“Would you rather ride all night in this damn drizzle and catch your death, then?” he grumped at me. He hated rain. “Besides, we should rest the horses. It may look a bit threadbare but it’s not such a bad place. Just quiet.” He slid stiffly off his horse and tried the door. It was locked, only sense in these parts after midnight to my mind. But Jamie was in no mood to wait. He pounded on the door, raising loud, startling echoes in the courtyard. “Ho, innkeeper!” he yelled. “There’s travellers and horses here, enough to make your fortune in stabling fees.”
There was no response. Jamie tried again, knocking and shouting. “Ho, within there! Open the door, it’s raining like all Seven Hells out here!”
The door was jerked open suddenly by a man who made me feel tiny. He was well taller than I and made three of me sideways. “Come in then and stop your damned shouting,” he rumbled.
Jamie seemed as startled as I, though he recovered quickly. “Your pardon, Master, but we’ve been riding all day in this muck. We’ve seventeen horses to stable, the others are coming behind. Have you room for us all?”
“How many of you?” the giant asked, warily.
“Us two and three more with the horses, maybe a quarter hour behind.”
“The stable’s that way,” grunted the giant, pointing to the run-down building across the courtyard. He disappeared back within doors, leaving us to make our own way.
We left our two horses standing in the yard and groped our way inside the stable. The door was not latched.
Jamie dug out a candle stub from his pack and managed to light it with flint and tinder. Carrying it before him, he found an oil lamp hanging from the wall and lit it.
The stable was in a terrible state; the reek of ancient manure rose from the stalls, old straw lay rotting everywhere, rusted bits and broken tack lay abandoned in odd corners.
I was furious. I may not have the touch, but I grew up with horses. This was appalling.
“A bit threadbare? Jamie, have you lost your—?”
“Quiet!” he hissed. “Keep your voice down or we’re lost. I’ve never seen that man before, the old owner’s died or worse. Get out your dagger.”
I drew steel for the first time in self-defense. I was frightened, excited and sick to my stomach.
“We must get away from here, Lanen. You stand behind the door and—”
“I wouldn’t do that, Lanen,” said a deep rumble from the door. “Unless you’re tired of the old man here.” The candlelight caught the dull gleam of rusting steel as the giant innkeeper entered, preceded by a long wicked-looking knife. I hoped that all the dark red on the blade was rust.
“Just you put that little pigsticker on the ground, lad,” he said to me, keeping his eyes and his knife on Jamie. I hesitated, looking to Jamie.
“Do as he says, lad,” Jamie said, putting a slight stress on the “lad.” I obeyed, but in a kind of shock. Not at the ruffian. At Jamie. His voice was the voice of a stranger, cold and hard and merciless.
“Good,” rumbled the giant. He had not noticed the change in Jamie’s voice, or had dismissed it as fear. “Now, throw down your purses. Business has been slow,” he laughed. “Time this place made me a profit. Seventeen horses should keep me through till spring.”
Jamie started moving slowly away from the door—directly away from me—and the giant followed him. “No, I don’t think so,” said Jamie in that wintry voice.
The instant the giant’s back was turned to me I retrieved my dagger, slipping a little as I fetched it. I might as well have shouted.
“Drop it, I said!” cried the giant, whirling towards me. I drew back my hand and threw.
The dagger bounced off his hardened leather jerkin.
“Damn it!” I yelled without thinking, my voice high-pitched with anger.
“You’re no lad!” he grunted, an evil grin breaking on his face. “I’ve all the luck tonight, you’ll make a tasty change aftaaaahh…”
He slumped to the ground, blood streaming from his mouth. Jamie stabbed him once more through the back, twisting the blade, making certain.
I ran out of the stable and was violently sick.
I tried not to hear when Jamie dragged the body behind the barn. Suddenly he was beside me. “Come on, we’re leaving. Bring the horses round to the road. Now.”
He handed me my dagger and went up to the door of the inn, sword in hand. I walked my mare Shadow and Jamie’s Blaze out to the road, slowly, calming them as best I could in my state. At least the rain had stopped.
Jamie soon emerged, carrying a largish sack.
I wondered if there was still blood on his hands.
“Lanen,” he said quietly. His voice was as it always used to be, low and kind, the voice I loved more than any other in all the world. “All’s well, he was alone. I found some decent food and a little silver. It’ll be handy when we come to the next town.”
I couldn’t speak, though I did try. Words seemed meaningless.
“Lanen, I had to,” he said, pleading against my unspoken words. “I never wished his death, but he’d have killed us both when he was done with you.”
I forced myself to speak, unclenching my teeth only by an effort of will. “Jamie, I’ve seen death before. Hells, I tried to kill him myself.”
“And forgot everything I ever taught you,” Jamie said, trying to make light of it. “Never throw away your weapon, Lanen, not in close quarters like that, it’s…”
“That’s what made me sick, Jamie,” I said through my teeth. “Not his death. You.” I looked at him, I could see his face now a little in cloud-spattered moonlight, confused, hurt. “Where did you learn to kill like that? I never asked when you taught me the sword behind Hadron’s back. Where did you learn it? Where were—what—damn it, Jamie, who are you?”
“I haven’t changed, Lanen. I am who I have always been,” he said quietly.
“No. I heard your voice, it was cold and hard and—”
“Lanen!” he said, and his voice was tired in the darkness. “Not now. We must get moving.” In the quiet night we could hear the hands and the horses coming along the road. “There’s another town not three miles away with a clean inn and a groom who knows his business. The horses are all tired, we have to get them inside and settled. We’ll stay there and take a rest day. We’ve enough time before the fair.”
I didn’t answer. He reached out to me. Without thinking I moved away, my head full of the vision of his hands covered in blood.
“As you will,” he said, his voice a blend of disgust, hurt and weariness. “Mount up, we’ve three miles yet to go before we rest.”
He told the lads only that there was no room for us here and we’d have to keep going. We did not speak on the road, though my mind never stilled. I kept trying to understand how the quick, merciless killer in the stable could be the loving friend of my childhood.
We reached the town and woke the innkeeper. Jamie’s only words to me were that I might sleep late if I liked, we’d not set out until the day after the morrow. I fell exhausted into bed and dreamt horrors.
Come morning the girl came knocking to call me for breakfast. I sent her down with orders for a hot bath and breakfast brought up. She had to wake me again when the bath was ready.
I emerged about ten. Despite my weariness of heart it was wonderful to be clean, my new-washed hair in a loose braid down my back, my filthy tunic and leggings scrubbed. I carried them down to dry before the great fire in the public room. I’d have used the windowsill in my room had there been any chance of sun, but it was a cold, grey day, with the certain promise of dreary rain morning to night. Somehow that fit.
Jamie was waiting for me at a table near the fire. There were no others in the room save for an older couple in a corner, and they paid us no heed.
My terrible night visions were largely dispelled by the sight of him. He had found the wherewithal to bathe as well. He sat waiting, at first glance looking much as he always had, neat and clean and utterly himself.
/>
Though he didn’t usually start drinking this early.
When I had draped my wet clothes over a bench I joined him. Without speaking he pushed an empty tankard over to me and filled it from the jug on the table. I drained it in moments, refilled it and ordered another jug.
“How did you sleep?” he asked. His voice was rough.
“Terribly. You?”
“About that well,” he said. Now I was closer I saw that he looked years older this morning, dark circles under his eyes, his face scored with lines I had never noticed, the silver in his hair more pronounced than before. He lowered his voice. “I haven’t killed anything but chickens for longer than you’ve been alive, Lanen. I assure you I take no pleasure in it, if that’s what you thought. But our lives were over if he had lived.”
“I know. Truly, I do know that I owe you my life. But—”
“But?”
I was still having trouble speaking, and I stared at my drink. “Jamie—you terrified me. Your voice—I never imagined you could—damn, I don’t know how to say this.” I glanced over at him. There he sat, his eyes as kind as they had ever been, his face full of sadness but still the face of my dearest friend. I started to look down again when I realised I had to say this to his face. I owed him that.
I spoke barely above a whisper but I looked straight in his eyes. “Jamie, you knew exactly how to kill him. Swift and sure. He dropped in the midst of a word, he was dead before he knew he was in trouble. I was—sickened at seeing that in you. I always thought you the kindest man alive. I’ve seen you walk away from any number of fights, but you killed him like one born to the deed.”
He sighed, only the slightest sound of regret. “Very well, Lanen. If you wish to know, I will tell you. Be warned, this concerns you as much as it does me.” The shadow of a smile crossed his lips. “I’ve meant to tell you for a while now, though I had hoped for a time of my own choosing.” He emptied his tankard and refilled it, drinking deep. “There is much to tell, but now you’ve asked you shall know all of it. At the very least it will help you to see past last night.”
Then he began to talk.
“I was born in the North Kingdom in the village of Arinoc, near Eynhallow at the foot of the mountains, hard by the border with the East Mountain Kingdom. I spent most of my youth there, getting into fights like most young men and doing badly at learning my father’s trade. My parents died when I was fifteen, old enough to do without them but young enough to miss them. I found myself working in my father’s stead for a while, but I was the worst cobbler the world has ever seen.” A corner of his mouth lifted. “A lot like you and horses. I could do it if I forced myself, but I never liked it.
“A few years later came a series of battles along the eastern border. Seems one of the richer and bolder nobles from the mountains wanted a bit more fertile land to farm, so he sent raiders. When that didn’t work he sent soldiers, and our King started recruiting his own. I joined up. I was out of money, and I’d have done anything that took me away from the cobbler’s trade.
“I learned fast, what little they took the time to teach us. We managed to keep the raiders off, and it was all over in a year and a half. But by then I was changed. When our captain asked us to follow him to fight another rebel in the western half of the Kingdom, I was the first in line. I was nineteen and immortal and I hadn’t the brains of a cabbage.”
Jamie paused to wet his throat. I sat consciously holding my mouth shut for fear I’d let flies in. I had pestered Jamie about his past for most of my youth and finally given up; it was as if you had spent years battering your head against a wall, finally turned away, and heard behind you the soft sound of it crumbling into dust.
“Well, that battle led to another, and another, and in a few years I found that I was a mercenary. A good one, mind. By then we had fought together for a long time. I’d been trained by the best and I enjoyed it. We went wherever the battle was—and there are always battles, these little lordlings are always after more land and none of the Four Kings are strong enough to stop them without help.” He sighed. “They were the closest I had to friends, those men. We fought together eight years, sometimes on land for petty barons, twice on the sea—once with the corsairs and once against them. But I grew weary of seeing my comrades killed, one here, two there—and finally I was badly wounded myself.” His eyes were a thousand miles away. “It was the first time I had faced my own death, and I didn’t like the sight of it. The Captain realised it and decided to send me on a very particular mission to shake me out of it. We’d been paid to stop the Baron of Berún, in the southern half of the East Kingdom. He was a particularly vicious bugger, the kind that kills women for the fun of it.”
And there it was again. Jamie’s voice had gone hard and cold, unforgiving, strong as a mountain’s root and distant as forever. I shivered in the warm tavern.
“If ever a man deserved death, he was the one. He had a bunch of louts fighting for him, the Captain said it was cruel to kill the poor bastards. He decided to send in a small force to kill the Baron as a way to end it. He chose me. We went in at midnight, me and two of my comrades to watch my back.”
Jamie closed his eyes and fell silent. I knew sure as I breathed that he was reliving that night, step by step, thought by thought. He opened his eyes slowly and looked straight at me, and his eyes were the eyes of one who has lost forever some part of his soul. “I killed him, Lanen. It was so simple. I slit his throat as he slept. No noise, you see, with a cut throat.” His voice was full of loathing, and I knew it wasn’t for the Baron. “We slipped out the window and past the guards, and the battle was over. No sense working for a dead man. We’d won.”
He drained his tankard, filled it and drank it half down again before he went on. “When word got out—a careful word here or there, you understand, nothing in the open—we began to be hired to do it again. And again. There’s quite a call for paid killers, if they’re good at what they do.”
He looked at me again, almost as if seeing me for the first time. “If you are wondering, Lanen, then yes, I hated it. And myself,” he said, and dark bitterness dragged at his voice. “But even in such a profession there can be pride. I never caused pain once I learned how to avoid it; I never killed women or children; and I did not take just any work once I could pick and choose. Some I refused if I knew the victim, or if I felt in that small core of soul I had left that the death was undeserved. I was not always right, and I could not always choose—but when I could, I tried to keep some part of myself intact.” He closed his eyes briefly and went on. “I lost the friends I had made in the company. Eight years of living and working together, and overnight they saw me as a creature they could not bear to speak to—one who killed in secret.
“I lived at the whim of those who paid me for many years, now on my own, now with others of like profession, and as time went on I grew harder of heart and smaller of soul, until I could barely stand to face a glass long enough to shave. I gave up the work—just for a while, I thought—and lived on my earnings for as long as I could, travelling where I would, working my way slowly back to the only place I thought of as home.
“When I finally got to my village, the first person I saw was Will Tanner, who used to sell hides to my father. He was old and half-blind, and I walked towards him about to speak. Then I realised what it was I had to say, and I knew I could not bear to corrupt this place with my presence. I left before sunset and never went back.
“I found I had nowhere particular to go, and even if my village was closed to me the countryside was mine to explore. So I wandered as the whim took me, learning more about the Kingdom of the North than I had ever known when I lived there. It took longer than I thought to go through my money, but when I was just turned thirty, not long past Midsummer’s Day, I found myself without a copper to my name in a small town called Beskin, in the Trollingwood west of Eynhallow.” Jamie’s face relaxed, and the ghost of a smile crossed his face. “There was a man there, a blacksmith named He
ithrek, with a good wife and many children. The eldest was a daughter he loved more than life. She had the height of the women of the north like her mother, though her hair was more golden than most. She was very like you, indeed, save for her arms.” Even as he spoke his voice grew softer and his smile more his own. “She was truly her father’s daughter! He had taught her the art of the forge and it showed. She was easily the match of any man in that village for strength and skill, so she would have none of them. She was leaving her home to see the wide world. Ever she longed to see what lay beyond the horizon.”
He glanced at me as if to ask had I heard the like before.
“Her father hired me for a year, as a guard, to look after his daughter Maran Vena. It was a welcome change.”
Maran Vena. That was my mother’s name. My mother, who left me to shift for myself as best I could at Hadron’s cold hearth. Jamie had been bodyguard to my mother.
“Old Heithrek was lucky to find me. I’m from those mountains myself, as I said. A man from anywhere else would have been horrified. In the North Kingdom the women are equal with men, sometimes rulers in their own right, but in the other three Kingdoms most men think of women as things to be protected, not people with their own ways. The idea of a woman setting out thus on her own would be scandalous.
“The mother was resigned, and it seemed to me almost glad to get this wild girl off her hands. But the blacksmith knew his daughter, and she knew her own mind. He never even thought to fear for her safety from me. I was no fool, I knew well enough those arms could fend me off even without the steel she bore. But she must sleep sometime, and there are rogues enough in the world.
“So, as I was down to my last few coppers, I swore fealty for as long as I had been paid, and we were ready to leave.