chapter I

I LAY IN A CAVE OF DEEPEST BLUE, STAR-SPANGLED with silver crowns. I was explaining to Betty that I must not sleep in Tremontaine’s bed; I could sleep on the floor next to the master. But every time I tried to explain something especially important, she’d make me drink a bitter potion. It was annoying, because it made it impossible for me to get up and practice, and at one point I was quite sure that the villainous Mangrove was coming to Highcombe, and if I didn’t defeat him he would set it on fire. I was very hot and very cold and my eyes ached. I was very tired, too. Eventually I slept without trying to explain anything.

When I woke up I was thirsty, but my starry cave had become only curtains: silk velvet with silver embroidery, hung around a heavy, old-fashioned bed of dark wood. I pulled back a velvet corner.

Sunlight sifted in through the narrow windows of the room. The walls were paneled with dark wood, hung with old tapestries. I heard a chair scrape; a boy appeared in the gap in the bedcurtains, one finger in a book.

“You stir,” he said. “I was told to give you this if you stirred.” He handed me a cool goblet. I drank; it was not bitter.

“I’m Marcus,” he said. “I work for the duke.”

I remembered him from my first days in the city; a boy about my age, with brown hair and brown eyes. His voice was deeper than I remembered.

“You took ill on the road,” Marcus said. “But your fever’s broken. Now, I expect you’ll be bored.”

“I’m tired,” I said. “How did you get here?”

“Where?”

“Isn’t this Highcombe?”

“No. You’re back in the city. The oldest part of the city, actually; you’re in the Riverside house.”

“Oh.” I realized that the ride in the smoky carriage had been real, and the feast at Year’s End, too, all those dreams were real—which meant that my master was gone, and Highcombe was gone, and even if I could find my way back there, nothing would be as it had been.

I didn’t even have the strength to care if I cried or not. Marcus kindly dropped the bedcurtains closed so I could do it in private.

B EING SURROUNDED BY FLOWERS IN ARTEMISIA’S ROOM should have been enough for the two girls, but it was only the prelude to the important task of passing judgment on their senders. The man who was under discussion now would have been horrified to hear that his considerable bouquet was being subjected to a very knowing scrutiny. But then, the girls had been reading aloud to each other while they sewed—so that their mamas would not say they did nothing but waste time together—and it had affected their outlook, not to mention their speech patterns.

“Armand Lindley,” Lydia Godwin sighed. “I like him very much, but in all honesty, he isn’t a bit like Fabian.”

“That’s all right,” said her friend; “you aren’t a bit like Stella.”

Lydia looked crossly at Artemisia Fitz-Levi. No one likes being told that they do not resemble the heroine of their favorite novel, and while it was true that Lydia was unlikely to become pregnant by a swordsman of dubious reputation, like any young girl she liked to think that she could attract one to commit folly for her sake.

But Artemisia was smiling cheerfully, and offering her more of her favorite biscuits, which both of them knew were bad for their complexions, so Lydia decided not to take offense.

“He does have melting eyes.” Lydia returned to her current obsession. “Like Fabian’s trusted Tyrian, now I think on it.”

“I wonder if he is as steady.”

“I begin to doubt it.” Lydia tossed her head. Artemisia greatly admired her pearl drops. The earrings were Godwin heirlooms, and perhaps should not have been worn on an afternoon visit, but Lydia was so proud of them that she wore them whenever she could. “Oh, Mi, what shall I do? I was sure, when he sent those flowers the next morning, that he had enjoyed the dance as much as I did! He pressed my hand, as well.”

“Many men send flowers; but when they press your hand, what else are you to think? No, he loves you, it’s sure.”

“But then why did he not call yesterday? I made certain he knew I would be at home! No, no man who sends flowers and then fails to call can be said to be in love.”

“What kind of flowers were they?”

“Roses, I told you.”

“Roses…all roses, or mixed?”

“Roses with carnations. White and red.”

“Mixed, that’s bad. Though white and red is good. It could mean your complexion, or even heart and soul. Was there a note?”

“Of course.” Lydia slipped it from her reticule. “Here, see what you think.”

“‘To the most adorable of all the Godwins,’” her friend read. “‘With the fond admiration of her devoted Armand Lindley.’”

Lydia shrieked and fell back on the sofa cushions. “Fond! Devoted! Oh, Artemisia, I shall perish! How dare he so trifle with my heart?”

“What I wonder about is adorable,” the other girl considered. “Fond and devoted are well enough, true, but is adorable what a lover says? It sounds—forgive me, Lydia—rather papa-ish for a lover.”

Lydia fished a handkerchief from the reticule as she began to sniffle. “Oh, no. I cannot bear for him to mean it so.”

“Of course, it might mean something else entirely, my sweet.”

“I do think it must. After all, he is not old enough for a papa. And,” she twinkled, “I do not feel at all daughterly when Armand leads me onto the dance floor. In fact, it makes me feel quite like Stella. After the ball.”

“‘I was a girl before tonight,’” Artemisia quoted with half-closed eyes; “‘I am a woman now.’”

“Yes,” Lydia breathed. “I fear I must have him or die. But how can I let him know, when he does not come to see me?”

“I expect he is delayed on business, or ill. Only think, there may be a letter waiting for you at home right now.”

Lydia jumped up. “Oh, do you think?”

Artemisia patted her hand and pulled her friend to her on the window seat. “Very likely. You must tell me the moment you hear from him!”

“Oh, yes! But—what if Papa does not let me answer him?”

“Why should he not? If you may receive Lindley’s flowers and visits…”

“Well, a letter is more serious, you know. Of course I show all mine to Papa and Mama—”

All of them, Lydie?” her friend teased.

“Well…” she admitted, “yes.”

“Even the ones that might be, say, hidden in a bunch of flowers?” Artemisia wriggled with pleasure. “Those are the very best.”

“My maid is instructed to shake them out before she gives them to me. It is because of Papa’s position. Now that he is to assume the post of Raven Chancellor and be back in the Inner Council, we must be very careful again.”

“What a good girl you are, to be sure. We should all strive to imitate you. But what possible objection to your suitor can Lord Godwin have? Armand Lindley will most likely inherit the estate and become Lord Horn after his uncle’s death. I think it a very good match indeed.”

“Of course it is. But I have heard Papa say that all the Horns have evil tempers and goatish dispositions….”

“He cannot mean Lord Armand! He is thinking of someone else. Have you told him how you feel?”

Lydia blushed. “I dare not tell Papa. He has a very poor opinion of all young men. Why, just the other day he said at breakfast to Mama, quite loudly, so I could hear, ‘The thought of any of them coming near our Lydia chills my blood. I know what they’re made of. Perhaps we’d better’—oh, Mi, it was so awful—‘Perhaps we’d better lock her in a tower until she is old and ugly!’”

Artemisia shrieked and hugged her. “He cannot mean it! What did your mama say?”

“She just gave him a look and sighed, ‘Oh, Michael,’ the way she does. Perhaps they had one of their little talks together; they left the table shortly thereafter, and I did not see them again until past noon, when he was much better-tempered.”

“I am sure she will set him right. Your mama is such an angel.”

“As are you, dear Artemisia.”

D AYS PASSED. I ATE AND DRANK AND SLEPT. I CRIED A lot, and my head ached and I missed my mother; kind and careful as she was, Betty did not have the cool hands and sweet voice I loved when I was ill. I tried not to think about it, and I tried not to cry when Betty was there. It wasn’t her fault, any of it.

As soon as I could stand up by myself, I went to the window to look out. The window was made up of little squares. The glass was thick and greenish; the little square panes had circles in them. The murky view was of snow and the corner of a roof. I didn’t think much of Riverside so far.

When Betty saw that I was well enough to get up by myself, she made me try on all my clothes so she could have them altered. I had gotten taller, thinner in some places and thicker in others. There were new clothes for me in the wardrobe, town suits for winter: one bottle-green fustian with gold piping, one a deep blue wool with threads woven into it that made it almost crimson in the light. I supposed the new clothes meant the duke was pleased with me. But I didn’t believe they meant I would be going back to Highcombe any time soon. So I didn’t much care.

At first I was only well enough to sit up and walk about for a few hours each day. The rest of the time I was amazingly tired, and, as there was nothing to keep me from sleeping, I slept. Betty sat with me and told me servants’ gossip about the household: Cook was a dear, but the steward down here, Master Osborne, thought altogether too highly of himself! If she had been drinking before she came in, she never drank while she was with me. As I thought I was doing her good, I tried to keep her by me. I heard all about Riverside, too, and so I found out at last who my master at Highcombe really was.

Of course I should have known. Even I had heard of St Vier, the greatest swordsman of our time, some said of any.

Everyone knew that he had dueled in the streets of Riverside and killed men in taverns and alleys to protect and amuse a mysterious runaway student, who later became the Duke Tremontaine.

“You wanted to watch out,” Betty reminisced, “when those two were around. Riverside then wasn’t like Riverside now: you had to be clever to live here, or stupid, or brave. We lived by our wits in those days, and took our luck where we could find it.”

“Did you know them then?”

“Not know them like you’d know them, exactly,” she slurred. I waited for her to untangle herself. “But I saw the pair of them, along with everyone else. Hard to miss. Him towering like a raggedy scarecrow in that flapping black scholar’s gown, and the sword always quiet next to him, sweet as honey, and poison with it. Taverns would quiet when those two came in. Where would the fight be, and how would it start? Sometimes there wasn’t a fight at all, and sometimes the night ended in blood. Real blood, not like now. But that was Riverside in those days. You didn’t care so much how you died, as long as you did it well.”

No one knew where St Vier had gone, not even Betty; some said he’d been killed in a fight—or poisoned, because he couldn’t be killed by steel. Some said he’d found another lover, far away, where even the duke couldn’t touch him, unless it was that the duke had killed him when he’d learned of it. Betty had also heard that St Vier had been wooed away by the Empress of Cham, to rule at her side in her palace over the sea. But she didn’t believe that.

The man at Highcombe had not seemed like a legend to me, not while I was there with him. It was hard to imagine my teacher here, in this house, in the city, doing the things Betty said he had done. But back when it was different? When Riverside was the forest he’d stalked through, and he a young man who thought he would not live to be twenty-five?

At least it explained why I could never even come close to winning a fight with him.

T HE ONE THING BETTY COULD NOT DO WAS READ TO me; like the swordsman, she had never learned how. The duke’s Riverside house boasted a large library, but it seemed to be heavily stocked with modern, scholarly works.

“Ask the boy,” Betty said. “That Marcus. He goes where he likes, goes back and forth. Does what he likes, too. Yesterday Cook caught him eating cream from the pot, bold as you please. Complained to His Grace, but duke said he’s a growing boy, let him alone. You’re growing, too, but you don’t take liberties. Better brought-up, you are.”

I wasn’t sure how I felt about being compared, even favorably, to a Riverside servant. But I only said, “He’s the duke’s man, not mine. Why should he do anything for me?”

“If you didn’t still look like something the cat dragged in, my lady, I’d say he’d taken a fancy to you, always hanging around here when he should be off keeping His Grace from jumping off roofs and his other fool nonsense. Not that I’m complaining; working for Tremontaine is being in Seventh Heaven next to…but never mind about that. Just tell that boy what you need; you’ll see.”

So I asked Marcus to send to the Hill for picture books and lighter matter.

He brought them to me himself: a book of birds, and one of poisonous plants, some poetry, an illustrated geography called Customs of Many Lands, and, tucked in amongst them, a surprisingly familiar little worn volume of soft leather.

I did not thank him for it, nor ask him how he had found it, just slipped it directly under my pillow to examine when I was alone.

It was my very own copy of The Swordsman Whose Name Was Not Death. I recognized the stain on the third page, where I had dripped apricot juice. I opened the book at random, expecting now to find it silly stuff. But it opened to Stella’s escape from the city, right after she’s lost the child and thinks Fabian’s betrayed her, with Mangrove hot on her heels. No one could find that silly.

Stella wants to despair, but Tyrian won’t let her. You have done tonight, he says, what ten thousand men could not. Now show your great enemies what one woman alone can do.

I am not alone, she says, and is about to make Tyrian very happy indeed when the hunting cats appear on the rooftops.

I did not read the book straight through. I read my favorite parts, and then the bits between them. Fabian still never practiced. Stella still nearly ruined everything by keeping secrets from those she should have trusted. But it didn’t seem to matter. If anything, I knew now that people were even stranger and more unpredictable than that, and that when we don’t know the truth about someone, we will make it up ourselves.

A FEW DAYS LATER, MARCUS BROUGHT ME THE SWORD.

“From one of the country estates,” he said, “for you, along with a big bag of fresh game, which is a good thing, I can tell you: I am getting awfully tired of fish.”

It was the basket-hilted sword I had practiced with at Highcombe. One of his, one of my master’s swords, mine now. I slipped it on a belt, along with the twisted dagger the duke had given me. The weight settled comfortably on my hips, one balancing the other.

“I’m going out,” I told Marcus. He looked me over and nodded.

I was lightheaded in the bright day, and did not go far. Snow crumbled under my feet—I was glad my boots were of the best—and wind cut through from both sides of the river. Everything in Riverside was timber and stone and plaster: old houses with crumbling fronts, some missing windows, some set with coats of arms, their stone worn away like melting butter over the centuries. The houses were clustered up against one another as if they were afraid to let in too much sky, as if to be sure nothing would grow there. Still, there were weeds frozen in the cracks between the cobbles of those streets so narrow no carriage could pass through.

I felt someone following me. I’m not sure how, but I had learned the feel of a stalk now. I looked for the nearest tree, found the corner of a house, stepped behind it and drew the untipped sword.

It was a boy, younger than me—or at least smaller. He had no sword, no coat either. “Pal,” he rasped, looking past the blade right at me. “Hey, pal, you got any money?”

I would have given him some if I had any. But I was not carrying a purse. I shook my head. The rake of his eyes up and down, from my thick boots to fur collar and hat, showed what he thought of that.

“Help me out,” he whined; “I won’t hurt ya.”

I shook my head again, helpless, but I started to sheathe my sword. He fumbled in his shirt and pulled out a knife, flat-bladed and worn.

“Give me what you’ve got.”

“No.” For death, you want the heart, the throat, the eye…. I was not going to kill this boy. I would not. This was awful; there was no challenge here, no rules, no purpose but survival. I moved, he yelped, there was blood on the snow. I was fairly sure I’d only touched his hand. But he was gone before I could really see.

“Nice work.” It was a woman’s voice. She stepped out from the shadows of the house across from me, holding the edges of a tatty green velvet cloak heavily lined. Her red hair was dyed so bright she looked like a holly bush. “You really know how to use your blade. How about a drink for you?”

I felt so tired I couldn’t answer. I nodded, followed her. “You new here?” Her voice was a pleasant purr. She moved through the streets with confidence, barely even looking to avoid ruts and puddles. “You a foreigner? Can’t you speak? A drink, definitely, and then you can tell me all about yourself.”

I realized, suddenly, what she wanted of me, what she thought was going on. I stopped in the grey patch of light between the darker shadows of the houses. “I’m a girl,” I said. “I’m the Duke Tremontaine’s niece.”

“Is that a fact?” She squinted into my face, and shook her head. “He gets crazier every year.” The red-haired woman shrugged. “Well, you tell him Ginnie says hello. Ginnie; he’ll know who you mean.”

I was going to tell him nothing of the kind. So far, I had not seen my uncle, and I was just as glad to keep it that way.

“Well, good-bye,” I said, “and thank you for the—for the offer—”

“You should buy me one, young Tremontaine.”

“When I have money, I will,” I said lamely.

“Doesn’t he give you any, your rich uncle?” Ginnie snorted. “You make him pay you what you’re worth. He can afford it.”

O UTSIDE TREMONTAINE’S RIVERSIDE HOUSE THE SNOW was wet and trampled with horse and cart tracks. It wasn’t really one house; it was a twisting series of them, distinguished from the others around it by well-kept facades: the stone pointed, the shutters painted, the slate roofs and the gutters in perfect trim. I had made the mistake, when I left, of not looking behind me to note which door I’d come out of. Now I had to choose one at random, or rather, apply to one, for the doors of the duke’s Riverside house were gated and guarded. Luckily, they had orders to admit me.

I passed into a stone hall hung with tapestry, a huge fireplace and dark stairs carpeted in red. It looked like the right one; I remembered the tapestry. Up the stairs and down a hallway with windows that seemed a bit narrower than mine. I had decided that I was in fact lost when I heard voices: lots of people laughing, like a party. I knocked. Getting no answer, I opened the door.

The room was full of naked people.

“Shut the door, it’s cold!”

My uncle the Mad Duke strode amongst them in a very beautiful dressing gown. He saw me.

“Ah! You’re up. Good.”

He had a bottle of brandy in one hand, and began tipping it down the throat of an upside down man with his knees hooked around the bedpost. There wasn’t a stitch on him; if I had ever wondered how accurate the classical statues in the gardens of Tremontaine house were, I certainly knew now.

I started to back out.

“Don’t you want a drink?” drawled the duke. “Everyone else does.”

I heard my own voice, quiet and still. “I am not like everyone else.”

The upside down people wriggled and laughed, reaching for him and for each other. I was terrified that they would soon reach for me.

“Bravo.” He swigged on the bottle, just out of their reach. “Bravo, Lady Katherine.”

There was no one between me and the door. “Oh, by the way,” I told Tremontaine, doubtful of just how much longer he’d still be standing to hear anything, “Ginnie says hello.”

“Does she indeed?” The duke looked hard at me, swaying. “She always wants what’s mine. Miserable cow. You tell Ginnie Vandall the moment she touches you, her pension’s gone; I don’t pay her to meddle in my affairs—”

That was all I heard before my hand closed on the safety of the doorlatch. I didn’t understand, and I didn’t want to.