by Julia Knight
Eneko waited in his usual spot by one of the towers that punctuated the walls, overlooking the docks. If ever she needed him, if ever he wasn’t about the grounds below or in his quarters, he was here. The shadows of the overhanging roof and battlements hid him well enough, but if you knew where to look, and he was expecting you, there he was. If not, all you’d see was darkness, pale brick and terracotta tiles.
He was expecting her, so she managed to see the pale glint of an eye a split second before he spoke. “You’re late.”
“Sorry, I was—”
“Petri Egimont keeping you, was it? Don’t look at me like that – do you think I’m blind?”
The tone was all too familiar from those long-ago days and nights spent doing the extra training he insisted she took – his shut-up-and-listen-or-else voice. She swallowed what she was about to say and listened. She’d known Eneko wouldn’t take it well. Maybe that had been half the attraction to Petri in the first place: doing something Eneko wouldn’t approve of, just this once. Being less than perfect.
“Petri Egimont,” Eneko said now. “What are you doing with him? The prelate’s little pet and worth no more than a dog, not any more. Follows him like a little dog too, never does a damned thing but what the prelate tells him to. Yet here he is, sniffing at your tail. Why is that, do you think? Well?”
She bridled at that – did Petri have to have a reason except that he liked her? “I—”
“Whatever you think, whatever you’re about to say, you’re wrong.” Eneko stepped fully out of the shadows now, and the look on his face shocked her. She’d seen him angry before, seen him hate. She’d never seen him like this, and it was only later, when she thought on it more, that she realised he was afraid. Afraid of what?
Eneko’s lips twitched, and then, taking a deep breath, he seemed to calm down. He went to stand by the parapet and looked down over the docks, where the water was silver and black in the moonlight and the ships looked as if they couldn’t just sail but fly.
On nights like this, especially from up here, where you could look but not notice the smell, she missed the docks and jetties, and her da, her whole childhood, with a physical ache. Everything had been very simple then – it all boiled down to having enough to eat. Simple, but not easy. Now she had enough to eat, she had food and clothes and a good roof. She had friends, a job she was good at, that she loved, mostly. What she also had were secrets and suspicions and a grinding fear that one day she wouldn’t be good enough, that all would be lost if she strayed from perfection.
“You be careful of Petri Egimont,” Eneko said then, his voice the fatherly one again, the one she craved to hear. “He’s always been an odd one. If it had all turned out different, I still wouldn’t have let him take his master’s. As it is, he’s the prelate’s pet, and Bakar’s been looking for ways to be rid of us for a long time. It may be that’s what Petri is up to. Finding some rope to hang us with, maybe feeding you lies and misinformation. Shit-stirring, whichever way you look at it.”
She turned on him, about to say, no, no it wasn’t, it couldn’t be, but Eneko held up a placating hand. “All I’m saying is the same I said all during your training. Never act until you’re sure. Have all the information to hand, then make your move. Be careful, in other words. Be careful like this is another dark job. And tell me what he tells you, eh? So I can make sure you know the truth, not his lies.” He smiled then, and it seemed to her he smelled of pipe smoke and salt, almost forgotten scents of childhood, when things were simple. Before she’d met Petri and he’d started her questioning everything. Not because of what he said, but little things that made her think she wasn’t the only one with secrets. That maybe Eneko had some too.
“Why did he leave the guild?” she asked into the silence that followed.
Eneko looked away from the silvered ships below them, narrowed his eyes at her and shook his head. “Hasn’t he told you?”
“I… It seemed impolite to ask.” She’d wanted to of course. The way Petris’ eyes twitched, his hands tapped a nervous rhythm whenever Eneko’s name came up, or the conversation came round to the revolt that put Bakar into power made her wonder. But it was still too soon for personal questions. There had been a few dinners, sparring sometimes, an evening or two spent together. Left under a cloud was all she knew, and that was all anyone seemed to know or was willing to say. She’d tried sounding out the old sergeant-at-arms, Eneko’s closest confidante, but all she’d got for her trouble was a stream of curses and a threat if she ever asked anyone, ever again.
“Impolite!” He laughed a long, rasping chuckle at that. “I suppose it is. And he’s not mentioned it? Well, if he hasn’t I don’t think I will. Not unless you decide this is going to become a regular thing. A fling’s all very well – no harm if you keep your trap shut about the dark jobs, keep your trap shut about everything inside the guild if you’re having a fling outside it, but you know that. Know this too, girl. If you get to having more than a fling with him, there’s all manner of things you’ll be wanting to know about Petri Egimont, and I don’t doubt you’ll hate him as much as I do before you’re halfway through because there’s a streak, maybe more than a streak, in him of his father. You even think about making it regular, you come see me first, all right? Let me give you a few home truths to chew on. In the meantime think on why he might not have told you. Think on where your duty lies, and it isn’t in his trousers.”
Just like her da, looking out for her, a bit too much at times, but still. “All right.”
“Good girl.” He squeezed her shoulder. “Now, if you can spare the time away from Egimont, I’ve got a job for you.”
Petri sat opposite Bakar in the prelate’s quarters overlooking the clanking garden in the moonlight, sipping apple tea and trying to decide how to answer the question.
If he answered too truthfully, the job would be done and he’d be back at his cramped desk listening to his overseer sneering at him. He’d be trapped back within the palace, left to a lifetime of grey. Oh, he’d be able to go out sometimes, but Bakar was a watchful man. It would be noted where he went, who he spoke to. Bakar was planning to get rid of the guild and hadn’t that been a shock. But he’d promised Petri the guild, though now that was forgotten along with much else. Petri spent his evenings with Kacha when he could, and his days staring at the paperwork Bakar had him do, at the strange edicts that poured from him like wine these last weeks. Yet Petri couldn’t be sure that it was just that he was now looking at Bakar with different eyes.
Once this job was done seeing Kacha would become difficult, and he didn’t want difficult; he wanted seeing her to be as easy as breathing. He’d been restless before, chafing at Bakar’s orderly world, but now he wasn’t just restless, he was itching to burst out of the gears Bakar had bound him in.
“Petri?”
“Sorry. Yes, it’s going well enough.” Not the whole truth, no. Bakar couldn’t have seen this in his precious clockwork, and Petri was going to make the most of it. “I’m concentrating on gaining the confidence of one or two before I start to dig.”
“Very wise. Do you have any inklings yet though?”
Petri put down his cup – he was so full of energy it was hard to stop it clattering on the saucer. Kacha, he was going to meet Kacha later, and that seemed all he could think about. “One or two suspicions but nothing solid yet.”
Bakar nodded sagely. “Has anyone asked you why you left the guild?”
“No, not yet.” They hadn’t asked, but he’d heard the whispers and the not-so-quiet murmurs designed for him to hear. Oh yes, and a drunken Vocho speculating with his friends at full volume what a man would have to do to make Eneko forbid his name to be spoken in the guild, or why in hells Kacha would have anything to do with someone who’d been exiled. They’d shut up bloody quick when Kacha walked into the inn, but Vocho still muttered under his breath any time Petri was near. Just as long as Kacha didn’t hear him.
He’d been expecting that, which didn’
t make it any easier to bear. He hadn’t expected Kacha not to ask, or for himself to want to spill it all out anyway. And yet he hadn’t – and why was that? Because every time she talked about Eneko, he could see it in her eyes. The way she looked up to him, trusted him. Something soft under all the wisecracking with her brother, under her smooth moves and nonchalant ease with a blade. He wanted to find out what it was, but he didn’t want to have to reveal the shame of his father, cast that shame over a man she clearly thought of as her father, to do it. Everyone has secrets, he thought, and wished he dared speak his aloud. Maybe one day, but not yet.
No matter how he felt his whole life had just spun a full turn on the orrery, changing it beyond recognition, it’d only been a few weeks. A few weeks of hours that seemed too snatched and short to him. Maybe if he could pluck up the courage to kiss her…
“Petri! Have you been listening? By the God’s cogs, man, you’ve not been right ever since you started this. Maybe it was a mistake, dredging up old memories. Maybe you should let someone else do this.”
Petri forced his mind back into the room. Difficult though. Clocks everywhere, ticking and tocking until he wanted to scream. Each tick was slicing seconds off his life, each tock was nailing him to this palace, to his grey little cubicle, his grey little job.
“Absolutely not,” he said as he stood up. He had to get out of this room, out of the palace. “I’m just starting to get somewhere. I promise you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve arranged to meet some of the masters.”
He shut the door behind him with a great wash of relief which he didn’t fully appreciate until he was out of the palace, out of the gardens, away from the constant noise of his life ticking away. Out into Reyes proper, for once feeling part of the colour and noise that surrounded him. He headed down towards the Clockwork God and the docks, to where he’d arranged to meet Kacha.
The streets were crowded tonight, but not so crowded they didn’t make way for a prelate’s man. He looked up at the god, brass all silvered by the moonlight, clicking his way through his preset ritual. Outside the guild, reminding everyone that the guild had bowed to Bakar, that the Clockwork God watched over even them and demanded their truth. Oh, the guild still had respect, still had admiration, but since that day it didn’t have quite as much as it once had, a thought that brought a small smile to Petri every time it occurred.
A smile that curdled slightly as Kacha appeared. It was the guild he’d been promised that now he’d come to destroy, the guild that was her life, and he wasn’t sure he could do it. Not when she bounced up to him like that, her face losing a thoughtful frown when she found him. She stood in front of him, and a second stretched out beyond reckoning. This was what he wanted, only this. No revenge on Eneko, no destruction of the guild, no doing the prelate’s work; nothing but Kacha looking up at him, and the rest of the world barely a murmur around them.
The kiss took him by surprise, even though he started it. A long kiss, full of fevered wantings and desperate wishings that things were otherwise, and then past that into not caring whether things were otherwise or not. It seemed like for ever before they parted.
“Petri.” Her voice seemed very deep and breathless, and made his spine shiver. “Answer me one thing. Why are you here? Why did you come back? Start sparring again?”
Something lay behind that question, he was sure, but right at this moment, here in front of the Clockwork God, there was only truth. “Right now I’m here for you.”
A breathy laugh, and then she grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the guild. He hesitated – he’d never be allowed past the gates – but she pulled him on and he couldn’t resist.
“What seems good to me,” she said when he hesitated again at the gates, before she glared down a journeyman who looked about to protest but was probably too young to remember Petri at any rate.
She led him past cloisters full of memories, up stone stairs, along echoing passages. He shut his eyes to everything but her, here, now. She stopped outside a door and turned the soft part of her to him, the part that seemed to need something from him. “Does it seem good to you?”
He answered her with a kiss, with more than a kiss. The door opened behind her and they fell in, and he lost all the buttons on his shirt before they made it to the bed.
Bakar could never have seen this.
Chapter Eighteen
It felt odd, going into the house that Kacha knew Petri had been born in, lived in with his father when they were in the city. He’d never talked about his father apart from an odd aside here and there, except that last night, but she knew all the same how glad he’d been to escape the ice in this house and go to the guild. The guild had been his home, and then… He didn’t talk much about the “and then” either.
With that thought came the next, inevitable one. We were all escaping into the guild, every one of us, even if what we were escaping was different. Only some of us got to stay escaped, and some didn’t.
She followed Dom as he paced across the cavernous hall. A thought struck her. “You said you’d never been to Reyes before.”
That strange, sharp new smile and a shrug. “I lied.”
He led the way past sumptuous hangings, a series of clockwork gilded eggs that each was worth what any respectable smith might earn in a year, past ranks of paintings of presumably past family members which turned out to be members of someone else’s family – Petri’s if the little plaques were anything to go by – through a dark wood door, and into a room that was, if possible, even more luxurious if lacking in anything that could be called taste. Gilt covered just about everything not nailed down, making Kacha squint. What wasn’t gilt was gaudy, colours clashing everywhere. A vast lounger in bright blue leather which might have looked classy on its own vied for attention with another in striped blood-red and black. Under them a carpet woven with gold and silver tried to get in on the act, while the curtains seemed to be evolving a life of their own in vivid patterns of green and pink.
Dom caught her look and grimaced along with her. “My apologies, but my father’s had bad taste a lot longer than he’s had any money. As far as he’s concerned, if it costs a lot, it must be good. Ah, Rimmen, there you are.” This was to a serious-faced man dressed all in neat black who appeared silently at a door on the other side of the room. He gave Kacha an appraising glance that valued her clothes down to the nearest penny and was distinctly unimpressed.
“Sir?”
“Sorry to barge in unannounced, but we’ve, er, I’ve come to see to a few things for my father. We won’t be long. Is his study unlocked?”
“Certainly. I shall bring refreshments.” The man disappeared as if by magic, leaving Kacha feeling faintly disturbed though she couldn’t work out why.
Dom didn’t seem to feel anything and again led the way, through a set of heavy velvet curtains – deep purple with red flowers, was Dom’s father colour blind? – that led to another door of heavy wood, set with an impressive lock of tooled brass. As Rimmen had said, the door wasn’t locked, and Dom pushed on through.
If anything the study was even worse than the previous room. A series of small deep-set windows looking out over a riotous garden were framed with possibly the most hideous curtains Kacha had ever seen. The carpet almost took her eye out. There were fancy little tables with carved frills and gold edging, all crammed with expensive… tat was the word that sprang to mind, and lots of worn-looking clockwork gizmos that jerked out a few movements when activated. A bird that would flap its wings once and croak out a tune. A lady with crooked eyes sat at a desk, pen poised, ready to be wound and write a letter. A box that she couldn’t work out. Without thinking she picked it up and wound it, only to drop it when a red-tongued demon leaped out on a spring.
“Careful!” Dom said from behind a massive desk that had obviously been built to impress, with at least six different woods inlaid into it and a clockwork something attached to one corner. A closer look revealed the complicated run of gears and cogs, all in
etched brass and gold, to be a pencil sharpener. “Those are worth a fortune. Early examples of clocker work, you see. Quite rare some of them. My father collects them. Ah, here we are.”
Where they were was never actually established because Rimmen chose that moment to return not with refreshments but a contingent of armed men. Too many. Kacha quickly realised she hadn’t a hope. Four of them had guns pointed before she could even reach for her sword. Four more blocked the door. The windows might have been an option, but she’d have struggled to fit through any of the panes when she was twelve.
“I really am most dreadfully sorry,” Rimmen said with apparent seriousness, “but your father sent explicit instructions.”
Dom stood like a statue, two guns pointed at his face. He looked like he was contemplating escape, as Kacha had, before his shoulders slumped. “How explicit?”
A thin smile from Rimmen. “Very much so, I’m afraid. He was prepared to give you a second chance, but not a third. He has the family name to consider, after all, as it is a name now, much more than before. These gentlemen here are to escort you to the Shrive.”
“You can let—”
“Sadly no. Kacha is also a wanted person, as you are well aware. Your father has graciously said I might keep any reward monies. Please try not to damage any of your father’s things as you leave.”
Dom was whey-faced with shock and when Kacha threw him a questioning look shook his head. Petri might have hesitated to shoot her when he had the chance, but these were just guards under orders from a man with a lot of money. They’d shoot first and apologise for getting blood on the carpet afterwards.
As if in answer to her thoughts, one of the gun men prodded his weapon into the side of her head. She was crap with guns, but one thing she did know – no matter how quick she might be, she wasn’t going to dodge a bullet from that close, especially when there was more than one bullet to dodge. Second rule of duelling, Eneko’s voice echoed in her head from all those years ago, is don’t go charging in when you can’t win. Bide your time, watch, listen, wait until you can win.