David Tallerman - Prince Thief

It didn’t take long for his patience to exhaust itself. Suddenly Ludovoco was moving, feet dancing in quick sidesteps, blade outstretched and weaving. Alvantes drifted back behind it and then span aside, curling an offhand blow away.

Ludovoco stepped into space and nodded, as though the exchange were a performance they’d been acting out and he acknowledged that Alvantes had kept to his part. He shifted his pose, tucking his free arm behind his back; another mockery, perhaps? Briefly, he resumed his semi-circular drift, more clearly predatory this time. Then he lashed out again.

That altercation was over almost before it had begun. Alvantes easily tipped Ludovoco’s blade aside. The next went the same way — and the next. Between each, Ludovoco retreated; let a few moments pass by. He wasn’t trying to penetrate Alvantes’s defence, merely testing it.

I’d have expected no less. With every advantage his, it made sense that he’d take time rather than risks. The only thing I found strange was Alvantes letting him get away with it. The fact that he was willing to defend sat badly with his lust for vengeance. Damn him, why did the man have to be so damned cryptic?

Abruptly, Ludovoco switched hands, shifting his blade from one to the other with a casual flip, and was off again, with a whirlwind of strikes to Alvantes’s left side. Ludovoco fenced every bit as ably with his off hand, shifting constantly to keep the pressure on. Though Alvantes defended every blow, his stance was too unnatural to maintain for long. Without as much as a glove to protect his bandaged stump, his only recourse was to fight across his body.

Finally, Ludovoco relented once more. It was clear in his face; everything Alvantes had said of him was true. He was enjoying himself, fighting to wear Alvantes down by degrees. Ludovoco’s features were still, but every so often the twitch of an eyebrow or lip would betray the tension keeping them in place. I felt sure it was only iron self-control that stopped him cackling with glee.

Everyone’s attention was on the fight now. Even the men whose express function was to keep their crossbows trained on Alvantes’s guardsmen had let their weapons loll. I could sense my own guard, close behind my right shoulder; he’d edged forward to better view the action. The vase Alvantes had indicated was to my left — just out of reach. I edged the fraction of a step nearer, hoping against hope that my guard was too engrossed to notice.

Luckily for me, Ludovoco chose that moment to press his attack once more. Blade high, he dashed off a rapid sequence of strikes, the tip of his blade dancing figures-of-eight towards Alvantes’s face. It was clear even to me that the fight had changed — that Ludovoco was done with toying.

He wasn’t the only one. Alvantes twisted, side-stepped, let Ludovoco’s blade slip past his right side and smashed an elbow into Ludovoco’s shoulder. Not giving him an instant to react, Alvantes lashed out a foot for Ludovoco’s knee — and though Ludovoco recoiled in time, he still staggered. Alvantes swung for Ludovoco’s heels and then pressed close, clubbing at his opponent’s hand with his sword hilt, once and twice, so that blood splashed from his knuckles.

This wasn’t duelling. It was the kind of brutal, dirty street-fighting that had no place in a duelling ring — but which a city guard-captain might well pick up over the years. Ludovoco was too good to be kept off his guard for long, but Alvantes had chosen his moment perfectly. They were fighting now before Alvantes’s own men, and any crossbow shot aimed at them was as likely to strike Ludovoco.

Alvantes pressed his attack once more, abandoning any hint of style for raw, calculated violence — and making sure that wherever Ludovoco was, he made a mess of any clear shot the palace guards might risk in his defence. Alvantes’s men, meanwhile, already had their own blades out, and were pressing towards the nearest arch, with no one making any effort to stop them.

Ludovoco’s face was set with cold fury at the fact that he’d let himself be played, that he was still being played — for though he was capable of defending against even so vicious and undisciplined an attack, the need to protect himself against not only Alvantes’s blade but his feet, knees and elbows had thrown him badly. His anger, however, was nothing to Alvantes’s manifest hatred. Perhaps he knew he couldn’t win this fight, but I had no doubt he’d draw every drop of Ludovoco’s blood he could to avenge his murdered man.

Whatever opportunity Alvantes had hoped to gain, it wasn’t going to get better than this. No one was paying me the slightest attention. My sentry was twitching beside me, undoubtedly unsure if he should be heading off the retreating guardsmen or rushing to aid his commander; he was hardly even looking my way.

It came as no surprise when Alvantes darted a glance my way and bellowed, “Now, Damasco!”

I didn’t need to be told twice. My arm was still half numb from the guard’s attentions, and once I might have let that stop me. Lately I’d been through a lot, though, and grown intimately familiar with pain. Thus it was that I managed to grasp the vase beside me, despite pins and needles lacerating my wrist and shoulder — and thus it was that I managed to smash it into my guard’s face.

I even succeeded in not screaming as I did it — though a scream might have been manlier than the yelp I came out with. My guard fared better, making not the slightest noise as he took two slow steps backward to collapse through the curtain, his head negotiating a perfect arc on its way to the floor.

The horrid thud of his skull against the tiles was blessedly masked by my own footsteps, as I snatched up my pack and pounded past, back the way we’d come.

I was surprised to realise I had a fair idea of not only where I was but where I was going. Mounteban had insisted I spend an hour poring over plans of the palace — without ever feeling the need to explain where he’d found those plans — and now, almost unbidden, the details were returning.

I was in the east wing, somewhere near the main entrance and nowhere near where I wanted to be. The only way into the sublevels that my memory threw up was towards the kitchens, in the northwest corner. Since the palace was essentially a vast quadrangle, even getting that far meant covering quite a distance.

I couldn’t tell what was happening behind me — except that a lot of people were running, and many of them apparently in my direction. Whether that meant the duel had been called off, whether Alvantes and his men were making a break for it, I didn’t know or much care. I had more than enough trouble of my own approaching.

Seeing the chance of a shortcut as I met the corridor around the inner garden, I vaulted through a wide window arch, rolled through a bed of crimson blossoms and crashed into the line of low shrubbery beyond. That brought me out near a paved pathway, with a little cover and a significantly extended lead. I was nearing the far side before a shout let me know my pursuers had me back in sight.

Leaving the gardens via a mosaicked arch, I saw what I was looking for: a descending flight of stairs. I took them four at a time. It wasn’t often I had an advantage, over anyone or anything. Right then, however, I was unencumbered by weapons or armour, being chased by men with more than their share of both. Even without that, I was better built for speed than those muscle-bound clods. Lastly, I was following a precise mental map through regions of the palace its guards might never have encountered. All in all, I was startled to realise I’d gained a decent lead.

What I couldn’t do was lose them. I doubted this lower level had ever been cleaned as fastidiously as the rest of the palace, and it certainly hadn’t been touched since Panchetto’s death. The tiles I sprinted across were thick with dust. Even without looking back, I knew I was leaving a trail that anyone could follow. My only chance of losing my pursuers would be to stay ahead until they gave up — and from what I’d heard of the Palace Guard, that meant no chance at all.