In the days that followed, Berren became surly and impatient, eager to return to Tethis and be done with it all. The fear he’d felt on the way to Kalda had grown, congealed into something solid that he carried inside him like a ball of ice wrapped up in his belly. As the winter went on, he dreamed of Fasha and Gelisya and Saffran Kuy and his knife. They haunted him more and more, sometimes night after night, and when they let him be, then it was the woman he’d killed after the battle on the beach. Over and over. Just her, lying on the ground and blood everywhere, and the wondering of why he’d done it.
‘Do you have dreams?’ he asked Tarn one evening. Tarn gave him a sour look.
‘Depends what I’ve been drinking,’ he said. ‘Mostly not.’
‘But when you do, what are they?’
Tarn cackled. ‘Mostly women, and what happens is none of your business, dark-skin.’ His face softened. ‘Ships sometimes. If I dream of anything, I dream of sailing. A good strong wind, a sturdy ship, sails full, waves a little choppy, salt in my face. Moving swift and strong and sure.’ He nodded. ‘Nice dreams. I think maybe I’m meant to be a sailor if not a soldier. Pity, because I rather liked the idea of setting up my own little school and teaching people how to fight.’
Berren snorted. ‘Sailing? Can’t say I thought much of it myself.’ But then maybe it wasn’t so bad when you weren’t the skag. Maybe if you were the one giving the orders it was just fine.
After two winters in the south Kalda felt cold and bitter. The days ran together in a blur of impatience. Talon talked endlessly of Syannis and Aimes, about the times they’d had together as children and ever since. He told Berren about the war, of how when Radek and Meridian had invaded Tethis a strange illness had afflicted the king’s guard. Some sort of poisoning, Talon thought. How after the war was won, Radek had scoured the world looking for Saffran Kuy and anyone who’d had anything to do with him. Mostly, though, he talked about Syannis and his obsession with the necromancer. Berren listened, not because he was interested, but because Talon was paying for the beer and their food and lodgings.
The weeks wore on and Berren found himself walking up to the rim of the city, one day, to the house of Silvestre the sword-master.
‘I don’t want you to teach me,’ he said. ‘But I’ve got a new sword. I need to get used to it. I need to practise.’ Against someone who fights like Syannis, he added to himself.
‘I’ve seen that sword before,’ said Silvestre, but he didn’t ask anything more. He set Berren against a few of his students but they were pitiful. Slow and clumsy and desperately predictable. In the end Berren trailed up the slope each evening and sparred with the sword-master himself, while Tarn, resting after his own day of fighting, looked on. After the fights Berren and Tarn walked back down in the dark together, filled with warmth, chattering idly about the old times in Kalda. Berren could feel his sharpness, the speed and power of his arm, the quickness of his thoughts; but more, he felt at peace, as he ever did when his sword was in his hand. It was a pity that the sword-master was old and past his prime. Silvestre tired too quickly to challenge him for long.
The first glimmers of spring broke through the winter air. The days grew longer, the air warmer, the last flurries of snow came and went, and the Hawks began to return. In another week they would be at sea and on their way. Berren hungered for it, for the day they would leave. As he walked back down from the sword-master, swapping jokes with Tarn about the other students Silvestre had this year, he wasn’t even aware of the three men following until they were right behind him.
‘Berren, aincha?’
The voice cut like a knife. The three of them stood a few paces away, two of them carrying long knives drawn and ready to fight, but he could see from their stance that fighting wasn’t what they were here for. The third man was Lucama. He had his drawn sword in his hand. Tarn nodded to him. ‘I remember you.’
Berren pointed to the man who’d spoken. ‘Do I know you?’
The man shook his head. ‘No. But I know you.’
‘We’re not here to fight,’ said Lucama.
Tarn grinned at him. ‘That’s good for you, boys.’
Berren’s eyes flicked across their naked steel. ‘You have a strange way of showing it through.’
‘We know who you are,’ said the first man. ‘You’re the Bloody Judge.’
‘What of it?’
‘They’re afraid of you,’ said Lucama. He put his sword away. ‘Very afraid. I wasn’t sure I’d know you any more. The stories about you seem. . unreal.’
‘I never kill without a reason,’ murmured Berren. He could see it now — Lucama was as tense as a bowstring, and the other two men were ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble. ‘What do you want?’
Tarn cocked his head. ‘Who are you fighting for now? From what Berren here tells me, you’ve turned your coat a few times since we last properly met.’
Lucama shrugged. ‘Not your business, is it? There’s someone here who wants to meet the Bloody Judge.’
‘Who?’
‘He can see for himself.’
Berren waved them away with a sneer. ‘You want me to wander off with you to some dark alley where the rest of your friends are lurking? I saw you in Tethis before I left, Lucama. You were one of Syannis’s guard then. Has that changed? Because I don’t think he has much love left for me.’
A flash of anger crossed Lucama’s face. ‘The message I carry is from Princess Gelisya. And I’m here because I know you, and Her Highness wanted someone who wouldn’t be killed before he could even open his mouth. She sends me to make you an offer.’
Fasha. His son. What else could it be? And for a moment, if one of the men had lifted their knives and run at him, he wouldn’t have been able to do anything except watch himself be killed. When he found his voice again, the words came out slowly, dripping with danger. ‘What offer? What have you done to my son?’
Lucama edged back a step. ‘The message I have for you is this: Her Highness will give you what you want and give it freely if you will do one thing for her. She reminds you that whatever promises Prince Syannis has made, they are worthless, because what you want is not his to give. It is hers, and if you wish to have it, it is Her Highness with whom you must bargain.’ Lucama paused, watching Berren closely, looking for any glimmer of understanding.
Berren gave a slight nod. Lucama shook his head. ‘It’s just the message, Judge, and I’m just the one carrying it. There’s more, but. .’ He glanced at Tarn. ‘You’ll have to come with me. There’s someone else who carried the rest. You have my word you’ll not be harmed.’
Tarn snorted. ‘No, he won’t, because I’ll be coming with him, and you won’t be taking our swords either.’
Lucama’s eyes narrowed a little. ‘You may keep your swords, and if anyone lifts a weapon against you, you will have mine as well.’ Something in Lucama had changed since they’d been students together. He was master of his own temper now, and if he hadn’t been one of Syannis’s king’s guard, Berren thought he might like him better than when they’d once sparred together. So he followed, with Tarn at his side, as Lucama and his two nervy henchmen led the way to the harbour. They took him to one of the fine guest houses that promised to keep visiting sea captains and merchants and other travellers of quality away from the riff-raff of the docks, and stopped outside. It reminded Berren a little of the Captain’s Rest in Deephaven, although not as grand.
‘Is she here?’ he blurted.
‘Princess Gelisya?’ Lucama laughed. ‘Prince Syannis would never let her out of his sight. I don’t think she’s been allowed to leave his side since they were wed.’
‘Syannis married her?’
‘Oh yes, almost as soon as you and Prince Talon were gone.’ He snorted. ‘Well that’s what kings are like, I suppose. Maybe she was still a child when you last saw her. Not any more.’
Lucama took a deep breath. He turned to face Berren and a half-smile twitched around the edges of his mouth. The other men slipped into the guest house. ‘Quite a name you’ve made for yourself. The Bloody Judge. The Crown-Taker. They say you’re fearsome and terrible. They say you killed Meridian. If I’d known, I might have watched you a little closer when it was just us and Blatter. Bet he’d shit his pants if he met you now.’
Berren didn’t reply. Every soldier lived with fear and each one dealt with it in his own way. Lucama had been the sort to deal with it by going into a frenzy. Others talked to themselves as they fought, or took tokens from the men they killed, or whispered prayers to their gods. Older soldiers learned to put their fear away until later, until after the battle; and then when all was said and done they could be found squatting among the corpses, weeping or drinking or dancing. For Berren, none of these things mattered. Fear had abandoned him in Syannis’s pit. He remembered the axeman in the turnip field, remembered puking his guts up because he’d been so scared and the panic after he’d killed Meridian, but all those memories were distant, as if they belonged to someone else. In the south he strode across the battlefields with a strange sense of calm, as if he no longer cared whether he lived or died. In the sun-king’s wars nothing had mattered except the plunder he took from the bodies of the fallen.
The men came back out and stood with Lucama while Berren and Tarn waited a little apart, just far enough away to be out of sword range. They were on the wide road that ran from the docks towards the heart of Kalda, and it wasn’t so late that they were alone. Small groups of men and women made their way past now and then, or else a wagon laden with goods for one of the ships would come the other way. Half a dozen of the harbour watch loitered nearby, quietly watching. Lucama had chosen his spot well.
Two men approached from the dockside. Berren’s eyes ran over them. One was simply a soldier, quickly dismissed, but the other. . For one juddering moment he thought it was Saffran Kuy. The man wore the same robes, a hood hiding his face in its shadows. But this man was too tall; he had no limp, and when he drew the hood back, the face was someone else. Yet there were echoes there, and the same tattoos that Berren remembered, and a warlock was still a warlock, and there was something familiar. .
That very first day in Tethis when he was looking for what he needed for the potion to save Tarn. Before he’d even started. The Mermaid. The tall man with the elbows who’d been stealing glances at him. And now he was a warlock?
Berren stared. The warlock was carrying a bundle carefully cradled in his arms. The bundle wriggled and shifted and then settled again. For the second time that night Berren froze, his whole body flushing numb. The warlock was carrying a child!
Lucama’s hand flew to his sword. Tarn stepped away and did the same. The other soldiers drew back and Berren was shocked to find his own blade already an inch out of its scabbard. He slid it slowly back, reluctant to let it go.
‘Berren Crown-Taker,’ said the man in grey.
‘Is that my son?’ hissed Berren. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the harbour watchmen eyeing them closely.
‘Princess Gelisya sends her salutations,’ said the man in grey. ‘We have heard much about you, Crown-Taker. What a penchant for killing you have.’
They stared at each other. The watchmen were slowly easing themselves closer. Berren wondered if he could he kill this warlock before they arrived. Probably not. He had too many men around him. If the others fled, he could do it, but if they stayed to fight then he’d never get past them in time. Lucama, he was sure, wouldn’t run. The others. . would they? And what about Tarn? Would Tarn have his back if he just launched himself at these men out of nowhere?
But the warlock had his son, and killing a warlock was never easy. He’d seen that. The moment passed. ‘What is it that you want, warlock?’
‘Warlock?’ The man laughed. ‘I make soap, Crown-Taker.’
‘Then you’re Saffran Kuy’s brother Vallas, and your life hangs by a thread as slender as spider silk.’
A little smile played around the corner of the warlock’s mouth. He looked into the bundle he carried. ‘We are all Saffran’s brothers. Princess Gelisya of Tethis has not forgotten that you murdered her father. She sends you a warning and the offer of a bargain. She will never, ever sell her bondswoman to you. Never. For all the sun-king’s gold, still you will not own her, nor will you own your son, and if you try to take either by force then she will have them killed, instantly. But she will give you the woman and her child freely and forgive your murderous past if you will perform one small service for her.’
‘And what service is that, warlock?’
Vallas tossed a stone to Berren’s feet. A tiny scrap of paper was wrapped around it. ‘They say you can read and even write. Unusual for a soldier. But it’s your sword and your willingness to use it that Her Highness wishes to purchase. It won’t be difficult for you. It won’t be difficult at all. I think you might even enjoy it.’ He glanced down to the stone lying at Berren’s feet and then pointedly at Tarn. ‘You might not wish to share. But that’s up to you.’
Slowly Berren nodded. He picked up the stone and unwrapped it. The words on the paper were few and simple, the language plain. It is my will to rule, Crown-Taker. ‘And if I refuse?’
Vallas Kuy shrugged his shoulders. ‘Then Princess Gelisya will have you hunted down and killed for the murderer that you are, and your son will fall to me.’ With that, the warlock, soap-maker, whatever he was, turned his back and walked away, taking his men with him. For a moment Lucama remained. He hesitated, then approached Berren and put a hand on his shoulder.
‘I like to think we were friends, back when Sword-Master Silvestre was teaching us both.’ He seemed to struggle with himself for a moment. ‘I know the child he means. I suppose everyone does. He’s back in Tethis, fit and feisty. I don’t know where the one he’s carrying came from and I don’t think I want to, but we brought no children with us when we sailed. Perhaps it’s best you know that.’ He stepped away, saluted and followed the others.