The Privilege of the Sword (40 page)

“La, la.” My uncle shook his head sadly. “She’ll tell Lord Ferris what she won’t tell me.” His eyes met mine. He looked serious all of a sudden. “There are quite a few things Ferris has to be ashamed about. One of them concerns money. One of them concerns the Black Rose.” The mention of the actress startled me. My uncle watched me for a moment, and then, satisfied that the challenge did not concern her, went on, “Now, Ferris doesn’t know I know about either of those things, not yet. He won’t be pleased when he finds out, assuming he ever does. But I can take care of myself; indeed, knowing things about him can be very useful to me. For you, though…for you, it’s different. If you know something bad about him that no one else knows, he isn’t going to feel entirely safe around you. And a worried Ferris can turn very nasty.”

My uncle leaned back in his chair; I thought of a tutor again, as he raised his chin to the ceiling. “Think of secrets,” he told me, “as being like money. The more you have—of other people’s, I mean—the richer you are, and the more likely to be able to afford something you want when you really need it. Now, I’m the head of the family, which means I hold most of the family fortune: houses, land…and secrets. You are a junior member, and you hold—one. Give it to me, and you add to the family fortunes. Keep it, and I’m going to set a guard on you. Just in case the Crescent Chancellor decides he’d rather you didn’t tell anyone after all.”

I stared down at my knuckles. I didn’t think he was bluffing. He was really worried.

“If I tell you,” I said, “do you promise not to tell anyone else?”

My uncle nodded.

“And if you think it’s stupid, you won’t lock me in my room and refuse to let me fight?”

He looked at the ceiling. “Good question. Will I? Let’s say I won’t, this time.”

“What you were saying before,” I muttered, “when you thought it might be me? It wasn’t me; it was someone else.”

“Forgive my bluntness, but I need to get this straight: Anthony Deverin, Lord Ferris, raped a girl, and now you want to kill him for it?”

“I’m not sure I’m going to kill him. He has to admit it was wrong, and beg her forgiveness.”

“Are you in love with her yourself?”

I could feel myself turning an interesting color. But I wasn’t going to give way to him now. I said, “Is that all you can think about?”

“Not all. I just wanted to make sure.”

“Well, it’s not the point. The point is, he did this awful thing against her will, and he doesn’t care, and her family doesn’t care—they all want her to get married to him anyway, and she doesn’t want to, and nobody’s going to do anything about it if I don’t!”

“Ahhh.” The duke nodded in satisfaction. “The little Fitz-Levi.” He shook his head mournfully. “Oh, Ferris. Those years in Arkenvelt have coarsened you, I fear, and given you a trader’s soul: tasting the wares before the final sale.” He said to me, “You are quite right to call him out. That’s no way to behave, with him thinking he can have whatever he wants whenever he wants it. Let him learn some humility first. It’s a lesson he’s got long a-coming; he’s always treated women badly, and only the one time did we make him pay for it.” Lost inside a memory, the duke cut a long spiral of apple peel; then he looked up and said, “He’s not young, you know. He can’t go on like this forever. Tell your little friend to do her utmost, and maybe he’ll drop dead on his wedding night.”

I said, “That’s disgusting. Aren’t you listening? She doesn’t want to marry him.”

“You’re not thinking it through,” he said at his most superciliously annoying. “She’s damaged goods. Now that she’s ruined, marriage to Ferris is the only safe course open to her.”

“How can you say that,” I hissed, “you of all people? How can you say it’s
safe
for her? To live for the rest of her life with someone who could do something like that?” I found that I had risen to my feet and was leaning over the table glaring at him. “Someone
you
don’t even like?”

“Oh, thank you,” he said dryly. “Sit down, please. I only meant, safe in the eyes of the world. I didn’t say I approved. You should know that—you, of all people.”

But I did not sit down. “Then
do
something,” I said. “Why don’t you
do
something, if it matters to you so much? The truth is, you don’t care about her. You don’t care about any of us, and you’re not going to do anything. But I do, and I will.”

His knuckles were very white against the table’s rim. I was afraid I’d gone too far. But his voice, when he spoke, was measured and calm. “Let me understand you clearly,” he said, as though testing a mathematical proof. “You are going to cry challenge against Lord Ferris, not merely to avenge a wrong, but so that this girl need not marry against her will?”

“I’m going to challenge him because you can’t treat people that way. No one seems to realize it; no one seems to care.
He
certainly doesn’t. He thinks he owns her already, and her parents do, too—and even you. It makes me sick.”

My uncle was looking up at me with the strangest expression, as if he were going to cry, if such a thing were possible. What he said next was even more confusing: “Katherine?” There was a curious smile on his face, as if he were telling himself a story that he liked very much. “What do you want for your birthday?”

What did I want? He was the Duke Tremontaine. There was a lot he could give me. There was a lot he had taken from me, too. Why was he asking me this now, all of a sudden? I didn’t know what to say. “I’ll think about it.”

“Good enough. Now sit down. You’re right. I’m not going to do anything. I’m going to let you do it.” I sat. “So.” He was all business now. “You challenged Ferris once, but he did not accept. Neither did you revoke the challenge. So as far as he knows, you could appear any day with a skewer to his gut. He won’t like that.”

“I told him he could apologize to her.”

The duke smiled. “Oh,
that
will definitely happen. When the river boils over. But that’s not the point anymore.”

“Why not? He’s insulted her honor. It isn’t as if girls don’t have any.”

“Have you asked yourself why he doesn’t want a fight? And why he’s so insistent that the marriage go forward despite your friend’s objections?” He held up a hand. “Don’t start. I’m not that coarse; I’m sure he had a lovely time wherever he did it with her, but it’s not like Ferris to think with his—ah, his privates. He did it to secure the wedding. He did it to secure the funds.”

“Isn’t he rich already?”

The duke bisected an apple with the paring knife. “Nope. That’s his little secret—the one I have, the one he must be afraid is going to come out.”

“How do you know?”

“I know it because…people tell me things they shouldn’t.” He took a bite from the apple and grinned. “Sometimes I pay them to. Terrible. Trust no one; or if you do, try not to have any secrets.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Ferris always liked being twisty. Overcomplication has been his downfall in the past. Before you were born, he tried to double-cross your great-grandmother—that’s her, there on the wall.” He pointed to the glorious lady in grey silk, the portrait with the flamingo mallet I had so admired. “It was my pleasure to ruin him the first time, and get him sent to Arkenvelt. From which he returned about ten years ago, laden with furs which he turned into cash, and so was able to buy his way back into society, a good marriage and back up the rungs of the Council of Lords to his present glorious position. But he never had much land, what he’s got is mortgaged to the hilt, and now he’s nearly out of cash. He has nothing left to fall back on except what he can create for himself. It’s perfectly obvious: every bill he supports, every vote he casts is designed to feather his own nest—taxing the landowners, encouraging trade…It makes him look progressive—Karleigh’s cronies just hate him, but for all the wrong reasons.

“Politics. I’m boring you. I should start sending you to Council meetings—then you’d know what boredom is. But listen: Ferris needs this marriage. And he needs you not to mess it up. You’re lucky he’s not taking you too seriously, or he would have had you knifed on the street.”

I felt cold. “But that’s dishonorable!”

“Ferris has no more real sense of honor than that doorknob. Honor is a tool he uses to manipulate others. Challenge him soon. Do it right; do it in public with everyone watching. Then he can’t weasel out. Do you want to rid us all of him forever, or give him time to find a swordsman to take the challenge for him?”

“I don’t think I should kill him.”

“Probably not. Killing a noble in challenge means it goes to the Court of Honor, and then everything would come out. Either that, or I’d have to step forward and claim the challenge myself, and I’m not really interested in the eternal gratitude of the Fitz-Levis. No, you just fight his champion, and refuse to answer any questions after. Say it was a private affair of honor. People will draw their own conclusions, but with any luck they’ll get it wrong, and you’ll keep your friend’s name out of it. But do it by the book, and do it soon.”

“How soon?”

“Because I am your uncle and I have many employees, I will make it my business to learn Lord Ferris’s schedule for tomorrow and the next day. That soon.”

I nodded.

The duke rose. “Oh, and Katherine…”

“Yes, uncle?”

“Where’s Marcus?”

“In bed. He’s sick again.”

“Well, never mind; I’ll just write a letter and send it down to Riverside, and then you can ask Marcus where—oh, never mind; I can find the stuff myself.”

It was the last time I saw him sober that night.

I went up to make sure Marcus was all right. He was dozing in bed. His room here was smaller than the one in the Riverside house, but it was cozy, with a fire lit and rain beginning to patter against the windows. He opened his eyes when I came in, and I sent for some broth for him and watched him drink it.

It was comforting just to sit with him in silence. There was so much I couldn’t tell him now, about Lord Ferris and Artemisia and what the duke had said to me. But Marcus and I had secrets of our own.

“We can’t just keep calling her ‘Lucius Perry’s friend,’” I said aloud.

“Ah.” Marcus smiled. “We don’t have to. I found out her name.”

“How did you…?”

“I do get out occasionally, you know.” He sounded like the duke, only with such a bad cough I didn’t have the heart to deny him his triumph.

“All right, tell me.”

“Her name is Teresa Grey.”

“Who told you?”

“No one. I read it on a letter she left lying on a table.”

“You went into her studio?!”

“Don’t be an idiot. I went over the wall again. She wasn’t there, so I went right up to the window and saw it.”

“I can’t believe you went without me.”

“I would have taken you if I’d been able to find you. But you’ve been hard to find these days. Anyway, it wasn’t for long.”

I did not tell him that I had gone there without him, too, the day of the theatre. What was there to tell, really? I hadn’t seen any letters, just lurked on the street and followed Lucius Perry up the Hill to a gate I’d been scared to go through. I hadn’t told Marcus about the theatre, either, or the Black Rose, or anything. I owed him. And so I said, “All right. You are remarkable. Teresa Grey. I like that name.”

Marcus lay back and closed his eyes. “Isn’t it lovely, Katie?”

“What?”

“Knowing something
he
doesn’t know.”

“What if he does know?”

“He doesn’t. I’d bet on it.”

I giggled. “Maybe we should offer to sell him the information. He likes secrets.”

“Not this one. This one’s ours.”

“Ours and Teresa Grey’s.” My friend’s eyes were shut; he looked as if he were dreaming already. Softly I said, “He’d be furious if he knew we were doing this.”

“He doesn’t own us. He’s the Duke Tremontaine, he’s not the king of the entire world.”

“What if he finds out?”

“He won’t.”

“And we won’t tell him, will we?”

When Marcus opened his eyes, they were brown and disarming and utterly frank. “I see no reason to. Do you?”

I tucked his blanket back in. “None whatsoever. Good night.”

I passed the duke’s study. The hall smelt of a peculiar, sweet smoke; I went past quickly. I could hear him crashing around in there, calling for Marcus. I went downstairs and found a footman who could take care of him, and the staff gave me some hot soup and tried to pump me for gossip from the Riverside house, so I went back upstairs through the dark and empty house, and found myself standing in front of the doors with the wet rabbits on them. Funny to think about the first time I’d seen them, with Betty nervous beside me, and me nervous clutching my short cloak to hide my legs. And Master Venturus waiting behind the door, to teach me how not hold sword. And me maybe having already met Marcus, but not knowing really who he was, and still dreaming of sweeping down staircases in a ballgown…It was the same day I ran away to see Artemisia. I had not yet picked up a sword. I had not met Richard St Vier.

I went into the dark room; the mirrors gave it what glow there was, but I didn’t need to see much. I thought of Highcombe, of the man practicing there with no opponent, who might be practicing now. I ran through the opening moves of a fight, any fight, and then I started thinking about what he would do next, and moved to counter him.