The Privilege of the Sword (46 page)

Just that morning, I had been polishing my sword for the duel. I had to remember that whatever else happened, today I had avenged the honor of my friend Artemisia. I had challenged a real swordsman, who was neither stupid nor drunk, and I had bested him. Maybe my family didn’t want to hear about my fight, but half the nobility of the city had witnessed it. People would talk about me, and know my name. I had spoken it loudly and clearly, for all to hear. Maybe I would become fashionable; maybe people would invite me to dinner and demand to hear the details. In my head, I played over again all the moves of the duel. It was harder than I thought to remember each one in order, but I wanted to get it right, for when someone finally asked me.

I
T WAS DARK WHEN
I
WOKE UP.
B
ETTY HAD UNLOCKED
my door. I heard the clatter as she warmed milk for me at the hearth.

“Where’s the duke?” I asked, and she said, “Out.”

“Where is my mother?”

“Gone with him, gone…Never you mind all that, my hero, it doesn’t matter. You be easy, now.”

She poured whiskey into my milk, and stirred, and gave it to me and I drank it. She poured cans of warm water into my tub, and bathed me, and washed and dried and plaited my hair, and crooned, “My champion, my great sword, you are, you are…” I smelt the whiskey on her breath, and I didn’t care. I just sat in the tub and cried, and let her dry me off and put me back to bed.

I
WOKE UP EARLY THE NEXT MORNING.
T
HE HOUSEHOLD
was barely stirring. The duke would not be up for hours yet. Marcus might be awake, but I wasn’t ready to face him. I had to see my uncle, first.

I put on some loose clothes and went to the wet-rabbit room and practiced furiously for a long time. When I heard the commotion that meant the duke was awake and asking for things, I went to change out of my practice clothes, because it would be another hour before he was fit to be spoken to.

At noon I found the Duke Tremontaine eating breakfast in the morning room.

“Where’s my mother?” I demanded.

He looked quizzically at me. “Are you going to accuse me of ruining her? Please don’t. And don’t speak to me in that tone; I’ll think you weren’t brought up properly.”

I didn’t laugh. “Where is she?”

“How should I know? She cried a lot. We talked. We devoured eight whole tablets of raw chocolate and the rest of the brandy. We talked until midnight, when it was time for me to be at Blackwoods’. She lost money at cards. She plays very badly, your mother.”

I ground my teeth. “Has she gone back home?”

“To your brother’s. The respectable one on Lower Patrick Street. I don’t know where she’s going next; I suspect she doesn’t, either. You can write her and ask,” he said. “You’re free to correspond with anyone you like, now, you know. As she reminded me more than once. The woman has no head for drink, none at all. If I understood her, she will be writing you frequently. I’m sure you’ll hear all about it.”

He was in that kind of mood.

“And get your things together. We’re going back to Riverside until this place is truly habitable.”

“I’m staying,” I said.

“Here? On the Hill? By yourself?”

“I mean, I’m staying with you.”

“Well, of course you are. Pass the jam.”

I wanted to throw the toast in his face. “What about me? Were you so busy debauching my mother you lost track of why she came here in the first place? Did you get her drunk just so you wouldn’t have to talk about my—my
future
?”

“Your future is entirely up to you.” The jam was perfectly within his reach when he bothered to lean up and over for it.

“Well, who is going to provide for me?”

“Please don’t shout.”

“I’m not shouting. My mother thinks you’re going to toss me back out when you’re sick of me, you know. She thinks you’ve made me into an unmarriageable freak.” He didn’t interrupt; he just kept crunching on his toast. I’d had enough. “Do you even think of me as your kin at all, or am I just some—some minnow-a-toss street kid to you, with good clothes and a sword?”

It got his attention—but not the way I wanted. He put down his toast half-eaten, and gazed at me icily. “Where did you hear that phrase, pray?”

It’s what Marcus had called himself yesterday, but I was certainly not going to tell him that. “I dunno.”

“Do you know what it means?” he asked.

Cowed, I answered, like a schoolgirl with a lesson: “A minnow’s what they call a brass coin in Riverside. A toss—some kind of ball game, I guess.”

“Keep guessing,” he said dryly. “And don’t let me hear you use that phrase again.”

I glowered at him. “You’re not my mother.”

“She doesn’t know what it means either. But if you say it around someone who does, they will either slap your face or laugh at you. There—you are warned.” He slathered more jam on his half a piece of cold toast. “I suppose, if Janine is going to be unreasonable, that I’m going to have to offer you something or you’ll pester me to death. A salary, or a gift of land, or something. You figure it out; it will be good for you, teach you the value of money and how things work. Come to me when you have some idea, and we’ll negotiate. You’ll learn a lot.”

“I’ll ask a lot,” I said, and he said, “Fine.”

“And by the way,” I added, “I think I know all your names now.”

“What?” he asked, through a mouthful of toast.

“The first day I came here—you don’t even remember, do you?”

“Of course I remember the first day you came. Ring for more toast. Have you eaten? Well, in that case, have you seen Marcus yet today? He seemed a little odd.”

I had not seen Marcus; I’d wanted to confront my uncle before anything else happened. Now I went upstairs to find him and bring him up to date.

Marcus was extremely odd. He was in his room packing for Riverside already. He folded each of his own shirts very carefully, lining up all the seams like folds on a map.

“Your mother’s pretty,” he said, folding.

“What did she say to you?”

“Nothing. I make a very convincing servant.”

“Well…well, thank you.” It was utterly maddening, the way he fussed over that shirt and wouldn’t look at me. “Marcus,” I asked, “are you still angry with me?”

“No.”

“Then tell me what’s wrong or I’m going to rip that shirt right out of your hands!”

He put it down and looked straight at me.

“Are you leaving?” he said. His face was very white—I could see some stubble against his skin. I didn’t know he shaved.

“No. She wanted me to, but I said not.”

“Oh.” He picked up the shirt, and put it down again. “Oh.”

“Why are you doing that? I bet Fleming would pack for you, if you asked him.”

“I don’t like other people touching my things.”

“How about me?” I offered. “I bet we could get it done in no time, if you let me help.”

Marcus smiled slowly. “Katie. You’re up to something.”

“I was just thinking…” And I was. I needed my friend now; I needed to put yesterday behind us, and take us back to where we were together, bonded in mischief and common cause. “The duke’s still in his dressing gown, eating toast,” I said. “He’ll be hours, yet. If we hurry, we can still nip down the Hill to Teresa Grey’s together before we leave for Riverside. That is, if you’re still interested in what she might be up to.”

“Hand me those brushes,” Marcus said.

We left the duke being shaved by his valet and changing his mind about his clothes again, and went off down the hill to the house of Lucius Perry’s mysterious lady, together.

chapter
IV

L
UCIUS
P
ERRY’S LOVER APPEARED TO HAVE GONE
mad. We stared, fascinated, from the bushes, as Teresa Grey paced up and down the length of her studio, waving her hands in the air and shouting. We couldn’t hear what she was saying, but it was clearly pretty awful. She lunged into space, twisted, fell down, and then jumped up again and dashed to the table where she dipped a pen in ink and started scribbling furiously.

Marcus poked me with his elbow and grinned. Her hair was a mess, and there was an inkblot on her nose where she’d rubbed it without thinking.

“Love letter?” I mouthed, but he shook his head: “Watch.”

I watched. She got up and did it all over again, and then went back to her pen, and then she rose and turned her back to us and shouted something.

She must have been calling for Lucius Perry, because he came in then, looking fresh as a daisy and very glad to be summoned. She moved him into place, and did the same movements again, only this time he was talking and gesturing back at her so she didn’t look so crazy, and then it all started making sense. They were acting out a scene together, a fight of some kind: first an argument, and then a struggle that ended with Teresa Grey falling to the floor. Lucius helped her up, and then he hung over her shoulder while she wrote. He pointed at the paper, and she changed something and laughed. Our Lucius looked very young; he wasn’t trying to be anything, he was just enjoying himself.

Then she shook sand onto the wet ink, and blew it off and lifted up her page and read. She pitched her voice loud enough that we could hear just the sound of it, but not any of the words. In the bushes, we writhed quietly in frustration—if only we could get close enough to the window to hear! Seeing them through the long double windows, with curtains on either side…it was like being at the theatre with wax stuffed in our ears.

“A novel?” Marcus murmured. “One of those things girls like to read?”

Teresa Grey bowed, and Lucius Perry applauded. But I already knew. “It’s a play,” I said. “She writes plays.”

Lucius put his arms around her, and the paper dropped to the ground. This time, she returned his embrace eagerly, warmly. Oh, the way he held her, the way he touched her hair! The way she smiled and stretched out her throat for his kiss…. I dug my nails into my palms. The way her fingers clenched in the small of his back, the way he moved to be closer to her.

I snuck a look at Marcus. Did he see what I saw? A way for two people to be together, to touch each other and be happy and be friends without fear? What if he laughed at them, or was disgusted? What if he saw something entirely different?

He was watching them with enormous concentration, as if he were trying to figure something out for the first time: a math problem, maybe, or a series of moves in shesh, and not at all sure he’d got it right.

“If it’s a play,” he said, “I hope it has a happy ending.”

I’d moved a little closer to him without realizing it, but now I moved away. “Come on,” I said, “we’d better not be late.”

We didn’t even bother to be quiet going over the wall; they weren’t going to hear us.