Then she saw him.
He was sitting alone near the window; he hadn’t seen her come in, or if he had, he hadn’t recognised her. He certainly hadn’t marked her as the soldier he’d spoken with in Estrad Village, more than a Twinmoon ago. Lafrent, Jacrys- whatever his name was, he was a Malakasian spy and Lieutenant Bronfio’s murderer – and there he sat, enjoying a mug of tecan and a loaf of what smelled like fresh-baked bread. The well-dressed man appeared to be watching the street.
Brexan blessed her good luck – one stroke this morning, anyway – that the killer had not been facing in the other direction.
‘Your water,’ the barman said sarcastically, placing the goblet next to the untouched tankard of beer.
Brexan turned back to the bar and emptied the goblet, then lifted the tankard, grimacing at the thought of more alcohol – but it was the excuse she needed. She turned back to the window, leaned against the bar and watched Jacrys.
*
Jacrys Marseth tore off a chunk of bread, dripped it into his tecan and savoured the flavours: a reminder of home. He didn’t actually miss home, but by having the same breakfast every day, he was able to bring some predictability to his life in the Eastlands. No matter where he woke, whether it was in a feather-lined bed or behind a stack of crates, breakfast was Jacrys’ daily offering to himself. Bread and tecan was spy food, quick, sustaining and readily available.
As he watched the street outside, Jacrys thought of his home. He had not been back to Malakasia in thirty Twinmoons or more; he didn’t even know if his father was still alive. His mother had died long ago – Jacrys remembered his father’s clumsy attempts at baking bread and the discarded loaves – some overdone, some undercooked, some not risen, emerging as hard as logs. Growing up without a mother had been difficult, made worse by his father’s frequent absences – a tradesman in search of a trade, the old man had travelled from town to town throughout northern Malakasia, sometimes going as far as Port Denis to take work on the docks. There had never been much money in the house and Jacrys was often left alone to fend for himself. He had learned to fight among Pellia’s street people, how to use a knife without flinching, and he even picked up a few spells from a conjuror living below a brothel. The magician had been young, but sickly; it was much later that Jacrys realised the sorcerer-turned-carnival trickster had been so ruined on Falkan fennaroot that he was surprised any of the spells worked at all.
Jacrys had found the magician’s decomposing corpse one summer’s day, and in return for disposing of the stinking body off the Pellia wharf, the madame who operated the whorehouse upstairs had given him the dead man’s apartment. Jacrys ran errands for the women, sometimes fetching a particular vial of perfume, sometimes slinking through dark alleys to slip a dirk between a stranger’s ribs. The madame, while open-minded about sexual engagements, did not tolerate violence or abuse to her girls. Jacrys, although younger than most of the men frequenting the brothel overhead, had grown skilled in hand-to-hand combat, and was even more deft at moving through Pellia undetected; he was the perfect errand boy for the whorehouse. From time to time one or more of the girls came to thank him personally for his services.
At the age of one hundred and thirty Twinmoons, Jacrys had been badly wounded, stabbed twice and slashed across the abdomen by an angry customer who was just as skilled with a short blade. Jacrys was nursed back to health by the whores, then packed quietly one evening and slipped away. He had realised that although talented, he would not last long here; no matter how deliciously the girls rewarded him, it was time to go.
He had enlisted in the Malakasian Army, being promoted to sergeant after only eleven Twinmoons in the Prince’s service and making master sergeant before turning one hundred and fifty. One night, while patrolling the border between Averil and Landry, Jacrys’ platoon had been attacked by a crowd mostly of Pragan students. The angry, inebriated mob had decided that together they could march, unarmed, through Averil and north all the way to Welstar Palace. Strengthened by too much Pragan wine and fennaroot, the mob had taken a border station, killed several guards and begun moving through a residential area of southern Averil, lighting fires and attacking Malakasian citizens as they went.
Jacrys’ platoon, one of three, had been ordered to show no mercy, and to send a powerful message by bringing back prisoners for a public display of Prince Malagon’s disapproval. His lieutenant had ordered Jacrys to move his squad into position alongside the mob’s exposed flank, using the narrow alleys as cover. Anticipating a quick – and bloody – victory, his soldiers had hurried into the fray, in their eagerness breaking formation. Screaming orders, Jacrys had tried to keep his squad together, but the scent of blood and the promise of carnage was too much. Though unorganised, drunk and disorderly, there were now hundreds of Pragans: they had taken heavy losses, with scores of them dead or dying, hacked down, knifed, some even set alight with torches – but they had not retreated.
A gang of the rebels had rushed Jacrys’ position, killing or maiming several of his men and effectively cutting them off. The lieutenant ordered a charge through the enraged revellers to rejoin the remainder of their platoon, and with a shout, the handful of Malakasian soldiers had brandished their weapons and charged.
Less than a third of the way through the crowd, Jacrys had realised that he and his lieutenant were alone, the soldiers with them were missing, killed or injured. Knowing he was about to die, the young master sergeant had grown furious at the notion of dying under the boots of a band of drunken students, and the weight of his anger lent weight to his arms: Jacrys, swearing like the proverbial trooper, cut a swathe through the crowd, pulling his lieutenant with him – until the man had stumbled, felled by a sword stroke below the knee, and crashed to the ground. Jacrys hadn’t hesitated: he rushed to the lieutenant’s side, threw himself over the man and summoned one of the spells he had learned from the fennaroot addict in the whorehouse basement, praying this one would work.
Jacrys knew their lives had been saved when the mob’s collective attention shifted away from the two forms huddled quietly in the dirt. Jacrys once again thanked the dead sorcerer for teaching him the simplest of magic, for it had taken only a moment to utter the curious, ancient words, then the mob eddied and swelled around the two men. His little suggestive spell had them convinced that he and the lieutenant were already dead.
Much later, Prince Malagon’s magicians had helped Jacrys refine this spell; he used it to keep from being detected even by the great Gilmour, the Larion Senator, who had periodically searched for him, casting his gaze back over the partisans’ trail with irritating unpredictability.
Returning to save his lieutenant’s life – only Jacrys knew it had been an act of rage rather than compassion – earned him the respect of the officers and the ambitious master sergeant took advantage of his elevated status in Prince Malagon’s army, however temporary, to secure himself a transfer to the Eastlands and a chance to train with a covert corps of Malagon’s personal spies and information specialists. One hundred and sixty Twinmoons later, Jacrys was a master of intelligence and espionage.
The prince himself called upon Jacrys for some of his most nefarious plans, and the spy had never disappointed – not until now. He dipped the last of the bread and pushed aside the empty mug. There was work to be done today – although he was not looking forward to another five avens roaming through Orindale searching for Steven Taylor, the foreigner with the stone key Malagon wanted so badly. With Gilmour dead and the bowman, Garec, badly injured, Jacrys thought it would be relatively easy to retrieve the key from Steven – if only he could track the partisans down. He was fairly certain he had not killed Garec, so they must have gone underground.