“No boats available,” the largest of them said, blocking their path, the butt of his spear thumping onto the planks. “Come back in the morning.”
Frentis stabbed him in the eye, the narrow blade piercing the orb and the brain beyond in a single thrust. The woman leapt past the falling corpse and ducked under the orthodox but too slow slash of the second soldier to thrust her dagger into a gap between his breastplate and armpit, stepping behind him as he collapsed to his knees, pushing his helmeted head forward and finishing him with a thrust to the base of the skull.
They slipped the bodies into the river feetfirst, slowly so as to avoid any telltale splash. The woman chose a medium-sized boat, a flat-hulled river craft propelled by a single oar in the stern. She undid the mooring rope and let the river take them downstream for a mile or more before instructing Frentis to begin rowing. The current was swift, too swift to allow a straight crossing and he could only keep the prow pointed at the opposite bank with strenuous hauling on the oar.
“Atethia,” the woman said as the far bank grew in size, a stretch of marshland peppered with small islets each covered in tall rushes. “Southernmost province of the great Alpiran Empire, where we have much to do, dearest.”
The dawn saw him guiding the boat through the marshes amidst an unceasing cloud of midges. The water was dulled brown with silt, the channels through the countless islets narrow and difficult to navigate.
“Awful place isn’t it?” the woman commented. “The graveyard of my father’s final invasion in fact. He spent three years building a fleet on the opposite bank. That wretched town was first constructed from wood salvaged from the wrecks. Four hundred warships and a thousand boats carried his great host across the river where they spent a full month slogging through this marsh, hundreds died of disease or drowning but on they went, only for them to die by the thousands in a great and mysterious fire that ravaged the marshes. Most Alpirans believe the gods intervened to destroy the invaders with their divine fury, but Volarian historians insist they simply soaked the fringes of the marsh with naphtha and set it alight with fire arrows. Fifty thousand Free Swords and slaves burned to cinders in the space of a single night. Not my father though. Mad as he was by then, he was still wise enough to remain on the other side of the river.” She glanced around at the rushes which grew so high as to obscure any view of the surrounding country. “Even today the Alpirans don’t bother to fortify this stretch of bank, for what general would be insane enough to try the same tactic?”
It took another two days before the marsh finally gave way to solid ground, the boat grounding on a silt bank where the rushes were less tall and they could see a stretch of open country beyond. After the monotony of the marsh and the fetid threat of the jungle the green fields ahead were a welcome and inviting reminder of the Realm.
“We’ll need new clothes,” the woman said, starting forward. “I am the daughter of a wealthy Alpiran merchant from the northern ports, sent to the Twelve Sisters to meet with a prospective husband. You are a runaway slave turned mercenary hired as my bodyguard.”
A half-day’s walk brought them to a midsize town hugging the banks of one of the tributaries to the great river. There were no defensive walls but from a distance they could see numerous Alpiran soldiers walking the streets. “A little too busy for us, dearest,” the woman decided. “There should be a plantation house or two further north.”
They stayed off the roads, avoiding occasional Alpiran cavalry patrols by trekking through the fields of cotton that seemed to be the main crop in the region. Before long a plantation house came into view, a wide two-storey complex of interlinked houses and farm buildings, busy with workers. They hid in an irrigation ditch until nightfall when the woman sent him to the house to seek out the laundry. “The finest you can find for me, dearest,” she told him. “I have appearances to maintain. Kill anyone who sees you. If it’s more than one, kill everyone in the house and burn it down.”
He approached from the west, the house having fewer windows on this side, moving from shadow to shadow, hugging the exterior wall. There were no guards, not even a dog to bark at the stranger appearing from the darkness. He made his way to the rear of the house where he assumed the servants’ quarters were situated. The house was quiet but for the faint sound of song coming from what he judged to be the kitchen from the rich, savoury aroma emanating from the window.
He stopped at the sound of movement, lying prone beneath a large cart as two women emerged from a doorway to the courtyard. They chatted as they worked, hanging clothes on the lines strung across the yard. Frentis had picked up a little Alpiran during the war but this was an unfamiliar dialect, the accent harsher and more guttural than in the northern ports. He could pick out only one word in ten, but the term “Choosing” was voiced more than once, spoken in a kind of hushed reverence, as was the word “Emperor.”
He watched the women complete their task and go back inside, waited the space of a hundred heartbeats then stole from beneath the wagon, pulling clothes from the washing line and wrapping them in a tight bundle. He was no judge of fashion but decided the woman would be content with a finely made robe of cotton with silk sleeves, plus a long cloak of dark blue-he froze at the sound of shuffling feet.
The boy stood in the doorway, playing with a wooden spindle on a string. He was no more than seven years old with a tumble of unkempt dark hair, his eyes rapt on his toy as it spun on the string. Kill anyone who sees you . . .
Frentis stood as still as he ever had, more still than the time he brought down his first stag under Master Hutril’s guiding eyes, more still than when he hid from One Eye’s thugs during his Test of the Wild.
The top spun and spun on the string.
Kill anyone who sees you . . .
Slowly, the binding began to flare. She knows, he realised. How did she always know?
It would be easy. Snap his neck then take him to the well. A tragic accident.
The top spun and spun . . . and the binding burned with a new pitch of agony. The damp bundle of clothes in his hands dripped onto the courtyard, a slow steady patter sure to draw a boy’s curious eyes.
“Neries!” a woman’s voice called from the kitchen window, followed by an insistent string of verbiage carrying a tone of maternal authority. The boy huffed, spun his top a few more times then went back inside.
Frentis fled.
“It’ll do, I suppose.” The woman discarded her grey attire and dressed in the silk-sleeved robe he had brought her. Frentis had already donned the pale blue trews and shirt he had chosen for himself. “Little loose around the waist though. Do you think me fat, dearest?” She grinned at him. The sun was rising and lit her face with a golden hue. You would never know, he thought, studying her feline beauty, the grace with which she moved. A monster lives behind her face.
“It was a child, wasn’t it?” she said as he hefted the pack onto his shoulder and they made for the road. “Boy or girl?”
Frentis kept walking, saying nothing.
“Doesn’t matter,” she continued. “But you shouldn’t indulge in any delusions. Our list is long and your tiresome notions of morality will no doubt cast every name in the role of innocent victim. But we will strike them through, each and every one, and you will do what I require of you, child or no.”
They came to another town in late afternoon, the woman seeking out a dressmaker and purchasing something more to her liking, paying with an Alpiran gold from the supply sewn into the lining of the pack he carried. She posed for him in a simple but elegant ensemble of black-and-white silk, saying something in Alpiran, presumably seeking his opinion. The dressmaker had been kind enough to help with her hair, now bound up and braided in the Alpiran style, an ornate comb shining in the lustrous black mass. You would never know . . .