The Fell Sword (51 page)

Ser Alcaeus saw a man right where he expected to, making for the mouth of the next street, and he ran across the flagstones of the ancient square, missed his quarry but cut another man off and knocked him down with an armoured arm to the face. A sword struck his back, rang off his backplate, and then the fighting was over – Alcaeus whirled to find Ser Michael had cut his assailant’s arm off at the elbow. The bravos were armed with side swords, daggers, and clubs – they couldn’t stand even a moment against armoured men, and they ran or surrendered very quickly.

Ser Alison and the Duke went straight into the taverna. It wasn’t fully afire – the only bright flames were coming from the roof.

A fire company appeared – forty men with buckets. The buckets went down into the cisterns, and the water started to go onto nearby houses first, to prevent the spread.

Someone slammed into Alcaeus from behind, and he sprawled on the flagstones – a crossbow bolt slammed into the stone nearest his outstretched hand. He rolled – life at the Morean court encouraged quick responses to assassination – and saw the man who’d knocked him flat. He got a knee under him, got his dagger in his right fist—

The man raised his visor. ‘I’m on your side,’ he hissed. He offered a hand, but Alcaeus was not quick to trust in a fight – he backed away, and an arrow struck him.

The stranger waved him away. ‘Get under cover!’ he shouted, and turned.

Presenting his back to Alcaeus seemed a gesture of trust – Alcaeus took it and followed him, dimly recognising the black cloak of the stranger that the Nordikans had brought to him in the guardroom, what seemed like hours before.

The black-cloaked stranger found an external staircase and pounded up it, his heavy boots making the stairs shake, but Alcaeus followed him, and felt the second-storey balcony move. Behind him, he saw that the square had emptied as more and more bolts were shot at anyone moving in the light.

Suddenly, the rooftops were
bathed
in light – a light suspended above the centre of the square, dazzling in its brightness. Even in the confines of a helmet, Alcaeus could see that there were archers on some of the rooftops. Even as he looked, they realised that they were visible. Some ducked, others took arrows from the company archers in the streets.

The stranger leaped up, grabbed a lead gutter, and swung himself onto the sill of a thousand-year-old window. ‘On the roof!’ he called to Alcaeus.

Ser Alcaeus had a moment to imagine that this might be a very clever plot to kidnap him, and then he followed the stranger – up onto the roof, and then, panting inside his helmet, over a roof-edge wall and down onto the next roof – a tiled roof that hadn’t had its tiles changed in so long that they just peeped out from a layer of moss and lichen. He could hear old tiles breaking under his feet, but the foliage was good footing and he followed the stranger over the peak—

And into a trio of desperate men. All three wore dark clothing and facemasks. The furthest took one look at the two coming over the roofline and simply jumped over the roof edge to die on the cobbles below, or not.

The other two attacked the stranger. He absorbed a blow in his heavy black cloak, drew his sword and cut into the second man’s attack. Alcaeus was fully armoured and considerably less elegant – he fell into the nearest opponent, ignored two cuts that he didn’t see in the dark. The other man chose to wrestle, and Alcaeus broke his arm and then knocked him unconscious against his armoured knee.

The stranger had disarmed his man and was tying his hands with his belt.

Alcaeus opened his visor and breathed. ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

The man’s smile shone in the bright white hermetical light that still hung over the square in front of the taverna. ‘I’m your new chaplain,’ he said.

The Duke went into the taverna and found Cully and Bent lying flat in the taproom with their prisoner wedged between them. He got them out the door, a bolt
zanged
off his helmet, and he ducked back into the doorway of the taverna.

Your men need better light
, Harmodius said.

He cast that working himself, and he was surprised at the brilliance of his light. Then he added to it by putting subsidiary workings over the houses surrounding the little square – tall, stuccoed houses with a variety of rooflines perfect to hide assassins and archers.

The roar of the fire alerted him, and the fire company in the square wasn’t going to accomplish anything – one or two had already been hit by arrows, and the rest were taking cover, and the bucket chain was irretrievably wrecked.

But somewhere under his feet was a cistern with thousands of gallons of water. He worked a displacement—

He was in his place of power, locating the water with one very small working while manipulating its location. On the marble plinth, Harmodius nodded.

Well done, boy. So much simpler than creating the water. No – not over the roof – under the roof. You aren’t limited in your placement. Right on the fire—

The Duke cast. As he cast his working, Harmodius said, Aren’t we standing right under—

The wall of water extinguished the blaze instantly.

The new Duke of Thrake was not as elegant as he would have liked to be when he met his new chaplain a few minutes later – soaked to the skin in the chill autumn air, he was already shivering under his armour, despite the heavy cloak that Ser Michael produced and threw over him. Another cloak went over Bent, who’d been knocked flat by the water and was still having trouble breathing.

The Duke sneezed again.

‘So the man Cully took . . . ?’ he asked.

Bad Tom shook his head. ‘He knows some names and two locations. He’s paid a day-labourer in the Navy Yard, and he’s used to picking up a package from the palace every day.’

‘This wasn’t a complete waste of time, then,’ the Duke said, and sneezed again.

‘You might have told me,’ Ser Milus said.

The Duke nodded. ‘I probably should have,’ he admitted.

Ser Gavin came in and threw himself down on a stool. ‘Sellswords and thugs. The two that Alcaeus and the priest caught are merely more expensive thugs. They were hired to ambush anyone who came to the taverna.’

Cully, who had been sitting listening, shook his head. ‘Give me a straight-on battle anytime,’ he said. ‘They offered to pay us to desert, but they never meant to pay us, they only meant to kill us. We never meant to desert – we meant to capture them. They expected us to double-cross them and laid an ambush, but they didn’t expect you to bring the whole quarter guard with you, so we fucked them up.’

The Duke nodded. ‘That’s about it. So now we follow our leads: watch part of the laundry service to see who follows the directions our captured bully is used to leaving; pick up the day-labour spy at the Navy Yard—’

‘Who won’t know anything,’ Bad Tom spat.

The Duke shrugged, and then sneezed twice. ‘It was worth a try,’ he said.

Ser Gavin said, ‘You should dry your hair.’ He got a towel and tossed it to his brother. ‘Now what do we do?’

Ser Milus was still annoyed. ‘It sounds like you had a fight and I wasn’t in it,’ he said. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Three in a secret,’ the Duke muttered. ‘I’m sorry, Milus, I wasn’t thinking clearly.’ He spread his hands. ‘I think I’m trying to do too many things.’ To Gavin he said, ‘Now let’s try a poison pill.’

‘What’s that?’ Gavin asked.

‘I tell several people that I suspect a secret has been betrayed – a very hot secret. I give them each a slightly different secret, and then I see what happens. It’s like dropping dye into a sewer, to see where it comes out.’

‘And then what?’ Ser Gavin asked.

‘No idea,’ the Duke answered. ‘But it’s time. We need to take the war to Andronicus, before he gets in here.’ He sneezed. ‘First we have to bring in the fur caravans.’

‘What fur caravans?’ Gavin asked.

The next day, the Duke of Thrake rode across the square to the tall onion-topped spires of the Academy and was admitted with much fanfare. He dismounted at the hundred steps that rose from street level all the way to the base of the ancient Temple of Poseidon – now the church of Saint Mark the Evangelist – and he walked up the steps accompanied by Ser Alcaeus and his new chaplain, Father Arnaud. He sneezed every few steps, and he didn’t move very quickly.

He paused at eye level with the ancient statue to Cerberus, guardian of the underworld. The statue was enormous, and each of the dog’s three great heads had its mouth open and fangs bared.

‘Why does it feel so empty?’ Father Arnaud asked.

The Megas Ducas patted a head affectionately. ‘The statue is itself an hermetical void. Students can throw anything they like inside. And they do. This is where they rid themselves of anything that went wrong.’ He grinned. ‘And no questions asked.’

‘Where does it go?’ asked the Alban.

The Megas Ducas smiled wickedly. ‘The Chancellor’s office? The Patriarch’s desk? Hell?’ He shook his head.

Ser Alcaeus looed at him. ‘Admit it! You were a student here.’

‘Never,’ said the Megas Ducas. ‘Come! Until we reach the antechamber, we have not yet begun to wait.’

At the top, they were met by a pair of priests who led them along the magnificent colonnade under the heavy marble decoration of the ancient architrave and into the right-hand building, another ancient temple, smaller, but gemlike in its perfection with gold inlay in marble and a row of statues that made the Duke pause in admiration.

The lead priest smiled indulgently. ‘Pagan heroes,’ he said. ‘The statues were brought from the old world.’

Ser Alcaeus had seen them every day of his Academy career, and he smiled to see his Captain admire one, and then the next.

‘Superb,’ he said.

Father Arnaud shrugged. ‘Why is our ability to duplicate God’s work in lifeless marble so attractive to men?’ he asked.

The Duke raised an eyebrow at him. He seemed to be saying, ‘Is that the best you can do?’

Father Arnaud shrugged.

They were led past the statues, through a palatial set of arches that were themselves part of one of the city’s most ancient pieces of fortification, and then into a relatively modern hall of stone and timber. There were several young men and four gowned nuns sitting primly on benches. The priests bowed and waved to servitors, who brought small glasses of wine – the precise quantity that travellers were usually offered at monasteries.

The young people watched the Duke carefully, as if he might be dangerous. Ser Alcaeus leaned over. ‘That’s the Baldesce boy,’ he breathed. ‘His father is the Podesta of all the Etruscans in the city.’

Father Arnaud sat on one of the long benches. ‘If I put my feet up and go to sleep, will the Patriarch be offended?’ he asked. He did pull his black cloak about him.

The Duke snapped, ‘As he’s the most powerful prelate in Nova Terra, yes. I’d rather you were polite, Father.’

The Baldesce boy rose from his friends and came over. ‘You are the new Duke of Thrake,’ he said with a pretty bow.

The Duke rose. ‘It’s all true,’ he said.

The young man smiled. ‘My father hates you,’ he said. ‘I should hate you too, but you are cutting a fine figure here. Is the Patriarch keeping you waiting?’

Ser Alcaeus tried to throw the Duke a warning glance, but the Duke nodded. ‘I suppose, but it’s scarcely waiting yet. Waiting, as such, only really starts after the first hour, or that’s what I’m told.’

The Etruscan boy laughed. ‘Well, I just thought someone should tell you that our friend is having his examination, and it is running long over time – but the Holy Father isn’t making you cool your heels.’

Noting that their friend hadn’t been eaten by the Duke, the four nuns and two other young men were drifting very slowly towards the conversation.

The Duke was interested. ‘Why is your friend being examined? For heresy?’

One of the nuns laughed. ‘He’s not a heretic as far as I know,’ she said. She looked confused. ‘Actually, he is. Now that I think of it, he’s a barbarian like you—’

The Duke paused and then sneezed into his sleeve. ‘Don’t worry, sister. Where I come from, barbarian is the very highest of compliments.’

There was some shuffling of feet.

‘Besides,’ the Duke went on, ‘almost no one is a barbarian like me.’

Baldesce laughed. ‘Is it true that you are making a truce with the Merchant League?’ he asked.

The Duke managed a smile. ‘Are you usually this bold?’ he asked.

‘My father is the Podesta,’ Baldesce said.

The Duke smiled. ‘In that case, it will do me no harm to say that we have released all of our Etruscan prisoners. The rest is between your father and the Merchant League.’

Father Arnaud rolled his eyes.

The double doors opened.

Morgan Mortirmir wore a smile as radiant as a hot fire on a cold day. Behind him, the Patriarch stood in robes that had once been black and had faded over many years to a dark blue-grey. The Patriarch had his arms in his sleeves and he was smiling, too.

He walked out into the antechamber. The young man’s friends walked over to him, shook hands, and in the case of two of the nuns, chaste embraces were exchanged. The young man continued to beam happily. ‘I passed,’ he said, six or seven times.

Baldesce pumped his hand. ‘You really are an idiot,’ he remarked. ‘Of course you were going to pass.’

The Duke walked over, inserted himself among the young man’s classmates – he was not more than five years older than the eldest – and shook the young man’s hand. ‘I gather we are countrymen,’ he said. ‘You are Alban?’

‘Oh yes, sir,’ Mortirmir said. ‘I know who you are – I’ve seen you at the palace!’ He beamed at the Duke.

Now there is power. Hermes Trismegistus, that boy has power.

Please efface yourself. How much do I need to drink, to rid myself of you?

‘You are a student here, I understand?’ the Duke asked.

‘Yes, my lord Duke.’

‘Study hard. Ever thought of a career as a professional soldier?’ the Duke asked.

‘Yes, my lord!’ the boy said.