‘I shall be biddable.’ I wonder if he’s as stupid as Aidan was, taking my apparent defeat to be true. ‘What choice do I have?’
He gestures to the bed on which I sit, smirks. ‘Well, we might pass the night here, with the room already paid for. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant, the last time, was it?’ There’s a tiny hint of need in his query; he seems to jest, but in his tone there is a limning of uncertainty.
‘Not entirely, no.’ I blush and smile. I laugh. ‘And to cuckold Aidan once again has its own appeal.’
‘I saw you, you know,’ he says it almost hesitantly.
‘Where?’
‘In Breakwater when you wandered through the assassins market, wide-eyed, taking it all in, all the potential for the deaths of others. You looked... luminous.’
I want to deny it, but there was a certain fascination in what I observed that night.
‘I watched you a while, followed a little, then you left and I had an assignation to keep.’ He smiles. ‘Imagine how I felt to see you again at Mr Fitzpatrick’s townhouse, to go with you to Hob’s Hallow...’
To find you wet and willing and whorish, I think. I slide the coat from my shoulders, then unbutton my shirt until I can slip that off too.
He rises, comes to me.
Why do they all think me harmless?
He might be a good judge of men, but he’s an appalling one of women. He knows about my purchased knives, yes, but not about Óisín’s pearl-handled knife, hid deep within my pockets, and it’s an awful surprise to him that I slip it across his throat as he’s kissing me. He makes a terrible noise; I swiftly wrap my shirt around his neck to keep the blood from spurting too much, but not enough to staunch the flow and accidentally save him. I watch the crimson soaking into the white fabric, wonder if all that red might fill the hole inside of me where Maura and Malachi used to be… the knowledge of what they did to keep me safe… a gift, a weight, a grief I’ll never be able to repay, shift or forget.
His eyes are wide and so very green. And angry and afraid and bewildered. The prince of assassins felled so low by a woman and a tiny knife.
‘Life,’ I tell him as I sit on the bed to watch him die, ‘is full of surprises.’
* * *
As I’m going through his pockets I realise I didn’t ever know his name, but it causes me no great sadness. He served a purpose. He did me an ill turn and a good one. He is gone. There’s a full coin purse – I take two-thirds of the contents – and a golden necklace, which I do not. Coins cannot be claimed by anyone but a unique piece of jewellery? Might as well give yourself up to the local constable or armsman.
When I’m done, I drag him to the window – he’s heavy, but I’m an O’Malley, we’re tall and strong, and I’ve spent my life doing physical work around Hob’s Hallow when we couldn’t afford the hired help. I haul him up and, carefully checking that the muddy alley is empty, tip him over the sill, pushing him away from the building so he doesn’t leave any bloodstains on the walls to suggest where he came from. I make sure the sill itself is clean, and wipe the wooden floor with a towel – easy enough to explain away as my monthly courses. Then I sit for a moment. I could stay here. I could stay for the night, wake and eat and leave at my leisure. But if someone finds the green-eyed man, decides to question the inhabitants of the inn? But if I leave now and someone decides to ask at the inn what guests were here and where are they now? Who departed precipitously? Well, that would look suspicious.
I run a bath once again, and bathe to ensure there’s not a trace on me of the dead man. I hide my bloodied clothing at the bottom of my duffel bag – it’ll be too hard to rinse here without lye – and check for spatters the clean outfit the housemaid returned to me.
Stay or go? Go or stay? I waver a while longer.
I think of the times Aoife instructed me in how to lie, how to brazen things out. How to appear innocent when I’m guilty. How I got good enough to deceive even her. Keep your lies closest to the truth; do not shout your innocence, only look wounded that anyone should question it; throw suspicion on someone else in an offhanded manner so as not to appear too eager to turn eyes elsewhere.
Mentally, I flip a coin.
I’ll stay.
I’ll stay until dawn. I offer prayers, again to any who’ll listen, that I be allowed to continue on my way. This, after all, was not murder but justice. The green-eyed man had Aoife’s blood on his hands; he strangled her, did not even give her the gentle grace of a sharp swift knife or the kindness of poison.
I’ve done what I should.
I repack everything the assassin had spread out on the quilt, then I crawl into bed, and weep at the thought of Malachi and Maura cold and lifeless in the earth of Hob’s Hallow.
22
I don’t sleep, or at least not for long – in spurts perhaps, like blood from a throat –
before waking hollow-eyed and hearted. The four who raised me are gone, all gone. The hole that opened inside my body last night feels no smaller. The murder – no, the retribution – gave me no pleasure (but perhaps some satisfaction), had to be done. Revenge, self-preservation, justice. A little of each. Yet it hasn’t touched the sides of the abyss, not even as it tumbled down into the well of me, not even an echo as
