Contents
Copyright
Dedication
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CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
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Note from the Author
About the Author
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
A Sellsword’s Valor: Book Four of the Seven Virtues
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To mom,
What imagination I have,
I have because of you.
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CHAPTER
ONE
Allia walked Baresh’s Merchant’s Street, weaving in and out of the bustle of people as they visited their favorite shops in search of some new trinket or bobble to waste their money on. She passed a shop where the owner shouted to passersby about his latest tonic, guaranteed to put hair on a man’s chest while, at the same time, making a woman’s body hair vanish. Allia thought it a foolish claim. After all, how would the potion know what did or didn’t swing between the legs of the person who drank it? Nevertheless, the merchant had a crowd of at least a dozen people gathered around listening to his pitch in rapt attention.
If she hadn’t been on the job, Allia would have most likely stopped and asked the man some pointed questions about his so-called tonic, but instead she only walked past, shaking her head in disgust.
The poor spent their time looking for money to support their families while, it seemed to her, the rich and wealthy searched for the next ridiculous thing to spend their coin on. The thought made her angry, and she almost turned around before grunting and forcing herself onward down the street. She glanced at the shops and vendors she passed so as not to arouse suspicion, but she never let her gaze stray far from her two marks.
Her mom, when she was sober enough to speak—less and less often of late—used to tell her that she had a nose for finding trouble and should only be thankful that the gods had given her the feet for getting out of it. These days though, the only words out of her mom’s mouth were “Where’s the wine?” or “Allie, you fool girl, pass your poor old mother her pipe.” A pipe which was filled with tamarang, the same herb that was slowly killing her and hundreds of other addicts in the city.
Still, her mom was right about one thing; Allia was fast. She always had been. Something she’d had reason to be thankful for nearly every day in the years since her mother had lost her job at the clerk’s office, and they’d ended up living on the street. Or at least, they would have if Allia, a girl of eight years at the time, hadn’t taken matters into her own hands, stealing what they needed from those who had plenty to spare.
She didn’t even look at it as a crime, not really. After all, she never stole from the poor or struggling, only the rich and well-off. If she didn’t take the money, they’d only find some inane use for it anyway. Buying another shirt they didn’t need or a dress they didn’t want—who knows, maybe even a magic tonic to grow hair on their chest, though the gods alone knew why any man would want that, or why any woman would want it on her man, for that matter.
Not that Allia was an expert on men or relationships—though she could have been, if she’d wished it. She never really thought much about how she looked, but she’d heard enough to know that she was considered pretty by men—maybe even beautiful—and what virtue she had would have been gone long ago if not for the feet her mother talked about. It was a dangerous thing to live a life in the poor quarter as a young, pretty girl, but it wasn’t as if she had a choice in the matter. Besides, as much as her looks might have been a burden, they also came in handy from time to time, particularly when she was on the job.
Allia realized she’d let herself become distracted by thoughts of her mother and glanced back up only to see that the couple she’d been following was gone, lost in the crowd that packed the streets. Fool girl, Allia scolded herself, though as was often the case it wasn’t her voice she heard in the reprimand, but her mother’s. Her mother rarely spoke now as the drug robbed her of her mind, but “fool girl” was one of the few phrases she remembered. Lucky me. She cursed and weaved her way through the crowd, her slight frame helping her to dodge around the people cluttering the streets and between the horse-drawn carts that slowly made their way down it.
She was just starting to accept that she’d lost the couple in truth when she picked them up again on the other side of the street, browsing the wares of a fat merchant’s shop. Allia breathed a sigh of relief and made her way across the street, ignoring the angry shouts of one of the cart drivers as she darted in front of his horses. She paused at a tailor’s shop, glancing inside at the dresses as if considering buying one, but she kept the couple in the corner of her vision. A well-dressed man in spectacles walked out of the shop, moving toward her, and she fought back an annoyed sigh.
“Hello there, little miss,” he said, adjusting the spectacles on his nose. Allia had to fight back a frown at that. She’d had a hard life, had been forced to care for herself for years, and she wasn’t fond of being called “little miss.”
“Hello,” she said, not bothering to look at him, hoping that he’d take the hint and go away.
He didn’t though, and that was no surprise.
“A fine day we’re having isn’t it? Nice warm weather to make up for the cold spell we’ve
been having lately.”
Allia glanced up at the clear sky. The truth was, she hadn’t been paying attention to the weather at all. She noticed when it was cold—the poor always did. Never enough blankets or enough clothes to keep the chill out, never enough wood to feed the fire … but when the weather was fine, she always had other things to worry over. “Yes, I suppose it is.”
The man grinned widely, leaning in close and following her eyes, which were once more on the shop’s window, keeping track of the couple. “Oh yes,” he said, “that’s a fine dress. If you don’t mind me saying so, you would look quite lovely in it, though, to be fair, a rare beauty such as yours would look lovely even in rags.”
Allia harrumphed at that, a very unladylike sound that her mother had been trying to break her of. But, then, she’d been trying to break her mother of slowly killing herself smoking tamarang and that hadn’t worked, so she’d keep her habits, thank you very much. And anyway, she didn’t look lovely in rags; she’d worn enough in her time to know it. Still wore them, in fact, when she wasn’t on the job and forced to wear the only fine dress she owned—an expense that had set her back for a week’s work at least, but one that was necessary to avoid drawing the attention of the guards that regularly patrolled the streets.
“Would my lady like to try it on?”
Allia snorted this time—the only thing her mother hated more than the harrumph. A lady now, am I? She considered what this finely-dressed tailor might say if he saw the one room shack she and her mother called a home. Probably “lady” wouldn’t be the first word that came to mind. Still, her craft, such as it was, was all about avoiding attention, so she really looked at the dress for the first time. “It is a very fine garment,” she said, doing her best to mimic the bored, somehow whiny tones that seemed to be a way of speaking reserved solely for pampered noblewomen. “Still, I’m afraid I left my coin purse at the manse.” Manse, she thought, and was only just able to hold her laughter back. “Perhaps I will come back for it another time.” She hoped that would be the end of it, and the man would leave. Unfortunately, she wasn’t that lucky.
“Ah,” the tailor said, his jovial expression disappearing in an instant, “I see.” Then he seemed to have an idea, and the smile he flashed her this time wasn’t friendly, but slimy—a smile with certain expectations. She’d know well enough—she’d been given such smiles before, usually while the owner of that smile held some half-molded piece of bread or some stringy, rancid meat in front of her as if it were some fine delicacy.
“Well, if my young miss has forgotten her coin that is no great affair. A beauty such as yours deserves to wear a dress befitting its grace. I’m sure that, if you’d like to follow me inside,” he said, leaning close enough that she could smell the sickly sweet odor of his breath, “we might come to some…mutually beneficial arrangement.”
“Oh,” she said, nodding and putting on her best innocent expression, “that is very kind, sir, very kind. Let me just ask my father and make sure it is alright with him—I’m sure he’ll wish to thank you for your kindness.” She looked around as if trying to find him. “Now, I wonder where he ran off to. He was here just a moment ago…”
The tailor squirmed, obviously uncomfortable. “Ah, well, please do tell your father I said hello, miss,” he said, the lecherous look nowhere in evidence now, “and please forgive me, as I just realized there is a matter that requires my immediate attention.”
“Oh, you’re leaving?” Allia said in that same innocent voice, unable to help herself. “So soon?”
The tailor cleared his throat, nodding. “Sadly I must, my lady,” he said, glancing around nervously as if he expected her fictitious father to materialize at any moment wielding a broadsword and screaming in rage like one of the barbarians from stories she’d heard as a child. “But I do hope you enjoy the day.”
“You as well,” Allia said, smiling, but the man was already disappearing into his shop once more. Snorting in satisfaction, she turned and ambled leisurely farther down the street, toward her marks. The woman wore a fine blue dress, the man rich sable trousers and a white, puffy shirt, but it was the bulging coin purse at his side that had first caught her attention and had held it for the last two hours. She shook her head once again in wonder at the thought that anyone would be so naïve as to keep his purse so visible for anyone’s eyes to catch and anyone’s hands to grab. Even the children of the poor district knew better than that, but the rich, as a whole, seemed preposterously terrible at protecting their coin. So much so that she sometimes wondered how they had any at all.
“You see, Mother,” she muttered to herself as she made her way down the street, weaving around the crowd, “I’m not a criminal. I’m a teacher.” Not that she would ever tell her mother as much in person, for her mother’s anger was a fitfully sleeping beast, easily roused, and Allia had been left with more than one bruise for waking it.
Her good mood at the tailor’s discomfort suddenly gone, Allia walked up to stand at the shop adjacent to where the woman was currently trying on a large, shining necklace, from which hung a jewel nearly as big as Allia’s fist. The shop owner watched with a mixture of excitement and nervousness, licking his lips, his hands fidgeting anxiously as if to catch the precious necklace should the woman lose her hold on it.
A dangerous thought flashed into Allia’s mind. The coin purse would be all well and good, no doubt its contents enough to provide food for her and her mother for at least a week—not that her mother did any more than peck at any meal. It sometimes seemed to Allia that the woman survived solely off of the smoke of the tamarang herb and whatever nutritional content she accidentally imbibed with her wine. The necklace though…such a prize as that would mean months, possibly as much as a year’s worth of food and clothes, as well as the medicine her mother sometimes purchased for her aches and pains. Staring at the necklace, Allia thought there would even be plenty left over for them to stay at an inn, a place where they would never have to worry about the roof leaking or falling through when it rained or snowed.
Don’t you even think it, Allie, she told herself, again in her mother’s voice. Just put it right out of your mind. But the thought didn’t want to be put out of her mind, and she stood there for several indecisive moments. No, she finally decided. It wasn’t worth it. True, the guards would search for the woman responsible for stealing a man’s coin purse, but they’d give it up as a lost cause soon enough. Baresh was a big city, after all, and there were many noblemen with many purses. The necklace though…that was a different story. Such an item as that would have a reward attached to it, and more than one enterprising young guard, looking to buy his way into his superiors’ good graces or, more likely, into the good graces of his lady love, would be most interested in catching the person responsible.
Still, the necklace really was beautiful. Not that she’d ever consider wearing such a thing herself—might as well wear a sign saying “rob me.” But she knew there were those in the poor district who would pay quite handsomely for such an item. Not its actual worth, of course—they were criminals after all—but enough that she and her mother would be well-fed for many months to come.
Don’t Allie. Just don’t. She eased her way up to the couple as the woman admired the necklace on her neck and the man admired a spot somewhere a few inches below that. Allia felt her face heat at the noblewoman’s low-cut dress. It seemed that the man and woman both loved to put what wealth they had on display for all to see. Fools and ones that could do with a lesson. “If you don’t mind me saying, my lady,” Allia said, “that is quite a beautiful necklace. It looks radiant on you.”
The couple and the shopkeeper turned to look at the new visitor in their midst. The woman smiled as if she expected as much. “Thank you, dear,” she said, preening, “it really is quite fine.”
“Yes, fine indeed,” the man said in a distracted sort of way as his eyes roamed up and down Allia. “My wife is, of course, quite lovely. Though, I wonder how it would look o
n you yourself, madam.”
Don’t even think it, Allie. “Oh,” Allia said, holding up a hand and not having to fake the blush that rose to her cheeks, “I couldn’t.”
“Oh, come now don’t be so modest,” the man said, winking at her before turning back to his wife. “May I see it, dear?”
The woman smiled, but Allia could see the annoyance lurking under the expression. “Of course,” she said, taking the necklace off and handing it to her husband as if already bored with it.
The shopkeeper opened his mouth to object, but glanced at the noble couple, obviously wealthy by their dress and manner, and thought better of it.
“There you are,” the man said, sliding the necklace over Allia’s long blonde hair, his hand contriving, somehow, to brush her breast as he drew it back. “Quite lovely indeed.”
And just like that, Allia’s decision was made for her. She bowed her head slightly. “You are too kind, sir, truly.”
The man smiled, winking once more. “You cannot imagine how kind I can be, lady.”
His wife cleared her throat at that, but Allia was considering her options and barely paid it any attention. “Still,” she said, starting to take the necklace off, “I really can’t—” She stumbled then, bumping into the table the shopkeeper had set outside of his shop and sending several trinkets and bobbles—none as nice as the necklace—falling to the ground. “Oh gods, but I’m a clumsy fool,” she said, “please forgive me.”
The shopkeeper let out a yelp and dropped to his knees, hurriedly scooping up the items as if he thought at any moment some thief would materialize and run off with them. If only he knew the thief was already there. The nobleman smiled, putting a hand on her shoulder where he squeezed it in a possessive, insinuating way, “Never fear,” he said, laughing. Then he, too, bent to pick up some of the merchant’s goods as if to display his chivalry.
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