In the second week of the month of Lightning, a ship came from Helhex, the closest port in the far south to the holy city of Torpreah. Sunburst flags flew from its masts and word swept through Deephaven like a fire: the Autarch had come at last! But no. The ship stayed in the harbour for two weeks and then it slunk away again. Some said the Autarch had been aboard but had been too afraid to step ashore. Others that it was just a ship, that the Autarch had never left his sacred island at all. Berren wasn’t sure he cared much one way or the other, but a disappointed gloom fell over the novices and the priests, while the sword-monks were even more tense than ever. The city rumbled and grumbled. No Autarch, no holy teeth of Kelm, nothing at all except a company of fire-dragon monks who were slowly wearing out their welcome. In the temple, Berren learned swordplay and letters as before. Master Sy had vanished and the warlock had disappeared too, and without anyone quite saying it, he knew he was expected to stay within the temple walls until Kuy had been destroyed. And that was fine. He was safe there from whatever the warlock had done to him, and he knew in his heart that Kuy hadn’t lied about Syannis. He might find the thief-taker on the night before the Festival of Flames, but he wouldn’t find him before.
The relics from the House of Cats and Gulls were laid out on sheets in the same rooms where the monks kept their weapons, their Hall of Swords where Tasahre had bandaged Berren’s hand. No one stopped Berren from going in to look, although he was somehow never alone there for long. There were all sorts of things he didn’t understand. Most of it he didn’t even want to. The golden knife wasn’t there, and that was all he needed to know. None of the priests understood what Kuy had done to him. He wasn’t sure that any of them even believed him, any of them except Tasahre.
They had the Headsman, shrivelled and lying in a corner. His dead staring eyes and his gaping mouth were always there, always the first thing Berren saw every time he went inside. Hideous.
Kol came once more. Berren told him everything this time. The priests had been through the papers salvaged from Kuy’s house by then, but there was no sign of whatever Master Sy had stolen from the House of Records.
‘Watch them for me boy,’ Kol hissed, before he left. ‘That Headsman fellow, I know he had dealings with this lot. The Emperor and the Autarch have been circling each other like gladiators all year. There’s another war coming. I can smell it. You keep your eyes open.’
Berren watched him go. Keep his eyes open for what, exactly? But Kol didn’t come back.
In time the month of Lightning gave way to the month of Flames. The mornings were full of fierce summer heat; the afternoon rains grew heavier, the evenings became long, the air thick and humid. Master Sy had been gone for four weeks, then five, then six, with no word, no sign, no sound, nothing. The priests still searched for Saffran Kuy and Berren still felt the hole inside him where the golden knife had cut a piece of him away. Was it healing? He wasn’t sure. The priests told him that whatever the warlock had done, it could be undone with prayer, which Berren didn’t believe for a second. Tasahre suggested long days of hard and honest work and a truthful tongue, which sounded more likely. Thing was, though, how would he ever know? It was always there, a scar inside him.
The Festival of Flames drew closer, weeks away and then mere days, and Deephaven prepared itself to celebrate as only Deephaven could. Every night, Berren fingered the Prince’s token around his neck. He felt restless. No one had said anything, but the monks would leave before long. They’d only been there for the Autarch, the Autarch had never come and so they had no reason to stay. And, as Kol had predicted, the city was tiring of their honesty.
‘After the summer,’ Tasahre said, when he finally plucked up the courage to ask when she was going. ‘With the Harvest Tides.’
‘Can I come with you?’
She smiled and shook her head. ‘I would not mind it myself, but the elder dragon would never allow such a thing. Dragon-monks are chosen as children. You are quick, I will admit, and you will make a fine swordsman if you practise with discipline. But there is more to us than swords, as you have seen. The priests here will look after you. Your master was once a friend to many here and they will easily believe that the abomination drove him to his crimes. They will keep you safe. Now. Guard yourself!’ She drew a waster.
‘I don’t want keeping safe! I want …’ I want you, he was about to say, but then what? A smile and a shake of the head, that’s what. ‘I want to learn swords.’
‘There are other teachers,’ she said, and then showed him why none of them would ever be good enough.
‘I want …’ There was more to it than simply how to fight with a sword. He was beginning to see that now. All those things Master Sy had tried to tell him. Learning about how to use a sword, that was one thing. The grip, the stance, the footwork, the cut and thrust and parry and riposte, how to read your opponent’s blade and how to read their eyes and how to watch both at once without ever giving anything away – he’d been learning all that from Master Sy for years, he could see that now. But there was more. There was something Tasahre was teaching him that no other sword-master ever could. Not the how of how to fight, but the why. But he couldn’t think of a way to put it into words, not in some way that wouldn’t make Tasahre laugh and smile – which was all for the good – and then tell him that a priest could teach him that far better than a monk – which was not so good, and also happened not to be true.
He still hadn’t worked out the right words when a gong sounded. Over Berren’s shoulder, the temple gates swung open and a company of armed men marched in. They came two by two, dressed in the Emperor’s colours, the flaming red imperial eagle on their chests framed in black and moonlight silver, with breastplates and pouldrons polished until they shone like the sun. Strutting behind them came a man in golden robes, then more soldiers and a spread of rich-looking men like the ones Berren had seen in the Golden Cup with Master Sy, each flanked by their own guardsmen. Behind followed a small cart covered in a shroud with a man walking beside it, and then more of the Emperor’s soldiers. They all marched in with their heads held high, into the centre of the temple yard. The rich folk made a show of inspecting the statues.
Berren’s eyes went back to the man who was walking beside the cart. It was Justicar Kol.
Tasahre paused from smacking him in the ribs. One of the soldiers started to shout at the sky. ‘His Imperial Highness Prince Furyondar, Overlord of Deephaven, Marshall of the Seas, Commander of the Seventh Legion, Regent in the Emperor’s Name and Speaker of the Emperor’s Word!’
Berren froze on the spot. Overlord? The Overlord? He turned and stared at Tasahre. Her eyes were as wide as his. As they stared, a priest came running out of the temple. He stopped in front of the soldiers and bowed. The soldiers parted and the Overlord in his golden robes stepped between them. Whatever was said, the words were too quiet to reach Berren.
‘Why is the Overlord here?’ He couldn’t stop looking. He’d never seen the city Overlord before, not even half-glimpsed from a distance.
Tasahre shrugged. ‘I do not know. Now attend! They are no concern of yours.’
Berren burst out laughing. How could she say that? ‘But … But that’s the Overlord! He’s the next thing to the Emperor!’
‘I am aware, Master Berren, but you are blades drawn against a disciple of the fire-dragon. Until our time is done and I let you go, nothing short of the sun falling out of the sky should be of more concern to you than the point of my sword. Now guard!’ She jabbed him in the ribs.
They sparred for a few minutes more. Berren tried to turn the fight so he could see what was happening in the yard. When she realised what he was doing, Tasahre tried to turn the fight so that he couldn’t. After a while she stopped, withdrew, saluted and bowed.
‘I give up. I release you.’ she shook her head and Berren couldn’t tell whether she was more amused or annoyed. ‘Go! Listen at doors or whatever it is you mean to do.’ She glowered. ‘I will forgive you, but only if you remember that we are not done for today. So you will come back and tell me all that you have heard, yes?’
He turned and ran, chasing after the Overlord and his soldiers as they vanished into the temple dome, racing into the atrium in time to see the inner doors slam shut. Temple soldiers in their yellow sunbursts barred his way, along with two soldiers in imperial eagles.
‘The temple is closed, novice.’ A soldier glared at him. The temple soldiers generally took their lead from the priests in not having much love for Berren. ‘The Sunherald is in private session.’
Berren gawped. The Sunherald? The highest priest in Deephaven? A priest who answered only to the Autarch himself? The Overlord was here to see the Sunherald? But then, who else would the Overlord come to see?
‘Oi! Novice! You deaf?’
He obviously wasn’t going to see or hear anything from this door, but there were plenty of others. He skipped back outside, all ready to run to the back of the temple and one of the other ways into the great dome. But outside he almost ran straight into Justicar Kol and his wagon, parked in the shade around the corner from the grand gates.
‘Berren.’ Kol wore a grim smile. ‘Well, well. Fancy seeing you.’
‘Justicar.’ Berren looked from side to side. ‘What’s happening? That’s the Overlord!’
‘Yes.’ Kol raised an eyebrow. He seemed unusually pleased with himself. ‘I noticed.’
‘What’s he doing here? What are you doing here?’
Kol grinned. It was a nasty grin, the sort a cat might give to a cornered mouse. ‘Where’s your master, boy?’
Berren shrugged.
‘And if you did know, would you tell me?’
Berren shrugged again. ‘Not if he told me not to, Master Kol.’
‘That’s justicar to you today, boy. You know I could have you sent to the mines just for that, just for not telling me things that I want to know.’
This time Berren sniffed. ‘Might as well send the whole city then, Master Kol, because it’s packed full to bursting with people who don’t know where Master Sy is hiding.’
Kol bared his teeth some more. ‘You think you’re safe in here where I can’t touch you, but you won’t be here forever, and I’ll always be waiting. One by one I’ll bring you in. I don’t know whose side you think you’re on, Berren, but for as long as you’re not telling me what it is that you know, it’s not mine. And that’s a bad place to be.’ His eyes gleamed. ‘Tides ebb and tides flow. The Autarch rests in Torpreah, the Emperor still has an heir, armies have stayed in their castles and it seems there is to be no war after all, not this year; so our Overlord finally grows a spine and climbs off his fence. And so now I’m here, with the one and only man in this city who can command the priests of the sun, and at last we get to the truth.’
‘I told you everything I know, Master Kol. All of it.’
Kol snorted. He pulled back the shroud on the cart. Underneath was a body, someone who’d been dead and drying out for months.
‘I haven’t forgotten you and your master, Berren, but today I have my eyes on a different prize.’
It took Berren a moment to recognise to corpse, and even then, it was the clothes he recognised more than the dried peeling leathery face.
Master Velgian.