Sworn in Steel

by Douglas Hulick

  Then I reached the Angel’s Shadow, and the chaos its courtyard contained, and knew that food, let alone sleep, was going to be a while coming yet.

  The yard before the inn was awash in activity. Torches burned, wagons creaked, and bodies moved to and fro, casting shadows about like owls from a spendthrift’s hands. Tobin stood on the deck of the nearest wagon, shouting orders to the actors as they scrambled about, clearly ignoring him. I knew from the trip down that the troupe could load and unload these carriages in their sleep; his performance was as much to distract the locals from noticing anything of value “accidentally” being loaded onto the wagons as it was to keep him out of their way. I wondered just how many of the finer items in the inn would be discovered missing in the days to come.

  I also wondered why the hell they were packing up, let alone at this hour.

  “Tobin!” I yelled, stalking as quickly as I could across the yard. “Tobin!”

  The troupe leader waved a hand in my direction but didn’t turn around. “Not now, if you please,” he boomed across the yard. “I’ve people to shepherd and props to pack!”

  I came up beside the wagon. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Departure, sir!” he projected, his voice bouncing effortlessly around the yard. “Always a trying time, to be sure.” Then, more softly, and out of the corner of his mouth, “Fade, would you? The innkeeper keeps sticking his head out, and there’s an exceptional chair and two bags of flour Yekeb’s waiting to get loaded. You’ll throw off our timing.”

  “But why now?” I said.

  “Because they’re so busy trying to make the breakfast I requested for us all, they won’t—”

  “No, I mean why pack up and leave now, you idiot?”

  “Why, the note, of course.”

  “What note?”

  Tobin glanced around the courtyard, then waved quickly off to his right. Yekeb dashed from the barn to the second wagon, a large, rolled-up carpet in his arms.

  “Isn’t that the rug from—?”

  “Yes. And I’m busy. Speak to Ezak.” Tobin turned away and made a point of directing his—and any watcher’s—attention to the other side of the courtyard. “Marianna, dear, be careful! You think buttons like that grow on trees? Now we have to fix the front of your frock, girl!”

  I turned away from Marianna and her escaping cleavage and walked over to Ezak. He stood to one side, quietly watching people move to and fro, all the while making small marks on a wax tablet.

  “What is all this?” I said. “And why the hell wasn’t I consulted?”

  “Last to first,” he said, “you weren’t here. And ‘all this’ is in response to this.” He reached into his shirtsleeve and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “I don’t know what you did, but whatever it was, it was well done.”

  I took the letter and opened it. The top half of the note was an elegantly flowing Djanese script that looked more like smoke than writing; the lower half was a translation into imperial cephta. That calligraphy was impressive as well, with the symbols having a precise, yet free, feel to them. A simple seal, consisting of a blob of wax and a silk ribbon, hung at the bottom.

  It was from Heron. It advised the company that, while the wazir’s patronage had not been rescinded, it would likely be best for all parties if the company managed to find its way out of the city. Matters being what they were between the empire and the Despotate, there was concern he could no longer guarantee the safety, let alone the financial support, that the company would require to remain safely within el-Qaddice. Regrets and please come back and all the rest of the usual crap.

  “Dammit,” I said. Heron was moving faster than I’d expected.

  “It’s true?” said Ezak.

  “The facts aren’t, but the sentiment behind them is.”

  “So the wazir wants us gone.”

  “Not the wazir,” I said. “His secretary.”

  Ezak turned back to his tablet. “Isn’t it the same thing?”

  I didn’t answer, and instead read the letter again. Nothing was specifically in the wazir’s name—Heron knew better than to try that—but the phrasing had been set down in such a way that, unless you read closely, it was easy to miss that it was the secretary offering the warnings and suggestions, and not his master.

  But why do that? If anything, it seemed likely that the wazir would want us to stay. Vengeance, after all, is that much sweeter if you can watch it meted out; what better seat than at the padishah’s side when the prince became enraged at the troupe’s audacity and poor performance?

  No, by hustling us out of el-Qaddice, Heron likely risked incurring the wazir’s displeasure, rather than the other way around.

  So why the hurry?

  It had to be something I’d said. Something that had changed the game—so much so that Heron wanted me out of the city as soon as possible, the consequences be damned.

  Something about the degans.

  Now I definitely wanted to get into that library of his.

  I folded the paper back up and slid it into my own sleeve. Ezak didn’t bat an eye.

  “How long do you think this will take?” I said.

  “Assuming Tobin doesn’t set his cap on stealing the roof tiles? A few more hours at most.”

  “Let me know when you’re getting close to ready,” I said, touching the pouch Heron had given me. “I have some traveling money.”

  For the first time since I’d come up beside him, Ezak lowered his tablet. “You mean you’re going to let us leave? Just like that?”

  “It’s for the best.”

  Ezak gave me a long look. “I won’t argue with you, if that’s what you’re looking for,” he said. “Between the letter and the schedule that’s been forced upon us, I doubt you’ll find many of us anxious to stay.”

  “But?”

  “But I have to admit . . .” He glanced out at the street, then up toward the city’s spires and domes. “To perform in Djan? To audition for the despot’s son? To, maybe, play the court of the enemy himself? It had its appeal.” He grinned. “Not many other troupes can lay claim to those particular feathers.”

  “And Tobin? How does he feel about it?”

  “He won’t show it, but my cousin would have given his left hand to walk a stage of that scale even once. So would some of the others.”

  “Which is why he won’t show it.”

  Ezak nodded. “Someone has to remain untouched, if only for the rest.”

  I looked back at the troupe’s leader perched on the wagon, shouting and pointing and getting on with things, up there for everyone to see.

  A true showman.

  “Remind me to write you a letter,” I said. “I know a baroness back in Ildrecca who might be willing to take a look at you, even if the recommendation does come from me.”

  Ezak tipped his head in thanks. “One question,” he said as I turned away.

  “What?”

  “Why?”

  “Bring you here? I thought that was obvious.”

  “No. That I understand. But considering everything you went through to get us here, everything you spent, everything we’ve done since we arrived in el-Qaddice, I have to wonder: Why let yourself be pushed out without a fight?”

  I grimaced. “Who said I’m leaving? You’re the ones who’re taking to the road.”

  Ezak’s eyes widened. “But you’re—”

  “Trouble,” I said, walking away. “And not the kind you people need right now, especially not in Djan.” I patted my pouch again. “Find me before you leave.”

  I reached the inn’s main door and went in, stepping from chaos into near silence. Except for a single candle guttering on a table in the common room, the place was black, and except for Fowler Jess and Bronze Degan at the table, their heads bent together over said same candle and pair of cups, it was empty.

  My Oak Mistress and my estranged best friend, sharing a drink in a dark tavern, waiting for me to return: What could be bad?

  Chapte
r Twenty-seven

  I closed the door and limped my way across the room toward the bar. I heard a small gasp as I did so, didn’t realize why until I remembered that I had Degan’s sword across my back, until I remembered he hadn’t known it was here until now.

  Well, that made it one surprise for each of us, then, didn’t it?

  “You two are getting as thick as thieves,” I said as I settled gingerly on one of the stools. “Pardon the saying.”

  “Given the present company,” said Degan, “I’ll take it as a compliment.”

  “Take it however the hell you like.” I undid the sack holding Heron’s box from around my waist and set it on the bar. Back in the depths of the inn, I could hear the clatter and bang of the kitchen working on the company’s breakfast. “I thought you had other business,” I said to Degan. “That you didn’t want to be here, near us, because it would be . . . how did you put it? Oh, yes, it would be ‘too hard.’”

  “Drothe,” said Fowler quickly. “He didn’t come here. I went and—”

  Degan held up a hand. “No, it’s all right,” he said. “No one made me come, Jess, and I wasn’t exactly charitable toward Drothe last time I was here. He has the right of it.”

  I sniffed and pulled the box out of the sack. It was a little smaller than a man’s head and made of polished mahogany, the beaten copped bands that held it closed complementing the red of the wood nicely. Leave it to someone at court to spend more on a box than on what it held.

  “Do you mind if I ask how you came by my . . . by the sword?” he said as I swung the lid back on the box.

  “Took it off a Gray Prince,” I said. “He’s dead now. Long story.”

  “They usually are with you.”

  “Don’t suppose I can convince you to take it off me?” I said.

  Degan shook his head. “We went over that the other night. It’s not mine to carry anymore.”

  “I’ll hold on to it, then.”

  “Sentimental value?”

  “Something like that.”

  There were six cloth bags inside the box. I picked one, drew out a seed, and put it in my mouth. After the night I’d had, the ahrami should have been ambrosia; instead, it just sat under my tongue, tasting bitter.

  I turned my attention to Fowler. “How’d you know where to find him?” I asked.

  “Followed him. The night he came to see you.”

  I raised an eyebrow at Degan. He shrugged. “I was watching for you. She keeps a different line.”

  Fowler sat up a bit in her chair, clearly pleased with herself.

  “Fowler says you’re having some problems with the Zakur,” said Degan.

  “Nothing I can’t handle.” Fowler snorted. I ignored her. “Me, I’d rather talk about your brother—”

  “Former brother.”

  “Former brother, then. Silver.”

  Degan picked up his cup, swirled the contents about, and took a sip. “I told you, he has an overly high opinion of himself.”

  “He also seems to have a fairly high opinion of Ivory Degan as well.”

  Degan looked up sharply. “You told him?”

  “No, you did. Silver was sitting in my room when we spoke the other night in the hallway. He heard everything.”

  Degan gave Fowler a sharp look, which she ignored. Good for her.

  “And you knew this?” he said to me.

  “Hell, no. If I had, I would’ve dragged him out, or you in, and finished this damn thing there and then.”

  “And what did my former brother have to say?”

  “Turns out you’re not the only one interested in Ivory’s papers.”

  “He told you he wants them as well?”

  “Yes.”

  “To use as leverage against me?”

  “That’s his story.”

  “And you believe him?”

  I shrugged. “I believe he has plans for you, and now for the papers as well. I don’t know if your coming down here was an excuse or a happy accident, but he definitely sees you as a means to laying hands on them.”

  Degan frowned. “That doesn’t make sense. Why would he assume I’d be able to find them?”

  “Maybe he didn’t,” said Fowler.

  We both looked at her.

  “Maybe he didn’t expect a former degan to find them,” she said. She turned to me. “Maybe he expected a former Nose to do it instead.”

  “Me?” I said. “Why the hell would he think I could come down here and find anything, let alone that?”

  “No,” said Degan, giving Fowler an approving look. “Maybe she’s right. Silver’s not stupid: If he knew I was looking for something, and he knew he could get you to help by having you come after me, then it makes sense.”

  “But how would he know what you were looking for? I didn’t even know until I got down here and talked to you. Hell, he didn’t know you were in Djan until I told him.”

  Degan cleared his throat. “He, ah, might have heard something through other circles.”

  I sat up on my stool. “What other circles?”

  Degan looked off into the darkness. “You weren’t the first person I told what I was looking for.”

  I was about to say it didn’t matter who he’d asked in el-Qaddice when I realized he wasn’t talking about that. That he was talking about Ildrecca, back before he’d vanished.

  Oh, hell. “You asked other degans about Ivory, didn’t you?” I said.

  “One or two.”

  “And they told Silver?”

  “Possibly. More likely, he figured it out without them knowing they were telling him. Like I said, he’s not stupid.”

  I reached up and rubbed my temples. It didn’t help. “Remind me: Weren’t you supposed to be, I don’t know, on the run from them? Something about the Order wanting your head because you dusted another degan and threw your sword away?”

  “It’s complicated,” said Degan.

  “I’ll just bet it is.” I folded my arms and leaned back against the bar. “Talk. And don’t even try to tell me it’s some sort of degan-only secret: You’re out of the Order, and I’m in this up to my neck.”

  Degan blew out his cheeks and sat back in his chair. “Let’s just say there’s what the Order is supposed to do, and there’s what some of the members choose to do. I chose to talk to two of my fellows, and they chose not to kill me. It was just after Iron’s death, and things were still uncertain. Besides, it wasn’t as if I could walk in and check the records in the Barracks Hall after what had happened.”

  “And your two brothers were all right with this?”

  “A brother and a sister, actually,” said Degan. “Jade and Brass. They didn’t approve of what I did, but they understood how it happened. More important, they sympathized with what I want to do.” He took a last gulp from his cup and set it aside. A sad smile spread across his face. “They were weeks sneaking records in and out for me, with Brass and me going over them for any hint of what might have happened to Ivory Degan after he left Ildrecca.”

  “But not Jade?” I said.

  “He drew the line at helping me look. He said he could bring the information out and back, but he couldn’t countenance taking a more direct hand in something he felt could just as easily break the Order as mend it.”

  “Was he right?”

  “Everyone has to follow where their conscience leads; who am I to say he was right or wrong to stop where he did?”

  “But you still found something that pointed you down here.”

  “Brass did,” said Degan. “She came across a reference in one of the old journals—the members still kept journals as a rule back then—about Bone Degan saying she’d thought she caught a glimpse of Ivory in el-Qaddice. This was almost three decades after he’d left the Order, but Bone didn’t go after him to find out for certain.”

  “Why not?” said Fowler.

  “Something about her being busy holding off five of the despot’s men while her charge made an escape out a palace window, I
suspect.”

  “Ah,” said Fowler. She glared at me.

  “What?” I said.

  “Just noticing the similarities.”

  “I haven’t had to jump out of a window since we got here. Not even a palace’s.” I slipped another seed into my mouth, then added, “Yet.”

  “Yet?” said Degan and Fowler together.

  I shrugged. “There’s a library that’s showing some promise on the Ivory front.”

  “‘The Ivory front’?” said Degan. He sat up in his seat. “I thought I told you I didn’t want your help.”

  “Tell it to the degan who has my people over a barrel. What you want isn’t necessarily what you’re going to get.”

  “I could say the same for you.”

  I shifted my weight on the stool, wincing slightly in the process. “Is that a threat?”

  “A threat?” Degan rocked his head back in disbelief. “Drothe, you have one Zakur crime lord putting a price on your head even as another is trying to blackmail you into killing the first. Me threatening you at this point would be like kicking a dying horse: It might hasten things along, but it sure as hell wouldn’t make a difference in the end.”

  I got up and walked over to their table. Outside, I could hear Tobin raising his voice, yelling at someone to be careful with a crate. Probably covering for Yekeb and the flour.

  “So does that mean you’re here to help?” I asked, stopping before Degan.

  He shook his head. “I can’t risk drawing attention to myself.”

  “Then why come?”

  “Because I wanted to say good-bye.”

  “You going someplace?”

  Degan glanced past me, toward the door and the yard beyond. “You are.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong.”

  “Excuse me?” This from Fowler.

  “They may be leaving,” I said, jerking a thumb over my shoulder, “but I still have things to do here.” I looked at Degan. “Just like you.”

  “No, not like me,” said Degan. “I’m here because of a promise I made long ago—a promise I have to try to keep, even if it means failure. You don’t have that burden. You can walk away.”