Chapter 2

CHAPTER

2

Luca cursed the instinct that had led him to stand in the centre of the room. It was a natural response, after years of training, to seek a good vantage point. But he’d forgotten that he was unarmed, that he hadn’t bothered to strap on his own sword belt before leaving the house to meet a potential client, and now he’d left Mr. Mattinesh Jay closer to the sword rack. If the man on whom Luca had handily sprung the pocket watch con decided to snatch a weapon from the rack and come at him, Luca would be at a disadvantage. And if someone was angry enough, the fact that these were mostly tipped and dulled practice swords wouldn’t make a lot of difference in terms of the damage that they could do.

“All right,” said Jay. “Now start talking.”

He didn’t look like he was going to reach for a sword. In fact, the glance he gave the rack of weapons suggested he was uncomfortable just being in the same room as that many blades.

So of course Luca decided to say, “Pick up a sword.”

“What?”

Luca went and chose himself one. Jay’s dark eyes followed Luca warily as he tested grip and weight. Luca allowed himself one long held glance, trying to gauge just how angry the man was. He tried for neutrality, he really did, but it still came out sounding like a schoolmaster sarcastically spelling out the obvious when he repeated: “A sword.”

“I can’t actually use one,” Jay said, dry.

“Yes, I’d gathered that. But Tolliver’s going to expect to hear swords clashing, and I’m not keen on trying to have a fight with myself. ” He added, “You can take off that nice coat, if you’re worried about getting a hole in it.”

Something unreadable flashed in Jay’s eyes. Then he let out an irritated sigh, turned aside, and began shrugging the coat off.

Luca took the opportunity to look his fill while Jay wasn’t looking back. When the coat came off and the man tugged his shirtsleeves awkwardly up, Luca realised that Jay was both taller and more solid than he’d appeared the previous night. The coat was near-black and tailored to fit like a possessive pair of hands, giving an illusion of a slimmer build, and Jay’s round-shouldered posture pulled him in on himself. Luca itched to get in close and curl his hands around those broad shoulders, like his own sword master had done for him, tugging them back and straight. He could spider his hand between the man’s shoulder blades, dig in his fingertips, and say, Now imagine a piece of string .

Luca shook his head and busied himself with turning the sword in his hand. He was getting carried away with nonsense because Jay… drew the eye, that was all, with his clear brown skin and his black hair, long enough to hint at the promise of curls if left untrimmed. Jay was too far from Luca now for the equally dark lashes to be visible, but up close in the drinking house they had been stunning.

Jay folded the coat and hung it over one edge of the rack. He reached for a sword, clearly at random; Luca could have told him that it was too short for his height, but it wasn’t like any of that mattered. This was just for cover. Jay walked into the centre of the room, lifted the sword like a stack of plates, and faced Luca down the length of both blades with a renewed look of stubborn nerves.

Luca rolled his eyes. “Calm down. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Oh, so you’re no more a duellist than you are working for Guildmaster Havelot?”

“No, I am a duellist.”

“Just supplementing your income with petty theft.”

Luca, feeling that needle further under his skin than he’d like, gave a tap with his sword against the one held in Jay’s too-stiff arm. “Yes. I tricked you. All right? I needed the money.”

“You think I didn’t?” Jay tried, clumsily, to tap back. Luca let his wrist absorb the jarring force.

“Look, Tolliver’s agency has a buy-in. I wasn’t expecting that, I thought he’d just let me start work and take it out in commission. So that took most of the ready money I had, and I needed something to pay for food and board.”

“And meanwhile you’ve wrangled yourself an invitation to stay with your new agent,” said Jay. “You do move fast, don’t you?”

“Hardy Tolliver’s a decent person,” said Luca. “Most people are.”

“All the better to take advantage?”

“I’mnot— Oh, would you stop holding it like you’re trying to chop down a tree, Pata wept —”

Unsurprisingly, this accomplished nothing more than a further darkening of Jay’s expression and another stubborn clash of his sword against Luca’s.

“I don’t give a damn about your buying-in fee, your board, or any other excuse,” Jay said. “That was my money . What did you—why did you have to pick me to try your tricks on?”

Luca gave him an incredulous look, stepping back and letting his sword tip lower. “Are you joking? You bought a bottle of Cooper Ruby, and you were wearing the best clothes in the room. I do know what money looks like.”

Jay’s sword arm sagged back against his side. Now he didn’t look angry so much as despairing. This wasn’t making any sense.

“That two hundred gold was for this . For a best man. I’d set aside six hundred, in all. And scraping that much together meant weeks of my family tightening belts that were already tight, which was a fucking laugh to explain to my brother and sister, who are all of five and don’t really understand why hiring some stranger with a sword is more important than having sweets at the end of dinner. I’m not a damn miser. I’m desperate.”

Luca’s pulse had picked up, and he didn’t know what kind of excitement it heralded. Jay had seemed an obvious choice last night: a handsome face, deep pockets. And he’d been so eager to apologise; so desperately wanting to please. This voice, deep and rough around the edges with poorly suppressed emotion, was something different.

“I need a best man who will win any challenge. Guaranteed,” Jay went on. “So you’re going to hand me my money back, or I’m calling the city guard and they’ll haul you up in front of a magistrate.”

Luca bit his lip against hysterical laughter. The fucking irony, to flee the consequences of his actions in Cienne only to be arrested his first week here in Glassport.

“Or maybe I’ll call them anyway,” said Jay.

“No! Shitting fuck. Look—” Luca did the only thing he could think of to do, which was raise his sword again. Jay raised his own, startled. Luca stopped messing around with pretence; he stepped in close, engaged their blades, and twisted the sword out of Jay’s grip in a matter of seconds. It fell to the ground with a thud and a bounce, off to Luca’s left.

Jay stepped back. Luca followed.

He set the dulled point of the sword to Jay’s throat, watching the undulation of the skin there, where the line of the neck emerged from the loosened collar of the man’s shirt. As soon as the metal touched his skin, Jay went still. Now Luca could see those eyelashes, and those eyes as well, opening wide. Jay’s lips parted in something that was almost certainly fear, but which Luca’s nerves interpreted as something else. Arousal gave an interested twist in Luca’s stomach.

It had taken a few seconds at most. There was no reason for Luca to feel breathless, beyond the fact that Jay had given another nervous swallow, and Luca couldn’t decide whether to look at his eyes or at the place where the dull bronze of his skin met the white of the shirt.

“Give me the rest of the money,” said Luca.

Jay’s eyes fell to the sword, then rose. “Are you trying to rob me again ? How exactly do you think that’s going to work?”

“ Hire me, ” Luca said. “As your best man.”

“Hire you? Are you mad?”

“You’ve already said you planned to pay six hundred. Pay it to me.”

“Yes, that’s what I budgeted. For someone very good.”

“I am extremely good.” Luca gave a deliberate dart of his eyes to where Jay’s sword lay, a fair distance from their feet. Jay did not seem impressed. Fair enough. Disarming an inept beginner was hardly an accomplishment.

“Tolliver said you’re… not bad,” said Jay.

Luca let the sword drop again. “Tolliver is a middling swordsman who, if I’m any judge, stepped gratefully behind a desk as soon as the opportunity arose to become a businessman instead. I was barely trying when he tried me out.” He was exaggerating, but not by much.

Jay’s eyes narrowed. “If you’re worth six hundred, as you claim, then why are you charging less?”

Luca couldn’t exactly say, Because I’m trying to keep a low profile . “Because I’m new. I haven’t any record to rely on; there’s no point in my entering the market at the top, untested. I need to build my reputation. I can always raise my price once demand is established.”

That was the kind of business sense that any child could understand. Jay nodded slowly, but the suspicion hadn’t vanished from his face yet. Luca needed to press his advantage before Jay could start poking holes in his story. Or talking about magistrates again.

Now that the sun was higher in the sky, it was warm in this room, which pulled sunlight in through the skylights but had no cracked windows to allow for an exchange of air. Luca wiped his brow. His best idea was going to require some exertion.

“Hold this for me,” he said abruptly, and tossed his sword up—showing off—to adjust his grip, catching it by the guard as it fell. He offered it to Jay, hilt-first. It was a thin gesture of trust, here between the two of them where there was no trust at all and no reason for it to exist. Jay took the sword probably more out of instinctual politeness than anything else.

Luca pulled his shirt off over his head, exhaling in relief as the air found the moisture on his skin and set about cooling him. He took the sword back from Jay’s unresisting hands, swiped back a few hanks of hair that had tried to fall over his forehead, and went back to his position in the centre of the room. He fell into a ready stance.

“What are you doing?” said Jay.

“Showing you what your money’s worth,” Luca said, and began.

To someone as ignorant as Jay, Luca could only hope that what he was doing was recognisable as proficient. He was tempted to make it showier, to add a few flourishes and tricks, as though he were fighting off a host of imaginary opponents. But he could hear Master Carriere’s heavy, uncompromising voice telling him that this was not a game, that there were no shortcuts, and that respect for the weapon and the body were the only keystones. Luca believed that theatrics added spice to most areas of life, but this wasn’t one of them.

He did the simple forms as a warm-up, then the advanced ones. He did them in a perfect line. He did them very, very quickly.

The sun in his eyes was an annoyance, so he closed them. Blood hammered in his feet. He could feel the familiar ache that wasn’t pain, but acceptable stress, in his wrist and in his shoulder, after five minutes had passed without his ever lowering the blade fully.

A knock sounded on the door to the room.

Luca whirled, the sound like a hammer on the pulled-tight anticipation of his reflexes. He heard in the silence the quick pant of his own breath.

Jay was staring at him, one of his hands trying to clench around the fitted fabric of his trousers. His gaze dragged across Luca’s bare chest before rising, and Luca felt the heat of it even on his overheated skin.

“Is everything satisfactory, Mr. Jay?” came Hardy Tolliver’s voice.

Luca held very still. He felt balanced on the edge of a knife; he had no idea which way he might fall.

“I can do this for you,” Luca said, low. “You’re not the only one who’s desperate. Please .”

It seemed half a century before Jay nodded and raised his voice. “Everything’s fine, Mr. Tolliver. We’re just talking. I’ll be out in a moment, to sign the contract.”

Luca exhaled. His heart eased itself away from the battering it had been giving his ribs. “Thank you.”

“Not so fast,” said Jay. “I have a condition.”

“What is it?”

“I’ll pay you the six hundred, as a duellist’s fee. And in exchange for not telling anyone the truth of what happened last night… there’s something else I want.”

Luca curled and uncurled the fingers of his sword hand, uncertain. Jay looked embarrassed. No matter what it was, Luca would have to have a good reason to refuse. Jay had a far better bargaining position, and they both knew it.

“Yes?”

“Sword lessons. I want you to teach me.”

“You think you can be your own —”

“No, don’t be stupid.” Jay waved a hand. “It’s only a few months until the wedding. Obviously I can’t learn more than the basics in that time. I don’t expect you to turn me into a master. But”—his voice firmed, his shoulders straightened—“it’s something I’d like to try.”

It wasn’t an unreasonable request. There was no way Luca would get enough work through Tolliver’s agency to fill his days entirely. He could spare a few hours to show this man how to hold a sword.

“Done,” Luca said. “Now, I’ve got a question. Why do you need a best man worth six hundred gold?”

“My betrothed. Sofia. She has… an inconveniently talented paramour.”

“Ah,” said Luca. “And you wish to ensure the match between yourself and this Sofia is untainted by any suggestion that the gods might not approve.”

Jay gave a sudden, unsteady burst of laughter. “You know, I’m starting to wonder if they simply don’t . They seem to be doing everything they can to make it impossible. Including shoving you into my path.”

Luca smiled, and felt un unexpected squirm of delight when Jay’s mouth twitched towards the beginning of an answering smile.

“Think of it this way,” Luca said. “They then shoved you right back at me. And—look at that! You’re still getting what you need.”

“I don’t need sword lessons.” The note of tentative shame buried in Jay’s voice told Luca a lot.

“And something that you want, on top of it, for the same price. See? Good fortune.”

“Don’t push it,” said Jay, but now he was almost smiling outright.

Luca was lightheaded with relief. He wasn’t sure which god to thank for the fact that this encounter had managed to swing around from Jay looking ready to bludgeon him with the wrong end of a sword, to this, where Jay was agreeing that it was almost lucky that Luca had conned him the night before. But Luca wasn’t about to question his good fortune either. He rubbed grateful fingers on both the hilt of his sword and the waistband of his trousers, sending out a silent twinned prayer. “When do you want to start?” he asked.

“Tomorrow? Early mornings suit me.”

Luca made a face. “How about evenings? After dinner?”

“I’m the one paying you, ” said Jay.

Luca grinned. “Not for this, you’re not. Technically.”

Oh, Luca knew his role in this: the hired sword, bought into the service of this son of a grand House. His role was to be accommodating. To uncomplainingly do what he was told.

Luca had never been very good at doing what he was told.

“I’m paying you, and I say mornings,” said Jay. “Just after sunrise. It’s the only time I can spare.”

“All right,” said Luca. “Just don’t expect sparkling conversation.”

Luca returned his sword to the rack. He picked up his shirt and narrowly stopped himself from using it as a rag to wipe the sweat from his face and neck; he did have to wear the thing, after all, and didn’t have many spares. He contented himself by wiping one palm on his trousers. A spark of mischief, a desire to push further, let him walk right up to Jay with his shirt still bundled in his hands. He watched to see if Jay’s eyes dropped again to his chest.

They did.

Luca said, “Let’s make this formal. A pleasure doing business with you, sir. My name is Luca Piere.”

“My name is Mattinesh Jay.”

They shook hands. Jay’s hand was broad, smooth, and uncalloused as it engulfed Luca’s. It was a hand that matched the coat, matched the bottle of wine, and didn’t match at all the terrible urgency in Jay’s manner, or the way his voice had sounded as he talked about his family. Every House went through rough patches, but Luca had never seen anyone with such a disconnect between the way they appeared and the things they said. Jay had no obvious reason to lie. He was a man with almost no money, who’d turned up to a sword agency and was prepared to gamble on a newcomer who might or might not be worth more than what he was asking, simply for—

Ah.

“She’s rich, this betrothed of yours,” Luca realised. “You need the bond price. That’s why you’re prepared to throw far more than you can afford at a best man.”

Jay’s lips parted in that distracting manner again. A faint tint entered his cheeks; Luca suspected it would have been a flood of annoyed scarlet in someone of Luca’s own complexion.

“Yes,” he said, stiff.

“Well, there’s no need to worry,” Luca said. “I’ll stand beside you at your wedding, Mattinesh Jay. And I’ll win.”