Age of Assassins

by Rj Barker

  “Really? Well, I suspect she hopes for a little more.” I tried to hide my blushing face but my heart leaped.

  “What would she see in me?” I couldn’t look at him. I was afraid he would see how desperate I was to hear something good.

  “Hmm,” he said, “what would penniless stable girl Drusl see in Girton, a blessed?” He realised his arrow had hit closer and harder than he had meant and quickly added, “A jest, Girton, that is all. Drusl is very pretty and if it was only privilege she wanted she would have accepted one of the other squires when he tilted his lance at her.”

  “But she hasn’t?”

  “No.” Then he whispered conspiratorially, “If you can imagine it, Girton, I suspect she would even turn me down.” He put his arm on my shoulder. He was slightly taller than me and I felt a little uncomfortable. “She could have her pick of the castle and yet she has chosen to be alone. We had all thought her and Leiss were together. You are lucky, and as the youngest son you may even get to marry for love rather than duty.”

  “Yes,” I said, but my happiness fled. I would not get to marry at all. What was I doing? As soon as my master and I were finished here we would be gone and I would never see Drusl again. “Show me your mounts, Rufra,” I said glumly.

  “I will,” he said, and either he was so excited by his animals, Balance, a huge white mount with eight-point antlers, and Imbalance, a slightly smaller black mount with one antler shorter than the other, or he was too polite to comment on the dampening of the fire which had burned in me only a moment before. We spent well over an hour in the stables. Talking of mounts and the other squires, laughing together and finding more common ground than I had ever imagined could exist between an assassin and a blessed. Every so often he would steer the conversation back to Drusl and I would steer it away to more comfortable ground.

  “How did you meet her?” asked Rufra again, and before I could find a new a way of politely avoiding talking about Drusl the waterclock chimed one.

  “One already? I said. “I must run, Rufra. I am meant to meet General ap Mennix and Daana ap Dhyrrin so they can try and work out what use I can be to their courtly intrigues.”

  “Then you should run as fast as you can, Girton.” He smiled. “Bryan ap Mennix has been known to lecture on lateness for over an hour.”

  I left Rufra and ran up to the castle, noticing two new corpses hanging from the battlements. I was forced to detour by a guard who told me the main hall was off limits to “filthy squires and cripples.” He pointed at the back corridors and, not having time to argue, I followed his instructions. Three squires in the ap Mennix livery of yellow and purple, a writhing snake embroidered in a diagonal across the torso, blocked my way. Kyril headed them. Like the heir he was a big boy with little skill in anything but bullying others. Behind him stood Borniya. Close up he was even bigger than Kyril. Behind them stood Hallin. Though he wasn’t as big as Borniya or Kyril Rufra had told me to watch him most closely. He was the mind behind some of the trio’s more vicious acts. The guard must have been placed to funnel me to here, where Kyril and and his friends were waiting.

  “Girton ap Gwynr,” said Kyril.

  “Kyril.” I gave him a short bow of respect and tried to go around him. He blocked my way.

  “This is the cripple who thinks he can be a Rider, Borniya,” he said.

  “I’ve no wish to be a Rider; I was forced to—”

  “I’ve heard your father breeds mounts.” He pushed my shoulder.

  “That must be why you smell like a thankful born in a stable,” said Hallin. The others laughed and I tried to join in.

  “Aye, I’ve been seeing to my animal. Now I have a meeting so I must wash.”

  “I heard you didn’t like animals much, dogs anyway,” said Borniya. He grinned at me, the old wound on his face twisted his words and his mouth into strange shapes.

  “Been hobbling down to see that stable girl you like?” said Kyril. I bit down on my tongue before I answered.

  “I really must get on, Kyril,” I said and tried once more to pass. Again he stepped in front of me.

  “We’ve all had her, you know. Me, Aydor, Borniya, Hallin, everyone. She loves it, bit of a tussle with a blessed boy. I didn’t know she had a thing for cripples though.” He was baiting me and I knew it, but anger, like a heavy black liquid, rose within me at the mention of Drusl. “Or maybe she thinks cripples are disgusting and pathetic, just like we do, but she needs to do you to complete the set. So she can say she’s bedded all the squires. She’ll probably throw up afterwards.” I bunched my fists, digging my nails into the palms of my hands.

  “She’s even had that filthy upstart little friend of yours,” said Hallin. “I heard she likes it Ruf-ra.” He and his friends laughed again. I concentrated on breathing—out, in—and trying to still the swelling fury within me before it spilled over and something happened I would regret. I did not know what it would be, but I knew Kyril and his friends would not survive. The more he spoke the more it felt fated to happen.

  At the moment I was about to act I was distracted by a movement at the far end of the corridor.

  The priest of Xus, a shadowed black robe, a flash of white mask, appeared, and a trick of perspective made it seem as if he stood on Kyril’s shoulder. I stared as the priest tilted his head until it was almost entirely on its side.

  Kyril hit me.

  It was more of a shove really, a hard, open-palmed, shove in the centre of my chest that sent me sprawling. I was so surprised I didn’t react and only stared up at the bigger boy as he towered above me. “I said, cripples should look at their betters when they speak to them,” he shouted.

  But the distraction caused by the priest of Xus had been enough to poor some oil on the waves of darkness within me. Kyril’s violence had also brought me back to my senses. I was trained for violence and I found violence far easier to cope with than cruel words. Violence sharpened my mind and my reactions and steeled me for pain. I am the instrument. This boy was determined to hurt me, and either I would have to let him or I would have to kill him and his two friends, then somehow hide all the bodies if I wanted to keep my cover.

  I stared up at Kyril.

  “You are right,” I said. “Cripples should look at their betters when they talk to them.” I let out a long breath and then made an ostentatious show of staring at the wall. “I will make sure I always do that in future.”

  “Oh,” said Kyril, the muscles of his arms bunching as he stepped forward, “you’re a mouthy little mage-bent yellower. We’re going to enjoy this.”

  “Kyril!” The voice was parade-ground loud and used to being obeyed. “What are you doing?”

  I looked up to see Heamus striding down the corridor.

  “Just a game, Heamus,” said Kyril meekly.

  “Girton,” said Heamus, “was it just a game?”

  “Yes, Heamus,” I said.

  “Well—” he glanced from boy to boy “—I am sure you all have duties to attend to and do not have time for any more games. Girton, I am come to take you to meet the general, and you need to wash. I can smell you from here. The rest of you, go find something useful to do before I bring Nywulf’s wrath down on you, and stay away from the stables.” Heamus and I watched as Kyril and his two friends walked down the corridor with the stiff walk of boys who knew they had been caught misbehaving. Heamus helped me up. “Did he hurt you?” asked the old Landsman.

  “No, Heamus.”

  “They are not bad lads, only a little boisterous. Perhaps they are a little too fond of throwing their weight around,” he said. “You should fight one of them. There is nothing more likely to seal a friendship among boys than a bit of a fight.”

  “I will think on it, Heamus,” I said.

  “Good, good.” He took a sniff of air and looked puzzled. I wondered whether he had reached the age where his wits were leaving him. “Now, go wash yourself and put on a tabard. It does not do to be late to meet Bryan ap Mennix.”

  Ch
apter 11

  I followed Heamus up the freezing servants’ stairs wishing I’d worn more than a thin jerkin, skirts and a tabard. When I left the stairs and entered the blessed floors, where fires roared and carpets absorbed my steps, I moved from one world to another.

  “What do you know about General Bryan, Girton?” said Heamus.

  “He is the king’s chief military adviser—” Heamus nodded “—his cousin and commander of his armies.”

  “Good. Remember those things when you meet him.” He ruffled my hair like a friendly uncle. “Truthfully though,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper, “Bryan is a fool but Doran needed his side of the family’s money and loyalty so do not take anything Bryan says too seriously. I also hope you brought a couple of small twigs.”

  “Twigs?” I replied, puzzled.

  “Aye.” He grinned and used his fingers to widen his eyes. “To keep your eyelids open. If Bryan ap Mennix ever won a victory it was by boring his enemies to death.” He laughed, a wheezing laugh full of mischief. It was difficult to imagine him strapping someone into a blood gibbet or leading the desolate into the sourlands to bleed their lives away for a few paces more of fertile land. “Well,” he added, “you’d best be on your way. Soonest done, soonest over.” I wondered how often those words had been followed by the bite of a blade into a neck.

  “Yes.” I started to walk away.

  “Oh, Girton.” The way he called my name was almost too casual. It was often the way when people had an important question to ask but did not want you to know it was important to them. They would bring it up last, as if it was only an afterthought.

  “Yes, Heamus?”

  “You have become friends with Drusl?”

  “Yes.” I almost stuttered over the word and felt the warmth of blood rising to my cheeks.

  “Good, good,” he said. “Be kind to her, Girton. She is one of mine.”

  “Yours?” My smile started to fall away. Did this old man have some sort of harem?

  He laughed again, but this time the humour was forced and the twinkle in his eyes was missing. “Not in that way, boy. Every twicemonth I do the rounds of the waycastles that guard our roads. And well … you know how it is out there. Life is hard and there are many orphans. Those I can take off the roads and find work for in the castle, I do.” A hedging’s touch crossed his face, a shadow of pain. “To redress the balance, see.”

  “I will be kind to her,” I said. I meant it with every part of me.

  “Good, good. Well—” he ushered me away with a hand “—don’t be late. I’ll make sure that Kyril and his friends are kept busy for the rest of the afternoon.”

  Regretfully, Heamus was right. Bryan ap Mennix was dull. His quarters were more like a meeting room for troops or a museum than a place someone lived in. I entered to find him standing at parade rest with his back to me while he stared out the window at the keepyard wall. He made me wait three hundred my-masters before he turned. When he did he had the florid face and walnut nose of a drunk. Dead gods, the man loved the sound of his own voice. He lectured me interminably. First, and at great length and in unneeded detail, he lectured me on the responsibilities of my wholly imaginary father. Then he lectured me on being late and the importance of good timekeeping in young men. Next he lectured me on military tactics—about which he knew very little. And finally he lectured me on etiquette—about which he knew very much.

  If he was only acting the part of a know-nothing blowhard then he was the best actor I had ever met.

  Daana ap Dhyrrin, Tomas’ grandfather and my next meeting, was another beast entirely. The king’s adviser was so old his body had started to betray him and he burned scented logs in his fire, to try and cover the smell of sickness and age which clung to the soft furnishings filling his room. He sat in a chair, sumptuously stuffed and covered in thick red fabric that looked like flesh, and stared into the fire. When he stood to welcome me I saw some disease of the bones had bent his back so he had to fight to look forward rather than at the floor.

  In a corner of the room stood his golden cloak with the fire-lizard cages built in and the accompanying conical hat. It was constructed around a clever framework which ran on wheels and had a bar inside for him to lean on—or maybe he used it to straighten himself, as I was sure he had been taller at the feast. I imagine that the pain of forcing his spine straight must be excruciating and made a mental note that, although his body may be frail, it held a mind that must be as determined and strong as any in the castle. Maybe more so.

  “Admiring my cloak of office, eh?” He stood, then coughed, which bent him double. “Throw more logs on the fire for me, Girton ap Gwynr. The lizards like the heat.” The animals squawked when he gestured to them. “And I. Yes, my dears, I like the heat too.” His face had been fleshy once and now skin hung from his bones and wobbled when he moved, looking like the wattles on a fighting lizard. I wondered if he had the disease that ate away a body from inside. If so he hid the pain well. “The cloak is impressive but it is an unwieldy thing. Doran likes me to wear it, but that will not matter much longer.” His eyes clouded over but whether he looked into the future or the past I do not know. “I suspect the new king will have little time for such uncomfortable formalities as my cloak.” He opened a cage and fed a tidbit to one of the squawking lizards

  “Aydor does not like the traditions?”

  “Aydor.” An uncomfortable silence grew as he stared into the fire. “Aye, I am sure King Aydor will let many traditions fail, given the chance.”

  “Change is inevitable.”

  “Change is the curse of time, boy.” He suddenly sounded stronger, angrier. “And yet sometimes it need not be a curse.” He let the air out from his lungs in one long sigh, as if expelling the anger that had suddenly filled him, then he became still, like an animal waiting in ambush. I waited for his next breath and, when it did not come immediately, worried he had died and if he had how would I explain it to Queen Adran? Then his shoulders heaved and he turned to me, his watery eyes searching my face. “What do you think of Aydor?”

  “I have not talked with him much.”

  “Ha!” His laugh was a whipcrack that made me flinch. “‘Not talked with him much.’ Very diplomatic young man. Very diplomatic indeed. I am not diplomatic. I am too old for diplomacy. I can see through you, boy.” Fear ran through me. “You do not like him. You need not lie about it. No one likes him. He is a deeply unpleasant young man—spoilt. A pig of a boy.”

  I breathed again.

  “You do not need to be liked to be a king,” I said.

  The old man nodded. “No, you need not. You need to be respected to be a king or, even better, you need to be feared.” He moved nearer to the open cage and the fire-lizard hopped out to sit on his stooped shoulder.

  “Is Aydor feared?” I asked.

  “Is. Aydor. Feared.” The old man stared into the fire. “In the way of a brute he is. Feared the way you fear a wild animal. His mother though?” He chuckled. “If she’d been a man we’d all be in trouble.”

  “What about the king?”

  “Feared and respected, once. But now he is dying, and dying men scare no one. They do nothing.”

  “But he is still king.”

  “For now.” He fed the lizard another bit of meat. “I hear your family are rich, young Girton, that they own growing lands and breed fine mounts like the beast you ride.” I nodded. “Then think on this, boy. When Doran ap Mennix dies, Aydor will take the throne. He will not answer to his mother’s rein then, no matter what she thinks. His father was hard but he knew there were lines not to be crossed. Aydor will not see those lines, and when he pushes too hard the people will push back.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  He ignored me.

  “There was a rising during Doran’s time—over food.” He fed another scrap to his lizard. “It always starts over food. Some blessed saw their chance and allied themselves with thankful rebels to try and take the crown. If kings ar
e not clever and feared and respected such risings are an excellent time for castles and crowns to change hands.”

  “And your family has a claim to the throne.”

  “Aye, we do. My father was king but he passed the throne to his sister’s husband, Ostir ap Mennix, to punish my mother for an imagined infidelity.” The old man’s eyes were grey, like flecks of stone. “I watched her burn on a fool’s throne.”

  “But you did not try and take the crown back?”

  “No. I had watched Doran grow into a king, and a good one, though that is not the reason we sided with him.”

  “What was?”

  “I’d seen Doran fight.” Another bit of meat to the lizard. “With triple his numbers it would have been a struggle to beat him, and there were rumours about a sorcerer having risen in the south.”

  “The Black Sorcerer?” I said. We all knew the story of the last sorcerer. He had promised to heal the land, bringing about balance and the rebirth of the gods. Instead he had maimed the land afresh and would have done worse if Doran ap Mennix had not cut him down.

  “Yes, the Black Sorcerer. So the ap Dhyrrin sided with Doran ap Mennix against the rebels, and even though I lost my eldest son I am sure we did right. But if there is another rising, Girton? What then? Is Aydor a genius? Is there some threat that would make us look past our own ambitions?” He fed more meat to the lizard. “I think there is not.”

  “This is treason,” I whispered. “Talk like this will get us both a pyre and a fool’s throne, like your mother.”

  “You’ve gone moonwhite, boy.” He let out a quiet chuckle, almost a growl. “Don’t worry, boy. Adran knows I speak like this—” he raised his voice “—and if her spies are at my door then they can tell their mistress to teach her boy some control before it is too late.” He sat down with a sigh. “We all want Maniyadoc and the Long Tides to be stable, Girton. It is good for trade, and that is good for us all. Adran will not move against me and I will not move against her, we know too much about one another. If Aydor becomes high king all is solved anyway. Adran has already agreed Maniyadoc will come to Tomas, and we will part as allies.”