The Sword Saint

by C. F. Iggulden

  Canis held out his hand and Albert George passed him a slender leather case, holding it steady while his master’s grip closed on the handle.

  ‘Listen for the bell at Frith Street chapel,’ Canis said. ‘The one by the west gate is running five minutes slow. Four o’clock, Albert George. I will be ready then.’

  Something changed in the crowd. It was a subtle thing, but it broke the rhythm of the city around them and Albert George looked past his master to see what it was. He might have done the same if the drone of a wasp nest under a window had suddenly ceased, unnoticed until it was gone.

  The house of Canis had never been much beloved. The family was known to be cold and there were enough dark stories about their stone. The pavement had been left clear between the coach and the entrance to the council building. Canis needed no guards to keep people away, not when even his touch was said to bring ill fortune. There was barely a grain of truth in any of it, but who would risk those they loved? While Albert George had brushed his master’s coat, not half a dozen citizens had scurried across, heads down and backs bent, trying to escape notice. Hundreds more had interrupted their own busy afternoon to simply stand and stare at the head of one of the twelve noble families of Darien. They made their own wall to those behind.

  In an instant, three men broke through. They wore brown cloaks that swirled around them. Two rested arms on each other’s shoulders and laughed together, while the third seemed to dance. They were all tall and slender and Albert George turned, the instinct of years in the legion making him move to face a threat. He was not fast enough.

  The laughing men enveloped the manservant for a few moments, never pausing as they swept past. Knives flickered under the cloaks and Albert George gave a grunt at the bite of iron.

  ‘Murder!’ he roared, startling the three even as they capered and shoved one another. Blood spattered on his breath and Albert George clung to the one who had stabbed him, holding on as his legs folded. The attacker struggled to pull his fingers from the thick cloak, dipping to a crouch.

  All the fake laughter had vanished as the violence began. While one of their number still wrestled with the dying servant, the other two drew long knives and darted at the man they had come to kill.

  Lord Canis tossed his satchel at them, so that one had to bat it from the air. It was just a heartbeat’s respite, but it allowed him to draw a dagger from a black scabbard on his hip. It was no longer than his forearm, more symbol than weapon of war. Yet it was like a razor. If they had expected the lord to cower from them, or stand stunned as his servant died, they were mistaken.

  Canis whipped his blade across the arm of one as the man lunged for him. He was rewarded with a slash of red and a yelp of surprise. The lord was slim and quick in his movements, his eyes utterly cold as he assessed the threat. The second one charged him, keeping him off-balance and under attack. For a time, Canis could do nothing but fend off both men. His expression never changed, though he took cuts on the forearm and across the ribs. The attackers were fast and careful with their blades. They knew how to fight, but still Canis remained on his feet.

  The third attacker wrenched his cloak free at last, plunging his knife again and again until Albert George’s grip suddenly weakened. As the fellow rose in ugly triumph, Lord Canis saw the dark shape of his coachman leap from above, driving a short sword through the killer’s shoulders. They crashed together onto the hard flints. It had been a mortal blow, which left just two. Yet Canis could feel his strength beginning to fade. He was no longer young. Worse, his cuts bled profusely, stealing his will and concentration.

  His sole advantage lay in each beat of time that passed. Canis did not smile when he heard shouts raised in the council building, nor at the running steps he could hear over the yells and screams of the crowd around them. He adjusted his stance as the two attackers flew at him again. Perhaps they sensed time running out. For frenzied moments they snarled and panted and struck at him. Killing a man was hard work.

  Canis took a second wound on his forearm, but the attacker rolled his wrist as he struck. The blade tore through a sleeve to pass under his elbow and between the ribs. Canis felt it as a great thump in the chest, as if he had been punched. His riposte was across the man’s throat. The assassin’s body continued to pant, though his lips were suddenly still. Instead, the throat pulsed obscenely as air rushed in and out of the wound. Fear showed in the man’s eyes at last.

  ‘Why, there is always a price,’ Canis said softly to him. ‘Did you not know?’

  Three guards in white uniforms had come pounding out of the council building. One of them began to shout, but the other two engaged without any warning. They could not know friend from foe, but they were experienced men. The coachman staggered upright only to be knocked flat and knelt on. The one still attacking Lord Canis was a more obvious threat. The guards cut him down from behind as he struggled past his dying companion, still trying to finish the job.

  Those who lived remained on high alert, panting and looking for threats that did not come. The crowd had pulled back and there had been some shrieking while the fight was going on. In that moment, there was a vast silence. It would not last – it never did – but for a time, the men involved stood apart somehow from their fellows. They looked at each other and gave private thanks for having survived. Then the moment of brotherhood faded and the noise of the city swelled in around them.

  Canis slumped against the side of his coach. His coat hid the worst wounds, but he could feel his hands and feet getting numb. At the same time, a warm line ran from his belly down one leg. It reminded him of having wet himself and he hoped they had not pierced his bladder, looking for the dark stain against the blacker wool.

  His coachman cried out for the guards to get off, scrambling up in stunned horror at what had erupted in the street. He reached Lord Canis as his master began to slip down against the polished carriage door. The coachman had not touched Lord Canis in a dozen years. The lord invited no intimacy of any kind. Yet he would certainly have fallen if his man had not held him upright.

  ‘My lord, where are you hurt?’ he said. The coachman gaped at the red stain that covered his palm like a child’s paint. ‘Help! Bring help here! His lordship needs a healer.’

  ‘Let’s get him inside,’ one of the guards said.

  He and his colleagues were still struggling to understand what had happened, but the street was too open and the crowds were pressing closer in horror and fascination. Who knew if there were more attackers, just watching for another chance? The council guards felt their backs exposed, so they took hold of Lord Canis and his dead manservant, forcing the coachman into service to carry the feet of Albert George. The black coach and the other bodies were left behind as the group vanished through the doors of the council building. By the time more guards came out to take control of the scene, the killers had been stripped of weapons, rings and pouches of coin. The satchel remained on the road and the coach itself lay untouched, though the door creaked back and forth in the air. Embroidered cushions were clearly visible inside, but no one wanted anything of the Canis house.

  Inside the council building, the clatter of heels on polished marble echoed. Clerks stood rooted to the spot as whispered questions began. No one knew what was going on.

  In a meeting room off the main entrance, the guards swept a table clear and laid Lord Canis down. His manservant was clearly dead and they rested the body of Albert George on the carpet, folding bloodied hands across his chest. Word of the attack travelled through the building like smoke. Slowly, every doorway and stair filled with staring faces.

  Tellius came out of the new dining room, wiping his mouth while one of the clerks informed him of the tragedy. He tossed the cloth aside as he saw Lord Canis stretched out on the meeting-room table. The man’s chest still rose and fell, but barely. Tellius went to him, ignoring the Aeris guards, who stood back respectfully in his presence. In Darien, Tellius was consort to Lady Sallet and speaker to the council. Some of the
families knew too that he was part of the royal line in Shiang, though not many. Either way, they made no protest as he entered the room and took charge, glaring at those leaning in to stare.

  ‘What is this, a show?’ Tellius demanded. ‘Get back to your labours, all of you.’ Many of those watching turned away, though others hesitated and remained. Tellius swore under his breath as he glanced at the Aeris guards. ‘One of you fetch the king’s surgeon. Run, now! Master Burroughs has rooms on Whiteharte – out of the door and left, not a quarter mile from here.’

  Tellius took Canis’ hand then and looked down upon him, wincing at the cool stiffness already in the flesh. Canis was very pale and each breath seemed to catch, as if something blocked the draw of air. It was not a good sign.

  Tellius leaned right over then to murmur into the ear, where small curved wrinkles joined it to the man’s scalp.

  ‘Shall I have your stone brought?’

  ‘No … not again.’ The man’s words came with little movement. His eyes had been weary, resigned to death. Tellius’ question brought back a gleam of life and … fear. The stone restored, but it also took warmth. It took too much.

  ‘Never …’ Canis whispered.

  To Tellius’ horror, the lord began to choke. His lungs had filled with blood and he could pull no more air into them. Yet his eyes still moved back and forth, as if looking for a way out. One leg twitched violently, clattering against the polished oak. It was an agonising wait and no one moved until blood began to dry on his lips and the heel no longer drummed. The silence seemed to fill the building. Tellius reached out and arranged the dead man’s hands once more across his chest.

  ‘Fetch me linen, would you?’ he said. ‘A cloth long enough to cover him.’

  One was brought and Tellius watched as two servants drew it over the staring eyes. As it settled, a dark spot appeared where it touched the man’s lips. Tellius found himself unable to look away as his mind whirred and plotted. Canis had voted against the proposal from the north. His murder meant the council was deadlocked no longer. More, it meant Tellius knew who had to be responsible. The one man in the city he could not touch.

  Tellius closed his fists slowly, watching the spot increase to the size of a coin. In his own way, Canis had been a decent and honourable man. His death could not go unpunished. Tellius would just have to find a way.

  ‘Master Tellius?’

  Tellius glanced coldly at the young servant sent to fetch him, making him stammer as he went on.

  ‘Y-your p-presence is requested in the chamber. Lady Sallet …’

  ‘Yes, I understand,’ Tellius said. He rubbed his jaw for a moment. Rage would ruin them. He needed to be cold.

  2

  Council

  The council chamber still smelled of new leather and candle wax. The room was high-ceilinged enough to allow an observer gallery along one edge, a light and pleasant place, with huge windows on the east and west walls. The afternoon sun glittered in thick bands of gold as the representatives of the Twelve Families took their seats, visibly disturbed as the news spread.

  Tellius was the last to enter. He nodded to Lady Sallet as he came into the room, exchanging a glance of worry and intimacy they would not be able to share again until they met that evening. He had a role to play first – and a threat to disperse, if he could find a way. Tellius glanced too at the man he was almost certain had given the order to murder Lord Canis. The prince of Féal was not quite able to hide a glitter of triumph in his eyes. Lords of Darien were not assaulted and murdered in the city. Not by three trained men, in broad daylight. Tellius had been out onto the street to examine the bodies of the killers and hear the first, rushed reports. In cells beneath the council building, the Canis coachman had been joined by three witnesses foolish enough to volunteer a description of events. They’d been given paper to write down all they knew and Tellius himself would question them, teasing out every detail. Yet the truth lay in the consequence. That morning, the council had agreed to hold a binding vote. It should have been a formality, but with Canis gone, everything had changed.

  As Tellius settled himself, he could not help glaring at the prince of Féal. Youth could be annoying at the best of times. Yet the Fool of Féal, as Tellius had already privately named him, had all the special arrogance of a young swordsman – one who knew he had secured the advantage. The murder of Canis was surely written in that slight smile.

  The prince did not sit at the great oval table of the Twelve Families, of course. He had taken a place with his two advisers on padded green benches that ran the length of the room. Petitioners and officials could rest on those while they waited for the council to finish deliberating. Tellius could see the casual, studied pose was a fiction. The young man sat with one leg crossed over the other. He wore a coat of dark blue velvet, with a spill of lace at the wrists and some sort of sapphire and diamond brooch on his lapel. It was gaudy even for a prince – if he was truly who he said he was. Tellius still wondered about that as he read over the notes from the morning and prepared to address the others. As speaker of the council, Tellius being present allowed the afternoon session to begin and he sensed the interest in the room as the whispers ceased. He conferred briefly with two of his clerks before peering over the assembled lords and ladies of Darien.

  The knowledge of tragedy was clear in their faces, drawn and stern and still in shock. The body of Lord Canis lay under its sheet in an antechamber not forty paces from where they sat, yet they were forced to continue as if one of their number had not just been cut down like a dog in the street. Tellius shook his head. There was a time for formality, but this was not it.

  ‘It is my duty to announce the death of a friend and colleague in Lord Canis. Given the sudden and violent events of this morning, I move this meeting be suspended out of respect for his family. We can reconvene when the investigators have finished their report. I assure you, those responsible will end their days in regret. All those in favour …?’

  Before he finished speaking, the voice he had come to know only too well drawled over him.

  ‘Master Speaker,’ the prince began. He seemed utterly unaware of the protocols he ignored, speaking as if he had just been invited to respond. ‘I wish my grief and personal sorrow to be included in the record, as the representative to Darien of the kingdom of Féal. I did not know Lord Canis beyond the discussions in this very room, of course, but he was clearly a man of integ …’

  Tellius tried to speak over him. ‘All those in favour, please raise your right hands.’

  A few of them went up, but the prince continued as if no one else had spoken. From the first moment he had addressed them in session, Tellius had noticed the young man did not seem to mind talking over anyone else. He would rattle on without pause or obvious breath, trampling all reasonable discourse under his silver-buckled boots. Perhaps the council members bore it from a foreign prince, who might be excused lapses in good manners. It made Tellius want to strike him, but in his role as Speaker and Father of the Council, he had to endure the constant interruptions with a patience he had never learned.

  ‘… integrity,’ the prince went on, as he had never stopped speaking. ‘Yet I am forced to indelicacy by the seriousness of my duties here. King Jean of Féal sent me to gain a response to his proposition. You have completed the preliminary voting and …’

  ‘And we were deadlocked, with six on each side,’ Tellius snapped, loud enough to be heard through the smooth torrent of words. ‘Would you take advantage of a murder, Prince Louis? The body of Canis is not yet cold! To ask us to vote on this matter at such a time would be an insult to the city and this council. Is that your intention?’

  The prince of Féal rose to his feet to address them. Tellius hid clenched fists under the rim of the table. He had not meant to ask a question, but his anger had given the prince an opening.

  ‘My lords and ladies,’ the prince said, shaking his head in reproof or regret. ‘I must ask your patience once more – and risk your d
isapproval. I must risk even insult. My father is not a patient man and I have already spent days in constant talk in this very chamber. I understood this morning that you would move to a formal vote in this session, a final tally. My time here is at an end and I tell you, however this turns out, I must leave tomorrow, to take the news home. What that will be I do not yet know. His Majesty, Jean Brieland of the kingdom of Féal, asked me to secure the southern border of his territories. “Bring me a treaty for peace,” he said! If I cannot secure that alliance, the insult will not be yours, but ours, my lords. My father fights every day against a cruel and dying empire to the far north. All he asks – all I must ask – is for an alliance with you, so that we do not have to guard two borders. Is that so terrible? I have asked you to agree a treaty of peace and trade with a neighbour hard-pressed by his enemies. If you refuse … if you force me to return with news that you will not give my father those reassurances …’ The prince shook his head and ran a hand through the locks of his hair. ‘What do you expect will follow? When my father subdues his enemies in the north, when that war is won, what do you think he will say then about the city on our southern border? The city that said to us “Do not call us allies”, that forced us to keep legions nearby in time of war – legions we desperately need in the north.’

  His voice had grown in passion, but it was still a performance, Tellius could see. He wondered if the young man was truly any relation to a king no one there had ever known. Over just a few years, Tellius had heard the first reports of a new territory being formed from a dozen smaller fiefdoms and cities to the north. Barely eighteen months before, the trickle of rumours had become a torrent, with tales of battles won and gold flowing like a river. Tellius spent a fortune in Darien coin each year to be told of new things. For hundreds of miles, his traders and spymasters paid silver for anything of interest, collecting all they were told in monthly reports and sending it back for him to pore over.