Fabio is a giant-at least physically-and the sort of son my father wishes I had been. My sister had been given the size, charm, and beauty to make her a perfect match for Fabio. On the day they wed my father commissioned a portrait of the wedding party, featuring the happy couple standing tall, blond, and unblemished in the center, and the rest of us gathered around them.
You can see me back behind the dogs, peeking out from a display of orchids.
I’m not ugly-I don’t make most children cry when they see me-but I’m just not artistic. And, I will concede, I’m not terribly coordinated, nor am I skillful at arms. I’ve studied all manner of martial skills-my appetite for books is voracious-but have for little time to practice or practically apply what I have learned. Fabio brought this shortcoming to my attention when he used a butter knife to disarm and best me in a sword fight.
The defeat proved problematic for me in more than the obvious way. What little vanity I have-and my broomstick limbs and thinning hair allow me very little of it indeed-comes from my dignity. I hate being made to play the fool, especially by a man who showed more skill with the knife in our fight than he ever had at a dinner table. The infant dreams I had about somehow, one day, being seen as an epic hero died right there-and only my sister’s heartfelt commiseration over their deaths made the incident bearable.
I was not so much interested in being a hero for the glory of it all-my studies had showed glory to be, if not fleeting, certainly grossly malleable. I had become unforgivably enamored of folklore and the way things passed into legend. I imagined my grand adventure as being a fantastic experiment because I would know what the truth had been and I could see how it changed and warped with retellings and dissemination. My defeat at Fabio’s hands would likely become a thing of legend; one I could monitor, but one that I had no real desire to follow.
Reaching out, I steadied myself against a ceiling beam and took a step toward the hatch. I knew, ultimately, my current predicament had been my fault because I had avenged myself on Fabio. While he was regent and able to administer the duchy, the matter of taxation had been left in my sister’s hands. Fabio approached her numerous times with plans to raise an army for this reason or that, each of them requiring a special levy. Having my sister’s ear, I managed to convince her that a tax at this time would be crippling, but maybe next month or the one after it would be permissible.
If I felt any twinge of regret in thwarting him, it came when he hit upon a plan to build a fleet to destroy the pirate Red Rinaldo. The pirate had managed to consolidate a number of corsair groups by slaying their leaders and accepting the other pirates’ vows of fealty to him. Other leaders had tried the same thing in the past, without success.
Rinaldo had an edge. He had one of the Swords. He bore Shieldbreaker.
I knew something of the legend of the Swords, but my information was far from complete-largely because Newgrave is really something of a backwater. Of the reported dozen I could name eight, and Shieldbreaker had to be the most famous. The most fearsome and feared of all, it was supposed to make its owner invincible. The verse concerning it was explicit enough to justify the blade’s reputation.
I shatter Swords and splinter spears:
None stands to Shieldbreaker.
My point’s the fount of orphans’ tears
My edge the widowmaker.
I had hoped-though it would have pained my sister-that Rinaldo might make a run at Fabio at some point. Fabio likely feared the same, and he astutely noted that if Newgrave had a fleet, it would be possible to sink Rinaldo’s ship, Sea Slayer, before Rinaldo got a chance to use the Sword in combat. This struck me as an inventive solution to the situation-making me wonder who gave it to Fabio-and solved the puzzle of how so powerful a Sword could be parted from the person wielding it. There were other solutions to that puzzle, were I to take rumors of rumors to be fact-but one and all they struck me as suicidal, especially for someone like me who is more likely to injure himself by fighting unarmed than he is with a weapon in hand.
I convinced my sister that directly opposing Rinaldo could lead to a slaughter of Newgraveans, if the effort failed, and that some sort of negotiation should be tried first. No one at court was fool enough to volunteer for that sort of diplomatic duty-Rinaldo had a reputation for being something of a sociopath-so Fabio’s brilliant plan ended up in the grave along with my heroic dreams. Satisfied, I considered us even, and therein made a terrible error.
The thought of having underestimated Fabio combined with the roiling ocean ride to make me nauseous. I dropped to my knees and vomited into a bucket, then pulled myself around to the bulkhead and pressed my back to it. I closed my eyes, then pulled the bucket in between my knees and spit until my mouth lost its sour taste.
Fabio had convinced my sister that I wanted to be the one to approach Rinaldo. After all, I had suggested the mission. Antonia knew of my dreams about adventure, and Fabio suggested I had been too modest to put myself forward. He had admitted to me that he had deceived Antonia into thinking I had come to him with a plan, begging him not to reveal it to her. He told her that because of his love for her and his knowledge that she would worry about me, he could not keep my plan confidential, and she covertly granted him permission to help me face down Red Rinaldo.
As they had shoved the funnel in my mouth and started pouring juniper juice into me-a precaution against my thinking of a way out of this before I was at sea-he had laughed and noted that Antonia would obviously give him his fleet to avenge my death at the hands of Red Rinaldo. Not only had he won, but my death would lead to the vindication of his plan. To make matters worse, he had taken volunteers from the fishing village of Fishkylle-a people whose loyalty to me stemmed from the belief that I looked a bit like a mullet-and pressed them into service to convey me to Rinaldo and my death. Adding injury to insult, he took my rapier from me-noting Rinaldo was not known for his skill with a butter knife-and left me with a flaccid scabbard belted around my waist.
With my elbows resting on the insides of my knees, I ground the heels of my hands into my eye-sockets. Alone, sick, and sent on a mission to a homicidal maniac with a magic Sword. I decided things could not possibly get worse.
Then the ship listed badly.
A sword banged me on the knee.
Swearing, I opened my eyes and snatched at the hilt. I wanted to toss the sword across the cabin, but I lacked the strength or determination to do even that. I rubbed at my knee and realized that I had been less hurt than surprised by the flat of the sword hitting my leg. The blade looked substantial enough that it should have hurt more when it landed on me, and I didn’t think my light, woolen hose enough to pad the kneecap. “Just like Fabio to give me some toy, tin blade,” I thought aloud, and managed to put down to drunkenness the fact that I’d not seen the blade in the cabin before.
I turned the sword over and brought it into the lantern light. I knew instantly I had something very special in my hands. Despite drink-lees still slowing my brain, I realized the steel in the blade had been forged by someone whose abilities dwarfed those of my father’s master metalworkers. The mottling on the blade and the device worked into the flat of the blade made the weapon appear far thicker than it was.
Fabio would have puzzled over that fact for a month, but I accepted it because I was beginning to realize I held one of the Swords! On the hilt, two cubic symbols stood out in white. I knew they did not form a hammer, for that was the device borne only by Shieldbreaker. I canted my head to the right and twisted the blade to the left to figure out what the symbols were.