Sword Catcher (Sword Catcher, #1)

Conor jerked upright—a curiously ungraceful movement, a puppet being yanked by its strings. His leather riding jacket spun with him as he crossed the room to the rosewood cupboard he had personally ordered from Sayan. The doors were painted with images of colorful birds and unknown Gods, their eyes circled in gold.

Inside were decanters and bottles of every liquor under the sun. Nocino, made from bitter Sarthan walnuts, and bloodroot liquor from Hanse, dark and thick as if it were drawn from human veins. Juniper-scented jenever from Nyenschantz. Sticky white rice-and-honey wine from Shenzhou, and apricot-kernel vaklav from the high mountains of Malgasi. The servants had been instructed to keep the cupboard stocked with everything Conor liked, and when it came to alcohol, his taste was various. The cabinet even had a false bottom, where poppy-drops and the odd powders Charlon liked were kept out of sight.

His back to Kel, Conor selected a bottle of pastisson, the cheap green anise stuff drunk by every student in the city. A gold label on the bottle bore the image of a viridescent butterfly. He walked back to the bed, seated himself again in the chair, and twisted the cork out of the bottle.

The scent of licorice rose, roiling Kel’s stomach. He already felt slightly sick. He could not help but feel that this was far from what a Sword Catcher was designed to do; he did not want to tell Conor unpleasant things that must be reckoned with. That was Mayesh’s job, or Lilibet’s. Even Jolivet’s. Not his.

“I am not telling you this to hold you to account,” Kel said, as Conor took a drink from the bottle. “I am telling you because if I do not, next time it will be you they follow and threaten, not me.”

“I know.” Conor looked at Kel with unblinking gray eyes. “I should have told you.”

“Does anyone else know? Mayesh, even?”

Conor shook his head. The alcohol was bringing a little of the color back to his face. “I ought to have told you,” he said, “but I only just found out myself. Do you recall that night at the Caravel? When Alys wanted to speak to me alone?” Conor licked a drop of wine from his thumb. “It seems that bastard, Beck, has been going around Castellane buying up all my debts. Debts to boot-makers, clothiers, wine merchants, even the debt for that falcon I borrowed and misplaced.”

“You misplaced it in the sky,” Kel pointed out. “It flew off.”

Conor shrugged. “The Hill runs on credit,” he said. “We all run up bills, all over town. We pay them eventually. That’s how the system works. When Beck approached Alys, he tried to buy my debt to the Caravel. She refused to sell it. She has a loyal heart.”

And a clever brain, Kel thought. By being the first to alert Conor to the situation, Alys Asper had won Conor’s loyalty. She had bet on House Aurelian against Prosper Beck, which made sense to Kel. What did not make sense was how many merchants, it seemed, had bet the other way.

For Conor was correct: The lifeblood of Castellane was credit. Trade ran on it. The nobles ran up bills when their fleets were out at sea, their caravans on the Gold Roads, and paid them off when the goods came in. To bet against Conor was to bet against a system that had been in place for hundreds of years.

“Alys,” Conor said, “is one of the few who refused. Totaled together, it seems, the rest of my debts equal ten thousand crowns.” Kel supposed it made sense; merchants were unlikely to pointedly remind the Crown Prince what he owed. The ten thousand crowns could represent years of spending. “And Beck wants it all. Now. In gold.”

“Is that even possible?”

“Not really. I have an allowance, you know that.” It was true: Conor was paid monthly from the Treasury, by Cazalet, who kept a close eye on Palace expenditures.

“This might be a matter for Jolivet,” Kel said. “Have him send the Arrow Squadron into the Maze. Find out where Beck is hiding. Bring him to the Trick.”

Conor’s smile was bitter. “What Beck is doing is legal,” he said. “It’s legal to buy up debt, from anyone at all. It’s legal to enforce payment by nearly any means. All Laws the noble Houses passed—including House Aurelian.” He ran a finger around the neck of the pastisson bottle. “Do you know what Beck threatened me with, if I didn’t pay him the full amount immediately? Not with violence. He threatened to haul me in front of the Justicia, to force repayment through the Treasury. And he could. You can imagine the scandal then.”

Kel could. He thought of what the Ragpicker King had said, that Prosper Beck was likely being funded by someone on the Hill. Had one of the noble Houses engineered all this, just to humiliate Conor? Or was this just the overreach of a greedy criminal new to Castellane, who did not yet understand how the city worked?

“The Treasury would have to pay off my debt,” Conor said slowly, “and you know the Treasury money belongs to the city. The Dial Chamber would be furious. My fitness to be King would be questioned. It would never end.”

Kel felt slightly breathless, and the pain was intensifying. It had likely been hours since he’d last had morphea. “Have you tried to negotiate with Beck? Has he asked anything else of you?”

Conor set the bottle of pastisson down with a thwack. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. His face changed then; it was as if a hand had been passed over sand, smoothing it out, erasing any marks that had been visible before. He smiled: that too-quick smile that did not reach his eyes. Now Conor was hiding something from him. “I ought to have paid Beck already. I was being stubborn. I didn’t want him to think he could threaten the money out of me. Perhaps at another time, but—” He shook his head. “I don’t like it, but there it is. I’ll get him paid, and we can forget about this.”

“Pay him how, Con?” Kel asked, quietly. “You just said you didn’t have the gold.”

“I said I couldn’t lay my hands on it easily, not that I couldn’t get it at all.” Conor waved an airy hand; the light from the window caught the sapphire in his signet ring and sparked. “Now stop worrying about it. It will make you heal more slowly, and I can’t have that. I need my Sword Catcher back. For the past three days, you’ve been very boring indeed.”

“I’m sure I haven’t,” said Kel. His mind was whirling. He felt as if he had started out on a long journey only to be told it was over before he had reached the Narrow Pass. He knew he had not imagined the look on Conor’s face, the bitterness in his voice. But the pain was radiating through his body, and it was difficult to think.

“Kellian, I have it on good authority that for the past seventy-two hours you’ve been doing an excellent imitation of a landed trout. I was so bored I had to invent a new game with Falconet. I call it ‘indoor archery.’ You’d like it.”

“It really doesn’t sound like I would. I like the indoors, and archery, but I don’t feel combining the two would be wise.”