Sworn in Steel (41 page)

“Here, now—!”

I spun away from the hand Heron tried to lay on my shoulder and let my wrist blade fall into my palm. I took a quick step back, both to let him see my steel and to keep him from laying hands on
me.

“Explain to me,” I said, “what the hell you’re doing with a degan’s sword that’s over two centuries old. And believe me when I say, you want this explanation
to be good.”

Heron stared at me for a moment. Then his eyebrows went up. “You know of the degans?” he said.

“That wasn’t the question,” I said.

Heron looked from me to my blade and then to the sword on the wall. He scratched his jaw.

“I . . . collect things degan,” he said at last.

It was my turn to raise an eyebrow. “Collect?”

“Acquire. Find. Study. Call it what you will. Ever since I heard about the Order of the Degans, I’ve been fascinated by it. By them.” He gestured at the sword. “I found
that, of all places, at the Grand Souk. It’s a market held twice a year outside the city, when the despot opens and closes his summer court in el-Qaddice. Nine days after he arrives from the
winter palace in Sajun, and nine days again before he and his court return, half the city and what seems like a sixth of the Despotate converge on the Plains of Akra to trade and dicker and gamble
and race horses and . . . well, you get the idea.”

“And you found
that
there?” I said.

Heron walked over to the sword and carefully slid the scabbard back in place. “Hard to believe, isn’t it?”

Damn impossible, I thought. But instead, I said, “How’d you know it was genuine?”

“I think you’ve already answered that question yourself.”

“The teardrop etched near the guard,” I said.

“You mean the drop of blood.”

I looked from the sword to Heron. “It’s supposed to be blood?”

Heron shrugged. “Some say a tear, some say sweat, some say holy water. I’ve always preferred blood, mostly for aesthetic reasons. It seems to fit better with the Order, don’t
you think? I’ve never had a chance to ask a degan directly, to confirm it, though.” He looked at me sidelong. “Have you?”

I slid my knife back home up my sleeve. “It never came up,” I said.

“Pity.”

We looked at the sword—Ivory Degan’s sword—in silence for a bit.

“So, you . . . know a degan?” said Heron at last.

“Used to. How’d you find out about the Order?”

“They’re not exactly a secret: People do hire them from time to time in the empire, you know.”

“I know,” I said. “But, well . . .” I gestured at the sword, giving him the opening to talk about his hobby. He took the bait.

“How did I get so interested in them?”

“Yes.”

Heron swept the room with a gesture. “A book, of course.”

I made sure I took a breath, so as not to rush my response. “A book? What kind of book?”

“A history.”

“Of the degans?”

“Not at first, no.” Heron walked over to a shelf. After a moment, he pulled down a thin volume. “
The Commentaries of Simonis
,” he said. “She was a
historian during the reigns of Lucien, and then Theodoi, over two centuries ago. This isn’t her main work, but it’s the one where she talks about the origins of the Order.” He
started to open the book, then stopped himself and put it back on the shelf instead. “She was a remarkable historian. It’s thanks to her I first became interested in the idea of the
degans.”

I looked around the room—at the walls of books and papers, at Ivory’s sword—and remembered Wolf’s words, and Degan’s. About the papers and laws Ivory had taken with
him when he left the Order of the Degans.

It was too much to hope for—wasn’t it?

“So, then what?” I said, stepping away from the sword and over to another shelf. “You started collecting more on the degans?”

“And history in general, yes, but at the back of my mind, there were always the degans.”

I pulled out a book at random and opened to the frontispiece. It was an elaborate woodcut of a sea battle: galleys and waves, bodies and blood, with a bald man in a short cape holding the
forecastle of the nearest ship against an onslaught of raiders. In the distance, behind the ships, there was a castle on a crag. Admiral Niphinos Byzezes at the Battle of Quetanos: not the best day
for the empire, considering Byzezes surrendered and then led the raiders to the hidden harbor at Argnossi. It took the empire over a decade to rebuild the portion of the fleet that was lost in
those two battles alone. As for Argnossi, we’d never reclaimed it: The raiders who had taken it were now a treaty city that specialized in piracy for hire.

“That’s the naval section,” said Heron.

I closed the book and put it back. “I got that.” I looked around the room. “You have an impressive collection.”

Heron surrendered a smile and preened. “It’s been a long time in the building. A good portion of what you see is, if not unique, then quite rare.”

I moved farther along the wall until I came to four stone tablets, each set into a special partition on a shelf. “Unique?” I said.

“Very. Are you familiar with Hout Yo?”

“No.”

“Oh.” Heron sniffed. “Well, they probably won’t mean much to you, then.”

“Likely not.” I pulled out another
ahrami
seed and rolled it slowly between my palms. If there was a “naval section,” it seemed likely there would be a
“degan section,” too. The most likely choice was where Heron had pulled out Simonis’s volume, but that was no guarantee: Merely mentioning them might not be enough.

I’ve known—and robbed—a few bibliophiles in my time and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that none of them sort or classify their collections the same
way. One might shelve, say, Dossanius’s
Five Views on the Engraver’s Art
(a folio that traditionally fetches a good price among Ildrecca’s Queer Hatchers, since most coin
forgers won’t let their competitors see it once they get their hands on a copy) with books on crafts, another with metallurgy, a third with discourses of money policy, and a fourth under
history. Back when I’d still been drawing the latch, I’d spent half the night searching the walls and cubbies of a bookbinder’s back room, hunting for a copy of Synod’s
Poems and Polemics
I’d been paid to lift. Finally, with dawn creeping in and the sound of his apprentices rattling about their room in the attic, I’d found it bracketed between
two books on mathematics. I still haven’t figured that one out.

I slipped the seed into my mouth and continued my circuit of the room, making a point not to spend too much time looking at any one title or section, so as to avoid raising suspicion. I made
appreciative noises as I went.

I was just coming up to Heron when he cleared his throat.

“You said you knew a degan,” he said, trying to sound casual. “Do you mind if I ask which one?”

It wasn’t a hard choice to make: I wasn’t about to reveal Bronze Degan’s presence in el-Qaddice, and I didn’t expect mentioning Silver’s name would win me any
points with the Azaari. Not that I particularly cared one way or the other what Silver, in his guise as Wolf, liked at this point, but I didn’t want to jeopardize anything by revealing his
presence to a secretary of the despot’s court.

I went with a safe choice: the dead one.

“Iron Degan,” I said.

“I see.” A slight pause as Heron drew out his case and slipped his own
ahrami
seed into his mouth. “I don’t suppose he’s in el-Qaddice? I’d love to
actually meet a—”

“He’s dead.”

The seed cracked in Heron’s mouth. “Oh.” He paused to chew and swallow. “Do you know when? Or how?”

“Four months ago,” I said. “As to how . . .” I stepped around Heron and finished my circuit, ending in front of the small display again. It was time to throw him a bone,
something to pique his interest and get him off his guard at the same time. “I’m not sure. Rumor has it it was another degan.”

“What?” he said, his voice rising a fraction in disbelief. “A degan killing another degan? That hasn’t happened since, well . . .”

“Him?” I said, pointing at Ivory’s sword.

Heron’s eyebrows dropped into a scowl. “You seem to know a great deal about the degans for a . . .” He paused.

“What?” I said. “The patron of an acting troupe?”

“No,” said Heron. “A Gray Prince.”

If he’d been expecting surprise, I disappointed him. Instead, I hooked my thumbs in my sword belt and smiled. “Who’s in your pocket in the inn?” I said. “The
innkeeper?”

“His wife. And the eldest son. You think it’s chance I put you there?”

I shook my head. “No. I half expected it. Besides, it’s not like I’ve exactly made a secret of who I am.” Much to my recent chagrin.

“No, you haven’t,” said Heron, his tone telling me word had likely leaked into the padishah’s court as well. “But that still doesn’t explain your knowledge of
the Order.”

“I told you,” I said. “I used to run with a degan.”

“Iron.”

“Right.”

“And he told you about Ivory Degan?”

I shrugged and let a smile play about my lips. “Someone did.”

Heron sighed in exasperation. “If you’re going to—”

“How’d you learn about him?” I said.

“What?”

“How’d you find out about Ivory Degan?” I said. I waved at the overflowing shelves. “Don’t get me wrong, all of this is . . . nice, but you’re not going to
find information about the Order, let alone someone like Ivory, in Zacres or Nessian the Younger or any of the usual histories; they wouldn’t know the first thing about it. This is something
you need to get from the source.” I smiled and tapped the side of my nose and leered my best Nose’s “I know something you don’t” leer. “You know: from a
degan.”

Heron glared at me from across the room. “I have it from a degan,” he said coldly.

I arched a mocking eyebrow. “Oh, really?” I said. “What, are you telling me you have a degan in your pocket? I thought you’ve never met one. Or is that a line of shit,
too, just like what you’ve been feeding me about the auditions?” I snorted. “Hell, I’d put money down that you didn’t know what you had in that sword until some
visiting imperial nobleman noticed it over tea. Is that what it’s for, to impress the visitors from back home? To make them feel just a bit smaller, and you a bit bigger, so you can feel good
about walking out on the empire?”

He moved fast for a scribe. Heron was across the room and in my face before I had time to react. I suspect it was only force of diplomatic habit that kept his hands from my throat.

“You have no inkling of why I left the empire,
thief
,” he snapped. I could almost taste the indignation coming off him. “And you’ll keep your tongue silent on
the matter, or you’ll come to regret it. As for that sword, the man who owned it was the historian of his Order. He helped found the degans, helped organize them, helped give a group of
mercenaries a purpose. And if that were all I knew of him, it would be enough for me to put that sword on my wall, no matter what anyone may or may not think.”

“But you know more than that, right?”

“More than you can imagine,” he seethed.

Here it was: Heron was at the edge, ready to fall. To spill. All he needed was the right push. I wet my lips and said the word, gave the nudge, making it an accusation as much as a question.

“How?” I said. “If you’ve never met a degan, how do you know so damn much?”

I almost got him. Heron opened his mouth, ready to speak, ready to show me just how little I knew; then he caught himself. I watched, poised for the kill, as he took a step back and followed it
up with a slow breath.

So close.

“I’ve been studying the Order of the Degans for longer than you’ve been alive,” he said softly. “If I say I know something about the Order, or its history, then I
know it. I don’t need to prove it to you.”

I looked around the room, and then back at him. “You have them, don’t you?”

“What?”

“Ivory Degan’s records.”

I’ll give him this: His eyes barely flickered. But flicker they did, off toward a wall to my left. I pretended not to notice.

“Your acting company has an extra day,” said Heron, his voice turning as brittle as early winter ice. He stepped back over to the table and poured himself a fresh cup of tea.
“I would suggest you spend it packing up your scenery and preparing to depart. As for your allowance, the sum has been adjusted. You’ll find the remainder of it—and the
ahrami
I promised you—near the door on your way out.”

I nodded and turned away.

“I don’t want to see or hear from you until the day of your audition,” he said as I left. “Am I understood?”

“You’re understood,” I said, not bothering to look back. The same servant met me in the hallway, led me to the door, and handed me my blades, along with a purse and a satchel.
The satchel held a box.

Then I was outside, the door to Heron’s house closing behind me. The boy was still waiting, a torch now in hand against the darkness.

I followed him along the boardwalk and onto the grounds. He was chatty now, trying to pry gossip and secrets of the meeting from me; I wondered idly whether he was on someone’s payroll, or
if he simply sold what he gathered to the first person who paid.

Either way, I didn’t say much. I was too busy trying to figure out how the hell I was going to break back into this place so I could raid Heron’s library.

I
took to the streets after that.

I admit it wasn’t the smartest move on my part—wandering a strange city with a price on your head will rarely get you labeled as clever—but given most
Zakur
didn’t know me by sight, and most Kin stayed in the Imperial Quarter, I figured the odds were in my favor, for the moment. In a few days, though? Who knew?

Smart or stupid, though, I needed to wear down some shoe leather if I wanted to come up the beginnings of a plan to crack Heron’s ken. Once, I might have sat down with Degan over a meal or
a drink, to let his wry wit cut through the tangles in my head like a blade through cheese. But those days were gone. Now my knots and distractions were my own to deal with, and I’d
discovered that in my friend’s absence, the only solution was miles. Miles and movement and the ability to lose myself in the streets.