by Guy Antibes
“Ricky!” Karian said, getting up from stocking a lower shelf. “It’s been quite a while. First time since spring, and now it’s summer.”
“I’m glad to be out again.”
“Good. I know of an excellent place to get some lunch. I’ll have a word with my assistant.”
Ricky didn’t recognize the young man that Karian spoke with, but soon they were back out on the street. He and Effie walked behind Saganet and Karian. They only walked for two blocks to the south in an area that Ricky didn’t know particularly well.
Karian stepped into a restaurant. Ricky peeked in the windows to see cloths on the tables. He would have never chosen to eat at such a place before, and it was still unlikely. After a few words with a waiter, they were escorted up steps to a private room with a table that could seat considerably more than four.
“We can eat and talk with more privacy in here,” Karian said.
Ricky looked out the window that showed the street below. On the other side of the street, a man looked up at him. Their eyes connected. Ricky was sure the man reacted to Ricky looking back.
“I think we’ve been spotted,” Ricky said.
Karian came to the window. The man saw Karian and turned quickly to walk away.
“I’m afraid he’s right,” Karian said to Saganet. “Let’s not let being spotted disturb our lunch.”
“Easy for you to say,” Saganet said. “I’ve been beaten before.”
“Without hitting back, right?”
Saganet made a face. “Not this time, and I won’t be alone. Did you recognize him?”
“He’s not a Duke’s man. Anyone could be hired by that devil Taranta,” Karian said. “I suspect little Victor will show up on the scene to watch his men attack either of you.” Karian turned to Ricky. “Why is he so beside himself with hatred of you?”
“I think he thinks we have a rivalry to the death,” Ricky said. “I wouldn’t care about it aside from the fact he’s tried to kill me twice.”
“It might be the third attempt,” Effie said. “Whoever it is, they are evidently monitoring Karian’s shop.”
Someone knocked at the door. Ricky grabbed his cane, propped up against the wall.
“Lunch is ready,” a female voice called.
Effie opened the door, and four serving ladies walked in, set the table from a sideboard in the room, and served them their lunch. Karian had evidently ordered their food.
“Let’s enjoy our food before we have to leave,” Saganet said, not looking too bothered about being found.
Ricky glanced out the window again before he sat down, but didn’t see anyone outside. The smell of roast turkey and mashed potatoes filled the air, making him hungry. The women also left a bowl of fruit.
“I didn’t order this wine since it’s a little out of my range for lunch,” Karian said, shrugging. “But I guess this is what we’ll drink.” Karian poured the wine, but Ricky preferred water from the pitcher.
“Here’s to a more placid summer,” Saganet said. He grinned as they touched goblets. “Ricky has two projects to complete, and I’m sure he’ll succeed in both of them.” They toasted Ricky this time.
All the angst Ricky felt at the academy melted away as Karian asked questions about the King’s castle at Sealio, and Effie, to Ricky’s surprise, told a string of amusing anecdotes as they began to eat.
When she was in the middle of one, her face turned pale. “I’m, I’m not feeling well.” She rose and left the room.
“I suppose some of those stories left such a bad taste in her mouth, they made her sick,” Saganet said, joking until Karian rose.
“I think I’ll be joining her,” Karian said.
Saganet peered at Ricky. “How do you feel?”
Ricky shrugged. “I am feeling all right.”
“I’m not. Cork that wine. Someone might have tampered with it. Lock the door and only let us in.” He left Ricky alone in the room.
After securing the door, Ricky noticed that Effie had left her sword in the dining chamber. He lost his appetite and sealed the wine with the cork. The three of them had drunk two-thirds of the bottle. What if someone attacked her from outside the room? Saganet and Karian had both left the room armed. He paced the floor and drew the draperies, peeking out the window.
A few men gathered on the other side of the street. He recognized the face of the man who had looked up from the street. Another group showed up. He couldn’t miss the black eye-patch of Victor Taranta.
Victor couldn’t wear a sword, but a man close by his enemy had a sword at his waist and one in his hand. Ricky counted ten men. Victor said something to them, and then they walked across the street.
How could he defend himself from ten thugs? He included Victor in that number. Ricky pulled out Effie’s sword and swished it through the air to get a feel for its balance. He grabbed his cane in the other hand, the switch still inside, and stood, palms getting wet from increasing nervousness, waiting for the inevitable pounding on the door.
He wished they were still listening to Effie’s stories of the King’s castle. Now he only thought of staying alive. He flinched when he heard pounding steps outside. He shoved whatever he could in front of the door. It wasn’t much of a barricade, but it would have to do.
Something slammed into the door. It held. The door vibrated with each attempt at opening it. The hinges popped, and the edges of the door shattered. Ricky saw hands reach around, but then they withdrew as the door pushed open moving the barricade.
Ricky backed up, thinking furiously about what he should do. But then his thoughts flashed to what Effie would do. He could only think of one thing, kill Victor. He had to end this. Ricky couldn’t spend the rest of his life inside the academy, and he didn’t want to run from thugs every time he stepped outside.
He wouldn’t die. He refused to die. Ricky gripped Effie’s sword tighter as the men eventually breached his makeshift barricade. Victor wasn’t the first one in the room.
Looking at the rusty sword and the way the man held it, Ricky did the unexpected and attacked. The man flinched when Ricky raised his cane, but that was a diversion for Effie’s sword that poked a hole in the man’s stomach.
He jumped back as two men entered the room. He fought an offensive fight with his sword and a defensive fight, using his cane, with the other. He struggled to keep his mind working as fast as possible, just like Effie had burned into his brain, parrying thrusting, blocking, advancing, retreating until he had disabled both men.
Ricky couldn’t keep it up. Victor finally shoved a table aside as he strode into the chamber, a naked sword in his hand. Ricky almost involuntarily backed up.
“You will die in this room,” Victor said.
A commotion at the door distracted Victor’s next sentence. He turned. Ricky flashed his eyes from his opponents. He saw his lunch companions scuffling with the rest of Victor’s gang of thugs.
“Kill him quickly,” Victor said.
Ricky faced four men plus Victor. Did he want to die or…?
“I give you this one chance to leave, or you won’t leave this room alive,” Ricky said, trying not to sound as desperate as he felt.
“A chance?” Victor pointed to his eye. “You lost your chance when you did this.”
“And you stabbed me in my stomach. Fine.”
Ricky took a deep breath and shouted.
~~~
Chapter Thirty
~
T he room froze more solid and silent than any of Ricky’s other shouts. Ricky had to move fast. He had to put aside any misgivings for what he was about to do.
He quickly removed the top of his cane and pulled out the switch, quickly thrusting the tip into the chest of each of the men facing him. His stomach roiled at what he had done, but he stood in front of Victor before the thugs began to fall to the floor.
His switch was pointed at Victor’s heart like the rest, but he took Effie’s sword and another deep breath. The spell was wearing off. The men’s f
all to the ground had sped up, and he noticed Victor beginning to blink his good eye. Ricky didn’t have any time left when he thrust Effie’s sword deep into his enemy’s heart.
When time had returned to normal, he heard Victor’s weak shout and his breath exhaling as the boy collapsed to the floor. Ricky stood back, looking at the carnage. His stomach rebelled at the relief from danger and at the sight and smell of so much blood and death. He leaned over and lost the contents of his lunch. Effie’s sword clattered away from him, and he dropped his switch as he clutched his hands into fists, trying to regain control.
He looked up to see one of Victor’s men standing over him with a sword in his hand.
“Did Victor kill him?” the man asked someone behind him. “Doesn’t matter,” the thug said, but before the man could even raise his sword, he fell to the floor.
Effie came into view, an old nicked sword in her hand. “Are you hurt?”
“Embarrassed,” was the only reply Ricky could think of as he wiped his hands, covered with blood and vomit on one of the dead thugs.
He rose and looked over the dining room. Dead men littered the floor. They were really dead, including Victor, his one eye staring sightlessly at the ceiling.
“I’m going to be sick again.”
Karian took his hand and dragged him to the men’s room where he poured a pitcher of water over his hands and dampened a towel to wash his face.
“I thought you were wounded,” Karian said.
“Not physically,” Ricky said. “I’m as sick as you were.”
“Oh, I’m still sick. So are we all, but sometimes you have to cast your illness aside in a fight.”
Ricky had done just the opposite. “Victor’s dead.”
“Obviously. You took care of all but three of the thugs. How did you do it?”
Using magic in a fight was illegal. How could Ricky explain how he had prevailed? He resorted to a version of the truth. “I was much faster than they were, even Victor.”
“With so many deaths, we will have to endure questioning by the constabulary,” Karian said.
Saganet knocked on the men’s room door. “I’m coming in.” He rushed in, looking pale. Ricky and Karian left him to his illness.
“I didn’t drink as much as he did,” Karian said. They passed the women’s room and heard Effie. “Or her.”
Ricky noticed a crowd gathered at the dining doorway, keeping away from the two bodies in the hallway.
“Make way,” a voice said downstairs.
Four constables cleared the sightseers and had them go back down to the main floor.
“You two were attacked?”
Ricky nodded. “They put something in the wine to make us sick.” He looked at the two bodies. “Victor Taranta wanted to kill me, so I guess poisoning wasn’t good enough for him.”
“Lord Taranta’s son?”
Ricky nodded. “He attacked me weeks ago with three of his friends and didn’t succeed. Victor didn’t succeed this time, either. I had to fight for my life.”
“Where are your injuries?”
Ricky looked at the chief constable, not knowing what to say.
“I’m not injured. I don’t think any of us are.”
“That is right. There were four of you.” The chief constable looked at Karian. “I had a brief conversation with the owner who knows you,”
“The drugged wine is still having its effects,” Karian pointed his head toward the conveniences down the hall.
“Ricky and I didn’t drink as much,” Karian said.
“Come with me,” the chief constable said, leading them into the dining room. “Explain what happened.”
Ricky gave his account of the fight but made it sound like Saganet and Effie played a larger role in the fighting. “Here is the wine. You might question the serving women. I’d bet that Victor gave them that bottle of wine to serve us,” he said.
The constable nodded. “Who killed the boy?”
“I did,” Effie said from the doorway. She looked even more ragged than the others. “He was about to kill Ricky. It was all self-defense.”
“Twelve against four? I should say,” the constable said. “Got that down?”
One of the constables busily jotted down the questions and answers and nodded.
“Where is the other man?”
“I’m here, for now,” Saganet said. “I think I drank the most wine. Ricky barely touched his and drank water during the meal. I am Saganet Crabacci, the weapons professor at Doubli Academy. This is Effilia Asucco, former bodyguard to Princess Pira of the Royal Family. You know Hendrico Valian? He is my ward.”
“And I know Karian Grandari,” the constable said. “Why? Did the Taranta boy carry that much of a grudge?”
“Ricky had to fend off two smaller-scale attacks at the academy. He injured young Taranta’s eye as he defended himself from a knife attack in my own cottage. Ricky suffered a stomach wound.”
The chief constable looked over the carnage. “And none of you are injured?”
“I barely fought,” Karian said. “I was in the men’s room when it happened and fought with those two. They weren’t very proficient with swords.”
“At least not to your level or your ward’s, Crabacci.”
“I’ve been training him in the use of a metal switch, constable.” Saganet picked Ricky’s weapon up. “He used this and his cane to defend himself.” Sagenet pointed where the cane had rolled up against the wall. He retrieved it to show the gouges the edges of the weapons had made. “I’ve trained Ricky to use weapons, along with rest of the boys at the academy.”
The chief constable took the battered cane. “You’ve taught him well, and he avoided using a sword, which would have made us take him in.” He looked down at the sword still in Victor’s dead hand and sighed. “I’ll be taking him someplace else. He wouldn’t have been incarcerated very long if his father had a say.”
“Now he won’t be incarcerated at all. Can we go?” Karian asked.
The constable nodded. “None of you leave Tossa. There will likely be an inquest into the boy’s death. The others are street ruffians by the look of them. They wouldn’t have represented much of a problem, other than numbers, for you. I’m still amazed that none of you are injured.”
“You can find us at Doubli Academy, and Karian will be at his store,” Saganet said.
“Just a minute,” one of the constables said. He looked at his superior. “These four men were killed with that metal thing?”
“Four?” the chief constable said. “You killed these men?” He looked at Ricky.
“I did. The only way to disable a man with the metal switch is to open up their neck or thrust it straight into a soft part of the skin. Other than that, you can only inflict welts and shallow injuries.”
The chief constable took the metal switch and thrust it in the air. “You have to be precise to do that. You fought off four men and still maintained your composure to make a forceful poke work?”
Ricky nodded. “Do you want a demonstration?”
The constable shook his head. “They must have been distracted by the other fighting.”
Ricky nodded. “They didn’t have their focus on me when I, uh, took care of them.”
The constable shook his head and looked down at Victor’s body. “What a reckless boy. Imagine organizing an attack by street thugs on competent swordsmen. You can go, but I will keep your cane and switch, as you call it. It certainly isn’t a sword.”
Ricky nodded and helped Saganet down the stairs. His guardian still looked ill. Karian called a carriage for them.
“Go to the academy. You will definitely be questioned again. It won’t go so easy, so make sure you three get your stories straight.”
He glanced at Ricky with worry evident on his face.
“We came out of that as good as we could hope,” Saganet said. “It’s obvious to me you used magic, didn’t you?”
Ricky nodded. “I used my speed-up spell and took c
are of four thugs and Victor just as my magic ended. I would have been killed otherwise.”
“As you talked to the constable, our story is that Effie dispatched Victor after the three of us fought those four men. You shot in and delivered the killing blow for each one.” Saganet shrugged. “How else can one explain it?”
Effie nodded. “I’ll take the blame for the Taranta boy. I never met him. He did die with a sword in his hand, so he was performing an illegal act. I didn’t like the way the chief constable looked at the metal switch.”
“It doesn’t fit the definition of a sword in the city code. I made sure of that,” Saganet said.
Ricky sat back. His stomach complained again, but he just took deep breaths. Effie and Saganet didn’t look any better.
~
Two days later, Ricky returned to the Tossan Justice Administration building where he had been tried months previously. They sat in a smaller room set up like a small court. Ricky didn’t want to face an inquest, but Saganet and Effie couldn’t see how the constabulary could make a case against him.
A thin, well-dressed man escorted a similarly well-dressed thick wife into the room. The woman sobbed, holding a handkerchief to her face. He walked over to them and stared at Ricky.
“You are the pickpocket?” The man sneered as he spoke.
“I am Hendrico Valian,” Ricky said. “A student at Doubli Academy.” He returned Lord Taranta’s stare. “I am sorry for your loss, sir. Victor and I did not get along, but I never wished him harm. He died seeking some kind of revenge.”
Taranta narrowed his eyes and scowled as he turned away from them to console Victor’s mother.
A robed magistrate walked in and sat behind an elevated desk. He carried a portfolio, which he took his time reading. After clearing his throat, he began.
“This is the inquisition into Victor Taranta’s violent death. I have read the evidence and have a few questions.”
The magistrate asked Ricky and his friends to give their version of the event. The restaurant owner testified that the four of them arrived for lunch. They all had the same luncheon entree. The magistrate asked if anyone else became sick from the food.