by Stephen Deas
‘Finally. Sit. Have a drink.’
‘Got anything to eat?’ asked Berren, who was starving as usual after a day with the sword-monks. The justicar rolled his eyes. He looked around, waved at someone, pointed at Berren and snapped his fingers. As Berren and Master Sy sat down, Kol leaned in towards his thief-takers. He glared at Berren.
‘Life’s hard with our usual source of bread and shelter having been taken away, eh?’
‘Technically you never lost yours,’ muttered Master Fennis.
‘Not that his purse would tell you that,’ sniggered Master Mardan.
‘Shut it, you pair! I have a proposition. There’s no bounty, but you lot had better pay attention, because if you don’t we might have those sword-monks here for a lot longer than I thought and frankly they’re not half bad when it comes to thief-taking, even if their methods take some getting used to. Now listen: you all worked for me at the Watchman’s Arms …’
Fennis jingled his purse. ‘Best money I’ve seen for years.’
‘Well when His Highness finally buggered off back where he came from, it was to be named guardian of the Emperor’s heir, and she’s still sucking at her mother’s tit. Do you know what all of that means? No, thought not. It means that if anything happens to the Emperor, someone else gets to sit on the throne until his daughter hits sixteen. As of the spring festival, that’ll be Prince Sharda and not the Emperor’s brother like it would have been before.’ He looked straight at Berren. ‘Berren here thinks we should be looking for who it was who tried to kill him. He’s probably an idiot, but it narks me that it happened on my watch. So I’m in. My question is: are you? Think about it, my boys, because we’re not talking about thief-taking any more, we’re talking about something wholly different.’
Thief-takers Fennis and Mardan nodded enthusiastically. Master Sy shook his head.
‘Too dangerous. Not interested.’ He wasn’t the only one either. Master Velgian looked positively terrified.
‘I think it’s a terrible idea,’ he said.
‘You have no idea what you’re dealing with, Kol.’ Master Sy closed his eyes. ‘I could tell you everything I told my apprentice, but you, of all people, should know better. So what is it, exactly, you think we’re going to get out of this?’
‘Worst that can happen, we discredit these bloody sword-monks and they go home. Best that happens, we get showered with gold until we’re drowning in it, that’s what I think is going to happen. You beg to differ?’ As he was talking, a boy came to the table and set a bowl of stew down in front of Berren. Berren started shovelling it into his mouth as fast as he could.
‘Sword-monks!’ Velgian was shaking his head frantically. ‘Not good, Kol! I’m not going against sword-monks!’
Orimel the Witch-Breaker sniffed. He peered at Berren’s stew. ‘Smells good,’ he said. He spoke with an air of thoughtful quiet if he spoke at all, and so when he did speak, the other thief-takers, even the Justicar, usually stopped and listened. ‘The assassin – an assassin – tried again in Varr. He was caught that time. I’ve heard many things. On Sun-Day it was the Emperor’s brother, on Moon-Day one of the sons of the Lord of Neja, on Mage-Day a fire-mage, then a black-skinned Taiytakei mystic or one of the pale-skinned fey folk they say live far to the north. I’ve heard that the assassin is dead, that he is free, that he escaped, that he has been cut into a hundred pieces with a sorcerer questioning each and every one. Very little of what I have heard can be true, but an assassin has unquestionably been caught.’
‘Same one?’ Kol raised an eyebrow.
Orimel held up his palms. ‘Who can say, Justicar?’
Kol glowered. ‘Well then. Who’s in and who’s out? If you’re out, piss off.’
Velgian couldn’t get out of his chair fast enough. Beside Berren, Master Sy got to his feet. ‘Come on, lad. This is a fool’s game and I’ve got fish of my own to catch.’
‘Oh no you don’t!’ Kol banged the table. ‘You can go, but not him, not until he’s told us everything he knows. Besides, maybe he wants in, eh, Berren?’ Kol grinned. The justicar had never been good at that, at least not in any way that didn’t make him look like he wanted to eat someone, preferably while they were still alive. But he was right. Berren wanted to stay. He wanted it badly.
Master Sy snorted in disgust. ‘You’re fools, both of you. Fennis, I thought you were chucking this in and heading off to Torpreah to start a tea house?’
‘Varr, Syannis. In Varr.’
‘Idiot.’ With a last shake of his head, Master Sy stalked out of The Eight. Kol waited for him to go.
‘Stew good, lad?’
Berren belched loudly.
‘Have another then. But you can start by telling us exactly what it was you saw that night. Everything, boy. Don’t miss anything out.’
Talking about it, having the justicar and a few of the thief-takers actually listening to him for once, that was exciting. He went through it all as it happened, how he’d been there and seen the man slip in and how he’d fought him off and then afterwards, the two soldiers dead on the ground, their throats slit.
‘Should have worn a gorget,’ muttered Master Fennis.
When he was done, Kol made him go through it all again, this time picking apart the bits that were exactly as they had happened and the parts that Berren had added to make the story more exciting. At the end he nodded, although he was frowning fiercely. ‘Bloodied nose. Small fellow. Funny smell. Swords like a sword-monk but rubbish at swordplay?’
‘Hey! He was fast!’
Kol tried not to smirk. ‘You cracked him one. All right, mediocre swordsman then.’ he was back to frowning now. ‘Well, you’re the one who knows them. Was it really a sword-monk?’
Berren shrugged. The more he saw of them, the more he doubted it. ‘I thought so at first. But none of them ever had a bloody nose.’ He tried to remember watching them march into the temple, the very morning after it had happened. Would he have noticed something like that, under their tattoos? He wasn’t sure he would.
Kol rolled his shoulders. He looked bored now. ‘I’ll ask about. You keep an eye on them for me, boy. Right. Probably a snuffer pretending he was a monk. Pity.’ He glanced at Mardan and Fennis. ‘You two can piss off now. Go get drunk or something. Find me snuffers. A short bloke who’s got a mean streak but can’t actually do much with a sword.’
‘Why, I do believe I’m looking at one now!’ Master Mardan smiled back at the justicar. He was getting up though, and so were the others.
‘Gods, Mardan, any funnier and people might mistake you for the clown you are.’ Berren started to rise too, but Kol glared at him. ‘Not you, boy. Got more questions for you.’ When Mardan and Fennis and Orimel were gone, Kol got up. He came over to Berren and sat down in the chair beside him, where Master Sy had been before he left. ‘Your master. What’s he up to? Why’s he not biting on this?’
Berren shrugged. ‘Don’t know. Said it was too dangerous. Said there was no prize in it and I’d just get myself killed and he had something else to be getting on with.’
‘Aye.’ Kol looked troubled. ‘Well, he might have a point or two there. But what’s this other thing he’s got to be getting on with?’
‘I …’ Berren bit his lip. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t say.’
‘He’s after whoever killed Kasmin, right?’ Berren tried not to say anything but his face must have spoken for him. Kol nodded. ‘Thought so. Been doing some digging around that myself. Not sure he should be the one telling you about getting their fingers burned. He’s stalking a sea-captain from Kalda who calls himself the Headsman, right?’ Again, Berren’s face must have given him away. ‘Kelm’s Teeth, boy, remind me not to trust you with any of my secrets – it’s like reading a bloody book. Anyway, that warehouse where you had your little fracas, I looked into that. The Headsman’s renting a part of it. You know who else rents a space there? Saffran Kuy. The warlock.’
‘The witch-doctor from the House of Cats and Gulls?’ For a momen
t, Berren couldn’t contain himself.
‘Call him that if you want. Not my cup of tea, even if Syannis gets along with him somehow. You know what the Headsman’s got up there?’
Berren shook his head.
‘Neither do I. When you find out, make sure I get to hear about it. I don’t care which one of you tells me, but one of you better had. Got it?’
Berren nodded quickly and almost jumped out of his chair. ‘I’d better go. It’s late. Swords in the morning. Supposed to be at temple for dawn still.’ At the door, Berren paused. ‘That purse you left for us. There was more in it than was owed. So what’s Master Sy doing for you?’
For a long time the justicar sat and stared at Berren. Then he took a deep breath. ‘I’ve known Syannis for ten years, Berren, and I knew Kasmin for longer. I know you all think I’m a heartless bastard who wouldn’t part with a single penny unless there was something in it for me, and for three hundred and eleven days of the year you might well be right. That was the three hundred and twelfth. Staying alive, that’s what he’s doing for me. Now get lost before I ask for it back.’
15
A TIGER BY THE TAIL
Berren ran outside, past the fountain and up the street into Four Winds Square. He was already yawning. Good food and plenty of it, a day full of hard work and he was ready for bed and a good night’s sleep. There’d be a few sharp words from Master Sy on messing with matters that didn’t concern him when he got home, no doubt.
He was two streets away from the thief-taker’s house when a silhouette stepped out of an alley in front of him. Berren skittered to a stop on the wet stones of the street. He froze there for a second. The silhouette was of a shortish man with two swords over his back. The man who’d murdered two imperial guardsmen, who’d had the audacity to try and take the life of the imperial prince himself. Now he was standing in the street, only a dozen paces away.
The assassin slowly drew his swords, one in each hand. For that first moment, Berren was sure he was about to die.
‘I know who you are, Berren.’
The moment passed. Other thoughts followed: that it was dark but still long short of midnight and others might come this way at any moment; that he’d beaten this man once before, in the scent garden; that he wasn’t far from home and Master Sy; and then a last thought came along, slower than the others yet more pressing. Why step out in front of him? Why be seen at all? Why not a shadow in the dark with a short curved knife and a throat-slitting flick of the wrist and away into the night, unseen? So he held his ground.
The assassin growled. ‘There’s no purse to killing you, boy. Do you want to live?’ The man’s face was lost in the shadow of a deep hood. ‘If you do want to live, put your justicar off my scent. I’ll be watching both of you. If you don’t, the next time I see you, I’ll kill you. Do you understand? Now run!’ The assassin’s voice was thick and guttural, a bit like the archer from the warehouse roof. Berren took two steps backwards and then stopped.
‘No.’ He drew out his waster. This wasn’t right at all. ‘Who are you?’
‘Your death, curse you boy!’ The assassin hesitated an instant before he charged, both swords raised. Berren knew he ought to run, that Master Sy would tell him he was mad to stand fast; but he’d fought against sword-monks now; he’d beaten this man once before, and there was something … something wrong about the way this assassin held his swords, something about the way the assassin came at him that wasn’t right, as though it was all a bluff. The swords whirled at Berren’s face but with no real skill; Berren jumped sideways and poked his waster at the man’s head as he went past. He missed, but the wooden tip caught the cloth of the man’s cloak and pulled back his hood, and now Berren could see who it was.
‘Master Velgian?’ He stopped, stunned. It all made sense! Velgian being mugged and getting a bloody nose – that hadn’t ever happened, it had been Berren’s waster that marked him! And the smell, the black-powder smell in the scent garden and the look on Velgian’s face when Kol had said he meant to go after the assassin! But why? Velgian, of all of them, a killer?
The poet thief-taker turned and stopped and looked at Berren with sad eyes. ‘Why couldn’t you just run, lad? Why couldn’t you leave it be?’
Berren glanced up and down the street but there was no one else in sight.
‘Path of fire! You were supposed to be asleep! I didn’t want to hurt you. I liked you. Sun knows there was enough sleeping draft in your breakfast to fell a horse! I could have killed you like I killed the others, but I would have let you be. Why did you have to chose that one night not to be hungry, eh?’
Berren knew exactly. Too excited about seeing the sword-monks the next day, too full of left-overs from the feast of the night before. ‘Why did you do it, Master Velgian?’
‘Why do you think, boy? For the purse and the fistful of golden emperors inside it, that’s why. Damn your eyes! I didn’t want it to come to this, but now what choice have I got?’ He took a deep breath. The way he held himself changed. ‘I’m sorry, lad, but it’s you or me now.’ He came at Berren again and now all the bluff was gone and Berren knew for sure that if he tried to fight, this time he’d die. He turned and bolted and Velgian was right on his heels.
‘I promise not to tell!’ yelled Berren over his shoulder.
‘And I wish I could believe you!’
He sprinted into the little yard outside Master Sy’s door. ‘Master Sy! Master thief-taker! Help!’ He reached the door and kicked it as he passed but it stayed shut and then he had to keep running because Velgian was right there and he couldn’t even stop to open his own door. ‘Master! Velgian! It’s Velgian!’ He darted down a little alley instead, the one that went round to Master Sy’s back yard; he bounded up onto the back of an old empty chest the thief-taker kept by his back door and then up onto Master Sy’s kitchen and on to his roof. If that didn’t get Master Sy’s attention, nothing would.
‘A pox on you, boy!’ shrieked Velgian behind him.
From Master Sy’s roof there was only one way to go, but Berren knew the rooftops here as well as he knew the streets. They were his home as much as anywhere and even in the dark he knew exactly which way to go – straight over the top, double back across the alley, around the side of the yard …
‘Give it up, boy!’ Velgian wasn’t dropping back. He was a thief-taker too, after all.
Being up on the rooftops made him think of the archer who’d fallen off the warehouse. He changed direction sharply. One rooftop to the next and then the big leap, right across the street, the one place you could do it but you had to get the jump just right and land in exactly the right place. Berren flew across the gap, caught the edge of the roof on the far side with his toes, let his momentum carry him forward and then grabbed onto the roof with both hands, pulling himself up and scrabbling with his feet. It was a hard jump to make, even if you knew the trick to it. He scrambled up the roof and looked back. Velgian had skittered to a halt on the other side of the jump. He still had his swords drawn.
‘Berren!’
‘Don’t! You’ll fall, Master Velgian. You will.’ Now that he’d led the poet thief-taker here to his little trap, escape was enough. Then home, Master Sy, the justicar, he could tell them all he was right …
Velgian started to run, still with his swords out, straight at the gap. It was a good jump and he almost made it. His foot caught the roof and he pitched forward just as Berren had done, only Velgian wasn’t ready for it. His hands were full. It was all over in an instant. His foot slipped off, he dropped both his swords, clawed at the roof and then he was gone, over the edge.
No, not quite. When Berren inched closer, he saw Velgian still hanging by his fingertips.
‘Master Velgian!’ The roof was steep, like all the roofs in this part of the city. ‘Whose purse, Master Velgian?’
‘You going to help me up, boy?’ Velgian’s fingers were slowly slipping. Berren offered him his hand and then withdrew it. The roof was too steep, his own fo
oting too precarious. If Velgian wanted to be helped, Berren could help him, but what Velgian really wanted was to take Berren over the edge with him – he could see it in the thief-taker’s eyes. Nothing to lose any more.
‘Thought not. Got some sense there.’
‘Whose purse, Master Velgian? Whose gold bought you?’
Velgian’s arms were shaking. ‘Are you listening, boy? You tell Syannis one thing for me. You tell him that Saffran Kuy is not the friend he thinks. You tell him that, Berren. Do that for me. Tell him …’
The edge of the roof snapped under his fingers. It was only twenty feet down to the ground, but Velgian landed flat on his back. He bounced and lay still. By the time Berren got down, Velgian was dead. His neck was broken.
They were in sight of the thief-taker’s house. Berren dragged Velgian to the door and pulled him inside. Master Sy wasn’t there, presumably off watching the Two Cranes again or whatever it was he did, but Berren could hardly go to bed and leave a body in his parlour for the thief-taker to find when he came back. In the end he curled up in the thief-taker’s chair and fell asleep there, waiting for his master to come home.
It wasn’t Master Sy who nudged him awake barely moments after his eyes had closed, though, but the Justicar.
‘Wake up, boy.’ He was poking Berren with a finger. ‘Wake up. And then tell me, right now, what the bloody Khrozus Master Velgian is doing dead on the floor.’
For a moment Berren wondered if he should run, but he was too tired and what was the point? He didn’t understand why Velgian, of all of them, would have done something like this.
