The Swordsman of Tanosa: A Short Tale of the Middle Sea by Duncan M. Hamilton Page A

name and an address. He put it down on his desk and leaned back into his leather chair with a sense of satisfaction that he knew was only going to grow in coming days. The letter heralded that a man was going to die; a man who had wronged Nozza. His name was Nicolo dal Sason, and his violent death was now a certainty. Nozza allowed himself enjoy the feeling for a few moments before returning to the day to day business of managing his little empire.
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    B afion walked into his apartment , almost passing by the note that had been pushed under the door without spotting it. He stopped and looked at it for a moment, but knew who it was from—there was only one person who sent him messages. He was surprised that his act of mercy had been discovered so quickly, but the man was stupid, indiscreet. Instead of lying low he was probably spending what little coin he had—coin that he owed—in a tavern trying to drown the pain in his shoulder and telling anyone who would listen of how he escaped death, of how Jacco Nozza and his henchmen weren’t as merciless as they might have you believe. Like as not, Bafion would have to pay him another visit the next morning. There would be no mercy then.
    Bafion felt a flutter of anxiety when it occurred to him that the note might be summoning him to his death, but it faded when he remembered that if it did, he didn’t care. The anxiety was a primal instinct for survival rising above self-loathing and despair for an instant. It passed quickly. His disobedience that day was hardly enough to warrant such severe punishment. For that release, he would have to do something far more recalcitrant.
    With little mystery attached to the note, he shut the door and made his way to the cupboard over his water basin. There was a piece of bread there that was a day or two beyond its best, but when coupled with a cup of warm water it wasn’t so bad.
    He sat on a chair and stared at the note as he ate. He wondered what his boss might want of him this time. Someone else cut, or simply frightened? Nozza liked to inject a touch of the theatrical into his dealings; fear was as effective a tool as violence, he always said. Dead men couldn’t pay their debts.
    Bafion’s jaw ached as he finished the tough bread. It would probably have been better left to the mice. He stood and picked up the note, not seeing any reason to put it off any longer. He broke the black wax seal—Nozza and his men always used black wax, clichéd and trite though it was—and opened the note. A place, a time; nothing more. As he expected. He crumpled it in one hand and threw it at the rubbish bin beside the water basin. He swore when it bounced off the wall and away in the wrong direction, a metaphor for his life.
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    N ozza had been looking forward to his last meeting all day. Bafion might be broken, disgraced, and drunk as often as not, but none of that had managed to dull his blade, or his skill with it. Irritating crises of conscience aside, he was useful. Indeed, Nozza felt genuinely lucky to have such a man at his disposal. All the more so when he came so cheap.
    Nozza had done a little research into Bafion when he had first come to his attention. Bafion had introduced himself simply as that, Bafion, and described himself as a banneret; seemingly the only thing about himself that he viewed as having worth. That he was a banneret could not be in doubt. Only a man who had been trained at Ostenheim’s great Academy could use a sword the way Bafion did. He also had the bearing and accent of an aristocrat, although the years in which Nozza had known him had worn some of that polish off.
    Nozza often wondered what brought a man like Bafion to the life he now had, living in a dingy apartment in a regional city, working for a fraction of what he was worth for an employer most men of his ilk would consider too far beneath them to even acknowledge. He had demonstrated skill that quite astonished Nozza, and on one occasion even managed to