Sword Catcher (Sword Catcher, #1)

Lin would usually have objected to being compared to Mayesh, but they had just reached the Biblioteca Corviniana, the Great Library, and a chatter of voices had burst out all around them.

The Library had been built two hundred years past by King Estien IV, and thus was a relatively new building in the quarter. Its stone doors were closed today, but a wide marble courtyard opened out in front of it, crowded with people. Estien, a patron of philosophers, had ordered that raised squares of marble be erected outside the Library for the purposes of debate. Any citizen of Castellane was allowed to climb upon one and hold forth on any topic they chose, free from accusations of disturbing the peace—as long as they did not stray from their perch.

There was, of course, no rule that anyone had to listen, and thus the various speakers tended to shout their opinions as loudly as possible. A tall young woman wearing the green-lined cloak of a student of science was shouting about the unfairness of the Academie, expecting foreign students to pay for their own lodging when the Castellani were housed at no expense. This drew friendly boos from a group of drunken students who were singing a bawdy version of the anthem of Castellane.

Nearby, a blond young man in a tightly buttoned black tunic was loudly denouncing the monarchy. This drew more interest, as criticizing the royal family was dangerous business. Most of the scholars at the Academie were the children of merchants and guildmasters, shopkeepers and traders. The nobility employed private tutors, rather than sending their children to the free university. Still, loyalty to the crown and the Charter Families ran deep.

“Hey! You, there!” someone shouted, and the blond young man raised an inquiring eyebrow. “Just saw the Vigilants coming around the corner. You’d better hie off if you don’t want to wind up in a crocodile’s belly.”

The young man gave a bow of thanks and leaped down from his marble podium. A moment later he had vanished into the crowd.

Mariam frowned. “I don’t think anyone was really coming.”

Lin glared around, but there was no way to tell who had shouted at the anti-monarchist. The shadows were lengthening, though, the Great Library casting its pillared reflection across the courtyard. They could not afford to keep dawdling.

They turned onto Vespasian Way, an avenue lined with university lodgings. Through open doors, Lin could see students in their black cloaks running up and down steep sets of stairs, laughing and calling to one another. Someone on a balcony overhead was playing a vielle; the melody of their lament drifted through the air, rising and falling like a gull over the harbor water.

May she have the courage

to have me come one night there

where she undresses

and make me a necklace of her arms.

Otherwise, I will die.



“Musicians really do make being in love sound awful,” said Lin. “Just endless moping away, all alone because no one can put up with you.”

Mariam laughed softly. “How can you be so cynical?”

“Not to mention, apparently love makes you poor, and sickly,” Lin went on, ticking off the list on her fingers, “and terribly likely to die young, in a very small room with bad lighting.”

“If it was that awful, no one would do it.”

“You don’t have a choice, I hear,” Lin said as they turned onto Yulan Road, where the Student Quarter dead-ended in a wide thoroughfare lined with Shenzan lane houses, terraced and surrounded by low walls with iron gates. Shenzan traders and sailors had settled here in the time of the Empire, their traditions blending over time with those of Castellane. “Love just happens to you, whether you like it or not; otherwise there wouldn’t be so many songs. Besides, people do all sorts of things that are bad for them. I ought to know.”

The lane houses had given way to shopfronts selling everything from jade sculptures and cheap jewelry to fireworks and paper lanterns, painted with symbols for independence, luck, and Daqin—the Shenzan name for Castellane. Delicious steam wafted from the doors of white-painted noodle shops, where Shenzan sailors and students enamored of cheap, delicious food rubbed shoulders at long rosewood tables.

Lin’s stomach growled. Time to get home; she was sure there was a whole honey cake in the pantry. Nearly whole, at any rate.

She ducked down an alley topped with a stone arch, narrow enough that she and Mariam had to walk single-file. She could see over some of the low walls into the gardens of the lane houses, where chrysanthemums and poppies bloomed. Giggling came from overhead: Families were already sitting on the roofs of their houses, from which they could command a view of the red-and-gold fireworks that would later explode like falling stars over the harbor.

When they emerged finally from the alley, Lin cursed under her breath. She must have taken a wrong turn. She had meant to cut past Valerian Square, behind the Justicia. Instead they had emerged from the side streets into the middle of a cheering crowd facing the Convocat.

By the Goddess, she thought, her heart sinking. No.

She turned to see Mariam gazing around, wide-eyed. The square was packed as tightly as a trader’s caravan. “But I thought—”

“We were going to avoid the square. I know,” Lin said grimly. Nearby, several carriages had circled together. Their doors were thrown open, and girls in fashionable clothes—merchants’ daughters, their brightly colored boots showing beneath the lace hems of their frocks—were leaning out, giggling and calling to one another. Lin caught something about a princess and a kingdom, and two names she recognized: Conor Aurelian, and Counselor Bensimon.

Outside the Sault, there was no Ashkar with as much power as her grandfather, Mayesh Bensimon. Within the walls, his power was matched by that of the Maharam, but here, among the malbushim, the only Ashkar whose name they knew was Mayesh’s. For Mayesh stood at the shoulder of the King, at the side of the Prince. He advised, he counseled, he listened to their fears and desires and dreams. He mapped a path for them to follow. No one stood closer to the throne save perhaps Legate Jolivet, the head of the royal army.

All through the spring there had been rumors that Prince Conor would marry soon. Lin knew her grandfather would be at the heart of deciding what alliance he would make, what advantage it would confer on Castellane. It seemed these girls knew that, too. Everyone did.

Taking hold of Mariam’s sleeve, Lin began to push her way through the crowd, past wine-smelling shopkeepers and loudly singing guildmasters. Something struck her lightly on the shoulder; it was a thrown flower. A yellow aster, the symbol of House Aurelian. More crushed flowers were littered in the square, their gold petals ground to a fine dust.