The Skies Discrowned (16 page)

“Sure I did. And my name is John, remember?” He struck a match and puffed at his pipe, then tamped the tobacco and lit it again. “I hope the Beard of Avon there isn’t representative of George’s friends.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Kathrin. “He looked sort of … sensitive, to me.”

Tyler himself came weaving up to them at that moment. “Hello, uh, John,” he grinned. “How do you like the party?”

“It’s a great affair, George,” Frank answered. “By the way, I hear you’re the tragic figure of this century, or something.”

“No kidding?” George said delightedly. “I’ve suspected it for a long time. Here, Miss Figaro, let me fill your glass. Well, see you later, Fr—John, I mean. I’ve got to mingle and put everyone at ease.”

“Yeah, give ’em hell, George,” said Frank with a wave. Kathrin got up, spoke softly to Frank and disappeared in the direction of the ladies’ room. Frank sat back, puffing on his pipe and surveying the scene.

The room was large and filled with knots of animatedly talking people. Bits of conversations drifted to Frank: “… my new sonnet-cycle
on the plight of the Goriot farmers …” “… very much influenced by Ashbless, of course …” “… and then my emotions, sticky things that they are …”

Good God
, Frank thought.
What am I doing here? Who are all these people
? He refilled his wine glass and wondered when the food would appear. There was a napkin in front of him on the table, and he took a pencil out of his pocket and began sketching a girl who stood on the other side of the room.

When he finished the drawing and looked up, the food had appeared but Kathrin hadn’t. He looked around and saw her standing against the far wall, a glass of red wine in her hand and a tailored-looking young man whispering in her ear. A surge of quick jealousy narrowed Frank’s
eyes
, but a moment later he laughed softly to himself and walked to the food table.

He took a plate of sliced beef and cheese back to his place on the couch; he had such a litter of smoking paraphernalia spread out on the table that no one had sat down there. When he was just finishing the last of the roast beef, and swallowing some more of the Sauterne to wash it down, Kathrin appeared and sat down beside him.

“ ‘That’s pretty good, Frank,” she said, pointing at the sketch he’d done earlier. “Who is it?”

“It’s a girl who was standing over—well, she’s gone now. You’d better jump for it if you want to get some food.” He decided to give up on John Pine.

“I’m not hungry,” Kathrin said. “Did you see that guy I was talking to a minute ago?”

“The guy with the curly black hair and the moustache? Yes, I did. Who is he?”

“His name’s Matthews. Just Matthews, no first name. And he’s an artist, just like you.”

“No kidding? Well, that’s—” Frank was interrupted then by Matthews himself, who sat down on the arm of the couch on Kathrin’s side.

“I’m Matthews,” he said with a bright but half-melancholy smile. “You are … ?”

“Rick O’Shay,” said Frank, shaking Matthews’s hand. “Kathrin tells me you’re an artist.”

“That’s right.”

“Well, here,” Frank said, pushing toward Matthews the pencil and a napkin. “Sketch me Kathrin.”

“Oh no,” said Matthews. “I don’t simply …
sketch
, you know, on a napkin. I’ve got to have a light table and my rapidograph and a set of graduated erasers.”

“Oh.”
A good artist
, Frank thought,
should be able to draw on a wood fence with a berry
. But he knew it wouldn’t help to say so. Matthews now leaned over and began muttering in Kathrin’s ear. She giggled.

Frank knocked the lump of old tobacco out of his pipe, ran a pipe cleaner through it, and began refilling it.
I’ll be damned if I let them run me off the couch
, he thought. A moment later, though, Kathrin and Matthews stood up and, with a couple of perfunctory nods and waves to Frank, disappeared out the back door of the house. Frank lit his pipe.

“Not doing real bloody well, are you, lad?” asked Tyler sympathetically from behind the couch.

Frank shifted around to see him. “No,” he admitted. “What’s out back there?”

“A fungus and statuary garden. Lit by blue and green lights.”

“Oh, swell.”

“Well, look, Frank, as soon as I oust my rotten half-brother from the palace, I’ll have Matthews executed. How’s that?”

“I’ll be much obliged to you, George.” Frank got up and wandered around the room, listening in on the various discussions going on. He joined one, and then got into an argument with a tall, slightly pot-bellied girl when he told her that free verse was almost always just playing-at-poetry by people who wished they were, but weren’t, poets. Driven from that conversation by the ensuing unfriendly chill, Frank found himself next to the wine-bin once again, so he took a bottle of good
vin rosé
to see him through another circuit of the room. The glasses had all been taken, and someone, he noticed, had used his old glass for an ashtray, so he was forced to take quick furtive sips from the bottle.

He saw Kathrin reenter the room, so he dropped his now half-empty bottle into a potted plant and waved at her. She saw him, smiled warmly, and weaved through the crowd toward him. Well, that’s better, thought Frank. I guess old Matthews was just a momentary fascination.

“Hi, Frank,” said Kathrin gaily. “What have you been up to?”

“Getting into arguments with surly poetesses. How about you?”

“I’ve been getting to know Matthews. It’s all right with you if he takes me home, isn’t it? Do you know, under his sophisticated exterior I think he’s very … vulnerable.”

“I’ll bet even his exterior is vulnerable,” said Frank, covering his confusion and disappointment with a wolfish grin. “Does he wear a sword? Matthews, there you are! Come over here a minute.”

“Frank, please!” hissed Kathrin. “I think he’s my animus!”

“Your animus, is he? I had no idea it had gone this far. Matthews! Borrow a sword from someone and you and I will decide in the street which of us is to take Kathrin home.”

Frank was talking loudly, and many of the guests were watching him with wary curiosity. Matthews turned pale. “A sword?” he repeated. “A woman’s heart was never swayed by swords.”

“I’ll puncture your heart with one, weasel,” growled Frank, unsheathing his rapier. A woman screamed and Matthews looked imploringly at Kathrin.

“Frank!” Kathrin shrilled. “Put away your stupid sword! Matthews isn’t so cowardly as to accept your challenge.”

“What?” Frank hadn’t followed that.

“It takes much more courage
not to
fight. Matthews was explaining it to me earlier. And if you think I’d let a … thief and murderer like you take me home, you’re very much mistaken.”

Everyone in the room had stopped talking now and stared at Frank. He slapped his sword back into its scabbard and strode out of the room, leaving the front door open behind him.

That night after he’d rowed back to the boat, he took a long, very chilly swim in the sea by moonlight, out to the rocks of the jetty. He climbed up onto the highest of them, ignoring the icy wind that twitched his wet hair. Shivering like a drenched cat, he calmly watched the moon peeping at intervals from behind a tattered, back-lit sheet of clouds. Finally he swam slowly back to the boat, where he had a quick glass of brandy and then went to bed.

“Hey, Rovzar!”

Frank opened his eyes. He felt terrible, but it was mainly mental distress; apparently the alcohol and the icy swim had cancelled each other out.

“Dammit, Rovzar, where are you?”

Who the hell is that yelling
? Frank wondered. It didn’t sound like police, but it might well
bring
some if it didn’t stop. Frank rolled out of bed, slid into his pants, grabbed his rapier and stumbled bleary-eyed onto the dazzlingly-sunlit deck. A snub-nosed, insolent-looking young man stood by the stern, dressed in close-fitting tan leather.

“Who the hell are you?” Frank croaked.

“I’m a courier. You’re Rovzar, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, here,” the courier said, handing Frank a wax-sealed envelope. “Get some coffee into you, pal,” he advised. “You look terrible.” The young man hopped over the side into his own boat and began rowing away, whistling cheerfully.

Frank sat down on the deck and broke the seal. The letter, when unfolded, read: “Vital meeting of SC Tuesday at 9:00. Important
announcement. Mandatory attendance unless specifically exempt by a reigning lord.—BLANCHARD.”

Frank read it over several times and then stuffed it into his pants pocket.
Coffee
, he thought.
That’s not a bad idea
. He picked up his sword, stood up, and made his unsteady way down the stairs to the galley.

“What I heard was true I tell you, this is it.”

Lord Tolley Christensen bit his lip, frowning thoughtfully. “That isn’t certain, Emsley. Don’t jump to conclusions.” He stared again at the paper that lay on the table in front of him—it was a duplicate of the one Frank had received that morning. “Blanchard has got an ‘important announcement’ to make tomorrow. It might be anything—the Transport, the Goriot fugitives, the depression—it isn’t necessarily the naming of his successor.”

Emsley lit a cigar. “Yeah, Tolley, but what if it
is
? And the successor he names isn’t you, but Rovzar?”

“You’re right,” Tolley admitted. “We can’t risk it. Rovzar’s got to be killed.”

“Do it carefully, though,” Emsley said. “You’ll be a prime suspect, and if Blanchard thinks you did it he sure won’t make
you
his successor.”

“Blanchard won’t have time even to hear about it, I think,” said Tolley with a cold smile. “Have you heard of the
ius gladii?”

“The what?”

“Never mind. Get out of here, now, and let me think.”

Tuesday night was racked with thunder and rain. Frank stood on the deck under the overhanging roof of the cabin and stared out into the thrashing gray rain-curtains for some sign of the bow-light of Orcrist’s rowboat. The deep-voiced harbor bells and foghorns played a sad, moronic dirge across the water, and Frank’s shivering wasn’t entirely due to the cold, wet wind that whipped at his long sealskin coat. He waved his flickering lantern, hoping it would be seen by Orcrist.

Finally he heard “Ho, Frank!” from the darkness, and a moment later saw the weak glint of orange light wavering toward him through the rain. Frank swung his lantern from side to side. “This way, Sam!” he called.

A few minutes later Orcrist’s boat was bumping against the bow. Frank climbed in, holding his oiled and wrapped sword clear of the splashing, three-inch-deep pool of water in the scuppers. He thrust it inside his coat and then took the oars and began pulling for the Leethee. The rain was whipping them too fiercely for speech to seem like a good idea, so the two men simply listened to the occasional thunderclaps and watched the rain stream off their hat-brims.

The boat lurched its laborious way around the ship basin and then turned in. After some searching, they found the arch of the Leethee mouth. When they’d rowed a hundred feet or so up its length they took their hats off and Orcrist began bailing the water out of their boat with a couple of coffee cans. The Leethee was deeper and faster than usual, and Frank was soon sweating with the effort of making headway.

“How well do you know Blanchard, Frank?” It was the first thing either of them had said since Frank had entered the boat.

“Oh, I don’t know. I drink and play chess with him. Mostly he tells me stories about his younger days. Why do you ask?”

“Your acquaintance with him seems to have caused some jealousy in high circles.”

“Oh?”

“That’s what I’ve heard, anyway. Take that side-channel there, it’ll avoid most of this current.”

Eventually they pulled up to an ancient stone dock and moored their boat in its shadow. “Nobody’s likely to see it here,” Orcrist whispered. “Come on—up these stairs.” Frank buckled his sword to his belt and followed the older man up the cracked granite stairs, slipping occasionally on the wet stone surfaces.

The steps led up to a long, entirely unlit corridor, down which they had to feel their way as slowly as disoriented blind men. At last they reached another stairway and found at the top a high-roofed hall lit by frequent torches, and they were able to move more quickly.

“Say, Sam, I’ve been meaning to ask you: was the Subterranean Companions’ meeting hall ever a church? It sure looks like it was.”

“Didn’t you ever hear the story about that, Frank? There was a—”

A sharp
twang
sounded up ahead and an arrow buried half its length in Orcrist’s chest. Frank leaped to the wall and whipped out his sword, and two more arrows hissed through the space he’d occupied a moment before. Orcrist fell to his knees and then slumped sideways onto the wet pavement. Six men burst out of an alcove ahead and ran at Frank, waving wicked-looking double-edged sabres. Fired to an irrational fury by Orcrist’s death, Frank ran almost joyfully to meet them.

He collided with the first of them so hard that their bell guards clacked against each other, numbing the other man’s arm; Frank drove a backhand thrust through the man’s kidney. Two more blades were jabbing at his stomach, and he parried both of them low, then leaped backward and snatched up the fallen man’s sword. Two of the thugs were trying to circle around him, so Frank quickly leaped toward the other three with an intimidating stamp, his two swords held crossed in front of him. All
three men extended stop-thrusts that Frank swept up with his right-hand blade, clearing the way for a lightning-quick stab into the throat of the man on the far left; whirling with the move, Frank drove his blade to the hilt into a would-be back-stabber’s belly. The other man’s blade-edge cut a notch in Frank’s chin, but Frank’s right-hand sword pierced him through the eye.

Frank backed off warily to catch his breath. Barely five seconds had passed, but four of his opponents were down, three dead and one slumped moaning against the wall. Drops of blood fell in a steady rain onto the front of Franks dress shirt. The two remaining ambushers approached Frank cautiously, about six feet apart. The man on Frank’s right was leaving his six-line open.