The Privilege of the Sword (39 page)

Y
OUR NIECE IS PERFECTLY CHARMING,” THE
B
LACK
Rose told him when she visited him that night in Riverside, in the red velvet chamber. “Is she really your niece?”

“She’s really my niece. My sister gave birth to her, a few years back.”

“Then you should be more kind to her.”

“What?”
The duke dropped her leg back on the bed.

“She’s very young. The young are hungry, very hungry for all sorts of things, and half the time they don’t even know what they are. Do
you
know?”

“I’m perfectly kind to her,” he said. “I sent her to the theatre, didn’t I?”

“Do you even remember when you were her age?” The actress stroked his back with her foot. “You must have been a perfect horror. All arms and legs and rage and nameless lusts.”

“That,” he purred, “is precisely my point. I’m not having her go through what I went through, or what my sister did, either.”

“You’re a funny man.” Her foot moved down his body. “You don’t get this close to many women, but it would never occur to you to ask me what it is a young girl wants.”

“I don’t care what she wants. I know what’s good for her.”

“Heavens.” She lay back, arms stretched over her head in the enormous bed. “Is that your mother’s or your father’s voice I’m hearing?” He reared up, startled. “Are you going to throw me out of bed?” she asked languidly.

“Possibly.”

“I may be an actress, my lord, but I’m not stupid.” He closed his fingers around her wrists, and she let him stretch his length upon her; allowing him the upper hand, she felt more secure in digging deeper. “What about the boy,” she asked, “the shadowy one who follows you? He’s not a relative, too, is he?”

“Leave the boy alone,” he said sharply. “Nobody touches Marcus.”

“Not even you?”

His fingers dug into her wrists. But he made his voice light. “I would be very much surprised if he ever asked me to. Meanwhile, you are not to bother him. Do you understand?”

She said, “When we quarreled, Lord Ferris said that I had played too many Empresses. What he meant was that I thought I was his equal. You would never say that, but you might be under the illusion that I am a creature of huge uncontrollable lusts for everything that moves, including awkward young boys.”

“I never—”

“It’s all right. I’m just telling you how annoying it is for me when people confuse me with my roles, that’s all.”

“Believe me, I have no desire to sleep with the Empress.”

“Good. Do you know, I don’t think you’re mad at all.”

“Stick around.”

“I will.”

“And tell me more,” he said, “about Lord Ferris.”

Sweetest Katherine, my One True Friend—

How long it seems since we were girls together, innocently comparing beaux at the Tr——Ball! How I treasure our time together! I still have the feather I wore in my hair that night—some might call it a plume—but its lustre is sadly faded—or perhaps ’tis the dullness of mine eye that makes it seem so. I am sure that if you saw me now, you would not look twice—for my eyes are red with perpetual weeping—and yet, such is the virtue of your eyes that I know you would see into my heart as you have always done, and view with kindness the crushed flower hiding there. Oh, when I think of him I feel vile and disgusting! But then I picture your dear face, flushed with righteous wrath, and it is as if your angry tears can wash away my stain.

Like Stella at the races, I see much but say little—and I believe that, like Fabian, you keep faith with me despite appearances. Oh, do let me hear from you! If only to tell me that you are well, and remember your loving—

The handwriting was large and loopy and violet, and it just about broke my heart. But what could I do? I’d challenged Lord Ferris, and he’d refused me. Poor Artemisia! I’d hoped at least the challenge would frighten the Crescent into crying off, but it hadn’t done even that. Nevertheless, she must be answered. I dashed off a reply.

L
ady S—

Know that you and your grievance, though little talked on, are far from forgotten. I watch and wait, and will prevail.

Have you seen the play yet?

Your assured friend,

I sealed it with candlewax and stuffed it in my jacket, and set out to find my delivery boy. But in the hallway I met Marcus, capped and booted and mufflered, a handkerchief in his fist.

“It’s the chairs,” he snuffled. “He wants to go see the chairs.”

“What are you doing out of bed?”

“I’m bored. I want to see them, too.”

“What chairs?”

“New ones.” He coughed. “New design. It’s a fine day. Like spring. We’re walking. Want to come?”

“Love to.”

So the fine springlike day found the three of us sloshing through the fine Riverside mud on our way to a shop that would have been more than happy to bring the chairs to us if we’d been content to stay indoors. Ever since my trip to the theatre, I’d been taking more care to dress well when I went out; if people saw me, I wanted them to see someone who mattered. Today I wore my green suit, though not my velvet cloak, with an embroidered scabbard and a shirt whose cuffs were trimmed with lace.

My uncle noticed. “Pretty,” he said, “but hardly practical. You’re my swordsman, not my maid of honor. Steel catches on lace; Richard would never wear it. If it comes to a fight, now, you’ll tuck your cuffs under. I know you’re a young girl full of nameless lusts involving fashion, but you don’t want to die of vanity your next fight. Whenever that may be.” He looked around and shrugged. “It’s a wonder you’ve gone unchallenged, after your triumph at Sabina’s ball. In the old days, they would have been lined up around the block to try you, the bright new blade in town. No one has any ambition anymore—they just want to sit on their nicely muscled asses drawing nobles’ pay to defend the indefensible.”

“I’m in your household,” I pointed out before he could say any more about swordsmen’s anatomy. “They might be afraid a challenge to me is an insult to you.”

“Riverside.” He sighed gustily, and stepped around an indescribable pile of something that had emerged from the melted snow. “It’s not what it was.”

“Whose fault is that?” Marcus muttered. We crossed the Bridge, and picked up a couple more guards at the Tremontaine postern.

I had a thought. “But,” I asked, “if I
were
to maybe challenge someone, challenge him on my own, I mean, without your authority—would I be able to do that?”

The duke stopped in the middle of the street. Marcus and the guards and I stopped with him and narrowly missed being run over by a carriage that was barreling up behind us. Our retainers and the carriage lackeys had it out while His Grace of Tremontaine regarded me fixedly from above.

“Such as?” he asked. “What sort of hypothetical person were you hypothetically thinking of maybe challenging?” I couldn’t say anything. “Not some bravo,” the duke hypothesized, “in a tavern brawl or street fight…not your style. Those are boys’ games.”

“Do you think,” I asked, momentarily distracted, “they don’t even want to fight me? They think, because I’m a girl, I’m not even worth bothering with? Or is it just because I’m related?”

“I don’t know,” the duke said. Behind us the two factions were close to blows. “Tremontaine makes place for no one!” shouted Ralph, our man. That was certainly true. The duke was placidly ignoring the whole fracas. “But I would very much prefer that you not spill your blood for anything trivial.”

“It’s not trivial!” I blurted out.

“My Lord of Tremontaine!” a well-bred voice called from the carriage. “If you please! I have a very sick rabbit in here!”

“A rabbit?” said Marcus. “May I see?”

“Bloody Furnival and his stupid pets,” the duke growled. “It bites. And he said it’s diseased. What are you all doing, standing in the middle of the street—you’re supposed to be protecting me, not encouraging nobles with unnatural tastes to run me down!”

But he did not forget.

We went and saw the chairs, and he ordered a dozen, all curvy and strange—very modern, he said approvingly—and we were going to stop at White’s for chocolate when he suddenly said, “No, let’s go on to Tremontaine House. I want to see the room they’ll go in, while it’s fresh in my mind. Do you know,” he said cheerfully as we trudged on up the Hill, “maybe I should have the whole room redone to match them? Soften the angles of the walls, with molding, maybe, so it’s all nothing but curves? That would help take the curse off the place.”

We were passing the street that Lucius Perry’s sweetheart lived on. I glanced over at Marcus to see if he’d catch my eye, and I didn’t like what I saw. My friend’s face was pale, his eyes were bleary and his forehead looked damp. I sidled over to him. “Go home,” I said.

Marcus coughed. “We’re almost there.”

“All right, but when we get to Tremontaine House, you’re going straight to bed.” He didn’t have the strength to do anything but nod, and when we hit a steep part, he actually took my arm.

Astonishingly, Tremontaine House was ready to receive us. Marcus went upstairs to collapse on clean sheets. The staff set a table in the pretty room overlooking the garden, and the duke and I sat down there to a small collation of chocolate and biscuits, dried fruit and nuts. Outside the tall windows, the blooming witch hazel and forsythia made streaks of bright color against the general gloom.

“Almost spring,” my uncle remarked. “Riverside is turning into a swamp already. We’ll bring the household back up here soon.”

Just when I’d gotten used to Riverside, he wanted to move me again. It figured. “It’s so quiet up here,” I said. “Kind of boring, don’t you think?”

“I do my best,” he drawled, “to enliven it. Tell me, Katherine: does this hypothetical challenge of yours involve one of the neighbors up here?”

I sloshed chocolate all over my saucer. “What challenge?”

“The one everybody in the city appears to know about but me.”

“That isn’t so! No one knows about it except Lord—” I felt myself flush with the embarrassment of having walked right into his trap. “I was very discreet,” I added lamely.

“Discreet is good,” my uncle said encouragingly. He was leaning across the table toward me, like a tutor trying to help me with my arithmetic. “Now, then, where does he live?”

“I don’t know, exactly.”

“You can’t fight him if you can’t find him, Katherine.”

“I can find him.”

“I can help—discreetly, of course. This is, as you say, your fight. What’s the cause?”

“It’s—personal.”

His whole body tightened like a string that had been pulled. “How personal? Has someone offered you insult?”

He was so like a father in a book, I couldn’t help smiling. “Please,” I said as airily as possible, “I can manage.”

“Of course you can, I’ve seen to that. But if anyone has done anything, anything
bad
to you, rest assured that I—”

It was his usual polished hauteur, all drawly and annoying, but I paid attention and saw that his green eyes were glittering and very fierce. I actually reached across the table and touched his hand. “Nothing like that. I’m fine. It’s for someone else, a friend.”

He looked, if anything, fiercer. “Not your friend Marcus?”

“Marcus? Of course not. Someone else. I can’t tell you, though. It’s a secret.”

The duke nearly choked on his chocolate. “My dear! I’ve got more secrets than you’ve got teeth in your mouth. Believe me, I can keep a secret.” I didn’t say anything. “Never mind,” he said, “I can find out. Will you tell me who it is you’re challenging, or do I have to lock you in your room and feed you on bread and water ’til I starve it out of you?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said glumly. “He refused me.”

My uncle put down his cup. “Hold on. You issued a public challenge to a noble of this city, and he turned you down?”

“It wasn’t very public. Just one or two other men there, and then he took me aside and told me not to be silly. I could kill him just for that. He wasn’t taking me seriously at all. He kept thinking I’d come from you, even though I told him I hadn’t.”

My uncle raised his eyebrows, and then his face broke into a slow, delighted grin. “It’s Ferris,” he said. “You’ve challenged the Crescent Chancellor. No wonder he never comes to see me anymore.”

“He’s not—is he a friend of yours?” I hadn’t thought of that. I’d never seen Lord Ferris at any of Tremontaine’s gatherings, but clearly he didn’t have much self-control when it came to the kinds of things the duke didn’t either, so maybe…

“The ways in which Ferris is no friend to me are beyond counting. That goes for Tremontaine in general: he’s got a grudge against the lot of us; he’ll kill you if he thinks he can. Fortunately I know some of his secrets, so he’s chary of us. Old ones, and new ones, too. What’s the latest? What has he done to this friend of yours?”

“I can’t tell you,” I said miserably. “It’s too shameful. And it isn’t my secret. It’s a question of honor.”

My uncle took a deep breath. “Look. Did you tell Ferris what the challenge was about?”

“Of course I did. He did it!—the thing. The thing I’m challenging him about.”