by Ben Galley
Whether fortunately or not, though, the Fool’s advice held me yet again. “Prepare. Plan. Plot.”
Too much could go sideways. Too many unfamiliar eyes. Too many variables.
In the end, I granted Arrun his life for a few more days, finally tailing him to an old building jutting wide and low off the south wall of the city. A battered wooden sign hung over the arched entry, carved into the shape of a water flower with slim iron words strung below it.
The Lily’s Den.
A bathhouse? Maybe this would be an opportunity…?
I waited outside for almost an hour. Yet another beggar won a few more coppers from me, offered if she temporarily vacated her crammed little corner beneath a rotting overhang directly across from the Den. Making myself small beneath the woman’s stained and molding blankets, I watched the comers and goers, counting off minutes in my head.
When Arrun reappeared, fresh and clean from what I imagined was a thorough and pleasant soak, I lifted myself from the shadows to tail him home again.
I returned to the Den repeatedly after that, paying my entry each time. Under the watchful eye of one attendant or another I stripped bare, wrapping myself in the provided towel before making my way to the main chambers and on to the smallest bath in the farthest corner of the room. It had a tone I liked, that place. Black tile gleamed on the floor and walls, shining in the dancing light of white candles lit moodily around the circumference of the room, or else clumped between the baths. The stone ceiling was dark as well, cast in shadow by the low light of the guttering flames. After the bustle of the crowds outside, it was a pleasant experience. I remember wondering whether the staff would let me return if I committed the murder quietly enough.
Over the days I soaked for more hours than I cared to count in that water, taking in the structure in every detail, watching the people come and go. It was a public establishment, shared by both genders, and more than once I found myself somewhat distracted by glimpses of things rare enough at my age and in my lonely line of work. Older women trounced by without giving me a second glance, but there were girls as well, many much closer to me in years. I was a tall youth, strong and nimble from the hard months spent under my master’s tutelage. For a time I returned the smiles I got, even winking at the prettiest ones, making them blush and cover themselves with a giggle.
Each time, though, I was distracted a little less. Each time, my smile was more delayed, until before long all I saw again of the Den were its risks and opportunities.
I calculated everything, planning the moment from my shadowed little corner. The slickness of the tiled floor, the depths of the baths. The stone pillars that vaulted upward to support the arched ceiling. I studied the density of the wafting steams, thickest every quarter-hour when manservants poured water over the hot iron braziers scattered around the room. I considered the strength of my towels and the heft of the wooden chairs tucked here and there along the wall, used by bathers looking for a reprieve from the heavy heat of the baths themselves.
Mostly, though, I considered my walker.
Every third day, Wex Arrun arrived so promptly two hours before sunset that you’d have thought he was on the King’s schedule. He would enter the main chambers, wrapped in a towel like any other patron, and disappear into the same private bathing room of the six available, two on each wall across and perpendicular from the entryway. While the length of his stays varied, he always remained more than a half-hour, giving me plenty of time to work with.
Same time, same place, same closed-off room.
My walker was—against my early judgements—a creature of habit, and I couldn’t help but smile whenever I recalled this fact.
Such men are a rare and ripe fruit in my profession.
On my last day of preparation, I soaked for a long time before making my move, not wanting to raise suspicion. As the servant came to thicken the steam, I lifted myself from the bath and pulled the towel around my waist again. Casually I made my way through the mist, doing all I could not to seem any sort of out of place. Carefully I stepped between the candles and avoided the edge of the sunken baths that could be hard to see in the dim light.
All the while, I watched the other patrons warily.
None were bothered with me, though, all too engrossed in the heat and comfort of their own baths. Even the attendants were preoccupied with their private gossip, as was the group of younger women I’d kept a particularly close eye on for fear of their attentions.
Not even when I came to hover before the small double doors of Arrun’s preferred room did anyone pay me the slightest mind.
I’d considered bringing a grease pouch for the hinges, but it would have been too difficult to sneak in and impossible to explain away if discovered. Stripping in the presence of the attendants had made things more complicated than I liked, and I’d have to figure something out if I wanted to get a weapon past their probing eyes. My own two hands would do plenty well in a pinch, but beating a man to death is so often a messy and needlessly slow affair.
No. I would need to scheme up something to get a blade into the baths, but for now I had other things to consider.
Forcing myself not to glance around one last time, I reached out and gave the doors a testing pull. There was a hint of metal grinding on metal, then silence, and they swung open easily. Slipping inside, I shut them behind me, allowing myself a quiet laugh for this small success before turning to take in the room.
It was not a spacious chamber. A narrow walkway plated in the same black tile circled a small bath, itself hardly large enough to hold more than two or three people. There were no pillars here. Only rounded black walls encircled the room, indented with alcoves bright with candlelight. A singularly flat mosaic marred the otherwise circular room, set into the stone across from the door to depict the crowning of some old king or another in years long gone.
A small space, but I recall thinking that small was good as I stole out again and made to retrieve my clothes from the front of the bathhouse. Sneaking in was out of the question. Even a deaf man with his back to the door might notice an intruder in those cramped quarters. It would all prove an advantage, though, if I forced the rush, delivering the killing blow before Arrun had the slightest chance to scream, much less defend himself.
By the time I was on my way home, I’d made up my mind, the final details of the plot already falling into place as I walked.
I didn’t sleep much that night, as you can imagine. I hadn’t slept much at all over the last two weeks, mind you, but that night has no comparison to this day. I was preparing for what I had to do, steeling myself in body and mind and soul to go through with what I must. This was my choice, I kept telling myself. This was the life I had voluntarily thrown myself into, and I could either see it through to the end, or see it end period.
It was a much harder decision than you might imagine.
The day of execution dawned bright and windy. I spent the morning in continuous rehearsal, whetting and rewhetting the little blade I’d selected for the job between giving subconscious tugs at the twine I had looped around my neck like a necklace. I’d even hung it with a cheap pendant bought off some peddler the evening before, completing the illusion.
If I was going to do this, I was damn sure going to do it right.
The day passed in a warped manner, slipping by in that simultaneously listless and yet all-too-quick way time has when approaching something one both wishes for and dreads the arrival of. Eventually, however, the moment came, and I departed my master’s home with nothing more than a grim nod of encouragement from the man himself.
It has always fascinated me how circumstances can wile the mind so thoroughly. As a professional I’ve made it a study to understand how to manipulate men and women, physically and mentally both. It is a slim but necessary layer of my work. Contracts are rarely cut and dry. Often there are rules to be applied. Some employers
want the total disappearance of our walkers. Others want it to look like suicide. Sometimes you even get the rare request for a staged death, a charade so thorough that the involved can walk away from their old life as though they’d never lived it at all.
Whatever the circumstances, there is often someone—or indeed a group of someones—who require thorough tricking.
The problem with the mind, though, is that too often the only thing playing tricks on it is said mind itself.
Such was the case when I returned to The Lily’s Den one last time, an hour or so after leaving my master’s home. I was a familiar face by now and, as expected, had only to smile and present my payment to the red-haired woman at the entrance before she let me in.
Had she always looked at me like that, though? Her eyes seemed sharper today, scrutinizing my movements as I passed.
Inside, the attendant was waiting for me expectantly, and I almost paused upon seeing him.
This was a new face. One I didn’t recognize. Granted I surely hadn’t met all the employees of the bathhouse, but didn’t it seem odd that I should happen upon someone unknown today of all days?
I watched the man carefully as he bowed, but he gave no indication that anything was amiss. Instead he turned and led me down the familiar hall towards the changing rooms. Once again I was observed while disrobing and folding my clothes.
Did they always watch this carefully, though?
I couldn’t help but glance back at the attendant as I stacked my clothes upon the bench provided.
His eyes met mine, but again he gave no sign that anything was out of the ordinary.
What was wrong with me? Was I seeing things now?
I told myself that everything was normal, attempted to calm myself with steady breaths when the attendant turned and led me to the baths. I could feel the beat of my heart through my chest, and almost forgot to nod in thanks as the man bowed me into the somber dark of the main chambers.
Carefully I picked my way through the candles, making for my familiar corner. Pulling my towel free, I laid it out carefully on the lip of the bath before stepping in.
The water was as hot as ever. I knew this. I could feel this. And yet for some reason I shivered as I sank my shoulders beneath the surface.
There was nothing different about this day, I knew. The same oblivious patrons lounging about in my bath and others, the same servants making steam to wet the same damp walls and high ceilings. There was nothing here, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing I hadn’t seen a half-dozen times before.
And yet my mind insisted on playing tricks on me, making me see furtive glances thrown my way from the corner of my eye, convincing me the exchanged words between the attendants in the far corner all involved me.
Everyone knew. All here were in on it. The woman at the entrance, the attendant, the bathers about me only pretending to lounge lazily in their steaming pools. Every single body in the room was tense and ready to strike, ready to end my plans before they’d even begun.
My heart beat so fiercely now that I thought the closest patrons were pretending to ignore that, too. Beneath the water, my hands started to shake.
I wanted to run, wanted to bolt from the chamber. Naked or not, it made no difference. I could make it to the door before anyone caught me, could get out into the streets where they wouldn’t want to make a scene. I could steal clothes and food. I could go on the run. I had the skill. I had the ability. I could do it.
… or you could see it through to the end.
I actually had a hand on the lip of the bath, ready to pull myself out, when the thought hit me.
… or you could see it through to the end.
That’s what I had said, wasn’t it? During the sleepless nights spent staring at the plain stone ceiling above my bed. What is it that I had decided? What is it that I had chosen, regardless of the consequences? I had thrown myself into this life by my own choosing. I had sought it out, sought this very situation, sought this very moment, poised as some dark snake among the glint of the candles behind me.
… or you could see it through to the end.
There is a moment in most men’s lives where they come to accept what it is they are, wherever it is the adventure of life has led them. Some bear the responsibility of crown and title, and accept their duties to those they must serve and those they must obey. Some see their dreams slipping away in exchange for family or love, and accept that sacrifice with the intent of providing for what in the end is a much greater happiness. Some hear the hoofbeats of death catching up to them, and turn to accept the great beyond with open arms.
And some see a path they cannot run from, and accept the course of their fate.
In one thought, I accepted my new path. In one thought I felt the decision made, and the fear washed away.
At once my body relaxed, my mind calmed. The patrons of the room turned once more to common people, too enthralled in their own pleasures to be bothered with the young man seated in their midst. The servants whispered and chuckled, much likelier discussing last night’s conquest than the odds of murder beneath their roof.
I smiled at it all, letting myself sink to just below my eyes in the heat I could feel plainly again. With a clear mind I looked about now, taking in the men and women trapped in my presence, unknowingly imprisoned between the red ceiling and black walls.
With a clear mind I discovered how, so suddenly, I was far more the wolf among sheep than I could ever be the sheep among wolves.
And it just so happened that the most tempting of sheep had finally arrived.
Wex Arrun followed his usual path, holding tight to the towel around his waist as I raised myself back up out of the water to lean once more against the bath wall. My walker was in a hurry today, almost ruining my plans entirely by killing himself slipping on the slick floor as he rounded one of the stone pillars. Catching his balance, he reached the doors to his private chamber and hastened inside.
I gave it the time it needed, finding patience in this new wolf’s skin of mine. Minutes marched by as I counted them off in my head.
Three. Four. Five.
There was the servant come with the water. Steam rolled thick through the air as I reached down to tug the twine “necklace” free from my throat.
Eight. Nine. Ten.
Pushing myself up out of the bath, I walked, calm and naked, across the room. It would do no good to have my towel covered in blood. I would take Arrun’s if I had the opportunity.
Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen.
Facing the doors, I stopped. Taking one cursory look around to ensure I was well shrouded in the rolling mist, I stuck two fingers into my mouth.
Feeling the flat of the slim steel on the inside of my check, I slid it free.
The blade was a sad, tiny thing, but it was the best I could do given the situation. I’d considered a garrote, maybe wound about my wrist like a bracelet, but my walker wasn’t quite isolated enough to prevent the sound of splashing and spraying bathwater from alerting someone to come running.
No. The blade would have to do.
Fifteen.
Taking the loose twine, I wrapped it smoothly along the dulled lower half of the three-inch blade. When it was all snug tight, I had what could pass for a grip with just enough steel left over to be lethal in the right hands.
And at that moment, I felt there were no righter hands than mine.
I didn’t give myself the time to think it over any more. I’d made my deal with the shadows of the city, and whether they turned out to be the shade of angel’s wings or the silhouettes of demons was a problem for another day.
Gripping my blade, I grabbed hold of the door handle with my free hand and took a single breath. In my head I pictured the line of Arrun’s jaw, the weak fleshy point where it met neck, the point where even my bare inch of whetted steel could kill in an instant.
>
Then I threw the door wide, bolted inside…
… and nearly ran right into a small knot of men who had no business being there whatsoever.
There was a brief moment when I took them in, watching them turn towards me. Three in total, they’d dressed themselves up in old leather boots and worn clothes, but the longsword belted on every hip told me without pause that these were no simple commoners. They had had their backs turned towards the door, and so were whirling around in surprise as my eyes slid past them, taking in what I could see between their bodies.
There was a hole in the wall. That was the first thing I registered. The mosaic of the old king was swung inward, opened on hidden hinges that were totally invisible from within the chamber itself. A dim passage of dirt and stone vanished downward into the earth, faintly lit by what looked like distant torchlight.
Lower, though, below this, was my walker. Arrun was indeed soaking in the bath, but he looked to have been having a discussion with the men I’d nearly collided with. At first he seemed confused—who wouldn’t, having just been wildly interrupted by a naked teenage boy barging in on private conversation—but when my eyes fixed on his, the intent must have shown, because the confusion curdled into fear.
And then someone yelled.
It is odd, in that moment, what came to mind. No notion of fleeing flashed across my conscience. No true concern for my wellbeing pierced my thoughts. Rather, as I dove forward towards the closest of the three armed men, all I could think of were the smiles of the pretty girls I’d received during my first few days of staking out the Den.
All I could think about were those smiles, and how I wanted very much to witness such wonderful things again.
If that doesn’t speak to the priorities of the prepubescent mind, I don’t know what does.
