Swords and Scoundrels

by Julia Knight

  Petri didn’t know much about magicians except that his father, a man who as far as he knew was frightened of nothing and no one, hesitated to say their names and had actually flinched when told one of the king’s pets had turned up at his estate. The sword masters talked about them, but not openly and in whispers. Everyone was afraid of magicians.

  Bakar slung an arm around Petri’s shoulders and gave him the news that changed his life. “I’d thought you of all people, young Petri, would understand what a tyrant the king is, after he hanged your brother.”

  “My brother? No, he died of the bleeding sickness…”

  “The bleeding sickness, Kemen?” A low chuckle. “Yes, I can see they’d tell you that. But sadly a lie. A lie your father colluded in, and so did the guild you revere so highly, the guild that handed you to me without a qualm. Betrayed you. Strange no one’s mentioned it to you, hmm? They said Kemen committed a heinous crime. But no, not at all. We shared a cell for a time, he and I. Do you know what he did? What earned him a hemp necklace? He found that your father, the king and Eneko were colluding in slavery. Not all the runts picked on Apprentice Day come to the guild. No, not all, not even most. Eneko sells them – to your father, to other nobles, to work on their farms, in their sweatshops, in dark little boxes where no one will ever see them. Some go to the magicians, to be bled dry and tossed out like night soil from a chamberpot. Some go to Ikaras, worked to death on their plantations. No one misses them because lessers don’t leave the guild for years. If no one ever sees them again, that’s why. Illegal, naturally, but the laws don’t apply to them, do they? Then your brother found out, and Eneko thinks you know too. Your brother was hung, and you – you needed to be silenced, and I think he hopes I’ll do it for him, or perhaps you’ll handily die in this uprising.”

  Petri stared at him in horror. Lies. All of it. He was tempted to tell Bakar he was wrong, that it couldn’t be… but that look Eneko had given him. The sort of person he knew his father was. The cogs spun round and moved everything into place with a click that was final.

  Petri turned his face forward and refused to listen, refused to give this man even a hint that he might believe him, but all the while he was thinking, It’s true. His father had been strange all the week before they got the news of Kemen, as though grieving in advance – and almost, almost relieved afterwards. There had been no tears, no wails, no grief, just a cool blank numbness. For a man who showed no emotion if he could help it, this was maybe not so strange, but with Kemen he’d always been different. He was uninterested in Petri’s mother, leaving her to her causes and balls, and to Petri he’d been like a far-off god, moving when he needed to, saying the right things, lecturing on proper behaviour, on the need for honour always, but with no heart, nothing but logic and gears. But with Kemen he’d come alive. He’d laughed and clapped at his every accomplishment. If he could have cried for anyone, could have grieved, it would have been for Kemen. Yet he never showed a thing. Not a tear or a white lip or a clenched fist. Except the week before they’d heard of his inglorious death aboard a ship, and nothing after.

  Bakar’s hand gripped his shoulder, and he looked Egimont in the eye like the most honest of men. “I saved your life today, Petri Egimont.”

  A deep breath signalled the end of all he’d thought was true. Still, some things were hard to give up. Truth, duty, honour. All the things they’d instilled in him while flouting them in secret. He wasn’t going to be that man. Not ever. “You won’t regret it.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Vocho wasn’t quite sure how he’d ended up on a roof with Dom at his back, only that it had seemed like a good idea at the time. They’d managed to shake off the original drunks in the inn but had then managed to pick up some more. The roofs were a great way to escape, and a good place to watch from.

  What the hells had happened in Reyes since he’d left? Before, there’d been some mumblings among the clockworkers and others, but when wasn’t there? People were poor but they always had been, and at least most seemed to be getting fed. People always grumbled about whoever was in charge too, but it hadn’t been more than grumbles as far as he knew. Then again he didn’t really pay much attention to what went on outside the guild.

  Behind him the great clock in the square rang out in warning. He looked about quickly, but they were on an expanse of sloping roof that seemed unbroken in both directions except for chimneys and parapets – not a good place, at least not near the edge, during a change.

  The ringing of the clock quelled the fight below as everyone found a stable place to wait it out.

  “What’s happening?” Dom asked.

  “Well,” Vocho said, “you’re about to find out whether it’s really true about Reyes. I’ve never done it on a rooftop, but it’s pretty easy once you get the hang of it. Scares the widdle out of newcomers first time. Best to find something to hang on to until it’s done.”

  “But—”

  “Just grab something!”

  The nearest roof had some handy fretwork on a fancy parapet under a solid-looking chimney, and Vocho took hold. He’d been so used to it before, he’d barely notice it. In fact he kept waking up at midnight every third day at the farm because it hadn’t moved.

  Dom hesitated, but the first grinding sound followed by a subtle tremor had him hanging on for dear life.

  Beneath them the streets unhooked themselves with a great clank and began to move along hidden rails. Vocho and Dom moved with the building they were on. A whirr, as of a city-sized clock gearing up to chime, a slow twisting, and then the guild wasn’t a far-off dark lump with tiny sparks of light to the left, it was straight ahead and so close Vocho could almost smell the spiced cabbage he’d seemed to live on for his first few years there, the smell of which permeated the whole place.

  The Clockwork God in the square where Soot Town met the road to the docks lit up, turned his head three hundred and sixty degrees and settled down for the next three days. Everything shuddered as it settled into place, and the great clock chimed again.

  Vocho stood up, checked the street – no one about, good – and headed for a drainpipe. That hadn’t been too bad.

  Oddly, Dom didn’t seem too perturbed. Vocho had seen newcomers faint at their first change, and that was even without going through it high up on a roof, but Dom had breezed through it annoyingly easily. He stood up straight, composed himself and flicked an imaginary bit of dust off his shoulder. “Shall we get on?”

  For a bumbling fool, Dom was proving to be a surprising companion.

  They made their way down to the street, Dom stamping on it as though to make sure it was safe, his only visible reaction to a movement that had many visitors swearing never to visit Reyes ever again. “I wonder what in the world it’s for,” Dom said.

  Vocho shrugged. “No one knows for sure. Only that two massive waterwheels under the river power it, that it’s as old as the city, older still than records. And that it doesn’t affect the guild or the Shrive. My old tutor thought it was something for defence – you know, if the enemy can’t work out how to get to the castle, how can they attack? Or if they get there, and then get lost on the way back… And they’re pretty sure the guild used to be the main castle before the Castans came. The movement does a few other things too. Reveals or hides arrow slots, secret passages, that sort of thing. There’s more up in the guild too, later ones that run on a different mechanism. Waterwheels under the river, the prelate says, power the clockwork duellist and all the defences. But no one knows for sure why. Too old, and the prelate won’t say much about what he knows.”

  “And they don’t think to turn it off?”

  “What, and offend the Clockwork God? Unlikely.”

  “Ah yes, the Clockwork God. He’s really taken off again in Reyes, hasn’t he? Made my professors in Ikaras laugh themselves silly. Clockwork God indeed.”

  “What of it?” Bizarrely, considering that he only believed in a vague sort of way, Vocho found himself suddenly defensive ab
out the Clockwork God. “Heard of stranger gods than that.”

  “Gosh, no, absolutely. Didn’t mean to… Sorry.”

  They made their way carefully down dark and silent streets. Silent at least until they reached the square of the Clockwork God. Little clots of men and women huddled together, talking, shouting. None of it seemed very coherent.

  Dom said, “Perhaps we should, well, find out what’s going on?”

  “Yeah, perhaps.” Vocho suddenly lost interest in the huddles of people because across the square, in the shadow of the Clockwork God, he had seen a figure that looked all too familiar as it hurried down a little alley that Vocho remembered only existed in First Threeday. “You do that. I’ll meet you back at the inn.” He moved off before Dom could answer.

  Dom was all very well, but Vocho wanted to be on his own for this, if the figure was who he thought. Quick, quiet. Above all, don’t let the bastard know you’re there. And if you get too close, don’t look at his hands.

  It was definitely the magician, Vocho would swear it. The same scarred face showing in the fitful light of the oil lamps that lit the alleyway. Definitely.

  What in hells was a magician doing here? And this one in particular? Vocho’s first thought was the papers, the gold. The bastard knew they were here, or guessed, and he wanted them back. If what had happened at the farmhouse was any indication, he wouldn’t be too fussy about whether Vocho was alive to hand them over or not.

  The alley ended on a street that always existed, even if not always in the same place. Heading towards the posh end of town. Made sense. You’d have to be rich to hire a magician. He reached a turning and paused to look about. Vocho ducked back into a doorway – he’d be more than happy if the magician never saw him again. When he peered back out, the magician was gone.

  Vocho suppressed a shudder, told himself he wasn’t at all scared of magicians and completely failed to believe it.

  Kacha crept along the rooftops above a narrow street, empty now just after the change, though it’d fill again soon enough. The two “smiths” she was following hadn’t stopped for that, but Kacha’s extra training had helped there – all those dark jobs she’d done for Eneko and the guild, sneaking, hiding, being as quiet as moonlight. He’d had her up on the rooftops for every change o’ the clock for months, challenging her to keep moving the whole time, no holding on, making her perfect whether she wanted to be or not. She’d fallen more often than she cared to remember, knocked herself out three times and fallen into the inner workings once, where she’d almost got herself crushed between two cogs and scared herself stupid before she’d managed to get out again. There was a reason most people stayed indoors during the change, and it wasn’t just because the priests said to or risk displeasing the Clockwork God.

  Finally she’d got the trick of moving on surfaces that were themselves moving in contrary ways, up, down, sideways. She’d learned those movements by heart, knew which building would move where, and that had come in handy tonight.

  She’d run the rooftops while her quarry had contented themselves with the safer option of the streets, which mostly stayed intact during a change except at the ends. Kacha had to jump from one building to the next as they moved past each other, changing streets and addresses, but she’d kept them in sight.

  Right into Nob Hill – or more properly King’s Row. The men stopped at a doorway that opened blackly for them and let them out a few moments later, and they weren’t smiths now; they were councillors’ men, with fancy tunics and feathered hats and lacy cuffs. The only question was, which councillor? It was too dark to see the colour of the flash on their tunic.

  The answer to that came quickly enough. The men moved smoothly along the broad avenues, and Kacha had to abandon the rooftops – here the buildings were fewer and farther between. There were trees and scented gardens to hide in and creep through, but the men hadn’t looked back once since they left Soot Town so she abandoned stealth for speed and took to the street herself. She didn’t look too out of place. Her tunic wasn’t guild but it was serviceable enough, and the sword marked her as a lady of at least a little wealth if no particular refinement – clocker ladies didn’t wear swords as a rule, or breeches, but there were enough who did that she wouldn’t cause much comment.

  She kept back and as far in the shadows as she could. Easy enough – the moon was only a quarter full and fitful behind scudding clouds, and lamps were generally extinguished before the change and not lit again until the next morning so she had plenty to choose from. Besides, the men she was after didn’t have far to go.

  A large house, a newer one built after the revolt, with a dragon rampant on a pedestal by the gates. The men showed at last they were definitely more than they’d looked. Any smiths who’d tried dressing up as councillors’ men would have been turned away at the gates, but these two were hailed like old friends, and as they passed beneath a rare relit lantern, she caught the flash of purple on their tunics. King’s men.

  That dying prelate’s man hadn’t been wrong.

  She was about to turn away when the men reached the door, and it opened to reveal Petri Egimont, who welcomed them in with one of his restrained smiles, like he was thinking of something else. Knowing Petri, he probably was – he thought much more than he spoke. She’d always liked that about him, but it made him a dangerous opponent.

  Seeing him made her careless. He glanced over and saw her, she was sure of it, and she cursed her stupidity. His whole body tensed. For a moment she thought he’d call the guard, but he did and said nothing. Only stared for long seconds as she stared back, conflicting emotions making her clamp her teeth.

  Days when just a look could make her smile. Nights when no words were exchanged, the shiver of her skin when he kissed it. The smell of him on her pillow, in her bed when they were done. Him finishing her sentences, showing her other ways to think, to be. Him not expecting her to be perfect, just her. The sudden jarring shock of the note, double-checking the writing, the seal, the words. The blinding pain that had followed it, the anger. She wanted to run up and kiss him, and she wanted to kick him right in the cogs too. Petri Egimont – love him or hate him she couldn’t stop thinking about him.

  Finally, after it looked he might come down the steps and call out to her, he just nodded in her direction and shut the door, leaving her feeling unsettled. Which was probably exactly what he intended, so she did her best to shrug him off and left with a lot to think over.

  This made things very complicated, and complications were things she’d always tried to avoid. Except perhaps for Vocho, who was a complication all by himself.

  Usually after the change o’ the clock the streets would stay empty for the night, everyone taking the opportunity for a little time off. Not tonight though. As Kacha made her way back towards Soot Town, doors opened and knots of people drifted back onto the streets. It wasn’t long before they were followed by street traders. By the time she was halfway back to the Hammer and Tongs, the streets were as full of noise and bustle as ever, but there was something odd about them, as though everyone was trying to shout very quietly.

  Under the Clockwork God a scuffle had broken out – nothing too serious yet, just a random crowd of young men and women railing against something. Or so she thought until she saw the colours pinned to their clothes. Gold and green and red and purple, the colour of the prelate versus the colours of other councillors, including the king. Only these were just lads and lasses, factory workers, smiths’ apprentices, a few sailors. The fight broke up when a patrol of guards sauntered around the corner and took up station under the god, but by their black looks and gestures the lads and lasses would be back at it as soon as they’d gone.

  Kacha stopped by a woman selling drinks out of a tray and bought one – a spirit for those with more desire to get drunk than taste buds. It smelled vile but familiar, and brought to mind a blurred memory of her da overlaid with another – of Eneko. She took a sip, winced at the taste and surreptitiously poured the res
t away.

  “What’s with that lot?” she asked with a jerk of her head to indicate the mass of youngsters to one side of the god, posturing and posing and shouting insults at each other.

  “Been away have you, love? Thought so. Couldn’t have missed it, else. The usual,” the woman said. “Prelate’s men did this; king’s men did something else; clockers this, ex-nobles that. Weren’t much to it to start with – people do love a good moan, that’s all, and the prelate always keeps the councillors in hand. But it’s all got a bit strange lately, or rather he has. Just like my old da when he lost his marbles, wittering on about all sorts. Worse when it’s the man in charge though, eh? Taxing petticoats and periwinkles, I ask you. So it was rumbling worse and worse what with all the rumours. Then that bloody priest getting hisself murdered kicked it all off good and proper, and it ain’t really stopped since. You want to try that with some lemon in, love? Makes all the difference. Makes it bloody drinkable for a start.”

  “Uh? No, thanks. The priest?”

  The woman shrugged, making her tray of clay bottles and cups clink. “Prelate’s favourite, wasn’t he? There’s some who reckon that Vocho bloke were put up to it by one of the other councillors, you know, as a message or something, like a plot, or maybe it was them heathen Ikarans – devils they are. Of course there’s some who reckon it was the prelate hisself what ordered it.”

  Kacha felt like she’d been hit between the eyes with a brick. “The prelate ordered it? Why would he do that?”

  “Aye, well.” The woman looked both ways in a manner that intimated that this was a rare and juicy piece of gossip not to be spoken to just anyone. “There’s been a load of rumbling against the prelate, see. I don’t know; they say maybe he didn’t want the priest to talk to the Ikarans, negotiate with them just as like, about the coal and all, that he’s hoarding it somewhere. Or maybe he just wanted to distract people from that we ain’t got nothing to eat, or the bloody taxes. All the criers in the square are talking about it, though I ain’t heard two agree yet.”