Себастьян Кастелл - Traitor's Blade

A couple of the men I’d fought grunted and muttered under their breath, but no one looked us in the eye except for Blondie, who looked to me and said, ‘Fair fight’s a fair fight. Besides, no one ever liked this big bugger anyway.’

‘Trin, go and file our papers with the market clerk,’ Feltock said, handing a small leather packet to the handmaiden. Then he kicked the axeman’s body. ‘And tell them Kreff lost in a duel, fairly fought. I doubt anyone’ll care.’

She nodded and left us, and the crew readied the caravan for travel. Minutes later, we were on our horses and headed out the Market Gate. I don’t know if the constables were still looking for us or if they knew we were part of a caravan now and didn’t want to deal with all the problems of jurisdiction posed by the market laws; either way, we encountered no resistance, and for the first time that day, it looked as if we might be moving in the right direction.

‘We’re going in the wrong direction,’ Kest said.

I looked ahead. The caravan captain was leading the wagons towards the bridge. We trotted ahead up the ranks to the lead wagon. ‘You’re going the wrong way,’ I said. ‘The bridge takes us up the Spear – to the northern trade route.’

Feltock said, ‘Her Ladyship has her own reasons for wanting people to think we’re going to Baern, but this caravan is headed north, for her Saintly mother’s home of Hervor.’

‘But that’s almost three hundred miles north – and five hundred miles out of our way!’

‘No, it’s not, it’s right on your way,’ the captain said. ‘After all, you marked your deal. You’re part of this caravan now, and where it goes – well, that’s where you go. Unless you three want to break market law and be marked false. I reckon that wouldn’t be good for Trattari now, would it?’

Being marked false would be a death sentence for us. Trattari couldn’t be prosecuted for prior crimes, but we had no protection under the law, either. Unless we were employed by someone with power and influence, we were targets for anyone who wanted to make a name for himself. And now we were being dragged in the wrong direction in a caravan of people who hated us, in the employ of a woman we knew nothing about and who had reason to hide her travels.

Brasti and Kest gave me sour looks as our horses wandered slowly towards the bridge. ‘Fine,’ I said at last. ‘Go ahead and say it.’

Brasti shook his head in disgust, but Kest took me literally. ‘There’s an excellent chance that you’ve just got us killed, Falcio,’ he said.

Other than the Lady, who ignored us, and Trin, who was reasonably friendly with us, the emotions we elicited from most of the caravan crew during our first week ranged from outright hatred to whatever it is that’s much, much worse than outright hatred. It made the first part of the journey a lot like – well, a lot like everything else we did.

After an awkward first night of repeated references to ‘the dead tyrant’ we had served, the ‘whore’s sons’ that formed our order and the ‘tattered, stinking rags’ that were our greatcoats, we nearly came to knives with our fellow guards, so I decided it would be best if we spent most of our evenings by ourselves, on watch for the caravan and on watch for our own backs.

Trin came by, after the others had eaten, with food – I suppose it was a logical thing to do, since otherwise I’m certain we would have been accused of taking more than our share, but I still thought it was remarkably decent of her. She was pretty, with long dark hair and lightly tanned skin. Her eyes, when you could see them, were the colour of stream water. She even sat with us for a while, listening to our stories and asking questions about the old laws, giving her shy smile when one of us threw in a joke here or there.

She told us very little about the Lady she’d served her whole life, other than that she was a noble daughter of a great house. Trin had been first a playmate, when they were children and Trin’s mother was the Lady’s nanny, then later a companion for her lessons. Now she was the Lady’s handmaiden. I wondered what that must have been like, to start as a child, a playmate, and then every passing year become less and less an equal and more and more a servant. Trin appeared to think it was the most natural thing in the world, though, and laughed at Brasti when he suggested she could always steal the Lady’s best dress, run away to a southern city and claim to be a princess since she looked just like one.

‘Saints of my mother, no,’ Trin said. ‘That wouldn’t work at all!’

‘And why not?’ Brasti asked. ‘You’re certainly pretty enough.’

Trin looked down and laughed. ‘With hands like these?’ she said, holding up hands that were nicely shaped, but with the telltale calluses of a servant.

‘Let me see here,’ Brasti said, catching her hand and inspecting it closely. ‘As I suspected, as smooth as lake water and bright as gemstones. Now, as to taste—’ Then he leaned in to kiss the back of her hand.

‘Brasti?’ I said, a placid smile on my face.

‘Yes, Falcio?’ he asked, turning to give me one of those pouty, angry looks of his.

‘I was just thinking how long it’s been since we practised our feather-parries. Shall we get some work in tonight during first watch?’

‘Feather-parries? Why in hells would I want to do that?’

A feather-parry uses the back of the hand to deflect a blade. It’s sometimes necessary when your blade is already engaged, but it’s not pleasant – that’s why no one ever really wants to practise feather-parries. You come away with hands that sting for hours.

I kept smiling. ‘Because it might save your life one day. Perhaps today, even.’

Brasti let go of Trin’s hand.

‘Bowmen don’t practise feather-parries. We need our hands to have precision and control.’

Trin looked at him quizzically. ‘But don’t swordsmen need the same qualities?’

Brasti scoffed. ‘Them? Nah, it’s all just swinging and poking with swordsmen. Just “put the pointy end in the other fellow first” or whatever. An archer – now, an archer needs real skill.’

I rolled my eyes at Kest. We’d heard this lecture many times before, but Trin hadn’t, so she stepped right into it.

‘Is it really so hard?’ she asked.

‘My dear, not one man in a hundred can be a proper archer. And not one in ten thousand can become a master.’

‘And you are one? A master archer, I mean?’

Brasti smiled and contemplated the nails of his right hand. ‘One might fairly say so, I believe.’

‘One says so frequently,’ I observed.

‘But how did you become a master archer? Is it something you’re born with? Did you have a teacher?’

‘I did.’ He said the words as if they were full of secrets.

‘Well,’ Trin asked, ‘what was his name?’

‘No idea.’ Brasti looked solemn. ‘We never talked about it.’

‘You never talked about your own names? You studied archery from this man, but he never told you his name?’

‘It just never came up. I was poaching rabbits on the Duke’s land one day, barely old enough to be away from my mother’s skirts, and he just stepped out from behind a tree.’

‘What did he look like?’

‘Tall – very tall. He had long grey hair down to his shoulders in what we call archer fashion.’

‘Why “archer fashion”?’ she asked, sounding fascinated.

‘Down to the shoulders: easy to tie back.’

‘You mean like yours?’

‘Exactly like mine.’

‘And he taught you the bow, but he never taught you his name.’

‘Correct. Now that I think about it, I don’t think we ever spoke at all.’