Imperial Assassin (18 page)

How long to go? It must be soon.

A new thought crossed his mind. What if I’m being set up? What if this assassination is for real? Did Emperor Surabar really forgive me for intending to kill him at his coronation?
Reynik’s training as an assassin was real enough. Would the Emperor now test his protégé’s resolve by having him make a real kill? What could be easier than to throw a
knife at a target who had been ordered to sit still?

His agitation increased still further.

What a fool he would look if he were found with a fake knife sticking from his chest alongside a real one. What would people make of it? Would anyone put together the pieces of the puzzle?
Would anyone care to? He had made a lot of enemies amongst his fellow Noblemen recently. He had never been a popular man, but supporting the Emperor had done little for his reputation amongst his
peers. To them he was a traitor. In their view, one who upheld a commoner’s right to wear the Mantle of the Emperor had resigned his right to be called a Lord. Could the contract be
real?

He moved to get up from his chair, paused, and then sat down again with a sigh. ‘Oh, Izzie! What have I done? What am I doing? I hate to hurt you like this, but it won’t be for
long. It’ll all work out. You’ll see.’

For a moment, every minute of his sixty-six years weighed down on him. He felt old, yet he knew he had many more years of life left in him – assuming, of course, he was spared a
violent death. He drew his fingers under his eyes and across his face, feeling the slack skin tighten as he stretched it over his cheeks. ‘You’re a wrinkled old fool, Kempten,’ he
thought sadly. ‘Surabar is only five years younger, but despite his silver hair, he looks and acts as if he’s still in his late forties. What do you think you’re doing?
You’re no Surabar. One way, or another, this mess is going to be the death of you.’

There was no warning. The door burst open. It was Reynik. He registered the blade already in flight and his mind, despite working at high speed, found yet another gear. He froze. The knife
passed over his shoulder at a blistering velocity, striking the target inside the cupboard behind him with a frightening thud. He was not hit. His worries had all been nonsense. Surabar was
protecting him as he had promised. Relief flooded him with a warm glow, spreading from the pit of his stomach to flush his face.

Reynik paused in the doorway for a moment. His boyish face was intent, his balance perfect. ‘Shand! Was I ever that young?’ he thought in a bizarre mental aside.

He knew what he had to do. Easing his jacket aside to reveal the fake knife hilt protruding from his chest, he punched the bag under his tunic, causing a flood of pig’s blood to
release. Then he grabbed the false knife with both hands and sank forward onto the desk, allowing a pool of dark red blood to spread from under him.

Reynik was gone. The sound of his feet retreating at a run down the corridor was getting softer. As the young man’s running footfall faded, so more feet approached – also at a
pace. The new arrivals paused at the doorway.

‘That man just killed Lord Kempten. Hey, you! Stop!’

The voice belonged to Jeremus, one of Femke’s fellow spies. He recognised the man’s tones from the planning meeting they had held the previous day. Without pause, Jeremus led his
unwitting accomplice away in rapid pursuit of Reynik. The noise of their retreat faded quickly. It was all going perfectly. Could it really be this easy to fool everyone into believing he was
dead?

He remained where he was, still and silent. He knew that if he moved, he would disturb the blood on the desk. All he could do now was wait. If all went well, he would not have to wait
long.

The next phase was to get him swiftly out of the building with the minimum of fuss. The less people saw, the more they would speculate. Rumour would spread like wildfire. It would only be a
matter of hours before news of his murder would be all over the city. It would help, of course, that the rumour and speculation would be fuelled and amplified by Femke’s network of agents and
tattle touts. The whole process from beginning to end would take less than a day. Within a week, talk of the assassination would die down to become yesterday’s news and the name, Lord
Kempten, would be consigned to a footnote of Shandrim’s bloody history.

A minute went by – then another. There was a noise at the door. He did not flinch. To look would be to potentially ruin everything.

‘OK, my Lord, the stretcher bearers are on their way.’

It was Reynik. His quick return meant he had successfully fooled the man accompanying Jeremus. Everything was running to plan. No wonder the Emperor was well informed if his intelligence
service was this effective, he mused.

The sounds of further approaching feet became apparent. He remained unmoving, determined not to inadvertently give the game away. As the new arrivals entered, Reynik began directing
them.

‘Put the stretcher down there. Have you got the jacket? Great. You spread this jacket on the stretcher. We’ll put Lord Kempten on top of it. Give me that one. Thanks. Right, you
and you, grab his shoulders. We’ll take his legs. On three . . . one, two, three.’

He relaxed totally, allowing the men to lift him from his chair and place him on the stretcher. Reynik was very precise in his instructions. The lift was clean, efficient, and did not bump
him in the slightest. It must come from the military training, he mused. Inside a minute of them arriving, he was being carried out of his office and along the corridor towards the main entrance
foyer. It was incredibly tempting to crack his eyes open a little to see how people were reacting to this sudden dramatic turn of events. He knew, however, that this was no joke. He could not
afford to give people the slightest reason to doubt that what they were seeing was real. He did not give in to temptation.

A sudden change in temperature and acoustics told him they had exited through the main doors. The street noises in the square outside the building included the usual bustle of carriages,
pedestrians and horsemen that characterised the centre of Shandrim. The exception was the scream of a woman who could not have been more than a few paces from where he was being carried. His heart
leaped in his chest at the sudden, piercing shriek. How he restrained the rest of his body from jumping at the alarming noise, he was not sure. Maybe he didn’t.

The stretcher was lifted into a carriage, which pulled up even as they left the building. Reynik climbed inside with him and closed the door. He felt the light dim as the young man drew the
window curtains. The carriage lurched forward and they set off at a trot away from the scene of his murder. They had done it – or had they? Everything had happened so quickly that someone
would surely question the circumstances. From the assassin’s strike to the body leaving the building had been a matter of just a few minutes. Would the illusion be undone by its sheer
efficiency? Only time would tell.

‘It’s all right, Lord Kempten. You can sit up now. We’re unlikely to be stopped. Congratulations, my Lord. You may now consider yourself as one of the dear
departed.’

He sat up, feeling strangely detached and vacant. From the look on Reynik’s face, he judged his appearance was none too healthy. The young Legionnaire’s expression was grave and
worried, as if watching a man on the verge of collapse.

The noise of the carriage wheels clattering along the cobbled streets was loud. ‘Poor Izzie!’ he muttered under his breath. ‘I wonder if she’ll ever forgive me for
this.’

‘It’s said you offer money for information,’ she croaked.

‘That depends on the information, crone. What is it you would sell me?’

Toomas looked at the filthy old woman at his door. Her clothes were poor and ragged, her muddy cloak drawn tightly around her in an effort to hide the tatty garments beneath, and she stank. The
smell radiating from her was that of the stale unwashed filth of months. It was hard to comprehend how even the poorest person could sink so low.

Her hood was drawn low to hide her face, but that was not unusual. Many who sold him information wanted to remain anonymous. She need not have bothered, though. He had no desire to seek out the
identities of ragged old beggar women.

‘I’m told you would like to know about the man who killed Lord Kempten.’

That got his attention. The old woman cackled. He had tried to conceal the flash of hunger in his eyes, but he was too slow. She had seen it, and she knew he would pay dearly to learn what she
had to say.

‘How much?’ he asked.

‘Five gold sen,’ she replied with another cackle.

‘That’s ridiculous!’ he said quickly. ‘No one would pay that much for your information, woman. I’ll give you two silver senna, and not a sennut more.’

The old woman turned and started to shuffle away.

‘Wait! Where are you going?’

‘I may be old and poor, Toomas, but I’m not a fool,’ she replied over her shoulder. ‘The information I have is worth five gold sen. If you won’t pay me for it, I
know there are others who will.’

Toomas ground his teeth in annoyance. He did not want to part with so much gold, but he knew there were those in the city who would be willing to pay much, much more for information about this
particular man.

‘OK, old woman, five gold sen. Wait there a moment and I’ll fetch your money.’

Toomas closed the door, closed the bolt and raced upstairs to where he kept his secret stash of money. He had always done well at his little sideline. It was well that he did, for his legitimate
business was not so lucrative. He would have had several lean winters if it had not been for his ability to make a profit from trading snippets of information here and there. His network across the
city had become quite extensive over the last few years. It was not as big as some, but he had stolen the march on several of the more established tattle touts recently. This might be his chance to
make a serious coup.

He opened the door again with the small stack of gold coins in his hand. The old woman was still there, shuffling her feet and seemingly staring at the ground.

‘I want an idea of what you’re going to tell me before I hand this sort of money over, crone. What do you know? Is it just a name? I’m not parting with five gold sen for a name
that could be false.’

‘I have a name, but not his. I know who his next target is.’

Toomas nearly choked. His mind raced. Did she understand what she had? He doubted it.

‘His next target? You’re sure? If you’re wrong, old woman, I’ll have you found and gutted. This is dangerous information.’

‘But worth five sen,’ the woman pointed out.

‘Very well – who is it?’

‘Lord Lacedian,’ Femke whispered dramatically from beneath her stinking disguise. ‘He’s going to kill Lord Lacedian.’

‘Damn it! I wish I’d never started this,’ Surabar muttered, scattering the papers on his desk with an irritated flick of his hand. ‘I can’t
concentrate. I can’t think. It’s ridiculous!’ He got up and began pacing back and forth across his study. ‘As decisions go, declaring war on the Guild of Assassins has to
rate highly on my all time poor judgement list.’

His eyes were distant as he paced and his mind churned back over the same old ground that had haunted him during the past few weeks.

‘None of this should have happened. I should have stepped down as Emperor when I got back from Mantor,’ he thought, his face grim. ‘I could have gone back to the Legions. The
ethics there are so much more straightforward. If it hadn’t been for that blasted Shalidar’s meddling, I could have bestowed the Mantle on someone more suitable. None of these moral
issues would then have surfaced. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, Surabar, but it’s too late for a change of heart.

‘It should have been so simple: find the Guild headquarters and flush out the enemy. The tactics would have worked on a guerrilla group, or a dissident faction, but the Guild is like
nothing I ever tackled with the Legions. Instead of scouts, I have spies. Instead of Legions, I have the city militia; and a fat lot of good they are! Of course I can call on the Legions to
supplement the militiamen, but this is not a traditional war zone. There are the implications of my actions on the civilian population to consider.

‘Femke and her colleagues in the Imperial spy network are great, but they have their limitations. The Kempten ruse worked because with all the Guild assassinations of military commanders,
no one had any reason to suspect that this hit was any different. There was no one watching closely enough to see through the deception. But for Reynik to get into the Guild, they will want to see
a body. Someone must die for real.’

He stopped in his tracks.

‘Why should the death of one man – one traitorous man – make me feel so dirty of spirit? As a Commander I laid ambushes that led to the slaughter of hundreds of men, yet this
feels repugnant in comparison.’

‘There are no unfair tactics in war, only winning tactics and losing tactics. The trick to being a good Commander is making sure that you use winning tactics.’

The quote from his old mentor rang in his mind. ‘So why is this different?’ The question hung in the air. He had been talking to himself more and more recently. He would have
preferred to discuss his problems with someone, but it was a matter of trust. He had considered discussing them with Femke, but did not feel it appropriate.

The answer had been there all along. He began pacing again, this time striding back and forth with even more purpose.

‘The person who has to die is not a part of the same fight,’ he realised. ‘Lacedian might be a traitor, but he’s not linked with the Guild of Assassins. That’s why
it feels wrong. It’s like mounting an assault on a nation with whom you’re not at war to get to your enemies. That nation might not be friendly, but they are not a part of the current
fight. It contravenes the military codes of conduct.