I snorted. I saw that it hurt the man, and his saddened expression stopped me saying what was on my mind – that maybe my father had a conscience after all, and that conscience had forced him to free his oldest retainer in recompense for murdering his daughter.
‘You didn’t find her,’ I said. It was a statement, knowing that only I knew the resting place of my love.
I saw a tremble in his bony shoulders. ‘I didn’t.’
I made a silent vow to myself then. That I would show my old teacher the grave so that he could honour his daughter.
But first I would kill his former owner. The man who was his master still.
‘Show me to my father.’
But Cynbel made no move to get out of my way. Instead, his milky eyes looked into mine. ‘You loved her, didn’t you?’ he asked me quietly.
My jaw twitched as I felt words ready to stumble out. I bit back on them. Tried to keep the mask of Corvus the warrior in place.
But…
She would have wanted him to know.
‘Yes.’ The word came out forcefully. A clipped reply. All I could give. I had come here to shed blood, not tears.
Cynbel only nodded. It was the confirmation of a truth he had long since discovered. I saw in his eyes that he wanted to embrace me.
I took a half-step backwards, and replaced my helmet. My face was cast into fanged shadow: the image of a professional killer.
‘Show me to the bastard.’
He lay on his back in bed. He hadn’t left it in months, since another bout of sickness. Walking through my childhood home I had felt sick with nostalgia, but now, looking at the shrunken form of my father, I did not know how to feel. Rage was boiling within me, but so too was the frightening realization that death and age came for us all – my father as I remembered him had been as indomitable as the mountains that had claimed my friends. Now he was like shingle on the beach. Tiny. Irrelevant. At the whim of life’s waves.
His eyes were shut. Cynbel closed the door behind me. For a long time I looked at him, seeing more corpse than man. I had never killed a sick person. I had never killed someone in their bed.
I supposed that he would be the first.
‘Father,’ I said. ‘Father!’ I repeated, louder still.
The old man opened his eyes. In mocking slowness they came to fix on me. There was no surprise in them, or in his words. ‘You’re alive.’ A near grunt.
I folded my scarred arms. ‘I’m alive.’
His eyes went up to the bearskin on my helmet, then to the decoration on my chain mail. ‘You’ve done well,’ he wheezed. ‘I always knew you’d be a fighter.’
I said nothing.
The sick man coughed up something disgusting from his chest. ‘We can wish what we want for our children,’ he went on, wiping at spittle, ‘but in the end we can no more change their nature than we can the weather. I promised your mother I would never let you soldier, and yet here you stand, a standard-bearer. Which legion?’
I was shocked by his words. Never had my father spoken so openly about my mother. Never so openly about their own desires, or wishes, especially for me. Our communication in life had been focused on my lessons. On my athletics. On my accomplishments. Never on my nature.
‘You know nothing of it,’ I told him flatly.
A smile played at the corner of his dry lips. ‘Of course not. What can the old ever tell the young?’
I put my hand to my sword. ‘They can tell them that they’re sorry.’
His red eyes narrowed. ‘Sorry for what?’
‘For drawing air when their betters lie buried.’
My father tried to snort. He failed. It came out as a wheeze. A sad, pathetic wheeze. ‘It’s called survival for a reason.’ He breathed deeply. ‘I suppose you’ve come to kill me?’ The question was put to me as calmly as any I’d heard. I didn’t know if that was from mockery, or bravery. I hated him for it regardless.
I said nothing. I wanted the bastard to fear.
Where was his fucking fear?
‘Didn’t think it was to show your father your uniform,’ he commented, and then tried to prop himself up in the bed. ‘I knew you’d come back to do it. It’s what I would have done.’
I felt my teeth grind. I’d had enough. My voice came out low, but violent. ‘We’re not the same, old man,’ I promised. ‘I carry a blade and a shield in hands that wanted to carry children. That wanted to hold the hands of the woman I loved.’
He shook his head, then. That same look of disappointment. ‘The young know nothing of love.’ He sighed. ‘But I can see you know something of death, so come, son. Come and stick a blade in your father. The gods know I’ve thought about it often enough, wasting away in this fucking bed while the world goes up in flames around me. Go ahead and kill me. I dare say I’ll see you in the afterlife soon enough. Come on. Get it over with.’
But my blade stayed in its sheath.
I had to know.
‘Why?’ I demanded.
Father didn’t look happy with his stay of execution. He scratched at an eye. ‘Why?’ He near laughed at the ceiling. ‘You know why, Corvus. A family can’t have a son steal from it. Rome can’t have masters making mockery with their slaves.’
I wanted to spit. For Rome. Always for Rome.
‘I had no idea you were such a virtuous servant,’ I sneered.
At my derision, bright fire came into the old man’s eyes. He flashed them to my weapon. ‘Do not think you are the only one who has suffered in the service of a greater good, boy.’
The words stunned me. At any other time in my life, I would have asked him what he meant, but now, the picture of Beatha’s grave fresh in my thoughts, there was only one thing on my mind. Only one thing that I had to say, before the end.
‘You didn’t have to kill her.’
The words were in the open now. Accusation and sentence. With them came the knowledge that I could not leave this room while my father still breathed. Not for what he’d done.
There was scarcely a sound as he surveyed me. When he finally spoke, his eyes were narrow slits in his sallow face.
‘… kill her?’
I held my tongue. My fingers gripped the pommel of my sword. I dared not draw it. Not until I had answers. He would be dead within moments of its unsheathing, I knew it.
‘You didn’t have to kill her,’ I growled again, and so deep was my voice that it could have come from the bear that clung to my back and shoulders.
I took a step forwards. His red eyes went to my blade. I could draw it and take his throat in the same heartbeat. I was shaking.
‘I should open your neck. I should let you choke on your own blood. Let you know the end is coming, just like you did to her!’
My knuckles were white. His eyes were wide.
But not with fear.
‘Corvus, what are you talking about?’
And I saw bemusement in his stare. Uncertainty. My fingers did not loosen on my sword, but in the face of such hesitation the grip of my conviction weakened about my heart.
‘You killed Beatha.’ I tried to say it with confidence, but failed.
But I saw the truth in his eyes before he said it.
‘I didn’t harm a hair on that girl’s body!’ The old man shook his head, and then it came rushing out. ‘I took her away from you so that you could overcome your madness, Corvus. I sold her to a friend, so that she could be close to her father when I freed him. We both agreed it was for the best!’
I was staggered. ‘We?’
‘Cynbel and I! Left unchecked, only tragedy would have come to you and the girl. I was trying to teach you a lesson.’ He sighed. ‘Not turn you into…’
The killer that stood waiting to draw blood. A killer who shook with grief and questions.