Cry of the Nightbird Read online

  He’d have to watch her carefully, naturally, and the trust he placed in her would fade the moment her crush on him did the same, but for now… Why, for now, he thought, I could probably give her the queen’s jewels for safekeeping, and she would neither crow nor look to cheat me of a single citrine drop earring. I love the honest face of a common child.

  Why, he could probably even trust her with—but no. That did not bear thinking of. That was his own little secret, and there were things that were too… personal to be shared, however innocuous they might be. If he ever had a need to tell someone, Wren might serve well enough, but so long as there was no such need, his secret would stay a secret.

  His fingers worked quickly on, writing out the coded receipt: full payment received for a single order of secret assassination. His runners would discreetly exchange the decorative handkerchief for the proper sum of money, and the job would be done. The nobility liked to keep their own secrets, Hag curse the highborn rats.

  He’d known too many in his twenty-eight years, nobles and secrets both, and every single one was filthy. He liked to think that he hated even accepting their coin, but that would’ve been a lie. Coin was the one thing the highborn were good for, and they were better at taking it than giving it out.

  He spat on the floor and hastened his needlework to the point of sloppiness, suddenly weary of the day.

  Dania moped in the back of the wagon, draped over the high pile of roots. Her mum had scolded her, saying she might bruise the wares, but Dania had refused to budge, saying that it was too hot on the shadeless seat.

  It was, but that wasn’t why she lay here atop the cool lumpiness of crates of turnips, feeling the sun-warmth from the wagon cover not a foot over her head. Her mum seemed to sense that something was wrong, and had chosen to let go of the matter of Dania’s seat—instead pestering her with this question and that, fishing for whatever was the bother.

  If Mum thought she would answer with Da sitting right there, the heat must have addled her brain. If she thought Dania would answer at all, she must have left a copper quarter and some fresh flowers at the shrine of Old Man Chance. Even so, her mother would probably need more than luck before she’d tell of her affair with Ferlund. With the lord of Cavernad, she thought, and sighed bitterly.

  Mum might guess that this had something to do with a lad, but if Dania gave her nothing, she might let it go. Best to let Mum decide it was her time of the month. It would be soon enough anyhow. If she admitted she was sick over a lad, Mum would only pester her no-end to find out more. Just tell me what he looks like, she’d say. You don’t have to say who. Except there were not so many men in Cavernad with long white-gold hair kept in a braid or tail, with pensive, pea-green eyes, with lightly tanned skin and lean muscles, soft hands and sharply handsome features.

  She sighed again, laying her face against the turnips and breathing their earthy smell. Hag’s teeth, she hated the rolling wagon. She hated it because her gut rolled with it, as it bumped the lumpy taproots that dug into her abdomen or kidneys no matter how she tried to settle, but even more, she hated that it was rolling towards the city, along the rutted road out of Cavernad, away from Ferlund during the last time she might get to see him.

  Was he the sort to have a mistress?, she wondered. Did she even want to be a mistress? It was one thing to have a single young lord as a secret beau, it was quite another to have an affair with a married nobleman. The commonest of wives were jealous of their men, but noble ladies came with their own people and power, posing a far higher degree of danger. Was Nanine of Rirsmouth the jealous sort? Best not to find out.

  And here they were, in maybe one of the last weeks she might have Ferlund to herself, might have him at all, and they were bumping their way to the city for some fool midsummer’s fair. Curse Old Man Chance, she thought.

  She quickly snapped her fingers in penance, hoping it was enough. She didn’t need any more ill-luck in her life just now. She snapped her fingers twice again, softly. Maybe Nanine of Rirsmouth would die of overheating, or choke on a cake of face-powder.

  “Lady Nanine, hmm?” Joreth didn’t take his hand from the razor as he glanced from the mirror to the return note that had come with the payment. “If the good Duke is looking to garner good relations with Rirsmouth, he is going about it very strangely. I wonder what his game is.”

  His eyes returned to the small mirror, and he scraped the blade under his chin once more before rinsing off the lather. “Were there any specific requests concerning the nature of the task? Oh, burn that.”

  The runner took back the note and obediently held it to the nearby lamp wick. “Natural if possible, and if not, at least made to look like the work of a common thug or madman. He also mentioned that the woman has been known to suffer mightily of a lung ailment.”

  “That could be helpful.” Joreth set the razor in its place and rubbed the drying towel over his face and neck. “That all?” The runner nodded. “Good. Send up Flicker. And breakfast; I’m starved.”

  “Yes, sir, right away, sir.” The message runner blew the black ashes of the note from his fingers, then disappeared around the door with all the satisfactory speed those of his vocation were known for.

  Perhaps he never wanted the marriage for his own. Probably, the Duke simply wishes to keep a wedge driven between Rirsmouth and Cavernad. That would make sense. With his fiefdom in such a precarious location, he would want to keep all of his moderately powerful neighbors busy with in-fighting—and making it easier by first unbalancing Cavernad by seeing to it that an inexperienced boy replaced his clever father…

  He stomped on the train of thought and scowled as he snatched up a shirt, then just stood staring down at the fabric in his hands. His fingers trembled as they rubbed across the cotton. Keep out of it. Leave the plague-rotted conniving to them. The less you know, the longer you live. He started to pull the shirt on, and his arms seized, his breath catching. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and forced himself to ease the cloth on over his head, over his shoulders, tug it down his back. The less you remember, the better your life.

  Sir?” A whisper from the door.

  Joreth whirled, and the young servant girl standing in the doorway jumped. Blast the runner for not closing the door behind himself.

  “Come in,” he told the blushing girl. Wren, that was her name, yes? Yes, that was it. She stepped inside, tentatively holding out her tray of food. He took it. “Thank you, Wren.”

  She smiled reflexively, but there was still a strange look on her face. It was too faint to be sure, but he thought it looked like—concern? What was the matter?

  Then he almost cursed aloud. Of course; she had probably been watching him from the doorway. How strange it would be to see a man afraid of his shirt. He hoped she would speak nothing of it. She would probably speak nothing of it. Right? He had best make sure—

  Tempest blast it, there was Flicker coming down the hall now. He didn’t want to send the girl away until he’d spoken with her. He jerked his head at the washstand. “While you’re here, could you clean up over there?”

  She nodded with a happily whispered, “Yes, sir.” He was sure she would dawdle and linger over the work.

  “You got something for me, eh, Jor-boy?” Flicker leaned against the doorway, his head barely coming more than halfway up the doorframe. For all his minute size, his brown-black gaze had a deadly glitter that set men back a step, even those who didn’t know him as a master of all things small and sharp and poisonous.

  The midget assassin was currently broke, always belligerent, and didn’t like the new boss any more than he’d liked the old one. Joreth was hoping to change the first and last items. He had little hope of doing much about the belligerence.

  “Yes, I think I’ve got a pretty present. This one may be fun. Nanine of Rirsmouth. Natural death. She’s got a lung ailment. Do with that what you will. Do it well, and there’s twenty-five silver.”

  Flicker’s stubby fingers stroked his goatee, his
other hand fiddling with his coat’s brass button. Joreth didn’t think he’d ever seen the man’s hands go still. “Five now?” he inquired.

  “Naturally,” Joreth said, drawing the five silver pieces from the Duke’s velvet draw bag.

  “And you assume a simple dart to the neck can get it done, do you?” Flicker drawled.

  Joreth gave him a dry look. “I assume that between your little collection of delicacies, your ingenuity, and your winning personality, the job will get done. Am I correct?”

  Flicker grinned, but the glitter never left his eyes. He held out a hand, fingers twitching in a come on, come on, come on. Joreth flicked the coins to him one at a time, in quick succession. Each seemed to vanish as it touched the outstretched palm.

  Flicker shook his head, overexpressed mourning on his face. “I ask too little. Never an easy job around here.”

  Joreth raised a brow. “Hard jobs for hard men. If you want it soft and easy, you could beg instead to bed her.”

  Flicker laughed. “Maybe I’ll give that a go before I send her on her way.” He turned away without farewell, and Joreth did not bother to call after him. He knew the man was too good of an assassin to mean that truly.

  He stepped over to pull the door closed, then turned to smile at Wren. As he’d have figured, the girl was polishing the mirror very slowly, her eyes fixed on his reflection.

  “Have you heard anything useful?”

  She shook her head. “No sir, I don’t think so, sir.”

  “Well, what about things you’ve heard that you don’t think are useful?”

  She put down her rag, appearing to consider. “Well, sir. This morning, Cook complained about you cutting the kitchen budget, but then Pardge said that was only ‘cause you didn’t ask for such rich food or so much of it, but Cook said it was still too much of a cut, but Parge said…”

  The girl rattled on with a list of servant and assassin names, complaints, comments, and compliments. Joreth gained little of value from it, but he filed away the names and made a note to restore a bit of the kitchen budget.

  When she was finished, he thanked her, and pressed a copper piece into her hand, her first payment. She accepted it with a murmur of thanks, looking at it for but a moment before pressing it deep into her pocket. She looked back up with a curtsy, and he saw again the concern in her face. Right. He needed to address that.

  He put a hand on her shoulder. “Something the matter, Wrenling?” he asked softly.

  Her face reddened, though whether over the touch, the question, or the epithet he could not tell. She shook her head.

  “Wren.” He made his voice go cool and flat. “Lies. I gave you a warning about them. This is a second one. There will not be a third.”

  He felt her stiffen, and her eyes went wide. “I’m sorry, sir, I forgot, sir. I mean, it wasn’t of any importance. I thought you’d rather I didn’t…” Her words stumbled. “Didn’t say.”

  “I’d rather you say,” he said, his words gentle again.

  She looked down. “Well, I—your ba—I just noticed—I couldn’t help but notice.”

  Of course. She’d not have gotten so clear a look at his back before. At least that had probably taken her attention off his odd behavior. He nodded, his face working to remain neutral against the lurching shame in his gut. “The scars?” he asked.

  “Yes sir,” she whispered.

  “Everyone has scars of one sort or another, lass.” His mouth twisted. “The nobility seems particularly adept at seeing to that. I was a whipping boy, once, for a young prince. He was a very naughty little boy.”

  “Oh,” she whispered, eyes wide. “I didn’t think they—that looks as bad as some as frequent the stocks. Beggin’ your pardon, sir, I don’t mean anything by it.”

  Joreth sighed. “I told you, he was a very naughty prince. He drowned a litter of the king’s prize hunting pups when I was ten. He was caught mildly poisoning his sister’s food when I was twelve, and the same year, he set a fire in a library.”

  Wren gasped, and he nodded. The average book was worth slightly more than the average farm. Only a noble would so lightly treat such wealth. It had been an appalling loss, and punished accordingly.

  “Those are probably what you’re seeing, along with the many marks of his cumulative lesser crimes.”

  “Oh,” she said again, and went silent. What else was there to say, after all?

  He gave her shoulder a squeeze. “You’ll keep these facts between us, then, won’t you?”

  She nodded vigorously. “Yes, sir, of course!”

  “There’s a lass.” He released her. “Be on your way, then.”

  She quickly curtsied, snatched up the bowl of used water, curtsied again, and was on her way. This would be a good test, he decided. A piece of information, not too vital, sat in her hands. If a week went by without a whisper of his history circulating among the servants or assassins, he could be fairly sure the girl’s lips were tight.

  Joreth sighed and sat back on the bed. He turned around and stretched out flat on his stomach. Even after all these years, he still found it hard to lie flat on his back. Hard to pull on a shirt. Too many years of near-constant pain lay behind the actions. To the present, he would wince reflexively when anyone slapped his back. Fear outlasted pain by years.

  Hag curse the highborn. Let them all die and rot.

  The shadows blurred past as Dania stumbled through the alley, her arm thrown across her mouth to stifle the sobs. The rippling glint of moonlight and the whisper of lapping water warned her of the canal ahead, and she stopped at its edge, sinking to her knees.

  She felt as helpless as wretched. Her stomach roiled, and fear roiled with it, and she didn’t even have anywhere familiar to escape to and cry. The rocks here were smooth cobblestones, slick with the filth of the city, not rough and touched with clean dirt and moss. Even the flowing water stank like the rest of it. There were no trees anywhere, rustling in the night wind; only the claustrophobically rising buildings on either side.

  Weren’t things bad enough without being trapped in a city besides? She held an arm across her belly and sobbed. What was she going to tell her parents? Nothing yet, nothing. She could be wrong. Oh, she hoped she was wrong. Maybe she had but eaten some meat that was off. Maybe her bleeding was only coming late this month. A week late.

  Or maybe she was pregnant. She bit down on her sleeve, trying to slow her rapid breathing. What was she going to do? What could she do? Would Ferlund deny her? Wouldn’t he have to? The nobility kept bastard children all the time, didn’t they? He would be decent about it, wouldn’t he? Would he? Could she ask that of him now, just after his father’s death and right before his marriage? It was early yet; there were herbs to rid oneself of child if taken early enough, were there not? Did she dare try them? They were sometimes deadly. Then, childbirth was sometimes deadly.

  Who could she speak to? Who could she ask? There was no one here, in this stinking city, in this stinking alley. Was there even anyone at home? If she told her friends, the village would know the next day. If she went to either of her grandmothers, her parents would know in a heartbeat, and if her parents knew, they’d go marching to the hold and demand recompense of Ferlund, she knew they would. Was that the right thing to do? But if anyone was going to ask Ferlund for anything, it should be her, in private, not her parents shouting at the gates.

  Darkness shifted across the water, and Dania stiffened, trying to silence herself. She swiped the tears from her vision, pushed strands of hair out of her face. Her eyes flicked back and forth across the cityscape, trying to pinpoint the movement. A twelve foot stretch of canal would surely be enough to keep her safe from whoever might be lurking there, right? Were there any crossings nearby?

  It came again. Shadows moving out of the shadows. A tall shape, perhaps a cloaked man. The moonlight caught on the gleam of black feathers. Feathers?

  Then strong arms came from behind her, one sweeping around her neck, the other closing around her
waist, pinning her arms to her side. She let out a partial yelp that turned into a choking cough as the biceps and forearm tightened around her neck. She struggled in vain panic, trying to escape, trying to say that she didn’t have any money. Her vision was going quickly dark, blacker than the night around her, but swimming with silver stars. She couldn’t think.

  Just as she felt herself go limp, there was a muffled grunt, and the arms loosened. She was jostled, shoved into a wall, then felt herself slipping to the ground. She tried to catch herself, but her arms wouldn’t obey, and she slumped to the cobbles with a grunt.

  She gasped, grateful as the blood began flowing back to her head. She tried to make herself get up, run, but she could only find the energy to turn her head. Her eyes widened as she stared up at the shadowy figures scuffling over her in near-silence. One, a scowling blonde-bearded man with a dark headband that was slipping down over his eyes. The other, a blur of black cloak and glossy feathers.

  The cloaked figure gave a shoving kick, and the bearded man stumbled back, stopping out of range and shoving his headband back up into place.

  “Run,” the cloaked figure said, in a deep voice so dangerous and icy, Dania froze where she lay, eyes wide. “Run now.”

  The bearded man sneered. “Time you screwed the Hag, Nightbird.” He reached down and swiftly drew a pair of sharp knives from their boot sheathes, and charged. There was a whirl of dark cloak and the gleam of metal, then the charging man dropped to his knees, coughing up blood. The dark figure now stood behind him, a blood-dark blade in his own hands, as the twin daggers dropped from the attacker’s spasming fingers.

  The cloaked man gave a shove, and the kneeling man toppled forward into the water. Another pair of swift kicks sent the knives in after him. “I’m afraid you’ll have to give the Hag my apologies for standing her up yet again,” the figure murmured as he crouched to rinse off the blood. “I’m sure I’ll keep our appointment one of these days.”