The King's Assassin (Thief Takers Apprentice 3) (2 page)

He paused beside a wagon that had been turned on its side. Broken boxes and hundreds of cabbage leaves littered the cobbles. He was hungry; but everything worth eating had already been taken and all that was left was crushed and trampled. He climbed up onto the wagon instead. The rain was getting worse, driving into his face. The iron-grey sky grew steadily darker. The storm blowing in off the sea and over the cliffs was a big one, the ships anchored in the river already putting up lights although it was still the middle of the afternoon. He shielded his eyes. In his rags he looked like one of the mob, but it wasn’t the mob he was afraid of. At least one company of soldiers was already down from its barracks, laying waste to any rioters in its way.

The worst of the fighting was still around the gallows. Three men hung there, dead for five minutes now. The officers who’d hanged them had brought half a company of soldiers for protection. Now, too late, they knew they should have brought the other half too. The soldiers were breaking away from the scaffold in little knots of swinging swords, trying to force their way though the mob to somewhere safe, scared enough to simply butcher anyone who got in their way. Berren kept well clear. He had no interest in any of this. From the top of the wagon he looked for where the worst of the fighting was to be had, and when he jumped down he did his best to avoid it. He had no idea who the three hanged men had been or why they were so important, nor did he care; what he cared about was the tavern, the Bitch Queen, where men of the waves said their prayers to the fickle sea in songs and ale and bawdy laughter. For that, here and now, was where the thief-taker would be.

A gang of men raced across his path, away from the gallows and towards the sea. Berren ran with them for a few seconds and then split away and resumed his course.

Master Sy. Memories filled his head and so did the anger he’d carried in him ever since Deephaven, the flames of fury that had smouldered in the dark for all this time. He let them. If there was one thing he’d learned as a skag, it was patience. Master Sy was supposed to be dead – or lost or drowned, or a slave in the imperial mines of Aria or something worse – anything, but not
here
, not
alive
. Yet today he was both of those things, and Berren had come to hunt him down.

The shops and the taverns and the storehouses at the edge of the docks gave a little shelter from the wind and the slanting rain. He eased his way along towards the Bitch Queen. Despite the downpour the rioters had set fire to something. Smoke drifted among them and out to sea. The gallows were rocking back and forth, about to be torn down. He couldn’t see where the soldiers had gone and it was impossible to hear anything useful over the shouts and screams of the fighting, over the howl and hiss of the wind and rain.

A trio of snuffers lounged by the tavern doors. They were pressed against the wall and taking shelter as best they could. They looked bored, barely aware of the anarchy around them, but underneath their heavy leather coats Berren caught the flash of metal breastplates. They wore those coats loose too, the way Master Sy used to, and Berren could see where hidden scabbards bent their shape. Whenever anyone from the mob staggered too close, they tensed very slightly, and that was all that was needed. Men still came and went through the Bitch Queen’s door but they walked slowly and upright and with their hands empty and easily seen. The snuffers glanced at Berren as he hurried in, but his rags were so torn he could barely have hidden a peeling knife. They gave a faint nod. Inside, warm stuffy air wrapped itself around him like a blanket. With the door closed behind him, the din of laughter and shouted conversation was almost as loud as the riot on the dockside.

A knife. He hadn’t brought one because he didn’t have one but there were knives everywhere in here. Daggers in scabbards, blades stuck into people’s belts, knives cutting bread and meat, knives used for drinking games or simply sitting on tables. Berren moved among the knots and clusters of men looking for one that he could take. There were swords too, hatchets and makeshift clubs. He picked someone who was the worse for drink, waited until the man was jostled from the other side and, unseen, snatched the knife from the man’s belt and melted away into the crowd. He clutched it tight. A cheap thing, blunt and savage, and for a moment he wondered what he meant to do with it; but then he closed his eyes and he could see the thief-taker’s face again on that terrible last day as Tasahre lay bleeding on the deck of Radek’s ship. He’d seen her face every night for nearly two and half years. The thief-taker had called Berren’s name. To come with him? To flee? Or was it simply a cry of surprise at what each one of them had just done?

He should never have gone to the Emperor’s Docks that day. Tasahre would be alive and maybe he’d have seen the thief-taker again or maybe not, but it could hardly have ended worse.

He looked about. The thief-taker was here somewhere. Today and only today. Berren’s heart was already racing. He’d had fights, more than his share of them. He’d taken beatings and he’d given them too. He’d broken men’s bones and scarred their faces but he’d never killed, not until he’d smashed his waster into Radek of Kalda’s head, and it had been the warlock Saffran Kuy who’d made him do
that
. His hands hadn’t been his own. Today he would have no such excuse.

Across the floor and through the crowd he glimpsed the face he was looking for. The face of the thief-taker, the one-time Prince of Tethis. Master Sy. And now he couldn’t move. He was back in Deephaven again and Tasahre was bleeding in his arms and Master Sy was on the edge of Radek’s ship with a waiting boat below him and no other place to go, sword-monks and city soldiers closing in a ring around them both. The monks would take his head for what he’d done. The thief-taker of Deephaven was dead, he had to be!

The face shifted and vanished and now all he could see were sailors and a crowd of snuffers, all moving together as though they were about to leave. He started to push his way towards them, his fingers gripping his stolen knife too tightly.

A hand clamped onto his shoulder, spinning him around.

‘Well well. If it isn’t our wandering skag.’

2

THE BITCH QUEEN’S HALL

B
erren tried to pull away but the hand on his shoulder held him fast. ‘You made a fool of me, little bitch-boy. You know what we do to deserters, skag?’

Berren stared up into the face of a sailor. The sailor grinned and showed off his rotten teeth. Klaas. Klaas had been on watch the night Berren had slipped over the side with his empty barrel and floated and bobbed and half-drowned his way to shore. It took Berren a second to remember, and yes, he knew
exactly
what they did to deserters. They flogged them. A hundred lashes, and if by some miracle their man was still alive after that, they cut the tendons in his ankles and his wrists and threw him over the side to watch him drown. His eyes darted around the tavern. Klaas turned too, looking for his friends – sailors came ashore in packs and if Klaas was here then there would be others from Berren’s old ship.

As Klaas moved, Berren caught sight of a silver token around his neck. It made him think of another, long lost now but made of gold and with the imperial eagle of Aria stamped on one side and a sword and shield on the other. A prince had given it to him once and it was the most precious thing he’d ever had. For months he’d seen it move from one sailor to the next as they’d gambled together, and in all that time he’d never lost the hope that he might somehow get it back. And then one day it was gone. Stolen from a sailor by a pickpocket in some port Berren couldn’t even name. After that he’d toyed at nights with the thought of slipping through the decks in the dark, of finding a knife and slitting the throat of every man left aboard. A fantasy but they deserved it, the lot of them. There wasn’t a single sailor on his ship that he would have spared or even given a second thought.

‘Hey! Lads!’ Klaas stank of sour wine and sweat. Berren still had his stolen knife in his hand. It was right there begging him to use it. And so he did. He stabbed Klaas in the gut.

‘Why you . . .’ Klaas’s face twisted with fury. He clenched his other fist. Then he let go of Berren and looked down at himself. Blood darkened his shirt, spreading out in an enormous stain over his belly. The expression on his face changed. Anger turned to shock and then to fear. ‘You stabbed me! You royal hunt! You piece of horse filth! Skag!’ His voice grew louder. ‘Skag!’

Berren stood frozen. Vengeance had become the engine of his life, keeping him going. Vengeance for Tasahre, his fallen sword-monk, his love. For the few months since he’d escaped ashore it had stolen him food when he was starving and taken the shelter he needed when he was cold. It had foraged for clothes and shoes to keep him warm even if they were little more than rags. It had bullied and fought him a place among the destitute of the docks and carved him a name that others had learned to fear. It wrapped its arms around him at night and whispered him to sleep, and in the mornings it roused him and drove him on. Vengeance was his lover, strong and terrible, who did what needed to be done while he looked and he asked wherever he went:
Syannis of Tethis, where can I find him?

And now his lover suddenly wasn’t with him. He’d stabbed a man – killed him – and vengeance was nowhere to be found. He felt suddenly small and stupid and very afraid that he was about to die.

I killed a man
. No warlock this time, no Saffran Kuy screaming in his head. Just him and a knife and his own hand holding it. The old instincts of a boy thief took over. He kicked Klaas between the legs as hard as he could. As Klaas doubled over, the silver token around his neck dangled free in the air. Berren snatched it and tore it away and screamed, ‘That’s what you get, fat man! That’s what you get.’ He pushed his way between the sailors who were beginning to turn and stare; as soon as he had space around him, he ran. The crowd of snuffers and the thief-taker were gone now, out through a door into the streets behind the Bitch Queen. Berren followed. He didn’t look back. Behind him Klaas had found his voice again and was screaming his lungs out. Klaas was a bastard and he’d deserved it. But then if you looked at it like that, so did every sailor on his ship. So did an awful lot of people.

I killed a man
. His own hand. He’d been thinking it for weeks, thinking of Master Sy, turning the idea over and over in his head and seeing what it looked like, and all the time he knew that when he came face to face with the thief-taker, he’d never really do it.

Or so he’d thought.

The streets at the back of the Bitch Queen were quiet. Noise echoed from the riot on the docks; now and then clusters of people came running past, fleeing from whatever was happening there. The snuffers were ahead of him, seven of them. Master Sy was in the middle but all Berren could see of him was the back of his head.

He’d seen a man flogged to death for stealing once. Klaas was a bastard and Klaas had deserved it. But all that blood . . . and Tasahre kept coming at him, lying on the Emperor’s Docks in Deephaven after Master Sy’s sword had ripped open her throat. She would have told him that what he’d done was wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong.

He quickened his pace. Master Sy was a murderer. Master Sy had killed Tasahre. He still had the knife, fingers clenched around it, Klaas’s blood on his hands. He had no idea what he was going to do now, none at all.

One of the snuffers cracked a joke. Master Sy threw back his head and laughed and the sound of him laughing filled Berren with a rage. The thief-taker didn’t deserve to laugh, not any more, not after what he’d done! Berren started to run. ‘Syannis!’ he screamed. The snuffers’ pace faltered. They all turned to see him racing towards them, the bloody knife in his outstretched hand. But the man wasn’t Syannis after all. Whoever he was, he stared at Berren in amazement and then mouthed some word that Berren didn’t hear. The other snuffers drew their swords. Their blades were short. Familiar. Berren skidded to a stop, but too close. Two of them sprang at him. He turned and tried to run away but the first one tackled him and then the second one piled on top, pinning him down. ‘Who are you, boy?’ hissed one in his ear. ‘Answer me before I fillet you like a herring!’

‘Wait!’ The man he’d thought was Master Sy spoke. He was younger than the thief-taker and looked far less bitter. His voice was different too. More commanding. ‘Let him up! Let me see him!’

‘He could be working for Meridian, Prince.’ The soldiers got off and Berren scrambled to his feet. He stared at the men around him.

Sailors were spilling out of the Bitch Queen behind him. One of them pointed. ‘Him!’

‘Who are you?’ asked the man who looked like Master Sy but wasn’t. Berren pushed past and raced away down the street, fleeing the mob that was spilling out of the tavern and howling for his blood. The snuffers didn’t try to stop him.

Who are you?
The question chased him down the alleys as he ran with a dozen murderous sailors at his heels.

3

THE PRINCE OF SWORDS

H
e’d stolen to stay alive. He’d picked pockets, he’d cut purses, he’d been chased by more angry sailors than he could count. He’d done what it took to keep himself from starving while he looked:
Syannis of Tethis, where can I find him?
But he’d never killed a man, never, not of his own free will. Never even cut one with a knife.

Until now.

And after all that, Syannis hadn’t been Syannis at all. Maybe that meant he hadn’t seen Syannis on the ship either. Perhaps the thief-taker was the ghost he was supposed to be.

He wandered through the alleys behind the docks, among the slums all piled on top of each other, with blood still on his hands and no idea what to do any more. His feet took him unasked to the abandoned bakery where he’d sheltered for the last few weeks. A dozen more of Kalda’s homeless had claimed the place for as long as it took for the city soldiers to find them and flush them out. The others turned away as he washed the blood off his hands in a bucket of rainwater. They were all as lost as he was, but they’d learned, since he’d taken a place among them, not to be fooled by his size.
Small means quick
, Master Sy used to tell him.
Big men think they’re going to win because they’re big. Big men are easy
. The rags of skin and bone sheltering here were more desperate than big, but they still looked at Berren with hungry eyes. He wasn’t one of them. He was a dark-skin from across the sea, a sailor weathered by the sun and they were afraid of him.