Sharps (12 page)

That made him all the more determined to avoid detection, so he made himself stay perfectly still. The noise went on for what seemed like a very long time, then gradually died away.

“I’ve been looking for you.” Suidas’ voice, though Giraut couldn’t see him from where he was lying. He closed his eyes. It made it easier to concentrate on listening, and if they saw him, he could pretend to be asleep.

“Well?”

“Our political officer,” Suidas said. “You reckoned there was something odd about him, right?”

“Yes.”

“I hate to say this, but I think you may be right.” A short pause; presumably Suidas was finding something to sit down on. “Our political friend’s very well connected, isn’t he?”

“Is he?”

“Don’t you know anything about current affairs? Mihel Tzimisces is the chairman of the Bank.”

Silence. He wished he could see her face.

“And that’s not all,” Suidas went on. “I don’t suppose you noticed, but he’s got these marks on his neck …”

“Like little red scars. Three on the left and two on the right.”

“That’s right.” Suidas’ voice had changed; he was clearly impressed. “I’ve seen marks like that before.”

His pause was presumably for effect. “Well?” she said impatiently.

“During the War,” Suidas said. “High-ranking field officers wore these fancy breastplates. All-in-one jobs, not the scale stuff. It was a particularly stupid design. It was so young aristocrats could look like heroes of antiquity; you know, in statues and paintings.”

“So?”

“So,” Suidas went on, “the neck opening on this particular pattern was a bit too small, and they tended to chafe. People dealt with it by wearing scarves. That was fine for the staff, who spent most of their lives sitting around in meetings. But in the field, you got unbearably hot, so you dumped the scarf and put up with the chafing. And it left little scars. Yvo Tzimisces was a senior officer on active service; a senior captain, possibly even a major. A fighting officer, not a desk ornament.”

Another pause; then Iseutz said, “I don’t quite see …”

“Think about it. The chairman’s cousin, and in the War he was a senior officer. What’s he doing playing nursemaid to a sports team?”

“He can see in the dark,” Iseutz said. “That’s creepy.”

“What you mean is,” Suidas replied, “he’s used to night operations. Also his knack of making himself scarce. He’s not political, he’s military, must be. And a pretty unusual sort of military, come to that. The Tzimisces aren’t one of the old army families, they’re not noblemen. You didn’t get to be a major unless you were the right sort of person; not unless you were very good indeed at doing something that needed doing properly. I think we’re in very distinguished company. It’d be nice to know why, though.”

A longer silence this time. Then Iseutz said, “I think, when the coach gets here, we should insist they take us straight back to the City. If we all say we want to go home, they’ll have to let us go.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

“The hell with you.” Her voice rose a little; brittle, and it had sharp edges. “You’re enjoying yourself, aren’t you? You’re having
fun
. Ever since the stupid wheel came off the stupid cart. What’s
wrong
with you? You’re treating all this shit like it’s some sort of
adventure
. Of course they’ll have to let us go. We’re not prisoners.”

“Actually.” Suidas’ voice was as cold as ice. “Two of us are – that’s Giraut and Phrantzes. The Carnufex boy’s here because Daddy told him he had to, which is much the same thing. I don’t know what they did to you.”

“Fine. You?”

“They’re paying me a very large sum of money. Which I need,” he added. “Desperately. All right?”

Another silence; then Giraut heard a shout, from outside the stable. It was repeated, this time closer: “Suidas Deutzel? Are you in there?” Phrantzes’ voice.

“Yes. What?”

“Could you please come out here? Quickly.”

Giraut gave them a moment, then jumped down from the loft and followed them outside. He found Phrantzes, Addo and Tzimisces.

“There are twelve men approaching from the north-west,” Tzimisces said. “They aren’t soldiers, but they do have weapons. I would imagine they’re robbers, highwaymen, whatever you like to call them. They’ll know we’re here, because they’ll have seen the coach.”

Iseutz broke the silence. “So what? We haven’t got anything worth stealing.”

“I don’t suppose they’ll see it like that,” Tzimisces replied quietly. “Clothes, boots, anything at all. Times are hard in these parts, I’m afraid.”

“Let them have them,” Phrantzes said. “So long as we cooperate, they have no reason to harm us.”

“Ah.” Tzimisces shook his head, just a small movement. “That’s not how they do things, I’m afraid. We’re going to have to defend ourselves. Which shouldn’t be a problem,” he added briskly, before anyone could speak. “After all, you’re all trained swordsmen, aren’t you?”

“We haven’t got any weapons,” Suidas yelled at him.

“On the contrary. The crate is in the coach.”

“They’re
foils
,” Iseutz snapped. “Bits of wire with a knob on the end. They’re not
real
.”

“Better than nothing,” Tzimisces said, and his tone of voice told them the discussion was closed. “I’ll open up the crate. If it’s all right with you, I’ll borrow one for myself.”

“Go ahead,” Suidas shouted at him. “It won’t do you any good.”

Tzimisces scuttled to the coach. “It must’ve been them,” Suidas said. “They put the bar there, to block the road.”

“What’s going to happen?” Giraut asked.

“Guess.”

Tzimisces came back with a bundle of sheathed swords under his arm: three rapiers, a longsword and a smallsword. In his hand he carried another, short and wide, with a bare hilt, a pattern Giraut had never seen before. “Here you go,” he said. “I suggest we fall back to the blockhouse. If we fight with our backs to it, they won’t be able to take us in rear.”

Giraut could see them now, a dozen shapes on the skyline. They appeared to be walking at normal speed, like ordinary people on their way somewhere; it was impossible, surely, that they were coming to do anybody any harm; that that was what death looked like. He watched them grow ever so slightly bigger. Ludicrous, he thought. Perfect strangers don’t just stroll up to you and start killing you. The world simply doesn’t work like that. He felt a nudge on his arm; Tzimisces was holding out a sheathed rapier, and he realised he was supposed to take it. He reached for it, but his fingers wouldn’t close properly, and he dropped it on the ground.

“What the hell makes you think—” Iseutz said.

“Go to the blockhouse, please.” Tzimisces’ voice was perfectly calm, and Giraut thought: Suidas is right, he’s a soldier. What the hell is going on here?

“At least let’s try talking to them,” Phrantzes said.

“I’m sorry.” Tzimisces put a hand gently on Phrantzes’ sleeve and towed him away, like a kindly child guiding a blind man. “Actually, it’s them I feel sorry for. For pity’s sake, gentlemen,” he added, with just a feather of an edge to his voice, “you’re
fencers
. There’s absolutely nothing for you to be worried about.”

Oddly enough, Giraut found that helped. Perfectly true, he thought; I spent years in the fencing school, learning to fight. The whole point of it is, once you’ve learned the orthodox way, you need never be scared of anybody ever again. That’s why it’s such an important part of a gentleman’s education. He realised he hadn’t drawn in a breath for quite some time. When he tried, it was like swallowing mud. “Mr Bryennius,” Tzimisces called out; he and the others were halfway to the blockhouse. Giraut took a step. His knees weren’t working properly. Suidas had to go back and grab him by the arm.

“I think you’ve got this all wrong,” Iseutz was saying, louder than usual, her eyes fixed on the skyline. “I think they’re just a harmless bunch of shepherds or something, and you’re completely overreacting.”

“Too many of them to be shepherds,” Tzimisces said. “And shepherds don’t tend to go around heavily armed. Also, we haven’t seen any sheep. Believe me, there’s nobody in this area with a legitimate reason for being here. Now, I’d like you all to draw your swords and make ready. Now, please.”

Giraut did nothing of the sort; his hands were shaking, and his mind was somewhere else entirely – in a bedroom, back in the City, where he’d killed someone. He heard someone say, “What the hell is this?” but he chose not to enquire further. The approaching men were now close enough that he could make out their faces. They looked frightened. But they kept walking.

I can’t do this, he thought. Really, I can’t.

(He tried thinking through the stages of a formal set: ward, measure, single or double time, retreat, ward, measure. He could do all that. But his mind insisted on superimposing on the known formalities of the set the image of a big man, a fat man, taken completely by surprise by death, sliding off the point of his rapier on to the floor, from human to garbage in one split second. He told himself: if you won’t fight them, they’ll kill you. He was unable to make it a compelling argument.)

He could see them quite clearly. The one nearest to him was a short man, thin-faced, big eyes, quite a delicate face, sharp chin. He had a strip of grain sack wrapped round his neck for a scarf, and an old, worn-out coat, what Giraut’s mother would have described as only fit for charity. The sleeves were too short, and Giraut could see the bones of the wrist of the hand that gripped a staff hook so tight that the knuckles showed white. He thought; how in God’s name do you defend against everyday farm tools with a rapier? Not in any of the books. A hell of a time for making it up as you go along. The man looked at him, and Giraut understood him. He’s doing what I’m doing, he thought; converting me in his mind from a human being into a target. He’s done that before. Well, we both have.

And, under other circumstances, we could sit together over a few beers and compare our experiences, human mind to human mind: what did you feel, the first time you killed someone? Was it so quick and instinctive that you didn’t have time to think about it? Did the other guy strike first? Or did you have to make the first move, an act of will, like plunging your hand into icy water on a cold morning? How did you bring yourself to do that, exactly?

Suidas was yelling something: orders, suggestions, a warning; like it mattered. Giraut thought: a wise man once described violence as just another form of communication, and another wise man called fencing a conversation in steel. He wasn’t convinced, not unless you could wake up a dead man and ask him, how was it for you? So he looked at his enemy-to-be and tried to see him as a target, like the dummy in the fencing school, stuffed with straw, hanging from a sort of gibbet by a rope coming out of the top of its head, all the principal vulnerable areas hatched in red. They talked about sizing up your opponent. That made him think of looking at girls, the way he used to do. Turn people into objects and you can do any damn thing to them.

The measure was closing. There are three measures in classical single rapier: long, in which neither man can reach the other; middle, where each can make contact by taking one step forward; close, where each can strike a mortal blow without moving their feet. Just before long measure, he pulled the rapier out of its sheath –

(Odd; because you can’t sheathe a foil; the button on the end would jam as you tried to draw it.)

– and tried to do the right thing, look at the enemy over the point of the sword. But he couldn’t see the point, only the man behind it; whom he couldn’t kill, because he’d already killed a man, and kill one, kill them all …

Middle measure, and the man swung his hook, a big, two-armed, hedge-cutter’s movement, exposing heart, throat, half a dozen prime targets, but Giraut found he couldn’t move. Instead, his lungs seemed to clamp up tight, and he felt suddenly, desperately cold. Oh well, he thought, and the long-handled hook described a broad, slow arc, like the Invincible Sun’s curved journey from east to west, to sunset, and all he could do was close his eyes so as not to see it actually happen.

He heard a scream, and assumed it was his own. But, curiously enough, it wasn’t. Something barged into him from the front. He hadn’t anticipated that, and it sent him sprawling; he tripped over his own heels and fell backwards, bashing his head against the blockhouse wall.

“What the hell,” someone was shouting, “happened to you?”

Giraut opened his eyes, and found he was looking straight at the sun, an ambiguous situation, in context. When you die, as everyone knows, you stand before the Invincible Sun and are weighed in the balance, and a great voice comes out of the heart of the fire, and asks you—

“Well?”

It was Suidas, bending over him, absolutely furious. “You froze,” he shouted. “You just stood there.
Iseutz
had to rescue you, for crying out loud.”

Just behind Suidas he could see a pair of boots. They were very old and heavily patched, lying on their sides, and there were legs still in them. “What happened?”

“That’s a bloody good question,” Suidas roared at him. “You’re a fucking liability. You could’ve got someone killed.”

“Leave him alone,” said somebody Giraut couldn’t see. It was a high voice, and very, very tense.

“For God’s sake …”

“Leave him
alone
.” She clearly wasn’t in a mood to be argued with. Giraut thought: according to Suidas, she just saved my life. Now why would anybody want to do a thing like that?

The legs inside the boots weren’t moving. Also, they were lying all wrong. It occurred to him that they were the legs of the thin-faced man, and that the long conversation he’d just had with him must have been a dream, or some mechanically induced aberration resulting from the blow to the back of his head. He couldn’t remember what they’d finally agreed, which was frustrating.

“You,” Iseutz said, bending over him so that her hair fell down over her eyes, “are pathetic.”

All he could say was, “What happened?”

“That one was going to chop you with a long-handled hook. Fortunately, I got there in time. And you,” she went on, “are a complete waste of good luck. Get up, for pity’s sake. You look ridiculous.”