Swordpoint (16 page)

'Don't talk,' Michael said.

'Let him,' said Richard.

The Master's teeth were gritted, but he tried to untwist his lips to smile. 'If you're good enough, this is how it ends.'

Michael said, 'Are you telling me to give it up?'

'No,' St Vier answered over Vincent Applethorpe's hissing breath. 'He's talking about the challenge. I'm sorry - you either know it or you don't.'

'Shall I get a surgeon?' Michael asked, clutching at the world he was master of.

'He doesn't need one,' St Vier said. Again he bent his dark head. 'Master - thank you. I do enjoy a challenge.'

Vincent Applethorpe laughed in triumph, and the blood spattered everything. The marks of his fingers were still white on St Vier's wrists when he lowered the corpse to the floor.

Richard wiped his hands on the young lord's cloak, and covered the dead man with it. Without quite understanding how they had got there, Michael found himself standing across the room, facing the swordsman's commanding presence.

'You have the right to know,' Richard said, 'it was Lord Horn set me on. He won't be glad you're still alive, but I've fought your champion and I consider my obligation discharged. He may try again with someone else; I suggest you leave the city for a while.' He caught the expected clenching of Michael's fists. 'Don't try to kill Horn,' he said. 'I'm sure you're good enough to do it, but his life is about to become complicated; it would be better if you left.' The young man only stared at him, blue-green eyes hot and bright in his white face. 'Don't try to kill me either; you're surely not good enough for that.'

'I wasn't going to,' Michael said.

Calmly, St Vier was collecting his own belongings. 'I'll report the death,' he said, 'and send someone to look after it. Was he married?'

'I... don't know.'

'Go on.' The swordsman put Michael's sword and jacket in his hands. 'You shouldn't stay.'

The door closed behind him, and there was nowhere to go but down the dark stairs.

Outside it was still early, a warm spring night. The sky was that perfect turquoise that sets off the first scattering of stars. Michael shivered. He had left his cloak upstairs, he was going to be cold without it - but it was no use, was it - he passed his hand over his face in an attempt to clear his thoughts, and felt a hand close around his wrist.

All the violence of the past hour exploded in his body like fireworks. He couldn't really see what he was doing through the red-gold flare, but he felt his fist connect with flesh, his body twisting like a whirlwind, heard a long drawn-out howl like the centre of a storm - and then a sharp thumping noise that heralded the most glorious set of fireworks yet, before night fell without stars.

Chapter XVII

When his vision cleared he was in a coach. His hands and feet were tied, and the curtains were drawn. His head ached, and he was thirsty. Considering how soon he would likely be dead it shouldn't matter, but he badly wanted a drink. The jouncing of the carriage over cobblestones was intolerable. Cobblestones -that meant they were somewhere on Hertimer Street, going up towards the Hill.

'Hey!' he shouted. The reverberations in his skull made him wish he hadn't; but at least he could make some trouble for someone. Something terrible had just happened, which was in some way his fault, and shouting might stave it off. 'Hey, stop this thing at once!'

The only answer he got - or was like to get - was savage pounding on the roof of the carriage. He felt like a handsomely trussed-up pea rolling around in the centre of a drum. He'd meant to eat when he got back from Applethorpe's -

Something in his brain tried to warn his thoughts away, but there was no stopping the flood that broke through. The image struck in his stomach first, so that he thought he was going to spew - but then the pain rose and took over his breathing, knotting the muscles of his throat and face ___He would not come before Horn weeping. That at least he could withhold. He had been disarmed by his captors; but there were other ways to kill a man. He'd wrestled, and learned some of them. Never mind what St Vier had said; St Vier hadn't known how soon he would be facing his enemy. Or had he? Michael was amazed at Horn's effrontery: presumably the carriage had been left as a backup in case St Vier failed. Perhaps Horn meant to bed him before setting him up for another challenge.... Erotic, violent visions wound through the labyrinth of pain and all the emotions he'd never had to feel before, the pain and grief and fury weaving themselves into a strangely seductively soothing trance. Rapt in it, he only noticed the carriage had stopped when he heard the squeak of the opening gate.

As it clattered into the yard he came fully alert. His breathing was quick, his awareness of his body seemed supernaturally heightened. The pain was there, but also the strength and coordination. When they opened the door he would be ready for them.

But they didn't open the door. The carriage pulled up to what he supposed was the house's main entrance. He could hear his captors getting down, the muffled growl of voices issuing orders. Then there was silence. They weren't going to leave him here all night, were they?

When the carriage door opened it heralded a light so bright that his eyes blinked and watered.

'Dear me,' said a woman's voice out of the dazzling nimbus. 'Was it necessary to be quite so thorough?'

'Well, your ladyship, he did try to kill me.'

'All the same... Untie his feet, please, Grayson.'

He didn't even look down at the man kneeling over his ankles. The Duchess Tremontaine stood framed by the little doorway, in full evening dress, holding up an inelegant iron lantern.

Finally, he was too bruised to care what she thought of him and his sense of style. 'What are you doing here?' he asked hoarsely.

She smiled, her voice like long, cool slopes of snow. 'This is my house. My people brought you here. Do you think you can stand up?'

He stood up, and sat down again swiftly.

'Well, I am not a nurse,' she said with the same cool sweetness. 'Grayson, will you see that Lord Michael is made comfortable indoors? My lord, I will attend you when you are rested.'

Then the colour, the sweetness, the perfume were gone, and he was left to the unpleasant task of imposing his will on his own unruly person.

Several ages seemed to pass as Lord Michael worked his way up through strata of dirt, fatigue, hunger and thirst. Diane's servants had put him in a handsome room with a hot bathtub and a set table. The room was lit by fire and candlelight. Curtains of heavy red velvet were drawn, so that he could not see which way the room faced. The red hangings, the mellow light, the sense of enclosure, all made him feel unreasonably safe and cared-for, like a child wrapped up in a blanket in someone's arms.

The terrible pain of what had happened lay hard and bright at the centre of his physical contentment. The memory came and went, like the ebb and flow of waves* but with no predictable pattern. When Michael was a little boy, there was a painting on the wall of his home that he was terrified of: it showed the spirit of a dead woman rising from the tomb, her baby in her arms. He had been afraid even to pass the room where it was. Whether he wanted to or not, he would think of it at the worst moments: in the dark, going up the stairs; so he started making himself think of it all the time, until it became so familiar that he could contemplate it without a tremor. He wasn't quite ready for that yet, not while the confusions and strangeness still enfolded him. Before he went bathing in the events of Applethorpe's death he had to know where the dry land was.

He was sunk in an easy chair before the fire; but at the click of the door-latch he jumped like a cat. It was not the door he had come in by. This was a smaller one cut in the red wall.

Diane said, 'Please, sit down. May I join you?'

Mutely he indicated a chair. She helped herself to some cherry cordial from the array of decanters, and seated herself across from him. She had changed her clothes: as if to prove that this was indeed her home, she wore a flowing house-dress of soft blue silk. Her loose curls tumbled over her shoulders like the crests of waves.

'Please don't be too angry with Asper,' she said. 'You upset him rather badly the night of my little party. He is a vain man, and proud, and lecherous - you shouldn't find him so hard to understand.'

For a moment he made the duchess fear for her personal possessions. But his fingers only left a dent in the pewter flagon at his side. She continued, 'You should have come to me, as soon as you suspected he was up to something.' Michael still cared enough for her esteem not to want to tell her that he hadn't known. The duchess sighed. 'Poor Asper! He isn't very subtle, and he isn't very clever. He was pestering some young woman of Tony's-----By the way, Lord Michael, did you kill St Vier?'

'No. He killed my fighting-master.'

'I see.'

'I am not the swordsman you would have me, madam.'

She smiled a bewitching, knowing smile. 'Now, why should you say that?'

'I'll never stand a chance against him,' he said bitterly, staring not at the beautiful woman, but into the dregs of the fire. 'Everyone knew that. Applethorpe was humouring me.' Another pain, a little sharp sliver that he'd borne since the challenge and almost forgotten in the weight of the other. 'He knew I'd never make a swordsman.'

'Once in a generation there comes a swordsman like St Vier. Your teacher never said you were that one.' Sunk in his feelings, he did not respond. But her voice was no longer light. 'But, for St Vier, there is nothing more. It is all he wants out of life, and probably all he'll ever get. That's not what you want; not all. It just comes closer than most things.'

He looked at her, not really seeing her. He felt as though his skin had been peeled back with a scalpel. 'What I want...'

'... I can give you,' she said softly.

‘Fine-if I'm to be Horn!'

He heard the harsh clang of metal, and realised that he was standing up, and that he had thrown the tankard across the room. The duchess hadn't stirred. 'Madam,' he said stiffly. 'You chose to embroil yourself in my affairs. I hope it has given you pleasure. I believe all my desires ceased to be a matter for discussion between us some time ago.'

She chuckled richly. He was appalled to find himself thinking of strawberries and cream. 'There you are,' she said. 'I wonder if you men have any idea of how insulting it is to women when you assume that all we can offer is our bodies?'

I am sorry.' He looked up and met her eyes. 'It is as insulting as to have it thought that's all we want.'

'Don't apologise. I made you think it.'

'You made me think a great many things this winter.'

'Yes,' she said. 'Shall I apologise?'

'No.'

'Good,' she said. 'Then I shall go on making you think. I know what you want. You want to be a man of power. I'm going to give you that.'

His face unfroze; he was able to smile his charming smile. 'Will it take long?'

'Yes,' she said. 'But it won't seem long.'

'I want to be your lover,' Michael said.

'Yes,' said the duchess, and opened the red silk door to her chamber.

Inside it he paused. 'Lord Ferris,' he said.

'Ah, Ferris.' Her voice was low; it made him shiver to hear it. 'Well; Ferris should have told me he knew Lord Horn was planning to kill you.'

He seemed to float - as though he never touched her body, but was held suspended in some directionless space whose charts only she held. All pride, all fear were gone from him. Even the desire for it not to end was swallowed by the overwhelming present. His vaunted sophistication gave way to something new; and in that infinite space he rose and fell in the same moment into a world's end of fireworks reflected in a bottomless river.

'Michael.'

The tip of her finger touched his ear, but all he did was sigh. 'Michael, you're going to have to leave the city now. For two weeks, maybe three.' He turned over and kissed her mouth, and felt a roaring in his ears. But her lips, while still soft, were not pliant, and he drew back to let her speak. 'I would like to send you out of the country. There are some things I would like you to see. The people of Chartil respect a man who can use a sword, especially a nobleman. Will you go?'

His hands refused to leave her flesh, but he said over them, 'I will.'

'It must be now,' she said. 'The ship sails in three hours' time with the dawn tide.'

It was a shock to him, but he mastered it, stroking her skin for the deliciousness of it, for the memory, without arousing the honeyed longing that would not let him go.

His clothes were set out in the red room. She followed him there, trailing silk and instructions. He should be tired, but his body tingled. It was the feeling he got after lessons - Like a club, the memory struck him hard. Bent over, strapping on his useless sword, he said nothing.

The duchess sat, smiling, swinging one white foot, watching him cover his collar bones. 'I have something to give you,' she said. He thought of roses, gloves and handkerchiefs. 'You will keep it for me, and no one can take it from you unless you offer it. I am convinced you will not offer it. It is a secret. My secret.'

Fully dressed, he kissed her hand formally, the way he had that first afternoon at Lady Halliday's. 'Ah', she said; 'I was right about you then; and you were right about me. You see, it's true, Michael. Those men who died, Lynch and de Maris, they were not hired by the Duke of Karleigh. I hired Lynch - and de Maris got in the way. I needed to teach Karleigh a lesson, to tell him I was serious about a matter he thought I was joking about. He never took me seriously enough. Karleigh hired St Vier. His man won... but Karleigh - Karleigh knows he is going to lose in this matter, because I stand against him. If the duke is wise, he will stay in the country this spring.'

That was all she was going to tell him, and then trust him to figure the rest out for himself. He didn't feel clever or triumphant, after all. Excited, maybe, and a little frightened.

The duchess reached up and touched his rough cheek. 'Good bye, Michael,' she said. 'If all goes well, you will come back soon.'

There was a private side door, this time, for him to leave Tremontaine House by, and a chilly walk before the dawn, home to give his orders and depart. His sword hung at his side again, a heavy weight, but good protection in the dark.