14
MORE THAN A PASSING INTEREST

He went looking for the justicar, but it turned out that Kol wasn’t in The Eight that day and Berren eventually went back to the temple at dawn on Sun-Day with no idea where else to go. For the rest of that week he spent his days with Tasahre, watching the other monks, singling them out one by one, reading how they moved, how they fought, and, where he could, what they looked like from behind leaping up a wall. They were the right build, short and lithe southerners. Some of them went missing now and then – he saw that now. He asked, but Tasahre shook her head. That was business of the order and not his concern, she told him, and so he didn’t bother asking the others; still, as the week drew on, he watched. Different monks disappeared each day, usually just one or two of them but sometimes half a dozen. They were always missing in the morning and at midday but back for the afternoon. When he approached any of them, they simply walked away. None of them would talk to him, not even a word of greeting. The only time he got close to most of them was late in the afternoon in the fighting circle, and then only for as long as it took for them to bash him on the head with the flat of a sword, bow and walk away.

Whoever had been in the scent garden, they’d gone away with a bloodied nose. He would have remembered if one of the monks had had a swollen face, wouldn’t he? And Master Sy was right, he couldn’t imagine ever catching one of them so off-guard. The black-powder smell bothered him too. Did monks use black powder? He hadn’t seen any. Maybe he was wrong and it had been someone else, but that thought only made him even more determined. The Eight was on his way home from the temple, near enough. Kol was never there but he found Master Fennis and Master Velgian and asked them both to put a word in for him.

The days passed. The city fell into the madness of the Spring Festival – even Master Sy took a few nights off from watching the Two Cranes or whatever it was he did and took Berren down to the Abyss-Day celebrations at the docks – and then blearily nursed its hangover. The month of Rebirth gave way to the month of Floods and the river began to swell, living up to the name of the season hundreds of miles away around the City of Spires. Berren might have slowly forgotten his assassin, except that every day as he practised with Tasahre, he kept seeing in her shape a flicker of the silhouette he’d seen leaping the wall of the Watchman’s Arms.

It was about a month since he’d started with the sword-monks when he came out of the temple in the evening to find Master Sy slouched by the gates waiting for him, arms folded over his chest and looking cross.

‘The Eight,’ he said shortly. ‘Kol wants to talk to you. Apparently you’ve been asking questions.’ He almost frogmarched Berren across Deephaven Square and down the Avenue of the Sun. ‘Told you to leave it be, didn’t I?’ They reached Four Winds Square, marched past the courthouse and down the narrow street that ran beside it, past the bronze octopus fountain and into the ivy-covered frame of The Eight. Kol was sitting there at his usual table and he had most of his thief-takers around him. As Berren and Master Sy came in, Kol gave them both a hard look.

‘Finally. Sit. Have a drink.’

‘Got anything to eat?’ asked Berren, who was starving as usual after a day with the sword-monks. The justicar rolled his eyes. He looked around, waved at someone, pointed at Berren and snapped his fingers. As Berren and Master Sy sat down, Kol leaned in towards his thief-takers. He glared at Berren.

‘Life’s hard with our usual source of bread and shelter having been taken away, eh?’

‘Technically you never lost yours,’ muttered Master Fennis.

‘Not that his purse would tell you that,’ sniggered Master Mardan.

‘Shut it, you pair! I have a proposition. There’s no bounty, but you lot had better pay attention, because if you don’t we might have those sword-monks here for a lot longer than I thought and frankly they’re not half bad when it comes to thief-taking, even if their methods take some getting used to. Now listen: you all worked for me at the Watchman’s Arms …’

Fennis jingled his purse. ‘Best money I’ve seen for years.’

‘Well when His Highness finally buggered off back where he came from, it was to be named guardian of the Emperor’s heir, and she’s still sucking at her mother’s tit. Do you know what all of that means? No, thought not. It means that if anything happens to the Emperor, someone else gets to sit on the throne until his daughter hits sixteen. As of the spring festival, that’ll be Prince Sharda and not the Emperor’s brother like it would have been before.’ He looked straight at Berren. ‘Berren here thinks we should be looking for who it was who tried to kill him. He’s probably an idiot, but it narks me that it happened on my watch. So I’m in. My question is: are you? Think about it, my boys, because we’re not talking about thief-taking any more, we’re talking about something wholly different.’

Thief-takers Fennis and Mardan nodded enthusiastically. Master Sy shook his head.

‘Too dangerous. Not interested.’ He wasn’t the only one either. Master Velgian looked positively terrified.

‘I think it’s a terrible idea,’ he said.

‘You have no idea what you’re dealing with, Kol.’ Master Sy closed his eyes. ‘I could tell you everything I told my apprentice, but you, of all people, should know better. So what is it, exactly, you think we’re going to get out of this?’

‘Worst that can happen, we discredit these bloody sword-monks and they go home. Best that happens, we get showered with gold until we’re drowning in it, that’s what I think is going to happen. You beg to differ?’ As he was talking, a boy came to the table and set a bowl of stew down in front of Berren. Berren started shovelling it into his mouth as fast as he could.

‘Sword-monks!’ Velgian was shaking his head frantically. ‘Not good, Kol! I’m not going against sword-monks!’

Orimel the Witch-Breaker sniffed. He peered at Berren’s stew. ‘Smells good,’ he said. He spoke with an air of thoughtful quiet if he spoke at all, and so when he did speak, the other thief-takers, even the Justicar, usually stopped and listened. ‘The assassin – an assassin – tried again in Varr. He was caught that time. I’ve heard many things. On Sun-Day it was the Emperor’s brother, on Moon-Day one of the sons of the Lord of Neja, on Mage-Day a fire-mage, then a black-skinned Taiytakei mystic or one of the pale-skinned fey folk they say live far to the north. I’ve heard that the assassin is dead, that he is free, that he escaped, that he has been cut into a hundred pieces with a sorcerer questioning each and every one. Very little of what I have heard can be true, but an assassin has unquestionably been caught.’

‘Same one?’ Kol raised an eyebrow.

Orimel held up his palms. ‘Who can say, Justicar?’

Kol glowered. ‘Well then. Who’s in and who’s out? If you’re out, piss off.’

Velgian couldn’t get out of his chair fast enough. Beside Berren, Master Sy got to his feet. ‘Come on, lad. This is a fool’s game and I’ve got fish of my own to catch.’

‘Oh no you don’t!’ Kol banged the table. ‘You can go, but not him, not until he’s told us everything he knows. Besides, maybe he wants in, eh, Berren?’ Kol grinned. The justicar had never been good at that, at least not in any way that didn’t make him look like he wanted to eat someone, preferably while they were still alive. But he was right. Berren wanted to stay. He wanted it badly.

Master Sy snorted in disgust. ‘You’re fools, both of you. Fennis, I thought you were chucking this in and heading off to Torpreah to start a tea house?’

‘Varr, Syannis. In Varr.’

‘Idiot.’ With a last shake of his head, Master Sy stalked out of The Eight. Kol waited for him to go.

‘Stew good, lad?’

Berren belched loudly.

‘Have another then. But you can start by telling us exactly what it was you saw that night. Everything, boy. Don’t miss anything out.’

Talking about it, having the justicar and a few of the thief-takers actually listening to him for once, that was exciting. He went through it all as it happened, how he’d been there and seen the man slip in and how he’d fought him off and then afterwards, the two soldiers dead on the ground, their throats slit.

‘Should have worn a gorget,’ muttered Master Fennis.

When he was done, Kol made him go through it all again, this time picking apart the bits that were exactly as they had happened and the parts that Berren had added to make the story more exciting. At the end he nodded, although he was frowning fiercely. ‘Bloodied nose. Small fellow. Funny smell. Swords like a sword-monk but rubbish at swordplay?’

‘Hey! He was fast!’

Kol tried not to smirk. ‘You cracked him one. All right, mediocre swordsman then.’ he was back to frowning now. ‘Well, you’re the one who knows them. Was it really a sword-monk?’

Berren shrugged. The more he saw of them, the more he doubted it. ‘I thought so at first. But none of them ever had a bloody nose.’ He tried to remember watching them march into the temple, the very morning after it had happened. Would he have noticed something like that, under their tattoos? He wasn’t sure he would.

Kol rolled his shoulders. He looked bored now. ‘I’ll ask about. You keep an eye on them for me, boy. Right. Probably a snuffer pretending he was a monk. Pity.’ He glanced at Mardan and Fennis. ‘You two can piss off now. Go get drunk or something. Find me snuffers. A short bloke who’s got a mean streak but can’t actually do much with a sword.’

‘Why, I do believe I’m looking at one now!’ Master Mardan smiled back at the justicar. He was getting up though, and so were the others.

‘Gods, Mardan, any funnier and people might mistake you for the clown you are.’ Berren started to rise too, but Kol glared at him. ‘Not you, boy. Got more questions for you.’ When Mardan and Fennis and Orimel were gone, Kol got up. He came over to Berren and sat down in the chair beside him, where Master Sy had been before he left. ‘Your master. What’s he up to? Why’s he not biting on this?’

Berren shrugged. ‘Don’t know. Said it was too dangerous. Said there was no prize in it and I’d just get myself killed and he had something else to be getting on with.’

‘Aye.’ Kol looked troubled. ‘Well, he might have a point or two there. But what’s this other thing he’s got to be getting on with?’

‘I …’ Berren bit his lip. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t say.’

‘He’s after whoever killed Kasmin, right?’ Berren tried not to say anything but his face must have spoken for him. Kol nodded. ‘Thought so. Been doing some digging around that myself. Not sure he should be the one telling you about getting their fingers burned. He’s stalking a sea-captain from Kalda who calls himself the Headsman, right?’ Again, Berren’s face must have given him away. ‘Kelm’s Teeth, boy, remind me not to trust you with any of my secrets – it’s like reading a bloody book. Anyway, that warehouse where you had your little fracas, I looked into that. The Headsman’s renting a part of it. You know who else rents a space there? Saffran Kuy. The warlock.’

‘The witch-doctor from the House of Cats and Gulls?’ For a moment, Berren couldn’t contain himself.

‘Call him that if you want. Not my cup of tea, even if Syannis gets along with him somehow. You know what the Headsman’s got up there?’

Berren shook his head.

‘Neither do I. When you find out, make sure I get to hear about it. I don’t care which one of you tells me, but one of you better had. Got it?’

Berren nodded quickly and almost jumped out of his chair. ‘I’d better go. It’s late. Swords in the morning. Supposed to be at temple for dawn still.’ At the door, Berren paused. ‘That purse you left for us. There was more in it than was owed. So what’s Master Sy doing for you?’

For a long time the justicar sat and stared at Berren. Then he took a deep breath. ‘I’ve known Syannis for ten years, Berren, and I knew Kasmin for longer. I know you all think I’m a heartless bastard who wouldn’t part with a single penny unless there was something in it for me, and for three hundred and eleven days of the year you might well be right. That was the three hundred and twelfth. Staying alive, that’s what he’s doing for me. Now get lost before I ask for it back.’