One Moonless Night His boots splashed in something that he hoped was water, but was probably piss.
Grimacing, he moved on down the dark street, avoiding further puddles and foul-smelling piles of shit and refuse, and only the gods knew what else.
His goal was a house at the farthest end of the street, before it turned down into the putrid lane that was the provenance of the tanners. It was a small house, but relatively tidy looking, old enough that it leaned against its neighbor across the narrow street, so that they seemed to prop each other up.
By day it was a busy house, clerks and guests and servants running to and fro. By night, it was no different from any other house on the lane. He did not care, regardless, except that he had grown up in the house across the street. Though it had been many years since he had returned to this dank city along a soggy corner of the great river, he did not dare risk someone having a sharper memory than he would prefer.
Identity was his worst enemy, for he was a man who did not exist – he had never born, would never die, was nothing more than a shadow that flickered in the candlelight, or walked beneath the moonlight for a moment before the cloud cover returned. He had no name, though if one were required, he had a list of them at his disposal. Some were peasant names, others lordly; a few might belong to a merchant, others to a foreigner.
Once, he had possessed a name that was his alone, given to him by the woman who had raised him in the house opposite the one he now sought. Sometimes, he remembered it. Usually, he did not. She had died, the woman who had named him. A violent, slow death, brought about by the wicked touch of what he now knew had been a particular poison. He had used it himself, before.
Her death had been the first one he had ever seen, and one of the few for which he had not been responsible.
Reaching the house, he tested the door. It was locked, but took no effort to break open. He slipped inside, grateful for the expensive rug in the hall that muffled the sound of his wet boots. It was a costly rug, even in the near-perfect dark. Nothing the owner should be able to afford.
He reached the stairs, and slowly climbed, careful to avoid those spots he knew creaked or squeaked. Reaching the second floor, he looked down the short hallway, and could just see a hint of yellow light slipping beneath one door.
Rugs in the halls, candles lit at the witching hour…simply more pieces of damnation that confirmed the man inside the lit room was far more than a humble shoemaker.
The shoemaker was a man who dealt in things he should leave well enough alone, who traded in gold and in blood, as it suited him.
A man who, it had been decided, would be better off dead.
He pushed the door open bit by bit, until he could slink inside, drawing his knife as he went.
Quiet, but bloody. Simple, but showy. Those were his orders. To scare anyone else involved into the realization that they were always being watched.
The shoemaker was bent over an expensive desk, writing with a good quill and ink on excellent paper, pausing occasionally to sip wine from a silver cup. He wrote in a beautiful hand, far too fine for a man who only spent his days making shoes.
Caught up in his writing, in his secrets, in the knowledge that he kept his secrets well, the shoemaker did not hear his approach. He did not see the glint of metal in candlelight.
He did feel cold fingers grasp his face, pull him back. He felt the bite of metal against his skin, but before he could gather the wits to react, the breath to scream, the metal slid across his throat. Blood spilled across the neatly written secrets, over the costly scribe desk, onto the expensive night robe the shoemaker had worn, to pool at last on the rich rug beneath his feet.
Wiping his blade on the dead shoemaker's robe, he sheathed his knife and turned, going back the way he had come.
He did not bother to close the door behind him as he reached the street, but left it open.
Burglary most would say, and feel a little scared.
Assassinated would whisper a few, and feel terrified. |
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