Chapter Twenty-Three

The Houseless Captain

Táno Gín¹ sat upon a stool under the sloping branches of a slender oak and watched his men dig the graves. When he moved, the moonlight fell upon the suede folds of his golt and the long black wool of his cloak and was absorbed. He seemed to wear shadow. Only the silver buckles on his belt and the thin gold chain under his collar reflected any light.

Houseless, rootless, and without the ancient dignity common to the swords of most Houses, the mercenary captain was nevertheless an imposing presence in the thinly-lit forest clearing. A stillness had settled upon the branches, even as the autumn-brown leaves trembled in the chill night breeze. There was quiet in this small piece of the world, and Táno Gín’s men believed absolutely that it was because their captain had commanded it.

It was impossible to judge his age from his thin face, which was always calm, always locked in an unreadable expression that was neither a smile nor a frown. Despite his ageless face, his long black hair had begun to turn white close to his head, while the lengths remained dark as ink. His cloak, edged in mud, pooled around his feet. Heavy and damp, it was barely enough to cut the chill of the autumn night. The stool was short and so rickety he feared it would collapse under his weight. His men had brought it for him, though he had no idea where they had found it. Still, he was glad for it. He had been on his feet for three days. Three days longer than he had anticipated. Three days without rest and they still weren’t done.

He sat in the moonlit clearing in the woods less than half a mile from the Prince Road. A dozen of his men were digging, a few others were washing the bodies. Táno Gín’s head ached. He felt his temper quickening as he restrained himself from urging them to hasten this along. After all, the dead men were their comrades. His foul mood should not interrupt the proper rites.

While he waited, he sipped water from a small tin cup. It was cold and chilled his throat but a fire would be unwise. They had managed to carry out their operations in Rensoth and the woods around it without, so far, calling too much attention to their presence. But already they had lingered here too long. Soon enough an army of Houseless mercenaries such as this would find itself the target of numerous vigilant swords, perhaps the city guards of Rensoth, or the Houseswords from one of the many estates that dotted Sona Gen. This was precisely the reason he did not like to take jobs in the royal princedom, and certainly not anywhere near the capital.

Táno Gín was exhausted, irritated, and now he was also burying seven more of his men. With the two in Rensoth this afternoon, that was nine dead in one day. Gritting his teeth, he flicked the last of the water into the mud and set the cup on the ground.

The death rites continued quietly. After they had finished washing the bodies of the dead they also mended the wounds. Their skin was clean though their uniforms remained stained with blood. Nothing could be done about that. These men deserved to be clad in silk and velvet and decorated with gold and jewels, but they would have to be content to carry with them only their steel when they traveled Ávoth’s rivers.

What’s more, they had barely enough blue linen for one body, so it had to be torn into pieces and used to cover only each of their faces. Ado Tín,² the elder brother of Tínok, who had been slain this afternoon in an alley in Rensoth and buried not far from here, oversaw the prayers, uttering them quietly while the others bowed their heads. Soon they would carry the bodies into the hole they had dug and then Táno Gín would help them fill it. It was more than they had time for, less than the men deserved. He found himself clenching his fists.

He had lost nearly two dozen men three days ago in the Palace. That was more than he had been willing to spend on this mission. And now he had lost nine more. His company had been reduced by almost a third. With each new slain he again questioned why he had agreed to this job. A pointless line of consideration. He knew why: he had had no choice. He still had no choice. Watching his men carry the dead into the grave, he wondered how many of them he would have to sacrifice before this was done.

Twigs snapped lightly as another of his men approached, Namo Non, or Nanon³ as his comrades called him. He came with two others. Táno Gín had sent the three to track the fleeing boy. With any luck he would be alone now and they could finish him quickly in the woods.

Namo Non bowed and spoke softly, so as not to disturb the rites. “We think there is one more sword.”

Táno Gín did not look at him. “Your count was wrong, then.”

Namo Non’s bow deepened. “I am sorry, captain. Yes.”

“Where are they?”

“We tracked them to the Rensoth wall. There is no way for us to enter unseen until dawn.”

Táno Gín glanced at him.

Namo Non said quickly, “We will find a way, captain.”

“No. Watch the wall from a distance. Do not enter the city.”

Namo Non bowed again. As he turned to leave, Táno Gín called him back. “Where is Hŏ So⁴?” He was the youngest of Táno Gín’s men, a boy of barely nineteen who was the best rider among them.

“Back at the camp, captain.”

“Send him back to the capital. Have him confirm that the other three are dead. I want to be done with this as soon as we finish off this last one. With a little luck we can be back in Lonok⁵ before the first snow. And also—” he stopped and Namo Non waited patiently. Finally he said, “Never mind, just go.”

Namo Non bowed and left.

Táno Gín had been troubled recently by another consideration, one which grew ever more glaring the longer this hunt carried on. Here they were in Sona Gen, in the royal princedom of the king of Láokoth, hunting, by all accounts, the royal heir and yet they still had seen no sign of any royal swords. Where, he wondered, were the king’s guards? The king’s armies? Were they not hunting the king’s son? How could his father let him endure alone in the wild without sending the full force of his army to protect him?

Yesterday he had briefly entertained the hope that the boy they hunted was not the prince, but that one of the three they had slain already inside the Palace walls had been the true heir. If that was true, their mission was finished. If Hŏ So could confirm that the prince they had been hired to kill was already dead, he would be able to abandon his costly pursuit of this fourth boy. He could take what was left of his company and leave Sona Gen forever.

More importantly he would be able to remove himself forever from all House matters.

Táno Gín was not particular about whose contracts he accepted, but he had spent more time in the service of Houses this year than he ever had before in his life. It sickened him, all the scheming and the bloodshed. And for what? A sliver more power? How much blood had he spent to put an end to the Royal House’s crown prince? And what had it accomplished? Making the Sona House a little weaker? He rubbed his eyes and took a long, steadying breath.

This was taking longer than it should.

Namo Non was gone but Táno Gín’s second, Ŏlo Hin⁶, stood a little behind him, his strange stone face gazing impassively at the funerary operations. Táno Gín looked at him out of the corner of his eye. Ŏlo Hin was not his usual second, and in fact had only recently been placed in his company by his employer. He was intelligent, capable, and young. But Táno Gín had begun to suspect that he might not be entirely human. There was a strange quality to the pale young man’s black eyes that worried him. He did not like having any in his company that he didn’t know and understand completely.

But Ŏlo Hin was not exactly in his company. He answered not to him, but to his own master, the same who had sent Táno Gín and his men on their mission to kill the crown prince of Láokoth.

Yesterday evening Táno Gín had observed to Ŏlo Hin that the absence of the king’s armies proved that their current quarry — the young prince hidden away in the woods outside Rensoth — must not be the true prince, but one of his body doubles. As such, he had said, they could cease their pursuit of him.

“No,” Ŏlo Hin had answered simply, “you cannot.”

“Why?”

“You have not been ordered to kill the crown prince of Láokoth, but rather the Four Little Princes. One yet lives. You are not done.”

“Why all four? What if I can confirm that this one is not—”

“All four. It must be all four.”

Ever since their conversation, Táno Gín had begun to fear that something else entirely was behind this mission. Perhaps the desire to be thorough or to be certain was enough to drive the pursuit of the fourth little prince. Perhaps, he thought then, some other motivation was behind the ordered massacre.

Táno Gín glanced over at Ŏlo Hin, who stood with his hands clasped behind his back, his long blue cloak fluttering in the biting autumn breeze. There was a glassy sheen to his eyes that caught the moonlight like an animal’s. It chilled Táno Gín to look at him. He decided he did not want to look at him any longer, and that he didn’t want to endure his unsettling presence for the last of the burial rites.

“Go back to the camp and have the men rest tonight,” he said to him. “If the boy believes himself safe in the city with the gates closed, so be it. Tomorrow we will find him.”

“There might be a way to enter Ren—”

“My men have not slept in three days, Ŏlo Hin. It is because of this that I have lost nine of them.”

“And if he slips out tonight?”

“There will be a watch. We are not fools.”

Ŏlo Hin smiled thinly. “This boy seems able to evade your men, even when they are fully rested.”

Táno Gín saw no need to explain himself to this stranger. As unsettling as he found his presence, he had no real power over him. In that moment he was too tired and too short-tempered to explain to Ŏlo Hin that just as he and his men had not slept in three days, so also their quarry had not been afforded a moment’s rest. The boy and whoever still guarded him were too tired to attempt a second departure from Rensoth, they were too tired to do anything tonight but hide and rest. It was true that if Táno Gín’s men were not themselves just as tired this would have been the perfect opportunity to find and kill the last prince and his last sword, when they were weakened and vulnerable. But his men were also weak and vulnerable. Moreover, if Táno Gín’s men broke Rensoth’s curfew, they would have more than just a single exhausted bodysword to contend with.

No, the last little prince would rest. And so would they.

“Captain,” Ŏlo Hin pressed. “I would have thought you eager to finish this mission and return to Lonok. Are you not anxious to see—”

“Your master has afforded us a certain amount of freedom to move and act in Sona Gen. A band of mercenaries tearing apart a city this close to the capital would attract too much attention. And that wouldn’t just harm me and my men, but also your master.”

“I think you mean ‘our’ master. Who, I’m sure you remember, ordered the four princes to be killed in a single blow inside the Palace walls, and is no doubt growing impatient. I would like to write to him tonight and tell him that it is done.”

“Do what you like.”

“Will you really do nothing tonight?”

Táno Gín stood up from the rickety stool and turned to face him. The gesture would have been enough to signal to any one of his men that he was losing patience. But when he looked upon Ŏlo Hin, the strange young man only returned his gaze with the same maddening emptiness in his eyes. In the moonlit stillness, he seemed to study the captain the way an animal would, as if to understand the power that compelled the band of mercenaries to obey him the way one would obey a Housemaster. Perhaps he was a Housemaster, of a sort. The two stood for a time, studying each other, measuring each other’s power.

Táno Gín towered over Ŏlo Hin and had, in that moment, power enough and motivation enough to do away with this intrusive presence in his company, but Ŏlo Hin did not see this. He did not see the calculating restraint of a martial man, nor the captain of a band of loyal warriors. He saw only the obedient dog answering his master’s commands. To Ŏlo Hin there was nothing brilliant about the Houseless captain. He was little more than another barbaric bandit roaming the wilds.

As the captain stood and let his long cloak move in the soundless breeze, Ŏlo Hin watched him with interest. What was it, he wondered, that made this captain’s men so loyal to him?

Táno Gín, in turn, looked at Ŏlo Hin. The young black-eyed stranger remained impassive in the shadow of the Houseless captain. He was not much shorter, but there was not with him, as there was with Táno Gín, the sense that the very light wished to obey him. Ŏlo Hin was small by comparison, though he did not seem to think so himself.

“Our master would—” Ŏlo Hin began again.

“I am Houseless,” Táno Gín corrected him. “I have no master.”

“My master, then.” Ŏlo Hin smiled, baring his teeth. “The same one who holds your contract. And who holds—”

“Return to the camp,” Táno Gín said, his irritation growing considerably. “Relay my orders.”

“And what of the boy?”

Táno Gín looked at him then. His face changed little, but a pale light flashed in his eyes that Ŏlo Hin was not sure he understood. It was the same look that made his exhausted men obey him without hesitation, the same that made strangers bend their necks, and caused trained warriors to tremble. Ŏlo Hin did not understand it, but he did understand by it that Táno Gín would not give in, not tonight. And that meant that the mission would be prolonged. And his master would be disappointed.

“Return to the camp,” Táno Gín repeated, and he stared at Ŏlo Hin fixedly until he bowed and turned to walk back to the road.

Ŏlo Hin feared angering his master. It surprised him that Táno Gín did not. After all, his master had a way of controlling the captain that had repeatedly proven to be most reliable. Ŏlo Hin didn’t understand why it wasn’t enough to make him obey him now. But, he feared, no matter how long he spent in the Houseless captain’s company, he would never completely understand him. After all, he had never had much luck understanding anyone.

Táno Gín approached the gaping grave where his company’s dead had been laid. He spent some time standing over each of the slain, uttering the words that would summon Ávoth to take them on their final journey over the endless rivers that comprised his House. When he was done, he turned to the others, who stood around in somber silence. They were streaked in mud and the white moonlight made their tired faces seem gray.

He said, “The others?”

“Captain?” they asked.

“The swords. The prince’s swords. Where are they?”

“We have— they are there, captain. We have hidden them in the brush.”

Táno Gín looked where they pointed and saw a little mound of branches and leaves. He unfastened his cloak and set it aside. “Bring them as well. Wash their bodies and wrap them in blue.”

“Captain?”

He looked at them. They were tired and angry at the recent losses their company had suffered, so he understood their confusion. He understood that they had temporarily forgotten their ways. But he would not let them persist in their angry, tired bitterness. He would not let them give in to their baser impulses. They were men, and they would behave as such.

“They are swords,” he reminded them firmly, “as you are. They died protecting their charge. Though they were our enemies and though they died by our hands, they died honorably. We will show respect to their deaths.”

As they bowed and hurried to obey, Táno Gín rolled up his sleeves and motioned for the water to be brought. As his men looked on, he washed the bodies of the slain bodyswords himself. They brought him the last squares of blue linen and he covered their pale dead faces. As he did so he said to his men, “We are Houseless in life, but in death all must enter the House of Ávoth.”

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1. TAY-noh-gine

2. AH-doh-tine

3. NAH-moh-nohn; NAH-nohn

4. Hiy-oh-SOH

5. LOH-nok

6. Iy-oh-loh-HIN