The First Blade of Ostia (12 page)

‘Thank you, sir,’ she said, in the formal fashion. She cast a quick glance at her chaperone who was standing to the side of the dance floor, no doubt ready to drag Bryn away by the ear like a naughty schoolboy if one of his hands wandered too far for propriety.

She produced a small card from somewhere and handed it to him. ‘Call on me if you wish. I’ll be in the city all winter.’

He went back to the bar where Amero and the others had gathered, feeling very pleased with himself. The ladies at the ball would start to filter away now that the dancing was finished, but some of the men would remain drinking until dawn.

Amero watched him as he approached, a wolfish expression on his face that made Bryn think he was about to be on the receiving end of a ribbing.

‘That looked like it went well,’ Amero said.

‘Reckon so,’ Bryn said. He was still waiting for the teasing to start, and didn’t want to say anything that would give Amero an opening.

‘Courting a girl like that will hit your purse pretty hard, you know.’

‘Well, hopefully the five points I picked up in Tanosa means that will no longer be a problem,’ Bryn said, still watching Joranna on the other side of the ballroom out of the corner of his eye.

‘You never did tell me why you charged out of the city like that with Bautisto,’ Amero said. ‘The first I knew of it was a note under my door telling me to take a couple of days off.’

The topic surprised Bryn. ‘It was last minute. I needed to get a duel and a good spot came up. I didn’t really think about it, we just went.’

‘All the way to Tanosa? Could you not just have waited until something came along in the city.’

‘No,’ Bryn said. ‘I needed to get one quickly, and it was the first that came along. There was extra money because it was last minute.’

Amero raised his eyebrows. ‘Money problems?’

‘Nothing serious. I just needed to send a little coin back home.’ Bryn felt that he had already said more than he was comfortable revealing. ‘Let’s have another drink.’

‘
I
’ll come right
to the point. I’m still having difficulty in finding you a suitable duel,’ Bautisto said.

Bryn felt his heart drop and his muscles tighten with frustration. With the points he had earned in Tanosa he thought he would be able to get regular placings. His disappointment was tinged with anger. What more did he have to do? ‘Is there anything on offer at all?’

‘Yes, but they’re of a lower rank than you now, and the prize purses are low also. The only option that I can think of for you is to take these matches whenever they become available and bide your time until your rank increases to a point where you will have to be offered something better.’

Bryn took a deep breath. He felt a flush of anger, but knew it was not Bautisto’s fault and that taking it out on him would be senseless. While the idea of the Ladder was egalitarian and merit based, arena owners were not. All they were interested in was filling seats, and a low ranked, no-name duellist wouldn’t do that. He had to build a reputation to get duels, and needed duels to build a reputation. He wanted to scream; not just from rage and frustration, but impotence. What could he do to get his career moving?

Amero on the other hand had a name, and that was drawing attention from duellists ranked well above him. He might think that a poisoned chalice, but it was one from which Bryn would gladly drink.

‘I don’t care who they are,’ he said. ‘I’ll fight them. I’ll beat them, and I’ll force the higher ranks to take notice. Try to get me into as many as you can and I’ll rack up enough points to get out of the mire. If that doesn’t work, I’ll just have to give more serious consideration to going out on the regional circuit. If the schedulers won’t take notice on their own, I’ll make them.’

Bautisto nodded and smiled at him reassuringly, but it wasn’t much consolation. Bryn wondered if it would have been more sensible to take Major dal Damaso’s advice after all, and stayed away from the arena altogether.

A
mero fought
another duel in a boutique arena in Lowgarden, matched against a swordsman of a far higher rank. It seemed the thought of embarrassing the son of an elector count was a very attractive proposition to hard working swordsmen, as it was to promoters seeking to draw a crowd. There was also the added bonus for his opponents of knowing that the crowd Amero drew would ensure a healthy prize purse if they won.

Amero won again, but the victory didn’t come easily. Despite being a Banneret of the Blue, there was no substitute for experience in the arena and Bryn had to give credit where it was due; Amero was holding his own in waters that would drown many of his peers. It didn’t make his own lack of success any easier to bear, however.

As they left the arena to walk back down toward Oldtown, Amero limping slightly from an unlucky thrust to the thigh, Bryn noticed a vaguely familiar face following them a few paces behind.

‘I think there’s someone following us,’ Bryn said.

‘I know. It’s Emeric, my father’s lap dog.’

Bryn instantly recognised the name, which explained the familiarity. He had been at the Academy under the sponsorship of Amero’s father, a senior student—they were known as ‘Adepti’—while Amero and Bryn had been Under Cadets. He had been expelled after killing another student in a duel. Some said Emeric was hard done by, others said he had gotten what he had deserved, and the same was said of the student who had been killed. It was one of those things that everyone had seemed to have a different opinion on. Expulsion was the ultimate dishonour for a student, and for many it would be a taint that they would never recover from. Bryn recalled Emeric as being good with a sword—confirmed by the reason for his expulsion—so Amero’s father must still have found a use for him, which for the time being was following Amero, presumably having been instructed to keep him out of trouble.

He had aged a little since Bryn had last seen him and taken to shaving his head, but his face was still the same: hard and ruthless. Almost all of the younger students had been terrified of him, Bryn included.

‘Why’s he following us?’

‘My father found out about the duel with dal Strenna. No doubt his father whined that I’d spoiled his idiot son’s dashing good looks. Emeric’s here to make sure that I don’t get myself into any more trouble.’

Bryn could not help but feel relieved by the proposition.

By the arena’s door, a group of men had gathered. They were chatting animatedly, about the evening’s duels most likely. One of them spotted Amero and must have said something, as the conversation stopped and they all turned to look.

Despite standing more than a foot away from Amero, Bryn could feel his tension increase. The memory of the day that they had met dal Strenna on the street flashed through Bryn’s mind and he was suddenly glad of Emeric’s glowering presence. He felt his grip tightening on the hilt of his sword. With that many men, if insults were exchanged it was as likely they would fight there and then as deal with things in a civilised manner and postpone it until an appropriate time.

One of them passed a comment, not loud enough for Bryn to hear, but obvious in its content. It was enough to set Amero off. What Bryn did hear was the sound of steel being pulled from its sheath. A hand stopped him from drawing completely. Emeric had covered the distance between them took a firm grip of Amero’s arm.

‘Now, now,’ he said.

His voice was level, but cold and gravelly. Bryn could feel some of the terror that he had inspired in all of the younger students once again.

‘This one’ll be too messy for it to be worth the effort, and we’d see the inside of a dungeon before the day’s out.’

Bryn could see the strain on Emeric’s arm as he ensured that Amero did not draw. Finally Amero relaxed, as did Emeric. Amero cast the assembled men a filthy glance and they continued on their way. Bryn breathed a sigh of relief.

‘I’m sick of them passing judgment. Everywhere I go it’s “ooh look, it’s the Count of Moreno’s son. Bored and spoiled and making a fool of himself in the arena”. Fuck them.’

B
ryn had bided
his time for what he thought was a sensible period before calling on Joranna, neither wanting to seem too keen nor disinterested. He felt nervous as he hopped up the steps to knock on the door of her family’s townhouse and was beginning to wonder if it was all worth the stress. It was the first time he’d had a real interest in the girl he was courting, or seeking to court, and it added a level of pressure that he wasn’t comfortable with. He would have been far happier if he was able to maintain a distant lack of concern, but there was no chance of that.

For one who had grown up in an apartment in the centre of the city, her house was an opulent and impressive building. However, sitting on the edge of Highgarden and—as some of the more elitist in Ostenheim put it—precariously close to Lowgarden, it wasn’t nearly as grand as the mansions that occupied the higher part of the hill. Lowgarden tended to be the domain of wealthy merchants, professionals and some poorer nobles, and as such was looked down upon by the high aristocracy in Highgarden, both figuratively and literally. Snobbery was rampant in Ostian society and permeated every level of it—Bryn had heard it said the beggars in the Cathedral district were venomously scornful of those resident in Docks, an absurd thought but apparently true nonetheless. Despite it all, Bryn would be very glad if he were ever able to afford to live in Lowgarden.

He waited for a moment after knocking before a servant opened the door.

‘I was wondering if Lady dal Verrara was at home today?’

‘Senior or junior, sir?’

‘Junior, I presume,’ Bryn said. ‘It’s Lady Joranna that I’m looking for.’

‘Junior it is, sir. Might I ask who is calling?’

‘Banneret of the Blue Bryn Pendollo.’

Bryn raised his eyebrows in surprise when the door was closed. It was usual convention for a caller of rank to be allowed to wait in the hall and Bryn began to wonder if he was being punished for not calling sooner. A few minutes went by before the door opened again.

‘My lady will see you, sir. If you would come this way please.’

The servant led him through to a parlour where Joranna was sitting on a sofa, looking slightly flushed, betraying the rush and fuss there must have been when it was announced that there was a gentleman calling for her. Bryn had to suppress a smile at the thought of having won back some of the initiative in their fledgling courtship.

The same older woman that had been with Joranna at the ball sat in the corner of the room, ostensibly reading a book but glancing in his direction as discreetly as she could every few moments.

‘Good afternoon, Banneret,’ Joranna said, without standing. ‘Please sit.’ She gestured to the sofa opposite her.

He did as he was bade.

‘I was beginning to wonder if you were ever going to call,’ she said.

‘Well, I’ve been very busy with training.’

‘Ah yes, you’re in the arena, I’d almost forgotten. It must be a very exciting lifestyle.’

He wasn’t sure if she was teasing him or putting on the display of rigid formality for her chaperone.

‘Well, that’s what I’m hoping for,’ Bryn said, his eyes drifting inquiringly toward the chaperone. ‘Right now it’s something of a struggle. Getting duels when you’re starting off is harder than I thought it would be. I’m hopeful things will pick up though, sooner rather than later.’

She smiled and cast a furtive glance in the direction of her chaperone, giving Bryn reason to believe his second opinion was the correct one.

‘I’m afraid that I have other engagements to attend to this afternoon, but I thought that if you were free tomorrow you could call and we could go for a walk.’

‘That would be very nice,’ Bryn said. ‘Tomorrow then.’

‘
T
hat was well fought
, well fought indeed, Banneret.’

Bryn looked up from the leather case that he was putting his duelling sword into. The arena’s owner was standing next to him with a broad, toothy smile.

‘Thank you.’

‘I was speaking with your trainer a little earlier. He mentioned that you’ve been finding it difficult to get matches.’

It was late in the evening, and Bryn was tired. He was in no mood to speak with anyone, much less make pleasantries with an arena owner.

‘It’s certainly been more difficult than I was expecting,’ Bryn said.

‘Yes, that’s often the case these days. No one’s particularly interested in watching the lower ranked swordsmen duel. That means owners like myself can’t afford to host many lower ranked matches.’

‘It’s unfortunate, but if that’s the way things are there’s little I can do about it,’ Bryn said. There was something about the owner that he didn’t like; there was something insincere about him.

The promoter smiled again, confirming Bryn’s dislike.

‘That might not be entirely the case,’ the promoter said. ‘I’ve been thinking for some time about what might bring more people in to watch lower ranked matches, and then something occurred to me.’

Bryn couldn’t quite work out what the owner was playing at, but he could tell that he was trying to draw Bryn into the conversation, to pique his interest. He wasn’t willing to play along, so he remained silent and stared at the man.

‘Well, when I heard from your trainer how eager you are to get more matches, I thought perhaps we could help one another to solve our respective problems.’

Bryn continued to stare.

‘The last occasion that this arena was regularly filled was in the period following a death.’

So that was it. The weasel of a man wanted him to kill an opponent. ‘If you’re still within arm’s reach by the time I stand up, there will be a death in this arena, this very evening,’ Bryn said, giving the promoter the most venomous look he could muster, while pausing in closing his sword case.

‘Now, there’s no need for that, all that I meant was that—’

‘I’m standing up now,’ Bryn said, tensing his legs and making to stand.

The owner scurried away leaving Bryn alone once more. He sighed and slumped. He looked around at the grotty arena as the last of the patrons filed out of the stands toward the exits, not that there had been many present even during the height of the evening’s entertainments. Had it really come to the point that he needed to kill someone on the arena floor to get ahead? He had another five points to add to his tally after that evening. Surely that would be enough to improve things?