The King's Assassin (Thief Takers Apprentice 3) Read Free

sailor on his ship that he would have spared or even given a second thought.
    ‘Hey! Lads!’ Klaas stank of sour wine and sweat. Berren still had his stolen knife in his hand. It was right there begging him to use it. And so he did. He stabbed Klaas in the gut.
    ‘Why you . . .’ Klaas’s face twisted with fury. He clenched his other fist. Then he let go of Berren and looked down at himself. Blood darkened his shirt, spreading out in an enormous stain over his belly. The expression on his face changed. Anger turned to shock and then to fear. ‘You stabbed me! You royal hunt! You piece of horse filth! Skag!’ His voice grew louder. ‘Skag!’
    Berren stood frozen. Vengeance had become the engine of his life, keeping him going. Vengeance for Tasahre, his fallen sword-monk, his love. For the few months since he’d escaped ashore it had stolen him food when he was starving and taken the shelter he needed when he was cold. It had foraged for clothes and shoes to keep him warm even if they were little more than rags. It had bullied and fought him a place among the destitute of the docks and carved him a name that others had learned to fear. It wrapped its arms around him at night and whispered him to sleep, and in the mornings it roused him and drove him on. Vengeance was his lover, strong and terrible, who did what needed to be done while he looked and he asked wherever he went: Syannis of Tethis, where can I find him?
    And now his lover suddenly wasn’t with him. He’d stabbed a man – killed him – and vengeance was nowhere to be found. He felt suddenly small and stupid and very afraid that he was about to die.
    I killed a man . No warlock this time, no Saffran Kuy screaming in his head. Just him and a knife and his own hand holding it. The old instincts of a boy thief took over. He kicked Klaas between the legs as hard as he could. As Klaas doubled over, the silver token around his neck dangled free in the air. Berren snatched it and tore it away and screamed, ‘That’s what you get, fat man! That’s what you get.’ He pushed his way between the sailors who were beginning to turn and stare; as soon as he had space around him, he ran. The crowd of snuffers and the thief-taker were gone now, out through a door into the streets behind the Bitch Queen. Berren followed. He didn’t look back. Behind him Klaas had found his voice again and was screaming his lungs out. Klaas was a bastard and he’d deserved it. But then if you looked at it like that, so did every sailor on his ship. So did an awful lot of people.
    I killed a man . His own hand. He’d been thinking it for weeks, thinking of Master Sy, turning the idea over and over in his head and seeing what it looked like, and all the time he knew that when he came face to face with the thief-taker, he’d never really do it.
    Or so he’d thought.
    The streets at the back of the Bitch Queen were quiet. Noise echoed from the riot on the docks; now and then clusters of people came running past, fleeing from whatever was happening there. The snuffers were ahead of him, seven of them. Master Sy was in the middle but all Berren could see of him was the back of his head.
    He’d seen a man flogged to death for stealing once. Klaas was a bastard and Klaas had deserved it. But all that blood . . . and Tasahre kept coming at him, lying on the Emperor’s Docks in Deephaven after Master Sy’s sword had ripped open her throat. She would have told him that what he’d done was wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong.
    He quickened his pace. Master Sy was a murderer. Master Sy had killed Tasahre. He still had the knife, fingers clenched around it, Klaas’s blood on his hands. He had no idea what he was going to do now, none at all.
    One of the snuffers cracked a joke. Master Sy threw back his head and laughed and the sound of him laughing filled Berren with a rage. The thief-taker didn’t deserve to laugh, not any more, not after what he’d done! Berren started to run.