We left the stables to find Marrel ap Marrel at the head of a hundred of his guards. He was shouting up at the Low Tower, his voice hoarse with fury.
“Where is he? Ap Vthyr! Come down here! Where is he?”
Behind him his troops were lined up, serious expressions, men and women ready for battle. Many of Marrel’s soldiers wore visors carved into smiling faces and there was an incongruity to it, the anger on the faces of those unmasked against the false joy of those cast in metal. Marrel’s sons were with him, their expressions stunned as if they had recently been witness to something terrible.
I leaned in close to my master.
“Who do you think he speaks of?”
“I do not know, Girton, but look at him, he seems in a sore state.” She was right, tears streaked Marrel’s face and as he gestured with his blade at the castle his arm shook with emotion. The front of his tunic was covered in blood.
“Come out, coward! Come and do your own foul work for once! Come face the consequences of a name writ on the wall!” Something within me went cold at that phrase. He could only be referring to one thing: “a name writ on the wall” was a common way of referring to an assassination. Out of the Low Tower came Rufra’s guard, resplendent in black and red. They looked like they had been fully dressed and ready, though they cannot have been and maybe, if Rufra had thought this situation through, he should have made them look a little less prepared. Behind them spilled out the last of the revellers. In among them I saw Leckan ap Syridd’s assassin as she moved to the back of the crowd.
“What is this, Marrel?” said Rufra as he passed between his troops, limping forward with his hand on his side. “Why have you brought troops to my compound?”
“You know.” Marrel took a step forward, his sword held out. Aydor and Celot broke from the gathered ranks to stand beside Rufra, Celot with his blade ready and the same blank look on his face he always wore, Aydor holding a shield and looking utterly confused. “You know!” shouted Marrel again and this time I thought him about to break down. “Where is he? Your pet assassin? Bring him out to face justice!” I saw surprise register on Rufra’s face.
“Girton? What do you think he has done?”
“Your work,” said Marrel, and now he sounded dangerous, anger transmuting into aggression, “as all know he does. And it will not work, ap Vthyr. I will not leave, and I will not give up on becoming high king. All you have done is strengthen my resolve. But first,” he spat on the floor, “I intend to put you out of the running.” He pulled down his visor and retreated into the mass of his troops. Rufra stood, bemused, one hand still held out as if to offer friendship, his mouth moving as words were stillborn on his lips. Marrel’s troops shouted, “Hut!” and shields locked together, a wall of painted castles that sprouted spears. Rufra was almost dragged back behind his lines by Aydor and Celot. His own troops brought up their shields: an answering line of black and red with golden flying lizards and bristling spears.
“What is happening, Master?” I said.
“Events are spiralling out of control, Girton,” she replied, “and they are blaming you for it.” She grabbed my arm and pulled me back into the stables. We were in a no-man’s-land between the two shield walls. “Hide here, Girton.”
“But Rufra will need me.”
“Think.” She tapped the side of my head hard enough to hurt. “Whatever has happened, Marrel blames you. Now there are two armies posturing at each other and working themselves up to fight. Look up.” I glanced up. The high king’s guard on the walls were bringing up archers and pointing down at us. “It will not be long before the highguard get here and put a stop to this, but if you are seen?”
“Marrel looks angry enough to charge the stables for me. He may get to me too.”
“Even if he doesn’t, Rufra will not allow him to try.”
“So I cower here,” I said.
“Or start a fight that weakens the two strongest blessed in Ceadoc Castle.”
“You think that is the point of whatever is happening?” Another shout of “Hut!” from Marrel’s troops.
“Aye, that or someone wishes to break up any alliance.”
A sound like the screaming of wounded mounts echoed through the courtyard and shock ran through me—a superstitious fear that some new horror was upon us, that I heard the scream of Dark Ungar come to take his price from me. Then I realised my own foolishness as silver-clad highguard flooded the area between the two lines of troops. What I had heard was the portcullis going up. The captain who had brought us here, Hurdyn, stepped forward as his men set up in four lines between Rufra and Marrel, lances facing out. Then they neatly stepped forward, allowing twenty heavy cavalry to come in between them, mounts gilded and armoured for war.
“Marrel ap Marrel,” said Hurdyn, “what goes on here? Why have you broken the truce of Ceadoc?”
“It is not I,” said Marrel, “but the usurper king Rufra ap Vthyr who has broken the truce. He sent his filthy assassin to kill my wife.” His voice cracked and he seemed to stumble, being caught by his son. “My Berisa is dead.”
“Now, Master,” I said. “Now I must show my face.”
She nodded and I walked out of the stable.
“I did not kill your wife, Marrel ap Marrel.”
“I saw you!” he screamed, “as did my men and my sons and Gonan. We saw you do it!”
“It was not I,” I said.
“You expect me to believe you? First you kill Bilnan, to make the job easier, and then you kill …” He could not say her name. Tears flooded him.
“Girton did not do this, Marrel.” Rufra limped out from his men again. “On my word as a king.” He glanced toward me. It was a fierce look and it felt like he did not trust me at all. “I tell you Girton did not do this.”
“I saw him,” said Marrel again, forcing out each word.
“Could it have been someone wearing Death’s Jester’s motley, King Marrel?” I said. “Anyone can put on make-up.”
“Aye, they can,” said Marrel, “but none fight like you, Girton Club-Foot. None move as quickly as you do. And this killer was in and out so fast we barely had time to react.”
“There is another assassin here,” said Rufra.
Leckan ap Syridd stepped forward.
“Tinia Speaks-Not, my Heartblade, has not left my side,” he said.
“I do not mean her, Leckan,” said Rufra, “and I vouch for her presence also. There is the assassin who tried to kill my own wife, Voniss.”
“But she survived,” said Marrel, “how fortunate.”
“And he tried to kill me,” I said.
“And you survived too, but my Berisa did not. I saw you leave the feast, Girton. I saw you leave before I did, to ready yourself.”
Captain Hurdyn was watching, looking from right to left, listening.
“Girton Club-Foot,” he said, walking out to stand between the two groups of soldiers, “you must come with me to the dungeon.”
“No.” My master walked forward. “He was with me, all this time we were together in the stable, looking after his mount.”
“That may be so,” said the highguard captain, “but Gamelon will not take the word of a servant over that of a blessed and he will want to look into this himself. And, in truth,” he turned to me, “I would be happier if you were somewhere I knew you were safe—in case there are reprisals.” I glanced to Rufra, he looked lost. Behind him Dinay looked toward Captain Hurdyn and nodded.
“Very well,” I said, and put my hands out for the shackles.
“I do not think there will be any need for that,” said the captain.
“You should chain him,” said Marrel. “He is an animal.”
“He is also an assassin, Blessed Marrel,” said the captain, “and I doubt we have any chains that would hold him for long if he wished not to be held.” And with that he put me into the care of his men and I was led away into the dungeons of Ceadoc. They did not take me out through the portcullis, but instead through the back wall and into the castle. As we walked past Marrel’s troops I could feel them scrutinising me, remembering me, and I knew I would not be safe alone in the castle as long as they blamed me for Berisa’s death. I could remove my make-up and motley, but I would still be easy enough for anyone determined to find me to do so—after all, how many men with a club foot would there be here?
I felt the moment I passed into the souring beneath the castle as if I dipped my toes into icy water. Though the guards treated me with courtesy, I could not fight off an increasing sense of trepidation as I was led to the dungeon, a place of misery that stank like a sewer. Each cell was full and the gaoler—a small and meek man who was all bows and “Yes Blessed, no Blessed,” with the captain—had to empty a cell as Captain Hurdyn wanted me quartered alone. The three men he moved from the cell I was to occupy could barely walk—they did not have enough meat on their bones between them to cover one man, never mind three—but the gaoler was kind to them, helping one who could barely walk across the cobbles to a crowded cell on the other side. As the man passed me he tried to smile.
“We will all be freed—you’ll see,” he said. “Darsese lives.”
The gaoler moved the men on and I heard him whisper, “I’ll see you ’ave a little more porridge for this,” as he locked the door on them. Then he turned to me. “I’ll bring you new straw,” he said, “and empty the shitbucket so you don’t have the stink of ’em locked in with you.”
“Thank you,” I stepped into the cell and he locked the door, “I shall be sure to mention the quality of your establishment to my king.” The gaoler stared at me. His face was pox-scarred, greasy grey hair stuck out from beneath a filthy felt cap that had once been red and he had the squint of one whose sight was poor. He kept staring at me until the highguard had left and then stepped nearer to my cell door so he could speak to me.
“You have a clever mouth,” he said, “and I ’ave to make sure you is well looked after, for now. But best remember, before you use that clever mouth, that there ain’t no promise you will ever leave here. I’s paid to look after you, and others ’ere. But some as come down ’ere are not good people. If youse don’t be careful they’ll remember that clever mouth, right, see?”
“I do right see,” I said. He squinted again, and I felt ashamed. He was not a clever man and I could tell he was unsure whether or not I mocked him. I felt small for it. His actions with the prisoners he had moved showed he was as kind as someone in his position could be. He started to turn away from me, if anything appearing more stooped than he had been when I entered.
“My apologies, gaoler,” I said. “I was rude to you and I should not have been.” He paused, waiting as if he were sure another cutting remark would come from my mouth. “I am simply nervous. I have never been in a dungeon before.”
He nodded, came closer to the door.
“Ain’t so bad, once you’re used to the smell,” he said. “Food ain’t great but if you have money, I can get better.”
“How many are in here?” I said. He blinked twice, nodded his head slowly and then brought up his hands. His mouth moved as he counted his fingers.
“Eighteen, though there’ll be two less tomorrow as Xus calls ’em. Most ain’t as important as you. Only one other has his own cell.”
“Boros,” I said.
“Ain’t allowed to talk about names of those ’ere.”
“He was my friend.” I felt in my pockets, finding coins, and took out two bits—a fortune to a poor man—but I did not want to bribe the gaoler. I had the feeling he was not the sort that would take to it. “Take these coins,” I said. “Feed everyone, especially the two who will die tomorrow.”
He stared at the coins in his hand and nodded, then took a step closer to my cell.
“Later, Arketh the torturer will come talk to you. She always comes to see the new blood. Don’t use your clever mouth on her and don’t ask her nothing ’cos she’ll use it against you. She likes to hurt people. Dark Ungar’s got his hands on her heart and no mistake.”
“I thought I was to be looked after.”
“She can hurt people and not leave a mark,” he said. “And she will.”
I nodded.
“Thank you for telling me. Do you have a name?” His eyes widened in momentary fear. Many common folk believed a name gives you power over them. “Mine is Girton,” I added.
“Saleh,” he said. “Now, I should go. Don’t tell Arketh you bought the food neither, she won’t like it.”
“Thank you, Saleh.” I gave him a nod and before he left he leaned in close.
“Your friend is in the furthest cell away on t’other side,” he said, “but you weren’t meant to know. You’ll know which it is ’cos you’ll see the pretty man there later.”
“Pretty? Blond?” Saleh nodded. “It is his brother. He comes to ask for forgiveness.”
“Brother?” said Saleh. “Well, dead gods save me from having such a one as my brother.” And then he shuffled off to leave me wondering what he meant.
There was little to do in the cell, so after Saleh brought me food—better than I’d been served by some kings—I sat, counting out my masters and letting time flow over me. Footsteps brought me from my reverie, heavy footsteps, and I wondered if it was the torturer come to talk to me but as the steps came nearer I recognised them.
“Aydor?” I said. He stopped outside my cell, armour jingling. He had all the stealth of a mount in a pottery.
“Aye,” he said.
“Have you come to free me?”
“No.” He sounded puzzled, though the thick wood of the door muffled his voice. “Didn’t think you’d need my help if you wanted to get out. If you do your skills are really slipping.” He slid the viewing window to one side so he could stare in. “Stinks in there,” he said, chewing on something. “Not as bad as it stinks out here though.”
“Why are you here?”
“Boros,” he said, and brought a shrivelled apple up and took a bite. My heart sank.
“So Rufra has decided to …”
“Hope Boros will forgive his brother and die quickly, is what Rufra has decided. Too many scales have been tipped already for me to come down and stove Boros’s head in for mercy’s sake.” He lifted his warhammer up so I could see the stone head, it glowed slightly in the darkness. “No, I’m here to keep that bitch away—the torturer.” It was strange to hear those words from Aydor’s mouth, since we had been reacquainted I had never heard him speak roughly of women, not even his mother, who had been hateful.
“Rufra sent you?” Aydor shook his head.
“Nah, he doesn’t know I’m here, but I came down before, interrupted her with him. She was taking full advantage of the fact he can’t speak, so now I come down here and stand guard when I have a bit of free time, put her off. Bitch,” he said again, and spat apple on to the floor.
“She’s coming to see me later.”
“You should kill her, do us all a favour.”
“Maybe I will.”
His eyes narrowed. In the light he could not tell if I was joking or not. In truth, I did not know either.
“Don’t really kill her,” he said, “though Xus knows she deserves it. She’s favoured by the court. If you do her in Rufra will never be able to get you out of here.”
“He’s trying?”
“Course he is.” He screwed up his face in puzzlement. “Calling in all sorts of favours.” He put the core of his apple into his mouth and spoke as he chewed. “I better get up to Boros. I think he likes to know someone is here.”
“How is he?” I said.
“Been better,” said Aydor. He slid closed the shutter and I listened to him walk away down the dungeon. I heard him speak to Boros in a voice full of forced jollity, telling him the day’s news to try and bring him some comfort. He told him I was also in the dungeon, though that would bring Boros very little comfort at all.
Arketh appeared soon after Aydor had set himself up outside Boros’s cell. I knew someone was coming, and someone Aydor did not like, by the way he stopped talking mid-sentence. I heard his bodyweight shift, the creak of leather, jingle of enamel plate and the familiar click made by his warhammer unhooking from his belt. She opened my door, key rattling, rusty hasps squeaking like the tiny lizards who scampered over my legs when I sat and counted out my masters.
She was not a big woman, this torturer the gaoler had spoken of, though neither was my master and I knew size counted for little in summing a person up. She paid no attention to Aydor at the end of the dungeon, who she must be able to see though I could not. Most would have at least glanced at him, he could make himself look extremely threatening when he wanted to.
There was something broken about the woman who stood in the entrance to my cell: it was there in the way she stood, hunching her shoulders, it was in the glitter of her bright eyes under a ratty mop of tangled grey hair as she looked me up and down. She was not broken physically, and it was not something that would be apparent to most, but my life had been spent in watching people for any threat they may pose and everything about Arketh told me she was a threat. Her clothes had once been fine rags but were now filthy and knotted. More rags had been added to them, carelessly sewn on. I could not tell her age but I would have put her on a par with my master, though her face was more lined and her pale skin more papery. As she stepped forward I saw that what I had taken for knots in her rags were nothing of the sort. They were teeth. Teeth of all types, some the small crescents of children’s first teeth, gleaming like pearls, in other places the wedges of adult incisors and the sharp triangles of canines. Some of the teeth were black with decay, most often the blunt squares of adult molars. The teeth were not only in her clothes, they were garlanded in strings around her neck, wrists and bare ankles. They were knotted into her hair and had been crudely glued into a headdress of some sort that she had worn for so long it had become tangled into her hair—to remove it you would have had to shave the woman bald. She appeared filthy, and had I seen her from a distance I would have thought she was, but up close her skin was clean and her own teeth gleamed white in the gloom of the cell. She smelled of summer meadows.
“Girton Club-Foot,” she said, taking two steps forward. I saw then that she was not old at all, and if I had closed my eyes, her voice and the yearslife scent of her perfume would have made me think I was in the presence of one of the grandest ladies in the Tired Lands. “I have long wanted to meet you.”
“I am not afraid of pain,” I said.
Her head came up, tilted, like one of Xus’s black birds inspecting a meal.
“A lot say that. To start with.” She picked up the bucket I had been given as a toilet and threw the piss it contained against the wall, then turned the bucket upside down so she could sit on it. “Everyone succumbs in the end.”
“Or they die.”
She froze, as if worried her prey scented her.
“Some die, yes.” Her hand came up, balling into a fist, opening. She pointed a long thin finger at me—her nails were beautifully looked after. She balled her hand into a fist again. “Not you, I think. You strike me as a stubborn one.”
“If you are going to torture me, Arketh, why not just get on with it?”
She blinked at me, then a smile broke over her face and even in her morbid, tooth-covered clothing she was suddenly beautiful.
“Oh come, come, Assassin.” She lowered her head, as if embarrassed. “We both know the talking is a part of it. The building of anticipation.” She looked up, a sharp movement. “But I am not here for that. If I were here to hurt you I would not be alone, not with one such as you. I merely wanted to see you,” she said, “and to thank you.”
“Thank me?”
“Aye.” She nodded. “You fought at Gwyre, smashed the Nonmen there.”
“I was part of it. Rufra’s cavalry ended the Nonmen.”
“Do not be modest, Girton Club-Foot. Without you Gwyre would have been lost.”
“You were there, with them?”
“In a manner of speaking. I was not but she was. The Nonmen had her. They made her scream for them, at night.” Her eyes were blank now, far away.
“Her? A sister?”
“No. Who I was then.” I stared, seeing another woman overlaid on this one. “The woman who they played their Nonmen games with.”
“Then I am truly sorry for what they did to you.”
She stood.
“What they did to her,” she said. “Not to me. And at least they were honest about it, eh? Arketh was born at the hands of the Nonmen. When their armies were smashed she got free of her bonds, escaped the herds of pigs and I was born. If you had not been at Gwyre I would not exist.”
“You know the Boarlord is here? He calls himself Chirol now,” I said. It seemed too good to be true, here was the method to rid us of Chirol and none could blame her, or me, if she acted.
“I know,” she stood, “and I have already thanked him.”
“Thanked him?”
“For birthing me, Girton Club-Foot.” She stepped forward and leaned in close enough so that I could feel the heat from her body, then she whispered into my ear. “It will not be today, but when the time comes I will look after you, do not worry. I will not let you shame yourself with the assassin’s quiet death. I know how to keep a heart beating. We will journey along the soft red path together and I will be proud to wear your teeth.” And she stepped away, slipping out through the door, locking and bolting it behind her. The cold that fell upon me then was nothing to do with the temperature of the air in the damp dungeon.
Later, I heard Chirol enter. His footsteps were so quiet as to be barely perceptible.
“You can go now, Aydor,” he said. “I will make sure my brother is safe.” I heard Aydor walk away from Boros’s cell. He must have spent the whole time he had been down here—and it had been hours—standing.
“You had better look after him,” said Aydor. “Just because he can’t speak, doesn’t mean he can’t communicate.”
“Do not worry, fat bear,” said Chirol. I could hear the smile in his voice. “I will do nothing to rob the pyre of my brother. But he and I must speak in private, and you should let us. I believe your king has commanded it.”
“One day,” said Aydor, “you and I will have a reckoning.”
“I would enjoy that,” said Chirol. “You were never much of a swordsman, few stupid men are.” I expected Aydor to make an outburst—despite his jovial air he still had a temper—but he laughed.
“Maybe I’ll just send Girton for you instead.”
“If he ever gets out of the dungeons,” said Chirol.
“He’s already out. Rufra got him out a couple of hours ago.”
Aydor’s heavy footsteps moved along the corridor and past my cell without so much as acknowledging me. For a second I was put out because I did not understand why he had said I had been released, but, of course, Aydor had been much quicker than I. Chirol, like many others, had made the common mistake of thinking him stupid when he was anything but. Aydor had played on that and if Chirol did not think Aydor capable of a ruse he would speak far more freely than he would if he suspected I was here.
I heard the chinking of keys and the drawing of bolts.
“Hello, brother,” said Chirol, then he must have stepped into the cell as I could no longer hear anything but his muffled voice. Closing my eyes I slipped into the exercise of the assassin’s ear. The cells were right on top of the souring and I could not touch the life of the land, but I was desperate to hear—and in times of desperation, and for a very small magics, I had found other ways.
I used the only source of life I could reach: myself. It was something I rarely did, and it is a pain like no other, even for a magic as small as the assassin’s ear. It is the body eating itself from inside, a scraping within as if the skin is being carefully peeled back. No torture Arketh could devise would be as exquisite or as excoriating. I worked the exercise and my body moved without volition, unconsciously curling up into a ball around the agony in my core. The piss Arketh had thrown against the wall had pooled in the centre of the cell and now it soaked into my clothes as I fought to set aside the pain and listen to what Chirol had to say.
“… does it still hurt where they tore out your tongue, my brother? I tried to send Arketh back to you but that fat oaf keeps her away.” His voice was full of false concern. “Why do you shake your head, brother? Were Arketh’s ministrations not to your liking? Did she not soothe you? No? Oh, well, soon I will have a clearer idea of the fat bear’s movements. Then I will send her again. I will make sure she is not disturbed.” He seemed to purr. “But what did we talk of before, brother mine? Where were we? Oh yes, burning …” I heard a noise, a pitiable one, like a starved animal bubbling welcome to one it hopes may bring it food. “I have watched many burn, brother, and burnt many myself. Let me tell you of how it is. I suspect it is when your hair goes that it will really hurt you. Not the physical pain, though of course that will be terrible. I have burnt many men and women and not one manages to roast without screaming. But I have taken your looks, and your tongue. Your beautiful hair, that’s all you have left, isn’t it?” And from there Barin went on, detailing the pain and the horror of what it was to be burnt alive. I had no doubt he felt a great joy in his words.
I could not listen for long. I told myself it was not cowardice on my part that stopped me sharing Boros’s horror, not a desperation to escape those lisped words of fire, but because the longer I held the assassin’s ear to the air the greater the pain became for me until it was something beyond bearing. Hard on the heels of the pain came exhaustion, and on its slow wings I slipped away to a place between worlds that was not quite sleep and not quite wakefulness. But in that place, even in its darkest depths, I half-dreamed the soft voice of an evil man describing a way to Xus’s dark palace that involved pain that would dwarf what I had put myself through—and a pain that Boros would have no easy escape from. Xus had no wish for suffering. If Boros had to die then Rufra was right, I would find a way to make it easy for him.
Or hard for Barin.
Those were the words of an old and dark force, one of anger and vengeance. Those words were not mine.
Though, in truth, I was not always sure of that.