Fic: Iteration (5/8) (Berserk)
Title: Iteration
Author: Akshi
Fandom: Berserk
Warnings: Alternate universe, violence (kind of a given with this series, eh?), het sex, character death
Archive: Please ask me first
Disclaimers: Berserk belongs to Kentarou Miura and Hakusensha. Warm thanks go to my patient and long-suffering beta readers, Jeanne and Priya, for beating this story into the shape it is now. I would also like to thank Tsubaki and Sahari for their feedback. Any mistakes are, of course, entirely mine. Feedback appreciated at pharcical@yahoo.com
Interlude
I spin in the void, curled up with my head to my knees. Nothingness cradles my body in comforting darkness. I know that it will not last. One breath, another…
Bright light flares, a red glow on the inside of my eyelids. I don’t want to open my eyes, but my wishes never affect the Dream. It has at least the virtue of being familiar. Other dreams are unknown quantities, but this Dream never changes. It is a constant I could do without, even though I forget now how long it has been with me.
I lose the battle to remain wilfully blind as my eyes snap open and I hang suspended over the field of blood again. The faces appear, great red pustules erupting from the ground, and moaning fills the air. I don’t need to look up. If I did I would see the sky filled with unnatural clouds whirling black and red. I have seen this so many times that it is almost as if I am coming home. My eyes search the familiar landscape for changes, but there are none. The victims aren’t here yet. They will come soon, they always do. If I listen carefully, I can almost make out what the faces are saying.
They are here now, although they can’t see me; I don’t know why. Sometimes I try to warn them, but they never hear me. Again the familiar scenes play out: the giant hand rising up, the beasts, the deaths and the flying man. As each man is slaughtered, his features fade from my mind. This is perhaps the biggest joke of all: that I would not recognise these faces I have lived with for so long if I saw them on the street.
It is almost finished now and my part begins. The flying beast looks at me and beckons. I fall down towards him and his hands are on me, burning my skin. Dark lips curve in a closed-mouth smile under the mask and his fingers travel to my throat. Strangulation again? No, his hands are holding a knife. Vivisection? My least favourite option. Perhaps he will be kind and slit my throat instead.
He kisses me and my mouth is on fire. Poison. It doesn’t take long, but I think my choking and thrashing is amusing enough to make up for the brevity of this death. My vision blurs and fades as I try to force out the question that always remains unasked: Who are you?
Part Five
Itsutsu, Ikusa no chi no ame no
(Five, the rain of blood because of war)
The Hawks’ victory at the Korai throws the Chudan Empire into turmoil. Engaged as the Chudan nobles are in their power struggles, incursions into Midland cease almost completely. Consequently, the Band of the Hawk has little to do for the time being.
Weeks pass in Garima and Gatts feels more out of step with the other Hawks every day. They are all benefiting from Griffith’s knighthood, both in terms of prestige and money. These days, in any tavern in the city, you have only to mention you are a Hawk to bring bar girls flocking around and get your cup refilled for free. Corkus has taken to wearing silk shirts every day. Gatts can’t understand his own restlessness, dogged as he is by an inexplicable dissatisfaction. He doesn’t think he’s sulking, although Griffith has hardly had time for the Hawks since his return, busy as he is attending court functions and building relationships with various people. That is understandable, even laudable. There is a direct correlation at this level between political connections and success and Gatts will back Griffith in his aims every step of the way.
He goes along with Griffith to some of his meetings, standing silently in the background as Griffith talks with this or that noble, sliding easily through conversations where every remark contains multiple levels of meaning. More and more often, Griffith is summoned to the royal presence. Gatts can’t understand why the King, so seemingly benevolent, should make him uneasy. His audiences never have the razor-edge of others that Gatts has been to, where one slip of the tongue could lead to disaster. All too often, the ruler of Midland rambles on, talking vaguely about the customs of a distant province of Midland, say, or his visits to the temple of Void.
Perhaps, Gatts thinks, it is the King’s devotion to the God Hand’s principal deity that worries him so? That devotion slowly begins to push Griffith to increase his involvement with the temples of Void and Slan. His friend’s new preoccupation with religion worries Gatts, especially when Griffith begins making large donations not only to the two major temples, but also to those of Ubik and Conrad. Gatts consoles himself with the thought that it is a calculated gambit of Griffith’s, but his friend’s cheerfully cynical attitude towards the God Hand has given way to something far more inscrutable. Gatts knows only too well how good Griffith is at masking his true feelings, and yet -
Then again, when has Griffith ever done anything other than what he wanted to do? Gatts can do nothing but watch as Griffith begins spending more and more time with Priestess Iruva and her fellow priests, often returning to his quarters late at night or not at all. Even worse, many Hawk soldiers are beginning to follow his example, visiting the temples to pray on a regular basis, as well as to partake of the backroom pleasures they offer.
Gatts begins to grow used to waking in the night when Griffith returns. He cracks an eye open on one of those nights, watching Griffith sit heavily on the bed and scrub his hands over his face. Gatts knows he has come from one of the temples - the smell of incense hangs heavy around him. It is hard to tell in the shadows of the room, but he seems dazed for a few moments, not quite sure of where he is. He reaches for his pendant, holding it tightly, rubbing it with the tips of his fingers, as if for reassurance. Then he sighs and reaches down to pull his boots off.
Gatts rises on his elbow. ‘Are you okay?’ he asks.
‘Just tired, I think. Masses at the temples always seem to go on forever, don’t they?’
‘Then why do you go to them?’
Griffith looks irritable. ‘Why do you affect this faux-naïf pose? You know perfectly well why I need to go to them.’
‘You’re never yourself when you come back.’
‘Sometimes I feel like I’m going crazy, Gatts,’ Griffith says, standing to begin undressing. ‘Tonight I felt like I was never going to get out of that place, like I was trapped in there forever. Stupid, really.’
‘Don’t go, Griffith. It’s not worth it.’
‘Yes, it is. It has to be.’
>
One day Gatts receives an unexpected visitor. In the late afternoon, the time when most of Garima sleeps, a tentative knock sounds at his door. He opens the door to a slight cloaked figure, which pushes back its hood to reveal the tattooed forehead of a God Hand novice.
‘Lida,’ Gatts blurts, surprised. The girl smiles broadly and he lets her into the room.
‘You look well,’ she says. ‘Heroism appears to suit you.’ Although she sounds happy to see him, her eyes are darting around the room.
‘He’s not here?’ she continues, sounding disappointed.
‘Griffith? No, I think he’ll be gone till late tonight,’ Gatts tells her and her face falls. She sits on Griffith’s bed, looking rather small in her black novice’s robe.
‘He never comes to see me anymore,’ she says.
Gatts shrugs, seating himself on his own bed. ‘He’s very busy these days,’ he says, the words sounding foolish even as he says them.
Lida looks at him ironically. ‘Busy fucking my head priestess, you mean?’
‘Is he?’ Gatts says, trying his best to sound surprised.
‘What, as if you didn’t know? Don’t think I’m jealous, I’ve always known that he doesn’t like women, but I thought we were at least friends.’
She shrugs, and goes on in a harder tone, ‘Though I’m not sure that he hasn’t changed his preferences. I mean, why is he always with her nowadays? She’ll bed him and leave him dry once she’s done.’
Gatts looks at her quizzically. ‘Why did you join the temple, Lida? You don’t sound very devout.’
She snorts. ‘Join the temple? I was given to the temple because my parents couldn’t afford to feed me. Much like Griffith, except that his owner was more direct about what he wanted him for. And, of course,’ she goes on in a high-pitched tone, clearly mimicking someone, ‘I’m so much luckier than all those urchins on the street, with a home and the ability to devote my life to the Goddess, as the novice mistress says. Lucky!’ She sounds ready to either laugh or cry.
‘Why don’t you leave?’ Gatts asks her.
She goes still and Gatts is aware that they are both treading on thin ice. Finally, she says, ‘You can’t, after a point.’
‘Why not?’
‘You just …you can’t leave the place. You hate it and you need it and you can’t ever leave!’ Her hands are working furiously on her lap, pulling at each other till Gatts is afraid her fingers will snap.
In the distance, temple bells ring and Lida’s head snaps up, a strange look of hunger written over it.
She pulls her hood back over her head and rises to leave. At the door, she turns to Gatts. ‘If you can do something to stop Griffith from seeing that woman, do it. She’s dangerous.’ She smiles briefly, bitterly. ‘So am I, I suppose, but I do care for him…a little.’
Gatts watches her go, surprised when she turns and kisses him on the cheek. ‘Take care of yourself, Gatts,’ she says and he recognises it as a final goodbye.
>
Lida’s visit fuels his growing disquiet about Priestess Iruva. ‘Griffith?’ he says one day, during one of the increasingly infrequent afternoons the two spend going over issues relating to the Hawks. These days, Gatts doesn’t even see him at night: Griffith has moved into quarters more suitable for the leader of the Hawks.
‘Mmm?’ Griffith replies absently, poring over a requisition for uniforms.
‘I really wish you would stop seeing the Priestess,’ he says.
An expressive twist of Griffith’s eyebrows lets Gatts know the suggestion is not appreciated, but he blunders on regardless.
‘She’s…I think she’s dangerous,’ he says.
‘To whom?’
‘Look, I just don’t think you should spend this much time with her. There are a lot of strange rumours about her.’
There is a veiled contempt in Griffith’s eyes; Gatts is not sure for whom. ‘We understand each other well enough,’ Griffith says, his lips twisting into a strange smile. ‘Don’t interfere in something you don’t understand.’ He bends his head to the requisitions again and Gatts knows it is the end of the conversation. They spend the rest of the afternoon in silence, one hurt and the other inscrutable. Gatts doesn’t raise the subject again after that.
>
In Griffith’s absence, Gatts begins spending more of his time with Pippin, Casca and Judeau. Corkus spends most of his time carousing in taverns these days, so he is rarely to be found in the barracks. Rickert, more worryingly, has shown an increasingly religious bent of mind lately and is a regular visitor to the Black Temple. So far, the other officers’ insistence that it is only an adolescent phase has stopped Gatts from having a serious talk with him, but he begins to keep a closer eye on the young Hawk.
The enforced idleness has only one advantage that Gatts can see. Simultaneously worried and bored stupid, he whiles away the hours in Judeau’s company and begins to learn more about court politics, a subject on which Judeau is frighteningly well informed. Apparently, he grew up within the servants’ quarters of the palaces, the illegitimate child of a palace maid, so sorting true rumour from false within the vast maze of palace gossip has become almost second nature for him.
Gatts slowly understands why Griffith is worrying Prince Yurius so. The prince, little else though Gatts can find to say in his favour, has proved to be farsighted in his dislike of Griffith. It is an open secret that he hopes to marry his son to Princess Charlotte as soon as young Adonis comes of age; Griffith’s sudden rise to popularity, coupled with the favour that the King shows him, are threatening to throw Yurius’ plans into disarray. Judeau has been keeping very careful tabs on the prince’s activities this past while.
Evidently not without reason, as Gatts learns one evening. Returning to his quarters after conducting an unsuccessful search for Casca, he finds Griffith sitting in his chair, buried in a book. ‘Hey,’ Gatts says and is rewarded by Griffith’s smile.
‘Hello, Gatts. Here, take a look at this.’ Griffith raises his free hand to Gatts, and Gatts squints at the object in Griffith’s hand. Unmoving, the body of a tiny scorpion rests inside a wooden box.
‘Where did you get this?’
‘I found this little present in my bed. And, yes, if I hadn’t been forewarned, I would be quite dead right now.’
Gatts raises his eyes from the tiny corpse to Griffith’s eyes. ‘Who’s behind it?’
‘Prince Yurius. The man is becoming quite insupportable. Which is why I have come to ask a favour from you.’
Gatts spreads his palms outwards in a gesture that promises anything.
‘I want him dead, Gatts. Tonight. Can you do it?’
He should have been prepared for the request, but somehow, it still catches him by surprise. Assasination. It is not really so great a thing, given the number of men he has already killed. Yes, but that was on the battlefield, in open combat, a small voice in his mind says. He ignores it. Yurius is too much of a threat to Griffith to be ignored.
‘I’ll do it.’
>
Five hours later, he is perched outside Prince Yurius’s study window, his features masked by a black cloth tied over his nose and mouth and his head covered by the hood of his cloak. Any moment now…
The prince’s manservant receives his orders for the day and leaves the room. Gatts grips his sword tightly and springs over the sill. Yurius is standing at the fire with his back to the window. Some sixth sense tells him that he is not alone and he turns to see Gatts. But it is much too late and the next instant Gatts’ sword has separated his head from his shoulders. Suddenly, the door creaks open. Gatts whips around and lunges forward, driving the unknown intruder back against the corridor wall with his sword. In the torchlight, he makes out the features of the young boy pinned on his sword. It is Prince Adonis.
Horrified, he stares at the foot or more of steel buried in the boy’s chest. Adonis himself seems more surprised than frightened. Slumping against the wall and sliding down, he reaches out a hand to Gatts. That gesture, more than anything else, shakes Gatts to his core. ‘Why…?’ Adonis says, but the rest of the question goes unasked, as streams of red flow out of his mouth and his head lolls to one side, the blue eyes still round and questioning.
Shaking, Gatts becomes aware of voices in the stairwell. He has to get out of here. Running back into the study, he vaults over the windowsill and up onto the roof. From there, he retraces his route down the wall of the compound. Drawing his hood down over his face, he disappears into the crowd, even as torches are lit behind him and Yurius’s men begin searching for the assassin.
Reaching the Drunken Goat, he staggers in, unaware that his hands are still shaking. ‘Where’s Griffith?’ he asks Corkus hoarsely. Corkus shrugs, more occupied with his hand of cards. Casca appears at his shoulder, irate, demanding why he had missed their practice session. Griffith, she tells him, is at the Temple of Void. He stumbles out of the tavern, hardly aware that she is following him. He can’t go to the Temple. Instead, he will go…he will go…He closes his eyes in weariness, wanting to slump against the wall and stay there.
At his side, Casca has fallen silent. She hails a passing rickshaw and bundles him into it. Once they arrive at the barracks, she takes Gatts to his quarters and tends his wound, tearing cotton strips to bind the bleeding gash on his leg where he scraped it in his haste to escape. Gatts, barely conscious at this point, is only grateful that he doesn’t have to do anything else. She makes him lie down on the bed, blows out the candle and watches as he falls into a restless sleep almost instantly. Her face is worried, as she closes the door behind her softly.
>
Gatts wakes disoriented the next day, confused for a few moments. Slowly, the events of the night before come back to him and he covers his face with his hands. Why? Adonis’s young voice echoes inside his head. He wants to go back to sleep and never wake up. He has killed a child for no reason, a senseless, careless, stupid mistake that can never be corrected. He gets out of bed and walks to Griffith’s quarters.
Inside, Griffith is breakfasting at the window, a cup raised to his lips. His eyes are clear as he smiles at Gatts. ‘Good work,’ he says, ‘very efficient. And you got rid of the son as well, though that wasn’t strictly necessary.’
‘I didn’t mean to!’ Gatts says, in an instinctive cry of protest, and then bites his lip. Griffith, watching him, says. ‘What’s wrong, Gatts?’
‘It was a mistake,’ Gatts says, miserably. ‘I saw someone coming though the door and I just ran my sword through him. Without even thinking to see who it was.’
‘Oh,’ Griffith says and, for one crazy moment, Gatts thinks he looks disappointed. Griffith stands and puts his hand on Gatts’ shoulder. ‘It’s okay.’
‘No! It’s not! We’ve killed a lot of people, Griffith, but not children. Never children.’
‘Oh, we’ve killed children, Gatts. Perhaps not ourselves, but do you think we can disown responsibility for all the boys who’ve followed the band and run into battle with us?’
‘It’s not the same,’ Gatts said, stunned.
‘It’s exactly the same, Gatts. There is no way to justify it, but to accomplish what I set out to do.’
Gatts has never heard Griffith sound so cold. They hold each other’s eyes for long moments, until Gatts turns his head. Then he walks back to his room, buries his head in his arms and weeps.
Part Four is here.
Author: Akshi
Fandom: Berserk
Warnings: Alternate universe, violence (kind of a given with this series, eh?), het sex, character death
Archive: Please ask me first
Disclaimers: Berserk belongs to Kentarou Miura and Hakusensha. Warm thanks go to my patient and long-suffering beta readers, Jeanne and Priya, for beating this story into the shape it is now. I would also like to thank Tsubaki and Sahari for their feedback. Any mistakes are, of course, entirely mine. Feedback appreciated at pharcical@yahoo.com
Interlude
I spin in the void, curled up with my head to my knees. Nothingness cradles my body in comforting darkness. I know that it will not last. One breath, another…
Bright light flares, a red glow on the inside of my eyelids. I don’t want to open my eyes, but my wishes never affect the Dream. It has at least the virtue of being familiar. Other dreams are unknown quantities, but this Dream never changes. It is a constant I could do without, even though I forget now how long it has been with me.
I lose the battle to remain wilfully blind as my eyes snap open and I hang suspended over the field of blood again. The faces appear, great red pustules erupting from the ground, and moaning fills the air. I don’t need to look up. If I did I would see the sky filled with unnatural clouds whirling black and red. I have seen this so many times that it is almost as if I am coming home. My eyes search the familiar landscape for changes, but there are none. The victims aren’t here yet. They will come soon, they always do. If I listen carefully, I can almost make out what the faces are saying.
They are here now, although they can’t see me; I don’t know why. Sometimes I try to warn them, but they never hear me. Again the familiar scenes play out: the giant hand rising up, the beasts, the deaths and the flying man. As each man is slaughtered, his features fade from my mind. This is perhaps the biggest joke of all: that I would not recognise these faces I have lived with for so long if I saw them on the street.
It is almost finished now and my part begins. The flying beast looks at me and beckons. I fall down towards him and his hands are on me, burning my skin. Dark lips curve in a closed-mouth smile under the mask and his fingers travel to my throat. Strangulation again? No, his hands are holding a knife. Vivisection? My least favourite option. Perhaps he will be kind and slit my throat instead.
He kisses me and my mouth is on fire. Poison. It doesn’t take long, but I think my choking and thrashing is amusing enough to make up for the brevity of this death. My vision blurs and fades as I try to force out the question that always remains unasked: Who are you?
Part Five
Itsutsu, Ikusa no chi no ame no
(Five, the rain of blood because of war)
The Hawks’ victory at the Korai throws the Chudan Empire into turmoil. Engaged as the Chudan nobles are in their power struggles, incursions into Midland cease almost completely. Consequently, the Band of the Hawk has little to do for the time being.
Weeks pass in Garima and Gatts feels more out of step with the other Hawks every day. They are all benefiting from Griffith’s knighthood, both in terms of prestige and money. These days, in any tavern in the city, you have only to mention you are a Hawk to bring bar girls flocking around and get your cup refilled for free. Corkus has taken to wearing silk shirts every day. Gatts can’t understand his own restlessness, dogged as he is by an inexplicable dissatisfaction. He doesn’t think he’s sulking, although Griffith has hardly had time for the Hawks since his return, busy as he is attending court functions and building relationships with various people. That is understandable, even laudable. There is a direct correlation at this level between political connections and success and Gatts will back Griffith in his aims every step of the way.
He goes along with Griffith to some of his meetings, standing silently in the background as Griffith talks with this or that noble, sliding easily through conversations where every remark contains multiple levels of meaning. More and more often, Griffith is summoned to the royal presence. Gatts can’t understand why the King, so seemingly benevolent, should make him uneasy. His audiences never have the razor-edge of others that Gatts has been to, where one slip of the tongue could lead to disaster. All too often, the ruler of Midland rambles on, talking vaguely about the customs of a distant province of Midland, say, or his visits to the temple of Void.
Perhaps, Gatts thinks, it is the King’s devotion to the God Hand’s principal deity that worries him so? That devotion slowly begins to push Griffith to increase his involvement with the temples of Void and Slan. His friend’s new preoccupation with religion worries Gatts, especially when Griffith begins making large donations not only to the two major temples, but also to those of Ubik and Conrad. Gatts consoles himself with the thought that it is a calculated gambit of Griffith’s, but his friend’s cheerfully cynical attitude towards the God Hand has given way to something far more inscrutable. Gatts knows only too well how good Griffith is at masking his true feelings, and yet -
Then again, when has Griffith ever done anything other than what he wanted to do? Gatts can do nothing but watch as Griffith begins spending more and more time with Priestess Iruva and her fellow priests, often returning to his quarters late at night or not at all. Even worse, many Hawk soldiers are beginning to follow his example, visiting the temples to pray on a regular basis, as well as to partake of the backroom pleasures they offer.
Gatts begins to grow used to waking in the night when Griffith returns. He cracks an eye open on one of those nights, watching Griffith sit heavily on the bed and scrub his hands over his face. Gatts knows he has come from one of the temples - the smell of incense hangs heavy around him. It is hard to tell in the shadows of the room, but he seems dazed for a few moments, not quite sure of where he is. He reaches for his pendant, holding it tightly, rubbing it with the tips of his fingers, as if for reassurance. Then he sighs and reaches down to pull his boots off.
Gatts rises on his elbow. ‘Are you okay?’ he asks.
‘Just tired, I think. Masses at the temples always seem to go on forever, don’t they?’
‘Then why do you go to them?’
Griffith looks irritable. ‘Why do you affect this faux-naïf pose? You know perfectly well why I need to go to them.’
‘You’re never yourself when you come back.’
‘Sometimes I feel like I’m going crazy, Gatts,’ Griffith says, standing to begin undressing. ‘Tonight I felt like I was never going to get out of that place, like I was trapped in there forever. Stupid, really.’
‘Don’t go, Griffith. It’s not worth it.’
‘Yes, it is. It has to be.’
>
One day Gatts receives an unexpected visitor. In the late afternoon, the time when most of Garima sleeps, a tentative knock sounds at his door. He opens the door to a slight cloaked figure, which pushes back its hood to reveal the tattooed forehead of a God Hand novice.
‘Lida,’ Gatts blurts, surprised. The girl smiles broadly and he lets her into the room.
‘You look well,’ she says. ‘Heroism appears to suit you.’ Although she sounds happy to see him, her eyes are darting around the room.
‘He’s not here?’ she continues, sounding disappointed.
‘Griffith? No, I think he’ll be gone till late tonight,’ Gatts tells her and her face falls. She sits on Griffith’s bed, looking rather small in her black novice’s robe.
‘He never comes to see me anymore,’ she says.
Gatts shrugs, seating himself on his own bed. ‘He’s very busy these days,’ he says, the words sounding foolish even as he says them.
Lida looks at him ironically. ‘Busy fucking my head priestess, you mean?’
‘Is he?’ Gatts says, trying his best to sound surprised.
‘What, as if you didn’t know? Don’t think I’m jealous, I’ve always known that he doesn’t like women, but I thought we were at least friends.’
She shrugs, and goes on in a harder tone, ‘Though I’m not sure that he hasn’t changed his preferences. I mean, why is he always with her nowadays? She’ll bed him and leave him dry once she’s done.’
Gatts looks at her quizzically. ‘Why did you join the temple, Lida? You don’t sound very devout.’
She snorts. ‘Join the temple? I was given to the temple because my parents couldn’t afford to feed me. Much like Griffith, except that his owner was more direct about what he wanted him for. And, of course,’ she goes on in a high-pitched tone, clearly mimicking someone, ‘I’m so much luckier than all those urchins on the street, with a home and the ability to devote my life to the Goddess, as the novice mistress says. Lucky!’ She sounds ready to either laugh or cry.
‘Why don’t you leave?’ Gatts asks her.
She goes still and Gatts is aware that they are both treading on thin ice. Finally, she says, ‘You can’t, after a point.’
‘Why not?’
‘You just …you can’t leave the place. You hate it and you need it and you can’t ever leave!’ Her hands are working furiously on her lap, pulling at each other till Gatts is afraid her fingers will snap.
In the distance, temple bells ring and Lida’s head snaps up, a strange look of hunger written over it.
She pulls her hood back over her head and rises to leave. At the door, she turns to Gatts. ‘If you can do something to stop Griffith from seeing that woman, do it. She’s dangerous.’ She smiles briefly, bitterly. ‘So am I, I suppose, but I do care for him…a little.’
Gatts watches her go, surprised when she turns and kisses him on the cheek. ‘Take care of yourself, Gatts,’ she says and he recognises it as a final goodbye.
>
Lida’s visit fuels his growing disquiet about Priestess Iruva. ‘Griffith?’ he says one day, during one of the increasingly infrequent afternoons the two spend going over issues relating to the Hawks. These days, Gatts doesn’t even see him at night: Griffith has moved into quarters more suitable for the leader of the Hawks.
‘Mmm?’ Griffith replies absently, poring over a requisition for uniforms.
‘I really wish you would stop seeing the Priestess,’ he says.
An expressive twist of Griffith’s eyebrows lets Gatts know the suggestion is not appreciated, but he blunders on regardless.
‘She’s…I think she’s dangerous,’ he says.
‘To whom?’
‘Look, I just don’t think you should spend this much time with her. There are a lot of strange rumours about her.’
There is a veiled contempt in Griffith’s eyes; Gatts is not sure for whom. ‘We understand each other well enough,’ Griffith says, his lips twisting into a strange smile. ‘Don’t interfere in something you don’t understand.’ He bends his head to the requisitions again and Gatts knows it is the end of the conversation. They spend the rest of the afternoon in silence, one hurt and the other inscrutable. Gatts doesn’t raise the subject again after that.
>
In Griffith’s absence, Gatts begins spending more of his time with Pippin, Casca and Judeau. Corkus spends most of his time carousing in taverns these days, so he is rarely to be found in the barracks. Rickert, more worryingly, has shown an increasingly religious bent of mind lately and is a regular visitor to the Black Temple. So far, the other officers’ insistence that it is only an adolescent phase has stopped Gatts from having a serious talk with him, but he begins to keep a closer eye on the young Hawk.
The enforced idleness has only one advantage that Gatts can see. Simultaneously worried and bored stupid, he whiles away the hours in Judeau’s company and begins to learn more about court politics, a subject on which Judeau is frighteningly well informed. Apparently, he grew up within the servants’ quarters of the palaces, the illegitimate child of a palace maid, so sorting true rumour from false within the vast maze of palace gossip has become almost second nature for him.
Gatts slowly understands why Griffith is worrying Prince Yurius so. The prince, little else though Gatts can find to say in his favour, has proved to be farsighted in his dislike of Griffith. It is an open secret that he hopes to marry his son to Princess Charlotte as soon as young Adonis comes of age; Griffith’s sudden rise to popularity, coupled with the favour that the King shows him, are threatening to throw Yurius’ plans into disarray. Judeau has been keeping very careful tabs on the prince’s activities this past while.
Evidently not without reason, as Gatts learns one evening. Returning to his quarters after conducting an unsuccessful search for Casca, he finds Griffith sitting in his chair, buried in a book. ‘Hey,’ Gatts says and is rewarded by Griffith’s smile.
‘Hello, Gatts. Here, take a look at this.’ Griffith raises his free hand to Gatts, and Gatts squints at the object in Griffith’s hand. Unmoving, the body of a tiny scorpion rests inside a wooden box.
‘Where did you get this?’
‘I found this little present in my bed. And, yes, if I hadn’t been forewarned, I would be quite dead right now.’
Gatts raises his eyes from the tiny corpse to Griffith’s eyes. ‘Who’s behind it?’
‘Prince Yurius. The man is becoming quite insupportable. Which is why I have come to ask a favour from you.’
Gatts spreads his palms outwards in a gesture that promises anything.
‘I want him dead, Gatts. Tonight. Can you do it?’
He should have been prepared for the request, but somehow, it still catches him by surprise. Assasination. It is not really so great a thing, given the number of men he has already killed. Yes, but that was on the battlefield, in open combat, a small voice in his mind says. He ignores it. Yurius is too much of a threat to Griffith to be ignored.
‘I’ll do it.’
>
Five hours later, he is perched outside Prince Yurius’s study window, his features masked by a black cloth tied over his nose and mouth and his head covered by the hood of his cloak. Any moment now…
The prince’s manservant receives his orders for the day and leaves the room. Gatts grips his sword tightly and springs over the sill. Yurius is standing at the fire with his back to the window. Some sixth sense tells him that he is not alone and he turns to see Gatts. But it is much too late and the next instant Gatts’ sword has separated his head from his shoulders. Suddenly, the door creaks open. Gatts whips around and lunges forward, driving the unknown intruder back against the corridor wall with his sword. In the torchlight, he makes out the features of the young boy pinned on his sword. It is Prince Adonis.
Horrified, he stares at the foot or more of steel buried in the boy’s chest. Adonis himself seems more surprised than frightened. Slumping against the wall and sliding down, he reaches out a hand to Gatts. That gesture, more than anything else, shakes Gatts to his core. ‘Why…?’ Adonis says, but the rest of the question goes unasked, as streams of red flow out of his mouth and his head lolls to one side, the blue eyes still round and questioning.
Shaking, Gatts becomes aware of voices in the stairwell. He has to get out of here. Running back into the study, he vaults over the windowsill and up onto the roof. From there, he retraces his route down the wall of the compound. Drawing his hood down over his face, he disappears into the crowd, even as torches are lit behind him and Yurius’s men begin searching for the assassin.
Reaching the Drunken Goat, he staggers in, unaware that his hands are still shaking. ‘Where’s Griffith?’ he asks Corkus hoarsely. Corkus shrugs, more occupied with his hand of cards. Casca appears at his shoulder, irate, demanding why he had missed their practice session. Griffith, she tells him, is at the Temple of Void. He stumbles out of the tavern, hardly aware that she is following him. He can’t go to the Temple. Instead, he will go…he will go…He closes his eyes in weariness, wanting to slump against the wall and stay there.
At his side, Casca has fallen silent. She hails a passing rickshaw and bundles him into it. Once they arrive at the barracks, she takes Gatts to his quarters and tends his wound, tearing cotton strips to bind the bleeding gash on his leg where he scraped it in his haste to escape. Gatts, barely conscious at this point, is only grateful that he doesn’t have to do anything else. She makes him lie down on the bed, blows out the candle and watches as he falls into a restless sleep almost instantly. Her face is worried, as she closes the door behind her softly.
>
Gatts wakes disoriented the next day, confused for a few moments. Slowly, the events of the night before come back to him and he covers his face with his hands. Why? Adonis’s young voice echoes inside his head. He wants to go back to sleep and never wake up. He has killed a child for no reason, a senseless, careless, stupid mistake that can never be corrected. He gets out of bed and walks to Griffith’s quarters.
Inside, Griffith is breakfasting at the window, a cup raised to his lips. His eyes are clear as he smiles at Gatts. ‘Good work,’ he says, ‘very efficient. And you got rid of the son as well, though that wasn’t strictly necessary.’
‘I didn’t mean to!’ Gatts says, in an instinctive cry of protest, and then bites his lip. Griffith, watching him, says. ‘What’s wrong, Gatts?’
‘It was a mistake,’ Gatts says, miserably. ‘I saw someone coming though the door and I just ran my sword through him. Without even thinking to see who it was.’
‘Oh,’ Griffith says and, for one crazy moment, Gatts thinks he looks disappointed. Griffith stands and puts his hand on Gatts’ shoulder. ‘It’s okay.’
‘No! It’s not! We’ve killed a lot of people, Griffith, but not children. Never children.’
‘Oh, we’ve killed children, Gatts. Perhaps not ourselves, but do you think we can disown responsibility for all the boys who’ve followed the band and run into battle with us?’
‘It’s not the same,’ Gatts said, stunned.
‘It’s exactly the same, Gatts. There is no way to justify it, but to accomplish what I set out to do.’
Gatts has never heard Griffith sound so cold. They hold each other’s eyes for long moments, until Gatts turns his head. Then he walks back to his room, buries his head in his arms and weeps.
Part Four is here.