Mark Lawrence - King of Thorns

“You have the look of a Steward to me. The right lines. Particularly around the eyes, nose, the forehead too. And you’ve declared yourself from Ancrath which would fit with your accent and colouring. Almost all Stewards are named after Honorous. You could be a bastard, but who teaches a bastard to even recognize calculus? And if you’re legitimate then as a Steward from Ancrath you would be named Ancrath. And what members of that household are young men? Jorg Ancrath springs to mind. And how old is he? Close on fifteen but not yet there.”

I didn’t yet know if I was right to like the man but his store of facts and talent for deduction impressed me. “Spectacular,” I said. “Wrong, but spectacular.”

Qalasadi shrugged. “I try.” He nodded to the refectory. “Your lunch awaits, no doubt.”

I stood and started across the courtyard. Then paused. “Why three?”

Qalasadi frowned as if trying to recall a lost sensation. “Three steps outside? Three in the carriage? Three women that will love you? Three Brothers lost on your journey? The magic lies in the first number, the mathematics in the second.”

The “three steps” put a cold finger down my spine, as if he had rummaged in the back of my skull and pulled out something I would rather keep hidden. I said nothing and walked away, a wild night running through my mind, cut by lightning and glimpses of the empty carriage as I hung in thorns.

I found myself at the refectory table without memory of getting there. I wondered how long it would be before Qalasadi laid his deductions at my uncle’s feet. He might spoil my game but it presented no danger.

“Not hungry?” The short guardsman from the gates sat across from me. Sunny.

I looked down at my lunch and tried to make sense of it. “What’s this stuff? Did someone throw up in my bowl?”

“Spicy squid.” The guardsman kissed his fingertips and spread them. Mwah.

I skewered a tentacle, a difficult feat in itself, and set to chewing. The experience wasn’t dissimilar from chewing shoe leather. Except that to fully replicate it you would have to set the leather on fire. Spices are all well and good. Salt to taste, a little pepper, a bay leaf in soup, a clove or two in an apple pie. But on the Horse Coast they seem to favour chillies that will take the skin off your tongue. Having been burned on the outside and not liked the experience, I saw no reason to burn on the inside. I spat my mouthful back into the bowl.

“That is truly vile!” I said.

“I would have had it off you,” the guardsman said. “But you went and spat in it. I’m Greyson by the way.”

“William of Ancrath,” I said. I picked up my hunk of bread and nibbled it, wary that the cook might have mixed a bag of chilli dust in with the flour.

“What’s the deal with the Moor?” I asked, and ran my fingers over my teeth as if “Moor” were not sufficient description.

“You’ve met Qalasadi now have you?” Greyson grinned. “He keeps the castle accounts. Works wonders with the local merchants. Gets Earl Hansa the good contracts. Best of all he’s in charge of paying the guards and he’s never a day late. Five years back we had Friar James keeping the books. We could go a month without coin.” He shook his head.

“He’s close with the Earl and his son, this Qalasadi?” I asked.

“Not especially. He’s just the book keeper.” Greyson shrugged.

I liked the sound of that, but wondered at a man of such talent occupying a relatively minor role without complaint.

“I like him well enough,” Greyson said. “Plays cards with the wall guard sometimes. Always loses, never complains, never drinks our ale.”

“You’d have thought he’d be good at cards,” I said.

“Terrible. Not sure he even knows the rules. But he seems to love it. And the men like him. They don’t even give him a hard time about being the castle’s only Moor. And by rights they should. What with his countrymen set on invading the mainland and turning us all to heathens or corpses.”

“Moors is it?” I asked. “Should I be expecting to kill some soon?”

Others of the guard leaned in, listening to the conversation as they chewed their squid. I thought perhaps the chilli dissolved the tentacles in the end, because chewing seemed insufficient.

“You might yet,” Greyson said. “Ibn Fayed, he’s caliph in Liba, has sent his ships three times this year. We’re due another raid.”

Without warning the rumble of conversation died and Greyson put his head down. “Shimon, the sword-master,” he hissed. “He never comes in here.”

A man loomed behind me. I focused on the squid but refrained from actually putting it in my mouth.

“You, boy,” Shimon said. “Ancrath. Out in the yard. I’m told you have promise.”

Four years earlier

I knew of Sword-master Shimon. Makin told me stories about him. About his exploits as a young man, champion to kings, teacher of champions, legend of the tourney. I hadn’t expected him to be so old.

“Yes, Sword-master,” I said, and I followed him out into the courtyard.

To say he moved like a swordsman would be understatement. He looked as old as Tutor Lundist, with the same long white hair, but he stepped as if he heard the sword-song beating through each moment of the day.

Qalasadi had gone from the shadows and the courtyard lay empty but for a serving girl crossing with a basket of washing, and the men on guard at the gate. Other guards crowded the door of the refectory behind us, but they didn’t dare follow us out. Shimon had not extended them an invitation.

The sword-master turned to face me. The bookish look of him surprised me. He could have passed as a scribe, but for the dark burn of the sun and a hawkishness about the eyes. He drew his sword. A standard issue blade the same as mine.

“When you’re ready, young man,” he said.

I slid my sword out, wondering how to play this. Qalasadi was probably telling my uncle who I really was right now, so why not make full use of the opportunity?

I slapped at his blade, and he did that rolling-wrist trick the Prince of Arrow used, only better, and took my sword out of my hand. I heard laughter from the doorway.

“Try harder,” Shimon said.

I smiled and picked my sword up. This time I moved in quick with a thrust at his body. He did the trick again but I rolled my wrist with his and kept my blade.

“Better,” he said.

I attacked him with short precise combinations, the moves I had been working on with Makin. He fended me off without apparent effort, replying at the end of each attack with a counter-attack that I could barely contain. The rapid clash of metal on metal echoed around the courtyard. I felt the music of steel rise about me. I felt that cold calm sensation rolling out over my arms, cheeks, the skin of my back. I heard the song.

Without thought I attacked, slicing high, low, feinting, deploying my full strength at precisely the right moments, all of me moving, feet, arms, hips, only my head still. I increased the tempo, increased it, and increased it again. At times I couldn’t see my blade or his, only the shape of our bodies, and the necessity of the dance let me know how to move, how to block. The sound of our parrying became like the clickety-click of knitting needles in expert hands.

Shimon’s hard old face didn’t look made for smiling, but a smile found its way there. I grinned like an idiot, sweat dripping off me.

“Enough.” He stepped away.

I found it hard not to follow him, to press the attack, but I let my sword drop. There had been a joy in it, in the purity, living on the edge of my blade without thought. My heart pounded and sweat soaked me, but I had nothing of the anger that normally builds even in practice sessions. We had made a thing of beauty.