Chapter 1
I bring my hand down quickly, still lost in thought as I do my job. After I remove my blade from the man’s chest, I stare at him, wheezing and gasping as he dies on the hard ground beneath me. Tears fall from his eyes, and he grips my arm with the last of the strength that remains in his body.
“Please.... why...did you...” He breathed, which I assumed was a question about why I had stabbed him, five times, on his lawn, in the middle of the night. I stared at him some more, before sighing and sitting next to him, taking his hand in mine.
“You are a thief,” I explain. “A while ago, when your son was sick, you stole a rich man’s horse and rode to the next city over to see a doctor. As it happens to be, that horse was of the finest breed, the highest quality, the fastest in the town, and belonged to that man’s daughter. He wasn’t very pleased with you, you know. He was so angry, that he wanted me to burn you alive. But I don’t do that kind of thing. He did, however, pay me well enough to come out here and kill you, in any way I see fit, on his orders.
You wronged a lot of people, and I’m impressed no one’s come for you sooner.” He gasped as I informed him of the reason behind his demise.
“My son...was...dying...I had to.” He no longer cried and was barely able to be heard. I felt pity for him, lying in his yard covered in blood. I spoke to him as his last moments ran out
“I have a son, too. I would have done the same, had I not had a horse. But I’m afraid you’ve doomed yourself by robbing the wrong man. I’m being paid by him to watch your last breath leave your body. I need to feed my boy. Father to father, you understand right? Don’t worry about your wife. I’ll inform her of your departure, and with it, I’ll send her my prayers....” With my words, the light in the man’s eyes shimmered for the last time before disappearing. I wiped my hands on a handkerchief I kept with me, and rose from my seated position.
Scanning the yard, I went to my bag I had stashed by a log and headed up the path towards his house. The lights were off. A cat meowed as I approached a bush near the path. I paused as it rubbed against my leg. What a disturbed animal, to give affection to its owner’s killer.
I sat by the bush, gently opening my bag and removing the paper and pen I brought with me. I stared out at the sky, the woods, and the field. I wondered, how to tell his wife that I had been the person to bring her great grief.
At last, I wrote a short memoir of ten lines long, explaining the small amount I knew of him and his death. I wrote that he loved her and his son. I sent them my prayers. With the final line, I folded the paper and walked to the door of the house. I waited, listening for movement. I heard nothing, and with respect to the sleeping woman inside, took a rock and placed the paper on the doorstep.
With a last look at the sullen scene laid out before me, I shifted my bag over my shoulder and headed out to the woods. I walked slowly, in no rush to go home, at least, to the inn in which I was staying at. I walked through the plants and the trees, enjoying the cool air that washed over me, and the moonlight that glazed the earth in patches, melting through gaps in the treetops. Ahead I could make out the sight of two horses and a slender figure standing in patience playing with something in their hand.
As I moved closer they looked up, staring at me as I approached. Their hand gently rested on the knife that I had gifted them for their birthday, ready to tear me to pieces if they couldn’t recognize me once I was close. They began to relax and eventually took out a shirt from the pack on my horse.
I grinned as sincerely as one could after killing a man, and they nodded back at me with a faint smile.
“I’m sorry it took me so long, they were stronger than I had expected them to be.” I apologized, removing my outer layer of clothes and exchanging them for the clean ones in the boy’s hands. He looked around me, towards the place where I had emerged from.
“He’s dead?” It was a quiet question, but I could still hear the curiosity in his voice. I smiled.
“Well, I certainly wouldn’t leave them alive, flailing around on the ground in agony.”
Jack, as I had named the boy, was not truly my son. I had found him as a baby on a job across the country about fourteen years ago. The infant was crying mercilessly in an alleyway, and I couldn’t bring myself to leave him there, cold and starving in the rain. The town was remote and didn’t have an orphanage. By the time I found a suitable place to give the child to, he had taken a liking to me and wouldn’t hush himself when held in the arms of another, even the nuns at the churches couldn’t calm him.
I gave up trying to leave him, and eventually just carried him with me. I stayed in a city in the north for about two years, paying a woman to feed the child until he was able to eat properly. Afterward, I left again, back to my travels and work.
I found that he was fairly good at whatever I taught him, and until he was five, I simply referred to him as “Boy.” However, a client’s wife scolded me and refused to let her husband pay me until I named him. I felt that “Jack of All Trades” was well and befitting, so I called him Jack from that day forward.
He begged for me to teach him how to fight so that he could be of use to me when I was working. He wanted to learn how to kill too, but I refused to pull him into the hell I chose for my own life, and simply taught him to defend himself. Teaching to kill requires live practice, and our food depends on how well I do my job. I also didn’t want to scar his young mind and stain his hands with a man’s blood at such a young age. As an adult, if he wishes to join me, I will train him in the art of assassination. I would be willing to have him as a partner, but not while he’s still a child.
We mounted our horses and road into town. The road that led into the city was rough, unfixed, and mangled. Riding into the city was short, and the smell of fresh food at stalls engulfed my nose. I searched for an open tavern, and when I found one, it was surrounded by people of all classes, singing and cheering with excitement. I slowed my horse, and Jack followed my lead. I reached into my jacket and pulled out the pouch of money I had been paid for tonight’s job. I removed a few coins and handed them to him.
“Get some food for yourself, and go back to the inn. Lock the door and rest.” I instructed with a reassuring tone. He was used to my disappearances after a night’s work and simply nodded before taking off down the path to the inn.
I turned to the tavern, removed myself from my horse, and tied her up to a post. Giving her some pats and filling her bucket with water, I removed my bag and headed inside.
