Blood of Assassins

by RJ Baker

  “Doxy,” she said quietly. “I have plenty of doxy if you wish, boy, but much cheaper for you to go pick your own – it is common enough around the paddocks.”

  “I do not seek doxy leaf,” I said, “but a leaf that looks like it and is called yandil.”

  She looked at me, and I wondered if she were deaf, but before I could repeat my words she spoke again, drawing out the word so it sounded like a yawn: “Yandil.”

  “Aye. It is rare, I know, but—”

  “You will not find yandil here, boy,” she said, her voice much stronger. “If you are here on the say of the white tree and its green Riders then begone. I have work to do.” She turned away and resumed grinding something up in a small mortar and pestle.

  “I am here on no one’s say so but my own,” I said, “and I seek the yandil for—”

  She turned back to me, leaning over her stall and her voice was harsh, discordant with fear.

  “Get away, boy, and do not mention the name of that herb again. The Landsmen are ever eager to fill their gibbets and even talk of yandil will find you a home in one. Now go, before you bring a hunger down on us both.” She brought the tips of her thumb and fingers together and touched her nose and mouth as I had often seen people do to ward off hedgings, and then gestured with her head, making it clear she wanted me gone. Dejected, I turned, only then noticing that the butcher was staring at me, his muscles tensed and a cleaver that dripped rancid meat juices held loosely in his hand. There was no help here. I left, feeling like the darkness was closing in on me. At the edge of the night market I heard my name called.

  “Girton!”

  I recognised the voice immediately, a sound like a flaming torch.

  “Areth, what do you do here?” It seemed strange that a queen should walk unescorted among her people. “Is it safe for you to walk alone?”

  “I believe in Rufra’s accord, and these are my people, Girton.” She swept a hand around, gesturing at the market.

  “Just because the assassins are not killing does not mean others may not. Arnst is dead and any fool can wield a knife. Rufra is lax with his Heartblades too,” I said, more to myself than to Areth.

  “Yes,” she said, and linked her arm through mine, making my heart leap in a way as joyous as it was uncomfortable. “Because it would never occur to him to send a common man to kill Tomas he thinks that Tomas will act in a similar fashion.” Her voice became cold: “He is a fool in many ways.”

  “No,” I said, and unlinked my arm from hers. “Rufra is no fool; it is only that he wishes to see the best in us all. It is to be admired.”

  “What use is admiration to a dead man?” she said, and then she softened. “You will watch for him, won’t you, Girton?”

  I nodded.

  “Is it safe for you here, Areth? You are the queen. I would have expected people to mob you with their grievances.”

  “They would have, once,” she said, “but now they are used to seeing me here, and besides –” she looked away into the dark and I thought I saw the sparkle of held-back tears in the torchlight “– everyone here has lost someone. They respect grief.”

  I did not know what to say, settling for a question instead of a consolation.“Why are you here?”

  “It is easier to be among people,” she said. “Sometimes, at night, I close my eyes and see the face of Arnlath as he died, so thin, his skin grey, his breath … his breath …” I saw her gather herself, push the grief down so she could carry on. “I do not think his death was natural, Girton. He was such a strong child, so full of life. So I walk the camp. I put everything I have into hearing what is said of him in case some word is said that may lead me to how he truly died.”

  “And what do you hear?”

  “He was loved. He is missed. It seems every woman in the camp looked upon him as they would their own child. I walk the markets and hear them talk. I sit and I listen for the barest mention of his name.”

  “I wish I had been here, Areth,” I said. “If it was poison, maybe I could have …”

  “Or maybe it was only a sickness.” She shook her head, forcing a smile onto her face. “And why are you here, Girton Club-Foot? I mean in the market, not the camp.”

  “Seeking a herb,” I said and took the leaf from my pouch.

  “Doxy?” She laughed. “Someone has been tricking you. It’s little better than useless. You should pick it from the fields and do the farmers a favour – doxy will take over the fields given half a chance.”

  “No, I do not seek doxy but a herb which looks much like it called—”

  She put a finger on my lips, and her touch kindled a fire within.

  “Do not say its name,” she said. “I know what you seek.”

  “How?”

  “I left no stone unturned when Arnlath was sick, no medicine untried. Come with me.”

  She led me back to the herb woman and her guard, the rancid meat seller.

  “Irille,” she said, “this is Girton.”

  “We met.” She did not sound overly enthused about renewing my acquaintance.

  “Girton is a friend of mine, Irille,” she said. “It would be good if you could help him.”

  The old woman turned back to me and looked me up and down.

  “You are sure, Areth?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Very well.” She vanished into the tent behind her stall and after a minute or so of banging about within returned holding a sheaf of leaves wrapped in rags. “Here.” She thrust them at me.

  “How much?” I said, reaching for my pouch.

  “It is not the sort of thing we take money for,” she said. “Just leave before you draw attention to me.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “I hope it helps,” said Areth as we walked away. “Rufra tells wonderful stories of your master.”

  “She is wonderful, mostly. But strict.”

  “Maybe she should marry Nywulf – they sound like a matched pair.” She smiled at me, and talk of my master led me to thoughts of Mastal.

  “Areth, you know the people of the market well?” She nodded. “Is there anyone who knows languages?”

  Her brow furrowed, and she rubbed at the crease between her eyes. There was something breathtaking in it, a simplicity of movement that made me skip a breath. “Bowan the Toymaker. He has been all around the Tired Lands and beyond and delights in books. If anyone knows languages it is him. Why?”

  “Nothing. Just something I was curious about. It has nothing to do with Rufra.”

  She shrugged and pointed towards the far corner of the night market.

  “He has a tent over there. You should find him at work if you hurry.”

  “Thank you, Areth.”

  I hurried to the toymaker’s tent, my club foot had started to ache and my limp became more pronounced with every step. Outside the tent hung hobby dolls, many of straw and some of bulljuice, the kind used by children to play with rather than to keep hedgings away. More bulljuice toys hung from the top of the tent like so many corpses, sickly white limbs bent into a strange shapes, painted faces seeming to mock me. Inside, Bowan was busy and the sweet and sickly smell of bulljuice, like over-fermented perry, filled the tent as he crouched over his moulds. He used an animal bladder, its end tied around a stick of hauntgrass. He pushed the hauntgrass into a mould, glanced over his shoulder at me and nodded.

  “The trick,” he said, “for bulljuice dolls is to get the juice right to the bottom of the mould and fill them quickly, or the juice will set.” He imparted this with the air of a man sharing a great secret, irritating me almost immediately. Before I could reply, he turned away, squeezing the bladder between his arm and his body, slowly drawing it out of the mould. “Smoothly, see. Fill the entire thing.”

  “Don’t let me disturb you – I can wait,” I said, and he took me at my word, carrying on with his work. He was much younger than I expected, late twenties maybe, and he had shaved his head bald, exposing ears that were too large for his
head. Which was a strange shape. When he had finished he put down the bladder extremely carefully, as if it were fine white bread. Two more bladders hung from the cross-poles of his tent, tightly tied with twine from which lengths of hauntgrass dangled.

  “I must, of course, work quickly,” he said, taking down another bladder. “The bulljuice does not keep long.” He set about his next set of moulds, again, as if I were not there.

  “How quickly does it dry?” I said as he put down the second bladder.

  “Almost instantly when it’s out the bladder.” He pulled a doll from his first set of moulds, a ghostly white, faceless figure ready to be painted. It looked like something from a nightmare, a man made of maggots, but it gave me an idea.

  “How much is one of your bladders of bulljuice worth?” He screwed up his eyes, blinked twice. “An odd question,” he said. “Let me think.” He thought. For too long. “A bladder makes four dolls, and each doll is a quarter of a bit.” He thought again and I was about to do the maths for him when he held up a finger. “Two bits.”

  “Are you afraid of the dead?” I said.

  “Who can live in the Tired Lands and be afraid of the dead?” He smiled, managing to look pleased with himself and slightly tired of me, then he wiped bulljuice from his hands. “Why?”

  “Come with me,” I said, “and bring your last bulljuice bladder.” He frowned and opened his mouth to argue, but I headed him off. “I will pay you three bits, up front.” I held out the money and the toymaker grinned at me.

  “Well, only a fool turns down a certain coin.” He took the remaining bladder from its hook. “Lead me to these dead then.”

  As we walked to the butcher’s hole Bowan chatted about himself. He was not interested in me, and when I asked about his travels he talked at length about them. At no point did he ask my name. I tried to hurry him a little, but he said the bulljuice did not spoil that quickly in the bladder, as if this were something everyone knew.

  “I have heard you know languages. Maybe you could translate something for me, if we have time?” I asked.

  “Of course,” he said. “It is always a joy to school someone.”

  I took the papers I had copied from Mastal’s packs from my jerkin and passed them to him. He paused under a torch, studying them in the light and I almost found myself hoping he would not understand them.

  “This is the language of the Slight Hills, though they hate it when we call them that.”

  “Do you understand it though?”

  He squinted at the paper. “This is a copy,” he said.

  “Yes, it is.” He glanced at me then nodded and went back to the paper.

  “It is not a very good one.”

  “It is quite exact.” He looked at me again.

  “Maybe the original was written by someone with poor handwriting then,” he said. “I am not overly familiar with the language of the Sighing Hills, but I think this is a list.”

  “Of what?”

  “People.” My insides twitched.

  “People?”

  “I think so. There are quite a few.” He brought the paper closer to his face. “Here it says, ‘Comhyn, who went to …’” he paused, peered “‘war’ I think it says, and then it may refer to a place but I am not sure. And after that is an offer of three sheep. The next one says—”

  “How many names are there?”

  “Hokhyn, Histal, Jaada, Medula—”

  “Wait!” He looked up, blinked twice.

  “Where it says Medula, are you sure of what it says?”

  “As I said, the letterwork is not the best—”

  “Could it say Merela?”

  He furrowed his brow and looked again. “I suppose, in fact, yes, I think it does.” He shrugged. “But as I said, the penmanship is—”

  “What does it say afterwards?”

  He rubbed his left eye. “‘Daughter, went to far lands with her family to trade many years ago.’“

  “Daughter?”

  “They use it the same way we use ‘woman’,” he said. “She is worth knowing, this Medula.”

  “She is?”

  “Her family offer fifty times her weight in flour for her return.”

  Now Mastal made sense. He hunted people for reward. And a reward that large would tempt any in the Tired Lands.

  My immediate instinct was to kill him, but I needed him to treat my master, at least until I could work out how to do it myself. But now I had the advantage. I knew why he was here, what he wanted and that his friendly demeanour was a sham. How many others had he fooled in the same way?

  “If you have a purpose for this bulljuice,” said the toymaker, “we should hurry or it will harden.” We walked the rest of the way to the butcher’s hole and I explained that I wanted him to inject his bulljuice into a wound on Arnst’s thigh so I would have an impression of the knife that had made the wound. The thigh was a good place, all muscle, and it would hold the shape of the blade. When Bowan saw the body he turned a strange shade of green, and when I held the wound open so he could insert the hauntgrass straw he had to go outside to vomit. Thankfully, after that he no longer spoke and simply got on with the job.

  An hour and several more false starts later, I returned to the tent I shared with my master, flushed with triumph. I paused as I approached. Light shone through the felt and I could hear laughter inside again. I stood outside, strangely unwilling to enter. The laughter sounded so real, my master so happy. Crast materialised, seemingly out of thin air, by my side. Making me jump.

  “Evening, Girton,” he said. “Come to join the party?” He gestured with his thumb at the tent.

  “I’m not sure I’m invited,” I said.

  “Wish I was.” He shrugged. “Sounds like they’ve been having a right old time, laughing all afternoon. They even had a boy bring them food and perry.” He rubbed at his running nose with a sleeve. “I keep expecting them to start humping.” His words slowed to a trickle and dried up at the look on my face. “Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

  “I’m not,” I said, but I don’t think either of us believed it. Crast raised an eyebrow and suddenly I found myself laughing. Something about Crast reminded me of me before I went off to fight in other lands. He had an irreverence, though underlying it was something else, something darker, but this was a land at war and everyone was scarred by it.

  We were interrupted by Mastal.

  “Crast,” he said, “I must speak to Girton alone.”

  “Welcoming as always, Mastal,” said Crast, and stepped back into the darkness.

  “What?” I said. It came out as a harsh bark.

  “I know it is difficult for you,” said Mastal softly, “and I spoke in anger when last we discussed this, but if I am to make your master well we must leave for the Sighing Mountains soon. If you could talk to the king about transport, then—”

  “I need to speak to my master first.”

  “Very well.” He dipped his head. “I am glad you are ready to discuss this like an adult.” I nodded, not wishing to speak to him in case I said something cutting. In my pouch the package of yandil weighed heavy, but I did not mention it – he could not have expected me to find so much so quickly. Instead I watched while Mastal walked away into the night.

  Inside the tent I found my master bright-eyed and healthy-looking, almost herself again. She was dressed and sitting on the edge of her bed.

  “An eventful day, Girton?”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “But you still wear that at your hip?”

  I looked down at the warhammer.

  “I had an idea about Arnst’s murder.” I went into my pouch, pushing aside the package of yandil leaves and bringing out a white and red shape. “In fact I think I have solved it.”

  “What is that?”

  “Bulljuice, Master. I poured it into one of the knife wounds on Arnst’s body and look.” I held up the shape the bulljuice had become. It was not obvious what it was at fir
st. Still smeared with blood in places, it looked a bloody fried egg missing the yolk and ragged edged. My master reached out and touched it, her eyes following the lumps and bumps, and then she touched the raised parts, looked a little closer. Smiled.

  “The knife that made this wound,” she said, “was not straight. It had a kink about halfway down, which is why the bulljuice mould is this strange shape, A normal knife would leave straighter edges.”

  “Yes.”

  “Arnst was killed with a Landsman’s knife,” she said. “That was a clever thing to do, Girton.”

  “Aye.” I smiled at her. “And it puts the noose around the Landsman Karrick Thessan’s neck, doesn’t it?”

  “You are very quick to assign blame, Girton,” she said, and I felt a withering inside that in turn fed an ember of anger.

  “Not at all. I spoke to a boy who saw a man in green. And Karrick left Rufra’s patrol early, coming back the night Arnst was killed, so he would have been here. And now I know his knife was used to kill—”

  “His knife? He is not the only Landsman in the camp, Girton, and those knives, though uncommon, are not impossible to get hold of. Have you considered who else may have wanted Arnst dead?”

  I felt deflated, and angry, that she would pull down what I had achieved rather than help. I almost blurted out what Mastal was up to, just to see her face when she found out what her new man really wanted.

  Be careful

  That voice, the magic – I had not heard it for so long but it was right. She had family in the Sighing Mountains. What if, when she found out, she wanted to go to them?

  To leave you.

  I bit down on the harsh words and put them to the back of my mind.

  “You always say it is a fool that climbs a wall when there are stairs, Master.”

  “And it is a fool that uses stairs without checking whether or not they are guarded, Girton. I do not say it is not the Landsman; I only say that you do not appear to have considered any other, and that you may want it to be a Landsman because you do not like them.”