Fortune's Fool (Eterean Empire Book 1)

by Angela Boord

“That Arsenault’s dead, you mean? I won’t accept that until I talk to somebody who’s seen his dead body.”

  Jon sighs. “Just as stubborn as always, I see. What are you here for, then?”

  “Best spoken about in private, Jon.”

  “Mmmm.” The guards in the chairs look up at him for guidance, and he gestures with his chin over his shoulder. “I’ll take him to my study. You two stand in the hall.”

  They both rise and bow with very little expression, their arms crossed over their chests. But as they walk past me, their eyes tell me how prepared they will be if I try anything dangerous.

  I show them my open, gloved hands, but I think it just makes them more sure I’m trouble.

  Jon extends an arm. “After you.” I have no choice but to walk down the hall with Jon at my back. He’s wearing his swordbelt, even in his own house, and having him there makes me nervous, but what choice do I have?

  He closes the door to his study and sits down at a big teak desk angled into a corner where he can see everything. Then he leans back in his chair and tosses his feet up on the desk as if it’s just a table at the Lady and the Vine.

  “Now,” he says. “What is this something you need, Kyrra.”

  I hook my thumbs in my swordbelt and look around while I think of how to approach the subject. Out of habit, I catalog the strategic qualities of the room. Jon has, of course, gotten me in the weakest position, with my back to the window and the door.

  “I need a gun,” I say.

  Jon laughs. “You always did like to charge.”

  “Hurts less if you get it over with.”

  He shakes his head. “It’s no wonder no one could ever send you scouting. All you do is rattle the brush and give yourself away. You ought to hedge around a subject like that a little.”

  “Make small talk, you mean? You know I’m not really interested in the weather. I need a gun.”

  “You have the coin?”

  “I have enough.”

  “What kind of gun are we talking about here, Kyrra?”

  “A dikkarro.” A handgun. Wheellock, so you don’t have to fool around with matches. Small enough to be carried in your belt or hidden in a cloak.

  Jon’s brows lift. “Not an arquebus?” he says.

  I shake my head.

  Jon puts his hands behind his head. “Well,” he says. “That’s going to cost more, isn’t it?”

  “More than an arquebus? Jon. If I haul an arquebus out of here for the Caprine, the Prinze will be on top of me and you faster than I can prime the pan. Why should a dikkarro cost more than an arquebus?”

  Jon laughs softly. “Why should a dikkarro cost more than arquebus. Don’t play stupid with me, Kyrra. You know how much more workmanship it takes to make a dikkarro. You’re just trying to bargain with me.”

  I shrug.

  “And if you want a dikkarro, it’s not for a military operation, is it? You do the things you can do with a small gun and it gets traced back to me, and then what happens? At least an arquebus, that’s maybe to protect your master’s land from bandits, possibly that can be overlooked.” He eyes me shrewdly. “Depending on who you’re working for, of course.”

  “I can’t carry an arquebus, Jon. I need a dikkarro.”

  “Now I know it is that kind of job, and I have to ask myself, do I want to be involved in one of your House games?”

  “Like you aren’t already involved in a dozen. I’m just a nobody gavaro in most men’s eyes.”

  “That’s only because most men aren’t looking at you. But some do.”

  He gives me a sharp glance that makes me think he has someone specific in mind.

  “You know, Jon,” I say, “I’ve been running into somebody familiar lately.”

  “You’re from Liera. I bet you know a lot of people.”

  “Are you sure you don’t have any new information about Arsenault?”

  “What, you think you’ve seen him? Out walking around in the city?”

  “There was a man who seemed familiar.”

  “It’s wishful thinking. I’ve been in Liera longer than you have. Don’t you think I would have found him by now? Or at least discovered a lead to his whereabouts?”

  “Maybe you just haven’t been telling me the truth.”

  “Why wouldn’t I tell you about him, Kyrra?”

  “Because you’re using him somehow?”

  “Or because it was that damned promise to you that got him killed?”

  “That’s not fair, Jon, and you know it. You wanted him right where he was. He was working with you. For you, for some godsdamned reason I never understood. So, it was your fault just as much as it was mine. And you didn’t have to leave him.”

  Jon drops his feet and sits up straight. “Arsenault was a fool to make you the promises he did. And you were a fool to let him. You knew how he was and you knew how it was going to end up. I tried to convince him to leave them all to kill each other, but he wouldn’t. All he wanted was to keep you out of it. And yet here you are, walking right back into the spider’s web.”

  I dig the letter of promise out of my pocket and slap it down on his desk. “Look. All I want is a little gun. I know you can get me one. There’s five thousand astra, and if you need more, I can get it.”

  I won’t say his words about Arsenault don’t hurt, but he’s wrong when he thinks there was anything I could have done to stop Arsenault from making and keeping his promises.

  So, fuck him and the blame he’s laying.

  He leans back in the chair, away from me, darting a glance down at my right arm.

  “I’m an honest merchant now, Kyrra.”

  “You? Leaving the gun trade to the Prinze? You expect me to believe that?”

  He gives me a dark look and swipes up the letter of promise. It looks flimsy and small in his massive hands.

  “That’s a Sere mark,” he says.

  “And what if it is? The Sere are bankers.”

  “Sure they are. But what I hear in the Talos is that the widow Tonia di Sere is looking for a left-handed gavaro and she’ll pay for his whereabouts. Nobody knows if the widow wants to hire him or…you know.” Some of the tension in his jaw relaxes. He grins.

  I roll my eyes. “You think this is funny.”

  The grin flees. “No. Because what I also hear is that Geoffre di Prinze’s son Cassis has lost his second wife with no heirs and his first wife lives on barren, and the Sere are upset at her treatment and looking for an excuse to cannonade the Prinze.”

  “Why would the Sere want to cannonade the Prinze? They’ve made their fortune being neutral. The wars are over. The Houses have all signed peace treaties.”

  “And you believe that? You, Kyrra?” He shakes his head. “Your Houses remind me of lions. For a while they sleep, but they’re never really at peace.” Then he shrugs, a barely noticeable movement of his broad shoulders. “Perhaps the Sere tire of being the power behind and now wish to be the power in front. There’s another rumor, too, that Cassis di Prinze has found a pretty Caprine to be his mistress. And who better to blame a war on than a pretty girl in an opposing family?”

  The fingers of my right hand tense. I flex them and the metal pings. “My arm is buried, Jon. That’s all past.”

  “Not while the Prinze are in control of the Council and you’re still alive.” He gets up and walks to a cabinet against the far wall. “You want some wine?”

  I try to relax again, but our conversation has me strung tight as a bowstring. The stress thrums in the metal of my arm.

  “Not if all you have is that sweet stuff. What about the gun?”

  He turns slightly and cocks an eyebrow at me. “What about the gun? The Sere are using you, Kyrra.”

  I take a deep breath. “I’m a gavaro. Just doing a job.”

  He opens the cabinet and pulls out a papyrus-wrapped green glass bottle, making an exasperated noise through his teeth the way my mother would have. “You sound like Arsenault. But you’ve got a choice. Turn down
the gold and walk away. Aren’t you tired of being used?”

  “It’s too late. I heard the information and I took the money. If I walk away now, I’ll be dead before tomorrow morning.” I decide not to mention last night, but maybe he’s already heard that news. “If you can’t get me a gun, I guess I’ll have to go to someone else.”

  “You don’t have anyone else,” he says as he retrieves a goblet and pours the wine into it. It’s a deep red, the color of blood, and the bouquet is overly, almost sickeningly, sweet. It always reminds me of that night with the kacin and the Qalfan chirurgeon.

  “But if you won’t be persuaded, perhaps I could find you a gun.”

  “I knew you wouldn’t let me down, Jon.”

  He picks up the goblet. “No. You gambled that I wouldn’t. There’s a difference.”

  I leave Jon’s with instructions on where to meet him in the morning, but it feels like I got off too easily. Maybe it’s the way my arm is vibrating with this weather or maybe it’s just Liera, but I feel like I might jump out of my boots. It’s a sunny early-spring afternoon and I can see into all the dark corners. As long as my arm is hidden, I don’t look distinctive in any way. There’s no reason to assume I’ve been recognized, and yet…

  By the time I enter the merchant’s section of the Dalza, I’m sure I’m being followed.

  Sometimes, it doesn’t pay to argue with your paranoia. The smart thing to do would be to try to lose whoever’s following me. But I’m still wound tight from my conversation with Jon, and coming off Vadz’s murder, being followed just makes me angry. Really fucking angry. I’m not going to let these people think they can run me like a rabbit.

  I still don’t know who’s behind me—maybe it’s Tonia di Sere’s Qalfan checking up on me, or maybe it’s the man who killed Vadz, or maybe somebody Jon set on my tail. At some level, it doesn’t matter. I quicken my step and head toward higher ground and the Silk District.

  The Silk District saw fighting during the war. This is where the big silk-weaving warehouses stood, founded by a younger Aliente son who couldn’t inherit the villa. We sent our raw silk to them and they turned it into the finest cloth Liera produced. Aliente silk made Liera’s reputation in the rest of the world.

  The first thing Geoffre di Prinze did after the fighting began was to torch the Aliente looms. Caprine forces worked hard to put the fires out, so the remains of the warehouses still stand—full of ghosts, it’s said, the leftover souls of the weavers who died in the fire, doomed to spend eternity clacking at the looms.

  We Etereans like ghost stories.

  The doors are still intact, though, their handles chained together with a rusty padlock. I bring my right fist down on it a couple of times, and the links crack enough for me to pull it free. I push the door open and slide inside.

  The fire burned a hole in the roof, so it’s lighter inside than it ought to be. I can easily see that someone has been trying to salvage the looms. Of course they would, now that the Aliente are out of the picture. Our big looms were made by master engineers who installed many improvements to make them more efficient and easier to use. The Garonze never had anything like them. It pains me to see them in this state of disrepair—almost like old Eterean ruins, some of them burnt, some dismantled, others just standing forlorn, gathering dust.

  I dart into one of the dark, crowded corners, where the warps and creels stand beside the looms. The looms are huge wooden contraptions, taller than a tall man, with ladders that allow top access to fix mechanical problems. I skim up one of the ladders fast and balance in the beams that form the roof of the loom, shrouded—I hope—by the darkness thick in the corner.

  The door swings open slowly, and a man steps inside.

  He’s wrapped in fighting-style Qalfan robes—gray for daylight, the kind that Razi wears. Qalfan fighters prefer to accomplish their masters’ orders in the safety of utter secrecy so that neither the fighter or the master will be implicated in any wrongdoing.

  My first thought is that he’s Tonia’s Qalfan gavaro, checking up on me. But he’s wearing two cutlasses, Dakkaran-style, so he might have come from Jon. Remembering what Razi told me this morning, I’m aware that beneath those robes, he might not even be Qalfan at all.

  He stands in that position, looking for me, for a long time. So, he’s patient. And he hasn’t pulled a weapon yet, which means he’s either got a knife up his sleeve or maybe he’s just watching me.

  But I’m not sure I believe that. Not after Vadz.

  I kick at a giant wooden cylinder standing on its end some distance away. The creel, still threaded with bits and pieces of charred silk threads, looks like a giant bird cage hung with toys, the way I used to do for the lorikeet in our conservatory. The creel wobbles, clattering against another loom, and my pursuer’s attention snaps over to it.

  Now there’s the glint of steel in his hand.

  So I know.

  I ease my own knife out of its wrist sheath and forward into my right hand. I don’t have to worry about cutting my metal hand, so I can pull that knife quick, handling the naked blade. He walks forward, toward the creel, his boots making no sound on the dirt floor. He reminds me of a big cat, stalking toward me into the darkness.

  I settle myself, waiting for him to get close enough. Then I jump.

  He looks up as soon as he hears the clatter of my boots against the wood. He jerks sideways, throwing his knife hand upward. I hit him in the side, driving the hilt into the join of his shoulder. He staggers sideways into the skeleton of the loom next to us, his urqa muffling his shout of pain. But his reflexes are good and he uses my momentum to slam me into the side of the loom. I get my right arm tangled in the threads still knotted there and rip them away like I’m tearing through a spider web.

  “Who sent you to kill me?” I say, breathing hard. “Did Cassis buy you away from Tonia? Or maybe it was Geoffre? Or are you working for Jon?”

  He says nothing, just walks the circle we’re making, both of us staying out of striking distance. In the dim light, I can’t tell the color of his eyes, but they’re narrowed on me, intent.

  I shift my attention to his torso. Don’t want him to fake me. My main objective is to tear that urqa from his face. But I have to stay alive to do it.

  His lunge, when it comes, is quick and lethal as lightning. I jump back out of the way. He pulls his cutlass with the other hand and steps up quick, sword held back for a slash.

  I tear a wooden dowel free of the warp that stands beside the loom and swing it like a club, straight into his stomach.

  He folds over, all his breath coming out in an mmph, but keeps his grip on his weapons. I grab at his urqa while he’s down. But he pulls backward out of my grip. We’re close for an instant, though, close enough to lock gazes.

  Dammit. In the darkness, it’s hard to tell. Light eyes could be blue or green or gray…

  He tears away from me and falls back into a guard position, breathing hard. He’s got the cutlass two-handed, so I guess he dropped the knife. Something about the way he stands guard nags at me. It’s different from most Qalfan and Dakkaran fighters.

  I pull my sword, the one Arsenault gave me—the sword that used to be his. It gleams faintly in the darkness, waiting for a stray bit of magic to light it up, and I swing it in a great arc at his legs.

  His cutlass meets my blade faster than I thought possible. He turns my strike up and back, and he’s pressing an attack, binding the blades. I shove my hilt upward, toward his jaw, and he jerks backward, only to come around again with a blow aimed at my left arm.

  He’s fast. And good. Really good.

  But I want that urqa off.

  Instead of coming back with a killing blow, I shove my right am up to meet his downward cut. Metal rings on metal, but it’s not as hard as I expected, and even as I’m stepping into my intended strike, trying to slice off the urqa with the tip of my sword, it surprises me.

  He pulled the blow. Why did he pull the blow?

  My blade ca
tches the side of his urqa and the sound of ripping fabric fills the room.

  I catch a glimpse of a knife-edge nose and dark hair. Then he drops the cutlass and runs.

  Why is he running?

  I bolt after him. He’s heading for the doors on the other end of the warehouse, running down the narrow corridor between the looms. When he senses me behind him, he leans over and hurls a creel into my way.

  It almost slams into me. I shove it aside, dodging around it—cursing—and he ducks into a dim space between looms.

  I follow, but there’s no one there. There’s nowhere he could have gone—I look up, but he’s not on top of the looms, either—maybe in this thin space between warp and loom—where it feels cold and misty all of a sudden, as if perhaps there are ghosts here and they’ve been waiting on me—

  —and then when I step out of the space, another creel explodes in front of me. In reflex, I bring my sword down and chop it in half. Blood pounds in my ears and the singing rises urgent in my arm.

  I catch my breath to fight down the feeling, but by the time I’m moving again, the door bangs and I look up to see my pursuer sliding outside.

  When I follow, he’s already gone, melded somewhere into the shadows and leaving me feeling as if I’ve just had a fight with a ghost.

  Chapter 9

  I’ve only met a handful of men that quick with a sword. The Qalfan—or whoever he was—wasn’t even putting his whole effort into those blows. He might as well have been having a spar, like a cat toying with a mouse.

  Arsenault was one of the men I knew who could fight that way. Lobardin, the gavaro who killed the chirurgeon in the alley for Jon, was another. But Lobardin would never have kept his mouth shut when questioned. And anyway, he’d probably rather rot in the underworld than work for Jon again.

  It’s been almost seven years since Jon made Arsenault bring Lobardin back with him to my father’s estate. Put a viper in a pot and you can watch him, he told Arsenault, and though Arsenault was unhappy about it, he did what Jon wanted. After watching Lobardin demonstrate his skills, my father hired him on the spot. When he wasn’t smoking kacin, Lobardin could be reliable and even charming. But there was always something uneasy that lay underneath Lobardin’s charm, something hard and dangerous.