Steven Brust - Hawk

I pushed the quilt aside and entered.

She looked up at me from an odd legless chair-like a cushion with a back-where she sat with her knees drawn up, reading. She was around fifty years old but looked older: her face weathered, her hair stringy and mostly gray. Her eyes-a deep, penetrating brown-fell first on Loiosh and Rocza, then on the sword at my side, then on my face.

“You’re the young Taltos boy, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Auntie,” I said. My voice was still pretty raspy. I again almost cleared my throat, and again remembered in time to not do that.

“Tea?”

“Please.”

I sat silently while she puttered. She served us a strong herb tea with hints of cinnamon and orange. I waited while she tasted hers, looking me over with narrow, evaluating eyes. A few wisps of hair fell over her forehead. I was pleased that I could swallow the tea without discomfort. Thank you, Lady Teldra.

“Well,” said the old woman said after a moment.

“Thank you for the tea, Auntie.”

“What do you bring me?”

“Gold,” I said.

She sniffed. “Gold gold, or copper?”

I drew an imperial from my pouch and passed it over. She studied it, and I could see her trying not to show how impressed she was. Eventually she gave up the struggle, and let herself smile. She still had many of her teeth, though they were yellow.

“Are you hungry?”

I managed a dignified nod that understated my hunger by a great deal. She disappeared, then came back with large bowl and a small one.

“Oh my,” I said. “Are those what I think they are?”

“Probably.”

“Who grows red mushrooms around here?”

“I do,” she said and offered me the bowl. I took one, dipped it into the garlic butter, and took a bite. The burn spread over my tongue and mouth and I grinned. The last person I knew who grew red mushrooms had been my father, years and years ago. He had served them lightly steamed, coated in garlic butter, and with a scallion wrapped around each. These were just steamed and dipped in garlic butter, which is all you need. In a pinch, you can skip the garlic butter. I felt my face flush, I started sweating, and I ate another one.

I think it was just about there that I remembered that my clothes were covered in blood.

“Auntie,” I rasped. “About my appearance-”

“Eat first,” she snapped, as if annoyed that she had to explain something so obvious. I didn’t argue.

The burn from red mushrooms (which, fortunately, affects the front of the mouth and not the throat) hits immediately, but it also accumulates, so by the fifth one my mouth was seriously concerned that I was trying to get information from it, and it would have told me anything I wanted to hear if it had only known what to say. She brought out some langosh, however, and that helped.

“Thanks,” I said.

She sniffed. “I’m not a laundry service. You’ll have to find your own way to clean up.”

“I know, Auntie.”

“You need rest.”

I nodded.

“But that isn’t why you came to me. Nor was it for red mushrooms.” She sniffed again, as if red mushrooms were the only reason any right-thinking person would visit her.

I shook my head.

“Well?”

“I need a safe place to stay,” I said. “Just for a day or two, while I recover.”

She studied me, her eyes unblinking. “How is your grandfather?”

“Well. He’s in an Eastern province, just this side of the mountains. Lots of wildlife, lots of privacy. He likes it.”

“You’ll give him my regards?”

“I will.”

She considered a little longer, and I waited for her to decide.

Let me explain: Stabbing someone to death isn’t easy. I know how often you see it in the theater, but on the street, it doesn’t work like it does on the stage. You can’t simply put steel into someone and expect him to become dead. People just naturally don’t want to die, and have bodies that are designed to keep on living. If you have a thrusting sword like a rapier, or even better, a shortsword, and you can nail the heart, you’re going to be all right; but it needs to be perfect, and it’s hard to use anything as big as that without giving the target enough warning that it could turn into a fight-and you don’t want it to turn into a fight, because then it won’t be perfect, which means something might go wrong. That’s why most “work” is done with knives, and killing someone with a knife requires knowing what you’re doing.

There is a significant difference between a fight and an assassination. Usually, when I’m fighting, I try for wounds that will slow my enemy, or throw him off, or make it more difficult for him to fight me. That’s why I cut so much-cutting someone’s face, or arm, or belly, or leg, will interfere with his plans even if it won’t kill him. The times you can actually get in a perfect killing strike are rare in a fight. The whole point of assassination, in fact, is to get the target into a position where you can take one perfect shot for a vital spot, and hit it. Even then, a great deal of the time, the victim won’t die instantly; he’ll just lie there, in shock, until he bleeds to death or his organs shut down. I mean, it often isn’t even clear exactly when death occurs. But most of the time, it doesn’t matter. Nail a guy’s brain, and he’s dead, even if he’s still breathing for a bit. Generally speaking, that’s good enough.

But I didn’t have a pattern of movements, and I certainly wouldn’t agree to a meeting, which made it very hard for anyone to set me up with a perfect shot; it didn’t give them a lot to work with. In a situation like that, if I’d even agreed to take the job, I’d have just exercised patience and waited for the target (me, if you’re paying attention) to make a mistake. But the Jhereg wanted me really badly, and I was skilled enough to make it hard for them-so someone had just put out the word that anyone who managed to stick a Morganti blade in me would make a lot of money. They were spending a lot of money on having people watch for me, and they’d made some arrangement to get out word when I was spotted.

I mean, the death thing-if it’s a Morganti blade they’ve stuck into you, that’s different. Doesn’t much matter where you’re hit, you’re dead. Really dead. All the way dead. Depending on how strong the blade is, probably pretty fast, too.

The result was that a lot of incompetent people were taking shots at me. And that meant two things: one, that there were going to be a lot of attempts that were less than expert; and, two, sooner or later they were going to get me unless I got out of town really fast. It also meant that all of the places I usually went would be watched: Kragar’s office, Cawti’s house-for all I knew they were even watching Castle Black and Dzur Mountain.

I’m explaining this to you; it isn’t what I was thinking about then. I sort of knew it, and I was sort of too messed up to care. Yeah, sometimes things are complicated.

What I did know was that I needed to be somewhere safe for a few days; to rest, to build up my strength. Just for a while. Someplace they couldn’t find me, at least until I was in shape to maybe survive another attempt.

Just because you figure that one of them is going to get you eventually is no reason to make it easy for them.

Well, is it?

She raised a hand, studied me, then let it fall.

“You cannot remove that amulet even long enough to be healed?”

“No, Auntie. If I do, I’ll be found.”

She sniffed. “You need longer than a few days. You’re already falling apart. You’ve been foolish, and are being more foolish every hour, and you need rest.”

“Yeah,” I said.

She considered. “Your grandfather would want me to help you.”