Sword Catcher (Sword Catcher, #1)

“It would be preferable,” said Mayesh, “if no one outside this room knew. Which means we cannot postpone the banquet. Sarthe would take it as an insult if we did, besides.”

“You could say Conor was ill,” Kel suggested. “Surely they would have to accept—”

“They would not believe it,” said Mayesh. “They are already very much on edge. The Roverges’ display the other night did not help.”

“Much as I’d like them to take that ridiculous child and go home, it would mean severing the last amiable ties we have with Sarthe,” said Lilibet. “If they wished, they could harry us at will at the Narrow Pass, cut off half our trade, murder our people—”

“That will not happen,” said Mayesh. “The evening’s plans will go on, with Conor in attendance.” His gaze rested on Kel, who had guessed, the moment that Mayesh said the banquet could not be postponed, what would happen. He could have protested, he knew; he also knew it would make no difference if he did. “My lady, let us ready the attendants. Kel, fetch your talisman; we have only a little while to get you ready.”


It had been a long time since Kel had taken Conor’s place at a Court event—years, he thought—but there was, at least, a rhythm to the pantomime. Kel let himself fall into it, even as his thoughts raced.

He went to the tepidarium first, where he scrubbed his body with handfuls of flaked lavender soap, and used the strigil to shave himself clean. (Conor would never appear anywhere in public with even the shadow of a beard.)

When Kel emerged, stripped down to nothing but the talisman at his throat such that he appeared a perfectly naked Conor in truth, the Prince’s attendants had been summoned and now swarmed around him like fashionable bees. His hair was dried, curled, and perfumed, his hands rubbed with scented lotion. He stepped into the clothes held up for him: a shirt of bleached cambric, the sleeves wrapped with gold thread, with a cuff of gold embroidery around the neck. A hip-length black velvet doublet with bands of gold brocade, trousers of the same material, and tooled-leather boots. An overrobe of gold brocade, lined with the fur of white lynxes. A ring on each hand, set with jewels the size of plover’s eggs: an emerald on his left, a ruby on his right. Lastly, the Prince’s circlet was set on his head: a plain gold band that always left a mark across Kel’s brow when it was removed at the end of the day.

His talisman remained, tucked down under the neck of his shirt, now invisible even to those who knew he was wearing it.

Their task complete, the attendants melted away like ships vanishing at the horizon, and were replaced by a somber Mayesh. Kel gazed at the Counselor wearily. Mayesh wore Ashkari gray, but his tunic was silk, belted with silver, and a heavy silver Court medallion hung around his neck.

He nodded curtly at Kel. “You’re ready, then?”

Kel nodded. The city clock had already chimed seven, but Conor was expected to be late; it would not matter. He followed Mayesh into the hall and through the corridors of the tower into the passages underground that connected the various sections of the Palace.

Only now did he let himself wonder: Where was Conor? He’d told the Queen that Conor had been gritting his teeth through the last few days, and that was true, but he could think of nothing that would have made it so much worse, to drive him into the city. There were parts of Conor where he could be hurt, chinks in his armor where he could be wounded, but he could not fathom what could have hurt him so terribly as to drive him from Marivent at such a significant time. He must know that though the Queen would be furious, it would make no difference in the end; his absence would be patched over, and the marriage would go on, unstoppable as weather or taxes.

They emerged into the small room that had struck ten-year-old Kel as so wondrously full of books. It was familiar now, unremarkable. There were far more books in the West Tower library.

Kel could hear the dull roar of the party through the golden doors that led to the Shining Gallery. He moved toward the doors, only to be stopped by Mayesh with a hand on his arm. “Let me see your talisman,” he said, and looped a finger below the chain, drawing it out from under Kel’s shirt. He ran a finger over the etched numbers and letters, murmuring under his breath in Ashkar. Kel did not know the words, but he had heard Lin murmur something similar over him, that night he had nearly died. A prayer for safekeeping, or luck?

Mayesh tucked the talisman back under Kel’s collar, and said, “I know you are worried for him.” As always there could be only one him. “Set it aside, for now. You can help him best that way.”

Kel nodded. His heart was beating hard; he could feel it in his fingertips, that sense of anticipatory tension he felt every time he faced the world as Conor. The last time it had been on the steps of the Convocat, with the crowd roaring for him. He wondered if this was what soldiers felt, the moment before stepping onto the field of battle: a mix of fear and a strange exhilaration?

Except his battlefield was the floor of the Shining Gallery, his foes any who might doubt that he was Conor. His strengths were not blades or couleuvrines, but pretense and careful obfuscation. Conor was not here, but he paused for a moment at the door as the guards announced him, his hand on the lintel, and spoke the words of the ritual silently in his mind.

I am the Prince’s shield. I am his unbreakable armor. I bleed that he might not bleed. I suffer that he might never suffer. I die that he might live forever.

Only Conor was not here to say: But you will not die.

Perhaps that was the reason that a sense of wrongness clung to Kel, like a spiderweb to his shoe, as he stepped into the Shining Gallery. He was aware of Mayesh, not far away, moving into the crowd toward the Queen; he was aware of the noise of the party, a roar of heightened chatter mixed with the tap of boots on marble and the clinking of glasses.

There was no reason for Kel to feel a sense of wrongness, at least none that he could see. He smiled automatically as the musicians in the gallery—a wide balcony of carved wood reached by a flight of marble stairs in the corner of the room—greeted his entry with a flourish of harp and violin.