A. M. STEINER
BOOK ONE OF
THE THRICE~CROSSED SWORDS TRILOGY
A Ptolemy Publishing Book
First published in Great Britain in 2017 by Ptolemy Publishing UK, 32 Stanhope Road, London, N6 5NG
Copyright © Adam M. Steiner 2017
Cover © www.patrickknowlesdesign.com
Design and typesetting by Jakob Vala
The moral right of Adam M. Steiner to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Source ISBN: 978-0-9957229-0-3
Ebook Edition © April 2017 ISBN: 978-0-9957229-1-0
FIRST EDITION
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events other than those clearly in the public domain, are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Principal characters
Prologue
Part One
The aspirant
A strange and curious girl
The Bell Jar
The Path of the Righteous
Bridges burned
Lions led by donkeys
The solemn behest
Chairman Gleame
Carousel
A new man
Second best
Finding a way
Part Two
Prosecutor Corbin
Induction
The Holt
The dream
Terms of engagement
The strain of the yoke
The mystery of the gods
The Hidden Maker
Complicity
Cruithin’s finest
That which remains
Making amends
The mother of invention
Hunting the dark
Part Three
Flames of rebellion
Chains of command
Up the beach
Froth and splinters
Rabbit hole
Breaking and entering
The weight of a tear
Not the wisest
The secret agent
A nest of vipers
Part Four
The horological bombard
Entrapment
Riven Gahst
The Bell Street massacre
Home truths
The Kennels
Questions and answers
Sorrow and joy
The battle
Second sight
The trial
Abattoir blues
Justice
The master
A homecoming
A request from the author
About the author
Acknowledgements
Principal characters
DANIEL MILLER,
aspiring censor and younger brother of
JONATHAN MILLER,
honest tradesman, husband and father.
MIRANDA,
a ward of the ‘Dowager Duchess’.
ALSO APPEARING:
Of the Honourable Company of Cunning, manipulators of magic,
(principally at the Convergence, ‘the Verge’).
Chairman Gleame,
grandmaster and founder of the Convergence.
Master Pendolous Bolb,
formerly his apprentice.
Master Riven Gahst,
hekalogist and theoretical magimatician.
Master Allum Somney,
recruiter of demi-masters.
Of the Brotherhood of Censors, enforcers of justice,
(principally at Bromwich Seminary).
The Chief Constable,
leader of the Brotherhood of Censors.
Magistrate Campbell Lang,
commander of Bromwich Seminary.
Prosecutor Corbin,
an experienced investigator from Cruithin.
Brother Adelmus,
resident censor at the Convergence.
Various denizens of Bromwich, the second city of the Unity,
(the district of Turbulence and its environs).
Peacock Matthew,
gangster and brothel-keeper.
Big Shark and Littleshark,
his enforcers, greatly feared.
Gilbert Gordon,
a powerful moneylender.
George Barehill,
dissenter, leader of the so-called ‘Freeborn’.
Laila,
his lover.
Other notable figures and institutions of the Unity.
The Rational Pantheon,
the gods, higher and lower, who dream our lives. We pray for their favour.
The godsworn,
their servants and temple-keepers.
The Wise Council,
the government and its ministers, noble by birth and in spirit, who rule by their mutual consent.
Her Grace,
the ‘Dowager Duchess’ of the Wrekin and the North.
We rarely hear, it has been said, of combinations of masters, though frequently of those of the common man. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject.
-“The Wealth of Nations,”
Adam Smith (1776)
Prologue
The master needed more time to decide. Having none, he went to his bastion window and sought an answer from the night. Far below, waves maddened by the autumn tide lashed the flanks of the island. He considered hurling the device he had created into the void; imagined it spinning, bouncing and tumbling down the colossal masonry of the Convergence to sink beneath the surf. He waited for a sign. The cold damp of the sill slowly numbed his fingers.
A shearwater flew by, a black arrowhead against the starlight. It swooped across the endless walls, folded its wings and dived for the ocean. Moments later, it returned with a squid trapped in its beak. The master grimaced, uncertain of the omen, and withdrew into his bedchamber.
He lifted his robe from its mannequin. Countless embroidered bells of silver and gold jangled as he wormed his corpulent body inside. The air around him crackled with an unseen energy as the magic of the Convergence sharpened to his senses.
He clicked his fingers and the garnet lid of the casket on his vanity sprang open. The device nestled within; a hand fashioned of wire and tarnished brass, engraved with morbid symbols. Three taps on the contraption’s base with a chubby, oil-stained finger and it twitched into life, uncurled slowly as if a spider released from a glass. He scooped the device into a small sack, which he tied tightly, unperturbed by how it bulged and writhed from within.
When the Convergence’s celestial clock chimed the ninth part of the night the master half opened the door to his bedchamber. Satisfied that the corridor was deserted he hoisted his hem and set forth, scuttling through winds
wept arcades and wall walks towards the Voyeurs’ Gallery.
Sooner than expected, he found himself standing by the broad, arched window that overlooked the Flagellant’s Garden, and took some satisfaction in having arrived first. The meeting place had been chosen wisely. The sound of the waves below and the creaking of the breaking wheel would drown a hushed conversation.
A tall, thin shadow broke loose from a corner and revealed itself as a man. A whalebone corset strangled his waist to the width of a child’s neck and his thorn-wood skirt scratched the flagstones like a witch’s broom. He breathed desperately.
“Master Bolb.”
Bolb offered his most lopsided and idiotic grin, an unnecessary formality. “Master Gahst. If I had foreseen a need for stealth, I might not have chosen the Path of the Ludicrous.”
Gahst, who was always smiling because of the tightly drawn wires that hoisted the sides of his mouth towards his eyebrows, considered this briefly. His wheezing filled the barrel-vaulted gallery.
“The Way of Pain also presents its challenges,” he said, his tongue-spike clattering wildly against his teeth.
Bolb flinched as a third man strode silently into the room. The newcomer was dressed from head to toe in midnight blue. A silvered riding sword swayed under his hooded cloak. Despite his age and his battle wound, he moved with the lithe muscularity of a highland cat.
“Censor,” Bolb said. He opened his mouth to continue, but found no words and gawped like a fish in a bowl. The fascinating lethality of the censor did not diminish as he drew closer. The man fixed Bolb with his grey eyes and reached out unnaturally quickly. Bolb untied the sack, his nervous fingers struggling with the knot, and held out the device reluctantly. The censor tucked it deftly into the sleeve of his cloak. Bolb’s brow furrowed. His emptied hand dawdled in the air.
“Adelmus, do not fail us.” Gahst’s spittle flecked the perfect blue uniform.
“I serve no master but justice,” the censor replied, and departed silently through the trapdoor that led to the postern gate.
“Now everything is with the gods,” Bolb said.
***
The censor crept down the winding, sea-soaked steps to the small dock. There he had hidden his coracle under some old fishing nets. Soon he had cast out into the bay and fallen into a rhythm of hard rowing. The Convergence receded into the distance. Against the false dawn, it looked once alive, like the blasted stump of some vast and ancient tree.
He wondered what perils he would face on his journey. As a young man, in the days when the censors had been the soldiers of the godsworn, he had fought the barons to a bloody stalemate in the War of Edicts. This was no different, just another honourable battle. Once on the highway, he could make it to Lundenwic in less than ten days. He hastened his paddling and turned his attention to the shoreline, searching for signs of danger.
He crouched low as his coracle glided towards Seascale’s gravel beach and, just before landfall, slipped over its side. Waist-deep in the breakers, he hoisted it onto his back and crawled across the exposed foreshore like a great sea turtle. He placed the craft in a hollow between gently waving grasses and buried it, scooping sand quickly with his paddle.
He searched out his next destination; the faint light of the lanthorn that hung in the courtyard of the stable master’s enclosure. Two ambushers were waiting for him, hidden amongst the dunes. He killed the first with the stiff edge of his hand, a blow to the neck that brought swift and silent death. The second, he strangled with his bandolier. Moments later, he was in the stables. He grabbed a well-worn saddle pad, a saddle, girth and bridle from the wall, and picked out a bay-coloured mare – the most inconspicuous animal and the least likely to fuss. He led her from the stalls and checked her hooves, stroked her flank and set to harnessing the beast.
Without warning, the mare reared backwards, her nostrils flared with fear.
The censor drew his sword into a high guard and spun, to find the bit of a woodcutter’s axe plunging towards his face. He reacted instantly, beating the heavy blade aside. Momentum carried his assailant forward and for a moment the man’s neck was exposed. The censor wrenched a backhanded blow that should have sent his head tumbling into the dirty hay, yet somehow the assassin ducked the riposte and pitched into a forward roll. He returned to his feet like an acrobat, in defiance of his considerable size, and faced the censor with eyes full of anger and disbelief.
“That axe is no match for my sword,” the censor said calmly, and pulled back his collar to reveal his badge, the Thrice~Crossed Swords. He stepped forwards, his blade levelled at his opponent’s throat, its polished edge blazing in the torchlight.
“Shitarse!” the big man bellowed, looking frantically from left to right.
“Lay down your weapon,” the censor said. “Tell me who sent you.”
The assassin shook his head and wielded his axe menacingly, but the knuckles wrapped around its haft strained white. He took a step backwards.
“You won’t live, if you resist me.” The censor spun his sword impossibly swiftly. Its tip whistled in the air.
“Right,” the large man said, dropping his axe to the dirt, “you win.” He raised his hands high. “But hold fast, there’s something you need to know.”
“I’m listening.”
“You won’t like it.”
“No?”
The night was broken by a flash and the deafening crack of a gunshot. A plug of flesh spat from a hole in the censor’s neck, trailing a cloud of fine red mist. He staggered sideways; saw the stain of his blood on the stable wall. Smoke and the acrid scent of black powder drifted across the courtyard. He dropped to his knees and bowed his head. His vision began to fade.
“I’m not alone,” the assassin said, his voice becoming distant.
The censor heard the assassin spit, then the scrape of metal on stone as he retrieved his axe. Footsteps crunched across the gravel, moving closer. Death came quickly.
***
The large man inspected the censor’s corpse while his companion kept watch, his long arquebus at the ready.
“Hurry up,” the lookout hissed.
“You took your time, didn’t you?” the large man drawled as his hands moved systematically from pocket to pouch.
“You’d rather I’d missed?”
“What about the others?”
“Dead.”
“Saves us some bother. If I’d known the mark was a censor I’d have asked for more, at least double.” The large man removed his victim’s cloak, flipped the body over and pulled down his trousers.
“Who’d be a censor nowadays?” his companion said.
The large man prised the fine riding sword from the censor’s stiff, gloved hand and stood up. “I’ve searched him proper. There’s nothing on him, and the Verge is a long way to come for nothing. It’ll be dawn soon. Let’s grab our horses and make haste before the stable master finds his courage.”
“Do I have to search him myself?”
“Take all night if you fancy, but I’m not waiting for you.”
The two men disappeared into the stables. A moment later, they were thundering away, at full gallop.
***
Seascale Bay was a forsaken place, and if the stable master had heard the fracas, he must have decided that there was no need to investigate before sunrise. Soon the only thing to disturb the corpse was a sea breeze.
Turning as imperceptibly as the century dial of the Convergence’s celestial clock, and then with some urgency, Pendolous Bolb’s creation, concealed within the censor’s left glove, unscrewed itself from the dead man’s wrist, raised itself on bent fingers and scuttled into the undergrowth.
Part One
The aspirant
By the time Daniel had finished in the bathhouse, the quadrant had been swept clear of straw and the fighting posts stacked neatly in the cloisters. H
is battered colleagues trudged towards the refectory or the infirmary, complaining of the day’s hard training. He headed for the main gate, watched over by dusty gods and trailed by the scent of lemon soap.
There were no mirrors in Bromwich Seminary so he checked his reflection in the slab of obsidian that bore the names of censors fallen in duty. He meant no disrespect to the dead and was sure none would be taken.
His thick blond hair, freshly cut as short as a boot brush, was hidden under his metal hat, but the eyes that peered from under the brim were a dangerous kind of lively. His uniform, the light-blue leather buff coat and weighted cape of an aspirant, glowed with the bright hue that would be lost forever in a first wash. His black bucket boots shone. A cudgel and a set of manacles hung menacingly by his hip. He looked good. The only thing missing was the badge of office that he craved; the Thrice~Crossed Swords of a censor.
The seminary’s armoured doors, two great triangles of oak and iron, stood open to the city, ready to receive its detritus.
“Six hours’ leave,” the guardsman said. “Get back any later and you’re sleeping on the street.” Daniel grunted affirmatively, artlessly scrawled his destination in the gatehouse’s logbook.
As he crossed over to street-side a patrol of censors were hauling a man towards the receiving room. The prisoner’s hands were striped with fresh cuts that drizzled blood onto the flagstones. Daniel wondered at the cause of the wounds. The prisoner was shouting drunken obscenities about the Dowager Duchess and proclaiming the rights of the people. A dissenter. That was a new breed of trouble for Bromwich, though all had expected it to arrive eventually.
First Temple Row then cut through Needless Alley and on to New Street. That was the best route to Turbulence. Not the quickest, but the Row had a good pavement and a few lime trees, which had not yet surrendered their last few yellowing leaves. The clerks and merchant adventurers of High Town tipped their hats as he passed. He accepted their politeness with a nod and tried to catch the eyes of the housemaids returning from the great bazaar carrying panniers stacked with vegetables and game. Most stared demurely at their feet, but some met his gaze with a blush or a look. He smiled at those as if they would be remembered.
The Censor's Hand: Book One of the Thrice~Crossed Swords Trilogy Page 1