The Book of Swords

by Gardner Dozois (ed)

  To be honest, it was a little too much. Success was wonderful, new jobs were wonderful, but the people all moving in and out of my vision, arms and hands and heads, right after I’d been fighting—

  “Richard St. Vier,” I said. “My name is St. Vier, and you can find me in Riverside. At the, ah, the Maiden’s Fancy. Thank you. Yes, thank you. I must—I have to go and clean my blade. Really. It’s important. If you’d just let me through—”

  “Absolutely.”

  A young man with soft, curling brown hair and one red jewel in his ear raised a hand where I could see it, and slowly put his arm around my shoulder. They fell back a little when he did that, and I was grateful. “You must go and refresh yourself, Master St. Vier. Allow me to assist you.”

  The crowds parted for us. He was in lace and velvet: one of them. “Have you been paid?” he murmured. I shook my head. “Well, never mind. Condell is busy now; you can come back tomorrow. “

  Instead of away toward the kitchens, he led me out the big front door. The air on the steps was cooler. “Just a moment,” he said. “Stay here while I send for my carriage.”

  The seats in the nobleman’s carriage were soft as down. It smelt a little of leather, a little of horses, and a little of the man himself, a scent like roses and amber.

  “My name is Thomas Berowne,” he told me. He rested his gloved hand on my leg for a moment, and I let him. “Please allow me to take you wherever you wish to go.” He ducked his head slightly. “This includes my own rooms if you would be so kind as to have it so.”

  I thought, Why not? Jess wouldn’t mind; she was out some nights herself, keeping up contacts, solidifying friendships, forging alliances or just plain having fun. She might even be pleased to learn that I had been taken home by a lordling.

  Lord Thomas Berowne was courtesy itself. When we came to his family town house, we took a side entrance, “so as not to alarm my parents,” and went up one set of stairs then another, into a room all rosy with velvet and firelight, shadows playing on a glint of painting here, a fall of tapestry there.

  He was beautiful without his clothes on, and he knew how to please me. My boyhood friend Crispin and I had had our little rituals, but Thomas Berowne was a grown man who clearly had a lot of practice. All that night, when I woke to the fall of the light on his skin, or the candles guttering, or a glass of wine being sleepily handed to me, I felt oddly safe, and oddly happy. He asked very few questions, but I found myself telling him about my hopes for work, my wish to challenge worthy opponents, to duel to my utmost strength and skill. Until I had come to the city, I hadn’t realized I was that good. I thought everyone could do what I do, more or less, with the right training. My drunk old master, a wanderer my mother had taken in off the road out of pity, who had trained me mercilessly, always told me not to be too sure of myself. I took that to heart. But he had also taught me how to assess an opponent and how to take advantage of their every weakness. The men I’d fought so far in the confines of Riverside were no match for me; those who were steered clear of my sword. There were no demonstration bouts in Riverside.

  Thomas Berowne was only a little older than me—not yet twenty, as he admitted, and so, though his father was rich, he wasn’t, and he was also a second son. What funds he had went to collecting objects of art, and he hoped I didn’t take offense if he said I was one of the finest, “…not that I could afford your true price.”

  I asked what he thought that was, wondering uneasily if he was planning to pay me. That would make me a nobleman’s whore, which was far from my ambition. He kissed me, said this was an open exchange of willing hearts. He said that my skill with the sword might be for the marketplace, but when it came to…Well, I can’t honestly remember what he said, but it was along those lines.

  You couldn’t exactly call it morning when we finally got out of bed to drink the chocolate his valet had brought in. It was amazing stuff; you couldn’t get anything like that in Riverside. There were crisp white rolls, too, and butter so sweet it must have come from the country.

  In the light of day, I admired the nobleman’s treasures: the tapestry of lovers in a rose garden that covered half a wall; the ancient chest carved with deer and oak leaves, gleaming with beeswax…even the bed curtains were works of art, embroidered with moons and stars.

  I picked up something small, an ivory statue of a boy king, with his many braids and naked chest, barely bigger than my palm. “I know you can’t afford a swordsman,” I told him lightly, trying not to want it too much. “But I’d fight a challenge for this.”

  Thomas Berowne’s lips curved. His curly hair was tousled, and his mouth was the kissable color of certain roses. “You have good taste,” he said. “You could fight a dozen challenges for that, and still not come near its worth.”

  I put it down carefully.

  “Now then.” Lord Thomas kissed my shoulder. “I am expected somewhere, and I imagine you are, too. It will, however, take me much longer to be made presentable to the outside world, so if you’d like me to call my carriage to carry you up to Lord Condell’s—”

  I shook my head. Their houses were so close I was amazed that he felt the need to ride between them.

  “Well, then,” Lord Thomas said; “let me assist you in dressing, to make up for being so eager to undress you last night.”

  As he slipped the linen shirt over my head, I realized that it was much finer than my own. I didn’t say anything; he probably had chests full of them, and if this was the gift he wanted to give me, well, having a third shirt to my name was only to the good.

  —

  I found Jessamyn at the Maiden’s Fancy, drinking with our friend Kathy Blount.

  “Well, if it isn’t the great St. Vier!” Jess tipped her chair back. “And here I thought you’d run off with the bride.”

  “She wouldn’t have me,” I said casually. “So I fought a duel instead.”

  “Yeah, at Lord Condell’s; I heard.” I’d been looking forward to telling her myself. “Nimble Willie was just up there, checking it out for Kathy’s ma and her gang. He went as a delivery boy, and they were all bragging about your fight in the kitchens.”

  I spilled Lord Condell’s coins on the table in front of her. Kathy, at least, had the grace to look impressed. Jess just grabbed one and held it up like a prize. “Rosalie! This is for the tab—and for another round. For the house! For luck! For Annie.”

  She was far from sober. “Where’s Annie?” I said. “What happened?”

  Kathy wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Annie got nabbed. Yesterday morning. They whipped her today, in Justice Place. Jessamyn went, and I went with her. So she knew we both was there in the crowd.”

  “Were there,” Jess corrected savagely. “You’ll never make it uptown if you talk like that, Kath. You’ll end up just like Annie, rotten straw from the jail in your hair, your dress torn open for them to see your tits while they whip you for stealing what they wish they had—”

  “Shut up!” Kathy pushed back from the table so fast her bench tipped over. “You just shut up, Jessamyn Fancypants! You think you’re any better? You may be able to pass uptown for an hour’s grift, but you drink and you fuck down here in Riverside with the rest of us.”

  I knew Kath had a knife up her sleeve, but she made no move to use it, so I just watched as she knuckled her eyes with her fist, rose, and dashed out of the tavern.

  Jess made a face.

  “Cheapskate didn’t even pay her tab,” she said. She took another coin from my pile. “But that’s all right. We’ve got plenty to spend, now, love, haven’t we? Let’s go see if Salamander still has that snake-headed dagger you liked.”

  I put my hand over hers. “Rent first,” I said. “That’s the rule. And while we’re back there, maybe we should go upstairs.” I put my hands behind her head, weaving my fingers in her moonlight hair, and I kissed her there in the tavern, I wanted her so much.

  She slid her free hand down my thigh. “Rules are rules,” she sai
d. “Let’s go pay the rent and have some fun.”

  —

  The snake-headed dagger was gone, but Salamander had a plain one with a balance so perfect it could have been made for me. We got that, and a dagger made of glass because it was just so unbelievable, and bangles for Jess that Sal said came from Cham, and five silver forks that ended in nymph’s heads. Then we went over to Maddie’s to see what clothing she had in. Jessamyn carefully scrutinized all the servants’ castoffs for the best, dresses made over from hand-me-downs of generous mistresses that could be tarted up to look new. She found a skirt and petticoat almost perfect, and a bundle of collars and neckerchiefs Mad let her have for cheap because they’d been scorched by a careless ironing maid. Jessamyn spent some time cooing over an old bodice of gold thread brocade, most of its tiny silk rosettes still intact, but then said she had no use for it. I bought it for her anyway, just for fun. We found plenty of use for it back home.

  We went on spending freely because we knew there would be more. And, that spring, there was. Nobles started sending emissaries down to the Maiden, offering me jobs. Demonstration bouts, mostly, for parties and things—still no actual duels, but Jess and our friend Ginnie Vandall said to be patient, that was how you got noticed. Ginnie knew everything about swordsmen.

  She didn’t like it when I turned down Lord Condell’s offer to spend a month on his summer estates. I told her I’d just come from the country, and I didn’t want to turn around and go back there. I didn’t say I didn’t want to leave Jess for so long, but that was clear.

  —

  Then Jess got pregnant, despite all our care, and it was expensive to get rid of it. She was sick for a while after and couldn’t go out on jobs. That was when the money started drying up for me, too. I went over all my recent paying duels, trying to figure out what I’d done wrong. Was I too predictable? Should I have let someone beat me, just the once?

  “I could have told you,” Ginnie said. “Take all the work while you can get it! Yeah, even the weddings, Richard. Because guess what? Summer’s coming, and they all go to the country. Not just Lord Condell. No one needs a swordsman here in summer.”

  “Richard only takes the jobs he wants, now.” Jess coiled around me on the settle like a big white cat. We both knew Ginnie fancied me like mad, but whatever I got up to on the Hill, I had only one love in Riverside. “He’s sick of weddings. Everyone knows he’s the best. We’ll be just fine till their lordships come home in the fall and start having fun again.”

  First we had to pawn the nymph forks. And sell the brocade bodice, then pawn Jessamyn’s winter clothes. “I’ll get them back,” she said with a shrug. “Soon as I’m better.”

  When that day came we braided her hair up tight again, and she went across the Bridge to find a mark and make some money with the Turned-Out Servant Girl trick.

  “I’m thin enough now.” She grinned at me. “It’ll be a snap.”

  Jess came home with a kerchief full of apples, bread and new cheese, and we gorged ourselves on food and kisses. But when I lifted her skirts, I found her petticoats were gone.

  “I’ll get them back,” she said fiercely. “It’s my stuff, I can do what I want with it. I just wasn’t ready, yet.”

  I sold the green glass, and the armless statue, because the Salamander wouldn’t take them in pawn. Maddie bought back most of Jess’s linen—“Your luck will turn,” she said, and pressed one of the scorched collars back into Jessamyn’s hands. “A girl’s got to earn a living. Don’t worry, love, I’ve seen it before. You’ll come around.”

  If there were any wedding jobs, I would have taken them. But it seemed summer wasn’t a good time for weddings, either.

  That was when Marco and Ivan came up with their grand scheme.

  We were drinking at Rosalie’s, because her tavern is underground, in the cellar of an old town house. The cellar was god-awful damp in winter, but in summer it was a blessing. Even her beer was relatively cool—and Rosalie was one of the few who still let us eat on credit.

  “Richard St. Vier!” They strolled on up to our table, feathers in their hats and a swagger in their stride. “Have you ever been on the highway?”

  “Of course I’ve been on the highway. How do you think I got here?”

  Ivan poked Marco in the ribs. “I like this kid. He’s got a sense of humor.”

  Jess just sat there with a little smile at the corner of her lips, watching the show.

  “Richard.” Marco leaned into the table. He was unarmed, so I let him. “Where do you think this hat came from? Or these buckles? Or these shoes?” I waited. They were really ugly buckles. “From noblemen’s coaches, that’s where. Out on the highway. Where they pass to and fro without a care, just waiting for gentlemen like us to stop and relieve them of some of their gold.”

  “And personal effects,” said Ivan, stroking the world’s gaudiest hatpin.

  Marco turned to Jessamyn. “There are ladies, too, you know. Miserable old hags wearing silks and jewels they shoulda left off long ago, to adorn some younger, sprightlier dame.”

  Jessamyn nodded. “Go on, Richard,” she said brightly. “You should try it! You can get me some new petticoats.”

  I asked, “What would I have to do?”

  “There’s a carriage coming by,” Marco said. “Tomorrow morning. Carrying all kinds of fancy stuff. I had it from Fat Tom, whose brother’s wife’s cousin works up on the Hill and knows the guy who’s driving. All we have to do is lie in wait at a particular bend in the road we happen to be familiar with, well hid from any passersby. You step out and challenge the driver. The coach stops, and—”

  Who did they think I was? “I’m not challenging any driver!” A sword fights only other swords.

  Jess stroked my arm. “You don’t challenge him, not really. Just get him to stop.”

  “Or we can do that,” Ivan said hastily. “We can stop him, if you want. It just looks better when you do it. You know, with a sword.”

  “But there’s a guard,” Marco explained. “A footman, usually, not a blade, but trained with knives and stuff. Sometimes two of them. Plus the coachman. That’s where you come in.”

  “Scare ’em off. They’ll know what swords can do. They respect that. You just round ’em up and keep ’em still. Look menacing. Don’t let ’em pull any tricks, while we rifle the coach, then we’re off!”

  “Off in the bushes, or off on a horse?” Jess asked.

  Marco looked pious. “We always rent Brown Bess. She is most reliable, and has a very smooth trot.”

  “She’s not going to carry three.”

  “They’re not going to chase after a swordsman.”

  It sounded like hell to me. “I’d rather do weddings.” But that wasn’t entirely true. And Jess knew it.

  “At least you’ll get to fight, Richard,” she said; “or pretend to, anyway. You can fix them with that awful stare you get when you’re practicing. And I promise you won’t be bored.”

  “Easy money,” Marco said.

  “Do it,” Jess said. “It’ll be fun!”

  —

  I was plenty bored.

  Marco and Ivan appeared on Brown Bess at the white part of dawn, when many Riversiders were just coming home off jobs. They let me ride up behind them, and we plodded along the highway for a long time, until we came to their particular spot. Ivan tied up Bess in the woods, and we lay on a verge in the still-damp grass, watching the road.

  And watching the road. And watching the road. I fell asleep for a little bit; then Ivan nudged me with a “Here they come!” but it was only a delivery cart, its two mules laboring slowly up the slope.

  “Remember,” Marco murmured when it had passed. “Don’t kill anyone. It is very important that you don’t kill anyone.”

  “Why?”

  “For robbery, you get jailed and lashed. For murder, you swing. All of us.”

  I said nothing. “Yeah,” said Ivan; “it’s a funny old world. You kill a guy in a duel for them, it’s right a
s rain, no questions asked. We kill someone by accident while trying to make a living, and it’s up the gibbet to do the Solo Jig.”

  “Of course,” Marco added, “if you do kill anyone—if we do, I mean—you’d better kill them all.”

  “Why?”

  “So they don’t tell. That way, we’ve got a chance.”

  I was very, very sorry I’d come. This was all I needed, to be marked out a common murderer, and with a true blade, yet. That would be the end of me as a swordsman, the end of everything my old master had taught me. All for nothing.

  “Hey, now.” Marco must have seen my frown. “Nobody’s getting killed, here. The highway life is all gold and glory, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. They may even write a song about you! You know, like that one about Dapper Dan, or whatever his name is.” He started singing: “Dapper Dan, Dapper Dan, steals your wife and bones your—”

  “Shhh!” Ivan flapped his hand at us. “They’re coming!”

  This time, they truly were.

  Matched white horses pulled a gorgeous carriage. It looked strangely familiar to me—and when Ivan and Marco had stopped it, pulled the coachman off his perch while I held the horses, then had me threaten the footman with my blade until he and the coachman were safely tied up together, I found out why.

  Marco banged on the door of the carriage with the butt of his knife, scarring the painted coat of arms with a certain pleasure. The young nobleman who emerged was very familiar, indeed.

  “Hello, Thomas,” I said.

  “Richard!” He looked almost pleased. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m afraid my associates and I are going to take all your money and jewels, now.”

  Lord Thomas Berowne was scared, I could tell—but he handled it well: Though his hand was shaking, he kept his voice even and his head high.

  “If you must, you must,” he said. “My father will be very upset, but when I explain how you outnumbered us, I’m sure he’ll understand.”