Swordpoint (5 page)

Chapter VI

He'd had tutors all his life, Michael realised; men who came to his home and taught him, courteously and slowly, what it was appropriate for him to know. Even when he was 8 they were deferential, the University scholars whose best hope for social promotion was as tutors, the masters of their various arts. Suddenly he was glad that St Vier had refused his offer. After a series of discreet enquiries in unusual places, Michael finally lit upon Master Vincent Applethorpe's Academy of Swordsmanship.

For a professional swordsman, the threat of termination is always present. The romantic ideal, of course, is to die fighting, young and still at one's peak. For practical purposes, though, almost any swordsman cherishes the dream that he will live until he first notices his precision slipping, by which time he will have built his reputation high enough to be able to resign gracefally from the active life and be welcomed into the household of some nobleman eager for the prestige his distinguished presence will lend. There he will be required only to do light bodyguarding and to give the occasional lesson to the noble's sons or men-at-arms. The worst thing that can happen - short of being crippled -is to run a school.

Everyone knows that the truly great swordsmen are trained by masters, men who appear out of nowhere, on a country road or in a crowded taproom, to single you out for their exclusive training. Sometimes it is necessary to pursue them from town to town, proving your worthiness until they consent to take you on. Only thugs resort to the schools: common sorts who want an advantage in a street brawl, or to impress a lover; or servants eager to impress an employer for promotion.

The name Vincent Applethorpe was not one that lived in legend.

It should have. Applethorpe had been a brilliant swordsman. In his best days he would have given St Vier a good fight. But his name had been erased from the public lists too early in his career for his last fight to be made a public tragedy. Quite early on his arm was slashed in a gorgeous, unchancy bit of rapier-and-dagger work. The wound festered, and rather than lose his life he lost his left arm. He very nearly lost both: only the intervention of concerned friends, who carried him to a surgeon's while he was in a drunken stupor of pain and the fear of gangrene, got him under the knife in time to save his life. The choice, for Applethorpe, had not been an easy one. If he had died, he might have been remembered for his early triumphs. Swordsmen appreciate a glorious death. But inglorious examples of what really happens to one whose skill has failed him at the crucial moment, those they prefer to forget.

There has been no great one-armed swordsman since Black Mark of Ariston, who lived two hundred years before Vincent Applethorpe was born. Black Mark's portrait hangs in the halls of Ariston Keep. Sure enough, one sleeve hangs ostentatiously empty. Swordsmen are full of the stories of his exploits. The portrait, however, shows a man of middle age, his hook-beaked face an impressive mass of furrows. And privately they'll admit that you need both arms for balance, sometimes even for the tactical advantage of switching hands. He couldn't have lost that arm until after he'd made his name as a swordsman. But the stories go on getting wilder.

Ironically, Vincent Applethorpe had grown up in the southern hills, within sight of Ariston Keep. He'd never given it much thought, though, until he came home from the city half-dead in the bottom of a wagon. His sister was running the family farm, and he was supposed to be there to help her with it. Instead he took to disappearing frequently on long walks. He went to the Keep, and would stand for hours on a hill above it, watching the people go in and out. He never tried to get into the hall himself, just stood and thought about great one-armed swordsmen. His sister had hoped that he would settle down, marry and bring another woman into the house. He did wait until after harvest before dashing her hopes and returning to the city.

Enough time had passed, he thought, for his face to have been forgotten. He set up his academy far from swordsmen's haunts, in a large attic above a dry goods shop. The ceiling sloped in, and it was stifling in summer, but it provided that rare city commodity, a stretch of unbroken space. After a few years there he could afford to move to a large hall built over a stable at the far eastern edge of town.

It had been designed as an indoor riding ring, but the flooring was too weak to bear the weight of many horses. He soon hired a couple of assistants, young men he had trained himself who would never be swordsmen, but knew enough to teach. They could supervise the drills that went on the length of the studio, and keep the straw targets with their red patches in repair. Applethorpe was still the Master.

He demonstrated the moves for his students, describing what he could not perform. So, ten years after his accident, at a time when he would have had to begin to consider abandoning the active swordsman's life, he was still in command of his career. And in his demonstrations he retained the fire, the precision of motion, the grace that made every move an explication of the swordsman's art, at once both effortless and imperative.

Michael Godwin admired him with a less than scholarly interest.

He could not yet appreciate the technical clarity of Applethorpe's movements, but he was thrilled by the Master's vividness - it was almost a glow he projected when he demonstrated a move. Lord Michael wondered if this was what was meant by 'flair'. He'd always imagined flair to be tied up in dramatic movements of the arms, one of which the Master lacked. As with St Vier, there was a grace and dignity to his carriage that was neither the deliberate languor of the aristocrat nor the choppy energy of the city tradesman. Michael extended his right arm as instructed, trying for a fluidity that looked easy when Applethorpe did it.

'No,' the Master said to the line of beginners hopefully strung out before him like birds on a washline. 'You cannot hope to get anywhere near it while you stand like that.' His voice was remarkably calm, giving off neither impatience nor annoyance -nor any particular kindness. Seeing students doing something badly never upset Vincent Applethorpe. He knew the way it ought to be done. He kept explaining, and eventually they would get it, or they wouldn't. He surveyed the entire line and observed

dispassionately but accurately, 'You look like you are all waiting to be beaten. Your shoulders are afraid to set upright, and your heads crane forward on your necks. So your whole stance is crooked, and your thrust will be crooked, too - Except you. You. What's your name?'

'Michael Godwin,' said Lord Michael. He hadn't bothered to change it; there were Godwins all over the country, and no one in this place was likely to know him by sight.

Applethorpe nodded. 'The Godwins of Amberleigh?' Michael nodded back, amused that the man had come so close in his lineage and region. Maybe it was the hair. 'A handsome family,' the Master said.

'You're lucky. Extend.' Michael did so, clumsily. 'No, never mind the wrist for now, just show us the arm. Look, all of you, look at that. The carriage of the shoulders, the lift of the head. It gives the whole extension a natural smoothness. Do it.'

He always came to this point in his instruction, when the explication of cause and effect came to an end and his instruction was, 'Do it.' They tried, fingering Michael with the edges of their eyes, trying to shake their shoulders into place without thrusting out their chests, to lift their heads without ruining their sight lines. Michael stopped worrying about his wrist, and fell into a trance of motion as his arm stretched itself out and pulled back in, over and over. He had never before considered his carriage as especially useful. It was an aid to an effect, handy to show off the line of a coat or the turn of a dance step. Now everything fell into place as the steady movement of his arm rolled through his shoulders.

Applethorpe paused in his round of surveillance and correction. 'Good,' he said. 'Godwin. You've got the wrist now.'

At home in his large, airy dressing room, with the fire lit against the cold, Michael took off his sweaty practice clothes. His manservant bore away the plain, unstylish garments without comment. Other servants brought up the hot water for his bath.

He sank gratefully into the tub, whose steam rose up agreeably scented with clove and rose petals. He had time only for a short soak before he must dress for supper. It was the night of the duchess's party, and he had no desire to be late and miss his place on the barge. Even the prospect of Lord Horn's company was not enough to dampen his excitement. He could not imagine needing to converse with anyone else when Diane was present. He had forgotten how hard she was to talk to, and his estimate of his own powers was back to its accustomed level.

Michael rose naked from the bath, to be confronted with his own form, reflected down from the large mirror over the fireplace. He paused, staring, in the act of reaching for the bath towel. He was accustomed to thinking of his shoulders as frail; he had to pad them out sometimes to meet the demands of fashion. Now they seemed trim and competent. His collar bones followed their line, lithe as birds' wings. A gentleman did not uncover his neck in public, so their delights were reserved for his intimates. But in the room above the stable one grew hot, and adopted the open collar of the workman.

He followed the line they pointed to like an arrow, down his chest. All that the world had counted beautiful could be trained, turned on the lathe of practice to become a dangerous weapon. Looking up, he met his own eyes. The dark lashes that framed them made them seem deeper than they were, the pupil a stone dropped into ripples of colour blue-green as the sea. He had the sense of being closely examined by a stranger, of falling into his own beautiful eyes. He didn't know the man in the mirror, but he wanted to. The more he stared, the further from himself he went, asking, Who are you? What do you want?

His feet were very cold. The floor was like ice, and his stiff body had begun to shiver. Michael grabbed the towel and rubbed himself briskly. He would have to hurry to dress. The fireworks were due to begin at dark over the river, and the barge must not leave without him.

The day had been clear, almost mild; but with twilight a chill had struck that deepened as the dark winter sun began to fall, pulling the temperature with it. It hung low over the city's profile, as red as summer raspberries. The Riverside street was strangely empty, as silent as dawn. The slush of the ground had re-formed into frozen crusts, eerie landscapes-in-miniature of ice and mud. Alec's new boots demolished a fairy castle. He skidded on a patch of ice and righted himself, cursing.

'Are you sure you want to see these fireworks?' Richard asked him.

'I love fireworks,' Alec answered glibly. 'I value them more than life itself.'

'The west bank up by Waterbourne will be crowded', St Vier said, 'with carriages and upper city folks and vendors. Too many people live there. Half of Riverside will be over picking pockets. We'd better stay on the east side, it won't be so bad.'

'The pickpockets, or the crowds?' said Alec; but he went along with Richard.

They made for the lower bridge, which connected Riverside to the Old City. Some people still lived there, but mainly the east bank was given over to government buildings: the old palace, the castle/fort and barracks.... Richard marvelled at the foibles of the rich. He had nothing against fireworks. But to require your friends to sit in their barges in the middle of the river late in winter to enjoy them, that seemed eccentric. He felt the cold, the wind cutting across the river, even in his new clothes. He had bought himself a heavy cloak, jacket and fur-lined gloves. Alec, too, was warmly dressed, and had stopped complaining of the cold. He liked having money to spend, money to waste on food and gambling.

Across the dark breadth of the river the populated section of the city loomed, rising from its banks in steeper and steeper slopes until it became the Hill and blotted out the evening sky. St Vier and Alec had already passed the docks and warehouses, the fort guarding the old river-entrance to the city, and were coming on the Grand Plaza of Jurisdiction, Justice Place, where the Council of Lords had established its hall. Upriver the orange glow of torches from already assembled barges stained the growing darkness. Alec quickened his pace, anxious to catch the first fireworks. Richard had to break into a trot to match his long-legged stride.

Footsteps rang behind them on the frozen stone across the plaza. He heard young men's voices, raised in laughter. One of them called, thin and clear, 'Hey! Wait up!' Out of habit St Vier checked out the area. There was no one else they could be calling to. Alec did not look back, nor did he slow his steps.

'Hey!' The callers were insistent. 'Wait for us!' Alec kept on walking, but Richard stopped and turned. He saw a small group of boys, all dressed like Alec in black robes, long hair falling down their backs. When he'd chosen this route, he hadn't been thinking how close they'd pass to the University's domains.

Alec's hair streamed out behind him like a comet's tail. Richard ran to catch up. 'I can get us out of here if you'd like,' he said casually. For reply Alec only looked down at him, and slowed his pace to a deliberate snail's saunter. The swordsman had no trouble matching it; it reminded him of leg exercises.

The students' shoes whispered closer across the stone, until one of them drew abreast of Alec. 'Hey,' the student said friendlily, 'I thought you were locked up with your books.'

Alec stared straight ahead, and didn't stop. Richard's hand was on his sword-hilt. The students seemed unarmed, but Alec could be harmed by many things.

'Hey,' said the boy, 'aren't you - '

Alec looked down at him, and the student stammered in confusion, 'Oh - hey - I thought you were - '

'Think again,' said Alec harshly in an odd voice, a Riverside voice that troubled St Vier. It was effective, though; the students clustered together and hurried away, and Richard took his hand from the sword.

Chapter VII

The Tremontaine barge rocked when Lord Michael set his foot on its side; but he had been getting in and out of nobles' barges since he'd come to the city, and had grown proficient at not falling in. A torchman conducted him to the pavilion in the centre of the flat-bottomed boat. The hangings were green and gold, the duchess's colours. All of the sides were down while the barge waited at the dock; through the brocade he heard laughter, and the clink of metal. It was one of the most beautiful barges of any noble on the water. He had always wanted to ride in it. But now that he had the chance his mind was scarcely taking it in.

One corner of the brocade was pulled aside for him to enter the pavilion; the people seated at the table inside gasped and shivered at the blast of cold air that entered with him. Diane's guests were already dining off slices of smoked goose, washed down with a strong red wine that took the chill out of the night and the river. Michael slipped into the only empty seat; he had lingered too long choosing a jacket, and paid the price by being the last to arrive. And his clothes weren't even going to matter, he realised now: no one at the table would remove their outer layer of furs, despite the brazier under the table warming their feet. They looked like a country hunting party, swathed in thick greys and browns and blacks that glowed and rippled like living pelts in the candlelight.

The duchess raised her goblet to him. The curve of her wrist was achingly white even against the white fur of her cuff. Michael's throat tightened, but he replied with a courtesy. His cup was filled with wine the colour of rubies. The drink, though cool, was warmer than the air outside had been; he seemed to feel it flowing straight into his veins.

They were all there: young Chris Nevilleson and his sister, Lady Helena, whose ringlets Michael could remember pulling at childhood parties; Mary, Lady Halliday, without her lord, the Crescent Chancellor, who had been detained by city business; Anthony Deverin, Lord Ferris, the bright young hope of the Council of Lords, already Dragon Chancellor at the age of 32; and Lord Horn. Horn's fair skin was flushed with warmth. He wore splendid longhaired grey fox. The shadow-light was kind to him, rendering him with a lean, over-bred elegance. He wore silver rings, which called attention to his slender hands when he reached for things at table.

He looked at Michael with cool deliberation. It was a look that implied further intimacy, and it made Michael's skin creep. The smile at the edges of his mouth made Michael want to hit him.

The goose and red wine were whisked away, and small bowls of hot almond soup were set down, their contents rocking lightly with the tide. 'Oh, dear,' said the duchess. 'I was afraid of this. We're about to cast off. I hope the river isn't choppy.'

'It isn't,' said Michael. 'The sky is clear, it's perfect fireworks weather.'

'Except for the cold.' Helena Nevilleson shivered theatrically.

'Pooh,' said her brother, 'you used to climb out of the window in winter to check on your pony.' Lady Helena hit him with her pomander ball.

'My lord,' the duchess admonished, 'no woman likes to be reminded of her past. Not all of them come as well armed as Lady Helena, though.'

'If she's trying to prove what a lady she is now,' Horn said primly, 'she'd do better to put it away.'

'And who', Helena demanded, 'will protect me if I do?' The young woman's eyes sparkled with the delight of being the centre of attention.

'From what?' asked her brother innocently.

'Why, insult, of course,' the duchess defended her.

'With respect, madam Duchess,' Lord Christopher answered, 'the truth cannot be considered an insult.'

'Idealism,' murmured Lord Ferris, while Diane responded, 'Can it not? That depends on your timing, my lord.'

'I had a pony,' quiet Lady Halliday spoke up. 'It bit me.'

'Funny,' said Christopher Nevilleson; 'Helena's was always afraid she would bite it.'

'Timing?' asked Michael, emerging from a cold draught of stony white wine. He didn't care much about ponies and pomander balls. Diane had barely looked at him since her initial greeting. He was beginning to strain for the cryptic messages she had been sending him the other day. The party felt so normal that it was making him uncomfortable. To find her again he felt he would have to walk a labyrinth of hidden meanings.

Now, at last, her grey eyes were fixed on him. 'Is the wine to your taste?' she asked.

'The timing of truth,' said Lord Horn with heavy self-importance. 'That's a matter for politicians like Ferris, and not mere ornaments like you and me.'

The messages, god help him, were coming from Horn. Michael gritted his teeth against the archness of the man.

'The wine for the fish', the duchess continued with relentless, impersonal politeness, 'I think is even better.'

'Fish?!' Lady Halliday exclaimed. 'My dear, I thought you said this was just going to be a picnic'

The duchess made a moue. 'It was. But my cook got carried away with the notion of what would be necessary to sustain seven people on the river in midwinter. I don't ever dare to argue with her, or I get creamed chicken for a week.'

'Poor Diane,' said Lord Ferris, smiling at her. 'You let everyone bully you.'

The sky over the river looked as though it were burning.

'Hurry!' Alec said. But as they rounded the corner to Water-bourne they saw that the light came from torches set in the nobles' barges in the middle of the river. Some ten or fifteen of them were clustered in the centre of the dark water. They looked like elaborate brooches pinned to black silk shot with ripples of gold.

Alec whistled softly through chapped lips. 'The rich', he said, 'are looking particularly rich tonight.'

'It's impressive,' said Richard.

'I hope they aren't too terribly cold,' Alec said, implying the opposite.

Richard didn't answer. He was absorbed in the sight of a new barge making its way upriver to join the others. Flames and black smoke spun back from the torches set in its prow, surrounding it with danger and glory. The green and gold pavilion was still closed. But it was the barge itself that intrigued him. He must have made some sound; Alec turned sharply to see what he was looking at.

'But of course,' sneered Alec; 'no party would be complete without one.'

The prow of the barge reared up in the graceful curve of a swan's neck. Its head was crowned with a ducal coronet. In perfect proportion were the wings, fanning back to protect the sides of the boat. Despite the hangings, despite the flat bottom , and outsized stern, the barge managed to give the illusion of a giant swan on the river. Its oars dipped and rose, dripping jewels with each stroke, so smoothly that the barge seemed to glide across the surface of the water.

'Who is it?' St Vier asked.

'Tremontaine, of course,' Alec answered sharply. 'There's the ducal crown all over everything. I should think even you would recognise that get-up.'

He had thought they were ornamental. 'I don't know Tremontaine,' he said; 'I've never worked for him.'

'Her,' said Alec sourly. 'Can't you detect the woman's touch?'

Richard shrugged. 'I can't keep them all straight.'

'I'm surprised you've never done a job for her. Diane is such a lady of fashion, and you are fashion's darling - '

'Diane?' Richard groped for and found the connection. 'Oh, that one. She's the one who had her husband killed. I remember that. It was before I got fashionable.'

'Killed her husband?' Alec drawled. 'A nice lady with such a pretty boat? What a terrible thing to say, Richard.'

'Maybe she didn't like him.'

'It hardly matters. He was crazy anyway. She was made duchess in her own right, and they locked him up. Why kill him?'

'Maybe he ate too much.'

'He died of a stroke.'

St Vier smiled down at the ground. 'Of course he did.'

The barges were tilting and rocking as friends tried to get close enough to one another to exchange gossip and pieces of fruit. There were also several competing musical consorts. Their ears were assaulted by a dramatic volley of brass, uncomfortably tangled in the sinews of a harp and flute and the anaemic arms of a string quartet.

'Well,' said Alec, taking in the chaos down below, 'at least we can be fairly sure he didn't die of boredom.'

In the barges all around them people were hurling food and greetings at each other with impartial good cheer. They received a couple of oranges, but in Diane's calm presence the party on the swan boat forbore to join the melee, while the swan's wings shielded them from missiles.

Mary Halliday, who, unknown to many, had a good ear for music, winced at the melange of instruments and tunes. Smiling sympathetically at her, Diane said, 'I wonder if we could get them to cooperate on "Our City of Light"?'

'Not if you love me,' said Ferris, the Dragon Chancellor. 'I don't know much about music, but I know what I'm sick of hearing. We open every Council season with it.'

'But', the duchess grinned at him, 'have you ever heard it as a trio for trumpet, harp and viola d'amore?'

'No; and with any luck I never will. What a pity you didn't bring your portative organ so we could drown them all out with "God Hath Warmed my Heart".'

'We would have to set the pipes at the rear, and the image would be unfortunate. If you're cold, my lord, just bite down on a peppercorn.'

Suspicion was creeping into Michael's heart. Diane and Lord Ferris seemed terribly familiar. Could they have an intimate connection? Michael tried to tell himself not to be an ass. Lord Horn was boring him and Helena with a complicated story about some state banquet he'd attended, for which it seemed necessary to keep touching Michael's knee for emphasis. If he were a woman, Michael reflected, Horn would never dare to touch his knee. If it were true about Diane and Ferris, perhaps he could contrive to have Ferris killed. Or even - of course, he was still a beginner, but Applethorpe seemed to think he had some promise as a swordsman - he could call the chancellor out himself, without any warning so that Ferris couldn't hire someone else to come up against him. But fighting one's own duels was unknown.

Might the duchess find it in poor taste? Or was it the sort of daring originality she looked for in him -

'As I'm sure Lord Michael would agree,' Horn finished complacently.

Lord Michael looked up at the sound of his name. 'What?' he said inelegantly.

Laughing, Lady Helena tapped his shoulder with her pomander, and Horn's clear grey eye fixed on him. It gave Michael a sudden distaste for the poached whiting he'd been eating.

'Helena,' Michael demanded testily of the young lady with the pomander ball, 'can't you learn to control your pet?'

The duchess's silvery laughter was all the reward he needed for what he considered a laudable, indeed a magnanimous, rein on his temper.

It vexed Alec not to be able to provoke St Vier into betting on which barge was going to overturn first. He had the odds all figured out, considering the way those people were carrying on. 'Look', tie insisted patiently, over his own knowledge that St Vier never bet anyone on anything, 'I'll make it very simple for you. If you think of -'

But a sennet of trumpets, well coordinated by the master of the fireworks, drowned Alec out. Amongst the barges servants hastened to put out all their torches at once. The barges rocked wildly as they did so; the musicians, less well bred than their betters, swore. The backwash from the bobbing boats slapped at the shore. Laughter shivered up from the water. Then, abruptly, all was still as the first of the fireworks exploded against the sky.

It burst over them as a blue star, filling the sky with fiery petals for one awesome moment before beginning its lazy disintegration in point by point of blistering fire. On both sides of the river there was a hush as its sparks trickled down into the waiting blackness, leaving a ghostly trail of smoke that vanished even as they stared.

In the pause before the next one, Richard turned to his friend. But Alec's eyes hadn't moved from the empty sky. His face was a mask of blind desire.

Some local people had joined them on the rampart above the river - tradespeople, not scholars. They came in couples, courting, maybe, leaning close together with their arms around each other's waists. Alec never noticed them. Gold and green washed across his face, as fiery garlands were hung across the sky.

Now a shrill whistle split the air; some people behind them jumped. Into the silent breach budded a knot of scarlet flame. Slowly it blossomed, and slowly dissolved into a host of tendrils, a flowering-tree of a flower, with a golden heart that emerged, pulsing, at its centre. For long slow seconds all the landscape was drenched in scarlet. In those red moments Richard heard Alec give one passionate sigh, and saw him raise both his hands to bathe them in the glow.

The boom and snap of the fireworks, echoing from bank to bank, made it hard to catch footsteps. Richard was only aware of the newcomer when he felt the subtle disturbance of cloth at his side. His hand snaked down and caught the intruder's wrist, poised where most gentlemen kept their purses. Without looking down he pinched it savagely between the bones. Then he turned slowly to find out who was making the controlled gurgle of pain.

'Oh,' said Nimble Willie, smiling up at him weakly but winningly, 'I didn't know it was you.'

Richard let go of his arm, and watched him massage the nerve. The little thief was as slight as a child, and his face, though peaky, was guileless. His speciality was housebreaking. Richard was sorry to have hurt his crucial hand, but Willie was philosophical. 'You fooled me, Master St Vier,' he said, 'in those naffy clothes. I thought you were a banker. Never mind, though; it's just as good I've found you. I've got some news you might want to have.'

'All right,' said Richard. 'You may as well get a look at the fireworks while you're here.'

Willie lifted his eyes, then shrugged. 'What's the point? It's just coloured lights.'

Richard waited for the thrill of the next to be over before answering, 'They're devilish expensive, Willie; they must be good for something.'