The Two of Swords: Part 13 Read online

  The Two of Swords: Part 13

  K. J. Parker

  www.orbitbooks.net

  BY K. J. PARKER

  The Fencer trilogy

  Colours in the Steel

  The Belly of the Bow

  The Proof House

  The Scavenger trilogy

  Shadow

  Pattern

  Memory

  The Engineer trilogy

  Devices and Desires

  Evil for Evil

  The Escapement

  The Company

  The Folding Knife

  The Hammer

  Sharps

  The Two of Swords (e-novellas)

  BY TOM HOLT

  Expecting Someone Taller

  Who’s Afraid of Beowulf?

  Flying Dutch

  Ye Gods!

  Overtime

  Here Comes the Sun

  Grailblazers

  Faust Among Equals

  Odds and Gods

  Djinn Rummy

  My Hero

  Paint Your Dragon

  Open Sesame

  Wish You Were Here

  Only Human

  Snow White and the Seven Samurai

  Valhalla

  Nothing But Blue Skies

  Falling Sideways

  Little People

  The Portable Door

  In Your Dreams

  Earth, Air, Fire and Custard

  You Don’t Have to be Evil to Work Here, But It Helps

  Someone Like Me

  Barking

  The Better Mousetrap

  May Contain Traces of Magic

  Blonde Bombshell

  Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Sausages

  Doughnut

  When It’s A Jar

  The Outsorcerer’s Apprentice

  The Good, the Bad and the Smug

  Dead Funny: Omnibus 1

  Mightier Than the Sword: Omnibus 2

  The Divine Comedies: Omnibus 3

  For Two Nights Only: Omnibus 4

  Tall Stories: Omnibus 5

  Saints and Sinners: Omnibus 6

  Fishy Wishes: Omnibus 7

  The Walled Orchard

  Alexander at the World’s End

  Olympiad

  A Song for Nero

  Meadowland

  I, Margaret

  Lucia Triumphant

  Lucia in Wartime

  Copyright

  Published by Orbit

  ISBN: 978-0-356-50620-3

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2016 by K. J. Parker

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  Orbit

  Little, Brown Book Group

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London, EC4Y 0DZ

  www.orbitbooks.net

  www.littlebrown.co.uk

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Contents

  Title Page

  By K. J. Parker

  Copyright

  Nine of Wheels

  About the Author

  Nine of Wheels

  Musen wasn’t the only one to see him off. He noticed her out of the corner of his eye as he rode down Victory Row, saw her again as he cleared the city gate, knew she was following him as soon as he turned left and headed up Foregate. Just for a split second he considered turning off and trying to lose her in the tangle of yards and alleys by the Tanneries, but it was quite possible she knew the streets of Choris better than he did. Well, he thought, why not? He managed to confine the stupid horse to a brisk walk and waited for her to catch him up.

  “I thought you had people for this sort of thing,” he called out, when he was sure she could hear him. “Don’t tell me, they’ve cut your budget again.”

  He heard a brisk clatter of hooves on the road behind him, and she drew level and pulled aside her veil so that he could see her face. “Commissioner,” she said.

  He winced. “This isn’t what was agreed,” he said.

  “On the contrary.” Her voice was deeper than he’d imagined it would be, but rather pleasant. “We’ve stuck to the agreement in every particular, and now it’s completed.”

  “Quite. All done and dusted. So why are you following me?”

  “To find out where you’re going and what you do next.”

  “Ah.” He nudged his horse into a trot. She kept perfect station with him, shoulder to shoulder. He slowed down again. “Surely now I know about you, there’s no point.”

  “Maybe.”

  It wasn’t a good time for him to get one of his headaches, but he could feel it gathering, just behind his eyes. “All right,” he said. “I’ll tell you where I’m going and what I’m about to do. I’m going to see for myself that Senza Belot’s army is pulling out. There, I’ve saved you a long and uncomfortable ride. In the snow.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “That’s what we’d assumed.”

  They rode on for a while. “You’re not turning back, then.”

  “No.”

  He sneaked a sideways look at her. It was hard to tell – she was almost as heavily wrapped up as he was – but he got the impression of a severe-looking woman, about his age or maybe a few years older, in an expensive but well-used riding cloak with a dark fur hood that probably wasn’t issue; apart from that, he could see the toe of her boot, which was dark and slightly gleaming with sheep’s-wool grease. She sat the horse well, back straight, hands low, weight in her heels; not cavalry-style, or the farmer’s lolling crouch, or the lazy-centaur look of the government courier or the horse archer. Someone had taught her to ride, and she’d been a good pupil. “You do realise,” he said, “you’re about as conspicuous as a forest fire. Women just don’t go riding about the place on their own, it’s unnatural.”

  “I’m not on my own,” she said. “I’m with you.”

  He sighed. “Who are you?”

  “My name’s Eufro.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Mphm.”

  He rode on for a while, trying to pretend she wasn’t there. Too difficult. “I can only assume,” he said, “that the object of the exercise is for me to know I’m being watched.”

  “Every move you make, yes. Well done.”

  “And you think that because you’re a woman, when we’re out in the wild somewhere and I finally lose patience, I won’t bash your head in and leave you for the crows. That’s so naïve it’s rather sweet.”

  “You can try.”

  “Ah.” He nodded. “A tough girl. A warrior maid, a chick in chain mail. I’ve read about your sort.”

  “Have you now.”

  “Oh, yes. And I’ve read even more about dragons, and they don’t exist either. Women are rubbish at fighting, they’ve got more sense. Go home. Before your mother starts worrying about you.”

  “You’ll have to do better than that, I’m afraid.”

  “Trust me, I’ve barely started.” His head was hurting quite a lot now. “You’ll find this hard to credit, but I can be quite obnoxious when I try.”

  “Do what you like. I’m under orders.”

  Corason sighed loudly and kicked his horse into a gallop. The road wasn’t really suited to it, and he slowed down again before the horse cast a shoe or b
roke a leg or something equally tiresome. She was, needless to say, still there.

  “Of course there’s the reasonably well-documented case of the Emperor Hyastes’ bodyguard,” he said. “Six hundred virgins, trained from birth in the warrior arts, head to toe in shimmering mail like a load of fish. Only I seem to recall that most of them were over fifty and stank like goats, and wasn’t Hyastes assassinated in his bath?”

  “Before my time, I’m afraid. I dare say you’re right.”

  No luck so far. He kept at it. “Well,” he said, “you’re a bit on the young side and I can’t smell you from here. Virgin?”

  “You meet so few attractive men in this line of work.”

  “From what I gather, Hyastes’ amazons weren’t all that interested in men. I gather it’s good for esprit de corps, though there’s not enough reliable data to draw any firm conclusions. In any case, I don’t need a bodyguard, thanks all the same.”

  She didn’t reply straight away. Then she said, “I gather your Lodge uses women as field agents. Quite highly thought of, some of them. Are you offensive to them, too?”

  “Dear God, no.” A terrible thought struck him. “You’re not—”

  “Lodge? No. For what it’s worth, I regard your organisation as sinister, disloyal, parasitical and a threat to Imperial security. I think you hide a rather unpleasant political agenda behind a smokescreen of superstition and garbage-grade mysticism, and if I had my way you’d be rooted out and dealt with once and for all. But that’s just my personal opinion, which does not necessarily reflect the views of my superiors.”

  “Ah,” Corason said. “I’m glad we got that straight.” He turned and looked at her. “What are you doing here? Real reason.”

  She smiled at him. It wasn’t meant to be friendly. “Would you believe me if I told you I had pressing business somewhere between here and Rasch Cuiber, and a woman riding on her own wouldn’t be safe and would attract too much attention? Like those little fish who hitch rides on sharks.”

  “Surely you’ve got people for that.”

  “Nobody was available. This is an elegant use of opportunity. An eye is kept on you, and I get to where I need to be.”

  “Plausible,” Corason admitted. “Tell me, was I right about the chain mail? What have you got on under that cloak?”

  She gave him a very slight frown. “If you must know, I’m a political officer attached to the Directorate of Archives and Observances; which is, as I assume you know, one of the few branches of the Service that employs women. I’m a widow, my husband died in the war, and I have a nine-year-old son who lives with my mother-in-law. Nominally, I’m a deaconess in holy orders, which is why I’m allowed out on my own, and it means I can earn money in my own right, instead of it being paid to my nearest male relative. If needs be, I’m under orders to cross the border into hostile territory, which is another reason for tagging along with a man, particularly one with a safe conduct order personally signed by the emperor. I’m assuming you’ve got similar papers for the West. Now, will that do you, or are you going to carry on acting like a pig all the way to Rasch?”

  Corason was quiet for a long time. Then he said, “So it’s true. They really are ordaining women in the East.”

  She nodded. “Not enough men, because of the war. I take it you don’t approve.”

  “Whatever gives you that idea?” He pushed back his hood and loosened the scarf a little; he was starting to feel uncomfortably warm. “Is your name really Eufro?”

  “Actually it’s Eudaemonia Frontizoriastes, I’m Aelian. I don’t like being called by a shortening, it makes me feel like I’m somebody’s pet. But I’m a realist.”

  “I’ve never met an Aelian before,” Corason said. “What brings you all the way up here?”

  “Bad luck,” Eufro replied. “Where are you from?”

  “Leuctria. Down past Blemya, turn left, keep going until you get your feet wet.”

  “No wonder you feel the cold.”

  “Tell me about it. I haven’t been really warm since I was seven.”

  She nodded gravely. “If you don’t mind my asking,” she said. “You’re a known associate of Axeo Scephantis, the highwayman and armed robber. Does that explain your antipathy to women?”

  Ouch. “I have no antipathy to women,” Corason said. “Just political officers.”

  She grinned. “Me, too. A complete waste of space, most of them. There now, we do have something in common, after all.”

  But Corason wasn’t ready to declare peace quite yet, even though he had a feeling he was outnumbered and surrounded. “You ride very well,” he said, “for a clerk.”

  “My father taught me. Women hunt in Aelia, and they ride in the horse races. And we beat off the empire when they tried to invade us. And we grow the best apples anywhere. Who was the boy?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The tall Rhus boy you had with you. You know, the sneak-thief. Some sort of lackey, or Axeo’s packed lunch?”

  Corason breathed out through his nose. “Let me guess,” he said. “Archives and Observances is where you hide your spies.”

  “The civil side,” she said. “Military intelligence is separate.”

  “But you’re genuinely a deaconess?”

  “Genuinely. I can say a prayer for you, if you like.”

  Well. It’s always nice to have company, as the man said when he discovered he had fleas. It was nice to have someone to talk to on the road, someone he didn’t have to be polite to, someone who understood the references; someone he could be as rude as he liked to, a rare indulgence. If she really was wearing chain mail, she had exceptional self-discipline. You can’t help slumping in the saddle, because of the weight on your shoulders. Obviously he’d have to think of some way of shaking her off, because being marked like this all the time was intolerable; but at least he could take his time, wait for the right opportunity and do it properly, rather than rushing at it and making a botch of it.

  “Out of interest,” she said, after a rare silence, “which empire do you belong to? East or West?”

  He realised he didn’t know offhand. “East,” he said.

  “Really? Why?”

  “Well.” He thought quickly. “I was only a kid when my family came here from Leuctria, it was before the war. When the war started, we were in the East. Therefore, presumably, I’m an Easterner.”

  She nodded. “You’re not down on the census rolls as a citizen,” she said. “Therefore, you aren’t an Easterner. Which makes you a Westerner or an enemy alien. I only mention it because it means you have no rights whatsoever and no protection under the law.” She smiled. “I thought you might like to know that.”

  “You’re making that up,” he said. “There’s no way you could’ve found that out so quickly.”

  She shrugged. “The central records are in the Green Stone temple in Choris,” she said. “The rolls are definitive, if you aren’t on them, you don’t exist. And my department has charge of the rolls, we know where to look things up. How old are you?”

  “Thirty-six.”

  “Ah. We guessed you were forty. But we checked six years on either side, just to be sure.”

  “Really.”

  “Yes, indeed. Naturally we make allowances for records being incomplete once the war started. But since you’re pre-war, the records are reliable, and you aren’t in them. Not,” she added pleasantly, “that it matters very much. All I’m saying is, I could cut your throat while you sleep and the courts wouldn’t be interested.”

  “What courts?”

  “Oh, indeed. Still, I thought I’d mention it, out of interest.”

  He tried to think of a reply, but there wasn’t one. So he asked, “Who else did you look up?”

  She laughed. “Oh, we know all about Axeo, so we didn’t need to. And the boy’s a Rhus, so he’s a definite enemy. If it’s any consolation, I’m not on there either. But Aelia’s neutral, so I’m all right.”

  It wasn’t something he’d ever
given any thought to. However— “Are you serious?” he said. “No rights at all?”

  “Oh, well,” she said, “it’s not like any of that sort of thing counts for anything these days, not in the middle of a war. If the war ever ends you might want to do something about it, though.”

  He frowned. “Such as what?”

  “That’s a good question,” she said. “You’ve got no standing to apply for citizenship, you haven’t served in the Eastern military and you aren’t rich enough for mercantile status. You could always marry a citizen’s daughter, of course, that’d do it.”

  “That’s allowed?”

  “In the East,” she said. “In the West you’d be restricted by property class. Of course, in the West you’d be a friendly alien, and you did serve in their army. If I were you, I’d be a Westerner. Much less hassle, and no poor unfortunate girl would have to marry you.”

  “I’m not sure I want to be a Westerner,” he said, “not if they’re going to lose the war. Didn’t you say you’re a widow?”

  “Hm. No, thank you.”

  “I’ll pay you. Twenty angels.”

  Her face went blank. “You’ve got twenty angels.”

  “Yes. Wrapped up in an old sock in the vaults of the treasury of the Shining Path temple in Aia Propontis. It’s supposed to be for my old age, but the way things are going I don’t suppose I’ll have one.”

  “Twenty angels. Are you serious?”

  “I imagine your kid could use twenty angels, even if you couldn’t.”

  She looked away. “Maybe you weren’t listening,” she said. “I’m Aelian. Not on the register.”

  “No. But you did say your husband died in the war. Therefore, he was in the Eastern military. Therefore, you have a valid claim for citizenship. True, there’d be paperwork involved, but it’s still an easy way to earn twenty angels.”

  She turned and looked at him. “I hardly know you.”

  “You know more about me than I do, apparently. Besides, it’d be a purely commercial transaction.”

  “Quite. Like all your relationships with women, I would imagine.” She looked thoughtful. “It’s a long way to Aia Propontis,” she said. “And I’d need to see the money first.”

  “Naturally.”

  “This is just bizarre,” she said. “Anyway, couldn’t your precious Lodge take care of it for you? I thought they had their claws in everywhere. I’m sure they could fake you a few records if you asked them nicely.”