Prologue- The Assassin
Devlin Forest in Northumberland, late summer of 1484
It had taken the forest hours to calm its breath. When it finally did, the trees seemed to stretch their limbs towards the silence. The scent of pine sap rose, laced with the slow-sweet rot of crushed bracken. Summer mist clung low, curling in the moist hollows between tree trunks, turning the moss silver where light still touched it.
Nothing moved. Not the ferns, not the man lying flat on his stomach beneath the roots of a half-rotted ash. A cloak of black wool swallowed him whole. Close-fitted leather lay beneath, dark with use and cut for silence. No crest marked him. No colours claimed him. Shadow kept his face, revealing only a jaw too weathered for youth and too hard for age. Soft-soled boots dulled his weight against the earth. Nothing he wore invited notice. His weapons were bound in linen to still their whisper. A narrow blade slept along his forearm, hidden in a crude spring-brace of metal and carved horn. The mechanism made no noise when released. Ornament was irrelevant. It had only to work.
The hoofbeats reached him long before the small entourage came into view. He put his ear gently to the ground. By the sound, he counted four horses: tired, clattering loose stones along the narrow bend. The trail was soft from the week’s rain, damp and uneven, swallowing sound like a feathered pillow. The spot he had chosen was hemmed in close by pine trunks and tangled undergrowth.
A poor place to pass. A perfect place to kill.
They came into view as expected. The first rider was bareheaded, with thinning silver-blond hair swept back from a high brow, and a face too proud to wear fear. He wore a surcoat in the old style. It was stiff and heavy with embroidery, the cloth pale blue, almost silver, and stamped with the red rose of Lancaster encircled by a golden chain. The crest of House Vale, a lesser but vicious branch. He rode like someone who expected the road to rise and the world to part. A Lord, yes.
And his target, if the records were true.
The Lord’s fingers rested slack and lazy on the reins, jewelled and soft-skinned. Not a fighting man, but the kind who sent them. His chin was dipping toward his chest in the easy lull of heat and long travel. His sword was sheathed, and his boots hung low, toes pointing upward. He looked, in that moment, like a man thinking of food. Or sleep. Or nothing at all.
Behind him rode a young boy, squire-aged. He was pale-faced, riding with his shoulders squared in an effort to seem older. Compared to his master, the youngster’s hands held the reins too tightly.
Then came the two guards. The first was thin, slouching, with armour gone dull beneath his cloak. The other was older, broader, muttering to himself as he rubbed at his neck. When the last man had passed the roots where he waited, the assassin moved. He rose as dusk rose; quiet, gradual, no sharper than the shifting of a breeze. One gloved hand brushed earth, the other lifted a small throwing knife, balancing it in the crook of his fingers. He stepped from the darkness without pause or tension, his cloak drawing no sound as he fell in behind the final rider.
The knife struck behind the ear, angled forward and upward, driving clean through flesh and cartilage into the base of the skull. The man’s breath hitched, and his hands opened slackly. He dropped from the saddle and landed in a heap among the nettles, his mouth still partway open. It happened so swiftly that the horse merely continued walking. The assassin crossed behind. The second guard had straightened to the sound of movement, reaching instinctively for his sword. The assassin came up at his side, one hand seizing the man’s boot and belt, pulling. The guard toppled, landing beyond the narrow path. The air was slammed from his lungs, but he made no sound. The hidden blade was jabbed into the soft area beneath his chin, making the man’s legs buck a few times before he finally stilled.
The flies came almost immediately.
The squire’s horse slowed in premonition. The boy glanced back, his pale eyes searching the path behind him, a cracked voice calling the guards’ names. No answer. Nothing to be seen. The assassin had already slipped from view, moving parallel through the brush, soft-footed as snowfall, watching the young man’s posture for any tilt or shift. The boy adjusted his reins. Swallowed. His eyes narrowed, and just as he was about to call out for the guards again, the assassin stepped forward and seized him from behind. The assassin placed one hand around the lad’s jaw, the other dragging him out of the saddle. The squire struggled, more out of fear than strength, but no noise escaped. The hidden dagger slid into the heart clean, just beneath the sternum, and stilled him mid-motion. The child died folded into his arms, and he laid him gently beneath the bracken. He whispered a short prayer and closed the boy’s eyes with reverence.
This one would haunt him. The young ones always did.
Only Lord Vale remained now. The old man had not looked back. Not once. Not when the trail narrowed, nor when the horses behind him began to sound strange or stopped sounding at all. He still sat loosely in the saddle, lost in his own thoughts. The assassin followed from a distance for a while, letting the quiet thicken, and the trees lean closer again. The horse faltered once, and he chose that moment to step back into the trail. The Lord straightened in confusion, tensing as his hand went to the sword at his hip.
It was too late.
The assassin caught the surcoat, driving a long stiletto up and through the lung. Lord Vale choked and spat blood. The sword slipped from his hand, unused. There was no scream, only the soft rattle of a breath broken in the throat. The assassin held him a moment before he let him fall. He turned the signet ring free from the swollen hand and wiped it clean on the crest adorning the man’s chest. He hid the insignia in a secret pocket sewn into his jerkin.
The forest would accept the bodies.
