Chapter Three

Confrontation

When I first moved to Woodfall Gath, I spent many nights climbing its walls and roofs.

Back then, I'd been gathering intelligence on how I might eventually kill Master Nicolo, which was set to be no easy task due to how careful and wily he was. It turned out to be an impossible task but for very different reasons. Although those nights were supposed to be all about my mission, I had in fact quite enjoyed them; I'd always been good at climbing and I found it relaxing.

But I was too tense to enjoy it tonight. Once upon a time it had all seemed like a tremendous adventure, setting out for the first time on a job that I'd been training for my entire life. Although it was about taking a man's life, it had all felt like nothing more than a game to me. I supposed I'd grown up a bit, because now everything felt a bit more real; I'd learned more about life and gained a different perspective.

Tonight wasn't about taking a man's life, it was about saving it, and maybe more lives besides. I felt a weight of responsibility hanging off me as I climbed the wall of the Prince's Tower, something I'd done so many times before, but this time was different.

I needed to speak to Nicolo.

Even though I knew Wylder was right about how difficult it would be to convince Nicolo of the truth, I had to try, for everyone's sake. In my heart, I believed—no, I knew —that Nicolo was a good man. But his loyalty to his friend made him a worse person. It was as if he wanted to prove that Balduin was a good man by being an even worse one, so Balduin looked good by comparison. Childhood friends are hard to let go, apparently, even when they kill their own grandmothers and start a reign of terror.

I also knew Nicolo was hurting. He'd lost the Old Queen, whom he'd loved like a mother. And although he'd now reconnected with his real mother (from whom Queen Nell had taken him) that love remained, and the loss cut deep.

He was hurt too by my perceived betrayal. Nicolo had known little love in his life and had closed his heart to it. With me, he'd dared to open that heart again, only for it to be broken when Balduin told him I'd tried to kill him and actually had killed the Old Queen. In that sea of hurt, he'd lashed out at anyone and everyone. It was no longer really about rooting out the conspiracies that had killed the Old Queen or plotted against the new king, that was just an excuse for taking revenge on the world. Revenge for being such a cruel and unfeeling place that would allow him love and then rip it away in the next instant.

It was partly my fault; I knew that.

I should have told Nicolo who I was and how I'd come to Woodfall Gath much earlier. I should have warned him that his old friend couldn't be trusted. But I hadn't wanted to ruin the little piece of Heaven we'd carved out for ourselves in Simnel—hadn't wanted to burst that bubble of happiness in which we'd found ourselves. Now I regretted that decision deeply. If I'd told him then, when he was far from the influence of Balduin, then perhaps he would have believed me. Or perhaps not.

Now I would never know, and nothing remained but regret.

No, not nothing.

Regret and the knowledge that the Nicolo I'd known in Simnel was still there, buried beneath the hard exterior he'd put on, beneath grief and hurt, beneath the layered lies of King Balduin. My Nicolo was still down there. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to speak to him, but I was damn sure going to try.

The windows to Nicolo's apartments at the top of the tower were barred so I couldn't get in that way. Instead, I climbed up to one of the lower windows, looking in on a guard room.

"He's in for the night."

I listened to a pair of guards talking.

"Locked himself in?"

"Always does, doesn't he? Doesn't trust us. Doesn't trust anyone."

"I suppose he's got enemies everywhere."

"Aye an' who's fault is that? Doesn't go out of his way to make friends, does he? You know he'd kill us as soon as look at us."

"I suppose. But if we were attacked, he'd be the first to defend us."

"Ha! I'd like to see that."

"I've seen it. Back when you were on the Queen's detail. He may not be friendly, but he wouldn't let harm come to you if he could prevent it."

"I still wouldn't trust him."

"Well, no, neither would I."

I listened to them until they went out to patrol the nocturnal corridors of the tower. Not being complete fools, they closed and shuttered the window before leaving, but that was no real obstacle to a graduate of the Assassins' Guild. It took me less than a minute to open both and I slid noiselessly into the room, alert to any possible sound of the guards returning. I closed the window and shuttered it once more, leaving no sign that I'd been there, then padded out of the room, dressed in my assassins' blacks—a masked and hooded costume in shades of night that enabled me to blend into the shadows.

Getting into Nicolo's room wasn't impossible, but it would be difficult and stupid. I could get the guards out of the way and pick the lock, but Nicolo would hear me coming and the guards were sure to return, meaning I'd meet them on the way out since there was no other exit but the door.

No.

I needed Nicolo to come out so I could meet him in a space with a clear escape route. However much I hoped I could talk him around, I knew it was far from a guarantee. We'd meant a lot to each other for a while in Simnel, but that just meant he felt my ‘betrayal' all the more keenly.

The easy way to get him out of the room was evacuation; start a fire or suggest the presence of an intruder by breaking a window. But then his guards would take him to some safe holding area. I needed something less obvious. And having been Master Nicolo's squire, I had the advantage of knowing how best to accomplish this little subterfuge.

Finding a secluded corner, I stripped out of my blacks to reveal the non-descript servant costume beneath. Under my mask I'd put on a dark brown wig and applied a little face makeup, kohl liner and rouge to make myself look different enough that the guards wouldn't recognize me as the treacherous squire, Charlotte, unless they looked closely, and no one looked at servants that closely.

"Message for Master Nicolo!" I trotted up to a guard, stationed on the floor below Nicolo's apartments and handed over the piece of folded paper.

The guard took it with a contemptuous expression, knowing that the master would have no interest in messages coming this late at night. But his expression changed when he saw the symbol on the back of it; a triangle with a line through it. He had, I was sure, no idea what it meant, but the master always wanted such messages delivered quickly.

"On your way!" the guard snapped at me.

I nodded and hurried back the way I'd come.

Now back in my blacks, I left through the guardroom window and climbed back down the tower. I only had a few minutes to get where I was going, as I knew Nicolo would be heading there quickly.

One could not be a tyrant, or even assistant to a tyrant, without having informants feeding information. Nicolo took scant interest about what happened out in the city, but he was in near-constant danger from enemies within the court. As his squire, I'd learned he had various informants who kept tabs on certain people of interest. They communicated with Nicolo by sending a message with a symbol on the front. The message itself was meaningless, so if it was intercepted there was nothing to be read, it simply told Nicolo that one of his informants wanted to meet.

The man whose symbol was the triangle with a line through it always met Nicolo near the wall of the Court Garden, where that branch of the river Pike disappeared into a culvert, then through the garden and under the Great Castle.

I vaulted the wall and dropped silently to the other side, blending into the shadow of a tree. I didn't have to wait long.

"Speak."

Even when he thought he knew who he was coming to meet, Nicolo took no chances—he had too many enemies. Regardless, hearing his voice again made my heart clutch in my chest. Even though he spoke in harder tones than those I'd become used to, it was still a joy to hear him again.

"Master." Somehow it felt wrong to call him Nicolo after everything that had happened most recently.

I heard the sharp intake of breath and the slick sound of a sword being drawn.

Hastily I stepped out of the shadows into the silvery moonlight that penetrated the branches above us.

"I'm unarmed."

"Well, that was foolish, wasn't it?"

It probably was, especially as I might easily have fallen foul of the guards, but I'd wanted to make a point.

"Maybe, but I wanted you to trust me."

"I can see how that would make your job easier," sneered Nicolo. "And I'm sure a person like you knows many ways to kill a man without resorting to weapons."

"About twenty or so," I replied, hoping that joking about it might make things easier between us. "Give or take."

"I'll take no chances with your kind," Nicolo snarled from the darkness, ignoring my attempt at humor.

"I'm not here to harm you."

"You expect me to believe that."

"Maybe not immediately," I admitted. "I know I hurt you, and I blame myself for that…"

"How kind of you."

"But I also know how smart you are and after a while, you're bound to ask yourself why I didn't kill you in Simnel or even earlier when I had the chance. We both know I could have many times over."

"I'm sure you had your reasons for preferring me alive."

I nodded. "I have many reasons for preferring you alive. For starters, I love you."

He chuckled, and it was an acidic sound. "You came here to kill me."

"That was before I loved you."

"How convenient."

"It's not convenient," I pointed out, shaking my head. "It's understandable. I could hardly have fallen in love with you before I met you. Once I did meet you, then I learned to like you and then to love you. And decided not to kill you."

Nicolo raised an eyebrow. "Is that really your best effort? ‘I eventually decided not to kill you'?"

"I was raised an assassin," I explained with a shrug. "From as early as I can remember, I've been taught to kill. It was ingrained into me. Do you know what an effect you had on me to change that?"

He scowled at me. "So, I should thank you?"

"No," I shook my head. "I'm not asking for your thanks or your forgiveness, I'm not even asking that you take me back."

"Then what are you doing here, Charlotte?" He breathed in deeply. "And I'm not even going to ask how you avoided the dungeons."

"That's another conversation neither of us has time for at the moment."

He nodded. "What do you want?"

"I'm just asking for you to listen."

"To what?"

"To me. To the truth."

"I can do one or the other but hardly both." Clearly, his mind was closed to the idea that I was anything other than a liar.

"Can't you even do that?" I asked. "For what we once meant to each other."

Nicolo sneered. "What we meant to each other? Don't flatter yourself. You were an entertaining fuck. Nothing more."

Even though my heart dropped, I didn't believe him. "I don't believe that."

Nicolo shrugged. "Fine, you were actually a pretty average fuck."

"You're trying to hurt me, and all you're doing is hurting yourself." And me .

"You're a traitor and an assassin. I could never feel anything for you but contempt," Nicolo growled back. "Your kind should be exterminated, and you will be, along with everyone you ever cared about. The Gath is full of backstabbers of your ilk, teeming with dissent. But not for long. We will scour the treachery from it. We will purge it with fire. With every traitor we find, we will pry from them the names of a dozen more. The chopping blocks will run with the blood of any who speak the name of the king with anything but reverence."

"Then mercy," I started but he vehemently shook his head, interrupting me.

"Mercy is for the weak. The Queen was merciful, and you made her pay for it."

"I never touched the Queen," I insisted, sharply.

"No. You took the coward's route and poisoned her," glared Nicolo, his eyes alive with hatred. "I won't make the same mistake she did. If there's no room for kindness, then I am content to be cruel."

It was like talking to a completely different man from the one I'd known only a few days ago.

"I did not kill the Queen," I said, firmly. "Your king did."

"Liar!" His temper flared. "You'll pay for spreading this treachery!"

"He killed her and he would have killed you too," I went on, regardless. "Balduin hired me to kill you, Nicolo. If you look in his old room in the Heir's Tower and move the candle bracket on the wall by the bed, you will find the secret room where he keeps your replacement (or kept, I don't know that the boy is still there). Regardless, that should be all the proof you need."

"Balduin is my friend, damn you!" It was always Nicolo's blind spot. He'd grown up in such loneliness that he wouldn't accept any evil from this one, true friend. "I won't hear you talk about him that way."

Finally, his temper got the better of him and he rushed at me, sword bared. I grabbed the tree branch above me and swung up and out of his way.

"I don't want to hurt you."

"You'd rather poison me like you did the Queen. Coward!"

"You can defamate me all you like…"

He slashed at me and I dropped nimbly to the ground, rolling away as the blade cut again. In this mood Nicolo was vicious and careless, if I'd wanted to kill him, I could have easily disarmed him and dispatched him there and then.

"It won't change the truth. Kill me if you like—if you can—but nothing will change the truth."

"You wouldn't recognize truth if it bit you on the ass!" he snarled at me.

The sword swung, and I dodged left and right, weaving between his angry vengeful slashes. Nicolo was a fabulous swordsman, but not now, not when anger was ruling him. It was like a metaphor for his personality; beneath the wild slashes the swordsman remained, just as beneath the fa?ade of ‘The Unbreakable', my Nicolo was still there. But anger clouded both. The swordsman would return, but my Nicolo? That rage went bone deep and penetrated his very heart.

"You know the truth. It's as plain as the nose on your face if you could just calm down enough to see it. If you won't believe me, then believe the evidence of your own eyes."

"I see an assassin in front of me, who doesn't even bother to deny it. And someone has been assassinated. That's all the evidence I need."

I dodged again, and the sword smacked into a tree trunk, sticking there as Nicolo struggled to pull it free.

"The old Nicolo would know better than that. He would look deeper."

"Then he was a fool!" snapped Nicolo. "That man is dead, dead at your fucking hands. You killed him."

He wrenched the sword free, and I was almost too stunned to duck. I'd known it was true, but to hear him say it ‘ You killed him ' that cut me deeper than any sword ever could.

"Then that's that," I said, shaking my head. "I hoped you would be able to think beyond your own grief—that you would be able to understand there is always another side to every story, but apparently I was wrong. I'm sorry, Nicolo."

I ran straight at him, jumping as I went, grabbing a branch and swinging over his head to land beside the wall, up which I scrambled like a monkey, leaving behind the garden and the anger of my ex-master and lost love.

"Traitor! Coward!" The words and more echoed behind me as I fled. But I knew they were only substitutes for what he really wanted to call me. I'd broken his heart, and that was my unforgivable crime.

***

"I did warn you," said Wylder, after I'd arrived back at the revolutionary hideout.

"And I told you I could do it safely," I retorted.

"So, we were both of us a little bit wrong," admitted the older man. "Such is life. It was ever thus. What now, Charlotte?"

It wasn't those hurtful parting words that stuck with me. I knew I'd hurt Nicolo, and that was something I would have to live with. What I remembered most now was how he'd spoken of purging the Gath, rooting out any and all dissent. It had sounded like Balduin speaking. In his anger and grief, Nicolo had cleaved closer to the one friend he had left, and to our cost. Once, Nicolo might have been a good influence on Balduin, now he seemed as bad or worse. At least Balduin was too selfish and concerned with his own pleasures to really care, but with Nicolo like this, then the purge would be thorough, well-organized, and bloody.

"I'll do it," I murmured.

Wylder had the decency not to visibly show his relief, knowing how hard this was for me.

"I know it's not an easy decision."

"No. But it is the right one." If someone didn't stop Nicolo, then it would be carnage. There was no one better qualified than me, no one who had the skills yet also knew him so well. If I didn't stop him, then all the blood that would be spilled would be on my hands.

"You're sure?"

I appreciated that he asked.

I nodded. Though it broke my heart, I no longer thought there was any way I could save Master Nicolo from himself.