Paul Kearney - The Mark of Ran

Eleven

Candlemasstreet was a broad, tree-lined thoroughfare that lay southwest of the harbor. Here the Ellidon Hills flattened out into isolated drumlins and knolls atop which local chieftains had constructed their ring-forts in ancient days. Now it was a graciously apportioned district of gridded streets and houses reared in well-masoned stone. The light of the dying sunset honeyed their square courses and sparked out glints from diamond-leaded windows nestling half-hidden in ivy. No one lived in the Candlemas area who was not well rooted in Ascari society. Courted though Psellos was by the nobility, they would never have countenanced his existence here.

Another rain-loud night. Rol pulled the oilskin cloak tighter about his shoulders and tugged its hood lower down his face. All to the good. He was just one more shadow among many hurrying home out of the rain.

Fifty yards to his rear, the shape following him paused when he did, and melted into an ivy-hung wall.

He stopped. The Canoval manse was set in its own gardens, and these in turn were surrounded by a twelve-foot stuccoed wall, its top arrayed with iron spikes. A massive ironwork gate provided the only means of entrance or egress, and it was slightly ajar.

Rol cast aside his hood and cloak and bundled them tight, then tied the roll to his belt. He felt with one hand behind his right shoulder and met the reassuring coldness of Fleam in a back-scabbard. Then he moved up close to the gate. The soles of his boots were thin enough for him to feel every gap in the flagstones of the street and a suit of black hose clung to him head to foot like a second skin.

Just within the gate, Canker waited patiently, his cap feather drooping and soaked, his eyes bright as sea-gleams. Rol moved gently as a stalking cat, thinking his veil of shadow into place about him, but Canker merely nodded.

“You are on time. That’s good. Stop prowling like a second-rate burglar and follow me. A filthy night, but then it’s a filthy deed.” He grinned brightly in the pouring dark.

Deflated, Rol followed the King of Thieves into Canoval’s garden. Mature trees shrouded the lawn and well-graveled paths formed bright lines in the grass. The pair halted under a massive beech five fathoms from the back door.

“There you are, lad. I can’t do much more if I’m not to lead you through it by the hand. I will be here when you return-if there is no alarm. Cause a scare, and I’ll take off.”

“I have to talk to you, Canker,” Rol said, pitching his voice over the hissing rain. He wiped water out of his eyes irritably.

“Talk is cheap, time is precious. Get on with the job.”

“You are to die tonight.”

Canker paused. He did not seem surprised, but he seemed to grow taller, as if everything in him had tensed.

“I see. Why this night as opposed to any other?”

“You and Canoval both. He protects the Feathermen from a crackdown, and takes them over, all in one night.”

“Either that, or his young protege has reasons of his own for wasting my time.”

Rol nodded over Canker’s left shoulder. “Ask her.”

The King of Thieves spun round in a twinkling, a blade opening in one palm, but he found one black-metaled stiletto light against his jugular and another pricking up under the edge of his tunic. This second moved slowly inward until he sucked breath sharply through his teeth and the heels of his boots left the ground. Rowen smiled, but her eyes were cold with murder.

“Drop the blade.”

He did so, face calm again. “The lovely Rowen. It has been a long time. I remember those luscious lips well. Last time I saw them up close they were working hard round my prick.”

Rowen smiled. “There is something different at your prick now. One move, and I’ll blind that eye for you.”

Canker’s gaze never left her face. “I have but to raise my voice and half a dozen Feathermen will be on your backs.”

“You would be dead before they got within ten feet of us, you know that, Canker,” Rol said. He surveyed the dark, rain-swept garden but could see nothing.

“He’s not lying,” Rowen said. “I count five, and I may have missed one or two. Our friend the King of Thieves came prepared. But he is willing to talk, or we would be dead already, and his manhood would be sliding down his leg.”

“I am rather attached to it,” Canker admitted. “Put up your weapons, the point is made.”

Rowen stepped back but kept her stilettos loose in her hands. “He’s telling the truth. I was to assassinate you tonight, at the same time that Rol was to kill Canoval.”

Canker bent to retrieve his dropped knife. When he had straightened his face was hard and ugly. “That is a pity. I had hoped we might work together, Psellos and I. But you two who are his foundlings, his orphans-why would you choose to tell me this?”

“We no longer choose to serve him,” Rowen said evenly.

“Then who will you serve?”

“No one and nothing. We are done with Ascari.”

“Ascari without the charms of the beautiful Rowen would be a duller place. If you will not serve, then you must lead, surely.”

“This is not a debate. We are here in good faith as far as you are concerned. What would you have us do?”

“What is this? Are you mine to command now?”

“For tonight. We’re all in the same crock of shit now.”

Canker stared at Rowen for what seemed a long time, face expressionless. At last he said: “All right, then. To my mind, Canoval must die, if we are not to have a war. And so must Psellos, of course.”

“That is what we thought,” Rowen said. “Rol will kill Canoval tonight as planned.”

“But not his wife,” Rol said quickly. “I am not a murderer of crippled women.”

Rowen and Canker stared at him with the same look on both their faces: a kind of puzzlement. Canker shrugged. “As you wish. And the other?”

“Psellos is a different pot of fish entirely,” Rowen said. “We shall want your help with him, and it must be done swiftly, tonight. That is the price for Canoval’s killing.”

“You could not do it alone?”

Rowen shook her head. “He’s too strong.”

A flicker of something passed over Canker’s black eyes, and was gone. “I shall have it put about within the hour that I am dead, assassinated. These lads with me are trustworthy, but if Psellos is confident he can lead the Feathermen after me then he must have suborned many of the others, including some of my lieutenants. If word of my death is spread it will cause an upheaval in the city, but that cannot be helped. Psellos and his traitors must be convinced. Then you must get me and these lads with me into the Tower. We’ll do it together, and may the gods be behind us.” He held out a hand.

Rowen shook it, holding his eyes. “So be it.”

The thing began as Canker had said it would, and if Rol had not seen it for himself he would not have believed it possible. The little group of Feathermen went about their disseminating work with amazing speed, running from tavern to brothel to gambling den, down the hill toward the stews and slums near the waterfront. The news spread like wildfire. Canker was dead, and his kingship was vacant.

When a Thief-King died, all contracts were canceled. The common merchants and shopkeepers and tavern-masters were left on their own to face the leaderless predators of the slums, or else they must needs stump up huge amounts of ready coin to win over the Watch and persuade them to do their job. But the Watch were scarcely less rapacious than the gangs they were supposed to suppress-this was a chance to settle old scores, to rob and murder with impunity, and few in Ascari who could would resist that temptation. Rol thought that Canker was grimly amused by the thought of his own putative demise.