Cabal had heard the sound and already turned to face him. He drew his pocket watch and studied the face. “Have the emperor’s dietary mores changed already?” he asked in a tone of polite enquiry. “Test batch 295 always was unreliable.”
“You knew this would happen?” Now the Count Marechal could relax a little. What was occurring outside could wait for a few minutes. He had time to pause a moment, take stock, kill Cabal.
“Two ninety-five yields remarkable results. Right up to the moment the subject becomes a maniacal cannibal. I had hoped for a few more minutes’ grace, though. Any casualties?”
“Lieutenant Karstetz.”
“No loss there, then.”
“None at all.” Marechal drew his gun. “What am I to do with you, Herr Cabal?”
“It would seem that you’ve already made up your mind on that point.” Johannes Cabal placed his bag and cane on the end of the long banquet table, took off his jacket, folded it, and put it down, too. Then he unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves.
Marechal watched him with curiosity. “You seem to be taking this very well.”
“Not at all,” replied Cabal. He picked up the cane, twisted the head, and drew three feet of razor-sharp steel from it. Before Marechal’s bemused eyes, he placed the cane body on top of his jacket, presented himself to Marechal as a fencer, and saluted him with the sword cane.
Marechal laughed. “You simply cannot be serious, Cabal! Are you challenging me?”
“I appreciate that it is customary to slap you with a glove or some such, but I think you would shoot me long before I got near you.” He studied his stance and corrected the position of his feet slightly. “You must forgive me, I’m rather rusty.”
“Don’t be a fool and think I’m a fool. Why should I waste any more time with you?” He levelled the gun. “You don’t deserve a chance.”
Cabal flicked the tip of his sword through the four quarters. “Sixte. Quarte. Septime. Octave. It’s got nothing to do with chances, Count. At least not from your perspective. You’re a petty little man. You could just shoot me. Indeed, the probability is that you will just shoot me. And you will spit upon my corpse and walk away. And in a week or so the situation outside these walls will probably have deteriorated to the point where controlling your unimpressed civilians will be taking up much of your time. You will curse my name and wish me dead a dozen more times. But, in truth, you will not have killed me even once. That, Count, will gall you more than you can bear.”
“A student of human nature, are you now?” The count drew back the hammer of the revolver. “You will die and I will be the one to kill you, make no mistake.”
“No, Count. You won’t have killed me. Several grains of lead will have killed me while you stayed snug and safe on the other side of a large hall. That gun will have killed me. You won’t have the satisfaction. You’re a soldier, Count; that I don’t dispute. But I also believed you to be a warrior. There I was wrong. You’re no more interested in the martial art of it than a conscripted peasant with a musket shoved into his hands.”
“You cannot goad me, Cabal. I’m past that stage.”
“A drunken grognard of the levy.”
“It would be a shame to lose your dignity in your final seconds.”
“An artillery officer.”
Marechal’s skull tightened with rage. “What did you just call me?”
“An artillery officer. Safe behind the lines.” Cabal lowered his sword and gestured at the gun. “A mechanic.”
Marechal knew that it was sheer foolishness to throw away a great advantage for a slightly smaller one. Madness. But there are only so many slurs a cavalryman can countenance. When Cabal died, when his face took on that delicious expression of mortal surprise, Marechal wanted it to be because there was a sabre through his heart. More than anything, Marechal wanted to feel Cabal’s ribs grating on the edges of his blade as he twisted it in the hated necromancer’s chest. That would be a thought to keep him warm in the difficult times that were surely ahead. His rage settled and became cold and hard. With economical movements, he opened his revolver and ejected the cartridges. They bounced sharply, sending echoes around the hall. Then he threw the gun to one side. The next sound was the hiss of his sabre leaving its scabbard.
“What have you got there, Cabal? A foil? A rapier? A sword for boys. This” — his sabre whirled in a vicious figure of eight — “is a man’s weapon.” His free hand fisted on his hip, he advanced. “En garde.”
Cabal’s blade flicked up to quarte. “I’m always on guard, Marechal, one way or the other.” He watched the count advance for a moment more before adding, “You’re sure you’re up to this? I fenced for very nearly a year in my youth. I was considered quite competent.”
“Don’t patronise me, Cabal.”
“It’s just that I wonder how much technique a man can learn, cutting down unarmed yokels from horseback?”
Marechal stopped just before the blades crossed. “This isn’t one of those effeminate fencing sabres the Italians came up with. It is a real weapon and it really kills, and it shall be my very real pleasure to hack you into pieces with it, Cabal.”
Before Cabal had a chance to reply, Marechal launched into a progressive attack. Cabal fell back immediately under the ferocity of the advance. Marechal was a strong man, stronger than Cabal, and the beats that rained down upon his rapier struck sparks and generated vibrations to his wrist that felt as if they might numb it, given enough time. If he lived that long.
Cabal considered his options. Marechal was no sporting fencer. He fought to kill. The strength of his attack was clearly intended to destroy Cabal quickly, and the physical power of the heavy horse sabre might do it, too. Fortunately, his sword cane was designed for practical combat, being far more forte than foible but without brittleness. Still, he was already running out of room into which he could retreat. He needed to make Marechal think again if he were to stop this dreadful hail of steel. A poor feint, followed by a quick step back to give him the room for a stop hit with rassemblement, allowed him to pink the top of Marechal’s wrist. Cabal used the moment of surprise to run past the head of the table and gain more space.
The count didn’t follow him at first, but paused to pull up his cuff and check his wrist. “First blood, Count Marechal?” called Cabal as he returned to his guard position.
“Touché, Herr Cabal. A scratch,” he said, and Cabal could see that it was no understatement. “I can see that I’ve underestimated you again.” He saluted and allowed the wry smile to evaporate from his face. “But now I have your measure.”
“Really? Tell me, Count, how did you learn to fence? Correspondence course?”
Marechal said nothing, but moved to reengage, his face like thunder. This time, there was none of the brutal slashing that had accompanied the first attack. Cabal suspected that had as much to do with the count’s regaining his strength as anything else. He would certainly employ it again should he spy an advantage in doing so.
They traded attacks and parries for a few moments, the count clearly probing Cabal’s defences. Although he didn’t show it, Cabal was getting more worried with each clash of steel. His sword cane was outweighed by the sabre, his experience was outweighed by the count’s, and his aggression was a pale shadow in comparison. He was defending, Marechal was getting all the information he needed for a telling attack, and there was always the chance of guards wandering in at any moment. Cabal needed a way out of this situation quickly, and he doubted that it would hinge on his skill on the piste. He needed to look at the whole picture and find an escape. For the moment, however, it eluded him, and then Marechal launched an attack and Cabal didn’t have time to think about anything else.
It ended with a cutting blow that Cabal parried with difficulty, although he made it look easy — half the psychological game in fencing. He countered with a type of sabre riposte he’d seen the count make, from tierce to the head. Marechal parried it easily but made it look difficult �
�� the other half of the psychological game.
Cabal had looked death in the face on numerous occasions, but he had always been careful to give himself some chance of survival. There were very few grounds for hope here, though.
“You look worried, Herr Cabal,” said Marechal. “Something on your mind?”
“There is, since you ask. I was just thinking that this is all a dreadful waste of resources. I appreciate that you intended to kill me whether I succeeded or not, but that was politics. But think! Nobody else knows about me. Wouldn’t it make sense for you to supply me with a laboratory and I work for you? I’m sure I could be of use.”
Marechal made no attempt to hide his sneer. “Are you begging for your life, Cabal?”
“Not at all. Just attempting to make something constructive of this debacle. By the same coin, if I were to kill you” — the count laughed contemptuously — “if I were to kill you, Count Marechal, this country would certainly fall to pieces. There’s nobody around to take your place. Think on it.”
The count reflected for a moment, their sword tips just touching. “I’ve thought about it. You’ve forgotten two important details. First, I’m not going to lose this duel. Second, I want you to die. Now.”
Cabal considered. “I suppose I could see my way clear to begging for my life as long as you didn’t insist on any outright grovelling?”
Marechal’s blade supplied his answer. Cabal tried to break ground and disengage, but Marechal covered the distance with an impressive flèche that Cabal had to dodge, followed immediately by a passata soto — known outside fencing circles as ducking — to avoid being decapitated.
This was an unwelcome development. Cabal had gained the impression that Marechal probably started duelling as a student, in the fashion of the Prussian schläger, a bizarre contest in which the combatants’ main goal is to supply each other with scars about the face which impress the ladies no end. Apart from the armour the two parties are covered with in order to reduce all wounds to a cosmetic level, its only notable feature is that the duellists never move from the spot. The count’s unexpected and unwelcome entrée into the world of combat ballet — that damn flèche must have carried him the best part of ten feet — was just one more thing that Cabal didn’t want to have to deal with at this precise moment.
It was only when Marechal said, “Touché, Herr Cabal,” and smiled malevolently, that Cabal realised he’d been hit. His shirt was ripped high on his left breast, the thrust having penetrated the cloth, scored his chest, exited beneath the shoulder, and done the same to his left upper arm. Against the white linen, there seemed to be a lot of blood.
Cabal looked straight at Marechal. “You wouldn’t accept my offer, Marechal. Now let me tell you one thing you couldn’t know. I won’t let you kill me. There’s more at stake than you could possibly imagine in your blinkered little world. I don’t have time for your stupid games.” All the fear was leaving him. The doubts and uncertainties that had blurred his vision were going now, and the world was coalescing into a beautifully clear picture of what needed to be done and why. All that was left was a single motivation that glowed within him like white fire. His soul, his poor mistreated soul, tended him and directed him. Marechal stopped being the only thing in the world and became a rather pathetic man with a silly moustache who believed his puerile plans for grabbing a few useless square inches on the map actually mattered. “I am leaving here. If you attempt to stop me, I shall kill you. Is that understood?”
Marechal’s opinion of Cabal may have changed in that moment, but it certainly didn’t improve. “You insolent cur!” he roared, and launched a terrifying attack, culminating with a mollinaro that could have cored a rhinoceros. They found themselves momentarily corps à corps. Marechal called him a lowborn bastard and backhanded him so hard that Cabal spun away and rolled onto the table.
Cabal blinked, saw Marechal appear above him, his sabre held high like a meat cleaver, and rolled to his left, dodging the blade that swept past him like a guillotine. He quickly climbed to his feet as Marechal pulled the sword from the ruined surface and, as they seemed to be extemporising and as the table gave him a substantial height advantage, he kicked the count in the face and broke his nose.
The Count Marechal staggered back, rallied, and ran to the far end of the table, where he could mount it, using a chair as a step, without opposition. Cabal and Marechal faced each other along its length, blood on both of them. They paused: Cabal expressionless and cold; Marechal with teeth bared.
Now they knew each other. There would be no more talking. Marechal saluted, but this time it finished with a slash of the blade that left an almost tangible cut hanging in the air. Cabal saluted, and it was a staccato, precise thing. His sword tip travelled to precise points, his wrist moved through exact angles.
Then they fought.
CHAPTER 3
in which names are called and a fugitive takes flight
“Of course I have a reservation. A government reservation. Here is my authorisation.”
Gerhard Meissner was a low-ranking member of the Mirkarvian civil service and, as is sometimes the case, he had hugely inflated ideas of his importance. If he didn’t arrive in Katamenia on schedule with the incredibly important “Agricultural Land Remittance Discussion Papers (Third Draft)” — currently safely tucked away in his documents folder — well, it hardly bore thinking about. Unable to have the latest draft of the papers, civilisation would be at a loss to discuss the remittance of agricultural lands. The result … catastrophic. Thus, he had been issued with the necessary documentation to bypass the lesser folk at Emperor Boniface VIII Aeroport customs and pick up his ticket. He examined it now and was pleased to discover that he had a berth aboard the Princess Hortense, a brand-spanking-new aeroship of the Mirkarvian civil aeroforce, MirkAir. “You’re a lucky man, sir,” said the woman at the counter. “The Hortense was only commissioned a week ago — this is her maiden flight.”
Meissner sniffed. He wasn’t lucky, he was a civil servant, and this was no more than was due to a corpuscle of the body politic. Instead, he asked, “Why are all these people milling around? It’s like race day in here.”
“Some trouble in the city, sir. People panic. It’s only human.”
A well-dressed man, sweating and frantic, pushed by Meissner, who glared at him fiercely. “Please!” said the man. “Have you got any more berths available? Any at all?”
“I’m sorry, sir. All places aboard the Princess Hortense were booked in advance.”
“What?” The sweating man saw the ticket in Meissner’s hand. “Please, sir. Would you be willing to sell that billet? My daughter … There’s rioting in the city. I simply want her to get to safe …”
“Sell my ticket?” snapped Meissner. “The impertinence, sir! Even if I were at liberty to sell this ticket — which I am not, it being government property — I very much doubt that I should feel disposed to …” But the man had more urgent matters to attend to than listening to how important Meissner was, and had already gone. Meissner pulled himself up to his full height, a little over six feet, and looked dignified, an expression lesser mortals could assume only with the aid of lemon juice and alum. The woman at the desk thought that he could almost have been attractive if it weren’t for what his personality did to his face. He noticed her attention and she smiled, politely but without warmth. “When does the ship depart?” he demanded.
“In two hours, sir. If you’d care to check your luggage in now, you’ll have some time to relax aboard before she lifts.”
“Relax?” he snorted. “I shall work!”
Having emphasised his innate superiority to the herd, he walked away.
Meissner went to the handling building — a capacious hangar split into many small bays with padlocked gates — to check his luggage. On his way back out, he was accosted by a serious-looking man dressed in black and white. “Excuse me, sir,” said the man. “Might I have a word?”
“If you’re trying to buy my
ticket, my good man, I must — ”
The man looked around, leaned closer, and said, “State security, sir. It is a matter of some urgency. The well-being of Mirkarvia may be at stake.”
Meissner blinked and swallowed. He hadn’t lost that paperwork, he assured himself, he’d only misfiled it. It would turn up eventually. He’d been intending to look for it the very day he got back. It wasn’t even important. Or, at least, it had seemed unimportant to him. Perhaps it was important to somebody. They wouldn’t send security after him for that, would they? Would they? “You … have identification?” he stammered, trying for time.
The man smiled grimly. “I’m with intelligence, sir. We don’t tend to carry around papers that say we’re spies. I do, however, have this.” He showed Meissner a signet ring, worn face inwards. He turned it on his finger and showed Meissner the crest there.
“The crest of Count Marechal!” gasped Meissner, who had seen it on enough execution warrants to recognise it instantly.
“The same, sir. If you think you could keep your voice down?”
“Yes … yes, of course, I’m very, very sorry.”
“I understand that you’re a government official, sir? I overheard you at the departures desk.”
“Yes, Gerhard Meissner — Docket Clerk First Class, Department of Administrative Coordination. I’m a loyal citizen!”
“Precisely, sir. That’s why I need your help. A first-class docket clerk? Excellent. I need a man of your calibre. There is a certain … situation developing here at the aeroport that concerns me greatly. By the time my colleagues arrive, it may well be too late. In short, Herr Meissner, I need your assistance.”
“Of course! Of course! I am at your disposal. How can I help?”
“This way, sir.” The secret agent directed Meissner to an empty and unlocked bay. “Just in here.”
Meissner blinked in the gloom. “Now what?”
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