Swords and Scoundrels

by Julia Knight

  Cospel ducked under a last washing line and pointed at a shack that looked just as tumbledown as the rest.

  “Are you sure?” Vocho asked. “It doesn’t look like the home of a scholar.”

  Cospel shrugged. “Got her flaws, like. Bit of a nutter, if you ask me. But she knows her stuff all right. I checked. Ten years teaching languages and cryptology at Ikaras University, another three working for the prelate. She works for herself now. Fell out with him about the Clockwork God, so I hear. He reckoned she was blasphemous.”

  “The university, eh?” Dom said. “Maybe I’ll know her then. Mind you, languages weren’t my subject, and I’m not sure what cryptology even is.”

  Vocho stifled the question – what was Dom’s subject, exactly? Trying not to stab himself with his own sword and apologising to his opponent afterwards, with a minor in looking good?

  “Go on then,” Kacha said. “What are we waiting for?”

  “It’s just—”

  Vocho didn’t wait for Cospel to finish; he was too eager to find out what kind of trouble he had in his hands, just how much shit they were really in, why that magician wanted the papers so badly and what it might take to make him stop. Or how much they were worth. Hopefully, with this lady’s help, he could work out all these things. A perfunctory knock on the door almost had it off its hinges, so he gently moved it aside and went in.

  A musty smell was the first thing he noticed, like thousands of old books had decided to curl up and die. Then a whirring clank – clockwork under stress. Finally his eyes got used to the gloom just as a figure stepped forward.

  He couldn’t see her very clearly in the murk, but he could see enough. She didn’t look like she belonged here; she looked like she belonged in a palace somewhere, or maybe in a temple overseeing prayers. She was tall, as tall as Vocho, so that her head brushed the manuscripts that dangled from the ceiling. He got a sense of a face that wasn’t beautiful in its parts – nose too strong, eyes too wide, lips too thin – but together they gave the impression of someone who was. Vocho had an almost overwhelming impulse to address her as Ma’am. She looked like that sort of woman.

  She smiled at him quizzically, and at the others when they crowded the doorway before she saw Cospel. “Ah, there you are. And you brought your friends. How lovely – it’s so rare I get visitors these days. I’m Cassalily. I understand you have some documents you want translated?”

  Vocho pulled them out from where he’d hidden them but felt suddenly reluctant to hand them over to someone he’d just met.

  “I’ll need to see them, if you want me to tell you what they say,” Cassalily said reproachfully and held out a hand.

  Vocho couldn’t help staring. The clockwork sound as he’d entered – who’d be able to afford clockwork here? Someone who couldn’t leave it behind, that’s who. A brass hand sneaked out of Cassalily’s sleeve, and the fingers curled Vocho’s way. A perfectly jointed beautifully polished clockwork hand. Hands, he corrected himself as he looked further. Then Cassalily stepped forward into the light of the doorway, turned to face him full on and it wasn’t just her hands.

  A chittering sound as her left eye irised, the components sliding over each other to narrow the aperture at the centre. Clockwork hands had been shock enough, but a clockwork eye?

  “A genius made all of it for me,” she said as her hands gripped the papers and tugged them from Vocho’s unresisting hand. “The eye especially is very useful. Built-in magnification. I’m a work in progress, you might say.”

  Cospel was doing his thing with the eyebrows again, but Vocho still hadn’t learned the language.

  Kacha recovered first. “That’s, er… nice. Do you think you can—”

  “Of course! Everyone doubts me so. Well, it won’t be long before I show them. In the meantime, this will be quite easy, I think. Looks like straightforward Ikaran for the most part. Oh, and one in Old Castan – that’s from before the Great Fall. Not many people know it these days, but it’s quite simple really. I was hoping for a cipher of some kind, something interesting. This shouldn’t take me long. A day? Now did you bring the offering?”

  Vocho pulled out his purse, wondering how much this was going to cost. It’d be worth it, whatever. “Of course. How much do you charge?”

  The clockwork hands clacked indignantly. “Charge? Charge? I charge nothing. Cospel, didn’t you…? No, I see not. Doubting Cospel, is that your name?” She sighed. “Everyone doubts. I require an offering. A truth.”

  “A truth?” Vocho asked, perplexed. “I don’t…”

  She smiled at him and laid a cold and whirring hand on his shoulder. “It’s very simple. I require a truth, as you would offer to my statue down by the guild.”

  “The Clockwork God?”

  “Of course. I’m his human incarnation. For each truth I receive, my fathers and mothers who created me will allow another part, until I ascend to become him once again in his true form. Now, please, a truth from each of you. If it’s good enough, maybe a truth no one else knows, I shall get my clockwork heart next. Yes, a truth no one else knows will be a good price.”

  Vocho flopped into a chair and stared morosely at an empty wine jug. Kacha flopped down opposite while Dom arranged himself precisely near the empty fireplace.

  Kacha looked oddly ill at ease. “What did you tell her?”

  Cassalilly had taken them all in turn to a closed-off area at the back of her room and had them all tell her a truth. Just the thought of it made Vocho itch.

  “Nothing much, but she seemed pleased enough. Do you think she’ll do it?”

  “Only the Clockwork God knows. Maybe we should ask him for a translation, seeing as they appear to be the same person. The same crazy person.” Kacha glared at Cospel, who had the grace to look embarrassed. “No wonder the prelate called her a blasphemy.”

  “No wonder she hides away up on that roof.” Vocho was still trying to persuade himself he hadn’t imagined her or her complete conviction that she was the Clockwork God in human form. He’d been lost for words, and had stumbled out some pathetic little truth to her while his brained whizzed around like clockwork of its own.

  “I think she’ll manage all right,” Dom said. “I recall her name, vaguely. At the university. Some sort of scandal, all hushed up, and then she left.”

  “A scandal like she went completely insane?” Vocho asked.

  “That does ring a bell. Yes, now I come to think of it. But she was highly respected in her field. I think. Until all the business with the clockwork. Obviously that would put a bit of a crimp on her reputation.”

  “A bit? I’m surprised she’s in one piece. One human piece, that is. She’s already told us one thing though,” Kacha said. “Ikaran. Why would the king’s crest be on a piece of paper in Ikaran or Old Castan? And has it got anything to do with last night? Or that bloody border dispute that keeps rumbling on with Ikaras?”

  “Why should it?” Vocho shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

  Kacha gave him a penetrating look, like she guessed what he was thinking and his reply was just a cover for it. He concentrated on making sure his eye didn’t twitch.

  “Because, Voch, king’s men were killing prelate’s men. Smiths were fighting factory workers and each other. The prelate’s going soft in the head. Petri’s working with the king, and so is a magician, it looks like. Now this. Something’s going on, and it smells worse than fish guts.”

  “Good. Someone will be ever so glad to get those papers back then. Maybe even the original owner. Or someone else, if they’ll pay more. Then we’ll have some money, and we can tell your old pal Eggy that we’ve got shot of the bloody things, and he’ll call off his magician and we can live happily ever after.”

  She snorted and shook her head but said no more about it, though she looked like she wanted to say plenty. Instead, it was Dom who blundered into exactly what Vocho didn’t want to talk about.

  “All something to do with that priest,” he said. “They were talkin
g about it in the pub before, well, before it all got nasty. Sendoa, I think his name was.”

  He didn’t seem to notice how Vocho’s head snapped around to look at him, or the way Kacha was staring at him like her eyes were red-hot pokers and she could burn him into silence.

  “An important man, so they said, and he was murdered a couple of months ago. That’s when it all started going wrong. Wrong how, I’m not sure, except that’s when the prelate started going strange too. Grief perhaps. Sendoa was his favourite priest.”

  “I don’t suppose it was anything to do with him,” Vocho said, hoping like crap that was true.

  “Oh, definitely was. Father has the Reyes newspapers sent up. Likes to keep an eye on steel prices and all that. They’re a bit behind, but I remember something about a priest dying – killed by a duellist of all people – and then… What was it? He was a diplomatic something-or-other.”

  “Envoy,” Kacha said, watching Vocho warily.

  “Envoy, yes, that was it. There’d been all that kerfuffle with Ikaras. That’s strange, isn’t it? With the language? Yes, sorry. Anyway, the kerfuffle over steel prices and mines and which country owned what, and then Ikaras cut off most of our coal. It looked like the priest was going to get it all sorted, because the Ikarans would only deal with him or something, and then he died and it all went to pieces again. And of course that meant steel prices went up. Father was so pleased. He sold off all his surplus stock, made a tidy bit too, and the rumour of war made the price of everything else go up, and then there was all that tax business, and the prelate started getting strange – like telling people their flags should be purple – and then everyone got unhappy.”

  “OK, well what about we spend the day we’ve got to wait until our friendly goddess-in-waiting has translated everything by seeing if we can find anything out? The more we know, the better.”

  Bescan Square was packed to bursting, making any passage through tricky and fraught with random elbows and pickpockets. Yet, for all the people there, no one seemed to be buying much. Vocho kept his head down and his hat firmly pulled over his eyes. Especially near the storytellers.

  One had a prime position near the main entrance and had a crate to stand on. At her feet a young boy had a sheaf of papers – selling the news for a copper a time. Another storyteller had set up over the way, and the two of them were competing to see who could be the loudest and most sensational, if not especially truthful if past experience was anything to go by. Rumours flew around this square like sparrows, and always had. These weren’t stories they were telling, but bits of news, opinions, gossip. Anyone could pay them to say anything – and Vocho had, in the past. More than once. A name doesn’t make itself, after all.

  The woman was telling everyone that there was no war brewing, that the prelate was in full control. Ikaras would no doubt agree to negotiations and all rumours to the contrary were just the whinings of nay-sayers. She then moved on to the pirates that were ravaging the coast, pushing up the price of spice.

  “Balls!” someone in the audience shouted. “Ain’t been no pirates since I were a boy.”

  A general muttering seemed to agree with him.

  “Only reason the price of spice is going up is that the prelate said we all got to buy it,” the shouter said.

  The woman ignored him and moved smoothly on to something else.

  Over the way, the other teller was clearly not quite so in the prelate’s pocket. “Taxes on everything,” he said, “or taxes on everything the rich don’t buy, but the poor need or are made to buy. When did you last see a rich man wearing clogs? Why does a poor man have to buy half a pound of spice a day and pay the same in taxes as a rich man what does the same? To support the sailors, the Reyen traders, Bakar says, but who’s supporting us? And flags, we all got to have a purple flag to wave, so the flag makers put up the prices, and purple dye gets a tax on it too!”

  It all sounded crazy to Vocho, but a quick look at a stall showed him that purple cloth was double the price of any other colour. At other stalls, there were plenty of people looking and plenty selling, but no one buying. Bread was scarce and expensive with an angry crowd around the baker’s door, sugar almost non-existent and going for more, pound for pound, than gold. The only stall that actually looked like it was doing a brisk trade was the spice merchant’s, who stamped a little booklet for every customer so they could prove they’d bought their spice for the day. A few guards were randomly checking people’s booklets, and Vocho made doubly sure to stay out of their way.

  He stopped by a stand selling hot drinks, took a cup of apple tea and almost fell over at the price. The stall had a bench beside it and seemed a place for gossip if the half-dozen conversations were anything to go by. Someone had left a copy of a paper on the bench, and Vocho picked it up, only to hurriedly put it down when he saw an etching of himself on the second page, right under a headline about the prospect of war with Ikaras and the rumour that its king was raising an army near the border. Great, just bloody great. Luckily most people couldn’t read so they wouldn’t bother with the paper, but anyone could look at a picture even if it didn’t do him justice. He pulled his hat down further and scanned the front page.

  A call for the prelate to resign dominated, and seemed the main topic of conversation at the stall.

  “Better a sane king than an insane prelate. Licio’s the best of the councillors at any rate.”

  “Bloody councillors are just as bad as the nobles ever were. This equality business only means nothing gets done because they’re too busy arguing about it. Except taxes. They always agree on bloody taxes.”

  “Shrive’s busy again too. Getting to be just as bad as the old king, Bakar is. At least the king didn’t expect us to wave a sodding flag at him for being a tyrannical bastard.”

  “Be glad if the Ikarans did declare war, then maybe we’d get someone with a decent head on their shoulders.”

  “But they’d be Ikaran shoulders, and we’d be dead in our beds. And you’re an idiot. I’d not be glad; I’d be down by the docks stowing away as fast as I could.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “But nothing, you’re still an idiot. No one’s glad about war excepting the rich buggers what make money off of it and don’t risk their own necks. Here, does that bloke look familiar to you?”

  One of the gossipers jerked his head in Vocho’s direction, who didn’t let them get a better look and, discretion being the better part of keeping his head attached to his shoulders, got himself good and lost in the crowds. He found Kacha and Cospel as arranged, by the bodyguard pen. Kacha in particular looked pensive.

  “It’s crazy,” she said in answer to Vocho’s question. “Or the prelate is. Taxes on everything, war looming. They had bread riots down at the docks last week. No iron or coal coming down from the mines on the border because of the whole Ikaras thing, so half the clockers’ factories are just spinning their wheels. Ikarans sending more and more men to the border, and the prelate’s worried about bloody flags.”

  “Ikaras again. That keeps cropping up,” Vocho replied. “As does my name and face.”

  She grinned. “You always wanted to be famous, Voch, and now you are.”

  “I’d rather be alive and famous, thanks very much.” He peered up at the sky, where the sun was sliding towards dusk. “Time to get going. Where’s Dom?”

  Dom was sauntering up an alley between two stalls, managing to look jaunty and smug at the same time.

  Cassalily was waiting for them when they got there, half seen in the gathering gloom until she stepped forward. The whirring of her hands was very loud, and Vocho was hypnotised by the wind-ups slowly spiralling out their power.

  She smiled regally at them all and picked up the papers along with some newer ones written in a bold clear script.

  “Here you are.” She handed them to Kacha. “Quite a find. Of course, all their plans will be useless once I become the Clockwork God again. Such blatant disregard for logical truth, such doubting
.” She sighed. “All shall become purified by fire and truth when I ascend.”

  “Er, thank you,” Kacha managed.

  “No, thank you. Look.” Cassalily indicated a small table to one side. On it sat a brass clockwork heart, its movements mimicking the rhythmic beating of a human heart. “Thanks to your truths, all of you, I now have my heart. The rest is only a matter of time.”

  “I, er, I’m pleased for you,” Vocho said. “Only won’t fitting it hurt?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Clockwork feels no pain. Clockwork feels nothing except the fire of empirical truth and the strength of power in motion. Surely you all know your scripture?”

  “Of course,” Dom interrupted smoothly, cutting off Vocho’s sarcastic reply. “And I’m sure we all look forward to the Clockwork God truly being among us again. Don’t we?”

  He turned a bland and watery-eyed face to Vocho, forcing a weak “Yes, of course” from him.

  Dom twittered out a few more banalities that left the proto-goddess looking giddy with pleasure while the rest of them hurriedly left. He caught up with them at the edge of the roof.

  “Such an interesting woman, don’t you think?”

  Kacha gave him a pointed look. “If interesting means crazier than a bag of foxes, then yes, she’s interesting. But not as interesting or as pertinent to our future as what she’s given us. Come on, let’s see what we’ve got.”

  The streets were busy, and it would take them a long time to squeeze their way back to the Hammer and Tongs at this time of day, so they found a little tavern with a courtyard garden in the back that was both quiet and not overlooked. A trellis covered in grapevines hid the last of the setting sun as they took a table set with little brass lamps and spread out what they had.

  It didn’t take long before the fading heat of the day seemed as cold as winter in the north to Vocho.

  “What the hells is this?” he asked at last, though he could see it plain enough. He just wanted to make sure he wasn’t imagining it.