Sword Catcher (Sword Catcher, #1)

“Oh, I assure you,” Kel said, “I am like them. Well, not as stupid as Charlon, perhaps—”

Vienne shook her head. “I sense that you do not just accompany your cousin, the Prince. You guard him, look after him, as I do Luisa. And yet you left him tonight to help us. So for that, I am grateful.”

She was right. He had left Conor—and what was more, he had not even thought about it. He had wanted to protect Luisa against something he had grown so used to, he doubted he would have noticed at all weeks ago. It was easy for him to think of Montfaucon and the others as Conor’s friends—careless but harmless, the sort of people who threw pies off towers. But carelessness could be a knife, sharpened by boredom as steel by a whetstone, turning it to cruelty.

Conor would not see that. He would not want to think his friends cruel, or that they did not have his best interests at heart. There were so few people in Conor’s life that he could trust at all, and he had known them so long—

“Here you are.” Antonetta had appeared at the door, smiling, though her eyes were anxious. “Kellian, Sieur Sardou has been looking for you.”

“Sardou?” Kel was puzzled; he couldn’t remember the last time he’d spoken directly with the lord of the glass Charter.

“He seems to have something to say to you.” Antonetta indicated her puzzlement with a shrug. “Honestly, this is the strangest party.”

Kel could not say he disagreed. With a nod to Luisa and Vienne, he left the room with Antonetta.

“Is she all right, the little girl?” Antonetta said, leading the way back toward the party. Kel could hear the sound of it rising as they approached, a dull tidal roar. “I suppose it’s good that children forget things so quickly. I wonder if she even really understood what was going on.” She made an impatient noise, which Kel realized was directed at herself. “I ought to have stopped Charlon . . .”

“Lin did,” said Kel. “It’s all right, Antonetta.”

Antonetta’s jeweled sandals clicked on the marble floor. “She danced, you know.”

Kel stopped dead. They were in a wide corridor that ended in a beveled-glass window, looking out over the drop to the city below. “Lin danced?”

“She said she would dance in Luisa’s place, and so she did. But it wasn’t really a Sarthian dance, it was . . .”

“Lin,” Kel said, again. “Danced?”

Antonetta nodded. “Do keep up. I told you she did! But it wasn’t like any dance I’ve ever seen before. It was like—she looked beautiful, but she was daring anyone to think she was beautiful. It was as if the dance said, You will want to touch me, but you will lose your hand if you do. I wish I knew how to dance like that.” Antonetta sighed. “I’m probably explaining it wrong. You look like you don’t believe me.”

“Not disbelief. Surprise,” Kel said as Antonetta opened a door and strode through it confidently. He followed her into a narrow stone hallway. A few more turns—the light dimming as the wall lamps became fewer—and Kel barked his shin on something solid and square.

“Oh, dear,” Antonetta said. “I seem to have gotten us lost.”

Kel almost laughed. It was ridiculous. The whole evening had been ridiculous. They were in a low-ceilinged space, full of wooden crates, some of which had bills of lading, laboriously written out, nailed to them. The floor was damp stone, and spiderwebs drifted like white flags of surrender in the corners. A single taper affixed to the wall offered what little light there was.

He leaned against a pile of crates. Whatever was in them must have been heavy; they didn’t shift. “Perhaps it’s not so bad to be lost,” he said. “If you didn’t want to return to the party immediately, I wouldn’t blame you.”

Antonetta leaned against the crates beside him. Her locket, her hair, gleamed in the darkness. “I thought I would be more troubled by Conor getting married,” she said slowly, “but I feel nothing but pity for that poor little girl. And the way they treat her—”

Conor has his reasons for what he does, Kel thought. But he found, unusually, that he did not wish to think about Conor at the moment. Instead, he said, “You cannot be surprised at it. We know these people, and how they are. They will not be merciful because Luisa is a child.”

Something flashed behind her eyes—a glinting, sharp thing. If it was a memory, it was not a good one, and she said nothing about it.

“You have been kind to her,” Kel went on. “More than I would have expected. And you were kind when you brought Lin to me, after I was injured, though I may not have acknowledged it. I know you disguise your intellect, by intention and design. But why also disguise your kindness?”

“Kindness and weakness are twinned, or are seen as such on the Hill,” she said. “I recall long ago when Joss was kind. When Conor was kind. No longer. It is a defense as much as an affectation.”

“Conor,” Kel said, slowly. It seemed he was to think about him, whether he wished to or not. “If you think he is not kind—then why did you want to marry him?”

“I am not sure kindness is relevant to princes. And like all princes who have thus far faced little in the way of great conflict, he does not yet understand that being royal is easy enough. It is ruling that is difficult.”

“Wise,” said Kel. “But not an answer. And being royal is not so easy.”

“You will always defend him,” said Antonetta. “It is true that I’ve always known he would marry for advantage, not for love. And I suppose I thought, Why not me, then? You see, marrying him would have given me something I wanted very much.”

Kel braced himself. “What is that?”

“The silk Charter,” she said, to his surprise. She was not looking at him, leaving him staring at the curve of her neck, where the flickering candlelight caressed it. “You know I cannot inherit it from my mother. It will pass into the hands of my husband when I marry. But if my husband were the King—”

“He cannot hold a Charter,” Kel said, realizing.

“Yes. I would remain in control of it.”

“Was this your plan all along? Or your mother’s?” Kel asked, remembering the long-ago party where she had first told him she intended to marry the Prince.

“My mother has always wanted me to be queen,” said Antonetta. “I believe she thinks it would be a sort of ornament to the Alleyne name. I want the silk Charter. I suppose our desires converged.”

“I had not thought you so interested in power,” said Kel.