Swords and Scoundrels

by Julia Knight

  The rooftop shanties had always been a fine place to hide. No one bothered with them much, not even the guards, and it only took a few coppers to make the inhabitants temporarily blind. She made her way across to the roofs that looked over the back of the palace, which was lit up like a beacon of hope. Between her and it the vast clockwork garden clanked and whirled in its course.

  What seems good to you?

  She might not be in the guild any more, but she’d sworn, they all had, to protect Reyes if it came to it, even if it was ruled by a madman. Reyes, that was the good thing, and the papers in her tunic showed one thing and one thing only. Call it what you would, it amounted to the same thing – there’d be blood on the streets, Reyen blood.

  As she watched, a dark figure came out of the rear gate of the palace and headed down the broad street. He passed under a lamp, and she recognised his dark, serious face and was moving before she even thought why. He was on his own, and so was she.

  She dropped to the empty street in front of Petri, sword out, unsure whether she’d use it, unsure of anything right now except that he was here. He pulled up short as she landed, his face twisted, and they stared at each other. How had they come from what they had to being on opposite sides?

  He broke first, took a step towards her and stopped, hands raised, when she brought up the sword. “Kass, please. Just listen to me.”

  “Listen to you what? Lie to me again, tell me you love me while all the time you were spying on me? Tell me you aren’t planning to get rid of Bakar. Of Eneko. Tell me you aren’t planning revolution, Petri. Does that seem good to you? Does any of it?”

  His face softened, his dark eyes pleading with her to understand, but she wasn’t going to let him off that easily. “It wasn’t like that. I swear, really, Kass.”

  He tried to move forward again, push the blade away, but she kept it steady and pointing at him, even if the tip did shake. She wanted to believe him, that was the problem. She wanted to have someone she could believe.

  “You could get me in to see Bakar,” she said. “Stop all this. Get me in so they don’t arrest me, let me show them these papers. I’d even make sure he didn’t see the one with your name on it. I swore, Petri, to protect Reyes. I have to warn him.”

  “And I have to stop you. Look at me, Kass. Really look. It’s too late for me, and… and there are things that need to be done. Hard things, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be done – for Reyes, for all of us. It’s not too late for you. Give me the papers and leave. Leave Reyes, leave everything. Even Vocho. Even me.”

  She’d been so intent on him, on what he was saying, she hadn’t noticed him get past her guard. Now he was close enough to touch.

  “It was your fault, you know.” His voice had dropped, was barely more than a whisper, and a hand found her free one.

  She wanted to yank it away, spit in his face, call him all the names she could think of, and she wanted to stand here and listen to him talk. Actually, she could have lived with taking him to the nearest bed as well, could have lived with listening to sweet words even if they were lies, telling herself they were true just for the night and letting the morning take care of itself. She was fed up with being the sensible one.

  “If it hadn’t been for you showing me, I’d never have joined Licio,” Petri said. “I’d still be Bakar’s little pet, my life mapped out by the clockwork, with cogs in my head and gears for a heart. Don’t you see? You showed me it didn’t have to be that way, that I could be free of it. If I don’t do this now, I’ll spend my life in that bloody palace. I’d have a life, a chained-up pathetic life doing what I’m supposed to, and it wouldn’t have you in it. And that does not seem good to me at all.”

  Her head was swimming with how close he was, how much she wanted him to be closer, but she couldn’t let him cloud her thinking, no matter how much she wanted to throw caution to the winds, and loyalty along with it. She wanted to, but a lifetime of having faithfulness ground into her was too hard to ignore. “My fault? This isn’t me, this is you; you’re doing it all for yourself. You aren’t the Petri I remember, and if you do this I still won’t be in your life.” A lie, she wanted to shout. All that anger was a lie, covering up what she wanted to say, to do.

  She shoved herself away, tried to get the blade back between them again, but her arms didn’t seem to want to move. She wanted to say more, like how could he be so stupid, how was she supposed to believe anything he said when he’d lied from the start, but his eyes stopped her.

  “Give me the papers and leave. Hide,” he said at last. “I’ll make sure no one comes after you. Maybe, after it’s all done, you can come back. The guild will welcome you then, I promise you.”

  She chewed at her lip, took another two steps back and found herself hard up against a wall under a lamp. No and yes both hovered behind her teeth, both ready to say, and neither could win. The guild and Petri. Against those was herself, always her own worst enemy. Her driving need to be the best she could, to be perfect, for Da, for Eneko. For herself, because anything less than perfection wasn’t good enough, left her lost. And what had that got her? Betrayed at every turn. She was adrift in a current too swift, she knew that but couldn’t say it, refused to say it or think that of all the betrayals maybe Petri’s had been the least.

  He laughed then, but it was such a sad sound she almost relented. “It’s no good, Kass. I have to do this. Bakar’s not sane any more, or at least not thinking straight. You bring him those, you’ll be in the Shrive an hour later, and there’ll be nothing I can do about it. I’m doing this for Reyes, Kass. For us. All of us.”

  Shadows moved at the far end of the street, resolving into four guards, impossible to tell whose from here.

  “Kass, give me the papers. Quickly.”

  She didn’t trust herself to speak so she just shook her head and turned, quick as only she could be, for a drainpipe, was up it in a flash. She paused at the top to look down and met Petri’s gaze.

  He raised a hand and tried on a smile that didn’t fit. “I wasn’t lying when I said I loved you.” Then he turned with a swirl of his cloak and disappeared into the dark of the street.

  “Well,” said a voice that almost sent her tumbling back over the edge in surprise, “that was an edifying conversation, wasn’t it?”

  A dark shape over by the parapet. It didn’t move, didn’t make a sound, but a cloud rolled away from the moon and she could make out the glint of buckles on shoes, the hilt of a sword. The shape moved, and she didn’t wait any more. By the time it reached her, and she realised who it was, her sword was out and ready and she’d very nearly disembowelled Dom.

  “God’s cogs,” she said with relief as she put her sword away. “What the hells are you doing here?”

  “Looking for you.”

  There was something different about him – about all of him. No handkerchief waving about, no dithering. Instead he moved like oiled clockwork, coiled and ready. A quick smile sharp as daggers. And how in hells had he found her?

  “Maybe you should have taken him up on his offer. It’s the best one you’re likely to get.”

  “I swore when I took my master’s,” she said. “I didn’t unswear later.”

  “That’s true, but what did it get you? Thrown out, exiled, not even a pretence at allowing you to explain. Eneko threw you to the wolves. Not the first time he’s done that to one of his duellists either. Well, too late to take Petri up on his offer, so what are you going to do? I mean, getting inside the palace and to Bakar alive would be difficult for a magician, let alone you. And Eneko… do you trust him? Completely? Or would he throw you to the wolves again to save his own skin?”

  Kacha looked out towards the guild, hulking and dark against the night sky. She’d looked to Eneko as her father, the guild like it was her family, and here she was, having done nothing wrong but believe in her brother and having faithfully, trustingly served Eneko all those years, and when she’d gone to him after the priest the guards had alread
y been there and he hadn’t stopped them trying to arrest her.

  “They used Vocho, you know that? All of them in one way or another,” Dom said. “Used Petri. Used you. Used Vocho. They forced him because they thought he was Eneko’s pet assassin, but we know better, don’t we?”

  She said nothing. He was unnerving her, the way he moved back and forth as though he had too much energy. So unlike Dom that she wondered briefly if he was some magician’s illusion.

  “They thought he was you. If they’d got it right, you’d have killed that priest, you’d have ruined both your lives. Does that make you feel better or worse?”

  “Dom, I don’t—”

  “You think he’s an idiot, I gathered that. Cogs knows why, because he’s not stupid. He just has different priorities. He’s not so stupid he’d willingly kill a man he’d sworn to protect. Is he?”

  “No.” No, even she knew that, hard though it was to admit. Easier to curse Vocho for a fool, blame him, nurse her righteous anger. A sudden unwelcome thought – that Da had always called Vocho an idiot and she’d picked up the habit lately. And he wasn’t, not an idiot, not how Da meant it. He was funny, careless sometimes, prone to fits of rashness, but stupid he wasn’t. “Why are you—”

  But, quick as he’d turned up, Dom was gone, leaving her to spend the rest of the night with new dilemmas to tangle her thoughts and stop her from sleeping.

  By the time dawn came she was exhausted and no closer to an answer except thinking she should maybe go back and talk to Vocho. Maybe. Apologising wasn’t something she made a habit of and she wasn’t going to start now. Maybe Vocho wasn’t an idiot, but he hadn’t exactly covered himself in glory, and he had nicely fucked her entire life. It would take a lot more than Dom being cryptic and mysterious and trying to make her feel guilty for that. She held on to her anger like a blanket that could keep out the chill, even if it did have lice.

  She climbed wearily down to the street and started the business of finding some breakfast. She’d just found a little stall run by a Five Islands trader that smelt irresistibly of spices and sausages when out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of Cospel coming towards her, a flustered-looking Dom – Dom as he usually was, not night-time roof-wandering Dom – in tow.

  “Kass, quick.” Dom took her arm and led her to the side of the street where it was less busy. He looked like he was panicking, which wasn’t good. Normally he was so relaxed he looked half asleep but now he was twitching and fidgeting like a third-year student given sharps for the first time. “It’s Voch.”

  “I don’t want to know, whatever it is. He can rot in hell for all I care. You can tell him that when you next see him.” Even so, she felt a pang of… what?

  “No, you don’t understand. Last night, after, well, you know, I did a bit more digging, a bit more listening. But when I got back to the inn, about an hour ago, Vocho was gone. They’ve found him and taken him somewhere. Egimont, that is. I got one of the pot boys to tell me.”

  “Don’t be stupid. Voch wouldn’t let Petri beat him.” Not unless he wanted him to. Not unless his sister had just cut him off. Gods fuck the man, she’d only disowned him five minutes ago and here she was feeling sorry for him. She cast a glance at the Clockwork God, who loomed over the end of the street and rattled through another set of actions. The only comfort is truth. Well, it wasn’t comforting her very much.

  “I don’t know,” Dom said. “We managed to find someone who saw him as they were taking him away. He looked… dazed. Not himself. Half the guards were there too. Caused quite a ruckus when the inn found out who it was.”

  She tried to shake away a lifetime of making sure her little brother was safe. He wasn’t so little any more. He could take care of himself; he wasn’t hers to look after.

  But she’d lied to Vocho just as much as he’d lied to her, hadn’t she? He’d never known about all the little dark jobs she did for Eneko or how she’d got her master’s before him. She’d never lied exactly, but there was a lot she’d never told him. And while she’d happily do something dire to him with whatever came to hand, she’d be buggered if anyone killed him before she got the chance. He was an arsehole, for sure, but he was her arsehole. Besides, Dom was looking at her with big eyes like a dog begging for a treat, and Cospel seemed on the verge of tears.

  “I’m going to regret this until I die, or he does,” she said with a sigh. “Fine. I don’t want him dead unless it’s me doing the killing. But how in hells do we get him out? More to the point, how do we find out where they’ve taken him?”

  “Oh,” Dom said, back to his usual twittering self. “I thought you might know.”

  Kacha cocked an eyebrow at him, and tried to remind herself he wasn’t a Reyes man and wouldn’t know. Although he’d seemed at home enough last night, savvy enough to find her in a tangle of shacks almost no one ever went to.

  She sifted all the possibilities in her head. “Two alternatives. First, the king’s house – after the Shrive and the prelate’s palace, probably the most well guarded place in Reyes. Plus it’s one of the houses that changes with the change o’ the clock. Depending on which set of the clock we’re on, it’s got all sorts of different things. What set of the clock are we on? First? Well then, let’s see. Arrow slits on the top floor, two deadfalls on the first floor, some sort of trap I never figured out by the back door, and some clockwork gizmos by the front door that look pretty damned lethal.”

  By now Cospel was giving her a strange look, but Dom only smiled his new sharp-dagger smile.

  She shrugged in an attempt at nonchalance. “What? I checked it out just in case I ever needed to know.” Or more precisely because Eneko had told her to. As she said, just in case.

  “Will they take him to the Shrive?” Cospel said into the silence that followed. “I mean, it’s the king that’s had him taken away, right? But he’s got no, what’s the word? Begins with a ‘j’?”

  “Justice? Jeopardy?” Dom said. “Jailor?”

  “Jurisdiction?” Kacha said.

  “Aye, that’s it. No jurisdiction here. If anyone finds out he’s holding Vocho, especially if the prelate’s after us, er, him, all hell will break lose. So he’ll make it look official and take him straight to the Shrive.”

  She shook her head. “No, they’ve been sneaky up till now. And I think they want him for something other than just execution, which is all he’ll get there. What do you think, Dom?”

  “Who, me?” He tried his best at a bumble, but she’d seen through him now and only raised an eyebrow. “I think they used him to kill the priest, however they managed that. I also think you taking the papers, the threat that you might show them to the prelate, has forced their hands. They have to do something, and who better than the renowned Vocho the priest murderer as someone to pin the blame on?”

  They wanted the papers back or destroyed, but Kacha had told Petri she was going to show them to the prelate. Now they had Vocho and would either force him to do something for them or offer to trade him for the papers, or both. They had her over a barrel.

  Dom seemed much more, well, serious. He’d lost all his twitter, all his bumbling, seemed wound up and ready to spring. He looked about keenly. “Look, it’s not safe out here on the street. I can help. My father’s got a house here in Reyes, not far from the king’s. I didn’t want to chance it before, because, well, because my father’s pissed as hell at me for disappearing and he might have come here looking for me. But I went there after I got split up from Vocho, and he’s not in residence. We can use it to hole up until we do whatever it is we’re going to do.”

  Who did she have left to trust? Dom and Cospel. She wanted to leave, leave all of them behind and just go and be herself somewhere. Maybe she would, but she had to see Vocho alive first, if only because what Dom had said last night made her feel guilty as hell, and perhaps Dom and his connections were all she had to do that with.

  “All right.”

  He gripped her arm and smiled, and she wondered if
he’d been like this from the start whether she wouldn’t have minded Vocho trying to play at matchmaker so much. When he stopped all that stupid twittering and the fake manners that passed for fashionable in Reyes these days, he was quite attractive in a strange kind of way. Smart too, and she liked that in a man.

  “Come on,” he said now. “Cospel? Why don’t you hook back to the inn, see if anyone’s still there or looking out for us? If not, perhaps bring our things. Meet us at the last house on King’s Row.”

  King’s Row? Kacha shook herself. That was where all the old nobles used to live, and the last house had once belonged to Egimont’s father. He’d taken her there to show her once, and the echoing frustration and anger had been clear.

  Dom mistook her shudder. “Not for long, I promise. We’ll get your brother back, alive and in one piece.”

  Interlude

  Eight months earlier

  “Petri! Come in, come in.”

  Bakar hadn’t changed much, Petri thought as he sat in the chair indicated in the prelate’s office. Still tall and rangy, his hair still blond and untouched by grey. Still as intense as ever, even if that intensity had been turning into oddity just lately.

  It was Petri that had changed, perhaps. Not surprising, given he’d been no more than a boy when he first came into Bakar’s service. He’d fallen for the prelate’s ideology of equality as only a teenage boy can – with every fibre of his being. He still believed it, but doubts were starting to creep in. Maybe that was why Bakar had called for him today.

  Bakar smiled expansively and poured out two cups of sweet apple tea, Petri’s favourite. They both took a few sips and sat in silence before Bakar got to the point.

  “You’re unhappy in the office. No, don’t deny it. I see that you are. Not surprising for someone of your energy, but I’ve been saving something for you. Something that only you can do for me, perhaps. Something that it may please you to do.”