Stephen Deas - Warlock's shadow

Being up on the rooftops made him think of the archer who’d fallen off the warehouse. He changed direction sharply. One rooftop to the next and then the big leap, right across the street, the one place you could do it but you had to get the jump just right and land in exactly the right place. Berren flew across the gap, caught the edge of the roof on the far side with his toes, let his momentum carry him forward and then grabbed onto the roof with both hands, pulling himself up and scrabbling with his feet. It was a hard jump to make, even if you knew the trick to it. He scrambled up the roof and looked back. Velgian had skittered to a halt on the other side of the jump. He still had his swords drawn.

‘Berren!’

‘Don’t! You’ll fall, Master Velgian. You will.’ Now that he’d led the poet thief-taker here to his little trap, escape was enough. Then home, Master Sy, the justicar, he could tell them all he was right …

Velgian started to run, still with his swords out, straight at the gap. It was a good jump and he almost made it. His foot caught the roof and he pitched forward just as Berren had done, only Velgian wasn’t ready for it. His hands were full. It was all over in an instant. His foot slipped off, he dropped both his swords, clawed at the roof and then he was gone, over the edge.

No, not quite. When Berren inched closer, he saw Velgian still hanging by his fingertips.

‘Master Velgian!’ The roof was steep, like all the roofs in this part of the city. ‘Whose purse, Master Velgian?’

‘You going to help me up, boy?’ Velgian’s fingers were slowly slipping. Berren offered him his hand and then withdrew it. The roof was too steep, his own footing too precarious. If Velgian wanted to be helped, Berren could help him, but what Velgian really wanted was to take Berren over the edge with him — he could see it in the thief-taker’s eyes. Nothing to lose any more.

‘Thought not. Got some sense there.’

‘Whose purse, Master Velgian? Whose gold bought you?’

Velgian’s arms were shaking. ‘Are you listening, boy? You tell Syannis one thing for me. You tell him that Saffran Kuy is not the friend he thinks. You tell him that, Berren. Do that for me. Tell him …’

The edge of the roof snapped under his fingers. It was only twenty feet down to the ground, but Velgian landed flat on his back. He bounced and lay still. By the time Berren got down, Velgian was dead. His neck was broken.

They were in sight of the thief-taker’s house. Berren dragged Velgian to the door and pulled him inside. Master Sy wasn’t there, presumably off watching the Two Cranes again or whatever it was he did, but Berren could hardly go to bed and leave a body in his parlour for the thief-taker to find when he came back. In the end he curled up in the thief-taker’s chair and fell asleep there, waiting for his master to come home.

It wasn’t Master Sy who nudged him awake barely moments after his eyes had closed, though, but the Justicar.

‘Wake up, boy.’ He was poking Berren with a finger. ‘Wake up. And then tell me, right now, what the bloody Khrozus Master Velgian is doing dead on the floor.’

For a moment Berren wondered if he should run, but he was too tired and what was the point? He didn’t understand why Velgian, of all of them, would have done something like this.

‘He fell,’ he said, and then slowly and carefully went through everything that had happened, trying to put it all together in his head as he did, as if that might bring some sense to it. When he was done, he was no better off than when he started.

‘Velgian?’ Kol rubbed his face, struggling with disbelief. Berren nodded. He could see quite clearly now how the poet thief-taker must have been the man in the scent garden. Everything about him was right, right size, not the best swordsman, moved the right way, everything. But why? Why would he do it? Even Kol seemed bemused.

‘For a purse filled with the Emperor’s head like he said, I suppose.’ Kol took a deep breath and frowned as though he still didn’t really believe it. He gave Berren a strange look. ‘There are ways to get to the truth, even now,’ he said. ‘Does he have any family to claim the body?’

They looked at each other. As far as Berren knew, Velgian had come to Deephaven from somewhere far to the east. He’d come alone, and if you believed his boasts in The Eight, he’d had a string of lovers as long as your arm. But in the end he always struck Berren as a lonely man. ‘I don’t think so. Don’t you know?’

Kol shrugged. ‘You thief-takers keep yourselves to yourselves. If he had anyone, he never spoke of them to me. Right then. You’re not going anywhere for the next few weeks are you, Berren? No, let me say it another way — you stay where I can see you. You and Syannis both. Now I’m going to have to go and haul some of my men out of their cups, which isn’t going to please any of us. So he’d better still be here when I come back.’

‘He was trying to say something when he fell. Something about the witch-doctor.’

A dark look crossed Kol’s face. ‘Was he now? Well like I said, there’s people in this city who can do something about that. If they can be persuaded.’

He went away and came back half an hour later with a pair of militia-men and a handcart. They lifted Velgian into it and wheeled him away. Kol watched them go.

‘Something I need to talk about with your master. Got some news for him about what’s keeping him at the Two Cranes. So I’ll be staying around for a bit.’ He gave Berren another odd look, sort of angry and sad at the same time. ‘None of your business what it is unless he says otherwise though. If I were you, I’d piss off to bed and get some sleep.’ He settled into Master Sy’s chair. ‘Yeh, that’s what I’d do if I were you, and I’d quietly forget that any of this ever happened. Velgian, eh? Poor bastard. Your master’s right. Meddle with the affairs of kings, look what happens.’

It was only as Berren huddled under his blanket on his mattress of straw that he realised Kol hadn’t been talking about Master Velgian at the end.

On the last Moon-Day of the month of Floods, Master Sy was waiting for him when he came home. Velgian was long gone, forgotten, it seemed, by everyone except Berren. Kol was back to his tight-lipped self and the thief-taker remained wrapped in his own plots and schemes. Today, as Berren came in from another week at the temple, Master Sy was sitting at his little table with two enormous dried spiced sausages sat on plates in front of him and a loaf of bread between them.

‘Monks working you hard as ever?’ He was smiling. Berren nodded. The aches and pains weren’t as bad as they’d been when he’d started but he was still exhausted when he came home.

‘It’s the same every day, though. Just the same things, over and over and over again. And still with a waster.’ When was someone going to let him hold a real sword, that’s what he wanted to know. When he was old and grey and shaky and could barely even pick it up any more? He sat down, picked up one of the sausages and sniffed at it. A Mirrormere Hot, stuffed with pork and a vicious mix of spices. His favourite. He grinned and cocked his head.

Master Sy smiled. ‘Tuck in.’

Cured pork didn’t come cheap in a city that lived largely off fish. Berren smiled back. ‘You want something.’

‘Monks teaching you anything useful yet?’

He shrugged. ‘I suppose.’ He didn’t dare say anything else, not to Master Sy. Tasahre might not be what he’d been hoping for, but he’d learned enough from the thief-taker over these last two years to know how lucky he was and when to keep his mouth shut.

‘Treating your teacher with respect, I hope.’