‘You haven’t even taken your bloody armour off,’ Rate said almost cheerfully. Marith looked down. He hadn’t. He’d woken to find he was still holding the sword as well. Luckily the blue flames had gone out. Alcohol, magic fire and bedclothes probably wouldn’t have been the ideal combination for a restful sleep.
‘I’d suggest you have a wash before you come another step closer,’ Rate continued. ‘You are possibly the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen, right now. My Lord Prince. That smell is really putting me off my food.’
Tobias drew him a bath and helped him peel off the layers of torn clothing and armour, scrub blood and ashes from his hair. Tiny pieces of mage glass streamed off him as he washed, leaving the filthy water twinkling. He’d seen the sea like that, once, alive with phosphorescent creatures. None of the clothes they could find for him fitted, but they were at least clean. Finally he sat beside Rate by the hearth, shivering despite the evening heat. Tobias served him bread and milk and tea and greasy fried meat. An uneasy calm seemed to have come over all of them. They crept around him without speaking of it; he did not speak of it either. But Rate’s eyes strayed occasionally to a bolted door at the back of the kitchen, around which flies were beginning to buzz.
You look like what you are, boy.
‘What’s going on outside?’ Marith asked at last.
Rate frowned. ‘A lot. We had a peek out earlier. Palace finally seems to have stopped burning, but now some other buildings have gone up as well. People on the streets with swords. Could almost be the beginnings of a civil war, by the look of it.’
‘Which would be a right pain,’ Alxine put in, ‘since they might keep the gates closed.’
‘Noble families fighting,’ said Tobias. ‘The ones as paid us to kill His Eminence, and the ones as paid us not to. And the ones as just feel they should probably get involved now everyone else is. Probably all good and happy. They’ll get it all sorted in a few days and go back to just being rude to each other at parties.’
Marith closed his eyes, trying to remember things. All he could see was blood. ‘That man, the man in white … Lord … Lord Rhyl. He paid us to … to kill everyone apart from the Emperor?’
Tobias nodded. ‘Yup. Anyone who’ll pay a lot to have someone killed – like as not, someone else will always pay more to have them stay alive. Emperor’s bloody grateful, calls him a hero, gives him full powers to appoint anyone he chooses to all those newly vacant Imperial jobs. And the men who actually did all the hard work die as traitors. Neat, eh? And he didn’t pay us. He paid me.’
Very neat. Except from the sounds of it things were getting out of control.
‘How do you know who he is?’ Tobias said suddenly. Looked laughably alarmed.
‘How do you think? I’ve met him. He visited Malth Elelane the summer before last, around Sun’s Height. My brother paid a visit here and spent most of it trailing around after his daughter, so he got the absurd idea he might be interested in marrying her.’ His father had laughed in the man’s face, and Ti had personally laced the girl’s food with abortifacient the day she left.
Pale eyes, staring at him, filled with loathing. Like he was nothing. Like he was filth scraped from the bottom of his shoe. Marith frowned. ‘He recognized me, I think.’
‘No offence, boy, but I’d be surprised if he’d been able to recognize you. While I’m sure your divine ancestry shines in your face and all that, you were probably looking a bit different the last time he saw you. Bit less covered in blood, for one thing.’
From what the girl was reported to have gone through on the voyage home, the Altrersyr features must be engraved on the man’s heart. And he had almost certainly made something of an impression personally at the feast on the last night, after Carin’s dazzling suggestion he try mixing hatha with neat brandy as an aperitif. A memorable night for everyone else present, apparently. Marith nodded: ‘You’re probably right.’
‘So, how do we go about getting the other half of the money, then?’ said Rate. ‘This Lord Rhyl, we just turn up at his door or what?’
‘What?’ Tobias looked at him and laughed. ‘Gods, no. There is no other half of the money, lad. There never is, doing something like this. What we got up front is what we get. At least one lot of the people who contracted us should all be dead, and the others are really not going to want us hanging around.’
‘But …’
‘Charge double and only expect to collect half. It’s not that complicated.’ Tobias jangled a fat purse at his belt. ‘Ten thalers for killing the Emperor. And another fifteen thalers for not killing the Emperor. Quids in, we are.’ He handed a thaler and a silver dhol each to Rate and Alxine. ‘That’s your share for now. Don’t spend it all at once. Don’t spend it at all until we’re fifty leagues from here and still going, in fact, be my advice.’
Marith looked at him. Tobias looked back and shook his head. Rate sniggered somewhere behind him.
Anger flashed over Marith. ‘You’d all be dead several times over if it wasn’t for me.’
‘Indeed. And we’re all very grateful, My Lord Prince. You’re still not going anywhere out of my sight, though, and certainly not being allowed any money you might be tempted to spend on things, if you know what I mean. You’re a valuable asset, boy. Would you trust you with so much as an iron mark, if you were me?’
Marith rubbed his face. His eyes itched horribly. A whole thaler’s worth … Happiness. Peace. He sighed. ‘No, probably not.’ Yesterday, he’d have sworn to kill Tobias, for speaking to him like that. Maybe he would tomorrow, or the day after. I’m an Altrersyr prince, he thought bitterly. The heir to Amrath. I killed a dragon. I killed a mage. I killed more people than I can count. I could have killed the whole bloody lot of you. I still could. He stood up. ‘If you’ll excuse me, then, I’m going back to bed. If I promise to be good and let you lock me in again, can I at least be permitted to take something to drink up with me?’
Tobias looked at him and laughed. They all laughed. He went upstairs and drank and lay in the dark in the best bed. Images of what he’d done floated up in his mind. Staring into the darkness, his eyes open, what he had done was terrible beyond thinking. But when he closed his eyes, he felt pride well up in him, a joy and a pleasure and a hope. The darkness pressed on him, heavy and soft like falling snow. You look like what you are, boy. It was all the same, he realized, whether he looked into the dark of the room or into the dark of his own mind.
Chapter Thirty