The Fell Sword (39 page)

Mary smiled. ‘Well, if that was the case, you seem to have cured him.’

The Queen smiled. ‘I have powers,’ she said, her voice low. ‘And after the battle – that woman, Amicia? She healed us. I think her power and mine combined sufficed to break the curse.’

To Mary, who had no access to power whatsoever, this was too much information; like hearing about another person’s toilet habits. But Almspend leaned forward. ‘Really!’ she said. ‘Fascinating!’

‘I want to know who cast the curse and why,’ said the Queen. ‘So that I can fight it.’ She shrugged. ‘Among other things, it occurs to me that whoever cursed him in the first place might want to harm my baby.’

The two ladies-in-waiting nodded slowly, but Mary smiled. ‘Perhaps you were just slow to kindle?’ she asked.

The Queen laughed. ‘I have lain with the King upwards of three times a day since we were wed,’ she said with a low chuckle. ‘More, when the fancy took us.’ She met her maid’s eye. ‘I
know
by my powers that I am fecund. Absurdly so. Need I say more?’

Mary blushed so hotly that she fanned herself.

Almspend took a deep breath. ‘Your Grace?’ she asked quietly. As the women hardly ever addressed the Queen by title, she bowed her assent to let her secretary go on.

‘Your Grace must understand that the study of history is littered with unpleasant truths,’ she said.

The Queen nodded. ‘Go on.’

‘That’s all,’ Almspend said. ‘You may well learn something you do not wish to know. Or need to know.’

‘I intend to save my baby,’ said the Queen.

Harndon – Ser Gerald Random

Random was comfortably and pleasurably abed with his wife when the wings began to beat at the window. His first reaction was annoyance, and then fear – the wings were immense and, to a veteran of combat in the Wild, portended something worse than a messenger pigeon. He rose, naked, and drew his sword from its place over his bed, knelt because hopping on one foot is not the best way to face a monster, and pushed his wife’s naked flank to hurry her from the room.

Thump thump thump

Thump thump thump

Once, when he had been a boy, great luna moths had come to the horn windows of his father’s house in South Harndon. His mother, a seamstress, had purchased beeswax candles to allow her to work late – a special commission – and the moths had been drawn by the light. They had been as big as his head or bigger; creatures of the deep Wild. And the thump of their alien, insectile bodies against the mullioned horn and glass windows of his parents’ house had been terrifying and yet fascinating. And very young Thomas Random had watched their shadows flit and nudge and, greatly daring, he had stepped out into a summer night to watch them. The largest moth had fluttered about in its clumsy flight and come to hover just a few inches from the tip of his nose and he’d missed it at first in the dark, and then felt the breeze of its wings, each as big as his hand. He’d felt no urge to kill it. In fact, he’d wondered what it saw when it looked at him.

He’d always been curious about the Wild. He’d ignored his father’s instructions, cashed out his apprenticeship and marched with the Royal Army as a young man – just to see the Wild.

And now, he used the tip of his sword to throw the catch on his bedroom window. The windows opened outward, so he pushed.

The sheer size of the thing outside took his breath away, and then he saw the colour and laughed.

The gigantic raptor was half black and half white – and every child knew what an Imperial messenger looked like. Random had never seen one before, but he knew it, even soaked with rain and desperate with fatigue, and he threw the windows wide so the poor bedraggled thing cartwheeled in and fell in a sodden mass on his bed.

By the time his wife, now decently arrayed, dared return to her bed chamber, Random had the message. He was sitting on the bed, shaking his head.

‘These sheets are ruined,’ Lady Alice said. ‘Six weeks sewing wasted. Couldn’t you have let the damned bird into the stables, or something?’

Random grinned at her.

She stepped back. ‘This isn’t some damned adventure— Oh, no! You are directing the Queen’s tournament.’ She leaned forward. ‘So you can’t leave.’

He caught her and kissed her. ‘It’s a different kind of adventure,’ he said. ‘All I have to do is raise a hundred thousand Etruscan ducats.’

Harndon – Edmund the Journeyman

The first corpse in the square shocked every man and woman in the neighbourhood.

The body was that of a young man – a handsome young man. His murderer meant him to be found – he was spiked to the stump of the maypole with a pair of daggers. He’d been killed with a sword. He was expensively dressed in red and yellow wool and silk.

Edmund saw the crowd around the corpse and waited his turn to see the thing itself. He’d seen enough corpses to know the look – white as milk, a slackness about him that threatened any man’s belief in an afterlife. Dead was dead.

Friars came and took the man down and by late afternoon, when he and his apprentices were taking turns boring the latest barrel, a shop boy told them that the body was one of the Queen’s squires.

‘It was them Galles,’ said Sam.

Tom and Duke kept working.

‘Well, it stands to reason. Jack Drake tried to take our square, and he’s the king of them Galle lovers. One of the Queen’s squires dead? The Galles kilt him.’ He shrugged. ‘Or Jack Drake did. To warn us off.’ Sam looked at his acting master, who shook his head.

‘What a lot of foolery,’ Edmund said. ‘The Galles are knights. They don’t go around killing other gentles—’

‘But they do!’ said Duke. ‘Christ on the cross, Ed! Where’ve you been? Their top knight, Vrailly, kilt the Earl of Towbray’s nephew in cold blood! Just hacked him down.’

Tom shook his head. ‘Kilt him in a duel, fair as fair. That’s the way I hear it.’ He went back to turning his drill, and then paused. ‘Mind you, Vrailly is as big as a house and the other was just a boy – but a fight’s fair if both parties agree to fight – eh? Ain’t it?’

‘Galle lover,’ Duke spat.

‘Nope,’ said Tom. ‘I just like to have my facts straight.’

‘Could have been Drake, though,’ Sam said.

Edmund nodded. ‘That’s enough. Let’s get this job done.’

Duke grunted, angry. The boy was often angry, these days. The city air was poisoned with the new factions – the Galles, the Jarsays, and the Northerners. Galles dressed in bright colours, wore their cotes and gowns very short, and walked about looking for trouble.

Naturally, all three of these things had appeal for young men.

The Jarsays were predominantly men and boys from the Southern farmlands. The city was full of Jarsayans after harvest, and there were more than ever this year – some with tales of brutal attacks by Royal troops. The sign of the Jarsayans was a farmer’s smock.

The outer wards of the city had received an influx of Northern refugees in the late spring. Most of them were going back to their homes now, but the remnant were angry and dispossessed and very prickly.

The guilds had responded by holding an increased number of drills for all the trained bands within the city. The armourers prided themselves on being one of the best military guilds, and they drilled so often that Edmund was tired and hungry all the time. But he had become aware that the guild masters were using the trained bands to overawe the factions.

‘We’re armourers,’ he said firmly. ‘We’re above faction concerns.’

‘That’s crap,’ said Duke. ‘The Galles is foreign, and they’re out to get the Queen. Calling her a whore. Saying she’s barren. They say she’s—’

Master Pye appeared at the door, and Duke flushed.

Master Pye looked at them grimly, but he didn’t say a word.

‘I don’t believe any of those things!’ Duke said.

Master Pye nodded and beckoned to Edmund.

Edmund felt like his feet were made of lead. But he followed Master Pye across the yard to the master’s office, a room as full of vellum and parchment as the royal secretary’s office at the palace.

He felt like the best defence might be a good offence, so as soon as the master was seated, he bowed and said, ‘Master Pye, I am sorry. The body found this morning disturbed everyone.’

Pye nodded. ‘I’m glad you accept responsibility, young Edmund. What your men say reflects on you. What my men say reflects on
me.
’ For a moment, his mild eyes, framed by his enormous Etruscan spectacles, magnified and enhanced, met the journeyman’s, and Edmund felt a jolt of pure fear. He had only seen the master really angry once. ‘I spend too much time at the palace. I need you, Edmund. How is the project?’

Edmund shook his head. ‘There’s no end to it, Master. But I’m making three barrels with one-inch bores. I think –
think
– they’ll answer some of the specifications on Mr Smyth’s contract. And the strange bell with the holes for bolts.’

Master Pye steepled his hands. ‘Good. Get it done. You know something about both casting and making punches.’

Edmund bowed. ‘Yes, Master.’

‘I will need you to take charge of a number of projects here, Edmund. These iron barrels have done a good job of training you to run a project – you are well inside your budget and your work nears completion. I will need you to direct ever more of the work here, which is why I need you to be better at controlling the apprentices.’ The master raised his hand. ‘I understand that these are difficult times and, make no mistake, I understand that you used to be one of them and therefore lack that quality of awe that might give you an air of command. In the old days I’d send you to another shop.’ Master Pye shook his head. ‘I hate to say this, but I think I have more orders than I can possibly fill without engaging another dozen apprentices and two more journeymen – yet I lack the time to train and oversee them in a way which would make them good masters in their turn.’ He looked up. ‘Do you understand what I am saying?’ he asked.

Edmund coughed. ‘No. Yes. I’ll do what I can.’

‘The most important commission in the shop is the King’s armour for the tournament. Yet I have done almost no work on it since we completed the hardening process, because I am cutting the dies by hand.’ He looked at Edmund. ‘And I need hundreds of coin blanks cast and cut.’

‘I can do that,’ Edmund nodded.

‘No, boy, I don’t need you to do it. I need you to develop a process to allow apprentices to do it, so I can cut dies and you can embellish the King’s armour.’ Master Pye’s eye met his again.

‘Tom could run it,’ Edmund said. ‘He’s very good.’

Pye took a deep breath. ‘Really?’ he said. ‘Young Tom is a street boy. You know that, eh?’

Guilds took on a proportion of foundlings, but they seldom amounted to anything because, even inside a guild, success required both nepotism and ready silver.

Edmund knew that. Tom tried not to be resentful of it, but sometimes his superior skills so obviously overshadowed Edmund’s that he was acerbic about it.

Edmund leaned forward. ‘He’d be loyal – for ever – if we give him this opportunity.’

Pye rubbed his unshaven cheeks. ‘Good call. I knew my confidence in you was not misplaced. I’ve been too long out of the shop. Send for him this instant.’

By the time an enthusiastic young woman could have murmured an ave maria, young Tom was standing with his cap in his hand in the master’s office.

‘Edmund says you are ready to be a journeyman,’ said the master.

Tom moved the cap round and round in his hands, as if his fingers were looking for flaws in the frayed edges. ‘Oh!’ he said, and looked at Edmund. Then he slumped. ‘Can’t pay the fees,’ he said.

Master Pye nodded. ‘Don’t slouch, Tom. I’ll pay your fees on two conditions.’

Tom sprang to attention. ‘Anything!’ he blurted.

‘Always wait to hear what the contract holds before you sign, young man. First – will you work for Edmund?’ The master leaned forward.

‘Yes!’ said Tom.

‘Second; you’ll have full wages as a journeyman, but I’ll have you bound to me for two years. No leaving me for other shops or other cities.’

Tom laughed. ‘Master, you can bind me for the rest of my life.’

Pye shook his head. ‘Never say it, boy. Very well – go make yourself an iron ring and meet me at the guild hall. Have a cup of wine to celebrate,’ he said, ‘for by God, it’ll be the last afternoon you spend out of the shop for many a day.’

Master Pye went out into the courtyard, and Edmund stayed to help Tom make himself a blued steel ring. While the older boy was trying to get a bezel to form and cursing over it, he said, ‘Thanks. I owe you.’

Edmund said, ‘He’s going to expand the shop. We’re going to make coins.’

Tom whistled. ‘That’ll put the cat among the pigeons.’

Edmund was polishing the ring as if he were a new apprentice but, by tradition, when a boy got raised his friends pitched in. ‘Why?’

Tom shrugged. ‘Them Galles want to kill our coinage. If’n we’re minting new they’ll come after us too.’

Edmund nodded slowly. ‘Best take some precautions.’

Tom smiled. ‘After I make journeyman. Thanks again. I never thought it would happen.’

West of Lonika in Thrake – The Emperor and Duke Andronicus

They dismounted in the courtyard of a small castle. The place was no bigger than a manor house, with two stone towers and a timber-built Great Hall that filled the space between. The castle had an outer palisade wall and stood atop a high ridge. From the tallest tower, the sentry could see the snow-covered tip of Mons Draconis, sixty leagues to the west amidst the Green Hills.

Sixty stradiotes of the Duke’s personal household accompanied the Emperor, and they received him with an elaborate ceremony that failed to conceal his status as a prisoner in a miserable border castle, so far from his home that rescue was impossible.

His dignity remained unmarred. He accepted the plaudits of his enemies, and their bows, and he went to the room assigned him with good grace. The guard on his door begged his blessing.

That night, he tied his sheets together and went out through the window, but a light snow was falling and horsemen took him at first light.