Swords and Scoundrels

by Julia Knight

  And there, waiting across an echoing hall, half in shadow, she stood, the lady he’d come to meet. Alicia was a vision in blue. Somehow, after everything that had happened, her family had managed to keep their money if not their titles, and now the money was all hers. A fortune she was said to have, owning warehouses and factories, a clocker at heart, and she dressed like it, in silk and pearls and powdered hair. None of that was quite as entrancing as her face. She looked like an innocent with the face of a goddess. Yet underneath…

  “Ma’am.” He doffed his hat and bowed, old-style manners which his father had insisted upon and he now used mostly cynically.

  Alicia smiled at him, and had he been a weaker-willed man, he’d have been lost. “My lord.” She held out her hand and he took it, rested it on his arm as though he was an old-fashioned suitor and she his lady love. It was as close as he wanted to get. Sabates had warned him that a snake’s heart lay hidden beneath that pale breast.

  He led her out through the back of the hall, past an array of glazed doors that in daylight would show a panorama of the guild, the harbour, the cliffs on the other side and further. Nearer to hand lay what was left of the formal gardens. No more vast rows of flowers, beds of roses, arbours under honeysuckle and hidden fountains. The prelate had ordered them all uprooted, replaced with a clicking clanking version of the planetaria, objects moving smoothly along their pre-described courses, unable to do anything else. Only one arbour remained, in a prime position to watch the world as it sailed past the sun on its preset course, and Egimont steered them that way.

  There, finally hidden from any prying eyes, he dropped her hand and the act. She smiled, wry and teasing, put the hand back and leaned towards him. “My lord, do we need such distance?”

  Hell’s teeth. “I think so. You have what Sabates wanted?”

  Because she was employed by Sabates, not the king; indeed Licio had no knowledge of her. The magician had warned him, not too subtly, not to fall for her charms, because “She’s buried two husbands to my knowledge, and I’m not sure they were dead first.” He’d added, “But she’s the best winkler of information I’ve ever known. Even I can’t match her when she sets herself to a task.”

  “Be still, my beating heart,” she said with a laugh now, and a delicate gloved hand went to her pale throat. “Such a charmer you are. Of course.”

  She delved into a little bag and brought out a packet of papers. “A copy of the prelate’s plans. More taxes to fund the coming war with Ikaras, which seems inevitable now. More guns ordered. But I think Sabates has overlooked something.”

  “Which is?”

  Her mouth twitched into a cruel smile. “You make a poor spy, Petri. All that time trying to discover what was going on inside the guild, and you didn’t see what was under your nose.”

  “I never pretended, or wanted, to be a good spy.”

  “No, Sabates said. That you were blinded by many things: revenge, desire, Kacha.”

  The way she said the name, like Kacha was some sort of disease – Egimont had never struck a woman, not outside a duel at least, but he was sorely tempted to strike the word from this one’s mouth.

  “All that time, and you never realised, did you? Or perhaps you did but never told anyone.”

  “Realised what, precisely?”

  It was the sort of tinkling little laugh that would be right at home in an intimate soirée, and it sent shivers down Egimont’s spine.

  “Whether you’d got it right, about who the assassin was. We know all the past ones, don’t we? All the most renowned men of the guild, who did dark jobs, assassinations when they must. Biken, until he died during one such job, and of course Jokin.”

  “But he—”

  “Was exiled from the guild, yes. Not for what Eneko told everyone, not for failing his sworn duty. Another matter entirely.” She laughed again, as though at some secret joke. “Such a poor spy you are, never to find out for sure about Vocho, but he did the job anyway. They think they’re doing it for the right reasons, you know, Eneko’s assassins, but instead they’re fed lies and half-truths and are cast off or killed when they no longer believe it, when they find out the truth, as they often do. Still, if we knew who Eneko had ordered to be killed, perhaps we’d know more about what it is he’s planning. Maybe you could ask your lovely Kacha?”

  A barb in that last. She knew that wasn’t an option, and she knew why. If only Egimont did. Why Kacha doted on her wastrel of a brother, why she trusted Eneko. Why she’d sent him that note out of the blue. Why Egimont cared when he should have been just gathering information about her wretched brother, as this woman said.

  “I suppose not,” she said now. “But Eneko has plans of his own, I don’t doubt it. Tell Sabates I’ll arrange to find out, though I may need assistance, if you will provide it.”

  “Very well.” He rose to leave, but her soft hand stopped him.

  “Take care. You’ve been out of Reyes for a time. Things are not what they were. But they will be, and better than before, if you follow Sabates’ orders to the letter.”

  Egimont took his leave and the papers she’d given him, and headed for his mean lodgings up in the cramped and rat-infested roof of the palace to contemplate many things – grey drudging jobs for the prelate, youthful dreams crushed and ideals betrayed. Revenge on Eneko, for thrusting him here in the first place. Kacha… Kacha. Revenge on the guild would be revenge on her too, and that could only come about through Licio returning to power.

  Whatever it took, the return of the king couldn’t come soon enough for him.

  Interlude

  Seventeen years earlier

  Kacha sat on the parapet that spiralled around the duellists’ guild and looked out over the docks as the sun rose. Stupid, she knew. Stupid to think she might spot Ma or Da down there in among the people who looked like beetles scuttling over the yellow stone of the docks and jetties, weaving among the warehouses or just loitering on the shore looking longingly at those who had work. She hoped to anyway. Her ninth birthday, and the first without either of them. No being woken before dawn so Da could give her a present before he left for the docks, if he had any work. No special cup of chocolate – the yearly treat that he saved up for, for months sometimes. No sitting on his lap and soaking up his adoration, no one to be perfect for.

  All she had to look forward to were drills, drills, more drills, Vocho trailing her every move like an annoying puppy that was her only link to home, and endless lessons on the history of the guild, interminable lectures on ethics and doing the right thing, the good thing. Vocho lapped all that up, loving the romance of the guildsmen and -women from long ago, before the empire when the guild had been a loose union of mercenary warriors looking to have a bit of security. When the Castans had come, and brought all their fantastic engineering with them, they’d been smart, Eneko said. Kacha loved listening to him more than she loved the history. There was something reassuring about the guild master at a time when everything was strange and new. He always had a smile for her, an encouraging word, a comforting hand on her shoulder, a trick or hint on how to do better at swordplay. He was the closest she had to Da here, and already thoughts of Da and Eneko were getting confused, mixed together.

  Instead of fighting the duellists, Eneko said, who even then were seen as figures worthy of respect, the Castans had hired them wholesale as bodyguards, given them this stronghold and autonomy, and set up the codes she now had to live by. They’d become so strong that when the empire fell, the guild stood. The guild always stood, solid and invincible, which is why Da had sent them here.

  She didn’t care. Homesick, that was the trouble. However much she’d thought she’d wanted this, she wanted to be home. Vocho being around helped. They had turned to each other a lot in the first weeks, and he wasn’t always annoying, but he wasn’t enough. She wanted home, all of it. Listening to Ma and Da, smelling his pipe smoke, telling him everything she’d done that day, and he always put aside everything to listen. Freed his
lap from whatever job from around the house he had to do, scooped her up and listened. Here no one listened, not really. Not even Eneko, though he was better than most. No, here she was the one listening – do this, do that, mind your footwork, keep your guard up. Her only consolation was she was getting pretty good. She could beat half the boys in her year in a free fight, and the other half she’d get to a draw. She had to be good. There had to be something instead of Da and his listening and his pipe smoke; she had to make leaving him behind worth it. When she won a duel, even if it was with wooden practice swords, she got a bit of praise from her tutor, sometimes Eneko’s hand on her shoulder and a “Well done.” She had to make Da proud too, Eneko proud. Anyone proud. That “Well done” was what she lived for, the fuel to her fire. Some of the others, especially Vocho, teased her about being Eneko’s little pet, but she didn’t care. She needed something, someone instead of Da, and Eneko was it.

  Why couldn’t she see Da down there? His face was starting to get hazy in her memory – every time she thought of him, his eyes would be overlaid with Eneko’s twinkling ones, his nose would morph into Eneko’s, his hair would lengthen, become less grey so she had no clear picture of him any more, and she hated that. Just one more glimpse. That’s all she wanted for her birthday, a chance to burn his face back into her treacherous memory. She wiped her eyes and looked around to see if anyone had noticed – she’d learned quick enough not to cry where anyone could see, especially in front of Vocho, who would rib her about it for days, but she was on her own up here.

  Down on the docks the familiar start to the day. Calls floated up on the breeze, sailors shouting to longshoremen, faint curses, the toll of the god-buoy and the measured tick of the duellist automaton in the arena behind her.

  Then other noises, less familiar. An unusual crowd around the harbourmaster’s office, where the king’s men oversaw everything, made sure all the taxes – and maybe a few more – were paid. A tax for berthing, a tax for hiring a longshoreman, a tax for having blue sails. Things had always been tight, but she’d heard Da muttering about taxes late at night, when he thought she was asleep. She wasn’t exactly sure what taxes were, only you had to pay something or else you ended up in the Shrive.

  She had no worries about that here. No muttering about taxes, or seeing executions, or those politics things Da had told her about. Here she just had training and making it through another day. Down on the docks, though, it looked as though a lot of people were worried about them. A lot seemed to be complaining to the harbourmaster anyway. A southerner longshoreman – easy to spot because he was a blond head taller than everyone else – shoved his way forward to confront a man dressed in bright red. Kacha could picture the gold braid on the harbourmaster’s uniform and remember the smug look on his face when he told everyone he was a king’s man. The dock rats had all kept their distance as he’d a reputation for using a switch on any child he thought getting too big for their boots.

  Hard to tell from this far away, but by the way the southerner picked him up, she thought it a safe bet he didn’t give a rat’s tail whether the harbourmaster was a king’s man or not. She couldn’t quite see what happened next, but she saw well enough when the southerner heaved the harbourmaster into the foul water at this end of the jetty. Even from where she was, Kacha could hear a ragged cheer.

  “Well, that’s put the fox among the chickens.” Eneko’s voice startled Kacha enough, she almost fell off the parapet. He looked down towards where she was watching. The crowd had changed now. Before it had been loose, nervous, unsure. Now men strode with purpose under the direction of the tall southerner. Gathering things together, blocking off the docks with carts and crates, collecting long billhooks and gaffs. What were they doing?

  “Gods damn it, I knew it was coming, it had to come, but I didn’t think it’d be this soon. How did Bakar get out of the Shrive again anyway, the shit-stirring bastard? I thought he’d be there for good after all that crap at Novatonas’s execution. His followers have been muttering away while he was gone, making little clockworks in secret where they think the priests can’t see, but now things are really going to go tits up.”

  Kacha squinted down at the docks again – yes, the big blond. She’d thought he looked familiar. She’d last seen him with a mouth full of blood being dragged up the steps to the Shrive. No one ever got out of there, excepting to meet the guillotine, or so all the bards sang anyway. But this one had managed to from the sounds of it.

  They watched for long moments as the barricades grew, and so did the shouts and the waving of makeshift weapons. Someone got hold of a Reyes flag and set it alight to much cheering. Someone else rolled a barrel out of one of the inns along the dockside, and the cheers grew louder.

  The roar died down when the clatter of horses came along the narrow streets from the palace. King’s men, a whole street full of them, swords out and ready, a few of the new windlass crossbows in among them – the priests had muttered that they were a touch too close to blasphemous clockwork, but had allowed themselves to be persuaded eventually. The king’s captain pushed his horse forward to address the longshoremen and got a fish in the face for his trouble.

  Eneko looked down at her, as though he’d only just noticed she was still there. “Kacha, go. No, wait. First go and tell the sergeant-at-arms to get up here right now. She needs to see this before I can make a plan. Then go and wake the rest of your dorm, and the others. I want everyone dressed and ready for anything in half a bell. All right?”

  “Eneko? What’s happening?”

  He smiled down at her, laid a comforting hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “It’ll be fine. What’s happening is what has to happen, I think. But you’ll be safe enough here, I hope. We’ve been preparing for this a while. The guild has always been here, from before the empire, and it’ll go on being here whatever happens today.”

  “My da’s down there, I think. He usually is.”

  He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Ah yes. You’re a dock rat, I recall.” He bent down so they were eye to eye. “And because of that, you might come out of this a lot better than a few of the others here, all those noble sons who might be slightly less noble come sundown. Things are changing, girl. We need to change with them. And we will because we always do. How else did the guild survive the Great Fall? Flexibility, ruthlessness and a steady hand or fifty with a sword. Your da’ll be safe enough, if the gods will it. Even if you were down there, what could you do to help him?”

  She stood up straight, glared him right in the eye and put a hand on the hilt of the practice sword that went everywhere with her. “I could fight, if it came to it. Fight better than some of them too.”

  He laughed at that, caught her frown and smothered it. “I shouldn’t laugh. Maybe it’s true enough because you’ve got the knack of it and enough determination to see it through. You’re going to go far in this guild. Very far indeed, and I’m glad it was me that found you. But right now you’re here and your da is down there. And your duty is here, not there, not any more. What has a duellist got above all?”

  She shuffled her feet, for once not liking the answer. “Honour.”

  “And that means?”

  “Doing my duty to the guild, to my sword master, my fellow duellists and myself.”

  “Remember we’re your family now, and for always. The biggest family and the best, and you have no other claim on your loyalty. Your da would expect no less, would want you to do right by your new life. Wouldn’t he?”

  She nodded sullenly. He would, true enough, only… only it didn’t feel right. She looked back down over the docks, half hoping to catch a glimpse of Da’s dark hair streaked with grey, a wisp of his pipe smoke, anything. They kept telling her that the guild was her family now, but that felt like betraying the family she already had. Even the annoying Vocho. Felt worse because she was having trouble remembering what her own father looked like, kept thinking of Eneko when she should be thinking of him.

  “Well then. Get going, qui
ck! Oh, before you do – here. Happy birthday.”

  He pressed something into her palm and shooed her off the walkway. It was only later, after she’d taken his message to the sergeant-at-arms, had woken all the students and got ready herself, ready for she didn’t know what, when she was looking out of the windows with all the rest, her mouth open at the carnage in the streets, at the older duellists who waited behind the gates of the guild, swords sharp and eyes hard, that she remembered to look at it.

  A pip for the lapel of her tunic, to show she’d passed the first test. Passed her first milestone, first of many, with luck. A pip to say she was on her way in the guild. Da would have been proud.

  Chapter Ten

  By the time Kacha had haggled over rooms, had the long-suffering Cospel take what little luggage they had up and cleaned up to only slightly grey, it was dark.

  She slipped along the creaky corridor and knocked at the warped door to the room Vocho and Dom were sharing. No answer. She knocked again, and still nothing. They couldn’t have – they wouldn’t have – but this was Vocho. Of course he’d gone down to the bar. He’d be wanting to see if everyone was still talking about him. He was such an idiot at times. Scrap that, all the time – maybe Da had been right. Voch always did things first and thought about them – or how they’d got him into trouble – afterwards. All the brains of a week-dead fish, Da had always said even when Ma chided him for it. Looked like she was going to have to be the sensible one again, a thought that made her grind her teeth.

  Kacha grabbed her cloak so she could flip up the hood and at least partially hide her face, and made her way downstairs.