Page 5 of Play of Shadows
Regrettably, that turned out to be true.
One Year Later . . .
Chapter 2
The Hero of the Alley
Steel clashed against steel, catching the torchlight and illuminating the grim faces of the two duellists. The chime of rapier blades echoed between the crumbling walls that loomed over the alley like old men leaning in for a better view. Soft leather boot heels slapped against the uneven ground as heaving breaths filled the chill twilight air with mist.
‘How many times must we cross swords on this same battlefield, you blood-eyed bastard?’ asked Prince Pierzi, delivering a thrust with such deadly precision the tip of his weapon could have cleaved the wings from a fly.
His nemesis, Corbier, called the Red-Eyed Raven for his black hair and disturbing crimson irises, batted the blade aside, returning the promise of violence in kind with a trio of rapid ripostes. ‘A dozen times– perhaps a hundred? A thousand?’
The prince laughed, deftly parrying the attack without giving so much as an inch of ground. ‘Then by all the saints, let this be our last!’
He sank into a long lunge, his rapier darting like the head of a snake at his enemy’s throat. But if Pierzi fenced like a saint blessed by the gods, then surely Corbier was the devil himself, beating aside every attack with such force that both blades bentin the exchange.
‘Not so hard, damn it,’ I muttered, barely audible above the clatter and clang of our rapiers. ‘These things aren’t cheap, you know!’
My bloodthirsty adversary stepped back and petulantly stamped her foot on the broken cobblestone. ‘It’s not my fault, Damelas. Why’d you bring such crap swords?’
‘Stay in character,’ I hissed through my teeth.
‘Right. Right.’
The sandy-haired, grimy-faced girl playing the part of Corbier resumed her haughty posture and brought her sword back for a mighty slash. ‘And now you die, Pierzi! Among the dead of this hill shall your flesh be picked clean by the cows!’
‘Crows!’
The Dread Archduke Corbier stopped to glance around for the loose pages of the script, idly scratching at her grubby neck with an even grubbier finger. ‘I thought it said cows.’
A cackle erupted from our audience, seated on the chill ground of the alley with their backs against the wall. ‘Cows eat grass, not bones, yer stupid child,’ said a particularly greasy-faced old man, spraying crumbs from the heel of bread he’d just stuffed into his mouth.
‘Don’t you go pickin’ on our Zina now,’ warned Grey Mags. ‘Girl’s doin’ her best.’ Gnarled hands halted in their knitting as bleary eyes glared up at me. ‘Far too much talkin’ in this play, if you ask me, “Prince Pietro”, and not enough fightin’.’
Murmurs of assent rose up from motley assembly of beggars, bonepickers, pigeon-catchers and cheapjacks who stood, sat or simply sprawled across the cracked cobblestone alley.
‘Pierzi,’ I sighed. ‘I’m playing PrincePierzi.’
Grey Mags wrinkled her face. ‘Poncey name. Should go with Pietro. Sounds more regal.’
Several of the alley-rats enthusiastically joined in, shouting outnames they thought would be even better.
‘You can’t go making up a historical prince’s name,’ I insisted, struggling to make myself heard over their raucous debate. ‘Nevino Pierzi was theactualruler of this duchy a hundred years ago!’
‘Right, right,’ agreed Grey Mags, with obvious disappointment. ‘So, is it true the actor playin’ him– the proper one, mind, not you– is going to conjure his dead spirit right there on the stage? The ghost of Prince Pietro himself, appearing during the show?’
‘Pierzi!– and that’s not really how it wo—’
I was cut off when Zina launched without warning into the next part of the scene. ‘AndIam Archduke Corbier, the Red-Eyed Raven!’ she announced, the blade of her rapier sweeping back and forth in a flurry of boisterous attacks. ‘At long last will I revenge myself upon you, abdominal Pierzi.’
‘Abominable,’ I corrected.
‘Abominable!’ she declared proudly. ‘In the name of my love, whom you murdered most foul, the bountiful Lady Ajelaine—’
‘No, no,’ I said, although by then I was forced to fall back under the onslaught of Zina’s surprisingly effective slashes. What the girl lacked in skill she more than made up for in enthusiasm. ‘It wasCorbierwho murdered Ajelaine– and she was betrothed to the prince. Pierzi’s thehero!’
‘Don’t look like no hero to me,’ the gap-toothed codger muttered, collecting up the fallen crumbs and popping them into his mouth. ‘Full-grown man getting his arse handed to him by a slip of a girl barely ten years old?’
