by Rj Barker
“Last lot. I know he’s a cripple but as you can see he’s got plenty of fight in him. Bright too, from what I’ve heard.” An angry wind pushes flapping triangles of blanket away from the bodies of those gathered. Members of the crowd start to drift away in ones and twos. “Ten bits, ten bits for a boy? I’ll take ten bits for a boy,” the man sings it out in a deep baritone. When there are no replies he drops a tone. “Eight bits for a boy? Five? Five bits for this boy, five bits for this boy, and we can all go home.” A pause where the wind begins to howl. Small bits of wood and bones from food cartwheel across the dirt between the few woebegone tents. “Come on. Any less than five bits and I’m better off selling him to the swillers as animal feed.” A pause and then the man sings out again: “Three bits. Three bits and I’ll break even. No? Then the swillers’ pigs will eat well tonight.”
“Does he have a name?”
A female voice. He stops squirming and screaming in shock. He did not know girls became adults. And to ask his name? No adult has ever even hinted that they may have a name for him.
“We don’t name goods,” says the man.
“You want three for him?” she shouts.
“Aye. Three we ask.”
“Then five,” she says. “I’ll pay five bits for him.”
That is Merela Karn. Always there at the last minute. Always giving more than expected.
This is a dream of what was.
Chapter 3
I woke from a familiar dream to find I was alone in a strange room.
It took a moment for me to orientate myself. I was not a scared boy at a slave auction, nor was I an assassin’s apprentice crossing the land to my next job. I was in a castle room with clean whitewashed walls, lying in the large soft bed I had slept in. A small pallet was also laid out, and my master had taken that as she preferred to sleep near the door. There was no sign she had ever slept on it: the sheets were smooth, the pillow uncreased. I was not surprised or worried at her absence as this was her way—she rarely slept more than a few hours each night. As I wiped sleep from my eyes she appeared at the door with water, bread and a porridge of grains and leftovers that was as filling as it was tasteless.
I think it was that morning, as the weak sun of yearsage shone in through the greased-paper window of our room, that I first realised my master was no longer invincible. Her hair, black and long, had streaks of grey in it and her dark skin, which gave her away as from somewhere outside the Tired Lands, had lines which gathered at the corners of her eyes when she was worried or thinking hard, and they no longer fled when she had made her decisions.
“Eat, Girton,” she said. “Eat while I tell you what the day holds.” I sat with her and took a bite of the bread. It was still warm. Good.
“How do we go about being Heartblades, Master? How do they train?”
“I suspect it is mostly through skills passed down, Girton. Just like it is with us.”
“Do they fight like us?”
“I have never fought one.”
“But if you did, Master?”
“The finest warriors are picked to train as Heartblades but, when I trained, my master told me the first Heartblades were picked from the assassins. So they probably do, yes, though you will see no tricks from them.”
“Why?”
She stared at the wall, chewing thoughtfully, then spat out a bit of grit from the bread and changed the subject.
“Adran keeps her son’s door guarded at all times. The only time he is alone is when he is under training, and even then he is surrounded by squires loyal to him and a warrior called Celot, the Heartblade Adran mentioned.”
“Why can’t he find who hired an assassin??”
“Celot is an extremely skilled warrior by all accounts, but Adran says he is not an intelligent one, and that is why she wants us.” She picked more grit from her bread. “So, Girton, an exercise. If you were going to assassinate Prince Aydor ap Mennix, how would you do it?”
“Gladly,” I said, rubbing at the bruises on my throat from the rope.
“Girton,” said my master in reprimand.
“Very well.” I forced down a spoonful of tasteless porridge, telling myself it was nothing more than fuel for my body and as such did not have to taste good. “Adran is right. I would come in with Festival and keep up whatever cover I had arranged for the length of it. Then I would find some menial job within the castle and work it until I became a familiar face and an opportunity presented itself or the queen relaxed her guard. Then I would act.”
My master continued to stare at the wall and nod slowly as she chewed. “That may take a long time. Some would say it was lazy.” She said the words quietly and without commitment, as a challenge.
“No, it is not lazy at all. It’s common knowledge that Aydor has no children and the queen intends her son to marry the high king’s sister. If I am killing to alter the line of succession there is no great pressure on me to act quickly so I wait. Patience is the assassin’s greatest ally.”
She smiled again, that yearslife shower smile—here and gone. “Patience is the assassin’s greatest ally,” she said. “That phrase is familiar.”
“It is yours, Master.”
She nodded and spat out another bit of grit. “So, if there is an assassin here, how do we stop her, my clever boy?”
“Easily.” She looked up at me. Raised an eyebrow. “We leave a message in scratch for him to contact us and when he turns up we kill him.” She nodded again and picked up her bowl of porridge, lifting a spoonful and then letting some fall, eyeing it warily before she started to eat. She did not look at me. “But we won’t do that,” I added.
“Why not?” she said, and sprinkled a little salt on her porridge in an attempt to make it taste of something.
“Stopping one assassin is pointless, and they may well not know who pays them anyway. Time is on the side of whoever wants Aydor dead. We stop one assassin and another will come. That one would not answer our scratch messages and will probably bring someone to deal with us.”
“So?”
“We must stop the assassin but it is the client we need to find.”
“Exactly.”
“Good. I do not fancy handing over one of our own. What will Adran think though?”
She was quiet then. For a long time.
“I do not think Queen Adran cares about the assassin, Girton, not really. She would like her for an exhibition, I am sure, but Adran’s real concern is in who has betrayed her.” We carried on eating in silence for a while before my master spoke again. “For this we must be able to move among the blessed.” She reached into her jacket and took out a roll of lambskin vellum. “This is for you.”
I took it from her.
“Girton ap Gwynr,” I read from the vellum. “I have acquired a family?”
“Yes, and a rather underhand one at that. I am not sure that Adran even knew the Gwynr estate was in her lands until I told her.” My master’s grasp of the geography of the Tired Lands is often astounding. “The Gwynr are perfect for us. They are a small house that keeps its head down. They live right on the edges of the eastern sourlands so most expect them to be poor, but …”
“They are not?”
“No, they are not at all. They breed mounts and own a tract of land which escaped the Black Sorcerer’s war and is as fertile as any you’ll find. They have not been paying their taxes, which will be unfortunate for them when Adran has finished with us, but for now they suit our purposes.”
“They do?”
“Yes. You are to pass as the youngest son of the house and, with your club foot, the least valuable one.” The words hurt because they contained the truth. “You have been given as hostage against tax owed to the king. While you are here you will train as a squire. Not a bad advancement for a boy with a bad foot, eh?”
“And you?”
“I am your family’s valuable jester, sent as companion to their son in a faraway place and as an apology to King Doran ap Mennix for dodgi
ng his taxes.”
“So you get to tread the boards while I get to be hit with swords?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you, Master,” I said.
“Do not sulk, it does not suit you. Besides, it is not all bad. You cannot be a squire without a mount so I have arranged to have Xus brought up for you.” Xus was my master’s mount and a finer beast you have never seen. “And remember, if Xus comes to harm I will take it out on your hide.”
She meant that. She loved that mount but she knew I would hurt myself before I let Xus come to harm. He is the most magnificent of his kind. He stands as tall as a man at his shoulder and under his thick brown and white fur you can feel muscles so strong that the fighting claws on his three-toed feet leave divots in the earth—even when he only walks. His neck is sturdy and his noble head is long and thin, ending in a fuzzy nose and soft-lipped mouth with two well-sized downward-pointing tusks. His small black eyes have thick healthy lashes, and from his forehead sprouts a pair of spreading nine-point antlers, sharp as any knife. There are few things more exhilarating than to ride. The power, freedom and speed is like nothing else, and I was never happier than when my master let me ride Xus. I had begged for a mount of my own but she always said no. I was sure we could easily afford two mounts, but my master said that where one mount attracted comment, two would almost definitely attract the bandits who roamed the Tired Lands.
All in all it was not a bad morning. The priests tell us our world paused when the gods died. That the blessed shall remain blessed, the living shall remain in their trades and the thankful shall be slaves or so poor they starve to death in gutters until the land heals, the curse of magic is purged and the gods are reborn. It is not often that a sheet of vellum allows an ex-slave to defy the holy words of the priesthood and become a blessed squire.
As I walked to the armourer’s my master took my arm and pulled me closer to her.
“Remember, your surname is now ap Gwynr. You are the youngest son of a family with a small longhouse; your father breeds mounts and has been shirking his taxes to the king. You are here as surety that this will not happen again.”
“Yes, Master. I have read the vellum.” She always becomes nervy and detail-obsessed at the start of a campaign.
“And when you are among the squires look to yourself.” I knew what she meant. Though I am fifteen I look no more than fourteen at most. I was underfed as a young child as food is more valuable than slaves in the Tired Lands, my small stature and club foot do not make me appear much of a warrior, that is what makes me a good assassin. However, I would not be able to use my skills as too much martial prowess in an unschooled country landowner’s son would appear suspicious.
“You mean I should let them beat me, Master?”
“Until it really matters, yes.”
“Thank you, Master.”
She squeezed my arm. “I must go now. We will not see much of each other. A jester would not be welcome among squires so I will be spending most of my time at court.”
“Not with me?” I hated my voice then. It sounded like a childish whine and gave away the fear within. We always worked together. I could not remember a time when I had spent more than an hour without my master. She had always been at my back or I at hers.
“You are growing up, Girton. Soon you will be glad of time alone and some company your own age may do you good.” She squeezed my arm again and left to change into her motley while I stood in the wide courtyard between the keep’s outer door and the great gatehouse that led into the keepyard. In front of me the water clock, a towering contraption of steel tubes, silver balls, chiming bells and falling water, ticked out the minutes as I bunched my fists and told myself under my breath. “No longer the assassin. Now a lonely boy in a strange and dangerous place.”
I walked through the postern door in the wooden gates of the gatehouse and into the keepyard, finding my way to the armourers by asking the servants, who busied themselves around the castle like lizards around a heap. The only people more plentiful than servants were the slaves, who moved with their heads down and tried to be noticed as little as possible. I could not ask them for directions as it would be considered odd for a squire, no matter how lowborn, to do anything but give orders to a slave.
The armourer was a stump of a man. He shared a similarity of face with Aydor, the heir, and a thickness of body, so he was probably one of King Doran ap Mennix’s many by-blows. The king was in his fifties now, and sick, but he had been busy in his youth with any who offered. He probably pushed himself on many that did not offer too; it is the way of the blessed and one of the reasons why assassins are often seen as heroes by the poor. As the law stated only a legitimate royal child may inherit a throne, bastards, such as the armourer clearly was, offered no threat and were often taken on as servants, though just as often they were sold off as slaves. When I had been younger and found my training particularly taxing I had fantasised that I was a child of royalty and would be whisked away by royal guards on mounts with loyalty flags flying. Mentioning this was one of the rare things guaranteed to amuse my master.
“Armour?” said the man, rubbing a hand over a head shaved bald. He was no taller than me though he was twice as wide. Bastards clearly ate well here. “And weapons?” he said as if I had asked him to forge them for me there and then.
“Yes.”
“Not got your own?”
“I am the youngest son and crippled.” I kept my eyes on the floor, acting the shy child away from home, ashamed of what he must admit. “My father saw no profit in spending money on armour for a cripple. I was bound for the priesthood.”
“Your father sounds like a wise man,” he said. “How old are you, boy? Thirteen?”
“Fourteen,” I said, with the just the right amount of surliness for a boy who finds being considered younger than he is insulting to his manhood. It was not the most difficult part to play.
“Fourteen and small for it,” he said, because some people love to labour a point. “I’ll struggle to outfit you, child.”
“The king has ordered me outfitted.”
The armourer let out a sigh.
“Wait here.” He vanished into his armoury. I did not follow as it is bad form to follow an armourer into his sanctum; they guard their charges more closely than a nervous mother guards a babe. The man returned with a net of armour which he dropped in front of me. “Should fit you,” he grunted. “Try it.”
It was very poor armour. Whoever had worn it before had not cared for it particularly well, if at all.
“There’s blood and hair in the helmet.” The armourer shrugged. “And a bit missing from the chest piece.”
He picked up the piece I pointed at. Tired Lands armour is made of hundreds of small overlapping rectangular pieces enamelled in bright colours laid over leather and held together by wire in such a way to protect the wearer. This piece was harlequin armour, its many colours giving away that it had been cobbled together from bits of other armours. It did not hang well and the chest piece was full of gaps. “I can replace those,” he said. “You can clean the helmet.” I looked over the rest of the armour. The solid shoulder pieces and the fishscale over the leather arm guards were just passable. The leather greaves, inset with iron, and the skirt of canvas and chain were bearable but it was, by any stretch of the imagination, poor armour. I could not say so as the boy I was meant to be would not know enough of armour to know bad from good. In fact, a youngest son with a club foot would probably be over the moon just to receive something as expensive as a full set of armour.
“Gladly,” I said and painted on a smile. “How do I clean it?”
The armourer shook his head. “They teach you nothing in the country? Sand and vinegar will remove rust and dirt, and you can get fat from the kitchen to help protect it from rusting further and grease the hard joints at shoulder and elbow. You’ll be wanting swords too?”
“Yes.”
He looked pained and returned to his room, coming back w
ith two weapons—a longsword and a smaller stabsword, both weapons of very poor quality. “Here, boy, if you can carry them.” He dropped them in front of me.
“No,” I said. I may let him push his worst armour on me but not a poor blade. A good blade was far more important to me than armour. “I might only be from the country but I looked after my brother’s blades. I need good blades, and these—” I nudged the weapons away from me with my foot “—are not good blades.”
He gave me a smile that almost reached the corners of his mouth and walked back into his room. He returned with a selection of blades, laying them out on the scarred and chipped wooden table at the side of his workshop.
“Very well, young blessed,” he sneered. “As you are such a fine judge of blades you may pick your own.”
There were twelve blades set out. Six were not paired, merely orphan swords, and I ignored them immediately. A good smith makes the stabsword and longsword at the same time so they can be weighted against each other for balanced combat. Mismatched blades are better than no blades but it would foolish to choose them when there are other options. In the centre of the remaining six lay a pair of beautiful, shiny, gilded and inlaid weapons. I suspect he thought that, with the thief’s eye of the young, I would take those. I hovered over them for a moment, more to build his expectation than anything else, before passing on. They were too weighty and their ornate curves made them easy for an opponent to snag. Of the two pairs left, one set was perfectly serviceable and the other almost completely covered in a patina of rust and dirt.