by Tim Pratt
"I was, but now I have to spend some time lying here, brooding and plotting," Rodrick said. "That damn fish-man ruins everything."
Chapter Fifteen
The Swordlords of Restov
They rode east and reached Restov in a few days, passing their evenings in small villages and empty fields. During their journey they barely caught a glimpse of Cilian, who roamed far afield, finding even the sparsely populated expanse of Brevoy far too urban for his taste.
When their party approached the city gates, Rodrick thought it was almost like a real city, or at least a decent imitation created by people who'd seen real cities firsthand, perhaps when they were children. The gates stood open to allow the free mingling of trade, with carts passing in and out laden with goods and produce, and beyond the gates Rodrick could see stone buildings crafted with some attention toward aesthetics instead of the purely functional crudeness and raw, sap-dripping wood he'd grown used to in the River Kingdoms. "An enterprising person could make a bit of money in there, I suspect," he said.
"An incautious person could lose his soul," Obed replied.
"More likely his life," Zaqen said. "The place is thick with Aldori swordlords, and their students—who are just as likely to kill you, though not necessarily on purpose. They're just learning. There are Taldan dueling schools here, too. I gather duels right out in the middle of the street are not uncommon, so try not to offend anyone wearing steel, all right, Rodrick?"
"Swordsmen," Rodrick said, and sighed. "Sorry, Hrym, you'll be staying sheathed in there." He noted Zaqen's curious look and shrugged. "Those devoted to the sword have one of two reactions to seeing Hrym: an overwhelming desire to murder me and take him for themselves, or a desire to show that their skill is superior to mine, even though I do have a magical weapon."
"Their skill is superior to yours," Hrym said. "I mean, you could best a butcher in a fair fight, I suppose, if he was old and out of shape, but—"
"I'll gladly concede that I am not the most adept swordsman, though I did survive a great many fights before we met, sword. For that very reason, I have no reason to goad suicidal swordlords into trying to prove their prowess over me. Which means you stay sheathed, and keep the steam to a minimum."
"Where is the huntsman?" Obed said, scowling.
"He told me last night he didn't think he could face life in the big city," Rodrick said. "I'd love to take him to Absalom sometime, just to watch his eyes burst entirely from his head at the sight of actual civilization. Let's hope his Brightness doesn't lead him much farther away from the wilds, eh? I'm not sure he could stand the strain, fated or not."
"The only fate is the will of the gods," Obed said.
"And even the gods die when they don't expect it, sometimes," Rodrick said. "It really makes you wonder. So! How about Hrym and I shop for supplies while you go conduct your business—"
"You will accompany me to the meeting," Obed said. "As will Zaqen. I mistrust these swordsmen. They take offense too easily, and seek redress too crudely."
"Don't be too hard on them," Rodrick said. "Not everyone can be as sophisticated and easygoing as you are, Obed."
∗ ∗ ∗
"Well, well." Rodrick gazed at the gleaming white three-story house, with its large windows and airy front porch, behind its walls of iron topped with spikes rendered to look like miniature sword blades. "This is quite a nice place. Being a swordlord must be very lucrative."
"Bartolo earned it the old-fashioned way, too," Zaqen said.
"Oh?" Rodrick didn't try to hide his disappointment. "Hard work, prudent investments, all that rubbish?"
Zaqen shook her head. "No, rather more old-fashioned than that. He killed someone and took his house."
Rodrick laughed. "Very direct. I like it. He must have been a pleasure to negotiate with."
"He is a fool, like all humans." Obed removed a leather sack from one of his saddlebags. Said sack looked extremely heavy, Rodrick noted with a professional eye.
"You hear that, Zaqen? Your master lumps you in with all the rest of us human fools."
"As to that, I'm not a typical human," Zaqen said. "So I can pretend he doesn't really mean me."
"I didn't realize the Brevoyish system of inheritance was such that murdering a man gave you the right to his estate," Rodrick mused.
"Seems like a system that's ripe for abuse," Hrym said. "Do you think we could stay here for a few more days, so we have time to abuse it?"
"He won it in a duel," Zaqen said. "Not typical dueling rules, either. All swordlords and their students have a habit of dueling over honor, but there's also a tradition of dueling for stakes, dating back to Baron Aldori's promise to pay one hundred thousand pieces of gold to any man who bested him in combat. Bartolo was very much a betting man—a degenerate gambler, really, but a very lucky one, which is how he's stayed rich. Some merchant who'd taken up swordplay with the passion of a zealot challenged Bartolo to a duel after he completed his training, but our man Bartolo considered fighting the merchant to be below his status. Bartolo eventually consented to the duel ...but only on the condition that the stakes be made sweeter than honor alone. Bartolo humiliated the merchant and took his house, among other prize possessions. I understand there were some temporary privileges involving the merchant's wife, too."
"Oh? How did that work out?"
"She stayed with the swordlord afterward and bore him a son," Zaqen said. "You'd almost think she cared more about the house and the money than about the man she married. But the path of true love always finds a way, eh? The son is apparently quite the swaggering bravo, but the old man is said to have a clear head and to be capable of honest dealing, if you keep a close eye on your purse while you talk to him."
"How do you know all this?" Rodrick said. "I thought our quest for the keys was news to you."
"My master asked me to investigate the character and history of several individuals in Brevoy. He did not choose to tell me why, but it is hardly my position to ask, and so I did not. I spent a lot of money, cultivated contacts, asked some questions ..." She shrugged, unevenly as always. "I learned enough to know this man will remain true to whatever arrangement my master struck with him, and that the bargain was almost certainly to his advantage."
"Let's go." Obed handed the sack to Zaqen, who staggered under the weight. "Shout to the guard loitering by the door, Rodrick, and tell him we require entry."
"I've never had a good result from shouting at guards," Rodrick said, "but you're the boss."
∗ ∗ ∗
After an infuriating amount of conferring, the guards—who seemed to delight in moving slowly—ushered them in through the gate and then the great doors of the house, without even asking them to relinquish their weapons. Then again, if Bartolo was a swordlord, he probably welcomed the odd surprise attack during a business meeting, if only to keep his instincts sharp.
A servant who looked the perfect proper butler, apart from the long dueling scar that ran from his left eyebrow to the right side of his chin, led them to a beautifully appointed sitting room done in shades of rose and pale blue that, strangely, contained only a single chair, set beside a low table made of some exotic shimmering stone.
Obed took the chair and tapped his foot impatiently, scowling around the room as if the hangings on the walls might conceal hated enemies or cooked fish. He wore a minor glamour to make his gillman nature less obvious, presumably because meeting someone for a transaction while hiding your face in a deep hood at all times could be considered a bit suspicious. Rodrick had opined that a bit of theatrical makeup to cover the gills would have been sufficient, but apparently slathering gills with facepaint was uncomfortable or an inhibition to breathing or something, so Zaqen had worked up an illusion instead.
After perhaps half an hour, a door opened at the far end of the room, and a young man with piercing blue eyes, black hair, and more nose than he knew what to do with strode in. He wore a long, curving sword at his hip, and had the sort of trimmed, oiled, a
nd cultivated goatee that probably took enough time to maintain that it should be declared at least an avocation, if not a life's work. The scarred servant trailed him, carrying a tray that held a bottle of wine and a single glass. The man looked at Obed for a moment. "You're in my chair," he said mildly, but it was the mildness of a big cat that hasn't yet decided to unsheathe its claws.
With just a moment's hesitation, Obed rose and bowed stiffly. "My apologies."
"No apology necessarily," the man said. "You are unaccustomed to the manners of Rostland. I'm sure where you come from, sitting in your host's chair is the height of courtesy."
Obed grunted, and Rodrick tried not to grin.
"Are you Bartolo?" Obed asked as the man seated himself. The swordlord ignored the priest until his servant had gotten the bottle and glass arranged on the table to his satisfaction and departed. Then the man looked up.
"Am I Bartolo? Do I look like a sixty-year-old fat man to you? No. I am his son Piero."
"Ah," Obed said. "I had hoped to speak to your father directly. I realize he must be a very busy man—"
"Not so busy as all that," Piero said, "since he choked on a fishbone and died a fortnight ago. He always swore he'd never be bested in a duel, and he was quite right. A river trout in a wild berry sauce did him in. Now. What can a man like myself possibly do for people like you?"
Obed frowned. "Perhaps ...Zaqen, give him the letter, if you would? It is correspondence from your late father—ah, my condolences, of course—and should explain my presence here."
Zaqen passed over a folded sheet of parchment, and Piero took it with the same enthusiasm he might have displayed upon being offered a dead eel. He scanned the paper, his lips pursed, then nodded once, crumpled the paper, and tossed it to the floor. "We have no business. You may go."
"Young man," Obed said. "An agreement was made—"
The swordlord cut him off. "An agreement you made with my father Bartolo. He is dead, and death has a way of nullifying contracts—ones as informal as this, anyway."
Rodrick listened with amusement as Obed attempted to take on a wheedling, ingratiating tone—which was roughly as natural as hearing a horse quote poetry. "Of course," Obed said. "I realize you are your own man, and do not expect you to heed the precise terms I struck with your late father. I am happy to renegotiate any agreement with you."
"You've come to buy something from me, is that it?" Piero wrinkled his nose. "You seem to be under the misapprehension that this fine house still belongs to a merchant. It does not. It belongs to me, son of one of the greatest teachers of the Aldori sword method to ever live—although, in truth, I surpassed his skill before I was old enough to grow hair on my chin."
Rodrick bit back on the urge to comment on the sort of hair Piero had eventually chosen to grow on his chin. He hardly needed to sabotage Obed's clumsy attempts at negotiation for his own amusement. Obed would sabotage things well enough on his own. The gillman even knew Rodrick was a confidence man, a professional charmer and manipulator, and he still chose to take the lead in negotiations himself. So be it. Let him reap the rewards of such poor judgment.
"The object I seek is of no particular monetary value," Obed said, anger and impatience beginning to leak out around the edges of his words. "But it has some meaning to my sect—a pitcher that belonged to a priest of Gozreh who attempted to bring the light of our faith to the northern lands."
"I have no intention of parting with anything in my father's estate until I have conducted a thorough inventory and determined the value of my inheritance completely," Piero said coldly. "And this pitcher you mention—it's the pearlescent blue one that pours forth an inexhaustible stream of seawater, isn't it?"
"I have heard it has such a property," Obed said, a little stiffly. "It was blessed by Gozreh, goddess of the waves—"
Piero stroked his neat beard. "I admit, it is a worthless thing, to me. What good is a pitcher that pours water no one can drink? I suppose I could start a business with it to harvest the sea salt, but it sounds like tedious work."
"It is indeed. I would happily pay you a price more than fair—"
"On the other hand," Piero mused, "I wonder what the sea-folk of Outsea would pay for such an artifact? They could hardly inundate the entire River Kingdoms with such a pitcher, as it pours far too slowly, but they might pay well for an endless supply of fresh seawater for their personal use. Of course, it would take some time to send a messenger to their city—"
"I will pay." Obed gritted his teeth. "I will pay handsomely. If you read the letter, you know the sum I named, and it is a sum fit for a king. Nevertheless, if you desire more—"
"Are you attempting to bargain with me?" Piero swirled the wine in his cup. "How amusing. I am not a fishmonger, alas, and bargains do not interest me. Nor do you. I have sufficient wealth to keep me in comfort for all my days. You are a rude outlander with no knowledge or respect for the ways of old Rostland, and your presence offends me. As I said before, we have no business."
"If you would only listen to reason—" Obed snapped.
"I am unreasonable, am I?" The swordlord took a sip of wine, then put the cup down on the table beside him, positioning it precisely to his liking. The lightness of his tone was almost enough to make Rodrick take a step back. He'd heard men like this say things that way before: a thin veneer of civility painted over a thick layer of offended anger, which was itself just a mask for a savage glee at the excuse to inflict violence.
The swordlord rose and placed his hand on the dueling sword at his belt. "I believe our conversation is done," he said pleasantly. "You may leave. Now. Or I may ...see you off more definitively."
Obed started to speak, but Zaqen laid her hand on his arm. He shook her off, but did turn and retreat for the door. Rodrick smiled at the swordlord pleasantly, nodded, and followed his employers out.
He didn't worry about turning his back to Piero. A man like that wouldn't stab anyone in the back. He'd stab them in the front, after a tedious display of excellent swordsmanship, preferably demonstrated before an audience of appreciative onlookers.
Rodrick loved people like that, mostly because it was so easy to stab them in the back.
Chapter Sixteen
Adept Gambit
I am not an assassin," Rodrick said. "I am a guard. More accurately, I am a thief pretending to be a guard. If you are attacked, I will kill to protect you. But I will not murder a man so you can steal some of his kitchenware."
"Zaqen can do it, then," Obed snapped, pacing around his room at the inn, where he'd gathered them all for a conference. Zaqen squatted on the floor, and Rodrick sat on a wooden chest, while Hrym reclined in his usual preferred splendor.
"My deadlier magics are ...not terribly subtle," she said doubtfully. "Piero is not as well loved as his father was, being a bit of a prick, but he has plenty of young friends who'll try to kill us if we hurt him. Besides, we don't even know where the pitcher is—we'd have to torture him to find out." Obed turned his snarling gaze upon her, and she shrank under the stare. "Of course, we can compel him to answer, master, and if that is the path you choose, I will act without hesitation. But ...perhaps Rodrick has a less violent approach in mind? He does excel at convincing people to part with their wealth of their own free will."
"Well?" the gillman barked, turning to Rodrick. "Do you have any ideas?"
"Alas, no," Rodrick said pleasantly. "If Piero hadn't already seen me, I might have a few possible approaches, but those have been lost to us now. You've blown a number of other potential avenues by letting him know how desperately you want that pitcher. Piero seems the sort to withhold the treasure out of nothing but spite. Anyone who comes around asking about that pitcher for any reason, even obliquely, will be immediately suspected as your agent. There's no social approach I can think of. I think our only hope is reconnaissance, and once we locate the pitcher, a simple act of burglary—"
"I've got an idea," Hrym said, and they all went silent and turned to look at the ice
sword, which rested on a scattering of gold coins at the foot of Obed's bed. "The seed of an idea, anyway. Rodrick will have to work out the details. He's good at that."
"If the plan involves freezing Piero in a giant block of ice," Rodrick began doubtfully, but Hrym scoffed.
"Not at all. I've been with you too many years, Rodrick. You've turned my nice straightforward mind all twisty like yours. I was just thinking about how you used me to scare off an ill-tempered gladiator back in Tymon, and it started me speculating ..."
∗ ∗ ∗
Three days later, after a certain amount of groundwork had been laid, they returned to Piero's house. Rodrick half expected the guards to turn them away at the gate, but apparently Piero was still hopeful they'd offend him sufficiently to merit a recreational murder. This time the man was waiting for them when they entered the rose-colored room, and Rodrick strolled in with his full swagger, smiling broadly. Obed and Zaqen followed him like loyal retainers, which was as it should be. "Piero," he said, and gave a lavish bow. "We have given your proposal some thought."
"I offered no proposal, outlander."
"You proposed that we should go screw ourselves," Rodrick said pleasantly. "Though admittedly not in exactly so many words. I'm afraid that proposal doesn't work for us. In fact ...my sword would like to have a word with you."
Piero snorted. "Oh, really? You're challenging me to a duel? You are a thug who may as well be nameless, but all right, I'm sure we can find terms that will give us both satisfaction—"
"I'm not challenging you to anything," Rodrick said. "Do I look like a lunatic? You would kill me, and I bet you'd take your time overdoing it. No, I meant what I said. My sword would like a word with you. Isn't that right, Hrym?"
"That's right," Hrym said, muffled in the scabbard on Rodrick's back.
Piero frowned. "What is this? Ventriloquism? I have no patience for nonsense—"