Swords and Scoundrels

by Julia Knight

  Hope dashed in an instant. Petri’s father didn’t even spare him a glance.

  “What is it you want, Bakar?”

  Bakar didn’t answer straight away but took a minute to consider and to cast an eye over the supporters at his back, though the gun stayed pointed at the magician.

  “You,” he said. “You and the king and all the nobles, to lay down your power. For all the slaves you took by deception to be freed, the Shrive emptied, the magicians banished. For things to be equal.”

  The magician blanched before a slow smile graced her face. It made Petri’s scalp itch, but Bakar didn’t seem to notice even when she began to move her brush. A slip of paper slid out of one sleeve and she nodded to someone Petri couldn’t see.

  His father laughed at Bakar not with amusement – he’d never heard his father laugh like that – but in mockery. “And perhaps we should hand over all our wealth and estates too, dress ourselves in sackcloth and ashes and whip ourselves in contrition? Anything else? Do you really think trying to blackmail me by holding my son hostage will help?”

  Petri knew then he should never have hoped. That his own father was abandoning him to his fate without even a glance. He felt it like a physical slap to the face.

  In the deathly silence everyone held their breath, waiting to see what would happen. Everyone except one man who moved behind the ranks of soldiers towards the magician. He was nothing like her – tall and dark, with skin the colour of walnuts and jet hair tumbling haphazardly around his face as though he’d just woken up – but there was something the same about the two of them. The look in the eyes, perhaps, as though everyone they saw was a mouse in a trap, and less worthy of notice.

  Everything seemed to happen at once. The dark man drew a knife, and then there was blood everywhere, king’s guards slumping to the ground with throats cut. The female magician gave a little crow of triumph and leaped on the blood. Her brush dipped in, quick as thought, quicker. At the same time Bakar moved towards Petri’s father.

  Petri never got to find out what Bakar was planning. One moment the magicians were huddled over the dead guards, and then they both stood as one and something shot towards Bakar and his father.

  In the years that followed, when he dreamed of it, it was his father he called a warning to; it was his father who lived. Here and now it was Bakar’s name that screeched past dry lips, Bakar who dropped to the ground. His father who took the full force of… something, and turned to dust before his eyes.

  Things happened after that, important things, but Petri was only vaguely aware of them. Bakar shot the male magician, who fell screaming to the ground before a docker cut his throat – quick, before he could use his own blood to cast any more spells. The woman disappeared. The crowd surged forward in a yelling rush and overwhelmed the surviving guards, who stood reeling at what the magicians had been prepared to do to them, to the Duke of Elona even. The magicians they relied upon for intimidation had been prepared to kill them, and in any case were now dead or gone. Without them they crumbled. Through it all Petri stood and stared at where his father had been, not knowing or particularly caring what went on around him.

  When Bakar came back and found him, the sun had moved far past noon and was sliding down over the city towards sunset.

  “Why was it that it was me you warned?” he asked, looking genuinely puzzled.

  Petri had thought on this a long time and still wasn’t sure he had the answer. He felt loose and rudderless, with everything he thought true blown away – his father being noble, the guild being a substitute family he’d fallen on in desperation – and Eneko had flicked him off like an irritating tick.

  “Because… you showed more interest in one hour than he did in a lifetime. You listened.” He screwed himself up for it. “And everything’s so unfair. Everything. My father and the guild throwing me to you and those children they sent to slavery or worse. Everything! Those guards that magician killed, just like stepping on a bug, because he could. You said you wanted to make it fair. For everyone.”

  Bakar nodded as though this was the most profound thing he’d ever heard. “Just so, Petri Egimont. Equality for all, that was always my goal. Now, I saved your life, and you saved mine. That links us.” He put an arm around Petri’s shoulders, and Petri wondered that no one, not his father nor brother nor guild mate had ever done this before. It felt strange but also good. “I shall be your father now, and you can help me make things right and fair for all, and I will never betray you. Maybe, in time, when the guild is at heel, I shall give it to you to rule. Yes. Yes, I promise you that, Petri. I can winkle out that old bastard Eneko in payment for what he’s done to you and others. The guild shall be yours, and be good again.”

  After that Petri would have followed him anywhere.

  Chapter Twelve

  Egimont rose early – he’d barely slept anyway, even if the lodgings were a damned sight better than his box of a room at the prelate’s palace. There had been too much to do, too many pots to stir, too many things to think on, or avoid thinking on. He dressed quickly and was out into the morning mists which blew up off the sea all the better to hide his exit from the king’s house. More to do today, always more. First, he had to go to his clerking job at the old palace, pretend he was still the prelate’s man.

  The streets were still smoking with resentment and an occasional fire from the ruckus last night. Little knots of angry men and women stood around, muttering. The guards and various councillors’ men seemed to have given up trying to control them for now. Petri had no doubt there would be repercussions – of late Bakar seemed to have forgotten the lessons he’d learned from the old king’s rule, and some of the other councillors had perhaps never learned them at all.

  Egimont hurried on and suppressed a smile when somebody spat at him. It all seemed to be going to plan, and Alicia from last night had been righter than she knew. Reyes wasn’t as it once was. Or had been for a long time – the last time. This time was going to turn out better for Egimont, if it killed him. It could hardly turn out worse. At the small gate into the space that fronted the once grand palace he stopped. A familiar carriage – the king’s. A familiar face peering from the dark folds of the curtains – Sabates. Egimont kept his gaze on the front door and ignored the magician’s eyes on him as he crossed the space.

  He hadn’t expected the king so soon, or for him to bring the magician with him. He hadn’t expected him at all for days. Sabates had said it would be best if the king wasn’t in Reyes when things started getting heated, so he could distance himself from any accusations. But Egimont had come to realise that what Sabates said and what he meant were rarely the same. Whichever, this didn’t bode well. He hurried up the steps and to the tiny corner that served as his office and the mark of his status, and showed just how little he had. His supervisor bore down on him, but Egimont grabbed some papers from his desk, waved them in the detestable little man’s face and, declaring he needed signatures, hurried off.

  Past the orrery, spinning on its axes, never turning aside, never deviating, suns and stars moving in their prescribed circles for ever. Like his life if this plan of Sabates’ didn’t work. Up the grand staircase that had once seen men and women in all their finery, past blank spaces where paintings of past kings had once hung, all glory wiped away as though it had never been. On towards the prelate’s office, where the king had to be. On to find out what had gone wrong, whether he was in any more danger than usual.

  As he neared it, raised voices filtered along the corridor. A few prelate’s men stood at attention, studiously not looking anywhere, pretending they couldn’t hear. A hiss from one side, a dark familiar face, the smell of coppery blood, and Egimont found himself in a side room with Sabates too close for comfort. How had the man got here before him? The smell of hot blood answered that.

  “What—”

  Sabates held up a bloodied hand, and Egimont shut up. The patterns on the magician’s hand changed even as he watched, crown to dragon to fier
y waste, then the crossed swords of the guild, finally a crest – his crest before he’d been stripped of his title now hanging over the guild’s. A blade moved slowly across it, made patterned blood drip from the bottom.

  “Listen,” Sabates hissed. “Listen if you don’t want that.”

  Egimont pulled himself back together and looked to where Sabates pointed. A perfect, improbable circle of shining blood on a table. Too much for a man to bleed and live. He opened his mouth to protest, to… what? He’d known, or thought he had at least, what he’d got into as soon as the magician had appeared in his life, and he’d said nothing. Done nothing because he thought the magic necessary if unwelcome. Too late now to back out if he wanted his life. Maybe it wasn’t human blood…

  Sabates yanked him over to the circle. It hissed and popped as though the table was hot, and under that there was a murmur, voices. The prelate, angry as hells, barking out questions, the king soothing, pretending.

  “Riots!” the prelate shouted. “Riots for the god’s sake. Smiths attacking my men, killing them, and why?”

  A few murmurs – not just the king, Egimont thought. Probably all the councillors were in there, trying to placate the prelate. Paranoia and delusion had recently begun leaking out of him like sweat, till the corridors of the palace fairly reeked of it and everyone had begun looking over their shoulder. Egimont wondered whether that had anything to do with Sabates and thought it very likely.

  “Some sort of plot, you think?” The king’s voice – calm, soothing, a hint of reproach and disbelief. He could play the part so well when he had a mind to. When he was sober, as he always used to be and was so rarely now. “But who and why?”

  “That’s why I called you all here – to find out. If I fall, we all fall. A plot against me is a plot against all of us. I want you all to do what you can to discover what’s going on. Start with Sendoa’s murder. That’s where it all started, I’m sure. Without him we’re fatally weakened in the border dispute. The Ikaran king refuses to deal with anyone else, and now supplies of iron and coal are growing short, and we can’t grow enough grain to feed ourselves. We need those supplies, not to mention all the things that only Ikaras can supply. With the grain shortage, if we grow much shorter of sugar as well, we’ll have more than riots on our hands.”

  Sabates grinned darkly next to Egimont, his scarred face twisting. A stray thought came to Egimont – that Vocho had killed the priest Sendoa on orders. Everyone thought that it had been some drunken escapade gone wrong, that Vocho had lost his temper while in his cups and had got careless with his blade. Just like the ridiculous Vocho, who took almost nothing seriously, not even being a master duellist. The only thing that he kept close to his heart was his reputation. Exactly like him, except the one thing Vocho was always careful with was his blade. Even Petri had to admit that. And Petri knew more, perhaps – that Vocho killed for Eneko, that this priest was just another one of many people he’d been ordered to kill by the guild master, and it was only that he’d been caught this time, as Sabates had hoped.

  Looking at Sabates’ face, Egimont wondered but didn’t have time to wonder long.

  “We should look into the guild more thoroughly,” Licio said. “The man who murdered Sendoa and his sister – I’m sure there’s more to it, if you’re right, Bakar. Perhaps…”

  “Perhaps that old bastard Eneko is behind it!” the prelate said. “Wouldn’t surprise me; he’s never forgiven me for humiliating him. I’d never have kept the guild, except for the unrest it’d cause to disband them. Besides, I like having them at my mercy.”

  And because they’ve been useful to you, Egimont thought. Because if you’d got rid of them, you’d have had more than a revolt on your hands. The guild was as much a part of Reyes as its Clockwork God – more even, because it had survived since time out of mind whereas the Clockwork God was if not new only recently reawakened.

  “You’ve the perfect man right here for the job,” Licio went on. “Egimont used to be a duellist, correct? Didn’t take his master’s, but that was no fault of his, from what I hear. Well then, they’ll trust him as they wouldn’t trust an outsider, and he’s your man, isn’t he?”

  Bakar laughed, and the sound sent quivers across Egimont’s shoulders. Yes, he was the prelate’s man all right, and he’d infiltrated the guild before on the prelate’s orders, as Licio well knew. But he wasn’t going to be the prelate’s man for long, not if Licio and Sabates did what they promised.

  The meeting broke up with the prelate exhorting everyone to do their utmost. Sabates waved his hand over the circle of blood and it was gone leaving nothing but the hint of copper in the air.

  Licio came in, nodded at Egimont and turned to Sabates. “Well?”

  “You did perfectly. You’ve planted the idea of Sendoa’s murder being part of a plot rather than just a drunken duellist stabbing him at random, turned his suspicion away from us, and we’ve turned his beady eye onto Eneko instead.” Sabates allowed himself a smile. “You see, Licio? I told you having the priest killed would be the key to getting this started.”

  Egimont had the feeling that he’d suddenly been pushed off a ship into deep water and had forgotten how to swim. “You had the priest killed?”

  Sabates had had the priest killed… which had led in turn to Kacha being wanted, and that note and diagram. Egimont had known something was going on and had thought – looking back had foolishly believed Sabates when he said – they were going to prove that Vocho was Eneko’s assassin by catching him in the act. He’d never thought they’d ordered the death. And Vocho had agreed?

  “It was necessary to prevent Bakar from making any kind of treaty with Ikaras that might undermine our own, and now war looks inevitable. The army that Ikaras is massing makes it look like they’re preparing an attack on the state, not revolt from within. It keeps Bakar looking outwards, not inwards, keeps him thinking of how to negotiate, not how to protect his person. Today was a good opportunity to deflect suspicion from us as well, onto Eneko. The priest was the catalyst, the starting point. It shouldn’t take you long to engineer the end point.”

  “Take me long to do what?” Egimont said.

  Sabates arched an eyebrow. “Destroy the guild, of course. They’re our biggest stumbling block. Eneko’s far too canny to entangle them with any one side, and no one can ever be sure which way they’ll jump if it comes to it. If they oppose us, they’re too powerful to stop because the populace is always with them, and Eneko has money on his side too – lots of fingers in lots of pies, that one, and canny with it. Bakar knew that last time, which is why you ended up as his hostage to Eneko’s good behaviour, or so he thought. Eneko never cared about any of his guildsmen, only what they could do for him, the money they could make him, the prestige they could give him. You think you know that, Petri, but you know not even the half of it. I suspect that Eneko has Ikarans in his pocket too, provides them with slaves and guns despite the embargo, and he was using Vocho to assassinate strategic people to help his cause. He has plans of his own, that one, and he’s dangerous because of it. Yet the guild could be of great use. Once Eneko’s destroyed – making sure of course, that no suspicion falls on us, because you’re the prelate’s man – and you’re installed as guild master instead, we’re almost there. We thought you’d like that, after what they did to you.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Vocho followed Cospel up a rickety stairwell that hugged the side of a steel mill. The clockwork hammers thundered underneath them so unrelentingly, Vocho’s heart started to pound in time. Kacha and Dom brought up the rear as they edged out onto a rooftop thick with shacks made of anything available, homes tied to each other by washing lines full of rags. Little gaunt faces peered out to watch them as they passed, and whisper about them to their backs.

  These places hadn’t changed much, Vocho thought. He’d not been in one for an age, that first time always lingering in his head with the scent of blood and the screams of the crowd as they were trampled underfoot
. The shacks were still as full, the faces just as thin. The prelate had promised change, but not much had happened. Vocho had got a hell of a shock the first time he’d seen the prelate and realised he was the man who’d started the riot at the execution, who he’d last seen being dragged up the steps of the Shrive.

  So many rumours had flown about after Bakar had taken power, it was hard to know the truth of anything. The only thing Vocho was sure about, because he’d seen it with his own eyes from the dorm where he and the other youngest were hiding, was that the prelate had threatened to shoot Eneko, and Eneko had backed down. They talked of that in whispers after lights out, until the sergeant-at-arms caught them and gave them six lashes and a stern lecture on how Eneko had had to back down if they all wanted to live. Saving them had seemed good to him; did it seem good to them? Just to top the punishment off they’d each had to produce an essay on why the guild being flexible had meant it had managed to survive since before the Great Fall.

  Things were hazy in Vocho’s head after Eneko’s retreat. At some point Bakar had brought the king to the square in front of the Shrive, had bounced his head across the cobbles before having him strung up by his heels from the ancient clock tower. The prelate had taken control, but not just for himself; he had proclaimed equality for all in accordance with the Clockwork God’s instructions.

  Only it hadn’t worked out that way, had it? These poor bastards were still poor, still ate what scraps they could find. The smell of watery fish-head soup reminded Vocho painfully of his ma sobbing over a pan and the sensation of a hole in his stomach big enough to fit his head in. Vocho smelled that soup in all his worst nightmares.

  He clutched the papers tighter with the hand he’d stuffed inside his tunic. He was never going to be that poor, that hungry, ever again. Neither was Kacha. These papers and what they might be worth to the right people would be enough to make sure they were never hungry.