Colours in the Steel (58 page)

When the important matters of protocol had been sorted out and the ushers had hushed down the crowd, the Prefect opened his document case and nodded to the clerk; elderly, short-sighted Teofano, who had sat below the dais watching advocates die every day for half a century.

Teofano recited the grievances of the city of Perimadeia against the prisoner Bardas Loredan, customarily styled Colonel but without authority to use such title; that while commanding an expeditionary force against the national enemy he had by his negligence and failure to exercise due care allowed the said enemy to inflict on the said expeditionary force a severe defeat resulting in the loss of nine hundred and seventeen lives, injuries to a further two hundred and forty-eight of the soldiers comprising the said force and losses of horses and property both of the state and of private persons amounting to the sum of twelve thousand, three hundred and eight gold quarters; further, that while commanding the defence of the city in the capacity of Deputy Lord Lieutenant he had wilfully and without authority of the Council deployed and used an unauthorised weapon namely an incendiary compound, thereby tending to enrage the enemy and exacerbate the existing state of war between such enemy and the city and people of Perimadeia; further, that while serving in the said capacity he had negligently and carelessly performed his duties with the result that the said enemy had severely damaged the said defences and killed seven hundred and sixty-one citizens, injured a further three hundred and ninety-six citizens and caused damage to property both of the state and of private persons amounting to the sum of two million, three hundred and forty-nine thousand, five hundred and forty-nine gold quarters; further, that while charged with the duties and responsibilities of the said office of Deputy Lord Lieutenant, he had corruptly and fraudulently seized private property namely rope valued at eight thousand four hundred gold quarters; further, that while charged with the said duties and responsibilities he had corruptly sold state property valued at twelve thousand gold quarters to a third party for the sum of ten thousand gold quarters, to his own advantage and to the detriment of the state.

When Teofano had finished, there was an appropriately awed silence. Then the Prefect cleared his throat and asked who appeared for the state. A long, thin girl of no more than seventeen years of age, with a thin face and pale blue eyes, stood up and gave the court her name and details of her professional qualifications, adding that she was the Attorney-General of the city. Then she bowed to the Prefect and sat down.

‘Very well,’ the Prefect said. ‘Who appears for the prisoner, Bardas Loredan?’

After a moment, a dark-haired, clean-shaven man of just over average height stood up and faced the bench. ‘I do, my lord,’ he said, a little bit too softly. He raised his voice slightly as he gave his name; Bardas Loredan, fencing instructor, appearing as a litigant in person.

‘Very well,’ the Prefect repeated, and he began to read the depositions. They were more than usually long and complicated, phrased in the mystical language of lawyers’ clerks, and while his voice droned and droned the spectators sat in mesmerised silence, relishing the tension and studying the advocates’ faces, occasionally nudging their neighbours and indicating the size and odds of their wagers with their fingers.

In his seat at the back of the spectators’ gallery, Alexius gave up trying to follow the legal rigmarole and concentrated on keeping his eyelids from drooping. The Prefect’s voice was a heavy monotone, and Alexius could feel sleep slowly crowding in on him. He fought it, but—

—Sat upright, to find he was exactly where he had been, sitting in the courthouse, with its high domed roof, the rows of stone benches encircling the sandy floor, the judge’s platform, the marble boxes where the advocates waited for the command. He could see Loredan’s back, and over his shoulder the girl on whose behalf he had once dreamed exactly the same dream; older now, grown up, somehow suddenly beautiful in a way that made him uneasy. He could see the red and blue light from the great rose window burning on the blade of her sword, a long, thin strip of straight steel foreshortened by the perspective into an extension of her hand, a single pointing finger.

He saw Loredan move forward, his graceful, economical movement; and the girl reacts, parrying backhand, high. Now she leans forward, scarcely moving her arm at all except for the roll of the wrist that brings the blade level again. Loredan’s shoulder drops as he tries to get his sword in the way, but he’s left it too late, the sin of an overconfident man. Because Loredan’s back is to him, he can’t see the impact or where the blade hits; but the sword falls from his hand, he staggers back and drops, bent at the waist, dead before his head bumps noisily on the flagstones. The girl doesn’t move, and the blade of her sword points directly at Alexius, her eyes staring into his along the narrow ribbon of steel whose point hangs in the air, motionless, unwavering . . .

Alexius reached out for the moment, the double handful of time he’d just seen for the second time, caught it, held onto it tightly like a blacksmith trying to hold onto the hind leg of a nervous horse while he presses the red-hot iron shoe onto the hoof, and the air is filled with smoke and the smell of burning, and steam as the hot iron is quenched—

—And woke up, to hear the Prefect’s voice still droning. The woman sitting next to him was nudging him in the ribs.

‘You were almost asleep,’ she hissed. ‘Don’t want to miss the big fight.’

He smiled his thanks and sat up, trying desperately to remember whether he’d managed to catch that double handful of moment, and if he had, what he’d done with it.

‘Five quarters on the girl,’ whispered the woman. ‘Two to one.’

Alexius considered for a moment. ‘Done,’ he whispered back, fumbling in his sleeve for the money.

The Prefect gave the signal, and the two fencers took guard. At precisely the same moment they both raised their swords into the guard of the Old fence, so that between them lay one continuous ribbon of steel that connected them hand to hand and eye to eye. For what seemed like a lifetime they held the position, their arms outstretched but absolutely steady, their sword-points not wavering by the thickness of a hair. One minute, a minute and a half, two minutes; they could have been an instructor and his pupil practising the oldest and most arduous exercise of all, which strengthens the muscles and trains the mind to be patient and alert. Three minutes—

Alexius’ head began to hurt, very badly. He put his fingertips to his temples, closed his eyes, opened them; then the pain began in his chest and arm, and he leant forward, trying unsuccessfully to breathe. Just as he thought he was about to black out, he felt a hand on his arm; and at once the pain stopped, his head cleared, his lungs filled with air—

‘You all right?’ asked the man on his left; a large, thickset bald man with an accent. ‘You had me worried for a moment.’

Alexius gestured that he was fine; then he recognised—

‘Gorgas Loredan,’ he said.

‘That’s right,’ the man replied. ‘Fancy you knowing my name.’

‘I—’

‘Ssh. They’re off.’ Gorgas Loredan was gazing intently ahead. ‘You a betting man, by any chance?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘Five quarters on our kid. Two to one.’

Oh, well
, thought Alexius. ‘Done,’ he said.

Then he looked down at the two small figures below. Loredan had his back to him; he was lunging now, graceful and economical in his movements. The girl parried, backhand, high, and counterthrust. Loredan dropped his shoulder to parry, realising he was late on the movement, but just in time—

(
Ah
, said Alexius to himself.)

—He caught the point of her sword on the shell of his hilt, his elbow high and cramped, his wrist turned over. Her blade passed his body, slitting his shirt; then Loredan turned his arm back, converting the late parry into an almost uncounterable riposte. The girl sidestepped; two quick shuffles forward, while twisting her thin body out of the way and frantically trying to cover herself with her sword. In mid-thrust Loredan saw she’d done enough; he aborted the thrust and sidestepped to match her movement, pre-emptively deflecting her blade before she was through with her own parry. This time, when he counterthrust, there would be nowhere for her to go.

But he was too good a teacher to have neglected such emergencies. The girl jumped backwards from a standstill, just as she’d been taught, and feinted a slash at Loredan’s knees, to make him parry low and leave his chest and head exposed. He in turn anticipated the feint, starting to make the anticipated parry and then converting it into a block for the blow she’d intended to make, a short, wristy slash at his face. Having parried that, he stepped back, lowering his sword-point to cover his retreat. She circled, stepping back and to the right to defeat his intended line, but she’d failed to read the signals correctly. Instead of lunging, being parried and laying himself open to a counterthrust, Loredan bent his knees until his outstretched left hand touched the ground, simultaneously slashing with his sword at ankle height. Just in time she skipped over the blade, only to find as she landed that Loredan’s sword was pointing at her heart, and she had no chance of blocking the thrust in time.

Jerking her head back she wrenched herself to one side; instead of running her through, the blade sliced into her side a hand’s span above her hip. It was a sharp blade, there was very little pain, but it was the first time she’d been cut, and she panicked. Without even trying to move her feet or find her balance she slashed wildly; Loredan fended the blow away from his face with the thick part of his blade while stepping back and left, bringing his blade round to face her undefended side. Then, with a short bend of his arm and a sharp turn of his wrist, he struck her right hand, catching her fingers against the grip of her sword and shearing them off just below the knuckle. Her sword clattered on the flagstones and he stepped back to make the final thrust; hesitated—

She kicked hard. He turned away, taking the force of the blow on his thigh. Before he could line up, she had sprung back a good three yards and was scrabbling left-handed for her sword.
Damn
, Loredan thought,
I hate fighting southpaws
; he retreated a step or two and took the guard of the City fence, knees bent and sword angled up. She’d been taught the rudiments left-handed, although she was of course at a grave disadvantage even without the pain and shock of her injury. It ought to be fairly straightforward, provided he didn’t underestimate her at the last. He forced himself to relax, to let his weight sink to his knees.

She attacked, swinging a sideways cut at his head. Easy enough to duck under that and then lunge; easy enough for her to turn the lunge and back away, using her feet to get out of trouble, just as she’d been taught. Loredan stayed where he was; time was against her now, she’d know she had to finish it soon before loss of blood made her too weak. He felt something under his foot and decided he knew what it was.

She attacked again; a feinted thrust at eye level, but he knew she was going to convert that into a cut to his forearm, so he moved his head out of the way and parried the cut; turned it and replied with a ferocious short-arm slash at her neck. She’d been expecting the counterthrust (as she’d been taught) and only just managed to get her blade in the way. Even as Loredan followed through the slash, in his mind’s eye he could visualise his recovery, the short, fast lunge into her heart that she would be completely unable to prevent—

Their blades clashed, and there was a crack. Loredan’s sword had snapped, six inches below the hilt.

Oh, for crying out loud
, he thought; and, without thinking, he pivoted on his right foot, bringing his left fist round and ramming it into her face. He felt her nose crunch as her head was turned sideways; then she dropped backwards like a sack full of rocks and sprawled on the ground, falling across her own sword and breaking the blade.

Pity
, he said to himself.
It was only modern, but it looked like a late-series Mesteyn, worth the price of a drink
. He looked down at the hilt in his right hand, at the grey frosting of the fractures in cross-section, noticing that the core had given way, in exactly the same way all the others had.
Enough to make a man believe in witchcraft
, he thought bitterly, and let it fall onto the stone floor.

He rested the palm of his hand on the pommel of his dagger. Now he really ought to finish the job; but what the hell, nobody was paying him. It would mean a verdict of
not proven
rather than
not guilty
, but the practical effect was the same. Certainly the difference wasn’t enough to justify the unpleasant effort of bending down and slicing through the side of her neck, getting blood all over his cuffs and hands. He was free to go, and he was on his own time. Stepping over the girl’s body, he walked out of the courthouse in dead silence.

Alexius turned to the woman on his right.

‘He didn’t finish it,’ she said. ‘I think you’ll find that means all bets are off.’

Alexius looked at her.

‘Tell you what,’ she said. ‘Double or quits on the next case.’

‘I’m not staying for the next case.’

She sighed and dug in her purse, producing ten small silver coins. He thanked her and turned to pay his debts on his left, but the seat was empty.

The ushers were dragging her out. They dumped her in a chair near the doorway; as an afterthought one of them twisted a tourniquet round her wrist. Then they picked her up, one under each arm, and walked her out of the door. The spectators started to mutter; a good fight ruined by a cop-out, highly unprofessional conduct on the part of someone who was supposed to be an instructor. What sort of example was that to give the advocates of tomorrow? People started grumbling about wanting their money back, until they remembered that it had been free admission. Somehow, this seemed to make them feel more cheated than ever.