A Plague of Swords

by Miles Cameron

  At some point, Kronmir understood what he was seeing...the mad Venikan captain had gone back for the man who’d gone over the side.

  It was mad, but it was, in its own way, magnificent. The lone man, swimming strongly, waved. Almost under him, the monsters turned, their bodies creating a treacherous current, an undertow. The man swam desperately for the ship, Parmenio nudged the tiller, and Atkins leaned far out with a poleaxe. The serpent’s head ploughed a wake just a horse length from Atkins’s outstretched hand, but the man didn’t flinch. He reached with the poleaxe...

  ...one desperate hand caught the weapon’s head. Two men pulled on the haft with Atkins, and the sailor all but shot out of the water. Behind, a fourth sailor raised the crossbow he’d had trained...on the man in the water.

  “If we hadn’t got him”—Parmenio nodded—“Alberto would have killed him. It is far kinder, I promise you, than leaving a man in these seas.”

  But Alberto shot anyway—at the rising head of the serpent, coming up now on the starboard quarter.

  A great section of bloody, mangled whale came to the surface, ribs exposed, entrails trailing, quite dead.

  Kronmir plucked his black stoneware pot from its copper container. He opened it.

  The serpent was not undamaged. It seemed to list, to swim slightly on its own left side, and the shape of the triangular head was changed. Many of the hundreds of vicious teeth were broken. But it came on, and fell on the ship, the jaws yawning wide.

  Kronmir reared back and threw the black container as hard as he could. It rose—and by his side, young Kieron reached out with a web of fire and placed it, almost gently, on the sea serpent’s great purple tongue. A single bolt of red lightning forced the monstrous jaws to snap shut.

  Parmenio had all the wind he needed, and a fresh mainsail newly bent. He threw himself on the tiller, and Kronmir joined him, and the round ship turned again, still to port, completing her journey around the compass and returning to her original course, one point north of due east with the wind on her port quarter. The ship crested the rising waves, and Kieron threw wind into the mainsail, low, at deck level, so that sailors went flat even as the deck surged beneath them.

  The triangular head shuddered. The black eyes blinked, and the head fell away to the left, crashing into the sea and throwing spray high in the air. Before the head went down, it vomited black.

  “Christ and all his saints!” crowed the captain.

  Fifteen minutes of terror later, they were in the straits, running before the wind, and without a sight of monsters—natural, Wild, or otherwise. The only sign of their trials was a cloud of gulls descending on the floating whale’s carcass far astern, and a slick of black that was just discernible as a discolouration, like a matte stain on the ink-black nighttime sea.

  Within it, hundreds of dead fish bobbed like the corpses of a defeated army.

  The Venikan ship ran east.

  * * *

  At first light the next morning, Kronmir sent his bird. He debated it as soon as his head was clear enough to think, and decided, in the end, that he was unlikely to submit a more important report than one about the sea fight.

  The imperial messenger launched from the deck and, with powerful strokes, vanished heading north and west. Kronmir watched it fly until it was out of sight, annoyed to find that he felt more alone and more afraid once it was gone, as if it were a palpable link to the world of Alba and Morea. Then he sat down by his own cot, now holding Lucca, who had lost an eye and was in terrible pain, lashed by storms of agony. The anonymous little man came, mixed a potion and then another, then left in irritation and returned having fetched young Kieron, who made two workings that brought Lucca some relief. The ship had lost a dozen men dead and two more so badly injured that they had little chance for life.

  Parmenio, entering the cabin for a cup of wine, glanced at Lucca. The younger man was finally asleep.

  “Terrible losses,” he said. “Blessed Mary, we wouldn’t have lost as many in a long sea fight. With men, I mean, even vicious brutes.” He frowned. “The transparent things...they are the Eeeague?”

  “I believe so,” Kronmir said. “And are the serpents the Kraal?”

  Both men shrugged.

  Kronmir shook his head. “I confess I may never be able to face the sea again,” he said. “That thing...the scale of it...the jaws, reaching for the stern...”

  “Kieron says you killed it,” Parmenio said.

  Kronmir’s eyes narrowed. “Perhaps,” he said. “But I will not be in any hurry to see one again.”

  That evening, they passed the Wine Islands and ran due east and a little south. “It would not be so funny,” Parmenio said, “to be killed by the Genuans after escaping the monsters. I will make Venike’s Lido on the morning of the third day from now.”

  And on the third morning, Lucca awoke from his fever, cried a little for the loss of his eye, and then sat up. Kronmir led him on deck as they passed the fortified sea-gate of the Lido, with the great lion of Venike flying over the double fortresses that covered the great chain, and beyond, a series of three fortified islands, the third of which raised a flag. Parmenio responded with a coded signal, and they landed on the third island by midafternoon, with the magnificent city of Venike, dazzling in the brilliant midsummer sunlight, sparkling just a few hundred paces of seawater away.

  The round ship kissed the quay and the sailors swarmed down the decks to the pier, put hawsers to the iron bollards, and then knelt on the stone and gave thanks to God, to the saints, to a hundred dubious devils and a dozen curious amulets. A pair of inspectors came aboard and began to review the cargo, and with them was a magister who cast repeated detection workings, on the ship and on the sailors. Then every man aboard had to walk under a curious bronze arch set in the stone of the pier. Parmenio paid a fee, a document was sealed with a very official-looking seal, and they were free to travel on to the city.

  “It is the best-run port in the world,” Parmenio said proudly. “They already know of the plague in Harndon.” He nodded at the bronze arch. “The work of Hermes Trigeneris himself, or so it is said.” He crossed himself.

  Years had fallen away from his face, and Captain Parmenio appeared a much younger man.

  The city, beautiful at a distance, became even more magnificent closer up. Kronmir was unimpressed by the muddy barbarism of Harndon, with her unpaved streets and fortress-palace, but Venike might have been built by the same master sculptors who built Liviapolis, except that her streets were not manure-covered marble, with sections of cobble, dirt, and mud. Instead, the streets of Venike were paved in water, and small boats ran in every direction, hauling cargo or passengers.

  When they found their moorings and came to rest in one of the city’s two great S-shaped canals, Parmenio insisted on taking Kronmir and his two companions to his home. “It is a very expensive city,” he said.

  “I will need to go to work immediately,” Kronmir warned the captain.

  Parmenio shrugged. “I have made the run from Harndon to Venike in eight days,” he said. “Surely this was fast enough for you?”

  Kronmir raised an eyebrow. “Is that roast eel?” he asked, breathing in.

  “Squid in squid’s ink,” Parmenio said. “A dish of my city, which perhaps we will share tonight. You will meet my wife, who will, I hope, not be too amazed that I have returned.” He nodded. “And, to be honest, I suspect that you will be required to meet with officials of the city.”

  “I would expect as much,” Kronmir said. He noted that Parmenio was hiding something.

  “You have been to Venike before?” Parmenio asked.

  Kronmir shook his head. “Never this far north. Listen. I need...” The habit of privacy and stealth bound Kronmir like a vow of silence, but he needed to move very quickly. “I need to speak to someone who will know...the news.”

  Parmenio smiled. “My wife,” he said.

  Kronmir’s brow furrowed. “No, I mean someone in government. I understand that they
will want our news. I am content to exchange. With someone with access to the news from Arles and even Nordika.”

  Parmenio led the group, which included the sailor Antonio and two others, along a broad street. Their ship was not even the largest, and hundreds of ships lined the canals and a forest of masts seemed to hang over every building.

  “This way,” Parmenio said. “I think you will find my wife meets your criterion. Perhaps you are unused to women holding positions of power. I find Alba terribly backward in this regard.” He led them along a walkway scarcely wide enough for a man to walk safely, with a wall on the right and a four-foot drop to the water on the left. They walked fifty paces and came to an ornate door set in a high wall with an iron grating.

  Paremnio slapped the grate with one hand and said some gibberish.

  The gate opened without a sound.

  “Your wife is in government, Captain?” Kronmir asked.

  Parmenio was at the foot of a stone external staircase that wound up three flights. At the top, a heavy woman in a shawl was cleaning clams. She looked over the stone balustrade and shrieked with evident delight.

  “Il Capitano!” she roared. She turned and vanished through the doorway behind her.

  Parmenio grinned and began to run up the stone steps. Kronmir had to follow suit to keep his attention.

  The ornate door on the second landing opened, and two liveried servants stepped out, one adjusting his jupon. Behind them was a middle-aged woman with a magnificent mane of red hair and a severe but possibly beautiful face. When she caught sight of the captain, her face lit with joy and her beauty was evident. She threw her arms around him.

  Parmenio looked over her shoulder at Kronmir. “My wife,” he said, unnecessarily.

  Kronmir looked away. When he looked back, she was holding him at arm’s length as if to see if he was real. In very precise Etruscan, she said, “You are alive! We hear of nothing from Alba but war and pestilence.”

  “It has both,” Parmenio said. “But I am alive, and with a beautiful cargo and some new friends.”

  “Come and tell me all your news, husband,” she said. “Tell me quickly and I will report to the Thirty. There is much...” She looked at Kronmir.

  Parmenio nodded. “He saved my life and my ship. He is an officer of the empire.”

  Kronmir bowed, unused to having his status as an officer announced. But under the circumstances, a little openness did seem the fastest solution. “Am I to understand,” he asked, “that your wife is...”

  “An officer of the Thirty,” Parmenio said. “Theresa.”

  Kronmir bowed; Theresa curtsied.

  “Is...are you...” Theresa struggled to control herself. “Is the emperor coming?” she asked.

  Kronmir sighed for his lost secrecy. “Much has yet to be decided,” he said. “I am here to gather information.”

  “For the emperor?” she asked. “Who is emperor? Is it true that the emperor was killed in battle? With...the Wild?” She drew a breath. “Ah, messire, my apologies. I would never interrogate my husband’s guest on our very doorstep, but by the graces, messire, the Thirty are desperate for information.”

  Kronmir bowed. “I will do the best that I can,” he said. Behind him, Atkins and Antonio carried Lucca’s stretcher in.

  Servants bustled about. Parmenio paused. “Wasn’t there another man?” he asked.

  Kronmir looked interested. “Another man?” he asked.

  “A servant?” Parmenio asked, and then shrugged. “Perhaps not.”

  Donna Theresa sent a runner. Before the norcini was set in steaming bowls on the sideboard, before wine was poured, a knock interrupted the clamour of the servants, and Kronmir, sitting in the shifting light of an upstairs balcony that overhung the canal and enjoying a sweet and bitter drink that seemed to smooth away eight days of sea monsters, saw boats pulling up to the small dock at the front of the house—first one small black boat, and then two larger boats, and then a magnificent barge that seemed to be plated in solid gold.

  “Your wife is quite important here, I gather?” Kronmir said to Parmenio.

  The ship’s captain smiled. “More important than I am,” he said. “This might hurt some men. But she is...” He made a little sign in the air. “It is a miracle to me that she married me.”

  Kronmir made no comment. People’s marriages mystified him. But he put on a genial smile. “You know, sometimes I almost believe in God,” he murmured.

  Parmenio finished his drink and stood. “I dreamt of this,” he said. “A glass of wine on my own balcony, looking out over my city. When the serpent’s coils went past us, I told myself that we would, with a little luck, be here.” His smile grew broader. “I see we are to have company for dinner, my dear!”

  She leaned over and kissed him. “My darling, the duke has come, with the duchess, and all of the Seven.”

  Parmenio leapt to his feet. “Sweet Christ!” he said. “I need to bathe, change, buy clothes!”

  His wife smiled. “I know it is not what you want, but your guest and your news are of the utmost importance.” She shrugged in a very Etruscan manner. “More important than clothes.”

  Parmenio shrugged. “We survived the sea monster. The duke should not be so bad.”

  And then, very suddenly, the great, well-lit rooms of the second floor were full of people, men and women in the most beautiful clothes, and Kronmir felt terribly out of place. He was introduced to so many people, so fast, in a language that was not his best language, that even his remarkable memory was stretched to its capacity, and he found himself finally bowing over the fingers of the duchess and unable to remember what to say in Etruscan or any other language. But despite the age of her spouse, who looked to be a somnolent centenarian with a death’s skull for a face, the duchess was very young, blond, and had a charming manner. She rang all sorts of alarm bells in Kronmir’s head. Her face was tanned, and her pretty, tapering fingers in his were hard with muscle and had ridges of callus that told him that her right hand was her sword hand. Her smile to him was direct, eye to eye, and held no nonsense and no flirtation.

  Kronmir noted that she gave Donna Theresa a particular look and there was a small motion of her hand, and Donna Theresa opened her fan. All conversation ended.

  “Gentles all,” Donna Theresa said. “This gentleman is come as a sort of unofficial ambassador from the emperor.”

  Kronmir was not used to being the center of attention.

  He bowed again to the elderly duke and presented his papers, such as they were—the letter from the Duke of Thrake with the imperial seal. The other letter, with the codes, he had destroyed.

  Donna Giselle—the duchess—took the letter and read it, and then leaned over to the duke and spoke quietly.

  The death’s head turned and he was fixed with a basilisk stare. “The Duke of Thrake is to be emperor?” he asked in a firm voice, only a little weakened by age. His eyes glittered with intelligence, and Kronmir controlled a shudder. He knew a dangerous man when he saw one. The two of them...they spoke to him, their bodies close. They were not a political match of an old man and a young woman. They were, however it had come about, partners.

  “If he chooses to accept the iron sceptre, he will be emperor,” Kronmir answered.

  “On what grounds?” the Duke of Venike asked.

  “Acclimation by the army,” Kronmir said. “He has won a great victory over the Wild. Two great victories.”

  The duke seemed to sag. “And the king? And Rohan?” He glanced at his wife, whose face was impassive.

  “The Sieur de Rohan is dead. The King of Alba is also dead. Queen Desiderata is now regent for her son, who will be christened...” Kronmir stopped. He blinked. “Perhaps was christened yesterday. My apologies, my lords, I have lost track of the days.”

  The duke snapped his fingers and silence fell again. “And the emperor?” he asked.

  “Was killed in battle against the Wild,” Kronmir said, and bowed his head. “At the first battle, at
Dorling.”

  “And then your Red Duke, having sacrificed the emperor, came up and defeated the Wild?” the duke snapped. “And assassinated all his rivals?” he said, as if asking for jam. Suddenly he did not seem old or weak, but Kronmir had met such men before.

  Kronmir bowed his head. “The emperor insisted on engaging an enemy too strong for his forces.”

  “But you confirm that he is dead,” Donna Theresa said. “And Irene, his daughter? Is she not empress?”

  “Has she not tried to make herself empress before?” the duchess asked.

  The duke snapped his fingers for silence. “The King of Alba and the emperor are both dead. The Sieur De Rohan is dead, and his party is fallen. Do I have the facts correct?”

  The lords of Venike were all speaking at once. Kronmir followed their babble easily enough because it was his duty and pleasure—amazement that Rohan had fallen, pointless speculation as to the manner of his fall.

  The duchess leaned back—a graceful movement—and Donna Theresa leaned forward. They spoke together.

  The duke frowned. “He has defeated the Wild?” he asked, or rather, barked. “This upstart Duke of Thrake? Is he some marauder? Some sell-sword?”

  Donna Theresa nodded. “He was a sell-sword, Your Grace.” She made a sign in the air. “But he was, I believe, the commander of the imperial armies.” Her lips moved, but Kronmir could read lips. The yellow folder.

  Kronmir let them talk. This was a game as old as thrones, and they would do more for the Red Knight’s myth by making things up for themselves than he could add by telling them the facts, bare or embroidered.

  “This is the same who defeated our fleet at Liviapolis?” the duke asked.

  All heads turned to Kronmir. He took a deep breath and smiled.

  “The same, my lords,” he said.

  “The same of whom young Baldeske reported so favourably?” he asked. He looked at Donna Theresa, as if to say, I read your damned report. Kronmir hid a smile.

  “And now his army will make him emperor?” The duke all but spat it. “How long will he last? A week? These soldier emperors are all fools and brutes.”