The Sword Saint

by C. F. Iggulden

  ‘Come, Master Bosin,’ he said. ‘I would like to make an offering at the temple, then look in on the king’s birds. Will you accompany me? I have a meeting this afternoon with those young fellows I told you about. The riders willing to open up the mountain route to Shiang. We might have a proper postal service in a few years. Can you imagine that?’

  Bosin shook his head and Hondo cursed under his breath, passing over a coin to the stallholder.

  ‘Come on, then. You should bathe and be rubbed down or you will be stiff tonight.’

  They left the crowd staring after them, as at any novelty. Hondo felt their eyes on his back and, worse, their pity. He remembered the bright voice of the boy’s mother when she came to pick him up each day – ‘And how was it? Did you work hard? Did you learn your letters?’ – while her son just stared at her. Sometimes, a line of spittle had dripped from his open mouth. Hondo recalled her eyes would fill with tears then as she took his hand and walked him home.

  4

  Deeds

  Vic Deeds smiled to himself. If his mother could only see him now. He’d grown a dark-blond moustache over the previous year that had become his pride and joy. He wore a black tunic and shirt over cream leggings and black boots that had seen better days, despite the vigorous polish he’d given them that afternoon. There was always a chance he’d be recognised, of course, despite the changes he’d made. With his work as a fixer for the old Aeris legion, he’d met a lot of people. Deeds had thrown away his yellow waistcoats and white shirts when he’d let his hair grow long. Darien was a fine, busy place, anyway. A man could lose himself there, regardless of what he’d done in the past, at least if he was reasonably cautious. It was also where the jobs were, if you happened to have been blackballed by a logging union and suffered a losing streak in cards. About the only thing left had been farming, and Deeds preferred clean nails and easy work.

  The house on Vine Street was a grand place, refurbished over the previous month so that everything gleamed new and clean and smelled of money. The main hall could hold two hundred and that evening it looked as if it was going to. Everyone the prince of Féal had invited seemed to have decided to come. At first, Deeds had worried he might meet someone who knew him, but no one looked sharply in his direction. They were all too busy watching each other. He’d counted nine of the twelve families of Darien, there in some form or other. Not every family head had come, but Deeds could see they’d made sure they were represented. A Canis cousin could be seen, pale and stern in the corner; an oldest Herne daughter had arrived in place of her mother. Beyond those and men like Forza and Regis were a whole sprinkling of cousins, stepchildren and presumably mistresses and single-use lovers. As was the way of golden tickets, hangers-on had swelled the numbers. If they continued to arrive, Deeds thought there would hardly be room to raise one of the crystal glasses when it came to toasting the foreign prince who spent gold like chilled wine.

  Deeds took a sip as he watched the crowd thicken and swirl. He caught the annoyed glance Lord Woodville cast his way, so decided to put the glass down. Truth be told, Deeds had lost more fortunes than he had made, certainly in the last few years. By thirty, he’d expected to be rich, with a wife and a mistress. He’d hoped to own a minor tavern or perhaps a whorehouse. Somewhere he could put his boots on the table and not care a damn for what anyone else thought. Instead, he’d taken a few wrong turns. One or two of them would have him dragged to a rope and executed, if they ever came out. Vic Deeds was not a man who dwelled on the past, however. He was not even sure it existed and had amused himself more than once making the point to men who discovered they couldn’t prove it did.

  As Lord Woodville turned to greet a young woman with a sapphire necklace that drew the eye to an extraordinarily deep bosom, Deeds snatched up his glass once more and drained it. He still watched the young woman, but her weapons were not the sort that might interest Lord Woodville’s personal guard.

  Musicians sawed away in the corner, though the music they made was in danger of being smothered by voices and laughter. The crush meant there was certainly no prospect of dancing, for which Deeds was grateful. The favourite nobles and merchants of Darien stood in small groups, elbow to touching elbow, filling even that great room with a noise like clattering pigeon wings, or a wooden ratchet spinning free.

  There were more dangerous men present than on the average battlefield, Deeds could see. Some of them noticed his attention and returned it in grim appraisal. It was an odd sort of professional courtesy between those who were there to protect a particular noble or wealthy trader. They nodded to one another, but it was also an exchange of awareness. ‘I see you, mate,’ Deeds murmured to himself more than once as he dipped his head and smiled to one of the others. They stood out for their balance and physical health, as if they wore tabards with the word ‘killer’ on them. He chuckled at the thought, though the sound drew Lord Woodville’s cold stare once again. Deeds sighed to himself. There would be no bonus that night, he was reasonably sure. The tight old bastard had arrived in a coach he’d hired for the evening, with a jacket of pale grey velvet that smelled of cedar from years of moth protection. Money was not exactly flowing in the Woodville household, Deeds surmised. Still, he imagined they had the sense not to refuse to pay a man who wore a long pistol on each hip. ‘Louder than words,’ he’d said at the hiring, as he’d shot playing cards to pieces in a ripple of thunder. Of course, the Woodville steward had looked blankly at him until Deeds remembered they had him down as ‘Israel Jenkins’. It did not please him to hide his name, but the truth was he had creditors who had just about given up on him being alive. A few of them could be in that very room.

  Deeds wondered if it would somehow break the rules for him to fill a plate at the food table. It groaned under dozens of dishes, while servants rushed to and from the kitchens to heap more on. Deeds thought he could hear his stomach making a sound like wet leather, a fair mournful creaking. Somehow he knew Lord Woodville would be appalled, as if a personal guard should be above the need to eat, or to empty his bladder. On that subject, Deeds tried to gauge how long it would be before he had to leave the old sod alone and find a pot or a lavatory. Perhaps if he waited for Prince Louis to give a speech, he could slip away while his employer listened. Deeds managed to snatch another glass of white wine as a tray went past him. He still had fast hands, he told himself smugly.

  He almost choked on the drink when he saw who entered then. His first casual glance was at the swords the two men carried, then with dawning horror Deeds realised he had seen them both before, in a logging camp far from the city. He edged back from instinct at the memory of how they had moved, like insects almost, skittering across open ground towards him. He’d fired on four of them and killed one, he was certain. In all honesty, he thought he’d hit the big one as well, as least twice. Yet there he was, a head taller than anyone else in the room. He’d lost some of that bear-like bulk, though, Deeds thought, maybe while recovering from wounds. Deeds looked around him, marking the position of the closest door. There were limits to bought loyalty. Lord Woodville would just have to fend for himself against those two, if it came to it.

  It took an effort of will to strangle the voice whispering in his ear for him to leave. It had been two years since he’d fired those shots in the logging camp. What would they possibly remember of a half-glimpse in near darkness? No, it was not the time to panic. Behind the two men of Shiang came a third. Deeds knew him by sight well enough. He’d even sat in a cell at the Sallet estate for a brief time. Yet Deeds had been amongst many then, swept up together in the civil unrest. The one they called Speaker ‘Androvanus Yuan-Tellius’ wouldn’t know him from any other bright-faced lad, he was reasonably sure. No, it was the man’s Shiang guards Deeds feared.

  He reminded himself he still wore his guns, the very same weapons that had chopped one of them down and stopped another. He patted the hilt of the right one and was reassured by it. If they came for him, he’d answer in fire and thunder, just
as he had before. There was no need to be afraid. He raised his head and summoned his courage.

  On the other side of the room, the roving eye of the big one seemed to have fixed on Deeds. Something like a frown crossed the face of the Shiang swordsman, until Hondo nudged Bosin in the ribs, making him blink and turn away.

  Tellius remembered how much he disliked crowded parties of exactly this sort. As he moved through the room with Hondo and Bosin, his status produced some interesting results, unimaginable just half a dozen years before. Within moments of his arrival, every man or woman there knew he had entered the room. Those who faced him reported his movements to those still turned away, so that he never had to approach a closed group; they opened like flowers as he made his way over to allies and greeted them. Hondo and Bosin caused a ripple of unease, of course, but of the two hundred or so in that room, perhaps half were there to protect the other half.

  Tellius bowed his head to Lord Forza, though he still felt disappointed at the way the man had voted in council. The younger man’s mother had been a force in the city, but the wheel turned and the best always seemed to be taken. Tellius rubbed his jaw as Forza bowed and asked after Lady Sallet. Perhaps it was just part of getting old. Optimism was for the young.

  Around that room, Tellius could sense clusters where he would not be welcome. It was in the way they stood and whispered, their awareness of his presence leading to stiffness and resentment rather than any pleasure. The vote had split the council in half, it seemed, a wound that would not soon heal. Tellius wondered if everyone there would live long enough to regret the new partner of Darien.

  The representative of that kingdom appeared as if summoned from a door at the back of the hall, surrounded by a phalanx of servants. Tellius already knew the pair introduced as the prince’s ‘advisers’, though he assumed they would be handy men. He wondered if there might be a way to prod Prince Louis into a challenge against Hondo or Bosin. That would be small recompense for the death of Canis, but it might knock the man’s smile awry. Tellius began to consider it while the prince’s men tapped glasses with fingernails or eating knives, making a ringing sound that brought a greater hush.

  ‘My friends, lords and ladies of Darien, thank you all for coming,’ the prince said. ‘Your presence here gives me hope for the future – and our joint enterprise.’ Some of the weaker men in the room began to raise glasses and respond, but the prince held up his hands and they quieted. ‘I only wish the shadow of tragedy did not hang over us all this evening. In what might have been a celebration, I am instead minded of your loss. Such violence in the open street is too common wherever men gather. It shames us all. Perhaps, with the new wealth of our trade, we can put a guard on every corner, to keep the peace.’

  Tellius felt one or two sideways glances land on him, watching to see how he would react. The prince himself never looked in Tellius’ direction, playing the room like a harp. He was young and handsome enough to be an arresting figure, with a good speaking voice. Yet Tellius saw only cold calculation. He judged a man by what he offered – and there was not much honour in buying the poorest noble houses of Darien. Yet even there, at the prince’s moment of triumph, Tellius could see strain, even hatred, in some of the faces watching him, ready to echo the toast. Whatever the prince had done to secure those votes had not made them allies. Oh, Lords Woodville and Aeris seemed happy enough, but Tellius saw how Lord Forza grinned like a skull. There was bright sweat running down Lord Herne’s neck. It was something to think about, Tellius considered. For that insight alone, he realised Win had been right to send him. She always was, at least when it came to the Twelve Families. He truly didn’t deserve her, but she didn’t seem to mind.

  The prince was handed a glass of wine by a servant. He raised it immediately.

  ‘To absent friends,’ he said.

  Tellius grimaced, but he could not refuse that particular toast. Not when Lord Canis was being prepared for death by his servants that very evening, across the city. As one, those in the room echoed the words and drank. A moment of stillness followed. The prince of Féal stood with his head bowed and Tellius could practically see him counting the beats before he looked up once more and smiled. Duty done, then. Murder committed.

  Tellius had no doubt who had been behind the three killers. He still wondered if they’d expected to escape with their lives. In a way, he hoped so. Fanatics made unpleasant enemies. Tellius would always rather deal with men who expected to go home and kiss their wives, or enjoy a cup of tea by the fire that evening. Perhaps the three assassins hadn’t expected so robust a response from Lord Canis and just a couple of servants. Tellius clenched his fist on the stem of his glass as he drank. When he’d gone out to the street, he had seen a smear of blue on the lips of the one the coachman had felled. The witnesses he’d questioned had confirmed someone in the crowd had come forward and pressed a hand over the mouth of that man, as he’d moaned and thrashed and spat blood. They’d all assumed it was a doctor, or some official from the council. It seemed the writhing man had grown still after that touch – and the stranger had vanished back into the crowd.

  The scene in the street had been chaotic and roughly planned, as far as Tellius could tell. The infuriating thing was how well it had worked. Canis was dead and the vote for an alliance had been won. The sheer brazen arrogance of it still shocked him. Tellius had known a fair share of malign men in his life, but very few would have pushed through something like that so openly, with a body cooling in the next room. The truth was, every man and woman in that hall knew who had killed Lord Canis. Yet they drank the murderer’s wine and raised his glasses in the air and pretended it was all a tragic mystery. Tellius despised them, in that moment, even as he did the same. He loved Darien. He loved Lady Win Sallet. In his most private thoughts, he might have admitted to paternal feelings for the boy-king and some of the lads who’d fought for the city. Yet he hated the Twelve Families. Oh, there were a few he admired, like Lord Canis or the late Lady Forza. The rest, though, seemed made from a different clay.

  Tellius was a loyal man. He knew it in his innermost heart. He had roots – roots he’d torn from the ground in Shiang and planted deep and still and dark in Darien. Perhaps that was why he was so loyal. He was a part of the city, wound into the veins and noise and gangs and stinks and trade. He was home and he would fight to protect it.

  He had never forgotten the strange absence of so many of the Twelve Families on the night the city had been attacked by the Aeris legion years before. He’d assumed they had been caught by surprise, but it was just as likely they had been out in their gardens, burying gold and artefacts. With only a few honoured exceptions, the families were the sort to survive, or so they believed. As the prince of Féal caught his eye and dipped his head in a public show of respect, Tellius wondered if they had welcomed a ravening wolf amongst all the little lambs of Darien.

  He decided to leave. He’d shown his face and that was probably enough to avoid any accusation of a snub. Politics seemed to involve a constant process of moving on from bad decisions, like a man refusing to go back to the beginning of a maze and instead just pushing on, fork after fork, regardless of where he ended up. Tellius knew he should at least acknowledge the five families he had led to a defeat. Lord Regis was off to one side, red-faced with laughter at some story his wife was telling. The new Lord De Guise stood at the older man’s shoulder, visibly unsure of himself. His wife was a pretty little thing, looking entranced at all the grand families in attendance. Tellius shook his head, suddenly tired of them all. He gave the merest nod to Hondo and began to turn away.

  The prince of Féal had approached him in his moment of indecision. Tellius might have knocked into him as he turned if Hondo hadn’t nudged Bosin into the man’s path. The move was perfectly judged so that Tellius barely caught a glimpse of Prince Louis before Bosin took a half-step between them, moved off-balance by a touch. Prince Louis was left facing a broad Shiang back. Tellius flashed a tight smile at his senior bodygua
rd. If the prince had been intent on another attack, it would have been interrupted.

  ‘Excuse me,’ the prince said, his mouth twisting sourly.

  The enormous Shiang swordsman turned on the spot and looked down on him. Tellius saw the prince meet Bosin’s gaze with perfect confidence.

  ‘Thank you, Master Bosin,’ Tellius said, touching the big man lightly on the arm. ‘You may stand down. I’m afraid Prince Louis is not used to swordsmen.’

  Bosin stepped aside with a blank expression, utterly unruffled at being used like a wall. His only response was to dip his head in acknowledgement, but Prince Louis blinked, closing his mouth on whatever he had intended to say.

  ‘Not used … Not used to swordsmen? I believe you are mistaken, Master Speaker! I grew up with them.’

  Tellius found his smile widening. It seemed there were weaknesses in the man after all. He had found one in that easily stung pride – too late, but still.

  ‘You may believe what you wish, of course, Your Majesty. Forgive me, I didn’t mean the ordinary sort in Féal.’ Tellius pronounced the name to rhyme with ‘fail’, as he always did. He was rewarded with a slight tightening of the man’s eyes. ‘I meant the masters of the blade in Shiang. We have a royal school in Darien now.’

  ‘Perhaps I can find time to visit, before I leave.’

  Tellius suspected the man’s supporters in the Twelve Families would be only too happy to arrange such a thing, but he pushed a needle in even so. The king owed him a favour or three, if it came to it.

  ‘Ah. I’m afraid that will not be possible, Your Majesty. The lessons are private – not for foreign eyes. Secrets of state.’

  ‘Not even for new allies, Master Tellius? Are we not all friends here?’

  The prince chuckled and reached out to clap the older man on the shoulder. At the same time, Hondo turned and accidentally bumped the prince with his hip, so that the hand flailed in the air.