The Fell Sword (22 page)

Redmede took tea to the irk, who raised the horn cup in acknowledgement.

‘Can you talk?’ Redmede asked.

The creature sighed. ‘
Yiss
,’ it said.

‘What’s your name, then?’ he asked.

‘
Tapio Haltija
,’ it sang. ‘
I am lord of these woods, little man.
’

Redmede spat. ‘I have no time for lords,’ he said. But his heart rose a little.

The irk stiffened, but then looked away. ‘
Half a thousand yearsss I haf lorded these woodssss. But I am not ssso ungentle asss to be ungrateful. Even to a ssservant of Thorn’sss.
’ He nodded. ‘
And your name?
’

Redmede shook his head. ‘I am no servant, least of all to that bastard. He left us high and dry.’ He looked away. He was too tired for this. ‘Bill Redmede,’ he said.

‘
Ahhh, man, your ssspeech isss ever more pleassssing. Fair Friend, let me hosst you and your men. I mean you no harm – and few men hasss ever heard sssuch an offer of me before.
’ He smiled, and his fangs glittered wetly in the dark.

Bill Redmede knew too little about irks. His brother liked them – that much he knew. His brother had feasted in their halls, and traded with the bolder ones in the woods. But this one was old, and very, very dangerous, or so his instinct told him. And he had just given the creature his name. That had been foolish.

‘
My people are coming. I can feel them in the blood of the earth. I would esssteem it an essspecial favour if you would give me another cup of thisss tea. And my sword. I sssee you pressserved it.
’

Redmede wished he could trust the creature, but he didn’t. ‘I bandaged your ankles,’ he said. ‘You can’t walk. I’ll return your sword soon enough.’

The irk smiled, which was horrific. ‘
When you dine in my hall, man, you will ssssee that I need no treachery to dessstroy the likesss of you. If I wanted you, I would meet you ssssword to sssword. I am Tapio Haltija. I do not lie.
’

Redmede found talking to the thing was tiring. He had trouble controlling his mind, his thoughts went tumbling off like the creature’s sibilant esses. He went and sat on his blankets after another check on the wounded, and Bess came and sat down beside him.

‘Just give my hand a squeeze,’ Bess said. ‘And tell me a pretty story, because I had the shit scared out of me today.’ She grinned. ‘And Nat Tyler is more scary than comforting. Ain’t he?’

‘The irk we just rescued is a figure out of legend, and he’s going to save us all,’ Redmede said. He took her hand and squeezed it, happy to be able to give her good news. It was no different to giving Nat’s hand a squeeze when the man was sick. But the hand was cold, and he found he was holding onto it. Bess pressed up against him. There was nothing erotic in her approach. She was cold.

‘A famous irk?’ Bess managed a weak laugh. ‘Who is he – Tapio Haltija?’ she snorted derisively.

‘That’s what he says,’ Redmede answered.

She sat up. ‘That ugly monster claims he’s the Fairy Knight?’ she said. ‘I dreamed of him as a girl. He rides a unicorn and carries a lance of solid gold.’

‘Right now he’s been hamstrung by boggles and he can’t get a cup of tea,’ Redmede said.

‘Can’t be,’ Bess said. But her voice was calmer – happier. ‘But that’s a good story, Bill. You done good these last days. If’n we die. Well, hell, we stood on our feet today, din’t we?’

Redmede rolled a little so that his shoulder pinned hers. ‘Listen, Bess. I swear to you that we are not beaten; we’re going to get through this. I’m going to kill the fucking King, and men are going to be free.’

He had the most unlikely amorous urge towards her. He never thought of Bess as a woman – and now, suddenly, she smelled like a woman, and felt like a woman.
I’m exhausted
, he thought.

‘And women,’ she said. She turned, and he caught a little of the look in her eyes from the firelight and the background light. That look wasn’t sisterly, and so he had a moment’s warning when she wriggled and put her mouth on his.

Her mouth was salty and strong, like she was herself.

‘Oh, Bess,’ he said, because he wanted to tell her that he was the commander, and he had to be an example. And because his body was so sore – he could fall asleep in a few heartbeats . . .

. . . only his hands had other ideas – one swept under her back, and pressed against her spine, and the other found her stomach, as hard as his own. She caught his hand and carried it away – and he found it on a breast.

All thoughts of sleep fell away from him.

Nat Tyler stood a few yards away, and his hand clenched on his dagger.

‘So,’ he said.

Tapio Haltija sighed and let go the gentle bonding he had cast.

Men were so easy. And their females, as well. So many rules, so many customs – so eager to leave them all behind. Ultimately, they were creatures of the Wild. No different from stags, or beavers.

He called to his sword, and it came.

He set a healing on his feet and ankles. Only his foolish arrogance had allowed the poor boglins to get him. It was deeply ironic that these men had rescued him. The boglins should have bowed to him, and had not – and that was Thorn’s doing.

His hand wrapped around the hilt of his sword. It sang to him.

I could kill them all
, he thought.

He leaned back, listening to the earth’s blood. Listening to the two animals make love. It was many years since he had been among men. Outwallers had a different taste. They embraced the Wild. Nature. These were still servants of other ways.

I can kill them whenever I like
, he thought.
Perhaps I’ll keep them as pets. Or as hunting dogs.

He reached out along the lines of the earth’s blood, and called for his knights.

Chapter Six

Liviapolis – Morgan Mortirmir

M
organ Mortirmir was days recovering from the fight. He slept and slept – slept the clock round, at one point. At another, he awoke to find the noblewoman – he had to admit she
was
a courtesan, perhaps merely a whore, but she didn’t look like any whore he’d ever met in Harndon, with her exotic make-up and pouting lips – was bent over him, rebandaging his shin where it was split open and bleeding merrily. He watched her hands moving with assurance, and wondered where she had learned to wrap bandages quite so well.

‘Are you planning to sleep here for ever?’ she asked him. She smiled. Her eyes were deliciously tilted. ‘I would like the bed back.’

‘Most courteously asked, fair friend,’ he said. After a pause, he realised he’d spoken in Alban, and he tried again, in High Archaic.

She smiled.

He rose carefully – he was wearing only a shirt, and it had to have been one of the Nordikan’s as it hung to Mortirmir’s knees. She stood close enough that he could smell the scent on her – a delicate, flowery scent with a bite at the end of it. She was wearing a deep burgundy overgown over a tight kirtle of pale green silk. At least it looked like silk to him.

He sighed. ‘Where is Messire Derkensun?’ he asked.

‘You have your wits under control, ser barbarian,’ she said. ‘I have not seen him these three days. Much has happened in the city.’ She sat on the bed. ‘I would like to be fed, but I have no money. I would like to stop being scared. I nursed you – I hope that you will now prove appreciative.’ She shrugged. ‘But men so seldom are.’

‘Your name, despoina?’ he asked. It is difficult to manage a courtly bow while you try to get your hose on. Hose were worn – at least in Harndon – separately, not joined the way they were worn in Galle. That meant getting one on, smoothing it up over the thigh, tying it to the waist band of his braes, buckling his garter . . .

He couldn’t find his garters.

‘Oh,’ she said, with complete falsity. ‘Those were yours? I liked them.’ She raised the hem of her gown, and showed him her knees – and his garters.

‘They – er – they become you much better. Than . . .’ He blushed, stammered, and came to a stop.

She laughed. ‘How old are you, ser? What is your name and style?’

He shrugged. ‘I’m sixteen, despoina, and I am called Morgan Mortirmir.’ He looked about. ‘Does Messire Derkensun have any leather lace? Or anything I can use as garters?’

She laughed. ‘Why not just ask for your own back?’ she asked.

He shrugged. ‘I’m an inexperienced boy,’ he said, ‘but I’m quite sure that would be ungallant of me.’

Instead of giggling, she looked at him with hard eyes. ‘Are you trying to bed me, ser? As a commercial matter, I could use the business, but I promise you that my Nordikan will think less of both of us for it.’

Mortirmir met her eye. This was the longest conversation he’d ever had with a woman not his mother – he felt he was doing well enough. ‘I had hoped that this was flirting,’ he said. ‘I’ve been told I need practice.’

‘Oh, as to flirting,’ she said, ‘I’m not be a good teacher, since at the end of the day I always say yes.’ She looked at him expectantly, and swung her legs a little, sitting on the bed, like a much younger girl.

Mortirmir found his doublet and got his arms into it. ‘And your name, despoina?’

‘I’m called Anna,’ she said. ‘By the handful of people who know my name.’ She got up from the bed and brushed her skirts. ‘Will you buy me a little food, ser knight?’

‘I’m not a knight yet. I’m too young,’ said Mortirmir. He realised that he’d taken her too literally, and he smiled. ‘I’d be delighted to feed you.’

‘Then I’ll teach you what I know about flirting. To begin with, if you ever want to kiss a girl, you’ll need to brush your teeth.’ She smiled to take a little of the sting out, and he looked away.

‘You have money?’ she asked. ‘Please note that I didn’t take your purse and run.’

‘Why not?’ he asked.

She shrugged. ‘I like Derkensun. But he is gone, and I am hungry. Every hour, I thought of your purse. Is that too honest of me to say?’

Mortirmir was learning about the world hand over fist.

They went down the stairs of the taverna where Derkensun had rooms. The innkeeper’s wife met them at the entrance to the common room. She was a handsome woman of forty, in dark clothes which were almost black; but the coral beads of her long rosary, the gold crucifix that hung from it, and the black work on her shift showed her to be a woman of property. She put up a hand, barring their entrance to the common room. She inclined her head politely at Mortirmir.

‘And who might you be, kyrios?’ she asked.

Mortirmir had a moment of confusion. But he realised that this wasn’t his inn; he was coming from one of the landlady’s rooms with a whore, however well spoken she was.

He bowed. ‘Despoina, my friend Derkensun the Nordikan rescued me, and this fine young woman has been my nurse. Three days I have rested on one of your bolsters. Far from trying to evade my bill, I was on my way to take a meal with my nurse.’

The landlady inclined her head. She looked at Anna, sniffed, and said, ‘I can well imagine what kind of nursing you have received.’

‘Can you really?’ asked Anna.

Mortirmir’s hand went into his purse and emerged with a silver crown – an Alban coin, but one with value everywhere in Nova Terra. ‘Might I know your name, despoina?’

The lady inclined her head a little more. ‘You may call me Stella, fair sir,’ she said in passable Alban. ‘Come with me. I do not ordinarily allow women and men to dine together unless they are married – this is a proper inn, and we observe the laws. But as there is no one in the common room, I’ll allow you to sit together.’

Anna sat in a high-backed chair and made a face. ‘Now I will have to go back to climbing her gutter to get into his room,’ she said. ‘I hate women like that. A tavern keeper’s wife? Likely she spread her legs for clients in her day – but now she pays for masses and is more virtuous than a saint.’

Mortirmir shrugged. ‘I don’t know any tavern keepers,’ he said.

‘Or whores!’ she added. But she fell silent as the hostess came up.

Stella came with a pitcher of wine and another of lemon and water. ‘I can make sausages and I have a good bread.’

Mortirmir realised that he was ravenous. ‘Splendid.’

Anna tore through the bread, drank the wine, devoured six sausages and then tried to pretend to be dainty with a dish of figs. Mortirmir felt less ill at ease as the meal progressed; among other things, her appalling lack of table manners made him feel more confident. Eventually he leaned over and cut her sausages with his eating knife, and she watched him use his pricker to feed himself.

She ate with her fingers.

‘I had a knife,’ she said. ‘Harald gave it to me. I had to sell it.’

‘How many days did I miss? What’s happened?’ Mortirmir was young, and inexperienced, but a taverna with an empty common room at mid-day was an oddity anywhere, and the landlady’s attentiveness spoke volumes for her desire for money.

Anna looked at him, her mouth full of figs. She chewed, and chewed, and finally they both giggled.

‘You aren’t any older than I am,’ he said.

‘That’s crap,’ she said. ‘I’m almost seventeen.’ She sighed. ‘My looks will go soon.’ She leaned back. ‘So – here’s what I know. Three days ago – the morning you went to sleep in Harald’s bed – he went on duty at one of the gates. And the Emperor was taken prisoner by the Duke of Thrake. You know who he is?’

Mortirmir shrugged. ‘His son was at the Academy one day. An arrogant pup.’ He smiled. ‘Even worse than me.’

‘There was a fight inside the palace. That is all anyone knows. Rumour says Harald survived and that the Princess Irene has taken the purple and is Imperatrix.’

Without any warning, she burst into tears. ‘It has been three days!’ she said. ‘Where is he?’

Mortirmir felt well out of his depth. ‘You love him?’ he asked.

She bawled for as long as a man might say ten pater nosters. It embarrassed Mortirmir, who didn’t know how to deal with it, and it embarrassed the landlady who overcame her aversion to whores for long enough to bring the young woman a handkerchief.

‘I don’t want to be a whore!’ she said. ‘I want to marry him and have babies! What if he’s dead? Oh, by my sweet and gentle Christ—’

‘I could take you to the palace,’ Mortirmir heard himself say. He swallowed, and reviewed his words. Yes, he really had said that.

Anna looked at him. ‘Really? We might be killed.’ She got to her feet. ‘I will teach you
everything
about flirting if you will take me to the palace. And let us take wine and bread.’

The landlady, listening in, put a hand on the cross on her ample bosom. ‘Take wine to the palace? Surely they have the finest wine—’

Anna used the handkerchief to wipe her face. ‘They may not have received any deliveries in three days. The Mayor of the Palace is dead – everyone was saying so yesterday. Eh?’

The landlady nodded hesitantly. ‘It is true. And they say that the Grand Chamberlain has left the city with his leman, abandoning his wife.’ She looked fiercely at Anna. ‘The markets are closed. There has been looting. And no woman is safe.’ She spoke more softly. ‘Not even a whore.’

Mortirmir shook his head. ‘No – listen. I’ll go. Stella, will you let my nurse stay here? I will take no wine. I will find Derkensun, and I will return.’ In fact, he found the prospect daunting. And yet exciting, despite his throbbing temples and the ache in his gut and across his back – the long tally of bruises, abrasions, and not-quite sprains from wrestling with a giant.

Anna shook her head. ‘Do you know the way from here to the palace?’

Mortirmir shrugged. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I am a scholar at the University. I know how to reach the palace.’

The landlady shrugged. ‘He’s a barbarian,’ she said. ‘They will never let him in.’

Mortirmir shrugged. ‘Neither of you would change that. But you’d make the risks greater.’

What has come over me?

The women agreed – too readily, Mortirmir thought. He paid for the meal and fetched his sword and went out into the empty, damp streets of the city. The inn was close enough to his own that he thought of going for his horse, but the palace was less than a mile away; the sun was high in the sky, somewhere beyond the rain clouds, and the streets were empty.

He had to cross the square of the jewellers, one of his favourite places in the city, where the craftsman sat and hawked their wares, from cheap knock-offs of court jewellery, through magnificent reproductions of such stuff, all the way up the scale to the real thing, with a sapphire ring costing more than a thousand ducats.

Not today. Today the square was empty and some broken men were gathered under the booths, hiding from the rain. Many of the booths had been smashed. There was a body lying on the cobbles.

Mortirmir edged around the square, but they saw him.

He froze in indecision. It was a foolish situation – he could kill a dozen broken men with his sword, but the cobbles were wet and he hadn’t actually ever fought anyone to the death. It seemed easier to run. Except that everything hurt.

They were spreading out as they came, and hooting to one another. He had the presence of mind to look behind him, and there was another pair, their skin the unhealthy, ruddy colour that he associated with life on the streets. He ran a few steps, his boots just a little uncertain on the rain-slick cobbles, and those few steps made his head pound. He turned to put his back against a tiny stone church with brickwork decoration and an external mosaic.

He whirled, and drew. His arming sword was steady. He sank back into the guard he’d been taught for such situations, and the lead man slowed. But he had a heavy stick and didn’t stop. He ran in and swung it heavily at Mortirmir.

If you practise things often enough, sometimes they happen whether you stop to consider them or not. The heavy blow rolled off his sweeping sword – he stepped forward, left foot passing right, and his free left hand slammed into the man’s elbow, half spinning him, then Mortirmir’s downward sword cut hit him on the crown of the head – a little flat, as the cut was too fast and a little panicked – but the effect was right. The man fell unconscious. Or perhaps just dead.

The other broken men paused.

‘We can take ’im,’ said the smallest, a bearded ruffian with two daggers.

‘You first, dickhead,’ said another, backing away.

Mortirmir was full of the spirit of prowess – he had no other words to describe it, but he felt ten feet tall, his heart thumped in his chest, and—

—and there was a bright red-gold fire burning on his left hand.

He almost lost his purse and his life right there – stunned that his left hand was cloaked in power, he missed the man coming for his left side. But he caught the incoming blow in his peripheral vision and pivoted on his hips, got his blade up and caught most of the blow, then stepped in and put his pommel into the man’s face. This rogue was faster or better trained than the first, and the pommel scraped his nose and no more. Mortirmir passed him as they both stumbled.