Swordpoint (22 page)

'I didn't think you'd admit me.'

'I have left standing orders to admit you.' She lifted her cordial glass; the crystal chimed melodiously off the gold tray. 'I suppose you're out of money again?'

'You suppose right.' His tone mirrored hers. 'But that's not why I came.' He released from the folds of his robe the one rich thing about him, glowing on his finger like a heart of fire. 'Look what I've brought.'

'Goodness!' The duchess raised her fine eyebrows. 'Now how did that manage to find its way back to you?'

'It doesn't matter,' he scowled. 'You really shouldn't let it out of the house.'

'You said you didn't want it any more. The scene is clearly imprinted on my memory: I can see it when I close my eyes.' She did so. 'I can see it when I open my eyes, too: you were just as badly dressed, although of course you were drier.'

'I don't think I have ever been wetter. You should get someone to do something about all that rain.'

'Sit down,' she said in a friendly tone that did not conceive of disobedience. She patted a cushion at her side. 'If you're going to trust me, you'll have to tell me everything.'

'I'm not going to trust you.'

'Then why did you come, my dear?'

The knuckles of his hand whitened, his fingers storming around the ring. She'd never managed to teach him to hide his thoughts, which had a marked predilection for denying reality - when he was aware of its existence.

At last he sat, arms tightly clasped around his knees, staring rigidly at the fire. 'All right,' he said. 'I'll tell you what I know if you'll do the same.'

'1 already know what I know,' the duchess said sweetly. 'Why don't you dry yourself off while I send for some little iced cakes?'

Chapter XXIII

It was getting harder and harder for Willie to find St Vier these days. Which was good, in a way: Master St Vier had always been fair to him, and was a great sword; Willie wished him well in this adventure. But he resented having to consider leaving messages for him with Marie: there was nothing and no one Nimble Willie couldn't find; that was known, and was going to stay known. Still, as the shadows of the afternoon got longer, it began to look as though he'd miss his mark entirely, which was bad for his reputation and his purse - plus it would annoy St Vier to miss a message. Disconsolately, Willie turned his feet toward Marie's; after all, there was still the chance St Vier might be home, although it was less likely these days. His route brought him past Rosalie's tavern. He decided to stop in for a consoling drink.

He couldn't believe his eyes, so he rubbed them, but there was still the dark head of the swordsman. No one was sitting near him, but he seemed unperturbed. He was eating stew.

Willie sidled up to Lucas Tanner. 'What's he doing here?'

'I don't know,' Tanner rumbled, 'but I wish to hell he'd leave.'

'Trouble?' Willie looked ready to sprint.

Tanner shrugged. 'There's a price on him, you know that. I'm not interested myself, but you never know who is. Makes people edgy; hard to have a good time.'

Willie scanned the room for unreliable strangers. There was a man he didn't know talking to one of the women, but he looked pretty drunk, and harmless.

'I had a price on my head once,' Willie said wistfully. 'I was pretty young, see, and nervous. It was some old guy with a really nice cane, not much bigger than me. I felt pretty bad after.'

'How did they find out it was you?'

'Somebody saw me. It was up on Gatling Street, in the city. They just about got me, too, but I slipped away and got over the Bridge, and didn't I just keep close for a while after that!' Tanner nodded. 'I just about starved; no way of getting money for a bit. But nobody turned me in; we don't do things like that down here.'

'Maybe. Maybe not. Hard to catch him, anyway, without a troop. But it may come to that.'

Willie laughed. 'A troop? You're crazy. They'd be ankle-deep in dead cats and rotten eggs before they were halfway down the Loop. Not to mention thrown stones,' he added reflectively, his innocent face lit with soft pleasure.

'You want a riot, you can have one. Not but I wouldn't fight if it came to that; but why won't he just leave town! Make everything easier.'

Willie nodded over at the man peacefully eating his supper. 'You tell him.'

'I'm no friend of his..." Tanner muttered.

'Wouldn't matter,' said Willie with cheerful wickedness; 'he'd kill you anyway!'

Nevertheless he approached the swordsman carefully. It was the opposite of stalking prey: you definitely wanted him to know you were coming.

Richard saw him, and saw that Willie actually wanted to speak to him, unlike most people these days. 'Hello, Willie,' he said, and swung a stool out for him. Richard didn't waste time with preliminaries: idle conversation in public places was not what anyone wanted him for. 'What's the word?'

'You won't believe who I saw,' Willie said chattily, 'uptown and dressed like nothing going!'

Richard's heart chose that moment to become athletic; but he managed to match Willie's tone: 'Oh? Who?'

'Kathy Blount! Hermia's girl, that was. You remember her.

'Yes, I do.' His pulse settled back to its plodding motion.

'She says she'd like to see you again sometime. You've got the luck, haven't you?'

He had put the Tremontaine job out of his mind, being more concerned with the business at hand, and not having heard from them in weeks, not since their 'Delay'. It might not be a bad idea now: give him something to do, and enough money to see out the summer. He'd have to be more cautious slipping out of Riverside, but he could manage.

'Says she'll be at the Dog tomorrow night, say, if you're free.'

'Thanks, Willie.'

The swordsman's lack of surprise at his news had not escaped Nimble Willie. Still, he leaned over to Richard, lowering his voice: 'Look, I think it's a trap. Sure, the Dog's in Riverside, but only just barely. You don't want to meet anyone anywhere for a while, Master St Vier, not when they know you're coming.'

'Maybe.' It was true, after all; the Brown Dog tavern stood closest to the Bridge. Its clientele consisted almost solely of city people looking for thrills, and Riversiders eager to fleece them. It was within shouting distance of the Watch. But where else could Katherine meet him safely? He had said he would help her if she were in trouble; it might not even be the job at all. 'Was that all the message?' he asked.

'Not quite. She said something funny about a ring.'

The ruby was gone, gone with Alec. If they needed it now they'd have to ask him for it. 'What about it?'

'She said, she knows where it is now. That's all.'

Willie saw with nervousness how St Vier's fist clenched on the table. But the swordsman's face remained calm. Willie was glad he only carried the messages.

In the end, Richard chose to go. He said to Marie on his way out, 'Look, there's a chance I won't be coming back tonight. If you hear anything certain, take what I owe you out of the rosewood chest, and do what you want with the rest of the stuff.'

She didn't ask where he was going. These days she liked to be able to tell people who came asking that she didn't know.

He hadn't eaten any supper yet; the best thing about the Dog was its food. When he was new to the city he'd gone there a lot; it was a good place for young people of all professions to pick up work. He and Alec had taken to dropping in every few weeks: Alec liked the food, and liked dicing with the city people because they bet high and they were even clumsier cheaters than he was. But drunken young men were always challenging Richard there to impress their friends; one night one of them had annoyed Alec, and Richard had ended up killing him, putting a strain on St Vier's relationship with the tavern keeper.

No one seemed to be following him as he took the long way round. The tavern shone like sunrise at the end of the street, its doorway alight with beacons like any uptown establishment. The light showed no one waiting for him by the entrance. Over it hung the brown dog, a large painted wood carving that bore no resemblance to any living breed.

Inside was just as well lit. The place had a carnival atmosphere, fevered and bright. Richard felt as though he'd stepped outside Riverside into another world. Whores were talking animatedly with well-dressed men, completely ignoring the gaudy ones whose hands shuffled and reshuffled decks of cards, who might be their neighbours or brothers. A couple of nobles in half-masks leaned against the wall, trying to look detached and amused, their eyes darting here and there about the room, glittering in the mask-slits, their naked hands playing on the pommels of the swords they wore for security. Richard thought he would pass unnoticed amongst them, but he saw how the card-players deliberately flattened their eyes against seeing him, how the whores turned their backs and raised their volume. Riversiders didn't turn each other in; they just stopped knowing you. That way was easier. It told him he was recognised, though, and warned him that not everyone might be so considerate.

He didn't see Katherine, which further roused his suspicion. His sword hung, a solid weight, at his side. He touched it under his cloak, and found the tavern keeper edging up to him.

Harris had his perpetual harried, unctuous expression. 'Now, sir, if you will recall an adventure I would not like repeated___'

He rarely spoke in sentences, but in insinuation; people said he had started as a pimp.

'I'll be careful,' Richard promised. 'Who's here tonight?'

Harris shrugged. 'The usual..." he said vaguely. 'You understand, I don't want trouble....'

Something made Richard turn around. He was not entirely surprised to see Katherine coming through the doorway. He waited until she saw him, then moved to a table with a good command of the room, brushing past a pretty-boy lolling in the lap of a heavily powdered man who was feeding him whisky in small glasses.

Katherine followed, ridiculously relieved that Richard was here already. He moved through the room with careful assurance, betraying no sign of nervousness, although watchfulness glowed off him like magic. It almost surprised her that the entire room didn't rise up and follow him: Richard at work was more than impressive, he was magnetic. He wanted to be sought after for his skill; but the nobles desired him for his performance.

She couldn't keep her hands from twisting together, so she hid them under the table. Absurdly, Richard said, 'Thank you for coming.'

She said, 'You weren't at the Old Bell last week.'

'Was I supposed to be?'

'Not if you didn't know. Of course he didn't tell you.'

'Who? Willie?' Her silence made it plain. 'Alec'

A young woman cruised by their table, and smiled into Katherine's eyes like an old friend. Richard's hand moved a fraction on the table, ready to take action if she needed it. But Katherine shook her head. 'I can't stand it in here,' she said fretfully. 'Can we go out?'

'Where?' Richard asked. 'Shall we go deeper into Riverside? You don't mind?'

'It doesn't matter.' There was a dull edge of hysteria to her voice that made his taut nerves quiver.

'Katherine.' He would have taken her hand if he could. 'Were you sent here, or did you come yourself? If it's business, we'll get it over quickly and you can go.'

She glanced quickly behind her. 'I came,' she said. 'On my own.'

Anger surged and hardened in him. With a cause to form around, his nerves twisted together into a strong cord of purpose. It was too long since he had had a real fight, too long that he had been sitting, waiting.

'It's bad, then,' he said quietly, without any gentleness. 'Ferris has done you no good. Never mind. You don't have to tell me about it. I said I would help you and I will.'

He couldn't see his own face, set and white with a rage whose coolness his eyes betrayed by being too wide, too blue, too fixed.

It was a look she had seen only once before in him, and it froze the life in her bones. 'Richard,' she whispered, 'please -'

'It's all right,' he said calmly. 'We'll leave here, go somewhere else where we can talk. Do you need a place to stay? Don't worry. You should have known I'd come.'

'Come, then,' she echoed, rising from the table. She was shaking with chill. She wanted to run, to push her way out of the tavern, to flinch from the cold swordsman walking beside her. She took his arm, and together they made a way past the card-players and revellers, out of the doorway into the orange light burning a hole in the dark street.

'There,' he said; 'better?'

She held him tighter as a shadow fell across them. Behind them the door had opened, blocked by dark figures. To the right, and to the left, and in front of them the shadows had become men, ringing the aura of light with solid darkness.

'Richard St Vier?'

'Yes?'

'In the name of the Council I charge you to stand -'

He flung her reeling into the darkness, but her weight had held his arm too long, and he drew his sword only as the first of the wooden staves crashed into him.

The impact staggered him back, but he did not fall. The next one drove the breath from his side. He turned blindly in a new direction, where he thought the attack might come. His eyes cleared and he saw the staff descending, glowing like a comet with pain. His cut went wild but so did the staff. The man's guard was down; Richard followed his torch-gold blade true to its mark, and heard the man cry out a moment before the thwack of another blow caught St Vier across the shoulders. His knees hit the ground, but he kept hold of his sword and was on his feet again, just like practice, only he would pay for this later. This time he saw the staff come swinging out of the darkness toward his face. He almost raised his sword to break the blow; but steel would not stand up to oak, so he ducked instead, and missed the one that caught him in the back of his legs.

There certainly were a lot of them. He fell sprawling, scraping his hands along the stone. His sword was gone - he felt for the hilt, somewhere nearby, but the cobbles seemed to be coursing with light. Not light but pain. He was seeing pain flowing like gold, like a basket full of jewels and summer fruit.