The King's assassin

metal plates came striding by. Even the king’s guard stopped what they were doing to stare.

‘The Black Swords!’ whispered Syannis. ‘All of them!’

Berren shrugged.

‘That’s nearly a thousand men. They usually split into separate companies and fight in two or three places at once. They’ve got archers and a few men in that Dominion armour. Everyone else is afraid of them.’ He whistled softly and then grinned. ‘Talon must really have put the wind up Meridian. Good.’

‘Huh.’ To Berren the men in their metal skins looked slow and clumsy. Difficult for a man with a spear or a short sword to find a way through it all maybe, but what did that matter if you could simply stand back and throw rocks at them? He shrugged and went back to his digging. Maybe no one had enough rocks to wear them down?

Once it was too dark to work, the sergeant who’d hired them sent them away, each with a penny and a burned end of bread. Berren wrapped his in cloth and put it inside his shirt for later, for when his hands weren’t encrusted with other people’s shit.

‘Tomorrow?’ asked Syannis, but the sergeant shook his head.

‘I seen you two slacking off. Lazy. Got no place for lazy men here. Piss off and be glad you got paid.’ He turned and left.

Outside the castle Syannis idly threw his crust of bread away. Berren shook his head. ‘Duke’s boy,’ he muttered.

‘What?’

‘You come from where I come from, you wouldn’t throw away perfectly good food, that’s what. Old habits die hard.’

‘I’m not eating like this!’ The thief-taker raised his hands, every bit as filthy as Berren’s.

‘That’s because you don’t know what hungry is.’ Berren shook his head and looked away. ‘Bet you never have. Not once.’ This could be where they went their separate ways. He’d done what needed to be done. Things would never be the same between them, but he’d said his piece now. The hole was still there inside him, but he didn’t need the thief-taker any more. The itch was gone. ‘It’s all right. I don’t want to fight. It’s just funny, that’s all.’ He turned and started to walk away. There weren’t going to be any goodbyes.

‘Talon says you fought well,’ said Syannis. ‘What was it like?’

‘Bloody,’ muttered Berren. The fight on the beach still troubled him. Not because he’d been scared, which he had, but because in the fragments he remembered the strongest impression was of how much he’d liked it. And because of what he’d done afterwards to the old woman with the knife, while the buzz of it was still hot inside his head. Troubled him a lot when he thought about it, so mostly he didn’t. ‘I was too busy staying alive to notice much else. I expect I’d have a very different idea if I’d been watching from a distance.’

‘There’s going to be more. Berren?’

Berren paused. ‘Master?’ Even now the word came out with a will of its own. He could have punched himself.

‘I can’t do this without you. You’re right about Meridian. He’s here. I know a way to get close. But I have to deal with Aimes and so I need you. You have to do it. You have to get rid of Meridian.’

‘Me? No. You’ve got Hain for that.’ Berren turned away.

‘Hain?’ Syannis almost howled. ‘You think Hain could do something like this? No. But you could. There’s going to be a war, you see. A bloody one. Me and Talon against all the soldiers you saw in that castle. A lot of people will die. People like Tarn. Your friends. Kill Meridian, maybe you could stop it.’

Berren took a deep breath. ‘You want to stop it, don’t fight it,’ he said. ‘Let it go.’

‘You always wanted to learn swords. I gave that to you. What was it for?’

‘I don’t know any more,’ said Berren quietly. ‘It wasn’t for what happened in Deephaven, I know that.’

‘What do you want?’

‘Tasahre not to be dead, that’s what I want.’ To go back in time and make things different. Nothing that Master Sy could give. Yet he still didn’t walk away.

‘I gave you everything. Do I have to beg?’

‘It would help.’ I shouldn’t be here. This isn’t my war and I shouldn’t be fighting it. I should go home back to Deephaven. But back to what? Come on, there must be something. Some reason!

The next thing he knew, Syannis was in front of him down on his knees. The tension in his face was obvious, obvious how much he loathed what he was doing, but he was doing it anyway. ‘Please, Berren. Please help me. Just Meridian. Then do what you like.’

Berren bit his lip. This wasn’t the Master Sy he knew. Maybe what he’d done in Deephaven had changed him after all — maybe he really was sorry. ‘I’ll tell you what I want then,’ he said slowly. ‘There was a. . what’s your name for it? Bonds-maid? In the castle. She belongs to Princess Gelisya. I had to whip her, and all because she stood up for what she thought was right. I want her to go free. Not to be mine. Just to go free.’ There and then it was the only thing he could think of.

‘Very well. When she’s mine to give, she’s yours. I promise.’

‘No, I don’t want you to give her to me. I just want you to let her go.’

Syannis shrugged. ‘If that’s really what you want.’

‘It is. But you’d better do it. There’ll be hell between us if you don’t.’ Why did she matter so much? He barely knew her, but then this wasn’t about her at all. She was a symbol, that’s what. A way to redeem himself for Tasahre. And perhaps to redeem the thief-taker too. It was a strangely fierce thing inside him, a reason. A purpose. It had been a long time since he’d had one of those. He offered Master Sy his hand. ‘You’re not my master any more.’

‘I know.’

‘Fine then.’ He couldn’t look at the thief-taker. So fallen from what he’d been. An idol almost. Everything he’d aspired to be once, long ago as a foolish boy. And still the closest thing he’d ever had to a father. ‘Right then. Let’s go kill your king.’

‘Regent,’ murmured Syannis. ‘Not my king.’

They walked on down the road from the castle and into the town. The night-time streets were quiet and the market square was almost empty. A couple of soldiers lounged against a wall, pointedly ignoring a man taking a piss against someone’s door. Syannis led the way past them, along a narrow street between small houses jammed up together along the side of the river, until the road became a track and the houses became huts, and then the track narrowed even more to a path, steep and uneven, and the huts came to an end. Before long they were clambering between rocks, while the river hissed and splashed beside them. They took a moment to clean the worst of the muck off their hands and clothes. A half-moon was rising.

‘Doesn’t anyone ever keep watch down here?’ muttered Berren.

‘Tethis doesn’t have walls. No reason to watch the river. Well, none except the one that only Talon and Hain and I know about.’ Ahead of them, a hooting call broke the quiet. Syannis stopped. ‘That’s Hain.’

Berren thought it sounded like a night bird, but since he’d been born and raised in a city, he supposed he didn’t know too much about birds. Apart from seagulls, he thought sourly. Syannis set off again. Long grass and brambles tore at Berren’s boots as he followed. The second time they stopped, Berren looked up. The top of the slope was maybe a dozen men standing on each others’ shoulders above him, steep enough that a man would need his wits and both his hands free to climb it. He could just about make out the low castle wall that overlooked the gorge. The river was below them now, rushing and hissing. Its foam glinted in the moonlight. Another bird call hooted out, and this time they were close. Syannis eased his way between two tall thorn bushes and Berren followed. Behind the bushes was a hollow. It was so dark that Berren didn’t see Hain until the thief- taker’s squire spoke.

‘All here,’ breathed Hain.

‘You found it then?’

‘I could find it with my eyes closed.’

‘Lamp?’

Hain reached down and lifted something. A dim light lit the floor of the hollow. Berren could see their boots. He could see that the hollow turned into a small hole in the side of the gorge. Large enough to crawl through. A