Paul Kearney - The Mark of Ran

“You called me Rol.”

“Did I?” That small, rare smile which so transformed her face. “It is easier on the ear.”

He kissed her again, knowing that for this woman there was nothing he would not do, no crime he would not commit.

But there was a question he had to ask. “Why entrust me to do this thing?” he asked. “I am untried, and this will be life and death for Psellos, the killing of this man. The King of Thieves must have experienced assassins aplenty who could do it. And then of course-” He stopped, and the training made its leap intuitively.

“And then there is me.” She moved out of his arms, dry-eyed now. “I am the best in the city-not even the Feathermen come close.”

“He wants both his own killers there.”

“Yes. I, too, will be busy that night. The King of Thieves and Canoval will die together. Psellos will take over the Feathermen, and his creature, Pachydon, will lead the council. Our master will be ruler of Ascari, and hence of Gascar. He will have become one of the princes of the world.”

“If we do as we are told.”

“If we do as we are told.”

“What hold has he over you, Rowen?”

“The hold is twofold now, and identical to that he has over you. He claims to know who my parents are-the history of whatever family spawned me. And he threatens me with the extinction of one I love.”

Rol’s mouth tightened even as the knowledge blossomed wide and bright in his heart. “How long-”

“A long time. I don’t know how, but I think Psellos knew it would happen. He enjoyed watching it, playing us one at a time. He has always relished such diversions.” She reached up with one hand and touched the embroidered collar of his tunic. “I, too, have some skill with a needle.”

He pulled her close again. Something deep within him woke up and began to snarl. Whatever remnant of boyhood he still possessed withered away.

“Psellos must die. Let us kill him.” His voice was thick with the desire.

She set her fingers on his lips. “Wait now, think about this. Psellos is a sorcerer, an assassin of great power. It is possible both of us together might best him, if we caught him unawares. But there may be a better way.”

“I want to feel his life give out under my hands.”

“You think I do not? But I want to live. I want you to live. That is more important. Trust me.”

He kissed her forehead. “I will trust you. But he must die.”

Ten

Canoval, the catalyst for all the slaughter that followed, was a short, dark terrier of a man with a lively smile. As the line of guests left the Tower he shook Rol’s hand perfunctorily, Psellos’s with rather more force than was necessary, and Rowen’s he kissed with a combination of relish and reverence. An hour by the water-clock the three stood there saying fare thee well and well met to a crowd of men and women who feared and despised and desired them all in one. When at last Quare had a pair of footmen slam shut the great oaken doors of the atrium, even Psellos looked relieved. He tugged at the collar of his shirt and stretched his arms toward the ceiling. “Ye gods, but they are a tiresome crowd, these men of substance. Do they eat their gold, to become such heavy going? Rol, come up with me and have a nightcap. Rowen, you were delightful and perfect as always. I shall see you in the morning. Quare, lock up, and see that our guest workers are well looked after.”

Quare and Rowen bowed. As she straightened again Rowen’s fingers brushed Rol’s. The warmth of that tiny gesture was still with him as he entered Psellos’s private apartments near the summit of the Tower. The stair-climb and the revelations of the evening had cleared his head, and he watched the Master pour Cavaillis for them both with an even mind.

“Tiresome, these occasions, but necessary,” Psellos said, handing Rol a glass and collapsing into a well-stuffed armchair. One of the housemaids had lit the fire, knowing that the Master hated a cold room, and it cast beating wings of shadow about the walls. These were lined with books, but Rol had been in here before, and he knew that the volumes on display could be bought from any good antiquarian. The real knowledge, the important texts, were housed elsewhere, in some secret chamber Rol had never seen.

“Gods, boy, you are getting tall. Take a seat. You’ll crick my neck for me if I have to crane it any more.”

He did as he was bidden, wondering as he sat if hatred could be smelled, if it had a particular redolence. If so, this room must stink of it.

Psellos was rolling his glass between his hands, staring into the fire. For the first time, Rol noticed that there was gray in the forelock that overhung his narrow face.

“You will meet Canker in Candlemas Street tomorrow night-no, it is tonight now, I suppose. He will take you to a back entrance of Canoval’s manse. It will be unguarded. He sleeps on the second floor, in a room with a red door and his arms emblazoned upon it, the ass. His wife will be with him. She also must die.”

“He was alone tonight.”

“She is something of an invalid; a fall from a horse a few years ago.” He smirked. “In any case, she will not be running anywhere for help.”

“What about servants, bodyguards?”

“There will be a few, but no more than you can handle. Kill them or bypass them, I care not. But Canoval must die as swiftly and silently as possible. A matter of style, I’m sure you’ll understand.”

“It must look as though it was child’s play to accomplish.”

“Exactly.” Psellos sipped his brandy meditatively, looking Rol over as a woman would regard herself dressed unfamiliarly in a mirror. Finally he spoke with great deliberation.

“Amerie, your mother, would be proud of you, Rol. With this final test, you will have grown up into a man.”

Dumbstruck, Rol merely stared. Psellos seemed rewarded by the expression on his face.

“I have need of loyal lieutenants, and I have no sons of my own. These things are better kept in the family, I have always thought.”

“Family?” Rol managed.

“Amerie was my sister. We are of one blood, you and I, not only because we share in our inheritance from the Elder Race, but because we come from the same stock.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Why do you think old Ardisan sent you to me with his dying words, nephew of mine? He knew it was time. He kept you hid as long as he could, but at some point you were always going to end up here. It is the only way you would ever approach your true potential.”

“My father-who was he?”

Psellos frowned. “I’ll be honest with you-I do not know.”

“You’re lying.”

“No, in this I speak the truth. I have nothing more to gain by keeping these things from you now. You have apprenticed yourself here because of the promise of knowledge, and because your youth made you afraid to strike out on your own. And then there is Rowen, of course. But you are a boy no longer, and thus it is time to tell you what I know.”

The fire cracked and spat brightly. Rol could not look at this man who purported to be his uncle.

“Amerie’s husband in life was Bar Hethrun, one of the great men of Bionar. The Blood was in him, but so was that of the line of Bion himself. There were those who thought he would have been king, had he not fallen in love with a raven-haired sorceress out of the Goliad, the birthplace of Man. The Bionari did not like the idea of a witch’s brat sitting at the foot of the throne, and there were plots to discredit Hethrun and his house, assassination attempts. He forsook his high estate and took to the seas with your mother and many others of his household, meaning to live in peace somewhere beyond the reach of whispers and pointing fingers and knives in the dark. Cambrius Orr all over again, you might say. But the little fleet he had put together was broken up by storms in the Bionese Sea, and most of the ships were scattered and wrecked, their crews drowned or cast up on beaches from Perilar to Osca. Amerie was lost in the disaster, and Hethrun spent years searching for her as a humble captain of privateers. He found her, or she found him, and she would not speak of the lost time they were apart. The pair spent what was left of their lives at sea, but the Bionari learned of their survival and sent out men-of-war to track them down, for there was a new king on the throne of Bionar, Bar Asfal, and his grip on power was not sure enough to allow a pretender to travel freely about his coasts. Their son therefore they sent away with Amerie’s parents, and her brother, to be brought up somewhere in safe anonymity. Amerie and Bar Hethrun died. At the last they were hunted down and murdered by agents of the Bionese crown. Their son disappeared, and the story became a tragic ballad to be played in inns across Bionar. The King-That-Never-Was. The Lost Heir. Bar Asfal has reigned for over twenty years now, and he has struck up a treaty with the Mage-King of Kull, who even as we speak has certain suspicions about the identity of one Psellos of Gascar. His suspicions have not yet hardened into certainty, but one day they will, and there is nowhere on earth one can hide from the doppelgangers of Kull.”