The Liar's key

TWENTY-TWO

The messenger brought two scrolls to the Roma Hall and though a hangover had been driven through my head like a huge metal spike I was awake and ready to receive them at the breakfast table. Outside grey dawn had started to tiptoe along the Kings Way toward the palace. I sat looking at the scramble of my eggs, the black scroll-case, and the copper-worked one, all with equal mistrust. My stomach’s protests led me to push the plate away first. The black case bore an ivory cartouche displaying a wrecked ship in silhouette, the Isen crest. Inside would be formal announcement of his planned visit. The only question in my mind was where I was going to run to and whether to read the other message first. I had no funds to speak of, nowhere to run, and no excuse for running, but there wasn’t any question of me staying to duel the Count of Isen. It would take more than Grandmother’s disapproval to have me ready to face a lunatic like Isen in combat.

Pressing the heel of one hand to my forehead in an attempt to squeeze out the self-inflicted pain I reached, groaning, for the copper scroll-case. It bore no legend. I tried to pry the end off one-handed, cautious in case Maeres had sent me an asp. I ended up fumbling the thing to the floor and having to use two hands-both of them trembling with the aftermath of too much wine, stress, and the certainty that if there were an asp in there it would now be a decidedly pissed off one. The end cap unscrewed rather than pulled. I shook out the scroll within then smoothed it across the table. At first I had trouble focusing bleary eyes sufficiently to read the calligraphy set across the vellum. Some sort of official letter or warrant.

I fixated on a line near the top: “Davario Romano Evenaline of the House Gold, Mercantile Derivatives.” Then one near the bottom. “Bearer Prince Jalan Kendeth deputized to represent the interests of Gholloth in Afrique trade-specifically the RMS Jupiter, Mars, and Mercury.” I blinked, lifted the scroll before my face and squinted at it. “House Gold, Umbertide, Florence.”

It seemed to be a document both authorizing and dispatching me to conduct some kind of commercial negotiations in Umbertide, the banking capital of Florence. I ran my finger across the hard blob of sealing wax impressed with a complex sigil. It took me a moment to remember where I knew it from. Eight interlocking fingers.

“Garyus!” I said it out loud. Too loud. And wished I hadn’t. For a moment the piercing agony of my hangover left no room for thought. “Garyus.” A whisper. He had this symbol tattooed across the veins of his left wrist. And Gholloth must be his true name, after his father, King Gholloth II, Garyus being a diminutive, perhaps even “Gharyus”-I’d never seen it written. I looked more closely and saw that the “Jalan” appeared to overwrite some other name that had been scraped away, with another seal-mark to notarize the change.

I rolled the scroll up and tapped it into the case, then clutched it tight, hauling in a sigh of relief. I had my excuse for leaving and a place to go. Dear old Great-uncle Garyus had heard of my predicament and swapped me in for the duty. If I hurried I could be out of the palace before they dragged Snorri in, before the count turned up waving his sword and bleating about satisfaction, and before Maeres Allus knew anything about it. Better still, I was bound for Umbertide, where all the world’s money washes up sooner or later: what better place for an impoverished prince to line his pockets? I could come back laden with gold, pay off Allus and the other vultures, and hopefully find that Sharal DeVeer had talked sense into her new husband by then.

“Saddle my horse!” And, hoping that someone would convey the order to the stablemaster, I plotted an unsteady path back to my rooms, determined to pack for the journey this time. The first thing I did was to swap my old campaign blade for the dress sword at my side. The queen’s peace held on the roads to Florence but even so the old adage also held-the more used your sword looks, the less likely you’ll have to use it.

• • •

Horse-riding is a kill-or-cure treatment for hangovers and I managed to stay on the right side of the divide, whilst wishing not a few times for the merciful embrace of death. I cantered out of Vermillion with over-full saddlebags bouncing against Nor’s flanks and the morning sun beginning to heat the cobbles all around us.

I slowed Nor to a walk as soon as distance had diminished the city behind me to something I could block out with an outstretched thumb. It felt good to be on the move again, this time with a safe destination, a letter of authority in my pack, plenty of provisions, spare clothes, a horse, a handful of coppers, and six silver crowns. I’d left instructions for the count to be told I’d been called away on official royal business. It pleased me to think of him kicking his heels in the heat outside the Roma Hall then stomping back home. Maerus Allus could go hang too. I rode on in good spirits. There’s something remarkably uplifting about moving on and leaving your troubles behind.

I rode a day, slept at a decent inn, enjoyed an enormous breakfast of mushroom omelette and fried potatoes, and set off again. Travelling incognito through my homeland proved a liberating experience, and whilst I missed the company the Norse had provided it did give me time to think my own thoughts and watch the world go by. It turns out that’s highly over-rated.

Two thoughts started to gain prominence among all my speculation about events back in Vermillion. Namely, where were Grandmother’s riders, with Snorri a prisoner in their midst, and why the hell hadn’t I caught up with Hennan yet? How had an urchin on foot with just a day’s start on me managed to stay ahead this long? Another day of clip-clopping down the Appan Way didn’t answer either question. The sun set behind me bringing the faintest whisper of Aslaug’s presence and throwing all the valley of Edmar into shadow. The white flash down Nor’s face seemed to catch the last of the light and point the way. Warm air, the chirp of crickets rising among the vineyards lining the slopes to either side, the odd wagon or laden cart hauled by a sway-backed donkey. . as peaceful an evening as a man could wish for. Instead I found myself wishing for the drunken riot of an evening at the Follies, followed by a drunken tumble with one of the more flexible performers (they liked to call themselves actresses) or perhaps two of them, or three. I rolled comfortably in Nor’s saddle pondering how Vermillion called to me the moment I left it despite having proved something of a disappointment after my long absence.

I wasn’t aware of the horsemen coming up behind me until the last moment-that’s another disadvantage of getting lost in your thoughts. On my left a man leaned from his saddle and drew my sword, on my right another pulled his horse across Nor’s path and grabbed the reins from me.

“If you’d be so kind as to dismount, Prince Jalan.” A voice from behind me.

Leaning around, I saw three more men on horseback, the middle one a solid fellow, well-dressed in a high-collared cloak, the latest fashion, fastened with a thick gold chain. He looked to be about fifty, with close-cropped grey hair, dark eyes, and a grim smile. Cold hands contracted around my stomach and bladder with the realization that this was likely Count Isen. To his left a slighter figure hooded in grey, holding his reins in a single hand, to his right an ugly dark-haired bruiser much like those flanking me, only this one had a heavy crossbow levelled at my back.

I raised my hands, mind racing. “I’m on the queen’s business. I’ve no time for games-especially not for being waylaid on the highway. This is common criminality! My grandmother has men nailed to trees for this kind of thing.” I kept my voice as even as I could, choosing my words to remind the count of his duties and of mine. Challenging a man to a duel is one thing. Forcing him off the road at crossbow point is a very different matter.

“I asked you to dismount, Prince Jalan. I won’t be asking again.” The count seemed unmoved.

Slowly, so as to give no excuse to the fellow with the crossbow, I dismounted. It would just take one nervous twitch from the man, or even from his horse, and I could be staring at the hole a crossbow bolt had punched through me. I’d seen men hit by crossbow bolts at short range and very much wished that I hadn’t.

“Easy now. This is madness! You only had to wait-”

The count waved at the two men who had dismounted as I did. I shook my head but couldn’t make sense of the words.

“Hey now!” They grabbed my hands and secured them behind me with disturbing swiftness, having a rope noose already prepared to loop around both wrists.

The count glanced back down the road then stood in his stirrups to look ahead. Satisfied we weren’t about to be disturbed in the next minute or two he sat back. “And the mask.” Neither man shifted. The count placed his palm over his mouth.

A rustling behind me and hands reached around me to press something heavy across my mouth.

“No!” I started struggling but the man in front, tall as me and thick with muscle, punched me in the stomach, right in that spot that tells all the air to leave your lungs fast as it can.

While I doubled up they secured the gag, forcing the leather bit between my teeth as I gasped for breath. The thick leather straps reached out across my face and round the back of my head like the fingers of a hand, partly blocking my nose and half-covering my eyes. A common liar’s mask of the sort used to transport seditionists and madmen. I would have smiled if I could. Count Isen had gone far too far. Grandmother wouldn’t stand for anyone bearing her name to endure such humiliation. Dragging me through Vermillion like this might sully my reputation somewhat but the count would be lucky to escape with his lands and title, certainly there would be no question of me having to duel him.

“Up!” The count waved his hand at the pair manhandling me and with distressing ease they lifted me back onto Nor. I slipped my boots into the stirrups and held on tight with my knees. Falling off a horse with your hands tied behind your back is a quick way to break your neck.

The third of the Slavic men lowered his crossbow and removed the bolt. I guess the trio didn’t speak the Empire tongue, though why the count would employ such men I couldn’t-

“No!” Is what I would have said. Instead I made a muffled scream around the gag. The man on Isen’s other side had raised his hood. He released his reins to do it since he only had the one arm. The hood slipped from a bald white skull, pale eyes stared into mine from a fleshless face that somehow, despite seeming nothing but skin stretched over bone, managed to look pleased to see me. How the hell did Maeres Allus’s head torturer, Cutter John, come to be riding with Count Isen? I tried to urge Nor into a trot but the bully beside me had tight hold of the reins and the other punched me in the leg, hard enough for me to lose feeling in it.

“Steady now!” The count raised a hand. “You left it a little late to run, Prince Jalan.” He smiled without humour. “I see you’ve recognized John. I’m Alber Marks, and my associates’ names are unimportant. What is important is that they won’t understand anything you say to them and have no idea who you are. I mention this only to save you breath when trying to bribe them or otherwise sway them from their purpose.”

Shit. Shit. Shit. Maeres Allus had sent one of his best lieutenants after me. Alber Marks had a reputation for ruthless efficiency. Here I’d been thinking that only social niceties and royal duty stood between me and being run through with the count’s longsword. But the real threat had been re-acquaintance with Cutter John’s pincers-and anything that stood between me and being tied to a table in one of Maeres’s warehouses had slipped away when I stopped paying attention. I should have known it wasn’t the count. Isen was said to be a small man and even on a horse, dwarfed by henchmen, Alber Marks hadn’t fit the bill.

“Come.” Alber tilted his head and led off toward a gap in the verge where a tiny track angled away from the highway. The Slavs rode two in front, one behind, corralling me. They led me after Alber and Cutter John at an unhurried pace. It took a minute or two to get out of sight of the road among the vine rows and the dividing hawthorn hedges.

The men lifted me from Nor’s back again and Cutter John came over to check my bonds, running a cold and long-fingered hand over each of the five straps about my head-an intimate touch that made me shiver with revulsion. A moment’s fiddling at the back of my head and I heard the snap of a lock. Cutter John came back into view, dangling a small key before dropping it into his pocket. He smiled, displaying narrow teeth and pulled open his cloak to show the stump of his arm, ending in an ugly mass of pale scar just above the elbow. The last time I’d seen Cutter John blood had been pulsing from the wound-Snorri having sliced the arm off just moments before-and I’d given him several good kicks in the head while he lay unconscious, and I rather hoped, dying. I wished now I’d staved his skull in with a table leg.

Rummaging somewhat awkwardly in an inner pocket Cutter John drew out a pair of iron pincers. “Remember?” he asked.

I hadn’t forgotten, though Lord knows I’d wanted to. The damn things had featured regularly in my nightmares for the past six months.

“I’ll be waiting,” he said, and moving behind me he caught the tip of one of my fingers in the pincers, squeezing hard. I roared behind the gag and threw myself about in the Slavs’ grip and somehow my finger came free though with so much pain I couldn’t tell if he’d snipped off the fingertip or not. The whole hand pulsed with agony and I hauled air in and out through my nose, slobber escaping the gag.

Alber Marks rode closer and leaned in. “John and I will be leaving now. It wouldn’t be sensible to risk getting caught with you in our possession. We’ll arrange a discreet entrance into the city for you and if I don’t meet you again. . well, I’m sure that John will.” He straightened up. “Safe journey, Prince Jalan.” And with that they both rode off at a trot, Cutter John bouncing along like a man unused to the saddle.

I sat struggling to draw breath past the mask, eyes swimming with tears, and with my finger ablaze with agony as if it had been dipped into hot acid. Even so my heart hammered slightly less frantically with each yard that opened up between us. It might seem small comfort but however dire my circumstances were the fact that Cutter John was riding away just made everything that bit better.

The relief proved short-lived. With a grunt one of the three Slavs tugged Nor’s reins and we started back toward the Appan Way. I blinked a few times to clear my eyes and glanced around at the guards as we rode. They shared the same coarse features, their faces each comprising a set of broad planes: heavy brow above a small nose, prominent cheekbones from which sallow skin stretched down to a square jaw. I judged them to be brothers, possibly even triplets, for there was little to tell them apart. Without the mask and the language barrier I might stand a chance of talking my way out of it, but something about their eyes-that flat and unimaginative look they all had-told me they would be hard to turn from their course even then.

The first three times we passed people on the road I immediately started struggling and trying to call out. It earned me looks of disgust and jeers of derision from the travellers as they passed by, and cuffs around the head from the Slavs once they were out of sight. The fourth time I tried the carter’s mate threw a rock at me and the largest of the Slavs punched me in the kidneys hard enough that I’d be pissing blood come morning. I gave up after that. The liar’s mask made me near impossible to recognize even if our household servants were to walk on past. Moreover it marked me as an enemy of Red March whose untruths were poison. Most would assume I was being taken to trial and would probably lose my tongue once found guilty, or perhaps if the judge were lenient merely have it split to the root.

• • •

We made camp at the side of the road, far enough back into a field of maize to hide us from view. The relief I’d felt at being separated from Cutter John once more had quickly eroded as we reduced the gap again, making steady progress toward Vermillion. I hadn’t any ideas about how to escape and being ridden through my own kingdom past dozens of loyal subjects, unrecognized and unable to ask for help was maddening.

Squatted in a flattened circle of maize and hemmed in on all sides by the tall green legion of undamaged crop, we were well hidden. Even the horses wouldn’t be seen, heads bowed and crunching away on the nearly ripe cobs. One of the Slav brothers hammered a wooden stake into the ground and attached the back of my mask to it with a length of chain already bolted to the stake. This done, the brothers broke out cold rations and settled to eat-black bread, a tub of greyish butter, and a length of dark red sausage mottled with white lumps of fat and gristle. They devoured it in silence save for the constant chewing and occasional unintelligible word as they exchanged foodstuffs. None of them paid me the slightest attention. I tried to think of an escape plan whilst trying not to think how much I needed to piss. Neither attempt proved successful and it began to seem like the only way to alert the bastards to my toileting needs would be to wet myself.

It turns out that wetting yourself is quite difficult, going against a number of key instincts as it does. Even so, with enough time you’ll get there. I was on the point of soiling myself when one of the Slavs got up and took a peculiar metal hook from his pocket. Without warning he grabbed the back of my head with one arm and forced the hook past the gag, snagging me by the corner of the mouth like a fish. Then, preventing my struggles simply by holding the hook, he took out a funnel and jammed its point into the end of the hook-which turned out to be a hollow tube.

"Water."

He reached for a water skin and started to fill the funnel. From that point, until he stopped, the business of not choking to death kept me fully occupied. The incident made two things clear-firstly that they didn’t have the key to the mask, and secondly if I were ever going to be fed again it would be after we reached Vermillion.

The “watering” solved the other problem I’d been having, my bladder losing all its shyness as I choked. The effect was at first a not-unpleasant warmth, fading fairly quickly to the less pleasant sensation of cold wet trousers.

The sun set and though I imagined Aslaug whispering amongst the dry voices of the corn I couldn’t make out the words and she offered no help. In fact, it sounded almost like laughter.

Two brothers settled down to sleeping, leaving the third to watch me, and eventually I lay down on the bed of flattened maize stalks to try to sleep. My finger, or what I imagined might be left of it, pulsed with hurt, and without being able to bring my arms forward I could find no position in which they didn’t ache, the mask was a misery and bugs emerged in the darkness to explore every inch of me. Even so, at some point in the night I passed out, and ten seconds later, or so it seemed, my captors were shaking me awake with the sky hinting grey above us.

I watched them break their fast, choked down more water, and was hoisted onto Nor’s back once more. We resumed our journey toward Vermillion, clattering along at a gentle pace past the day-to-day traffic of wagons, messengers, carriages bound for distant destinations, and peasants making shorter visits on laden carts or leading over-burdened mules along behind them. The road rose among some stony ridge of hills that I didn’t recall from my outward journey, and farmland gave over to a dry forest of cork oaks, beech, and loose-limbed conifers. The morning haze burned away and the sun beat down again, seemingly harder than before, raising a stink from the manure piles punctuating the Appan cobbles and making me yearn unexpectedly for the cool clean winds of a Norseheim spring. I lolled in the saddle, sweating, thirsty, and wretched, wondering how many flies were clustered around the aching ruin of my finger and laying their eggs in the glistening wound.

“That’s him!” A man’s voice, strident and triumphant. “Or at least it’s his horse. Certain of that. Look at the flash.”

I unglued my eyes and tried to focus. Four men on horseback had moved to block our way.

“It can’t be him.” A different man, dismissive. “A prince of Red March wouldn’t-”

“Check him, Bonarti.” This from the man on the largest horse, a real monster.

The last of them urged his steed toward me. The Slav brothers tensed but made no move to prevent his advance.

“Definitely his horse.” The first man, daring anyone to disagree with him.

Relief flooded me. If I’d not been gagged I would have shouted for joy. Every ache vanished in the instant. Grandmother, Martus. . someone. . had learned of Maeres’s intentions and sent out a rescue party. A rescue party including a man who’d taken note of Nor’s peculiar markings-that jagged white flash down the velvety blackness of his nose. His distinctiveness had drawn me to buying him-I’d wanted to look good riding back into my hometown and, even though a connoisseur of horseflesh like myself shouldn’t be guided by such frippery, I had let it guide me. And it must have guided Maeres’s men too. If I’d only chosen a plain dun nag and worn a hood I would have been crossing the border into Florence instead of a day’s hard ride from Vermillion and neck deep in the mire.

The thin man closing in on me leaned forward in his saddle to peer at me, his eyes narrow, one with the red stain of a birthmark just below it. It was Bonarti Poe! I’d last seen him at the Grapes of Roth just before Maeres showed up to ruin the evening. He might be an oily fellow with a pointy face that seemed to beg for slapping, but at that moment I’d never been so pleased to see anyone I knew. I didn’t even begrudge him all the Rhonish red he’d swigged at my expense that night.

“Prince Jalan?”

I nodded vigorously making gurgling noises that I hoped sounded affirmative. Bonarti continued to peer at me closely, shifting his head from side to side as though it might help him see past the straps across my face. “It’s him all right!” Then in a quieter and puzzled voice. “Prince Jalan, why are you-”

“He’s hiding, obviously! A ruse to smuggle himself back into the city unobserved.” The man on the enormous horse cut across Bonarti’s question. My attention though was on the Slav brothers-given half a chance they’d cut my saviours down and carry on to Vermillion as if nothing had happened. I gestured urgently toward them with my head making gurgling noises that I hoped sounded a strong note of warning.

“Stop this foolery! Get down from there, sir! And face me like a man! Face me as you should have had the decency to do when you first received my challenge!” The man on the big horse had my attention now, his face red with fury around a neat grey moustache and the narrow slit of his mouth.

“His hands are bound, Count Isen!” Bonarti, leaning around me.

“Prisoner!” the Slav brother closest to me declared.

“Nonsense!” Count Isen-the real article this time-was having none of it. “Enough of this farce. Cut him loose and get him down. I’ve no time for such foolishness. A day wasted on the road when I could have been doing something useful. .”

Bonarti took his knife, a small bejewelled thing, and cut my wrists free.

“Prisoner!” the Slav repeated but with no small amount of the traffic having stopped to watch the entertainment the brothers would be fools to try anything.

I brought my hands forward, rubbing both wrists and making a close study of my mutilated finger. It proved less injured than I’d imagined, with only the nail ripped away and the exposed flesh crusted over with black scabs. Part of me was pleased the damage wasn’t irreversible, the other part horrified that so much pain had come from so small an injury. Even with the Count of Isen ready to slice me into quivering chunks I managed a shiver at the thought of what Cutter John could achieve given his leisure with a man.

“Get down, sir! I mean to have my satisfaction without delay!” And Count Isen swung himself from the saddle of his vast horse, to vanish entirely behind it. He emerged from its shadow, hands on hips, glaring up at me. He was as small a man as I’d seen in my months on the road, with the exception of Dr. Taproot’s dwarf, dressed in the finest possible travel attire and trailing a sword at his hip that might have scraped the floor even if it hung from my own.

I reached up to my mask and tugged at it, pointing at Bonarti then at the back of my head.

“Yes, I bought Bonarti as your second. Mine’s Stevanas over there.” Isen waved a hand at a solid warrior glowering toward me from his horse. Sir Kritchen here will adjudicate to ensure fair play. Now get down, sir, or so help me I’ll have you dragged from the saddle.”

I met Isen’s stare for the first time. Beneath neatly barbered hair and well-manicured eyebrows the eyes of a maniac stared up at me. A small maniac, granted, but somehow scary as all hell even so. I got off Nor’s back sharp enough, tugging at the mask and discovering the heavy lock at the rear. Dismounting wasn’t an act of bravery. The thing about horses is that they’re great for running away once you’re actually running away, but they lack a touch of initial acceleration so if you’re right next to a threat and looking to escape, you may well find you’re better off on foot. By the time Nor got up to speed and broke clear of my various captors, enemies, and would-be murderers, a least one of them would likely have stuck a sword through some part of me that I’d rather keep. Instead I tugged meaningfully at the straps and pointed at my mouth.

“Enough of this mummery! Defend yourself!” Count Isen drew his over-long sword and pointed it my way.

I held out my empty hands. “I haven’t even got a sword you tiny madman!” is what I tried to say, though it emerged as a long string of “ung” sounds.

“Sir Kritchen.” Isen kept those little black beads of insanity fixed on my face. “Give the prince his sword. I see the fellow behind him has two blades.”

And while I made further protests Sir Kritchen, a tall elderly fellow I remembered from somewhere, dismounted to retrieve my sword from one of the Slav brothers. With the gathered crowd growing by the minute the man had little option but to hand it over. He didn’t look happy. Probably wondering if his homeland was far away enough to avoid Maeres’s wrath if they didn’t get me back to him in Vermillion as charged.

Sir Kritchen, immaculate despite his long and dusty ride from the city, wrapped my right hand about the sword’s hilt. The last time I’d swung the weapon in earnest had been at the Aral Pass. The notches told a story that I’d largely forgotten and wasn’t keen to relive. Somehow terror had pushed me into a berserker frenzy that day. Even if I could repeat the feat here on the Appan roadside it would do me little good. Battle madness doesn’t make you the better swordsman, it just stops you caring whether the man you’re facing is the better swordsman.

I stared stupidly at my blade a moment, dazzled by the sunlight flashing from it. Dehydration and hunger had left me slow-minded, not quite connecting with the events unfolding around me.

“Clear a space! Stevanas-make some room!” Isen swung his sword in wide and dangerous circles.

“Wait! Get this thing off me first!” I tugged ineffectually at the mask, the words emerging as gurgles. A moment later I realized I was holding a sharp edge and with great relief turned it against the straps. Unfortunately it didn’t seem possible to hold the sword far enough away to get the point to my face. I tried instead to saw at the straps with the length of the blade but they were so tight I couldn’t get fingers beneath them, and so bedded into my flesh that cutting away at them blind and clumsy would inflict horrible wounds. Seeing Isen turn my way and knowing he intended to inflict rather more fatal injuries on me I started to cut at the most prominent strap, albeit somewhat tentatively. It hurt.

The highborn, barking as highborn are trained to, made a hole in the crowd quick enough. The onlookers were eager to see a show in any event and keen to help.

“Defend yourself, man!” Isen stepped toward me, his sword leading the way, point held steady and level with my heart.

“Stop!” I yelled. “I’m being held prisoner!” Or more accurately, “Gogh! Mmm meen meld mimimer!” My fingers were slick with blood or sweat or both but the strap seemed to be giving.

“It’s better I don’t have to listen to your lies, Prince Jalan, and better you don’t have to shame yourself before these witnesses with excuses for your cowardice.” The count’s eyes burned with an insanity I couldn’t quite place. . perhaps three parts homicide and two parts absolute certainty that every word ever to pass his lips was God’s own truth. “Have at you!”

“I’m not going to fight you!”-“Mmm mot mowing moo migh moo!” I resolved to make no move to defend myself and to rely instead on the count’s honour to save me, or at least his fear of having his honour called into question.

The first strap gave. And with that he lunged.

Despite my conviction that I wasn’t going to react I found myself leaping back and swinging my sword to deflect his. Whether it had been an earnest attempt on my life or a ruse to goad me into action I couldn’t tell, but my body had made the decision for me and now he attacked with a flurry of blows very definitely intended to disembowel me.

My sword arm moved instinctively, following the patterns beaten into it over the course of so many long and miserable hours training in the weaponmaster’s halls at Grandmother’s insistence. The clash of steel on steel is always frighteningly loud and a helpful hint of the agony that being hit will involve is transmitted through the hilt, driving shards of pain through palm and wrist and making you want nothing more than to drop the damn sword.

For the first. . well it felt like an hour but must have been considerably less than a minute, the tempo of Isen’s attack left no fragment of a second spare for thinking. Instinct and training actually served me pretty well. I defended well though made no counter-attacks. The idea of deliberately slicing my sword into flesh-even the flesh of an odious dwarf like Count Isen-turned my stomach. It’s not any sort of compassion-I’m just squeamish. I couldn’t even contemplate it. Like sticking a needle into my own eye I found it something I just couldn’t bring myself to try. Besides-I was busy.

We clashed our way in mostly one direction, me backing, scattering the crowd. Isen advancing with a small grimace of satisfaction on his face as he cut and thrust. It felt like battling someone standing in a hole, an uncomfortable sensation that left me worrying about a different set of vital organs than usual. I left the road, nearly tripping in the ditch and retreated across uneven ground, scrub catching at my feet.

All this for Sharal DeVeer’s honour? For bedroom antics that happened long before he’d laid an eye on her. . or perhaps the old goat had laid both eyes on her years back and had simply been waiting for her hand to be old enough for his ring, or maybe he’d had to wait for her over-protective father to die before forging a marriage deal with the new and less scrupulous Lord DeVeer?

Instinct and training served me well and it wasn’t until the raw terror of it all caught up with me that my mind started interjecting and causing mistakes. The tip of Isen’s blade scored a hot red line across my shoulder. It wasn’t pain so much as shock. . and horror. I knocked his sword up, sprang back, turned on a heel and ran flat out for the trees.

The surprise of it gave me a good head-start. I’d opened a lead of twenty yards before Count Isen’s roar of disbelief caught up with me. I could hear the pursuit begin before I made it halfway to the tree-line but few men are gifted with my particular turn of speed and none of those I’d venture to say stood eye to eye with little Isen.

I passed between the first two elms with what would have been a wild grin, but for the mask. I could lose myself in the forest, be rid of the gag, sort myself out a safe passage to Umbertide and damn their hides. The Slavs would swear it wasn’t me and I would, in the fullness of time, deny the whole thing. “You must be mistaken. Me in a liar’s mask? How can you even tell who the wretched traitors wearing those things are? You should have taken it off-then it would have been obvious. Lucky Isen didn’t murder the poor fellow!”

Panting, scratched and sweaty I paused, lost among the trees, mostly tall copper beeches. The ground beneath them lay thick with the rustling remains of last year’s leaves, overgrown with brambles. I set my back to the thickest trunk in sight and started to work on the leather straps around my head again. This time wedging my sword hilt between my feet and going at it with considerably more care.

Applying a sharp edge to your face with sufficient force to cut old leather whilst trying to preserve your boyish good looks is a tricky business. In fact the task took up so much of my concentration that I almost missed the faint crunch of dry leaves beneath approaching boots.

Somehow the need to be able to talk over-rode the sudden rising panic and I kept sawing just long enough to break through the last of the straps. I pulled the damn thing free, working my sore mouth but careful not to spit or make any other sound that might draw attention.

“Stevanas? Poe?” More rustling, a muttered oath. “Sir Kritchen?” Count Isen’s voice booming out far deeper than might be expected from so small a man, and far closer at hand than I’d thought he was. “Jalan Kendeth! Show yourself!” He sounded rather hoarse, as if he’d been shouting quite a bit.

With agonizing slowness I set the mask down and started to turn my sword around so I could grasp the hilt. Despite the utmost concentration my hands, slippery with sweat and blood, managed to do the exact opposite of what I asked them to and dropped the weapon. It landed with a muffled crunch among the dry leaves.

“Ah ha!” Count Isen appeared, rounding the bole of the forest giant next to mine, arriving from a completely unexpected direction and turning out to be far closer than I thought he was-the tree he skirted stood so close to the one at my back that their lower branches interlocked above us like the fingers of praying hands.

We both froze for an instant, eyes fixed to each other’s, me sat on my arse with my sword on the ground before me, the silent forest all about us, lit here and there by irregular patches of sunlight, golden in the dappled gloom. Without further warning Isen charged, some wordless and murderous battle cry on his lips. I dived for my sword, shrieking that I was unarmed.

Just two yards short, with me still rising from my roll, the count’s foot snagged on some hidden root and his lunge, intended to skewer me, became an ungainly thing, jolting with those overlarge strides we take in such circumstances to avoid falling on our faces. He ended up impaling the beech tree, his blade buried two or three inches deep in the exact spot my head had been resting against the trunk.

To the little bastard’s credit he reacted swiftly, whipping out a knife fit for gutting oxen, and spinning round to brandish it at me.

“See here, Isen. . bit of a misunderstanding. .” The words felt wrong in my mouth after so long biting on the mask’s bit.

Still he came on, holding that hideous knife up high so I saw his eyes one to either side of it, their pupils tiny black dots of madness, mouth twitching.

“Wait!” I held my blade between us at arm’s length to fend him off. I struggled to think of a good reason for him to wait and of its own accord my mouth said, “Free your sword, man. I won’t have it said I beat you unfairly!”

Count Isen paused, frowned, and glanced back at his sword still jutting from the trunk. His frown deepened. “Well. . knife fighting is beneath men of noble birth. .” He shot me a look that showed some doubt on the question of whether I were truly sprung from royal loins, then backed toward the tree.

Genius! Years of habitual lying had left me with a tongue capable of invention without requiring any conscious input from my mind. I tensed up, preparing for the sprinting away stage as soon as he started tugging on that sword hilt. As I did so however, I noticed my right foot was resting on a sturdy-looking branch, about three foot in length-a splintered section broken from the tree in some recent storm.

Count Isen sheathed his knife and set both hands to his sword hilt, his back to me as he got ready to heave. I swapped my sword to my left hand, picked up the stick and advanced on stealthy feet. Slow steps brought me up behind the count, the gentle crump of leaf litter under my boots inaudible beneath his grunting as he strained to work the trapped blade free. I glanced at the stick. It had a good weight to it. I shrugged and-trusting to my longer legs to win me clear if anything should go wrong-I whacked him squarely around the side of the head. I’d had poor experience before pitting vases against the back of a man’s head, so I thought I’d try the side this time.

For a trouser-soaking heartbeat I thought Isen was going to stay on his feet. He started to turn, then fell into a boneless heap about halfway through the move. I stood there for a few moments, staring down at the unconscious count, breathing hard. At last it occurred to me to toss away the stick and at the same time I became aware of distant shouts and the clash of swords. I paused, wondering what the source might be.

“Nothing good.” Muttered to the forest. And with a shrug I set off. Left to my own devices I might have lightened the count’s purse to pay for the inconvenience and a new horse, but the sounds of fighting were drawing closer.

I set off at a decent pace, blundering through bushes into the bed of a dry stream that I proceeded to follow. I’d gone no distance at all when with a crashing of branches someone cannoned into me from the side, sending both of us tumbling in a confusion of twisted limbs and sharp elbows. A confused period of terrified shrieking and wild punches followed, ending with me managing to use my superior weight and larger frame to get on top with my hands around a scrawny neck.

“Poe?” I found myself looking down into the narrow and purpling face of Bonarti Poe. With a modicum of reluctance I unwrapped my fingers from his throat.

“T-” He hauled in a huge breath. “T-They followed-” He turned to the side and retched noisily into the leaf-filled streambed.

“Who followed what?” I got off him and stepped back, distaste twitching on my lips.

“T-Those men. .”

“The Slavs?” I spun around, imagining them advancing on us through the undergrowth. Poe hadn’t the spine to try and stop me, but those three needed me back in their clutches if they wanted to keep their skins.

“They attacked Stevenas and Sir Kritchen.” Poe nodded, clambering to his feet. “I ran.” He looked a sorry affair now, his city finery torn and dusty. “To get help.” A hasty addition. He had the grace to look guilty.

Away to my right leaves rustled, twigs snapped-something advanced unseen toward us.

“Oh God!” Bonarti clutched his chest. “They’re coming!”

“Shut. Up!” I grabbed his arm and yanked him down with me as I crouched low. The main thing about panicking is to do it quietly. I clutched him tight, wondering how long he’d slow the Slavs down if swung into their path. Insects buzzed around us, dry pebbles ground beneath my boot heels, the urge to piss built relentlessly, and all the time the crashing in the undergrowth drew nearer. It didn’t sound like a charge directly at us so much as a meandering search that just might uncover us.

“We should run,” Bonarti hissed.

“Wait.” Running is all well and good but it has to be balanced against hiding. “Wait.”

The rustling and tearing grew suddenly louder and a small figure stumbled from the bushes into the streambed about thirty yards from us.

“Count Isen!” Bonarti sprung to his feet as if the count’s presence solved all his problems.

I leapt up a split second later, or tried to, but wrong-footed by the count’s sudden appearance, my feet lost purchase amid the pebbles and I went sprawling forward onto all fours.

“You!” Isen pointed his over-long sword at me.

“I can explain!” I couldn’t.

“You just left me! You can’t abandon a man you’ve defeated!” He sounded disapproving rather than murderous. Sticky trickles of blood striated the side of his face below the spot where the branch caught him.

“Prince Jalan beat you?” Bonarti glanced round at me, surprised.

Count Isen advanced, a touch unsteady on his feet. “Found him in the forest, made my challenge, and had at him. Can’t remember much after that. Must have caught me on the head with the side of his sword.” He touched crimson fingers to his wound.

“Yes! Yes I did!” I got to my knees and shuffled backward.

The count paused a couple of yards before Bonarti and executed a short bow in my direction. “Well fought, sir!” He touched his matted hair again. “But-but, didn’t you run?” Confusion in those beady eyes of his, hardening toward anger.

“Of course I did! We were endangering honest citizens, swinging away on the queen’s highway like common brawlers. Besides, I needed to get clear of my captors and lead them into the forest where I could kill them without risk to the peasants.”

“Commoners! Pah.” Count Isen made to spit.

“Have a care, Isen.” I got to my feet. “Those are my grandmother’s citizens. The Red Queen says how their lives are spent, and nobody else!” I sheathed my sword just in case he should take offence.

Isen waved the matter away. “But you left me lying there!”

“I had to draw the Slavs off.” Sometimes my lies impressed the hell out of me. “I couldn’t have them find you unable to defend yourself. I would have stayed and fought them over your body but I couldn’t be sure enough of defeating all three of them if they all came at once. . so I drew them off.” I straightened up to my full height and with both hands tugged my tunic forward across my chest in what I hoped would seem an authoritative, manly, and self-righteous gesture.

“Well. .” Isen didn’t quite seem to know what to make of it all. I suspected his wits were still somewhat scrambled from the blow to the head. He narrowed his eyes at me, at Bonarti, at a nearby tree, puffed through his moustache, and at length sheathed his own sword.

“Right then!” I gave the smallest of bows. “Honour is served. Let’s go kill some Slavs!” And I led off in the opposite direction to the one in which I’d heard the clash of swordplay.

• • •

Forests, it turns out, are treacherous things. It’s damned easy to get turned around in among all those trees, and each one looks pretty much the same as the next. Somehow, despite declaring myself sure of the way and ignoring all of Isen’s advice about getting back to the road, we found the Slavs. Or at least two of them, sprawled inelegantly across the forest floor amid their own blood-thankfully face down. Sir Kritchen had been laid out with his arms folded across his chest, almost obscuring the wound that killed him. I spotted Stevenas last, sitting with his back to a fallen tree, legs stretched out before him, his sword across them, dark with drying blood. His arm and left side were crimson, the puncture wound in his shoulder bound about with strips of his torn shirt, the musculature of his torso on display.

“Where’s the other?” Isen, looking around, all business.

“Ran for it.” Stevenas nodded toward a dense thicket of saplings.

Isen gave a dissatisfied snort. “We’ll hunt him down soon enough.” A glance at Sir Kritchen then a wave toward Stevenas. “Get him up.” He paused for a moment, finding himself in the unusual position of not being able to order everyone around. “Bonarti, do it!”

Quite how Bonarti Poe, skinny and effete, was to get a slab of muscle like Stevenas off the ground I had no idea, but I damn well wasn’t going to help with a mere count watching on. Besides, the man had been brought along to ensure fair play as Isen carved me up so I had little sympathy for him. Though I did appreciate his work on the Slav triplets. That said, two out of three isn’t bad in many circumstances but here I’d really rather Stevenas had got the full set.

Count Isen and I watched on while Bonarti struggled with the warrior. Fortunately, despite his blood loss, Stevenas had enough go left in him to help out and soon we were following him as he led us back to the road, demonstrating considerably more competence than the rest of us in the business of navigation.

We clambered back across the ditch and onto the Appan Way once more, all of us rather more dirty, battered, and bruised than we had been a hour earlier. The crowd had long since dispersed but fortunately a pedlar had taken it on himself to park his cart and watch over all the abandoned horses. He’d probably spent the time weighing the chance of a reward against the profit in horse theft and juggling the odds of being caught alongside the rather harsh justice horse thieves tend to meet in Red March.

“Good man.” Isen tossed the fellow a coin and waved him on his way. “Wait!” The count held up a hand before the pedlar could climb back into his cart. “Poe, take this man into the forest and retrieve Sir Kritchen. We can put him in the cart and take him back to Vermillion.” He shook his head as if the thought of a knight reduced to cargo in a pedlar’s cart offended him.

Bonarti looked about to complain but thought better of it and trudged back toward the tree-line with the pedlar in tow. Stevenas meanwhile managed to get himself into the saddle where he sat, hunched about the pain of his wound.

“So. .” Count Isen peered up at me, eyes hard and narrow as if searching for a memory.

I decided to bluster my way out of there as quickly as possible in case as Isen’s head cleared and the detail of quite what had fogged it in the first place started to seep back in. “Can’t say I appreciated this whole affair, Count. A man marrying as fine a woman as Sharal DeVeer should be focusing on the future rather than rummaging in her past to find offence.” I held my hand up to forestall him as he stepped forward, something bitter on his tongue. “I’ll thank you though for freeing me from those rogues. They were in the pay of a man named Maeres Allus, a distributor and producer of opium among other things. Probably has fingers in some of your pies too. I hear he has influence in the Corsair Isles. In any event, I shall be dealing with him on my return but for now I’ve business in Umbertide on the queen’s behalf.”

I set a foot into Nor’s stirrup and stepped lively onto his back. Count Isen kept setting his fingers to his bloody scalp and I really didn’t want to be on hand if he dug out a splinter and jogged back any of those lost memories. I leaned over and snagged the reins of first one, then two, finally all three of the Slavs’ horses.

“Count Isen.” I inclined my head some fraction of a degree. “Stevenas.” And I set off awkwardly, leading the three nags alongside me. I planned to sell them at the next decent inn and my need for gold over-rode any shame at such looting with Isen and his henchman watching on.

For the first hundred yards I could feel Isen’s stare burning into the back of my neck. I may have got the drop on the little madman but he still scared the hell out of me. Men like him and Maeres deserved each other. I hoped Isen would take Sir Kritchen’s death as a personal insult and take Master Allus to task over the matter.

Riding on in the noonday sun with the road ahead drowned beneath a shimmering heat haze a sudden rush of relief ran through me and left me shuddering. In the space of a day I’d been caught by both the nightmares that chased me out of my home so quickly after finally making it back. I’d jumped, or been pushed, from the fire into the frying pan and finally escaped, somewhat singed, to retrace steps I’d taken two days previously. “I hope the bastards eat each other alive,” I told Nor, then kicked his ribs to break him into a canter. Standing in the stirrups I gave a whoop and urged him on. I couldn’t leave that shit behind me quick enough!