They stared at each other. The watchmen were slowly easing themselves closer. Berren wondered if he could he kill this warlock before they arrived. Probably not. He had too many men around him. If the others fled, he could do it, but if they stayed to fight then he’d never get past them in time. Lucama, he was sure, wouldn’t run. The others. . would they? And what about Tarn? Would Tarn have his back if he just launched himself at these men out of nowhere?
But the warlock had his son, and killing a warlock was never easy. He’d seen that. The moment passed. ‘What is it that you want, warlock?’
‘Warlock?’ The man laughed. ‘I make soap, Crown-Taker.’
‘Then you’re Saffran Kuy’s brother Vallas, and your life hangs by a thread as slender as spider silk.’
A little smile played around the corner of the warlock’s mouth. He looked into the bundle he carried. ‘We are all Saffran’s brothers. Princess Gelisya of Tethis has not forgotten that you murdered her father. She sends you a warning and the offer of a bargain. She will never, ever sell her bondswoman to you. Never. For all the sun-king’s gold, still you will not own her, nor will you own your son, and if you try to take either by force then she will have them killed, instantly. But she will give you the woman and her child freely and forgive your murderous past if you will perform one small service for her.’
‘And what service is that, warlock?’
Vallas tossed a stone to Berren’s feet. A tiny scrap of paper was wrapped around it. ‘They say you can read and even write. Unusual for a soldier. But it’s your sword and your willingness to use it that Her Highness wishes to purchase. It won’t be difficult for you. It won’t be difficult at all. I think you might even enjoy it.’ He glanced down to the stone lying at Berren’s feet and then pointedly at Tarn. ‘You might not wish to share. But that’s up to you.’
Slowly Berren nodded. He picked up the stone and unwrapped it. The words on the paper were few and simple, the language plain. It is my will to rule, Crown-Taker. ‘And if I refuse?’
Vallas Kuy shrugged his shoulders. ‘Then Princess Gelisya will have you hunted down and killed for the murderer that you are, and your son will fall to me.’ With that, the warlock, soap-maker, whatever he was, turned his back and walked away, taking his men with him. For a moment Lucama remained. He hesitated, then approached Berren and put a hand on his shoulder.
‘I like to think we were friends, back when Sword-Master Silvestre was teaching us both.’ He seemed to struggle with himself for a moment. ‘I know the child he means. I suppose everyone does. He’s back in Tethis, fit and feisty. I don’t know where the one he’s carrying came from and I don’t think I want to, but we brought no children with us when we sailed. Perhaps it’s best you know that.’ He stepped away, saluted and followed the others.
31
Berren crushed the paper in his fist. Later he threw it into the fire. It was something Talon could never see, nor Tarn, nor the other Hawks he called his friends. He stared on into the flames long after the paper was ash. It won’t be difficult for you. Berren watched the embers flicker and die and begged to differ. There would be a price, there always was. I think you might even enjoy it. He had no illusions as to what she meant. She wanted Syannis dead.
‘Why me, though? Why ask me?’ The flames and the embers that followed them had no answer.
‘I’m afraid of what will happen,’ he said to Talon one night. Talon had seen the change in him as clearly as if his skin had turned red.
‘As am I, Master Berren, as am I.’ He looked far away and Berren knew they were talking about utterly different things. He felt a sudden urge to take Talon by the shoulders and shake him and tell him that this was all wrong. Tell him that no one was to be trusted, not even him. Tell him of the warlock and of Gelisya’s offer, everything, and then make him stop, or else do the one thing that would save them all and take the crown of Tethis for himself. But he couldn’t. When he opened his mouth, the words refused to come. Why? Because of Fasha? Because of a woman he barely knew who’d shared his bed for one night three years ago? Because of a child he’d never seen? He should walk away, just as he should have walked away years ago, but he couldn’t, and still for the same reason. Syannis and all that lay between them. Even Talon, who was so astute on the battlefield, whose tactics and strategies were the stuff of legend among the free companies, had a blindness when it came to his own brother.
Three days after Vallas Kuy had given Berren his choice, sixteen cohorts of men sailed for Forgenver, and Berren was with them. The old camp outside the town was still there. The tents were gone but the wooden huts remained and a tiny shanty town had sprung up. The place stank and Berren felt a wild urge to race into its midst and burn it to the ground, to chase off everyone who would flee and slaughter the ones who would not and give it back to the ghosts of all the men he’d once known but would never see again.
They marched from Forgenver down the south road towards Galsmouth and Tethis. Berren rode at the front of the army on a horse he’d stolen from some officer of the sun-king who’d found himself on the wrong end of a javelin. He could have had his own cohort if he’d asked for it but he never did, preferring his own company. In the south he’d fought with Tarn, or with Talon, or wherever else he thought he could make a difference. Where the enemy was strongest, or weakest, or simply the easiest to reach. Today he rode with what was left of the Deephaven lancers. There were a dozen of them now, the rest dead or drifted away, and he was as much one of them as he was anything else after the last season in the south. And besides, he didn’t want to be with Tarn for this. Not with a friend he might see killed for such a sour and selfish business. Everywhere he looked, he saw reminders of the last time he’d come this way. The anger, the hunger, the hope, the desire. They’d come to free Syannis, to free Fasha and Gelisya and to kill Saffran Kuy, and for all their victories they’d done none of that.
At least there was no endless rain this time, no need for carefully prepared caches of food; now they lived off the land. As they reached Galsmouth, half the company, the half made up of the veterans who had fought against Meridian, marched openly towards the town, welcomed with open arms by the soldiers that now made up the garrison there. The rest, Berren, the other foreigners and southerners, the men with strange faces and sun-darkened skin, skirted the town and vanished into the hills. They left behind their colours and their badges, took on new ones and became the Thousand Ghosts. A forgery of renegades whispered in the winter winds in Kalda, masquerading beneath carefully planted stories of brigands and rapists, of looters and pillagers.
Talon’s plan was absurdly simple: the Thousand Ghosts were a story carefully made and spread over months. For one night they would become real. They would throw themselves on the city of Tethis and for a few perilous hours it would seem as though the town stood on the edge of destruction; then Talon and his Hawks would arrive in the nick of time, the wicked brigands would flee and all would be safe once more. Everything would happen in a blur of confusion, too quick for anyone to count the Thousand Ghosts and realise they were more like a hundred. It would be over in a night. In the chaos Talon would sweep away the warlocks, and in that blur kings and princes would die.
On the last day out from Tethis Talon slipped away from his men too. He put on a helm that covered his face, hid his colourful cloak and banner behind leathers and furs, and joined the Thousand Ghosts. They waited all through the night, until before the first gleam of dawn on the horizon. From the light of the stars and the moon, they could all see the castle where king Aimes was doubtless sleeping, little more than a bow shot away.