Knight's Shadow (14 page)

‘You can’t let that factor into your judgement,’ Valiana said.

‘Oh? Since when are you ambivalent about Aline’s future?’ I asked.

‘I’m not. She’s the King’s heir and I’ll die to put her on the throne. But the King’s Law is the law only if it’s applied without prejudice. You can’t decide one way over another simply out of convenience.’

It irked me that Valiana should be scolding me about the need to live up to the ideals of the Greatcoats, but she was right.

I looked back at the crowd, standing a hundred yards away, and Shuran’s Knights, much nearer. If I found in favour of the Duke, these people would either starve, or they would continue to rebel and so die faster. If I found in favour of the villagers, how could I uphold the verdict? I thought back to a conversation I’d once had with the King late one night as we’d debated the finer points of some obscure law we’d found in one of his old books. ‘When there’s no right thing to do, the Gods command that we follow the letter of the law,’ he’d said. I’d asked whether the Gods would smile on us for doing so. ‘Smile on us? No, Falcio, I’m quite sure that following the letter of the law will get you smited even faster than breaking it.’

‘What?’ Brasti asked.

‘Hmm?’ I said.

‘You chuckled. Or coughed. Maybe you were about to sneeze, but it was something. Have you made a decision? Do we side with Isault or with the villagers?’

‘The Law,’ I said. ‘We follow the Law.’

Come, you Gods
, I thought.
Come and get me.

*

My verdict had exactly one virtue: no one liked it. Shuran’s Knights called me a traitor and a coward for failing to fulfil my promise to the Duke (which, in their minds, obviously meant shutting up the villagers and getting back in time for supper). The villagers called me a traitor and a coward (in fairness, by their logic anything other than killing the Knights with my bare hands was a betrayal).

‘The law says one quarter of the yield,’ I repeated for the third time. ‘There is no lawful declaration of war, therefore wartime levies cannot be imposed. There is also no cause for rebellion, which, I should point out, will mean a great deal more starvation than paying the taxes. The monies levied thus far by the Duke’s tax collector, who needs to be released as soon as he’s sobered up, by the way, will count towards this year’s taxes.’

There were a number of arguments, counter-arguments and outright insults, most of which were directed at me. When I’d had enough I let them know I’d be leaving momentarily and they’d be free to kill each other if that was truly what they wished. The villagers grumbled, but eventually even Vera agreed. ‘Marked,’ she said at last.

I thought the Knights were going to be trouble, but Shuran silenced them and said, ‘Marked.’

‘Really?’ I asked in near disbelief.

‘It’s not a perfect solution,’ he said, ‘but it’s not a perfect world, either.’

‘Knight-Commander,’ one of Shuran’s men called out. He was young, maybe twenty, with black hair and a sparse beard that looked a trifle ambitious for him.

‘Yes, Sir Walland?’

‘These people must turn over their weapons, sir.’

Shuran frowned. ‘Sir Walland, I did not ask for your opinion.’

Sir Walland stiffened his shoulders. ‘Begging your pardon, sir, it’s the most ancient of Ducal laws: a man may possess an iron-forged weapon only if he be under the direct service of the Duke. Sir.’

Shuran was tight-lipped as he looked at his over-zealous junior Knight, but after a moment he sighed. ‘He’s right. These people must disarm. The forged weapons must come with us.’

I’d known this since the outset, but Knights are often ignorant of the specifics of the law, even those set by their own Dukes, and I’d hoped that would be the case here. However, it appeared that Sir Walland was a more astute student of Ducal Law than most. I turned to Valiana, just in case she might know of any exception I could apply.

But she shook her head. ‘He’s right,’ she said. ‘Every duchy in the country has a similar law.’

‘Why?’ Brasti asked. ‘What do you care as long as they pay their taxes?’

Shuran’s annoyance transferred to Brasti. ‘Because we can’t have armed peasants ready to attack the Duke’s representative the next time they decide they don’t like his policies.’

Dariana barked out a laugh. ‘See, I think armed peasants is exactly what the Duke needs to make sure he keeps his representatives in check.’

‘On this we will have to disagree.’ Shuran kept his tone light, but there was no doubt in my mind that he’d not brook any further incitement.

A stoop-backed man raised a sword. ‘Well, what if we don’t care much for what you think, Sir Knight?’

‘Then,’ Shuran said, his hand moving to the hilt of his sword, ‘we will have to find a different way to resolve the question.’

‘What compromise will you accept?’ I asked Shuran.

‘Any that ensures the people of this village follow the Duke’s Law and are not in a position to attack him or his representatives.’

‘What guarantee can you give me that these people won’t be punished after we leave?’

‘So long as they do not take up arms again, they will not be harmed. On this, you have my word.’

A woman with a farmer’s strong build and grey in her hair stepped forward and spat on the ground between us. ‘A Knight’s word. A Knight’s
honour
.’ She lifted her arms to show the backs of her hands. Lines of scars riddled skin that was a singular leathery brown. ‘Ten years ago my husband died trying to fend off Knights from Luth when they claimed we owed them taxes. They took everything we had. When the tax collector from Aramor came a week later with his own two Knights and heard my story they said I owed the taxes anyway. They said that if my husband couldn’t protect our land then we didn’t deserve to hold it. I slapped the bastard once – just once, mind you. They dragged me to the smithy and held my hands against the furnace. But they held the backs against it, not the front, see? They wanted to make sure I could still work the land the Duke claimed to pay off my debt. To the hells with Knights’ words and Knights’ honour!’

As Shuran took a step towards her Brasti nocked an arrow and I pulled my rapier, but the big Knight raised a hand to us. ‘Abide,’ he said.

‘I was not always a Knight,’ Shuran said, removing his helm and revealing the burnt left side of his face. ‘I wasn’t born to a noble family. My father was no more a Knight than any of you are.’

The farmer stared dumbfounded at Shuran’s face. He reached out and took her hand and gently placed the back of it against the skin of his face. ‘We are not so different,’ he said.

The farmer withdrew her hand. ‘Except that I fight to make things better and you fight to keep them the same.’

I admired Shuran’s attempt to bridge the gap with the villagers. He was a natural leader – more so than anyone I’d met other than King Paelis himself. I also admired the farmer and the way that neither threats nor flattery could sway her sense of right and wrong. But in the end there wasn’t much that any amount of courage could do about the fact that peasants weren’t allowed to keep proper weapons, not unless they were in the Duke’s service.

‘The steel-forged weapons must go with us,’ I said. Several of the Knights began to smirk. ‘But you have to buy them.’

One of Shuran’s men nearly drew, but the Knight-Commander stopped him with a wave. ‘How much?’ he asked.

‘Ten – no, twenty stags a piece,’ Vera suggested.

‘Marked,’ Shuran said.

She looked surprised by how quickly he agreed.

‘What about our tools?’ the pitchfork man said.

Shuran smiled. ‘You can keep your tools. We can’t very well collect taxes if you can’t work your farms.’

‘Bows are for hunting,’ Brasti said suddenly. ‘They need them for deer to help get through the winter.’

For a moment I thought Shuran would argue the point but instead he nodded and said, ‘Fine. Bows are needed for hunting and after all, are not a proper weapon anyway.’ He turned to the crowd. ‘But I saw three crossbows among you. Those come with us.’

There were complaints and small efforts at hiding weapons, but in the end, everyone did their part. You wouldn’t be able to say the Knights and the villagers parted as friends but at least no one died in the process.

*

An hour later we left the village. I urged my horse forward to ride parallel with Shuran. ‘Will the Duke be angry?’ I asked.

Shuran turned to me, a quizzical expression on his face. ‘What cause would he have for displeasure?’

‘Because the villagers will be paying less tax now than before. And you’re coming back with your coin purse significantly lighter.’

The big Knight started laughing.

‘What’s so funny?’ I asked.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I meant no disrespect. It’s just that—’

‘What?’

‘Well, you set the rate of taxation at one-quarter of the annual worth.’

‘And?’

‘It’s just that the Duke empowered me to go as low as one-fifth to settle the uprising. And these swords? They would cost me fifty stags apiece if I had them forged in the smithies of Aramor, so I’ll be making a tidy sum when next we need to replace our weapons.’

Hells.

Shuran clapped a hand on my shoulder. ‘You’re an excellent negotiator,’ he said. ‘You should ask the Duke for a job.’

Chapter Thirteen

Saint’s Fever

We found rooms in a small inn twenty miles from Carefal. The others passed the evening in the common room downstairs, but I didn’t feel much like company. So the first person I spoke to after leaving Carefal turned out to be my dead King.

The red brocade robe he was wearing this time had been a gift from the emissary of one of the small impoverished countries beyond the Eastern Desert. The robe was far too long for a man of the King’s modest height, and its decoration was far too elaborate for his plain looks, so Paelis only wore it – when he was alive – when he felt the need to annoy some noble who’d demanded a private audience.

‘It throws them off their guard,’ Paelis said, or rather, I hallucinated him saying.

‘It doesn’t throw anyone off their guard,’ I imagined myself saying back. ‘It just makes them think you’re half-witted.’

He grinned. ‘So what’s the difference?’

That stumped me for a moment. The King always did that: he turned insults aimed at him into backhanded proof of his own cleverness. In my own defence, the neatha was probably addling my mind in addition to paralysing my body. ‘Maybe you should have worn it when the Dukes came to kill you,’ I said at last.

‘That wasn’t the plan. I—’ The King started coughing, as he often did, being prone to colds and agues.

I took advantage of his momentary disability. ‘Oh? Getting killed was all part of the plan, was it? And what about after you died? Is this the plan? Sending me off to try to find your heir without ever even telling me you had one? What if I’d never found her?’

The King continued to cough. I waited for a moment but he didn’t stop and for some reason that annoyed me.

‘What if I’d never found her?’ I repeated. ‘What if Patriana had managed to kill
all
of your so-called “charoites”? And who in all the hells calls their bastards “charoites” anyway? Was it really that important to make sure I had no damned idea what you’d sent me to do? What about the other Greatcoats? Are they all wandering the country trying to make sense of the last command you gave each of them?’

The King was smiling, but still coughing. He drew a red handkerchief from inside his robes and wiped at his mouth. When he pulled it back I couldn’t tell if there was blood on it or whether it was simply spit darkening the fabric. And still the King continued to cough.

‘And what am I supposed to do now?’ I ranted on. ‘Look at me!’ And since the King wasn’t paying attention to me, I began shouting, ‘Look at me! I’m paralysed! A few minutes here, a few minutes there, what does it matter? Do you think I’m stupid? Do you think I can’t tell that it’s getting worse every day? The neatha won’t leave my system – I’m going to die!’

King Paelis was coughing louder than ever now, filling my ears and my mind, drowning out the sound of my words. ‘What if I can’t get Aline on the throne before that happens, then what? What do you want me to do?’

My throat felt raw from screaming at him, which was odd, since I was only imagining it.

Finally the King stopped coughing. ‘I thought I told you,’ he started, and a trickle of bright red blood slipped out from the left side of his mouth. He reached up to dab it with the handkerchief, but then he stopped and instead carefully folded the handkerchief into a neat square and tucked it away inside his robes. He straightened himself up and looked into my eyes. ‘You will betray her, Falcio.’

‘Why do you keep saying this to me? Why would I betray her?’ I tried to pound my fist on something, but I couldn’t. Reality was slowly imposing itself on my hallucination.

The image of Paelis began to fade as my eyes flickered between light and darkness. But even in a hallucination he lacked the propriety of a decent King. ‘You’re asking the wrong question again, Falcio.’

‘Then what is the
right
question, damn you?’

He smiled and pointed at me. ‘The right question is, “Why is there a knife at my throat?” ’

My eyes flickered open just in time to see the blade of a dagger withdraw from my neck.

‘Ah, I wondered if that might do the trick,’ Dariana said.

I didn’t take the bait, but only because my tongue was still numb and I didn’t want to embarrass myself further. The sight of Dariana standing over me was unnerving. How long had she been in my room? More importantly, why would Kest and Brasti allow someone we barely knew to be alone with me when I was paralysed?

‘You probably want to know why I’m here,’ she said. She rose from the bed and walked over to the small window that was the only redeeming feature of the tiny room that Kest, Brasti and I were sharing in the inn. ‘Shuran had a visitor.’

‘Who?’ I croaked.

‘A Knight. Well, he was wearing armour, anyway. He arrived early this morning and demanded to see the Knight-Commander. The other Knights didn’t appear to know him. Shuran came out of his room and spoke to him in private. Then the man left and headed down the main road. Would you like to know which direction?’

‘Just—’

‘To Isault’s palace.’

I shook my head to try and clear away the fog. Why would Shuran be sending a man ahead of us when we were on our way back to the palace anyway? We’d fulfilled our part of the bargain . . . unless Isault had never believed we’d be successful in putting down the rebellion. Was Shuran even now preparing to betray us?

I looked around for something to help me haul myself out of bed and, finding nothing, rolled myself onto the floor – at least the numbness dulled the pain a bit – and then crawled around in a little circle so that I could use the footboard to pull myself to my feet, cursing the Saints all the while, and not just because of my ungainly rising: I had been stupid enough to take off my clothes last night and now I had to stumble around trying to dress myself in front of Dari.

‘The other Knight left an hour ago,’ she said. ‘Kest and Brasti went to talk to Shuran to find out what’s going on because apparently you need to sleep all morning. You do seem rather helpless a good deal of the time – I can’t help but wonder why you’re the leader of the three,
First Cantor.
’

‘Luck,’ I said, trying out one word to see how close I was to being functional. I was pleased with the results – which showed how low my expectations were these days. I very carefully and awkwardly reached for my trousers and shirt on the floor only to realise halfway down that if I kept going I was going to fall over again.

She turned and looked at me. It was the first time I’d noticed that her eyes were a beautiful rich brown. I didn’t like her smile, though. ‘Really?’ she asked. ‘As I’ve heard it, you were abandoned by your father, your wife was murdered, your King was executed as a tyrant, your Greatcoats were scattered and now they’re either dead or turned to banditry. The country is a corrupt black pit and the only reason it isn’t overrun by devils is likely because they’d find it too unpleasant here. You’ve been beaten, tortured and poisoned, and now you lie around half-dead. I could have killed you in your sleep and I doubt anyone would have minded. So what is it exactly that keeps you going?’

I tried once again to reach down for my trousers, leaning my back against the wall to keep from toppling over. I had to admit I probably wasn’t an impressive sight, swaying wildly and periodically grabbing at the edge of the bed to keep from landing back on the floor. ‘You’re forgetting something,’ I said, hoping she’d pay more attention to my speech, which had mostly returned now, than my lack of balance.

‘Oh? What’s that?’

‘The people who did those things – Yered, Duke of Pertine; Patriana, Duchess of Hervor; a dozen corrupt city constables, enough wife-beaters, child-slayers, rapists and bully-boys to fill a castle, two Dashini assassins and more than fifty Ducal Knights—’

‘I take it those are people you’ve killed?’

‘Yes.’

‘All right, so you’ve killed all those people. They’re dead. What is it that keeps you going now?’

‘There are a few left I haven’t got around to. Yet.’

She smiled and walked over and kissed me on the cheek. ‘See? Now that’s something I can get behind.’ She reached down and picked up my clothes and handed them to me. ‘You should get dressed. If we’re about to fight Shuran and his men you won’t want to do it half-naked.’

‘Why would we have to fight Shuran?’ I asked. ‘Has he—?’

‘He hasn’t done anything, yet. I just don’t trust him.’

‘Is there anyone you
do
trust?’

‘Not really. But your real problem is that the Saint of Swords doesn’t trust him either. Looks like Shuran is preparing to leave ahead of us, and Kest thinks that means Isault is going to betray Aline. I suspect he’s going to do something reckless.’

I had a good laugh at that. Kest was the least reckless person I’d ever known. He was invariably reasoned, cautious and patient. I supposed he might try to convince Shuran to wait until I was able to move, but he certainly wouldn’t start a war over it. ‘Kest will find a way to keep the peace,’ I said. ‘Where is he now?’

‘Last time I saw him, the Saint of Swords was headed down to the courtyard to confront the Knight-Commander of Aramor. Tell me, does his skin always glow red when he’s planning to keep the peace?’

*

‘Why in all the hells did you wait so long to warn me that Kest and Shuran were preparing to fight?’ I demanded of Dariana as I hobbled into the inn’s courtyard. Morning sunshine blinded me, compounding the blurry haze that still haunted my vision.

‘Who says I want you to stop the fight?’ she asked.

On one side of the courtyard stood Shuran’s Knights, their swords drawn. On the other stood Brasti, his short bow raised, an arrow nocked, and Valiana, her sword drawn but the point kept low so as to not set off an attack. It would have been a horribly mismatched battle – but neither the Knights nor the Greatcoats looked at all concerned with each other.

Between the two sides stood Shuran in full armour, his helm fastened and his massive sword held above him in a high guard, a position suited to making a fast and deadly first strike, the very picture of the chivalric ideal: strong, determined, unwavering – despite how difficult it is to remain still whilst standing in heavy armour. Opposite him, Kest waited impatiently in nothing more than his trousers and shirt. His greatcoat lay discarded on the ground. This wasn’t the Kest I had known since childhood, the man as patient as still water under a lake of ice. The man I knew didn’t circle like a restless wolf waiting to attack: no, the man I’d stood side by side with in a hundred fights was silent as the night air when his sword was drawn. The man I knew didn’t shout incoherent threats and jeer loudly at his opponent. The man I knew didn’t have skin that burned red against the morning mist.

‘Come on, you coward,’ Kest shouted, his voice strained but mocking, like a madman trying to contain his own laughter. ‘You dare draw a sword in my presence? In front of the Saint of Swords?’

‘I do not seek to challenge you, Kest.’ Shuran’s voice was calm and reasonable, his words carefully measured. ‘You drew first. I acted only to protect myself. There is no cause for conflict here. Let us both withdraw and talk this through before blood is spilled.’

If I hadn’t already known something was very wrong indeed, Kest’s complete non-reaction to Shuran’s words would have told me so. Even if Kest had true cause to duel, he should have immediately agreed to parlay, or at least offered terms of surrender. Instead, Shuran’s reticence just made him angrier. ‘“Talk”? Why? So you can seize your chance to slit my throat in my sleep? Do you think you’ll take it from me that way?’

Shuran shook his head. ‘There is nothing I want to take from you.’

Kest started laughing. ‘Really? You think I can’t tell how much you want to be the Saint of Swords, Shuran? The hunger is written all over your face!’

‘Even if I did want it, now is not the time. You and I both have greater matters to contend with than the question of which one of us is the better swordsman.’

‘You fool,’ Kest said, shaking his sword in the air, ‘this is the only thing that matters.
This
: blades slicing the wind, the sound of tempered steel cutting air and skin and bone, the flesh yielding like paper, the blood flooding the ground like rain. This is all there is!’

‘What in all the hells is going on here?’ I asked Brasti.

He turned at the sound of my voice. ‘Falcio! Thank whichever Gods aren’t arrayed against us yet! You’ve got to get Kest to stop – he’s lost his mind.’

‘What happened?’

‘Shuran said he’d got orders from Isault to return immediately and he started getting ready to leave ahead of the rest of us – then Kest found out and went completely berserk. He started snarling and taunting Shuran and challenged him to a duel – in fact, I’m not entirely sure he didn’t challenge me to one as well.’

‘Hells! Why didn’t you calm him down?’

‘I
did
try – oddly, he wasn’t persuaded by my charm.’ Brasti pointed to what looked like a pair of broken short wooden staves on the ground joined by a string. It was one of his bows, sliced neatly in half.

‘Kest!’ I shouted, taking a couple of steps towards him. The air glinted in front of me and I felt something as soft as a child’s breath pass lightly under my chin. When I looked at Kest he had already returned to his position. His eyes were still fixed on Shuran.
Shit
, I thought,
he nearly took my head off and he didn’t even bother to look at me
. ‘Kest, withdraw. Now!’

‘Shut up, Falcio. Your turn will come soon enough.’

‘Have you lost your mind? I’m your friend!’

This time he favoured me with a look – the briefest of looks – and all I saw was the red of his eyes and a sneer. ‘Don’t waste your words on me, Falcio. I know you think you’re better than I am. You’re wrong.’

‘Kest, I don’t—’

Before I could even finish my sentence Kest leapt at Shuran, bridging the distance between them in less than an eye-blink and aiming a devastating thrust at the Knight’s chestplate. Shuran brought his sword down in a fast parry intended to knock Kest’s blade out of his hand, but it didn’t work. Kest’s own sword moved like water, slipping out of the way of the parry and returning to its target. The only thing that saved Shuran’s life was that the big Knight managed to stumble backwards, just out of reach of Kest’s point.