by Stephen Deas
Berren looked up. ‘I want to learn swords,’ he blurted, and then quickly looked down again.
The prince looked at Berren. ‘Seems a little late for that to me. Still …’ He looked at Master Sy and then a sly grin spread across his lips. ‘Didn’t I hear that the Autarch was sending some of his sword-masters here? In preparation for making a little visit himself at exactly the same time as he should have been in Varr to name my niece?’ He chuckled. ‘As snubs go, that’s about as sharp as you can get without stabbing someone. He could at least have claimed poor health.’ He nodded. ‘Swords, boy. Right. So be it. The monks at the temple shall train you. I’m sure that will delight them. Tanngris, we shall deliver our instructions to the idiots of the sun tomorrow as soon as I can be bothered with getting up.’
With that he was gone. The soldiers and the thief-takers stared after him. Slowly, Syannis shook his head. He gave Berren a hard sad look.
‘What have you done, lad? What have you done?’
6
BEWARE THE GIFTS OF PRINCES
On any other day, Berren would never have been at the temple gates for dawn. There wasn’t any point for a start, and even with the best reason in the world and no matter how hard he tried, Berren was always five or ten minutes late for everything.
This morning was different. On this morning he was standing outside the temple gates ten minutes before the first rays of sun split open the horizon. He had Master Sy beside him and a crowd of jostling onlookers. For most people, this was probably their only chance to see the monks of Torpreah.
They didn’t disappoint. As the first sunlight struck the golden spire on the top of the solar temple, a great gong sounded from inside as it did every morning; today, though, it was answered by another gong, every bit as deep and resonant, from across Deephaven Square. At the same precise moment, the beginnings of a procession emerged from the Avenue of the Sun beside the merchants’ guild-house. Sixteen men walked in front, straight and proud and dressed in pale yellow robes. Eight men came behind them; they carried a long pole from which hung a gong as large as a horse. After that came mules and wagons but Berren had no eyes for those. He was looking at the monks and nothing else as they walked in perfect slow precision across the square. The sun lit up the dome of the solar temple exactly as they reached the gates. The gong inside sounded again and the doors groaned and opened. A man with a hammer ran up to the gong carried behind the monks and sounded it. Berren saw the eight men carrying it stagger slightly. The noise of it made him flinch. The monks, though, never blinked.
They had marks on their faces. Berren could see that when they were only halfway across Deephaven Square, but it wasn’t until they were almost at the gate that he could see what they were. They had the sunburst symbol, a flaming circle tattooed to their face in a brilliant fiery red. They looked fierce and proud.
They were short, too. Short and wiry like him and Master Sy, not heavy and muscle-bound like most of the prince’s soldiers at the Watchman’s Arms. With a slight shock he realised that the last one was a women, every bit as unreadable as the men. He watched them all go past. They each had two small curved swords strapped across their backs. The light of the sun reached the ground; across the city and the river Arr, the horizon burst into an orange fire. The temple doors fell back and for a moment, a golden light washed over the advancing monks, casting them into silhouette. Berren blinked and rubbed his eyes. From behind they looked a lot like the man he’d seen in the scent garden.
He shook himself. It stood to reason that the killer had been short and carried a sword over his back. Short people were better at climbing and creeping and hiding. And you wouldn’t want a great long sword hanging from your belt for quiet work. A smallsword, that’s what anyone would take if they thought about it. Strapped across his back to keep it out of the way.
Or across her back. For some reason, that thought had never crossed his mind until now. It filled him up with a strange excitement.
‘Off you go then, lad.’
Berren followed the monks through the temple gate. He threw Master Sy an idle salute and then ran all the way to the temple and sat down at the back where no one would notice. Other novices crowded in, priests too, and then the monks walked sedately past to stand in the centre of the temple, ringing the altar while the Sunherald of Deephaven himself walked in slow circles around them, droning on about something. Berren even tried to pay attention, but he might as well not have bothered. He was too far away to hear properly and even the words he caught didn’t make much sense. The ceremonies were strange and exciting at first, but as they wore on and on all through the morning, Berren’s head began to feel heavy. The nights awake in the scent garden caught up with him. Before long he was asleep.
He woke up again to find the temple in silence. The Sunherald was still there and so were the monks, but they were all as still as statues. With a little gasp of horror, Berren saw the sun on the altar. It was nearly midday! He’d been asleep for the whole morning! Oh gods, what if The Worm had seen him? Had he been snoring? What if any of the other teachers had seen him? What if the monks had seen him? Someone must have seen him! Sooner or later Sterm would find out. Sleeping in temple was just a fraction short of spitting at the altar. Khrozus! He’d be working penances for the whole rest of the year for this!
Everyone was very still. They were all staring at him, or at least that was how it seemed at first. Slowly, though, he realised that they were staring past him, to the great doors behind. He turned around to look.
‘Well don’t stop just for me,’ called a voice from among the silhouettes at the door. Berren knew the voice at once – the prince.
There was a long pause. ‘And there ends today’s lesson,’ snapped the Sunherald from the altar. Berren’s brow furrowed. He checked the angle of the light on the altar again. Not far from midday but not quite there yet.
‘Oh, don’t tell me you’ve been preaching away all morning and I happen to have the foul luck to show up just in time for the half-hour recess before you start all over again? Fortunate in a way, I suppose, since we can get right to business without my interrupting anything. Pity, though. I was so looking forward to a good sermoning and my adjutants tell me I’m in something of a hurry now.’ The prince began to walk through the temple. He had six men with him; Berren was startled to see that one of them was Master Sy. The thief-taker’s face was taut. ‘Keep your little dragons handy too, Your Holiness,’ laughed the prince as he strode to the altar. ‘This concerns them.’
‘Novices and initiates, you are dismissed!’ The Sunherald started to pace again but with none of the serenity he’d had before. ‘There will be prayers at midday and then you will assemble in the practice yard while our honoured guests from Torpreah show us why they carry the reputation that they do.’
Berren watched as most of the priests and the novices and the initiates filed out of the temple. He got up to slip out with the last of them, but Master Sy was there. His fingers twisted around Berren’s ear.
‘This is all your fault,’ he hissed. ‘Every bit of it. I hope you’re ready for what you’ve done.’
Berren had no idea what Master Sy meant but he knew better than to say anything. They marched towards the centre of the temple, to the altar and the monks. The altar seemed golden, bathed in the sunlight streaming in through the dome above. Whatever the prince was saying, neither the priest nor the monks were liking it.
‘… or not, since it’s really quite irrelevant. You will do as I say, and that is that.’ The prince’s words. He shrugged. ‘Well, I suppose you could disobey and then I could have you all shipped off to the mines, strip this little palace of yours bare and turn it into a poorhouse. After the Overlord has subdued the inevitable riots, of course, but then I won’t be here to care about that little detail.’
Master Sy pushed Berren forward. One of the temple priests rolled his eyes. ‘Him?’
‘Yes him. The annoying little rude one. Is that about right?’
‘Oh yes. Although …’ The prince leaned forward towards the Sunherald. ‘They’re your monks, aren’t they? For as long as they’re here?’ He turned to the monks and pointed at the nearest, the woman. ‘You. You can do it.’ Berren’s eyes widened and he bit his lip. The monk couldn’t have been much older than him. Might even have been the same age. And he was going to be trained by a girl?
He glanced at her. You could hardly even tell she was a girl, she was so skinny.
The monk bowed. ‘How hard do you wish him trained, Your Highness?’ Her face didn’t flicker, even as Berren stared at her. Flat chest, narrow hips, all sharp angles and no curves. If she was a girl, she was probably the ugliest girl in the city, he decided. Not that that made things any better.
On the other hand, she was a dragon-monk.
The prince blew out his cheeks and stretched his shoulders. ‘Oh, as hard as you like, I suppose.’
‘Then he will be dead within a week, Your Highness.’
The prince looked Berren up and down and then turned back to the monk with a pained expression on his face. ‘Well, maybe not that hard then. I shan’t be wanting to hear that this boy got sent to his death by way of a reward. Gods, something like that might even prey on my conscience. Train him hard then, but please, not so hard that he expires.’ The prince grinned at Berren. It wasn’t a very nice grin. ‘Train him hard enough to see whether he really wants it.’
The monk bowed again. ‘As Your Highness commands.’ It was hard to tell whether she was pleased or angry or simply didn’t care one way or the other, although at least all his staring had finally managed to put a bit of colour in her cheeks. The Sunherald was managing to keep his face flat too, but the temple priests were a different matter. Most of them looked ready to explode.
‘You cannot …! Even you, you can’t …!’
‘What? Spit it out! I can’t what? Wander through your city issuing edicts that everyone is forced to obey no matter how random and whimsical they are? But I can, you see. One of the few joys of being a prince.’ He frowned and scratched his short black beard. ‘Well, one of the few joys apart from the endless parade of wine and willing women, anyway.’ He smiled again. ‘If you wish to lie awake at night begging your god for a relief against the injustices of the world, consider that your Autarch is busily making a point of snubbing my family and that his monks would not be here for me to impose upon otherwise. Good day.’ With that, he turned on his heel and marched out of the temple. His men followed, as did Master Sy, still dragging Berren by the ear. Outside, the prince stopped again. He looked at Master Sy and, fleetingly, at Berren.
‘Gentlemen, I thank you for your services. Loathsome duty now beckons. Lord Tanngris will settle our accounts with the Watchman’s Arms.’ He stopped and stared at Master Sy. ‘You. However much I have called you dull, you do not belong here. You are rotting on the inside, and believe me, on that subject I know what I’m talking about. Thief-taking is not for you. Go and do whatever it is you need to do.’
Master Sy bowed. He was trying not to show it, but the prince’s words had touched him somewhere raw. His hands were trembling and his skin had turned pale. Berren didn’t have time to think about that, though, for the prince was looking at him now. His eyes were pale and watery. They had a bit of ice to them. A bit of ice and a bit of anger and a lot of sadness, Berren thought.
‘You. Take this, boy.’ He pressed something into Berren’s hand. ‘When your master goes, he’s not going to want you with him. You’ll probably follow him anyway, whether he likes it or not, but at least let me give you a choice. You may come to Varr. Go to the Kaveneth. Present this and tell them that you have answered my summons. Tell them I say you should be working for Eagle-Beak, if he’s still alive. They’ll know who you mean.’ Whatever he’d put in Berren’s hand, the prince closed Berren’s fingers over it. ‘And don’t lose it, eh?’
Before Berren could even look up, the prince had turned and was walking away. Master Sy put a hand on Berren’s shoulder. ‘Watch him go, lad. That’s the last you’ll ever see of him, yet his favour will haunt you like a curse. It will be a weight around your neck before this year is up, I promise you.’
Berren opened his fingers to see what the prince had given him. It was gold, like an emperor fresh from the imperial mint but bigger and with a more complicated stamp on it. Not the Emperor’s head but a sword and a shield on one side and the imperial standard, a flaming eagle within a triangle, on the other.
‘Worth a bit, that,’ muttered Master Sy.
Berren nodded. He was staring at the token. He had no idea what it meant but he held it as though it was the most precious thing he’d ever had. He couldn’t pocket it for fear of somehow losing it. Maybe a chain, around his neck …
‘You could sell it.’
He closed his fingers around the token, clutching it tight. Yes, a chain around his neck, that was the only way to be safe.
The thief-taker sighed. He clapped Berren on the shoulder. ‘Remember, lad, when this all turns sour, that it all came about because you did the right thing and for the right reasons. Now I’m hungry and my friendships with the priests in this temple have just been royally slaughtered. Ah well, only took ten years to build. Come on: I need a drink, I’ve got a pocket full of the Prince’s silver, Justicar Kol owes me a purse and the most expensive tea-house in the city is right across the square beside the guild-house. So that’s where I’m going. You can come with me if you like, or you can stay here for midday prayers if you like the look of your new teacher so much.’
Berren reddened. ‘Her?’
‘Don’t think I didn’t see you looking, and don’t think that she didn’t either. You’re in for some hard hard work, lad.’ He chuckled. ‘So are you coming or are you staying?’
For a moment Berren hesitated. Not that he wanted to be in the temple for any longer that he had to; but after prayers the monks were going to do their demonstration and that was something he didn’t want to miss. He’d get to see his new teacher fight, maybe work out a trick or two so he could show them he wasn’t some stupid novice and they’d give him a proper teacher instead of some girl.
Master Sy must have read his mind. ‘Oh don’t you worry, we’ll be back quick enough. I want to see your new teacher show off her skills too. Although I simply need to know that she’s good enough for my student … You know, I don’t think I’d mind it at all if she ripped your arms off.’ He smiled and for once he seemed to mean it. ‘Come on, lad. Asking His Highness for sword lessons was foolishness, but it was a brave thing you did. I’ll probably never have the money to do this again.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Unless your teachers have actually managed to stir a little piety in you?’
Berren vigorously shook his head. ‘No chance of that!’ Still clutching the prince’s token, he ran to the temple gates.
7
A CUP OF TEA AND A BAD TASTE
‘Myla! Soraya! Lucius!’ Halfway across the square, a boy of about seven bolted across the stones. Two girls, somewhat younger, ran after him waving wooden swords. ‘Come here!’ The girls ran straight in front of Berren, forcing him to lurch sideways, but that just made him collide with the woman running after them instead. They both staggered away, the woman calling out a stream of apologies, Berren too busy checking his purse to hear what she’d said. Old habits died hard. He watched as the woman caught up with first the girls and then the boy, picking them up in her arms one after the other and scolding them soundly while they giggled and laughed. They were rich, you could see that from their clothes. Almost anyone who came up to The Peak was either rich or a novice at the temple.
‘Come on, lad!’ Master Sy was already a dozen yards ahead. ‘No time to dawdle.’
Berren sighed. Here he was, apprenticed to Master Syannis, the best thief-taker in Deephaven. He’d earned his first golden emperor at the age of thirteen. Not been given it, but earned
it. He was learning letters, even if he hated them, in the great temple of the Sun. He’d earned the gratitude of a prince and he was about to be taught swords by the greatest fighters in the empire. And yet …
And yet?
And yet sometimes he would have given it all to be a fishmonger’s son, quiet and dim and unassuming, amounting to nothing very much and yet oafishly content.
‘Come on, come on! They’ll ring the bell for midday prayers soon and then we might as well forget about being served in here.’ Master Sy pushed open an impressive door of dark carved wood. Berren followed him into a dim room. The air was rich, thick with a hundred different scents and spices – sweet jasmine, bitter liquorice, pungent nutmeg and cloves and cinnamon, all layered over flowers and pipeweed and tea. Even Master Sy paused as though taken aback.
‘Right.’ The thief-taker pushed on deeper into the tea-house. The room was nearly empty except for a pair of girls about Berren’s age who were wearing … Berren squinted. They were dressed like pageboys except they very obviously weren’t. They wore their shirts loose and their breeches tight. As Master Sy approached, they smiled and bowed. Berren stared, hoping they’d bow to him too, but they didn’t. He caught Master Sy looking at him, one eyebrow raised.
‘The proprietors of the Golden Cup know very well who their patrons are.’ The thief-taker wrinkled his nose. ‘Fat old men who like to leer.’ The two serving girls exchanged a glance and giggled. Master Sy bowed back to them and then asked for a string of things that Berren had never heard of. It was as though he’d suddenly started speaking another language, something completely alien like the tongue of the black-skinned sea-traders. The girls seemed to understand, though; they nodded and hurried away. Berren wistfully watched them go, thinking of them beside the sword-monk who was supposed to be his teacher. See, now that was how a girl was supposed to look …