The First Blade of Ostia (17 page)

Bryn felt sick.

T
here was only
one way for Bryn to deal with Amero’s slander campaign: to try to ignore it. It was difficult to avoid Crossways, but it was the only way to remain out of earshot of the criers, who were enthusiastically painting him as the worst villain in Ostenheim. When Crossways was unavoidable, as was unfortunately the case on a couple of occasions, he felt as though every eye was on him as the criers waxed lyrical about the upcoming duel and how Amero, now being called ‘the Lightning Blade’ had been so wronged and injured by his friend that a duel was the only option left to him. He wondered if there was any way to correct the falsehoods, but short of having a very public disagreement with a city crier nothing jumped to mind.

There were many inconsistencies in the tale as it was being recited, but no one was bothered to stop and think about it. It was sensational, it was black and white and it involved the current darling of the city. It gave them someone to love and someone to hate, and that was all they wanted. He dreaded to think of how his mother would react when she found out what was being said.

Bryn focussed on training, but it was not possible to dismiss it entirely. Each time his mind drifted toward it he could feel his anger grow, and he knew this wasn’t the state of mind to fight a duel in. As well as anger there was another new sensation he had to deal with. The deluge of hatred directed at him was oppressive. It felt like a great weight pressing down on top of him, threatening to crush him. There were moments when he feared that it would.

When he left the salon one afternoon, there was a group of boys gathered on the other side of the street. As Bryn pulled the door shut behind him, one of the boys called out.

‘Hey, are you Bryn Pendollo?’

He hesitated, not knowing whether to answer, then decided ignoring them was the best option.

‘Yeah, I reckon you are!’ shouted another one of them. ‘You’re a right bastard!’

The rest of them took this as a cue to start throwing things at Bryn. It wasn’t until one of the objects actually hit him that he realised it was rotten fruit, the same variety of object favoured for use against those unfortunate enough to find themselves in the stocks in Delinquents’ Square, beside the City Watch barracks. He shielded himself with his arm as he walked away from the salon. He was thankful when the boys stopped following after he had gone only a few yards. Perhaps the window at the back of the salon would be a better choice in the future.

He felt his chest falter as he took a breath. He knew in that moment that even if he beat Amero in the Amphitheatre, Amero had already won. If Amero offered to make it all go away, he would have gladly accepted.

A
mero stared
out the window of Cavzanigo’s, the only one that allowed a glimpse of Crossways. He knew the town criers were there painting Bryn as the worst villain in history. It was an unkind thing to do, but no one knew the truth of it, and having been so thoroughly indoctrinated the crowd wouldn’t believe anything to the contrary. It was unfortunate that his old friend should bear the indignity of it all, but the opportunity it gave Amero to enhance his standing was too good to pass up. It made him look like the tragic hero of legends, scorned and betrayed by the friend he trusted most.

It occurred to him that it might be worth bringing the Verrara slut into the story; that Bryn stole away his one true love while he was training hard and living the honest, pure life of a hero-banneret. He dismissed the idea. Losing a woman to Bryn might make him look weak, and it was not worth taking the chance.

If everything went to plan, he would come out of this duel with greater fame and status than the top five ranked duellists put together, even though he was still some time away from sharing the same page in the Ladder with them. He would be untouchable. He just needed to make absolutely certain he won the duel. Even now, after all the extra training and improvement he had made, Bryn was still the person who had bested him each year at the Academy, and that spectre was a difficult one to disregard.

‘
I
was in Crossways today
,’ Joranna said.

Her arrival at his door came as a surprise. Hers was not a face he expected to see.

‘I wanted to see how you are,’ she said.

‘I’m fine.’ It was a lie, but she was the last person he would bare his soul to.

‘Is this over me?’ she asked.

Bryn laughed sardonically. ‘No. There’s a lot more to it. Maybe a little.’

She nodded. ‘I hope you make a fool of him.’

‘I hope so too,’ he said.

She stood before him silently for a moment, as though she expected him to say something else or invite her in. When he didn’t, she smiled sadly, turned and left.

T
he day before the duel
, Bryn felt utterly miserable. He was sneaking in and out of the salon via the back window like a criminal. Avoiding Crossways was no longer enough to keep from hearing the constant hype about the duel, as it seemed to be all anyone was talking about in the city. Tickets had sold out and despite having done nothing, Bryn’s name was as well known in the city as Amero’s, but for all the wrong reasons. The only saving grace was that there was hardly anyone who could put his name to his face. Bryn was surprised Amero hadn’t had likenesses of him made and posted all over the city to make sure his campaign of mud-slinging was complete. Clearly Amero wasn’t as thorough an assassin of character as he might have thought.

The stress of it all had been affecting Bryn’s sleep for days; at night all he did was toss and turn, getting angrier one moment and wishing that none of it had happened the next. He should have left Amero to his deceit and gotten on with things. It would have been a bitter pill to swallow, but it had to be better than what he was going through.

He was sitting in his apartment reading a book, trying to put any other thoughts from his mind when there was a hammering at his door. With his notoriety at an all-time high, the way the door was being pounded gave him cause for concern. His immediate thought was that there was someone there at the very least wanting to give him an earful, at the worst, to do him harm. He had long since taken to leaving a sword hanging by his doorway. Ostensibly it was there for decoration and he had positioned it in line with his notion of how best to achieve decorative effect, but it was a sharp and functional weapon that was always close to hand any time he opened the door.

He opened the door as abruptly as he could, hoping to surprise whoever was on the other side. His sister stood there, distraught.

‘Bryn, they’re trying to throw us out of the house. You have to come quickly.’

He grabbed his sword belt from the wall and strapped it on, before hurrying out of his apartment behind his sister. They rushed through the evening streets of Ostenheim as the mage lamps were beginning to illuminate, but Bryn wasn’t able to enjoy the magical quality to that hour of the day as his sister continued on with unabating pace.

The door to his family’s apartment building was open, and there was a commotion coming from inside. He could hear his mother’s voice and those of at least two men.

‘Wait here,’ he said to Gilia, before going in.

‘What’s going on here?’ Bryn said, loudly enough to be heard over the noise, and loudly enough to achieve his desired effect as the three men standing there turned to face him.

Bryn’s mother looked furious but desperate at the same time. Two of the men were tall and rough looking while the third, of average height, had a shrewder look about him and was obviously the brains of the operation.

‘This is none of your business,’ the shrewd looking one said.

‘That’s my mother, and this is very much my business. I’ll ask again. What are you doing here?’

On Bryn’s words, the two larger men moved closer to their boss and puffed out their chests.

‘Everything’s legit, friend,’ the shrewd one said. ‘We’re just here settling a debt. I have the papers here, you can take a look if you want.’ He rapped a fold of papers against the knuckles of his other hand.

Bryn stepped forward and held out his hand. There hadn’t been a single missed payment on any of the loans his parents had taken out. They had been close on a number of occasions, but Bryn had managed to ensure they had never fallen from good standing in regard to their debt.

The shrewd man flicked his eyes nervously to one of his companions, but Bryn’s hand didn’t waver. With resignation he handed the papers over. Bryn snatched them and scanned through their contents. He had never taken out a loan in his life, so he had no real idea of what he was looking for, but perusing their credentials seemed to be the appropriate thing to do.

‘Why are they being called in now?’ Bryn said, as he read.

‘Not for me to say, sir, we just do the collecting,’ the shrewd one said.

Bryn kept flipping through the pages until he finally came to what appeared to be the answer to his family’s current predicament. The loans had all been purchased by one individual, several days before. Sadly, the name of that individual was not mentioned. One of the larger men started to move forward, slowly.

‘Who purchased the loans?’ Bryn said.

The shrewd looking man smiled and shook his head. ‘None of my business. We just do the collecting.’ He emphasised each word.

‘Well, you’ll have to do it another time. I’m going to have my lawyer take a look at these. Until then, you can tell whoever it is you work for to tell whoever it is that bought the loans, to piss off.’ Bryn’s eyes involuntarily flicked to his mother, and even under the circumstances he could see the look of disapproval on her face over his choice of words.

‘We don’t want no trouble, but we’re here to do a job and we’re gonna do it.’

‘It’ll end badly for you if you try,’ Bryn said.

The man nodded in resignation. ‘The boss said that might be the case.’

A man appeared at the doorway, immediately behind where Bryn was standing. It was luck as much as anything that Bryn caught the movement out of the corner of his eye. He must have been lurking in the shadows outside, unseen when Bryn went into the apartment.

The fourth man lunged through the doorway with a dagger. Bryn’s fortuitous glimpse gave him enough time to duck out of the way, but it still caught him a glancing blow on the side beneath his right arm, neatly slicing through cloth and into flesh.

He gasped in pain but had enough wits about him to defend himself. He grabbed the dagger-bearing wrist as it passed him and pulled forward hard, hauling the man completely into the apartment and hurling him across the room. Bryn drew his sword. He needed to reduce threats quickly. He ran the man he had just thrown against the wall through the chest. His mother had had the sense to duck into the kitchen and neither of the other thugs had the opportunity to grab her. The shrewd looking one had taken a step back from the danger, behind the screen of his two remaining men.

Bryn’s mother was the main weakness in his defence. He had to get between her and the men as quickly as possible, and hope that his sister remained safely outside.

One of the big men yelled in anger at Bryn, having just seen his comrade slain in front of him. He hurled the table over and both he and his mate came forward, drawing cudgels from under their robes. The shrewd looking man remained with his back to the wall, seemingly confident that his minders would be able to take care of the trouble.

The minders were wary though, and didn’t throw themselves at Bryn. Bryn worried that the shrewd one might get it in his head to go after his mother, given the time.

Since he wore a rapier within the city limits they knew he was a banneret, and that was likely the reason for their caution. If the new owner of his family’s debts was Amero, as he suspected, the men would have been well briefed and the best available. If they were hesitant, Bryn would make their choice for them.

He thrust forward with blistering speed, running the rough to his right through the belly. Pulling his blade free he whipped it to the left, slashing the other rough’s midsection. The men’s screams of pain mingled as Bryn looked to their leader, satisfied that neither minder any longer posed a threat.

The shrewd man was slumped in the doorway to the kitchen. His mother stood over the body, looking down, a large frying pan in her hand.

Bryn breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Are you all right?’

His mother nodded. ‘Where’s your sister?’

Bryn groaned and turned, jogging out the door onto the street.

Gilia was slumped against the wall, her head lolling on her chest. Bryn rushed forward and knelt beside her. He checked her over for wounds, but could see none. It seemed the thug who had come in after Bryn had some semblance of propriety and had just given her a knock on the head. Bryn picked her up and carried her inside. His mother replaced the table in the centre of the room and Bryn laid Gilia down on it.

His mother tended to her while Bryn dragged the bodies out of the house. He was pulling the shrewd man out—the blow to the head had been fatal—when the City Watch arrived. The commotion had inspired someone to send for them, but only after it had ceased rather than when they might have been of use in throwing the bailiffs out.

The Watch lieutenant gave Bryn a very suspicious look. Backed up by a half dozen watchmen, he had every right to feel confident.

‘What’s happened here?’ he demanded.

‘These men were debt collectors, forcing payment on a debt that wasn’t outstanding. They became violent when I brought that up and attacked. You can see my sister inside if you like. One of the bastards cracked her over the head.’

The lieutenant nodded to one of his men who went inside to verify what Bryn had just said.

‘And the four bodies, sir?’

‘Like I said, they became violent and I defended myself, my family, and my property.’

‘As you say, sir. And the sword? Are you a banneret?’ This question was asked with the most suspicious tone so far.

‘Yes, I am. Banneret of the Blue as it happens. I believe my mother still keeps my parchments framed on the wall inside if you’d like to take a look at those too.’