by Rachel Caine
I threw all my strength into knocking his sword back and gained the space to straighten, then retreated two steps to firm footing. “Should I content myself with being dead, or take the risk?”
“There are never only two choices, Benvolio.” I used a trick Mercutio had taught me, coming in close and forcing Silvio’s hand to an awkward angle, but the man danced easily away, sidestepping the foot I placed to trip him, and then I was exposed and extended, and his sword was at my throat, the point just stinging me.
His gray eyes were very, very cold.
I dropped my sword and dagger in surrender. For a long moment, he did not move his point, but then he suddenly whipped it up and took several long strides back. I’d waked some instinct in him that was best not stirred, I realized. For one moment, he’d actually wanted to kill. Considered it, in the cold, animal way that a hungry beast considers prey.
“You’re a fool,” he said. “And you’ve ruined your doublet. Your mother will be most unhappy.”
I looked down. There was a vivid slash across my chest, one I’d not even felt. It had gone deep, all the way through the padded velvet, cut the linen shirt beneath, and there was a thin line of blood on my skin. Now that I’d seen it, it stung like a swarm of bees. The sight of the blood made me feel light and watery.
“Satisfied?” he asked me tightly. “Did I exorcise your demons, young master? Do you imagine that’s what your uncle pays me to do, indulge the whims of spoiled young men? I am here to teach you, and from the look of it, you’ve learned nothing of any significance. Were I in earnest, you would be choking on my sword just now, and your mother doubly grieved. The blade is no game.”
“I know,” I said. I felt remarkably still, all the black rage gone as if it had fled through the cut in my chest. “I killed a man yesterday with a sword and dagger to his heart. I don’t even know his name.”
Silvio turned to regard me, and the chill slowly faded out of his gaze, replaced by something like regret. He came back to put a firm hand on my shoulder. “Best you don’t,” he said. “I recall how it felt, to pass such judgment the first time. Sending a man to God is a heavy thing, young master. Little wonder you feel burdened.”
It wasn’t the killing, though, or at least not in whole. It was so many things, all impossible to explain. For Master Silvio, who lived for his art, there would be no understanding of this awful feeling of loss for what I’d never owned. And he was not wrong in what he said; the dead man’s face, with its deep scar and blind white eye, haunted me. He was an enemy, and he had earned what he was paid, but I still felt that there was a debt owed.
Master Silvio watched me for a long moment, then nodded. “I see there are still demons in you to be exorcised. Take up your sword and we will do drills. There is nothing like drills to drive the thoughts from your head. Sweat is better than wine for emptying the soul.”
He was right in that. The ritual of thrust, parry, retreat—of the eight parries and the eight thrusts—of the steps of the deadly dance—all that drove the candlelight from my mind, and even the shadow of her smile dimmed.
Dead men did not haunt me so much as Rosaline’s smile.
Better to marry than to burn.
The apostle had it very right.
FROM THE PEN OF ROMEO MONTAGUE, DISCOVERED BY HIS SERVANTS AND GIVEN TO LA SIGNORA DI FERRO.
She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste,
For beauty starved with her severity
Cuts beauty off from all posterity.
She is too fair, too wise, wisely too fair,
To merit bliss by making me despair:
She hath forsworn to love, and in that vow
Do I live dead that live to tell it now.
I had spent the last week collecting the various accounts of insults offered to House Montague, and they were gratifyingly legion: a poet who’d refused to take a birthday commission from my lady aunt, on the grounds that he was already sworn to write an ode for Capulet; a goldsmith who’d delivered a shoddy piece of work to my uncle; the feckless cousin who’d caused the beating of the jester in the marketplace; and an aspiring ally of Capulet who’d made rude jests in my hearing regarding my lady mother.
That one, I put at the top of my list.
“A man bound for marriage ought not take such risks,” Balthasar complained as he chose my gray clothing, soft boots, and silk mask from the locked chest.
“I am not bound for marriage. I said only I would not refuse her yet.”
“If you are caught on one of these dark nights, you will be hanged, and your station won’t save you.”
“You fret like an old woman,” I said. “And I do not mean my grandmother.”
“She’d be the first to consign you to the scaffold.”
Balthasar wasn’t wrong in that. What he didn’t say, and wouldn’t, was that I would not go alone; he might escape hanging, but Mercutio, caught with the stolen goods, might well perish. Balthasar himself would certainly be turned out penniless, reduced to working as a sell-sword, a footpad, or worse. I would be the ruin not just of myself, but of my friends.
And still, I had to go. I do not know why; perhaps, as Mercutio had once suggested, I had a devil in me that no amount of holy water could exorcise. Or perhaps it was the last rebellion I was allowed before I was led to the altar, to marriage, to all that was laid out for me through my life. I was a Montague, after all. I had responsibilities.
As Prince of Shadows, I had no such burdens. I had only liberties—liberties not given, but taken. Wearing the mask, I was finally, irrevocably in my own control, and no one else’s.
“You’re risking your neck for little gain,” Balthasar grumbled as I tucked the mask away.
“I risk my neck every day in the streets for no gain at all but my family’s name,” I said, and buckled on my sword and dagger. “I am a soldier in a war that never ends. Why not risk all for myself instead?”
He shook his head, as if he didn’t understand—and likely he couldn’t fathom why I did these things. Balthasar was doggedly loyal, and clever . . . things one wanted in a servant. But he had no . . . no spark.
I had met few indeed who did.
And one of them had glowed golden in the candlelight, twirling her braid around a finger as she read of a love she would never know. . . . Rosaline’s spark was set to be hidden away, if not extinguished entire. And I could not—could not—think of her again, for the sake of my own soul.
Instead, I ducked out the window, down, and into the streets.
Unlike most evenings on which I ventured out, I hadn’t asked Romeo or Mercutio to join. . . . I wanted to be alone, to test my edge against the whetstone of the city guards and the security of my target’s walls. It was late enough that the God-fearing had taken to their beds, and the rest were deep in their cups or embarked on more sinister business than mine. I had made inquiries, and I knew where the man who’d insulted my mother lodged; it was a surprisingly respectable district, and a quiet, well-kept building, though not utterly without the usual drama of the city. As I stalked beneath it in the shadows, I heard the familiar notes of voices rising in a sleepy quarrel from the second story, and a babe’s thin wail from the third’s open window. It was a hot, still night, and all the shutters had been thrown wide to admit whatever breeze might visit.
My target lived on the less favored top floor, four stories up in the cramped space beneath the roof. From his open window, no lamps glowed; no voices echoed. Either—likely—he was out drinking and boasting and courting loose women, or—less likely—he was abed and deep asleep. I did not much care, either way, save that I would have to be more careful in the second case.
I used the staircase, cat-footing lightly past tight-shut doors. On the third-floor landing, the neat-kept building began showing signs of neglect and hard use . . . battered walls, a broken-off bracket where a lamp had once burned. It was ink-dark, but I did not mind that. I found the lock by touch and tried it gently; it was fixed fast. That called for the
lock picks. I prided myself on this skill, in particular; I had practiced for months blindfolded or sealed in pitch-black rooms until I needed nothing but touch and sound to break any lock I had ever met.
This one was no different. Cautious exploration told me he’d left the key in the hole on the other side of the door, so he was home, and abed; I smiled a little, inwardly, and took out a piece of sheepskin I carried rolled up in my bag. That, laid flat, slid easily under the door’s gap, and I pushed the lock picks in and heard the dull thump of the key falling on the cushion on the other side.
It was not even technically lock picking if he’d made it so easy.
I used his own key and came inside, shutting the door with care behind me and locking it again. I could hear him now, snoring lightly. He was facedown and loose-limbed . . . but I had not reckoned on the girl.
Because there was a girl.
She was lying next to him—wide-awake, staring at me with saucer eyes. As she opened her mouth, I put a finger to mine, and pulled out two gold coins from my purse. She paused, blinking, and I mimed locking my own lips as I held the coins out. She mimed back a throat cutting, then looked at her bed companion. I admit, by that time I had begun to realize that the sheet did not by any means cover all of her, and though the darkness made it more of a suggestion of assets than the true sight of them, the room was suddenly a good deal too warm, and my clothing too tightly sewn.
I shook my head. No throat cutting for her snoring friend.
She silently held out her hand for the coins, and I dropped them in, careful not to make them chime, and I closed her fingers over them before lifting her hand to drop a kiss on the rough skin of her knuckles. She drew in a sharp breath, and I almost thought she might scream, but then she sat up and . . .
Kissed me.
It was surprising, and I should have pulled away for many reasons, not the least of which was my own self-preservation, but there was something darkly wonderful about the danger of it. She was only a bit older than I, and warm and round and womanly, and willing, and for a moment I entertained a feral thought that perhaps he might not wake. . . .
I didn’t pull away. It was not a sweet kiss; it was wet and wanton and very pointed about what the girl wanted of me, and until her man grunted and rolled on his side, I was almost, almost tempted.
I stepped back, breathing hard, and saw her dizzying pale skin shining in the faint moonlight coming in the window. I smiled at her and waggled a chiding finger at her. No.
She shrugged and, clutching the gold, subsided back into the bed. Her paramour rolled over, flung a heavy arm across her, and went back to buzzing like a beehive.
It was a beehive I did not want to overturn, and so I worked quickly, ransacking the few items of furniture in his room. Nothing of any value; even his sword was of only middling quality. He did, however, have a fine Capulet dagger half-hidden beneath a mess of filthy smallclothes, and I tucked that away before turning my attention to his locked chest. It was not large, but it was of better construction than anything else he owned, and it was a bit more of a challenge to open than the average—half a minute, perhaps, which seemed an eternity when considering that the saucy trollop might at any minute decide to keep my gold and betray me anyway. But she kept her part of the bargain, and I eased open the casket, and within . . .
...within was all that remained of his family’s honor. I took out a tattered old parchment, heavy with seals that gleamed with gold leaf in the moon’s glow; that, I stowed away. There were a few heavy chains, a few gems, and, at the bottom, a dagger that was racehorse to the nag he carried for his daily wear. My enemy, one Giuliano Roggocio, had once come from a prominent family, one fallen to low times; I knew the name Roggocio from family tales. My grandmother’s backside rested on wood taken from one of their household doors. She had seen the death of that clan, and likely had been its cause, and they had been wealthy beyond dreams.
The man had reason to hate my house, but none to blacken the name of my mother, and for that, he would have to pay the rest of his family’s fortune.
I took the chains and jewels, and the sword, and I left him the parchment, with its seals of nobility. Let him rejoice in his bloodline as much as I rejoiced in mine.
I locked the chest again, blew a kiss to the girl, and climbed into the window. The night was hot and still; a cart rumbled noisily over cobbles somewhere to my left, but from the sound of it, it was several streets over. A baker, most like, starting the cycle of bread for the day. I faced back into the room, balancing on the sill, and gauged my target.
I heard the snoring buzz of Roggocio’s slumber suddenly break into a snort, and I looked down to see his eyes coming open, and staring straight at me.
“Dog!” he shouted. “Thief! Stop!” He vaulted naked from his bed and launched himself at me. I was caught wrong-footed, balanced on a thin sill, and I knew that if he dragged me into the room I’d have no choice but to kill to stop him. Him, and perhaps the girl.
That, I would not do. I was a thief, yes. But no assassin.
Roggocio did not make it easy for me. He grabbed for me, and his scrabbling fingers ripped at my mask and pulled it loose.
With the moon at my back, I could only hope he did not see my face.
I leaped up, caught the edge of the roof, swung my legs into the room, and hit him squarely in the chest, sending him flying back onto the bed and the alarmed, now-screaming girl. I reversed the momentum to take me the other direction, over the lip of the roof and onto its slick clay tiles. A difficult trick, but one a good sneak thief must know to survive. I regularly dosed my soft boot soles with resin to make them grip, but the hardest part was to catch my balance, which I did, spreading my arms wide to shed momentum. Even then, it was a near thing. The pitch of the roof was steeper than I’d thought, and one of the tiles broke free and began to slide. I knew better than to flail; if one tile was loose, the others were no better. I dropped flat, catching myself on both hands, and swarmed up to the peak of the roof, where I pulled myself upright again and ran lightly down the center seam, leaving the sound of alarms and cries behind. I surprised a sleeping cat, which bounded off with a yowl of protest, and then I gathered speed to make the leap to the next, lower roof. From there, I dropped into the iron basket of a balcony, and then down to the cobbles.
A near miss. Very near. But still, a success. I told myself that he could not have seen me, and even if he had glimpsed some part of my face, he could never have associated those features with those of Benvolio Montague.
With my bag full of treasure, I sought out Mercutio.
He was not asleep. I’d thought to catch him still abed, but he was up, dressed, and prowling his rooms restlessly. When I climbed in his window he jumped like the cat I’d startled, sword half drawn, and sheathed it irritably at the sight of me. “Where have you been? I’ve been waiting for word of your corpse! Don’t you know better than to do this alone?”
For answer, I held out the bag. He swore at the heaviness of it, and dumped the treasure out onto the bed. It was better than I’d expected. In the dim room where I’d pilfered it, I hadn’t been able to assess quality, but these were fine indeed, the last vestiges of a once-wealthy family. He whistled as he held up a ruby as large as a robin’s egg. It had a heart of fire in it that made me shiver, and suddenly I felt that I’d made a mistake, a large one. These were jewels that would be difficult to dispose of safely—too recognizable, like the sword.
“This could be cut down,” Mercutio said, examining the ruby, “though it would be a pity to ruin such a thing. Look you, how the light catches in it, like blood.”
“Exactly like blood,” I said. “We need to be rid of these things quickly.”
“And this?” He held up the sword, admiring the watered steel. “I could have a goldsmith mount another hilt on it. Shame to waste such a beautiful blade.”
“Make sure the goldsmith keeps his mouth well closed,” I said. “There’s a rope in this for us if he doesn’t.”
“Isn’t there always?” Mercutio opened a secret door in the wall of his room and put the things within, locked it back, and hung the key on a chain around his neck. “It will take time, you know. Not even I can work miracles. I’m not the Christ of crime.”
“Heathen,” I said. He pursed his lips and blew me a kiss. “Were you truly dressed out of worry for me? It seems unlikely, I think.” He sank into a deep armchair, one long-fingered hand pressed to his forehead to hide his eyes. I did not need to see them to read the dejection in his body. “Trouble in your sinful paradise, my brother?”
“What would you know of sin?” he shot back. “You’ve cold milk in your veins when it comes to love; I know it.”
I thought, unwillingly, of Rosaline, but I said, “I had a naked woman kiss me tonight while I was rifling for these little trinkets.”
That surprised him enough that he took his hand away from his face. “Naked.”
“As sinful Eve,” I said. “And quite a willing mouth on her, too.”
“And?”
I shrugged. “Best to get on with the job, I thought.” Though there had been a drunken moment when I’d considered something much different, in wild and exotic detail.
“Disappointing.” He put the hand back in place again. “We’ll teach you how to use a woman yet. Granted, I have only a little experience in that way, but more than you, I’d wager.” He laughed a little, but it sounded like gallows laughter to me. “I’m to get more, it seems.”
I sat down opposite him, suddenly worried that this was not merely Mercutio’s usual dark moods. “Tell me,” I bade him.
“My dear and sainted father has decreed that I soar too high to remain free, and so I am to be caged,” he said. The bitter taint in his voice chilled me. “Caged and hooded, jessed and trained to the perfumed hand of a lady. But no matter how you tame a falcon, still they will hunt, will they not? Hunt, or die.”