He’d stolen to stay alive. He’d picked pockets, he’d cut purses, he’d been chased by more angry sailors than he could count. He’d done what it took to keep himself from starving while he looked: Syannis of Tethis, where can I find him? But he’d never killed a man, never, not of his own free will. Never even cut one with a knife.
Until now.
And after all that, Syannis hadn’t been Syannis at all. Maybe that meant he hadn’t seen Syannis on the ship either. Perhaps the thief-taker was the ghost he was supposed to be.
He wandered through the alleys behind the docks, among the slums all piled on top of each other, with blood still on his hands and no idea what to do any more. His feet took him unasked to the abandoned bakery where he’d sheltered for the last few weeks. A dozen more of Kalda’s homeless had claimed the place for as long as it took for the city soldiers to find them and flush them out. The others turned away as he washed the blood off his hands in a bucket of rainwater. They were all as lost as he was, but they’d learned, since he’d taken a place among them, not to be fooled by his size. Small means quick, Master Sy used to tell him. Big men think they’re going to win because they’re big. Big men are easy. The rags of skin and bone sheltering here were more desperate than big, but they still looked at Berren with hungry eyes. He wasn’t one of them. He was a dark-skin from across the sea, a sailor weathered by the sun and they were afraid of him.
He hadn’t eaten today but he wasn’t hungry. Others dribbled back in ones and twos, flushed with spoils from the riot on the docks. Some were grinning, pleased with their work. Others limped or had the red weals of a beating on their backs. Berren sat apart, listening to their talk. It had been bloody towards the end by the sound of it. The city could thank the rain that half the port hadn’t gone up in flames.
He stared at his hands. Even clean, all he saw was the blood. When he closed his eyes to sleep he saw Tasahre again, dying in front of him. Eventually he drifted away with the old silver token he’d taken from Klaas held tight in his fingers. That was money, that was. Silver, a crown at least. Food for a week and maybe some old shoes. Priceless now. If any of the others saw it, they’d kill him to take it if they could.
Shouts woke him up in the black of night, ripping him away from his restless dreams. A door smashed and he heard a strangled cry: ‘Slavers!’ And in a flash he was on his feet, running again. He pushed the silver token into his mouth and bolted for the roof. Kalda made no bones about selling its unwanted to Taiytakei slavers when they came. A cruel death at the oars, long and slow and hard; but he’d spent half his life running from men like these and he knew how to escape them. They’d come through the doors and he’d leave across the rooftops and it would be as easy as that because it always was. No one slept up in the old bakery attic because half the roof was missing. In the wind and rain of a Kalda winter you’d get better shelter sleeping in an alley. Half the roof missing had made for cold nights too, but it also made for an easy way out.
The shouts from below were getting louder. He thought he heard his name but that couldn’t be right. They spoke with funny accents here; it must have been someone else. For a moment he stopped. If the thief-taker wasn’t here, if the thief-taker had never been here, then what was he doing? If he ran, where to? For what? Why not just turn round and let them take him?
He reached the attic and entered. An arm wrapped around his face and then someone was on his back, bearing him to the ground. He struggled furiously but a second man quickly pinned his legs.
‘We’ve got him!’ shouted the man on his back. Berren struggled to turn and look but he was held fast. We’ve got him? These weren’t slavers simply clearing out the slums. They’d come for him, not for just anyone. Because of the sailor in the Bitch Queen?
‘And the rest?’
‘If they look like they can swing a sword then take them to the arms-master. Otherwise let them go.’ The voice came closer and hissed in Berren’s ear. ‘You! Keep still! I won’t hurt you if you keep still, but I won’t mind if it turns out that I have to. Got that?’
Berren couldn’t even nod. ‘Who are you? What do you want? I’ve done nothing!’
‘You were out the back of the Bitch yesterday. You had a knife in your hand with fresh blood on it and you’d just killed a man. You call that nothing, do you?’
‘I. . No! Not me!’ No, he didn’t call that nothing. He might have called it a mistake. Might have.
The man on his back pushed down harder, twisting Berren’s arm. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘So that was some other dark-skin boy with his first fluff on his face who happened to look exactly like you and talks the same funny way, was it? Pillock.’
Sailors got stabbed in the Bitch Queen every week. Maybe their shipmates came looking for you but not a gang of snuffers. Sailors didn’t have the money to buy snuffers. ‘No! I don’t. . I didn’t. . I wasn’t. .’
The man squeezed and Berren whimpered. ‘You count your lucky stars that we’re not city men. The prince doesn’t get on with the people who rule here.’
A fearful understanding gripped him. This wasn’t about Klaas — these were the snuffers he’d met outside with the man he’d mistaken for Master Sy!
Another voice joined the first. The one he remembered. ‘Tarn! Let him up.’
‘You sure about that, Prince? He’ll run.’
‘No, he won’t. Get off him.’
The weight came off Berren’s back and then his arms were free. He started to get up, already glancing left and right for the quickest way out. There were two men behind him and then the snuffer who looked like Master Sy in front. From this close, even in the dark, it clearly wasn’t his old master, but there was something familiar about him. Berren rose slowly to a crouch. He’d have to bolt past not-quite-Master-Sy. Then he could jump the alley between the bakery and the next row of run-down old houses. With a good lunge he’d get straight onto the roof. These snuffers with their armour and their swords, they wouldn’t make it. If they jumped, they’d fall. He’d lured men to their deaths that way before. That wasn’t killing though, not like in the Bitch Queen. No accounting for people being stupid.
Not-quite-Master-Sy was giving him a strange look. Intense. ‘Syannis is right. You do look exactly like him.’
‘I look like who, sir?’ His legs tensed ready to bolt, but waited now. Syannis? The man didn’t just look like the thief-taker, then? He knew him!
Not-quite-Master-Sy shook his head. ‘If you want to run then run. Otherwise answer my questions and then maybe I’ll answer yours. Tell me who you are.’
Berren hesitated. He had to ask. Had to. ‘You know Syannis, sir?’
‘Do you?’
‘Is he. . is he alive?’
‘Stop dancing with me, boy. You’re Berren. From Deephaven. You can’t be anyone else. But why are you here in Kalda? Why are you looking for him all of a sudden?’
All of a sudden? Berren shook his head. ‘I don’t know who you mean, sir. I’m Jerrin. Jerrin Nine-Fingers.’ He held up his hands so Not-quite-Master-Sy could see where the tip of one of his fingers was missing. It was the first name that came into his head.
The man looked past him. ‘Tarn? Think you can find a good price for a slave? A slave who can handle a sword but happens to be really stupid? Apparently I made a mistake.’ He turned away. Berren still didn’t run; if he squinted then he could almost believe he was face to face with his old thief-taker master. Why? Why did you kill Tasahre? And then he’d either throw his arms around the thief-taker’s neck with relief or stab him there and then and kill him. He just didn’t know which it would be.
Not-quite-Master-Sy started to walk past him back towards the steps.
‘You’re right, sir,’ said Berren slowly. ‘My name is Berren, sir. Not Jerrin.’
‘Imagine that. The surprise overwhelms me.’ A grim smile spread across the man’s face. It made him look even more like Master Sy, but he had a playfulness that the thief-taker had never had, and there was no anger there, no bitterness. ‘I don’t know how you got here and I don’t know how you found us, but I do know who you are, Berren. What matters to me most of all is that yesterday you had a knife in your hand when you called Syannis’s name. What did you mean to do with it?’
Berren couldn’t look him in the eye. He stared at his feet. ‘I. . I don’t know.’
‘I think you need to do a little better than that.’
‘Honestly! Sometimes I. .’ Berren shook his head. ‘I just don’t know any more.’
‘Syannis is my brother, Berren. I hope you’ll understand. It wasn’t easy or cheap tracking you back here after that nice little surprise you gave us outside the Bitch Queen. What am I to do with you, eh?’
‘I have no quarrel with you, sir.’
‘Really? But I might have one with you. So tell me again about that knife you were holding and what you meant to do with it.’ He glanced behind Berren’s back, mouth twitching. Berren sprang. He almost reached the edge of the open attic where he could have jumped but an arm caught him around the waist. He struggled, but there were three snuffers now and they were all stronger than him. He still managed to land a good punch or two. The man who looked like Syannis reeled away, his nose bloodied.
‘Gods, man! Tarn, bag him! If he gives you any more trouble, hit him until he stops.’ He shook his head. ‘That what Syannis taught you, or was that your sword-monks?’
‘Who are you!’ Berren fought and squirmed but it was no use.
‘Some people call me the Prince of Swords. Question is, Berren, who are you?’