Stephen Deas: Warlock's shadow

Yeah, and after Lilissa had chosen Dorrm instead of him, he’d started stealing again and buying her presents that Dorrm could never afford. When that didn’t work, he got to showing off, trying to goad Dorrm into a fight. Stupid, now he looked back on it. Embarrassing. Humiliating. Worst of all, Dorrm had never made anything of it. That had made Berren hate him even more.

Master Sy had taken him away across the river, into the maze of mud-islands and channels and creeks and swamps where no one lived except the most desperately wanted men with nowhere else to hide and the thief-takers sent to catch them. They were away for a month. When they came back, Lilissa and Dorrm were married. She was living with him in his father’s shop somewhere on the eastern edge of The Maze. As far as Berren knew, she still was. Master Sy wouldn’t tell him where and he’d somehow never found the time to go and look. And that was the end of that.

Yes, as far as Master Sy knew, Berren had stopped stealing.

‘Come on, lad. I’ll show you around.’ There were arches leading away from the yard in all four walls. One led back to the rooms where Berren and the other thief-takers were staying. One led to the prince’s wing. Master Sy picked the nearest of the other two, where another pair of imperial soldiers stood on guard. Beyond the arch lay a second square yard. Here, instead of open space, everywhere was overgrown. Tiny paths wound through leaves and flowers, punctuated by little marble benches like the ones in the yard before.

‘Look familiar?’

Berren blinked. ‘Yes!’ Yes, suddenly it did. ‘It’s like the Captain’s Rest.’

Master Sy half-smiled and nodded. ‘Yes. Built and owned by the same guild-master.’ He started to wander the paths. ‘I’ve heard there are gardens like this in Varr too but much bigger. Scent gardens, they call them. Use your nose. I imagine they’ll be at their best about a month from now.’ Berren looked around. Scented and flowering bushes and even two small trees grew up from the ground, masking the usual city-smell of bad fish. Variegated ivies competed for domination of the walls. There were no birds here, though. The Captain’s Rest, he remembered, had had birds.

‘You have to be a sea captain or one of their ilk to make your business in the Captain’s Rest. Everyone else comes here. Or they did, until His Highness took over the place.’ He pointed back the way they’d come, through the archway to the yard and on through to the other side. ‘Those are the rooms and lodgings for the Imperial Guard. We don’t go there.’ He gestured up at the windows overlooking the scent gardens. ‘Up there is where the prince sleeps. We don’t go there either.’ He walked closer until they were on a path right underneath the windows, one so crowded by greenery that it brushed Berren’s legs as he walked. Berren stopped. One of the windows was open. He could hear a gentle moaning and soft throaty laughter wafting out of it. Master Sy pursed his lips. ‘That’s where he has his rooms. There are baths in there and, well, the usual other diversions.’

By which Master Sy meant women. Berren grinned to himself. Master Sy was deadly deft and agile about everything else, but when it came to women he was as clumsy as a coconut. Berren, on the other hand, had grown up two doors away from a cheap whorehouse. He’d already seen about as much as there was to be seen before he even knew what it was all for; and while he was waiting for Dorrm the Dumb to trip over and impale himself on a swordfish, he was quietly working his way through the various houses on Reeper Hill whenever he could slip away for an evening and had enough crowns in his purse to pay for it.

Yes. Another thing Master Sy wasn’t supposed to know.

The thief-taker held up his hand. ‘Stop for a moment.’ They were right under the prince’s window, about ten feet above them. The noises coming down from there didn’t leave much to the imagination. Berren puffed his cheeks, trying to ignore them.

‘Look around you.’

Plants and paths and walls covered in ivy. If he peered a bit, he could see the archway and the moonpool yard and the soldiers standing there.

‘Do you think anyone can see us?’

Berren shrugged. ‘I suppose. If they look hard enough.’

‘Go over to the archway. Tell me if you can see me.’

Berren trotted off as he was told. When he looked back, he was surprised to see that Master Sy was almost invisible between the leaves of the bushes and the trees. Easy enough to see him if you knew he was there to be seen in the first place, but even then he had to peer a bit to be sure. He trotted back. Master Sy glanced up at the window and the ivy-covered wall below it.

‘How long would it take you to climb up there?’

‘There?’ Berren laughed. ‘Easy! I’d be up in a flash.’

‘Yes. That’s what I thought.’ Master Sy nodded. ‘Right. Well. Off to bed with you then.’

‘What?!’ Berren looked up at the sky. The sun might have set but the sky was still light and they hadn’t even reached the spring festival. ‘There’s half the day left!’

The thief-taker gave him his best baleful look. It was the look he put on every time Berren forgot that he was a worthless apprentice who should be grateful to even exist. ‘We are here to perform a duty, boy. I will take my turn on watch here until the small hours. Then you will take your watch. At dawn, you will leave here and go to the temple for your daily lessons. Master Mardan or Master Fennis will relieve you.’

‘But …!’

‘Boy, you will do as you’re told. We are taking the justicar’s gold to protect the life of His Highness. Whatever you may think of him.’

Berren closed his eyes. He could see the future, clear as the sun. This was how it would be. Forever , probably. After all, if you were the prince, with women like that to take to your bed and soldiers and thief-takers to fawn at your feet, why would you ever leave? ‘You were going to show me how to fight with short steel. Before spring! You promised!’

The thief-taker growled. ‘In good time, boy. The festival of the equinox is weeks away. Now do as you’re told!’

They glowered at each other but that was a fight that only one of them was ever going to win. Berren walked away, saving his storming and stomping until he was out of Master Sy’s sight. The thief-taker had promised to teach him to fight with steel more than a year ago and still all they ever did was fight with sticks. He’d promised again for midsummer, spent a week showing Berren how to hold a real sword properly and then promptly gone back to sticks again. Then he’d promised for midwinter and just forgotten all about it.

Berren reached the room where he and Mardan and Master Sy would all sleep together. Thank the sun, Master Mardan wasn’t there. Berren threw himself down on the mattress. He was never going to learn swords. Master Sy just didn’t want to teach him, that was it.

Trouble was, neither would anyone else. Not for the meagre purse that Berren could muster. Sword-masters were paid in gold.

Most evenings, before this drunkard prince had come to Deephaven, Berren came back from the temple and had his supper with Master Sy. Then they’d go off about their errands, the sort that were best run after dark. They’d wander down into the night market to make a nuisance of themselves among the wagoners, or else they’d amble down to the taverns near the docks and listen in on who was selling what and who wanted to buy it. Sometimes they went as far as Reeper Hill or wandered the streets around The Peak. The thief-taker would talk to the snuffers, the ones who still had a vestige of decency to them. Once or twice every month they’d dodge the press gangs and head into The Maze, to the Barrow of Beer and Master Sy’s friend Kasmin from the old days that he never liked to talk about. Sometimes they didn’t go any further than the yard outside Master Sy’s little house, the thief-taker clucking and shaking his head while Berren tried to cut and lunge with his waster until the light failed.