Stephen Deas - The King's assassin

‘They go looting, pillaging and plundering?’ The woman wouldn’t look at him. ‘Slaving? Do they go slaving?’ Yes, that got a flicker out of her. ‘I’m not going to kill your boy for that,’ he said. ‘Lie to me and that’s another matter. How long are the men gone?’

‘Between planting and harvest time.’

‘So the ship would be coming for them soon, then? Or has it already been?’

She shook her head, but no, of course the ship hadn’t come already otherwise the men he’d fought this morning wouldn’t have been here. It would come soon, then, to take them away to raid the Duke of Forgenver’s coast. Had they been looking out for it? Was that why they’d been so quick to strike at Talon’s company — because they’d been watching for a ship all along?

‘How do you know when?’

‘A man comes to the village and tells us.’

‘What man?’

‘I only saw him once.’

‘When does he come?’

‘He came already. Yesterday. He said you were coming. He said to be ready.’

‘He told you what ? That we were coming?’ So it wasn’t just a well-kept watch. And they’d not seen another ship on their whole trip up the coast, which meant that word had come from Forgenver before Talon had even set sail! Berren took his foot off the boy and walked briskly towards her. He grabbed her by the arm and dragged her towards the woods. ‘This man, who is he? When was the first time he came here?’

‘Winter before last,’ she said. She didn’t try to pull away from him. He saw her wave frantically at the boy though. Run, run! ‘Was a hard winter and food was scarce. .’

‘What does he wear? Big horse, fancy clothes, fancy sword, that sort of thing?’ He looked at her, but that wasn’t it. Something else then. A horrible thought struck him. ‘Does he wear grey?’

His eyes drifted back towards the village. Glimpsed through the trees he could see galloping horses. Lots of them, with soldiers on their backs. He let the woman go and she and her boy were gone in a flash, running full pelt away across the beach. If she’d answered, Berren didn’t hear, but he didn’t bother chasing her; instead he raced to the edge of the woods and then stopped. A hundred yards of open field lay between the trees and the village. He’d meant to dash across it, taking his chances in the open to join his cohort, but the horsemen were too close now. The trees gave a measure of safety and so did the houses in the village, but the open ground between them? That was a killing field. At least there weren’t as many riders as he’d feared. Perhaps thirty, certainly far fewer than Talon’s company, but in the open they still had every advantage. Anyone who crossed the fields would be slaughtered.

They were from Aria, he realised. Soldiers from Deephaven. It wasn’t just the armour they wore or the familiar way they carried their lances either; when they passed close to the woods, Berren could see their faces. Their skin was dark like his, used to the sun, not ghostly white like Tarn and almost every other face he’d seen since Kalda. They were the men who’d attacked Talon there, on the horses he’d seen in Tethis, but how did they come to be here?

He watched more closely. They’d claimed the ground between the village and the wood and split the Hawks in two, but they weren’t doing anything more. They weren’t charging in among the houses and burning out the men hidden there.

Then one rode out from the middle of them. He stopped and turned his horse around on the spot, showing off, threw back his head and roared, ‘Talon! Where are you?’

Berren froze. Talon came running out of the village waving his arms. The horseman jumped down, but not for a fight. Berren watched the two men embrace and knew he couldn’t be wrong. It was a voice he’d recognise anywhere and it struck him like a thunderbolt. The thief-taker. Talon’s brother. Master Sy.

In Forgenver the Fighting Hawks had more than two hundred soldiers, with nearly another hundred camp followers, mostly boys desperately pretending to be old enough to fight, but also a smith and his apprentices, two cobblers and an ever-changing posse of women who served as seamstresses and nurses when required, but whose true purpose Berren had slowly come to understand. Comforters , Tarn called them. There was also a victualler and his boys, a sun-priest, a scribe and at least a dozen others. These were the people who mended swords and boots, bodies and souls. Most of them had stayed in Forgenver while Talon packed as many soldiers into his ship as it could carry.

On their way here they’d been cramped, men tripping over one another at every step. Now, on their way back, they were somehow to carry another thirty men and their horses and so there was a lot of grumbling and shouting and arguing; but Berren had eyes and ears for none of that. There was one thing on his mind and one thing alone. Master Sy. The thief-taker. The man who’d taught him so much and the man who’d cut down his Tasahre. He couldn’t get close — didn’t dare, he didn’t know what he might do — but he couldn’t keep away. Master Sy looked at him once or twice, but his gaze swept by with no flicker of recognition, and the two princes were constantly going back and forth from the shore to the ship, trying to arrange how everyone would fit. Berren paced restlessly while the rest of the Hawks lounged on the beach and twiddled their thumbs, all of them wondering what to do with themselves.

‘Oi, Berren!’ Tarn was standing beside a collection of barrels and boxes piled up in the middle of the beach, supplies taken off the ship to make room for Master Sy and his horsemen. Beside him was another soldier, taller than Berren but skinny, with a sharp pointy beard and an angry scowl on his face. Tarn waved Berren over. They were leaning against an open barrel of beer.

The other soldier looked Berren up and down. His scowl deepened. ‘Well,’ he said after a bit, ‘I hardly expected a common peasant.’

He took a couple of steps closer and stared haughtily down his nose. Behind him, Tarn straightened. ‘Um, Hain? Not a good-’

‘Why don’t you piss off back home where you came from, dark-skin? Why are you still here?’

Berren stared back at this soldier he’d never seen before. He cocked his head and then punched him on the nose. Hard. The soldier reeled, clutching his face.

‘You cess-eater!’

Satisfaction spread through Berren. Someone had had this coming from the moment he’d seen Master Sy. He took another step forward. ‘I’m Berren,’ he said. ‘I fought on this beach this morning. I killed six men. Did you?’ He left a moment for his words to sink in while the other soldier stared at him in surprise, both hands clutching at his face. ‘Who are you anyway?’

The soldier raised a finger at him. ‘You can sit on this, you can, dark-skin.’ He stormed off, wiping the blood from his nose. Tarn let out a great sigh.

‘That was Hain of the Yorkan family,’ he said. ‘Probably not the best person to punch in the face. He’s squired to Prince Syannis of Tethis. I thought you two might want to get to know each other. Apparently not.’

‘No.’ Berren spat and rubbed his knuckles. He breathed out hard and slumped against the barrel. ‘He was right, though. I should just leave. Get my things and go. Go home, wherever that is. I don’t belong here.’ He glanced across the beach. Master Sy and Talon had two clusters of soldiers around them now. Both were gesticulating angrily. ‘But he’s right here now! I need to know. I need to know why he did it.’ His head was a whirl. First the fight on the beach, then the old woman he’d killed, now this. It was too much. Made him want to run. Run away long and far and just hide.