The Ethical Swordsman

by Dave Duncan

  As Panoleo gestured for silence, the noise level was dropping. Niall realized that Fizz had joined him.

  “Big, isn’t he?” he whispered.

  She said, “Mmmm!” approvingly and licked her lips.

  Which for some reason annoyed him a lot.

  With calm restored and most people seated again, the Ciarán began to harangue his followers. He even had a deep, commanding voice, burn him! Niall understood not a syllable of the gibberish, but with every sentence being greeted by howls and cheers of approval, the gist was easy to guess.

  “Let’s go and eat.” He slid an arm around Fizz.

  She put her arm around him in response, pressing Denial against his back. They returned to where they had left the lantern and food. But they had not gone far before their way was completely blocked by a jumble of massive boulders.

  Niall glanced back and decided that he could no longer see light from the Wynds’ lanterns, and therefore the one he carried ought to be invisible from the kitchen, especially if he kept it dim. He put down the hamper.

  “Table for two, as my lady ordered.”

  She fell in with his whimsy. “If my lord would care to sit on this boulder and put the lantern just here.... Tonight, we are serving braised sturgeon with truffle jam, but I recommend the cheese and boiled eggs as being much safer.”

  They were both too hungry to keep up the nonsense, and for a while after that they just ate.

  When the worst pangs had been satisfied, Niall said, “I have failed you most terribly, Fizz dear. I promised your father that I would guard you, and instead I have dragged you into danger far worse than you would have faced had I not been there. I wish I could think of some way to get you safely out of this mess, but I can’t.”

  For a moment she did not reply, just sat there beside him in the near darkness, her eyes glittering in the glimmer of light shed by the lantern on its lowest possible setting.

  Then: “You’re in much worse danger than I am, love—now that Panoleo’s here, I mean.”

  “Because he must have brought more troops with him, you mean?”

  “No. I mean because he won’t hurt me. I’m his cousin.”

  “You are?”

  “Not first cousin. Second or third. If Wylderland allowed female monarchs the way Chivial does, then I would have a better claim to be Ciarán than he does. He’ll kill you out of hand, but if he knew who I am, then he would want to take a child off me, so he could unite our two lines and rule as regent.”

  The back of Niall’s neck prickled as he tried to absorb this horrible information. “Explain!”

  “It’s simple enough. Thirty-odd years ago, Ciarán Pfari took Thencaster Castle with a sneak attack through the cave system that riddles the mountain. Two years later, he had to abandon it and chase after Granville Fitzambrose, who was devastating Wylderland, right? Pfari was captured and slaughtered, but he left two children, twins, a boy and a girl, aged about three. Granville got hold of them and publicly executed the boy, so he couldn’t grow up and cause trouble.”

  Niall shuddered at the thought of a three-year-old being put to death so callously. “And the girl?”

  “Rosabel. Granville kept her. A woman could not rule, but she was of Pfari’s blood and could pass on the title. When Neville succeeded to the Marquisate, she almost escaped a couple of times, so he decided to father a child on her, as a hostage for her good behaviour. That’s me. I’m Pfari’s only living descendent, and one thing Daddy will never, ever, permit is for me to marry.”

  “What happened to your mother?”

  “She died when I was a child. Of unknown causes.”

  The casual tone in which she hinted at murder provoked another shudder from Niall.

  Whose side was she on? The unanswered question had now taken on a new urgency. He dared not ask her again, but if she did happen to be telling the truth for once, then she was related to the rulers of both Chivial and Wylderland. Even Malinda might not want to let her marry.

  “Panoleo,” she continued, “is descended from a younger son several generations back, but mine is the senior line. If I ever bear a son, he will be the rightful heir.”

  And what would Queen Malinda do about that?

  “I don’t think you need worry about Panoleo wanting to marry you, Fizz. He’s far more likely to cut your throat to consolidate his own claim.”

  In a perfectly calm, ordinary voice she said, “You’re right. I hadn’t thought of that.”

  He didn’t believe her. She’d had years to think about it. She might be making all this up as she went along.

  “Who was the spy, Fizz? The rebels in Zos’parn knew that your father was coming with an army. Who told them?”

  “Who knows? At least a hundred Wylds live in the castle. It wasn’t hard to see what was afoot after Daddy set Abrander and Lonard to work. The fortress was a madhouse. There was a horse missing, and a Wyldish groom. Lonard accused Traskar of sending him off to warn Zos’parn. You saw what they did to him, but he refused to talk.”

  “Then why did the Wylds shoot him?”

  “How should I know? It doesn’t matter. He’s dead now.”

  She had told so many stories that Niall still did not know where her loyalty lay. He knew where his own was, but what could he do about it now? Panoleo wore a sword... setting my own life as nothing...

  “Could you get me near to Panoleo?” he asked. “Tell him who you are. Tell him I helped you escaped from Thencaster?”

  She eyed him suspiciously. “What for? So he can marry me, or so he can kill me?”

  “That would be for him to decide. You’re certainly cute enough to seduce him.”

  “Oh, thank you! Might be possible.... He’s had long ride today, so he’ll probably not launch his attack on Thencaster tonight. Have to wait until later, though. Stay here. Don’t go away. I’ll be right back.”

  Fizz picked up the lantern and vanished back into the tunnel.

  The last glimmer of light died away, leaving Niall sitting in utter darkness with his own heartbeat and some strange moving colours that he knew were only his eyes trying to do their duty to send messages to his brain. Had he finally established that she was not on the same side as he was? Would she come back with a troop of armed Wylds, or would she just leave him there to die?

  Neither. In what was probably only a few minutes he saw a faint illumination, and then she was back, with the lantern in one hand and a kitchen broom in the other.

  “What by the eight are you going to do with that?”

  “I’m tired. This floor is far too messy to lie on.” She replaced the lantern on its shelf and began to sweep the floor of the cave, raising choking clouds of dust, but sending pebbles rattling too.

  Amused, admiring, and relieved to be still alive, Niall rolled a few larger fragments out of the way for her. She shed her cloak and spread it out.

  “There!” she said. “It doesn’t look too bad, does it? Lie down and tell me how it feels.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, he unfastened his scabbard and put that, including Denial, on a memorable rock. He laid his cloak on hers. Only then did he obey her orders.

  “Well?” she said.

  “Cold.”

  “I can warm you.” Fizz stepped one foot over him, dropped to her knees, and began unlacing his doublet. And then his shirt.

  “Just what are you doing?”

  “Surely you can guess? I want to see if you have hair on your chest.”

  “Lots. Help yourself.”

  Marquis Neville’s information about his daughter’s virginity must be seriously out of date. She knew exactly how to undress a man and raise his expectations to the maximum.

  The floor was indeed hard and lumpy under him, but in these circumstances, it would be unkind to insist on a more conventional arrangement. And no matter how m
any bruises she began inflicting on his kidneys, it was all in a very—oh Death!—a very—very, very—VERY VERY VERY good cause....

  Chapter 24

  Your Death dominant will make you utterly ruthless.

  lady emerald

  “Ouch! Stop that!”

  “You told me to help myself. Are you going to lie there with that stupid smirk on your face until the bats eat you, or will you get dressed and come and meet Panoleo?”

  Fizz herself was completely clothed again, although he remembered kissing her breasts quite recently. He began making himself as respectable as was possible after so many hours in the caves. Shave, wash, clean clothes—humdrum, everyday matters became great luxuries when they weren’t available. If she was serious about meeting the rebel leader, he would finally learn which side she was on. But he must, in good conscience, warn her of what he was hoping for.

  “You do know what I am planning to do if I get within reach of him?”

  “I can guess.” She was sitting on the edge of his cloak, where he had spread it, leaning on her knees, brazenly watching him dress. She sighed. “And then his guards will kill you.”

  “I won’t be the first Blade to die doing his duty. A Blade is not an assassin, as I told Lord Hedgebury. Nor is he a warrior, sent to fight battles. But the spirits of Chance always get the last laugh, and now they have trapped me by forcing me to try to be both. Hedgebury added four words to the oath I swore. Just four words: And uphold her reign. He worried that Malinda would make a blunder of some sort, which would give the Only-Men-Can-Rule diehards an excuse to rally around your father as a better choice. He was right, and he was wrong.”

  He was talking too much. He must be nervous. “If Ciarán Panoleo can take Thencaster Castle and send his horde south, ravaging and killing as they did in past centuries, then Malinda is finished. She is the monarch, so her enemies will insist that a woman on the throne cannot defend the country.”

  “That’s not fair!” Fizz protested.

  “Of course not. History is never fair. Stalwart guessed right about trouble, but he was wrong about your father. Even if the arrow did not kill him, he lost all credibility at Zos’parn. He ran into a trap like a blind rabbit. No one’s going to rally around him now.”

  So every cloud had a silver lining, but a Wyldish invasion now might throw all Chivial into chaos and civil war. The stakes could not be higher, well worth gambling one life against the odds. A pity it had to be his.

  He was ready. He chuckled. “But, if by miracle we both get out of here alive, I will ask you to marry me, Fizz Fitzneville.”

  “You won’t have any choice. I’m not going to let you escape.”

  “Good.” That said it all. But how would she feel after she had watched him butchering people?

  Hypothetical question.

  The kitchen was bustling as women and boys brought up the dishes and collected refuse from the feast. Fizz walked though without attracting a glance, but Niall’s bronze-coloured hair drew several second looks.

  He followed her down to the feasting hall, which was almost deserted. A few drunks slept with their heads on the tables, boys were still collecting platters and drinking horns. Fizz kept moving as if she knew exactly where she was going, but she was scanning the hall in search of familiar faces.

  Suddenly she changed direction and accosted one of the tidying team, a skinny boy on the brink of puberty—soprano class in Ironhall parlance. “Diolth from Zan Kordat!”

  He looked with astonishment at Miss Fizz, obviously knowing who she was, probably from having served a tribute term in Thencaster.

  He was understandably surprised to see her, and even alarmed by her tall Chivian companion. How she explained Niall’s presence Niall could not tell, because she spoke in Wyldish. Young Diolth found the story worrying and kept his eyes busy, glancing around as if in search of some grown-up who might take the problem off his shoulders.

  But then she began to tell him what she wanted, and Niall could construct it from the personal names. Ciarán Pfarl, Granville, Rosabel, Ciarán Panoleo; she was the last of Pfari’s line and must speak to the present Ciarán. Urgent tone and body language.

  Diolth brightened immediately, which Niall considered a bad sign, suggesting that the kid had thought of a way to pass the buck. He nodded several times, then led Fizz off in a new direction, explaining something, in his boyish treble, still in Wyldish. Niall followed close behind.

  After a moment Fizz said, “I don’t want to interrupt him if he’s in conference or an important meeting or something.”

  Diolth answered in heavily accented Chivian. “Didn’t you hear his speech? He said he’d ridden a day and a night to get here and if he didn’t fall into bed soon, he’d fall on the floor and sleep there.”

  Bad news! Niall had warned Stalwart that he wouldn’t be an assassin. His personal ethics certainly forbade killing a sleeping enemy. If Panoleo only knew the man who had come to kill him, he would just refuse to draw. Then Niall would be helpless, because he would not be an executioner either. He would have to settle for telling Panoleo he was under arrest and accepting his parole, which he could break whenever convenient. Fortunately, the Ciarán didn’t know Niall, or that his Death dominant might be overruled by his kinder Earth dominant. And nobody, even Niall himself, knew whether the two would cancel out in a real duel. That was probably what had happened in his encounter with Garbeald and Athelgar. As a Blade he might be all talk and no action.

  In passing, Diolth collected a lantern off a table, and led the intruders out of the hall, up a steep, winding passage, which widened into a low-roofed cave about the size of a small cottage. It was brightly lit by at least eight lamps, so that it stank of oil fumes. In one wall was a door, the first that Niall had seen in his underground trek from Zos’parn. It was a stout plank door, studded with nails, like the Royal Mail door in Thencaster.

  In front of it stood three chairs around a small table. Two of the men there were playing some sort of board game. They had a large flagon of something, more likely water than wine or beer, but no beakers or drinking horns, so they must have been passing it around. All three rose when the visitors appeared. All three were armed. None of them was Panoleo.

  Three men, then. Two were in their early twenties, although the skinny one might be younger under his thin black beard. The third was older, better dressed, beard streaked with white... fortyish.

  Blade odds if you’re lucky, Stalwart had said.

  Remember that low roof. Floor is uneven. About six paces wide, eight long...

  “Babble Fizz babble Rosabel,” Diolth proclaimed shrilly, “bobble Pfari babble babble Neville, bobble bobble Panoleo babble babble bobble babble!” He made a hasty bow, spun around, and took two steps toward the passage, eager to escape.

  “Gabble!” Greybeard bellowed, and Diall stopped as if he had run into a wall. That was good. Unarmed, he was harmless as long as he could not run to fetch reinforcements.

  Of the three swordsmen, Greybeard was probably the most dangerous, because he must be the Ciarán’s senior bodyguard, thus trusted, and probably experienced, unlikely to panic at the sight of blood. Niall was about to have the fight of his life, for his life.

  Fizz was haranguing Greybeard, who clearly didn’t believe a word of it. The other two were spreading out so that they could come at the visiting swordsman from either side—Skinny on his left, Pudge on his right. He could not allow that.

  “Tell them who I really am!” he barked.

  Fizz shot him an agonized glance, but complied. “Babble Niall babble babble Malinda babble babble bobble.”

  Whipping Denial from her scabbard, Niall leaped at Greybeard. Before the older man could draw his own sword or even see his attacker’s, the invisible sabre slammed into the side of his neck. Blood jetted, and he went down, taking the table with him, plus flagon, game, and a chair.


  Fizz, Diall, and Skinny all cried out in horror, so Niall went for Skinny next. The youth backed away, waving a rapier to discourage pursuit. That was good strategy, giving Pudge a chance at Niall’s back, but he would run into a wall of rock very shortly, and it was no way to use a rapier. Niall changed his mind and spun around, just in time to parry a fearsome slash of Pudge’s sabre. A lightning-fast riposte evened the odds—Pudge screamed and collapsed.

  Skinny made a dash for the exit, and so did Diolth. They jostled together where the cavern narrowed, which slowed Skinny just enough for Denial to stab into his left kidney. He went down headlong. Diolth bounced off the collision and fell, so both ended on the floor.

  Diolth was conscious, but too terrified to do more than lie on his belly and watch Niall with enormously wide eyes. Skinny was bleeding profusely and screaming. His wound was certainly fatal, so Niall ended his misery with a heart thrust. Pudge was still bleeding, therefore alive, but unconscious, certainly dying. Battle over. It had taken less than a minute.

  Fizz stood as if petrified, staring at Niall with her face as white as any purebred Wyld’s. He wanted to go to her, but Denial was bloody, and he dared not sheath her yet. He had probably destroyed any hope of Fizz wanting to marry him. He had certainly killed three men, and would have to live with that memory. If the hulking plank door was locked, so he couldn’t get at Panoleo himself, then all this slaughter and his own death to follow would have been in vain.

  There was a lot of blood in sight, but the red stain by the fallen table was wine from the shattered flagon. That evidence would do no good to the dead guards’ reputations, although they had not fought like drunks.

  Either Panoleo was a very sound sleeper, or he had guessed what was happening outside and was keeping that massive door bolted. The door itself might be soundproof, but there was a wide gap between its lower edge and the uneven cave floor.