‘I thought you were going back to Tethis.’
‘Yes. That’s the commission. I’m offering it to myself. I think I might accept it too.’
‘We’re going to fight for Syannis again?’ Berren snorted. ‘No, thanks.’
Talon looked sad. ‘We’re. . we’re going to fight against him.’
Now every part of Berren was suddenly awake and listening. ‘Against him? For whom?’
Talon sighed. ‘I want you to get rid of Aimes. Let him be dead.’
‘You want to get rid of Aimes, let Syannis do it. All he needs is a bit of poison.’
Talon glared and growled. ‘The last thing that Syannis wants to do is kill him. Sun and Moon, you can be a cold fish sometimes. Syannis wants to make him better, always did! He can’t, but that won’t stop him from trying. There are warlocks in Tethis again, Berren. He has it in him to be a good king, but not while Aimes is there, because at every turn the warlocks whisper to him. So I want you to kill Aimes, and I will deal with these warlocks once and for all. He can’t just die, because then Syannis will fall to bits. He has to be killed. Murdered. You could do that. You killed a king for Syannis; you can do it for me. He’ll hate you beyond words, but you can just get on that ship to Deephaven I kept promising all those years ago. He’ll never reach you.’
‘And why in the name of the four gods would I do that? What’s Aimes ever done to me?’
‘You’ll do it for your slave and for your son and for all the gold you have and a sackful more, and because if you don’t do it then I will, and then I cannot be there to make Syannis whole again. Aimes isn’t fit to be a king and never was.’ He shook his head. ‘It has to end, and unless I turn my sword on my own brother, I can think of no other way.’ He looked across at Berren. Half a smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. ‘I suppose I shouldn’t be asking you this, but I don’t know who else might do it.’
‘No, you shouldn’t.’ Berren shook his head. He closed his eyes and pinched his nose.
‘Then say no and let it fall to me and forget that I asked. I’ll not judge you harshly for that. I might even admire you for it.’
Berren looked up again. ‘What you should be doing is the one thing you can’t. You’d make a good king, Prince Talon. Get rid of them all, that’s what you should do.’ He shrugged. ‘I’ve nothing against Aimes.’
‘You had nothing against Meridian either.’
‘You’re asking me to murder your brother.’
‘Half-brother.’ Talon spat. ‘And that’s between me and my conscience, and I did tell you that I never liked him. You’re the Bloody Judge, Berren. You’ve become that. Why is Aimes any different to all the other men you’ve killed? This time you could save a few.’
‘Fine. I’ll do it then. For Fasha and for my son, and for all the gold I have and a sackful more. A big sackful.’ And for Tasahre, twisted as it was. Let Syannis feel the same pain.
‘And then you’ll be gone. Vanish. Back to where you came from. Too far away even for my brother to come looking. Because he will.’
‘Like a ghost.’ Casually, Berren smiled and leaned in towards Talon. ‘You never did me any wrong, not yet. But like you said, I’m the Bloody Judge of Tethis now. If you cross me like Syannis did, you’d better kill me, because if you don’t, I will cut my way through every single last one of you.’
‘I have something for you.’ Talon unbuckled his sword belt and passed it across to Berren, sword and all. ‘Take it. I have others.’
Berren looked at Talon’s sword. It was a fine blade, a proper Dominion fencing sword, a little longer than the blades he usually carried, but light, neatly balanced, with a basket hilt of curling coils of metal. ‘Worth a bit, that.’
‘As much as your bondswoman. Probably more. Think of it as part of your payment.’ He closed his eyes. ‘How did it come to this, Berren?’
Berren took the sword and the belt. ‘Killing Aimes isn’t what really needs to be done. But you know that.’
Talon only looked sad. ‘You may be right.’ He shrugged. ‘But I’m not my brother. Either of them.’ He got up and left, and Berren watched him go. He tried to see himself chasing through Tethis castle, slashing with Talon’s sword at anyone who got in his way until he found the room where Fasha was waiting for him with his son, cowering in a corner and full of hope. But it wasn’t Aimes he saw dead when he closed his eyes. What he saw was Syannis, with Talon risen in his place. Talon couldn’t do it? Fair enough. Then Talon wouldn’t have to.
30
In the days that followed, Berren became surly and impatient, eager to return to Tethis and be done with it all. The fear he’d felt on the way to Kalda had grown, congealed into something solid that he carried inside him like a ball of ice wrapped up in his belly. As the winter went on, he dreamed of Fasha and Gelisya and Saffran Kuy and his knife. They haunted him more and more, sometimes night after night, and when they let him be, then it was the woman he’d killed after the battle on the beach. Over and over. Just her, lying on the ground and blood everywhere, and the wondering of why he’d done it.
‘Do you have dreams?’ he asked Tarn one evening. Tarn gave him a sour look.
‘Depends what I’ve been drinking,’ he said. ‘Mostly not.’
‘But when you do, what are they?’
Tarn cackled. ‘Mostly women, and what happens is none of your business, dark-skin.’ His face softened. ‘Ships sometimes. If I dream of anything, I dream of sailing. A good strong wind, a sturdy ship, sails full, waves a little choppy, salt in my face. Moving swift and strong and sure.’ He nodded. ‘Nice dreams. I think maybe I’m meant to be a sailor if not a soldier. Pity, because I rather liked the idea of setting up my own little school and teaching people how to fight.’
Berren snorted. ‘Sailing? Can’t say I thought much of it myself.’ But then maybe it wasn’t so bad when you weren’t the skag. Maybe if you were the one giving the orders it was just fine.
After two winters in the south Kalda felt cold and bitter. The days ran together in a blur of impatience. Talon talked endlessly of Syannis and Aimes, about the times they’d had together as children and ever since. He told Berren about the war, of how when Radek and Meridian had invaded Tethis a strange illness had afflicted the king’s guard. Some sort of poisoning, Talon thought. How after the war was won, Radek had scoured the world looking for Saffran Kuy and anyone who’d had anything to do with him. Mostly, though, he talked about Syannis and his obsession with the necromancer. Berren listened, not because he was interested, but because Talon was paying for the beer and their food and lodgings.
The weeks wore on and Berren found himself walking up to the rim of the city, one day, to the house of Silvestre the sword-master.
‘I don’t want you to teach me,’ he said. ‘But I’ve got a new sword. I need to get used to it. I need to practise.’ Against someone who fights like Syannis, he added to himself.
‘I’ve seen that sword before,’ said Silvestre, but he didn’t ask anything more. He set Berren against a few of his students but they were pitiful. Slow and clumsy and desperately predictable. In the end Berren trailed up the slope each evening and sparred with the sword-master himself, while Tarn, resting after his own day of fighting, looked on. After the fights Berren and Tarn walked back down in the dark together, filled with warmth, chattering idly about the old times in Kalda. Berren could feel his sharpness, the speed and power of his arm, the quickness of his thoughts; but more, he felt at peace, as he ever did when his sword was in his hand. It was a pity that the sword-master was old and past his prime. Silvestre tired too quickly to challenge him for long.
The first glimmers of spring broke through the winter air. The days grew longer, the air warmer, the last flurries of snow came and went, and the Hawks began to return. In another week they would be at sea and on their way. Berren hungered for it, for the day they would leave. As he walked back down from the sword-master, swapping jokes with Tarn about the other students Silvestre had this year, he wasn’t even aware of the three men following until they were right behind him.