see his new teacher fight, maybe work out a trick or two so he could show them he wasn’t some stupid novice and they’d give him a proper teacher instead of some girl.
Master Sy must have read his mind. ‘Oh don’t you worry, we’ll be back quick enough. I want to see your new teacher show off her skills too. Although I simply need to know that she’s good enough for my student … You know, I don’t think I’d mind it at all if she ripped your arms off.’ He smiled and for once he seemed to mean it. ‘Come on, lad. Asking His Highness for sword lessons was foolishness, but it was a brave thing you did. I’ll probably never have the money to do this again.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Unless your teachers have actually managed to stir a little piety in you?’
Berren vigorously shook his head. ‘No chance of that !’ Still clutching the prince’s token, he ran to the temple gates.
7
A CUP OF TEA AND A BAD TASTE
‘M yla! Soraya! Lucius!’ Halfway across the square, a boy of about seven bolted across the stones. Two girls, somewhat younger, ran after him waving wooden swords. ‘Come here!’ The girls ran straight in front of Berren, forcing him to lurch sideways, but that just made him collide with the woman running after them instead. They both staggered away, the woman calling out a stream of apologies, Berren too busy checking his purse to hear what she’d said. Old habits died hard. He watched as the woman caught up with first the girls and then the boy, picking them up in her arms one after the other and scolding them soundly while they giggled and laughed. They were rich, you could see that from their clothes. Almost anyone who came up to The Peak was either rich or a novice at the temple.
‘Come on, lad!’ Master Sy was already a dozen yards ahead. ‘No time to dawdle.’
Berren sighed. Here he was, apprenticed to Master Syannis, the best thief-taker in Deephaven. He’d earned his first golden emperor at the age of thirteen. Not been given it, but earned it. He was learning letters, even if he hated them, in the great temple of the Sun. He’d earned the gratitude of a prince and he was about to be taught swords by the greatest fighters in the empire. And yet …
And yet?
And yet sometimes he would have given it all to be a fishmonger’s son, quiet and dim and unassuming, amounting to nothing very much and yet oafishly content.
‘Come on, come on! They’ll ring the bell for midday prayers soon and then we might as well forget about being served in here.’ Master Sy pushed open an impressive door of dark carved wood. Berren followed him into a dim room. The air was rich, thick with a hundred different scents and spices – sweet jasmine, bitter liquorice, pungent nutmeg and cloves and cinnamon, all layered over flowers and pipeweed and tea. Even Master Sy paused as though taken aback.
‘Right.’ The thief-taker pushed on deeper into the tea-house. The room was nearly empty except for a pair of girls about Berren’s age who were wearing … Berren squinted. They were dressed like pageboys except they very obviously weren’t. They wore their shirts loose and their breeches tight. As Master Sy approached, they smiled and bowed. Berren stared, hoping they’d bow to him too, but they didn’t. He caught Master Sy looking at him, one eyebrow raised.
‘The proprietors of the Golden Cup know very well who their patrons are.’ The thief-taker wrinkled his nose. ‘Fat old men who like to leer.’ The two serving girls exchanged a glance and giggled. Master Sy bowed back to them and then asked for a string of things that Berren had never heard of. It was as though he’d suddenly started speaking another language, something completely alien like the tongue of the black-skinned sea-traders. The girls seemed to understand, though; they nodded and hurried away. Berren wistfully watched them go, thinking of them beside the sword-monk who was supposed to be his teacher. See, now that was
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