‘Well, yeah, seeing as you were trying to kill him. I think he realized pretty quick it wasn’t a good idea to just stop and apologize.’
Marith bent and wiped his knife on the dead man’s shirt. Shaking. His boots were covered in blood and vomit. He wiped them as well as he could on the dead man’s trousers. His hands were sticky with blood. Looking at them, smelling the blood on them, he had a sudden desperate urge to lick it off. The stink of it was maddening, from his hands and from the dead man, lying face up in the dust with the tread of his boot crushed into its ruined flesh. Mouth sort of open, one eye visible looking up at the sky. Dead. Dead and empty. Nothing. Marith rubbed his eyes, trying not to scratch at his face. Such power a man had, to take something living and turn it into that. So easy. He almost wanted to weep. The scabs on his burnt hand had opened up again, oozing and bleeding, pain spreading like water up his arm.
‘I …’ He closed his eyes, opened them to the warm golden dusty light. ‘I thought he was going to kill me.’
They trudged back the way they had come, and found a wide street leading straight back to the Court of the Broken Knife. It took them a half-hour at most after that to find the Street of the South and the Five Corners. A couple of people looked at them curiously, but they attracted surprisingly little attention.
Chapter Fourteen
Tobias was to meet Skie in a wine shop called the Star in the Morning, nestled up near the Gate of Laughter. Like their lodgings it was certainly not poor but not especially rich either, neat and tidy, busy and noisy with cheerful drinkers and the smell of good hot food. Skie sat in a small alcove in the far corner, carefully positioned a little way away from the other tables with the walls and the droning of a lyre-player providing cover.
Seated with Skie was the other squad captain, Geth, and a man Tobias had never seen before, in his early thirties with a face the colour of dark bronze.
‘Good, good.’ Skie gestured to Tobias to sit. He spoke in Immish, less likely to be understood than Pernish, for all the Immish were Sorlost’s nearest neighbours. ‘You had no trouble getting here?’
‘No. Remarkably easy. We’re in need of some cash, though.’
The other man smiled at him. ‘This is an expensive city, I’m afraid.’
Tobias nodded. Didn’t particularly like the other man. He was cheaply dressed but everything about him was shouting that he was more important than he was trying to seem. His voice was smooth, his Immish faultless. Even better than Marith’s Literan. Though to be fair to the boy, it was a rather less complex language. Shorter words. Not so many weird sudden changes of tense. Tobias flicked Skie a questioning look from the corner of his eyes. They’d worked together a long time, Geth and Skie and him. He trusted Skie with his life, near as. Had to, in their line of work. He’d like to think Skie had a similar trust in him. So not good, being kept in the dark.
Skie gave no indication he’d noticed, but Geth drummed his fingers on the table tip tap tip tap tip tap. Ah. It wasn’t a code exactly, no real meaning in it, nothing worked out, just a thing that had arisen between them over the years in situations like this. Don’t ask questions. This man is important, more than just a go-between. Good, thought Tobias. Probably. Safer, in many ways, though not without risks in itself. Go-betweens talked, or demanded gold not to talk, or got scared and confided in someone stupid like their but-I-thought-he-loved-me-like-the-proverbial-how-was-I-to-know-he-had-a-major-league-gambling-habit brother or their it-was-just-unfortunate-she-turned-out-to-be-shagging-the-garrison-commander wife.
Though the important person knowing your face wasn’t a great feeling either, when you were busy killing someone for them and they’d kind of prefer someone else not to know.
‘I have money for you,’ Mr Important said importantly. He looked at Skie for a moment, then turned to Tobias and Geth. ‘I can see you are beside yourselves wondering who I am.’
‘Maybe not beside myself, but interested, yeah.’
‘And I assume your commander will tell if I don’t. So.’ The man smiled and pitched his voice lower. ‘I am Lord Darath Vorley, Dweller in the House of Flowers, the Emperor’s True Counsellor and Friend, Suzerain of the South Reaches and the Desert Sea. Wherever that was. And now you have the advantage of me, gentlemen.’
Ah. Well. Yes. Indeed. There were several old ballads about the Vorleys, usually emphasizing how rich and indolent they were. This one looked to be no different from the way Tobias had imagined: handsome, oh so charming, na?ve in that odd way the extremely rich and high-born tended to be. He’d assumed their employers were both very rich and very powerful, but it was good to be able to put a name to the enterprise.
Really didn’t like giving the man his name in exchange, though. All kinds of danger in a man like this knowing his name. ‘Tobias,’ he said reluctantly. ‘And this is Gethen.’
‘Gethen. Tobias.’ Lord Vorley nodded his head elegantly at both of them. Pompous git. ‘How much money do you need, then?’ He took advantage of a general stirring in the room as the lyre-player struck a few chords and rearranged himself on his stool to discreetly pass them both fat leather purses. ‘I trust this will be sufficient for now. You’ll need, what, suitable attire, equipment, living expenses? We seem to have promised you a good deal, I find. The amount of planning all this took! A great many people have written about this kind of enterprise, and several have even managed it halfway successfully, but it seems a true labour of love to get the detail right.’
His tone was mocking, world-weary. Gambling and whoring lost their appeal for you? Tobias thought. Or competitive poetry writing or flower arranging or child torture, or whatever else the big nobs do around here to pass the time? Decided you’d try a little light regicide to relieve the tedium of having more money than most gods? Geth nudged his foot meaningfully and drummed on the table again.
They all fell silent a moment as the lyre-player addressed the room. ‘My friends, listen and hear a story of great wrongs and great passions, the most powerful of all men laid low by love and a sweet face. The tale of Amrath and Eltheia, fairest of women, and of those that died that Amrath might possess her.’
Oh, wonderful. Another story about birthday-boy. Two in two nights, and this one even more cheerful than the last. The bit about Amrath having His new in-laws boiled alive was always particularly pleasant as an accompaniment to a pint and a hot pie. Too much to hope the man would switch from Pernish to Literan and let them ignore it completely, of course. Every gory detail doubtless about to be described in glowing detail. Possibly even in rhyme.
The lyre-player struck a note and began to sing:
‘Now Amrath’s Empire reached from sunrise to sunset,
Mightier than life, than death, than birth or dying.
Every city in Irlast trembled beneath His power.
Two lands only stood unconquered: