Stephen Deas - The King's assassin

‘Berren of Deephaven, Your Majesty,’ said Talon, loudly.

‘You do look like me,’ said the king happily. ‘I thought you’d be giant or something like that.’

Berren couldn’t answer. He’d never worn bright rich clothes like the ones the king had on. Nor had his hair ever been so long and lustrous. But beneath all that, stripped down to skin and bone, he might have been looking at his own reflection. Except for the eyes, for where Berren’s eyes sparkled, the king’s were dull and dead.

Aimes chattered at Berren and talked like a child, moving from one thing to the next on a whim, hardly seeming to notice whether Berren heard him or not, which was just as well because Berren was too busy staring. Like having a long-lost twin . When he was finished, he waved Berren away. Talon coughed loudly. A scowl crossed Aimes’ face, and the king of Tethis stamped his foot and rolled his eyes. ‘Talli says I’m supposed to give you a present for helping him,’ he said. He looked none too happy about the idea. ‘Is there something you want? As long as it’s not the hawks or the falcons, because I like birds.’

Talon whispered something in the king’s ear. Aimes’ face brightened.

‘You want that?’ He pointed at Fasha, crouched at the foot of Gelisya’s throne.

Gelisya squeaked, ‘My maid? You can’t have my bonds-maid! She’s mine!’

Berren ignored her. He nodded. ‘Yes, Your Majesty.’ An idiot and a child sitting on their thrones? What sense did that make? But that was a question for Tarn, down in a tavern when they were both deep in their cups, not for now.

Aimes beamed. ‘I like you,’ he said. ‘You’re not greedy. I don’t like greedy people. Greedy people aren’t nice. Yes. You can have the woman. Talli, can we have lots of bondsmen now?’

‘Of course.’ Talon peered past Aimes at Berren and mouthed, She’s yours .

Berren murmured some words of thanks but Aimes had already forgotten that he existed and was busy beaming at Talon. ‘Uncle Syannis never lets me have anything .’

Berren bowed and began to back away. A slight whiff of bad fish tickled his nose. He looked around sharply. Kuy? There was no sign of him, but Gelisya caught his eye. A little half-smile flashed across her face, meant only for him.

‘No.’ Syannis rose suddenly. ‘This bondswoman is the property of Princess Gelisya, little brother. She is not yours to give.’ He turned and stared at Berren, and Berren felt a numbness filling his head. He stopped. He felt as though he was suddenly watching from high in the rafters, as though he wasn’t in charge of himself any more but had become a passenger in his own body. He looked very angry, he thought, as he took two quick steps towards the throne. A voice that didn’t sound anything like his own uttered a growl full of rage.

‘You promised her to me!’ He was pointing at Syannis, he realised. Around the room the new king’s guard had their hands on their swords and some even had them half out of their scabbards. But Berren found he didn’t care about that, not one little bit.

‘You promised her to me!’ he said again. ‘I remember your words exactly as you said them. When she’s mine to give, she’s yours . On your knees, you made that promise to me, as payment for Meridian’s death! Well, thief-taker, we failed that night, but I did the deed for you on the battlefield. Now honour our bargain!’

Syannis’s lips curled back to show his teeth. ‘But she is not mine to give you, boy .’

The part of him watching from the rafters saw the change in Gelisya’s face. The smug grin freezing in place, her eyes filling with horror and surprise, her jaw falling slack. She jumped to her feet. ‘You? You did it? You killed him?’ She whipped around to Syannis. ‘I want him dead! Dead! Do you hear me? Dead!’

Syannis shifted awkwardly. ‘Your father fell in battle, Princess. No one can say for sure how he was slain. In honourable combat, no doubt.’

‘He was skulking miles away, filling his face with wine, and he died with a bolt from a crossbow in the back of his head,’ hissed Berren. ‘You tell me if that’s honourable, thief-taker. If you can tell the difference any more.’

Gelisya’s rage turned into an apoplectic fury of hissing, of pointing and screeching. Syannis’s face filled with a cold anger. ‘Help the princess back to her rooms,’ he said. ‘Take the princess’s bonds-maid as well so she might attend to her mistress.’ He pointed to Berren. ‘As for this one, throw him into the Pit. A few days there should calm him down.’

‘Syannis!’ Talon burst to his feet. ‘No! You cannot-’

‘ I am regent here, little brother! Now sit down !’

In a flash, before any of the guards could get close, Berren reached for his swords only to remember they weren’t there. Obscenities filled his head, waiting to be flung across the room at Prince Syannis, but his mouth was frozen shut. None of them were adequate. Talon had closed his eyes, head held in his hands. King Aimes simply watched him being dragged towards the door with a look of idiotic amusement on his face. As his own countrymen hauled him away, Berren’s eyes never left Syannis.

‘I killed a king for you!’ he screamed.

They stripped him naked and threw him into the Pit, the same one he’d seen the night he and the thief-taker had crept in through the secret caves. The lancers didn’t seem to care, but some of the soldiers who made up the new king’s guard had been Hawks. They threw him in because that’s what they’d been told to do, but they didn’t look happy about it. In the days that followed there were no beatings. The water they brought was clean, the food good. On the third day his clothes fell in and no one seemed to notice. Soldiers from the company came by from time to time. Sometimes things fell out of their pockets.

‘It’s making everyone restless,’ Tarn told him one day when Berren had been in the Pit for a week. ‘Talon knows it’s not right.’ He slipped Berren a thick slice of cold beef. The soldiers who were supposed to be guarding him were carefully looking the other way. ‘Everyone knows it’s not right. When the Hawks leave and the season starts again, you’ll be out of here. Talon has sworn it on his father’s soul.’

‘When the Hawks leave?’ Berren laughed bitterly. ‘So much for a few days in the Pit to calm him down then.’ In his mind he saw Syannis with a knife though his heart. Bastard betrayer! To think I came back here for you!

The days dragged to weeks. The soldiers guarding his prison were the same. Tarn and the others still came to visit, but to the rest of the world he seemed forgotten. When he asked Tarn about Talon and Syannis, Tarn only rolled his eyes.

‘Talon paces the castle like a caged animal and can’t wait to be away. King Aimes issues nonsense decrees. Prince Syannis does nothing but complain about money and insist that this, that or the other be stopped. Princess Gelisya’s demands grow ever more endless.’ He sucked a breath between his teeth. ‘Whispers say it’s her that’s keeping you here. She’s got her claws into King Aimes, that one, and she makes sure he won’t allow Syannis to let you go, nor Talon either. She’s not the child she seems. Oh, and that bonds-maid sends a message.’ He handed Berren a crumpled scrap of paper and then watched with interest as Berren peered at it. He laughed. ‘We didn’t know whether you could read. There’s not many of us can, but then there’s not many of us who’ve been taught by priests. What is it you see in her?’