Laila searched his eyes and could not hold his gaze. She got off him, slit the leather and opened the trapdoor, lowered herself down.
“You need my help,” Jon mumbled, rubbing his chin. There was no one to hear him, but that didn’t matter; the gods had revealed a part of their plan.
Not the wisest
Miranda’s gaze travelled the length of the man lying naked beside her. The tiny blond hairs on his arms seemed to glow in the dawn light. She savoured the ridges of muscle that laddered his chest and came together in the hard triangle of his belly. He smelled like cinnamon. She wanted to live inside that scent, for a while at least.
Edmund Sutton – who are you? she wondered dreamily.
His arrival had been as melodramatic as a virgin’s dream. It had begun with a frantic banging on her door, pleading to be let into her chambers, his whispers nearly a shout. She had been half asleep and quarter of the way through a bottle of Merret, trying to forget about the metal hand suspended in a vice on her workbench, and about to light her remembrance candle.
She had greeted him with a laugh. Edmund had sneaked into the Masters’ Quarters dressed as a waiter. He looked like he’d climbed the walls to reach her. Ragged and wild-eyed, he had sworn she ruled his mind; that he had needed to be with her since that moment on the beach. It was so absurd. So romantic. She had pretended to believe him and invited him inside.
Miranda stretched and yawned. What an excellent decision that had been. Her heart had been in her mouth when she had remembered the metal hand, but to her relief his eyes had glided over it without a trace of recognition or surprise. He had trembled as if an innocent when she let her dress fall, seemed almost afraid of touching her. Not for long though.
He was as proficient between the sheets as he was mediocre in his studies, which he proved more than once. That was a worry. What if he was one of those men who shagged anything in a petticoat, from a milkmaid to a washstand?
She ran a finger across the waves of his ribs and he woke with a start. His face creased with worry. Did he think he had made a mistake? She slid her ebony leg over his bevelled thighs and kissed his shoulder playfully. Don’t worry, Mr Sutton, it was no mistake.
“Thank you for last night,” he said.
“I am amazing,” she replied, and batted her lashes.
A blond lock fell across his forehead as he turned to her with a forced smile.
“I have to get out of here.”
Furious at that, she hit him over the head with a pillow. The pillow knife lay exposed in the headboard. Embarrassed, she reached for it, to move it somewhere less dangerous. With a speed that she could not fathom, Edmund’s hand snaked out and clamped around her wrist, twisted it painfully. His fingers were like vice irons. She was scared until she saw the mortified look on his face.
“I’m sorry, Miranda. I wasn’t…” He trailed off and let her go gently, smoothed back his hair with a look of self-disappointment, flipped the pillow knife in his hand and caught it by the blade. Miranda gasped. “It’s a beautiful thing.” He offered its haft. Heart in mouth, she checked the blade for blood. It was clean. Thank the gods.
“I’m not allowed to be here,” he said.
He wanted a sharp exit, it seemed. That wasn’t a problem; Miranda desired to return to her study of the hand, but that was no excuse for making it so obvious.
“Let’s order breakfast for two,” she teased.
“In the Masters’ Quarters? Miranda, I wasn’t invited. I have to escape.” He looked nervously out of the window, as if the birds themselves might be spies.
He was correct, technically, though Miranda couldn’t imagine that the punishment would be severe.
“You have been a very naughty boy, Mister Sutton. Maybe they will set a censor on your tail.” She winked at him. Edmund looked at her as if she were mad. He could be very literal sometimes.
***
The subterfuge was delightful, like something from a comic opera, even if Edmund took it a little too seriously. They emptied out her tapestry chest and she lined it with a white fur, so that he would be comfortable. He was not a contortionist, nor comfortable in the end, but they got him inside eventually. She carved a subtle rune into its heavy oak lid that would discourage attention and invested it with a little shimmy of power, a construct based on the memory of a tedious work of abstract art. A pair of hastily summoned porters cursed and groaned at the weight of the load, groaned again when told to deliver it to Mr Sutton’s chambers. She blew the box a kiss as they manoeuvred it out of her door and her face flickered with suppressed laughter as it clattered against the granite frame.
She would ask Mother to find out more about his family, but before that, there was serious work to be done. A decision to be made.
Miranda inspected the hand. It hung suspended in a heavy clamp she normally reserved for alchemical experiments, stood alone on her cleared marble workbench. With the dirty leather peeled away, and its metal fingers cleaned with turpentine, it looked marvellous. A work of unparalleled craftsmanship. A masterpiece of metal and wire. At first her mind filled with wonder at its complexity and then it buzzed with curiosity. She reactivated its construct with three sharp taps yet it remained motionless, like an artist’s model. She began to take notes.
The machine was one of Bolb’s creations, of that she had no doubt. No other master had such a command of artifice. It was the magic invested within it that intrigued her. That was not Bolb’s forte – if anything he was considered a bit of a dullard when it came to structuring, yet the power of the construct was immense. It was also strangely passive and contained. She could imagine no use for such a thing. Maybe the hand was simply a vessel to smuggle tamed magic out of the Verge.
The implications were frightening and she was at a loss, but the problem was not hers to solve. She put down her papers and turned her mind back to the conundrum of to whom to deliver the wretched thing. Gleame? Corbin? Mother? It was such a relief to know that Edmund hadn’t recognised it. Imagine if he had, that he was some kind of nobleman thief. A foreign agent. Now that the fantasy was impossible, it was delicious.
She whistled for her factotum and he came scurrying.
“Inform Chairman Gleame that I seek an audience with him. Tell him that the matter is sensitive. Assure him that I will provide an explanation once we are together. Tell him to expect me within the hour.”
The factotum opened his mouth as if to contradict her, then bowed less deeply than she would have liked and left the room with a dismayed look on his face. That man does not respect me enough, she thought.
She stared at the hand once more. An enigma from within an enigma. The sooner it was out of her life the better, but she hated not knowing what it was, or why it was important. She caught herself picking at her teeth with the nib of her pencil, a bad habit from her childhood, and drew an enormous question mark over her drawing of the contraption. Suddenly she stood bolt upright, as if stuck by lightning.
She opened her notepad to a new page and placed her pencil in the palm of Bolb’s creation. Its fingers grasped it delicately, and immediately began to write. A stream of words and numbers flowed so quickly that Miranda knew at once that she would need more paper.
***
“Chairman Gleame will see you immediately, milady. He was a little surprised…” Miranda waved her servant silent. The ridiculous man looked like he was going to faint. He was not up to the job, and that was no good. She would have him replaced in a couple of days, she decided, and for the remainder, she would ignore him.
She fed another sheet of paper to the hand.
“My gown,” she called out.
Her maid glided into the room from the bedchamber, crossed her legs and dropped into a curtsy worthy of the ballet. That was much better.
“Which would milady prefer?” she asked. It was a fair question; there were several.
&nb
sp; “Red and black, with pearls sewn into the bodice.”
The script the hand was producing was small and perfectly accurate, a scribe’s dream. Miranda’s eyes flitted back and forth across rows of numbers, letters and symbols. They meant nothing to her but had a pattern, and a pattern meant meaning. Was that what the hand was made for? To carry a message? If it were incriminating, that would explain why Bolb wanted it back so badly. She passed papers from hand to scribbling hand, as her maidservant undressed her, applied lotions, meticulously styled her hair and tied the new gown tight around her waist. Finally, she presented the rosewood jewellery box. Miranda decided to do without ornamentation on this occasion and dismissed her, then called her back as she tipped the rubies and diamonds onto her workbench in a rude pile.
The hand was still writing. There was no way to know for how long it would continue. Forever maybe? Far longer than she could afford to keep Gleame waiting. She turned it off, prised the pencil from its fingers and placed it inside the jewellery box.
***
Big Albert was waiting outside Gleame’s office with two guards, both stern-faced and armed to the teeth. Miranda doubted their presence was meant to reassure her. She became uncertain as she approached, noticed how the natural humour had disappeared from Albert’s face. She was about to turn back to her room when he spotted her and the guards stepped aside without having to be told. Albert followed her into the chairman’s panoramic office. The sun was at its zenith and light reflected from the ocean and rippled on the walls.
“She’s here,” Albert said to Gleame, with more familiarity than befitted his station. Gleam dawdled by one of his statues. His white robes hung slackly by his sides, and his eyes were watery. It seemed he expected bad news.
“I had to cancel an important meeting for this. What is the matter, child?”
Miranda held out the rosewood box.
“I found something,” she said.
“Albertus,” Chairman Gleame commanded. The big man took the box and brought it over to his expansive desk, withdrew the bright metal hand, held it up to the light.
“Recognise it?” Gleame said.
Albert shook his head. “I’ll check the records,” he said, and selected a tome from one of the bookshelves.
Gleame turned, looked at Miranda quizzically. “When did you find it? Today? This morning?”
Miranda cleared her throat. “No, yesterday – at Seascale Bay. In a rabbit hole.”
“That’s not everything.” She pointed at the box.
“I thought this was padding.” Albertus slowly unfolded the censor’s gauntlet and dangled it before Gleame. It took a moment for them to understand what they were looking at. A curious look, between horror and sadness, took hold of Gleame’s face. Albertus just looked angry.
“It was hiding. The hand, I mean. I believe it is the work of Master Bolb.”
“It is,” Gleame said and turned to Albert. “Anything?”
“It appears to be ex-inventory – unauthorised.”
“This makes no sense. Bolb has no need for gold. Why break his oaths?”
“Should I have him summoned?” Albertus asked.
The grandmaster sighed deeply and slumped back behind his desk. Miranda realised that Gleame cared for the man. “No. Close the causeway and fetch Corbin.”
Albertus hurried from the room, his amiable gait gone. He moved like a guardsman preparing to repel an assault. Miranda stood alone with Gleame. His eyes flicked back and forth between her and the glove.
“How did you find it, Miranda? Why?”
“I saw Master Bolb searching the beach. My curiosity got the better of me. I thought I could do better.”
Gleame looked at her dubiously. “Does anybody else know?”
“I haven’t shown it to anyone.”
Gleame looked at the hand closely, examined its details with a professional’s eye. When he had finished, he leaned on this desk, fingers in his hair, shoulders hunched, and stared at the soiled glove.
“He was my first apprentice, Miranda, my greatest.”
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t. I assume that I can count on your discretion in this matter. You have already proved yourself one of the Verge’s greatest students. If your actions today have saved us from peril, the Convocation will be more than grateful.”
“Maybe there’s an innocent explanation?”
“No. There was a disturbance last night in the Masters’ Quarters. A thief escaped. Matters are getting out of hand.”
Miranda knew better than to ask, but whatever Gleame suspected had happened, one thing was clear – it was very bad. She thought about her night and felt sick to her stomach. There is something else. A man hid in my room last night. He is built like a warrior and he has been my lover. Her mind said the words but her lips stayed sealed.
Gleame caught the whiff of unease, raised a brow. “You shouldn’t worry, Miranda; you did the right thing, bringing me the hand. Your mother would be proud of you.”
The secret agent
I lost Bolb’s diary.
He’s seen my face.
I’ve failed.
Daniel sat in his narrow bunk with his back pressed against the headboard and considered the possibility of death. His sword lay ready on the sheets by his side, his pistol nestled in his lap. Lang’s instructions had been clear. If he could not escape, one way or another, he should die.
He looked down at the pistol in his hand, stared down the tunnel of its barrel and imagined placing it inside his mouth, the acrid smell of powder and the taste of cold steel pressed hard against his palate. Lang had said he should put the gun to his temple. Maybe that was supposed to make the act easier. He was well aware of his duty to the Brotherhood. He also knew than not one atom of his person was ready for death.
His death could not serve justice, nor his soul. Wasn’t suicide supposed to be a sin?
Maybe not, if suicide served justice.
He lowered the pistol. The whole idea was ridiculous. Who could possibly be expected to shoot themselves in the head? Fuck that. A dead man could not become a censor. He knew what Jon would tell him – ‘Trust in the gods’. He was never going to kill himself.
So why am I still holding the gun?
His bedpan was full of piss and he could smell the fear in it. He cursed himself for not having attempted an escape in the morning, before the tide of masters had flooded the causeway. A notice shoved under his door had informed him that nobody could leave the island. It was a temporary inconvenience, it had said, as if anybody would believe that.
He was trapped, couldn’t even crawl back to Lang to beg forgiveness and a second chance. Now there was no chance. The only question now was who would get to him first: Bolb, Corbin or the Verge’s guards.
Miranda might help him, with her magic and her brain. She liked him, or at least his smile and his body. What excuse or story would persuade a ward of the duchess to assist a wanted fugitive? Even the truth was bad. He had used her in the service of justice. He pictured her bewildered expression in the afterglow of their loving. He had loved that look. Making love to her hadn’t felt wrong, but he couldn’t see her agreeing.
He slapped his thigh. Why did his mind turn to the carnal at this time? His duty was clear. If he could not avoid capture, he was to keep his mission a secret at all costs. He examined the gun once more.
Torture was a fearful prospect.
***
The crashing on the door echoed in Daniel’s heart.
Corbin’s voice boomed from the corridor. “Open up – in the name of justice.”
Daniel made a quick prayer for courage to He-who-lights-the-way, raised his pistol and went to the door. The wood bulged obscenely at the next impact; its hinges came loose from the wall. Daniel levelled his gun. One more crack and the door burst open.
/> Corbin punched Daniel backwards into the room with an open palm, and raised his longsword beside his head in an ox guard, the tip pointing at Daniel’s face. “Hold,” he commanded.
Daniel stumbled backwards, arms raised. Albertus ducked into the room, a hanger with a blade as wide as a butcher’s knife clasped in his meaty hand, and kicked the door shut behind him, blocking escape with his massive body. His face froze.
“A pistol!” he warned.
Daniel felt the weight of the wheel lock in his hand, waved its muzzle at both men.
Corbin lowered his stance. “Drop that weapon. You’re under arrest.”
Daniel raised the pistol slowly towards his own head, but kept his finger from the trigger, held it loosely in anticipation of what would come next.
“Stop him,” Albertus yelped.
Corbin hooked the gun from Daniel’s hand with a twisting jab of his blade, and then swept it flat at the back of Daniel’s knees. The move was not perfect, and Daniel nearly dodged the blow from habit. He let the blade connect with his calves and the slap of the metal seared like a scalding. He collapsed to his knees, lights flashing before his eyes.
Before his senses could right themselves, a boot came down hard on his ankle, sending a shooting pain up his leg. Albertus forced a bag over his head and Daniel choked as its cord tightened around his neck.
Someone pulled his hands behind his back. The bag smelled of dread and dried sweat.
“You’re coming with me, son,” Albertus growled in his ear, lifting him roughly by the shoulders.
“And not a word until I say so,” Corbin added, from further away. “Or I break your legs.”
Yes sir, Daniel thought as he was hauled to his feet. Albertus twisted his arms behind his back, held them high in a simple lock that Daniel could have escaped with a flip, had there been any point. He rode the pain and wondered where he was being taken as he was bundled down corridors and up flights of stairs.
His captors stopped several times, ducking behind corners, whispering that the coast was clear. They moved in the manner of kidnappers rather than constables. Wherever his destination, Corbin and Albertus did not want him to be seen. At last, he felt a soft carpet under his feet, and his captors seemed to relax a little. He heard the sound of blade scraping on blade, and his back stiffened in fear.
The Censor's Hand: Book One of the Thrice~Crossed Swords Trilogy Page 30
