on the raised platform that served as a changing area.
He gasped at the stinging heat as he lowered himself into the water; it could have been freshly poured from a kettle. He could not tell whether it was heated by an underground spring or by some unnatural device, nor did he care.
Jon won’t believe this, he thought as he pushed off into the centre of the pool and felt the sweat and travel grime flush from his skin.
When he was done, Daniel dried and dressed in his fighting clothes by the light of a setting sun that painted the changing platform with a rosy light. The rocks around him cast strange shadows, and he had the unsettling notion that before it was a bathhouse this pool and platform had served a different, darker purpose.
***
Daniel could hear the clash of wooden wasters, practice swords, through the paper screen that divided the deserted armoury from the fencing court. There was some boisterous repartee and then a yelp, maybe from a strike upon a knuckle or a knee. It sounded more like child’s play than combat. He picked out from the racks the waster that most closely resembled his mortuary sword and tested it for balance. It wasn’t bad, for a piece of wood.
“You two. Out. Now.” A man had entered the court. His accent lilted but his tone did not allow for the possibility of dissent. There was a pattering of hurried footsteps and then a moment of silence. “Mister Sutton, lock the armoury and join me in the hall.” The accent was Dalriadan; it had to be Corbin. Daniel did as he had been instructed, then slid aside the screen.
Corbin was nowhere to be seen.
The fencing court was a rotunda, high ceilinged and edged with painted columns that depicted warriors performing the nine lines of attack, and the nine wards that could defeat them. Not ordinary warriors – the martial legends of the world, from the bright lands of the Empire to the foggy shores of the Six Kingdoms, all made gloriously real: Ramesses locking swords with King Lud; Hannibal, the indomitable one, wrestling with Setanta; Gwydion dodging Moraltach, the unstoppable sword of Diarmid; Wayland and Kaveh hammering it out in a battle of blacksmiths. It was truly a hall fit for heroes.
Daniel realised he stood agape. He knew the Cunning had made fortunes from their craft, but he had not expected them to spend it so munificently. He placed Lang’s travel case by the wall and subtly tested the parquet floor as he made his way to the inlaid star that marked the centre of the room. It was gently sprung. Perfect.
“My regards to Magistrate Lang.” Daniel pirouetted to face the voice, saw only shadows between the pillars, then a flicker of movement to his side. He was balanced and ready, turning and batting away the objects hurled at his face with ease. A handful of practice daggers clattered to the floor around him.
The lesson had begun.
Daniel held his waster in a neutral guard, protecting his face and body, and edged slowly towards the side of the hall from where the missiles had flown.
“Judgement, distance, time and place.”
It was confusing; the same soft accent had called out from four different places. The bastard is throwing his voice, Dan realised.
“The four principles of the true fight,” he said, listening hard.
“The fifth is the most important.” The voice seemed to breathe from the empty air above.
“Deception,” Daniel said. “‘When you are least certain, return to the centre of things – from there you will see most clearly’,” he quoted, and edged slowly back towards the star in the centre of the hall.
“The Tactics of Wilhelm Von Basqueburg,” Corbin said. “Have you learnt your fighting from books?”
Keep talking and I’ll show you what I’ve learnt, once I’ve worked out where you are.
“The sound in this room is deceptive,” Daniel called out.
“The Convergence is like that.”
“You’ve worked here before?”
“A long time ago, and with some success, which makes me wonder; why does Magistrate Lang burden me with an aspirant in this investigation?”
“I’ve brought a package for you,” Daniel replied.
“A deflection! You have some skill with words. Lang wouldn’t send a fecking idiot, though, would he? Your instruction begins.”
Prosecutor Corbin emerged from behind a pillar and in the same casual movement flung a
javelin at Daniel’s head. Daniel concentrated on the arcing missile, far easier to deflect than a handful of daggers or throwing stars. He took his time, beat it aside neatly and was pleased with his work. Only at the last instant did he grasp that Corbin had silently charged him down, his sword held back and low, and that its wooden blade was now wrenching towards his neck in a resolute arc.
Daniel ducked and pitched himself at the prosecutor’s shins. Without breaking stride, the prosecutor drove the tip of his sword into the floor and used it to vault high over Daniel’s head.
He barely made a sound as he landed on his feet and switched his guard high, to the executioner’s stance. Daniel grinned from ear to ear. It was an extraordinarily athletic move for an old bastard. Corbin’s hair might be greying but his eyes were smiling, and he wasn’t even out of breath. I can learn from this wolf, he thought as Corbin slid backwards out of distance and rested his sword across the hollow of his shoulder.
“If you tried that leap with a metal blade you’d ruin it, but it can be done with a staff,” Corbin said. Daniel nodded and tested the grip of his weapon. “Return this message to Lang. I have taken confession from the scene of the murder. Brother Adelmus faced four men. He slew two of them; local roughs. Another two survived. Big men, well trained. He was arresting one of them when the other shot him with an arquebus, from behind a bush twenty yards distant. Hit him in the neck.”
Dan kept his guard up as Corbin walked back and forth in a semicircle, changing direction with unpredictable speed.
“And then?”
The Censor's Hand: Book One of the Thrice~Crossed Swords Trilogy Page 12
