Sharps (52 page)

The Permian lunged. It was an apology for an attack, so carefully closed and guarded that aggression was very much an afterthought. He got out of the way with a simple step back, not even bothering to move his sword arm, and the Permian immediately retreated to exactly where he’d been. The crowd laughed again. He could see the enemy blushing with shame. Any minute now, he’ll burst into tears. This is stupid, Giraut thought. I’m white, I shouldn’t have to put up with this shit. Slowly he lowered his sword until the point was resting on the ground. The Permian just stood there and stared. The crowd were booing. They hated their own man. Even if he won now, they’d still despise him as a coward. Even if he won, he couldn’t win.

Giraut tried not to laugh, but he couldn’t help it. He stood, sword lowered, laughing; and the Permian came at him. It was a good lunge, just inside middle distance, tending to his outside to make a volte problematic; he could only retreat and parry in single time, keeping the point upright, making the hand movement as small as possible. He forfeited the fraction of a second in which he could have riposted, and the Permian lunged again, but this time a little too fully. Before he realised it, Giraut’s back foot had moved, his body was twisting, he had no control over them. He did try and pull his sword out of the way, but he’d practised the volte too often for that. His arm knew what to do and was determined to do it, regardless of any contradictory orders from the brain. The Permian stepped into the point, which entered him just under the ribcage, his own impetus driving it in deeper than Giraut’s arm could ever have managed. Stupid fool’s killed himself, Giraut thought, and stepped smartly backwards to let him fall.

“Oh dear,” the Auzeil whispered, his voice clear as a bell in the unnatural silence. “Was that supposed to happen?”

The no Vei shrugged. “Yes and no,” he said.

And then they cheered; which was obscene, Giraut thought, as he tugged on the hilt of his rapier (but the dead body was twisted, the blade was flexed, it wouldn’t come out clean; he let go of the hilt. Not his sword anyhow). They cheered him, they were in love with him – love doesn’t care what you do, it’s utterly amoral – and if he’d been able to, he’d have ordered his army of Aram Chantat to close the doors and not stop killing till they were all dead. To express his contempt he swept them a low bow, then walked across the sand to the door he’d come in through without looking back.

Phrantzes was sitting on the stairs when Giraut burst through the door. He jumped up. “Well?” he snapped.

“You’re on,” Giraut said and pushed past him.

A short, wire-haired Permian with a big nose dropped down into the seat next to the no Vei. He was out of breath and sweating. “Terribly sorry I’m late,” he said, in passable Aram. “I’m your translator.”

“Splendid,” the no Vei said, as the other two looked at each other. “You can tell us what’s going on. I’m afraid it’s all a mystery to us.”

“No problem,” the Permian said. “As it happens, I follow fencing very closely, very closely indeed. Now then.” He leaned forward and peered down. “That’s Jilem Phrantzes, fighting longsword for Scheria. He’s a former All-Scheria champion.”

“Isn’t he rather old, for a fencer?” the Cosseilhatz asked.

“Ah.” The Permian grinned. “Fencers are like wine, they get better with age. I saw the great Mathin Dusan defending his title when he was seventy-one years old, against a boy young enough to be his grandson. Let me tell you, one of them left the arena feet first, and it wasn’t Mathin. Amazing man. So I’m expecting great things of this Phrantzes.”

“Excuse me,” the Auzeil asked, “but don’t you want the Permian to win?”

“What? Oh, yes, naturally. But let’s say I’m not exactly holding my breath. There’s our boy, by the way. Luga Dusan – that’s Mathin’s great-nephew. Got a bit of the old man about him, but I’ve always maintained he’s weak off the back foot.”

The Cosseilhatz frowned. “What does that mean, exactly?”

“Shh.” The Permian was crouched forward. “They’re about to salute.”

*

Giraut carried on up the stairs, past Iseutz, who said, “How did it go?”; up to the landing at the top, through the door and out on to the catwalk. No sign of Addo, but he was on last. He looked down into the arena, where two tiny figures were moving about, like insects on the surface of running water. He had no idea what he was looking for, naturally.

The perspective sobered him a little, and he ordered himself to think. Set up – well, yes: to kill the Senator, who was about to push through anti-slavery laws and other awkward measures. To kill him in as sordid a manner as possible, so his assassin couldn’t be a martyr to the opposition. Better still, don’t punish the assassin at all. Instead, send him to Permia. Only he won’t get there. None of them will.

Think
. The fencers are ambushed and killed by bandits, on Scherian soil, before they even get close to the border. Why? Because if they die in Scheria, they can’t die in Permia; if they don’t die in Permia, they can’t be martyrs and a reason for war …

Because they can’t be allowed to get to Permia, because if they do—

He heard a clank, loud enough to carry all the way up to the catwalk; steel on steel, a block, and not a very stylish one. He didn’t bother to look down.

He’d been set up: to kill the Senator, yes, and then to die himself, two birds, one stone. And why him? What’s so special about Giraut Bryennius? Precisely because he’s nothing special, of no value to anyone, particularly once he’s been thoroughly disgraced. Therefore expendable. Therefore capable of being useful
twice
.

A pretty good fencer at junior level, never bothered with it seriously, but good enough to look convincing in Permia, and then to die on a sharp point in a Guild house somewhere along the road to Beal. He thought about it and shook his head. It wasn’t quite enough.

Looking at it from the wrong angle. All right, then, the others. Suidas Deutzel, because he’d had such a bad war, because he could be relied on to crack up when surrounded by messers and Blueskins and Aram Chantat – cause an incident, make a scene, start a war. Addo Carnufex, because he’s the son of the man who drowned Flos Verjan and all those women and children; and because there was no way his death would go unavenged. Iseutz, because they needed a girl, also expendable, because the Permians are so inhuman they kill young girls as well as grown men: no, that’s weak. But he couldn’t do any better, and it wasn’t essential to establish every part of the chain, not right now. Phrantzes: there had to be something about him, but he didn’t know what it was. Add Giraut Bryennius, the walking affront to common decency. No, he wasn’t there yet, not quite.

Tzimisces
. For a moment he considered the possibility that the whole thing was simply a device for getting Tzimisces into Permia and giving him an excuse to wander about the place, doing whatever it was he had to do, without drawing undue attention to him.
Colonel
Tzimisces, political officer; sent by the Bank, or the Temple or the rump of the military, to outbid the Permians for the services of the Aram Chantat. He disappears, Aram Chantat horsemen wipe out an Imperial column. No, it didn’t feel right. Almost, but not quite.

A single intake of breath from the crowd, followed by a tremendous roar. Bad news for somebody, presumably. Not that it mattered. All that mattered, he now knew, was
how
you lost.

“Giraut?” He turned his head and saw Addo. “What are you doing up here?”

“Watching the fight,” Giraut replied.

Addo nodded. “Me too. It’s not looking too good, I’m afraid.”

It hadn’t occurred to Giraut that Phrantzes might lose. He peered down, but he couldn’t even tell which of the insects was his colleague and which was the enemy. In just such a way, of course, the Irrigator would have looked down from the heights of the Verjan mountains, while judging the perfect moment to open the sluices. “He’ll be all right,” Giraut said.

“Let’s hope so,” Addo said. “God forgive me if anything happens to him. It was me who talked him into it, after all.”

Phrantzes was very nearly there. He’d reached the point every traveller recognises, towards the end of a long journey, between the first distant sight of the familiar landmarks of home and actually getting there: comfort, of a sort, in the knowledge that his road is now obvious and undisputed; weariness and frustration because there’s still some way to go.

He blocked, again; clumsy and hopeless, but just enough to keep the other man’s cutting edge off his skin. His block invited a low thrust, which came, which he put aside, just about, which made inevitable a rising cut to the chin, which he caught, just about, on his crossguard. He had no strength left at all. He couldn’t slow his monstrous hyperventilation; he was drowning in air, unable to get enough breath no matter how hard he tried. Very soon, either he’d black out and collapse or the other man would finally make good on him. His defence had degenerated into an instinctive scramble, with no form or design to it. There was no way he could win from here. He was a man who couldn’t swim thrashing about in deep water; he was in a flooded room standing on tiptoe to keep the gradually rising water out of his nose and mouth. He was very nearly at the stage where he couldn’t be bothered to defend any more, but he wasn’t quite exhausted enough, and his opponent wasn’t quite good enough, and his reflexes wouldn’t let him knock over the king quite yet. He blocked again, realised he’d misjudged and left himself wide open; but the fool opposite didn’t see the gap until it was too late and he’d closed it. Idiot, he wanted to shout, but he didn’t have nearly enough breath, even though he was sucking in air by the barrelful.

Another cut: from-the-roof, lots and lots of strength behind it, all wasted because the angle was rubbish. He deflected it, but he couldn’t possibly lift his sword enough to make the counterthrust. Instead he left it vaguely hanging, and the clown smacked at it, and the vibration ran up the handle and made the tendons of his elbows sing. If he’d had enough strength left to pick a flower, he could’ve drawcut the moron’s throat from there; instead, he blocked another wild swish, and another, and his fingers on the hilt were the fingers of a man dangling from a cliff, or an archer holding a too-strong bow at full draw. The enemy was hardly blown at all, but he’d given up trying to think, he was flailing like a beginner vainly trying to breach the guard of his instructor, who grins smugly as he flicks away each mighty buffet.
It’s not like that, you clown, you’ve won
. But he couldn’t see that, evidently.

Another cut: number four in the book, horizontal, left to right, crossed hands; weak, slow, not recommended; usually compared to a man cutting hay with a scythe. Phrantzes tried to lift his sword to block but it was simply too heavy. He took a step back, and somehow the idiot contrived to miss; the useless force of his blow made him stagger – he was being dragged along by his sword, like a man with an unruly dog on a bit of string – and he landed on the side of his foot, turned his ankle over, wobbled for a moment and fell sideways. Phrantzes tried to get his sword out of the way, but by now the hateful thing weighed at least a ton. All he could do was keep the point down, so that when the idiot lurched into it, he didn’t actually skewer himself. Instead, he sort of sat down on the edge – the false edge, worse luck, not the true edge, which was blunt as a pole from two dozen feckless blocks. Phrantzes let go, but the damage had been done. The edge had sliced deep into the halfwit’s buttock, and he was leaking blood like a broken dam.

(And that’s why you have to be so careful when you’re fencing, because accidents happen …)

The fool hovered for a moment, then fell over. He ended up still sitting on Phrantzes’ sword, in the dirt, spouting blood from his lacerated arse. For a split second the world held its breath. Then the crowd began to cheer.

Phrantzes was too exhausted to move, or he’d have fallen over too. But toppling himself would’ve required strength, and he had none at all. Slowly, like hemlock starting at the toes and creeping up to the neck, he realised he’d won. Which was ridiculous.

The yelling of the crowd battered his head like waves against rocks, and he hated them. He was full to bursting with anger and hate, but there wasn’t anything he could do until his chest stopped heaving. As it was, his breathing seemed to have no effect. No matter how much air he dragged down, he desperately needed more and he wasn’t getting it. He tried to tip himself over, but he couldn’t even do that; just stood there, until eventually, about bloody time too, the gasping rate slowed and he realised he was going to make it.

He looked at the fool, who hadn’t moved. He was sitting in a pool of blood, looking for all the world like a beetroot-eater who’s pissed himself. For a while, Phrantzes was at a loss to interpret the stupid look on his stupid face. Then he realised: that infuriating, half-witted stare was his way of begging for his life, which was the victor’s to give back or take away, as he saw fit.

“Get up, you idiot,” Phrantzes said, and started to walk away. He managed five steps.

When they carried him in through the door, Iseutz was sure he was dead. She felt a sharp pain in her stomach, her throat was blocked and for a moment her vision was blurred. Not what she’d been expecting.

They carried him up the stairs to the landing, and Iseutz saw his lips move, though his eyes were closed. There was no blood that she could see. His skin looked a sort of bluish-grey.

“Phrantzes?” she shouted. “Are you all right?”

A faint, exasperated groan showed what he thought of that question, so she grabbed hold of one of the porters carrying (she noticed for the first time) the door he was lying on. “What’s the matter with him? Is he badly hurt?”

The porter stared at her: useless. Phrantzes opened his eyes. His lips were moving again, but she couldn’t make out the words. “What?” she yelled at him. He looked at her, and she could tell how much effort trying to speak was costing him. “
What
?”

Phrantzes spoke in a high, shattered voice. “You’re on,” he said.