The Assassin's Tale (3 page)

“Tell me,” said Jager, sipping at his wine. For all the fine food offered at the Sheathed Sword, he ate only sparingly. Likely he needed to remain fit for running across rooftops and climbing through windows. “Who has hired my death?”

“I don’t know,” said Mara. “The information was not given to me.”

“How very typical,” said Jager. “You do all the work and receive none of the credit, I assume?” He took another sip of his wine. “Let me guess. I can think of perhaps three or four dozen men who might wish to purchase my death. Or perhaps they pooled their funds. I cannot imagine you come cheap.” 

“I do not know,” said Mara. “I have never hired an assassin of the Red Family.”

Jager laughed. “Why haven’t you just stabbed me? As enjoyable as this little game is, simply stabbing me or slicing my throat in my sleep seems like less work.”

“Your death is to look like an accident,” said Mara. “And I would have slain you at our first meeting, had I know you were in fact the Master Thief of Cintarra. I would not have used so simple a stratagem.”

“Why, thank you,” said Jager. “It’s always nice to be called clever. And your masters did not tell you that I was the Master Thief? It is good to know that incompetence extends even to the ranks of the fabled Red Family.” 

Mara frowned. She hadn’t expected him to deduce that. She would have to be even more careful around him. “What a peculiar man you are.”

“Thank you,” said Jager. “But do elaborate.”

“A halfling merchant is rare enough,” said Mara, “but a halfling thief?”

His smile took a sour edge. “And what did you expect? That I would be the servant of some corrupt noble? That I would wait on him hand and foot and accept his insults with good cheer, all while prattling about our long and honorable tradition of service?” 

“Have I touched upon a sore point?” said Mara. 

Jager grunted. “So it would seem. But I suspect you have your own sore points as well.”

“Oh?” said Mara. “Do elaborate.”

“You needn’t be an assassin,” said Jager.

Mara laughed. “And will you try to talk me out of it, then? Convince me to repent and leave behind my life of iniquity? You know nothing of me.” 

“No,” said Jager, “but I do know that you must have a very compelling reason to be an assassin.”

“Enlighten me, sir,” said Mara. 

“You are beautiful woman,” said Jager. He smiled. “A bit short, true, but I know firsthand that height is an overrated quality.”

“Until one needs to fetch a jar from the top shelf,” said Mara. 

He laughed. “You could easily charm someone to get the jar for you. Which is precisely my point. If you wanted, you could command large sums as a prostitute.”

Mara raised an eyebrow. “If that is flattery, you are doing it wrong.” 

“You already kill strangers for money,” said Jager. “Is that much worse than sleeping with strangers for money?”

She could think of no good rebuttal to that, so she gestured for him to continue.

“And since you obviously find that idea distasteful,” said Jager, “you could simply disguise yourself as some minor noblewoman and find a wealthy husband that way.”

“Perhaps I enjoy killing,” said Mara. “I’m good at it.” She didn’t know if it was a legacy of her dark elven blood, or if she was simply good at it the way some people were good at knitting or drawing. “Everyone needs something they are good at. Such as stealing.” 

“Religious motivation, then,” said Jager. “You are a devoted follower of Mhor…though rather more polite about it. I’ve met a few Mhorite orcs, and they are quite unpleasant.”

“No, I do not follow Mhor,” said Mara. 

“Then I would hazard a guess,” said Jager, “that someone in the Red Family has a hold over you. Blackmail, maybe, or some sort of coercion. One sees it all the time in criminal enterprises.”

Mara said nothing. He could not know the truth, could not know about her dark elven blood and the enchanted jade bracelet upon her wrist. Yet his guess had come closer to the mark than he knew. 

“And will you rescue me, sir?” said Mara, putting a bit of mockery in her voice. “Carry off the fair maiden from the lair of the dragon?”

Jager snorted. “If you are a maiden, then I am the Prince of Cintarra. And you don’t need me to rescue you. I am trying to rescue myself. If I talk you out of killing me, the Red Family will send someone less competent after me.” 

“And what about you?” said Mara. “Why steal?”

Jager shrugged. “Why not? Perhaps I’m bored.”

“Or you could be a halfling servant,” said Mara.

His smile didn’t change, but a bit of hardness came into his amber eyes. “And give up all of this?”

“You’re going to die, probably in a lot of pain,” said Mara. “Boast all you want, but sooner or later I will find a way to kill you, and even if I fail, someday you’ll make a mistake and get killed. If you’re a servant, you won’t have all this adventure and wealth. You might have to wait on some fat fool of a knight. But you’ll have security and peace. You could find a wife and have a crop of children, instead of a long drop at the end of a short rope.” 

His smile did not waver, but his eyes got colder. Angrier. And…sad, perhaps?

“All that could be true,” said Jager. “But perhaps I tried that life, and found it wanting.” 

“You were betrayed, I think,” said Mara.

“And how do you know that? Were you there?”

“Because,” said Mara, “only betrayal can create that kind of rage.”

“Well.” Jager sighed and took a longer drink of his wine. “You think I was betrayed, and I think you were coerced. Let us make a bargain. Tell me if I am right, and I shall tell you if you are right.”

They sat in silence for a moment.

“You are,” said Mara.

“And you are, too,” said Jager. “The honorable life of humble service and devoted duty. I believed in that once. I believed it with all my heart…and then my eyes were opened.”

“I’m sorry,” said Mara.

“An odd thing to apologize for,” said Jager, “considering you are going to kill me.” 

“I know what it is to lose something,” said Mara.

“We all do, in the end,” said Jager. “So you have been coerced into joining the Red Family. Was it money? They bought up your debt? Or a threat over a…parent, perhaps, or a child, or a lover?”

“My parents are long dead,” said Mara, since her mother was dead and he would not believe that her father was the dark elven lord of Nightmane Forest. “I have no children, and no lovers.”

“Then what is their hold over you?” said Jager.

“You would not believe me,” said Mara, “if I told you.” 

“Well,” said Jager. “Aren’t we a pair? The rogue and the coerced assassin.”

“You are wearing a mask, are you not?” said Mara.

“Really?” said Jager. “An appalling thing to say about my face.” He rubbed his cheek. “I shave every day, you know.”

“All the jokes and the smiles and the audacity,” said Mara. “You’re a very sad man beneath it all.”

He shrugged. “One can weep or laugh.” He lifted his goblet. “A toast, then. To all we have lost.”

Mara lifted her goblet, and they drank to it.

###

“Well, my daughter,” said the Matriarch later that night. “How goes the hunt?”

They stood alone in her solar, the Matriarch gazing into the darkened garden. The Matriarch often invited Mara into the solar at night. She held the rest of her servants in contempt, and she seemed to consider Mara the closest thing she had to an equal, even if Mara was a half-breed bastard. So the Matriarch often talked to her, or at least at her, for hours. 

“It is a dangerous game, Matriarch,” said Mara. “He knows I am of the Red Family, and he knows that even if I fail, others will come.”

“But he speaks to you nonetheless,” said the Matriarch in her unearthly voice.

“Yes.”

“Why?” said the Matriarch.

“I think,” said Mara, “that he is lonely. That he rarely has the opportunity to speak honestly with someone.”

And if she were honest with herself, she knew that both things were true about her as well.

“Enemies can often be candid with each other,” said the Matriarch. “A deadly game you play, my daughter. Do not fail me. For if you do,” her empty black eyes strayed to Mara’s left wrist, “the consequences shall be most dire.” 

###

Two weeks later, Mara sat in an overstuffed chair in Jager’s library, her knees drawn up around her, another goblet of wine in her hand. The library was as opulent as the rest of the domus, the shelves lined with handsome books. Jager had admitted that he had not read most of them, that he had bought them as simple markers of status. 

“Ten years,” said Mara. She had drunk too much wine, and it had gone to her head. 

“You’ve been part of the Red Family for that long?” said Jager. He sat in the chair next to hers, both of them facing the crackling fireplace. 

“Almost,” said Mara. “My mother died. Orcish raiders had taken us as slaves, and she never stopped looking for an opportunity to escape. It came, and we took it. But she was already sick, and the journey was too much for her. She died in the wilderness, and I have been alone ever since.”

“And the Red Family found you,” said Jager.

“Yes,” said Mara, taking another sip of the wine. Actually, the Matriarch had found her, as Mara had struggled to keep from transforming into a monster. But Mara did not dare tell Jager about the Matriarch. The Matriarch valued her secrecy, and would kill them both if Mara breathed a word about her. “They were…impressed by my skills. How I had survived on my own for all these years. They recruited me.”

“So you joined, as you had nowhere else to go,” said Jager. His voice had the faintest hint of a slur. Perhaps he had drunk too much and lowered his guard around her. Or perhaps he was trying to lure her in. “And now, years later, you regret it, and they have a hold over you.”

“No,” said Mara. “I never wanted to join. They coerced me from the beginning.” Without the jade bracelet, she would have transformed into a monster years ago, becoming the slave of the Traveler or whatever dark elven lord found her first. 

“It is a cruel world,” said Jager. She looked to see if he was making a joke, but he gazed into the fire instead, his expression distant. “Still, my past is not as cruel as yours, it seems. I am sorry for your losses.”

“Thank you,” said Mara. She felt a little woozy. She had indeed drunk too much wine. “What of your family?”

Jager shrugged. “Dead. Mostly. My mother died when I was a child. My father died about…nine years ago. I do have a sister. But we have not spoken since my father’s death. She…would disapprove of some choices I have made. Severely, I fear.” 

“It was your father’s death,” said Mara. “Wasn’t it?”

“Wasn’t what?” said Jager.

“That made you lose your faith,” said Mara. “That made you hate the nobles of Andomhaim so much.”

Jager stared into the fire. “Yes.” 

“I’m sorry, too,” said Mara.

Jager let out a bitter little laugh. “An odd thing to say to a man you plan to kill.”

“True,” said Mara. “But I do not want to cause you pain. I do not delight in cruelty. I am not a dark elf, I am not…”

She stopped talking, aware that she had said too much.

“A dark elf?” said Jager. “An odd thing to say.”

“You have made me drunk, sir,” said Mara, hoping to cover her lapse. “One might think you have untoward intentions toward me.”

“Well, of course I do,” said Jager. “But considering you plan to kill me, that is a most hypocritical accusation.” 

“True,” said Mara.

Jager grunted, got to his feet, picked up a poker, and started to shift the coals in the fireplace.

Mara stared at his back, which she had to admit she found handsome, and a thought occurred to her.

They were both slightly drunk. Or more than slightly drunk. All it would take was one sharp push, and he could crack his skull on the mantel or the side of the fireplace. When the servants found him in the morning, they would assume that he had drunk too much wine, lost his balance, and fell. Or, even better, Mara could push him now and then fake a hysteric fit, weeping and screaming until the servants arrived. They would simply assume their master had tried to seduce her, lost his balance, and come to a tragic end.

It all flashed through her mind, clear as crystal. 

She stared at Jager’s back, and did not move. 

She desperately did not want to kill him. It had been a long, long time since she had been honest with someone other than the Matriarch. And the Matriarch was cold and hard, her heart as black as her eyes. The Matriarch only laughed at her pain, regarding it as an amusing diversion. 

Jager straightened up and turned, and the moment passed. 

“Were you planning on pushing me into the fire?” he asked. 

“Certainly not,” said Mara, holding out her goblet.

Jager grinned and refilled it. 

###

A week later, Mara stood in the Matriarch’s solar again. This time Cassius stood at the left of the Matriarch’s chair, scowling at her. 

“It has been over three weeks, my child,” said the Matriarch. “And the Master Thief of Cintarra yet lives.”

“I know, Matriarch,” said Mara. 

“Do you mock me, child?” said the Matriarch, a note of anger entering that alien voice. 

“Of course not, Matriarch,” said Mara. “I would never…”

“Do not presume to question the Matriarch,” rumbled Cassius, his black eyes digging into her. “She has brought us the word of Mhor. You dare to question her?”

“I would never question her,” said Mara. “Nor go against her wishes.”

“Of course not,” said the Matriarch. “Your devotion does you credit, Cassius.” The Red Brother beamed at the praise and bowed. “And I am sure our Mara would never go against my will. Yet it is my will that the Master Thief of Cintarra perishes. And he still lives.”

“I will kill him, soon,” said Mara. She would find a way. She would force herself to do it. She had killed at the Matriarch’s command before.

But this time…

“Yes,” said the Matriarch. “Soon.”

###