‘You kill a man, he doesn’t shout out, call for guards, raise the alarm, kick and struggle and scream. That’s how.’
Syannis snorted. ‘You sound like me. Well then maybe we will, but we can’t kill Aimes. You know the only reason I took you was because you looked like him. Nothing else. I didn’t want an apprentice. But there you were, my little brother, standing right in front of me, and this time I could actually do something. Later. . well, later there were other reasons. You weren’t such a bad apprentice. Mostly.’
He is Aimes. Berren remembered that from the woods by the beach, the night after the battle against the slavers. Master Sy had meant something more than skin-deep. Berren couldn’t imagine what, but the thought made the hairs on his arms prickle. ‘This brother of yours, he’s some sort of idiot, right?’ He watched carefully as a cloud crossed the thief-taker’s face.
‘He was after he got kicked in the head by a horse.’ Syannis sat down and wiped the sweat off his brow and took a sip of water, fresh from the river outside. In Deephaven the river stank. Master Sy had sent Berren two miles every day, along the riverside to Sweetwater where the river was clean, but most people drank beer or weak wine. Here, though, they kept their rivers so you could drink from them.
Syannis passed the water skin to Berren. ‘Talon and I are both bastards. Aimes was the true heir to Tethis. When Radek and Meridian came and our father was killed, Talon and I fled but I left Aimes behind. I just couldn’t get to him. Everyone knew there was something wrong with him and maybe that’s what saved him. Anyway, they didn’t kill Aimes, even though they tried hard enough to get rid of me and Talon.’ He leaned closer. ‘Meridian declared Aimes king and then promptly sat on the throne and called himself regent. I suppose it gives him more of an air of authority in the kingdom. Meridian rules but strictly it’s Aimes who wears the crown.’ The thief-taker pursed his lips. ‘He’d be a few years older than you. To look at him, he’s in perfect health. They say he’s a good rider and would probably be handy with a sword if he had the first idea what it was for. It’s like something inside him is missing.’
‘Something missing?’ Berren almost choked. ‘Like someone cut out a piece of his soul, maybe?’
Syannis looked at him long and hard. ‘He was kicked in the head by a horse. It happens. He shouldn’t have been playing in the stables.’
Berren took a long swig of water and burped loudly. That was one of those thief-taker answers he’d grown used to over the years. Yes, there’s more to it, but you’d better stop asking questions. He laughed. Fine. He didn’t care about Aimes and he didn’t care about Syannis’s stupid war either. He went back to digging. ‘Sorry doesn’t bring her back,’ he said. ‘Nice trick getting me to leave my sword outside the town though. Why did you tell me she was still alive?’
‘I never said any such thing.’
‘I didn’t dream it. In the woods by the beach. You asked me if I saw her actually die and I said yes, and then you asked if I was sure as though you knew something that I didn’t. Like maybe that other sword-monk got to her in time and did that thing that one of them did to you when she smashed up your knee. Why did you tell me that if it’s not true?’
‘I’ve told you before: I didn’t tell you anything. If you didn’t dream it then it must have been someone else.’ Master Sy spat into the dirt and picked up his shovel.
‘Did you see her die?’
‘I saw the same as you. No one lives through a cut like that. She’s dead, Berren. I’m sorry I had to kill her but I did. I didn’t know she meant so much to you. Actually I thought you didn’t like her.’
‘Would it have changed anything?’
Syannis shook his head. ‘In the heat of the moment? No, I don’t think it would.’
‘I’d never seen so much blood.’ Berren looked away. He could see her again now, lying on Radek’s ship with her throat torn open. He’d be able to see that moment whenever he wanted for the rest of his life. Everything else, the times they’d spent together in her fighting circle, the moments alone, the touch of her cheek on his hand, all those were slowly fading, but the last memory stayed as clear as though it was yesterday.
‘Why did you stay here, Berren? Why didn’t you go back to Deephaven?’
Berren stopped. He turned on the thief-taker and glared. ‘Back to what? You took everything!’ He shook his head. ‘Being a soldier, even if it means digging privies for a twelvenight, is better than being a thief, never knowing where your next meal is coming from, never knowing when you might be caught and what will happen when you are — a beating, a branding, maybe a broken bone or two; maybe they’ll take your hand off, or maybe they’ll just stick a knife in you and roll you into the river. You don’t know what it’s like, because you’ve never had to do it.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m a foreigner, a dark-skin from across the sea and a warlock’s boy too, so the other soldiers here don’t like me much, but I still hear their stories. They’re people who lost their homes, lost their families or never had anything in the first place. They dream of saving enough silver to buy a piece of land, build a home, raise a family. .’ He chuckled, thinking of the Hawks who had other dreams. Tarn wanted to start his own fighting school and there were a couple who were set on buying their own forges. And then there was Divan, who wasn’t quite right in the head, and who was firmly convinced that he’d stop being a Hawk one day and travel to the sandy wastes at the southern end of the world to live in a palace of gold and marble and be waited on by exactly three hundred and twelve concubines. The smile faded from his face. ‘Even Talon’s lost his home,’ he said. ‘They’re wanderers. I fit.’
‘You should go back, Berren.’
Berren started shovelling the contents of yet another old privy onto the back of a wagon. He was up to his knees in excrement and slime when he saw that Syannis had stopped and was standing over him.
‘I’m sorry,’ Syannis said again. ‘But that’s all. That’s all I have for you. If that’s not good enough then get on a ship and leave.’
‘You should have told me,’ Berren said, his voice dull. ‘You should have let me help you. You should have let me be a part of it.’
‘And you should have stayed where you were put, listened to what you were told and done what you were asked.’
Berren glared at him. ‘Would you?’
‘No. No, I doubt that I would.’
‘Well then.’ Berren climbed out of his hole and stood face to face with the thief-taker. His hands and his shoes and his trousers were covered in filth. Somehow, Syannis didn’t seem to be nearly as dirty as he should be. ‘Still shouldn’t have.’ He grabbed Syannis’s shirt and pulled hard, throwing him into the privy. Then he looked down at his old master, up to his knees in shit, hands covered in filth and a face covered in outrage. He laughed, even as there were tears rolling down his cheeks. ‘I can’t forget her. I just can’t.’
‘Boy!’ Syannis looked ready to explode.
‘Not something that’s supposed to happen to a king’s son, eh?’ Berren barked a bitter laugh. ‘Where I grew up you could be stabbed in the street for a few pieces of copper. Life is cheaper than gold or silver and worth more than both. Nothing changes, wherever I go. And I’m not your boy any more.’ Syannis opened his mouth to speak, but before any words could come out, Berren threw a bucket at him. ‘This is what you wanted,’ he said. ‘Now dig, bastard prince.’
The thief-taker stared up at him. The anger in his face slowly changed and he started to laugh. ‘You’re a whoreson, Berren, you truly are.’
‘It does seem likely.’ Berren shrugged.
‘You want to play it like this? Fine.’ Syannis picked up a handful of filth and threw it. Berren ducked and it sailed past his face. The thief-taker started to climb out. ‘You’re going back in that hole, boy. One way or another.’
Berren picked up a spade and held it like an axe. ‘You and who’s army, king’s bastard?’