The King's Assassin (Thief Takers Apprentice 3) (6 page)

Tarn stopped pacing. He stared at Berren, almost in disbelief. In all the time he’d been talking, Berren’s sword hadn’t wavered at all. Ten minutes a day, every day, rain or shine, Tasahre had made him do this and he’d never quite understood why. He’d thought it had been about building the strength in his arm. Maybe it was, but he could see now that it had been more than that. The look in Tarn’s face showed him. This was a fight he’d already won.

He started to move, one slow step at a time, the end of the waster kept pointed right between Tarn’s eyes. Tarn backed away and Berren moved after him. After all this time his footwork was sloppy. Tasahre would have scolded him.

Tarn circled, keeping space behind him and his waster up on guard, wise enough not to be backed into a corner. Berren lunged. He couldn’t jump the way a sword-monk could jump, but it was still quick enough and far enough to take Tarn by surprise. He blocked Berren’s waster awkwardly, tried a riposte but he was much too slow. Berren knocked it aside, tapped Tarn hard on the hip as he turned his parry into a cut and then, in the same motion, let the end of his waster come to rest touching the side of Tarn’s neck.

‘Your friend who taught you everything that matters lies at your feet,’ he said. ‘You have her blood on your hands. You watch as it pools on the wooden deck beneath your feet. She’s dead because you interfered. Because you thought you could make something better. Because you couldn’t stay out of what wasn’t your business.’ He let the sword stay touching Tarn’s neck for another second and then backed away and gave the sword-monk salute. Tarn stared at him, eyes wide.

‘Gods,’ he murmured. ‘Who are you?’

Berren took a deep breath and rubbed his head. Now the fight was done, his hangover was coming back.

‘Well, Syannis didn’t teach him that,’ he heard Silvestre say behind him.

‘No, he certainly didn’t.’

There was awe in Talon’s voice. The sword-master sniffed. ‘Well he’s clearly not a donkey. Feet were ropey but we can work on that.’ He clapped Berren on the shoulder. ‘Welcome to my house, Berren. When we’re training, you can call me Sword-Master or Teacher. When we’re done, then you can call me Master Silvestre and pay for my beer.’

Berren only half heard him. He was smiling. In the fight with Tarn he’d felt Tasahre beside him, watching him, guiding him, moulding his shape and his movement as she used to do. For a moment he’d found a feeling that he’d forgotten could exist. Inside his head he’d felt at peace.

7

THE COMPANY OF MERCENARIES

B
erren got up early in the morning every day after that and trudged up the slope to the house of Silvestre, arriving before dawn. Tarn came with him. For two hours they exercised, sometimes on their own, sometimes with others. It was a familiar routine, like the one he’d grown used to among the sword-monks of Deephaven. After that came breakfast and then Silvestre would sit them all down and talk. Sometimes he’d talk about swords, sometimes he’d talk about wars, sometimes about anything at all. As a teacher he was all fire and passion and temper, as different from Tasahre as Berren could imagine. He’d fought in a dozen battles, he’d spent what sounded like half his life as a pirate, half of it as a thief, most of it as a soldier and almost all of it chasing after one woman or another. With the scraps and scrapes he’d been in, it was a wonder he was still alive; yet whenever they took a break to rest and drink, another story would come of how he’d been chased through the straits of somewhere or other by the sun-king’s navy, or how he’d stolen the first farscope in Caladir from the Taiytakei emissary there, or how he’d almost been caught making love to some countess and had only escaped by wearing one of her dresses and hiding in a closet for an hour. Berren suspected much was simply made up, but he listened anyway. Silvestre was as good at telling his stories as he was with his sword: everything he did came with a little flourish. Even when he fought, he couldn’t resist just a little bit of showing off.

‘He was the closest thing Prince Talon had to a father for a while,’ said Tarn, when Berren said something about the two of them being alike. ‘At least he didn’t turn out like Prince Syannis, thank the gods.’ Then Tarn frowned as if he’d said too much.

‘Did you know them before Syannis left?’ Berren asked.

Tarn shook his head. ‘Seven years we’ve been together, me and the Prince of Swords. I just know what I hear.’ And he wouldn’t say any more.

Berren soon saw that two kinds of student came to the sword-master. Most were the rich young men and women of Kalda. They came to learn how to strut, how to duel, how to hold themselves in a certain way and how to look the part of a lord-in-waiting. They were all much the same and they were young, younger even than Berren. They had fancy clothes which Silvestre let them keep and ornate swords which he made them throw away. They all knew each other, kept together, and regarded Silvestre’s other students – those like Berren – with disdain and a little fear. Watching them felt strange. They were the people he’d wanted to be, back in Deephaven, but now he couldn’t understand what he’d been thinking. All their talk was about drinking, gambling, racing, money, of who was getting married to whom and who their lovers were.

Berren and Tarn, on the other hand, were learning to fight so they could kill people. They weren’t the only ones, and it was easy to tell the two groups apart. Tarn spelled it out one day.

‘We’re mercenaries,’ he said. ‘I’m with Talon, the Fighting Hawks.’ He nodded towards the others. ‘Lucama is with the duke of somewhere I can’t remember but everyone knows him as the Mountain Panther. So are Remic and Alaxt. They’ll be the Panther’s regimental lieutenants next season. He sends three men every year, always three different ones, one from each regiment. Those two –’ he gestured to a couple of other mercenaries ‘– Morric and Blatter, they’re with the Company of the Fist. I don’t know who owns them or who’s paying. That’s the way it works in this part of the world. No armies, just us. We work for whoever pays, but a good half of us winter in Kalda.’

Berren frowned. ‘Isn’t Kalda . . .?’ He shook his head. ‘Isn’t Kalda full of Talon’s enemies?’

Tarn shrugged. ‘Good place to have a couple of dozen heavily armed men around you then, eh?’ and Berren couldn’t think of much to say to that.

In the mornings they all practised together, the soldiers and the rich city boys. Then Silvestre sent the mercenaries to run down into the heart of the city and back while the others stayed behind. The run down was easy enough, but running back was crippling, uphill against a slope that got steadily steeper. As soon as they returned, Silvestre put them to work in the practice yard. The
dilettantes
, as he called them, were gone by then, and Silvestre drove Berren and the other soldiers mercilessly hard. They had no pause for breath until they almost collapsed with exhaustion, because that, as Silvestre said, was how it was when you went to war. If someone showed signs of being tired, he’d attack them himself, raining blows onto their arms and legs.

‘There’s a difference between you and those others,’ he told them. ‘They’re learning an art. They might as well be learning to paint or to sculpt. You’re learning to stay alive. Which means you never,
never
drop your guard, even if your arms are cut to bloody stumps and you have to hold your sword between your teeth.’ They soon learned. Fight and fight and fight until you drop.

The days wore into weeks. Berren saw Talon less and less, until one evening the prince caught him on his weary way to bed. ‘We’ll be gone in a few days now,’ he said. ‘The seasons are changing. We’re forming up again. Our ship’s here ready to take us to war. Yours is here too.’ He clapped Berren on the shoulder. ‘Don’t forget to have some fun before you leave.’

Berren yawned and tried not to look interested. ‘You’re going straight off to fight?’ Time was running out, then. Talon would ship him off to Deephaven. He’d have to slip away and that meant getting his things together. Getting some money. Inside, he frowned. This had been coming ever since Talon had taken him in but he’d grown comfortable in Kalda now. Despite their start, Tarn had become a friend; underneath his gruff mask he was an amiable man, generous and honest and Berren was going to miss him. He’d miss Talon too, with his flashing smile and his wit.

Talon’s hand stayed on Berren’s shoulder. ‘Our ships sail on the same day. Yours will take you to Brons. From there you’ll be able to get passage on a Taiytakei clipper through the storm-dark to Deephaven. I’ll make sure of that. Or you could stay in Brons, I suppose. Brons is as close as the sea gets to the heart of the Dominion.’ He laughed. ‘It’s warmer there and they’re all dark-skinned short-arses like you. I think most of the first settlers who went to Aria came from Brons. You’d fit.’

Talon let him go and Berren knew better than to ask any more. They’d be going their separate ways, that was what mattered. He needed to find the thief-taker as much as ever, still gripped by the same pull that had made him jump ship and take his chances with the sea. He had no idea what he’d do when they met. The anger didn’t burn like it used to, but it burned nevertheless.

When Berren rose the next morning, Tarn had already gone and so he made his way up to the sword-master’s house alone; when he reached it, Talon and Tarn were already there, squatting in a corner of the yard and deep in conversation. Talon saw Berren and beckoned him over.

‘You’ve practised with Tarn enough,’ Talon said. ‘What do you think of him?’

‘The sword-master says—’ he began, but Talon was already shaking his head.

‘No, no, no. If I wanted to know what Silvestre thinks, I’d ask him. If I want to know how he fights, I’ll stay and watch. I want to know what you think of him.’

‘I like him,’ Berren said. It felt odd talking about Tarn when he was standing right there.

‘Would you have him at your side in a fight? Would you let your life depend on him?’

Berren cocked his head. ‘I would,’ he said. ‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

Tarn’s frown was fierce. ‘He’s reliable,’ said Berren slowly. ‘He’s slow on his feet a bit and I’d worry about that perhaps –’ Tarn glared ‘– but I’d know I could depend on him. The two of us would work well. I’m quicker, he’s stronger. Where I’m small, he’s large. Between us we could do things that neither could do alone. If I was hurt, he’d help me. Probably do something foolish.’ He had to smile. The look on Tarn’s face was touching: he was trying so very hard to scowl.

‘What about the others here?’

Berren peered at Talon. Tarn had asked him the same thing several times and so Talon surely already knew his answer. ‘Why? Why are you asking?’

‘Just answer, Berren of Deephaven.’

‘Lucama then. He has a temper and can be made to lose it. He makes mistakes then but I think I’d fight beside him anyway. He’s short and fast. Morric, Remic, Alaxt, they’re all plodders.’ He grimaced and flicked his eyes sideways in case one of them was close enough to hear. ‘They’ll stand as long as they think they have a good chance to win and they’re cool-headed enough to know when they can’t. Blatter . . .’ He wasn’t sure what to say about Blatter. ‘He’s not as fast as Lucama but he thinks more. He tries to bait us. He’s a bit of a shit really, and some of the stuff he comes out with . . . well, makes you just want to strangle him. He and Lucama aren’t allowed to practise together now.’ Berren paused. ‘There was one time . . .’ Talon must have known already because Tarn had seen it all, but the prince just looked at him. Berren shrugged. ‘I like fighting with Lucama. Blatter used to say things. Call us names. Dark-skin, short-spear. That sort of thing. Doesn’t bother me much but it got to Lucama. The sword-master didn’t stop it either, he just said, “What, you think you won’t get taunts when you fight for real?” And I know how it is. Was always like that where I grew up. So anyway, one day when he’s running his mouth, we pick Blatter up and pin him to the dirt and tell him we’d prefer not to hear his voice for a while.’ Berren coughed. He’d taken his time with his words while Lucama had pressed Blatter’s face into the dirt and Silvestre had watched it all without stirring. They hadn’t seen Blatter for two days after that. ‘I’d be surprised if that’s the end of it between those two.’

Talon shook his head. ‘They’ll save it for the battlefield if they know what’s good for them. Things like that can set whole companies against each other.’ He stopped, his attention drawn by something over Berren’s shoulder. Lucama was walking across the practice yard towards them. He took a long hard look at Talon and began to practise his lunges.

‘Excuse me,’ said Talon. He got up.

Berren turned to Tarn. ‘What’s he like?’ he asked. ‘When you’re fighting?’

‘Who? Talon?’

‘No, the sun-king. Of course Talon!’

Tarn smiled. ‘He’s a tiger. Lordly gentlemen get sent out for a season in the field with one of the companies now and then. Supposed to make men of them but mostly they’re a nuisance. They don’t know their arse from their elbow and you spend more time making sure they don’t get anyone hurt than you do worrying about the enemy. The Prince of War, though, he’s different. He’s been with the Hawks for ten years. Put him in a battle, he’s everywhere. Always shows up where he’s most needed and never runs from anything. You wouldn’t think it to look at him, but on the field . . . On the field he’s someone else, like he’s possessed. Most men run when they see
him
coming. Pity you won’t ever—’

In the practice yard a fight had broken out.

8

SOME FRIENDS FROM BACK HOME

I
n the middle of the fighting square Talon and Lucama had their swords out and were dancing around each other. Lucama was slashing and cursing, snarling with a fury which Talon had surely provoked. Berren started to stand, but Tarn put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him back down; so he watched instead, chewing on his knuckles while the palm of his other hand rested gently on the hilt of his sword.

‘I’ve been around a lot longer than you have,’ muttered Tarn. ‘Just stay out of it. This sort of thing happens often enough, even in the same company. Usually it doesn’t come to much. He’s just trying Lucama out.’