Page 143 of Play of Shadows

‘He’s mygrandson!’ he shouted, slashing in a downwards, diagonal arc that the Vixen was barely able to evade, only for his rapier to then deliver a rising cut on the other side that forced her to stumble back. She tripped over some abandoned stage swords and fell over backwards, and he yelled again, ‘My grandson!’

To watch a man near seventy fight with such sublime skill and ferocity was a wonder beyond all those I had witnessed, both in the past and now in the present, as the people of Jereste fought armed thugs for their city.

But it wouldn’t last– it couldn’t. Paedar Chademantaigne’s best days had passed him by decades ago, and no matter what clever ploys remained to him, he was no match for the Vixen of Jereste.

She rolled gracefully onto her feet, leaped over his slash at her legs and knocked his blade aside with her own, then hooked up a wooden stage sword with the toe of her left boot and kicked it into my grandfather’s face. The wooden crossguard struck him on the nose and he stumbled as he backed away from her.

Now the Vixen’s pursuit began in earnest. With a brutal beat of the forte of her rapier against his, she weakened his grip, then, moving like lightning, she brought her tip around his blade and jerked it upwards.

His sword flipped up into the air, spinning end over end, and when it came back down, it appeared in the Vixen’s left hand, just like a magic trick. The old Greatcoat was left standing there, wheezing, his empty hand open, like a beggar waiting for a cointhat would never find his palm.

I expected Ferica di Traizo to smile with pleasure at the flawless elegance of her victory, but there was no joy left in her, only an unquenchable thirst for blood and a transcendent need to watch the life ebb from an old man’s eyes.

Drawing on every ounce of my remaining strength, I rose to my feet– only to crash to the ground, utterly drained. Desperate to be closer to my grandfather before he met his end, I forced myself to my hands and knees and began crawling towards them, begging all the while, ‘Please, take me–please, take me instead.’

But the Vixen wasn’t listening to me. Whatever ire she bore me was nothing compared to the seething hatred my grandfather had ignited in her.

‘Did youreallybelieve,’ she began, and her voice was devoid of any trace of her customary pretence at courtly wit and elegance. She stopped for a moment, as if even she couldn’t comprehend the arrogance of her enemy. ‘In your wildest, most senile imaginings, old man, did you truly believe thatyoucould beatme?’

His breath coming in great gulps, the old man knelt down and placed his hands under my arms to help me up.

‘Well, I hoped. . .’

He stopped then, the two of us leaning against each other like toppling trees suspended in precarious balance. ‘I wanted to believe it was possible,’ he confessed, still panting. He glanced up at the sky, but the stars were fading as the dawn light chased them away. ‘I wanted her to see me save our grandson’s life with nothing but a rapier in my hand and the love we shared for him in my heart.’ He shook his head, as if only now realising how foolish– howold– he sounded.

But neither love nor courage were substitutes for strength.

‘Grandfather . . .’

Ferica di Traizo placed the tip of her sword at the old man’s throat, resting it there as if waiting for him to acknowledge it.

He nodded, just a fraction, enough for the point of the sword to yield the first drop of his blood.

‘I had to try. You understand, don’t you?’ he asked her. There was an old man’s weary smile on his face. ‘It would have been such a fine story.’

‘It would have,’ she acknowledged, then she looked out into the courtyard where the battle was coming to an end. Against all odds, the Iron Orchids had been routed. Some had fought to their deaths, more fled, but most of those still alive had laid down their arms and were begging for mercy. ‘But even on this night of wonders, the gods do not grant miracles to romantic old fools.’

He chuckled. ‘You know, you sound just like her.’

With the point of her sword pressed at his throat, knowing this might be some final attempt at a ruse, the Vixen asked, ‘Who?’

‘My wife, Virany. She never made room for love in the violence of a duel. Love, she always said, was a hindrance in battle, something to be set aside once the sword had been drawn, lest it weaken one’s resolve.’ The old man’s gaze drifted skywards, as if his long-dead wife were looking down at him now. ‘You never believed me, dearest heart. You thought I was a silly romantic whenever I told you that love is the sharpest blade of all.’

The Vixen’s lips had curled into a snarl at the first mention of my grandmother’s name and her arm tensed as she prepared to thrust the blade through my grandfather’s throat. ‘When you meet your wife in the seven Hells, tell her she was righ—’

Slowly, as if not to frighten her away, my grandfather raised a hand to his neck, just below where the tip was preparing to bury itself in his flesh. One finger traced a line across his sagging skin, and then, as if by some dark and terrible magic, an echoing red smile appeared on the Vixen’s throat.

‘How did you—?’

Blood seeped from the wound, then began to spill, faster and faster, down the front of the ivory ruffled shirt beneath her duelling vest. My grandfather grabbed the rapier as her legs buckled, then the Vixen collapsed to the stage floor, revealing the figure standing behind her.

‘You took your time,’ my grandfather observed calmly.

The Black Amaranth shook her curved dagger, sending drops of blood flying from its edge onto the stage. ‘I had to make sure the duke got inside safely. Besides, you appeared to be making a speech. Something about love conquering all? I thought it might be rude to cut you off.’ She stepped closer, looked down at the Vixen’s body splayed on the floor, then up to meet my grandfather’s gaze. ‘Twice, as I slipped through the crowds towards the stage, I saw a moment when you had the advantage of her. Why didn’t you kill the Vixen yourself? Why did you wait for me?’

My grandfather huffed, then his face split into a grin and his eyes briefly flickered back up to the sky. ‘It’s not often a man gets to win an argument with his wife.’

Shariza looked so confounded by my grandfather that I broke into a wheezy laugh. She might well be one of the deadliest assassins to ever stalk the earth, but nothing in her Dashini training could have prepared her for Paedar Chademantaigne.

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