Sharps Read online

  Phrantzes looked at him. “No, that won’t be necessary,” he said quietly. “I’ll just have to try harder from now on.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Tzimisces said.

  There was a long silence. Then Addo said, “Is it my imagination, or are we going uphill?”

  Giraut glanced out of the window, and nearly choked. On his side of the chaise, there was nothing at all. Thin air.

  “Quite right,” Tzimisces said. “Joiauz is built on a hill. Well, more than a hill. We had a devil of a job here, in the War. They collapsed the road, and we had to rebuild it, with the Permians rolling rocks on to our heads. It’s fully restored now, of course,” he added, as Iseutz shot him a horrified stare. “Superb engineers, the Permians. It’s amazing what they’ve achieved in such a short time.”

  “Would you mind very much if we had the blinds down?” Addo said, after he’d looked out. “I’m afraid I’m rather stupid about heights.”

  Nobody minded in the least, and they all sat perfectly still until the chaise eventually stopped, quite some time later. The door opened, and Totila was standing there, looking decidedly cheerful.

  “Joiauz,” he said. “Come in and have something to eat.”

  The sun was just beginning to set, and the light was gently red. It suited the soft yellow stone of the tall buildings on three sides of the square they found themselves in. The fourth side was open; the head of a grand stairway, leading down to the lower town. It was an extraordinary view, a wild jumble of red-tiled roofs, green domes, bell towers, fire pillars and soaring brick chimneys. But there were pieces missing, like empty squares on a chessboard; closer examination showed these to be ruins not yet rebuilt. In the middle of the square was a fire pillar at least a hundred feet tall.

  “There’s a reception,” Totila was saying, “in the Guildhall. But I expect you’ll want to freshen up first.”

  A small procession was heading towards them across the square. At the head were two short, bald men in long red robes, followed by a giant in grey velvet. Behind them was a column of old men in black gowns. Giraut wanted to run away, but he couldn’t think where to run to. The procession halted, close enough that he could see the gilt buttons on the bald men’s cuffs. The giant stepped between them and cleared his throat.

  “On behalf of the Fencers’ Guild and the freemen of Joiauz,” he said, in a rather high-pitched voice with a curiously nasal accent, “we welcome you to our city.”

  Nobody moved. We’re supposed to say something or do something, Giraut thought, and nobody knows what it is. Nothing can happen till we’ve said or done it. We could be here for the rest of our lives.

  Tzimisces nudged Phrantzes, who opened his mouth, closed it again and said, “Thank you.”

  Clearly that wasn’t right, but the two bald men, after a moment of stunned silence, nodded abruptly and advanced on Tzimisces and Phrantzes. Tzimisces skipped back out of the way, and Phrantzes was left to accept the cold, harsh embrace. Then a small boy hopped out of nowhere holding a big silver key. He gave it to one of the bald men, who gave it to Phrantzes, who looked at it for quite some time and then stuck it in his pocket. Giraut heard Tzimisces moan softly. Then the column about-faced and marched back into the building they’d come out of, leaving the fencers alone with Totila’s men in the otherwise deserted square.

  “Did I do something wrong?” Phrantzes said.

  “Yes, but never mind,” Tzimisces said briskly. “I’m sorry, I thought you’d been briefed on protocol. Not to worry. Let’s get inside and have some food.”

  It was the biggest room Giraut had ever been in. You could’ve held a small steeplechase in there without moving more than a couple of tables. They had it all to themselves.

  “I’ll be leaving you now,” Totila said, and his voice soared up to the great domed roof, bounced off the stunning gold mosaic of the Fire God in Splendour, and chased itself between the pillars for a while. “I expect there’ll be someone along soon to tell you what’s happening.”

  Far away in the distance, across a vast black-and-white tiled floor, was a table on a dais. There were cups and plates on it; the rest of the tables were bare. “I guess we’re supposed to help ourselves,” Addo said. He didn’t seem particularly overawed by his surroundings, which made Giraut wonder what his house looked like inside. He looked round for Tzimisces, who wasn’t there. He heard footsteps, impossibly loud, which he assumed were Totila’s, leaving.

  They crept up on to the dais as quietly as they could. There was bread and cheese, long red sausages and a big silver vat of what Giraut guessed was that celebrated Permian delicacy, fermented white cabbage. It was a sort of puddlewater brown, and Giraut could’ve sworn he saw it move.

  “God help us,” Iseutz said under her breath, and put a couple of slices of bread on a plate.

  Giraut stared at the food, decided that the cheese was probably all right, and looked round for something to cut into it with. There wasn’t anything. “Excuse me,” he said, “but has anybody got a knife?”

  No reply. On Tzimisces’ instructions, they’d left anything that could possibly be construed as a weapon in the chaise. Giraut leaned forward and tapped the cheese with his fingernail. It was rock solid, sealed in a plaster rind. He turned his attention to the sausages, but they were too big to get in any mouth that would conceivably qualify as human. That left the bread and the pickled cabbage. He took three slices of bread. It was like eating wood. He washed them down with a cup of water, which tasted funny. Welcome to Permia.

  “He’s disappeared again.” Iseutz had materialised next to him. He saw that she’d nibbled the crust of one of her slices of bread. “Hadn’t you noticed?”

  “Presumably he’s meeting with the Permian officials.”

  “Rubbish. He’s slipped out to an inn. He’s probably eating roast lamb right now. My God.”

  “What?”

  “Look.”

  He followed her pointing finger, and saw Addo, munching a handful of the pickled cabbage. He noticed her staring at him and smiled feebly. “It’s actually not that bad,” he said, with his mouth full.

  “You can’t eat that stuff. It’s not fit for human consumption.”

  “The Permians eat it,” Phrantzes said.

  “Proving nothing.”

  Phrantzes shrugged. He’d piled a small heap of the stuff on his plate, along with a slice of the wooden bread, but he wasn’t eating. “There’ll probably be food at the reception,” he said hopefully.

  “What makes you think that?”

  He didn’t reply. Iseutz shook her head, slammed her plate down on the table and folded her arms. “This isn’t good enough,” she said. “We’re supposed to be important, aren’t we? So why have they dumped us here in this cowshed with nothing but stale bread and nowhere to wash? We’d be better off in prison.”

  “Not really,” Giraut said mildly. It had the effect of shutting her up, which was what he’d aimed at. Of course, he hadn’t been in prison, or at least if he had, he’d been unconscious all the time. But she wasn’t to know that.

  “What is this place exactly?” Addo asked suddenly.

  That was a question Giraut had asked himself and then forgotten to answer. “I don’t know,” he said. “I assumed it was some sort of Guild house.”

  “Fencers’ Guild, maybe,” Suidas put in. “Well, it’s big enough, God knows. If you moved all these tables out of the way, you’d have a really first-class salle. And it figures, doesn’t it? Presumably we’re the guests of their Fencers’ Guild.”

  Iseutz dragged her foot across the floor. “You could fence here, granted,” she said.

  “Look.” Phrantzes was pointing at the far wall. It was covered with dark wood panels, on which were long columns of dates and names. “Previous champions, I assume.”

  “Well, that explains that, then,” Iseutz said briskly. “You know, this makes the guild house back home look like a chicken coop. It’s more like a temple.”

  “But with a bett
er floor,” Suidas said. “And the lighting’s good.” He looked round, counting under his breath. “You could get a thousand spectators in here, no trouble at all.”

  “More,” Giraut said. “There’s a gallery, look.”

  “And this isn’t even the capital city,” Iseutz said. “Someone’s spent a great deal of money on this place.”

  “They had a great deal of money to spend, at one time,” Phrantzes said. “Before the War, of course.”

  Iseutz walked out into the middle of the floor. “If we had our stuff,” she said, “we could get some practice. All that sitting in coaches, I’m amazed I can move at all. I practise forms three hours every day back home. This is the longest I’ve gone without practising since I was seven.”

  Suidas grinned. “If you want to do some forms, go ahead,” he said.

  She scowled at him. “Not with you watching.”

  “There’s going to be twelve hundred people in here when we do the match.”

  “That’s different.”

  Addo was looking up at the high windows. “We ought to be able to borrow some foils,” he said. “They’re bound to have some, if this is the Fencers’ Guild. I don’t know about you, but I like to get the feel of the kit before a match.”

  “I want to know where my foils have got to,” Iseutz said. “For one thing, they’re quite expensive. I know they were collected from our house. Presumably they’re sitting in some transit office.”

  “I can fence with more or less anything,” Giraut said. “But she’s right, we need to practise before the match.”

  Phrantzes realised that they were all looking at him. “I’ll go and see if I can find someone,” he said unhappily.

  Suidas sat down on the edge of the table. “A decent meal, a good night’s sleep in a bed and a proper workout with the gear we’ll be using in the match,” he said. “Otherwise I’m not fencing. It’d help,” he added sternly, “if we all agreed. I mean, if we all refuse, there’s not much they can do.”

  Giraut looked away. “We don’t want to make trouble,” Addo said. “Still, it’s not exactly unreasonable, what you’re saying. And I’m sure that’s what we’ll get; it’s just they’re not terribly good at communicating. I expect Tzimisces is organising it all right now.”

  “It shouldn’t be him, though,” Suidas said. “He’s the political officer, not the team manager. It should be Phrantzes dealing with that kind of thing.”

  “Oh, him,” Iseutz said. “He’s useless.”

  “Keep your voice down,” Suidas said quietly. “He’s coming back.”

  Phrantzes stood in the doorway and tried to think what he was going to say. They’d noticed him, and were looking at him. Oh well, he thought. He walked forward. He felt like he’d been running.

  “There’s been a change of plan,” he said.

  They waited for him to say more. Then Suidas said, “Well?”

  “The reception,” he said, speaking very clearly, “has been postponed.”

  “Yes?”

  Phrantzes nodded. “It’ll be held after the match. Here, in the Guildhall.”

  The Bryennius boy looked relieved. Suidas Deutzel shrugged. “Fine,” he said. “So when’s the match?”

  “In about an hour.”

  The reaction was more or less what he’d expected. Iseutz screamed, “What?” Suidas and Giraut stared without speaking. Addo Carnufex let his head droop forward, as though he’d been expecting something of the sort. It could have been worse, Phrantzes told himself. Generally speaking, the worst happening was always marginally better than the worst anticipated.

  “That’s completely—” Iseutz started to say, but Suidas cut her off with a slight gesture of his hand; a born sergeant, that man.

  “That’s unacceptable,” he said, furiously calm. “We’ve been travelling for days, we haven’t slept properly, we haven’t trained, we’ve had no food, we haven’t got our kit …”

  Phrantzes felt his stomach lurch. He expected the words to come out in a squeak or a whisper, but he managed to say them perfectly clearly. “Actually, you’ve got everything you’ll need.”

  He hadn’t expected then to understand. But Addo Carnufex lifted his head and looked straight at him, and he got the impression that somehow, he knew.

  “I’m really sorry,” Phrantzes went on. “The thing is, the arrangements were made in advance, and well, we weren’t expecting to be held up so long on the road. A lot of people have travelled for days to see the match. If we tried to postpone it, there’d almost certainly be a riot. I know it’s dreadfully short notice, but there’s really nothing we can do. I’m sorry, but there it is.”

  “Phrantzes,” Addo said, still looking straight at him, “where are our foils? And the masks, and the jackets and stuff?”

  This time, his voice nearly broke. He managed to cover it with a fake cough. “You won’t be using foils,” he said.

  As Iseutz shrieked and Suidas roared and Giraut stared open-mouthed, Phrantzes realised he felt much calmer, now he’d actually said it. The terrible thing he’d brought with him all the way from the City was out now, loose, beyond his control. It was a shamefully blissful release.

  “The Permians don’t use foils,” he said, raising his voice over theirs. “At least, only in practice, and for children’s matches. Certainly not at the professional level. That’s why we were sent out with sharps. That’s what we’ll be using.”

  There was a long, long silence. Then Iseutz said, “They want us to fight with real swords?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Suidas had recovered from the initial shock. “That’s barbaric,” he said. “I’m not doing it.”

  “I’m sorry, but we can’t back out now,” Phrantzes said gently. “There’s over a thousand people waiting in the square behind this one. Most of them have been there all day. If we try and back out now, there will almost certainly be bloodshed.”

  “The hell with that,” Suidas thundered at him. “If we go out and fight with sharps, there’ll quite definitely be bloodshed, and I’m having no part of it. And you can tell that bastard Tzimisces—”

  “Phrantzes,” Addo said, talking quietly over him and silencing him straight away, “did you just find out? Or did you know all along?”

  Some questions really matter. This was one of them. In such cases, Phrantzes told himself, it’s not always expedient to tell the truth. “No,” he said. “They sprang it on me just now. They assumed we knew. I asked for foils, like you wanted me to, and they looked at me and said, What do you want foils for? I’m sorry,” he added. “There’s obviously been the most appalling breakdown of communications. But there’s nothing we can do about it now. You’re going to have to fight with sharps, that’s all there is to it.”

  Two Permians – short, black-bearded, in white tunics and grey trousers – brought in the crate and set it down in the middle of the floor. They stared at the Scherians briefly, as if in the presence of gods and monsters, then withdrew quickly.

  “We can refuse,” Iseutz repeated, yet again. “We just stand up and say sorry, there’s been a really stupid mistake, we aren’t fighting tonight. What can they do?”

  Nobody answered her. Suidas lifted the lid off the crate and let it clatter on the floor. He reached inside and took out a rapier. Then a strange look passed across his face.

  “Phrantzes,” he said. “Where’s the other rapier? There’s only one in here.”

  “That’s for Giraut.” Phrantzes leaned across, took the rapier out of his hand and passed it to Giraut, who took it, fumbled and nearly dropped it.

  “What am I supposed to use, then?”

  “You won’t be fencing rapier,” Phrantzes said.

  “But that’s insane,” Suidas protested. “I’m the Scherian rapier champion.”

  “Yes, but rapier’s not all that popular here.” Phrantzes listened to himself saying the words, but it sounded like someone else’s voice. “What they really like is the Permian long knife, and nobody
else in Scheria …’

  (Here they fight with messers. God help them.)

  “That’s totally ridiculous.” Iseutz’s voice, high and ragged. “You can’t expect him to fight a style he doesn’t know, especially with sharps. That’s just utterly unreasonable.”

  Suidas had gone milk-white. He took a step back, tripped over his own heel and fell, landing on his backside. Addo stepped forward, and Iseutz shouted, “Leave him alone.”

  Phrantzes felt like he was about to throw up. “I’m sorry,” he heard that voice say, “but you’ve got to. I’m really sorry.”

  “This is stupid,” Addo said. “I’ll do it.”

  There was a moment of perfect silence. Then Phrantzes said, “What did you say?”

  “I’ll do it instead of him. Can’t you see, the poor man’s having a fit or something.”

  It was as though a fist was slowly unclenching in his chest, the fingers forcing his ribs apart. “You can’t,” he said. “You don’t know …”

  “I know broadsword and sword-and-buckler. How different can it be?”

  “You’re fighting longsword,” Phrantzes said desperately. “You can’t do both.”

  “Fine. Suidas can do longsword, I’ll do this Permian knife thing. I don’t mind. I’m quite good at sword-and-buckler.”

  “There’s no buckler. It’s just the knife.”

  “Not to worry,” Addo said, and with only the tiniest modulation of pitch his voice was cold and savage, admitting no contradiction. “I’ll just have to pick it up as I go along.”

  Phrantzes gawped at him, then looked down at Suidas, who was still on the floor. “You can’t let him,” he said. “He’ll be killed. For pity’s sake, he’s the general’s son.”

  Dead silence. Then Addo said quietly, “I think we all know that, thanks. And really, I don’t mind. Suidas can fight longsword, and I’ll do the Permian knife. Giraut can do rapier, and Iseutz can do smallsword. What are the conventions?”

  Phrantzes looked at him as though he was talking a different language. “What?”