Page 47 of Play of Shadows
‘All the more reasonyouought to be in the game, Damelas.’ She looked up at me through narrowed eyes as if searching for signs of some exotic disease I’d somehow contracted. Her gaze dropped to my waist. ‘You’re not even carrying a sword– what’s the matter? Afraid you’ll cut yourself?’
‘Do you find it so easy to kill people you disagree with? Because perhaps the disease afflicting my city is what’s making us all so quick to draw steel and slit each other’s throats over any perceived slight and disagreement.’
She let go of my lapels and punched my shoulder,hard. ‘When the disagreement is over whether my homeland becomes living Hells for those whocan’tdraw steel to defend themselves anddon’thave the luxury of a cushy theatre in which to hide from their enemies, then you’re damned right, I find it easy to kill those who would hound and torment “wastrels, vagrants and foreigners” to their deaths!’
I bowed curtly. ‘Then may you enjoy your time in Jereste, Lady Rhyleis. Alas, I can’t help you with your plan to duel every brute and bully-boy in the city, because as it turns out, I’mnotmy ancestor, nor am I anything like my grandparents. And with the Vixen, the Iron Orchids and quite possibly the Duke of Pertine all plotting to send me to an early grave, I have no need to add you to the list.’ I turned and strode away, ignoring her calls for me to stop.
The weight of her disdain at my failure to live up to the example of my grandparents was no great burden. I’d been carrying it my entire life, after all.
Chapter 21
The Lover
Rhyleis shouted my name again, but between my longer stride and my determination to escape her carping, I was soon lost in the most crowded part of the bazaar. At last I came to a set of stone steps to street level and took them two at a time, keeping up my breakneck pace, ignoring the glaring drunks stumbling in search of a nice warm place in which to piss, pass out or possibly expire. Exhaustion warred with anger and lost the battle as I kept moving, eager for the dubious comforts of the Royal and a return to dealing with my own problems rather than the ones the Bardatti was apparently intent on piling on top.
So engrossed was I in the dreamy thought of cocooning myself beneath a heap of blankets and wishing away this past week, that I nearly slammed into a slender young man who stepped into my path to greet me.
‘Well met, my midnight lover,’ the fellow said, his light tenor voice dripping with the promise of pleasure and companionship, enhanced by the distinctive aroma of rainberry spice, an olfactory advertisement for those in his particular profession. The handsome youth beckoned me with a curled finger deeper into the darkened alley, further from the light bleeding beneath closed doors on either side. ‘Fancy a quick fu—?’
‘Fuck off,’ I said with a snarl.
The rent-boy put up his hands in surrender and stepped back. ‘You needn’t gnash your teeth at me, sir.’
Saints, what’s wrong with me? I’ve no business growling at him like that.
I was about to apologise, but the words that came out of my mouth were lowerpitched, smoother and deadlier than my normal voice. ‘Take no offence, young libertine’– I leaned casually against the corner of a decrepit building– ‘for I was talking not to you but to your lady friend.’
‘What lady friend?’ the rent-boy asked, shifting uncomfortably.
Good question. What am I talking about?
‘The one who forgot to blacken her blade before taking to the shadows beneath a full moon.’ The fingers of my right hand closed into a fist and I suddenly found myself stalking into the alley. ‘The one who is, I fear, going to have a most melancholy morning, should the tip of her blade rise so much as an inch higher.’
What are you doing, idiot?You’re bone-tired and half-starved and even on a good day, you probably couldn’t take the rent-boy in a fair fight. Now you want to challenge his girlfriend, too?
Inexplicably, I felt not fear but giddy excitement at the prospect of sending this pair of purse-baiters home with black eyes and broken noses. It wasn’t only that they’d set out to mug me, but the sheer banality of their scheme: young lovers, impoverished by circumstance or bad choices, the pretty one to lure the patron into the alley so the stronger or faster or more bloodthirsty of the pair can deliver a beating before liberating the valuables.
In a city already crowded with bravos, bully-boys and freeblade fencers, amateurs like this pair would be easily cowed by a few bold words and a threatening posture. Or they would have been, had I not severely and catastrophically underestimated thesituation. . .
‘Run along now, Stefano,’ the woman in the shadows said. ‘You’ve played your part.’
The inexplicable defiance that had led me deeper into the alley fled faster than my breath.Saint Forza-who-strikes-a-blow, I prayed, fully aware that any such entreaties were far too late, for I recognised that voice.
She stepped into the light, tall and lean, the fitted dark burgundy leathers clinging to muscles sculpted by a lifetime of mastering the lightning-fast lunges for which she was rightly admired and feared. Her arms and wide shoulders were bare beneath the padded black duelling vest, revealing scars that told the world she wasn’t timid in a fight. The eyes were the same deep brown as her hair, which was cut short in a distinctive fashion, with the fringe swept away from her forehead, the sides rising up, almost like the mane of a—
‘Vixen,’ I whispered.
She looked very different from when she’d turned up at the Belleza to witness my ill-fated performance as the herald. Even that casual appearance had skirted dangerously close to violating the duchy’s laws on suspended duels, but to show up here, just a few blocks from my home. . .
On hearing the nickname of his employer, Stefano the rent-boy skittered away from her, slipping on the uneven paving even as he abandoned both me and whatever coin he’d been promised. A wise decision on his part, I thought. Despite her fame, few outside her own social echelon had ever met the Lady Ferica di Traizo face to face, and most of those who had, had known her for only a very,veryshort time.
‘My beloved rabbit,’ she said, her delicate, musical lilt better suited to a singer of love songs than the deadliest duellist in all of Jereste. She beckoned me closer with a curled finger, her other hand resting on the hilt of the rapier at her side. ‘We are longoverdue for this dance, you and I.’
Chapter 22
The Dancer
Every city prides itself on being home toThe Greatest Duellist Who Ever Lived!Like the grandiose claims of theatre companies promising an honest-to-gods real live Veristor on their stage, this was one of those very public lies that no one contradicted because everyone profited from it. The duellist, of course, was paid increasingly higher fees, purses clinking with gold jubilants instead of copper tears. Minstrels hired to laud their near-mythical accomplishments earned their share of silver grins, in turn attracting more clients eager to hire the best. Legal disputes featuring such legendary fencers meant that the duelling courts, the solicitors and advocates all saw higher fees too. So much good fortune to go around. . .
