Sharps (26 page)

“Fair enough.” Addo was looking down at his hands. “If it came to that, then I guess …”

“Of course you would,” Suidas said. “That’s the whole point of the game. The point is, there’s nothing, absolutely nothing that any of us wouldn’t do, if we had to. If you say otherwise, you’re just kidding yourself. You can talk all day about right and wrong and good and evil; all it means is you haven’t yet come up against the situation where you’ve got to do it, you haven’t any choice. I mean, it’s all garbage anyhow. At least half the story’s always the reason why you do something. You can give me a whole string of things that normally you’d say were the most appalling crimes, and then I’ll give you cases where they’re not only justified, they’re absolutely the right thing to do. Well?”

“All right,” Iseutz snapped. “How about this? I would never, under any circumstances, betray my friends to the enemy.”

Suidas laughed. “Chestnuts,” he said. “How about this? You’re a rebel, in a rebel army. The government soldiers catch you. They go to a village and they line up all the women and children in front of a great big pit, and they say to you: give us your friends’ names, or we kill the villagers. There’s about a hundred of them. What do you do?”

Iseutz shook her head. “I keep quiet.”

“What?” Suidas stared at her. “You’d let them kill a hundred civilians.”

“Yes,” Iseutz said.

“But that’s …”

“It’s not me killing them,” Iseutz said, “it’s the soldiers. I’m not responsible for their crimes. Besides, they’d probably kill them anyhow, for kicks. But just because they’re evil, it doesn’t mean I have to be evil too.”

Suidas scowled at her. “Tell her she’s wrong,” he said. “Go on, tell her.”

“They agree with me,” Iseutz said. “Obviously.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Giraut muttered. “Still, she’s got a point. What other people do can’t be your fault. Can it?”

“You should know.”

Giraut breathed in sharply, but didn’t move. Addo’s eyes opened wide. Iseutz said, “
What
did you say?” Phrantzes ostentatiously turned a page of his book.

“Well in my case,” Giraut said mildly, “yes it can, obviously. If you’re talking about the Senator I killed, I mean. I provoked him.”

Suidas nodded. “So you should’ve held still and let him kill you.”

“Arguably,” Giraut said.

“But that would’ve been wrong. He was taking the law into his own hands. He should have called the Watch, not drawn on you.”

“So you’re saying a man who doesn’t fight back is aiding and abetting his own murder,” Addo said gently. “That’s an interesting point of view.”

Iseutz laughed. Giraut shook his head. “It was just a mess, that’s all. My instincts took over. I guess his did as well. I don’t think either of us made any rational decisions.”

“We should’ve played lies and scandal,” Iseutz said. “This is a stupid game.”

“Well,” Addo said, “we’ve all had a turn. Maybe you’d like to have a go.”

Suidas shrugged. “If you like.” He thought for a moment, then said, “You know, I can’t. Sorry, but I don’t think there’s anything I wouldn’t do. If I had to.”

“You’re not trying,” Giraut growled at him.

“Well, all right then. I would never, under any circumstances, kill myself. Or neglect a chance, however slight, to save my own life in the event of it being threatened. There,” he added, “how’s that?”

Iseutz gave him a scornful look. “Fine,” she said. “You’re dying of a really loathsome disease—”

“In the war,” Suidas said, “I caught mountain fever. It’s a form of dysentery, with the most appalling stomach cramps, like you simply can’t believe. It’s almost always fatal. My unit was being hounded by the Aram Chantat; they had to leave me behind. I lay beside the road for three days. I had a knife. I thought about it. I thought about very little else for three days. I’m still here. Because once you’re dead, well, that’s it, everything’s over. So I kept telling myself, I’ll wait another hour, just till the sun passes over that rock, and then I’ll do it. And then I put it off another half-hour, and then another twenty minutes. The middle of the third night, I realised it wasn’t quite so bad as it had been.” He clicked his tongue. “I didn’t cure myself, I was just lucky. I didn’t
win
or anything, but I didn’t throw the match, either. I reckoned, the fever’s doing a pretty good job of killing me, damned if it needs any help.”

There was a pause; then Iseutz said, “Is that true?”

“Yes.”

“You had mountain fever?”

“Yes.”

“Good God.” She looked away. “All right, then. The person you love most in the whole world is going to die, but you can save them if you die in their place. Well?”

Phrantzes closed his book with a snap. “I think that’s quite enough of that,” he said. “If you all insist on playing a game, we’ll play Frostbite. That’s my final decision,” he added sharply. “Well?”

So they played Frostbite, for three hours. Addo and Iseutz were the callers, and they won, twenty-seven games to twenty-five.

“Rematch?” Suidas said.

“No chance,” Iseutz replied. “My stomach hurts too much from laughing. Besides, you’re just a sore loser.”

Suidas looked very grave. “Always,” he said.

Later, when the others were asleep, Addo asked Suidas, “Did you really have mountain fever?”

“Of course not. I’d be dead if I had.”

“Ah.”

Suidas moved a little in his seat. “But I watched someone die of it. He got left behind, like I said. I stayed with him. After three days I cut his throat. The Aram Chantat were everywhere, and he wasn’t going to get better.” He shrugged, a sort of boneless gesture. “Don’t tell her that.”

“Sure.” Addo frowned. “In the War—”

“I’d rather not talk about it any more.”

“Of course. Only, no offence, but it was you who brought it up.”

“That was the game,” Suidas said. “I wanted to win.”

Addo laughed. “I quite understand,” he said. “You like to leave an opening, to draw the other man in.”

“That’s the whole secret of fighting messer,” Suidas replied. “I’ll show you, when we’ve got five minutes.”

There were no horses at the inn. Totila was furious. He kept his temper while he was with them, but they heard him yelling at the innkeeper, who emerged from the interview a short while later, shaking slightly and nursing a split lip.

“Not to worry,” Totila assured them breezily. “There’s a long downhill stretch into Docavotz, we can easily make up the time. It’s a nuisance, that’s all.”

The inn was a square grey stone block on a perfectly flat strip between two steep, bare mountains, precisely bisected by the road. There was a taproom, crowded with carters carrying ore from the mines to the refinery at Erba Fresc. “Don’t go in there,” the innkeeper’s wife told them, “they’ll hug you to death.” So they made do with the couriers’ dining room, reserved for government messengers and other important people on official business. It was slightly smaller than Giraut’s father’s house, and rather more splendidly furnished: two enormous oak settles, four magnificent carved oak chairs, fine rugs and tapestries. It was luxurious, Giraut reckoned, but somehow homely at the same time.

“You know why, of course,” Suidas said. “All this stuff in here is loot, from the War. That’s why it looks so damn familiar. This lot’s all out of some big house back in Scheria.” He turned to Addo. “One of your off-relations, most likely.”

“But that’s dreadful,” Iseutz said. “We need to tell someone. I mean, if it belongs to someone back home, it ought to be returned to them. It’s stealing.”

Suidas laughed. Phrantzes said, “It’s best not to worry about that sort of thing. It can cause bad feeling.”

“You bet it can,” Suidas said cheerfully. “Besides, you won’t find many houses back home where there isn’t some little souvenir or other.”

“But this is a government building,” Iseutz protested. “That’s not the same thing at all.”

Suidas couldn’t be bothered to argue, and then the innkeeper’s wife brought in a tray. There was a loaf, a big pottery jar with a wooden stopper, a brick of shiny white cheese and a tall stack of honey cakes, which proved to be edible.

“Any news about the horses?” Phrantzes asked, but the innkeeper’s wife smiled sadly, as though he’d just asked her about the true meaning of life, and went away.

Suidas asked Phrantzes for money. Phrantzes borrowed some from Totila, and Suidas bought two messers from a carter he waylaid at the taproom door. There was a grindstone in one of the outbuildings. The wonderful thin cutting edges went up in a snowstorm of white and yellow sparks, leaving blue stains on the steel where the heat had bled through.

“This’ll have to do,” Suidas said. Their salle was an empty hayloft, floored with thick planks, slightly warped, that flexed disconcertingly under their weight. Light came in through the open door, outside which was a ten-foot drop on to the cobbled yard.

“The man said they don’t use it any more because the joists are shot,” Suidas said. “I hate fighting in condemned buildings. It’s one more thing to worry about.”

Addo made a decision not to ask for the back story, and said, “We should be all right. The planks seem sound enough.”

“I’ll remind you of that when you suddenly disappear. Right, you stand with your feet a shoulders’ width apart, the usual thing. No, a bit more side on. Like that, you’ve got it.”

“You’re sure this is right?”

“You’re thinking” – Suidas sprang forward and swung at him; a broad diagonal slash from right to left. Addo darted back and left, just in time to avoid a cracked skull – “in conventional fencing terms,” Suidas went on, edging sideways crabwise. “Messer isn’t like that. It’s more” – he plunged forward, slicing upwards, right to left. Addo did a standing jump backwards to get out of the way – “about spaces than lines,” he went on. “Fencing’s about lines, and circles. Messer” – he charged, foot and blade together, sweeping his sword in a horizontal semicircle – “messer’s more about shapes in the air. The idea is to make the space around you into a zone where nothing mortal can survive.”

He launched another attack. Addo retreated, and found he was up against the wall. The blade was coming down at him, slanting, left to right. He had no room to dodge left, and if he went right the blade would follow and catch up with him. He felt a shock in his wrists and elbows, and discovered that he’d blocked the blow with his own blade, holding the tip end in his left hand and the grip in his right. He had no memory of deciding to do any of that.

Suidas took a step back. “Now you’re getting it,” he said.

“But that’s wrong,” Addo said. “If I’d done that with a sharp sword, I’d have cut my left fingers to the bone.”

“Yes,” Suidas said. “Now then, again.”

It took him a while, but gradually he began to understand. There was no defence. If you tried to block, you needed both hands; you’d mutilate yourself for life, and you could only do it once. So: no defence. Instead there was attacking and avoiding, ideally at the same time, so that in escaping your opponent’s attack, you formed and forwarded your own. That, he realised was the difference, and the reason why he’d done so badly at Joiauz. You couldn’t just endure. It was pure aggression.

“Welcome to the messer,” Suidas said, as they halted to catch their breath. “You can’t protect yourself. Your only way out is to kill the other man.”

“That’s horrible.”

“Yes,” Suidas said. “And after a bit, it becomes a way of life. On the other hand,” he went on, straightening his back and retreating into long measure, “it does wonders for your reaction times and your ability to assess people. You won’t last two minutes in this game without a complete understanding of human nature.”

Without warning he struck out; but Addo wasn’t there. He’d read the impending assault in a slight movement of Suidas’ left hand and flung himself out to the right. If he’d misunderstood, he’d have placed himself directly under Suidas’ cut.

“What do you mean,” he asked, “a way of life?”

Suidas explained with a rising cut, back-handed, aimed at his chin. He avoided it, but only just. “Instinct, you see,” Suidas said. “All instinct. I bet you young Giraut’d be good at it, if somebody bought him a backbone.” He swung; Addo dodged. “It’s basic human nature to cut,” Suidas went on, circling again. Addo tried to match him. “Rapier, longsword, single sword, all your business plays are thrusts. You repress the instinct to cut, because the cut’s actually far less efficient, it’s the thrust that gets the job done. But the messer’s no good for thrusting, except in a bind. It’s like ten centuries of scientific fencing hadn’t happened.” He offered a broad, slow feint, more clearly signposted than a marketplace, which Addo very nearly fell for. “No wonder the Permians can’t fence rapier,” he said. “It’s a totally different language.” He took two steps back and lowered his sword. “All right,” he said. “Now you try and hit me.”

“Actually, I’d rather carry on—”

Suidas shook his head. “You’re still thinking like a fencer,” he said. “You want to practise your defence before you learn to attack. But there is no defence, that’s the whole essence of it. If you can’t grasp that, you’ve got no chance.”

Suidas started to move. Addo opened his fingers, and the messer hit the floorboards with a thump. “I can do that,” he said. “After all, it’s just a sport. It’s not real.”

“Then you forfeit the match. You lose.”

“There’s worse things.”

Suidas stared at him as though he was some kind of intelligence test. Then he grinned. “Yes, but we’re here to win,” he said cheerfully, “and I’m going to teach you how. And I can’t do that if your fucking sword is on the fucking floor? Agreed?”

“Fair point,” Addo conceded. “Let’s start again from the beginning.”

Tzimisces arrived at some point in the night. They found him finishing off his breakfast in the couriers’ room: cold pheasant, smoked cheese, rye bread and a bowl of fruit, from a wicker basket he’d brought with him. They made a point of not asking him where he’d been, and he didn’t volunteer any information.

“You’ll be pleased to hear you’ll have a capacity crowd at Beaute,” he said. “In fact, the Guild’s begging me to try and fit in at least one extra fixture, but I’ve told them no. We’ve got nothing to gain from additional exposure.”