The Book of Swords

by Gardner Dozois (ed)

  Even though the carriage maintained a good pace when the road was clear, still we followed the storm, and the road was full of mud and muck and fallen limbs, some of which were so heavy that the footmen and I could barely shift them. This meant delays, and shadows were growing long by the time we passed Shornside’s royal castle.

  “We will probably not make Selford before nightfall,” I said. “Your ladyship might want to look for an inn.”

  “Oh! That will not be necessary.” She gave me a look from out of those long eyes. “We have a country house not far from here, and I’ve sent word ahead, and will sleep and sup there. The steward will find a bed for you somewhere, if you are not bent on galloping for the capital tonight.” And, as her hand grazed along my thigh as she spoke her invitation, I overcame feigned reluctance and accepted.

  The fugitive will still be there tomorrow, I decided. Assuming he is there at all.

  The promised bed was on the same floor as Amalie’s chambers, and was very comfortable, not that I spent a lot of time in it. For as soon as the house grew quiet, I stole down the hall to quietly knock on Amalie’s door, and the two of us spent a delightful night beneath the grand canopy of her bed, thoughts of murder and conspiracy forgotten beneath pleasure and laughter. When I finally fell asleep, I slept so well that, in the morning, I was hard put to scramble back to my room before the servant came up to bring me my shaving water.

  —

  After breakfast I put on my grateful suppliant face, kissed Amalie’s hand, and rode off to the capital, where I arrived before mid morn. Low clouds hung over the day, and the wind was brisk. I returned my horse to the livery stable in Mossthorpe and walked across the bridge to Selford with my saddlebags on my shoulder, then to my lodgings on Chancellery Street. I emptied my saddlebags, then without changing out of my riding leathers walked to Clattering Lane, where all the knife- and swordmakers clustered, and viewed the signs overhanging the street. With the ringing sound of hammers on anvils echoing on either hand, I found the sign shaped like a shield, with a crown in its center, and entered the shop of Roweson Crowninshield—whose surname, as I discovered when I asked for the master, was pronounced something like “Grunsel.”

  I asked Master Crowninshield about the sword-hilted dagger with the Broughton badge, and he remembered it quite well. He had made the dagger himself, and it had been on display in his shop. A customer had walked in from the street and bought it on condition that the plain steel pommel be replaced by one with the Broughton blazon. Crowninshield customarily worked with a cameo-carver on such commissions, and both were paid extra for carving and mounting the jasper carving swiftly.

  Crowninshield was told that the dagger was a gift for Broughton’s son. He was hardly to be blamed for not knowing that no such son existed.

  “Who commissioned the dagger?” I asked, and was surprised to hear that it was a lady. I asked for a description.

  Crowninshield’s lengthy description, given with many digressions over four or five minutes, amounted to the lady being generally lady-shaped, and having a face similar in large degree to that of a lady. Her accent was either that of Bonille, or of south Fornland, neither of which resembled one another. I made a note to myself that, should I ever be qualified as a lawyer, never to call Crowninshield as a witness.

  “Not a grand lady, mind,” he added. “But respectable. Maybe a servant, but a superior sort of servant. A housekeeper, or a governess.”

  In order to protect myself from any housekeepers and governesses and their murder plots, I bought a sword-hilted dagger of my very own and thrust it into my belt behind, under my cloak, where I could draw it easily with the right hand. I then thanked Master Grunsel and made my way to Saddlers Row, where I failed to find any shop signs displaying a sparrow, warbler, or any small bird. This sent me farther up the row to the Honourable Companie of Loriners and Saddlers, where a helpful apprentice showed me the book of marks used by members of the guild, and found the bird mark straightaway.

  “That would be the shop of Dagobert Finch, sir,” he said.

  “Where would I find it?”

  “Across the river, in Mossthorpe.”

  So I retraced my steps across the great bridge to the House of Finch in Mossthorpe. The shop was rich with the scent of leather and prime neat’s-foot oil, and saddles hung beneath the roof beams like carcases at my father’s butchery. Master Saddler Finch was a short, peppery man with a bristly mustache. “I sell a great many saddles, younker,” said he.

  “This would have been sold to a gentleman about my height,” I said. “Wore a beard when I met him yesterday. He rides a liver chestnut.”

  I saw from a sudden gleam in Finch’s eye that he recognized my description, but then his look grew cautious. “Why do you want to know?”

  “I owe him money,” said I. “We were both at the hunt at Kingsmere two days ago, and we wagered on one of the gentlemen fighting a stag with a sword, and I lost. Yet in the excitement of the betting, I failed to note the gentleman’s name.”

  “Yet it is unusual for a man to pursue another, and all to willingly give money away.”

  “I can afford it,” I said. “I won my other bets.” And, to demonstrate my prosperity, I passed a couple of crowns across the table.

  “Sir Hector Burgoyne,” said Finch. “A military gentleman, yes? He will be glad of your money. He commissioned the saddle over a year ago, but I only gave it to him last month when he finally paid the balance on his account.”

  “Know you where he lives?”

  “Nay, younker. But he keeps his courser at Mundy’s on the main road, and they will probably know.”

  So off I went to Mundy’s livery stable, and one of the grooms, once I had given him his vail, was able to direct me to Burgoyne’s garrett in Selford, in the stew called Ramscallion Lane. Wearing my hood over my head, I found the building without trouble, a half-timbered structure sagging over the street, with ancient thatch hanging over the eaves like untidy bangs over a scarred forehead. It hardly seemed the sort of place for a knight to lodge unless he was desperate for money—desperate enough to commit murder, I supposed.

  A fetid, rank odor hung about the lane, both from the rubbish thrown in the streets and the ditch that ran behind the neighborhood, a ditch full of the sewage of the district as well as that which had run down the hill. I kept my hand on my purse the entire visit, to avoid being robbed by the thieves, custrels, apple-squires, and trulls that infested the district. I could see my silver reflected in their pouched, greedy eyes.

  I now had a number of choices. I could apprehend Burgoyne myself but cared little for the idea of nabbing a desperate villain in a rathole like Ramscallion Lane. I could hire some professional thief-takers, but that would cost money.

  I could disdain the thief-takers and go to a magistrate, who would give me a warrant, but then I would still have to find someone to serve the warrant, and be scarcely any better than I had before.

  I might go to the sheriff if he was in the city and not elsewhere in the county. But then he would bring his own thief-takers and probably claim credit for the arrest.

  I could not go to the Attorney-General, for the simple reason that Queen Berlauda had not yet appointed one.

  The one place I absolutely could not go was the barracks of the Yeoman Archers. The City of Selford rejoiced in its traditional liberties, which included freedom from interference by the Queen’s Army. The army was forbidden to apprehend lawbreakers, or otherwise disturb the orderly business of criminality, unless there was hue and cry (in which case soldiers could apprehend a felon while acting in the character of private individuals, rather than members of a military company), or if there was a riot or insurrection and a magistrate certified that the Act to Prevent Tumult applied, in which case the army was allowed to massacre at will.

  Should the pursuing Archers have caught the assassin, I thought, it would have raised an interesting point. Could Sir Hector Burgoyne claim at his trial that his arrest was illegal, as th
e army had no right to apprehend him?

  Of course, the prosecution could claim that a hue and cry had been raised, but the defense could counter that a hue and cry only applied when the quarry was actually in sight.

  I would have enjoyed arguing it either way.

  To apprehend Burgoyne, I might go to a member of the Watch. But the Watch were mostly elderly pensioners who wandered the city at night calling that all was well while ringing a bell. (The point of the bell was to let everyone know they weren’t sleeping on duty.) If a watchman discovered a fire or a crime in progress, he did not intervene, but rang the bell continuously and called for help.

  The decrepit, underpaid members of the Watch were unlikely to provide enough brawn to apprehend a vigorous, unscrupulous man in Ramscallion. Selford and the law provided any number of ways to take up a criminal, and none of them were of any use to me.

  So it must be the thief-takers after all. I went up Chancellery Road to the courts, where such people made themselves available for hire, and acquired for three crowns each, and a share in any reward, the services of two very large men named Merton and Toland. From their broken noses, missing teeth, and the scars on their pates I marked them as former prizefighters, which meant they had practical experience in the ring against opponents carrying broadswords, halberds, and flails. Toland, indeed, looked as if his entire face had been flattened in a collision with a buckler.

  I explained that Burgoyne was wanted for attempted murder and warned that he was a former military man and probably dangerous.

  “Should I not hire some more men?” asked I.

  “Nay, sir.” Merton spoke in a plausible, peaceful voice that belied his formidable appearance. “We two are used to taking felons quietly, and if we bring a large group into the Ramscallion, we’re asking for trouble. Let’s keep the reward between the three of us.” Merton nodded sagely. “And I will need another couple of crowns.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “For the landlady, so she won’t make a fuss.”

  This was sensible, and I passed over the silver. I was a little surprised when, even after my warnings, the thief-takers armed themselves only with wooden cudgels, which they hid beneath their cloaks.

  “Are you sure those clubs will do the job?” I asked.

  Merton seemed offended. “Sir, they haven’t failed yet—our veteran crown-knockers must have tamed a hundred villains, and turned them docile as little fuff-cats.”

  We made our way down the hill to Ramscallion Lane, and while the stench of the ditch clawed at the back of my throat, I pointed out Burgoyne’s building. Merton and Toland gave it a professional survey, then Merton disappeared inside. I followed, and in the deep interior darkness of the hall saw one of my crowns make an appearance and vanish into the grimy hands of a beak-nosed slattern on the ground floor.

  “Sir Hector?” Merton inquired.

  “Top of the stair. Uphill side.”

  Merton wasted no time with thanks but stuck his head out the door and gestured to his partner.

  “Master Toland will stay outside the house,” he explained, “to make certain that Sir Hector does not escape by his window. You should stand with him, if you please, and I’ll howster out this villain.”

  “I’ll go with you,” said I.

  Merton made no reply and went to the stair—I doubt he cared whether I lived or died, but he had done his duty in trying to keep me away from any violence. There was no light on the stair, and its upper reaches were black as midnight. The steps creaked and shuddered under Merton’s weight. My hand reached for the hilt of my new dagger. Then there was a flash and a shot louder than thunder, and Merton pitched backward, dead into my arms.

  I struggled with the weight of the body as I gaped in astonishment up the stair, and there in the gloom I saw Burgoyne looking more or less as I’d last seen him, in a hat and a long coat, but this time with a big horse pistol in his fist. He looked down at me in a searching, contemplative way, as if he were trying to work out where he’d seen me before, then he turned and vanished into the murk. My ears, still ringing from the shot, could still mark the clank of his rowelled spurs as he retreated.

  I laid Merton down on the steep stair, and one look told me that he was dead, having been shot with a heavy pistol ball right in the middle of his forehead. I was staring down at the man’s face, my heart beating high in my throat, when Toland came running in and staggered to a halt at the sight of his partner.

  Anger and excitement blazed up in me like sparks in a forge. “Burgoyne shot him!” I said. “Let’s take him!”

  I drew my dagger and hurled myself up the stair, stumbling over the body as I went. The top of the stair reeked of powder, but that scent was fresh and wholesome compared to the other smells of the place. I got to the top and saw gray light at the end of the passage, and I lurched toward it, stumbling over rubbish that people had left in the corridor.

  I burst through the low doorway at the end of the hall and found myself outside, at the top of another steep stair, made of weathered planks, that dropped onto the narrow path that ran alongside the sewer-ditch behind the Ramscallion. A dark, sinister muck thicker than treacle oozed down the ditch. Dead dogs floated belly-up in the mire, and the place stank worse than a charnel house.

  Burgoyne was fifty feet down the path, loping comfortably along as he looked over his shoulder at me. Even at this distance I could see that he retained that thoughtful expression with which he had viewed me from the top of the stair. If my blood hadn’t been burning hot in my veins, if I hadn’t been half-mad with the frenzy of pursuit, I would have understood that look for what it was, the calculating glance of a professional as he evaluated his foe.

  Burgoyne had taken out the lever used to rewind his pistol, and he was cranking the wheel-lock as he hastened down the path. Even in my state of excitement I calculated that he couldn’t possibly have had time to pour powder and ball down the barrel, or primed the pistol to fire, and I knew that I had to catch him before he could reload.

  I dived down the steep, rickety stair three steps at a time and charged after him. Apparently he realized the futility of reloading, and he turned away and began to run faster. “Stop!” I shouted. “Stop!” The words hue and cry flashed through my mind, and I realized that “Stop!” and “Stop, thief!” were probably heard twenty times a day in the Ramscallion, only to raise laughter and derision on the part of the inhabitants.

  “Stop, murderer!” I shouted. “Reward for the murderer!”

  I guessed that the promise of reward might well bring more aid than a plea for help, and indeed as we ran along I saw windows opening, and faces peering past shutters.

  “Reward!” I cried “Reward for the murderer!” At the words Burgoyne cast a choleric look over his shoulder but kept running.

  The path was slippery and choked with rubbish and a truly astounding array of dead animals, and we both had trouble keeping our feet under us. Still, I closed the distance. Looking ahead, I could see a broad gray expanse of water, the Saelle swollen at high tide and backing the water up into the ditch, and I realized that Burgoyne was going to have to turn left, to run along the river’s bank, or else wade across the horrid ditch, which I could not imagine him doing if he had a choice.

  And indeed he went neither left nor right. At the end of the path he turned, drew his rapier, and directed its point at my breast.

  My blood went from scalding hot to frigid cold in an instant. I stopped in mid-career, my feet sliding in the mud five yards away from the point of the sword. I stared at the weapon, which seemed long as a lance. My dagger now seemed preposterously inadequate as a weapon.

  “Thus, boy,” said Burgoyne, “your chase is brought to an end.” His accent was that of northern Bonille.

  I gasped, my heart thrashing in its cage, then drew in a breath and called out. “Reward for the murderer!”

  He snarled at me, his teeth flashing white in his beard. “Pursue me further and I’ll murder you in truth.” />
  I saw an old bottle lying by the path, and I bent and flung it at him. He dodged it with an easy, contemptuous shift of his hips. Next to me was a tumbled-down stone wall, once a part of a shed, and I bent to pick up a stone. Burgoyne turned and vanished down the Saelle embankment.

  For an instant I readied myself to chase again, then I thought that he might lurk just around the corner of the last building before the embankment, waiting for me to run into range of his rapier. I looked at the old shed on my left, with its broken wall and half-fallen roof-beams. I put my dagger in my teeth—an expedient I would have found ridiculous had I seen it in a play—and I jumped atop the half-fallen wall, and hoisted myself from thence to the roof-beams. I jumped along the beams, the shed shaking under my weight, then leaped from there to the moldy old thatch of an ancient, decrepit house. My footfalls nearly silent on the straw, I rustled across the roof’s ridge, then down the other side.

  I saw that my shouts and the promise of reward had brought out some of the more enterprising inhabitants of the district, men rough and dubious, and some of these stood at the end of Ramscallion Lane, looking along the side of the building on which I stood. It was no great deduction on my part to conclude that their neighbor Burgoyne stood there.

  I ventured to peer over the edge of the roof, and I saw from above Burgoyne’s broad hat at the corner of the building. He was, as I suspected, waiting for me to come dashing around to be skewered like a capon. I disappointed him, apparently, because the hat tilted as he peered around the corner and failed to see me. Then he turned and appeared in plain sight, walking toward Ramscallion Lane with his rapier still in his hand.

  He called to his neighbors. “D’ye see that troublesome urchin anywhere?” Some of them looked up at me on the thatch, and I knew he’d follow their glance and realize I was above him; and so I snatched the dagger out of my teeth and leaped.

  I landed behind and to his left side, near enough that I fell into him and knocked him toward the Saelle, but more importantly I’d brought the pommel of the dagger down on top of his head as I came down. His hat protected his crown somewhat, but he was dazed, and when I rose from the crouch into which the fall had sent me, I was on him, my left hand clutched around his coat-collar while my right struck again with the hilt of the dagger. As long as I stayed close, he couldn’t use the rapier.