“Thank you, Master,” I said.
“Do not sulk, it does not suit you. Besides, it is not all bad. You cannot be a squire without a mount so I have arranged to have Xus brought up for you.” Xus was my master’s mount and a finer beast you have never seen. “And remember, if Xus comes to harm I will take it out on your hide.”
She meant that. She loved that mount but she knew I would hurt myself before I let Xus come to harm. He is the most magnificent of his kind. He stands as tall as a man at his shoulder and under his thick brown and white fur you can feel muscles so strong that the fighting claws on his three-toed feet leave divots in the earth—even when he only walks. His neck is sturdy and his noble head is long and thin, ending in a fuzzy nose and soft-lipped mouth with two well-sized downward-pointing tusks. His small black eyes have thick healthy lashes, and from his forehead sprouts a pair of spreading nine-point antlers, sharp as any knife. There are few things more exhilarating than to ride. The power, freedom and speed is like nothing else, and I was never happier than when my master let me ride Xus. I had begged for a mount of my own but she always said no. I was sure we could easily afford two mounts, but my master said that where one mount attracted comment, two would almost definitely attract the bandits who roamed the Tired Lands.
All in all it was not a bad morning. The priests tell us our world paused when the gods died. That the blessed shall remain blessed, the living shall remain in their trades and the thankful shall be slaves or so poor they starve to death in gutters until the land heals, the curse of magic is purged and the gods are reborn. It is not often that a sheet of vellum allows an ex-slave to defy the holy words of the priesthood and become a blessed squire.
As I walked to the armourer’s my master took my arm and pulled me closer to her.
“Remember, your surname is now ap Gwynr. You are the youngest son of a family with a small longhouse; your father breeds mounts and has been shirking his taxes to the king. You are here as surety that this will not happen again.”
“Yes, Master. I have read the vellum.” She always becomes nervy and detail-obsessed at the start of a campaign.
“And when you are among the squires look to yourself.” I knew what she meant. Though I am fifteen I look no more than fourteen at most. I was underfed as a young child as food is more valuable than slaves in the Tired Lands, my small stature and club foot do not make me appear much of a warrior, that is what makes me a good assassin. However, I would not be able to use my skills as too much martial prowess in an unschooled country landowner’s son would appear suspicious.
“You mean I should let them beat me, Master?”
“Until it really matters, yes.”
“Thank you, Master.”
She squeezed my arm. “I must go now. We will not see much of each other. A jester would not be welcome among squires so I will be spending most of my time at court.”
“Not with me?” I hated my voice then. It sounded like a childish whine and gave away the fear within. We always worked together. I could not remember a time when I had spent more than an hour without my master. She had always been at my back or I at hers.
“You are growing up, Girton. Soon you will be glad of time alone and some company your own age may do you good.” She squeezed my arm again and left to change into her motley while I stood in the wide courtyard between the keep’s outer door and the great gatehouse that led into the keepyard. In front of me the water clock, a towering contraption of steel tubes, silver balls, chiming bells and falling water, ticked out the minutes as I bunched my fists and told myself under my breath. “No longer the assassin. Now a lonely boy in a strange and dangerous place.”
I walked through the postern door in the wooden gates of the gatehouse and into the keepyard, finding my way to the armourers by asking the servants, who busied themselves around the castle like lizards around a heap. The only people more plentiful than servants were the slaves, who moved with their heads down and tried to be noticed as little as possible. I could not ask them for directions as it would be considered odd for a squire, no matter how lowborn, to do anything but give orders to a slave.
The armourer was a stump of a man. He shared a similarity of face with Aydor, the heir, and a thickness of body, so he was probably one of King Doran ap Mennix’s many by-blows. The king was in his fifties now, and sick, but he had been busy in his youth with any who offered. He probably pushed himself on many that did not offer too; it is the way of the blessed and one of the reasons why assassins are often seen as heroes by the poor. As the law stated only a legitimate royal child may inherit a throne, bastards, such as the armourer clearly was, offered no threat and were often taken on as servants, though just as often they were sold off as slaves. When I had been younger and found my training particularly taxing I had fantasised that I was a child of royalty and would be whisked away by royal guards on mounts with loyalty flags flying. Mentioning this was one of the rare things guaranteed to amuse my master.
“Armour?” said the man, rubbing a hand over a head shaved bald. He was no taller than me though he was twice as wide. Bastards clearly ate well here. “And weapons?” he said as if I had asked him to forge them for me there and then.
“Yes.”
“Not got your own?”
“I am the youngest son and crippled.” I kept my eyes on the floor, acting the shy child away from home, ashamed of what he must admit. “My father saw no profit in spending money on armour for a cripple. I was bound for the priesthood.”
“Your father sounds like a wise man,” he said. “How old are you, boy? Thirteen?”
“Fourteen,” I said, with the just the right amount of surliness for a boy who finds being considered younger than he is insulting to his manhood. It was not the most difficult part to play.
“Fourteen and small for it,” he said, because some people love to labour a point. “I’ll struggle to outfit you, child.”
“The king has ordered me outfitted.”
The armourer let out a sigh.
“Wait here.” He vanished into his armoury. I did not follow as it is bad form to follow an armourer into his sanctum; they guard their charges more closely than a nervous mother guards a babe. The man returned with a net of armour which he dropped in front of me. “Should fit you,” he grunted. “Try it.”
It was very poor armour. Whoever had worn it before had not cared for it particularly well, if at all.