Knight's Shadow (49 page)

‘Why?’ Jillard asked. ‘What possible reason could he have for doing such a thing?’

‘A Knight could never ascend a Ducal throne, not even a Knight-Commander,’ the Tailor replied, her eyes on me as she finally realised that she too had been played for a fool. ‘It would never be allowed. But what if all the Ducal lines were destroyed, the families annihilated? What if people were scared enough? What if every other noble feared being assassinated in their sleep? They might well be willing to see a Knight take control, for a while at least.’

Jillard shook his head. ‘What you’re suggesting – arming the peasants, bribing Knights, arranging murders – such a thing would require untold sums of money. Where would a common Knight – even a Knight-Commander – ever secure such funds?’

I looked at Shuran. ‘Do you want to tell him or should I?’

‘Please,’ he answered, smiling. ‘Do as you see fit. It’s your story.’

‘Will there be a wedding announcement soon?’ I asked, then added, ‘No, don’t bother answering that.’ I turned back to Jillard. ‘You were right all along, your Grace: Trin could never have kept the throne. Oh, she could kill Aline, which I doubt any of you would have much minded. She could sweep in with her armies, maybe even win a war with the south if you failed to unite. But in the end, you’d have found a way to have her killed and she’s always known that. Her mother, Duchess Patriana, knew that too, and that’s why they spent so many years building up an extremely impressive infrastructure within your duchies. You make Shuran here the Realm’s Protector, he kills off the rest of you, he and Trin form a pact – or even marry – and now they have an entirely new nobility to take hold of Tristia. In truth, it might not even be worse than the one we’re stuck with now.’

‘That’s . . . Gods . . .’ Jillard looked at Shuran with morbid curiosity. ‘It all makes sense now . . . the killing of the children, the way you were able to . . . But how could a Knight ever be so dishonourable? And not just a Knight, but a
Knight-Commander
? How could you do such things to your lord?’

Sir Shuran’s expression remained placid as he backhanded Jillard with his metal gauntlet, knocking the Duke of Rijou to the ground.

‘She did say you were clever, Falcio,’ Shuran said, ‘but I’m clever too. I’ve got a thousand men here, and more will be on the way once Jillard is dead and his former Knight-Commander returns to Rijou to take control of the armies.’ He looked back towards his men, waiting patiently on the field. ‘Marvellous, aren’t they? Most soldiers these days are unruly and ill-disciplined, but these men are
committed
. They are true Knights.’ He turned back to me. ‘I’ve given them strict orders to attack when the last light of the sun dies over the horizon, Falcio. Until that precise moment they’ll wait there on their horses, in perfect formation. They’ll sit there even if the mountains themselves begin to fall on them. That’s what Tristia is crying out for: discipline. Order. And that’s what Trin and I will bring.’

‘You murdered the very children you were sworn to protect,’ I said. ‘You gave the country chaos and bloodshed. If there’s one thing I take comfort in, it’s that any man who ties his fate to Trin is already dead and simply doesn’t know it yet.’

‘Now is that any way to talk about your Queen?’

I recognised the voice as Trin’s, but when I turned it was Aline I saw stumbling towards us, her head in a wooden oval frame attached with thick bolts. Inside the frame was Trin’s face.

‘You see the wonderful solution I’ve worked out, Falcio? You wanted Aline to be Queen but I want to be Queen too – so now we can both be Queen. Well, after a fashion—’

‘No!’ the Tailor screamed, reaching out for the girl, but I grabbed her and dragged her back.

‘
Stop!
She can kill Aline from inside her own body if she wants and there is nothing we can do to prevent her.’

‘It’s not my intention to hurt the girl permanently,’ Shuran said.

‘The girl dies tonight,’ Trin declared, her eyes fixed on the Knight-Commander.

There was a pause, then Shuran gave me a rueful smile. ‘Well, as you can see, that’s out of my hands. I’ll be happy to return her to you as soon as we’re done, though.’

‘Don’t do this, Shuran,’ I begged. ‘Don’t—’

‘It’s all right, Falcio,’ Kest said. ‘He’s not doing this because of Aline. I don’t think he’s even doing it because he wants to rule Tristia, or, at least, that’s only part of it.’

‘Then what—?’

‘He wants something that only I can give him,’ he said, and turned to Shuran. ‘Let’s have that bout then, shall we?’

Chapter Forty-Five

The Black Tabard

The Saint of Swords and the Knight-Commander of Aramor stared at each other across a patch of muddy grass. They were no further apart than if they had been standing at opposite ends of a Lord’s bathtub. If one man were to draw his sword and attack and the other hesitated for the blink of an eye, a head would fall to the ground.

‘I seem to recall,’ Shuran said casually, ‘that when we first met you numbered the moves it would require to defeat me.’

‘Ten,’ Kest said.

‘And do you stand by that assessment?’

Neither man moved an inch, but Kest’s gaze slid briefly over Shuran’s shoulder to the path in the dirt he had made when he approached. ‘Your footsteps are even now. You walked more heavily on your left before. You were favouring your right side when we first met. Was that from a wound, or were you pretending?’

Shuran smiled. ‘If I told you it was from a wound I sustained when my horse was shot with an arrow, how would you judge our fight now?’

‘Seventeen moves,’ Kest said without hesitation.

‘Really? So I’ve gained seven more strikes in which to savour life. And how many if I were to tell you that even then I was pretending, so as to hide my abilities?’

Nothing about Kest moved and yet I could tell his mind was working. ‘Twenty-two,’ he said finally.

‘Prodigious,’ Shuran said. ‘Now since you’ve been so kind in indulging me thus far, let me press further upon your patience.’

Shuran began moving his left hand lightly, smoothly, in the air, making no effort to threaten or surprise. He looked like a man listening to beautiful music, the motion of his hand matching the rhythm of the instruments as his fingers pretended to play the melody. For an instant I thought it might be some trick or spell, but then I saw Kest’s eyes as he followed the movements and only then did I glean that Shuran was revealing himself.

‘Thirty-one,’ Kest said. ‘No. Thirty-nine.’

Shuran kept moving his hand gently in the air, changing direction and tempo. It looked like empty posturing – except that I knew I could never move so smoothly, so accurately, with such perfect control.

‘Fifty-four,’ Kest said.

‘Really? Is that all?’ Shuran asked.

Kest stared at Shuran’s smile, which hadn’t affected the perfection of his movements in the slightest.

‘Seventy,’ Kest said.

Shuran laughed. It was a surprisingly beautiful sound, and perfectly controlled. His laughter did not affect any other part of his body.

‘Ninety-four,’ Kest said.

‘Careful now,’ Shuran said. ‘If we keep this up you’ll soon tell me you can’t defeat me at all.’

‘Ninety-four,’ Kest repeated.

‘Who taught you the sword?’ Shuran asked.

‘My father. My friends. My enemies,’ Kest replied.

‘Elegantly put,’ Shuran said. ‘I think it’s important to learn from the best, don’t you?’

Something in the small twist of Shuran’s smile bothered me: it wasn’t that it was crazed or even menacing, but it was familiar – not in a way that made me think I’d seen it before; rather that I felt as if I’d seen its mate somewhere. It was like seeing a beautiful woman and being absolutely sure you’d met her before, only to learn that you hadn’t, but you once met a man who’d described the love of his life while spinning a wild tale in a tavern over drinks and now you realise you’ve found her.

‘Kest, something’s wrong,’ I said.

‘Come now,’ Shuran said, ‘are we still stuck on ninety-four? Can I do no better than that?’

‘Who taught you?’ Kest asked.

‘Hmm?’

‘You asked who my teachers were. Who were yours?’

‘Ah, well, I really had only one of note. My father – he was quite good, though, or so I’m told. Frankly, I’m surprised he agreed to teach me at all, as he had little use for children. I was something of an embarrassment to him, at least from his point of view. He beat me with the flat of his sword, quite badly, the first seven times I begged him to teach me.’

‘I take it he eventually took pity on you?’ Kest asked.

‘Pity? I suppose. I think he found it entertaining at first. He was a cold man, really. He liked to watch me bleed. It upset my mother no end.’

The motion of Shuran’s hand, the tone of his voice, his smile . . .

The pieces fell together. ‘Gods, Kest! I know who taught him – I know who his father was—’

‘Saints,’ Shuran said as his smile broadened and his hand finally came to rest. ‘The correct oath in this instance is “Saints”.’

It had never occurred to me, the one time I’d met the man who must have been Shuran’s father, that he might have a family. I had been so sure that our lives were about to end that all that had mattered to me was that my best friend in the entire world was about to throw away his life to give Aline, Valiana, Brasti and me a head-start – just a few minutes – so we could try to escape. Who would have thought that such a creature as that, so focused on the singular enterprise of perfecting the art of the sword, would ever bother with such a mundane thing as making love to a woman – or having a son?

‘Caveil,’ I said out loud. I felt as if I had to say the name to prove it didn’t fill me with fear. ‘Your father was Caveil-whose-sword-cuts-water.’

Shuran’s eyes drifted to mine. ‘I always prefer to think of him as my teacher. He was never very good at being my father.’

‘But how . . .?’ My voice sounded weak and strained to my ears.

‘Even a Saint as – well, shall we say
limited in his interests
? Even one such as Caveil beds a woman once in a while.’

‘But I thought the Saints could produce no offspring—’

Shuran laughed. ‘Really? Falcio, you must learn to be more discriminating in which old stories you choose to believe. Although I suppose that might be true if they’re bedding normal people. Fortunately for me, the issue was moot: apparently two Saints can do just fine together where producing children is concerned.’

Birgid: his mother was Saint Birgid-who-weeps-rivers.
The union of mercy and violence is only more violence
. She’d tried to temper Caveil’s violence with her own mercy and instead their offspring was Shuran, a man of pure violence. His whole life he’d trained to become the Saint of Swords, and he would have been, except that Kest, against all probability, had managed to defeat Caveil to save our lives.

But Shuran had been born for this.

‘So,’ Shuran said, turning his gaze back to Kest, ‘how many moves do you think it will take to defeat me now?’

*

I’ve been a swordsman since I was a child. I’ve practised nearly every day since I first picked up a rapier. I’ve read every book on fencing, no matter how old or obscure or esoteric, ever written. I’ve fought with swords, been bruised by swords, cut by swords, and on many occasions, nearly died by the sword. When you spend your life in this manner, you become accustomed to the fact that you can’t hope to see an experienced opponent’s blade move; it’s simply too fast for the eye to catch. So you watch other things: the bend in their elbows, the stance of their feet, the tension in their shoulders. It’s these things that tell you where they’ll move next. And if you’re a
real
expert you can simply watch your opponent’s eyes. That’s what Kest and Shuran were doing.

Their swords flashed briefly in the air, only to return to a guard position before my ears had even heard the
tink
of the blades in contact. When they attacked it was like a hummingbird swooping in for a red berry: not much, just a tiny cut here, a few drops of blood shed there – enough to slow the other down, if only by a fraction of a second.

‘Do you find it makes you faster?’ Shuran asked as their blades settled after what I’d counted to be five exchanges but might as easily have been fifty.

‘Does what make me faster?’ Kest asked.

‘Your Sainthood: you’ve started to glow red. Does it give you greater speed?’

‘Not that I’m aware of.’

Shuran tilted his head – a natural act, but not a wise one, for Kest’s blade spun in and the tip reached for the big Knight-Commander’s throat. Shuran whirled his blade to knock Kest’s away, but by then it was no longer there.

‘Does it make you stronger?’ Shuran asked, as if nothing had happened.

‘I haven’t noticed any increase in the strength of my sword arm.’

‘Well then—?’

‘To be honest with you, I haven’t noticed that Sainthood makes much difference one way or another. Perhaps it’s because I’m still new to it . . . but I didn’t get the impression it did all that much good for Caveil either.’

A flicker of anger crossed Shuran’s face and he launched his attack, delivering a flurry of blows that, despite the force behind them, were surprisingly graceful. He shifted effortlessly – or at least that’s how it looked – between a diagonal slash that would have severed Kest’s jaw from his head to a powerful thrust to his kneecap. His blade swept high, then low, at one moment flicking for a small cut and at the next coming down from on high with enough force to cut his opponent’s body in half. Kest evaded each blow, sometimes parrying, sometimes neatly sidestepping the strike, letting the blade pass a hair’s breadth from his face.

‘That won’t work, you know,’ Kest said.

‘What’s that?’ Shuran’s reply didn’t betray even the slightest bit of strain, let alone the exhaustion most men would feel after so much effort.

‘You won’t trick me into giving you the extra two inches of ground you want.’

Though both men were fighting with broadswords, Shuran’s was the longer, by three inches. If he could widen the distance between them, just slightly, he would have the advantage.

Shuran smiled. ‘Well then, we’ll just have to try something else, won’t we?’ He feinted towards Kest’s exposed left side and I knew it was a feint because it was far too obvious a move. Kest parried the attack anyway, because an expert swordsman can turn a feint into a genuine attack if he senses at the last instant that his opponent isn’t going to block the strike. In this instance Kest thrust his blade towards Shuran’s right hip, forcing him to step back, then Shuran brought his sword back into guard just a little too stiffly; tightening his grip he exposed his own left side, just a fraction – all Kest needed to do was advance half a step and strike him down—

‘That won’t work either,’ Kest said, remaining exactly where he was.

‘What was I doing now?’ Shuran asked innocently.

‘The pebble on the ground, balanced on top of that stone? You think by pushing to get me to step there, I will lose my balance.’

‘I am just full of devious ploys today, apparently.’

Now Kest began his own attacks, each one varying not only in target and tempo but in style as well, and he slid seamlessly from classical fencing styles to the harsher forms used by warriors on the battlefield. Sometimes he even threw in one of those back-alley brawler moves that works not because of its efficiency but because of its sudden and unexpected ferocity – but Shuran evaded and parried and anticipated and counter-attacked, and all in all the exchange lasted barely twenty seconds and at the end of it they had moved less than two feet in the dirt.

When they both returned to guard positions there was a tiny bead of blood, just above Shuran’s brow. ‘Bravo,’ he said.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the drop of blood enlarged and began to move down Shuran’s forehead. In a matter of moments it would drip into his right eye, and he would be forced to blink. In that instant he would die.

‘I was close that time,’ Shuran said conversationally. ‘In the fourth movement? I nearly had you. Just for a second your weight shifted.’

‘There was a patch of loose dirt. I expect you knew that.’

‘And yet you noted it and adjusted for it,’ Shuran said. ‘You’re remarkable.’

‘You’re good yourself,’ Kest acknowledged. ‘But you’re no Saint.’

The Knight-Commander smiled. ‘That’s for certain. I could never beat you fairly. I know that now.’

The word
fairly
set me off. I looked around to see if this was some trap – if one of Shuran’s men might be hiding out of sight, readying a crossbow – but I could see nothing. Perhaps this was simply the final, magnanimous admission of a man who has truly met his better.

A drop of blood was resting on Shuran’s eyebrow. In a second it would be over.

The talk of pebbles and loose dirt made my gaze drift down to the ground, just to see if there might be anything else that might impede Kest finishing Shuran, but I saw nothing. Despite Shuran’s manipulations, Kest had always moved carefully, ensuring he stayed on solid ground – every time he had tried to lead Kest onto poor footing, Kest had worked around the hazard. My brain started itching. Why then had Shuran kept following a failed strategy? And for that matter, how had he known so well where every single rock and pebble was sitting? It was as if—

Of course, he’d placed them all there himself
, I realised. The sneaky bastard had studied every miniscule pebble, every mote of dust on the ground before the duel so he’d know exactly where to move. But Kest was too smart – and too observant – for Shuran; he’d moved between and over everything the Knight-Commander had set in his path, and now he stood on . . .

Oh, hells . . .

‘Kest,’ I said, ‘move back—’

‘Too late,’ Shuran said. He shook his head, just slightly, and beads of blood sprayed from his forehead. Kest brought up his sword to strike Shuran’s head free from his neck. Blood droplets hit the ground – and Kest’s blade stopped where it was.

Kest tried to move but couldn’t. His legs were shaking as if a giant hand were trying to push him down to the ground.

‘I had a cleric consecrate the ground.’ The Knight-Commander scuffed away the dirt in front of him to reveal a carefully drawn circle. Kest was standing in the middle of it. ‘It needed only a drop of blood to complete the magic. I would have preferred for it to have been yours, of course, but mine will work just as well. You should probably bow down: that’s what the Gods expect from a Saint standing on consecrated earth.’