Murder in LaMut (16 page)

Kelly shook his head. ‘Precedent, perhaps, but I find myself not liking that idea at all, particularly considering the other court baron here. Langahan, I hear, is just a stalking-horse for the Viceroy, and there’s reason enough to believe that Guy du Bas-Tyra views the Western Realm of the Kingdom as just a reluctant cow to be milked, then left to forage for itself until it’s ready to be milked dry again.’

‘Yes, there is.’ Tom Garnett nodded. ‘Milked dry at best–if not bled utterly white to feed the East. But Guy du Bas-Tyra doesn’t rule in Yabon–’

‘Thankfully.’

‘–and I know Earl Vandros. I served under him, when he was the senior captain in rank, though not in age, when his father was Earl. I can’t see Duke Vandros appointing an earl from the East, no matter what the pressure from the Viceroy. As long as Duke Borric is in place in Crydee, Vandros would have a powerful ally in opposing any of Guy’s plots.’

That made sense, actually. In some ways, Yabon was caught between the enmity of Borric conDoin, Duke of Crydee, and Guy du Bas-Tyra, and while there were dangers inherent in that, it also would make it more than a little difficult for the Viceroy, even if he were to succeed Prince Erland–even though he had already succeeded Prince Erland in fact if not in law, since being named Viceroy–to bring much pressure to bear on the Duke of Yabon, be it Brucal or Vandros. For while Guy had the King’s ear as his favourite advisor, Borric could count on the support of most of the lords of the West, and some in the East who were not kindly disposed to Guy, or who viewed any usurpation of ducal prerogative as a threat to their own rule. The King might rule, but the Congress of Lords was a force even the most reckless king could not long ignore. No, Guy might plot, but in the end, Vandros would appoint his own successor in LaMut.

Tom Garnett puffed thoughtfully on his pipe. ‘But an outsider to LaMut–a reliable, Western outsider, not some effete Eastern sock-puppet who can’t speak without Guy du Bas-Tyra’s hairy arm up his arse–as the new Earl? That might make sense, and I can tell you that Vandros, earl or duke, will be more concerned about doing what makes sense than he will be in courting favour with anybody, including the Viceroy. Perhaps Alfren of Tyr-Sog’s second son…? You’ll forgive me if I can’t quite recall his name at the moment–’

‘Elfred,’ Kelly said. ‘Met him once. I wasn’t overly impressed.’

‘–and choosing an outsider would have the advantage of the new Earl not coming into his estate with ancient enmities and rivalries, at least none here.’

Durine didn’t think that Tom Garnett had forgotten about the accidents, but he had to admire how the Captain had neatly changed the subject, even though he had diverted the others into the sort of political gossip that they had disavowed, but which Durine had thought inevitable, given the situation. He wondered if the others were really distracted by talk of politics and succession. Durine wasn’t. Whether they were real accidents or just failed assassination attempts against Morray was another matter, but the point was that these accidents had caused the Earl to have the three of them assigned to protect Morray. The politics were, perhaps, interesting to others, but the job was what mattered to Durine. But if the Captain wasn’t going to mention it, neither was Durine.

Still, it was something to think about. The only thing that could be construed as a near-accident while they were on the road had been the Tsurani ambush, after all.

Unless, he thought, grinning to himself, that serving girl in Mondegreen had chosen a most unlikely way to drain the life from a man. Durine wouldn’t have minded that sort of attempt being repeatedly made on his own life by a woman so nicely shaped, as long as he had some time to rest up between attempts.

‘Yes, I can see the need for extra care.’ Kelly eyed Durine unblinkingly. ‘Particularly when there are men about who fight only for gold…and don’t fight all that well, so I’ve been told.’

Durine waited for Tom Garnett to confront the other captain, but Garnett just smiled at Durine over the rim of his pipe, as though to say,
Well, man, you’ve said you’re not under my command, so you’re not my responsibility, are you?

Which was, after all, entirely fair. Durine would have preferred generosity to fairness, but he would settle for fairness, and be glad of the bargain.

‘I’ve fought well enough, Captain,’ Durine said. ‘Proof of that is that I’m still alive, isn’t it?’

‘Well, the only thing it proves is that you’re lucky, as are we all.’ Kelly pushed himself out of his chair. ‘But, yes, that’s some evidence. But I can’t imagine that you’d mind providing a little more evidence, enough that might stack up to actual proof–with practice blades, say, on the training floor?’

The parade ground next to the barracks was the usual place for training, but it didn’t make a lot of sense to Durine for them to go out into the storm, not for something like sword practice.

Tom Garnett chuckled. ‘It seems to me that it’s rather brisk outside to be making any use of the parade ground, and I’m not sure that practising with snow up to your waist would do much more than freeze your privates.’

‘In which sense did you mean that?’ another captain added, with a smile.

‘Well, both, actually.’

‘We don’t need the parade ground,’ Kelly said. He gave a quick gesture to one of the other captains, who nodded, rose and walked from the room. ‘Let’s see how he does, here and now,’ he said, turning back to Tom Garnett. ‘Shall we?’

Garnett thought it over for a moment, then looked up at Durine. The Captain nodded, the stem of his pipe still clamped between his teeth. ‘I can’t see why we can’t, at that.’

Tom Garnett had taken the initiative in asking permission of the assembled nobles, and while Baron Viztria had made some disparaging comment about boys playing with swords, most of the others had either nodded in assent or, in the case of Lady Mondegreen, been openly enthusiastic at the idea, as had the Swordmaster, who had dispatched a boy to retrieve his own practice equipment.

Nobody quite said why, but Durine wondered if the enthusiasm was really for some distraction from matters of state and the monotonous discomfort of being trapped indoors in a large, draughty castle that seemed more cramped and crowded by the hour. Durine wasn’t really sure about why someone might want relief from the former–as a soldier, he strongly preferred boredom to terror–but he was already beginning to feel as if the castle was, minute by minute, shrinking around him.

Durine slipped the white, oversized practice trousers over his own and let Kethol tie them off at his ankles. He donned the white canvas practice jacket and belted it tightly around his thick waist.

Captain Kelly had quickly donned his own practice gear and stood with his bulbous mesh helmet tucked under one arm, tapping his foot while another captain finished blackening his practice sword over a candle flame.

Durine eyed the unfamiliar wire mesh helmet with scepticism. He was more used to the usual wooden masks, the narrow slit in them preventing the wide, blunt point of the practice sword from taking out an eye, and the way the wire flexed made him nervous.

He poked at the mask with a thick finger. It gave a little, but not sharply; it would probably protect him. Blunted or not, a thrust from a practice sword could take out an eye almost as easily as a real weapon could; just as a vigorous enough blow to the skull could crack it.

The best thing to do, of course, would be to block a thrust to the head and not have to worry about protection, but it was best not to dwell too long on protecting one part of your body over another. Durine had seen more than his share of men lying on the ground with unmarked faces, too dead to be concerned about their untouched eyes any more than they were about the yellowy, blood-covered snakes of intestines dirtying themselves on the ground. Besides, one could no more expect to come out of practice unbruised than one could count on coming out of a fight uncut. Best to not worry overly much about this or that, and just get on with it.

He unbuckled his own sword, and handed the swordbelt to Kethol, accepting the practice blade in return.

He hefted the mock broadsword. It fit his hand nicely, the brass-wound grip cold against his skin. Other than the fact that it couldn’t cut or stab, it looked and felt like a real sword, and was probably made from a blank by at least a journeyman sword maker. Nobles clearly got better practice weapons than ordinary soldiers did. The blade was every bit as wide as Durine’s own thumb, and heavy enough to cut to bone, had the edges been properly sharpened, instead of being carefully rounded. Still, applied correctly, it could raise a healthy welt.

He slid his thumb down the smooth surface, feeling at the shallow dents and slight nicks, then gave a quick tug at the bell-shaped guard, which held solidly. The point was blunt: capped with a concave steel bulb that even Durine’s fingers couldn’t loosen; it had been thoroughly welded on. Durine hoped that Kelly had made sure that his own weapon was as safe. It balanced a little too much to the hilt, but was only off by a little.

Durine had faced a rapier before, but never in battle. His own preference was for the broadsword, longsword or, occasionally, the hand-and-a-half, which he considered an unusually versatile weapon. A rapier was a duelling weapon, and not all that effective against armour, but it was deadly from the point, which made it particularly nasty in the hands of someone who knew what he was doing. A broadsword’s point would hang up on a small bit of armour where a rapier’s point could seek out a small gap and rid you of an annoying opponent. But if you had to parry a two-handed sword, a rapier was about as useful as a kitchen broom.

Pirojil had been busy blackening the practice dagger that Durine was going to use. He swapped it for the sword, and blackened that, handed it over, then settled the mesh helmet over Durine’s head.

Durine walked over to the open area, and kicked off his borrowed slippers. While they definitely slowed him down, he would have preferred wearing his boots, but they were still drying out. The soft leather soles slipping and sliding on the dark marble had little appeal.

The stone was bitterly cold beneath his feet.

‘Dagger, too, eh?’ Kelly more said than asked, taking up a ready stance.

Durine nodded. ‘It’s what I’m used to,’ he said. ‘If you’ve no objection.’

‘No, not at all; go with what you prefer, man. I can hardly take the measure of you if you feel yourself half-armed, eh?’

Sparring was one thing, but Durine had yet to be in a real fight where he hadn’t wanted to be able to lash out in more than one direction, or protect himself from more than one enemy. A shield was a fine thing, yes, but by personal philosophy, Durine preferred something in his left hand that could cut, and shields were most useful in a full battle line where you had men on all sides of you whom you could trust to hold fast as long as they lived. The three of them preferred skirmisher work for just that reason, which was how most of the mercenaries were used, at least most of the time.

He dropped back into a ready stance, his chest angled only slightly away from Kelly, who took up a more conventional duellist’s stance, almost sideways to Durine, leaving most of his body protected by his sword.

They closed slowly, Kelly making a tentative move in a high line, which Durine blocked, then stepped back a pace rather than riposting.

Sparring was, no matter how you tried to do it, different from the real thing. In a real battle, you almost never had time to feel out an enemy’s defences; you had to dispatch the one in front of you before another was on your back, and any time you retreated, even a foot, the odds were all too good that you’d retreat into somebody, or stumble over something. Even on the rare occasions that it was one on one, in real life, one party rarely had time to set himself–which was how Durine preferred it, as long as he was the one surprising the other, rather than the other way around.

They closed again, and this time Durine was able to catch the other’s blade with his dagger, and whip it aside for what should have been long enough for him to slash Kelly with the edge of his sword, but Kelly was faster than he appeared. A quick step back took him out of range long enough for him to bring his sword around and block the dagger when Durine advanced a careful half step.

Parry and counter; thrust and block; the sparring continued, in its tentative, unnatural way.

Durine had the stronger wrist, but Kelly had the better feeling of the blade, which is why Durine refused to let him ‘have the blade’, to let him feel what Durine was about to do next by the subtle pressures and movements of the two swords against one another just before or after a blow. Instead, he met every attack with a parry or counter, or disengaged. Durine had sparred against swordsmen who had had extensive training in the rapier before, and their ability to feel through the blade what their opponent was going to do could be easily countered simply by refusing to let them take the blade.

Some other problems weren’t nearly so easy for Durine to dispense with.

Kelly was a trifle faster, and his sideways stance perhaps gave him an extra inch of reach, but Durine was fast enough that it was always a danger that he would get past Kelly’s sword and close, and with his dagger, if he ever managed to get within the arc of Kelly’s sword, it would be all over in an instant, whether it was practice or a real fight.

Durine let his swordtip drop just a little too much, and when Kelly feinted high, he took a half-step back while blocking. Kelly closed the distance in a lunge, a low-to-high line attack that Durine slipped, batting Kelly’s sword aside, then hacking down, hard, on his vulnerable arm, hard enough that Kelly dropped his sword.

Reflexively, Durine slashed the air to his left with his dagger, then slashed Kelly once again, across the midsection, before taking two quick steps back.

That wasn’t just sparring protocol–Durine had twice been cut by men who hadn’t quite yet realized that they were dead, and didn’t care to repeat that, not even in practice.

Kelly scooped up his sword…

‘Halt!’ a firm voice called out.