Prince Thief

CHAPTER THREE

My mistake had been assuming there would only be one guard watching Panchetto’s chambers.

Or else it had been not keeping an eye out; or perhaps breaking into the palace in the first place; or maybe just ever returning to Altapasaeda. The more I thought about it, the harder it became to think of some point that I could definitively say wasn’t a mistake to work forward from.

In the meantime, the vice-like grip on my shoulder was doing unpleasant things to the circulation in my arm. I could already feel my fingers starting to go numb. “If you can just give me a minute to explain…”

He released my shoulder abruptly. Whatever relief I felt vanished the instant I realised it was only to clasp my wrist and wrap my arm efficiently — not to mention, excruciatingly — behind my back.

“Aaaowww,” I wailed, “there’s no need to-

Another twist, very slight and utterly agonising, was enough to make me shut up.

“You can tell it downstairs,” he said. My guard, whose face I still hadn’t seen, had perfectly mastered the forced boredom of the professional law enforcer. We might have been discussing the weather on a particularly dull day for all the interest in his voice.

Still, his professionalism couldn’t be faulted. He had me on my feet in a moment, and moving straight after, all achieved with only the subtlest manipulation of my pinned arm. I was helpless as a newborn kitten in a snake pit. My choices extended to doing precisely what he wanted or having my shoulder dislodged from its socket.

He led me at a steady march, taking a different route to the one I’d arrived by. I could hardly see where we were going for the tears stinging my eyes, but the passages looked more or less like the ones I’d navigated on the way in. The same could be said for the stairwell he manoeuvred me into and the descending levels he steered me down.

Without its prince and the bustle that had gone with his residency, the palace was sunk in a silence that worked wonderfully to channel any sound. By the second flight I could clearly make out voices, drifting from some distant other wing. One of them I felt sure belonged to Alvantes, and I could make out enough of his interlocutor’s replies to realise their voice was familiar as well, unlikely as that seemed.

On the ground floor, the landscape changed: here was the region intended for eyes other than the palace’s regular inhabitants, and the decor became suitably more grand and gaudy. My guard led me along wide passages and on through the sculpted gardens that dominated the interior yard, thoughtfully choosing a path where rich-scented flowers climbed around great edifices of cane.

By the time we drew near the far side, the conversation ahead was growing discernible. The first sentence I heard a part of distinctly was Alvantes’s, “…an amicable solution. Without shedding of blood.”

“I think that point is past,” replied the second voice.

“And food? Fresh water? Supplies of medicine?”

“Oh, yes. We have all of those. Enough for a very long time.”

Alvantes’s next comment was muted, and I missed it. The reply, however, was perfectly clear. “So you see? You have nothing at all to bargain with.”

It was the note of contempt that did it, with its particular undercurrent of arrogance. Of course I knew that voice. Hadn’t I spent days in its owner’s company? Commander Ludovoco, of the Crown Guard: the man who’d escorted Alvantes and I to Pasaeda, only to arrest us on its doorstep; the man I’d last seen delivering the King’s declaration of war and plunging Altapasaeda into disarray. I’d seen enough of Ludovoco to know that he was a conniving bastard, a political thug with his own distorted agenda and scant regard for the wellbeing of others.

I’d given no thought, though, to where he’d disappeared to after dropping his wasp’s nest into our laps. It should have been obvious. Where else than here, where he could work best to be a thorn in the side of the Altapasaedan defence? Alvantes had come here to reason with the Palace Guard, to try to persuade them to stand down now that Mounteban was no longer a threat — and perhaps it might have worked, had they not known that relief was mere days away.

All of which meant that Alvantes had just placed his life in his enemy’s hands. Under the circumstances, I doubted he was going to be pleased to see me.

There was a curtained aperture ahead and my guard shoved me hard into it, without quite releasing my arm, so that for a moment I was afraid I’d get tangled in its thick folds. Then I was through, and gawping at a large room that opened far above to the sky. It was a sort of patio, with a sunken area in the middle meant for players or musicians perhaps, and around the outside, seats, tables and decorated alcoves.

On the outer tier stood Ludovoco, along with twenty or so men from the Palace Guard. Half a dozen of them bore crossbows, which they held levelled at the occupants of the lower level — those being Alvantes and five of his city guardsmen. Beside Ludovoco was a man I distantly recognised from my time living in Altapasaeda, someone I knew only through reputation and the occasional public glimpse: Commander Ondeges, head of the Palace Guard. He was older than Ludovoco, his black hair flecked thickly with grey. Other than that, I could tell little about him; he had one of those chiselled, purposefully expressionless faces that I was starting to consider a prerequisite for dangerous positions of authority.

“Commander.” My guard addressed not Ondeges but Ludovoco, which I found surprising. He sounded not only more alert than he had upstairs but conspicuously nervous. “I found this in his highness’s chambers, sir.”

Seeing me, Alvantes’s eyes widened. “Damasco!”

Ludovoco glanced at him with disdain. “You seem surprised. Are we to believe this wasn’t part of your plan?”

“If it was, I’d hardly have meant to get caught,” I pointed out.

Ludovoco ignored me. “Is that his?” he asked, nodding towards something behind me.

“His pack, sir,” explained my guard. “I think he was taking something out of it, maybe.”

I hadn’t even considered what had become of my bag. Evidently the guard had been attentive enough to bring it with him.

“Check it,” Ludovoco told him.

I heard a dull clink as my guard flung the pack upon a low table beside the door, a scuffing as he drew open the cover. I still couldn’t see his face, but a little of his stoic professionalism had slipped as he said, “A rope, Commander, and… er… bottles, mostly. Lots of little bottles.” He obviously hadn’t taken any time to wonder what I’d been doing in the Prince’s bath chamber.

“A saboteur, is it? Or an assassin?” Ludovoco contemplated me, as if I were a slug crawling across his dinner plate. “Are they poisons? Some incendiary, perhaps?”

Perhaps my guard was ignorant of royal bathing practices, but I doubted very much that Ludovoco couldn’t recognise bath oils when he saw them. Likewise, he had no reason to be quite this suspicious of Alvantes’s motives. In any case, we were on Ondeges’s turf, not his; what was Ludovoco doing, coming here and pulling rank like this?

Alvantes scowled. “I assure you,” he said, “I knew nothing about this. I came here in good faith, to try and…”

“Spare me,” said Ludovoco. “Please. I’m a busy man. In fact, to move matters to a swift conclusion, I’ll propose a deal. Tell me, without prevarication, what your scheme here was and I’ll let your men go.”

“I’ve told you,” said Alvantes with dignity, “I knew nothing of this degenerate’s actions. Moreover, I won’t bargain with the fates of my men, who are servants of the crown every bit as much as…”

Ludovoco cut him off with an upraised hand. It said a lot about the man that he could silence Alvantes so easily. With the same hand, he picked out one of Alvantes’s entourage, a man I knew vaguely as Godares. To the palace guard beside him, Ludovoco said, “Kill that one.”

The crossbowman hesitated — but only for an instant. In one economic motion, he lodged the bow against his shoulder and pulled the trigger.

Godares’s mouth was just opening, perhaps to protest. It formed into a perfect “O” as the bolt struck. At such close range, the impact lifted him from his feet and carried him with it. By the time his body finally struck the ground, it was brokenly splayed, with his own blood already pooling beneath him.

Alvantes had made three swift steps towards Ludovoco before the other crossbowmen realised what was happening. Once they did, however, they were quick enough to aim their weapons at him. Alvantes’s weathered face seemed black with rage. My mind threw up an image, so clear that I could barely doubt its reality, of him pressing on, his body tattered with bolts, to crush Ludovoco’s throat with his one good hand.

If Ludovoco was pondering a similar scene, he hid his unease perfectly. He didn’t so much as consider Godares’s corpse; his eyes held Alvantes pinned. “So you see,” he said, “I don’t make threats, idle or otherwise. You’ll tell me what I want to know.”

“You’ll pay for that.” Alvantes’s voice was a growl, the words almost lost in the depths of his hate.

“Unlikely,” said Ludovoco. “And again, you’re wasting time.” He raised a hand once more. His eyes strayed idly over Alvantes’s surviving men.

“Wait!” Alvantes cried.

Ludovoco didn’t lower the hand. “You have something to tell me? You didn’t come here to make peace. So what was it? Quick now.”

“I know your type,” said Alvantes. His voice had returned to something like normal — except that now it was almost too normal.

“Do you really?” asked Ludovoco, without much curiosity.

“Good family. Wealthy. Close to the royal court. Yes, I know your type,” Alvantes repeated. “We’re not so different, you and I.”

“Hardly a compliment,” Ludovoco observed, “coming from a former provincial captain to a commander of the Crown Guard.”

“Perhaps. But I did attend the Academy. I’m sure you did too. I was in a duelling circle; who wasn’t? You though, I think you were one of the serious ones. Those who were in it for the blood. Am I right?”

“That I duelled at the Crown Academy?” said Ludovoco. “That I enjoyed it? Certainly.”

“Then I challenge you, Commander Ludovoco,” said Alvantes. “By the bonds of the Academy and for the murder of guardsman Pietto Godares. If you have any spark of honour left in you, you’ll fight me now.” Alvantes looked around the room, his gaze taking in faces, weighing them. “Or shame yourself in front of these men.”

Ludovoco’s lips curled in a tight smile. “I don’t know what you imagine you’ll achieve. Other than a swift and bloody death, that is.”

“Justice,” said Alvantes. “For the good man you just killed.”

“Really? If you say so.” Ludovoco reached one hand to his waist and, seemingly without conscious thought, loosened his sword in its scabbard. “And when I win, you’ll tell me what I want to know.”

“If you win.”

Ludovoco stepped down to the lower level. “I’ll be careful to wound you. In the gut, perhaps. It will provide a focus for our conversation.”

His tone was so casually sadistic that I couldn’t resist a shudder. How long before his attentions turned in my direction? Alvantes, however, seemed unconcerned. In fact, he was looking not at Ludovoco but at me — really looking at me, I realised, for the first time since I’d entered the room. As he saw that I’d caught his gaze, he let it drift to my left, and my own eyes followed automatically. Yet all I could see was an alcove carved into the wall beside the entrance. A fat vase sat there, glazed in yellow and umber, resting upon a pedestal at roughly waist height.

It only occurred to me then that my guard was no longer holding my arm. He was hovering close, to be sure — but I had both my hands free. And that vase looked heavy.

Alvantes drew his sword, tapped the flat to his forehead in salute.

Ludovoco mimicked the gesture with his hand, but contemptuously — a parody. Then he dropped the hand to his waist and flicked his blade loose, raising it in one neat motion and at the same time relaxing into an on guard stance, as though it were all the most natural thing imaginable.

Alvantes took a step back, squared up. He had none of Ludovoco’s grace. Before it, his one-handedness looked horribly disabling — more than I’d ever have thought it could. I’d seen him fight, seen how little he’d let his injury slow him. This was different, though. If what he’d said were true, Ludovoco was a stone cold killer, trained to hunt out any weakness and use it to demolish his opponent. And one hand against two was a very great weakness indeed.

Alvantes was many things, but he wasn’t a fool — at least not the kind of fool who would jeopardise the lives of his remaining men to revenge the death of one. Which meant that whatever he had in mind, it was more than a simple duel.

Or so I hoped. There was hatred enough in Alvantes’s eyes to make me think that he’d really convinced himself he could beat Ludovoco, and maybe his men as well. Ludovoco, meanwhile, was edging in a slow semicircle around the makeshift arena, the faintest of smiles on his lips, the rest of his face dreamily sedate. I thought of a cat toying with its prey — but this was something even worse than that. Ludovoco was taking pleasure in imagining just how he’d play, once the time came.

It didn’t take long for his patience to exhaust itself. Suddenly Ludovoco was moving, feet dancing in quick sidesteps, blade outstretched and weaving. Alvantes drifted back behind it and then span aside, curling an offhand blow away.

Ludovoco stepped into space and nodded, as though the exchange were a performance they’d been acting out and he acknowledged that Alvantes had kept to his part. He shifted his pose, tucking his free arm behind his back; another mockery, perhaps? Briefly, he resumed his semi-circular drift, more clearly predatory this time. Then he lashed out again.

That altercation was over almost before it had begun. Alvantes easily tipped Ludovoco’s blade aside. The next went the same way — and the next. Between each, Ludovoco retreated; let a few moments pass by. He wasn’t trying to penetrate Alvantes’s defence, merely testing it.

I’d have expected no less. With every advantage his, it made sense that he’d take time rather than risks. The only thing I found strange was Alvantes letting him get away with it. The fact that he was willing to defend sat badly with his lust for vengeance. Damn him, why did the man have to be so damned cryptic?

Abruptly, Ludovoco switched hands, shifting his blade from one to the other with a casual flip, and was off again, with a whirlwind of strikes to Alvantes’s left side. Ludovoco fenced every bit as ably with his off hand, shifting constantly to keep the pressure on. Though Alvantes defended every blow, his stance was too unnatural to maintain for long. Without as much as a glove to protect his bandaged stump, his only recourse was to fight across his body.

Finally, Ludovoco relented once more. It was clear in his face; everything Alvantes had said of him was true. He was enjoying himself, fighting to wear Alvantes down by degrees. Ludovoco’s features were still, but every so often the twitch of an eyebrow or lip would betray the tension keeping them in place. I felt sure it was only iron self-control that stopped him cackling with glee.

Everyone’s attention was on the fight now. Even the men whose express function was to keep their crossbows trained on Alvantes’s guardsmen had let their weapons loll. I could sense my own guard, close behind my right shoulder; he’d edged forward to better view the action. The vase Alvantes had indicated was to my left — just out of reach. I edged the fraction of a step nearer, hoping against hope that my guard was too engrossed to notice.

Luckily for me, Ludovoco chose that moment to press his attack once more. Blade high, he dashed off a rapid sequence of strikes, the tip of his blade dancing figures-of-eight towards Alvantes’s face. It was clear even to me that the fight had changed — that Ludovoco was done with toying.

He wasn’t the only one. Alvantes twisted, side-stepped, let Ludovoco’s blade slip past his right side and smashed an elbow into Ludovoco’s shoulder. Not giving him an instant to react, Alvantes lashed out a foot for Ludovoco’s knee — and though Ludovoco recoiled in time, he still staggered. Alvantes swung for Ludovoco’s heels and then pressed close, clubbing at his opponent’s hand with his sword hilt, once and twice, so that blood splashed from his knuckles.

This wasn’t duelling. It was the kind of brutal, dirty street-fighting that had no place in a duelling ring — but which a city guard-captain might well pick up over the years. Ludovoco was too good to be kept off his guard for long, but Alvantes had chosen his moment perfectly. They were fighting now before Alvantes’s own men, and any crossbow shot aimed at them was as likely to strike Ludovoco.

Alvantes pressed his attack once more, abandoning any hint of style for raw, calculated violence — and making sure that wherever Ludovoco was, he made a mess of any clear shot the palace guards might risk in his defence. Alvantes’s men, meanwhile, already had their own blades out, and were pressing towards the nearest arch, with no one making any effort to stop them.

Ludovoco’s face was set with cold fury at the fact that he’d let himself be played, that he was still being played — for though he was capable of defending against even so vicious and undisciplined an attack, the need to protect himself against not only Alvantes’s blade but his feet, knees and elbows had thrown him badly. His anger, however, was nothing to Alvantes’s manifest hatred. Perhaps he knew he couldn’t win this fight, but I had no doubt he’d draw every drop of Ludovoco’s blood he could to avenge his murdered man.

Whatever opportunity Alvantes had hoped to gain, it wasn’t going to get better than this. No one was paying me the slightest attention. My sentry was twitching beside me, undoubtedly unsure if he should be heading off the retreating guardsmen or rushing to aid his commander; he was hardly even looking my way.

It came as no surprise when Alvantes darted a glance my way and bellowed, “Now, Damasco!”

I didn’t need to be told twice. My arm was still half numb from the guard’s attentions, and once I might have let that stop me. Lately I’d been through a lot, though, and grown intimately familiar with pain. Thus it was that I managed to grasp the vase beside me, despite pins and needles lacerating my wrist and shoulder — and thus it was that I managed to smash it into my guard’s face.

I even succeeded in not screaming as I did it — though a scream might have been manlier than the yelp I came out with. My guard fared better, making not the slightest noise as he took two slow steps backward to collapse through the curtain, his head negotiating a perfect arc on its way to the floor.

The horrid thud of his skull against the tiles was blessedly masked by my own footsteps, as I snatched up my pack and pounded past, back the way we’d come.