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And then, on every day except Abyss-Day, in the heat of the late afternoon, he did this: standing stock still, holding a waster straight out in front of him with Tasahre standing across the small fighting circle she’d drawn in the dirt, staring right back at him. Today she was balancing an hourglass on the end of her sword to make the exercise a little harder for herself — and to remind Berren that, although it might feel like he’d stood there for hours, although it might feel like his shoulder was slowly turning to molten lead, they had in fact been doing this for five minutes and he had another five to go.

She had the hourglass balanced on the flat of her blade and she wasn’t shaking at all. He hated her.

On the first day, he’d lasted four minutes before his arm had simply given up. On the second day it had been five. Today it was seven. He’d hated it at first, the realisation of how useless he was. But now he counted the seconds, and if he counted one more than the day before, that seemed like a victory.

Tasahre stayed completely still for the last three minutes then smoothly let the hourglass go. ‘Guard,’ she said, and nothing else. She spent a minute or two fiddling with Berren’s stance, twisting his arm and and wrist, kicking his feet until he was standing in guard the way she wanted. They went through the same thing every day, practising simple blows, a cut or thrust, a parry and a riposte, the sort of thing he’d been doing with Master Sy for the last year. It was humiliating. Tasahre could have done it blindfold. Now and then she stopped and told Berren all the things he was doing wrong. Sometimes she’d stand right behind him, her legs pressed against his, chest against his back, hands on his wrists, pushing and moulding him into the stance she wanted. The sensation was odd and strangely intimate.

For those hours in the late afternoon they worked alone, Berren and Tasahre. The other monks paired up around them and simply pretended he didn’t exist. The elder dragon sometimes stopped to watch, but he was watching Tasahre, not Berren. He was watching how well she adjusted to the unwanted burden she’d been given. In the odd moment when he wasn’t busy resenting being taught by a girl his own age, he almost felt sorry for her, although he’d have felt a lot more sorry for her if she didn’t crack his ribs with her waster whenever his attention wandered.

For the last hour of the evening the monks all sat in a circle, taking it in turns to fight one another. Everyone fought everyone else, one bout only, and Berren was no exception. While the others fought with light padding and steel swords, Berren fought with his waster. Most of them simply batted him aside, clocked him on the head and withdrew before he even knew what was happening. One or two made a point of hitting him in a particularly exotic way, but after the first few days they grew tired of showing off and dispatched him with the same disdain as the others. Tasahre let him come to her and simply battered his attacks away without moving from where she stood until they both agreed he’d had enough. Still, he enjoyed watching the monks fight each other. He began to see who favoured what approach, which combinations, who was a sliver quicker and who was a fraction stronger. Tasahre, he saw, was usually beaten by most of the monks. Usually but not always.

At the end of each day he staggered back to the thief-taker’s house as the sun set. He chewed through whatever crusts of bread were left and drained the bowl of lukewarm gruel that the thief-taker had left for him, barely noticing what was in it, and then went to bed. Usually the thief-taker wasn’t there; even when he was, Berren was asleep before he could ask what Master Sy had been up to. He was exhausted, every single day. As he fell asleep, though, he found himself thinking of the scent garden over and over again, of the silhouette he’d seen clambering over the wall and of the strange black-powder smell the assassin had carried with him.

On Abyss-Day, the temple classes were closed, the monks spent their time at prayer and in meditation, and Berren finally got some rest. Abyss-Day was the day that thieves and snuffers claimed as their own. It was the day of delving into the deep, the day of blindness and ruin. No one did business on Abyss-Day; even most of the market and harbour traders stayed at home. It was the day of mischief and mayhem, before the light and truth that Sun-Day would bring; for Berren, though, Abyss-Day was the blessed relief of a lie-in in the morning, a few hours of dozing and stretching and moaning about how much all his muscles hurt, and then, when his stomach finally took charge, of eating. He eased himself down the rickety stairs and into the kitchen, lured by the smell of bread that wafted through the thief-taker’s house. There was fruit, too — Master Sy always liked his fruit if he could get anything fresh.

‘Morning, Berren.’ The thief-taker was sitting in a chair in his parlour, feet up on the table, massaging his knee.

‘Master.’ Berren helped himself to an entire loaf of bread. He sat down on the floor across the parlour and tore into it until his stomach stopped growling. Then he looked up and smiled brightly. ‘So?’

‘So?’ Master Sy smiled and shook his head. ‘So I’m fast losing my appetite for long stairways.’

‘I was thinking of that fellow on the roof with the bow. So is it right then? The man we’re looking for is in the Two Cranes?’

‘The man I’m looking for, lad. And yes, he is.’

‘And?’

‘Watching and waiting, lad.’ The thief-taker shook his head. ‘Watching and waiting.’ Which was the thief-taker’s way of saying he was up to something, but Berren knew better than to press his luck with questions.

‘Was me that caught him,’ he muttered. ‘You remember that, master. When there’s more than watching and waiting to be done, I want to help.’

Master Sy smiled. ‘I’ll do that. For now you can help by keeping well out of the way. Not something to mess with, this one.’

‘I’m not a boy any more, master.’

‘Maybe not, Berren. When there’s more than watching and waiting to be done, you can be a part of it. But for now there isn’t, so you stick with your sword-monks. Was you that tipped him over the edge so we couldn’t ask him any questions, you just remember that too.’

Berren finished his loaf of bread and wandered back to the kitchen looking for more. He came back with a couple of apples. They were soft and mushy and not crunchy at all. He made a face.

‘Late harvest from up north.’ The thief-taker shrugged. ‘They’ve been kept half-frozen in an outhouse for the winter and then sat on a wagon for a week and a ship for another. They’re not exactly fresh, but then what do you expect for apples in spring? Was thinking of boiling them up and making a paste but I suppose I’ll not bother now.’ He watched as Berren devoured the apples, core and all, and then sat, looking around the room as if searching for more. ‘You’re not still hungry are you?’ He shook his head. ‘They not feed you at the temple?’

‘Not much, no.’

The thief-taker got up. He winced as he put weight on his knee. ‘Here, then.’ He threw his purse to Berren. ‘Go feed yourself. There’s not much in it. I’m off to bed. Up all night watching the Two Cranes. Don’t forget to go and get water.’