Juliet E. McKenna - Einarinn 5 - The Assassin's Edge

The Assassin’s Edge

The Fifth Tale Of Einarinn

Juliet E. McKenna

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By Juliet E. McKenna

The Tales of Einannn

THE THIEF’S GAMBLE

THE SWORDSMAN’S OATH

THE GAMBLER’S FORTUNE

THE WARRIOR’S BOND

THE ASSASSIN’S EDGE

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www.orbitbooks.co.uk

An Orbit Book

First published in Great Britain by Orbit 2002 Reprinted

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and

any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely

coincidental.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,

without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be

otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that

in which it is published and without a similar condition including this

condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British

Library.

ISBN 1 84149 124 1

Typeset in Ehrhardt by Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

Polmont, Stirlingshire

Printed and bound in Great Britain by

Mackays of Chatham pic, Chatham, Kent

Orbit

An imprint of Time Warner Books UK

Brettenham House

Lancaster Place London WC2E 7EN

For Marion and Michael, Corinne and Helen, Rae and with fond

memories, George.

So much support, in so many ways, for so many years.

Acknowledgements

The truth always bears repeating, so once again, I am grateful to

Steve, Mike, Sue, Helen, Robin, Lisa, Penny and Rachel, for ideas,

criticism, encouragement and forbearance over ever-extending book

loans. In addition to her wider contribution, Liz deserves special

mention for serving as on-call plants-woman as does Louise for the

medical notes. Thank you, Tanaqui, for the photos, most useful and

much appreciated. Angus, thanks indeed for reminding me about

Otrick’s ring.

The support network continues to evolve and Gill and Mike have

proved true friends time and again. As always, I remain indebted to

Ernie and Betty for their help beating the tyranny of the working

diary over the domestic one.

I couldn’t wish for better than the teams at Orbit, in sales,

publicity and most of all, editorially. Sincerest thanks go to Tim,

Simon, Ben and Julie, Kirsteen, Adrian, Richard, Bob and Nigel.

There isn’t space for me to list all the booksellers who’ve impressed

me with their professionalism, nor yet all the readers who’ve

brightened up my day with a few lines of appreciation, either

personally or in a review. That doesn’t mean I’m not grateful,

because I most certainly am.

Finally, I would like to thank all those curators and custodians of

museums, stately homes and assorted castles who’ve answered my

questions, offered up fascinating extra snippets and been intrigued

rather than baffled when I explain just what it is that I do.

CHAPTER ONE

Notice from the Prefecture of the University of Col

To all Resident Mentors and Scholars

By long tradition festivals at the turn of every season are a time for this

university to welcome visitors from other seats of learning. We are

accustomed to do so with every courtesy and luxury afforded by this city’s

extensive trade, our contribution to the commerce that is Col’s lifeblood.

Students and scholars alike mingle with visitors and townsfolk, broadening

their experience of life. Accordingly, the Prefects of this university will not

tolerate any repetition of the incidents disgracing this most recent spring

Equinox.

In choosing a life of study, we all suffer accusations of idleness, and

rebuke for perceived failure to produce anything of tangible worth to the

unscholarly mind. We rise above such taunts, secure in the knowledge that

learning outlasts any achievements of merchants and architects, artisans and

their guilds. All of which tolerance is rendered worthless when students,

scholars and even several mentors are clapped in irons by the Watch for

brawling with visitors from Vanam’s university in taverns frequented by

common dockers.

Worse, word now circulates that these arguments were not over money,

some business disagreement or a lady’s favours, but over points of

scholarship. This university has become an object of ridicule among the

populace. The Prefecture considers this an offence graver than all of the

damage done around the city. Broken windows, doors and wine bottles may

be redeemed with gold. A reputation once tarnished may never recover its

lustre.

To obviate any recurrence of such offences, the Prefecture offers the

following for the immediate consideration of mentors and scholars and the

judicious guidance of students.

Denying Temar D’Alsennin is who he claims to be is as irrational as

refusing to accept the accounts of that restoration of him and his people

through the offices of Archmage Planir of Hadrumal. It is equally

nonsensical to claim this is all falsehood in service of some all encompassing

yet curiously ill-defined conspiracy involving the Archmage, the Mentors of

Vanam and even Emperor Tadriol himself Such foolishness does this

university’s standing immeasurable harm.

However, and notwithstanding the overweening arrogance of certain

scholars of Vanam, the return of Temar D’Alsennin to Tormalin will not

answer one hundredth of the questions as to why the Old Empire collapsed.

He cannot tell us why the dethronement of Nemith the Reckless and Last

precipitated the Chaos rather than orderly transition to a new Emperor and

dynasty. D’Alsennin’s attempt to found his colony has no bearing on any of

these events. It was a minor undertaking compared to other ventures the Old

Empire was then engaged upon, most notably the ultimately fruitless

conquest of Gidesta. That this colony was of little or no consequence to the

Convocation of Princes is plain. Rather than divert resources to helping

D’Alsennin, the Annals record every House turning its efforts to quelling

secessionist revolts in Caladhria and opportunist uprisings in Ensaimin.

D’Alsennin can offer only a limited account from a very partial

perspective as a young and untried esquire of a minor House long distanced

from the councils of the powerful. He had already crossed the ocean to Kel

Ar’Ayen before the final, crucial years of Nemith’s reign and had long been

rendered insensible by enchantment before the most violent period of warfare

between the Houses of Aleonne and Modrical. While his reminiscences may

offer some interesting sidelights on those momentous events, they are

insignificant in the wider context of the established historical record.

Granted, it seems likely that the as yet only partially explained

deterioration in the usages of aetheric magic contributed to the collapse of

the Empire. Judging the impact of such a blow, set alongside the attested

assaults of famine, civil strife and the recurrent devastation of the Crusted

Pox will certainly be a fruitful area for study. Similarly, a full assessment of

the role of this aetheric magic in the governance of the Old Empire must now

be made. We of Col should not be laggard in undertaking such enquiries. We

need not concern ourselves with boasts from Vanam that their mentors’ links

with Planir’s expeditions to Kel Ar’Ayen give their scholars unassailable

superiority tn such studies.

Col is the main port through which travellers to and from Hadrumal pass.

We should set aside our habitual reserve in dealing with wizardry and invite

mages to refresh themselves in our halls and join in our debates. We may

usefully encourage our alchemists to correspond with those wizards studying

the properties of the natural elements. This university was founded by those

scholars who salvaged all they could from the burning of this city’s ancient

temple library during the Chaos. It is now evident that such temples were

centres of aetheric learning in the Old Empire. Resident scholars and

mentors must seek out such valuable lore hidden in our own archives. We can

claim more peripatetic scholars than Vanam and many now tutor the sons

and daughters of Tormalin Houses as well as the scions of Lescari dukes and

Caladhria’s barons. All such archives may yield invaluable material for

further study and this prefecture is writing to enlist the aid of all entitled to

wear this university’s silver ring.

Rather than wasting time and effort in vain attempts to prove this

university’s supremacy over Vanam through fisticuffs, it is the duty of every

mentor, scholar and student to establish our preeminence through the

ineluctable authority of our scholarship.

Vithrancel, Kellarin,

15th of Aft-Spring, in the Fourth Year of Tadriol

the Provident

In that instant of waking, I had no idea where I was. A crash of something

breaking had stirred me and the muttered curses that followed took my

sleep-mazed mind back to the house of my childhood but as I opened my eyes,

nothing seemed familiar. Insistent daylight was entering unopposed through a

door in an entirely unexpected wall. Come to that, when had I last slept with a

heedlessly open bedroom door?

Wakefulness burned through the mist of sleep. I wasn’t back in Ensaimin, for

all that someone outside was muttering in the accents of my childhood. This was

half a world away, clear across an ocean most folk would swear was

impassable. This was Vithrancel, newly named first settlement of Kellarin, a

colony still finding its feet after a year of digging in its heels and setting its

shoulder to hacking a livelihood out of the wilderness.

Well, whatever was going on outside, it could happen without me. I wasn’t

getting out of bed for anything short of a full-blown riot. Turning over, I pulled

the linen sheet up around my shoulders, pushing my cheek into the welcoming

down of the pillow, plump with my spoils from the festival slaughter of geese

and hens. How many more days up to my elbows in chicken guts would it take

before I had a feather bed, I wondered idly.

No, it was no good; I was awake. Sighing, I sat up and brushed the hair out of

my eyes to survey the little room. I’d slept in better, in stone-built inns with

drugget laid to mute the scuff of boots on polished floorboards, tapestries on

walls to foil stray draughts and prices just as elaborate, never mind the extra

copper spent to keep the potmen and chambermaids sweet. Then again, I’d slept

in worse, down-at-heel taverns where you were lucky to share a bed with

strangers and picking up whatever vermin they carried was all part of the price

to pay. The most wretched inn was better than a freezing night beneath a market

hall’s arches, giving up my last copper to persuade a watchman to look the

other way.

I went to open the shutters to the bright midmorning sun. No, I wasn’t about to

complain about a warm, clean room, floor newly strewn with the first herbs of

spring. The breeze was cool on my bare skin and I looked for a clean shirt

among clothes and trifles piled on my fine new clothes press. Ryshad had

bought it for me with three days trading his skills with plumb line, mallet and

chisel to a nearby carpenter. My beloved might have decided against his

father’s trade in the end but he’d not forgotten his lessons. I really should tidy

up, I thought, as I sat on his old travel chest pulling on my breeches.

The bright leather of a newly bound book caught my eye among the clutter on

my press. It was a collection of ancient songs that I’d found the year before, full

of hints of ancient magic. In an optimistic ballad for children, there’d have been

some charm within it to summon sprites to do the housework for me. I smiled,

not for the first time, at the notion. On the other hand, any number of darker

lyrics warned of the folly of meddling with unseen powers, lest the unwise

rouse the wrath of the Eldritch Kin. I’m too old to believe in blameless

strangers turning into blue-grey denizens of the shadow realms and turning on

those who dishonoured them but there were other reasons for me to shun some

of the more tempting promises of Artifice. If I used aetheric tricks and charms to

read an opponent’s thoughts or see their throw of the runes ahead of time, I’d

blunt skills that had seen me through more perils than Ryshad knew of.

Chinking noises outside drew me to the window instead. A stout woman in

practical brown skirts bent to retrieve shards of earthenware scattered on the

track between our house’s ramshackle vegetable garden and the neater preserve

over the way. A spill of liquid darkened the earth at her feet.

“Dropped something, Zigrida?” I leant my elbows on the sill. She

straightened up, looking around for who had hailed her as she brushed a hand

clean on her dress. I waved.

“Livak, good morning.” A smile creased her weathered face agreeably. “It’s

Deglain standing the loss.” She sniffed cautiously at the base of the pitcher

she’d been stacking the other pieces in. “It smells like the rotgut that Peyt and

his cronies brew.”

I frowned. “It’s not like Deg to come home drunk, not at this time of the

morning.”

“Swearing fouler than a cesspit and throwing away good crocks.” Zigrida’s

voice darkened with disapproval. “But he’s a mercenary when all’s said and

done.”

“Not like Peyt,” I objected. Granted Deglain had come to Kellarin paid to

stick his sword into whoever might wish this colony venture ill, but a year and

more on he’d returned to skills learned in some forgotten youth and half the

colonists simply knew him as a tinsmith.

Zigrida grunted as she tucked a wisp of grey hair beneath the linen kerchief

tied around her head. “I can’t see any more pieces.”

“There aren’t many passing hooves to pick them up,” I pointed out.

“That’s not the point, my girl.” Zigrida looked up at me, shading warm brown

eyes with an age-spotted and work-hardened hand that brushed the lace

trimming her kerchief with a hint of frivolity. “It’s time you were out of bed, my

lady sluggard. You can get a bucket of water to wash this away.” She scraped a

stoutly booted foot across the damp ground before glancing towards the steadily

retreating trees that fringed the settlement. “I don’t care to know what the scent

of strong liquor might tempt out of that wildwood.”

I grinned. “At once, mistress.” I’ll take Zigrida’s rebukes as long as a

twinkle in her eye belies her scolding and besides, doing her a favour always

wins me some goodwill.

Tidying up could wait. I dragged the sheets across the mattress brushing a

few stray hairs to the floor, bright auburn from my head, curled black from

Ryshad’s. Our bed was a solid construction of tight-fitted wood finished with

golden beeswax and strung with good hemp rope. Ryshad wasn’t about to sleep

on some lumpy palliasse or a box bed folded out of a settle. Lower servants

slept on such things, not men chosen for preferment out of all those swearing

service to the Sieur D’Olbriot, nigh on the richest and most influential of all

Tormalin’s princes.

Then I looked rather doubtfully at the sheets. The mattress was still fragrant

with bedstraw gathered in the golden days of autumn but the linen wanted

washing, if not today then soon. I had a nice wash house out behind the house

but spending the day stoking the fire to boil the water in the copper and poking

seething sheets with a stick was scant entertainment. Before I’d come here,

laundry was always someone else’s concern as I’d moved from inn to inn,

earning my way gambling and with the occasional less reputable venture.

I pulled the top sheet free of the blanket and dumped it on the battered chest

at the foot of the bed. Ryshad stowed his possessions inside it with neatness

drilled into him from ten or more years of barracks life. He deserved a clothes

press like mine, I decided. Ryshad’s help had set Kerse up with a better

workshop than any of the other woodsmen of the colony. They were all turning

to joinery now they could spare time from shaping joists and beams. Now

spring Equinox had opened the sailing seasons, Kerse needed to consider the

markets for work this fine right across the countries that had once made up the

Tormalin Empire. I knew quality when I saw it; in a girlhood seeming even

more distant than the lands we’d left behind, I’d been a housemaid polishing up

prized pieces not worked with a fifth the skill of our new bed.

But Zigrida had asked me to fetch some water. I’d better do that before

thinking about laundry. I abandoned the sheet and went down the cramped stair

boxed into a corner of the kitchen that took up the back half of our little

cruck-framed house. Using the belt knife laid on a stool with the jerkin I’d

discarded the night before, I carved a slice from the ham hanging by the

chimneybreast, savouring the hint of juniper and sweet briar that had gone into

the curing. Chewing, I went in search of a bucket in the tiny scullery that Ryshad

had screened off from the kitchen. I ignored the flagon of small beer keeping

cool in the stone sink my beloved had painstakingly crafted. If I was going to the

well, I’d make do with water. Ale was never my first choice for breakfast, nor

Ryshad’s, but the winter had seen supplies of wine from Tormalin exhausted.

As I opened the kitchen door and crossed the rudimentary cobbles Ryshad

had laid to get us dryshod to the gate, a girl came running up to Deglain’s house,

across the track. It was twin to our own, sunlight white on lime wash still fresh

over the lath and plaster solidly walling the timber frame. It had been

interesting watching them being built; Ryshad had explained exactly how the

weight of one part leant on another that pulled something else, the tension

keeping the whole house solid.

The buttercup yellow shawl over the girl’s head gave me a moment’s pause

but then I recognised the lass. “Catrice! Is everything all right?”

She ignored me, hammering on Deglain’s door. Deg opened the door, only a

crack at first. Seeing Catrice, he flung it wide and tried to fold the girl into his

arms.

She resisted his embrace with a forceful shove. “You stink!”

Deg’s reply didn’t have the piercing clarity of Catrice’s outrage so I couldn’t

make out his words but his blinking eyes and unshaven disorder were eloquent

enough.

“I’ll not sleep in the bed of any man who falls in it half dressed and full

drunk,” she shrilled, hysteria sharpening her tone.

“Do you suppose her mother knows she’s here?” Zigrida came to the fence

on her side of the precisely delineated alley separating our two properties. With

a whole continent to spread ourselves over, there would be none of the

squabbles over boundaries that plague the higgledy-piggledy burgages of

Ensaimin’s close-packed towns.

“She’ll be none too pleased when she finds out,” I commented. Catrice was

the only and much cherished daughter of one of the southern Tormalin families

come to make a new life in this untamed land the year before. They were still

apt to take their consequence rather too seriously for my taste. Zigrida was from

the north, close to the Lescari border and, as such, considerably more down to

earth.

Whatever Deg had to say for himself was enough to set Catrice to noisy

weeping. She didn’t resist as he pulled her into an awkward hug, clumsily

wiping at her tears with the edge of her shawl.

Zigrida watched the pair disappear inside. “You reckon something’s boiling

up?”

“Could be something, could be nothing,” I shrugged. “But we’d best be ready

to stick in a spoon to quell any froth.” In general, colonists and the mercenaries

hired to defend them rubbed along easily enough together but there had been a

few awkwardnesses. The sons and daughters of sober yeomen occasionally

found the free and easy attitudes of the soldiery rather too enticing for their

parents’ peace of mind.

“Are you going to send for the corps commander?” Zigrida asked.

“Perhaps.” Halice, currently in charge of the mercenaries, had been a friend

of mine for years and I served as her unofficial deputy when I had nothing better

to do. “Did you see Ryshad this morning?” I’d got used to staying asleep when

Ryshad rose with the dawn to pursue one of his myriad projects around

Vithrancel.

“That Werdel came calling first thing. They’ll be out at the clay fields.”

Zigrida’s tone was warm with approval. She liked Ryshad.

I smiled too. I was more than content with a cruck-framed house, it’s how

four-fifths of Ensaimin’s towns are built but Ryshad considered wooden

buildings as nothing more than temporary. Before the previous autumn’s

Equinox had barred the ocean to ships, he’d recruited the son of a brick-maker

known to his stone-mason brothers in Zyoutessela and had half the men of the

colony digging clay on the promise of a share in the bricks and tiles. As soon as

the scarce frosts of Kellarin’s mild winter had passed, Ryshad reminded

everyone they’d promised to help build a drying shed while Werdel puddled

and shaped the weathered clay for a successful trial of his new kiln. Fired with

enthusiasm, my beloved had bored me to sleep these past few nights with

explanations of how to turn quicklime into mortar.

I swung my bucket idly by its rope handle. “You’ve been baking bread this

morning?” Zigrida had a smudge of flour by the spray of colourful flowers

embroidered around the laces of her sober green bodice.

“What’s it to you?” She cocked her head on one side.

I hefted the bucket. “Water for you today in return for a loaf or so?”

Zigrida laughed. “Fresh bread will cost you more than a few pails.” A frown

deepened her wrinkles as she pursed thin lips. “You can give me an afternoon

in my garden, helping with the fruit canes.”

I shook my head in mock consternation. “You drive a hard bargain.”

“Then do your own baking, my girl.” Her smile lifted a generation from her

laughing eyes.

I waved a hand in capitulation. “I’ll get some water and then I’ll call round

for the bread.”

Zigrida nodded and disappeared within her own doors. I headed for the

nearby outcrop of rock offering plentiful clean water from one of Kellarin’s

many springs. It was a pleasant walk. Halcarion’s blessing loaded the knot of

trees around the wellspring with richly scented blossom as soon as the Winter

Hag had quit her watch. Maewelin hadn’t disputed the Moon Maiden’s authority

with late frosts or sudden storms and even people who barely paid lip service

to either goddess had celebrated all the traditional rites of thanks at the recent

Equinox.

With winter keeping everyone close to home and making improvements, a

broad stone basin had been built around the spring so I didn’t have to wait long

before I could dip my pail beside busy goodwives and less eager maidens about

their mothers’ bidding. I sympathised with the sullen faces; I’d walked out on

hearth and home at much the same age, fleeing the drudgery of service to

someone else’s whims and malice, buoyed up with all the ignorant confidence

of youth. But I hadn’t sulked about my errands when I had been my mother’s

least reliable housemaid. I’d taken any chance to get out of the house, to learn

more about life and pocket any coin I could win with a smile or a jest.

“Livak, good morning to you.” One of the bustling women nodded approval

at my brimming bucket. “Wash day at last, is it?”

That immediately raised my hackles. “Not that I know of, Midda. Tell me,

you haven’t heard who it is setting up as a laundress, have you?”

Midda looked puzzled. “No.”

“Oh well,” I shrugged. “Still, if you come across her, pass the word that I’ll

be on her doorstep with a hefty bundle every market day.”

I smiled but Midda was frowning at the thought that something might be going

on that hadn’t reached her ears. With luck, once she set about interrogating her

gossips, the spreading word would prompt some woman or other to set up her

own wash tubs to steal a march on my mythical would-be laundress.

Mind, I’d still have to find some way to pay for someone to do my washing. I

felt a little mildewed as I walked back, swinging the bucket to see how far I

could tilt it before I risked slopping the water. There was a sizeable share of

what little coin the colony boasted secure in a coffer beneath our bedroom

floorboards but that was precious little use to me. Work was the currency of

Kellarin and it was Ryshad’s skills that were putting credit in our ledger to buy

me the prettiest plates from the potters or the softest blankets bright from the

looms.

It wasn’t as if I didn’t have talents of my own but there was just precious

little scope for them. I could usually find a friendly game of runes or someone

happy to play the White Raven against my Forest Birds to while away an

evening but these placid craftsmen and farmers weren’t in the habit of laying

bets against their luck with the fate sticks and, after the first half season or so,

Juliet E. McKenna - Einarinn 5 - The Assassin's Edge

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