Age of Assassins

by Rj Barker

I took a rag from my pocket and hurriedly wiped as much blacking from my face and my hands as I could. Then I ripped off my climbing aid and, leaning as far out of the window as possible, I dug the nails into the mortar in such a way that it would work its way loose and fall, hopefully long after I was gone, and I could reclaim it later. Then, remembering the guard outside the kennels and how my master had covered her actions by making him appear drunk, I took Daana’s decanter and poured out enough liquor to wet my fingers and ran them through my hair. After a deep breath and a quick entreaty to Xus that no guards were posted outside Daana’s quarters, I slipped out of the room and into the corridor.

  No guards. In my panic I had forgotten they were all in the main hall getting drunk. I made my way as quickly as I could back to my rooms, but when I heard footsteps behind me I started to weave and stumble like a drunk. Not looking where I was going, I walked straight into Heamus.

  “Girton, why are you here, boy? And why are you dressed like— Dead gods!” He laughed as the smell of alcohol hit him. “You have been celebrating, aye?” He laughed again as he held me by my shoulders. I wondered how many innocent lives his big hands had taken as I focused on a tapestry of an old queen on her mount behind him.

  “Um … lost,” I said, swaying. Then I repeated myself. “Lost.”

  “Ha, you will be a sad one when you ride the cows tomorrow. Nywulf has no pity in him. Let me help you to find your way back, and then I suggest you drink plenty of water.”

  He escorted me back to my room and because I was with him no one asked any questions or commented on my strange dress. Heamus seemed totally lacking in curiosity, in fact he seemed distracted and did not speak to me again as we walked.

  When I slipped into our room my master was staring out of the window. She turned and opened her mouth to speak, but I raised my finger to my lips and pointed with my thumb at the door. We both waited and listened while Heamus thumped away down the corridor.

  “Heamus,” I said.

  “He caught you?”

  “No. Ran into him in a corridor.” She tipped her head to one side as she often did when she wanted more information. “The climb was harder than I thought. When the wind picked up I did not think I could make it back so I cleaned what blacking I could off me and put alcohol in my hair to play the drunk. I could do nothing about my clothes or lack of shoes.”

  My master shrugged. “People will expect stupidity of a drunk boy, so it will not be hard to make excuses, if anyone even asks. But for now you should tidy yourself up. The queen wants to see us again.”

  “Why?”

  “To speak to you, I imagine.” A lump settled in my stomach. “She is naturally suspicious and sick of hearing the same things from me each night. She probably thinks she can catch you in a lie. Tell her the truth and don’t say anything too outlandish, or mention anything connected to the death of Kyril.” She nodded knowingly and I felt the same swoop in my stomach at the thought of magic as I had when swinging myself out onto the castle wall.

  We ran into the occasional guard, passed out drunk, on our way to Adran’s rooms. Celot stood guard outside and inside the queen waited on a carved throne, candlelight shimmered along the golden paint on its arms and back. Behind her stood Aydor, his gaze unfocused as he swayed under the influence of drink. My eye was drawn to the vicious scar his mother had given him.

  “When I call my servants,” said Adran, “I expect them to come straight away.”

  “I see no servants,” said my master. “Would you like me to find some for you?”

  “Stop your insolence,” shouted Aydor, but he was too drunk to speak properly, and each s came out as sh. Adran glared at him. “Aydor, you have a busy day tomorrow so go and drink some water and get some sleep.”

  “But—” She cut him off with a sweep of her hand.

  “Go!” She transferred her glare from him to me as he staggered out of the room. Once he was gone she leaned forward. “Merela, watch your tongue in front of my son or I’ll have it cut out.”

  “Sorry, Queen Adran. Sometimes I forget we are not the friends we used to be.” There was no mistaking the edge in my master’s voice.

  “Acquaintances, Merela. I seem to remember a merchant’s daughter can never be friends with one of the thankful, can she?”

  My master looked away. “I understood you had questions for Girton, Queen Adran. Best ask quickly as he has to ride out tomorrow and needs his sleep.”

  “Yes.” She smiled at me and turned on her full charm, inclining her head a little in my direction, and suddenly I saw what had made a king fall at her feet. “Are you enjoying your time here, Girton?”

  “Yes, my queen,” I said, and immediately felt foolish for my airs and graces and added, “though the beatings get a little wearing.”

  “You have picked up Merela’s talent for sarcasm.” Adran stood and walked over to me, gently taking my hand in hers, then she squeezed it so hard I could feel the bones grinding together. “It is wise to remember, child, that I need your master, not you.” She let go of my hand. “So, boy, who do you suspect wishes to murder my son?”

  “Everyone, Queen Adran,” I said and inwardly cringed at the look on her face. She plainly could not decide whether I was being sarcastic again. My hand ached. “I only mean that I seem to do nothing but uncover more motives, rather than rule people out.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, a good third of the guards—”

  “Can be ignored. We know who they are and they are kept well away from Aydor. Besides, a guard cannot afford an assassin.”

  I did not think it politic to mention that my master and I often worked for free if she thought the cause just. “Well, then there are the squires.”

  “Oh?” She raised an eyebrow. “Why would they wish to harm their future king?”

  “Well, they believe he holds them back.”

  “Explain.”

  “There …” I felt myself wilting under the pressure of her gaze and cleared my throat with a nervous cough. “There is a belief that after your son failed to pass his trials for Rider the other squires have been forbidden to advance.”

  She shook her head and smiled as she returned to her throne. “Foolish boys making excuses. They are embarrassed is all. Aydor was chosen to take the trials first as he is foremost among them. If he could not pass the trials, what point the other boys even trying?” I could not tell whether she was making excuses for her son or if she truly believed what she said. I felt a little sorry for Aydor then, but only a little.

  “The Festival Lords were very upset—”

  “Politics and business, nothing else. And besides, we knew of the assassin before the Festival Lords arrived.”

  “Daana ap Dhyrrin has spoken quite openly of—”

  She waved a hand, though a look of distaste crossed her face. “I have Daana well in hand, boy. Next.”

  Silence filled the air of the small room while I thought.

  “May I ask a question, Queen Adran?”

  “If it is not impertinent, yes.”

  “Why do you allow Daana ap Dhyrrin to voice treason?”

  “Because he is an old man—” she leaned forward “—and it amuses me to hear him rant. He would not have Aydor killed because he believes when I die the common people will flock to Tomas.” I nodded. “But before I die, boy, Aydor will be high king, and the common people will not matter. When Aydor is high king, Tomas is welcome to this draughty old castle, and Daana ap Dhyrrin knows it.”

  “But old men may be impatient,” I said, echoing my master’s words.

  “They may,” said Adran, “but Daana ap Dhyrrin has been playing the infirm old man since before I married Doran ap Mennix. I suspect he has a good few years in him yet. He plays a long game. Maybe when Aydor has ascended the throne he will try and have me killed to hurry his plans along, but to kill Aydor now would taint his grandson, and the old man would hate that.”

  “Neander then, he is an ap Vthyr and—”<
br />
  “They hate us, that is true. But Neander wants power. He is as committed to seeing Aydor ascend to high king as I am. Forget Neander.”

  “But I came across him in a disused part of the castle. He was—”

  “I know all about Neander’s jaunts into the castle for his flock, and you need not worry about them. In fact, I forbid you to go near Neander.”

  “Forbid?” said my master. “You told me nowhere would be forbidden. And now when we tell you we have suspects you make excuses for them.”

  “Not excuses,” she said, but couldn’t hide her discomfort. “I merely do not want you to waste your time on dead ends.” She stood and avoided looking my master in the eye. “This is my son’s life, Merela. Apply yourself—” she stood behind me, laying a hand on my shoulder “—or I will find a way to motivate you further.” A shiver ran through me as Adran walked back towards her throne. She let the silence build before saying casually, “What about that scruffy boy, Girton? What is his name?”

  “Which boy?” A coldness settled in my stomach.

  “Rufra. You should look very carefully at that boy.”

  “I cannot imagine Rufra would—”

  “Well maybe you should imagine it,” she hissed. “That boy has always struck me as untrustworthy, and as you pointed out the ap Vthyr hate us. You should use your closeness to him, boy, to find out what game he plays before I decide you and your master are of no use.” She sat back down on her throne of gold-painted pine. “You may leave now, both of you.”

  We walked in silence back to our room. When we were inside I said in the Whisper-that-Flies-to-the-Ear:

  “What was that about, Master?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She seemed adamant that we should not look into the people most likely to want to hurt her son. That makes no sense”

  “Yes. On both counts.”

  “But why?”

  “Because I suspect she has secrets and we are straying near them. This castle is full of secrets.”

  “What sort of secrets do you think Adran has that she would risk her son for?”

  “Terrible ones, Girton. Most likely she has found who hired the assassin and come to some accord with them. She can be persuasive.”

  “Then why are we still here? And why did she almost tell us she thought Rufra was to blame.”

  “Maybe she knows something we don’t about Rufra.”

  “Rufra would not—”

  “I don’t say he would, but maybe he is not what he seems and now Adran sees us as a convenient way to remove him.”

  “I—”

  “You don’t really know him, Girton. A little knowledge of him is all you have, so do as she says for now and stick close to Rufra.” She put her hand on my shoulder. “But we will not ignore the others merely to frame your friend. Not if there is another way.” I felt her shiver and she removed her hand, wrapping her arms around herself as if she were cold. “I feel like we are in the eye of a storm, Girton. It whirls around us so fast, everything is a blur and we cannot move in any direction for fear of stepping to our deaths.”

  I could not sleep after her chilling pronouncement, and sleep was what I wanted more than anything. Unpleasant thoughts slid into my mind to war with themselves: the snarling dogs, the lies my master had told me, the terrible feeling those symbols I had found in Heamus’s room had caused within me, images of Drusl flouncing off with another squire.

  The idea of magic no longer seemed as horrific as it had at first. Was this how it worked its way in? By slowly becoming normal? On the other hand, if those terrible symbols I had seen in Heamus’s room were against magic, could it really be so bad?

  Had it changed me? Was I a different person?

  The sullen anger that had burned inside me ebbed. It was not gone, but I felt foolish about it and recognised it as a childish thing. My master had never done anything but protect me and help me. Her only betrayal was to overestimate my intelligence.

  I still could not sleep so went to the window and pulled aside the greased paper to stare out over Festival. Fires burned but they were fewer now. It was late enough for most revellers to have left and movement far below caught my eye. A single torch moved across the courtyard. It was joined by another and then another. Unsure whether this might be important I was about to wake my master when I realised what I was seeing. This was the funeral procession for Kyril.

  We always take out our dead in the night. The body is laid out in the house together with the best gifts for Xus the family can afford. Then the family leave and the officiating priest comes with his retainers and his bier and they take the body, and the gifts, away. It is tradition. We pay tribute to Xus the unseen by pretending that our dead simply disappear. Or maybe we do not want to confront the fact that the Tired Lands are so short of resources that even the bodies of the dead have a use. The swillers pay the priests for bodies, and the bodies feed the pigs whose meat keeps us alive.

  Death was nothing new to me, but the deaths I had witnessed before had been through the agency of my master or myself and in the name of justice. There had been point and reason to them but this death, this boy who had lain silent and perfect upon the slab? His death served no purpose that I could see.

  I did not sleep until very late.

  Interlude

  This is a dream of what was.

  He is thirteen.

  Today he will kill his first man.

  The land is a painting where the artist has only sickly yellows to daub onto his canvas—a hazy mist of burnt-sienna dust suspended between yellow land and yellow sky.

  They have trekked across the eastern sourlands eking out their water and food until they are forced to tap their great mount, Xus’s, veins and share the animal’s life. They cannot take too much from him and what they have is never enough. Even powered by the mount’s great heart he feels light-headed as he stumbles forward. When they leave the sourlands it takes his eyes time to adjust to this new world with its garish, unnaturally bright, colours. The distance to the horizon seems impossibly far and for days after the kill he will smell the sourlands on his clothes, his skin. He will blame his constant nausea on it.

  The village is barely worthy of the name. Five houses clustered inside the palisade walls of a longhouse built of timbers and roofed with sods. It squats in the humid air and bored guards in badly kept up leather armour lounge around the gate. Slaves, bent and twisted by hard lives, trudge past through ankle-deep mud as they bring in the harvest from the surrounding fields.

  “Friend,” says his master to a slave who looks blankly at them as he walks past. All the man’s concentration is focused on putting one foot in front of another. He looks impossibly old, he must be in his late twenties, or maybe even thirty. He is missing his front teeth.

  “Can’t stop,” he says dully. The words whistle through his missing teeth. “Work to do.”

  “Is this Ryneal?” asks his master.

  “Aye,” he says as he staggers away under his burden of root tubers, “and I would leave while you can.”

  His master watches the man. “Come, Girton,” she says. “We must prepare.”

  “Yes, Master.” He follows, leading Xus along by his rein.

  “I have told you of justice, Girton,” she says as they come to stop in a copse just beyond the village, “and that justice was blinded by men.”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “But I did not tell you why.”

  “No, Master.”

  She takes a step forward. “Men blinded her so that they could lead her off the path. Sometimes we must be there to guide her.” She puts her finger on his chest. “Tonight you will walk the path with her.”

  A sudden intake of breath.

  “Me?”

  Does the wind pick up? Do the trees sigh? Does the world momentarily brighten before cooling and darkening?

  “Yes, Girton. You.”

  “I don’t want to.” The words tumble from his mouth and leave someth
ing in his throat that clogs it up and makes tears start from his eyes. He knows he is letting her down but he’s seen her come back from her work: sometimes covered in blood, sometimes bruised, sometimes with a new cut that he will bind and clean and it will become another shining, pale line of damaged flesh on her skin. Even when she comes back unscathed there is always something missing. It is as if some piece of her is gone, leaving glassy, pale, damaged lines behind her eyes. “I don’t want to,” he says again. She puts her hands on his shoulders. She looks right into his eyes. She looks right into him.

  “Good,” she says. “I would be worried if you wanted this. Sit with me a while.”

  They sit, choosing a place where they can see right through the gates and up to the door of the longhouse. They watch. He becomes fascinated by the to and fro of people, the rhythm of a life totally alien to him. He and his master never stop. They are wanderers and when they camp they camp away from people for fear of being found. When they are in towns he is kept close for fear of giving her away. When she strikes they are quick—in and out. He waits outside dark buildings or towering walls with Xus, and then they are fleeing, finding places to hide, usually unpleasant places and often they are there for weeks—in stinking hovels or swamps or worse, the sourlands.

  But today he watches people. It would be easy for him to forget this is not his life, easy to fall into the backwards and forwards of these tired people who, even though they are dressed in rags and filth, sometimes laugh. They sometimes smile. They sometimes hold one another. Children play, seemingly careless of the misery that waits for them as adults.

  With the strangeness of a dream comes foreknowledge. He can feel what is coming as surely as the children running and giggling through puddles must realise the harshness of the life awaiting them. Unlike them he cannot look away. When he looks up, the clouds make no pretence of reality; they become giant grey daggers reaching down from the sky to rip at the tops of trees tinged with the red of failing day.

  Wake me.

  “There is a sadness that is more than a harsh life here, Master,” he says.

  “Yes. Blessed Ryneal uses them cruelly.”