Knight's Shadow (21 page)

I caught Kest’s eye and then Brasti’s, and both nodded their approval.
Saint Olaria-who-carries-the-clouds, the three of us have turned into an old married couple
, I thought.
We’ll be finishing each other’s sentences before long.

‘The Tailor thinks the war is over,’ I said. ‘She thinks there’s no point in fighting any more; no point in trying to save the country from falling into chaos and civil war. Kest, Brasti, and I plan to prove her wrong.’

Dariana set her mug of ale down on the table. ‘You’re going to disobey the Tailor?’

I didn’t know what her connection to the Tailor truly was, or how strong her loyalty was.
In fact, I really don’t know
anything
about this woman
, I thought.
She could be anyone. She could be the Tailor’s own damned daughter, for all I know
. The waitress came by with the beer I’d paid for earlier. After she’d gone, I said, ‘Yes, I’m going to disobey the Tailor. And I want you to disobey her, too.’

There was a brief pause, and then Valiana reached for one of the brimming mugs. ‘I follow the First Cantor,’ she said. ‘To the Greatcoats.’

Kest picked up his mug and raised it. ‘To the Greatcoats.’

Brasti did the same, and Dariana gave a snort. ‘To the hells with your Greatcoats,’ she said, but she took one of the mugs and raised it all the same. ‘Your way sounds like it’s going to involve mayhem and a lot more fighting. So I’m in.’

Well
, I thought,
that will have to do
.

I raised my mug. ‘To mayhem and fighting.’

That’s when the door to the inn broke open and every kind of hell broke loose.

*

The first sign that we were in trouble was when I saw Brasti’s eyes go wide as he looked behind me. I started to turn to look myself, but before I could, Brasti had reached across the table, grabbed me by the hair and pulled my head down. I turned just before my face collided with the wooden surface of the table, feeling the sudden impact in my left cheekbone. All I could see was Kest’s body rising from his chair, his hand simultaneously reaching down and drawing his sword and the blade flying in a smooth arc towards me. I felt the sudden rush of air as the blade swung past my cheek and over my body and clanged into something metallic behind me. Brasti released his grip on my head and used both hands to grab the back of my coat and haul me across the table, and we went tumbling over each other as the weight of my body brought both of us to the ground. We landed side-by-side on the other side of the table.

‘I accept your grateful thanks for saving your life,’ he said as a cacophony of heavy boots and the sound of swords mixed with screams and shouts coming from the patrons in the room. Oddly, I noticed the guitarist was still playing.

‘Couldn’t you have just warned me?’

Brasti’s eyes flickered somewhere above me. ‘No time,’ he said, and pushed me hard so that I rolled off to the right. An axe lodged itself in the floor where our necks had been a moment before. Brasti was already on his feet and drawing his sword as I was pushing myself up onto my knees.

‘Well, don’t just sit there,’ he said, and with that he leapt over our upturned table and into the fray.

The common room of the inn had suddenly become a lot more crowded; it was now filled with a dozen men or more, all in shiny armour. Most had swords; a few – like the man who’d just tried to take me out – had axes. He’d attacked me first – so was I the intended target? But no, he wouldn’t have been able to see my face, not from where he’d been standing, so more likely he’d simply wanted to take out one of us before we knew what was happening.

‘Any time now, Falcio!’ Brasti shouted, and I drew my rapiers and looked around to see who needed my help first. Valiana and Dari were fighting side by side, their blades thrusting and slashing in a complicated syncopated rhythm that kept the men in front of them from getting any chance to strike. I took a moment to silently thank Dariana for teaching her student so well. Kest had pushed his way into the thick of the mêlée, fighting using a style that Brasti once dubbed
sorendito
, which is an old Pertine word for a rather filthy act that costs extra in most brothels, involving three partners and . . . well, never mind. Kest was striking alternately forwards and then backwards, first driving the point of his blade at his opponent’s belly and then immediately pulling back hard to drive the pommel of his sword into the face of the man stupid enough to try to get behind him. Brasti was going at it hells-for-leather, swinging wildly and trying to keep two opponents with longer swords from backing him up against the wall.

I saw a gap in the armour and drove the point of my right-hand rapier deep into muscle and bone behind the man’s right knee. The man screamed and as he turned, his mouth was an enticingly wide opening, so I felt I had no choice but to thrust my other rapier into it. His partner had just grabbed hold of Brasti’s blade with a gauntleted hand and was hanging onto it even as he drew back his own sword to strike at my head. This might have been a good idea, in principle, at least, except that Brasti just let go of his own weapon, slipped behind the man’s back and pulled hard on his helm, yanking him backwards so that he fell to the ground and onto his back. He lifted his foot and drove his heel into the man’s face with a gratifyingly sickening crunch.

Brasti reached down and picked up his sword. ‘I was doing fine.’

‘Fifteen years and you still swing your sword wildly and jab it in the air like an amateur.’

‘It’s a fucking sword, Falcio. What else do you do with it but swing and jab?’

‘Where’s your bow?’

He pointed across the room to where his shortbow was hanging next to his quiver on a hook by the open door leading from the common room into the inn proper. I could see a few of our attackers in the way, standing around like fools waiting for a chance to get to Kest, Valiana and Dari, who were now fighting back to back.

‘I’m going for it,’ Brasti said. ‘I’ll be back.’

‘The common room’s too big,’ I pointed out. ‘It works in their favour.’ I rushed towards the exit, Brasti close behind me, and when we’d fought our way through three men blocking the door – gracefully, on my part, less elegantly on Brasti’s – I shouted, ‘All of you! Over here!’ Kest gave a curt nod, otherwise barely glancing up until his two opponents lay writhing at his feet, then he collected Dari and Valiana and the three of them wove their way between the fallen furniture now littering the floor until all of us were on the same side of the room.

‘Through the door!’ Brasti and I cried together, and we all moved as one.

It was a simple enough plan: if we were on one side of the thick wooden doorway and our attackers were on the other, then they could only fight us one-on-one. At that point I could just point Kest to the front and the rest of us could catch our breath, even have a nap, for all it would matter. We were just about to reach the doorway when the flaw in my plan presented itself: with a look of sheer terror on his face, the young innkeeper Tyne slammed the door closed from the other side, and even as I tried to push it open he dropped the stout oak bar into place. It was obviously used to secure the common room at night; there was no way we’d be able to break through from our side.

We were now completely trapped, and another dozen or so men were pouring into the room through the main entrance. We’d taken out a fair few already – some were dead, some unconscious – but I could still count seventeen standing in a line in front of us. Three wore travellers’ clothes, but I caught glimpses of armour underneath – Knights could never resist polishing their damned plate until it shone like the sun, which might be all very well if you wanted to impress some innocent maid, but it wasn’t much good when you were supposed to be under cover. The rest of our attackers wore the yellow and silver tabards of Luth. Most were regular soldiers, but I counted four Knights among them, one of whom had the double star on his tabard that marked him as a Knight-Captain. ‘Place your weapons on the ground,’ he said in a light tenor voice that made me wonder if he might not make a better singer than the troubadour who was now standing at the far end of the room trying his best to push the wall down with his back. Those few patrons who had not managed to slip out the back door were hiding under tables. The guitarist was still sitting on her chair on the little stage, and now the noise of swords clashing and screaming was dying down, I could hear she was still playing.

‘I think you can stop now,’ Brasti shouted to her. I noticed he’d managed to grab his bow and slide his quiver over his shoulder.

‘I’m bored, and there’s nothing else to do,’ she shouted back.

The world is a stupid, stupid place sometimes.

The Knight-Captain took another step forward. ‘By the order of Roset, Duke of Luth, I order you to put your weapons down on the ground and surrender yourselves.’

‘You realise we’re in Aramor, don’t you?’ I said.

‘We’ve the right to pursue criminals within ten miles of the border.’

‘How close are we now?’ Brasti asked.

‘Less than that.’

‘On what charge are you arresting us?’ I asked.

‘We’ll deal with that in Luth,’ he said.

I realised what was bothering me about this particular scenario: it wasn’t as if we hadn’t been hunted by Ducal Knights before, but we hadn’t even been to Luth yet. Then I saw one of the armoured men in brown travelling clothes whisper something to the Knight-Captain. He pointed towards us – well, not so much towards us as towards Dari and Valiana.

‘Dariana?’ I said.

She looked at me with mild curiosity. ‘Yes, First Cantor?’

‘Is it at all possible that you didn’t actually lose all of those men Trin sent after you?’

‘You know, now that I think about it, I never did bother to count them all. Do you suppose I should have?’

‘That might be something to consider in future, yes.’

Three of the Luthan soldiers had pulled crossbows from their backs and were winding them.

‘You shouldn’t do that,’ Brasti warned.

‘Do not address my men, Trattari,’ the Knight-Captain said. ‘Will you surrender peacefully, or do I order my men to attack?’

‘Why are soldiers of Luth doing the bidding of Knights in disguise sent by the Duchess of Hervor?’ I asked. ‘Does your Duke know that you’ve ceded jurisdiction of his lands to a pretender who seeks to usurp the throne of Tristia?’

The skin of the Knight-Captain’s face tightened. ‘There is nothing dishonourable in Ducal Knights giving each other courtesy in matters involving the apprehension of criminals.’

‘Except that we haven’t committed any crime,’ I said.

‘My fellow Knights tell me the little witch over there has committed a number of murders.’

‘Falcio?’ Kest said mildly.

‘What?’

He gave a little sigh.

It was one I recognised.

‘Ah. I’m talking when I should be fighting again, aren’t I?’

He nodded.

‘Let me handle this,’ Brasti said. He looked to the Knight-Captain and in a loud, commanding voice said, ‘All right. We surrender.’

The Knight looked surprised. ‘You do?’

‘Absolutely.

‘Drop your bow, then, Trattari.’

Brasti let the bow fall to the floor. It landed on his left foot and he put his hands up in the air. ‘See? There’s no need for further violence.’

Kest and I stared at him. Neither of us were quite sure that he hadn’t just lost his mind. ‘What?’ he said. ‘We’ve never tried surrendering before. I just wanted to see what it was like.’

The Knight smiled. It was an ugly smile for such a handsome face.

‘Ah, see, now,’ Brasti said, his hands still in the air, ‘that look on your face isn’t giving me any confidence in your Duke’s honour.’

Dariana jabbed Brasti in the side with her elbow. ‘If you were trying to impress me with your intellect, Brasti Goodbow, you’ve just failed miserably.’

Brasti looked from the Knight to Dariana and then to me. ‘You see what I get when I try to do the smart thing? You always tell me I’m too reckless but when I— Oh, fine, then. Fuck all this.’ He jerked his left foot up, the bow leapt into the air and in one smooth motion Brasti grabbed the shaft of the bow with his left hand and reached into his quiver with his right, nocking an arrow so quickly it was as if he hadn’t moved at all.

‘I see seventeen duckies,’ Brasti said loudly, ‘seventeen nice yellow duckies all in a row for me. How many do I have to hit to win a prize?’

‘There’s still a chance to settle this peacefully, Sir Knight,’ I said. ‘Withdraw your men and swear me an oath to leave us be and you can return to Luth.’

‘Those three stay,’ Valiana said, pointing to Trin’s men. ‘They came to murder the rightful heir to the throne.’

Terrific. Because what I really needed was for Valiana to adopt Dari’s bloodthirsty tendencies.

One of the three men stepped forward and addressed me. ‘I’ll make you a better offer, Trattari. Give us the two whores who used treachery and deceit to kill true Knights. We’ll do with them as we will, and the rest of you can run away with your tails between your legs.’ He turned to the back of the room. ‘You! Storyteller!’

The young troubadour took a small, terrified step forward. ‘Me?’ he asked.

The woman with the guitar rolled her eyes.

‘Yes, you. Let’s make a deal, you and me. How fast can you write one of your stories?’

‘I . . . well, it depends on the subject matt—’

‘Whatever. I’ll do it for you. This here’s the tale of Sir Elwyn Arnott. You get that name right if you know what’s good for you.’

‘Not much chance of that,’ I muttered.

‘You tell people what happened here: you tell them that Sir Elwyn faced off with the treacherous Trattari and made them run away, leaving their whores behind.’

‘I . . . There’s more to a story than—’ He stopped speaking when the guitar-player jabbed him with the head of her instrument.

Sir Elwyn turned back to us and grinned. ‘Come on, Trattari. You haven’t got a chance in all the hells that the Gods have waiting for you. At least this way you and your friends get to live.’