I whirled round as the door behind us opened. A startled face appeared in a handspan gap. “Let us in, we’ve a wounded man! In D’Olbriot’s Name!” I was shouting at wooden panels. The door slammed and we heard bolts being thrust home in panic.
“I can’t stop the bleeding in this leg.” Messire had crimson stains spreading through the lace at his cuffs but his hands and voice were steady. He smiled reassurance at Camarl, who was shaking like a man in midwinter.
If one of the great blood vessels had been cut, Camarl would’ve died already. For the moment he was alive and I was more concerned with whoever might try to finish the job. The masqueraders were regrouping with malevolent intent but were now hampered by the uncomprehending crowd. People had spilled out of a tisane house across the road, wondering what was afoot. A tavern some way up the street was emptying, and confusion spread as indiscriminate attacks were launched, some on the acrobats, some on innocents mistaken for the scoundrels who’d started this.
A man in the buff breeches and plain shirt of a hireling servant hurried towards us. “Send word to the Cohort,” I yelled.
He ignored me, breaking into a run and I saw a knife in his hand at the same time as the discarded mask in the gutter behind him. I swept a hasty cut at his wrist that Fyle would have mocked me for. All the same, he recoiled, so I tried to backhand him across the face with my sword. He ducked backwards again, harder to hit than a shade, but the knife hand curving round to my belly was no apparition. I blocked the thrust with my off hand, the force enough to numb his arm and send the blade clattering to the road. That didn’t stop him stepping inside the reach of my sword, punching hard with his other hand, but at least my sideways step meant he only bruised my ribs rather than winding me. I brought my sword up to smash the hilt into the side of his head but the bastard threw himself bodily sideways. With an arm out before he landed, he rolled and was back on his feet with a tumbler’s grace, eyes searching for his fallen knife. That instant of inattention was enough for Temar, who lunged to thrust his blade into the acrobat’s side. The man staggered and fled, bloodied shirt flapping as he vanished into the crowd.
I looked to safeguard Temar’s back and saw two men exchanging an uncertain look some paces beyond him. As I raised my sword with menace one broke, running headlong back down the Graceway. The other spread empty hands, gabbling in panic. “Not me, your honour, not me.”
“Call out the Duty Cohort,” I bellowed at him. Looking up the road I saw other passers-by caught up in the spreading disorder, coaches and gigs held up in the distance and blocking the road. I cursed; Den Janaquel’s men would almost certainly be on their way by now but they’d have some task breaking through to us. Men on all sides were struggling with masqueraders, either in self-defence, from a desire to help us or from simple drunken belligerence. Others were trying to leave, some frenzied enough to start new struggles around the initial skirmishes, hampering those intent on murdering us still further. But how to tell friend from foe? I sent a man who’d stumbled into me sprawling with a punch to the side of the head.
Could we escape down the road? Could we drag Camarl between us, and if so at what cost to him? As I looked I saw the hapless man I’d yelled at turn straight into the arms of two eager youths. They’d come running to see the commotion and immediately tried to wrestle him to the ground. “No, let him go!” I yelled.
A whip split the air above their heads with a vicious crack. I saw Amalin Devoir’s grey horse fighting to get its bit between its teeth, nostrils flared and eyes rolling wildly. The musician had the reins bunched in one hand as he laid about him indiscriminately with his lash, Allin clutching the seat with both hands. The lads and the man I’d sent for help all fled, ducking low with hands protecting their heads.
“Devoir! Casuel! Back off and get the Duty Cohort,” I yelled with a force that tore at my throat.
Devoir looked back over his shoulder but the confusion blocking the road made reversing impossible.
“Camarl is hurt!” Temar shouted with equal urgency. Allin caught sight of Messire kneeling beside the prostrate Esquire, her jaw dropping before she turned to relay information to Demoiselle Avila and Casuel, one hand gesturing.
“Temar!” I moved swiftly to intercept one man scrambling over the debris of scaffolding with evil in his eyes and a sword in each hand. Temar was about to follow but a hail of stones and juggling balls from two acrobats appearing in the mouth of an alleyway forced him to duck and dodge backwards. Temar snatched up a piece of broken panelling from the carriage to protect his head, moving to shield Messire and Camarl with his body.
The man facing me dropped to a wrestler’s crouch. He had the brutish and battered face of a prizefighter but he had two blades and, for all I knew, was perfectly able to use them. He thrust at me, each hand in turn, clumsy strokes but fast and unhesitating. Moving back I felt splintered wood treacherous beneath the soft half-boots I was wearing. I took a two-handed grip on my sword and went in hard, circling the blade round and back on itself, half parrying, half attacking. Swordplay learned for the stage made a novice of the man, who instinctively fell into the trap of anticipating my strokes and moving to parry too early. Now I had the initiative I tempted him into an upward sweep and then ripped a sudden sideways cut underneath his arms. As I sliced his chest open his arms flung back in nerveless shock and I wrenched my blade up still further, tearing the notched steel into his bull neck. He collapsed, gurgling through a spray of blood.
I wiped drops off my face to see Temar smashing his improvised buckler into the head of some new attacker. The man turned and would have escaped down the nearby alley but the jugglers blocked his way and I realised they had their own problems. A swarm of what looked like ruddy, greyish hornets swirled around them, but there was no buzzing and whenever one of the dots darted in to land on cloth smoke rose briefly from black scorch marks. Angry red blisters appeared on the jugglers’ exposed hands and faces, raised by scarlet sparks glowing and vanishing so swiftly they deceived the eye. I saw Allin still hanging on grimly to Devoir’s frivolous gig, plump face intent with hatred as she glared at the acrobats. An empty brazier some way beyond the alley was smoking emptily but for a fading crimson light.
Devoir had beaten his horse into trembling submission, the poor beast too terrified to know whether it should flee forwards or back. Demoiselle Avila was struggling down from the back, Casuel wringing anguished hands as he followed her, cowering inside his ostentatious robe. Avila ignored the commotion all around as she headed straight for the doorway behind me. Temar ran forward to draw her into our frail circle of protection as fast as he could.
I’d have gone too but a vicious fistfight erupted in front of me, stones and broken wood hurled indiscriminately from the sidelines, and it was all I could do to stop the combatants falling over me, the Sieur, the Esquire. Temar and I were jostled from all sides, unable to tell hapless Festival-goers from murderous masqueraders, so forced to drive all comers off with harsh words and harder blows. Casuel yelped with outrage as I stood on his foot, but that served him right for trying to shelter between me and Temar. A stinging pain licked around the back of my neck.
“Shit, Devoir, watch that cursed whip!” But I forgave the musician when I saw he was laying about with it to keep the brawl from crushing Demoiselle Avila and the Sieur as they knelt in the doorway, busy with Esquire Camarl’s wounds.