Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Angharad dropped to the ground as the shot sounded.

The stranger who’d stood in front of her was not so quick and his face exploded in a shower of gore – Sleeping God, she thought, sickened – as she reached for the long saber at her hip. There were a few screams at the grisly sight, but already the people of the street market were scurrying away into alleys. Angharad grit her teeth. This place was not like her home, like Peredur: there was no honour in Sacromonte, this horrid city of filth and rats. No one would help.

Slowly, so that the sound would not give her away, Angharad unsheathed her saber as she crawled towards the edge of the stall that was her sole cover. She should look now, before her would-be assassin could reload their musket, but Angharad instead kept staring at the corpse of the man she had come here to meet. She found herself avoiding the sight of the gaping red wound made by the ball, gaze shying away, and lingering on the dark skin so much like her own.

The stranger had been Malani, by his accent, not Pereduri like her. Not that the rest of Vesper ever thought of the Duchy of Peredur as anything but a petty province of the Kingdom of Malan – her thoughts were straying, she chided herself. Fear had a way of doing that to her. Angharad mastered herself, breathing in and out slowly the way she had been taught. This was no display duel, no tournament of skill where the violence would end when blood or surrender ensued, but she had learned to kill her fear there and she would kill it today as well.

Her breathing calmed, her hand steady around the grip of her saber, Angharad popped her head out to look and-

(The musket ball went through her skull.)

-and she kept rolling, a shot whizzing above her as a lightning-quick bite of pain tore at her shoulder through the dyed cloth of her jacket. She was bleeding, but she rolled all the way behind another stall even as she heard a man curse in Antigua. Angharad’s lips tightened as she felt disapproval waft out of that deep place within her. The Fisher had drawn on their pact when she had failed to, granting her that glimpse of what lay ahead, but the old spirit approved of neither fear nor recklessness. He would not twice extend his hand this way.

“Come out,” a man’s voice called out from her right. “If you do, I’ll make it quick. Won’t be that kind if you make it hard, girl.”

Angharad ground her teeth. She was a peer of Peredur, even her title had been struck down, and the last of the House of Tredegar. Did the man expect she would simply roll over and die when he asked? She drew on her pact, feeling as if she has touched cold water with the bottom of her feet. In her mind’s eye she saw herself rise, but to her surprise the shot that took her in the chest did not come from the right but the left. There were two assassins, not one, she realized as she released the pact. Both of them with muskets. She hesitated. The odds were uncomfortably steep against her. Attack, her mother had taught her. Defence is delay.

Angharad’s fingers stumbled across metal goblet, a cheaply made thing of iron, as she groped along the ground. It must have fallen when the peddler owning this stall fled. Closing her eyes, she tossed it to her right. Before it could hit the floor, she drew on her pact again and glimpsed the muzzle of the muskets following the sound. Without hesitation she rose, glimpsing two silhouettes in the dim lamplight aiming their guns at her bait. Shadows filtered through the banners and poles of the street market, hiding her for most of a heartbeat as she began to run. A click, a snap, a shot: a ball went whizzing past her as she ducked under another stall. She drew on the pact again, eyes turning unseeing as she moved, and coldly smiled. It was the nearest assassin that had shot, as she had hoped.

Angharad released the power, leaping over a clutter of pottery and keeping the killer now reloading her long musket between her and the assassin still ready to fire. The man of the pair shouted for his accomplice to move, but he was too late. Angharad kicked a stall of colourful ribbons into the woman’s knees and she rocked back with a shout of pain, dropping the ramrod she’d been using to reload. Angharad met her eyes, grey to brown, and saw the fear there. She did not relish it, did not allow herself to, and swung her saber in a clean stroke.

It ripped through the assassin’s throat.

Angharad drew on her pact, the Fisher’s quiet approval easing the coming of the glimpse. Smoothly the noblewoman caught the shoulder of the dying assassin before she could fall, keeping her body in the path of the panicked shot that followed from the other assassin. It didn’t pierce through, having hit the middle of the back, and Angharad let the body drop as she leapt over the stall before her. The man was a tall and thin Lierganen and his fear spread across his face like ink soiling water. He did not lose his wits, though and kicked the last stall between them towards her. It toppled piles of dyed cloth, but Angharad had been quicker and she was already leaping over it.

Her landing was off and she wasted a moment steadying her footing, long enough for the man to strike at her with the butt of the musket. Right into her shoulder, she swallowed a groan. That would bruise. She struck his chin in return, the guard of her saber crunching bone satisfyingly as the side of her blade bit into flesh, and with a hiss of pain the assassin dropped his musket. In his eyes Angharad saw the knowledge of his own death as the gun clattered on the floor, but she did not strike. Could not. The edge of her blade rested against the side of his neck.

“Pick up your weapon,” Angharad ordered, her Antigua crisp.

The man went still, eyes flicking to the blade and then back to her. The fear drained, replaced with a smirk.

“It’s true, then, about you Malani nobles,” he said. “All about honour. Won’t strike an unarmed man.”

Angharad did not answer, simply withdrawing her blade and taking half a step back.Updated from novelb(i)n.c(o)m

“Fucking fools you are,” the man mocked. “Worse than an infanzon. I’ll just leave, and what are you going to-”

The point went through his eye and into his skull, Angharad snapping her wrist to withdraw the blade cleanly. There was some debate among scholars whether a ‘fair chance’ to take up one’s weapon should be considered three or five breaths, so she had waited a full five. She did not like to walk too close to the line in matters of honour.

“I am not Malani,” she coldly informed the corpse as it toppled.

After trading favours I have secured an opportunity that could place you beyond the reach of your enemy, no matter how powerful, Uncle Osian wrote. Your name has been added to the list of candidates that are to undertake the yearly crucible on the island of Vieja Perdida. It would be a perilous undertaking, I will not pretend otherwise. Fewer than one in five survive. Yet to succeed would make you a fully-fledged member of the Watch immediately, robbing your foe of the ability to frustrate attempts at more traditional enrolment.

It would protect you, Angharad. Even great lords do not dare offend the Watch and your oath need not be a lifelong one. I urge you to take shelter among our order until you are fully grown and ready to face your enemy. There is little more I can do, for I have traded what I have to trade and now find myself short on debts owed. The man who handed you this letter is trustworthy and knows how to have coin made available to you should you need it. If you would send me a letter in answer, he can handle the matter for you.

May many gods be with you, and those who are not miss.

Captain Osian Tredegar

Below there were scribbled directions to the ship that would take her to the crucible should she wish to attempt it, as well as a note that the two days to embark were the seventh and the eighth of the Fourth. Today and tomorrow, Angharad realized with a start. She must have been too slow in finding her uncle’s agent. It was a troubling notion that she might have had a part in the man’s death, and not the sole one that Uncle Osian had brought at her door. He wanted her to join the Watch and she could understand why well enough.

He was right that it would afford her a great deal of protection, and that the oath would not take all of her life: watchmen swore in sevens, and after seven years Angharad expected she would be either dead or ready for revenge. It also meant, however, that she would formally be leaving her title as Lady of Llanw Hall behind. Blackcloaks could not hold titles while they served, and often not even after. She closed her eyes, gritting her teeth.

“It is already behind you, fool girl,” she harshly whispered.

The high courts of Malan had struck her title down before she even fled the kingdom. Her mother had been accused of high treason and her father of corruption – something or other about taxes – so the High Queen of Malan had given her assent to the removal of her family from the rolls of nobility. In the eyes of the law, Angharad was no longer a peer of Peredur. The title she claimed was a meaningless one. And yet the thought of surrendering it felt like hot coals in her belly. She thought of ash and screams again, shivering. It felt like a betrayal to abandon the title when she was the sole survivor of that horror.

Could she really spit on the memory of her parents in this way?

No, she decided. Her situation was not yet so dire that she could not attempt to write her uncle again for another solution. She still had coin enough to last a few months and even if Osian’s agent was dead her uncle could still be contacted through the offices of the Watch in Sacromonte. Folding the letter and tucking it away in her coat, Angharad opened the drawer on the side of the desk and took both paper and ink. She had a quill of her own, in her trunk, and she rose to fetch it. The door opened and Angharad froze: at the top of the stairs, a man in a red cloak was standing with a pistol in hand.

Another was coming up the stairs behind him, and a moment of perfect stillness followed as Angharad met the guardsman’s eyes. The pact came easy, telling her she was but a moment away from a shot being fired at her.

“Shit,” the red-cloaked man swore, raising his pistol and his voice. “It’s her.”

Angharad shut the door just in time, the ball tearing into it with a spray of wooden shards. Keeping a foot on the door, she hastily snatched up her sheathed saber as another shot thundered against the wood. She could hear men shouting about breaking down the door. They must have thought it was locked instead of simply being held. Going through the corridor would be suicide, she thought, even if there were only two of them. Which she doubted. That left... Angharad glanced at the window, dipping into her pact. She grimaced. She’d get shot. The timing was slightly off. She released the pact and pulled at it again, trying to find the right moment.

The door was about to be knocked down by two men using a bench, she saw. It was now or never.

Angharad, holding her sheathed saber in hand, hurriedly crawled atop the table and pushed her way through the shutters even as the door was smashed down behind her. She fell through and down into the street even as the guard in the street below hastily snapped a shot at her and missed by a wide margin, ball ricocheting inside the solar. She landed on her feet, crouching down with a shout of pain but gritting her teeth as she forced herself to move. She dipped into the pact and coldly smiled at what she saw.

The red-cloaked woman in front of her had a long cudgel in hand, but she dropped it to unsheathe a short sword. It was a mistake. Darting forward before the cudgel hit the pavement, Angharad smashed the pommel of her saber in the woman’s throat and, as she began choking, slipped behind her. The shot that came from the solar window took the guardswoman in the belly. There were screams and shouts inside the inn, red-cloaked guards forcing their way back out to pursue, but Angharad took off at a run. She might not know the city, but a head start was a head start.

She ran until she was out of breath, across bridges and markets, until she was sure she had lost the men and women of the Guardia. Only then did she allowed herself to hide in a shady nook, near a palestone pillar, and belt her sheath properly again. Gritting her teeth, she found herself leaning her forehead against a brightly painted wall. She’d been found. By now the redcloaks would have confiscated the last of her worldly possessions, leaving her with a wealth of three silver arboles in her pockets and the clothes on her back. That, and her saber, was now the sum of what Angharad Tredegar owned.

She would have wept, were she not so angry at them for the unfairness of it all.

But there was, she remembered, one last thing on her. The same letter she had tucked away, the salvation Uncle Osian had offered. With trembling fingers, Angharad took it out and unfolded it. At the bottom of the letter, scribbled, was the name of the ship awaiting at Fishmonger’s Quay. The Bluebell. The young noblewoman breathed out, found her center, and tucked away the letter once more.

“Bury the past,” Angharad murmured, “or be buried with it.”

It was as simple as that. There was no refuge left to her save for audacity, and she would not meet whatever fate awaited her cowed or trembling.

Angharad straightened her back and strode back into the light.