The Two of Swords, Volume 1

by K. J. Parker

  She took off her shoes.

  Now, then. Time to go out and kill a perfect stranger.

  Three essentials of the perfect political assassination: a sharp knife, a plausible excuse for being in an inappropriate place, if challenged, and a really accurate map.

  She could see maps. One good long look, and she could see it in her mind, up to three days later. So, out of her door and turn right, down a long marble-floored corridor, past a statuary group representing Blemya Marrying the Sea, at the end of the corridor turn left; fifteen yards, second mezzanine, up six flights of stairs, left, then right, then thirty-two yards (she had a pair of excellent dividers, which doubled as a cloak pin), the door on the right. As anticipated, the room was empty and dark. She crossed it slowly and carefully, guided by the slight change in temperature, until she reached the unshuttered window. Out on to the ledge—she hated that—and shuffle along twelve feet in a state of blind, weak-kneed terror, until her groping right hand felt the wood of a shutter. Next, the horrible part; the shutters opened outwards, of course. She inched along, letting her fingertips trace the shutter panels, until she found the line in the middle where they met. She crept on, two feet precisely, and inserted her fingertips into the join. If the shutters were latched, that would be that—mission aborted, try again later. But they weren’t; she felt the right-hand shutter lift away from the wall. If it creaked and woke him up, she’d have no alternative but to jump. Eight floors up. No chance.

  Getting off the ledge, in through the window, feet on to the floor, proved to be very nearly impossible. For some unaccountable reason, the bottom sill of this window was a good eighteen inches higher than the counterpart in her room, on which she’d practised so assiduously, and her legs simply weren’t long enough. In the end, she had to hop, not knowing what she’d be landing on. Mercifully, it was a sheepskin rug.

  Pitch dark, of course. She straightened up and stood perfectly still until she found where the bed was by the sound of his breathing. He’ll be alone, the briefing had assured her; he’s a married man, but his wife is a home body and doesn’t like coming up to town. Therefore there’ll be no need to identify which occupant of the bed is the target. That was, in fact, the principal reason why he had been chosen to die, rather than the equally eligible Director of Interior Supply.

  She waited as long as she dared, giving her night vision as much time as possible to acclimatise to the very faint light coming in under the door from the lantern sconces in the corridor outside. Unfortunately, there was some bloody great big thing—a wardrobe or a linen press—directly in the way; she could see its outline, just about, but the space between her and the bed was dark grey fog. Way beyond the point now where any explanation would be credible. She closed the shutter, just in case the slight chill of the night air disturbed his sleep. You have to be really considerate, like a newlywed.

  Two distinct patterns of breathing. Oh hell.

  She’d have to kill them both, the minister and his unknown, inconvenient bedfellow. Nothing for it, had to be done. Could it be done? She rearranged the cutting list in her mind and decided that, yes, it could. You found the vital spot in the dark by touch, by tracing with the exquisitely sensitive tip of your left little finger until you found a landmark: an ear, the corner of the mouth, something definite to navigate by. Almost always, the subject started to wake up while you were doing it, and then you had less than a second, which is actually plenty of time. You could do two people in one second if you absolutely had to. What you couldn’t do was flounder about distinguishing man from woman, and most certainly you couldn’t leave a live, awake witness. Sorry, she thought. I really am sorry. It’s such horribly rotten luck.

  The hell with it, she thought. She made herself slow right down, a parody of movement. She knew from long practice exactly what the edge of a bed felt like against her shin. Killing people in the dark is so sensual, someone had told her once, before her first time; your whole body comes alive, every tiny patch of your skin becomes unbelievably sensitive. At the time she thought he was just being weird, but it was true. Hearing, too. She understood how blind men could find their way around by sound alone. It wasn’t as though either the minister or his companion snored, or anything like that, but their breathing was loud and clear enough to find them by. She reached out, and the first thing her fingertip touched was hair.

  She tried to remember. The minister, she’d seen him at three receptions: a medium man, medium height, build, medium-length hair. Several of the Blemyan council were bald as eggs, why couldn’t they have set her on one of them? She followed the line of the hair, trying to gauge its length. It was soft, but some men had hair like that. A faint scent of peaches and apples, but the men here were incredibly vain. She thought of Oida. She touched an earlobe, instinctively drew her hand back. Too small to be a man’s.

  I have to kill them both, she thought. I can’t, she thought.

  Well, that was all there was to it. A wave of annoyance swept over her; damn the stupid bloody woman, some people are so thoughtless. She couldn’t do it the usual way, she’d have to go by sound and intuition. Some people could do that, she’d never tried. She’d have to kill the man without waking the woman. Trade test. Thank you so bloody much.

  She listened, trying to unravel the combined sound of breathing; like trying to listen to just the bassoons in an orchestral piece. Actually, she could do that. He was the quieter of the two, oddly enough, and he took longer breaths, slightly more widely spaced. Just as well she had ears like a bat. She listened some more, until she was as sure as she’d ever be where the man’s nose was. What she didn’t know was, was he lying on his back or on his side?

  Very cautiously, she felt, and located a cheek; on his side, fine. That ruled out her preferred point of entry, the triangular hollow at the base of the throat, where the collarbones met. She was fairly sure he was lying on his right cheek, in which case the jugular vein would be just there; but she couldn’t be sure—also, spurting blood might wake the stupid woman. In through the ear, then. Difficult when you can’t see, because of the risk of hitting bone. She’d have to risk using force. It just got better and better.

  She slid the knife out, reversed it, passed it into her left hand, positioned it, like a mason poising a chisel. This is all going to go horribly wrong, she thought; she could hear the lodge master’s voice in her head, how could you be so irresponsible, though of course she’d never hear him say it, she’d be dead herself. So; so some tart’s life is worth more than yours, but you killed a political officer. Bloody stupid, she thought, I’m just so bloody stupid. Then she cupped her right palm and used it as a hammer on the pommel of the knife.

  There was a sound; a crisp, crunching, punching noise. It was so loud they must’ve heard it in Rasch. Only one breathing sound now, but still regular and even. She tightened her left hand on the knife and pulled. Stupid thing was stuck.

  Leave it, yelled the voice in her head, leave it and get out of there. No. She tried again, felt the dead man’s head lift off the pillow, stopped immediately, gently relaxed until she was sure it was resting again. She splayed the fingers of her right hand and put them on the dead head—insensible now, so no risk; she felt damp warmth, must remember to wipe her hands as soon as possible. She felt the steel of the blade against the web between middle finger and ring finger. She pressed down gently but firmly on the head, and drew on the knife with her left hand. It reminded her of the fairy story, the boy who pulled the sword from the rock to prove he was the true king. She pulled. Knife still stuck, a slight jolt, knife free and clear. She stopped for a moment, then gently withdrew her right hand, taking great care not to let it brush against anything. She wiped the knife on the pillow four strops per side, then did her best to wipe her hand; then the knife back in the sheath. One final listen; breathing still regular. One of those people who can sleep through anything. She envied her.

  Why do I have to make things difficult for myself? she thought. Own worst enemy; always be
en the case. She steered warily round the wardrobe, chest, whatever the damn thing was, until she was basking in the light from under the door. She knew where the door was. Fingertips of her left hand, the clean one, to find the key, mercifully in the lock. Usually, all of this stage wouldn’t be a problem, because you’re alone in the room; you can fumble about, make a certain amount of noise, maybe even risk a light. But no, she had to be merciful, playing God. Her reward was that the key was in the lock. She turned it, agonisingly slowly, until she felt the wards relax. Plenty of follow through, even then, to avoid a sudden last-moment click.

  Her information was, there was no guard on the door. The corridor would be empty. She could just leave, rest of the day’s your own. She opened the door.

  And nearly brained a soldier, in full-dress armour, standing about ten inches in front of it. He stepped sideways, swung round, looked at her. Just a very faint fleeting grin, and he stepped aside.

  Among her gifts was the ability to get in character instantly. The woman in the bed, on being leered at by a guard, would give him a look like this. The guard immediately put on a stuffed-fish expression and directed his eyes to a space on the wall six inches above her head. She walked past him two paces, then slipped out the knife, shot out her arm and stabbed him at the base of the throat. His mouth opened; she left the knife in there until the light in his eyes went out, then took his full weight on her left arm and gently eased him down on to the floor. Sorry, she thought; but he was a soldier, they don’t really count, and, anyway, he’d laughed at her for what he thought she was. No justification, really.

  It just gets better and better and better.

  But there was nobody else in the corridor, she’d been exceptionally quick and quiet, and she was going to get away with it, this time. She wiped the knife on his hair, taking a second to make sure it was really clean, then examined her right hand. One little smear of blood she’d missed. She spat on it, worked it out with her left forefinger, wiped it. Attention to detail. Then she set off down the corridor towards the middle stair, which took her down two flights, then left and right across the back gallery, rejoin the stairs she’d come up by, retrace steps, back to her own door, inside, turn the key, shoot the bolt. She walked quite calmly to the bed and sat down on it, and stayed completely still for quite some time.

  Then she found her tinderbox, lit the lamp, took off her knife sheath, drew the knife. She washed the blade carefully, paying particular attention to the slight crevice where the blade went up into the hilt. She examined the sheath for even the tiniest speck of wet or drying blood, found two, scraped at them with her fingernail, teased the pile of the velvet until there was nothing to see. She’d have to be wearing this knife and sheath tomorrow, and the next day, or it’d be too blindingly obvious. Then she checked them both again, knife and sheath, and again, and again, and again, and again. Her head was splitting. She lay down on the bed, feeling dizzy and sick.

  I’m so sorry, the City prefect said for the fifth time, I’m really sorry to have to ask you all these questions, but you do understand, it’s a matter of the utmost gravity. Naturally, completely above suspicion, but we do have to ask. You do understand, don’t you?

  Oida understood perfectly. He was charming, sympathetic and completely cooperative. Yes, as it happened, he could account for his whereabouts all last night, and, as it happened, he did have a witness. He spent all night with his colleague, the priestess Telamon, and she could vouch for the fact that he was in his room all night, because neither of them had got very much sleep.

  Conflicting emotions plainly visible on the City prefect’s face; about to die of embarrassment, but oh so relieved that he could cross this overwhelmingly, lethally important man off his list of suspects and not have to bother him any more. The lady Telamon can verify what I’ve just told you, if you want to ask her. Oh no (very emphatic). No need, no need for that at all.

  “Simple misdirection.”

  She wished he’d go away. It was gloriously warm on deck, there were pools of golden light like honey, and they were going home. He was spoiling the mood, and she didn’t want to have to hold that against him. “Yes,” she said. “I know.”

  Probably he wasn’t listening to her. He sounded like he was giving a lecture. But he admitted that he did that sometimes—gave lectures to imaginary audiences, as a way of clarifying his mind. You understand something so much better when you’re trying to explain it, he’d said.

  “They suspect me,” he went on. “I produce an alibi. It’s entirely plausible. It never occurs to them it’s the other way round.”

  “Quite,” she said. “I’d rather like to close my eyes for five minutes, if that’s all right.”

  “Sure, go ahead.” He stayed where he was. “They said to me, that’ll never work, but they didn’t understand. It’s not what you present, it’s how you—”

  Just a moment. She opened her eyes and sat up. “It was your idea.”

  “What?”

  “The alibi thing. You thought of it.”

  “Of course,” Oida said. He sounded too surprised by the question to be lying. “This whole show was my idea. We kill a minister known to be favourably inclined to us—”

  “Your idea?”

  “That’s right. We kill a minister known to be favourably inclined to us, during a state visit by us. What are they supposed to make of that? We couldn’t have done it; the dead man was our friend. Therefore the opposition must be behind it, therefore they must be trying to frame us. Meanwhile the balance of power on the council shifts dramatically—”

  It had been, she had to concede, basically a good idea. Simple, therefore good. Create the instability, don’t try and be greedy or clever. A remarkable plan for someone so arrogantly convoluted.

  “Result,” he went on: “the council collapses, the government falls, she loses her key advisers, meanwhile popular opinion’s against the East because they’re perceived to have murdered a very popular minister, adored by the poor Settlers for his economic and social reforms, so her new cabinet’s heavily weighted in our favour. It picks up a momentum of its own with no further interference needed from us. Next thing you know—”

  “It won’t work,” she said.

  That stopped him dead in mid-flow. “Why not?”

  She gave him a sad smile. Luckily, the sea was so smooth that even Oida’s notoriously frail stomach had nothing to fear. The faint cry of gulls. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the silver flash of a school of flying fish. “Think about it,” she said. “Daxiles dies a martyr’s death. His fellow Radicals on the council use the sudden upsurge in popular support to ram through the rest of his agrarian reforms. Nobody dares oppose them, it’d be seen as pissing on the martyr’s grave. Result—” she tried to mimic the way he said the word, but couldn’t quite catch the inflexion. “You get your instability, the government does indeed fall, but the new cabinet’s going to be chosen for their economic policy, not which empire they favour. What you’ll actually get is a council packed with Radicals, who either favour the East or couldn’t give a damn either way. You should know by now, it’s the price of bread that gets people excited, not foreign affairs.”

  The look on his face was a wonderful sight. Really and truly, he hadn’t thought of it that way, and realisation had just dropped on him like a huge rock. She’d seen it, of course, the night she read the mission briefing. And, naturally, she’d assumed that there had to be more to it than that, and that whoever had thought up the plan was playing a much longer, deeper game than she could begin to understand. But in fact it was all the clown Oida, who’d failed to think it through—

  “I don’t agree,” he said. “I think the fundamentalist faction on the right of the KKA—”

  “Anyway,” she said crisply, “we’ll know soon enough how it’s going to pan out. And we’re free and clear and on our way home, so what the hell.”

  He was angry—with her, which was just ridiculous, but at least it made him go away. She open
ed her book and tried to read, but she’d lost the thread of the argument and couldn’t be bothered to go back and pick it up. Something was wrong, but she couldn’t figure out what it could possibly be.

  She closed her eyes for a moment, and heard Oida’s voice, right back down the deck. He was not quite shouting at someone, but definitely giving him the full force of his personality. She could only make out a few words here and there, but the general idea seemed to be, can’t you make this thing go any faster? The captain, or whoever it was, was being too deferential to be audible. He wasn’t doing much of a job of soothing Oida’s tantrum; quite the reverse. She guessed this would be one aspect of the journey in the great man’s company that the captain wouldn’t be telling his grandchildren about.

  Later it got very hot indeed, even when the sun went down, and since it was still calm she decided she’d sleep up on deck, where there was at least a trace of a breeze. Apparently the diplomats had chosen to do the same thing; she could hear them talking somewhere in the darkness, quiet and fast, not heated but anxious. She wondered if something had gone wrong; well, she’d find that out in due course. Maybe their tone of voice made her nervous. She took the knife and sheath off her belt, stood up and dropped them over the side into the sea. Pity about that; the sheath was lodge property but the knife had been her own.

  She drifted off to sleep and was woken by what at first she took to be screaming; it proved to be nothing more than a very big gull, perched on the rail and complaining loudly about something. She sat up, and it spread its wings and flopped away.

  Oida walked past. He had a plate of scrambled eggs resting on the upturned palm of his left hand, and a short wooden spoon in his right. He stopped and glowered at her. “You’re completely wrong about the KKA,” he said. “They’ll go into coalition with the Optimates, you just wait and see.”