Sword Catcher (Sword Catcher, #1)

“Perhaps,” Conor said quietly. “I am not a very good prince of Castellane. I doubt I will be a good king, either. But I cannot deliberately bring war on my city. I suppose even I have my limits. Or perhaps I am only being selfish.” He rubbed at his forehead, where the crown he had worn all day had left a red mark behind. “If I had been more clever, perhaps I could have prevented what happened at that dinner, with the Malgasi woman. But regardless, Anessa was there. She saw how far our house is from being in order.” He flicked his gaze to Kel. “If you ask me, that was the moment when Anessa hatched this plan. She did not want to give Aimada over to a household in chaos. She is their crown jewel. But Luisa—Luisa is worth less to her.”

Kel said nothing. There seemed nothing to say.

“I suppose at least there is one consolation,” said Conor. “It will be a long time before this is a real marriage of any sort. Ten years perhaps.” He smiled crookedly. “So you needn’t move out. Although I suppose if my father dies and you replace Jolivet, you could petition for your own quarters. Quite grand ones, I imagine.”

“I don’t care about my own grand quarters,” Kel said gruffly. It had been a long time since he had heard Conor sound so bleak.

He thought again of Antonetta, all those years ago. She had not wept for lost toys, he thought. She had wept for all the ways things were going to change, that she did not want to change.

He rose and went to sit by Conor, the cushions sinking under them, their shoulders bumping together. Conor hesitated a moment before leaning hard into him, letting Kel take his weight: the weight of his weariness, his despair. “The Charter Families are going to be furious,” Kel said.

He felt Conor shrug. “Let them be. They’ll learn to live with it. They know what’s good for them, in the end.”

Kel sighed. “I’d take your place in this, too, if I could.”

Conor leaned his head against Kel’s shoulder. His hair tickled the side of Kel’s neck; he was deadweight, like a sleeping child. “I know,” he said. “I know you would.”


The hours of Third Watch had come by the time Mayesh Bensimon returned to the Sault. Lin, sitting on her grandfather’s front porch, watched him trudge across the Kathot, head down, his hair white under the blue light of the moon.

He had not yet noticed she was there, she realized. He did not know anyone was watching him. Lin could not help but recall a night two years ago. It had been Third Watch, just as it was now, and she and Josit had been walking beside the southern wall, where it bordered the Ruta Magna and the clamor of Castellane outside. The sounds of the city had carried through the air: the rush of foot and wheel traffic on the roads, the cries of pushcart vendors, someone bellowing a drinking song.

They had both been startled to hear the creak of the iron gates—why were they opening, so late at night? They were even more startled a moment later when Mayesh strode through them, tall and thin in his gray Counselor’s robes. Lin thought that she had never seen her grandfather look so weary. His face had seemed to sink into harsh lines of grief and exhaustion as the gates closed behind him with a clamor that rang through the night.

Lin and Josit remained in the shadow of the wall, reluctant to reveal their presence to Mayesh. Lin had wondered what he had been grieving for—what had so troubled him up at the Palace that day? Or was it simply the nightly reminder that no matter what help he was to the Blood Royal up on the Hill, he would still spend every night of his life behind locked gates?

But she and Josit did not approach him, and did not ask. What would they say? He was, in truth, nearly a stranger to them, in every way that mattered.

She was not sure what she thought now. She had come here because of what had happened in the Square; Ji-An had said Mayesh had been there, and she knew he would not have had a pleasant day. He prided himself on planning and control, and this was something very much out of his control, and contrary to his plans.

And he might have news of the Prince, said a small voice in the back of her head. How he is reacting. If he is all right.

She told herself firmly that this was a voice she should not listen to, and fixed her attention on Mayesh, who had come halfway up the stairs of his own house before stopping. He had clearly seen her, sitting in his rosewood chair.

“Lin,” he said. It was half a question.

She stood up. “I was worried about you,” she said.

He blinked, slowly. “I thought you were your mother for a moment,” he said. “She used to wait for me, here, when I returned from the Palace late.”

“I would guess,” Lin said, “that she was worried, too.”

Mayesh was silent for a long moment. The night air was soft and lifted Lin’s hair, brushing it across her cheek. She knew she had her mother’s hair, those same fiery strands she had tugged on when she was a child.

“Come inside,” Mayesh said at last, and went past her to the front door.

It had been years since Lin had been inside her grandfather’s house. It had not changed much, if at all. It was still spare, plainly furnished. There was no clutter or mess. His books were lined up carefully on their shelves. A framed page from the Book of Makabi hung on his wall; it had always puzzled her, since she had never thought of him as a religious man.

He sat down at his plain wood table and indicated that she should join him. He had not lit any lamps, but there was enough pale-blue moonlight to see. Once she had seated herself, he said, “I see you’ve heard what happened. I suppose everyone has.”

“Well,” she said, “everyone in the city. Perhaps not everyone in the Sault, yet. I heard it from a patient.”

“I would have thought you’d be pleased,” he said. “You have no fondness for the inhabitants of Marivent.”

It must please you. What the Prince had said to her, when she’d first seen his wounds. It had stung a little, and stung again now.

“I was thinking of you,” she said. “You are the Counselor for a reason. You stand for the Ashkar before the Winged Throne. The Maharam does his work here in the Sault, and so he is seen and appreciated. You do your work on the Hill, and so your hand is invisible. But I have begun to believe that . . .”

“That what? That I might actually be doing some good for the Sault? That in protecting this city, I am also protecting the Ashkar who live in it?”

“Hmph,” she said. “I do not need to praise you, if you are going to praise yourself.”

He barked a humorless laugh. “Forgive me. I may have forgotten how to recognize recognition itself.”

“Do they not appreciate you, then, up on the Hill?”

“I am necessary to them. But I do not think they consider it often, any more than they consider water or sunlight or any of the other things they cannot manage without.”

“Do you mind?”

“It is how it should be,” he said. “If they thought too much about how they needed me, they might begin to resent me. And to consider: Is it only me they resent? Or all Ashkar? Malgasi is not the only example, you know. Not the only place we have been driven from, after thinking ourselves safe.” He shook his head. “This is too grim a discussion. I am disappointed today, yes, and angry, but I will survive. Castellane will survive. An alliance with Sarthe is not such a terrible thing.”

“So it is true,” she said. “They presented the Prince with a little girl, and now he must marry her?”