A Plague of Swords

by Miles Cameron

Yet the central lamp that hung, burning clearly with seven wicks, over the gilded wood throne was solid gold, and the cup in Princess Irene’s hand was solid silver, and she wore a magnificent, if somewhat boxy, gold brocade dress from Venike.

  The Red Knight ignored court decorum and swept across the pavilion to kneel on one knee at her feet and kiss her hand. This gesture had no imperial significance whatsoever. He’d put a good deal of thought into it.

  “At last, the Megas Dukas deigns to visit us,” she said.

  She was still beautiful. In fact, she had gone from being a merely attractive dark-haired girl with flawless ivory skin and a nose slightly too large for her, to being a stunning woman with the hawklike nose of her family, and on her, it was perfect.

  He chose not to answer.

  And so, silence fell. The two looked at each other, and she did not ask him to rise, and he did not rise.

  Maria cleared her throat.

  “Are you in touch with your son?” Gabriel asked her. It was a clear contravention of the protocol of court, but there were two silent servants of the Ordinary present and no other court. The guard outside had been Scholae. He knew them all. This was meant to be informal. Which was to say, as informal as a girl born to the purple could stand.

  “You may only speak to me, and then only when I speak,” Irene said quietly. She was reminding him, he thought. She thought he might have forgotten.

  He smiled at her. “That is the etiquette of the court, and for the empress,” he said.

  “I am the empress,” she said. “I have travelled to the very borders of my own realm to see you. Is this nothing to you? I cannot imagine such a thing happening in my father’s time. You are my Megas Dukas. I require you in Liviapolis. My city is in turmoil. The plague is loose there. And there are men—horrible men...” She paused.

  Gabriel looked back at Maria.

  She gave a small shake of her head.

  “Tell me of the terrible men,” he said.

  “Men with the heads of animals. They riot and kill. They kill doctors. And priests. And magi.” Her voice trailed off. She was the very picture of the princess in need of rescuing.

  “So I understand,” Gabriel said. “I am in daily communication with the officers of the city.”

  Irene looked at him. “What?”

  Gabriel shrugged. “There is a war party headed for the Morea even now; reinforcements for the partisans in your countryside. My officers will see to its elimination.”

  Irene paused, her mouth open attractively, her perfect teeth showing. She took in a surprised breath. “You understand?” she asked.

  “Yes. From Ser Alcaeus. Maria’s son.” Gabriel was still on one knee and his knee hurt and he wasn’t breathing well and he hated hurting people. And he knew—close up—that for no real reason, he felt a good deal for this woman.

  “Where is he?” Irene asked, her eyes going to Maria.

  “In the city,” Gabriel said. “He has been for several days.”

  Irene understood immediately. “I have a safe conduct!” she said immediately. “You cannot touch me.”

  Gabriel stood up, ending all pretense. “I am going to be emperor.”

  “Over my corpse,” she said calmly. “Unless...” She paused. “You were acclaimed. I accept it. In fact, the patriarch accepts it.” She shrugged. “But you will marry me. And we will be acclaimed together, as in the ancient times.”

  He met her eye. He had seldom done so in his months as her military commander. Court etiquette forbade such eye contact, and the only time he’d really looked into her eyes was the night Kaitlin had married Michael, and Ser George had married his lady. So many crises ago.

  She could not hold his look. “You may not look at me like that,” she said.

  He nodded. “I will offer you no insult.”

  She nodded. “Yes. I understood that as soon as you came in. You were born...for us.” She smiled.

  “I will speak frankly, Irene. You are a desperate gambler on her last throw. Despite which...” He raised his hand to intercept her protest, “Despite which, I will assure your place and not have you killed by the mutes or sent to northern Thrake. Or stabbed with a magical dagger. Or have your knees broken. Or, if all that fails, have you shot with a poisoned dart.”

  As he spoke, she writhed. It was a controlled writhe. Invisible to anyone who did not know her.

  He had just told her that he knew, precisely, how she had tried to have him killed. And her father.

  “I have all of Andronicus’s correspondence,” he said. “Including that part that went by imperial messenger. And Kronmir works for me, now.”

  They looked at each other, and time might have been said to have stopped.

  She sighed, eventually. “Very well,” she said. Empress to princess in one breath. “I would make a good wife. I like you, Gabriel. That was...a different time. With different pressures.” She didn’t shrug; she was too proud. “Surely you of all men understand the terrain of politics, and the battles I had to fight. How could I know you would be more valuable to me than...”

  The problem was that he thought she was telling the truth. Telling a truth. Capable of believing what she was saying, anyway.

  He smiled. “You know the odd thing, Irene? I like you too. That’s why I am not publishing the letters, or simply killing you. I have a deal to offer you, which, from my perspective, seems very fair. You may reject it. But in this negotiation, I have almost everything, including the approval of the army and control of the city and your person.” He was holding her eyes. He saw her flick a look at Maria. Maria looked away.

  “Damn you,” she said.

  “Damn you,” Gabriel said. “You tried to kill me, and you left enough loose ends behind that now I own you.”

  “Traitor!” Irene hissed at Maria.

  Maria shook her head. “I loved your father,” she said. Then she made a deep obeisance.

  Irene’s eyes went back to Gabriel’s. “Very well,” she said. She was a survivor. “Whom do I have to marry?” she asked.

  “My brother Aneas,” Gabriel said. “He’s in the woods killing Kevin Orley just now. He is closer to your age than I am. He’s quite handsome.”

  She looked at Maria. “He is a boy lover,” she spat.

  He had forgotten about how well informed she would be.

  “A man lover, perhaps, sometimes,” he said. “He likes power, too. I would make him Duke of Thrake.”

  She put a hand to her throat.

  “I would leave you as regent when I went away, with Ser Milus as Megas Dukas and my brother on the throne next to you,” he said. “Damn it, Irene, this is a very, very good deal I offer.”

  “You should just kill me,” she said. Her ivory skin transmitted a flush very quickly.

  “Is that your answer?” he asked. His voice was hard.

  “You are too soft to be emperor. I am not. I will be empress over your corpse. I spit on your brother. And you.” She rose. “Go.”

  Gabriel stood for a long time. Outside, horses chomped grass on the fells, and a red-tailed hawk screamed, and two servants had a tiff over who, exactly, drank the last of the lord’s red wine.

  Gabriel looked at Maria, and she looked away.

  He had a war in his mind. He knew so many things Irene didn’t. She was young, very young, and she hadn’t done the things he’d done, and she was merely playing the game as she’d been taught, by ruthless experts, all but one of whom had failed. She was replaying their failures, while thinking them great.

  It struck him that killing her was a terrible waste. He didn’t want her death on his conscience. With all the other deaths, there was already an impressive trail of corpses following him.

  But...she had it in her power to wreck all their plans, and she’d never even know why, and he didn’t trust her enough to tell her. Master Smythe and Michael and Sauce all agreed that they could not trust her.

  And any woman who could countenance her father’s murder might sell out to A
sh.

  What Gabriel knew, what Maria knew, and what Irene, of course, did not know, was that if Gabriel walked out of the tent without his bargain, she was dead.

  He stood looking at her.

  She drew herself to her full height. “I hate you. I hate myself for once having wanted you. You are too weak to rule, and the empire will cheer me when I kill you, just as fiercely as now, they cheer you.”

  He kept looking at her. Almost everything in him cried out to tell her. To explain it all.

  It was one thing to send men to their deaths in battle. He hated it, but he did it. Without much thought, really.

  She was being sent to her death for being too full of guile and selfishness to be trusted. A battle casualty of another sort.

  “I will dance on your grave,” she said.

  Unconsciously, he ran a hand over his hair, and flexed the fingers of his silver hand, his latest habit.

  He thought of his young brother, weeping for the death of his friend.

  He didn’t even shrug. The desire to speak to her was too great, and the equally balanced desire, almost sexual, to kill her himself, with the dagger at his hip. Political suicide, and yet, somehow, more honest. His real self.

  He wondered for a moment how he would ever talk of this to Amicia, or, God help him, Blanche.

  He found his right hand on his dagger hilt.

  She flinched.

  He took it away, and bowed.

  He thought that it was odd that if she died, few would mourn her, but if he killed her here, in a welter of blood, men would think him a monster.

  I am a monster, he thought. In a good cause.

  “Go!” she shrieked.

  He met her eyes again. “Irene,” he said. “I would like you to live. And be powerful. This is what you want as well.”

  “Even if you kill me, I will triumph, because you will lose the trust of many men,” she said.

  Gabriel sighed. “You won’t know,” he said. “Because you’ll be dead.”

  “I’ll be queen in hell,” she said.

  He shook his head, admiring her courage and hating her foolish sense of drama. “You know the phrase, Better the slave of a bad master than king of the dead?” he asked.

  “You almost speak High Archaic like a person,” she shot back. “Don’t quote the classics at me, you bloody-handed barbarian. Go—ride your servant girl; she’s more your speed. And play at being emperor. The army will tire of you in time.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “That was a trifle arch, even for you.”

  He managed not to look at Maria, nor signal her in any way. He simply left, his shoulders square.

  * * *

  For more than an hour, he walked about the sheepfolds and the cattle fences as the summer sun plunged. And, naturally, he found thirty Hillmen in a small camp: close enough to the inn to get beer, far enough that they didn’t need to mix with all the difficult foreigners.

  Bad Tom was standing, naked to the waist. Donald Dhu was standing opposite him. Neither man had a weapon.

  Both were bleeding.

  David the Cow made room for Gabriel in the ring. “Cheers,” he muttered, without taking his eyes off the two giants.

  Gabriel was handed a mug of dark ale, which he drank off as he watched.

  The two men circled carefully, arms out, weight forward.

  Twice, they started to close—arms reaching—then did not, for whatever reason, slipping away from the decisive moment.

  “Donald is down one throw,” David said. “He’s still fuckin’ lit about his son. He thinks Tom’s gone soft.”

  Gabriel nodded. He drank more.

  He saw Tom’s intention clearly, because he’d faced Tom enough times. The big man swayed once, and then another time. It wasn’t much of a feint, because Gabriel knew he didn’t need a feint. He just wanted Donald Dhu to come in range.

  And Dhu did. Suddenly he powered forward, arms out. By chance, or intent, the two men’s fingers meshed instead of sliding down one another’s arms, and Tom kicked Dhu in the knee and thrust his right arm, almost as if he were punching the red-haired man, except that their fingers were intertwined and so he pulled Dhu’s left arm across his body—the other man leaned to favour the knee injured by the kick, and Tom threw him suddenly over his own out-thrust shin, a casual throw, except that Tom followed him down, kneeling viciously with a knee between the other man’s legs and slamming his one hand into the back of the other man’s head, breaking his nose.

  “Yield,” Tom said.

  Dhu rolled instead. Or rather, he tried, and it was a good try, and despite the pain, or because of it, he feinted, used his hips, and he moved Bad Tom, but he didn’t roll him off.

  Bad Tom broke his arm. It wasn’t a long, drawn-out process. The big Drover simply used his purchase and broke the other man’s arm and probably dislocated his shoulder, too.

  Hill men were tough and had extravagant notions of how tough they ought to be, but most of the men in the circle flinched or looked away.

  Tom got up. “I tol’ ye to yield, and ye dinna.” He shrugged. “Take yer tail and go awa’ home. I’m done wi’ ye. When yer shoulder heals, come back and say yer sorry, or come back and fight me to the death.” He nodded to the men in the circle, and then he walked to the stone wall and took his shirt, a huge thing of bright yellow linen.

  He saw Gabriel and nodded. Men were staying away from him, and Gabriel had the terrible feeling that he’d arrived at exactly the wrong time—the sort of outside interference that the Hillmen resented.

  He drank the rest of his dark ale anyway. He didn’t want to kill Irene. It made him angry. The whole thing made him angry. Being indecisive made him angry. For the moment, she was alive, and he knew he was avoiding a very real problem. Blanche was angry, and he didn’t want to deal with that, either.

  Tom moved away from him, talking to some men and avoiding others, until he’d made a circuit.

  Gabriel got himself another cup of ale.

  He was well into it when Bad Tom appeared. “An how long since ye have had a nice fight?” he asked.

  “I fought Thorn to the death about three weeks ago,” Gabriel said. He flexed his left hand. “Just before that, I fought de Vrailly.”

  “An’ now yer resting on yer laurels, eh?” Tom asked. “I need a favour o’ ye.”

  Gabriel nodded. “Anything, Tom.”

  “Good. I need ye to fight wi’ me, right now, in a shirt, with a long sword. Do you a world o’ good.” He stepped back, all six foot five of him, and drew his enormous sword. The sword that had wounded Ash.

  Gabriel felt all the lethargy of two large pints of dark beer.

  “I have to piss first.” He pointed. “And not against that sword.”

  “Fair eno’,” Tom said. “Get me my old sword.”

  Behind him, some Hillmen laughed.

  Gabriel went away two sheepfolds and came back to find the circle re-formed, and Tom waiting on his sword hilt, his point buried in the ground.

  He stripped off his doublet, retied his points, drew his sword, and laid the scabbard, belt, and purse on top of his doublet.

  “Ready,” he said.

  Tom opened with a massive swing, a monstrous thing that started with his sword hidden behind his right hip. He swung it up, over his head, and down at a diagonal that would have split Gabriel from eyebrow to hip.

  Gabriel parried, letting Tom’s blade slide down his, carefully avoiding allowing Tom’s sharp edge to catch on his own. He countercut from the cover, rolling his own wrists and striking at Tom’s, but the big man was too fast and too canny for such a simple play, and he flicked his blade up in a small cover. Then he cut straight at Gabriel’s head.

  Gabriel knew it was a feint, but the knowing and the sheer fear of the big man and his big blade almost cost him.

  He raised his own blade in response—and read the feint.

  As Tom’s blade rotated—as Tom released the grip of his left hand on the pommel and stepped forward�
��Gabriel released his own grip with his left hand. But instead of doing the classic counter to the other man’s classic attack, he simply crossed Tom’s sword—one-handed. Not a winning proposition, except that he stepped in, something most men did not do to Tom Lachlan, and slammed his left hand into Tom’s right elbow. And stepped through again, Tom rotating to avoid the blow, and tapped Tom on the forehead with his pommel. It was not a gentle tap, but neither, apurpose, was it a knockout blow.

  “That for you!” Tom shouted as the Hillmen roared.

  Tom came in again. This time the blades both licked out, right on center—thrust, parry, deceive, counterdeception.

  Gabriel saw his moment and grabbed Tom’s blade, but he’d been lured. Tom pulled the blade.

  Gabriel’s left hand was not made of flesh. His grip held, and Tom’s eyes widened as Gabriel’s point came up between his eyes. “Now that’s cheatin’,” he laughed. “Damme! I clean forgot that you had steel instead o’ flesh on the left hand.”

  He came in again.

  Gabriel was breathing like a bellows, his injured lungs not doing a very good job of supporting the fight, and he began to back away, ceding, he knew, too much initiative, and when he drew a deep breath and stood his ground, he chosen the wrong distance. Tom’s heavy cut locked their blades, and Gabriel chose to put weight into his cover. Tom glided in with his left hand and got it between Gabriel’s on his hilt, and in one powerful move, threw the smaller man to the ground...and took his sword.

  Gabriel lay on the springy turf, his hip a little bruised from a rock, and a line of blood just starting on his left shoulder where Tom had tapped him with the sharp blade.

  “Another shirt ruined,” he said. He got to his feet with a hand from Tom, and they embraced. Some Hillmen cheered, and the rest just smiled. Some began to square off in fights of their own.

  “There,” Tom said, handing Gabriel back his sword. “Yer better already.”

  Gabriel had to breathe a while. Someone brought him more ale. Remarkably, it was the dragon’s girl, Bess. She grinned at him.

  “I’m not sure which one of us is the bad penny,” he said.

  Tom laughed. “Bess is no better ’an she ought to be,” he leered. “Away wi’ ee, lady.” He leaned against the stone wall. “You looked terrible. Ye needed a fight an’ a fuck. I can only give ye the fight,” he went on.