by Stephen Deas
She sniffed hard and half-smiled. ‘Is that what you wanted to show me?’ There were tears in her eyes.
‘I wanted you to know,’ he said, with a quiver in his voice. ‘Just in case …’
There. He couldn’t finish that sentence or he’d be crying like a little boy.
‘In case …?’
He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. Shouldn’t have.’
‘No.’ Now there was a tear on her cheek. ‘No, you shouldn’t.’
He’d ruined everything. He turned away.
‘Berren?’
‘Tasahre?’
She was standing there, arms limp at her sides, eyes glistening, half smiling, half full of sorrow.
‘I …’ She shook her head. ‘You are so …’ She looked down at her feet, then looked up again. ‘It is Abyss-Day, is it not?’
‘Yes.’
‘And tomorrow begins the Festival of Flames.’
‘Yes.’
‘And so tonight you will go to the Emperor’s Docks to look for your master, because you know that he knows that his enemy will be there, and you hope to find him. If you do, will you stop him?’
She knew? But of course, because he’d told her everything the Headsman had said after they’d fled from Kuy. She hadn’t forgotten, then. He swallowed hard. ‘I will try.’ So she knew he wasn’t coming back then. She’d see that, surely.
‘Then I hope I will not see you again.’ She took a deep breath.
‘What?’
‘Give me your hand.’
He held out his hand and she took it and pressed it against her cheek, just as he had done, and sighed and closed her eyes. ‘What do you mean?’
‘It means I hope you will succeed. I hope you will sway him and be away, both of you. It means I hope you will be safe. You know this cannot be.’
He nodded.
She lifted his hand gently away and kissed it. ‘But thank you for giving me this moment. Thank you for showing me that there is more to this monk than what you saw of me yesterday, that I am more than a sword of the sun.’ She laughed, shaking her head, and there were tears running down her face. ‘And now I will go, before one of us does something even more foolish. And you should go too. I would ask you to stay in the temple tonight, of all nights, but I know you won’t unless I tie you down, and I will not do that. Please, be safe Berren.’
With that, she turned and almost ran out of the door.
Yes, he thought. I will. But I’m coming back. I promise. I will find a way.
32
THE EMPEROR’S DOCKS
He stood, frozen to the spot for a time with a head so full that he couldn’t think. Outside, as he walked across the empty practice yard, he felt a lightness on his shoulders and a spring in his step. He’d go to Justicar Kol, that’s what he’d do. They’d go to the Emperor’s Docks while it was still light with a company of the Emperor’s men. Kol could take Radek away and Berren could sit there and wait for dark. That’s when Master Sy would come, and then he’d tell the thief-taker everything and no one would get murdered and just maybe they wouldn’t have flee the city and he’d get to come back to the temple for the last week before the Festival of Flames ended and Tasahre sailed away, and that was enough time that anything could happen, right?
The thought of his hand on Tasahre’s cheek made him shiver as he walked past the temple guard, out through the gates. Even so early in the morning, the city was getting ready for the summer festival. The days were at their longest, the nights hot and humid and short. He crossed Deephaven Square, still quiet at this hour, and went down the Avenue of the Sun to Four Winds Square which was anything but. He smiled to himself. It seemed like almost forever since he’d been out in the city crowds. They felt like an old and loved shirt, easily slipped on and immediately comfortable. For no better reason than he could, he made a game of it, pretending there was a whole militia gang after him. He zigged and zagged his way around the square. Everything felt so right today.
He crossed in front of the courthouse and turned down the street that ran beside it, past the fountain and into The Eight. He stood on the threshold and savoured the familiar smells – good strong beer, pipeweed, damp wood, earth and the ivy. For a moment he felt a pang of sadness. The Eight was a familiar place. Now he was here, he missed it. It had always felt safe.
It was also empty. Thief-takers, he reminded himself, were night people and it wasn’t even mid-morning. Although it was early enough that some of them might not have gone to bed yet …
He breathed a sigh of exasperation. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing. If Kol was looking for the thief-taker then there’d be gold on his head by now and there might be a crown on Berren’s as well. Finding the justicar was one thing, but running into one of the thief-takers he barely knew, maybe that was another. He tried to think. He had no idea at all where Justicar Kol lived and the courts, where he might have asked, were closed on Abyss-Day. He wandered aimlessly down through the backside of the Courts District, skirting the edge of the Maze until he reached the sea-docks, right down the end by the Reeper Gate where the harbour-masters lived beside their House of Records. For a while he lost himself among the crowds there. He made his way to the harbour wall, to all the little jetties stuck out into the water and sat for a while, watching the boats going back and forth to the ships out in the bay. He bought himself a bun stuffed with pickled fish, the sort that he and Master Sy used to eat together when they came down to the docks, then slipped inside a warehouse when the guards weren’t looking, climbed up to the top, out through the open windows and onto the roof. It was barely mid-morning and now he had to wait for dusk and the Night of the Dead and the start to the Festival of Flames before Master Sy would come. He settled back to eat his bun and doze a little in the warm summer sun, fingering the token around his neck. One day. One day, that was where he was going. If they had to flee Deephaven, at least they had a place to go, up the river to Varr. There could be rewards for what they’d done, if he had the right of it.
There had to be some way, didn’t there? Some way to take Tasahre with him? He mulled the thought over, looking at it from every way he could imagine, until suddenly the middle of the morning had become the early afternoon and he was stiff from sleeping too long on the hard uneven roof.
He yawned and stretched and eased himself back into the warehouse and down to the docks again, slipping past the half-drunk sentries as easily as though they were statues. On the Day of the Dead before the Festival of Flames, no one in Deephaven was going anywhere in a hurry. Even the constant stream of wagons between the river and the sea, the pulse of the city, had stopped. The air was already rank with sweat and smoke and sour cheap wine, filled with raucous shouts and the occasional scream as someone accidentally set themselves on fire. Past the entrance to the Avenue of Emperors Berren pushed his way onwards, up the Kingsway and down the other side of The Peak. In time, the ground under his feet changed into the worn hard stone of the Old Fort Road. The jetties and the boats and the hustle and bustle they brought with them gave way to jagged stone. The crowds shrank to scattered clumps of revellers, mostly drunks who’d started the day far too early. Further along the shore, right at the far end of the estuary, stood Deephaven Fort. The city had had a navy once, Master Sy said. A small fleet that had guarded the mouth of the river, there to stop the Taiytakei slave-galleys and the sun-king’s war-galleons from sailing the river towards Varr. Batteries of light ballistae and stone-throwers had once lined the shore. The ships and most of the stone-throwers were gone now – the sun-king might have been a threat a hundred years ago, but Aria had grown vast and almost immeasurably powerful. The Emperor had sorcerers now.
The fort was still there though, still filled with the Emperor’s soldiers. Around it the Armourer’s District had grown. Toolmakers Square. Sword Street. The infamous Forge Tavern. Every other alley was a this-smith or a that-smith. Hammersmiths’ Passage was the one he wanted, the one that led to the Emperor’s Docks, otherwise no diff
erent from any of the rest. It wasn’t a part of the city that Berren knew well, and he had no idea whether anyone still made hammers here, or swords or shields or anything else for that matter, or whether they’d all gone away with the stone-throwers and the ballistae. No one used the Emperor’s Docks any more; hardly anyone in the wider city even knew they were there, but they were: tiny, exposed, but the one place in Deephaven where a tall ship could anchor right up against the land if it didn’t mind taking its chances with the winds and the tides and the rocks of the Blue Cliffs.
Old instincts forged in the rough streets of Shipwrights’ guided him off the Old Fort Road and into the side streets. They were wide here, broad enough for the carts that used to carry charcoal and ore from the docks to the smithies. The river brought steel now, forged somewhere far to the north, and the streets were quiet and empty. Militia gangs kept order in most districts, but as with The Peak, the Overlord took a more direct hand in this part of the city.
He was still a good few streets from the docks when he spotted the first of the Emperor’s soldiers, distinct in their pale silver shirts and flaming eagle crests. They were heading the same way as he was, carrying bundles of festival torches. Berren flitted back across Old Fort Street, never quite letting the soldiers out of sight but never getting any closer than needed. They crossed the wide open space of Royal Parade, the old city’s version of the Avenue of Emperors, and reached the Fort, on the river side of Toolmakers’ Square.
Three more soldiers came the other way, broadswords jangling at their sides. The two groups stopped outside the district courthouse, laughing and joking together. The smell of beer wafted around them as Berren walked past, and then he was there: Hammersmith’s Passage. He turned into its shadows. The cobbles sloped steeply down towards the river. His skin prickled. He was close. Master Sy would come, sooner or later.
Water shimmered at the end of the passage. The great river, bright in the midsummer sun. A moment later he rounded the corner of Hammersmiths’ and the Emperor’s Docks were right in front of him. They were so small! He’d never seen them before, but he’d always assumed they were at least a bit like the other docks, huge and sprawling. But no, they were small and cramped, a thin cobbled strip squeezed in between the rocky shore of the river and the steep slope up to The Peak. There was one ship tied up alongside, towering over everything. Wooden steps ran down from the ship to the dockside. At the bottom of the steps, a handful of soldiers stood about, bored. Berren stared at them. He’d never seen soldiers like this – they were dressed in bright breastplates, and around their waists they wore long skirts made of overlapping strips of thick hard leather, coloured a deep green. Instead of swords they carried pole-arms, strange things with spikes and curved blades on both ends. Berren walked closer but the soldiers paid no attention to him. They weren’t drinking, not like the Emperor’s men he’d passed on the way here. They were tense.
Apart from the soldiers, the dock was quiet. A few people walked back and forth along the waterfront, but the festival was further down the river. There was no one here juggling torches, no one selling hot fish strips or roasted roaches.
He moved to a quiet corner, out of the way but in clear sight of the ship, and sat down in the sun. Out on the river, little boats sailed to and fro across the estuary. If he strained his eyes, he could just make out the line of Siltside across the water, the gleaming mud and the patchwork of little huts on stilts.
He hadn’t been there for long, eyes half closed, when a shadow loomed over him.
‘Berren.’
He blinked. ‘Tasahre?’ She sat down beside him. He shook his head, trying to work out whether he was really awake or whether he’d fallen asleep and this was a dream. ‘What are you doing here?’
She smiled at him. ‘A glorious day, is it not? It never rains on the Festival of Flames. Not for a hundred years. Did you know that? Almost every day in the summer, the rains come in the afternoon, yet never on the Day of the Dead. Not once.’
He touched her lightly on the shoulder to make himself believe she was real. ‘But what are you doing here?’
‘Radek of Kalda is on that ship. So I knew you would be here.’
‘But still, why?’ He didn’t understand. ‘Are you all here? What about the others?’ The other monks! If Master Sy saw sword-monks, he’d never come! He’d turn back and slip away and wait for another day!
‘Only me, Berren. If your master comes to kill this man, this Radek, do you think he will listen to you?’
‘I don’t know.’ Berren shivered. ‘I thought … I thought after the Sunbright … maybe there would be some other way. I came to go with him, one way or the other.’
She took his hand. ‘I know.’ Out in the water, one of the little boats was sailing towards the docks. ‘And I found I was not content to let you go when I could share your company one last time.’ She took his hand and squeezed it gently. ‘I did not ask any others to come. Together we will be enough, I think.’ She laughed. ‘Perhaps I am here to protect you from the press gangs! I am told more men become sailors after the Day of the Dead than over the rest of the year!’
Berren wasn’t so sure of that and he wasn’t so sure about them swaying Master Sy from killing Radek either, but to have some company through the afternoon, waiting for the night when Master Sy would come, that was a pleasure he couldn’t deny. He smiled back at her. The warmth of the sun on his face was a delight. Maybe she was right. Maybe when the thief-taker came slinking through the shadows later, the sight of his apprentice and a sword-monk would be enough to make him pause. For a moment, he felt himself at peace.
A band of players came out of Hammersmiths’. They walked slowly along the docks, men and women with painted faces and bright clothes, juggling balls and dancing and playing pipes. Three of them were dressed as knights, with jerkins decked like armour and swords and long brightly painted lances made of wood. They walked past where Berren and Tasahre sat and smiled at them. Berren smiled back.
‘May the festival bring you joy!’ one of them cried and waved. Berren blinked. That voice – he’d heard it before!
Beside him, he felt Tasahre tense. ‘That is odd,’ she said.
The players wandered on towards the ship. As they did, their music grew louder. They started to dance and sing. On the river, the little boat with the sail drew closer. Berren scrunched up his face, trying to work out why the man had sounded familiar. ‘What’s odd?’ he asked after a bit. Tasahre was staring out at the water.
‘Those men. Their swords. They were real.’ She stood up. The players had reached the soldiers with the leather skirts. They were dancing around them, teasing them. The men played their pipes while the women offered up skins of wine and then snatched them away again. Abruptly Tasahre stood up. ‘He’s here! Your master! He’s here!’
Berren looked up and down the docks, searching. ‘What?’
The old harbour watchtower. The day he and Master Sy had climbed it to look at the ships and they’d seen the Headsman’s flag. That was where he’d heard the voice before!
‘There.’ She pointed out to the water, to the little boat with the sail.
It had turned. It was heading straight in for the docks.
33
A STACKED DECK
Tasahre was up and running. A shout came from somewhere up on the ship. The soldiers by the steps turned, confused, and then several of the players, the men who’d been singing and dancing and making music just a moment ago, drew swords and attacked. The soldiers fell, caught by surprise, the swordsmen too close for the soldiers to use their long axe-spears. Three of the players, the ones with swords, ran up the steps; the rest bolted for the far end of the docks and vanished into the alleys there. Out on the river, Berren couldn’t see the little boat with the sail any more. It had vanished behind the bulk of Radek’s ship.
He leapt up and raced after Tasahre. More shouts rang out from the ship. He saw her ahead of him, bounding up the narrow rope-and-wood steps and disappeari
ng onto the deck. She made him feel slow even though he knew he wasn’t, molasses to her lightning. He didn’t even have a sword. Just his stupid waster. They certainly weren’t going to stop the thief-taker, that much was already clear.
He pushed himself faster, jumping over the dead soldiers sprawled at the bottom of the steps. If they’d had swords then he might have stopped to take one, but he hadn’t the first idea what to do with their stupid pole-arms so he let them be and raced up the steps. The deck of the ship had become a swirling melee. There might have been a dozen men fighting on each side, more of Radek’s soldiers pouring up from inside the ship only to be met by men climbing over the side from ropes thrown from the little ship with the sail. There were already bodies, a few of them, some lying still, others crawling, hauling themselves to some semblance of shelter and leaving thick dark streaks of blood on the deck behind them. There was an air of desperation. As Berren watched, one man fell, another reeled away with half his arm missing, screaming. Berren’s eyes sought Tasahre.
Master Sy! Even in the chaos, Berren knew the thief-taker from the way he moved. He cut down one of Radek’s men and moved straight at another, howling curses all around him. ‘Tethis! For Tethis!’
The rest of the men fighting with him could have been anyone. City snuffers, maybe, although they fought with a grim determination and hardly any of them had swords; they had clubs and boat-hooks and knives. At the top of the steps, on the edge of the deck, Berren stood, frozen, wondering what to do.
‘Stop!’ The shout came from above him. He looked up. Tasahre was standing up in the rigging, ten feet above him. ‘Stop! Now!’
For a moment, the fighting paused, but the one person who didn’t falter was the thief-taker. The soldier in front of him hesitated. Master Sy opened his throat and went straight on to the next, hacking the man’s arm off at the elbow. ‘Tethis!’ he screamed.