by Rj Barker
“It’ll never learn otherwise.” His voice was sullen but his face full of challenge.
“Xus seems to learn well enough.” I pointed at Drusl, who was leading a calm Xus into his stall. “See?”
“Won’t last. Seen it before. Soon as you’re gone that beast’ll be back to its evil ways.” As he walked into the light I saw he was scarred about the face. At some point a mount had gored him, leaving a thick line of scar tissue across his cheek, jaw and forehead. My master always said a scarred stablehand should never be trusted alone with your mount, and I was inclined to agree with her. Leiss had an ugly cast to his eye that was nothing to do with his disfigurement. He looked at me like I was his enemy.
“You are to let Drusl care for Xus,” I told him. “I don’t want you to go near my mount.”
“Pleased to,” he said, and turned from me to walk into an empty stall where he started clattering around with shovels. Drusl gave me a nervous smile and shrugged her shoulders as if to say, “what can you do?” and went into Xus’s stall.
“I have some business in the stables, Girton,” said Heamus. “Can you make your own way back?”
“Of course,” I said.
Walking back to the keep alone gave me the first time to think since we had been given our task. I did not realise how much I had missed thinking time; generally I had plenty while I plodded along behind my master and Xus. Deep in thought I passed strangely dressed women with squalling babes and gaggles of children who stared out suspiciously from the spoked wheels of the Festival Lords’ caravans. The task given to us seemed impossible. How to find who had requested an assassin? I tried to turn my mind to it but instead thought of the warmth of a hand under mine as I introduced a pretty red-headed stablehand to Xus.
That warmth fled as I entered the courtyard in front of the keep. To one side of the door stood a small group of people. Nywulf the squiremaster was there, as was a priest of Heissal in his white porcelain mask and hooded orange robes. They were having a quiet, if clearly heated, conversation. With them stood, Tomas, Aydor, Kyril, Borniya and Hallin, but it was not the people that made me catch my breath, it was the war dogs Borniya held on leashes. They were the same beasts used throughout the Tired Lands, huge animals with short sleek fur that showed off their thick muscles. They barked in excitement at anyone who passed, exposing teeth that could rip a man apart. Without thinking I changed direction and walked the long way around the water clock so my path would not cross that of the dogs. Borniya stared at me, a look of puzzlement on his face, and then he glanced from me to the dogs and back to me again, and a cruel smile spread across his bent face. He nudged Aydor and whispered something to him, behind them Tomas looked on thoughtfully while Nywulf and the priest simply watched.
I cursed myself as a fool. Never show weakness. How many times had that been drummed into me? But to change direction again would make me look foolish. I had made a decision and I must live with it.
Chapter 6
“Why do I have to wear a kilt?”
It seemed a fair question to ask. Kilts are vile pieces of clothing, too warm where you would be cool and too cool where you would be warm. Not to mention how the ridiculous fashion of swathing the upper body in material restricts movement. Worse, the kilt showed the bruises on my arms and legs that my master had covered in white salve, so I looked like the victim of some strange skin disease.
“You wear a kilt because you are of the blessed and it is expected of you at the feast to welcome the Festival Lords.”
“I could be a rebellious blessed set upon starting a new fashion.”
“And what new fashion—” she pulled a comb through my long brown hair “—would that be?”
“Not a kilt. Ow!” She loosened a knot by pulling out a tangle of hair at the root.
“No beauty without pain, rebellious young Girton,” she said and ripped out another chunk of hair
“Ow!” I dropped back into the Whisper-that-Flies-to-the-Ear. “How will we do this, Master?”
“Do what?”
“Catch an assassin’s client, how can we do this? I have been tumbling it through my mind and cannot find my feet.”
“Do not worry about that; I have set in motion the capture of our assassin already. You go through your days, watch and note everything and tell me it all at the end of each day.”
“And what will you do, while I do that?”
“The same, for now.”
“And we share what we learn?”
She looked at the floor and shook her head. “I do not want to pollute what you see.” She smiled up at me. “I will formulate my own theories, and you yours.”
“But we will not share them?” I was suddenly angry. “I stayed here with you when—”
“Yes, you did—” her words were quiet but forceful “—and you are free to leave at any moment, but if we are going to do this together we must do this my way. Do you understand?” I bit my lip but did not reply. Instead I nodded. “Good. Now, this evening I will present the story Why Xus the Unseen No Longer Shows his Face.”
“But that’s—”
“Ill omened, I am aware. The Festival Lords are important so the entire court will be there, and afterwards Adran will be meeting with the Festival Lords. We will be there too.”
“We will?” My bad mood sloughed away. “I have only ever seen them from afar and always wondered what they are like to talk to, or if they are even human under their—”
“Don’t be ridiculous, of course they are human! Sadly for you we shall not see them, as we will be hiding while the queen talks to them.”
I leaned in close to whisper, “Does she suspect them?”
“She suspects everyone. But as we are talking of suspicions, did any of the squires seem suspicious?”
“They all seemed suspicious. But only of me.”
“Who are they?”
“They do not use family names. So, Aydor apart, I do not know who they are, and they are mostly a nondescript lot. There is one called Tomas, a leader. Some twins called Boros and Barin. Aydor has some cronies, boys named Kyril, Borniya and Hallin. There’s a boy named Rufra, who they bully and I do not like the look of—he slinks about like a thief. And they are split into two very distinct groups, which struck me as odd.”
“Sometimes I think I have kept you too sheltered.” She put a hand on my shoulder and stared into my eyes. “That is normal for boys your age, and men, to split into groups.”
“It is? They do not want friends?”
“They want the right friends, Girton.”
“I would take any at the moment.” She smiled at me and shook her head, then became very serious.
“Bad friends are worse than no friends, believe me. Do your best to join a group and I will quiz the servants about the squires. Before tomorrow we will have some information on them.” She took her hand from my shoulder. “Tell me of the others.”
“The squiremaster, he is a hard man, though a good one, I think. The armourer I met was a fool.” The feeling of discomfort fled and I brightened, realising I had forgotten to tell my master something important. “My blades, Master, you should see my blades. Reach behind you.”
She paused in straightening my hair and retrieved the swords.
“Rusty.” She placed the stabsword on the bed and ran her eyes over the long sword before picking it up and feeling its weight. “But very well balanced and … Oh. Conwy blades? And he just gave them to you?”
“I do not think he knew what they were. They are copies of course.”
“Are they?” Her eyes shone like she had discovered something magical. “These are a king’s weapons, if anyone sees …” She reached down to her pack and took out a roll of bandages. Binding the bottom of the blade was traditional for squires, to make sure they were not mistaken for Riders. It also covered the name on the blade.
“I also met an old man called Heamus, after I picked up the blades.”
“Heamus Galdin,” she said.
“You know him?”
“He was famous once.” She put down the bound longsword and began to bind the stabsword.
“He may have reason to want the king’s son dead.”
“Really?”
“Aye. When he and the king were young they fought over a girl. He is still angry. He says he is not—” I stared at the floor “—but he is.”
“You like him.” It was not a question.
“He was kind to me.”
“The Scourge, they called him as a Landsman. Maybe you would not like him so much if you had seen him locking village wise-women in blood gibbets or leading the sick, the mage-bent and the miserable to join the desolate’s journey to the sourlands, where he bled them into the dead ground.”
“I …”
“Secrets and false faces,” she said. “It is the same in all these places, Girton. I would tear them all down if I could.” She stood. “I must change my motley now, and you must make your way to the banquet room. I will meet you there.”
She left while I finished hanging my kilt. It took me another half-hour because a kilt is a truly stupid garment and I question the sanity of any man who would wear one voluntarily.
The castle was busy and the kilt’s shoulder pieces kept sliding off as I walked. Although almost everyone of status was wearing similar clothing—a parade of rainbow colours—I felt more conspicuous than ever. The bright blue material shouted, “look at me!” For someone who had spent their life in drab browns hiding in the shadows it was an uncomfortable feeling. Walking the corridors, sandals padding on thick carpet, I felt as if all eyes were on me. Slaves dressed in little more than liveried sacks, and unaware I should really be one of them, stepped to one side and stared at the floor nervously as I passed. More than once I caught a flicker as I was looked up and down when they thought I was not looking. Servants were a different matter, and each one that I passed politely moved aside for someone they saw as their social better, but I could feel their judgment. Whether it was because I was new and they recognised me as an outsider or simply because I wore my kilt badly I’m not sure, but their gaze made the back of my head itch and sweat. Any of them, if not all, could have been reporting on me.
I passed more and more of the blessed in their ragged finery, kilts mostly. They were gathered in little groups having whispered conversations and slinging filthy looks at each other. As I walked by they would cease their muttering and stare openly at me as if I was some sort of curiosity brought in to entertain them. More of the blessed started to fill the corridors, streaming up through the castle and I let myself become part of them. A twig drifting along on powerful currents. I was drawn up stairs and down corridors and felt more comfortable as I became lost in the mass of people. I was about to climb a staircase when a man I had never seen before grabbed my arm. My instinct was to hurt him but I held myself in check.
“Aydor or Tomas?” he whispered urgently. The man had ears of corn plaited into his hair and his nose and cheeks were red from too much alcohol.
“Sorry?”
“You’re new here. Who do your family support? Ap Mennix or ap Dhyrrin?” there was something almost desperate about the way he spoke.
“I …”
He shook his head and looked me up and down. “Another stupid country boy,” he hissed. “You people have no idea what matters. You should make your mind up quickly if you value your life.” He let go of my arm in disgust and melted back into the mass of people, leaving me shocked and confused.
We passed through huge open double doors. An arch had been woven from twigs and boughs cut from the fruit trees which grew around the castle—an enormous expense. If cutting the trees back so severely killed them there was no guarantee new ones would grow: the Tired Lands were sick. Even outside the sourlands the land was sick, but tonight I and all these people would feast and pretend that everything was plentiful. Outside the walls of Maniyadoc, Xus the unseen stalked while starvation did its slow work.
A servant with the same stumpy body and blocky features stamped on so many in the castle led me to a place of honour on a bench at the first row of tables. On the raised stage the scaffold I had been hoisted on was gone, replaced by a long trestle table covered with white cloth. Behind it were two thrones, and several high-backed seats had been set out on either side of them. Straw hobby dolls, bright with warding rags, had been strung across the stage to keep hedgings away from the feast. Behind me were more tables and benches, which would be filled by people of lesser and lesser importance as they neared the back of the hall. Adran had clearly decided to put on a show of riches for the Festival Lords as slowly dying branches had been tied to all the columns to hide the excised faces of dead gods. I ran my hand across the bottom of the ancient wooden table before me and found I sat at an old assassin’s contact point, where I could read a history in scratch writing. To any other it would have felt like simple scoring and weathering of the wood, but to me it was a tale of decline. The older marks, now mostly rubbed away, were thick on the wood but unreadable. As they became newer they became clearer, and I could read them—this one begging for the death of a blessed who treated his slaves badly, that one asking for the death of a guard or King’s Rider—but the newer the marks the fewer had replies saying the job had been done, and as more time passed fewer and fewer names were scratched in the wood. I took my hand away, placing it on top of the table, and sat there feeling out of place as the room filled with kilted men and women and the air grew thick with the scent of people.
A cloaked figure sat beside me, and I wondered if I would get another quizzing about taking sides. “This seat is taken,” I snapped.
“By me, Girton,” said my master. She wore a thick cloak, cowled like a priest, the better to keep her motley and made-up face secret. “Let me tell you about your squires while we wait for the top table to grace us with their presence. You are right about them being split into two groups. There is little love lost between them.”
“You said that was normal.”
“Normal enough, but blood has been spilled more than once. The squiremaster, Nywulf, is new. The old squiremaster had an accident.”
“Fatal?”
“No, but he will not be back for a good while. Servants’ rumour puts the blame on Kyril, Borniya and Hallin. They are rough and not well liked. Kyril appears to lead that little group, but it is Borniya and Hallin who the servants really fear. The current squiremaster should be careful.”
“I think he can handle boys; Nywulf has the look and movements of an exceptional warrior. I thought it strange such a man was training squires. Could he be the assassin?”
My master tapped a finger on the wood of the table.
“I doubt it, but remember it is who hired the assassin that matters so keep your eye on that blade. Now, the squires, as you have seen, fall into two camps: Aydor’s lot and Tomas’s. Aydor’s group is bigger.”
“Only by a couple.”
“No, there are more. Two are out visiting the waycastles and one is laid up hurt. Tomas’s group are the least interesting to us at first glance. They are all the sons of the blessed but not of any of the true lines.”
“So if they cannot inherit the throne they are unlikely to be our quarry.”
“Not exactly. They are all loyal to Tomas, and Tomas is an ap Dhyrrin.”
“And?”
“Clearly I have neglected your history as well as your social skills, pupil. The ap Dhyrrin ruled Maniyadoc before the ap Mennix and some would say they have a better claim. Tomas is the last of his line. His mother, Aytir Mennix, was sister to the king, and his father was Dolan ap Dhyrrin, eldest and only son of the house. They both fell victim to accidents.”
“Our type of accident?”
“Most likely,” she said. “Tomas survives as he has the protection of his great-grandfather, Daana ap Dhyrrin, who we shall see soon enough when he comes to the top table. He is an old friend of the king and acts as his chief adviser.”
“So Tomas has
reason to want Aydor dead.”
“Yes, but so do his friends. If Tomas becomes king they will do well from it.”
“But they are just boys …”
“As are you, Girton, and you are more than capable of planning a death. Aye?” I nodded and stared at the table, deep in thought. “Now, Aydor’s group are at the same time more and less interesting. They are all of old families, but to inherit they would need to kill both Aydor, Tomas and whoever else in their little group stood before them in line.”
“Were this a normal day we could become rich.”
The flash of a grin beneath her cowl, the merest hint of a laugh.
“If Aydor falls there will be ample opportunity for us to catch our coin, Girton, if we can escape alive.”
“There will be blood whatever; the heir and his boys enjoy cruelty.”
“Such is the way of the blessed.” I could not see my master’s face but I could hear the distaste in her voice. “It is unlikely that one of Aydor’s group would kill him. They all stand to do well when he comes into his inheritance. Most of them anyway.”
“Men are ever greedy though.”
“True, so you must watch them all, just in case. Try and insinuate yourself into one of the groups.”
“That had not occurred to me, jester,” I said, and then yelped as my master gave me a playful kick under the table. “I will try for Tomas’s group. I am sure Aydor would not have me. He would rather I was in a cell, and Tomas’s group seem to be more about martial skills. Maybe I can impress them with my bow work. I—”
“Quiet now and pay attention. The high table comes.” She nodded at the stage.
First came the Festival Lords. There were four of them, each clad from head to foot in blankets covered in bright geometric designs. Meshes made of straw covered their faces, and ears of wheat stuck out from either side of their conical hats. They kept their arms within their blankets, turning them into strange pyramidal beings, like fertility gods long cut from folk memory. They sat in pairs on either side of the thrones, and their triangular shapes made the top table look oddly architectural. They had no serving places set out, the Festival Lords were governed by an arcane set of rules which dictated their behaviour and they would not eat with us until Festival was set up.
