Swordpoint (8 page)

'Why not?' Richard asked, going over to the window. He looked up. 'I could get up there. Easy.' He hoisted himself onto the sill.

'It would be much easier', Alec said, 'to get a cat. We could save its life - pull a thorn out of its paw or something - and it would be forever grateful.'

Richard swung open the window and leaned out, holding on with one hand. 'You are making me giddy,' said Alec, 'and anyway, all the cats are gone. You said so yourself.'

'I'm not going to fall. But it isn't far. You could jump, and probably not break anything, if you had to. Right down to the courtyard.'

'Marie would have a fit.' You look like an idiot standing in that window. You look like you're expecting to fly away.'

Richard laughed, and jumped back down into the room. He landed badly and staggered upright. 'There!' he exclaimed. 'That's what comes of listening to you.'

'I didn't tell you to jump out of the window.'

'You're always telling me to get drunk. Well, now I've done it, and I don't like it.' He sat down hard on their only chair, assuming the pose of one who didn't intend to get up for a long time.

'Drunk on what?' Alec asked; 'the usual blood?'

'No, brandywine. Really horrible brandy. I knew I didn't like getting drunk, and now I can remember why. I keep having to remember where my feet are. I really don't like it at all. I don't see how you can stand it so often.'

'Well, I never care where my feet are. Don't tell me you let Ferris feed you horrible brandy!'

'No, I did it myself. All by myself. I thought I might like it. You're always saying I'd like it. Well, I don't like it. You were wrong.'

'You've said that', Alec said, 'twice. If you think I'm going to apologise because you can't keep track of your own feet, you're mistaken. Let's go out. I'll teach you to dice.'

'I'm drunk, not insane. I'm going to bed.'

Alec stretched on his chaise tongue like a cat, one thumb still in his book. 'Richard, why did you get drunk? Wasn't Ferris there?'

'Of course he wasn't there. Someone else was there.'

'Were they horrible to you? Are you going to kill them?'

'No, and no. God, you're bloodthirsty. I'm not going to kill anybody. I'm going to sleep. Get me anything you want for breakfast, just not fish.'

Somehow he must have got himself undressed and into bed, because suddenly there was a hand gripping his shoulder and Alec's voice saying over and over, 'Richard, Richard, wake up.' He noted crossly how slow his reaction was as he groaned and turned over, saying in a thick voice unlike his own, 'What is it?'

He hadn't closed the shutters; a dim bar of silvery moonlight fell across the bed, illuminating Alec's hand tense on the coverlet, crushing Lord Ferris's paper.

'You were snoring,' Alec drawled ingenuously; but the whiteness of his knuckles on the paper betrayed him.

'Well, I've stopped.' Richard didn't bother to argue. 'What do you think of Ferris's message?'

'I think his spelling stinks.' With the weight of the seals for ballast, Alec flipped the paper open.

There was no writing on it; only a drawing of a phoenix rising from the flames over a series of heraldic bends.

'It's a coat of arms,' Alec said grimly. 'Do you know whose?'

'Of course. I've seen it all over the city. On his banners, and carriages, and things.'

'It's Basil Halliday,' Alec said portentously, as though he hadn't answered.

'It's Basil Halliday,' Richard agreed. 'You're stealing all the blankets, and you haven't even got into bed yet.'

Somewhat frantically, Alec tucked the covers around him, and began to pace the room. 'This is the man Ferris wants you to kill?'

'Ferris or that duchess does. I haven't quite figured them out yet. He must be protecting her.'

'He can't be running errands for her. A man of his rank would no more do that than polish his own boots. Could the drawing mean that Halliday's another patron?'

'No. This is the usual way the smart ones announce a mark. I should burn that paper. Remind me in the morning.'

'Don't go to sleep,' Alec ordered.

'I don't think I__' His jaw cracked in a yawn. But he forced his eyes to stay open. 'What's the matter?' he asked. 'I've told you everything I know. Can you tell me any more? Is there something I should know?'

It was the wrong thing to say. Alec's face closed like a trap door. 'Know?' he repeated, honey and steel. 'I know enough to stay out of their way when they're playing these games. You think you're above it all, Richard - but they'll chew you up, and then you won't much care whether they swallow you or spit you out.'

Richard wanted to explain that that didn't happen to swordsmen: they took their pay for whatever the job was and went home, leaving the nobles to argue the results out amongst themselves. For the first time he seriously wondered whether Alec knew the Hill at all, not to know that. But all he said was, 'I'll be fine-if I take the job at all. I've got time to say no. But the duchess will pay for it, and Ferris will keep me out of trouble. You'll see. Maybe they'll send us up to Tremontaine until it blows over - live in a nice cottage by a stream, go fishing, keep bees... how'd you like to go to the country for a while?'

'I detest the country,' Alec said icily. 'Go back to sleep.'

St Vier closed his eyes, and finally it was dark enough. 'All right. But only because I'm feeling so agreeable. It's too bad. I'm going to feel awful in the morning.'

'Sleep in. You always feel splendid in the afternoon.'

And that is just what he did.

Chapter X

It was too soon, Lord Ferris was thinking as he mounted the street to the Halliday townhouse; too soon for Basil Halliday to know what the game was.

Katherine's errand was freshly executed. In a week, if all went well, Ferris would have the swordsman's answer, and plans for the Crescent Chancellor's mortal challenge could begin to go forward. Even if Katherine had contrived a look at the closely sealed paper she carried, Ferris was certain of her movements for the last day; and he thought she was not false to him. St Vier was no agent of Halliday's either; of that Ferris had made sure.

There was no telling what today's invitation from Lord Halliday to come and 'talk privately' meant. It was an informal note in Halliday's own hand; perhaps his secretary did not even know of it. It put Ferris on his guard, but the Dragon Chancellor of the Inner Council could not ignore a summons from its Crescent, however mysterious - and perhaps it was only a tricky piece of Council business that Halliday wanted to discuss with him before anyone else heard about it. The informal note might be just that: Halliday's secretaries had been heard to complain that their master's informalities drove them to distraction. Ferris might have to wait behind whoever else had the official appointment at this hour.

The Halliday townhouse stood alone at the top of a steep street; inconvenient, but possessed of a magnificent view. It was a house without a gate: all its gardens were at the back, overlooking the river. Ferris saw a couple of well-built men lingering about the edges of the property. It was not too soon, it seemed, for the Crescent Chancellor to have begun to worry about the danger the election put him in. He was going to be well guarded from now on. It eased Ferris's mind a little: the defence was sufficiently vague to imply that Halliday knew of no specific plan. He was well guarded. St Vier was going to have to he clever. But then, St Vier's reputation said he was. He had just better not be too clever to take the job.

Perhaps, Ferris thought, he should have timed things more tightly, given the swordsman less time to think the offer over, But Ferris had acted on an impression of St Vier at the Riverside Tavern: the swordsman had the self-respect of an artist, the vanity of a lover. Like a lover, he must be wooed; like an artist he must be flattered. Giving him time to think things over was an act of trust and respect that Ferris hoped would clinch the deal. It also wouldn't hurt for St Vier to have made up his mind long before the next set rendezvous, so that he came to it eager, straining at the bit.

Ferris found Basil Halliday in his study, surrounded by papers and half-empty cups of chocolate. Halliday's hair was mussed; he must have been running his fingers through it. There was an inkstain on his forehead to prove it. His smile on seeing Ferris was all the more charming for its preoccupation. Ferris relaxed a shade, and began to wonder what he was expected to be charmed into this time.

'What', Lord Halliday said to Ferris without preamble, 'do you think friend Karleigh is up to now?'

'The duke?' Ferris answered. 'Sulking out on his estates, I should imagine. Where he should be, after you had St Vier beat his swordsman at Horn's.'

'I ? I didn't hire him. I know that's what they're saying, but that duel was the first I knew of any challenge.'

'It's what Horn's saying.' That answered that question. Ferris did not like the implications. Who else but Halliday had the power to frighten Karleigh through a purely formal duel into retreating into the country at this time of year? Someone strong and secret, who wanted no impediment to the, Crescent Chancellor's re-election... or else Halliday was capable of a dirtier game than he pretended. 'I should know not to listen to Horn's opinions.'

'You're young,' Halliday said cheerily; 'it will pass.' And it was too bad if it hadn't been Halliday's swordsman: Ferris liked the ironic symmetry of Halliday's chasing Karleigh away, since it would make it easier to fix suspicion on Karleigh if he were out of town.

'So Karleigh is trying to unseat you in absentia, is he?' Ferris helped himself to some lukewarm chocolate.

'My lord duke has gone and put up the money for Blackwell's theatre to revive The King's End next month - assuming it's stopped snowing by then.'

'Oh, it will. It always does. They'll open right on time. You know, Basil, The King's End is a really awful play.'

'Yes.' Halliday grimaced. 'I remember it well. It's got a lot of stirring speeches against monarchic tyranny in it: "Rule by one man is not rule but rape," that sort of thing. Mary and I will have to sit somewhere obvious and applaud loudly.'

Ferris stroked the chair arm. 'You could close them down, you know. Blackwell's theatre is a thieves' den and a public health hazard.'

The older man's eyebrows lifted. 'Oh, Tony. And I thought you liked the theatre. You sound like Karleigh - that's just the tyrannic gesture he's trying to goad me into making. But he gauges everyone else's temper by his own. I won't close the theatre - especially because I hear they'll also be reviving one of the old blood-and-revenge tragedies, which I adore. They manage to be rigidly moral, without rubbing your nose in it -unlike The King's End, which grinds its point home three times in the first speech. I wonder which actor looks enough like me to play the deposed king?'

'None, I expect; they're all undernourished.' Ferris adjusted his eyepatch. He must remember not to be so surprised when Halliday showed himself able to see through the machinations of others. And he must resist pushing too hard right now: if it were possible to destroy the Crescent Chancellor through giving him bad advice, Ferris would have contrived to do so long before this, and the forthcoming scene with St Vier would be unnecessary. 'I must say you're taking it all pretty calmly. If the city riff-raff get turned against you by Karleigh's second-hand agitation, it won't help your re-election in Council any.'

'Oh, Mary gets all the temper,' her husband smiled; 'you get the carefully thought-out plan.'

'You have a plan.' Ferris walked to the other end of the room,

letting amusement mask his relief. Far from uncovering the plot against him Halliday was about to take him further into his counsels. Well, why not? He had never given the Crescent cause to doubt him. Oh, he disagreed with him in Council from time to time, as a respected opponent. But their true policies lay so far apart that there was no point in even trying to diminish Halliday by orthodox means.

Halliday's policies were built on an uneasy fusion of city and country. He seemed to believe that the nobles no longer provided the link between the two that their control of the land had given them for so many years; that as the city grew more prosperous independent of them, they would lose their influence there, and meanwhile were also losing the land through inattention. Admittedly, the Crescent Chancellor's rapprochements with the Citizens' Council and his popularity with the general populace, were doing some good; but to Ferris it was a hazy plan for an even hazier future. If Halliday didn't love the city so much, he would have gone back to the country long ago and made a model of his own estates. He was not an inefficient administrator; and Ferris had to admire the way he achieved his ends by disguising them in concepts the Council could accept; but it was all too clear that he was, in the end, a dreamer - and that sooner or later his prized innovations would catch up with him and lose him the support of the nobility. Karleigh, the arch-conservative, had already sniffed out the tone, if not the content, of Halliday's programme. The Crescent was dangerously overreaching himself by pressing the election this spring; but then, circumstances left him small choice. And if he won, the support would cement his position, possibly for life. If he lost, his successors might make such an administrative muddle that he could still return in glory.

As for his plan... Ferris decided to assume the best. 'You honour me with your confidence, my lord.'

Halliday smiled. 'I have my reasons. Despite the fact that you do not make up one of my faction of vocal supporters.'

'But neither do I stand up for Karleigh. My reasons for that are evident to everyone' with eyes to see it. My lord duke is nothing but a pompous meddler with a touching faith in his own rhetoric.'

'Oh, no,' Halliday said in smooth surprise. 'You mistake him.

The Duke of Karleigh is a hero, the last man of integrity with due regard for Council law. Many people have said so, not least himself. We have here a wealthy, and thus powerful man who now proposes to exercise that power. He gave some marvellous dinners before he found it necessary to leave for the country - at least, I hear they were excellent; I was not invited, though you may have been. Hospitality may obscure pomposity. And his rhetoric has already divided a formerly unified Council. We had an interest, a mutual purpose we had not known in years. Now he is planning to disband it, so that his fantasies of the golden days of Lordly Rule may be given full scope to take us all on the long run off a short dock!'

'You haven't considered', said Ferris gently, 'that, technically, he is in the right? The Crescent was a courtesy title; it was never meant to be what you've made of it.'

Halliday turned a bleak eye on him. 'Wasn't it? Then why do things work better when someone takes central authority, bearing the brunt of complaints by election, rather than by fashionable whimsey? When someone can formally represent us to the Citizens' Council? I have no more power than people and necessity give me. Even Karleigh cannot say I have broken a single procedural rule. Hear me out, Ferris - and then question me. It's not a question I want to see buried and disposed of. But behold Karleigh's vision: where is his candidate to replace me?' Halliday put his chocolate cup down with a little more force than he'd intended. 'He hasn't got one. He doesn't care what happens to the Council once he's pulled me down.'

'He wants the Crescent for himself, of course,' Ferris said. 'Several of his forebears held it, back when it meant giving good parties and making sure no one spoke out of turn in meetings. All the dukes are a little crazy about their hereditary rights.'

'Which is why, I suppose, he is working so hard to deny me my elective ones! Holding the Crescent will not suddenly bestow greatness on that idiot,' Basil Halliday said with rancour. 'I should think even he would know that by now. His ideas are popular, but he isn't. He's quarrelled with half the Council over their lands, and with the other half over their wives.'

'But not with me,' Ferris said quietly.

'Not with you. Not yet.' Halliday leaned back in his chair. Tell me, Tony; what would happen if I set up a puppet to hold the Crescent in my place until I became eligible for the position again?'

'Almost anything. Your man might become too impressed with his own power, and refuse to listen to you. He might try to follow your suggestions and simply be too weak to hold the Council together as you do.' And, Ferris was thinking, he would have to be a weakling in the first place even to consider the position.

'Exactly,' said Halliday. 'A weak man couldn't do it, and a strong man wouldn't want to.' Ferris smiled a sour smile at Halliday's insight. 'But if the measure to prolong my term is voted down,' the Crescent continued, 'I shall have to support someone after me. I've given it a lot of thought. I expect you have, too.'

Under Halliday's clear gaze, Ferris felt horribly exposed. He thought of the guards outside, and himself in Halliday's house, alone and vulnerable to mortal challenge. But that was not the drift of Halliday's message. Unlike Ferris and the Duchess Tremontaine, Basil Halliday was not given to hiding double meanings behind his words.

Ferris said, 'It's all very well for this once. But when I became eligible for re-election, you might not find me so easy to defeat.'

'But', Halliday grinned, 'it would put me on the same side as Karleigh in this one, if I'm voted down. He'll hate that.'

'What a motive!'

'Then you're willing?'

'For the Crescent? I'd be lying if I said I wasn't. To take what you've made of it, to guide a strong Council under the cloak of your support..." He told Halliday what he wanted to hear. It wasn't hard to do. But even this surprising act of visionary generosity made him want to laugh. Halliday's eyes were so fixed on the future, he couldn't see what was right in front of him!

'But how is any of this going to solve your problems with Karleigh? I should think you'd want to put your energies into seeing that there's no need to support my election.'

Basil Halliday looked surprised. 'It's simple. Go and talk to Karleigh.'

For once, Ferris was utterly at a loss. 'My lord,' he said. 'That would be fatal. Karleigh can't keep his mouth shut, and I would lose all your supporters in a stroke.'

Halliday suppressed an impatient gesture. 'Ferris... I've watched your careful stratagems to remain neutral in Council. It drives people crazy - they come to me complaining that they can't tell which side you're on. Do you think I don't know how hard it is to build that base? I want to use it, not tear it down. Speak to Karleigh on your own behalf. Say what you need to say. You're not my man; I can't send you to plead my cause, especially not now that I've offered you such a plum if I lose. Just go and confuse him a little - make the issues less clear cut -I know you can do that, Tony.' His smiling face hardened. 'But mark this: if you play me false, I'll know it. And I'll see that there's no cloak for you to step into.'

Ferris said, 'You don't like duelling, do you?' Halliday shook his head. 'You don't approve of the use of swordsmen in general; perhaps because you've had to preside over the outcomes of too many Duels of Honour. It can make one jaded. But there is a duel on between you and Karleigh. You think adding me will make it a new form of sport?'

'Something like that.' The Crescent Chancellor gave an unwilling smile. 'Karleigh is so old-fashioned.'

'And I am, at heart, a sportsman. But a cautious one. When did you want me to see Karleigh?'

'As soon as you can conveniently make the trip.'

'Ah,' said Ferris; 'that won't be for another week. I have some affairs in hand here that need tying up. But then.. .then, we shall see. It may well be convenient then.'