Bardas smiled. The boy had finally managed to crack open the sheep’s skull, and was scooping the white, sloppy brains out into a bowl with a tin spoon. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘but before I could do that I’d need a suit of armour, like you said yourself. I’d need to be safe from all my enemies.’›
Estar shrugged. ‘Come and live inside the Empire,’ he said. ‘Once you get in deep, past the outer provinces, everybody’s safe there. You could get right away from all these enemies of yours, and even if they did track you down and find you, they’d never dare to make any trouble inside the Empire.’
‘It’s a tempting offer,’ Bardas replied, remembering the man and his children who’d tried to rob the post coach. ‘But I’d think twice before making it, if I were you. You see, wherever I go, this dangerous, bloodthirsty troublemaker keeps following me, and I’m not sure you’d be all that keen on having him around.’
Estar furrowed his brow. ‘You mean your brother?’ he asked.
Bardas watched the kitchen boy shaking the last scrap of white jelly out of the skull. ‘My own flesh and blood,’ he replied.
‘What do you think?’ Iseutz said.
‘You look ridiculous,’ her mother replied without looking up from her chequer-board. ‘Fortunately, nobody’s going to see you in it, so it doesn’t matter.’
Iseutz frowned. ‘I think it suits me,’ she said.
In the corner of the room, her mother’s cat was eating a bird, rather noisily, not particularly concerned that the bird was still alive. Iseutz recognised it as next door’s pet mynah bird. ‘It could do with taking up a little here, don’t you think?’ she said, twitching the hem of the skirt with her left hand. ‘I’m not sure. Should it be on the knee or an inch above?’
Niessa Loredan scowled at the counters spread out before her. ‘Who cares?’ she said.
‘I care.’
‘Since when?’ Niessa laughed unpleasantly. ‘And besides,’ she added, ‘if you knew even the slightest bit about fashion, you’d know that look’s over and done with now. You’re just doing this to annoy me, the same reason you do everything.’
Iseutz took no notice; she sat down in the window-seat, her back to the blue sea, and studied the stumps of her fingers. ‘If nobody’s ever going to see me,’ she said sweetly, ‘what does it matter if it’s gone out of fashion?’
‘I’ve got to look at you,’ Niessa replied sourly. ‘And I’ve got enough to put up with without you prancing round dressed like that.’ She looked up. ‘This is because I stopped you writing to your uncle Gorgas, isn’t it?’
That’s what you think. ‘It’s nothing to do with that,’ Iseutz said. ‘You think everything I do has somehow got to be about you.’
Niessa folded her arms. ‘If you were really interested in how you look,’ she said, ‘if you were really interested in anything normal, it’d be different. But you aren’t. Look at you. You’re a freak.’
‘Thank you,’ Iseutz replied gravely.
‘And now,’ her mother went on, ‘you insist on dressing like a freak as well. And that’s too much. I won’t have it in this house, and that’s final.’
Iseutz glanced over her shoulder at the sea. ‘I’m not a freak,’ she said, ‘I’m a Loredan. The difference is small but significant.’
Niessa shook her head. ‘For one thing,’ she said, ‘isn’t it horribly uncomfortable? It looks like it should be.’
It was, of course; that was one of the reasons why the warrior-princess look had died the death in other, more rational places. Here in Ap’ Bermidan, it was little short of torture; the leather was stiff and clammy with sweat, and the sheer weight of the chain-mail top pressing on her neck and shoulders was giving her spasms of cramp up and down her back. ‘It’s fine,’ Iseutz said. ‘Much more comfortable than all those dreary long skirts.’
‘Then why do you keep massaging your neck when you think I’m not looking?’ Niessa demanded. ‘I can see from here, it’s rubbed a big red sore patch. Serves you right.’
Iseutz drummed her heels against the wall. ‘I like it,’ she said. ‘I think it’s me.’
Niessa grinned. ‘I won’t argue with you there,’ she said. ‘But the whole point of putting clothes on is to try to disguise what you are.’ She clicked her tongue, something that grated unbearably on her daughter. ‘And you say you can’t understand why I don’t let you out in public.’
Disguise what I am, like cooking herbs with tainted meat. ‘You haven’t said what you think I should do about the skirt,’ Iseutz said. ‘On balance, I think I’ll leave it as it is; after all, I’m not terribly much use with a needle.’
‘Or without,’ Niessa sighed. ‘Now shut up or go to your room. I’ve got work to do.’
Iseutz smiled, and shifted a little so that she could look out of the window without craning her neck. Blue sky and blue sea, with a spit of white sand dividing them. It was a very boring view, but there wasn’t anything else.
‘What was that?’ Niessa said, lifting her head sharply. Someone was bashing at the door down below. ‘Startled me.’
Iseutz pretended to take no notice. She hoped it was the Ap’ Muren courier; a bulk garlic merchant from Ap’ Muren sometimes bought from an Islander who occasionally went to the Mesoge for dried wild mushrooms and isinglass. But her mother hadn’t had dealings with Ap’ Muren for ages, so it wasn’t very likely.
The door opened, but the man who walked in wasn’t the porter; he was hovering behind the newcomer’s shoulder, looking agitated. The newcomer was a soldier.
‘Niessa Loredan,’ he said. It was a statement of fact, not a question.
‘What do you want?’
‘You’re coming with us,’ the soldier said, as two more, apparently identical in every respect, barged past the porter into the room. Their armour made them look huge and bulky.
‘Like hell,’ Niessa said, but a soldier grabbed hold of the back of her neck, like a man picking up a small dog, and shoved her towards the door. ‘What is this?’ Niessa squawked. ‘Where are you taking me?’ The soldier didn’t seem to have heard. Iseutz slid down off the window seat.
‘Can I come too?’ she asked.
The soldier looked at her. ‘Iseutz Loredan,’ he said. ‘You too.’
‘My pleasure,’ Iseutz replied. ‘Have we got time to pack a few things, or-?’
Apparently not; the soldier caught hold of her arm and hustled her out of the room, down the spiral staircase, shoving her so hard she nearly slipped and fell. At the foot of the stairs he stopped, pulled the little toy sword out of its scabbard at her waist and dropped it on the floor. ‘This way,’ he said.
‘What, down the path? I’m so glad you told me, I’d never have guessed.’
No sense of humour, soldiers; for that, she got a shove on the shoulder that nearly sent her sprawling. But she managed to keep her balance long enough to catch hold of the man’s wrist with her left hand and flip him across her back and over her shoulder. Judging by the noise he made, he didn’t land very well.
‘Iseutz! ’ her mother screamed, angry and terrified and embarrassed. One of the other soldiers was drawing his sword – instinct, probably, or conditioned response, but Iseutz wasn’t at her most rational, either. Skipping forward a step or two she kicked the fallen soldier in the face before he had a chance to get up (she heard the bone in his nose snap), bobbed down, slid his sword out of its scabbard left-handed and advanced. Both of the remaining soldiers had their swords drawn now, but they didn’t know what to do – fighting one-handed girls who were wanted alive by the prefect’s office and were also capable of throwing lance-corporals of the guard around like rose-petals was definitely not something they were willing to undertake without first being told the rules of engagement by a senior officer.
‘Iseutz,’ Niessa wailed, beside herself with fury, ‘what the hell do you think you’re doing? Put that down immediately, before you get us both-’
If her mother hadn’t interfered, Iseutz might well have dropped the sword; she was, after all, in a completely untenable position. As it was, she gripped the hilt even more firmly, and prayed silently to Fool’s Luck that the soldiers wouldn’t guess that she couldn’t fight southpaw worth spit. As she advanced, they backed away; she circled, gradually edging them round until she had her back to the road. Then she turned round and ran as fast as she could. They followed, the two squaddies close behind her and gaining, the lance-corporal lagging behind. This wasn’t any good; too long spent cooped up in her mother’s house, not enough exercise. So she waited till they were almost on to her, then spun round, swishing the sword at shoulder height in a flat circle. The soldiers pulled up sharply. One stumbled and slipped on to his face and hands, the other took a defensive guard and stared at her with a horrified why-me expression in his eyes. Iseutz grinned at him and lunged. It wasn’t a good lunge – Uncle Bardas wouldn’t have approved – but the soldier wasn’t a particularly good fencer; instead of parrying he got out of the way by jumping backwards, almost landing on his colleague’s outstretched hand.