He felt his chest tighten. ‘I know I was only a boy, or so you thought, but I . . .’
‘What?’
He gathered her close. ‘I knew other girls after you left.’ Slightly bitterly he added, ‘I’m Pug’s son. Any girl at Stardock . . . you know?’
‘I know.’
He sighed. ‘But there was no joy in that. The simple truth is, I love you, have always loved you and will always love you.’
She tightened her grip around his waist. ‘I loved that boy,’ she whispered. ‘And when I finally found you again, you’d become a man.’
Suddenly she rose up and kissed him, deeply and long.
William awoke to the sound of James clearing his throat. Jazhara’s head was on his chest: they were both under the blankets of the narrow bed. Looking towards the door, he saw James leaning in with a bemused smile. ‘Ah . . . when you’re ready. My room.’ He closed the door.
William looked at Jazhara for a moment, then both began to laugh. He pulled her close and kissed her and she responded for a moment, then pushed him away. ‘James is waiting.’
‘Let him wait.’
But Jazhara rolled away from him. In doing so, she almost fell out of bed, which resulted in more laughter. ‘Later, we have ample time later.’
He watched her as she dressed, admiring every curve of her body. ‘We have a lifetime.’
She halted for a moment. ‘Really?’
William sat up and reached for his trousers. ‘Since I left Stardock I’ve had a couple of . . . encounters. And my affections for Talia were real, but there’s only you, Jazhara. There has never been anyone else.’
She pulled her tunic over her head. Then she came and knelt before him. Cupping his cheek in her hand, she said, ‘Last night was . . . amazing.’
‘But . . .?’ He tensed, as if ready to pull away.
‘There is no “but”, William. I loved you as a boy. I think now, as a man, you are more than I expected.’
He studied her face, then said, ‘When you’re ready, I will speak to the prince.’
Her eyes widened. ‘To Prince Arutha? About what?’
‘We’re both in service. We need his permission to wed.’
‘Wed!’ she exclaimed. ‘Are you daft?’
He grinned. ‘If I am, it’s you who make me so.’ He let her go and grabbed his tunic, then paused. ‘Or are you saying no?’
‘I’m not saying yes,’ she returned. She sat on the bed next to him, pulling on her boots. ‘I’m not saying no, either.’
He laughed. ‘Five years it’s taken for me to break through that barrier.’ He stood and gathered the rest of his gear, then looked at her as she pulled on her second boot. ‘You might as well relent. I will have my way in this.’
She couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Well, if that’s the way it is going to be, you can stand before both our families and explain how this is all going to work out with everyone’s blessing.’
He was too happy to consider just how difficult that was likely to be. ‘Seriously, you are the only woman I have ever loved. The only woman I ever
will
love.’
‘And I love you, William, son of Pug.’
He opened the door. ‘I can hear my father now: “I wanted you to
be
a magician, not to marry one.”’
She laughed, stepped across the hall, knocked on James’s door and went in.
James grinned at them. ‘I can’t say you underplayed your part as illicit lovers.’
Before they could speak, he went on, ‘I don’t care. What you do is your own business, and my only advice is, don’t let your feelings get in the way of our work for the prince. Though I hope this removes that annoying awkwardness between you.’ He glanced from face to face, then sighed. ‘Or doesn’t make it worse.’
‘We’re getting married,’ William said.
‘I haven’t said yes!’
James held up his hand. ‘What did I say about not caring?’ He shrugged. ‘Well, good luck, you two.’ Then he turned solemn. ‘I’ve spent a long night following up on some leads and I’ve come to a conclusion.’
‘What?’ asked William.
‘There is no Crawler.’
Jazhara stared at James. ‘I don’t follow.’
‘If I were a stranger in Krondor, poking around the way I have been, one of two things would have happened by now.’ He held up one finger. ‘Either I would have found evidence of who was in charge of the different gangs and who they worked for, or,’ he held up a second finger, ‘I’d be dead, because someone would have tumbled to the fact I was poking around before I noticed.’ With a grin he added, ‘The first is rather more likely than the second.’
‘So, what have you found?’ asked William, sitting on the bed beside James as Jazhara pulled up the single chair.
‘Nothing. There’s nothing going on in Durbin to suggest there’s any sort of organization of criminals here, like the Mockers, or the Ragged Brotherhood in the City of Kesh.’
William laughed. ‘Perhaps it’s because everyone in Durbin is a criminal?’
Jazhara threw him a dark look.
James said, ‘Well, Willy, as much as we love to malign this fair city, that may not be far from the truth. The Captains of the Coast are pirates, but all carry marques from the governor, making them “merchant privateers”, whatever that means. And the Kingdom’s navy is content to ignore them as long as they don’t trouble Kingdom-flagged ships. Let them annoy the Quegans and the merchants of the Free Cities, and look the other way at the rare transgression against the Kingdom, and we have peace on the Bitter Sea, or at least what passes for it.
‘And there are the merchants’ societies, all of them secret, and some guilds, and all of them have people working in the
governor’s customs house and the like, but nothing on enough of
a scale to cause the status quo of business in Durbin to be upset. So if there’s a dominant criminal gang worth the name in this city, I’ve not found it.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Jazhara. ‘Everything we’ve uncovered said there was Keshian complicity in the Crawler’s activities.’
William said, ‘You don’t suppose your uncle . . .?’
She looked embarrassed. ‘My uncle is a very powerful man. He’s the de facto ambassador to Prince Arutha’s court in the west, but the rumours about him being the head of imperial intelligence . . .’
‘Which does not exist,’ said William and James simultaneously.
Jazhara said, ‘What?’
‘Old joke in the prince’s palace,’ said William.
‘Very old joke,’ said James. ‘Your uncle is undoubtedly the master of the Empire’s spy network, but he’s so gifted we can’t even prove that the network even exists.’ He stood up and looked at William. ‘However, everything we do know about Keshian intelligence tells us they wouldn’t be that artless. No, Lord Hazara-Khan has nothing to do with the Crawler; I’d stake my life on it.’
He moved to the door and opened it for them, indicating their meeting was at an end. ‘You two, run off and shop or eat in a public place or do whatever it is you’d expect a pair of runaway lovers to do. You have two more days to linger in Durbin before the governor becomes suspicious about your tale about travelling to see your family, Jazhara.’ He grinned. ‘I’d tell you to try to be convincing, but I guess we’re long past that.’ As the pair reached the door, he added, ‘You might spend some time thinking up what you need to tell your families and the prince.’ With a grimace he added, ‘It’s at times like this I’m rather pleased I don’t have a family.’
They left and he threw himself across the bed. The last remark made him think that the only person he ever needed to convince of anything was Prince Arutha, which at times was probably worse than having an angry father.
He rolled over on his back, kicked off his boots, and was asleep in minutes.
J
AMES JUMPED FROM THE ROOF
.
The sound of boot heels on tiles echoed behind as he struck the cobbles below, rolled and came up running. He’d have a nasty bruise on his shoulder to show for this night’s foray into the seediest part of town, but it was better than a broken ankle with three murderous thugs only seconds behind him.
He gained a few more seconds as they hesitated at the roof’s edge. A nasty cracking sound and a howl of pain told James one of the three had indeed jumped and broken an ankle or leg. The others had most likely grabbed the eaves, hung from them, then dropped.
James looked for a place to go to ground, as he had no desire to lead these three back to the Jade Monkey.
He found what he was looking for in some low, overhanging eaves above a stack of timber. He stepped on the wood carefully, trying not to lose his balance or make a sound, reached up and leapt. Grabbing the eaves, he pulled himself over, and moved back so that he could not be seen from the street.
James had become frustrated at not being able to clearly identify anyone in the city who might be part of any criminal organization, so he had decided it was time to cause a fuss. Playing the part of a thief newly come to Durbin, he feigned drunkenness at several of the taverns near the docks, dropping hints along the way that he was in possession of something of value and needed the services of what was known in the criminal parlance as a ‘fence’, a dealer in stolen property.
One burly dockworker followed him from one inn to two others and finally, when James appeared to be close to insensible from drink, told him he knew of a fellow, and would bring him if James stayed put. James nodded, instantly recognizing this for what it was, an attempt to abduct him and force him to tell the bullyboy and his lads where the valuables were stashed.
He recognized an ambush; he just didn’t know what he faced. He waited in the tavern, having scouted it thoroughly before entering, and thus knew there were at least three escape routes, depending on how he was attacked. He was adept at sipping a little ale and spilling a lot when no one was looking, and no one was likely to notice a spreading pool of ale at his feet under the stale straw that covered the floor.
After less than an hour, the man had returned and gestured for James to follow him outside for the introduction to the fence. Two steps outside and he knew exactly what the situation was: three men closing up on him, one following him out of the inn, one from each side. So he leapt atop a parked cart and onto the roof of the building across the street and took off, not looking to see if he was being followed, expecting that he would be. And indeed, moments later he had heard grunts of exertion and curses behind him, and knew he was off on a chase he knew well.
Lying flat on the rooftop, he waited to see if his two remaining
pursuers were smart enough to work out he had lost them,
and
backtrack. James hoped so, for he needed to follow them, and
have them lead him back to whoever employed them. If they gave up the hunt somewhere else in the city, all this exertion would have been for naught.
Then a flickering shadow on the rooftop across the street caught his eye. He waited, not moving, to see what was there. He almost willed the gloom to reveal what it masked while he kept track of his pursuers by ear. He could hear their footfalls echoing into the distance and when he could no longer hear them, he waited to hear them return.
A boy’s lifetime of being a thief had taught James patience far beyond his years; if need be, he could lie motionless for hours, ignoring the plague of distractions that a less practised man would find maddening: an itch to scratch, the desire to shift position, hunger and even thirst. On more than one occasion his life had depended on that skill.
Time dragged on but James was convinced there was someone hidden in the blackness across from him, almost certainly just on the other side of the roof’s peak, sheltered against the remote possibility that an observer might catch sight of him. That gave James pause, and worse, a dread certainty that he knew who was mere yards from his hiding place. And if he was right, he prayed to Ruthia the Goddess of Luck he had not been seen pulling himself up on the roof moments before he had spied that movement. Then he thought if he had been seen, most likely he would be dead.
After another long five minutes, James heard the sound of footfalls approaching, lightly, slowly, cautiously. His two would-be captors were indeed retracing their steps, trying to ascertain where he might have given them the slip. He heard whispers, though he couldn’t make out the words. Their tone was frustrated and urgent. Someone wanted the drunken, loud-mouthed thief and wanted him badly.
As they neared, James saw a hint of movement on the opposite roof, then abruptly a figure came over the peak of the roof, half slid down the eaves, and with an effortless, fluid move, pulled a short bow off his back. In an almost inhuman act of speed and precision, two arrows were loosed and the two men chasing James lay dead on the cobbles.
James tried even harder to blend into the roof tiles and fought back the urge to either run or slip backwards. Any movement would surely instantly end his existence.
Time dragged and then suddenly the archer was gone. James didn’t move. He closed his eyes for a second, then looked again. It was fully five more minutes before he dared move enough to glance over the eaves into the street. Below lay the two men, pools of blood spreading around them, each with an arrow through the throat, which had denied them even the opportunity to cry out.
James rolled over and looked up at a blank sky, the stars hidden by the marine clouds that came in from the Bitter Sea. He let out a slow breath and gathered his wits.
The archer’s identity was unknown to him, but he was a Nighthawk, a member of the Brotherhood of Assassins, a group with which James was all too familiar. He and Prince Arutha had seen the destruction of their hideout in an abandoned fortress miles to the south.
He waited for another five minutes, thinking how like rats they were. If you didn’t get them all in their nest, they were out in the sewers or on the rooftops, breeding.
‘Damn,’ James whispered to himself. At last he slowly got to his feet, looking around for any possible attack. When none came, he lowered himself from the eaves and dropped to the stones, quickly vanishing into the night.