Prince of Wolves

by Dave Gross

  “Her ill health,” I said.

  “Ah,” he said. “I beg your pardon. Caliphas is the very cradle of slander in our country, and my cousin’s arrival has given birth to the most despicable speculations among our peers.”

  “Indeed.”

  “But you do not need me to educate you in this matter,” he said. “I understand that you too have endured the rasp of the tongues of Caliphas.”

  I nodded less to acknowledge the point than to encourage him to continue. For a long moment he did not, and I let the silence gnaw at him.

  “Countess Caliphvasos looks very well,” he said.

  “She does,” I agreed.

  “If I understand correctly, you have known her for some time.”

  “That is so. We met when I was on my way to Lepidstadt University to conduct some research.”

  “Ah, then you must be acquainted with Master Nagrea, the fencing instructor.”

  I saw now where Casomir intended to direct the conversation. When I resided at the university, a few of my fellows encouraged me to engage in their graduation tradition. Upon completion of their fencing instruction, the students convey their rapiers and a large quantity of wine to a high cliff beside the river. There they take turns standing with their heels upon the edge of the precipice, wearing only a steel visor to protect the eyes. One by one, their comrades test their skill and courage. Challengers must withdraw once the defender inflicts a wound, usually a slight pinking of the arm, but only after the defender suffers a slash upon the face does honor permit him to step down. The victor’s fellows toast him and pour wine into his fresh wounds to ensure a lasting scar. Among the noblemen of Ustalav, the Lepidstadt scar is more celebrated than a county signet.

  “No,” I replied. “My visit was perhaps before his tenure.”

  “Ah,” said Casomir, studying my face. He undoubtedly saw from the start that I do not bear the famous scar, nor do I wear a sword. Was he trying to provoke me? It seemed such a clumsy ploy that I doubted such an obvious explanation, yet he said nothing more until we stopped at noon to rest.

  Casomir escorted his cousin in a promenade around our roadside camp while Nicola directed the preparation of a cold luncheon. I found Radovan among the guards who had escaped Nicola’s conscription. The locals were teaching him Varisian phrases while they stretched away the morning’s accumulated aches. At first I was disappointed to hear that most of them were boasts and challenges in the peasant dialect, undoing the foundation of proper Varisian I had tried to instill in my servants during the passage from Cheliax. The vulgar dialect, however, would undoubtedly prove useful to Radovan in his dealings with the lower classes.

  I watched as Radovan demonstrated one of his favorite tricks. He and Grigor, the long-haired archer, stood about twenty paces apart, each beside and slightly in front of a birch tree, each holding one of Radovan’s boot knives at his side. Ever since I had insisted on having them silvered in preparation for our expedition, Radovan complained the balance was off and had practiced throwing at every opportunity. On the ground between them lay a few silver coins, their stakes. Standing to one side, Luca counted down, “Three ...two...one!”

  Simultaneously, each threw his knife toward the other’s tree. Radovan’s sank two inches into the birch wood, but an instant later he caught his rival’s and hurled it back. It stuck and quivered an inch above the first knife.

  “A little trick I learned down on Eel Street,” Radovan told them in Taldane.

  The guards murmured appreciatively, even Grigor, who had lost the bet.

  I stepped forward to express my preference that we reach Kavapesta with the same number of fingers as when we left Caliphas, but Radovan spoke first.

  “Say, boss,” he said. “They’re teaching me more Varisian: I am bigger than I look. Do not make fun with me.”

  The Ustalavs laughed. “Good accent,” I said. “The idiom, however, could use some refinement.”

  “Bigger than I look,” he repeated to more laughter. The men liked him, but I wondered how skilled they were.

  “As long as you men are taking your exercise, indulge me with a demonstration,” I said.

  “What do you want?” said Radovan. “Archery? Hand to hand?”

  “Swords,” I said.

  “All right,” he said. “Anton, Luca.” The bald soldier and the horse thief stepped forward. “Show the boss what you’ve got,” he said in Taldane, adding in Varisian, “Do not kill or cut the head. For the bester.” He held up a gold coin, knowing that I would replace it in his next pay purse.

  Anton and Luca needed no further incentive. They drew their weapons and approached each other. The crossbar on Anton’s sword bore the royal crest, a veteran’s weapon. Luca wielded a cutlass, probably won in a game of chance on the waterfront. They crouched and clashed their blades a few times. Anton parried a stab at his arm and riposted, pinking Luca’s forearm.

  Radovan shook his head. “That was pitiful,” he said to Luca. He tossed the gold coin to Anton, but I snatched it out of the air.

  “I did not request a pantomime,” I said. “I wish to see whether you can fight. Radovan, take Luca’s place.”

  “Come on, boss,” he said. “You know I’m no good with a sword.”

  It was true that I had never seen Radovan wield a sword he had not taken from an attacker, and in those cases he had either discarded the weapon or used its pommel to club his foe. He preferred to fight at close range.

  “Very well,” I said, removing my coat. “Lend me your blade, Luca.”

  The guard hesitated before surrendering his weapon and retreating. I felt its weight and made a few passes in the air. It was not an ideal weapon for a duel.

  Anton put up a hand. “Please, my lord,” he said. “I have no wish to harm you.”

  “If you can scratch me,” I said, “ten gold coins.”

  “Ten!” he said with enthusiasm. He raised his weapon.

  Suddenly I felt foolish. It had been many years, perhaps more than a decade, since I had practiced regularly. I have had excellent instruction, but that too was decades ago, and among the several reasons I employ Radovan is that I dislike personal combat.

  But here, what was I doing? Was it so important to show Casomir that my lack of the Lepidstadt scar did not mark me as a eunuch? Letting this hireling scratch me would be all the evidence one could desire that I was no longer a swordsman.

  Anton thrust at my knee, but I parried and retreated. He followed, but he cast a questioning glance at Radovan. I answered by beating his blade out of line and attacking his leading shoulder.

  Anton caught my blade on his cross-guard as he retreated. I pressed the attack, binding his blade in a small circle before cutting in the opposite direction to strike at his arm. The tip of my blade nicked the leather bracer on his wrist, but I had not drawn blood.

  “Perhaps this is not such a good idea,” said Anton. He lowered his guard with a shrug. I dropped the tip of my blade. He said, “I fear I will cut you—”

  He lunged full out toward the toe of my boot. I lifted my foot, stamped on his blade, and tapped his chin with the tip of the cutlass.

  Anton looked up at me from where he’d stumbled into a kneeling position. Fear cast a shadow over his eyes for a second, but then he offered me a conciliatory smile. “I think maybe you have seen that trick before.”

  I tossed Anton the coin and returned the borrowed cutlass to Luca. Even a few seconds of swordplay had left my shoulder sore. As I turned to leave the men, Radovan walked beside me.

  “What’s on your mind?” he asked. Much as I valued his keen perception, I preferred he focus it away from me.

  “One of our guests reminded me that it has been far too long since I exercised my swordsmanship,” I said. “Do you think Anton lost purposefully to curry my favor?”

  Radovan shrugged. He was not entirely without diplomacy. “That reminds me,” he said. “How long before I can give the men their presents? Some of them are not used to a proper swo
rd.”

  I had hesitated to distribute the silvered weapons earlier out of concern that one or more of the men would abscond to sell the valuable weapon rather than risk the perilous journey for relatively small pay. The financial loss was not my principal concern, but I had brought only enough for a small contingent of guards, and I wished all of them to be able to fend off the supernatural as well as the mundane dangers of the road.

  “Unless you’re ready to break out the old spell book and...?” Radovan waggled his fingers in an approximation of a wizard’s gesture. He watched me for a reply, and I knew the reason.

  In the many years of our association, Radovan had seen me deduce the identity of a thief by the material components of the spell he had used to penetrate a warded safe. He had watched as I translated the runes of an ancient spell puzzle and altered them to reveal their hidden message. He had even witnessed my deflection of the cantrips of an amateur wizard in an otherwise sinister instance of blackmail. What Radovan had never seen me do, however, was cast a proper spell. It was a wonder that he had never pressed the issue before. The answer to his question was embarrassing, but considering the potential dangers of traveling Ustalav’s roads, it was probably time he knew. On the other hand, there was an issue of propriety. He was my servant, not a peer.

  “You may distribute the weapons now,” I told him.

  Radovan was more relentless than my great-niece’s abominable terriers. “But you’re ready to back them up with spells, right?”

  “You did not tell them so, I trust.”

  “Of course, not, but I figured—”

  “You must not depend upon my casting spells of any significance,” I said.

  “What about all those arcane books and things in your library?”

  I sighed. “The study of the arcane was one of my earliest passions. Unfortunately, while I was adept at the theory, in practice I encountered certain difficulties.”

  “Yeah?” said Radovan. “What kind of difficulties?”

  What most observers unfamiliar with the arcane do not realize is that a wizard actually casts the larger portion of any spell long before unleashing its power into our world. For most spellcasters, the act of releasing the magic is a simple matter of uttering the final triggering phrases, performing a concluding gesture, and perhaps expending a catalytic matter.

  Unfortunately for me, it is also—to be blunt—a matter of expelling my last meal.

  From the moment I first fix a spell in my mind to the moment I cast it, my body seizes up with cramps. I perspire in a most unseemly manner, and at times I have developed an intolerable stammer. The longer I retain the prepared enchantment, the worse my condition becomes. Even the relief of unleashing its power inevitably comes with a noisome regurgitation, which I assure you caused my fellow students in the Academae in Korvosa no end of amusement.

  But that was none of Radovan’s concern. It was high time I resumed a more formal relationship with the help. I waved him away and said, “The men are hungry. See to them.”

  Chapter Four

  The Senir Bridge

  Unlike huntsmen and girls, I don’t find horses the least bit romantic. Granted, the damned things have always hated me, so I’m biased. A couple of other hellspawn have told me they have the same problem, but others can ride horseback all day long. One whiff of me, though, sends most draft animals screaming for the barn. The brave ones tend to wait until I get close and then try to trample me to death. Ten feet is the safe limit, so I don’t get to ride up front in the red carriage unless the boss needs the extra speed.

  So no matter how many times I hear riders complain about suffering from saddle sores, I know it has to beat standing on the footman’s step. After five days of hanging onto the back of the carriage, my legs felt like columns of lead slag. I couldn’t stand it anymore. My back was killing me, and the carriage blocked half my field of vision. I climbed up onto the roof.

  Stacked so high, the luggage threw off the vehicle’s balance, so I squatted beside a box of crossbow bolts for a look around. The last inhabited farms of Caliphas were a day behind us. In the morning we had passed a few crumbling chimneys, the tombstones of abandoned houses. Since then the road was the only human mark upon the land. It wound up into the wooded mountains to a pass where we’d cross into the tiny county of Ulcazar before entering Amaans, the domain of Count Galdana.

  There were hours left before nightfall, but the shadows of the western peaks reached for us, their fingers inching closer with every turn in the road. I felt a chill and wished I’d worn something heavier under my jacket. I should have bought one of those woolen shirts I saw in the market in Vauntil, but after a long day spent on the footman’s step, I was too tired to exchange even a half-hour in a proper bed for the promise of future comfort. It wasn’t a question of cash—I’d used the money in Nicola’s purse for stakes at Towers after leaving the Sczarni, so I was flush. You’d think Varisians would be better at Harrow card games, but Desna smiled on me. Maybe they just didn’t play the way we do down south. They didn’t even catch my pocketing their cards as I left. That was rubbing it in, I know, but I wanted a better look at a local deck.

  The art was different from what I’d seen before, but that wasn’t unusual. I’d seen half a dozen variations on the cards over the years. Even in Cheliax, market oracles use them for Harrowings, and noblewomen consider them fashionable, playing at casting their own portents over cakes and cordials. My old boss, Zandros the Fair, forbade the Goatherds from playing Towers, which he considered bad luck if not outright sacrilege. He’d been extra superstitious since he cheated a Varisian witch out of her savings and soon after began a slow transformation into what the smart money bet was a goat. I hadn’t seen him in the better part of a year, but if there was any justice in the world, the scrofulous old bastard was running on all fours and eating out of garbage bins by now.

  Of course, forbidding the boys from playing Towers only made the game more popular with us. In years of illicit games on Eel Street, I’d seen a lot of Harrowing decks, so I knew the fifty-four cards by heart. Still, I’d never seen that one Malena turned up. I remembered it vividly because of the surprise: a man holding a scepter, a crown at his feet, glowing eyes under a dark hill.

  I wanted to ask the boss whether he knew anything about such a card, but he was occupied with his guests. Besides, he’d been exceptionally snooty recently, and considering his mood, I wasn’t ready to tell him about my scrape with the Sczarni. I’d just have to ask the next Harrower I met. There was bound to be at least one in every Ustalav town.

  The coin Malena gave me was another mystery. There was something familiar about the face of the man on it. I tried to remember whether I had seen it in a painting or printed in one of the books from the boss’s library, but that didn’t seem right. It was as if I’d once seen someone who looked like the man on the coin decades ago, but the memory was buried beneath the childhood I’d spent so much time trying to forget. Or maybe the mists of Ustalav were exciting my imagination.

  Before leaving Caliphas, I’d paid the farrier at the stable to stamp a hole at the top edge of Malena’s copper and string a leather thong through it. Since then I’d worn it around my neck as a talisman. I told myself it was a token to remind me of the smell of Malena’s hair, but when it comes to Harrowings, I’m not so skeptical that I won’t hedge my bet.

  The carriage lights came on as we entered thicker woods. Even after five days, the effect still startled the carriage driver, Petru, who was accustomed to stopping at dusk to light the oil lamps on mundane vehicles. I hoped the boss was keeping an eye on him from inside, triggering the lights just at the moment it would cause the most alarm. That didn’t seem likely the way the boss had been acting lately. He was becoming more and more like any other member of what he called the “peerage.”

  From the vantage of the carriage roof, I spotted the outriders. Anton and Costin rode a few hundred yards ahead, scouting for any trouble on the road. They carried their crossbo
ws slung across their backs, so they must not have seen anything out of place. Dimitru and Emil flanked the carriage when possible, moving ahead of the team when the woods grew too thick beside the road. Bringing up the rear were Grigor and Luca. I exchanged a wave with the horse thief, pleased to see that he had not slipped away with our best mount. Not yet, anyway.

  Crouching among the luggage was more comfortable than hanging onto the back of the carriage, but it tempted me to lie back and take a nap. That was no good, because even if I’d been willing to nod off, the higher we rose into the mountains, the more tree branches brushed against the roof. After touching the crossbow I kept beside the ammunition box, I crawled forward to pat the driver.

  Petru started when I touched his shoulder, but he nodded at me. When we’d met, he hadn’t batted an eye when he noticed my infernal heritage. I can pass if it’s dark, or in a bar full of drunks, but it’s obvious to most that I’m not entirely human. Few had taken it as calmly as Petru had, especially in Ustalav.

  Petru was an oddly dapper Varisian of thirty or forty years. Despite his meager means, he wore a stovepipe hat with bright peacock feathers sprouting from the brim. His long tail coat was spotless, and I’d caught him brushing it each stop after he’d seen to the horses. He had a fantastic widow’s peak and the sort of mesmerizing eyes you see on actors and magicians. Nicola had hired him, but I tried not to hold that against Petru. He slid over to give me room on the driver’s seat, but I shook my head. No sense spooking the horses.

  “How far until we stop?” I asked. He looked blank. I’d forgotten he had little Taldane. “Much far?” I tried in his language.

  “Past bridge, two three hours. After dark.”

  Joy, I thought to myself. No sense wasting good sarcasm with my bad Varisian.

  Before climbing back down, I took another look ahead. Anton had stopped and raised his fist above his head.

  “Whoa,” I told Petru. The meaning was the same in both our tongues. He reined it in, and the carriage slowed and halted.

  The carriage door opened as I hopped down. “What is it?” asked Nicola.