Page 15 of The Sword and the Damsel

Thank Christ! A distraction that has absolutely nothing to do with Alais.

He managed to refrain from rubbing his hands together in excitement as he asked his men to take him to where the body had been found.

They led him down to the dank stone building and showed him the corpse. The man’s blood had spilled on the sacks of grain where he was left, and nowhere else, so he must have been killed on site. There weren’t any noticeable bruises, so it didn’t seem like there had been much of a struggle. Victor searched the man’s pockets and found a curious token—a wooden coin with a black X painted on it. He showed it to his men, and they looked unnerved.

“Well, at least we know who did this now,” said a stringy old coot named Bernard.

“Explain,” said Victor.

“There’s a money lender here, a usurer, goes by the name of Matthew,” Bernard explained. “He works out of one of the brothels on Birdie Street when he’s in town, though he travels around a lot. He’s based in Canterbury, I’m told. To get past his armed men, you have to show this token. Usually, he keeps a low profile, but every so often someone winds up dead for nonpayment.”

“Then why hasn’t he been apprehended and hanged?” Victor had no patience for usurers.

Bernard shrugged. “He isn’t an easy man to get to. He magically disappears every time we try.”

“Hmm. Well today,I’mgoing to look for him.” One wasn’t supposed to hope for violence. If Victor had an opportunity to carry out some justice while working through his feelings about his latest Alais assignment, though, all the better. “You four, come with me. The rest of you deal with the body, then go back to your duties.”

Bernard and three others showed him to the brothel on Birdie Street where Matthew was rumored to operate.

Victor breathed a sigh of relief that it wasn’t the Bird in Hand. That would have been awkward. He stationed two of his men in front and sent two in the back. Then he took the dead man’s token inside the brothel.

It was a rather sad establishment—none of the light and fun of the Bird in Hand. A meager fire failed to take the chill out of the air. The stale scent of spilled ale mixed with the acrid, burnt scent of something being overcooked in a cauldron. Most of the women who circulated amongst the clientele looked underfed. The rough, worn, trestle tables were filled with grim-looking men, a mix of sailors, dock workers, and ruffians. Eight of the men stiffened slightly and quietly reached for their weapons when he entered. So he was outnumbered.Thank God.He had a lot of spleen to work through.

He went up to the bar and showed the token to a bartender who was missing all of his teeth. “I’m looking for Matthew. Do you know where I can find him?”

The bartender gestured toward a hallway into the back. Victor walked down the hall, hearing the eight men from the front room closing in behind him. There was a door to his left and another door out to the back at the end of the hall. He opened the one to his left and saw a small man in velvet disappearing down a trap door into the cellar over the shoulders of two enormous men who were shoulder to shoulder, blocking the door and trying to hide the small man from view.

“Fucking suitors,” Victor grumbled as he punched the two guards in the balls. He lunged for the trap door while they were doubled over. Prying the door open, he jumped down to the cellar floor, ignoring the ladder, and saw the small man frantically fiddling with the lock on a door at the other side of the cellar that must lead to another building’s cellar. Victor tore across the room and pinned him, then pulled a small knife from his sleeve and held it to the man’s throat.

“You’re Matthew?”

“Yes,” he said in a thin, wheezy voice. He was licking his lips, and his eyes were darting back and forth.

“I’m told that the murdered merchant I found in a warehouse just now might be a customer of yours.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Victor searched him quickly for weapons and threw two knives and a short sword into a mess of crates in the corner. Moments later, he heard one set of feet and then another land in the cellar. Victor couldn’t help smiling as he turned to face his opponents. Oh, they would regret crossing him today.

“You attack me, Matthew dies,” he yelled to make sure everyone heard. Two large men barreled into sight with swords drawn and stopped dead when they saw the knife at Matthew’s throat. “If you let me out of here with Matthew, I’ll forget your ugly faces, at least until the next time we meet. You don’t need to make this difficult for yourselves.” He really hoped they didn’t take him up on it, but he felt morally obligated to try.

“Who you callin’ ugly, ugly?” said a man with stringy black hair who was all neck and no chin. “There’s ten of us and one of you. Why should we do anything you say?” They began to close on him.

“Shit,” Victor said, realization dawning. “This isn’t Matthew, is it?”

Ugly’s friend, Ugly II, chuckled. “He’s quick.”

Victor jabbed his knife into Not-Matthew’s side. He was still hoping to interrogate the man when this was all over, so he made sure to incapacitate, not kill. Then for good measure, he knocked the man over the head, leaving him limp and unconscious. He had no such qualms about the Uglies. They were clearly hired muscle and wouldn’t know anything useful, and since they were trying to kill him, he had every excuse to defend himself. Vigorously. While imagining them as Alais’s suitors.

He drew his sword and carved his way through the two men in front of him, swiftly dispatching a third as he dropped down into the cellar. It was disappointingly easy. This particular Matthew really should hire better muscle.

Victor was about to jump up the ladder when Ugly IV leaped down on him. He ran his sword through the man’s gut, and the man collapsed, dead, on top of him. But the dead man was not small, and it took some maneuvering for Victor to roll him off. As he was wriggling free, an unpleasant smell nearly choked him. Fluids he didn’t want to identify leaked from the man’s gaping wound and smeared all down his front. “Ugh,” he groaned as he pulled his sword free, realizing he was now wearing the contents of the man’s lower intestine.

He climbed back out of the trap door and was forced to take off Ugly V’s left leg in the process. Uglies VI and VII came running at him with swords drawn. Ugly VI stopped short and wrinkled his nose. “Jesus, he stinks.”

“Oh, shut up,” Victor spat back, decapitating Ugly VII before stabbing Ugly VI through the neck, which spattered Victor’s face and hair with arterial blood. The remaining Uglies went running into the arms of his men outside. God, what a mess. And Ugly VI had been right. He stank of another man’s entrails.

Victor walked into the common room, covered in blood and guts. Hob and Ulf rushed in, swords raised.

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