Thick as Thieves

by Megan Whalen Turner

  I waited while he wavered between fear and greed and a naked longing that made me pity him. At last he tipped the wooden handle back into the trash heap beside him and laid his hands on mine.

  “Friend, Godekker,” I said.

  “Friend . . . ,” and he paused and looked up at me expectantly.

  In for a goat, in for a sheep, I thought. “Kamet,” I told him.

  “Friend, Kamet,” he said. “But I still want the five hennat.”

  I slept until Godekker came back with food. I think he meant to catch me unawares, but he should have known better. We slaves are light sleepers. He looked at me strangely where I lay on the floor, while the Attolian had the bed and both of our thin blankets, but he didn’t say anything, just held up the bunches of carrots and greens he’d brought. I didn’t completely trust Godekker, so I didn’t dare sleep more. Eating a little of the food helped keep me awake.

  There was a stack of stones to make a fireplace and a clay pipe to make a chimney in one corner. It was more functional than it looked. I used the single clay pot to cook up some of the vegetables in water so the Attolian might drink the broth when he woke. When I was done with that, I went out to pace the tiny yard. The walls above were windowless, which made the yard private but bleak. Two of the walls reached high above my head, while the remaining side of the triangular yard was lower, a single story with a sloping roof above it. Judging by a boarded-up door and dessicated piles of straw and manure, it was a stable and its stable boys had once wheeled barrows of used bedding out of the passageway before the quake had made the walls unsafe.

  I paused in my pacing and poked through the piles of junk with my toe. There were some nice pots and a few very pretty floor tiles.

  “Found those at a burned-out villa,” said Godekker, sitting on a broken piece of a stone pillar with his knees up around his ears and his arms hanging down in front of him. He looked like a buzzard. “I scavenge and then sell what I find.” It was a living, but not a profitable one, clearly.

  “How long?” I asked.

  “Seven years,” said Godekker.

  “Field-worker?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “From near here?”

  “No, of course not,” he said. “And I won’t say where, so don’t ask.”

  I shook my head. I wouldn’t have asked.

  Godekker rocked himself back and forth while I stood there thinking of the Namreen hunting me and the rewards they would post. Or maybe they’d found my master’s plaque next to the slave dead under the rockslide and no one was looking for me at all. Maybe the bounty hunters in the market were after a different slave. I didn’t know. I would never know. I looked at Godekker and wondered if he still worried about pursuit. He stood and stalked past me.

  “You worry forever,” he said over his shoulder. “You’ll never feel safe.”

  That’s what I’d thought.

  Godekker ducked in through the low doorway but was only inside for a minute before he charged out again. “That’s not a drunk,” he said, outraged.

  “It’s not the plague, though. It’s been all day, and there’s no sign of it,” I assured him as I jumped to my feet.

  “How would you know? You’ve probably killed us both!”

  I frankly stared. “What fool doesn’t know what the plague looks like?” I asked, and then realized the obvious answer—an uneducated escaped slave living alone hand to mouth in the dead end of a disused alley. So I wiped the insulting expression off my face and carefully described the plague signs, trying to sound as reasonable as possible, and Godekker settled down a bit. I think the what-kind-of-an-idiot-look probably convinced him more than the rational explanation, though.

  Godekker wouldn’t come near the Attolian. He said he’d sleep outside, so the Attolian and I had the place to ourselves. As the sky darkened, I ate the cooked vegetables, leaving their broth in the pot. The Attolian hadn’t opened his eyes all day. I lay down to sleep, reassuring myself that I’d wake if Godekker tried to drag the gate open to leave the yard.

  In the morning I drank the broth and made more. The Attolian had tossed and groaned in the night. When I spoke to him, his eyes opened and he seemed to hear me. When he tried to talk, he made no sense. I spooned a little broth into him, but the liquid just dribbled out of his mouth again, and I was beginning to be afraid he was dying.

  I was just wiping up the mess I’d made when the light in the shed dimmed. Godekker was in the doorway. He leaned over the Attolian, his eyes narrowing—he’d seen the ring in the Attolian’s ear, and I couldn’t pass it off as something we’d stolen in a tavern.

  “He’s not a slave,” Godekker said. “You’re a slave. He is not.”

  “He is helping me escape.”

  Godekker’s face suffused with rage. “Patsy,” he snarled. “Dog. Whimpering, bootlicking dog. Why do you need Godekker for a friend? Why be here in Godekker’s shed? Go find an inn for your master.”

  “I told you.”

  “He isn’t helping you escape. He’s stealing you. When he gets you far enough away from your old master, you’ll find out what that means. You’re nothing, you’re a horse ridden by whoever holds the reins.”

  “No.” I denied it with a weak shake of my head.

  Godekker pointed to a pile of debris near the doorway. “Take a rock from the pile and beat his head in. Then you’ll be free.”

  He stormed off. Holding the pot in one hand, the spoon in the other, I listened for the sound of the gate, and relaxed when his anger didn’t seem to have carried him farther than the yard. I couldn’t help but wonder if Godekker was right. I was glad I’d gone back to the mill, but why stay with the Attolian when he was ill—when it might be my best chance to leave? I could go down to the docks, find any Attolian ship, and tell his countrymen where the Attolian lay. They’d come for him. Godekker wouldn’t slit the Attolian’s throat if he knew there would be a reward—and there surely would be a reward from the Attolians. Meanwhile, I would be well aboard any ship that could carry me across the Shallow Sea to the north, farther from any retribution from the empire. I could go all the way to Oncevar, which I’d heard was civilizing itself. My skill as a scribe would keep me fed, and no one would pursue me there.

  On the other hand, I would never know if the Attolian lived or died, and after all that worry getting him out of the well, I would spend the rest of my life asking myself a question I couldn’t answer. I decided to wait just long enough to see if he lived. If he did, I would get him to an Attolian ship and then slip away. If he died, I would leave immediately for the north. It was a reasonable decision—I wasn’t just rationalizing—unless I was. Maybe I was a patsy, as Godekker claimed. I had been a slave for most of my life. Was I incapable of acting as a free man?

  I put the spoon and pot down and reluctantly went to talk to Godekker.

  “Does he only have eyes for you?” Godekker called to me when I came out through the doorway of the shed. He sneered. “Does he tell you how much he loves you? Does he tell you how pretty you are? Just wait. His father will send a tidy sum to your master as compensation, and when he tires of you, they will sell you on to some new master. If you are that lucky.”

  I had misjudged Godekker. I’d thought money was all he cared for, but I could see that he had taken pride in the idea of helping fellow slaves. Now he felt betrayed, and for good reason.

  “I’m sorry, Godekker,” I said. “We have been bad guests.”

  “I should have passed you by, should have left you for the enforcers to pick up, but I thought I could help. I could hide you, and why not? Why not do a good turn? Because we don’t, that’s why. We don’t do favors, do we?”

  It was true. We don’t do favors. I have in my time—for Laela and a very few others, but only because I was, or had been, powerful enough not to need those favors back, and the obligation to repay me was tempered by that. Even so, when I arranged for my master to make Laela mistress over the other girls in his household instead of selli
ng her, I had kept it a secret at first, concerned that she would be angry at me. When you have no freedom, the last thing you want is some other slave who holds a debt over you. We don’t do favors. Now I was indebted to Godekker, and I knew that was part of the reason I didn’t like him.

  “You are right, he is stealing me, but not because he loves me.” I thought I might as well be as honest as possible. “He is taking me to his employer, and he will free me.”

  He snorted in disbelief. “You are an idiot if you believe that.”

  I admitted that was probably true. “I am not a fool, and if my old master catches me, I am a dead man. If I end up a slave because of this, well, I was a slave before. We don’t get to choose much, do we, Godekker?”

  With obvious reluctance he nodded in agreement, but then he said, “A well-placed knife thrust would buy you your freedom faster.” He stood up and looked me in the eye—as much as someone even shorter than I am could. “Kill him,” he said, his chin jutting out. “Bash his head in with a rock and be free. I will be your friend then.”

  I shrugged weakly. “He’s valuable if he lives,” I said. “He’ll reward you, Godekker, and he’ll get me out of here.”

  Godekker turned his back, and I retreated to the shed.

  The Attolian woke in the afternoon. I heard him say my name and rose to check his fever. It had broken, and he was covered in sweat—I was able to give him some water from a cup.

  “Where?” he asked after a sip, his voice hoarse.

  “In the city,” I said. “Zaboar. In a safe place. How are you?”

  “My throat hurts,” said the Attolian. “Not as much now, though.”

  I asked if he could drink the broth, and when he said yes, I lifted him and held the pot to his lips.

  The pot was too wide to easily drink from, and he ended up with a fair amount spilled on himself. As he drank I explained in a low voice about the rumors of plague and the closing of the trade house, about Godekker and our hideaway. “When you are up to it, we can go down to the docks. There may be a ship to carry us to another trade house.”

  The Attolian settled back into the mattress and lay looking at the ceiling not far over his head. I sat on the floor beside him with my arms around my knees.

  “Kamet, what is troubling you?” he asked, though it was obviously painful for him to speak.

  “Nothing. Nothing at all. We are safe here.”

  With effort he lifted his head to throw me a disbelieving look.

  “Everything is fine,” I said.

  I hadn’t realized Godekker was listening from just outside until he thrust his face into view. “I told him to hit you on the head and be free of you. And if he doesn’t, I’ll turn you both in to the guard.” Then he was gone again.

  Horrified, I tried to reassure the Attolian. “Don’t worry,” I said.

  “I’m not.”

  “There’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Kamet—”

  “I swear.”

  “Kamet. I’m not worried.” His eyes closed briefly, but he forced himself awake. “Did he tell you that you are too weak to be a free man?”

  “He’s a fool,” I said.

  “So are you, if you believe him.” His certainty was almost enough to convince me. He said, “If it were Nahuseresh lying on this bed, would you still be here?”

  Instinctively I looked to the rock pile. I could see it through the open doorway. If it were Nahuseresh who stood between me and my chance of escape, I might very well smash his head in, as Godekker demanded. If it were Nahuseresh, though, I’d be long gone and Godekker be damned.

  I looked down at the Attolian, whose smile was fading as he drifted back to sleep.

  Huh. I’d meant for him to eat some of the vegetables as well as drink the broth, but that would have to wait.

  The Attolian slept more comfortably that night while I stayed awake to listen for any sounds of Godekker leaving the yard. I heard nothing to alarm me. In the morning, the Attolian was awake and I was dozing when we heard heavy footsteps in the passageway. It could have been anyone approaching until we heard the distinctive sound of a metal breastplate scraping against stone.

  “Godekker,” I said, and rushed out to the courtyard, where Godekker was nowhere in sight. A ladder propped against the low roof of the stable told me how he had gotten away without alerting me. I kicked myself for telling him that the Attolian was valuable. I’d hoped Godekker would think it worth his while to keep us safe, but instead, he’d thought it worth the risk to his own freedom to betray us.

  As a squad of enforcers came into sight, I threw myself at the gate, shaking it as hard as I could without actually causing the rusted chain to loosen and drop off.

  “It’s not the plague!” I shouted. “I swear! I swear!”

  The men in front stopped dead in their tracks. Others, stuck behind them, tried to push forward.

  “Please,” I begged, twisting my entire body as if with desperation. “Please, it’s not the plague!”

  There was some very directed swearing, and the men nearest me popped forward a few reluctant steps to allow their leader room to pass, and there beside him, oh, heavenly graces, was Godekker himself, looking as trustworthy as a rat out of a sewer.

  “Godekker,” I shouted, as if surprised to see him, “tell our master that Noli is getting better. It wasn’t the plague! We can come home now!” I pushed my face against the gate. “Master only said to sell us if Noli got worse, and he isn’t getting worse. He’s better, Godekker, I swear.”

  Well, that put the cat among the pigeons.

  The officer in charge of the enforcers stared down his nose at Godekker, who threw his hands up in protest, looking like nothing so much as an unscrupulous slave palming off his master’s plague-infected property for reward money before the disease became obvious. While Godekker shouted that we were runaways and that they should drag out the “foreigner,” and I sobbed dramatically, the officer was doing his own share of shouting, accusing Godekker of trying to get him and the entire squad infected with the plague and insisting there was no way he or any of his men was stepping into that courtyard.

  Finally, Godekker, maddened with frustration, crossed a line.

  “Coward!” he screamed. “There’s no Noli, it’s a foreigner! And he’s Kamet! I tell you, Kamet!”

  “Coward?” The guard leader stared at him, and Godekker fell silent.

  “No offense, kind sir,” he said quickly, “no offense.” But it was too late. With a single blow across the face, the officer knocked him down and when he was down kicked him.

  “You like the plague?” the guard leader said. “Why don’t you go in then?”

  I fell silent and backed away as they lifted the protesting Godekker and threw him bodily over the high gate to land at my feet with a dull crack of his head on the pavement.

  He lay unmoving as the guard leader looked me over through the bars.

  “We’ll come back in a few days. If you’re still here and still alive, we’ll sort out who you are.”

  Then he ordered his men about, and they left, squeezing one by one down the passage.

  When they were gone, I bent over Godekker. He was still breathing and his head didn’t seem to be broken, so I pulled his shirt off and tore it into strips to tie his ankles and wrists. The Attolian leaned at the doorway to watch, but I waved him back inside. Then I slowly dragged Godekker across the courtyard and into the shed.

  “Better give him the bed,” said the Attolian.

  “He can have the floor,” I said.

  I made the Attolian lie back down to rest and made more broth with the last of the water and some carrots while we waited to see if Godekker was going to wake up or die. He’d begun to groan and pull against his bonds, but it was still some time before he opened his eyes and knew where he was. What he said then was impolite. I could believe he’d been a field-worker.

  “I have enough left of your shirt to put a gag in your mouth,” I said, unsympath
etic.

  Now that Godekker was tied up, I could do what hadn’t been safe before. I unwrapped the chain from the gate and went out to buy better food and bring back skins full of fresh water. I went down to the docks to see if there was an Attolian ship but couldn’t pick one out in the inner harbor. There was a vendor selling skewers of grilled meat, though, so I bought three and went back to the courtyard.

  Godekker watched with silent hate as I put the small sack of barley and the basket full of provisions down by the hearthstones. I could almost see his mouth watering as I handed the Attolian the skewer of meat, and I thought his eyes would jump out of his head when I handed him one of his own. He held it in his still-tied hands. He looked at it and then at me. His eyes dropped, and he began to cry.

  I’d been angry enough to beat Godekker myself when I heard the enforcers of the peace coming, but my heart was swept again by pity. That didn’t make me untie him. Eventually he stopped sniffling and wolfed the meat off the skewer. I made the Attolian a decent soup with barley and vegetables and shared that with Godekker as well. I didn’t expect an apology, and he didn’t offer one. When he was done eating, he turned his face to the wall and ignored us.

  The next morning I asked the Attolian if he thought he was well enough to travel. With Godekker still tied up and glowering in the background, we couldn’t discuss our plans. All I could say was that we had no idea when the enforcers might be back, so we should move on at the earliest opportunity, and the Attolian agreed.

  We shared one last potful of soup, and then we left the shed. We’d been there so long I felt I should have something to pack, but there was nothing. The Attolian paused in the doorway to look back into the dark where Godekker sat. I had retied one hand to the bed frame with a multitude of knots. He would get himself free once we were gone, but not quickly—we would be well away by the time he did. The Attolian held out a hand, and I gave him our purse. He tipped it upside down and then leaned to pour a handful of coins into Godekker’s lap.

  Once we had emerged from the dead-end passageway, I asked, “How much did you give him?”