Tales of the Greatcoats

2. Errera Bottio

2

ERRERA BOTTIO

Gavelle watched a moment from the doorway of the massive chamber, with its tall columns supporting a sagging roof, the once majestic plaster walls stripped of their former gilding, the marble ripped from the floors by a generation of thieves and vandals. Falcio val Mond sat on a chair missing one of its legs that creaked every time he leaned over the decaying wooden scholar’s desk, holding up a reading glass to the smudged and rippling pages of a book that looked as if a stiff breeze would reduce it to a thousand fragments of rotten paper.

Even from this distance – nearly forty feet away – Gavelle’s now-enhanced vision revealed to him every detail of Falcio val Mond’s face. The man looked not so much old as used up. A handsome face, Gavelle supposed, to some. He felt an odd stab of jealousy then, as he wondered whether Lucinda might fancy this former Greatcoat more than her assassin lover. A strange and petty thought, but one that would be removed from consideration momentarily.

Gavelle had considered introducing himself. There was no need for subterfuge, after all. The client’s instructions had been specific and direct: he must die by the sword, his life and dignity stripped from him one piece at a time using the very same tricks and tools that have kept him alive until now.

Lucinda had shown Gavelle the client’s note. The writing had been crisp and plain, and yet to Gavelle’s eye, there was a barely restrained hatred beneath those scrawled lines of ink, a cold and calculated fury. How much did you have to hate a man to put this much thought into his death?

Gavelle was about to speak when the chair’s three legs screeched along the floor as Falcio rose from his desk. Gavelle watched as the man tilted his head left and then right – a habit he was known for prior to a duel – and began buttoning up his coat.

‘You heard me coming? Gavelle asked.

Still facing away from him, Falcio val Mond shook his head.

‘You were silent as the grave.’

Gavelle brought the point of his smallsword up into guard. ‘You knew I was coming?’

Falcio turned and drew the twin rapiers scabbarded to the sides of his long leather coat. ‘Someone’s always coming. Had it not been you, it would’ve been someone else.’

So much weariness, Gavelle thought. You’d almost think he wants me to kill him.

Gavelle was conscious of the time passing. The formulation of the hard candy was a secret lost when the previous King’s apothecaries left Tristia, and the square Gavelle had swallowed, potent as it was, lasted mere minutes. Roughly fourteen, to be exact. Yet, as the two men walked casually across the floor towards one another – no rushing or tense postures for experts like them – he found a question coming to his lips.

‘The book,’ Gavelle asked, nodding to the rotted text on the desk by the broken remnants of the windows. ‘You came back to Rijou for that book?’

Falcio nodded.

‘May I ask what it is?’ Gavelle asked.

Falcio wetted his lips, probably realising it had been too long since he’d had something to drink or eat – another of his foibles the client had informed them about – and would now be fractionally slower in his lunge and parries.

‘You know Errera Bottio?’ Falcio asked.

‘”For You Are Sure To Die”? The old duelling manual?’

‘That’s the one. You’ve read it?’

Gavelle shrugged. ‘Once, years ago. I never found it all that insightful. Most of it is an examination of the seven types of duellists.’

‘Eight.’

Gavelle thought back to his reading of the book. ‘Are you sure? I would’ve sworn—‘

‘Almost every copy of the book details the tactics and strategies of seven categories of duellists,’ Falcio explained. ‘The Avertiere, Master of Feints. The Ludator, Master of the Ground Game. The Vinceret, Master of the—‘

Gavelle slid his smallsword into its scabbard only to unsheath it with what he felt was impressively blinding speed. ‘Master of the Quick Draw.’

Falcio gave a curt nod, his eyes not leaving Gavelle’s, acknowledging his opponent’s superior talent and technique. ’There were rumours that Bottio’s original text named an eighth category of duellist. The Delusor.’

Gavelle chewed on the archaic word a moment. ‘The “Illusionist”?’

’The translation is tricky. “Delusor” means Master of Deception, but the conjugation implies the past tense. The strategy of the Delusor is to connive to induce trifling wounds and injuries to his opponent days, sometimes weeks ahead of the fight. Thus when the duel begins . . .’

‘The battle has already been lost.’ Gavelle smiled – this, too, was a well-known tactic of the former First Cantor of the Greatcoats. He wiggled the point of his smallsword in the air reprovingly. ‘You seek to make me doubt myself. You want me to wonder if somehow this was all a set-up, that somewhere around this building your confederates lie in wait so they can rush out and kill me before my blade reaches your heart. But you’ve been outwitted this time, Falcio. My associate has had men watching the library day and night for over a week. You are all alone, I’m afraid.’

‘All alone,’ Falcio agreed. He gestured with his left-hand rapier to the emptiness around them. ’Tonight’s black deeds will transpire only between the two of us, Gavelle. You have my word as a Greatcoat on that.’

‘I don’t need your word,’ Gavelle replied, irritated at the man’s insinuation that he needed any such assurances. Bringing his point up into line, he began a slow, perambulating spiral inside the great reading room – one practiced a thousand times, designed specifically to work against Falcio’s habits and reflexes. Anticipation for the kill buzzed like fireflies in his veins. This! Right here! A moment for the ages! From this day forward, Gavelle Sanprier would become the most famous and sought-out assassin in the entire country.

So why did the tired, aging Greatcoat slowly matching his movements seem so unafraid – not so much as resigned as . . . bored?

‘Wait!’ Gavelle said, just as the two of them had come into measure with each other and their blades met in the centre. ‘How did you know my name?’