The Knave of Secrets Read online

  First published 2022 by Solaris

  an imprint of Rebellion Publishing Ltd,

  Riverside House, Osney Mead,

  Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK

  www.solarisbooks.com

  ISBN: 978-1-78618-608-9

  Copyright © Alex Livingston 2022

  The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owners.

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  eBook production

  by Oxford eBooks Ltd.

  www.oxford-ebooks.com

  For Sue and Ann,

  who never let me win

  (to my knowledge).

  Of all of the varied games of chance played by the people of Valtiffe—be they descendants of the savage race that scratched a living from the black beaches of an unforgiving steel sea, or those citizens of our Cadois blood whose forefathers brought much-needed sophistication to those shores—the one diversion in which this author can find no qualities to recommend it to serious players is the game of bluffs and wagers known as clips.

  A corruption of our native game littre, clips would be suitable only for children were it not for the large sums of money which often accompany it. Coin encourages a seemly excitement of the blood, surely; but skill is the saucer which cools the tea in games of chance, and in clips that virtue is all but completely absent.

  A word of caution: it is easy to think oneself skilled at clips after a night or two of accidental winnings. It is at this point that one becomes susceptible to the devices of cardsharps and cheats.

  “A Brief Chapter on Clips, or ‘Fool’s Littre,’”

  The Gente’s Manual of Card and Dice Entertainments,

  M. Jerôme de Tabanne, 3rd edition.

  I

  VALEN

  Never stake more than you can afford to lose. One of the cardinal rules of gambling, and one which Valen Quinol was utterly breaking in a casual game at a highwayside inn.

  This was the sort of place that people stopped at to get out of an unforeseen rainstorm: a converted stone stable with a useless fireplace, oilpaper windows which threatened to light on fire every time a candle came near, and a rickety stack of cots which served mainly as a breeding ground for the type of biting insects usually associated with livestock. This was a little extra cash for some mangy shepherd, not a place to lose your fortune.

  Yet the stakes had risen remarkably quickly. Now Valen had to play his way out of it.

  One of Valen’s opponents flicked his fan of cards with a fingernail, each tap accompanied by a jingle of silver from his coat buttons. This gentleman was the source of the unusually large piles of coins in the center of the table—not a very good player, but he had pockets deep enough to push the rest of the table around.

  A few hours prior, this man had burst into the inn, spectacles fogged and color high in his cheeks, demanding a dry place by the fire for his rifle. Out for a day’s hunting, apparently, and the success he hadn’t found in chasing gray foxes across the landscape he planned on finding at the clips table. He seemed indifferent to the persistent barks and howls of the dogs he had left outside in the rain.

  A cold vanity. That was the hunter’s weakness. One which Valen had spent the night exploiting.

  “While we’re young…” the hunter chided, looking pointedly over the tops of his glasses at the player to his left, a quiet woman of thirty or so with skin a sickly white tinged with blue. It was plain she was trying to hide her foreign appearance with a high-collared riding coat and a tricorn. Drops of rainwater would occasionally fall from the point of her hat, much to Valen’s annoyance. The deck was his, after all. He would prefer the cards not be soiled.

  The woman played her turn without acknowledging the hunter’s remark, placing her seven of coins face up beside Valen’s six on the weathered shard of barn door that served as the table in this establishment.

  “Oh, to every hell.” Valen tossed his knave of keys on the discard, useless. He grimaced at the man to his right, a slim-shouldered fellow in his late twenties who looked as if he had just walked in from the fields. He wore no wig on his stubble-shorn head, and did not even wear a neckcloth. “And you, monsieur? I don’t suppose you have the eight?”

  The man frowned around the whalebone toothpick he had been chewing at through the entire game. “Not me. You three figure it out.” He rose without another word, prompting the other players to stand and bow, then walked out into the pounding rain without so much as a jacket.

  A jingle of silver as the hunter sat again and played a well-timed six. “Leaving mid-hand. No way for a gentilhomme to behave.”

  The woman in the tricorn laid down the five of coins silently. A perfect play, and the win of the hand.

  Valen clapped his hands and smiled at her. “Wonderful play, mademoiselle! Just wonderful. And now I fear I must be heading off as well. Not a kron left to play with and I’ve no patience for just watching.”

  The hunter nodded politely, but his eyes were on the cards. “Thank you for the diversion, monsieur. Now we will see if I can win some of my inheritance back from this charming lady. You don’t mind leaving the deck, do you? I neglected to bring one, and I can’t imagine this place has anything so refined.”

  “Of course,” he replied. “It is a small matter, after all. Perhaps you can leave it here when you’re done. Donate it for the hospitality of future wayfarers. The gods know there is naught else to do in this hovel.”

  It was not, in fact, a small matter. The deck in play was one of Valen’s marked decks, specially pressed at the sort of expense it takes to convince a printer that destroying his reputation might not be so bad of a risk. Letting it out of his sight and into the scrutiny of the public at large would require a solution. But he would have to deal with that later.

  An abrupt stop in the sheeting of rain against the thatched roof interrupted the pleasantries. The woman looked to the hunter and smiled winningly. “I’m afraid I shall have to take advantage of this momentary break in the weather to continue my ride,” she said. Her Mistigri accent was light but unmistakable, a trait which would set her apart anywhere in the world. “I do hope to meet you around the clips table another time. Such a fine player!”

  She looked at the towers of currency on the table and gasped as if she had forgotten about them. “Oh, and the pot! What do you say, shall we split it?”

  Valen looked to the hunter and waited. No gente would allow himself to do such a thing. But silver buttons don’t give a man a title.

  “Nonsense,” the hunter sputtered. The color had risen in his checks again and something about his neckcloth was troubling him immensely. “The winnings are yours.”

  The woman raised her hands in protest. “But I am leaving the table before the game has ended! That is no fair play at all. As you say—no way to behave. At the very least let us cut for it. I shall take my half, of course, and we shall cut for yours. Lowest card wins?”

  Again, a perfect play from this pale woman. Her proposal was the only solution which would allow both players to maintain dignity. Only winnings gained by chance or skill were to be allowed at any game involving decent people.

  She took a packet from the top of the deck and held it up for all to see—the ten of hands.

  “Ah.” She frowned. “Well, that is likely that, then, is it not?”

  The hunter hid a smirk as he made his cut. He held the packet face down and moved his arm across the table dramatically. This little flourish gave Valen plenty of time to make his move.

  He lowered his eyelids and carved the outlines of the shapes on the empress of hands into his conscious mind. He mouthed a word in three languages without speaking it.

  The hunter rotated his wrist and revealed the king of lamps. Valen’s spell hadn’t worked. His accidental magic—the magic of chance—never seemed to work when money was on the line.

  In the end, it hadn’t needed to. His associate Marguerite, the most talented card-marker and dice-loader he had ever met—and who, as luck would have it, happened to be his wife—had trimmed the edges of all of the cards in the deck but the honours, which all but guaranteed that the fingers of anyone making a cut would naturally pull a knave or higher. Valen had argued against the modification at the time, seeing it as redundant with a custom-printed dishonest deck, but was now rather glad she had persisted.

  “That’s just fine, isn’t it?” the hunter grumbled. “Just fine.”

  The woman hesitated for a moment, then began to gather the jingling coins into a small felt purse. The hunter watched with his arms at his sides. Valen kept a close eye on him. He had seen more than his share of losers catch fire over a bad night.

  Before long, the purse was too full to close and there was still nearly half the pot left on the table. The hunter barked a laugh. “I suppose you want my purse now, too. Well, that I shall keep. It cost more than twice this pittance. True leather from the continent, sewn with wire finer than you’ve ever seen.”

  “Come now, monsieur,” Valen scolded.
“There’s no need to be sore. You must admit, she is a fine player.”

  “Aye, fine. Fine enough to win three men’s money and walk with it. Remarkable fine luck, I’d say.”

  If the woman was offended by the veiled allegation of sharp play, she showed no sign of it. She simply thanked the men for the game and walked out. A moment later the clomping of horse hooves against muddy stone passed the inn.

  Valen stared down the hunter until the sound had faded. He was no fighter, but he was sure he could keep things from getting troublesome by putting up a good front.

  “Good night, then,” Valen said. He picked up his deck of dishonest cards, slid them into a pocket, and turned to the door.

  “That blueskin took everything you had on you,” the hunter said. “Every kron. The entire payment for your meager crop, you said. Doesn’t seem to bother you.”

  Valen stopped with the door half open and spoke over his shoulder. “My own fault, not hers. If I didn’t want to lose it, I shouldn’t have played it. You can never tell who you’re going to meet out here on the road.”

  With this, he gave the man a knowing wink and stepped out into the rapidly cooling night.

  Valen hadn’t ridden, and now faced an hours-long walk back into Saut-Leronne. Perhaps some kind person marching a cart through the flat pasture lands would let him jump in back. If he was lucky. The hunter’s ignored dogs had growled at him as he passed, jealous of his dry clothes.

  The road had held up well in the downpour. Water filled the deeper wagon ruts, but for the most part the bare earth took Valen’s weight. The fields of low grass that flanked the road drank deeply of the rain, and in turn fed the livestock which made up much of the economy of Valtiffe. More rain meant fatter sheep, which meant better-fed shepherds, better-dressed merchants, and drunker financiers for him to gamble with. He, like most of the people of this island nation, loved the rain.

  The first shot hummed past Valen before he had gone an eighth of a mile. He spun to see the silhouette of the hunter against the glow of the torch light, the man’s spectacles making grim red disks of his eyes. He was reloading.

  When Valen had heard that the Baron de Niver’s dissolute son was going to be hunting on his own the night after the Sjogur Festival, Valen had figured the little peacock would stop at the farm inn for refreshment, especially in the case of rain. He had not figured, though, that the bastard would take it upon himself to start shooting at people when he lost. While it was certainly not unheard of—or truly even frowned upon, by the people of Valtiffe—Valen simply hadn’t expected the man to have it in him. He was a gente, after all, of noble family and fine upbringing and all that. Surely his fine old tutors had taught him not to murder a man over a game of cards.

  Not the first time he’d misread a player, but if he didn’t come up with something quick it might very well be his last. Pivoting right, he jumped a low stile and ran into the darkness of the uneven field. Craggy hills dotted with sheep rose in front of him a short way off; if he could make those hills, he might find something to hide behind between shots.

  The rain started again, and Valen laughed through painful breaths. Surely the de Niver heir wasn’t good enough to hit him at this distance in the storming dark.

  At least that seemed likely until pain exploded in his shoulder. The impact threw him off balance for a second, but he regained his stride with some help of a conveniently placed boulder. No organs in the shoulder. He would deal with the bleeding after he was sure he wouldn’t be getting a matching wound in his skull.

  Someone tackled him from the side as he ran, utterly knocking what little wind was left in his lungs out into the worsening weather. The two of them landed against the rocky ground in a painful pile, and his assailant shoved his face into the mud.

  “Did you say something smart?” It was the poorly-dressed farm boy, one of Valen’s co-conspirator Jacquemin’s favorite roles. “Again? You just can’t help it, can you?”

  “It would appear I cannot,” Valen mumbled, his nose jammed in grass-covered loam.

  “Aye. Next time we run a simple con and you feel like boasting to an armed drunk, you best remember having your face… hells, did he hit you?”

  Valen felt Jacquemin’s fingers probing the bloody patch on his coat. “Unless one of these sheep is a sharpshooter, yes, I’d say the stuck-up noble with nothing better to do with his time than practice shooting at helpless things running away from him has put a bullet in me. He should be happy; I’m his first success of the day.”

  Jacquemin removed Valen’s neckcloth and pressed it firmly against the wound. Valen was proud of himself for not yelping too loudly.

  “We’re not outrunning this maniac with you wounded,” Jacquemin said. “So we stay here until he gets bored.”

  “Or finds us.”

  “Well, if he spots two fellows lying prone in a pasture under these clouds, he’s got better eyes than anyone I’ve ever sailed with.”

  Something small shrieked over his head. Valen stole a look back at de Niver, whose spectacles still danced with firelight.

  “Hardly sporting,” he wheezed. “Can’t you strike him with lightning or something?”

  “You can count yourself lucky I got that storm going at all. Y’know how hard it is to get the rain to start and to then convince it to stop again later on?”

  “Well, you know what they say about the weather around here; if you don’t like it, wait…”

  He left the remainder of the old saw unsaid as the whine of another bullet very rudely interrupted him.

  Jacquemin poked his head up for a look. “He’s reloading every twenty-seven seconds on the mark, and that while walking in the dark at night over slick rocks. He’s good.”

  “I’d like to defer any awe at the man’s prowess with firearms until after we’re done being on its business end. For now, I recommend we move. Next time he fires, we bolt up, run, then drop at the twenty-sixth second. Indeed, let us say the twenty-fifth, for safety’s sake.”

  “Beats the lightning idea. Hells, we can hide behind some sheep. Bastard can’t have that many bullets left on him after blowing them all day.”

  They waited the twenty-seven seconds, but no bullet came. Valen raised an eyebrow, but Jacquemin just shrugged. Thirty seconds. More.

  A new sound spattered across the sodden field. Hoof beats.

  Teneriève was on them in moments, her tricorn off and her purse bouncing with the weight of de Niver’s money. She led another horse behind her by the reins.

  “Jaq, with me,” she ordered. “You’re smaller.”

  Jacquemin pointed at Valen’s shoulder. “He’s wounded,”

  “Badly?”

  “No. A graze, but it’s a deep one.”

  Teneriève looked at Valen for a heartbeat, then over her shoulder at the other horse. “Can you handle this one on your own, Valen?”

  “I fear that depends on whether or not I’m being shot at.”

  “We no longer have need to worry about de Niver’s rifle. His dogs, though….”

  Valen mounted the young gente’s horse without further interrogation, and did his best not to faint from the pain in his back as he and his fellow cheats raced back to the road and toward the city with a horde of poorly-treated hunting dogs in tow.

  Card-table talk of sizable sums lost to innocent-eyed Mistigri youths can be heard at any club of quality. These pallid transients shamble into honest towns accompanied by the sounds of their rough music and rougher dialect, and leave jingling with the hard-earned wages of their prey.

  Lord d’Alhambere, with whom I have had the pleasure of partnering in many a night of fine play, tells a story of a time when he thought to find a night’s entertainment by teaching a dull-witted Mistigri horseman to play two-hand beaufils. It could only improve the vagrant’s mind, and perhaps allow him access to a finer set—were he to dress the part. My friend soon found himself beaten quite handily, despite the Mistigri’s mumbling and head-scratching. An unlettered migrant had beaten a gente whose name appears on the tournament rolls of the best clubs of Soucisse!

  Being a gente, d’Alhambere did not quarrel with the brute who had so clearly snowed him, but reached for his purse to pay what he owed. As any astute reader by now has guessed, his purse had been cut; only cord and a rag of cloth remained. The horseman howled for his due until another patron paid the debt.