Stephen Deas - The King's assassin

‘Meridian’s at home,’ muttered Syannis as soon as they saw it. Berren wondered how he knew until the thief-taker pointed at the clusters of flags flying above the two towers. Among them was a red flag with four white ships. The flag of Radek of Kalda. Berren knew it at once — he’d spent years looking out for it, every day.

Syannis grunted, and for a moment Berren saw a glimpse of the old thief-taker who’d taught him most of what he knew, the Master Sy with the flashing eyes and the quick cutting tongue and the simmering rage buried beneath. For a moment and then it was gone. ‘Come on.’ The thief-taker led them off the road until he found a hole under a fallen tree. The three of them wrapped their swords and their armour in cloth and buried them along with anything else that marked them as men of war. When they were done, Syannis brushed himself down. ‘See? Now we’re farmers.’ With a flourish he produced a skin full of cider, and there it was again, a glimmer of the man Berren had once known.

Berren scratched his head and took a gulp. ‘Talon led us along this road when we left Tethis the last time. Up to Galsmouth and through the next duchy.’

‘Gorandale.’

‘That’s the one.’

Hain snorted. ‘Nothing but hills and sheep. Mind you, Tethis isn’t much better, nor Forgenver if it comes to it.’

‘We came along this road.’ Berren screwed up his face, trying to remember. ‘We passed through a few villages on the first day. Once we were out of the town, everything was so empty. The hills got bigger. And yes — ’ he frowned ‘- there were a lot of sheep.’

Syannis shrugged. ‘Can’t be leaving the mules. Swords and stuff we can bury. Mules, they’ll wander, or else someone will take them.’ He swept his arm across the landscape. ‘Look at this place. Almost deserted. Scraps of woodland. A few big rocks here and there. Sharp bends, steep valleys. A forgotten hut or two.’ He shook his head. ‘Outside Tethis itself, this country has its own laws. Especially inland. Hain’s right. Hills and hills and more hills and nothing much else except bloody sheep.’

‘Open country all the way to Galsmouth.’

‘Yes.’ Syannis made a face. ‘Why?’

Berren handed back the cider. ‘Nothing really. I was just thinking. I broke into your house once when you were in Deephaven. When you. .’ He stopped. That was the night that Master Sy and the warlock Saffran Kuy had killed the Headsman. Hain probably wasn’t supposed to know about that. ‘Not long after you put a lock on the door.’ He turned to Hain and grinned maliciously. ‘And he was always so careful to bar the doors and the windows in case someone with a knife and a grudge slipped in at night. But he never thought to bar my room. It was always open. Even after I was gone.’ Berren looked back at Syannis and then glanced away inland at the line of hills. ‘I think this road is a bit like your front door, master thief-taker, and those hills, when they get closer, are like your unguarded upstairs window that no one’s thought of. If, say, you wanted to move a few hundred armed men about. Like I said, I was just thinking. It’s like breaking into someone’s house, just on a grander scale.’

Hain looked at him. His face was a mask of questions, and then Berren watched as it filled with the glow of understanding. Slowly he nodded.

Syannis, Berren saw, was quietly chuckling to himself.

The summer days were long and hot, the evenings and the nights pleasantly warm and the days started early. They rode their mules back to the roadside as the sun rose and then watched and waited until the first carts appeared on their way to the Tethis markets. Berren and Hain and Syannis sidled in among the traffic and settled alongside a couple of old farmhands driving a wagon full of hay. The men were surly, but they soon found their tongues when Hain offered to share his breakfast with them, and quickly got to chatting about the weather and their crops. Syannis let Hain do the talking. Berren’s mind wandered. Coming here had seemed like a fine enough idea when he hadn’t actually given it much thought, but now it was making him nervous. People in the castle would remember his face — the bondswoman, the two soldiers who’d barred his way, Princess Gelisya — and besides, Tethis was home to the soap-maker, Vallas, Saffran’s brother.

As they came close to the town, two soldiers on horseback blocked the road ahead of them, stopping each cart in turn. When the wagon reached them, they poked their swords into the hay and took a good long look at Syannis and Berren.

‘Business in Tethis?’

‘Hay for them horses of yours,’ grumbled one of the men on the wagon.

Hain smiled and patted the axe on his belt. ‘New edges for me and my brothers,’ he said. The soldiers muttered to each other, shook their heads and waved them on.

‘Look at their colours,’ murmured Syannis. ‘The Mountain Panther. That tells you something in itself.’

‘It does?’ Berren shrugged.

‘That Meridian has money,’ said Hain.

They rode on until they reached the side of the Tethis valley opposite the castle. For a few minutes they stopped, but from there the castle was difficult to see.

‘Can’t stay here staring,’ muttered Syannis. ‘People will notice.’

‘Another reason to come at the place through the hills,’ said Berren.

‘Or from the south instead of the north. Come on.’

The thief-taker led the way now. They reached the market where Berren had searched for what he’d needed to save Tarn. Instead of crossing the river bridge to the castle road, the thief-taker paused by the street down to the sea, towards the ships and the docks and the fishermen.

‘A moment, Berren, if you please.’

Syannis and Hain left him there, holding the mules. Berren followed the progress of the street with his eyes. He’d walked it that day, all of it. It ran all the way down to the sea, past the Mermaid, around the bulk of the harbour to a shingle beach covered with nets hung up in ranks to dry. Somewhere down there was the soap-maker, Vallas Kuy. Berren’s skin prickled. The stink of fish wafted up on the sea breeze. Gulls squawked and circled overhead. As soon as he looked for them, Berren started to see cats, here and there, hiding in shadows and nooks and crannies. He felt them watching him. His sword hand itched, but today he was a farmer and so he had nothing to grasp. He could almost feel the presence of the warlock.

It started to rain, a light warm summer rain that reminded him of Deephaven. Dark clouds flitted back and forth across the sun. Berren looked out at the sea and the waves. I can work on a ship , he thought. I could go anywhere. I could go home. What’s to stop me? He’d miss Tarn maybe. He wouldn’t miss him much, though. Not enough to stay.

But go? Go where?

Syannis came back and he was on his own. ‘Change of plan,’ he said. ‘Hain can go back and get our stuff. I’m coming with you.’

Berren blinked. What? ‘But won’t they recognise you?’

‘Oh, I don’t think so. It’s been a very long time.’ He bared his teeth. ‘And you know what? I can’t resist it. The temptation is too much.’ He met Berren eye to eye for a moment, and there once more was the old thief-taker. ‘Like walking the edge of a sword blade, eh? And what better place to say whatever needs to be said about Radek and your dead sword-monk than in the midst of our enemies, digging their privies?’

Syannis was mad. Utterly mad. Berren couldn’t help himself — he started to laugh. ‘You know I might just push you into one and bury you,’ he said, and he meant it too.

‘Yes,’ the thief-taker’s face gleamed, ‘I know you might try.’