The Bodyguard

The prince is dying, which means I am dying too. Not immediately, but very definitely. Bodyguarding is a profession in which there are many ways to die. Sometimes they are simple, such as the knife to the gut recently delivered to the prince, who has turned very pale indeed. The hilt is still jutting from the front of his ornamental mail, ornamental being the operative word. The first I heard of it happening was the delicate tinkle of broken links falling to the boards of his caravan.

And then he said, “Oh.”

Just like that. Almost an exhalation. The kind you might make when you realise you have misplaced a penny. The mildest of consternations. Can you say that? Consternations?

I’m babbling. Dead men tend to babble.

Sometimes there are complicated ways to die. The prince’s family specialise in killing people in complicated ways. Some of them were demonstrated to me over the course of my employment. They were highly educational.

I would tell you it wasn’t my fault, but it was. Complacency is the enemy of the bodyguard, but I have many enemies, and they’re all competing against each other to see who gets to kill me first. In this case, complacency was up against boredom. Do you know how tiring it is to be on edge, all the time? That’s bodyguarding. To see a threat in every stranger. It’s like being at war, only at war the killer is usually wearing the colours of the other bastards.

Furthermore, the prince is an eminently murderable individual. Ordinarily I don’t…