The First Blade of Ostia (13 page)

T
here was
a slight chill in the air as Bryn strolled with Joranna through one of the parks in Highgarden. Her chaperone, the woman who had been her childhood nanny as it transpired, followed a short distance behind them. After the long, hot summer, the crispness of the early winter evenings was a novel experience. It was dry and made for the perfect evening; many young couples had taken advantage of it.

As they walked, Bryn found it difficult to believe this was his life. He had never been poor, but the parks of Highgarden, the status of a duelling swordsman, and a beautiful aristocrat on his arm represented the culmination of a dream and a lifetime of hard work. It was almost too much to believe. All he needed were regular fixtures, and his life would be perfect.

Joranna was an only child. If Bryn were to marry her, their eldest child would take her family’s title. The thought made Bryn want to laugh out loud. He wondered how his father would have reacted if told his grandchildren might bear titles of nobility. It was a gigantic step up the ladder of Ostian society, but Bryn took none of it for granted. It had been earned with blood, sweat, and coin that his family had little enough of. He deserved it, and felt as though his reward for all of that sacrifice was so close, he could almost reach out and touch it.

‘So, when will I hear your name mentioned by the criers in Crossways?’ Joranna said.

‘Ha! Possibly never,’ Bryn said. ‘Progress is proving to be extremely slow.’

‘But you’ve won all your matches so far. Haven’t you?’

Bryn nodded. ‘Yes, but there’s more to it than that. There’re a lot of duellists on the Ladder these days, and half of them are winning their matches. I’m beginning to realise that the crawl up through the bottom ranks is going to take longer than I thought, or I’d like.’

‘Oh,’ Joranna said, a hint of concern in her voice.

Bryn smiled. ‘There’s no need for you to give it a second thought though; I’ll get there eventually. It’ll just take time.’

‘I just know how hard you’ve been working for it,’ she said hastily.

It reminded Bryn of something that Amero had said to him, about Joranna’s family being poor. He was sure that was of a comparative nature to other aristocrats, but it occurred to him that she might be less than inclined to step out with a penniless swordsman.

B
ryn pressed
Amero back across the floor of Bautisto’s salon, mixing cuts with thrusts, none intended to strike, merely to pressure Amero and tire him. He might be getting choicer duels, but Bryn wanted to constantly assert his skill and make it very clear who the superior swordsman was.

‘I hear you were out with Joranna dal Verrara the other night,’ Amero said.

If he was hoping to break Bryn’s concentration, Amero was labouring in vain. ‘How’d you hear about that?’

‘I have my sources,’ Amero said, dodging Bryn’s blade and countering. ‘I did mention that her family don’t have a pot to piss in?’

Bryn smiled, parrying and retaking the initiative with a riposte. ‘Yes, you did.’

They had to speak loudly to be heard over the thud of leather boot soles on the wooden floor and the clash of blades.

‘That’s all right then,’ Amero said. ‘I wouldn’t want you to get the wrong idea about her.’

Amero came forward with two swipes that Bryn stepped back from. Bautisto had left them to spar while he was out running some errands, trusting them not to slack off.

‘Does your mother know you’re stepping out with a penniless aristocrat?’

Bryn laughed. ‘No, not yet. I wonder if Joranna’s parents know she’s stepping out with a penniless swordsman.’ He lunged forward in riposte to Amero’s attacks but was parried away. He hadn’t expected Amero to catch it.

‘A penniless swordsman with prospects,’ Amero said. ‘I heard that Mistria was paid a thousand crowns for his last duel. Two more wins with no conceded touches and he’ll hit a hundred and twenty-five points.’

Bryn raised his eyebrows at the size of the prize purse and was almost caught off guard by Amero’s next attack. His boots thumped out on the wooden floor as he moved abruptly, and more heavily than he would have liked, the sound echoing around the empty shell of a building.

‘I expect I have a while to wait before I can demand that size of a purse,’ Bryn said.

A thousand crowns was an enormous sum. Not even a drop in the ocean for a wealthy aristocrat, someone of Amero’s stature for example, but it was an unimaginable amount for only one duel. Mistria fought at least once a month, usually once every two weeks. Earnings of that amount were verging on being overwhelming to think about. A house in Highgarden, an estate in the country, titles; all of these things were possible with regular earnings like that. The money Bryn had made for his last duel wouldn’t even have paid Mistria for the first step he took on his way out to the black line for the start of that duel.

‘Probably never if you keep fighting like this.’ Amero parried and lunged, following up his barbed comment with another attack.

Bryn forced himself to concentrate and parried both before dancing back out of the way, focussing on staying light on his feet. ‘It’s enough to keep you on your back foot,’ Bryn said, launching into another series of attacks and taking back all the ground Amero had made. ‘I hope she isn’t counting on me pulling in money like that, though. Setting herself up for a big disappointment if she is.’

Amero attacked with a three-stroke combination. Bryn stepped back, parried twice, dodged and countered. He put a touch on the centre of Amero’s chest. Amero acknowledged and they reset to begin once more.

Bryn enjoyed those lazy mornings of swordplay. There was no pressure, no scrutiny, commentary, or verbal abuse from Bautisto. It was swordsmanship plain and simple; in those moments nothing else really mattered. Above all, it was fun.

‘What about you?’ Bryn said. ‘I saw you dancing with some fairly attractive types at the ball last week.’

Amero said nothing for a moment, starting their next bout with two neatly executed thrusts. Bryn could not help but notice how over the past weeks his swordsmanship had really benefitted from Bautisto’s tuition.

‘I’ve my mind on someone else right now.’

Intrigued, Bryn raised his eyebrows, but Amero dismissed it with a wave of his hand.

‘Nothing but a little trifle,’ he said. ‘It’s not like I have any real say in who I end up with anyway.’

Amero’s face darkened. It was something Bryn had noticed happening more and more often. He found it just as unsettling every time.

‘My future in that regard has been long since planned out for me. I’ve been betrothed since the moment they knew I was a boy,’ Amero said.

‘Really?’ Bryn said, lowering his sword. ‘You’ve never mentioned that before.’

Amero shrugged, but his face turned melancholy. ‘My mother made the match. It’s a good one, and I’ll abide by her wishes.’ His face brightened again, but it looked forced. ‘Not to worry though, I’ve a couple of years left to enjoy myself before then!’

He continued his attack, fast and determined and Bryn strained to defend. So much of Amero’s life was dictated to by expectation and it was clear how much he hated the fact. All the same, with the wealth, titles and privilege that would be his, it was difficult to pity him his situation. However, none of it managed to distract Bryn from his surprise at how much better Amero was getting.

I
n the days that followed
, Bryn began to see less and less of Amero outside of the salon and more of Joranna. For the most part they went their separate ways each day after training instead of spending several hours enjoying a lazy lunch and chatting as they had in the past. On the occasions they did, Amero seemed distant and was poor company.

Each evening, which ordinarily would have been spent reading in his apartment before an early night, Bryn now called on Joranna and spent the time walking with her in Highgarden or taking tea at her house, all under the watchful gaze of her former nanny.

He fought another duel, one that would have been as unremarkable as his previous were it not for the fact that it put him within reach of a tally of twenty Ladder points, the level at which he hoped his advance would quicken. As he was walking back to the Bannerets’ Enclosure, he had spotted someone sitting in the audience who seemed peculiarly out of place.

A bald man with a neat beard had been watching him. He was sitting too far away for Bryn to be able to make him out during the duel, and was obscured from sight when Bryn was sitting in the small enclosure. It seemed almost too much to believe that the star of the moment would deign to visit a small, out of the way arena to watch unknown duellists, but Bryn would have sworn the bald man was Panceri Mistria.

B
ryn looked
over the family accounts one last time in the forlorn hope of seeing something different. The numbers were depressing. His mother worked as a seamstress, and Gilia was a governess to a wealthy family in Highgarden, but their income was consistently below their weekly expenses. Even with a duel on the level he was getting intermittently, every week, there would not be much left over to live on. His own expenses—salon fees, entry fees, maintaining his equipment—were not insubstantial, and the money he could add to his family’s accounts was not enough to cover all the expenses.

He took a deep breath to calm himself and looked around. There was nothing in his tiny apartment to distract him from his worries for even a moment. No matter what way he looked at it, the problem seemed insurmountable. The fat, greasy promoter who suggested he kill someone in the arena popped back into his head. People died there from time to time; it was a risk every duelling swordsman accepted when going into the arena. He pushed the idea from his head, disgusted with himself for giving it even a moment’s consideration. Unintentionally killing a man in the heat of a duel was one thing, walking into the arena to kill a man to further his career was a stain on his honour he would never be able to erase.

There was a knock at his door. He was glad of the distraction and got up from his desk to see who it was. He opened the door to a cloaked and hooded figure, and suddenly regretted not having his sword closer to hand. Ostenheim was a dangerous city; robbery and murder were common.

‘Can I help you?’ he said.

‘I certainly hope so,’ a feminine voice said. Joranna cast the hood back and smiled mischievously. ‘Aren’t you going to invite me in?’

‘I’m not sure that’s proper,’ he said. ‘I’ve my reputation to think of.’ He feigned as self-righteous a pose as he could. Then it occurred to him that trying to be funny could cause more problems than it was worth, so he gestured for her to enter.

She walked around looking at the bare walls before turning to him and smiling. ‘The luxurious life of an arena star.’

‘I haven’t really been here all that long, there hasn’t been time to—’

‘That’s all right,’ she said. ‘Boys are rarely good at making their domains look any better than a cave. I have three cousins in the city. Their apartments make this one look like a palace.’

‘I’m afraid that I don’t have anything to offer you to drink; I’m not accustomed to visitors.’

‘No, that much is obvious,’ she said. ‘I’m not thirsty though.’

‘No chaperone tonight?’ Bryn said. He was unsure of what she was doing there, and was trying to tread carefully. He had sneaked girls back to his room at the Academy on occasion, but then, the worst an unwanted suggestion had garnered was a slap in the face. He didn’t want to make a mistake with Joranna.

‘No, I’m in disguise. Hence my rather lovely travelling cloak.’

She swirled it about and Bryn wondered how she had come by such a mouldering old rag. He also wondered what possessed her to allow it anywhere near the rest of her clothes, which were of a far finer order.

‘So,’ he said, letting the word hang on the air for a moment. ‘What brings you to my cave-like dwelling at this late hour?’

‘No chaperone. In disguise. What do you think?’

A
mero was alone
in the salon; Bautisto was out arranging a match and Bryn had scuttled off as soon as training had finished to spend time with dal Verrara. His own matches had been growing increasingly difficult, but he was coping—and doing better than he had expected. The daunting prospect of fighting far more experienced duellists had passed and the odds against him no longer seemed insurmountable.

On graduating from the Academy, he had felt as though he knew everything. He had finished second in his class, the highest ranking that any member of his family had ever managed to achieve, and was one of very few who had gone on to take the Blue. He had no doubt that if he had applied himself a little harder, he would have taken that year’s sword of honour for graduating first, an accolade that had gone to Bryn. The amount he had learned since leaving astounded him. The sessions with the mage allowed him to train longer and harder, to pack years into months.

He realised now that the Academy was only a beginning. The true learning came after, and he felt that the quality of his opponents had accelerated the process. He knew that Bryn thought himself the better of the two. Even his friends thought, deep down, that he was nothing more than the product of a fortunate birth. It was difficult to remain friends so long as Bryn held that opinion, but Amero knew that he would not be able to do so for much longer. Each day their sparring grew closer. There was little to separate them now, if anything.

He knew that his father expected him to have long given up on the idea of duelling. They had not spoken since Renald had appeared at the arena that evening, and that bothered him. He knew that Renald had not let the matter go, and it worried him that he had not encountered his father’s involvement. Renald was planning something, and the not knowing was worse than having to deal with it.

All he had planned to do was express his independence. The Academy had shielded him from his father’s control for so long, but he always knew it would be waiting for him when he graduated. Defying Renald had felt good, but that was all it had been about. At first.

Now, there was far more to it than just the opportunity to assert himself. Amero had gotten a thrill from duelling, a rush of excitement that was both intoxicating and addictive from the outset. The fear of making a fool of himself—the danger of being considered an idiot, an idler and a wastrel—had stirred him like nothing before. He was hungry for the chance to stick it in the face of everyone who tittered behind their hands at the idea of an elector count’s son making a spectacle of himself like a common banneret in the arena. It fuelled his desire to succeed. That initial thrill faded with familiarity, but it was replaced with something far more enrapturing. Power.

Many duellists spoke of the effect a crowd could have on them. How their support could lift them to snatch victory from the jaws of certain defeat, and fill them with such energy that they kept coming back to the arena for that reason alone. It was always what former duellists said they missed the most.

What none of them ever commented on, at least not to Amero’s knowledge, was the power. A truly talented swordsman, one with flair and a sense of the dramatic, could grab hold of a spectator and take them on an adventure of every emotion. He could inspire such love or hatred that they would fight in the stands, riot on the streets, and murder each other in tavern arguments. The boost their passion could give in the arena was all well and good, but it was inspiring that fervour that caught Amero’s imagination. It gave him a hold over people. Control. With it, a man could do anything.

He thought of the powerful men of the city, the Duke, the Master of the Guilds, the head of Austorgas’ Banking House. Could any of them incite tens of thousands of people to the heights of passion in a few moments? He knew that they couldn’t. He also knew that he could. He thought of his father, running all across the Duchy at the Duke’s command like a faithful hunting dog, convinced of his infallibility but never seeing that he was merely a servant himself. With the arena, Amero could wrap the mob of Ostenheim around his little finger. The man who could control the masses had the real power. What would his father, with all his schemes and plots and intrigues in the corridors of the Barons’ Hall, think of that?

He smiled and went through the movement he had been working on again. He could only practice it in private, when neither Bautisto nor Bryn were around. Bautisto would lambast him for being too flashy, and Bryn would tut at him for not doing as he was told. Both would question how he was able to cope with the additional workload.

Bautisto’s technique might be effective, but it was dull. His swordplay would never inspire the passion of a spectator, probably the reason he was reduced to teaching two students in a rundown little salon thousands of miles from his home. It might win duels, but winning alone was not enough. Not for Amero.

He took from Bautisto what he thought was useful: economy of movement, superb fitness and a ruthless approach to taking points, and blended them with ideas of his own. Sweeps, flourishes, twists and spins could all be injected if a swordsman was clever about it. There was no need to mire himself in stolid swordplay so long as he was careful. A flourishing follow through after a scoring touch did nothing but inflame a crowd. He just needed to be sure of the scoring touch first. Leaving himself open after a miss would quickly lead to disaster. Everything needed to be perfect before he could risk using it. That was the reason for his secret, after-hours practice.

Amero heard a knock at the door, but was so focussed on what he was doing it had opened before he had the chance to react. He expected Bautisto to walk in, so he immediately reverted to the economical movements the Estranzan espoused; anything like what he had just been doing would attract heavy criticism. It was not Bautisto however, but a man Amero could not recall seeing before.

‘I’m looking for the maestro of this salon,’ the man said.

Swordsmen, young or old, always had a particular bearing about them—good posture and an expression that some might call haughty—and this fellow was no different. The man’s hair and moustache were both salt-and-pepper grey, but there was no mistaking that he had once been, and perhaps still was, a regular practitioner of swordsmanship. He had the athletic bearing of a man who spent little time at rest and the confidence of one who knew how to handle himself.

‘I’m afraid he’s not here,’ Amero said.

‘Ah. A shame.’ The man looked around the warehouse that passed for their salon, but his face didn’t betray what he was thinking. He nodded to Amero before putting his wide brimmed hat back on and making to leave.

‘Perhaps I can be of assistance. I could pass on a message if you like,’ Amero said, intrigued by what might bring a man like that to Bautisto’s all but anonymous salon.

‘Yes, that would be kind of you. I am Banneret of the Blue Arfeni Caxto, I’m an assistant to Maestro Valdrio, trainer to Banneret of the Blue Panceri Mistria.’

Amero nearly dropped his sword. What was this man doing in Bautisto’s dump of a salon?

‘A student of this salon has come to Banneret Mistria’s attention, as has the Estranzan style he uses. The Banneret would very much like to test himself against this technique. The swordsman I’m looking for is Banneret of the Blue Bryn Pendollo.’

For a moment Amero had dared hope that it was he who Caxto was looking for. A fight against Mistria would be of massively high profile. To win against him would be momentous. In one duel, he could achieve what would take him a year or more otherwise. There would not be a single person, aristocrat or commoner who could lay a single valid criticism against him after that. The mob would be speaking his name for weeks. How in hells had Mistria spotted Bryn fighting in rural and back alley rat-pits?

‘I’m afraid that Banneret Pendollo no longer trains here,’ Amero said. ‘He’s moved out onto the provincial circuit. I’m sure with a little effort he could be tracked down…’

‘No, I don’t think time would allow for that. It’s a pity. Banneret Mistria was hoping to make the duel something of an exhibition of the disparate styles shortly after he achieves one hundred and twenty-five.’

‘Well, I’m trained in the Estranzan style. Until recently Banneret Pendollo was my training partner.’

‘Really? Your name?’

‘Banneret of the Blue Amero,’ he hesitated before saying his surname, ‘dal Moreno.’ He expected to feel guilt grow inside him, but he felt nothing.

Caxto’s face didn’t show any sign of reaction. ‘I believe I’ve heard your name mentioned. I shall have to consult the Banneret, but that might be acceptable. He’s eager to show how the Ostian style of swordsmanship is superior to all others. An Estranzan style is the only one remaining for me to find, and there seems to be a dearth of Estranzans in the city. I’ll call again with the Banneret’s response, one way or the other.’

Amero thought fast. ‘As no doubt you can see from the state of the salon, we’re in the process of moving to new premises. It might be easiest to contact me at this address.’ He walked forward quickly and proffered one of his calling cards, which would direct Caxto to his Oldtown apartment.

Caxto took it and gave the card a cursory glance. ‘Very well.’ Caxto clicked his heels together and nodded. ‘Good day.’

As he exited, Bautisto arrived. He nodded politely to the departing man before entering the salon.

‘Who was that?’ Bautisto asked.

Amero hesitated for a moment. ‘Just someone looking for directions.’