Free The Two of Swords: Part 11 by K. J. Parker

Four of Stars
    Frontizo to Axeo, greetings.
    You’ll never guess who I’ve just had the pleasure of entertaining. Your idiot brother showed up here. I’ve only just this minute managed to get rid of him. You’ll be relieved to hear that he’s safe and well, and Providence in its unfathomable wisdom seems to be taking special care of him. Well, make that one part Providence and three parts me. You never told me what a terrible card player he is. Special love to our special friends. Wrap up warm and don’t forget you owe me six angels thirty.
    Axeo shrugged, screwed up the scrap of parchment into a ball and went to throw it on the fire, only to find it had gone out. He sighed, stood up and grabbed two handfuls of kindling from the sack by the hearth, then felt in his pocket for his tinderbox. Then he scowled.
    “Musen,” he shouted. “Get in here.”
    A few moments later an impossibly tall, flat-faced young man pushed aside the sacking curtain. “What?”
    Axeo held out his hand. “Give it back. My tinderbox.”
    “I haven’t got it.”
    “Oh, come on.” Axeo gave him a grim smile. “I’ll say this for you, you’re getting better. The first time you stole it, I felt you. For crying out loud, son, it’s freezing in here.”
    “I haven’t got it.”
    Axeo nodded and turned away, immediately turned back. Musen saw him coming and took a long step to the rear but not quickly enough; Axeo was behind him, and trod down hard on the inside of his knee. Musen dropped to the ground. Axeo stooped and put his hand round his windpipe, bearable but firm pressure from thumb and forefinger. “Pockets,” he said.
    Musen turned out his pockets; then, unasked, took off his boots and shook them out. Axeo sighed. “You’ve sold it,” he said. “Marvellous. So now we both sit here and freeze.”
    “I can light a fire.”
    Axeo let go of him. “The point about tinderboxes is,” he said, “they make lighting a fire
easier
. That’s why it’d be nice if one or the other of us had got one.” He sat down again, while Musen squatted by the hearth and picked through the kindling. “Who’d you sell it to?”
    No answer. Musen broke a piece of dry bark off a log, gathered some withered moss from another.
    “Presumably that horrible old woman who hangs round the stables,” Axeo said. “I think I’ll have her arrested and strung up. Then I might get to keep some of my stuff.”
    “It wasn’t—” Musen checked himself. “She hasn’t done anything wrong.”
    “Ah.” Axeo nodded. “In that case it was that fat groom on the night shift. If he tries to
sell
it back to me, I’ll break his arm.” Musen was twirling a bit of stick. That’ll never work, Axeo thought, then saw a tiny feather of smoke. “That tinderbox happened to be a present from my brother.”
    “I thought you couldn’t stand him.”
    “I can’t.” Axeo closed his eyes and tried to get comfortable in his chair. Physically impossible. “How do you do that, exactly? Whenever I try, it doesn’t work.”
    “I don’t know,” Musen said. “I’ve always done it this way, and it always works for me.”
    He blew on the dry moss and it glowed red. He tipped it into the grate and started laying kindling over it, rafters-fashion. Axeo got up, unhooked the remains of a side of bacon from the wall, took out his folding knife and cut four thick, ragged slices, which he stuck on the tines of a home-made toasting fork, four strands of the heavy-grade fence wire twisted together. Musen tipped charcoal from the bucket on to the fire, crouched down on his hands and knees and blew on it until the first tentative flames appeared.
    “It’s dumb stealing things from people you live with,” Axeo said. “Doesn’t matter how well you cover your tracks, they know it’s you because they know stuff’s missing and you’re a thief. True, there’s not a shred of evidence, but who needs evidence when you
know
? Like the Craft, really, I can’t prove the