Berren looked up. ‘I want to learn swords,’ he blurted, and then quickly looked down again.
The prince looked at Berren. ‘Seems a little late for that to me. Still …’ He looked at Master Sy and then a sly grin spread across his lips. ‘Didn’t I hear that the Autarch was sending some of his sword-masters here? In preparation for making a little visit himself at exactly the same time as he should have been in Varr to name my niece?’ He chuckled. ‘As snubs go, that’s about as sharp as you can get without stabbing someone. He could at least have claimed poor health.’ He nodded. ‘Swords, boy. Right. So be it. The monks at the temple shall train you. I’m sure that will delight them. Tanngris, we shall deliver our instructions to the idiots of the sun tomorrow as soon as I can be bothered with getting up.’
With that he was gone. The soldiers and the thief-takers stared after him. Slowly, Syannis shook his head. He gave Berren a hard sad look.
‘What have you done, lad? What have you done?’
6
On any other day, Berren would never have been at the temple gates for dawn. There wasn’t any point for a start, and even with the best reason in the world and no matter how hard he tried, Berren was always five or ten minutes late for everything.
This morning was different. On this morning he was standing outside the temple gates ten minutes before the first rays of sun split open the horizon. He had Master Sy beside him and a crowd of jostling onlookers. For most people, this was probably their only chance to see the monks of Torpreah.
They didn’t disappoint. As the first sunlight struck the golden spire on the top of the solar temple, a great gong sounded from inside as it did every morning; today, though, it was answered by another gong, every bit as deep and resonant, from across Deephaven Square. At the same precise moment, the beginnings of a procession emerged from the Avenue of the Sun beside the merchants’ guild-house. Sixteen men walked in front, straight and proud and dressed in pale yellow robes. Eight men came behind them; they carried a long pole from which hung a gong as large as a horse. After that came mules and wagons but Berren had no eyes for those. He was looking at the monks and nothing else as they walked in perfect slow precision across the square. The sun lit up the dome of the solar temple exactly as they reached the gates. The gong inside sounded again and the doors groaned and opened. A man with a hammer ran up to the gong carried behind the monks and sounded it. Berren saw the eight men carrying it stagger slightly. The noise of it made him flinch. The monks, though, never blinked.
They had marks on their faces. Berren could see that when they were only halfway across Deephaven Square, but it wasn’t until they were almost at the gate that he could see what they were. They had the sunburst symbol, a flaming circle tattooed to their face in a brilliant fiery red. They looked fierce and proud.
They were short, too. Short and wiry like him and Master Sy, not heavy and muscle-bound like most of the prince’s soldiers at the Watchman’s Arms. With a slight shock he realised that the last one was a women, every bit as unreadable as the men. He watched them all go past. They each had two small curved swords strapped across their backs. The light of the sun reached the ground; across the city and the river Arr, the horizon burst into an orange fire. The temple doors fell back and for a moment, a golden light washed over the advancing monks, casting them into silhouette. Berren blinked and rubbed his eyes. From behind they looked a lot like the man he’d seen in the scent garden.
He shook himself. It stood to reason that the killer had been short and carried a sword over his back. Short people were better at climbing and creeping and hiding. And you wouldn’t want a great long sword hanging from your belt for quiet work. A smallsword, that’s what anyone would take if they thought about it. Strapped across his back to keep it out of the way.
Or across her back. For some reason, that thought had never crossed his mind until now. It filled him up with a strange excitement.
‘Off you go then, lad.’
Berren followed the monks through the temple gate. He threw Master Sy an idle salute and then ran all the way to the temple and sat down at the back where no one would notice. Other novices crowded in, priests too, and then the monks walked sedately past to stand in the centre of the temple, ringing the altar while the Sunherald of Deephaven himself walked in slow circles around them, droning on about something. Berren even tried to pay attention, but he might as well not have bothered. He was too far away to hear properly and even the words he caught didn’t make much sense. The ceremonies were strange and exciting at first, but as they wore on and on all through the morning, Berren’s head began to feel heavy. The nights awake in the scent garden caught up with him. Before long he was asleep.
He woke up again to find the temple in silence. The Sunherald was still there and so were the monks, but they were all as still as statues. With a little gasp of horror, Berren saw the sun on the altar. It was nearly midday! He’d been asleep for the whole morning! Oh gods, what if The Worm had seen him? Had he been snoring? What if any of the other teachers had seen him? What if the monks had seen him? Someone must have seen him! Sooner or later Sterm would find out. Sleeping in temple was just a fraction short of spitting at the altar. Khrozus! He’d be working penances for the whole rest of the year for this!
Everyone was very still. They were all staring at him, or at least that was how it seemed at first. Slowly, though, he realised that they were staring past him, to the great doors behind. He turned around to look.
‘Well don’t stop just for me,’ called a voice from among the silhouettes at the door. Berren knew the voice at once — the prince.
There was a long pause. ‘And there ends today’s lesson,’ snapped the Sunherald from the altar. Berren’s brow furrowed. He checked the angle of the light on the altar again. Not far from midday but not quite there yet.
‘Oh, don’t tell me you’ve been preaching away all morning and I happen to have the foul luck to show up just in time for the half-hour recess before you start all over again? Fortunate in a way, I suppose, since we can get right to business without my interrupting anything. Pity, though. I was so looking forward to a good sermoning and my adjutants tell me I’m in something of a hurry now.’ The prince began to walk through the temple. He had six men with him; Berren was startled to see that one of them was Master Sy. The thief-taker’s face was taut. ‘Keep your little dragons handy too, Your Holiness,’ laughed the prince as he strode to the altar. ‘This concerns them.’
‘Novices and initiates, you are dismissed!’ The Sunherald started to pace again but with none of the serenity he’d had before. ‘There will be prayers at midday and then you will assemble in the practice yard while our honoured guests from Torpreah show us why they carry the reputation that they do.’
Berren watched as most of the priests and the novices and the initiates filed out of the temple. He got up to slip out with the last of them, but Master Sy was there. His fingers twisted around Berren’s ear.
‘This is all your fault,’ he hissed. ‘Every bit of it. I hope you’re ready for what you’ve done.’
Berren had no idea what Master Sy meant but he knew better than to say anything. They marched towards the centre of the temple, to the altar and the monks. The altar seemed golden, bathed in the sunlight streaming in through the dome above. Whatever the prince was saying, neither the priest nor the monks were liking it.
‘… or not, since it’s really quite irrelevant. You will do as I say, and that is that.’ The prince’s words. He shrugged. ‘Well, I suppose you could disobey and then I could have you all shipped off to the mines, strip this little palace of yours bare and turn it into a poorhouse. After the Overlord has subdued the inevitable riots, of course, but then I won’t be here to care about that little detail.’