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Den of Thieves

Book One of The Ancient Blades Trilogy

David Chandler

For F.L., M.M., and R.E.H., the Grand Masters

Contents

Map

Prologue

Nearly one hundred thousand people lived in the Free City…

Part I

A Thief’s Ransom

Chapter One

There were evil little things skulking in the shadows, their…

Chapter Two

Inside the ruined building three old men dressed in rags…

Chapter Three

The darkness inside the box was a solid thing, as…

Chapter Four

Well. He knew what to do with locks.

Chapter Five

Beyond the locked door was a snug little office, heated…

Chapter Six

Neither of them spoke for a while, as the meaning…

Chapter Seven

He drank the whole bottle and got rather drunk and…

Chapter Eight

The accused was brought into the square on a hurdle,…

Chapter Nine

Malden pushed through the crowd, which tried to push back.

Chapter Ten

Approximately three hundred yards to the northwest, Market Square had…

Chapter Eleven

For a while Malden’s world was only a terrible ringing,…

Chapter Twelve

The sorcerer Aelbron Hazoth lived in an imposing four story…

Chapter Thirteen

The next day Malden spent in preparation.

Chapter Fourteen

As they hauled away from the Smoke and up the…

Chapter Fifteen

Malden had learned to climb almost from the time he…

Chapter Sixteen

Croy hated subterfuge, but sometimes the direct approach was just…

Chapter Seventeen

Malden listened to the clamor beyond the wall for only…

Chapter Eighteen

Malden found himself in a small bedroom that looked like…

Chapter Nineteen

Malden’s feet kicked wildly at nothing as his body dropped…

Chapter Twenty

“You’re—You’re mad,” Malden had said two days before, when Cythera…

Chapter Twenty-One

The crown—technically a coronet—was not a work of great art…

Chapter Twenty-Two

Bile rushed up Malden’s throat and his head swam. The…

Chapter Twenty-Three

A great crashing noise stopped Croy in his tracks. “That…

Chapter Twenty-Four

It was all Malden could do to hold on. His…

Chapter Twenty-Five

Croy’s blood thrummed with excitement, as if his veins were…

Chapter Twenty-Six

“Curse you, leave off,” Malden whimpered. His strength was nearly…

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Warm gusts of air chased up the shaft and made…

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Croy dashed into the shadows, keeping his head down as…

Chapter Twenty-Nine

As a child growing up in a brothel, Malden had…

Chapter Thirty

Malden rushed back through the arches, thinking Kemper must have…

Part II

An Unquiet Crown

Interlude

Chapter Thirty-One

Croy and Cythera spent much of the night in furtive…

Chapter Thirty-Two

It took Malden the better Part of the day to…

Chapter Thirty-Three

Finding Bikker was easily enough done, for a man with…

Chapter Thirty-Four

When the Seven Day Fire finally burned itself out, leaving…

Chapter Thirty-Five

The boy’s face was freckled and his chin weak, when…

Chapter Thirty-Six

Knightly interruptions notwithstanding, Malden’s preparations were finished long before midnight.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

An hour later Malden was fast, and finally, asleep.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

The rough hands that dragged Malden inside the door threw…

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Wizardry was not technically illegal in Skrae. It was not…

Chapter Forty

“I’m half of a mind to string you up anyway,…

Chapter Forty-One

And then Cutbill was alone. For quite a while he…

Chapter Forty-Two

Sir Croy had been raised to be a knight, to…

Chapter Forty-Three

Malden needed a plan, desperately. He needed some stratagem that…

Chapter Forty-Four

Kemper drew too many stares after that to allow any…

Chapter Forty-Five

It was not difficult to get into the Burgrave’s palace,…

Chapter Forty-Six

It was not Anselm Vry who next approached Hazoth’s villa,…

Chapter Forty-Seven

When Malden’s eyes adjusted he found himself in a broad…

Chapter Forty-Eight

“So you can read, boy? I’m impressed.”

Chapter Forty-Nine

Hazoth rose from his chair and went over to one…

Chapter Fifty

Kemper had been reluctant to help Malden in his reconnaissance…

Part III

The Crew

Interlude

Chapter Fifty-One

There were many eyes watching Hazoth’s villa the next day,…

Chapter Fifty-Two

An hour or so later the watchmen trooped down the…

Chapter Fifty-Three

Despite the cool day, the palfrey was panting and its…

Chapter Fifty-Four

Ahead of him, at the main gate leading down into…

Chapter Fifty-Five

There was nothing Croy wanted more than to just lie…

Chapter Fifty-Six

“It’s just as I said, ha ha,” Tyron told them.

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Croy didn’t die in the night. He didn’t wake up…

Chapter Fifty-Eight

Kemper held the sword as far away from himself as…

Chapter Fifty-Nine

Later that day, Malden climbed up on top of a…

Chapter Sixty

The button seller looked up with a broad smile as…

Chapter Sixty-One

Malden spent the day drawing crude maps of the villa,…

Chapter Sixty-Two

“Milady,” Malden said, bowing low. “I thank you from the…

Chapter Sixty-Three

“But … why?” Malden asked. He thought of the mural…

Chapter Sixty-Four

“I’m afraid I’ve been of little help, save to make…

Chapter Sixty-Five

Malden sent Kemper to keep an eye on Hazoth’s villa—discreetly—while…

Chapter Sixty-Six

“Where are we going?” Croy asked as they headed up…

Chapter Sixty-Seven

The river Skrait was the Free City’s lifeblood. It flowed…

Chapter Sixty-Eight

Malden looked to right and left, but there was nowhere…

Chapter Sixty-Nine

A new and much improved plan had begun to come…

Chapter Seventy

When Croy came in, an hour later, Malden and Cythera…

Part IV

The Job

Interlude

Chapter Seventy-One

It was the night before Ladymas, one of the most…

Chapter Seventy-Two

At the side of the house, Malden crouched with Kemper…

Chapter Seventy-Three

The second floor of the villa was as silent as…

Chapter Seventy-Four

Gurrh made no attempt to fight the guards, but they…

Chapter Seventy-Five

Croy’s wound throbbed as he strode across the grass. It…

Chapter Seventy-Six

Malden crept down a hallway that ran the length of…

Chapter Seventy-Seven

Gurrh dropped to one knee. The iron fencepost he’d been…

Chapter Seventy-Sight

Malden stepped through the doorway and into the trapped corridor,…

Chapter Seventy-Nine

The floor did not ripple or shimmer like liquid. It…

Chapter Eighty

Croy took a step forward and nearly collapsed. The wound…

Chapter Eighty-One

Hazoth’s sanctum was a long room with high vaulted ceilings…

Chapter Eighty-Two

Bikker made no move to draw Acidtongue from its glass-lined…

Chapter Eighty-Three

Malden scrubbed at his eyes with the balls of his…

Chapter Eighty-Four

“A fool, perhaps, but—”

Chapter Eighty-Five

Drops of acid hit Croy’s arm and seared right through…

Chapter Eighty-Six

Malden kept his eyes shut until he was sure the…

Chapter Eighty-Seven

“Glorious! When it is finally born, there will be no…

Chapter Eighty-Eight

Bikker was sweating. He wiped his brow with the back…

Chapter Eighty-Nine

The demon howled in agony, and Malden had to hang…

Chapter Ninety

Croy gritted his teeth.

Chapter Ninety-One

Malden hurried down the long corridor at the back of…

Chapter Ninety-Ttwo

A minute earlier, outside:

Chapter Ninety-Three

“Croy! Croy!” Malden called, racing around the side of the…

Chapter Ninety-Four

Malden rolled on the ground, his body coming to pieces…

Chapter Ninety-Five

Witchly light filled the sky over the common, and the…

Chapter Ninety-Six

“Lay easy,” Cythera said. She held Croy’s hand tight. His…

Chapter Ninety-Seven

Market Square was thick with crowds, people of every station…

Chapter Ninety-Eight

Earlier—just at dawn—Gurrh the ogre had brought the leaden coffer…

Chapter Ninety-Nine

Coruth, her own arm fully healed now, muttered to herself…

Chapter One Hundred

Cutbill made a single notation in his ledger, then crossed…

A Thief In the Night

Prologue

In a place of stone walls, attended by his acolytes

Chapter One

A thin crescent of moon lit up the rooftops of

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Other Books By David Chandler

Copyright

About the Publisher

Map

PROLOGUE

Nearly one hundred thousand people lived in the Free City of Ness, stuffed like rats in a sack too small to contain them all. The city was less than a mile across and filled every cranny of the hill encircled by its high defensive wall. At midnight, seen from a hill two miles to the north, it was the only light in the nighttime landscape, a bright ember smoldering in the midst of dark fields that rolled to the horizon. It looked, frankly, like all it needed was one good gust of wind to stir it up into a great whoosh of flame.

Bikker grinned to see it, though he knew it was only a trick of perspective. He was a giant of a man with a wild, coarse beard and a magic sword on his belt. He did not know how the other two members of the cabal felt, but for himself, he’d love to watch the Free City of Ness burn.

The lights he saw came from a thousand windows and the forges of a hundred workshops and manufactories. The city supplied the kingdom of Skrae with all the iron and steel it needed, most of the leather goods, and an endless river of spoons and buckles, as well as lanterns and combs made of horn. The guilds worked through the night, every night, filling the endless demand. Streamers of smoke rose from every chimney, rising like boiling columns of darkness that obliterated the stars, while half the windows in the city were illuminated by burning candles as an army of scribes, clerks, and accounters scratched at their ledger books.

On the near side of the river, gambling houses blazed with light, while whores marched up and down long avenues carrying lanterns to attract passersby. Half the city, it seemed, was still awake. “D’you suppose any of ’em know what’s coming?” Bikker asked.

“For the sake of our scheme, I pray they do not,” his employer said. Bikker had never seen the man. Even now the mastermind of the cabal was ensconced in a darkened carriage pulled by two white horses that pawed at the turf. The horses bore no brands or marks, and the driver wore no livery. The coach might have belonged to any number of fine houses—all its insignia had been removed.

A slender white hand emerged from a window of the coach, holding a purse of gold by its strings. Bikker took the payment—the latest of many such—and shoved it inside his chain mail shirt. “For your sake, I advise sealed lips.”

“Don’t worry, I can be discreet when I choose,” Bikker said with a laugh. “Though what a juicy tale I could tell! In a month the city will be torn in half, and the streets will be lined with the dead. How many lights do you think will show then? And no one will ever know what part I played in it all.”

“No, they will not,” the third member of the cabal said. Bikker turned to face Hazoth, whose visage was covered in a thick veil of black crepe. As much as Bikker disliked this business of unseen associates, he supposed he was glad for that veil. It was not good to look on the naked face of a sorcerer. “If you cannot maintain silence, I can enforce it on you. Don’t forget your place. Your part in this is minimal.”

Bikker shrugged. He knew that perfectly well. He’d been hired to perform a variety of small services, but mostly because he was probably the only person in the city who could stop these two, if he so chose. When he’d agreed to meet with them—and then agreed to their tentative, secretive offer—they’d been comically grateful. His reputation preceded him, and they didn’t dare offend his vanity. But they never truly let him forget that he was their lackey. “I do what I’m told … when I’m paid. Gold has a way of stifling the tongue. I know better than to ask of him,” Bikker said, jutting one thumb toward the occupant of the coach, “but what are you getting out of this, wizard? What could he pay you that you can’t just magic up on your own?”

“I’ve agreed to turn a blind eye to Hazoth’s … experiments,” the coach’s occupant said, “once I rule the city. Does that trouble you?”

There had been a time when that would have given Bikker pause, indeed. Sorcerers could be dangerous. Hazoth stank of brimstone and the pit, and he was capable of things mortal men should never try. Sometimes sorcerers made mistakes and the whole world paid. The sword at Bikker’s side was a testament to how high the price had once been—it was sworn to the defense of the realm against the demons a sorcerer could summon up but couldn’t always control.

There’d been a time when Bikker was sworn to that same defense. But the world had changed. Times had changed. He too had changed. Any belief he’d had in nobility or service was ground down by a mill wheel that moved very slowly, but never stopped. Once, he’d been a champion of humankind.

Now he only shrugged. He peered down at the city. From here, it might have been a nest of termites clambering over themselves and their dung heap. “Slaughter ’em all. Feed ’em to your pets, Hazoth, if you like! By then I’ll be far enough away not to care.”

“Indeed. The gold in that purse will take you far. And there is more to come, once you have fulfilled your part of our design. You know the next step?”

“Oh, aye,” Bikker said. He spat in the direction of the city as if he would put out all those fires with one gob. “Next thing to do is find our unwitting fourth.” A fool was required, someone who would have no idea what he was doing. Without such a pawn, the plan could go nowhere. “I need to scare us up a thief.”

CHAPTER ONE

There were evil little things skulking in the shadows, their eyes very bright in the gloom. In every burned-out shell of an old house, Malden could hear their tiny footsteps and the occasional whisper. No lights at all showed in this part of town, and the fog hid both moon and stars. The lantern Malden carried could paint a crumbling wall with yellow light, or show him where the cobblestones had been pried up and deep pools of mud awaited an unwary step. It could not, however, pierce the darkness that coiled inside the ruined houses and stables, nor show who was watching him so intently.

He didn’t like this.

He didn’t like the time of the meeting, an hour past midnight. He did not like the location: down by the wall, near the river gate, in the wasteland called the Ashes. In the same year he was born this whole district had been consumed by the Seven Day Fire. Because the doss-houses and knackeries down here belonged to the poorest of the poor, no effort was made since then to rebuild or even to tear down the gutted remains. No one lived here if they had any choice, and the Ashes had been abandoned to decay. Now limp weeds were sprouting from between the forgotten cobbles, while vines strangled the fallen roof timbers or slowly chewed on the ancient smoke-damaged bricks. Eventually nature would reclaim this zone entirely, and Malden, who had never set foot outside the city since he was born, found this distinctly uncomfortable—the concept that part of the city itself, which was his whole notion of permanence, could rot and die and be effaced.

Behind him something dashed across a forgotten street. He whirled to catch it with his light. Despite well-honed reflexes he was still not quick enough to see what it was, only that it disappeared through the gaping hole where a window had once looked out on the street. His hand went to the bodkin he kept at his hip but he dared not draw it. You never showed your weapon until you were ready to strike.

Malden stopped where he was and tried to prepare. If an attack was coming, it would come quickly, and being braced for it would make all the difference. His eyes showed him little—the scorched beams and the soot-stained street were all of a color by his little light. So he turned to his other senses in his search for signs. He heard nothing but the creaking of old, strained wood, the sifting of ash. He could smell the smoke of the fire, so many years gone.

Behind him he heard soft footsteps. The sound of bare feet slapping against charred timber. Only for a moment, before the sound stopped and he was left in silence again. Silence so profound—and so rare in the clamoring city. It sounded like a roaring in his ears.

He turned slowly on his heel, scanning the empty door frames on every side, the twisting little roads that curled between the buildings. He longed to get his back against something solid. There was a brick building up ahead, or at least the husk of one. Its roof was gone and one wall had come down. The other three still stood, however, and if he could get inside them, at least he would not have to worry about being attacked from behind. He hurried forward, his lantern held high—and then a noise from quite close by stopped him in his tracks.

One of the watchers had stepped out into the street behind him. He heard its feet splashing in a puddle. This time, however, it did not rush off as he turned to see it. This time it held its ground.

Even before he completed his turn his hand was on the hilt of his knife. He hesitated to draw, however, when he saw the creature he faced. It was a child, a girl no more than seven years old. She wore a stained shift of homespun and had rags wrapped around her feet in place of shoes. She also had a hammer clutched before her in both hands. Her eyes stayed on his face and they did not blink.

Malden spread his own hands wide, showing her they were empty. He took a step toward her, and when she did not flee, he took another. He reached down toward her—

—and suddenly the street was full of ragged children. They seemed to emerge from the mist as if generated spontaneously from the cold and the damp, like fungus from a rotting log. They were of both sexes, and varied in apparent age, but were dressed all alike in torn shirts and tunics too big for their skinny frames. And they all held makeshift weapons. One had a carpenter’s saw. Another held a cobbler’s awl. Bits of wood with protruding nails. A length of iron chain. One of them, a boy older than the rest, had a woodsman’s hatchet that he held down against his thigh as if he knew how to use it.

A gang of orphans, Malden thought. A band of urchins joined together in their poverty to waylay any traveler foolish enough to come here by night. A ragged little army. There were dozens of them, and though he was certain he could best even the older boy in a fair fight, he could see in their eyes they held no concept of fairness or justice, such things as impossible and mythical in their experience as the continents the sages claimed lay beyond the sea. They would be on him in a heap, slashing and hitting and pounding and mauling him until he was dead. They would offer no quarter or mercy.

They were waiting for him to make the first move. To try to run, or fight. Not because they were afraid to attack, but because they wanted him to make some mistake, to calculate the odds incorrectly. They would take advantage of whatever weakness he showed and make short work of him.

Malden licked his lips and turned slowly this way and that, looking for an opening. There was no way out, it seemed. Unless … unless there was another reason for their silent waiting, for their constant unblinking stares.

“You want some password or sign,” he said, “but all I have is this.” He reached inside his cloak. They moved toward him, closing the circle they formed around him. They were ready to attack at the first sign of aggression. But he was not reaching for his bodkin. Instead his nimble fingers reached into his purse and drew out the scrap of parchment that had beckoned him to this dreadful place at this beastly time. He unfolded it carefully—the old paper cracked down the middle but he held the pieces together—and showed them the message he had received:

This house is ONE OF OURS,

and its owner under my protection.

At next Witching Hour come ALONE

to the Ashes hard by Westwall—or

you’re DEAD before next Dawn.

“I found it tacked to the windowsill of a house I was in the process of burgling. This is what you want to see, yes?”

Could they read it? he wondered? But no, of course they couldn’t. It was foolish to think these children had ever been tutored or given even religious education. And yet they seemed entranced by the brief missive. Ah, he thought. They recognize the signature, a crude drawing of a heart transfixed by a key.

He did not know what that sign meant, not for certain, but its power on these children was intriguing. One by one they came close and touched the paper, as superstitious merchants will sometimes touch a statue of the Lady before sitting down to some tricky negotiation. When they had seen the sign for themselves and perhaps decided it was no forgery, they filed away, back into the darkness. All except the girl with the hammer, the first one he’d seen. She still held his eyes with her own. When they two were alone again, she finally broke his gaze and started walking toward the brick ruin he’d thought to shelter in. She led him right up to a doorway and then gestured inside with one hand. Then she made a perfect curtsy and ran off to join the others.

Clearly this was the place. Holding the scrap of parchment before him like a talisman, Malden stepped through the door.

CHAPTER TWO

Inside the ruined building three old men dressed in rags sat on a long wooden box. Two of them had long white beards, while the other was bald and clean-shaven. Age had withered their muscles but their eyes glinted with cunning—no dotards, these. Malden had the sense there was a great deal more to them than what he saw.

He nodded to the men but did not speak yet. First he studied the interior of the building—its fallen and shattered roof beams, the piles of scorched plaster in the corners. The floor was covered in a thick layer of debris. There did not seem to be anywhere an assassin could hide, though between the lack of light and the tendrils of mist that coiled around his lantern, it was hard to be sure.

“What if I had brought the city watch with me?” Malden asked, because he felt there was no need for polite small talk. He had, after all, been threatened with death.

The bald man smiled wickedly. “We would not be here. You would have never found this place. And before morning your throat would be slit.”

Malden nodded in understanding. “This isn’t a bad setup. The children out there keep an eye on the place for you, right? Make sure nobody gets in uninvited. I’m guessing that even now if I tried something, you’d be ready for it.”

One of the whitebeards raised a long, crooked finger and pointed into the air. With his eyes, Malden followed the direction of the finger until he could just see a spire looming out of the mist two blocks away. Most likely it had been the steeple of the local church, made of stone, so it survived the fire. While he was staring through the gloom, something whistled past his cheek and slammed into a charred wooden plank behind him. He glanced sideways and saw the shaft of an arrow there, still quivering. The arrow was as long as his arm and it had struck the wood so hard the iron point was completely embedded.

For a while after that Malden did not breathe. His lungs clamped shut and every muscle in his body went rigid. He waited patiently for the next arrow, the one that would find his guts or his throat. But it did not come.

He understood rationally what had happened, and why. The arrow was a message—a reminder that here not all was what it seemed, and that he was still in mortal danger. It was not a reminder he’d truly needed.

“I’ll pay you the courtesy of noticing you didn’t flinch,” the whitebeard said. “That’s good, lad. Very good.”

Malden gave him a brief bow, once he could move and breathe again. “I think I understand where I am. I’m not sure who you three are, but I assume you aren’t the ones I’m supposed to meet. Yet you can show me the way to my meeting. You’re the guardians of the doorway, yes? And more than that, certainly.”

The bald one touched his chest. “I am called ’Levenfingers. These,” he said, gesturing at the whitebeards, “are Loophole and Lockjaw.”

“Well met,” Malden said. “Wait. Wait … I’ve heard of him, of Loophole. It was a little before my time, but they still tell the story up in the Stink. If you’re the same man, then you got that name when you robbed the garrison house up by the palace. Is it true that you climbed in through an arrow slit, fifty feet up the curtain wall?”

Loophole wheezed as he laughed. “Another time, I’ll tell ye all, if you wish. Assuming you survive tonight.”

Malden nodded. “I’d be honored. And you—’Levenfingers—how’d you come by that name, if I might ask?”

“I was the king of the pickpockets in my day,” the bald man said with obvious pride. “They used to say no man with ten fingers could be so dab at it, so I must have eleven.” He held up his hands, which were gnarled and spotted with age but otherwise perfectly normal. “Just a nickname.”

Malden smiled at the third man, expecting an explanation of his name. It was Loophole who gave it, however. “Lockjaw? He holds his secrets well, that’s why. Never gives anything away for free.”

“Does he ever speak?”

“Not to the likes of you,” Lockjaw grumbled, in a hollow voice like a floorboard creaking in an empty house. “Not yet.”

“I see,” Malden said. He was impressed despite himself. Thievery was a dangerous occupation. If you didn’t die in some trap or under the spear of some overzealous guard, the law was always waiting. In the Free City of Ness, lifting even a copper penny from some fat merchant’s purse was punishable by hanging. These three men, daring rogues in their day, notorious for grand exploits, had survived long enough to grow old without being caught. That must mean they were very, very good in their prime. Malden wondered what they could teach him. Of course, there was more pressing business at hand. “I was called here to meet with someone.”

“Are you ready for your audience with our boss, then?”

“I suppose I’d better be,” Malden said.

Lockjaw grunted out a noise that might have been a laugh. The three of them stood up in unison, then moved aside to let Malden have a better look at the box they’d been sitting on. It was a coffin made of plain wood, tapering in width at both ends. ’Levenfingers lifted its lid and Loophole gestured for Malden to get inside.

Malden had never thought himself squeamish or, worse, superstitious. Yet a cold dread gripped his vitals at the thought of lying down in the coffin. “Only a fool or a dead man would get in there happily,” he said.

“If you don’t get in,” Loophole told him, “you’re both, anyway.”

Malden snuffed out the flame of his lantern, then placed it carefully on the ground. There would be no room for it. Then he clambered inside what, he assured himself, was truly no more fearful than a packing crate. The lid was closed and then nailed shut. He tried not to breathe too hard. He’d come this far, he told himself. He must see what would happen next.

CHAPTER THREE

The darkness inside the box was a solid thing, as if the air had turned to obsidian all around him. All sounds that came through the wood were muffled and thick. Malden hoped very much he would be let out soon. The same moment the lid was hammered shut, he found that he had trouble breathing inside—perhaps it was just his mind playing tricks on him, but it seemed there was not enough air in the coffin to support his life. He began to panic, to lose control of his faculties. It took a true effort of will to calm down and resign himself to what was happening.

One fact alone sustained him, one thing he was relatively sure of. The master of this place had already had many chances to kill him. Which meant that, for whatever reason and however temporarily, he was expected to survive this.

That kept most of the panic at bay. The fear tarried longer.

The box was lifted—the three oldsters must be stronger than they looked, or they had help—and carried a short distance before it was lowered again, foot end first, into some variety of chute. For a moment Malden had the sense of rapid downward movement, and then the box struck a solid surface very hard, hard enough to push all the air out of his lungs. Not knowing what to expect, he forced himself not to inhale again.

His body protested and he started to gasp for air but he managed to hold his breath a moment longer. The only way to determine where he’d ended up was by listening to his surroundings. Though the sounds that came to him were distorted by the wooden box, he was able to make out a few things. He could hear voices, people laughing among themselves. A woman’s giggle. So he was not alone.

Then there was a knock on the lid of the coffin, and he sucked in air at last. “Anyone home?” someone asked, the voice thick with mockery.

“Let yourself in and have a look around the place,” Malden replied.

The owner of the voice laughed wickedly but said no more.

It did not take Malden long to realize no one would come to release him from the coffin—that he would have to find his own way out. He was able to draw his bodkin easily enough, but then found it difficult to maneuver it within the coffin without stabbing himself. It was not much of a weapon, a triangular piece of iron that tapered to a sharp point. By law it was the largest knife he was allowed to own, the blade no longer than his hand from the ball of his thumb to the tip of his middle finger. It had no edge, just the point, and was only good for stabbing in a fight. But then, he wasn’t a violent man by nature, and the bodkin was more than it appeared to be. He’d found many uses for it in the past, and killing had so far not been one of them. It served him well as he jabbed the point into the thin seam between box and lid. Without leverage it took some time to pry the lid upward, but when he did he was rewarded by a thin stream of light and—much more blessedly—a new breath of air.

The nails in the lid shrieked as he worked to free himself. Eventually he had the lid open enough to push it outward with his hands. Returning the knife to its sheath, he sat up and looked around.

The room was broad but low, its ceiling propped up on stout beams so it looked not unlike a mine shaft. The walls were bare, close-packed earth that glistened with condensation. The place was well lit by more than a dozen candles, some backed by reflectors of copper that added a rosy tint to the light. On a divan on one side of the room sat a man in a leather jerkin and particolored hose. He had the thick shoulders of a warrior, not a thief. Upon his lap was a redheaded girl with her bodice unlaced. She laughed prettily as he tickled her. Neither of them spared him a glance. In another corner of the room a group of men in colorless cloaks were throwing dice against a wall and cheering or groaning the result.

The final occupant of the room was a dwarf who might have been the epitome of his people. Dwarves were rare in Ness—rare anywhere in Skrae—but enough of them had come down from their northern kingdom, looking for work, that Malden was jaded to their presence. They were master craftsmen, brilliant artificers who could make better tools and finer wares than any human artisan. Dwarves alone knew the secret of making proper steel and thus were highly prized and given special rights wherever they turned up in human lands. Like all his folk, this one was skinny, perhaps four feet tall, and his flesh was as white as the belly of a fish. He had a wild mop of filthy black hair and a tangled beard. He was dressed only in leather breeches and was sewing pieces of metal into a silk glove. He glanced up briefly at Malden, then shook his head and went back to work.

Malden looked away and turned in a slow circle to make sure he’d seen all of the room. He did not want to miss some hidden threat, not now. Directly behind him, he saw the chute through which he had descended, a construction of thin hammered tin. It had been smeared with brown grease that glimmered dully in the candlelight. He could probably get back up that way, given enough time—and assuming no one tried to stop him.

The man on the couch had a sword at his hip, and Malden did not doubt that the others were armed as well. Someone, he figured, would try to stop him. After all, he’d been summoned here for a reason. If he tried to run away now he would be thwarting that purpose. Based on what the oldsters had said aboveground, he would not be allowed to escape in one piece.

A little stiffly, Malden climbed out of the coffin and regained his feet. He dusted himself off and strode over to the divan, intent on learning what he was expected to do next. The bravo on the divan looked up expectantly. “You must have made an impression on the three masters above,” he said. Malden instantly recognized his voice as the one that had spoken to him when he was inside the coffin.

“Oh?” he asked.

“They let you keep your clothes and that knife at your belt. Sometimes the ones they send down here come naked.”

“I’m quite personable when you get to know me,” Malden said. “Now, if you’d be so kind as to direct me to your master? I’m told he wishes to speak with me.”

The bravo’s eyebrows drew together. “And what makes you think the master of this place is not here, right before you?”

Malden bowed in apology. “Organization like this, in such a secret place, leads me to believe only one man in the Free City might be master here. A man I know only by reputation, but that reputation leads me to believe certain things about him. I doubt he’s one of these gamblers, who kneel and dice for pennies. I am relatively certain he is no dwarf, and she—well …” Malden searched his memory. “Her name is Rhona. She’s one of Madam Herwig’s girls, from the House of Sighs up on the Royal Ditch.” The girl looked up at him with wide eyes, but he merely smiled at her in return. There were very few harlots in the city who Malden could not recognize on sight. “As for yourself, well, I do not think you are the chief here. While you cut a striking figure, sir, I will not believe you if you say your name is Cutbill.”

At the sound of the name everyone in the room glanced over their shoulder. Even the bravo and his playmate frowned. Yet in a moment all concerns were forgotten again and the bravo laughed boisterously, which got the girl giggling as well. “You’re smarter than we credited,” he said.

“Yet not so arrogant in that wisdom, as to have avoided this summons in the first place,” Malden said.

The bravo picked the girl up in his strong arms and put her back down on the divan as he rose and came bounding over to take Malden’s hand. “I’m Bellard. I serve the one you named on those occasions when subtlety has failed.”

“Well met. I’m called Malden.”

Bellard laughed again. “Oh, I know your name all right. And you’re correct, the master is waiting on your pleasure. He’s just through there.” Bellard made a sweeping gesture toward the far wall, where a stained curtain hung.

“So I just go through there, do I?” Malden asked.

The bravo smiled. “If you can, you’re well on your way.”

Malden bowed and headed to the curtain. Twitching it back, he found a wide door set into the wall, made of stout oak with massive iron hinges. A thick iron ring would open it. There was just one problem. A thick bar of iron passed through the ring and was anchored in either wall. It was held shut by the largest padlock he had ever seen.

CHAPTER FOUR

Well. He knew what to do with locks.

Malden drew his bodkin and held it by the blade. The grip was formed of a very long piece of stout cord wrapped countless times around the hilt, ostensibly to create a more comfortable handle for the weapon. In fact the cord served far less obvious purposes. He picked at it until one end came free, then spooled it out with a practiced motion. Woven into the cord were his tools: picks, rakes, hooks, and a pair of tension wrenches. Two different skeleton keys for different size locks. These tiny pieces of steel were the most valuable things Malden owned, worth far more than their weight in gold. Worth his life if he were ever caught with them, for they had no legal use—their only function was to allow locks to be opened by someone who lacked the proper key.

He placed the tools carefully in order on the floor beside him, then knelt before the door to examine the lock more closely.

“Right there’s a famous example of the locksmith’s art,” Bellard said from behind his shoulder. “Originally it secured the door of the seraglio of the northern chieftain Krölt. Imagine the exotic and untamed beauties it locked away, eh?”

Malden wondered if they had been half as comely as the lock itself. It was a thing of exquisite craftsmanship, no doubt—probably built by a dwarf, considering its complexity. The recurved case was wider than his two hands put together. It was made of bronze worked with copper, which sadly had grown furry with verdigris over the ages. The front was lined with rivets of brass sculpted to resemble handsome female faces. So profoundly intricate was the workmanship that each face had recognizably different features, and each was more lovely than the next.

The lock’s shackle, also of brass, was cast in the shape of a maiden’s braided hair. The massive keyhole was covered in a sliding plate to keep out dust and moisture that might foul the mechanism inside. When Malden drew the plate back he saw that the keyhole was big enough that he could reach inside with two fingers—if he dared. The key that opened this lock must have been the size of a shortsword.

The room’s fitful light did not permit him to see much inside the lock mechanism, but picking a lock was a skill of the fingers, not of the eyes. He selected a saw rake from his tools and the larger of his tension wrenches. He hoped it would be large enough. He willed his hands not to tremble as he inserted the rake most carefully inside the keyhole and began feeling around for wards or tumblers.

When his rake made contact, the entire lock seemed to thrum as if a spring had been released inside. He just had time to see the rivets move before he jumped backward and caught himself with his hands on the floor. His picks went flying and clanged musically on the stones, but for the moment he forgot all about them.

“You’re quicker than we credited, as well,” Bellard said. He did not laugh this time.

The rivets shaped like the faces of women were not rivets at all, Malden saw. They were more similar to the dust plate covering the keyhole in that they could slide away from concealed holes in the face of the lock. From each of these holes now emerged a needle as big as a carpentry nail. Had he not jumped back in time, those nails would have scratched his hands in a dozen places. He looked closer and saw that the tip of each nail was coated in a straw-colored fluid.

“Poison, of course,” he said.

“Old Krölt was a jealous cove, and he hated thieves. Of course, his poison dried up and flaked away centuries ago. The stuff we replaced it with isn’t lethal, since the lock is meant for training new recruits. Which is not to say it’s pleasant,” Bellard said with a shrug. “It would leave you in a fever for three days, during which time you would suffer such agonies you would most devoutly wish we’d used hemlock instead.”

Malden rubbed at the sweat rolling down into his eyes. Though he made his living at an occupation beset with certain risks, tonight he was being threatened with death and pain far too often for his liking.

And of course it wasn’t over yet. If he failed to get through this door and keep his appointment with Cutbill, his life remained forfeit. He needed to pick the lock—but in such a way that he touched none of the needles. He would have to take great care.

He recovered his picks and then gripped them tightly by their free ends, to give them as much reach as possible. He had hoped it might be enough to let him pick the lock without touching any of the needles. Yet no matter how he tried, no matter how he strained or bent his hands into uncomfortable angles, the tools still didn’t make it all the way inside the lock.

He sank back in frustration and anger and dropped his tools on the stone floor. What to do? What to do? He was not ready to give up. Sadu alone knew why he was being forced to this ordeal, to this series of gruesome tests, but there had to be some reason—he did not believe the master of this place would be such a sadist as to put him through so much just for grim amusement.

So there had to be some solution to the problem. Some simple, elegant answer that would lend itself to a man who knew how to think. Malden had always counted himself quite clever. He wasn’t very strong—a bad diet had seen to that—nor was he accounted particularly handsome. He had the kind of face that no one remarked on, or remembered for very long. What he was, was smart. Quick, like Bellard had said. His best weapon now was his brain, his ability to think this through.

There would be a solution. It must be in this room, since he was not permitted to leave. And it had to be something he could discover if he would just open his eyes. He looked around, trying to see what he had missed before.

He glanced over at the dwarf. He hadn’t paid the little creature much attention before. He had barely been aware of what the dwarf was doing. Now he gave the dwarf’s piece-work his full attention.

The dwarf was sewing pieces of metal onto a pair of silk gloves.

Malden went over to him with his friendliest expression on his face. “My, those are rather fetching.”

The dwarf sneered. “They might fetch a fair price,” he said.

Malden could feel all eyes in the room turned on his back. He ignored them. “May I?” he asked. He picked up one of the gloves and studied it. The dwarf had sewn several dozen small tin plates onto the back and palm of the glove. They wouldn’t work very well as armor in a fight, but they would be perfect for his current purpose. So perfect, in fact, that he could see no reason for their construction other than to help pick the poisoned lock. Malden opened his purse and took out a handful of farthings—copper coins cut into four pieces each. “I’m not sure how much you—”

“It’ll do,” the dwarf said, snatching them from his grasp. He counted them quickly, rolling the coins in his hand. “Miserly thieves. Half what they’re fucking worth.” He held out the gloves and Malden took them. “Now, that’s just for hire,” the dwarf informed him. “I take them back when I feel you’ve had ’em long enough.”

“But of course,” Malden said. He pulled on the gloves and hurried back to the lock. He had no doubt now they’d been made expressly for this purpose. The silk was quite delicate and would tear after even a little use, but it was also thin enough that it did not deaden the sensitivity in his fingers that was necessary for lock picking. The tin plates wouldn’t protect the hands from any but the feeblest blows—but when he attempted to pick the lock again, he found they easily blocked the needles from scratching his skin.

Even with the gloves, though, opening the padlock wasn’t easy. The lock was enormous and had dozens of pin tumblers inside. He had to tease each one into the proper position with his hooks, then hold it there with a rake while he applied just the right amount of torque with his wrench. It required perfectly still hands, but if he did not lapse in concentration even for a moment … yes … there. When the lock clicked again, he nearly jumped away a second time—but there was something different about this click. It was weightier, more solid, more final.

The needles retracted into their holes with a series of soft thunks. The shackle came loose and the lock hung swinging from the iron bar.

It was open.

Malden wound his picks back up into the hilt of his bodkin, then sheathed the weapon with a sigh. He removed the lock from the bar, though it was so heavy he could barely lift it, and set it down carefully on the floor. He stripped off the gloves, turning them inside out in case any of the poison had transferred to the tin plates. He tossed the gloves to the dwarf, who caught them easily. Then, going back to the door, he slid the bar out of the ring and pushed gently. The door opened with a creak.

He looked back at Bellard.

“He doesn’t like to be kept waiting,” the bravo said.

Malden nodded and stepped inside.

CHAPTER FIVE

Beyond the locked door was a snug little office, heated by a charcoal brazier and kept insulated by heavy tapestries hanging on the walls. A massive desk faced the door, carved out of some expensive wood that had turned black over time, a very large and detailed map of the city posted behind the desk, a basin for washing one’s face and hands, and a sideboard with a flagon of wine and several goblets. No one sat behind the desk, however. Instead, the room’s sole occupant perched on a stool in the corner, scratching entries in a broad ledger held on a lectern before him.

He was a very thin man with long, mournful features and eyebrows that arched high onto his bare forehead. His black hair had receded well back onto his scalp and was shot through with two streaks of gray. His eyes were at once very dark and very bright—narrow, merciless eyes that did not look up at Malden as he came in.

Malden closed the door behind him and waited patiently for the man to finish his task. There were chairs, but he did not sit down, unsure what to expect inside this cozy room.

The man’s quill pen scratched out a few more figures and then stopped.

“Your mother was a whore,” he said, quite without inflection.

Malden’s chest clenched but he understood what was happening. The man—who was certainly Cutbill, whether he looked like a mastermind of thievery or not—was testing him. Attempting to see if he would come at him in a fury or perhaps merely whine in offense.

There was no denying the truth of the statement, however. “She was. A good woman in a bad situation, who did her best to raise me with care and patience. She died of the sailor’s pox when I was not yet a man.”

Cutbill nodded, as if merely accepting this new bit of information as something to enter into his account book. “Your father?”

“Half the men in this city might claim the title, yet none ever have.”

“Sit down. You may be here awhile,” Cutbill told him. Malden chose a chair near the door. “You lived in a bawdy house for most of your youth, performing small tasks and running errands for the madam. In that time you probably saw your fair share of illicit activity. I daresay you might have engaged in some yourself—rolling drunks, cheating paying clients—or at least tricking them into overpaying—procuring small quantities of various illegal drugs for the harlots. It wasn’t until after your mother died that you began extending your activities to the larger sphere of the city, though.”

“There wasn’t much choice in the matter,” Malden confirmed. “There’s not much room in a brothel for a young man—not when there are so many unwanted boys around to clean the place and run errands. I was given a few coins but told to go forth and find my own fortune. I decided I’d see how honest folk lived. It turned out the city had little use for a whoreson with no estate. This place isn’t kind to those who were born on the wrong side of the sheet.”

If he’d been hoping to evince sympathy from Cutbill, he was disappointed. The clerkish man didn’t even look up.

“I looked for work in various trades. I was too old already—no guild would take me on for prenticing at the advanced age of fifteen. I tried to find occupation as a bricklayer, as a carpenter, even as a stevedore down at the wharves. Each place turned me away—or demanded bribes. The gang bosses who organized such labor all wanted a cut of the pennies I would earn.”

“And you were unwilling to pay such fees.”

“How could I, and survive? It takes money to live in this world, money to eat, money for rent, money for taxes and tithes. The pay that work offered would have put me in debt the first week, and it would only have gotten worse. I’d seen this scheme before, and the ruin it caused.”

“Oh?”

“It is exactly how the pimps keep their stables of women in line.”

“Indeed,” Cutbill said.

Malden fidgeted with the sleeve of his shirt. “There were no opportunities for one like me. None at all. Yet I needed money to survive. I could go out on the streets and become a beggar. Or I could turn to a life of crime. You know which I chose.”

“And found you had a flair for it.”

“You wish to know my life story entire?”

“I already know it. I’m simply confirming it. For the last five years you’ve been making a paltry living pilfering coppers from the unwary. Occasionally you’ve run a trick of confidence, but your real skills seem to lie in your fingers, not your voice. It was only recently you turned to burglary. For only a few months now you’ve been breaking into houses. Care to tell my why you changed your game?”

“People in this city know better than to carry much money when they go out. They know no purse is ever safe. The real money they leave behind, at home. It only seemed logical to follow the money, not the people.”

The master of thieves made a small notation in his ledger. “You know who I am,” Cutbill said. “You spoke my name outside.”

Malden waved one hand in the air. “All of the Free City knows the exploits of great Cutbill, master of thieves, procurer extraordinaire, purveyor of unlawful euphoria, betrayer of confidences, extortionist to the high and mighty—”

“Spare me.”

Malden sat back in his chair, a little dumbfounded. He had not expected the man to speak so plainly—or so abruptly. It was all he could do to keep up.

“You know that I run this city, or, at least, the clandestine commerce within it. That I have organized and consolidated the criminal class. That I have taken in hand the scattered gangs and crews that exist in any city of this size and made of them something more cohesive, something efficient.” Cutbill put down his pen and sat up on his stool, lifting his chin in the air. “You know my reputation. I recounted your history to show I know yours as well.”

Malden held his peace.

“I do not appreciate arse-licking, nor false modesty, nor unplain speaking. So I will say this simply: I have kept a close and admiring eye on you, ever since I became aware of your activities. I keep accounts of all who commit crimes in the Free City of Ness, whether they work for me or not. But you, Malden—you I’ve watched quite closely. You have the skills of a born thief: the lightness of step, the deftness of hands, the ability to keep a secret. And you learned these things all on your own. No mentor guided you, no school drilled you up in the ways of our profession. I find this quite impressive. Or I did so, until tonight.

“Tonight, you went in secret into the house of Guthrun Whiteclay, a master of the worthy guild of potters, and took from him a quantity of silver plate, some fancy cutlery, and a sack of silver coin he had hidden under his bed. Yet you failed to prepare for this jaunt properly.”

Malden frowned. No one, he thought, could have been more prepared than he. “I cased the house for three days. Watched Whiteclay and his wife leave for a fete up at the moothall, saw him lock his front door but forget to latch a window at the side. I wrapped my shoes in cloth to deaden my footsteps. I studied the patrol patterns of the city watch and knew exactly how long I had to get in and out unseen. I even waited for a night when the fog would conceal the moon, and so darken the alley I used for my entrance and escape.”

“Yes,” Cutbill said, “but you forgot to ask anyone if Guthrun Whiteclay had protection. Do you even understand this concept? I have an arrangement with him. Nothing formal, nothing written down, of course. Yet I receive from him each month a certain sum of money. In exchange for this small payment, he is guaranteed against burglary, robbery, blackmail, and murder at the hands of his business rivals. You may think it easier to simply take all that is his and be done with it—but I assure you, over the years I have made many times as much money from this arrangement than you might ever see from reselling his household goods. Now you have cost me money, because I must send out my agents to recover the things you stole and have them returned to Whiteclay’s house before he notices they are missing. Do you understand the magnitude of that task? Do you understand what it will cost me if I fail in it?”

“I see,” Malden said, shifting in his chair. “So this is a shakedown. You wish me to return these things and to give you the silver I worked so hard to acquire. Well, I don’t like it—but what choice have I? You can have your pet swordsman out there skewer me like a pig on a spit if I refuse.”

Malden had the impression that Cutbill had never smiled in his life. One corner of his mouth did pucker, though, as if he were savoring some tasty morsel of knowledge that he had not chosen to share.

“Yes, yes, all of that. But more as well. I want you to join my operation.”

Malden frowned. “I’m sorry?”

“I wish to offer you a job.”

CHAPTER SIX

Neither of them spoke for a while, as the meaning of Cutbill’s words sank in. Malden had expected something quite different when he answered Cutbill’s summons. Mostly, he’d expected to have to pay back the money he’d taken, and then receive a savage beating (if not worse) by way of a receipt.

“I’ve always worked alone,” he said finally.

“And I cannot allow you to continue doing so. You are too good at this to be independent,” Cutbill informed him. “I don’t like competition. I’d much rather have you in my stable. There are compensations you’ll gain from accepting, of course. You know I have a considerable fraction of the city watch on my payroll, and more than one noble in the palace as well. Right now if you are caught stealing so much as one penny from a church collection box, you’ll be hanged for your trouble. Under my wing, you will have some measure of safety from that fate. Furthermore you’ll be allowed the services of my dwarf, Slag, who can provide tools of a fineness and quality you’ll never gain from any human blacksmith. You can continue to pick your own jobs, though of course you must abstain from burgling any of my clients. And I have something else to offer you.”

“Oh?”

“Your heart’s desire. The thing you truly covet. I can offer you freedom.”

“Every man in Ness is free. There are no slaves here,” Malden pointed out. It was what made Ness a Free City. Outside of its walls most men and women were villeins, peasants, cotters—little more than slaves. They owned neither land nor livestock nor the clothes on their backs. They could not be married without the approval of their lord, nor could they move away from their farms unless they were sold to some other liege—and even then they could take nothing with them but their children.

But in Ness a man was his own. He could work to make a life for himself and his family, or he could laze about and eventually starve in the street. But it was his own choice. The city’s charter guaranteed the right of a man to do either.

“I didn’t say you were a slave. Rather, you’re a prisoner. You have no family, no birthright. You dress like a common laborer and you have the accent of a peasant. If you tried to leave this city—if you stepped outside its walls—you would be scooped up by the first reeve who saw you. He would sell you to some petty baron and you’d spend the rest of your days tilling some field. Ness is a very large prison, Malden, and the door of your cell is wide open. But only because the powers that be know you’ll never leave.”

“If I had enough money—”

“But you don’t, and living the life you do, you never will. If you keep operating independently you’ll end up swinging from a rope or, if you’re lucky, dying in poverty in some hovel. Come work for me and we’ll change that. It will take time. You will work harder for me than you ever would for some shopkeeper. But your money will be your own. And with enough money, even the son of a whore can be a man of importance. He can go where he likes and live as he chooses. Freedom, Malden, is what I offer. True freedom.”

Malden found his heart was racing. Cutbill did know him, heart and soul. How many times had he thought the same thing? How many times had he cursed fate for making him his mother’s son?

“I will admit,” he said, choosing his words carefully, “that is a strong incentive. May I ask what you get out of this arrangement?”

“I’ll take a cut of everything you earn for my trouble. Let us say, nine parts of every ten.”

Malden gaped in surprise. That deal was shameless robbery—worse than any demand a pander would make. But of course he must consider its author. There was in Cutbill’s face a certain hardness of line that told Malden the numbers were non-negotiable. “And if I refuse your offer?”

“Then you are free to go, to walk out the door you came in by. Of course, in my disappointment I might forget to give Bellard the all-clear sign, and he may think you are trying to flee against my wishes.”

“Of course,” Malden said. “Well, in that case, I suppose my answer must be—”

Cutbill interrupted him. “You’re probably thinking, right now, that you can rob me in some way. That you can short the money you turn over to me. Find some way to make my terms more agreeable. You’ve proved you’re clever. Perhaps you think yourself more clever than me.”

“Perish the thought,” Malden said.

“I have no reason to believe you will play fair with me. So for a while, at least, you’ll be under probation. You may eventually earn full position in my organization. I fancy our business here to be like unto one of the trade guilds. Each new member must serve a period of apprenticeship, at the end of which he demonstrates his ability to perform the duties and the functions of the craft. For instance, one of Guthrun Whiteclay’s apprentices might make an especially elegant and large drinking vessel—which would be called his masterpiece, because he made it to impress his master.”

“I’m too old for prenticing,” Malden insisted.

“Agreed. And I think we can consider your burglary tonight your masterpiece, because it certainly did impress me. So we’ll start you off as if you were a journeyman, the next rank and title in our hypothetical guild. But there is another bar to entry at that level. One must pay one’s guild dues, to be considered a member in good standing. So I’ll expect a payment from you immediately, before you may enjoy any privilege of your new employment.”

Malden clamped his mouth shut. What he wanted to say was this:

Why, you loathsome double-dealing toothfish of a blasted cheat, is there no limit to the depths of your ignobility, your mendacity? You’ve held me here at threat of death, and bled me dry, and now you wish a gratuity for the service?

What he actually said was this:

“How much?”

Cutbill flipped through the pages of his ledger. He consulted an entry near the beginning of the book, then looked up and for the first time directly into Malden’s eyes. “I think one hundred and one golden royals should be enough. Or do you think that too little, after all the trouble you caused me tonight?”

“I …” Malden was briefly unable to speak. “I imagine … I think that I will laud your generosity to all I meet.”

“Good. You can go now.” Cutbill picked up his pen again and returned to writing in his book.

Malden rose from his chair. His legs shook. His hands had been steady when he picked the poisoned lock. He had not flinched when an arrow passed through his shadow. Yet now his body was rebellious to his commands. He turned toward the door. “You know, you never actually gave me the chance to say yes or no.”

“I never do. In any business negotiation, if the outcome is not certain before you even begin, then you are fated to get the lesser hand. Remember that, Malden. Oh, and don’t go through there.”

Malden looked at the door. It was the only exit from the room that he could see. “But of course. You haven’t given the all-clear signal.”

“There is no such signal. If you walk through that door, Bellard will run you through, no matter what I do or say. I think that might sadden him—he seems to have a liking for you. So go through there instead.” Cutbill flicked his pen toward one of the tapestries behind him. When Malden lifted it he found a very long corridor ending in a flight of stairs leading upward. Not looking back, he climbed until he found a trapdoor that opened on an alley in the Stink—the district of poor people’s homes that lay just inside the city wall. The neighborhood of his own home, though he still had a long walk ahead of him.

He had only one thought as he headed there.

One hundred and one royals.

It was a fortune. It was a bondage—until he paid it, he would be Cutbill’s slave, working for nothing but the payment of that blood price. It might take him a year to earn as much, even if he redoubled his efforts, even if he picked only the richest plums—plums, he was certain, that were already on Cutbill’s list of protection.

One hundred and one! Royals! Coins so valuable the average journeyman in an honest guild might earn but one for a year’s work. All of the plate and cutlery he’d taken from Guthrun Whiteclay, if sold to a very forgiving and generous fence, would earn him but two royals, perhaps three.

One hundred and one!

He reached his lodgings barely cognizant of the path he’d taken. He had a room above a waxchandler’s shop, not much at all, but it was clean. He had a mattress full of straw which he went to as soon as he arrived. The plates and silver he had stashed underneath, below a loose floorboard. He was not surprised to find them gone. One of Cutbill’s thieves must have broken in here to get them back. In their place was a bottle of cheap wine. A strip of paper was wound around its neck. When he unfolded the note he read:

Welcome to the guild.

It was signed, of course, with a crude drawing of a heart transfixed by a key.

CHAPTER SEVEN

He drank the whole bottle and got rather drunk and lay in his bed with the world whirling around him, alternately cursing and blessing Cutbill’s name. The guildmaster of thieves had held him to ransom—a ransom so large as to be absurd. Only a fool would take the offer, only an idiot would think he could make a hundred and one gold royals before he was stooped and old.

And yet … and yet … he kept coming back to what Cutbill had said. Freedom. Not a slave, but a prisoner. But he could break those shackles. Free himself, if he had the cash. Money meant everything in Ness, just as it meant everything the world around. A man with money was his own—he could buy fine clothes, buy a house of his own, buy, in short, respect. The good honest folk spat at him in the street now. With enough money they would tip their hats when he walked past. No, when he rode past, in a fine carriage, with a liveried servant driving the horses …

It was unimaginable. Impossible. And yes, alone, he could never do it. He could never be more than a petty thief, a second story man, fated to an ignominious death. But with Cutbill, with the power of the guild of thieves behind him …

His whole life could change. It could mean something, just like his mother had always wanted. Just like she’d dreamed of. Despaired of, on her deathbed.

All that was standing between him and that future was a stack of gold coins.

What could he do, then, but go back to work? But what kind of work, ah, there was the problem. His brain was seized by a fever of schemes and plans, but none of them paid off. At first he thought to burgle his way out of the debt, but that turned out to be … problematic. All the wealthiest citizens of the Free City were already on Cutbill’s protection list. His options were therefore limited, and a couple days later he was back at the old routine, in the city’s central Market Square. Right in the shadow of Castle Hill and its twenty foot wall.

No better place for the game he had planned.

“Forgive me, good sir, and the blessings of the Lady upon you!”

It was the oldest trick in the book, but that was how they got so old: they still worked. Malden had his right arm in a sling tied around his neck. Three mangled fingers and a fourth badly infected stump protruded beyond the edge of the cloth—a grotesque wound that would make most people look away rather than risk a closer inspection. With Market Square as crowded as it was that day, it was inevitable that the splinted arm would bump the occasional passerby. So far he had accidentally jostled a lady of quality with her hair in cauls at the sides of her head, the liveried servant of a noble house in black and green, and a fat merchant in a plumed hat wider than his shoulders.

“Pardon me, miss, it’s this blasted arm,” he would say, or “May the Lady save your grace, sir, I am sorry.” They would turn to sneer and perhaps kick him away, but once they saw the arm they tended to murmur some words of empty forgiveness and then hurry off before he could start begging.

By then, of course, he already had their purses open. The broken arm was a fakery. Slag the dwarf had carved it from wood and then painted it to perfectly match Malden’s skin tone. It was hollow inside and open at the bottom, so his real arm fit easily into the gap. In his actual right hand he had a tiny pair of sharpened shears and a square of damp felt. It was the work of a moment as his mark was turning away from him to cut open their fat purses and let the coins inside fall soundlessly into the cloth. Mostly he was securing pennies, groats, and farthings, nothing too worthy. At this rate, he calculated, he would pay off his debt to Cutbill in about twenty years.

Still, on a day like this, volume of business could make up for poor pickings. The Market Square was thronged from side to side, even though this was not a market day. The anonymity a big crowd offered made it easy, too.

Malden stopped for a while to take in the sights. It was impatient greed that carried more thieves up the gallows than any watchman or thief-taker. It was not wise to take too many purses even from so thick a crowd, lest someone raise the hue and cry and every man check their purse at once. Then it would be up to his feet and not his fingers to keep him alive. Anyway, even a working man like himself could enjoy the spectacle laid out for this day’s entertainment.

Where the shadow of Castle Hill best cut the sunlight and the heat of the day, a wooden viewing platform had been set up, and there the mightiest men of the city sat with goblets of mulled wine, waiting on their entertainment. Men whom even Malden recognized. Ommen Tarness, the Burgrave himself, had come. The ultimate ruler of the city sat on a carved wooden throne, his simple coronet of gold polished and gleaming at his temples. He was dressed in cloth-of-gold and brocade, with an ornamental brass key hung around his neck. Despite the gaudy clothes, his face was that of a man used to command, the stern-eyed countenance of a ruler. There was little of mercy in that face, and much of resolution.

On his right hand, under a canopy, sat Murdlin, envoy of the Dwarf Kingdom. It was quite rare to see a dwarf by daylight—they were subterranean creatures by wont, and hated the sun. Murdlin had a wide-brimmed hat pulled low over his eyes but still he seemed agitated. His legs kicked at the air where they dangled from the seat of a human-sized chair. The dwarf’s hair had been slicked down with bear fat for the occasion, and his beard had been braided in a hundred plaits, each set with a carnelian bead.

On the left of the Burgrave was the sorcerer Hazoth, his face veiled in black crape as befit one of his dread profession. There were stories about that man to chill the blood. It was said Hazoth had lived in Ness since ages past—no one knew exactly how old he was, but he had lived far past his allotted span. In the olden times supposedly he had summoned demons to save Skrae from the elves and then the dwarves in the endless wars that marked the kingdom’s early years; that he had made the earth quake and the sky rain fire. Of course he didn’t do things like that anymore. Summoning even a minor imp was enough to get a man burnt at the stake. Still, people drew back and turned their eyes aside wherever Hazoth went, and whispered stories that no one dared to disbelieve.

Behind these three stood the bailiff Anselm Vry and his reeves, the Burgrave’s retainers, minor nobles, knights, ladies, and countless servants, enough so the wooden platform groaned with all their weight.

Below them, standing on the cobbles of the square, were the grand people of the Golden Slope, the district of the city inhabited by merchants, burgesses, guildmasters, and those of independent means. A colorful lot in their fitted hoods and gathered tunics, their checked and particolored hose, their snoods and wimples and wide baldrics. None so gaudy, of course, as their liveried servants, who wore hues bright enough that anyone could tell them apart at a distance. There were a scattering of drab cloaks and doublets as well, of course, for any such gathering could not help but attract beggars and the hawkers of sweetmeats and wine. Then there were the bravos and the hired guards, who favored black silk or leather dress, to show how serious was their profession. Yet even these made some concession to the gaiety of the crowd by draping garlands of flowers around the brims of their kettle helmets or tying the favors of their ladies to the hafts and hilts of their weapons. Today, by decree, everyone was to show some sign of pomp and excitement.

After all, it wasn’t every day you got to see a public hanging.