Krondor: The Assassins

Locklear shook hands, then embraced his best friend. ‘I’ll try not to.’

James grinned. ‘Good, then with luck we’ll see you at Midsummer’s Festival, assuming you don’t do anything to cause Arutha to keep you up there longer than that.’

Locklear said, ‘I’ll be good.’

‘See that you are,’ instructed James.

He left his friend and hurried to his own quarters. Being a member of the Prince’s court merited James a room of his own, but since he was only a squire, it was a modest one; a bed, a table for writing or eating a solitary meal, and a double door wooden wardrobe. James closed the door to his room, locking it behind him, and undressed. He was wearing travel clothing, but it was still too conspicuous for what he needed to do. Opening his wardrobe, he moved aside a bundle of shirts in need of laundry, and beneath those he found what he was looking for. A dark grey tunic and dark blue trousers, patched and mended and looking far dirtier than they actually were. He dressed in those, pulled on his oldest boots and slipped a well-made but plain-looking dagger into his boot-sheath. Then once again looking like a creature of the streets, he slipped out through the door of his quarters, avoiding servants and guards as he made his way down into the palace cellar.

Soon he was moving through a secret passage that connected the palace with the city sewers, and as night fell on Krondor Jimmy the Hand once more moved along the Thieves’ Highway.

The sun had set by the time James reached the transition point between the sewer under the palace and the city sewer system. The sky above might still be light for a while, but beneath the streets it was as dark as night. During the day there were places in the sewer where illumination filtered down from above, tunnels close to the surface where culverts had broken through, others below streets where missing stones or open drains admitted daylight.

But after sundown, the entire system was pitch-black, save for a few locations with light sources of their own, and only an expert could move through the maze of passages safely. From the moment he left the palace, James knew exactly where he was.

While a member of the Guild of Thieves, the Mockers, James had learned every trick of survival that harsh circumstance, opportunity, and keen native intelligence had presented to him. He moved silently to a stash he had prepared and moved a false stone. It was fashioned from cloth, wood, and paint, and in light far brighter than any likely to ever be present here, it would withstand inspection. He set the false stone down and retrieved a shuttered lantern from the stash. The hidey-hole held an extra set of picks, as well as a number of items unlikely to be welcome inside the palace proper: some caustic agents, climbing equipment, and a few non-standard weapons. Old habits died hard.

James lit the lantern. He had never considered keeping a lantern in the palace, for fear someone might observe him making the transition between the palace sewer and the one under the city. Guarding the secret of how the palace could be reached through the sewers was paramount. Every drawing on file in the palace, from the original keep through the latest expansion, showed the two systems as entirely separate, just as the city’s sewer was divided from the one outside the city walls. But smugglers and thieves had quickly rendered royal plans inaccurate, by creating passages in and out of the city.

James trimmed the wick, lit it, and closed the shutters until only a tiny sliver of light shone, but it was enough for him to navigate his way safely through the sewer. He could do it with no light, he knew, but it would slow him down to a painful near-crawl to have to feel his way along the walls the entire way, and he had a good distance to travel this night.

James did a quick check to ensure he had left nothing exposed for anyone to chance across. He considered the never-ending need for security which created this odd paradox: the Royal Engineers spent a lot of time and gold repairing the city’s sewers – and just as quickly the Mockers and others damaged them to have a furtive passage free of royal oversight. James often was the one responsible for identifying a new breach. Occasionally he was guilty of hiding one, if it suited his purposes more than it compromised the palace’s security.

Thinking that there was a great deal more to being a responsible member of the Prince’s court than he had imagined when he had first been put in the company of squires, the former thief hurried on towards his first appointment.

It was almost dawn when James started looking for his last contact. The squire was having trouble keeping his concerns in check. The first three informants he had sought were missing. The docks were unnaturally silent, devoid of even the boisterous noise usually marking the area’s inns and taverns. The poor quarter was clearly a no man’s land, with many of the Mockers’ usual bolt-holes and accesses blocked off and sealed.

Of the Mockers, James had seen nothing. That alone was not completely unusual. He wasn’t the only one adroit at travelling through the sewers and streets unnoticed. But there was something different about this night. There were others who used the sewers. Beggars who weren’t Mockers had places where they could sleep unmolested. Smugglers moved cargo short distances from secret landings built into the larger outflows into the harbour to basements farther in the city. With such activities came noises: small, unnoticed unless one was trained to recognize them for what they were, but usually they were there. Tonight everything was silent. Only the murmur of water, the scurrying of rats and the occasional rattle of distant machinery, waterwheels, pumps, and sluice gates echoed through the tunnels.

Anyone in the sewers was lying low, James knew. And that meant trouble. Historically, in times of trouble, the Mockers would seal off sections of the sewers, especially near the poor quarter, barring the passages to Mockers’ Rest, the place called ‘Mother’s’ by members of the Guild of Thieves. Armed bashers would take up station and wait for the crisis to pass. Others not belonging to the guild would also hole up until the trouble passed. Outside those enclaves and safe areas, anyone in the tunnels was fair game. The last time James had remembered such a condition had been during the year following the end of the Riftwar, when Princess Anita had been injured and Arutha had declared martial law.

The more he had travelled through the sewers below and the streets above, the more James was convinced something equally dire had occurred while he had been out of the city on the Prince’s business. James looked around to see that he was unwatched and moved to the rear of the alley.

A pair of old wooden crates had been turned towards a brick wall to offer some shelter against the elements. Inside that crate lay a still form. A swarm of flies took off as James moved the crate slightly. Before he touched the man’s leg, James knew he wasn’t sleeping. Gingerly he turned over the still form of Old Edwin, a one-time sailor whose love of drink had cost him his livelihood, family, and any shred of dignity. But, James thought, even a gutter-rat like Edwin deserved better than having his throat cut like a calf at slaughter.

The thick, nearly-dried blood told James he had been murdered earlier, probably around dawn the day before. He was certain that his other missing contacts had met a similar fate. Either whoever was behind the troubles in the city was killing indiscriminately – and James’s informants had been exceedingly unfortunate – or someone was methodically murdering off James’s agents in Krondor. Logic dictated the latter as the most likely explanation.

James stood and looked skyward. The night was fading, as a grey light from the east heralded the dawn’s approach. There was only one place left he might find answers without risking confronting the Mockers.

James knew that some agreement between the Prince and Mockers had been reached years before when he had joined Arutha’s service, but he never knew the details. An understanding of sorts had arisen between James and the Mockers. He stayed out of their way and they avoided him. He came and went as he pleased in the sewers and across the roofs of the city when he needed, and they looked the other way. But at no time had he any illusion that he would be warmly welcomed should he attempt to return to Mockers’ Rest. You were either a Mocker or you weren’t, he knew, and for nearly fourteen years he had not been a Mocker.

James put aside concerns about braving a visit to Mother’s and turned towards the one other place he might find some news.

James returned to the sewer and made his way quickly to a spot below a particular inn. It sat on the border between the poorest quarter of the city and a slightly more respectable district, one inhabited by workmen and their families. A rank covering of slime hid a secret release, and once it was tripped, James felt a slight grinding as a section of stone swung aside.

The ‘stone’ was made of plaster over heavy canvas, covering a narrow entryway to a short tunnel. Once inside the tunnel, with the secret door closed behind him, James opened the shutters of the lantern. He was almost certain he knew of every trap along the short passage, but as the key word was ‘almost’ he took great caution as he traversed the tunnel.

At the far end he found a thick oaken door, on the other side of which he knew rose a short flight of stairs leading to a cellar below an inn. He inspected the lock and when he was satisfied nothing had changed, he picked it adroitly. When it clicked open, he pushed it gingerly aside against the possibility of a new trap on the other side of the door. Nothing happened and he quickly mounted the stairs.

At the top of the stairs, he entered the dark cellar, thick with barrels and sacks. He moved through the maze of stores and climbed the wooden steps up to the main floor of the building, opening into a pantry, behind the kitchen. He opened the door.

A young woman’s scream split the air and a moment later a crossbow bolt flew through the space James had occupied the instant before. The young man rolled on the floor as the bolt splintered the wooden door and James came to his feet with his hands held palm out as he said, ‘Easy, Lucas! It’s me!’

The innkeeper, a former soldier in his youth, was halfway around the kitchen, the crossbow set aside as he was drawing his sword. He had grabbed the crossbow and fired through the door, across the kitchen, upon hearing the scream. He hesitated a moment, then returned his sword to its scabbard as he continued moving towards James.

He circled around a butcher’s block. ‘You idiot!’ he hissed, as if afraid to raise his voice. ‘You trying to get yourself killed?’

‘Honestly, no,’ said James as he stood up.

‘Dressed like that, sneaking at my cellar door, how’d I know it was you? You should have sent word you were coming that way, or waited an hour and come in the front door like an honest man.’

‘Well, I am an honest man,’ said James, moving from the kitchen, past the bar and into the empty common room. He glanced around, then sat down in a chair. ‘More or less.’

Lucas gave him a half-smile. ‘More than some. What brings you crawling around like a cat in the gutter?’

James glanced over at the young girl who had followed him and Lucas into the commons. She had regained her composure as the intruder was revealed to be a friend of the innkeeper. ‘Sorry to startle you.’

She took a breath and said, ‘Well, you did a good job of it.’ She stood upright, and her high colour from the fright put her fair complexion in contrast to her dark hair. She appeared to be in her late teens or early twenties.

James asked, ‘The new barmaid?’

‘My daughter, Talia.’

James sat back. ‘Lucas, you don’t have a daughter.’

The proprietor of The Rainbow Parrot sat down opposite James and said, ‘Run to the kitchen and see nothing’s burning, Talia.’

‘Yes, father,’ she said, leaving.

‘I have a daughter,’ Lucas said to James. ‘When her mother died I sent her to live with my brother on his farm near Tannerbrook.’

James smiled. ‘Didn’t want her to grow up in this place?’

Lucas sighed. ‘No. It gets rough in here.’

Feigning innocence, James said, ‘Why, Lucas. I never noticed.’

Pointing an accusatory finger in his direction, Lucas said, ‘Far less savoury characters than you have graced that chair, Jimmy the Hand.’

James held up his hands as if surrendering. ‘I’ll concede as much.’ He glanced towards the kitchen door as if somehow seeing through it. ‘But she doesn’t sound like any farm girl I’ve heard before, Lucas.’

Lucas sat back, ran his bony hand through his grey-shot hair. His angular face showed irritation at having to explain. ‘She studied with a sisterhood in a nearby abbey for more hours than she milked cows. She can read, write, and do sums. She’s a smart lass.’

James nodded in appreciation. ‘Laudable. Though I doubt your average customer will appreciate those qualities as much as … the more obvious ones.’

Lucas’s expression darkened. ‘She’s a good girl, James. She’s going to marry a proper man, not some scruffy … well, you know the type. I’ll have a dowry set by and …’ He dropped his voice so as not to be heard in the kitchen. ‘James, you’re the only one I know who knows some proper lads, being in the palace and all. At least since Laurie ran off and got himself named duke in Salador. Can you arrange for my girl to meet the right kind of boy? She’s been back in the city only a few days and already I feel as green as a raw recruit on his first day of training. With her brothers dead in the war, she’s all I’ve got.’ He glanced around the well-tended but rough common room and said, ‘I want her to have more than this.’

James grinned. ‘I know. I’ll see what I can do. I’ll bring a couple of the more likely fellows down for a drink and let nature take its course.’

‘But not Locklear!’ said Lucas. ‘You keep him away.’

James laughed. ‘No worries. He’s probably riding out the gate this very minute, heading for a long tour of duty in Tyr-Sog.’

Talia came back into the room and said, ‘Everything is ready, father.’

‘That’s a good lass,’ he replied. ‘Open the door, then, and let anyone in who’s waiting for breakfast.’

As she moved off, Lucas said to James, ‘All right then. You didn’t get yourself almost killed sneaking in from the sewers to gossip about my girl and the boys in court. What brings you here before sunrise?’

James’s face lost any hint of humour. ‘There’s a war underway in the sewers, Lucas. And someone’s killed some friends of mine. What’s going on?’

Lucas sat back and nodded. ‘I knew you’d come asking one of these days. I thought it would be sooner.’

‘I just got back into the city last night. I was off with the Prince … doing some things.’

Lucas said, ‘Well, Arutha would do well to look closer to home for trouble, for he has heaps of it here free for the asking. I don’t know the truth of it, but according to the rumours men are killing freely in the sewers and along the waterfront. Citizens and Mockers alike are dying. I hear of Keshians setting up shops in buildings once owned by Kingdom merchants, and new bully gangs working along the docks. No one knows what’s going on, save the Mockers who have gone to ground and are hiding out. I’ve not seen one in a week. Most of my regulars come later and leave earlier, wanting to be home safe before dark.’

‘Who’s behind it, Lucas?’ asked James.

Lucas looked around, as if afraid some invisible agency might overhear him. Softly he said, ‘Someone calling himself the Crawler.’

James sat back. ‘Why am I not surprised?’ he muttered.

• CHAPTER THREE •

Reception

JAMES WAITED.

A court page knocked upon the door, his youthful expression neutral as befitted a lad of twelve stationed just outside the royal apartments. An answering voice bid James enter, and he waited as two pages pushed open the ornate wooden doors. Inside, the Prince took breakfast with his family, the fractious twins poking at one another while attempting to avoid parental notice. A scolding look from their mother indicated their failure and they went back to a pretence of model behaviour. The little Princess was happily singing a song of her own making while she purposefully put spoon to a bowl of hot breakfast mush.

Princess Anita smiled at James as he presented himself to the family and bowed. ‘Our squire finally appears,’ said Arutha dryly. ‘I trust we’re not inconveniencing you this morning?’

James smiled back at the Princess as he straightened, then turned to the Prince and said, ‘I was dressed in a quite inappropriate fashion for a meal with the royal family, Highness. I am sorry to be so tardy.’

Arutha indicated for James to stand at his right hand, where he was expected to wait on his ruler’s pleasure unless out on some errand or another. James did so and took a moment to rest in the glow of the only thing in his life that felt like family to him.

The Prince of Krondor and his squire enjoyed a relationship that was eccentric and unique. At times they were comrades as much as master and servant, while at other times their bond was almost brotherly. Yet there was always this one thing between them: James never forgot that Arutha was his Prince and he was Arutha’s loyal servant.

‘You look tired,’ observed the Prince.

‘It’s been a long time since I enjoyed the comfort of a warm bed and a good night’s sleep, sir,’ James replied. ‘Last night included.’

‘Well, was it worth it?’

James said, ‘In one way, very much. In another, no.’

Glancing at his wife and children, Arutha looked at James and softly said, ‘Do we need to speak in private?’

James said, ‘I judge it inappropriate table conversation, if that’s the answer you seek, Highness.’

Arutha said, ‘Retire to my private office and wait. I will join you in a few minutes.’

James did as he was told and walked the short distance to Arutha’s private office. Inside he found it as it always was, ordered and clean. He eased his fatigued body into a chair near the Prince’s writing desk and sat back.

James lurched awake as Arutha entered a short while later. ‘Sleeping?’ asked the Prince with amusement as James came to his feet.

‘It was a very long and tiring ride home, Highness, followed by another night without sleep.’

Arutha waved James back into his chair and said, ‘Relax a bit while you talk, but don’t nod off again.’

‘Sire,’ said James as he sat. ‘Three of my informants have gone missing.’

Arutha nodded. ‘From what the good sheriff tells me, we have a rash of killings here in Krondor again, and this time it looks as if there’s no pattern. But the disappearance of your informants tells us someone knows more about us than we do about him, and doesn’t want us improving our knowledge.’

James said, ‘I don’t see any pattern either.’

‘Not yet,’ said the Prince. There was a knock at the door, and Arutha called out, ‘A moment.’ To James he said, ‘That would be Gardan with his retirement documents.’

‘He is leaving, then?’ asked James.

Arutha nodded. ‘I’m sorry to see him go, but he’s earned his rest. He’ll go home to Crydee and spend his last years with his grandchildren, and I can’t think of a better fate for any man. And I suspect he’s correct in his accusation that I don’t leave him much to do, really. He suggests I appoint someone with administrative talents to the post rather than a military man as long as I insist on personally supervising the army. And this conversation stays in this room.’

James nodded silently.

Pointing to the door, Arutha said, ‘Let Gardan in on your way out. Then go to your room and get some sleep. You’re excused from court duty this morning. You have a busy evening ahead of you.’

‘More scouting the city?’ asked James.

Arutha said, ‘No, my wife’s arranged a homecoming ball, and you must attend.’

James rolled his eyes heavenward. ‘Couldn’t I go crawl around in the sewers some more?’

Arutha laughed. ‘No. You’ll stand and look interested as rich merchants impress you with tales of their fiscal heroics, and their vapid daughters try to entice you with their marginal charms. That’s a royal command.’ He fingered a document upon his desk. ‘And we have word of an eastern noble headed our way for an unexpected visit. So we must be ready to entertain as well. And murder in the streets does so take the joy out of things, don’t you agree?’ he added dryly.

‘Yes, Highness.’

James opened the door and admitted Gardan, who nodded a greeting. After Gardan entered the room, James left, closing the door behind him.

The court was nearly empty. In a few moments, de Lacy and Jerome would admit nobles, merchants, and other petitioners to the great hall. With a nod of courtesy to the two men, James hurried out of another side door and started back towards his quarters. He might not look forward to another of Princess Anita’s galas, but he did hear his bed singing a siren call to him right now. The last few weeks in the north, especially almost a week-long horseback ride abetted by mystical herbs to ward off fatigue, had taken its toll.

As he reached the corner of two halls, he found a page and instructed the youth to awaken him one hour before the supper bell rang. James reached his room, went inside, and within minutes was fast asleep.

The musicians struck up a tune and Arutha turned to his wife and bowed. Less formal than the royal court in Rillanon, the Prince’s court in Krondor was no less bound by traditions. One such was that no one began dancing before the Prince and Princess.

Arutha was an adept dancer. That didn’t surprise James. No one could be as nimble when wheeling a sword as the Prince of Krondor and not have a superb sense of balance and exquisite timing. And the dances were simple. James had heard that the court dances in Rillanon were complex, very formal things, while here in the far more rustic west the court dances were similar to those performed by farmers and townspeople throughout the Western Realm, just executed with a bit more restraint and less noise.

James watched Arutha and Anita nod as one to the music master. He held up his bow and nodded to his musicians, a collection of stringed instruments, a pair of percussionists, and three men playing flutes of various sizes. A sprightly tune was struck up and Anita stepped away from Arutha, while holding his hand, and executed a twirling turn, which caused her ornate gown to flare out. She ducked skillfully under his arm, and James thought it was a good thing those silly large white hats the ladies wore this season were considered daywear only. He considered it improbable she could have got under Arutha’s arm without knocking it off.

The thought struck him as amusing and he smiled. Jerome, standing nearby said, ‘Something funny, James?’

James’s smile vanished. He had never liked Jerome, that distaste going back to their first encounter when James had arrived in court. After Jerome’s first – and last – attempt to bully him, James had knocked down the older boy, informing him pointedly that he was Prince Arutha’s personal squire and not about to be bullied by anyone. James had emphasized the message with the point of a dagger – Jerome’s own – deftly picked off his belt without Jerome noticing, and the message had never needed to be repeated.

Jerome had remained wary of James from that day on, though he had occasionally tried to bully the younger squires. Since becoming de Lacy’s apprentice, and in all likelihood the next Master of Ceremonies, Jerome had outgrown his bullying behaviour, and a polite truce had arisen between himself and James. James still considered him a fussy prig, but judged him far less obnoxious than he had been as a boy. And at times he was even useful.

James said, ‘Just an odd thought about fashion.’

Jerome let a slight smile show itself before turning sombre once more. He did not pursue the remark, but his slight change of expression indicated he appreciated James’s observation.