An Illusion of Thieves Read online

  “Segno di Vasil is a swordmaster and comes recommended. Supposedly he teaches better than he washes. We’ll hope.”

  My jab slid off the man, whose bleared eyes took Neri’s measure in turn. Neri fretted that he’d not yet reached my height.

  “A scrapper, are you, boy? Mostly fists and feet, and lose more’n you win, I’m guessing. But a new blade at your belt.” The swordmaster extended a scarred hand that could enclose an infant’s head entire. “Let me see it.”

  “I do all right.” Neri clamped his hand on the metal bound sheath and glared at me. “Don’t need a new teacher, Romy. This’n looks more like to steal the blade than to know what’s to do with it.”

  I jerked my head sharply in the direction of the duelist. “Show him.”

  Only an idiot would leave her fool of a brother at the mercy of a drunkard swordmaster half again his size and infinitely more skilled, but I also had hours of copying to do before the next morning. I needed to get a sense of the swordsman quickly and, if he seemed promising, see their first lesson done.

  Grudging, Neri passed over the dagger. Placidio examined the grip, quillions, edge, and point as a physician explores skulls, tongues, and urine.

  “Well chosen,” he conceded. “A good length. But what need has a Beggars Ring boy for a new blade and finer skills? Have you acquired a new enemy? ’Twould likely be cheaper to hire me to fight than pay me to train a hothead to skewer a dunderwit.”

  “You don’t look a man who could teach anything fine,” snapped Neri, his forehead scarlet.

  The duelist rolled his eyes at me as if to say, You see? So, the fellow’s perceptions were not entirely dulled.

  “He has no particular enemy,” I said, as Neri smoldered. “But the world is hard and dangerous. We’ve recently lost our father, and my brother approaches his majority. Experience has taught me great appreciation of the sword’s discipline. I thought perhaps a swordmaster could impart something of that discipline to my brother, though doubts gather about you along with the flies.”

  Ebullient laughter burst from him like crisp new wine from a new-opened cask, only to be swallowed so quickly, I doubted my own memory of it.

  “Can’t argue that, now can I?” he said, harsh and low. “So where shall we retire to give this a try? I understand you’re not keen on the barracks yard, and I’d hate to splatter blood on your parchment, lady scribe of Lizard’s Alley.”

  “The old wool guild storehouse,” I said. “Beggars sleep there in winter, and no one’s sickened from it or been hauled to the Abyss by demons.”

  Placidio shrugged and hefted his armaments bag. “’Tisn’t the dead bother me.”

  We trooped out our new door and through the crowded lanes toward the River Gate and the Venia—Cantagna’s lifeblood.

  A century before I was born, the Sestorale had co-opted the wool guild’s dockside storehouse to house victims of the plague. Thousands of Cantagnans died there. Even after that horrific storm had passed, neither the wool guild nor anyone else would use the place. No one even wanted its individual building stones or timbers, for fear of reawakening the horror. Thus the wool guild’s fine stone building sat empty save for birds, cats, and seasonal beggars.

  We emerged from the narrow gate in the city’s outermost wall well upriver of the new docks Sandro’s father had built two decades past when fire destroyed the old ones. The wool house stood stark in the distance, lone amid the burnt and crumbled ruination at a bend in the river. The duelist moved ahead of us, leaping between rocks, mounded river wrack, and rotted remains of other structures with a lightness that belied his size.

  “Stronzo,” spat Neri, glaring after him. “Filthy sot. There must be someone better. Set a pitcher of wine on a rock anywhere close and I could take him down with my boot.”

  “That might be so,” I said, “but I doubt it. Watch how he moves. And I’d guess he could describe every detail of our house as accurately as he assessed you.”

  “But I’m not—”

  “Certain, you’re a hothead.” I bumped his shoulder with mine. “Isn’t that why you spent three months tied to an iron hook? You can’t take me down yet—not if I’m awake—but if you practice what I’ve taught you and whatever he can teach, you’ll be able to do that and more. If and when you’ve emptied this Placidio’s well, and if we can afford the fee, we’ll try for someone better. Besides, I’ve paid for a month already.”

  Neri halted for a moment, then quickly caught up with me again. “That’s his name … Placidio?”

  “Aye.”

  Whatever curiosity the name roused in Neri was quickly lost in aggravation, as the swordmaster insisted we use fallen timbers to scrape out a sandy arena in the center of the old storehouse, a task which took us a sweat-soaked hour. But after a few brief tests with a rapier and a long sword that seemed to wield Neri rather than the reverse, Neri was glad of our efforts. Every trial ended with his face plowed into damp sand rather than rubble, spiders, broken shells, rusted nails, splintered wood, dung, and a wide variety of dead things.

  Placidio traded a short sword for the long sword in Neri’s hand. “All right, boy, come at me again. This time low.”

  A growling Neri charged and swung the short sword like an axe at a tree trunk. Placidio stepped aside and whacked the side of his head with the flat of his blade. The short sword went flying. Neri stayed upright, but bent over, hands propped on his knees, breathing hard.

  Placidio offered him a bright green flask with a stopper shaped like a frog. “Drink. It helps with the dizziness and gut churn.”

  Neri stared at the flask for a long moment, then shook his head and straightened, watching Placidio intently as the man returned the flask to his bag.

  Placidio extracted another quick victory, scarce twitching his hand before Neri crashed into the wall. I moved to call a halt. This was getting nowhere. The brute had long proved his prowess over a boy who’d never held a blade longer than his hand. But the man waved me off.

  “All right,” he said to Neri, “’tis clear you’ve no instincts with swords. But you’ve this fine new dagger, so you must have some belief you can use it. Get it out.”

  Neri drew his dagger and took a close starting position in front of Placidio, settling his grip as I’d shown him. The duelist had not yet drawn his own weapon. Rather he rubbed his eyes and gave a great yawn, as if he’d rather be anywhere else.

  In an eyeblink, Neri’s hand thrust forward and up toward Placidio’s breastbone.

  “Neri!” I screamed, paralyzed as the duelist jerked …

  Only he didn’t fall. Impossibly, Placidio’s great paw gripped my brother’s wrist. A round sweep of that powerful arm and a quick sliding boot, and Neri’s back slammed to the earthen floor. The unbloodied dagger went flying.

  His gaze wintery, Placidio stared down at my brother.

  Horror paralyzed me as Neri lay still, then inhaled with a great gasp, rolled to his chest, and scrabbled on all fours toward his fallen dagger. The man strolled after him.

  “Neri, wait! Segno di Vasil, please—!”

  Placidio’s boot stomped Neri’s backside. Boot and earthen floor squeezed out another groan.

  “You have a move, pup,” said the duelist, nodding in affirmation, calm as death’s aftermath. He lifted his boot. “Shall we try it again?”

  “He didn’t mean—”

  “Don’t tell him what he means, lady scribe. It’s his task to figure that out. Then he can learn how to focus that intent in body and weapon, not in dithering the air around him. That’s the discipline of the blade. It’s not knowing the Santorini Thrust.”

  As he bellowed this last, Placidio’s toe nudged Neri’s ribs, eliciting a muffled hiss.

  “Stand up, boy, and fetch your weapon. A few more knife trials to see what other moves I need watch for, then I’ll let you at me with bare fists. I’m guessing you’ll like that better.”

  A few more taunts got Neri moving. He snatched up the knife and bounced to his feet.
The heat of his shame and fury pulsed halfway across the wool house.

  My own heart yet galloped; my skin was clammy. Neri’s move had been meant to kill. Was Placidio truly going to let such an attempt pass unpunished? And if so … Fortune’s holy dam, what kind of fool was I to give my brother skills that made his smoldering rage mortally dangerous? A lesser tutor would be dead. I’d never seen a hand so quick. My master at the Moon House had sworn that no one in the world could stop the Santorini Thrust at close range.

  Placidio goaded Neri into test after test. To my relief, my brother attempted no more killing attacks. At first he flinched at Placidio’s every twitch, and shifted stiffly at the man’s direction. But as the hour moved on, he allowed Placidio to touch his shoulder and arm, shaping and directing his awkward movements. No longer sullen. No longer resisting. I didn’t understand either one of them.

  After a few rounds with bare fists, including one shining moment where Neri’s flurry of blows did manage to cause the duelist a moment’s irritation—perhaps akin to a gnat in his ear—Placidio again offered Neri his green flask.

  Neri accepted it. Without looking his tormentor in the face, he gulped and then violently spat out the mouthful.

  “Nasty,” he croaked, as he shoved the flask back into Placidio’s huge hand. “Like you.”

  That Neri would dare such insolence astonished me. He had to be terrified. I certainly was. My body ached as if I’d suffered every humiliating blow.

  “As you please. Bring your own replenishment from now on, then.” The duelist drained the flask and wiped his mouth on his filthy sleeve. “But ginger tea, salt, and lemon works well for what we’ll be doing. What you’ll be doing.”

  Placidio nodded at the jumble of discarded blades, clubs, bucklers, and canvas wrappings. “Student packs the armaments and carries them back to town.”

  Stone-faced, Neri bent to the work. He could not hide his aches, but he wrapped each weapon carefully, packed it away, and hefted the scuffed leather bag.

  With a cheerful—mocking?—bow, Placidio invited me to lead us out of the wool house.

  The warm midday smelled of the river and the rotting wasteland. I felt as if I’d spent an eternity in another world. But I kept my eye on the duelist and Neri. Something had happened between them, and I hated that I didn’t understand it.

  “You’ve a few decent moves.” Placidio motioned Neri to stay beside him, even while striding onward at a pace that soon had my brother huffing again. “More than I expected, truth be told. But you’ve no endurance, no quickness, nor much of any speed save what nature plants in a boy of—what?—seventeen?”

  “Near enough.”

  “Before you pick up a blade again, we’ll work on those three skills. You won’t like it. I didn’t. No one does. But there’s no use to any weapons training until you can get out of an opponent’s way, avoid his blows, outlast, or outrun him.”

  “Won’t run away. Not never.” Neri grunted as we climbed the steps to the open gate.

  “Which says nothing good about your wit. Doubt I can improve that. But pigheadedness will do for now. Give me a month of work to earn your sister’s silver, and you’ll see a change. Are you game? Or can I wallow in my bed later tomorrow? Doesn’t matter to me, you know.” He cast a baleful glance over his shoulder in my direction. “Coin doesn’t pass but one direction between us.”

  Years of caution insisted I cancel the whole business, but I liked what I’d seen of Placidio’s teaching overall, and I liked how Neri had responded to the man’s forbearance. Perhaps he had at last realized the dangers of his temper. I would let him decide.

  We were halfway back to Lizard’s Alley before Neri made his answer. “I’ll work. Don’t want to hurt this bad ever again.”

  Placidio bellowed a laugh. “You won’t. ’Twill be worse. Every day worse.”

  He turned to me and bowed. “Scribe Romy of Lizard’s Alley, Fortune’s benefice for the rest of your day. I’ll fetch him same time tomorrow. No need for you to accompany us, unless you want. Though he may wish it, I won’t kill him. It would spoil my reputation and drop me straight off the dueling list. And you can rest easy. If he kills me, there’s none’ll seek vengeance.”

  “Virtue’s grace,” I said. And meant it.

  The duelist grabbed the heavy armaments bag, threw it over his shoulder as if it were a wet towel, and vanished into the crowded street.

  Neri stayed silent as a post as we trudged the rest of the way home, stopping long enough to buy two loaves of bread, a spiced sausage, and a flask of weak ale. The day had turned out hot and sticky. Once back to Lizard’s Alley I seized a wedge of one loaf before Neri devoured the entire rest of it and a good portion of the cheese from our shelf.

  Only as I cut an old apple to share did I attempt a word. “What in Lady Fortune’s true name did you think you were doing?”

  “Guess I wanted to prove I weren’t no coward nor my sister’s suckling.”

  Several deep breaths were required before I was calm enough to answer. “I’m proud that you stood back up and faced the consequences of what you did. But, spirits … the Santorini Thrust! All that proved was that you’re an idiot. I told you only one man in thousands could defend it. You were very lucky.”

  “Not lucky.”

  Neri jumped up, latched our new door, and closed the thick shutters on our single window. Then he returned to the table and spoke softly. “This Placidio … the name struck me when you first said it. But I didn’t imagine it could be the same Placidio as the duelist. It was that green flask with the frog’s head what told me for sure. He carries it with him when he fights. I’ve watched lots of fighting over the years—down here and up to the Asylum Ring. Tovi and I go up there oftimes, sit on the wall, and watch the dueling.”

  He stopped here and bit his lip, eyeing me closely. I stayed quiet lest I stem the tide, curious when he leaned forward again.

  “That story you got from Fesci over’t the Duck’s Bone? It weren’t none of those reasons—respect or weakness or bad skills—lost Placidio that match in Tibernia. I’ve seen the man with the frog flask lollop through a bout with some fighters, doing all but offering the win to the other on a spoon. Sometimes he’ll take it for himself. Sometimes he’ll let the other get in a strike to take him down, even wound him pretty wicked. But I’d swear it is ever his own choice as to whether he wins or not. A few times I watched him fight a man high on the list. The better they were, the better he fought, and I saw him—Romy, I got to where I could see him start his defense move when the other had scarce begun an attack, like he knew what was coming. And so today…”

  Horror near overwhelmed me. “You used a killing move on purpose, believing he could anticipate it?”

  Neri grinned as I’d not seen since he was four years old. “And he did, didn’t he? He knew what I was going to do at the very moment I started it. Maybe before that! And when he grabbed my wrist, I felt it.”

  Appalled and confused, I shook my head. “Felt what?”

  He leaned closer. “His magic, Romy. Placidio di Vasil is a sorcerer.”

  “No, no, no. That’s impossible. A sorcerer would never live … use his magic … so publicly.”

  “That’s why he can’t win too often,” said Neri. “That’s why he had to lose the Tibernian match. That’s why he lives in the Beggars Ring. Certain, better dueling fees could get him lodgings in the Asylum Ring. Move up the list, and he could live as high as he wanted. But he daren’t.”

  I refused to believe it. To my knowledge I had never met another sorcerer, yet I could not imagine anyone less likely than a slovenly, drunken duelist.

  “You said you felt his magic. How is that possible?”

  “When he held my wrist, I felt the surge … the fire in the blood, same as mine. But magic doesn’t fire my blood unless I’m working at it apurpose. It had to be his.”

  If this were true … how could I let Placidio teach Neri if he might recognize what we were?

  Neri�
�s excitement blazed through the hot dead air in the stifling house. “I could show you. Where’s your luck charm?”

  “Left it behind. I hadn’t much time…” I didn’t want to tell him I’d left his charm with a spoiled little chit who had likely discarded it.

  “We’ll use mine then.” Fervor undimmed, he untied a bit of rag from up his sleeve and shook the bronze charm onto the table. “Hide it in the alley. When I use magic to seek it, you can hold my wrist. I’ll swear you’ll feel it.”

  “Are you mad? We’re not working magic here or anywhere. Not ever. The traces linger and sniffers can detect them. Follow them.” Everyone knew that.

  “But, Romy, if I’m right about Placidio, we might learn more from him than swordwork. Tales say sorcerers can make light without fire or cast people to sleep or turn iron to gold. How fine would it be to do such things?”

  No matter his enticing projects—and who knew if sorcerers could actually do such fantastical things?—the memory of using the wormlike power that crept through my body disgusted me. That was the truth of sorcery—the corruption that drove a person to slaughter children or set a village afire. I’d seen the results of those things.

  “Consider,” I said, “a sorcerer also might turn us in to divert attention from himself. Perhaps he kills the people who know his secret or forces them to deeds against their will.”

  I’d seen what powerful men did when threatened. And if Placidio was a sorcerer who could anticipate an opponent’s moves, he was powerful, no matter where and how he lived. “He must not know we’re demon tainted, whether he is or not.”

  “Aye. I s’pose.” Neri’s enthusiasm waned only slightly. “If touching someone while we’re using magic could reveal us … maybe that’s how sniffers identify us. Touching people.”

  “Maybe.” I shook my head to erase the image of the fearsome creatures.

  “So I go ahead with Placidio? He’s not going to know about me as long as I don’t use any magic. And I didn’t do naught to let him know I was onto him.”