by Stephen Deas
The King's assassin
( Thief-Taker's Apprentice - 3 )
Stephen Deas
Stephen Deas
The King's Assassin
When swords flash, let no idea of love, piety, or even the face of your fathers move you.
Gaius Julius Caesar
THE EDGE OF THE STORM
The ship drew into the estuary of the river Triere. Low-lying glades and salt marsh crept up out of the water on all sides, distant and barely visible. Ahead, the land rose abruptly into a line of cliffs, a solid wall a hundred feet high except for the wide canyon that the Triere had carved between them. Somewhere beyond lay a city, but Berren saw no sign of it at first, the cliffs obscuring everything beyond them; as the ship fought its way up the river through the mouth of the gorge though, the cliffs widened and then one side of the canyon fell away, curving into the shape of a horseshoe as though a giant hand had reached out from the sky and taken a scoop from the land. The ground inside the horseshoe sloped steadily upwards, away from the river to a far ridge that he could barely see. And here, nestled inside this colossal hollow, was the city of Kalda.
Beside the river the ground was flat; as it rose further from the sea, the streets grew steeper until around the edges of the bowl in which the city lay they were almost sheer. Opposite, the river widened into a lake where other ships pitched and rolled slowly back and forth. There were dozens of them, a hundred perhaps, and his own ship drew among them and threw out its anchor. He stared. Kalda. Home, once, to a man called Radek. The man he’d killed on the last terrible day of his old life.
From the deck where he stood he could see the whole city now, spread out across the fallen slopes. The sheer size reminded him of Deephaven, of standing atop the tower in Teacher Garrent’s moon-temple and looking out across streets and houses stretched out as far as the eye could see. He’d done his best to forget his home, to forget everything about it: the loves he’d found and the fears and the loss. He’d tried to forget the master who’d dragged him out of the slums of Shipwrights’, who’d taught him the art of thief-taking and then killed his first true love; now as that one memory opened the door, the rest came crashing out in a tidal wave of regret. A tear crept down his cheek. Tasahre was dead. Master Sy was likely dead too, hunted to the ends of the world by the sword-monks of Deephaven for what he’d done. They’d both become murderers and now he had nothing left, nothing at all except a remembered pain deep and bitter enough to make him gasp and stagger. Not that anyone paid him any attention.
The Deephaven press-gangs had taken him that very same day. He’d been easy for them, staggering around the old slums of the city in a daze amid the debris of the Festival of Flames. He had no idea what they’d got for selling him — a few crowns, maybe. They’d taken his sword, his boots, his purse, everything that might have been worth anything except the gold token he’d worn around his neck. They’d missed that, hidden under his shirt, but the sailors on his new ship had found it quickly enough and then he’d had nothing. It seemed fitting to wind up as a skag on some ship he barely knew after what he’d done. He’d killed a man he didn’t know, murdered him in cold blood, staved in his skull with a waster — a wooden practice sword. Not that he’d wanted to but he’d had no choice. The warlock Saffran Kuy had ripped out a piece of his soul and made him do it. Compelled him with a terrible power the warlock still possessed even now, if he ever cared to use it.
Maybe he was lucky. In Deephaven, if they’d caught him, he’d have gone to the mines, a slow hard death far worse than being a rigging slave on a ship.
The absurdity made him laugh. Lucky? A week after they’d taken him, when they were far out to sea and days away from any land, the sailors had dragged him to the edge of the deck. He’d been certain they were all set to throw him overboard and watch him drown for the sheer fun of it. They hadn’t, but that was just how life was when you were a ship’s skag. Maybe since then he’d earned a grudging respect simply for still being alive, but even if he had it wasn’t worth much. Yet in all the ports they’d visited since, he’d never once tried to escape. To what? What was the point? Back to what he was before the thief-taker had taken him in, a thief, a cutpurse? What did he have to look forward to? Nothing. A short life, vicious and pointless and a bad end, that was all. Well, he already had that.
He’d lost track of time, sailing across the oceans with only the seasons as his guide. He’d had two winters since he’d left Deephaven and so he supposed it was two years since he’d been taken; but for all the difference that made, it might as well have been one or it might as well have been ten.
The sailors lowered a longboat into the waters of the Triere and began loading it with travel-chests. Berren watched them with a distant interest. The ship’s boatswain wouldn’t let him ashore in a place like this, not where he might run away. So he watched; and as the boat strained its way further upriver and turned towards the city, all his possibilities and all the things that had been taken away from him seemed to go with it. He turned away, unable to bear the sight of land any more, and looked back through the towering mouth of the Triere cliffs at the uncaring sea beyond. The Bitch Queen, the sailors called her. That was his life now. They deserved each other.
He bowed his head and got to work. A ship in port had plenty of jobs that needed doing before it set sail again, and since he was the ship’s skag, the worst of them were his. The longboat was long gone when another ship came by, catching the last wisps of wind that blew along the canyon to take it further up the estuary. It passed close and Berren stopped what he was doing to watch it, as he watched all ships as they passed.
On the deck stood a man.
It was him.
The thief-taker.
PART ONE
THE MASTER OF SWORDS
1
THE BITCH QUEEN’S HALL
The mob had come to watch three men die. Most of them had no idea who the men were. Nor did they particularly care. They’d come down to the Kalda docks for the spectacle, for a bit of blood, for a Sun-Day afternoon of shouting their anger and the riot that would surely follow. They’d come for a bit of a fight, to throw stones at the city officers and guardsmen and speakers. They’d come for the cold rain and the wind of winter, for everything the city had to offer, and that’s what they got.
A man ran through the burgeoning brawls with practised ease. The mob barely noticed he was there. He slipped between the larger fights around him like an eel between a fisherman’s fingers, finding space where none seemed to exist. If anyone had asked him how old he was, he might have said fifteen or he might have said twenty, depending on who was doing the asking. The truth lay somewhere in between. The truth was that he didn’t know and didn’t much care. He was small for a man who wore his first beard on his face and his name was Berren.
He hadn’t come for the executions like everyone else, nor for the rioting mob. A watcher perched on one of the rooftops overlooking the sea and taking an interest in his progress would have seen him pause now and then. With each pause came a climb to higher ground: a wall, a crane, an overturned cart, anywhere high enough to see over the sprawling chaos. The watcher, if he’d stared for long enough, might have seen that through the heaving mass of people, amid the torches and the shouts and the fists and the sticks and, yes, the swords and the knives, Berren was making his way towards the far side of the docks. To a tavern called the Bitch Queen’s Hall, where sailors and sell-swords were wont to gather, those of them that weren’t already out amid the destruction on the dockside.
He paused beside a wagon that had been turned on its side. Broken boxes and hundreds of cabbage leaves littered the cobbles. He was hungry; but everything worth eating had already been taken and all
that was left was crushed and trampled. He climbed up onto the wagon instead. The rain was getting worse, driving into his face. The iron-grey sky grew steadily darker. The storm blowing in off the sea and over the cliffs was a big one, the ships anchored in the river already putting up lights although it was still the middle of the afternoon. He shielded his eyes. In his rags he looked like one of the mob, but it wasn’t the mob he was afraid of. At least one company of soldiers was already down from its barracks, laying waste to any rioters in its way.
The worst of the fighting was still around the gallows. Three men hung there, dead for five minutes now. The officers who’d hanged them had brought half a company of soldiers for protection. Now, too late, they knew they should have brought the other half too. The soldiers were breaking away from the scaffold in little knots of swinging swords, trying to force their way though the mob to somewhere safe, scared enough to simply butcher anyone who got in their way. Berren kept well clear. He had no interest in any of this. From the top of the wagon he looked for where the worst of the fighting was to be had, and when he jumped down he did his best to avoid it. He had no idea who the three hanged men had been or why they were so important, nor did he care; what he cared about was the tavern, the Bitch Queen, where men of the waves said their prayers to the fickle sea in songs and ale and bawdy laughter. For that, here and now, was where the thief-taker would be.
A gang of men raced across his path, away from the gallows and towards the sea. Berren ran with them for a few seconds and then split away and resumed his course.
Master Sy. Memories filled his head and so did the anger he’d carried in him ever since Deephaven, the flames of fury that had smouldered in the dark for all this time. He let them. If there was one thing he’d learned as a skag, it was patience. Master Sy was supposed to be dead — or lost or drowned, or a slave in the imperial mines of Aria or something worse — anything, but not here, not alive. Yet today he was both of those things, and Berren had come to hunt him down.
The shops and the taverns and the storehouses at the edge of the docks gave a little shelter from the wind and the slanting rain. He eased his way along towards the Bitch Queen. Despite the downpour the rioters had set fire to something. Smoke drifted among them and out to sea. The gallows were rocking back and forth, about to be torn down. He couldn’t see where the soldiers had gone and it was impossible to hear anything useful over the shouts and screams of the fighting, over the howl and hiss of the wind and rain.
A trio of snuffers lounged by the tavern doors. They were pressed against the wall and taking shelter as best they could. They looked bored, barely aware of the anarchy around them, but underneath their heavy leather coats Berren caught the flash of metal breastplates. They wore those coats loose too, the way Master Sy used to, and Berren could see where hidden scabbards bent their shape. Whenever anyone from the mob staggered too close, they tensed very slightly, and that was all that was needed. Men still came and went through the Bitch Queen’s door but they walked slowly and upright and with their hands empty and easily seen. The snuffers glanced at Berren as he hurried in, but his rags were so torn he could barely have hidden a peeling knife. They gave a faint nod. Inside, warm stuffy air wrapped itself around him like a blanket. With the door closed behind him, the din of laughter and shouted conversation was almost as loud as the riot on the dockside.
A knife. He hadn’t brought one because he didn’t have one but there were knives everywhere in here. Daggers in scabbards, blades stuck into people’s belts, knives cutting bread and meat, knives used for drinking games or simply sitting on tables. Berren moved among the knots and clusters of men looking for one that he could take. There were swords too, hatchets and makeshift clubs. He picked someone who was the worse for drink, waited until the man was jostled from the other side and, unseen, snatched the knife from the man’s belt and melted away into the crowd. He clutched it tight. A cheap thing, blunt and savage, and for a moment he wondered what he meant to do with it; but then he closed his eyes and he could see the thief-taker’s face again on that terrible last day as Tasahre lay bleeding on the deck of Radek’s ship. He’d seen her face every night for nearly two and half years. The thief-taker had called Berren’s name. To come with him? To flee? Or was it simply a cry of surprise at what each one of them had just done?
He should never have gone to the Emperor’s Docks that day. Tasahre would be alive and maybe he’d have seen the thief-taker again or maybe not, but it could hardly have ended worse.
He looked about. The thief-taker was here somewhere. Today and only today. Berren’s heart was already racing. He’d had fights, more than his share of them. He’d taken beatings and he’d given them too. He’d broken men’s bones and scarred their faces but he’d never killed, not until he’d smashed his waster into Radek of Kalda’s head, and it had been the warlock Saffran Kuy who’d made him do that. His hands hadn’t been his own. Today he would have no such excuse.
Across the floor and through the crowd he glimpsed the face he was looking for. The face of the thief-taker, the one-time Prince of Tethis. Master Sy. And now he couldn’t move. He was back in Deephaven again and Tasahre was bleeding in his arms and Master Sy was on the edge of Radek’s ship with a waiting boat below him and no other place to go, sword-monks and city soldiers closing in a ring around them both. The monks would take his head for what he’d done. The thief-taker of Deephaven was dead, he had to be!
The face shifted and vanished and now all he could see were sailors and a crowd of snuffers, all moving together as though they were about to leave. He started to push his way towards them, his fingers gripping his stolen knife too tightly.
A hand clamped onto his shoulder, spinning him around.
‘Well well. If it isn’t our wandering skag.’
2
THE BITCH QUEEN’S HALL
Berren tried to pull away but the hand on his shoulder held him fast. ‘You made a fool of me, little bitch-boy. You know what we do to deserters, skag?’
Berren stared up into the face of a sailor. The sailor grinned and showed off his rotten teeth. Klaas. Klaas had been on watch the night Berren had slipped over the side with his empty barrel and floated and bobbed and half-drowned his way to shore. It took Berren a second to remember, and yes, he knew exactly what they did to deserters. They flogged them. A hundred lashes, and if by some miracle their man was still alive after that, they cut the tendons in his ankles and his wrists and threw him over the side to watch him drown. His eyes darted around the tavern. Klaas turned too, looking for his friends — sailors came ashore in packs and if Klaas was here then there would be others from Berren’s old ship.
As Klaas moved, Berren caught sight of a silver token around his neck. It made him think of another, long lost now but made of gold and with the imperial eagle of Aria stamped on one side and a sword and shield on the other. A prince had given it to him once and it was the most precious thing he’d ever had. For months he’d seen it move from one sailor to the next as they’d gambled together, and in all that time he’d never lost the hope that he might somehow get it back. And then one day it was gone. Stolen from a sailor by a pickpocket in some port Berren couldn’t even name. After that he’d toyed at nights with the thought of slipping through the decks in the dark, of finding a knife and slitting the throat of every man left aboard. A fantasy but they deserved it, the lot of them. There wasn’t a single sailor on his ship that he would have spared or even given a second thought.
‘Hey! Lads!’ Klaas stank of sour wine and sweat. Berren still had his stolen knife in his hand. It was right there begging him to use it. And so he did. He stabbed Klaas in the gut.
‘Why you. .’ Klaas’s face twisted with fury. He clenched his other fist. Then he let go of Berren and looked down at himself. Blood darkened his shirt, spreading out in an enormous stain over his belly. The expression on his face changed. Anger turned to shock and then to fear. ‘You stabbed me! You royal hunt! You piece of horse filth! Skag!’ His vo
ice grew louder. ‘Skag!’
Berren stood frozen. Vengeance had become the engine of his life, keeping him going. Vengeance for Tasahre, his fallen sword-monk, his love. For the few months since he’d escaped ashore it had stolen him food when he was starving and taken the shelter he needed when he was cold. It had foraged for clothes and shoes to keep him warm even if they were little more than rags. It had bullied and fought him a place among the destitute of the docks and carved him a name that others had learned to fear. It wrapped its arms around him at night and whispered him to sleep, and in the mornings it roused him and drove him on. Vengeance was his lover, strong and terrible, who did what needed to be done while he looked and he asked wherever he went: Syannis of Tethis, where can I find him?
And now his lover suddenly wasn’t with him. He’d stabbed a man — killed him — and vengeance was nowhere to be found. He felt suddenly small and stupid and very afraid that he was about to die.
I killed a man. No warlock this time, no Saffran Kuy screaming in his head. Just him and a knife and his own hand holding it. The old instincts of a boy thief took over. He kicked Klaas between the legs as hard as he could. As Klaas doubled over, the silver token around his neck dangled free in the air. Berren snatched it and tore it away and screamed, ‘That’s what you get, fat man! That’s what you get.’ He pushed his way between the sailors who were beginning to turn and stare; as soon as he had space around him, he ran. The crowd of snuffers and the thief-taker were gone now, out through a door into the streets behind the Bitch Queen. Berren followed. He didn’t look back. Behind him Klaas had found his voice again and was screaming his lungs out. Klaas was a bastard and he’d deserved it. But then if you looked at it like that, so did every sailor on his ship. So did an awful lot of people.
