A Court for Thieves

by Morgan Rice

  Now, there was no time, because the enemy soldiers were pressing in close. Sebastian drew his sword in one hand and a pistol in the other, cutting a man down and then firing at another at close range. He used the barrel to block the incoming sweep of a sword, then struck out again with his own blade.

  Around him, men fought for their lives, and the lives of the others trying to get the boats back into the water. Somewhere above Sebastian, a cannon sounded, and water sprayed as the ball struck it just beyond the small landing craft.

  Varkin’s voice bellowed above all of it. “Now! The boats are ready!”

  Sebastian half-turned, seeing that it was true, then spun back in time to block a bayonet being thrust toward his stomach. He kicked the attacker away, swapped his empty pistol for a loaded one, and fired it into the crowd of foes.

  “Pull back!” he yelled, hoping that the others there would hear him.

  They did, men backing away from the fight as their foes continued to come after them. This close, the only blessing was that the ones on the cliffs couldn’t target them, because their compatriots were too close. Sebastian went with the others, hacking at any man who came too close. A glance back said that the boats were fully in the water now, the oarsmen waiting despite the cannon fire. Sebastian didn’t know how much longer they would wait, though.

  “Run!” he yelled. “To the boats, hurry!”

  The men with him took his instruction, running back in the direction of the shoreline. Sebastian ran with them, sheathing his sword now as he ran because it would only be in the way if he had to swim. He worked at the buckles of his breastplate for the same reason, discarding in on the sand as he followed his men to safety.

  There was a boom, and something hit him like the kick of a horse in the side. Sebastian stumbled, and might have fallen if another man hadn’t helped him to his feet. They ran together into the shallows, then deeper, and Sebastian could see his blood staining the water. He swam for the nearest of the boats, ignoring the agony that came with every stroke.

  Hands reached down for him, and Sebastian let them haul him up. He found himself staring at Varkin, who looked down at him with obvious concern.

  “Ignore it,” Sebastian said. “Are the men aboard?”

  “Yes, sir, but—”

  “Then row!” he ordered.

  They rowed, cannonballs striking the water around them in gouts of sea spume that reminded Sebastian of a whale surfacing. They rowed, and although the men were exhausted, they kept going, because the alternative was to sit there and wait for death.

  Around him, men looked at him with something like awe as they rowed. Sebastian couldn’t really understand it, because he’d only done what he assumed any man would.

  “I told you that you’d save us,” Varkin said. “Three cheers for his highness, lads!”

  They cheered, and Sebastian wasn’t sure that he’d ever been that embarrassed in his life. It felt good, too, though, to have the respect of men like this.

  “It’s going to be a long way home, sir,” Varkin said.

  Sebastian nodded. It would be—if they made it there at all.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Kate hurried through the mercenary camp the way she hurried everywhere these days, because Lord Cranston seemed to want everything done at the double. Whether it was training with a blade, learning the disposition of the noble houses likely to employ a free company, or simply running errands around the camp, there was little time to do anything but run from place to place.

  Her current task was to pick up equipment from the quartermaster after repairs. Hardly the kind of daring adventure Kate had hoped for, but she was starting to learn that war was often about boredom as much as violence.

  She raced through the camp in her new uniform of a gray surcoat and dun breeches, using the errand as a way to practice moving through a crowd at speed, because Lord Cranston had told her to do exactly that. On other days, he’d had her sneak through the camp without being seen, or ride though on a borrowed horse, having to keep it in check despite the noise and the bustle of the place.

  How long had she been there now? Long enough to fall into the rhythm of it, at least. Kate would wake early every morning, fetching Lord Cranston’s breakfast and laying out clean clothes for him. Quite often, she would have to tidy away the wine skins from the night before as well. She would eat her own breakfast quickly, then move on to a seemingly endless string of errands, cut through with training with blade and bow, musket and pike.

  Kate could pick up the thoughts of some of the men as she passed. Some of them were wary of her, having seen what she could do with a sword. A few thought there was something strange about the general having taken her on, and assumed that there must be more to it. More seemed to be thinking of her almost the way they might have thought about a lucky mascot, nodding as she passed.

  Will was there too, polishing a blade with the expertise of someone who had been brought up around a forge. The bruises of his beating were faded now, leaving him as handsome as ever. He smiled as Kate approached.

  “What does Lord Cranston have you doing today?” he asked.

  “Running errands while running,” Kate said.

  “Probably practicing for a battlefield, where you’d be his best messenger,” Will said.

  That was what Kate had guessed. Lord Cranston had made it clear to her a dozen times now that she would never be a soldier fighting and dying in the line with the others, both because the men wouldn’t accept it and because it would be a waste of her talents. Instead, he had her practicing in ways suited to a scout or a messenger, a bodyguard or even a leader.

  “It’s frustrating sometimes,” Kate said. “I could stand with a pike.”

  “Anyone can stand with a pike,” Will said. “That’s the point of it. Not everyone can sneak through a camp or defeat half a dozen men single-handed.”

  That part was true, at least, and Kate had to admit that she wouldn’t have been interested if her lot in the regiment had been to be just one more faceless figure acting in concert with the others. When they fought, there was something almost mechanical in the efficiency of thrusting pikes and volleys of projectiles. It was probably deadly, but it was also a long way from stories of daring warriors or dueling swordsmen Kate had heard.

  “Can you stay?” Will asked, gesturing to a spot beside him.

  Kate wished she could. There had been few enough moments to spend with Will since she’d found herself claimed as a member of his regiment. Lord Cranston kept her busy from morning to night, while Will had his own training to undergo, his knowledge of good metal earning him a place working with the company’s two great brass cannon, loading and priming until it seemed as if he did nothing else.

  “There’s no time,” Kate said. “He said to run there and back.”

  “Then you should,” Will agreed. “I don’t want to get you into trouble.”

  The again was unspoken, but with Kate’s power, it was impossible to ignore.

  “It’s not your fault I ended up here like this,” she said, reaching out to touch his arm. “And I like it here. It’s everything I could have wanted.”

  She really did have to run then, heading off into the camp in the direction of the space where the quartermaster had his tent. Kate smelled it before she saw it, in the acrid stink of molten metal.

  The quartermaster was waiting when Kate got there, pouring lead into molds to make shot.

  “In some of the Merchant States, they build towers a hundred feet tall for this,” he said, as Kate got there. “They drop lead down into buckets of cold water so that it ends up perfectly round. Must be something to see.”

  Kate imagined that it would be. She’d spent enough time around a forge to understand the sense of mystery that came from metal melting and flowing, hardening, and sharpening under the efforts of an expert. She was starting to suspect that the company’s quartermaster was anything but that, but he seemed to know the right people to buy goods from, whether
they were swords or potatoes, pistol flints or walking boots.

  “Lord Cranston sent me to pick up his things,” she said.

  The quartermaster nodded, gesturing to a spot on a long bench. “I guessed that much. One reworked breastplate and two dueling pistols.”

  Kate went to the spot where they sat, the metal of the breastplate shining in the sun. Kate doubted that it would last, because it seemed that their camp turned to a thing of mud and drizzle-soaked clothes on a regular basis.

  She picked up the breastplate, and she could see where it had been hammered back into smoothness after being dented in some battle or practice session. She could also see the more subtle signs in the way the sun reflected from it.

  “There are cracks in this,” Kate said.

  She saw the quartermaster frown. “Where?”

  Kate showed him. They were subtle, barely more than lines, but they were there. If a sword struck the steel there, it might shatter, and then Lord Cranston would find himself in trouble.

  “Damn it,” the quartermaster said. “I’ll have to send it back out to be dealt with.”

  “Send it to the blacksmith Thomas,” Kate suggested. “Will’s father. He can fix it if anyone can.”

  She took the pistols at least, running back in the direction of Lord Cranston’s tent. She had only a little time now. She paused as she saw a familiar face.

  “Rosalind?”

  Sure enough, the girl she’d saved from the House of the Unclaimed stood there, holding a basket of washing. She didn’t wear the gray shift of the place now, but a rough-spun dress instead.

  “What are you doing here?” Kate asked, shocked to see her in the company’s enclosure.

  “I had to go somewhere,” Rosalind said, “and… I heard about you being here. I thought it might be safe. They needed washer women and cooks, servants and… well.” She didn’t finish that thought, but Kate could guess what she meant even before she looked into the other girl’s thoughts. “I thought it might be safer here than in the city.”

  Kate wasn’t sure if that was true or not, but she was at least glad that the other girl wasn’t somewhere that the House of the Unclaimed might find her. Kate drew her close, into a hug.

  “It’s good to see you,” she said. “Look, I don’t have time to talk now, but if I find you later?”

  She saw Rosalind nod. “I’d like that.”

  She sprinted the rest of the way back to Lord Cranston’s tent. He was waiting, watching a now empty sand timer. Kate hadn’t even known that there had been a time limit.

  “What kept you?” he asked.

  “There was a problem with your armor, sir,” Kate said. “I’ve persuaded the quartermaster to get the cracks in it fixed properly.”

  “And you stopped to talk to at least two other people,” Lord Cranston said, lifting a spyglass to emphasize the point.

  “You never said that there was a time limit,” Kate pointed out, a little annoyed that he would spend his time watching her like that.

  “I told you to hurry,” he pointed out. “In battle, the speed with which a commander gets information can determine who wins. Hesitating can cost lives, Kate.”

  She supposed she should have been used to Lord Cranston’s methods by now. A day or two ago, he’d had her running errands around the camp while balancing an apple on her head, on the basis that a commander had to be able to maintain composure no matter what distracted them.

  “You need to be careful around the boy,” Lord Cranston said.

  “You don’t like Will?” Kate replied.

  Not if he leaves you with child or with none of the men respecting you, Lord Cranston thought, although Kate gave no sign of having picked that up. He didn’t need to know everything that she could do. Not if he treats you like some of the lads treat the girls who come here.

  “He seems a fine enough lad,” Lord Cranston said. “But… you need to be careful. I need you to concentrate on what you’re learning.”

  “Why are you teaching me so much?” Kate asked. It didn’t make sense, after she’d killed his men, that this nobleman should spend his time teaching her, but that was what he had done. There had been lessons on tactics and lines of command, on logistics and on fighting alongside others. It was a very different education from the one Siobhan had given her, but it was proving no less thorough, in its way.

  “Maybe you remind me a little of myself when I was young,” Lord Cranston said, although that didn’t seem likely. It wasn’t as though he’d been an orphan. He was the minor son of an even more minor noble. “Or maybe I can just see some of what is coming, and I want every weapon at my command I can get.”

  There was a note of worry there that caught Kate’s attention.

  “What is coming?” she asked.

  Lord Cranston thought for a moment before he answered. “How much do you know about the wars on the continent? About our own wars?”

  “Only a little,” Kate admitted. In the orphanage, there had been no need for the girls to learn the complex details of the world’s state, only the broad story of the Dowager and her family overcoming those who sought to overthrow her in the civil wars, with the aid of the Masked Goddess and the nobles, of course.

  “A generation ago, we had the last throes in this land of a series of civil wars dating back two hundred years at their start,” Lord Cranston said. “They started life as an argument by those families closest to the throne over which should succeed, and blossomed into something bigger, about whether a king or queen should rule at all, about whether there was a place in this land for those touched by the magic that once filled it, and whether people should be indentured simply for having been born in the wrong place and time.”

  He looked around, almost as if expecting some spy or informant to jump out and arrest him for sedition. That alone said something about how dangerous all of it still was. People spoke cautiously about these things, if they spoke at all.

  “Here, the Dowager’s family all but lost the argument,” he said. “They were forced to accept the Assembly of Nobles, they were poised to declare freedom for those with small talents and an end to some of the injustices of the past. Then they got the support of the Masked Goddess’s congregation, who could not stand to see these things destroyed. Overnight, a dozen of the most prominent supporting families died, and enough gold came in to give the Dowager’s family at least some of its old status.”

  “It sounds as though it might almost be better if someone swept her away too,” Kate said.

  Lord Cranston raised a warning finger. “Don’t ever say that where someone might hear. There are some things where even I can’t keep you from a noose.”

  Kate nodded, but she still couldn’t see the difference.

  “Besides,” Lord Cranston said. “The fact is that wars make things worse for the people who have to live through them. If an army were to rise here, even with the best of intentions, people would suffer.”

  “So why do you run a mercenary company again?” Kate asked.

  Lord Cranston shrugged. “I like money, and in a war, it’s probably safer to be a well-fed soldier than a starving farmer. Besides, if I fight across the Knifewater, I might be able to stop the wars coming here.”

  “And that’s important?” Kate asked.

  “Look at the continent. It is fighting over so many of the same issues that people aren’t even certain which ones count anymore. The Disestablishers want no priests telling them what to do, and no crowns. The Merchant States want freedom to sell anything they wish, which sounds fine until you realize it includes people. The Old Empire, the True Empire, the Real Empire are all claiming a throne that disappeared a thousand years back, and want some version of what they call tradition.”

  “Again,” Kate said, “they all sound as bad as each other.”

  With a dozen petty sides, who was she supposed to support? Who was she supposed to care about? War was supposed to be black and white, but this all seemed like a muddy mess.

>   “Some are very much worse,” Lord Cranston assured her. “This New Army, for example, is something different. All the others, they stand for something, whether it’s religion or country, merchant rights, or just honest profit. These… I’m still not sure what they stand for, or if they stand for anything. They just seem to absorb. They defeat armies, and they take them into their ranks. Room for everyone, and a noose for anyone who says no. They slaughter entire cities if they resist or refuse them. They are something that must be stopped, and yet I’m not sure if they can be. If they come here, too many people will die. They are utterly ruthless.”

  “You sound as though you admire them,” Kate said.

  Lord Cranston spread his hands. “If I admired them that much, I’d join them, but I do have some principles. And besides, they tend to kill officers to persuade the men to join. Their leader is a man they call Le Meistre de Corves in his own tongue.”

  The master of crows. Kate got the translation from the general’s thoughts rather than from any knowledge.

  “They say the crows follow wherever he goes,” Lord Cranston said. “They say he sends a message by crow, and the world quakes.”

  “And what do you say?” Kate asked.

  Lord Cranston shook his head. “I say men build reputations, and those can become weapons too. Talking of weapons…”

  He took the dueling pistols, showing Kate how to check them and load them, moving over them with the kind of expertise that came from long practice. As he did it, he asked questions.

  “What are the signs of the seven companies around Ashton at the moment?”

  Kate knew that. “The star, the prancing horse, the bear, three chevrons, a blackened sun, the fish, and… oh, and your banner, sir.”

  “Thought you’d forget that one,” Lord Cranston said. He passed her one of the dueling pistols. “Careful, it pulls to the left.”