Invisible Assassin (18 page)

"This is going to hurt."

"You don't say?"

Chewing his lip, Jayon stitched the wound, flinching whenever Blade did. The long and tedious task made the assassin ashen with pain. To distract him, Jayon asked, "You're sure Prince Ronan will die?"

"He'll rot. First he'll piss blood - ah! - Then he'll start to stink. His wounds will fester, and no ointment will help him."

"How long will it take?"

"A few days."

Jayon glanced at his patient. "I didn't know you had a sister."

"Nor did I, until a moon ago."

"So how will we get back to Jashimari?"

Blade frowned. "Buy some horses and - ah! - ride, how do you think?"

"I don't have enough money for that."

The assassin pulled the silver torc from his neck. "Sell this, that will give us enough - ow! - money."

"Must you keep doing that?" Jayon grumbled. "It's distracting. Most men manage to grit their teeth."

"I don't like pain, boy. Having a needle stuck in me isn't my idea of fun."

"Nor mine."

"Well you aren't the one who's being stuck with it."

"This isn't much fun either. There, I think that should do it." Jayon put away the needle and wiped his hands, then smeared on the ointment and bandaged it. Blade slumped, and Jayon sat back, eyeing his patient.

"You should rest now. You've lost a lot of blood."

"Not here. Go find a horse with a blond tail and cut me some hair."

The boy cocked his head. "What for?"

"For a disguise, of course. You found some glue?"

Jayon nodded, then rose and walked off along the stalls, soon slipping into one. He returned with a handful of hair, and Blade set to work smearing the glue onto his chin and upper lip. Without the aid of a mirror, he could not stick the hair on himself, so Jayon applied it, smiling when he had finished.

"Now no one would think you were a..."

Blade shot him a hard glance. "That's the point, isn't it? The soldiers are looking for a eunuch, not a bearded veteran."

"Very clever."

"It's kept me alive." Blade unlaced the blood-stained shirt and pulled it off, donning the rough one Jayon had brought. "The soldiers will be scrutinising everyone who leaves the palace tonight, and the colour of our eyes will give us away, so we will both have to be blind. The hoods will hide our hair; just let me do the talking. I speak their dialect."

Jayon nodded. "They already stopped me once, when I went to get the things you wanted. I pretended to be blind and mute." He looked a little smug.

"Good, you're catching on fast."

"It's only common sense."

"Don't get too cocky, boy; it's a tall horse to fall from." Blade struggled to his feet and stood swaying. "We'll wrap cloth around our eyes, loose enough to see under it. And fetch some dung."

"What for?"

"To rub on our clothes. Nothing puts people off a search quite like a terrible stench."

When Jayon's bag was repacked and they were dressed in the hooded cloaks with cloths over their eyes, Jayon picked up his knotted staff and affected a limp. Blade leant on him, not needing to fake his hobble. They tottered out of the stables in full sight of the soldiers who searched the bushes with torches. One marched over to challenge them.

"What were you two doing in the stables?"

Blade replied, "Having a piss."

"Well do it somewhere else, not in the stables."

"Why not? The horses do it there."

The soldier gave a grunt of annoyance. "I don't know why the King lets you old farts hang around here."

"Because we almost died fighting for him," Blade said. "And we don't take any lip from the likes of you!" He tugged at Jayon, and they staggered away.

The soldier made a rude noise, but let them go. When they reached the palace gates, a dozen soldiers blocked it, armed with spears and shields.

Blade whistled softly and whispered, "What do they think I am, a one-man army?"

"Evidently."

Blade hobbled up to the gate, groped his way along the wall and bumped into a soldier who did not step aside. The man moved out of the way with a curse when Jayon waved his stick in a broad sweep that almost hit him on the ear. An officer came over and stopped in front of them, then was also forced to step aside when they did not slow down. He gripped Blade's shoulder, halting them, but snatched his hand away and recoiled from their smell, grimacing.

"Just a moment, veterans."

Blade turned towards him. "What's the matter now? First we get told not to piss in the stables, now you lot get in our way. It's hard enough being blind without bumping into people who shouldn't be there."

"Sorry." The officer stepped back. "We're looking for a killer."

"Then quit bothering us and get on with it."

"You're both blind?"

Blade turned his head towards Jayon. "He's blind too? Damn, I thought he was a bad guide."

A soldier chortled, "The blind leading the blind."

The officer scowled at him. "That's enough of that." He stepped closer and ran his fingers along Jayon's cheek with a rasp of stubble. "What are you looking for, a girl?" Blade sneered.

"No, a eunuch."

"Same thing. I didn't think eunuchs had the balls to be killers."

A soldier laughed, receiving a stern look from his commander.

Blade leant closer. "I'll tell you something, though. We haven't seen him."

Several soldiers laughed, and the officer looked annoyed. "Move along, veterans."

Jayon started forward, but Blade hung back. "You lot still going to be blocking the way tomorrow?"

"No, we'll be searching the city by then if we haven't caught him."

"Good, then we won't fall over you again. You should look where you're going."

"It's dark."

"Is it?" Blade turned to Jayon. "You hear that? It's dark. Hope we haven't missed the alehouse."

Jayon tugged him forward, eager to get away. As soon as they were out of earshot, he whispered, "Did you have to talk so much?"

"You have to act the part, not just look it. They hardly took any notice of us, did they? If we'd been quiet, they'd have been suspicious. Veterans aren't the silent type; they tend to be garrulous, curious and self-righteous."

"Well, at least we're out of the palace grounds."

"That's the easy part. We can't be blind veterans when we leave the city."

"So how will we do that?"

Blade growled, "You'll find out when I think of it."

Jayon led the assassin along several streets to a shabby house tucked away in an alley. There he unlocked a side door and helped Blade into a dingy, musty-smelling room with a rickety cot in the corner and a well-used table and two chairs in the middle of it. The assassin pulled off the cloth that covered his eyes and looked around as Jayon lighted a lamp.

"This is where you've been living?"

"It's the sort of place a veteran would rent."

Blade stripped off the smelly shirt and limped to the bed, easing himself onto it with a groan. The dressing Jayon had put on his wound was stained with fresh blood. "We'll have to stay here for at least a tenday, until the furore dies down. Once Ronan's dead, Kerrion will call off the hunt, or at least misdirect it."

"You trust him that much?"

"He can't afford to let them torture me. I know too much." He sighed. "We'll have to keep our disguises on all the time, in case they search the houses. You'll go out only to buy food, and try to keep your mouth shut. In the morning you'll have to buy some berries to dye our skin and a couple of blond wigs.

"It was too dark for them to notice how pale we are tonight, but in the daylight we won't pass for Cotti. The berries are called inda, some Cotti chew them, it turns their teeth a revolting shade of brown. The wigs are easy to find, lots of Cotti men go bald, and others make money selling their wives' hair. For the next tenday we must become Cotti veterans."

The assassin's eyes closed, and Jayon pulled off his boots, then covered him with a blanket before spreading a thin pallet on the floor for himself. For a while he could not sleep, his mind whirling with the night's events and the dangerous situation they were in. At least Blade seemed to know what he was doing, and he hoped his trust in the assassin's skills would be vindicated. If not, he would share the execution block with him.

Although his eyes were closed, Blade lay awake for some time, remembering the instant when he had decided to die with his sister and join her in the Everlasting. He would not have obeyed Minna's command to go, had it not been for her insane attempt to save him. Only her bravery had changed his mind, even though he did not understand it.

The memory of Alenstra's desperate, pleading eyes haunted him in the darkness behind his eyelids, a sight he would never forget. Just as he had never forgotten the little girls falling like dolls on the burning sand, their hands outstretched to beg for mercy. This time not only had he failed to save his sister, he had caused her death. He saw no point to his continued existence. The prospect of living with his guilt did not appeal to him, yet Queen Minna-Satu had placed herself in danger to save him, and that had to mean something.

Kerrion watched his brother die in slow, agonising stages over the next few days. The sight and stench of it became torture for the King as well, but he forced himself to visit Ronan each day. The Prince begged to see his brothers, then his sons, even his mother, but Kerrion remained adamant, knowing that Ronan only sought to tell someone what he knew.

The Prince took the draughts the healers offered, which dulled the pain and made him sleepy. The agony of his rotting insides left him no choice. Several times, Ronan begged for a swift end, but Kerrion refused on the grounds that killing a prince was treason, even for the King. Ronan sank into a delirium from which he did not awaken, and Kerrion watched him draw his final, rattling breath on the fifth day.

The embalmers were summoned, and the city was plunged into mourning again. Flags and banners were lowered, and the citizens dressed in black. Kerrion put on a good show of indignant anger to his advisors about the lack of success in apprehending the assassin, sending them scurrying to remedy their failure. Privately he toasted Blade's final success with Minna-Satu, who remained depressed by the loss of her assassin. Her only consolation was that he was free, and would possibly return to Jashimari to live out his days in peaceful retirement, as he richly deserved.

With Ronan gone, Kerrion was able to start making sweeping reforms to his kingdom, outlawing various practices that degraded women, beginning with rape. He walked through the palace with his wife beside him and chastised any who did not greet her politely. Since no Cotti knew what Minna-Satu looked like, they knew her only as a Jashimari woman Kerrion had brought back with him and wed. As far as they knew, the Jashimari Queen had died of poison, and the simple funeral that Kerrion had arranged bore out this tale.

That some of his young half-brothers knew the truth did not unduly concern Kerrion, since they were unlikely to spread the tale. Minna-Satu's presence was a great source of shame for them, and they would undoubtedly prefer to back up Kerrion's story than face the gossip that would result if they revealed the truth. Not only that, but it would be their word against Kerrion's, and they had no proof. Now that the older princes' plots to slay her had failed, and they were dead, the younger princes would be leery of making the same mistake. Only Armin remained a threat, old enough to hatch plots and next in line to the throne, but he was in Contara, where he could stay, as far as Kerrion was concerned.

The traditional veils that all Cotti women wore in public made it impossible for spies to carry Minna's description to Jashimari, and the rumour that the Cotti King had taken a Jashimari bride would do no more than raise a few eyebrows there. The Queen's Cup was invariably fatal. Only Kerrion, Minna, Blade and Shamsara knew that an antidote existed. No one saw Minna's face except her maidens and Kerrion, as was proper. They wore mourning black, and she joined him several times at his vigil beside his brother's coffin, where he would lie in state for three tendays. The short duration of his public appearance was due to the speed with which his body rotted, despite the embalmers' efforts.

Chapter Ten

For a tenday, Blade did not leave the safety of the dingy hovel. The horsehair beard made his face itch, and added to his foul mood. Twice soldiers came to the shack, and each time retreated from the lash of Blade's tongue without suspecting that the dirty veteran was anything other than what he appeared to be. His accounts of battlefield gore sickened the young recruits; how his mute companion had been shot through the throat with an arrow and crows had pecked out his eyes while he lay amongst the dead. The second time, after Blade chased the soldiers out with Jayon's gnarled stick, they marked the door and did not return.

The assassin healed without developing a fever, and in view of the mark on the door, they decided to stay until he had recovered before making the arduous desert crossing. As the time of their departure drew near, Blade revealed his plan to escape the city.

"We'll leave as Cotti merchants," he explained. "Brothers, actually. I'll trim this beard and make it respectable, then we will buy some decent clothes and two good horses. I'll tell the gate guards we're travelling to Indala, which means we won't be able to take a lot of supplies. Indala's only five days travel away. I'll do all the talking, since you'll be the younger brother."

Jayon nodded. "Sounds all right.

"It won't be as easy as it sounds, but you just keep your mouth shut and do as I say, got it?"

Jayon nodded again, looking a little miffed. "I'm not a fool."

"Good. Tomorrow I'll buy the clothes, the next day we buy the horses and go."

The following day, Blade ventured out, using his command of the Cotti accent and inflection to barter with traders for two sets of second-hand clothes. He bought each item from a different merchant to ensure that none became suspicious of a poor veteran purchasing so much clothing. Amongst his shopping were also several bags of grain and food, water skins and two more daggers.