Context (41 page)

‘A
sword?’ Horush stared at Tom. ‘What kind of sword?’ Horush looked as bright as
ever, taking his recovery for granted. He remembered nothing of his
conversation with Tom in the med chamber, yet somehow knew that Tom had been to
visit during the long hours in the autodoc.

‘What kinds have you got?’

‘The kind you slice ‘em with’—a
grin crossed Horush’s brown-skinned narrow face—‘and the kind you use to stick ‘em.’

‘Show me.’

Horush led the way to the
armoury.

The
piazza had been scrubbed and polished for the public meeting, and extra
glowclusters (with casings of gleaming brass) floated below the ceiling. In the
adjoining piazzetta, glowflitters sparking reflected highlights from the
filigreed floating cages, still bearing their grim reminders of the Viscount’s
actions.

There were troopers everywhere:
in the markets, in the residential tunnels, taking over alcoves for their own
use.

And, in the piazza, a noble
representative was entering—a fleshy alpha-servitor robed in purple—surrounded
by a platoon of smartly dressed soldiers. They wore formal half-capes in white
and blue, narrow halberds held vertically, and when they wheeled and stamped to
attention, the butts of their halberds struck the flagstones with a
synchronized crash.

‘I give announcement,’ cried the
servitor, ‘in the name of our ruler, Duke Yvyel the Great, and his esteemed
cousin, Viscount Lord Trevalkin.’

There was a shift of random
movement in the crowd, a murmur among the gathered smalltraders and freedmen.

‘For our protection, the Ducal
Halberdiers, along with the Viscount’s personal guard, will be locating their
barracks among us.’

‘Not where you sleep, I’ll bet,’
muttered someone near Tom.

But, as Tom began to insinuate
his way through the crowd, he realized that though there were unhappy faces and
a few whispers, no-one wanted to be first to show open dissent. Perhaps the
scorched, ruined corpses floating in the piazzetta were an indication of noble
policy in that regard.

‘... to take special precautions,
show goodwill to the troops protecting us, until the current circumstances...’

Tom was near the front rows now,
squeezing harder to force his way through the onlookers.

‘... that Viscount Trevalkin has
declared will not last long. To expedite troop movement during the emergency,
all floor hatches will…’

The servitor’s voice trailed off.

Tom stepped into the open space
before him. From his belt he drew a pair of new gauntlets; the movement of his
cape revealed the absence of his left arm.

“The Codes of Governance’—Tom
projected his voice: low-toned, but carrying—‘may be ignored.’ He nodded
towards the piazzetta, the hanging bodies. ‘But
les Accords d’Honneur
are
another matter.’

There were gasps from behind him,
and the servitor’s fleshy face grew pale.

‘You ... can’t...’ He turned to
the soldiers for help.

But their officer shook his head,
very slightly, his expression tightening. Then he stared at Tom.

‘My name,’ called Tom, and his
voice rang now throughout the piazza, ‘is Lord Corcorigan, of Demesne
Corcorigan, Gelmethri Syektor.’

Shock rippled through the crowd
as he flung his gauntlets down. They slapped against the flagstones at the
alpha-servitor’s feet.

‘And for honour’s sake’—completing
the legal formula -’I require the blood of Viscount Lord Trevalkin.’

But
no-one came.

Tom had counted on that, to some
extent. It gave him time, to buy a copy of
les Accords d’Honneur
from a
literary-crystal shop he frequented—with his noble status revealed, Tom now had
access to the restricted portion of the inventory, including
les Accords—
and
to seek out the advice of Swordmaster Firlekan, a senior weapons instructor
among the housecarls.

But instead of delivering verbal
wisdom, the swordmaster had invited Tom onto the practice floor.

In a whirl of blades, they
stamped and spun across the chamber: to cut and stab, bind and thrust. Attack,
parry -Firlekan delivered curt advice between onslaughts, as his weapon wove
blistering patterns in the air.

And finally, he called a halt.

‘My Fate.’ After the salute, Tom
put his blade down, pulled the protective mask from his head—like Firlekan, his
hair was plastered against his head—and loosened the padded tunic around his
torso. “That was hard work.’

Mask under one arm, Firlekan
nodded. ‘You use space,’ he said, ‘magnificently, my Lord. I’ve never seen a
weapons novice perform so well.’

‘Call me Tom.’

‘In five SY, with discipline, you
could be a top-class swordsman.’

‘Thank you.’

The qualified praise told Tom
everything he needed to know about his chances of surviving an encounter with
Viscount Trevalkin when there was no protective clothing and the blades were
sharp, the intent behind them deadly.

‘The thing is,’ said Firlekan, ‘you
have to find your own—’

A carl appeared in the square
entranceway at that moment. It was Harald, his lean face masked with concern.

‘Young Horush…’ He looked from
Firlekan to Tom, as though disbelieving the words he was about to utter. ‘He’s
dead.’

Small
glowglimmers circled in the dark chapel. Pungent purple incense smoke lay heavy
as grief upon the air. And Horush, in repose: his dark skin turned grey in
death, despite the preserving membrane which turned his body into a glistening
statue.

Watching over him, cross-legged
on low meditation stools, three big housecarls loomed like graven statues,
shadow-wrapped and still.

Tom bowed his head, and
genuflected.

Horush laughing, eyes bright with
confidence, humour
—

Tom shook away the vision.

Lowering himself to the
flagstones, away from the mourning trio, he sat cross-legged, cleared his mind—and
saw, hanging upon the wall, three knotted whips gleaming wetly beneath the
glowglimmers.

He could not see the dark stains
on the mourners’ tunics, across their backs, but the near-subliminal cupric
tang of blood was upon the air, beneath the smoke. One of the trio was Kraiv: a
massive black presence, who seemed carved from obsidian.

Don’t blame yourself, my friend.

Blame: for the undetected
haematoma—the result of his sparring injury—which had burst open in Horush’s
brain. On solo guard duty, the young carl had lain dying, alone for hours,
while the blood which should have brought him life flooded through the delicate
contents of his skull and extinguished every thought and memory which had once
glimmered there.

Tom rose, made his genuflection
once more, and quietly left, while the three chief mourners maintained their
vigil, as solid and unmoving as statues mounted over a warrior’s tomb.

Salamander
Hour. No-one there.

Tom waited in the deserted piazza
for another two hours, practising a slow-moving meditation form, trying to slow
his heart’s pounding. Then he took a small crystal—which he had spent hours
preparing, getting the wording just right—to the Zhongguo Ren courier who was
waiting for him.

Madam Bronlah had agreed to help,
and made it clear -without ever being so crass as to say it—that there was a
burden of debt upon him now, to be repaid should he survive. But Tom had
learned—early on, in the Ragged School, from his friend Zhao-Ji—the concept of
reciprocity, of
guanxi.

The crystal contained a message
which was brief by noble standards, incorporating two quotations from the
Accords.

In the event that a challenge be
not replied to within two Standard Days, or such period as the Aggrieved Party
shall declare, then to the latter shall fall the duty nominating time and
place.

And, from Article XVII: