Chel and the prince sat in the stuffy gloom of the barge store, surrounded by vegetables.
‘Why did you antagonize them?’
‘Sorry, highness?’
‘You were riling them up, Chel. I’ll be ransomed in Kurtemir – ghastly place, but accessible at least – and until then all you have to do is be quiet and meek. I’m assuming you’ll be included in any arrangement, of course, but I can’t see why you wouldn’t.’
‘Thank you, highness.’
‘Didn’t they teach you manners, etiquette, politesse? Where was it you grew up?’
‘Barva.’
‘And they taught you nothing of diplomacy, of catching more flies with honey than vinegar? It’s simple, Chel: it’s important for people to like you, or they won’t do what you want.’
‘Nobody does what I want anyway, highness.’
A moment of relative silence passed. Chel lay back against bumpy sacks, feeling the soft advance of sleep, lulled by the barge’s gentle rock and the river’s wash. Even the dull agonies that racked his body couldn’t stave it off. ‘Highness, when the Norts attacked, you were down in the stables … Why were you hiding in the mule cart? Why not just take one of the horses if you wanted to flee?’
‘Oh, that’s simple enough. I can’t ride.’
Chel blinked in the darkness, long and slow. ‘You can’t ride?’ How could a prince not ride?
‘No, never learned. Mendel promised to teach me, but well, the brigands, his injury, Corvel’s death, et cetera. You know. Anyway, why do all your insults revolve around intercourse with animals?’
‘Highness?’
‘It’s always “pig-sucking this”, “horse-stroking that” with you. Is there something I should know?’
Chel coughed, shifting against the scratchy bulk behind him, feeling throbbing aches all over. ‘I suppose I picked it up from Lord Sokol’s regulars. Most were from the fields, I imagine that sort of thing came up a lot.’
‘I’d like you to cut it out, Chel. You’re sworn to a prince now, and such vocabulary is …’
‘Unseemly?’
‘I can see we understand each other, Chel. Chel?’
He was already asleep.
***
Somewhere in the small hours, hazy dream images slipped away: Heali falling over and over, the knife glinting in his hand, while soft yellow flames licked at a slumped form on the stones below. Chel rubbed his eyes and winced. The prince was snoring beside him on the floor of the store, their legs pressed in the gaps between crates and barrels. The darkness was near-absolute, only a sliver of indigo starlight lighting the boards where they lay. The starlight moved, and Chel turned his head to look up at the deck grille above them. A shape blocked most of it. A man-shape.
‘Your highness?’ The voice was low, whisper-soft. The barge creaked and flexed around them, the sound of the river’s wash now dominant, and Chel had to strain to hear. ‘Are you there?’
Chel nudged the prince, who woke after a couple of shunts. Chel motioned to keep quiet, then upward at the grille.
‘Highness?’ came the voice again.
‘Who’s there?’ Tarfel said in as soft a voice as he could manage.
‘A loyal servant, highness. Here to rescue you.’
‘How many are you? We’re well-kept.’
‘There’s a boat coming, but we must be ready for it. I’ve opened the hatch on this side – unbolt it on yours and I’ll raise it.’
Tarfel and Chel exchanged glances. The prince was beaming in the gloom. One-handed, Chel clambered onto a barrel, then reached up and ground open the lower latch on the grille. Slowly, the man above them levered it out, and a wider swathe of starlight flooded the hold.
The man’s arm thrust down into the gap. ‘Highness, your hand. Quickly, please.’
Tarfel went to climb for it, but Chel shook his head in the gloom. Let me check. The prince nodded, twitching with impatience. Chel steadied himself, then reached up to take the man’s outstretched hand. It was cold to touch, and rough, but it gripped him with an iron strength and dragged upward. Chel braced his feet against the wall of the store, hoping its creaks would be covered by the noise of the barge’s passage.
As soon as his head and good shoulder crested the hatch in the deck, he found himself looking up at the face of their rescuer. He was rangy, shaven-headed, a single gold earring glinting in the starlight. His eyes widened as the light caught Chel’s face.
‘Who the fuck are you?’
Still Chel dangled in his grip, one-armed, his toes braced against the wall below the hatch. ‘I’m s—’
His gaze caught the knife in the man’s other hand, wheeled back to strike.
The man’s eyes followed his, then they locked stares. Without a word the man thrust forward with the blade, and Chel did the only thing he could think of. He drove back with his legs, pushing away from the wall, and yanked the man into the hatch after him.
His attacker slammed his head on the lip of the opening as he fell, and for a split-second Chel congratulated himself before his own thumping impact, spread across a splintering crate and a sack of something solid. The man fell straight onto him like a dead weight, crushing the air from his lungs, the knife vanishing into the darkness.
‘Chel? Chel? What’s happening?’ Tarfel’s voice was urgent and timorous in his ear.
He tried to answer, but his abdomen was in spasm and he could barely breathe, let alone speak. Instead he honked in what air he could and wrestled his good arm free. The man was moaning and stirring, and Chel swung feeble, one-armed punches past his head.
‘Hoy, what’s going on in there?’ It sounded like Lemon on the other side of the door. ‘Don’t make me come in and sort you out, you pestilent pissants.’
Tarfel looked at Chel with fearful eyes. He did his best to look reassuring while gasping like a harpooned seal and jabbed a finger toward the door with what he hoped was encouragement.
‘Get Lemon?’ the prince said.
‘Get … Lemon …’ Chel croaked.
The man crushing his lungs shook his head and pushed himself up, and for a moment Chel managed a real inward breath. Then he couldn’t tell which bangs were Tarfel thumping on the door and which were the assassin landing punches into his sides as he flailed his good arm and struggled beneath the man’s weight.
Light burst brilliantly across the store as the door to the hold flew open. Lemon stood framed in the doorway, a small, wiry silhouette, an orange halo around her head.
‘Right, yon fucker!’
The weight lifted from Chel’s chest as the man struggled to his feet. Something whistled through the air and connected with the assassin’s head with a dull clunk. Lemon strode through the door and over Chel’s prone form and punched the reeling man in the throat as he staggered. He collapsed to the floor, gasping, and Lemon crunched her knee into his face. The assassin slumped, passed out on the floor.
‘Where’d this shite-box come from?’
Chel’s own breathing was barely under control, and he felt like the room was spinning even as he lay beside the broken would-be assassin. He managed to wave his good arm toward the empty hatch above.
‘He said he was here to rescue me,’ Tarfel said from his hiding place in the opposite corner.
‘Aye, right. Course he was.’ She stooped to reclaim her hammer.
‘He said there’s a boat coming.’
‘Ah, ancestors’ piss-wine! Now I have to wake everybody up.’
Lemon turned and marched back to the doorway, then paused. ‘Stay here, dullards. For all that is sweet in this shitty world, do not fucken wander off again. Yes?’
Tarfel nodded. Chel managed a groan. Lemon disappeared into the flickering light of the hold, then a moment later a coil of rope came whistling through the door and thumped down onto the boards. ‘And tie that fucker up!’
***
By the time Chel had recovered his feet and spat a bloody mouthful into a corner, Tarfel had made a decent fist of tying up their attacker. Not being a natural knotsman, he’d gone for quantity over quality, and thick balls of contorted rope jutted from the man’s constricted limbs. He’d also found the man’s knife, which he presented to Chel with great solemnity. Uncertain of what to do with it, Chel took it in his good hand and tucked it in his belt as he’d seen others do. He hoped he could keep his balance and avoid falling on it, which seemed the most likely prospect at that point.
Sounds filtered down through the open hatch. Cries and clangs and thumps.
‘Someone’s fighting,’ Tarfel said.
Chel nodded. ‘More than likely. Let’s go, highness.’
‘What do you mean, let’s go? The Clydish oaf said to stay here!’
Chel chewed something salty around his mouth. He could feel his face swelling up again. ‘She did. But all we know at the moment is that people are trying to kill us, or maybe just me to get to you, and that we’re in the hands of mercenaries employed by interfering foreigners. That doesn’t strike me as people we should be bending over backward to keep alongside, highness.’
‘But what good is going up there?’
‘Up there,’ Chel said, ‘is a boat. And if we time it right, we can be away before anyone knows we’re missing, leave these bastards to sort things out between themselves. All we need to do is get to shore. We’re still well north of the lake – this part of the world must be teeming with folk loyal to the crown. So, I say again: let’s go, your highness.’
This time, Tarfel followed.
They crept through the empty hold and up onto the lower deck. The moon was lost behind drifting clouds but the stars were bright, and the scattered forms of bodies lay clear across the planking. Three on the lower deck, another over the rail on the fore tower. The sound of combat came from over their heads, the aft upper deck. Chel ignored it. He had seen what he was looking for.
‘There, grapples!’
He limped forward, feeling every wound and trauma as he crossed the deck with the prince in his wake. A rope ladder dangled from rusty hooks from the barge’s high rail, and Chel peered over the side. There on the slick water below bobbed a long, narrow rowboat, tied against the side.
There was someone in it.
The figure below gave a cry and raised the crossbow in its grip, its projecting bolt-head gleaming in a sudden burst of moonlight. Chel floundered, too shocked to react.
Something whistled past his face, close enough to flutter his hair, and he assumed the bolt had fired and missed. Yet still he could see it in the crossbow below him, even as its owner wobbled. He refocused. Something long and dark was projecting from the top of the figure’s head. Something fletched. Another black arrow swished down toward the boat, thudding into the crossbow wielder. The crossbow clattered against the boat’s hull.
Strong hands gripped him and pulled him back from the rail. He looked around to see Foss, the braided hulk, steering him back toward the hold. Spatters of blood shone on his face in the starlight. Tarfel was already walking ahead of them, unprompted.
Lemon stood in the hold’s low doorway. ‘Aye, right, fancied a spot of night air, did you? Wankers.’ She shot an uneasy look up at the upper deck as they reached her. ‘I won’t mention this if you don’t, but get the fuck back below and maybe we’ll all still be breathing come sun-up, eh? Good lads!’
***
Chel was dozing, exhausted, his head against the door, when he heard the clump of boots on the boards beyond. Shivering awake, he strained an ear to catch Rennic in low conversation with a gruff-voiced woman he took to be the barge’s captain.
‘—him aboard in Sebemir, with three more flimsies,’ he heard the captain saying. ‘Nowt peculiar with any, some of the crew knew ’em. Or of ’em, least.’ He heard her stamp a foot in frustration. ‘Peasy fucker shanked my helm.’ A pause. ‘If any’s left when you spit him out, I’ll take a bite myself.’
Chel didn’t hear Rennic’s reply, but a moment later one set of heavy boots stomped out of earshot. He slid over from the door, mindful of his earlier eavesdropping tumble, and was gratified when it was yanked open a moment later.
Rennic stood in the doorway, head ducked, more than filling the frame. He reached in, past Chel and the blinking prince, and grabbed the bound legs of their would-be assassin. He dragged the man’s slumped and mumbling form over the grimy floor and into the hold. He did not shut the door after him.
Chel and Tarfel peered into the lamp-lit hold. A single chair stood at its centre, and without apparent effort Rennic hoisted the man up onto it, leaving him lolling with the barge’s rise and fall on the water. In the gloom beyond the lamp, Chel made out the huge, implacable form of Foss, arms folded, standing against the wall. Beside him leaned Loveless, and in the corner Lemon squatted, apparently cleaning her ironmongery with a rag. Spider was beside the door, picking his teeth with the point of his curved knife. All looked unharmed, if a little bloody.
Rennic looked around. ‘Any water to hand?’
Loveless stepped forward. ‘Allow me.’ She slapped the man hard across the face. ‘Wake up, shit-head!’
Rennic gave her a long look, eyes narrowed.
‘What? Look, he’s awake. Now keep out of the way.’
The man was blinking, his eyes darting around the hold. A moment later he struggled against his bonds, but only briefly. Tarfel’s knots were good enough, and the man had taken in enough of his situation to realize that even freed of his ropes he’d remain in a tight spot.
Loveless leaned back against a barrel a few feet away from the bound man, her manner relaxed.
‘So,’ she said.
The man looked up. A carpet of dried blood had crusted down one side of his face, and his features looked misshapen from swelling and hammer-induced realignment. His breathing was harsh, each breath in a nasty, rattling wheeze.
‘You might as well kill me now,’ the man said. ‘I’ve got nothing for you.’
Loveless smiled at that, a wolfish smile on her winsome face. A pale, narrow scar, forked like lightning, marked one side of her face from temple to cheek. ‘We both know that isn’t true, chum.’
‘Beat me all you want. You get nothing.’
‘Why would I beat you?’
The man blinked flecks of dried blood from his eyes. He looked confused. ‘To get me to talk?’
Loveless leaned forward. ‘Come on, we’re all professionals here, chum. No need to pretend that torture is worthwhile.’ She stood and began to walk around the bound man in a slow circle. ‘Sure, it can make the person doing the torturing feel better, and assure clients that, well, Something is being Done, but the trouble is …’ She stopped behind the man, who looked increasingly uneasy, and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. ‘… You just can’t trust the information, can you?’
‘So you’re not going to kill me?’
Loveless’s face was impassive. ‘Oh, we’re definitely going to kill you.’ The man sagged. ‘If we didn’t, the captain of this vessel most certainly would. And she’d be far less civilized about it. But. The good news, chum, is that we’re not going to torture or beat you first.’
The assassin was still blinking. A rusty tear trickled down his swollen cheek. ‘Then get the fuck on with it! Why are you talking to me?’
‘Because I think you want to help us.’
‘Do I fuck. You’re going to kill me.’
‘It was the people who placed you on this barge who did that. This is just inevitability working its way through.’
‘What?’
Loveless swung around the man, a hand on each of his shoulders. She moved with grace and menace. ‘What brought you to us, chum?’
‘Stop calling me that.’
‘Was it coin? It’s no good to you now, either way.’ Loveless tilted her head. ‘Or was it threat? They have something of yours, or someone? Forced you?’ She leaned forward, so close that the man jerked his head back. ‘No, you’re not the sort, are you, chum? And we can discount loyalty – those unfortunates whose organs are soaking the decks outside weren’t any company I’ve ever seen, nor was there a sworn among them. And you’re no man of the Shepherd, are you, so I think we can discount the holy calling.’
She stood. ‘Coin it was, then. And where is that coin now? Did it even reach you?’
The man in the chair seemed about to sob.
‘Nothing up front and sent to your death. No family, no friends to collect on your behalf. Not that they’d pay, would they? We both know that. What do you think your reward was going to be, had things gone your way tonight? Silver or steel? The type to pay a man to kill a prince aren’t the type to leave a killer alive to spend his fee.’
‘He’s not a fucking prince!’ the man spat. His cheek ran with rusty wash.
‘Is that so? Then why all this trouble?’
‘Because people can’t go around saying they’re princes!’
‘Was he doing that? How did you hear?’
‘They told me. Well, they told Varint, and she told me.’
‘And who is Varint?’
The man blinked again. ‘She was in the boat.’
‘Ah. That’s a shame. What did Varint tell you?’
‘That some little piss-prick was going around calling himself a prince, and he needed ending. They said he might be going south on a boat, so we was to get aboard as flimsies at Sebemir and keep watch.’
‘And then?’
‘If we saw anything, we signal shore. Varint had riders going up and down the river paths.’
‘Why the boat? Why not just stab him and hide?’
The man didn’t answer, and Loveless leaned in close. ‘Why the boat of comrades, chum? Why come aboard?’
‘Because any fucker that took him aboard was a traitor, and they should be sliced along with him,’ he spat.
‘So you were going to kill everyone.’
The man stared off into the middle distance. ‘Yeah. Traitors got it coming. Varint said we could keep the barge.’
Loveless nodded. ‘An attractive offer. Who did Varint say had hired you?’
The man shrugged.
‘You can do better than that. What kind of person did Varint talk to?’
‘The kind that don’t like being spoken of.’
‘You’re forgetting, chum. You’re already dead, remember? What do you have to fear from unseen others now?’
The man started blinking again, and Loveless put a hand back on his shoulder. ‘Come now, it’ll be over soon. Everyone you had loyalty to is gone now, and those who remain were happy enough to see your blood spread for nothing. Who hired Varint?’
‘… Church. Red confessors.’
Loveless stood up straight again. ‘Thank you, chum, you’ve been very helpful.’
‘Why do you keep calling me that!’
Her voice was utterly expressionless. ‘Because it’s what gets fed to fish. Foss, would you see this arsehole out?’
The dark shape detached itself from the pool of shadows by the wall and strode forward. Without ceremony, Foss squatted and scooped the squawking man onto his shoulder, then thumped out through the doorway. Chel heard the man’s cries grow in pitch, before a final shriek, and a moment later, a splash. Foss reappeared in the doorway shortly afterward, stone-faced.
Loveless acknowledged his return, then shook her head and blew out her cheeks. ‘What a prick,’ she muttered.
Spider chuckled. ‘Should have let me dose him, could have had him dancing a jig while he sang his little heart out.’ Rennic rolled his eyes as Spider slouched from the room, still chuckling to himself.
‘I will tell you what, I do not care to have that wanker along,’ Lemon muttered from her corner as the door closed.
‘Shut your yap, Lemon,’ Rennic growled in response. ‘He comes with the job, which is more than you’ve managed.’
Loveless sloped forward and reclined in the chair, after dusting off the worst of the former assassin’s leavings. ‘Well, that confirms a few things. Where does this leave us?’
Rennic leaned back against the wall, his mouth a hard line. ‘Unchanged. We knew they were following us, and now we know how. If luck holds, we’ve cleared all who had sight of our cargo.’
‘And if not?’
‘We’ll skip that one when it falls.’
Lemon looked up again. ‘You know, a word of thanks wouldn’t go amiss. If I’d not roused you pillocks, that bastard and his pals would have carved us hither and yon.’
Rennic nodded, his eyes twinkling in the light. ‘Yeah? And who got you up, Lem?’
‘Woke myself,’ came the hot reply. ‘Close duty, it was. On hand to deal with situation in yonder store.’ She waved her hammer toward the open door where Chel and Tarfel huddled, peering out. The eyes of the room turned on them. Tarfel shrank straight back into the shadows.
Rennic walked toward the doorway, eyes fixed on Chel. Chel stood up, good hand on the frame, every muscle in his body united in complaint.
‘How the fuck are you still upright, scab-face?’ Rennic said, his head tilted. ‘Didn’t you head-butt that fucker unconscious and drop through the deck?’
‘Something like that.’
Rennic grinned, sharp and wolfish. ‘Maybe I’m not such a bad judge of character after all.’ He leaned in close, his voice low. ‘But understand this: you’re here because I want you here, and I want you here for him.’ He nodded toward the prince. ‘This may come as a shock, but I want to keep young Prince Fuck-face alive and well, and that’s more than can be said for most folk you’ll meet. So I would be most grateful if you would do me the considerable favour of not trying to run off again. Do you understand me? Just nod if you do, it’s been a long day.’
Chel managed a nod.
‘Good. Now back in your box. We’ve got a long way to go and I’m tired as shit of looking at you.’
He shunted Chel back with a palm, and Chel collapsed onto his sack-bed. The door closed and bolted and he and the prince were once again in darkness. Chel flopped back and looked up at the distant patch of stars. The grille was back over the hatch. That seemed about right.