Sim slowed his horse to a walk and set out along the trail that would bear him to a larger way, and thence to the Roma Road that led to Aramis. There was no haste in him, no eagerness. The assassin requires no passion – his work is not artistry, simply efficient. The very best assassin is no warrior, he doesn’t achieve his ends through skill at arms. Instead he must know people, he must understand them, intimately. Sometimes it’s the people who stand in his way whose skin he must inhabit, sometimes the victim themselves.
Sim found an apple in his pocket, wizened but still sweet, and took a small bite, leaving a precise wound. The catch of course is that knowing the full depth of any human, knowing their hopes and frailties, the hurts of their past, the tremor with which they reach for the future ... that knowledge is akin to love.
“Do you think that’s true, Guise?” Dara asked the question into the pause the young man left. “Because who knows people better than a storyteller?” She drew herself up upon the couch so she sat opposite him, their knees almost touching. “You make your living telling our tales. And so many of them are about princesses ... you must know us very well.”
They shared a knowing smile, close enough now that Dara could see the rain’s moisture still clinging to his hair. Dara laid her hand upon his knee - she could guess how this night’s story would end. She had invited him to her chamber for more than old tales. Guise set his fingers above the symbols on the scroll, and began to speak again, not looking down but holding her gaze, as if he could read the story by drawing the words up through his hand.
“Sim sat and waited and watched, as he had sat and waited and watched on each of ten previous nights, sometimes at the walls, sometimes in the city that washed up around the barren mount upon which the castle squatted. Always he listened, learning what could be learned, presenting a new face to each night, seeking his way in.”
Dara frowned. “This Brother Sim came to Aramis to murder the man whose face was on the coin?” She shot Guise a sharp look. “My father-”
“Or some grandsire of his, my princess? Or perhaps just someone who might be found wherever the king might be? Or maybe Hertog the Second, that fearsome warlord who died in mysterious circumstances and whose brother, Jantis, inherited Aramis’ throne three centuries back? Jantis proved somewhat inept in the business of armies and wore the crown for just two months before your family disposed of him upon the battlefield... Give the story space and it will tell itself.”
Dara settled back, embarrassed at her outburst. Had she spoiled the secret – was the story how her line came to reign in Aramis?
“We were discussing love, Princess Dara. The perfect assassin, the one who can reach anyone, anywhere, needs to know his target intimately, and such knowledge breeds love. So there lies a dilemma. The perfect assassin needs to be able to kill the thing he loves – or rather to understand the emotion but not let it stay his hand.”
Sim never stayed his hand – always seized his moment. When some alarm within the castle turned the guards from the battlements he advanced to the base of the wall, swift but smooth. He threw his padded grapple and the thin rope snaked out behind it. Within heartbeats he was climbing, drawing himself up along a line chosen after long inspection toward a section where he stood least chance of being observed.
Arms burning he reached the battlement and crossed the parapet on all fours, quick as an eel, kicking free the grapple behind him and dropping into the tree he knew stood close to the wall at that spot. Below him the gardens seethed in the new risen wind. The castle walls enclosed several acres of garden, set to trees, shrub and bush, in chaotic profusion, capturing a manicured hint of the wild woods in which the nobility of Aramis so loved to hunt.
Sim waited, high in the arms of the elm, waited for whatever commotion had drawn the guardsmen’s attention within the walls to die away. The wound on the heel of his palm had started to bleed again. He’d killed seasoned veterans without taking a scratch and somehow let a church librarian slice him with a letter opener. A half-inch lower and it would have opened the veins in his wrist, cut tendons perhaps. He touched his fingers to the wound and while he waited, cradled in the treetop, he let the recollection of the incident unfold behind his eyes.
The librarian, Jonas, had proved useful in the end – providing maps from the days of the castle’s construction and reading out the legends in a tremulous voice. A fair exchange all told. And when his store of information ran dry they sat looking at each other, the young man and the old.
“Brother Jorg said he might teach me to read,” Sim told the churchman, folding the ancient map and slipping it into an inner pocket. “But he says a lot of things.” Sim withdrew his hand and turned it over to reveal the short throwing knife on his palm, below it the cut Jonas had scored across him with still bled - an instinctive thing, a lashing out in fear as he turned from the table bearing his correspondence and a paperknife only to be surprised by Sim standing at his shoulder. “It’s a beautiful piece isn’t it?” Sim turned his hand to let the candlelight slide along the blade. The weapon felt good in his hand, familiar. Strange to take comfort in the sharp edge of a little cross-knife, an instrument of pain and death ... but he supposed the crosses that the faithful took their own comfort in were symbols of an instrument far crueller than his knife.
Sim slipped the blade between his middle fingers so an inch protruded like a gleaming claw, and with a swift motion cut Jonas’ throat. He caught the older man’s head then, and held it, despite the thrashing, whispering into his ear, loud enough to be heard above the gurgles, but quiet enough that only they two would share the words.
“What did he say?” Dara slid from the couch to sit at Guise’s feet. His suede boots were streaked with mud from his journey through the gardens.
“That’s the secret, princess.”
“You will tell me though?” She looked up at him, arching her brows.
Guise met her gaze. “Of course. Before the end. Nobody’s story should end with the secret untold.” He returned his eyes to the scroll before him. The low rumble of thunder reached them, vibrating in Dara’s chest.
Sim waited in the tree, ripe with a purpose that was not his own. Many years before, his mother had tied all his purpose to a single coin, a lifetime ago, back when he’d been too young to know he was being sold. The brothel had taken him and held him until that day when the brotherhood came with blood and fire and, seeing in him a different value, took the boy into their number. He’d been fourteen when they gave him a new life, and in the years since he’d come to accept a leader’s direction to replace his own spinning compass. Though for each death he took a coin, perhaps hoping in some deep and unspeaking recess of his mind that the coin his mother once accepted would find its way to his hand, and give him back to himself.
When Sim’s moment came he dropped, cloak fluttering behind him, two feet striking the back of a guardsman’s neck. The man fell nerveless into a bush while Sim launched himself onto the second guard, punch knife in hand. In a heartbeat only Sim remained upright. He dragged the second man into the bush that received the first and, while the all around him the leaves seethed beneath the wind, Sim whispered the secret to the men as their last moments came and went.
Beneath the shelter of the tree Brother Sim changed into his disguise. By the time he’d done up the last button a cold rain had begun to fall and the dark gardens bent and dripped. He advanced on the tall towers, the royal apartments, pausing only to set in place his equipment within the shrubs that marked the gardens’ perimeter.
“You didn’t just come here to tell stories did you, Guise?” Dara moved her hand upon the young man’s knee, feeling the firmness of his thigh. A flicker of lightning lit the room, mocking the lamps’ illumination for a second, and burning in the storyteller’s eyes. Three times in the past week she’d seen him in the houses of nobility, declaiming from the petty-stage to entertain the diners. Something about him had drawn her gaze, an almost delicate beauty, and he’d returned her frank a
ttentions with something ambiguous, something more tempting that lust or admiration. At Lord Garzan’s presentation of suitors Dara had paid more mind to the storyteller than to the lordlings and minor princes her father had invited to seek her hand. Her father might have grand politics at the front of his thinking – alliances waiting to be sealed. Dara however had more immediate desires to satisfy and felt if she were to be sacrificed into some arranged marriage she may as well have a little fun first.
She’d thrown Guise her favour when his story ended and sent her maid Clara to arrange their current assignation. The maid had returned looking as flushed as Dara felt, and confirmed that Guise would dare the walls for a chance to meet the princess if she would provide sufficient distraction to give him the opportunity to reach her without being filled with spears... And here he was, in the flesh. Firm beneath her hand and far more real than stories. Far more interesting. Thunder rolled outside, deep voiced and raw. She leant closer still. “You came for more than stories.”
“I did, princess. I’m not just here to tell stories, no.” Guise took her hand in his and stood from his chair. “It was on a night like this, in the gardens of this very castle, that Brother Sim murdered his way toward the high towers of Aramis.” He led her to the window where he’d clambered into her chamber not an hour before. “Bloody handed Sim came, leaving the bodies of half a dozen men in his wake.” Guise slid an arm about her shoulder and she shivered beneath his touch as he guided her to stand beside him and watch the rain fall through the darkness. He held out his other hand to catch the drops, steering her gaze.
“Is that- Is there?” Something caught her eye, still adjusting to the dark, something among the vegetation flailing beneath a storm wind ... something darker ... almost ... man-shaped. A lone guardsman?
“I-” Lightning flashed again and amid the shocking green Dara saw a black figure, ragged and tall, half-emerging from the bushes that stood between the inner court and the gardens. The crash of thunder drowned her scream. “Oh God! It’s him!”
“What?” Guise stepped back, staring at her. “What did you see?”
“Someone- Someone’s out there.” She clung to his shoulder, heart thumping.
Someone pounded on the door, scarcely louder than the thunder in her chest. “Your Highness?” The handle rattled but she’d bolted it earlier, before Guise climbed the rope.
“Tell him,” Guise whispered. “If you saw someone.”
“I’m fine.” She called out. “I- I saw a man in the grounds, not a guardsman or one of the staff. I got scared.” She sat in the chair Guise offered, trembling in her limbs and unsteady.
“I’ll order a search, princess.” The guardsman’s voice through the door – Captain Exus. “I’ll leave Howard to guard your chamber. Please set the main bolts.”
“I’ll do it,” Guise whispered, and he hurried to push the two heavy bolts home into their housings. From beyond the door the sound of boots on stairs as her guardsmen hurried down to initiate the hunt. Dara felt safe now. The door would keep an army at bay and Howard would take some getting past too.
“I think the story’s over.” Guise returned to her, easing the tension in her shoulders with an expert touch.
“But you never got to the lie or told me the secret,” Dara said, craning her neck to look back at him, behind the chair.
Guise shook his head, a sad smile on his lips. When he passed the cord beneath her chin she thought for a moment that it was a necklace, a gift.
“I’m the lie.” A moment later the cord tightened choking the question off her lips. Her hands went to her neck and all thought narrowed to a single aim, a single goal, to draw another breath. And into that moment of silent, terminal, panic Sim whispered the secret.
Sim crouched behind the chair, safe from any clawing hands, hauling on the curtain cord until Dara’s struggles ceased. Even then he kept the pressure, rising with the cord knotted between his straining hands. He knew how long it takes to kill someone in such a manner. The garrotte would have been quicker, but bloody, and his escape would be safer if he kept clean. In any case a wire seemed wrong for so royal a throat. Silk seemed ... apt ... for nobility.
Eventually Sim let the cord go, allowing the princess’s corpse to flop forward, hiding her purple face, blood-filled eyes, protruding tongue. He took from his bag a copy of the royal servants’ tunics and hose, changing into it quickly but without haste. He removed Dara’s favour and hid the wound on his wrist beneath the cuff of his new uniform instead. A long blonde wig and a touch of rouge delicately applied with the help of a hand mirror to achieve the desired effect, and Sim looked every bit the serving girl. Disguise had always come easy to him. His childhood had served him well - when your sense of self is taken it grows easier to become someone else, when you sell affection it becomes easier to both understand love and be unmoved by it. The brothers had seen the killer in him at fourteen – he wondered how people less used to murder managed not to see it until it was far too late.
Sim straightened and went to the door. A device of one water bladder dripping into another acting as a counterweight had raised the rag figure amid the bushes, it would not take long to find and the guardsmen would return soon enough.
A drop of oil applied to the heavy bolts allowed each to be drawn back without alerting the guard outside. A couple more oil drops for the hinges and Sim set his four-inch punch spike in hand. He pulled the door open in a smooth motion and drove the steel into the back of Howard’s neck, bringing him down in a clatter of useless armour.
Once Howard had been hauled into the room Sim collected the dining tray from Dara’s chamber and closed the door behind him. With the tower guard thinned by Dara’s alert, and suitably attired for one wishing to pass unremarked along the corridors of power, Sim took his leave.
He had served his purpose, the coin’s purpose, Brother Jorg’s purpose. Brother Jorg who he both hated and loved. Brother Jorg who found direction everywhere he looked, as if it bled between each word he spoke. And, with his task complete, once more Sim had a free choice of path. As free a choice as ever he’d been given in his eighteen years.
Half an hour later, on a dark and rain-swept highway with a good horse beneath him, Sim made his decision, pulling the reins once more toward the Roma Road that would bear him east and south toward the Appan Way, toward his brothers, toward another coin, another duty, toward the clarity of purpose in a world so lacking in direction.
In his wake, torn and flapping in the mud, the story scroll, its incomprehensible symbols smeared by rain, words and meaning running together, soaking away.
The story is done. Be glad that it wasn’t yours and that for you the lie is still untold, the secret still unspoken.
Footnote – Although the plot here is more complex than some of the other stories in this volume the story itself is fairly simple. If there is any depth it’s in the nature of leadership, where the value of certainty is often held higher than the need to be correct.
Know thyself
“Honour thy father.” The words echoed from the throne as Gomst approached, hurrying the length of the black carpet that stretched from doors to dais.
Gomst passed the last pair of table-knights and stood before the king of Ancrath. Clergy, no matter their station, do not bow to crowns, but Gomst felt the pressure on his shoulders even so. He kept his gaze on the bottom step, waiting to be acknowledged.
“Honour thy father. This instruction constitutes ten percent of all the commandments that God himself felt fit to hand down on tablets of stone, does it not?”
Gomst raised his eyes to the king now. “It does, Your Highness.” He decided against adding ‘and thy mother’. King Olidan looked to be the sort of man who would not take well to sharing honour.
“I have two sons who would benefit from further education in such a commandment.” Olidan sat back in his high throne, not sprawled, but at ease. An iron circlet bound the blackness of his hair, rubies set there, bloody in the torch-light. Th
e eyes that watched Gomst beneath it were winter-blue.
“All men benefit from such instruction, Highness.” Gomst resisted the continuing urge to bow. The bishop had called the appointment a reward for good service, but beneath the weight of Olidan’s gaze Gomst was beginning to feel that perhaps it had been a punishment.
“My eldest son has vowed to murder me, priest. What do you think to that, eh? What sentence would the church prescribe for such treason?” The king leaned forward in his chair now, as if it were just the two of them, perhaps in the snugness of the confessional.
Gomst opened his mouth, hoping that an answer might appear, but none did. “I … I understood your sons to be infants, Majesty?”
“The eldest is six. The other four.”
“Corinthians 13:11. When I was a child I spake as a child.” Gomst raised his hands. “Even our lord had a time for childish things and childish thinking.” Gomst felt himself walking a labyrinth of knife edges. He wanted neither to fail whatever test was being set nor to give offense. Olidan Ancrath was not a man you offended without consequence. “Perhaps I misunderstand, Highness. A boy of six years is surely no threat?”
“This child of six stole from the royal treasury.” The king rose from his throne. “He didn’t wander through a carelessly open door. He descended the walls of the Tall Castle and broke through the bars of a window too narrow for any man.” The king turned to study the wall to one side of his chair. His fingers traced a scar in the stonework. “My son threw a hammer at me. It missed my head by the width of a nail…” He paused as if remembering the incident. “Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt honour thy father. My boy, Jorg, broke or attempted to break three of the ten in one day.” The king returned his gaze to Gomst. “I will confess, priest, that I possess small understanding of what it is to be a father. My own offered precious little instruction in the matter. After the theft I taught the boy a lesson. A harsh lesson, but necessary. Now the child believes himself at war with me. This is a belief I could have beaten from him, but for his mother’s sake I have commissioned the services of an expert to instruct him more gently. I warn you though, Father Gomst. I expect Jorg to have come to his senses the next time he is brought before me. Or I will not be pleased.”