Stego The Assasin

The misty rain drizzled down upon the pitch roof dripping down onto the slick cobblestone streets.  Not hard enough rain to rid the streets of filth and refuse, just enough to make the smell unbearable.  Je’arten in late spring is miserably hot and wet, smelly too.  The gypsy’s were called filthy in the best words and still they did not carry such an awful stench about them.  Soaked to the bone I waited on the rooftop in the rain.  Megary, that infuriating horse of mine, stood in the rain behind the building giving a nicker of impatience.  The coach was as yet, very late and I questioned the reliability of my information.

Gaivels was not a man I knew to give ill advice, but seeing as I myself knew him not at all false leading is likely.  By reputation I acquired his service of information, reputation and twelve coppers.  Expensive in these times.  For my own services I had only been promised ten polished silvers, and the installment of four had been spent getting into position.  Anything from here on came from my pockets and they were mite thin in coins and full in promises.

The innkeep at Bei’leven owed me a half silver, Darle in Stith four coppers, Rendo in Cath’domei a whopping fourteen coppers, and I myself owed Liann in Mordrey a full silver before I could regain my signet ring.  Every time I thought of the thing my small finger itched knowing as long as the ring stay pawned I could not show my face in the family.  A shame on my head that dire circumstances forced me to gamble on my family’s name.  Liann would keep it, so promised, not sell it, as sworn, until the autumn.  But the damn thing was worth a heck of a lot more than a shoddy silver. 

A rattle on the road and I turned my concern from my worries to prospects.  Coach and four as promised addled lip-lippity along the road, poor wheel as I could tell from here.  It looked mite smaller on one side, and it clacked on so as if the next turn would bring the whole coach crashing into the dirt.  Bad timing if it did for me.  I slipped the bolt from my satchel and checked it one last time.  Agornius had done me fine work this round, the banded bolts were ever fine and sharply tipped.  Then I settled it carefully in the cradle of the crossbow and followed the coach with the bite of the weapon in my eye.

Ah what a stink of it! The coach came to halt at the finer of three establishments: Beyan Brigiford’s Canter Inn, a blowhard devil he was for a retired pirate and no better than my own breeding.  Still Brigi made good money on the high seas, treasures and all.  Better than my own salary would ever seem to be.  Well pity, business might be down for a time old fellow.  The first to leave the coach was a namby, a footman or courtier, some man’s man for he turned the steps down for the master or mistress of the coach.

A woman of fine skirt and likely just as fine a face emerged from the coach with her hair powdered white and her skin sickly pale.  Too lithe for the madame, likely the man’s mistress.  Lord Domien wore an unfavorable look on his face, perhaps for the smell that the warm rain had empowered for he put a hankerchief to his nose.  The shot, under the arm just through the heart sprang true.  It hit full and the man stepped back with the force of it.  His goodman offered him an arm as if the lord made to slip, none had seen the then forming red circle at his breast.  Mistress screamed, the goodman set the lord down gently on the cobblestone amidst the filth the man had somehow avoided and detested all his live long.  I didn’t hang about, I knew a fatal shot when I saw it.  Cautiously I packed up and joined Megary on solid earth.  They’d begin searching quickly, best if I went on just as fast.  I changed on horseback, unfettering all which told tales of my evening doings.  Je’arten, oh my smelly prison we parted ways.

As swift and stout as any beast could be, Megary was not very fond of mud.  Nor was he much of a speedy ride through the worst of it.  The city gates divulged its loss and went in search of their assassin quarry.  I feared to put into practice my comfortable wear.  A gypsy in the circle of a manhunt would likely be roasted if no other culprit could be found.  Silly as that was (for the gypsy and myself had been the culprit) it was saddening too.  Gypsy’s were often the fell of misfortune.  I would know, being both and the same.

As for misfortune, I was apt to it more than most.  Though my timing seemed fortuitous as the day is indeed long a race in the gathering darkness is but a race.  Megary is but a horse, and the bounty men ever a quick finger spliced a single arrow into the night.  How such ill luck could it have found me I do not know.  One moment I was riding along, the next an unfathomable pain in my arm.  Perhaps it was naught the bounty but some fool in the wood for no chase came at my back.  Yet the pain and the flight of the arrow put it in a poor spot for me to rid myself of it on horseback.  I rode on until that damnable horse of mine had more than enough of me and sloughed me off like bad skin.  Were it not for the pain I would have lain there in misery but alas the arrow in my arm screamed and I fell away in dead faint of it.



Hie in the shadows of dreamland slumber did I fly on my winsome glory suffering agonies and pains.  My caregiver a maiden of reddish hair and keen green eyes.  I recall faintly of her hovering over me with worried hands and busy eyes or vice versa, one can never be too sure of the sleep.  Until I at last roused finding myself in the care of neither bounty nor prison guard.  Only in a farmer’s cottage where my wound had been treated and my fever rescinded.  That is the way of gypsy: one moment on horse the next abed with aches and turmoil.  Surely these folk know of who I must be.  The word must have gone far and wide.  Unless of course I had not been as clear in my mark as I should have.

“Hello, are you yourself now?” she asked me as she noticed my wakefulness.

“If you give me a moment I might be satisfactorily recalled.” ever a wise-ass I gave retort when in an ill humor.  Drugged and still twinging with pain I was in an ill humor indeed.

“Bear.” she chuckled at my insolence.  “I’d say you were well indeed your own, and ready to eat.  I’ve given you naught but water for three days.”

She was of course correct for my guts clenched sharply at her mention of food.  As deeply as the mind clutched seeing as how I’d wavered three days on the brink of fever.  I had yet six days to claim my silvers.  Horseless and injured, I had not a chance at that even if I could evade discovery. 

“My name is Elena, since you don’t ask.” she brought me a steaming bowl of soup.

I had of course already prepared a fine innocuous name to bear me all the way back to Mardin and my pay.  “Oan, since you did not ask either.”

A small smile played fine across her lips but she said nothing as she spooned the soup to my mouth like an invalid.  As anyone would she went down a list of questions for me to answer.  I did give her quite a telling in them, working on her pity.  Thus far my miserable state had worked well enough to get me a bed and a meal.  No harm in asking after more.

“Is there a stable nearby where I might rent a horse and packsaddle?” I asked though we both must know I had not two coins to rub together.

“None, sorry.” she answered.  “You would have to go on, say a half day on wagon to the Cumber to rent a riding horse.  Maybe a neighbor with a handy mule but no better in these parts.  We’re farm folk, not villagers.”

A half day on wagon!  The chance at my silvers slipping from my grasp.  The job had been done to satisfaction but I had only been guaranteed the payor’s whereabouts for a few days more.  I’d be beggarly all the way to Mordrey making coppers in song and drinking pints in misery.  It damn well wasn’t fair.

“You’re in a hurry then?” Elena nodded.  “Most are when they’re in little state to do so.”

The door opened and then slammed just the same.  A grim looking face the intruder wore and moreso as he looked on the infiltrator of his bed.  “Well and good, up again.  Nonsense or livid this time?”

“Niether Jona.” Elena replied.  “Sane and seeking quick travel.”

“Harumph.” Jona slipped his boots off and warmed his feet by the fire.  Lighting a pipe he gave me a thoughtful consideration.  Elena on the other hand went bustling about getting him some hot soup and bread.

“Nothing in a hurry these days but bandits and bounties.” the man remarked and Elena froze.  “Either or, there’s a good horse to be nipped in a gully just south of here.  Bounties have it under eye waiting for its master to come back.”

Of course I knew that devil beast had a traitorous heart.  Good grain and light work suited Megary just fine.  Blasted animal. 

“Hardly think they’ll sell it then.” I replied.

“Sell it?” the man guffawed.  “Sell it with nary a copper on you?  Poor lot at that.”

“I’d have to steal it sir.” I agreed.  “Be hard to do, I’ve never…” a blatant lie.

“I think you’ve better eye at it than you think.” Jona was not a man easily fooled.  “I had a fat lot my sickness of travel in my day and I know well and good who Stego is.  Not you, but I know well of that man.”

A tingle tickled my spine, Stego?  I had been quite mad in my fever if I had brought up that name.  Stego the Assassin, Stego the thief, Stego the malfactor of misunderstanding, Stego the cheat.  Stego was a damn hard name to live up to I was finding out.

“Just what you are to him is worth my concern.” the man puffed his pipe.

I didn’t offer an answer either.  There exist more than one Stego and I might be any number of things to the one this Jona knew.  Perhaps it would be easier explained if I said truly that Stego was me.  Stego, a popular fellow in many lands when there was dirty work to be done, had managed to propagate himself for all the doing.

“I know where to find him.” I shrugged.

“Manager.” the man’s eyes glowed.  “Well send him a message from me when you catch up to that bedraggled old dog: tell him he owes Jona his favor, he’ll know who you mean and what favor.”

Old dog?  Surely I did not know this man at all, yet had an idea as to the Stego he knew.  Also I did get the idea my earlier judgement had been impaired.  The heal was not the lady’s hand for she did not seem at all aware of my secret.  Elena did try so hard to be well and good and proper a lass as any could be.  No I got the distinct feeling that good old Jona had more than one surprise in pulling that arrow.  Ah, well, it was bound to come out sooner than later.

Elena resisted my leaving but Jona realized that I was a good lot of trouble in more ways than one if I didn’t get my arse a moving.  Sweet girl packed me a road meal and a blanket and sent me off like a good lad went to school.  Jona himself walked me to the edge of his farm and pointed out what way I should go to get that blasted horse of mine back.  Good night to go thieving what is mine anyway.

“Nice wife you have.” I bit off any smile I had.

“She’s farm stock, always has been.  No sense about the city doings or the village doings.  My guess is nary a step set off this land in all her days.  Better to have you out than trouble in.  Filling her head with nonsense ideas.” Jona suddenly smirked.  “Well and good for you Stegos, piss poor for a farm girl.”

Now I had my chance to be quite shocked again and my hang-jaw was wide open to the moths and insects before I thought to shut it. 

“I’ve been patching you fools up since I came off the war bands.” Jona yawned.  “Always taking my bed, my horse, good blanket, and far more of my time than ought but for the adventure I do it.  You tell him like I said.” he reminded.

Fine frog’s hair was this to go splitting.  Someone had ratted them out, someone had snitched out the family.  Didn’t feel right just letting him walk off back into his wood.  Didn’t feel right slitting his throat either with a farm wife at home ready to wile him in his own bed for once.  Best not to let it get around that this Stego had a soft heart.  I turned my way, let him go his own. 

The wood rolled seven times and high on low before I caught site of the bounty camp.  Damnable fools had poked around a lot, be hard to find good Samaritans on the road to Mardin.  The horses had been staked downwind as fool men were oft to do.  I slipped about hoping to catch one of them off guard.  Bounty were rarely off guard, but as it had been three days and no luck to any of them they might be over wound.  Megary, the devil gave a nicker at my return.  A few heads turned but by eyesight alone they checked and didn’t bother.  Slip shod, poor retinue and maybe my luck be changing.

Sliding through the darkness I untied the line of horses, Megary uninterested as ever ignored me completely.  About the time I had nearly reached a proper saddle, not mine which had been fine but bitterly a less costly one, I had my unawares Bounty.  He was off three others quite a way, squatting in the bushes.  Careful I crept up on him and his stench giving him a whack in the skull.  Thankfully only his coattails were brushed with defecation, well then what gypsy ever turned aside a good wool coat because of a little mess on it?  I certainly wasn’t to be the first and I dressed quickly. 

Even in the uniform I did not brave deep into their camp, but I did manage to turn up my own saddle of roan-read leather.  My packs were unfortunately elsewhere.  I grabbed up what stores they had available.  Devil me, it was going to cost me more than I’d made by the end of this.  What with the crossbow lost, my dagger, several food stores, a few silks… my eye caught on the satchel, my old worn satchel and I hunkered down in the dark by the horses.  Megary let me check his hooves, make sure he was ride ready.  I’d have one shot at it and the thing might be empty for all I knew.

I deduced the obvious.  My luck aside, even the best of luck, the satchel would be infuriatingly empty.  Wild, insane hope that it would be full.  This was how I’d lost my signet ring in the first place: betting insurmountable odds.  But whereas the ring was in pawn, my luck had to change eventually.  I covered my face with a bit of torn shirt.  Even Stego’s luck was not all bad.

Megary gave himself over to the halter and I went on horse.  Immediately I snapped the line across the flanks of the other horses whom squealed and reared in stampede.  Good thing we were all headed in the same direction.  Megary shied the fire and I pulled him back forcefully.  We’d done this very trick a hundred times and still he fought me on it.  I wrapped the stirrups around my shin and slid my foot in feeling at ease.  Okay, we’d done it a hundred times but never with fire.  Or arrows flying at us.  This could be very interesting.

The satchel was on the ground, and I leaned over and back fetching it just as Megary launched with a squeal over the fire.  I could have tasted their soup if I’d been a second later.  As it was heat singed me and then back to the darkness as I flipped up into the saddle.  My hell beast landed sure and took off wildly into the wood.  By the end of my evening run I had acquired a fine stallion and a mare.  We all rode hard to Mardin.

Much to my unsurprise my crossbow had disappeared from the satchel.  It had been fine work, I still owed four coppers on it.  Yet I still had the bolts and my dagger, better than none at all.  My silks were still there, hard to believe considering.  But really I was small frame compared to some of the buffoons in the bounty.  Likely none of it would fit them.  In Mardin I sold the horses and took a room, a bath, and a full bottle of good drink to bed with me.  A companion’s favorite label.  Aker lived cross town, good friend of mine to put me up, but he was as of yet holding my next identity and best not to mix my current with my future.  Oan would be gone by morning.

I dressed for the occasion, masked across my face but my eyes clear.  I did not trust this man, so I kept my dagger close.  It had been a hard job, difficult and costly.  Men who arranged the deaths of important lords often were important lords themselves.  Rivals who sought to further their lands, vengeance, or their wives.  Domein did not have a particularly beautiful or powerful wife.  A dandy of a mistress though and well that is a possible reason as well.  Better to leave them to their business and mine to my own.  Still I felt a little cheated if it was the matter of a coup.  What land is bought on ten measly silvers?

Then when all was pleasantly quiet I packed up my things and slipped out the window.  Oan would be no more, Stego lives again.  Through the darkened rooftops I passed this way and that, finding at last the proper roof.  The gentleman inside had lit a candle and I worried my entry.  Did he wait me or did he await me?  There is a difference.

Grabbing the edge of the roof I flipped down to the window ledge and was within with a crash.  Funny thing about that maneuver, it is always difficult stopping in midair.  Surprised and a little taken aback the man gaped before gathering his wits enough to scowl.  I liked him, but I wouldn’t trust him as far as a banded eagle, both liked to snap.

“Fear I would betray you?” he growled as he poured himself a good brandy.

“Men with debts sometimes seek to prevent their payment.  I’ve worked far too hard in the last fifteen days to not be paid.” I mouthed it as the man offered me a shot of better drink than I’d seen in a long time.  I refused on the grounds it might impair my ability to fall through windows.

“I heard you had a time of it.” his eyes ran me over critically.  “Someone rumored you’d been shot dead.”

“Not at all, winged.” I shrugged.  “My fee, Tandores, I’m in a hurry to get it and get far enough where I might enjoy a good swigger.”

Tandores pulled a small money pouch from his pocked and flipped it onto the table.  Before I could reach for it he slammed his fist down, hard as if to leave its imprint in the grain.  I took up the money bag and counted out six perfect silvers.  It was the glitter of gold under his hand that distracted me.  A full gold crown!  A half crown, yes I’d seen a few of those, but a full one? Never.

“What game are you playing with me?” it didn’t sit right.

“I want to meet him, Stego.” the man glared.  “Tell me when and where, and I will give you the whole crown.”

Ah I’d played this game before with this one, and he seemed pretty intent on meeting an older Stego.  Twice now in the same trip I’d been falsified.  Obviously I couldn’t live up to the man’s reputation.  Personally, I thought it was because of my youth.  Thus far no one had complained as long as I got the job done.

“I can’t.” I replied. 

“A full crown, little assassin….” he grinned.

“No, you don’t understand.  I can never predict the travels of myself, much less anyone else.” I lied.

“Pity.” Tandores started to put the crown away.

“I can guarantee nothing.” I really didn’t want to lose my chance at that crown.  “Either way, you pay.”

“Depends…” Tandores could smell a rat in this.

“Go along to the village of Baranbe, near Twiddledunn.  Be at the Sliver Scant Eye in a fortnight and three, no earlier, no later.  Name yourself Thoxy to the innkeep there.  If I manage to survive that far he will know the name.”

Of course Tandores didn’t trust this.  “And if you do not?”

“Well then you’ve had a little travel and you get to keep your crown all the same.” I didn’t doubt that I could make the trip in one piece and breathing, however in a timely matter was another thing entirely.  If I didn’t have to retrieve my signet I could manage Baranbe in but a week, but if I didn’t I couldn’t show my face in Baranbe.  Vicious turn abouts, I was more than used to it.

The fee acquired and the night to cloak me I went out as I went in.  Tandores would be no danger, at least until he met up with his Stego.  Then it might be another matter entirely.  If I had not known better I would have lied about Baranbe altogether.  Perhaps I did, for I had plenty of time to make myself late on the road.  I slipped into the stables catching Megary sleeping as a lamb.  The horse was ever unruly but after a few curses he did accept the bridle and saddle.  I loaded up the left of my supplies and walked him muffle foot through the dirt paths of town.

It wasn’t as if I could leave right away, I patted the bottle of brew in my pocket.  With the city gates locked tight I was utterly at the mercy of an expected standstill. I did have a little time to spare on an old friend.  Aker’s manor was on the far side of the town with a better caste of people.  Akezarius Lerem, a duchy or somewhat connected to that name.  He lived on his father’s good fortune as an only son but not exactly in good graces.  Poor Ake had sullied the family name and been forced into exile in Mardin.  Not that exile didn’t agree with the renegade noble, just Aker didn’t care for being told what he could and could not do.

I took the opportunity in the darkness to change once more and toss off poor Oan of nondescript for myself.  Megary would need some tending before he’d be back in his own skin again.  The black mane, black dapple and the black on his legs would take ten pounds of lye and much time to fade back to his natural yellow.  Just to be safe, I’d powder him up in the morning giving him a good face at a distance.  The Manor de Lerem just ahead I noticed a window light on.

Twice this night had a glow been left to guide me and I started to be a bit wary.  Good fortune came in singles, bad luck in threes: hardly seemed fair.  Of course it may be a servant bustling about for even before I reached the window the light dangerously snuffed.  I hoped it for a servant.  I waited in the darkness peering through the wrought glass in this room or the other.  Be terrible to be caught snipping in windows at night so I knocked on the kitchen entry.

A slender flower petal wisp of a girl opened the door and peered out, the cinder mistress by the look of soot on her hem and blackened socks.  We’d never been introduced so her first expression of disdain was expected.

“Maison to see the master.” I announced.

“Mason?  At this hour?  What foolery is this.” she scowled her tiny blonde brows furrowed over her tiny blue eyes.

“No miss.” This was about par for most meetings just as this.  “I’m not a Mason, that is my name: Maison.  Maison of the Hundred Moon, the Thousand Stars, the Endless Dark, the Coming Dawn.”

“Maison!” the girl knew something of me by reputation.  “Oh, right away.  I do apologize, you never can know what is on the other side of that door this time of night.”

“Quite alright.” I smiled my ever so winning smile.  “Happens to me all the time.”

So the master was called from his rest and good Megary put away in the stables as the sweet Cinder gave me a hot meal of left over roast pork.  Ake came down in his nightshirt laughing and helping himself to the drink he knew I kept in my breast pocket.  A room was always to be had in Lerem, well at least with this Lerem.  Why for some, the master even gave you his own.  To there we retired.

Quite at home I planted myself in the settee and helped myself to an excellent cigar as we passed the bottle between us like a couple of vagrants.  When both were nearly half gone Aker chucked me up over his shoulder and took me to the anteroom where his richly draped bed sat.  There in silks and plush he took me to bed as any proper born noble did with a gypsy woman. 

“Maison, lady moon, sister star…” the rest of his beautiful prose for me swallowed in my kisses.  Ah, but the poets did sing it so well and he better than most.