The Censor's Hand: Book One of the Thrice~Crossed Swords Trilogy

by A. M. Steiner

  “And will you accept the offer?” her governess continued, as if they had not travelled for twenty minutes in silence.

  “Honestly, I don’t know,” Miranda said. “The master was a pig at first. He made me feel like a circus freak. I expect he’s kinder than most. Why would I want to be part of something that makes me feel so miserable?”

  “It’s not my place to give an opinion,” her governess ventured, “but maybe I could tell you a story to pass the time.”

  Miranda smiled sideways. “That would be wonderful.”

  “Once upon a time an infant girl was abandoned in the snowy streets of Urikon. If she had been an ordinary girl, the cold or hunger would have taken her, but she had beautiful green eyes and tawny skin, and so she was delivered to the Royal Orphanage. The moment the duchess set eyes upon the foundling she knew that the child was a blessing.”

  “I think I know this one.” Miranda settled into the soggy comfort of her bench.

  “When she was a little older she helped her ward-sisters perform funerals in the manner of the Snake. They were an expensive business, and profited the orphanage greatly. She paraded the ash-urns of nobles she had never known through the streets wearing a crown of white lilies, to symbolise her innocence, and a chiffon robe that displayed her girlish purity.”

  Miranda remembered the smell of the flowers.

  “So pretty,” the handmaid cooed. The governess slapped her across the knees.

  “When they entered the ancestral mastabas her ward-sisters became fearful and would go no further. Our little girl was not afraid of burial chambers; darkness and the passing of flesh were not her enemies. While her sisters cowered in the gloom, she felt her way, placed the urns in garlanded niches. Then she would disappear underground into the darkness. Why was that again?”

  “Looking for hidden secrets,” Miranda said. I never discovered any, though. She recalled the disappointment of it. I suppose I never had any real idea what they might be.

  “What an odd little lady. Then there was the stealing. The governess was accustomed to girls with light fingers. When she took them to dance at gentlemen’s estates, they would make off with sweets and fruits. The worst of them stole jewellery, hairbrushes and hand mirrors. When they were caught, they had to make good the crime to the client’s satisfaction. But there was only ever one girl who stole books.”

  Miranda winced with guilt and embarrassment. “I never knew she was discovered.”

  “Maybe the books were just for show and never missed by their owners. Maybe they couldn’t imagine a tiny dancer wanting them, but the governess saw everything. Now what kind of a girl steals books?” Miranda blushed. Her handmaid looked confused.

  “And there was worse to come. When the girl was old enough, she left the orphanage and joined the entourage on the grand tour. At fourteen, she looked like the consort of a pharaoh, was kept under close guard, for scandal stalks young ladies like a serpopard. One night, in this very town, she was spotted climbing out of her bedroom window disguised as a scullery maid. Where was she going? Her governess was curious. Was it a rendezvous with a handsome cavalryman? Did she plan to watch a bawdy play? The governess followed her through dark streets, every moment in fear for their lives.”

  Nonsense, Miranda thought.

  “What happened?” the handmaid blurted, her eyes bulging with excitement.

  “Well might you ask! She went to the anatomical theatre. Paid half a shilling to witness the necropsy of a suicide performed for the entertainment of a crowd of beery tradesmen. Watched a travelling surgeon pull fleshy gobbets from the waterlogged body.”

  “Ugh!” The handmaid looked at Miranda as if she had just swallowed a live frog.

  The organs looked nothing like the brightly coloured drawings in my medical books, Miranda thought, but I did learn something that night, about the fragility of flesh.

  “And so we reach the end of the story. What do you think happened next to this strange and curious girl? Did she marry a handsome cavalryman? While away her days in peaceful entertainments?” The governess coughed theatrically.

  “I don’t know,” Miranda said. “I really don’t.”

  The coach skidded to a halt.

  “Oh,” her governess said, her mouth drawn into a tight circle of surprise. “Well, we’ve arrived.”

  Miranda surveyed the glorious facade of the duchess’s embassy. Through the broad sashed windows of its ballroom, she could see the pastel-gowned ladies of the entourage dancing a stately pavane. They moved with a beguiling grace, swapped partners at the caller’s command.

  The sight of it made her feel sick.

  “She went to the Convergence,” Miranda said quietly.

  “Thank goodness for that.”

  The Bell Jar

  There was no telling when the Peacock would arrive. He wasn’t the sort of man who kept to a schedule.

  Jon perched on an uncomfortable half barrel in a dark corner of the Bell Jar, and peered over the chipped brim of his tankard. The place stank of stale smoke and dried beer. The only other patrons, a pair of elderly drunkards, had passed out across a makeshift table bodged together from two short planks and a stolen waggon wheel. They weren’t snoring, but they drooled copiously. That made Jon the only paying customer and he was damned if he couldn’t make his beer last the whole evening.

  Raymond, the Bell Jar’s disagreeable landlord, was absent. Harriet the barmaid, having clocked the impossibility of drumming up any trade was nose-deep in a mud-splattered copy of yesterday’s news.

  Tossed from a merchant’s carriage and retrieved from a gutter, Jon thought. He wondered if she was catching up on court fashions, results of games, scandals or court dispatches. A bit of everything, he guessed. Harriet was sharp enough to care for a read. Most around here would only use a newsletter for toilet rag. He admired her attempt at self-improvement, her unwillingness to rely on smiles and buxom flirtation. She deserved a decent man. He ran a big hand through his thick blond hair, pulled his beard into shape and wondered what he would have made of her when he was younger.

  She’s swimming against the tide that one, Jon thought, and the tide is strong. A deluge of itinerant labourers, beggars and petty criminals, dirty foreigners and the sharps who prey on them. The kinds of people who drank at the Bell Jar.

  A cacophony of whistling from the manufactories on the south side of town signalled the end of the working day. Jon gathered his wits and stacked his memories back where they belonged as a gaggle of sail-men and axle-greasers led by an opulently tattooed foreman bundled into the tavern.

  “Oi! Wheat belly! Looking forward to the grading?” the foreman called out.

  Jon gave him a smile and raised his drink. Daniel’s imminent ordination was well known to the denizens of Turbulence. People were starting to treat him warily, to guard their tongues in his presence. He welcomed the respect, felt he deserved it, but tonight he didn’t want the attention. He shuffled his stool backwards into the shadows, and wished the Bell Jar more crowded.

  If the foreman had noticed Jon’s reticence, it didn’t cause him to hesitate as he led his trio of wiry young men over from the bar. Beer froth slopped over the sides of their over-sized tankards.

  “Alright, Jon? Haven’t seen you for years. Not since we last played ball together. Why’s that then?”

  “I’ve been busy, Rollo; the mill.”

  “Times are tough I suppose. Good stuff this. Spiced ale with a gin petard. Your kind of drink.” The foreman took a deep swig and turned to his colleagues. “Lads, meet the Lion of Turbulence.”

  The young men paused talking among themselves, shot dull glances at Jon.

  “Looks more like an old bear to me,” one said and wiped his nose with a filthy forearm. Jon, equally uninterested in maintaining the conversation, let it pass.

  Rollo pressed on. “No, listen lads; before thi
s man became a fat bastard, he was a legend.”

  Jon flexed his muscles. He might have gone a little soft around the waist since passing thirty, but he was never fat. Built. That was a better word.

  “Lads, I’m serious; Daniel and him played unbelievable.”

  “Dan? The one what got taken into the seminary?”

  They were interested now, which was not what he desired.

  “Daniel was special – he could wrong-foot anyone, swerve tackles that you couldn’t see coming.” Rollo waved his tankard enthusiastically. His colleagues jumped to avoid the drink that splashed about their boots. Jon glowered.

  “Jon was good too – captain once,” Rollo added quickly.

  “I heard Daniel took heads,” said the roughest-looking labourer.

  “Violence is part of the game,” the youngest observed.

  “Daniel wasn’t a gouger, but he was righteous,” Jon rumbled. “If the opposition played dirty, Dan would happily drop them on their backs.”

  “Staring at the sky and screaming in pain,” Rollo added. Jon shrugged. “Tell ’em about the big match Jon, the Battle.”

  “It’s an old story and I’m no storyteller.” Jon craned around his small audience to see if the Peacock had arrived.

  “Jon played in it,” Rollo said.

  “Bollocks. He’s too old,” the rough one countered.

  “It was only five years ago,” said the youth.

  Jon lost patience, rose from his stool. He rolled back his shoulders and stood at full height.

  “Don’t be like that,” Rollo pleaded, bravado gone. Harriet’s head popped up. She had an unnatural sense for trouble brewing. Jon let his shoulders flop and sighed.

  “It was a testimonial, against the Brotherhood.”

  “Real censors?”

  “Aspirants. They do it district by district. For once it was our turn.”

  “You know the score,” Rollo said, “the sporting gentry stump up a handful of coins for a feast after the match. Get their jollies watching a bit of young blood being spilt and go home feeling safer than ever.”

  “Censors got too much time on their hands now they’re not collecting taxes and telling people when to worship,” the rough one said.

  Jon laughed. “You’re more learnèd than you look, my friend.”

  “I’d love to give a censor a kicking,” the youngest said. “My uncle spent a week in the stocks after an inquisition, and he told me he’d not done nothing.”

  “It was training for the Brotherhood, pure and simple, to see how the aspirants coped with pressure,” and to teach idiots like you a hard lesson before they got full-grown and dangerous.

  “Now that censors don’t answer to the godsworn, they don’t answer to anyone,” the rough one said belligerently. Whatever point he was trying to make, Jon wasn’t interested.

  “They answer to the gods,” he said flatly.

  Rollo intervened. “Before the Battle the aspirants always won easy.”

  “Well, this match didn’t follow tradition. After the first half, we were bloodied and knackered, but the match was tied. That got right under their skins.”

  “Up noses,” Rollo slurred loudly. His colleagues ignored him.

  “They knew that Daniel was our danger man.”

  “They couldn’t believe what they was seeing,” Rollo shouted, flailing his arms. “It was epic.”

  “Shut up,” Jon snapped, bringing a cheer from Rollo’s mates. “Every time the ball went in the air, Dan caught it – so they tried to take him out of the game. I was his safety. Six of them came for us, all at once. Big mistake. When Dan twigged what was happening he went on a rampage.”

  For a moment, Jon was transported by the memory and found himself standing on bloody grass. Coils of steam swirled from his mouth and body. He watched Daniel deliver the most dreadful flurry of fists and elbows ever seen in Turbulence. An aspirant ran at Jon. Dan’s elbow smashed through his cheekbone. Jon picked up another and threw him to the ground.

  “Everyone was so busy scrapping, they forgot about the ball,” Rollo said. “It was lying by the touchline like a dropped purse. The Peacock jumped out of the stands, grabbed it up, legged it down the side-line and scored.” Jonathan remembered him, hoisted onto the crowds’ shoulders, revelling in the undeserved glory. “Everyone went mad. Half of Turbulence was on the pitch.”

  “We won! Turbulence won!” the youngest lad said in amazement, though the result was well known.

  “Officially the match was abandoned,” Jon said.

  “No. We won,” the rough one asserted.

  “Too right,” Jon said. He’d drink to that. The labourers clapped him on the shoulders and the one who had not spoken filled Jon’s tankard to the brim with his own.

  The tavern had filled as the tale was told, and the labourers wandered off in search of female entertainment. Pride in the memories had lightened Jon’s mood, and he smiled broadly. They missed the punchline, he realised. Afterwards, at the game-feast, Daniel was invited to sit at the high table next to an elderly censor. A week later, he was living and training in Bromwich Seminary.

  Peacock Matthew entered the Bell Jar in a blur of red felt and kaleidoscopic feathers, his splendid hat an incongruous splash of colour in that dull place. The good-for-nothing was flanked by his muscle, two infamous thugs known as the Sharks. He walks as if he owns the place, Jon thought.

  Harriet stiffened, put on her brave face and sauntered towards them.

  “Let me help you gentlemen with this,” she said, grabbed the two old drunks by their collars and dragged them away from the table before the Sharks had the chance to do it more roughly. The gangsters sat down expansively. An imperial of wine and three flagons appeared on their table. Matthew flashed a toothy grin at Harriet and hunched into conspiratorial conversation with his lackeys.

  Jon set aside his unfinished ale and made his way over. Five paces from Matthew the thugs got to their feet and fixed him with remorseless grey stares. If they recognised him, they did not let it show.

  Matthew flapped his hat. “Easy lads, the Lion approaches. He used to be considered a bit of a hero around here. Even you two might have a few problems knocking him down.” Jon doubted it. One was the size of a bull; the other was just massive. There was a story that they had made their reputations in the fighting pits of Glaschu, another that they were heretics from overseas, censors of the Evangelicy who had deserted. The locals called them Big Shark and Littleshark. The good folk of Turbulence were not famous for their imaginations.

  “Jon, my son, what can I do you for?” Matthew said.

  “I need to talk.”

  Matthew flicked back a slick black forelock. “Evidently. Pull up a chair.” The Sharks relaxed. Littleshark produced a vial of temerarious oil and a pipette from a pouch, pulled wide his lids, set a drop in each eye and hissed with the thrill of it.

  “I mean talk alone – business.”

  Matthew furrowed his brow, but his eyes smiled. He asked the Sharks to give them some space and they made their way leeringly over to the bar. Jon sat down and prepared himself.

  “How can I be of service?” The Peacock was grinning like a hog in shit.

  “You know what the problem is. I can’t turn my sails four days out of five.”

  “Prayer not working out for you?”

  The Peacock was a fool to mock prayer’s power, Jon thought, and in no position to do so. He’d bet his mill that Matthew hadn’t been to temple since he was a boy. There was nothing to be done for the man if he wouldn’t help himself – everyone’s soul was his or her own responsibility, as far as the gods were concerned.

  Matthew picked at his teeth. “How’s Anna and the baby… Mother Miller?”

  “A little bit hungrier than I’d like.”

  Matthew poured them both a drink. “You did be
tter than you deserved with Anna. I should have married her when I had the chance.” Jon’s face reddened. She would never have agreed, he thought. Matthew smiled. “If you need money, that’s easily done. My girls aren’t bringing in as much as I’d like right now, but I’ll put in a word with Gordon. He’ll lend to you at a reasonable rate.”

  “I don’t want to borrow money from Gordon. I want to pay you.”

  “Come again?”

  Jon hushed his voice. “I need something to make the mill solid again, to move with the times. I need some cunning. I need magic.”

  “You what?” For once Matthew’s surprise seemed genuine. “That’s a laugh. You can’t afford to feed your family but you want some fucking magic.”

  “There’s got to be something out there. Second-hand or something.”

  “How would you get a licence? You couldn’t even afford the fine for not having one. I thought you was supposed to be respectable.”

  The little shit was right, and it shamed Jon to concede it. “I’ll pay you back. It’ll take time of course, but I’m good for my word. You know that.”

  “Know it? You won’t let anyone forget it. Maybe if you was a little more realistic you wouldn’t have to resort to begging.” Matthew smirked playfully. Jon felt like his head was going to burst.

  “I’ll be going then.”

  “Alright, keep your wig on.” The Peacock made an act of doing a little thinking. He seemed to be finding Jon’s discomfort amusing. “If you want magic, what about Galbraith?”

  “Are you mad? First off everything that passes through that witch’s hands is stolen, and secondly none of it is any good, or at least not good enough to do more than entertain simple children.”

  Matthew glanced over to his men, who had started to hurry back towards the table, and raised his hand nonchalantly to keep the peace. He leaned forwards with a stare as sharp as razors.