Swordpoint (17 page)

Chapter XVIII

When the door opened Richard stayed where he was, sitting in the chair opposite. The cat had tolerated his steady stroking of her for almost an hour; but when his lap tensed she jumped off it, and darted over to the man coming in.

'Hello, Richard,' said Alec. 'What a surprise: you're awake, and it isn't even noon yet.'

He looked terrible: clothes wrinkled, face unshaven; eyes within their dark circles a particularly malevolent shade of green. He stood in the middle of the room, refusing to sit down, trying hard not to sway. The door swung shut behind him.

Richard said, 'Well, I went to bed early.' If Alec didn't want to be touched, he wasn't going to force it. It was enough for him to see that Alec was on his feet, and whole. Alec's face was unmarked, and his tone as light as ever, though his voice was thick with sleeplessness.

Alec said, 'I hear you bungled Horn's job.' -

'Where did you hear that?'

'Straight from the horse's... mouth. Godwin's not dead.'

'I'm a swordsman, not an assassin. He didn't say to kill Godwin, he said to challenge him. I did. Someone else took the challenge; I killed him.'

'Naturally.'

'I don't see what you're fussing about it for; Horn must have been satisfied, or he wouldn't have - Alec!' Richard stared harder, trying to see beneath the shakily composed exterior. 'Did you escape}'

But Alec only smiled scornfully. 'Escape? Me? I couldn't escape from a haystack. I leave that kind of thing to you. No, he let me go when he found you'd fought the challenge. In the name of honour or something. You understand these people so much better than I do. I think' - Alec yawned - 'he didn't like me.' He stretched his arms up over his head; high in the air the jewels flashed rainbows over his hands.

Richard's breath caught with a tearing sound.

'Oh.' Alec pulled his cuffs back into place. 'I'm afraid I've lost one of your rings. The rose. His so-called swordsmen took it. Maybe you can bill him for it. God, these clothes stink! I haven't changed them for three days. I'm going to roll them into a ball and drop them out of the window for Marie. Then I'm going to bed. I kept trying to sleep in the carriage, but it didn't have any springs, and then every time I was about to drop off I thought I smelt civet. I spent most of the trip with my head out of the window. And then they made me walk from the bridge! The near bridge, not the far one, at least, but even so...."

Everyone in Riverside knew what shackle marks looked like. Richard followed him to bed, and later on he tried to kiss them. But Alec wrenched his wrists away.

'What else did he do?' Richard demanded harshly.

'Nothing! What more do you want?'

'Did he-'

'He didn't do anything, Richard, just leave me alone!'

But late that night, when Alec was drunk and excited and no longer cared, Richard kissed the marks again, and thought of Lord Horn.

The swordsman's business kept him out late the next day. When he came back he expected to find Alec asleep: Alec had been out of bed that morning at dawn, despite his late ordeal. But to his surprise a fire was blazing in the hearth, and Alec was kneeling in front of it. His loose hair, unbraided and unclasped, curtained his face like a temple mystery. With his black robe and long limbs he looked like a child's image of a wizard, peering into the mysteries of the fire. But he was busy doing something: with a shock Richard realised that Alec was tearing pages out of a book, carefully and methodically feeding them to the flames. He did not look up when St Vier shut the door, or when he took a few steps into the room.

Afraid to startle him, Richard said, 'Alec. I'm back.' 'Are you?' said Alec dreamily. The page he was holding burst into flame; his eyes were fixed on the blaze. His face was lit to flatness like an idol's mask, his eyes two dark slits. 'Did you have a nice time?'

'It was all right. What are you burning?'

Alec turned the book's spine around, as though he needed to be reminded of the title. 'On the Causes of Nature,' he said. 'I don't need it anymore.'

It had been his gift; but Richard didn't give gifts to hold onto them. He stretched out before the fire, glad to-be home. 'I thought it would take you longer to memorise this one. You haven't even worn the words off the binding yet.'

'I don't need it anymore,' Alec repeated. 'I know everything now.'

Something in the careful way Alec was taking hold of each page should have alerted him already. St Vier sprang out of his chair and spun Alec around by the shoulder.

'Stop that,' Alec said with mild annoyance. 'You're hurting me.' He didn't resist the fingers prying wide his eyelids. He looked calmly at Richard with eyes that were like two matched emeralds, with only a speck of black to mar each one.

'God!' Richard's grip tightened. 'You're sotted on Delight!"

The figured lips curved. 'Of course. Am I supposed to be surprised? It's excellent stuff, Richard; you should have some.'

St Vier recoiled involuntarily, although his grip held. 'No I shouldn't. I hate what the stuff does. It makes you stupid, and clumsy.'

'You're just being stuffy. I have some right here -'

‘No. Alec, how - when did you start doing this?'

'At University.' The drug intensified the languor of his aristocratic drawl. 'Harry and I, doing experiments. Taking notes. You could take notes for me.'

'I can't,' Richard said.

'No, it's easy. Just write down what I say-----We're going to do a book. It will influence generations to come.'

Richard held tight to his shoulder. 'Tell me where you got it. How much did you take?'

Alec waved his hand vaguely. 'Why, would you like some?'

'No, I would not like some. How often do you do this?' It was stupid of him never to have considered it before. He'd thought he knew Alec, knew his habits and his ways, even when he wasn't there___

Alec looked at him complacently. 'Not often. Not for a long time. I'm occupied with... other things. You look so worried, Richard. I saved you some.' 'That's very kind of you,' Richard said dryly. 'We'll just have to wait it out, then. With other things.' He carefully placed his arm around his lover's neck, tasted the sweetness of the drug on his tongue. With his other hand he slipped the book from Alec's fingers, laying it down away from the hearth. Then he led him into the bedroom. He wasn't much good to talk to, but his body was pliant and sensitive as Richard undressed him. 'Why are you doing that?' Alec asked, more than once, as Richard undid another button, another lace. 'So you won't be cold,' Richard answered; and later, 'So I can kiss it. There. Like that.'

Alec chuckled happily. 'I appreciate that. I appreciate you.' 'Thanks.' Richard tickled him gently. 'I appreciate you...." Then Alec stiffened and drew back. 'What's that?' he cried. 'Probably me. My heartbeat. Nothing, don't worry...." 'They're watching me, Richard, they're watching me!' The period of serenity had passed, and the nervousness Richard had hoped to circumvent was upon him. 'No one's watching.' But Alec pulled out of his arms and spread himself before the window, his clothes half-off him, hanging by ribbons and half-sleeves. He was pressing his palms to the glass, trying to cover it with his spread fingers, while his eyes fixed on the sky above them. 'The stars are watching me,' he declared in a voice of terrible pain. 'Make them stop!' 'They're not watching. Why should they?' 'God, make them stop. They're watching me!' Richard interposed himself between Alec and the window, and pulled the shutters closed. 'It's all right now. They can't see you.' Alec clung to him, burying his face in Richard's shoulder. 'I tried to get away-----Stone and Griffin and I, we were so sure... we had the calculations, Richard, they were right, I know they were... it didn't matter about me, but they needed that stupid degree... what's going to happen to Harry's sister?' he cried wildly.

'It's all right..."

'No, you don't understand - the chancellors tore it up! I wouldn't believe them, I didn't think they'd do that___'

'The University chancellors?'

'Doctor Pig-Nose.'

'And that's why they kicked you out?' He'd always suspected something like this.

'No. Not me. I'm all right. It's you I'm worried for___

'Not me, Alec.'

'... Richard? You have to protect me. I was safe in Rhetoric-do you know what that is? - in History, Geometry, but consider the angle of the sun: the stars describe an arc without a tangent -but they're watching, all the time they're watching me - '

He started violently at the sound of knocking in the hall. Richard held him tighter. Was he trying to destroy himself for that, because the University had rejected his work? He must have put a lot of faith in the place to begin with. If it had been his escape from his nobility, it was understandable. And if he were not noble, the school must have been his last chance....

'You're all right now,' Richard repeated mechanically. 'That's all over. No one can hurt you now.'

'Don't let them find me. You don't know what it's like, knowing they won't touch you, just your friends, and everybody thinking I'm some kind of spy for the nobles - all I wanted was to-‘

The knocking was fierce, and it was at their door. A thought came to Richard, and he tucked Alec in the blankets. 'Alec,' he said carefully, 'stay here, don't move. It's all right, there's just someone at the door. I'll be back soon.'

He waited until he'd left the bedroom to take up his sword.

Richard flung the door back in one sharp motion, blade already poised. It was a woman standing there, in a velvet cloak.

'Well,' said Ginnie Vandall, observing the sword, 'you're a little on edge.'

'Just being careful.'

'You should be. Are you alone?'

'In fact, I'm not. Can it wait 'til morning?'

She took the lowered blade as an invitation to enter, sweeping past him into the middle of the room. 'That's up to you, my dear. I'll make it short.'

'It can wait, then.'

'Look,' she said; 'I haven't come here alone at this hour to get turned away because you didn't want to put your clothes back on.'

He put the sword down. 'All right. What is it?'

'It's two men found dead at the bottom of Ganser Steps not an hour ago. The Watch found them, and the stupid bastards can't figure out why they were killed expertly with a sword. Neither can I. It was that neat upper stroke through the heart, and sooner or later someone's going to point out that you're the only one who can do that more than once.'

'They're supposed to.'

She stared at him angrily. 'Those men weren't Riverside. You're not a nobleman, you can't run around the city picking off whoever you want without a contract and expect no one to care. If you're going to commit your little murders, be careful how close to the Bridge you leave the corpses. We don't want the Watch coming in here looking for trouble.'

'They won't. And I had to make sure there was no mistake. Are you pretending, or don't you know who those men were?'

Her stare lost some of its hardness. 'Oh, Richard,' she sighed. 'I was hoping you weren't going to say that.'

'It's all right,' he said. 'The lord who set them after Alec isn't going to come forward and demand justice for them. He isn't the type. I really don't see what you're worried about. No one's going to harrow Riverside over a couple of bravos. And I've just made sure that that kind of thing doesn't happen again. Hugo should be glad.' He went to the door and held it open for her. 'Good night, Ginnie.'

'Wait,' she said, her hand raised to her throat. 'It doesn't have anything to do with Riverside, or with Hugo or any of the others. You've got to be more careful. They can't let you go around like that, not outside this district.' The hand lowered from her throat, glided down over the velvet. 'If it comes to an Inquiry, my dear, you'll hang, no matter what this lord's done to you.'

'Thank you. Good night.'

She moved closer, not to the door but to him, looking into his face. The shadows picked out the lines etched by her mouth and the corners of her eyes. 'I know what I'm doing,' she said, her voice as hard as her face. 'I've taken care of Hugo, and Hal Lynch, and Tom Cook before him. You don't want to die rich, that's fine with me. You want to take up with people who hate you, that's fine too. Just don't ignore what I say.'

'I understand,' he said to get rid of her. She wasn't a nervous talker; she had kept her eyes on him, and hadn't noticed the ruined book on the floor, or the mess in the fireplace.

'Richard,' said Ginnie, 'you don't.'

Her arms lifted slowly, and he let her fingers twine through his hair, pressing the back of his skull until his lips were bent to hers.

Richard had never actually kissed Ginnie Vandall before. Even in the heat of her moment she was expert and careful. The softness of her lips and the sharpness of her teeth fluttered down to the base of his spine. He shifted closer to her, catching the heat of her hipbone jutting into his thigh, her breasts flattening against his chest. He pressed his palm into the small of her back, parting his lips to reach her, when she pulled violently away.

The recoil jolted him backwards. He stared at her, still breathing deeply. Ginnie wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. 'Fool's Delight,' she said in disgust. 'That's something new for you. Is that what it takes these days?'

He shook his head. 'I don't do that.'

She glanced toward the back room, but didn't say Alec's name. Ginnie pulled her cloak around her and shrugged. 'Good luck.'

He stood for a moment listening to her feet going down the stairs. He heard the sound of another woman's voice: Marie, who must have let her in.

Then a floorboard creaked close behind him. Alec had drifted into the room, unnaturally soft-footed. His shirt still hung loose around his waist.

'I thought I heard something,' he explained. He seemed to have forgotten about the stars.

'Someone came to see me,’ Richard said; but Alec wasn't listening. He stalked the leather-bound book where it lay, just within range of the fire's dying glow, its gold tooling coursing with reflected light.

Alec crouched down. His clever fingers lifted the book from the floor, smoothing the crumpled pages, stroking the grime from its cover. He put the decorated leather to his cheek. The book rested against his face like a beautiful ornament, his eyes large and dark above it. His bare collarbones and shoulders framed its bottom edge.