“The guy with the curly black hair and the moustache? Yes, I did. Who is he?”
“His name’s Matthews. Just Matthews, no first name. And he’s an artist, just like you.”
“No kidding? Well that’s—” Frank was interrupted then by Matthews himself, who sat down on the arm of the couch on Kathrin’s side.
“I’m Matthews,” he said with a bright but half-melancholy smile. “You are ...?”
“Rick O’Shay,” said Frank, shaking Matthews’s hand. “Kathrin tells me you’re an artist.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, here,” Frank said, pushing toward Matthews the pencil and a napkin. “Sketch me Kathrin.”
“Oh no,” said Matthews. “I don’t simply ... sketch, you know, on a napkin. I’ve got to have a light table and my rapidograph and a set of graduated erasers.”
“Oh.” A good artist, Frank thought, should be able to draw on a wood fence with a berry. But he knew it wouldn’t help to say so. Matthews now leaned over and began muttering in Kathrin’s ear. She giggled.
Frank knocked the lump of old tobacco out of his pipe, ran a pipe cleaner through it, and began refilling it. I’ll be damned if I let them run me off the couch, he thought. A moment later, though, Kathrin and Matthews stood up and, with a couple of perfunctory nods and waves to Frank, disappeared out the back door of the house. Frank lit his pipe.
“Not doing real bloody well, are you lad?” asked Tyler sympathetically from behind the couch.
Frank shifted around to see him. “No,” he admitted. “What’s out back there?”
“A fungus and statuary garden. Lit by blue and green lights.”
“Oh, swell.”
“Well, look, Frank, as soon as I oust my rotten half-brother from the palace, I’ll have Matthews executed. How’s that?”
“I’ll be much obliged to you, George.” Frank got up and wandered around the room, listening in on the various discussions going on. He joined one, and then got into an argument with a tall, slightly potbellied girl when he told her that free verse was almost always just playing-at-poetry by people who wished they were, but weren’t, poets. Driven from that conversation by the ensuing unfriendly chill, Frank found himself next to the wine-bin once again, so he took a bottle of good vin rosé to see him through another circuit of the room. The glasses had all been taken and someone, he noticed, had used his old glass for an ashtray, so he was forced to take quick furtive sips from the bottle.
He saw Kathrin reenter the room, so he dropped his now half-empty bottle into a potted plant and waved at her. She saw him, smiled warmly, and weaved through the crowd toward him. Well, that’s better, thought Frank. I guess old Matthews was just a momentary fascination.
“Hi, Frank,” said Kathrin gaily. “What have you been up to?”
“Getting into arguments with surly poetesses. How about you?”
“I’ve been getting to know Matthews. It’s all right with you if he takes me home, isn’t it? Do you know, under his sophisticated exterior I think he’s very ... vulnerable.”
“I’ll bet even his exterior is vulnerable,” said Frank, covering his confusion and disappointment with a wolfish grin. “Does he wear a sword? Matthews, there you are! Come over here a minute.”
“Frank, please!” hissed Kathrin. “I think he’s my animus!”
“Your animus, is he? I had no idea it had gone this far. Matthews! Borrow a sword from someone and you and I will decide in the street which of us is to take Kathrin home.”
Frank was talking loudly, and many of the guests were watching him with wary curiosity. Matthews turned pale. “A sword?” he repeated. “A woman’s heart was never swayed by swords.”
“I’ll puncture your heart with one,” growled Frank, unsheathing his rapier. A woman screamed and Matthews looked imploringly at Kathrin.
“Frank!” Kathrin shrilled. “Put away your stupid sword! Matthews isn’t so cowardly as to accept your challenge.”
“What?” Frank hadn’t followed that.
“It takes much more courage not to fight. Matthews was explaining it to me earlier. And if you think I’d let a ... thief and murderer like you take me home, you’re very much mistaken.”
Everyone in the room had stopped talking now and stared at Frank. He slapped his sword back into its scabbard and strode out of the room, leaving the front door open behind him.
“HEY, ROVZAR!”
Frank opened his eyes.
“Dammit, Rovzar, where are you?”
Who the hell is that yelling? Frank wondered. It didn’t sound like police, but it might well bring some if it didn’t stop. Frank rolled out of bed, slid into his pants, grabbed his rapier and stumbled bleary-eyed onto the dazzlingly-sunlit deck. A snub-nosed, insolent-looking young man stood by the stem, dressed in close-fitting tan leather.
“Who the hell are you?” Frank croaked.
“I’m a courier. You’re Rovzar, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, here,” the courier said, handing Frank a wax-sealed envelope. “Get some coffee into you, pal,” he advised. “You look terrible.” The young man hopped over the side into his own boat and began rowing away, whistling cheerfully.
Frank sat down on the deck and broke the seal. The letter, when unfolded, read: “Vital meeting of SC Tuesday at 9:00. Important announcement. Mandatory attendance unless specifically exempt by a reigning lord.—BLANCHARD.”
Frank read it over several times and then stuffed it into his pants pocket. Coffee, he thought. That's not a bad idea. He picked up his sword, stood up, and made his unsteady way down the stairs to the galley.
“WHAT I heard was true I tell you, this is it.”
Lord Tolley Christensen bit his lip, frowning thoughtfully. “That isn’t certain, Emsley. Don’t jump to conclusions.” He stared again at the paper that lay on the table in front of him—it was a duplicate of the one Frank had received that morning. “Blanchard has got an ‘important announcement’ to make tomorrow. It might be anything—the Transport, the Goriot fugitives, the depression—it isn’t necessarily the naming of his successor.”
Emsley lit a cigar. “Yeah, Tolley, but what if it is? And the successor he names isn’t you, but Rovzar?”
“You’re right,” Tolley admitted. “We can’t risk it. Rovzar’s got to be killed.”
“Do it carefully, though,” Emsley said. “You’ll be a prime suspect, and if Blanchard thinks you did it he sure won’t make you his successor.”
“Blanchard won’t have time even to hear about it, I think,” said Tolley with a cold smile. “Have you heard of the ius gladii?”
“The what?”
“Never mind. Get out of here, now, and let me think.”
TUESDAY night was racked with thunder and rain. Frank stood on the deck under the overhanging roof of the cabin and stared out into the thrashing gray rain-curtains for some sign of the bow-light of Orcrist’s rowboat. The deep-voiced harbor bells and foghorns played a sad, moronic dirge across the water, and Frank’s shivering wasn’t entirely due to the cold, wet wind that whipped at his long sealskin coat. He waved his flickering lantern, hoping it would be seen by Orcrist.
Finally he heard “Ho, Frank!” from the darkness, and a moment later saw the weak glint of orange light wavering toward him through the rain. Frank swung his lantern from side to side. “This way, Sam!” he called.
A few minutes later Orcrist’s boat was bumping against the bow. Frank climbed in, holding his oiled and wrapped sword clear of the splashing, three-inch-deep pool of water in the scuppers. He thrust it inside his coat and then took the oars and began pulling for the Leethee. The rain was whipping them too fiercely for speech to seem like a good idea, so the two men simply listened to the occasional thunderclaps and watched the rain stream off their hat-brims.