It was twilight before I brought myself under control. Rather than head back to our room and have to look at my master’s face I decided to go to Festival. There I would have one drink, despite her warnings. It seemed like a good idea then.
Drink was cheap at Festival. I bought a cup of thick fruit juice that burned my throat as it went down and went straight to my head. A fire breather handed me a cup of drink as she passed, wishing me good cheer and saying that a drink and a smile would free me from Black Ungar’s grasp. I had promised myself only a single cup, but her good cheer made me so angry I knocked the drink back in one and made a point of refusing to smile for her. Whatever she had given me made me choke and the fire breather laughed at me, which only increased my irritation. I turned away and almost knocked over a masked woman selling a barley brew, and she would only accept my apology if I bought a drink. Which I did, and drank it because my master had always said I should waste nothing. From then on I barely saw Festival as I walked through it, mumbling and fuming to myself. More drinks seemed to materialise in my hands. Could Rufra sense the magic in me? Is that what made him want to get away? Maybe all the squires could sense it, and that was why they hated me.
I walked through the noise and light, muttering to myself about people of bad faith and the different, and increasingly painful, ways I should kill them. I was so lost in alcohol and thoughts of the pain I would inflict that when the attack came it took me entirely by surprise. An arm shot out of a tent and snaked around my neck. Sober, I would have wriggled away or broken the fingers of whoever grabbed me, but drink had fuddled me. My body had become every bit as clumsy and hopeless as I spent my days pretending it was. The arm dragged me into a tent, a blade was held at my throat.
“I know what you are,” hissed a voice. Then I was thrown into a corner of the tent. Rufra stood with his bent and nicked longsword pointed at me. “Don’t move, Girton, if that’s your name,” he said, breath coming quickly. “Don’t you move.”
“Rufra?” A wave of nausea rolled over me. He knows exactly what I am! “Why are you doing this, Rufra?”
“I saw,” he said. I tried to sit up and his blade nearly skewered me through the neck. “I said don’t move!” he shouted. “I saw what you did. To those men. The ones in the wood. I saw it.” His eyes were wild, wet with tears and wide with fear. He repeated his words more quietly. “I saw. You were fast as a Fitchgrass, Girton. I thought we were friends and you lied to me. You used me to try and fit in.”
“No, I—” His blade cut into the skin of my neck.
“I believed in you!” he shouted. “Don’t lie to me!”
“Yes, then,” I said. It felt like the pressure which had been building up inside me for days was suddenly bled away. “I did lie to you, Rufra. But I didn’t want to. I had no choice.”
“I thought we were friends, Girton, that we had some common ground, but everything about you is a lie. You let Kyril, Borniya and Hallin beat you. You let Tomas’s squires beat you. You even let Aydor beat you. I would have fought Tomas to protect you, and all the time you were better with a blade than anyone I’ve ever seen.”
“Celot may be better than—” I tried to make a joke, but he pushed me backwards with the tip of his sword.
“Assassin.” He whispered the word. It was the first time I had ever heard it said without feeling proud. It scorched me. “You’re an assassin, aren’t you, Girton? It’s the only thing that makes sense.” The colour in his face fell away. “Are you here to kill me?”
I laughed. I think it surprised him.
“Of course not. If I were here for you, why would I have stopped those men? Do you think an assassin enjoys making work for themselves?”
He frowned. Rufra hated a puzzle he could not solve, hated it. Then he let his blade tip drop and walked to the back of the tent. I started to lever myself up and he spun, his sword coming up again.
“No. I’ve seen how you move. Stay where you are.” I nodded and lowered myself once more. “You are here for Aydor then?” I shook my head. “Then who are you here for?” He cocked his head to one side, but before I could speak he shook his head. “No, don’t tell me. It’s best I don’t know.” He took a step forward and put the sword tip at my throat again. “Listen, whatever your name is—”
“My name is Girton.”
“Then listen, Girton.” He started breathing heavily through his nose, and I wondered if he was going to kill me or burst into tears. “Whether you were pretending to be my friend or not—”
“I was never pretending,” I said quietly.
“Be quiet!” he shouted, and the sword dipped again. When he spoke, he spoke softly and it made him seem far more dangerous. It was as if the shadow of the man he would become fell upon him in that tent. A man as honourable as he was ruthless. “You saved my life, Girton, and a life is worth a life.” He let go of his battered sword and it clanged to the ground. “I had thought I found a friend in you, but you are just a liar out for yourself like all the rest. For the friendship I thought we had I will let you leave.” He pointed at the door flap of the tent and he looked small again, like the fourteen-year-old boy he was. “Go now, and I will tell no one what you are. Leave Maniyadoc.”
“I cannot leave.” The confrontation had burned the alcohol out of my veins and my words were raw, parched and painful in my throat. “I am here to kill no one and I cannot leave no matter how much you all hate me.”
“Why?” His question made it sound like leaving should be simple.
“Because I am here to stop an assassin, not to be one.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The queen thinks someone wants to have Aydor killed. She set me up, caught me, and if I do not succeed in finding out who wishes him dead she will kill me or expose me. Not that it matters which she chooses; exposure is the same as death.”
“Festival could hide you. I could talk to them.” Emotions warred on his face. Despite his anger he was worried for me.
“It is not only me,” I said. “There are others.”
“Bring them.”
“They would not come. They have given their word, and besides we could not hide in Festival. It is the assassins who do not allow one of their own to live when exposed. They would find us wherever we went.”
He stared at me as he worked through what I had said and I could see the same hurt and betrayal in his eyes that I had felt in the training yard. He was concentrating so ferociously I realised that he wanted, as much as I did, to reclaim our friendship.
“You’re here to stop a killing?” He studied my face as if searching for some trace of a lie.
“Yes.”
Rufra took a step towards me.
“What do your assassin friends think of that?” He watched me, waiting patiently while I stared at the floor, trying to find a reply in the dirt and finding nothing. And though I had been trained that silence was the best option I decided on honesty instead.
“I don’t have any friends.” I raised my head, so he could read the truth from my eyes. “You are the first friend I have ever had and now even that is ruined.”