Skate the Thief

by Jeff Ayers

  “Well put, Boss Marshall.” The Big Boss tapped a finger on the chair, the one extraneous movement from him during the whole encounter. “If there’s nothing else, we’ve much work to be done. Deliver that message to Gherun today. Do it before you return to Belamy’s home.”

  Skate nodded and made for the door. Haman turned a page. Boss took another sip from his drink.

  Chapter 23

  In which a tune is sung, a letter is delivered, and a knot is untied.

  The snow continued to fall when she stepped out into the street. She braced herself against the cold, which her coat was not entirely able to ward off, and turned toward the Baron’s Quarter. Her pulled-up hood would bring no suspicion in this weather, so the Guard was no worry.

  Why was the Big Boss here? Perhaps Kite’s talk of Boss Marshall’s dangerous position was true; maybe he really was in danger of catching the Big Boss’s ire.

  The air in that room had been warmer than out here, but the chilliness of the mood within made the trek without the far more preferable option. I hope the Boss will be okay. He probably would be. Haman was there, and his magic was strong enough to keep them both safe, even from the Big Boss’s stone-faced personal guards. He’ll be okay.

  Unsurprisingly, the Keepers were fast at work keeping the cobbles of the Baron’s Quarter free of snow, with teams of shovelers scraping clear the roads and as much of the sidewalks as they could—followed closely by teams of bag holders, who were walking and casting salt from huge bags. Each bag bore the official sign of the Baron’s house. “Witch salt,” the stuff was called, because it was made by magicians. It had a taste approximating the lowest quality salt and cost nothing to make (other than the fees charged by the wizards and witches who made it), so it was well-suited to its current use of being trampled underfoot to dissolve the dangerous impediment that was still falling onto the heads of those trying to clear it from the streets. The Keepers were singing as they worked, a rhythmic nonsense tune. Their hazy breath formed a hurried cloud about them while they trudged and threw, trudged and threw.

  Bind my hands and free my arms,

  Please my sir, yes my sir.

  Take my clothes and leave my hat,

  Please my sir, yes my sir.

  Shave my head and pass the comb,

  Please my sir, yes my sir.

  Break my feet and tend my shoes,

  Please my sir, yes my sir.

  They went through several more verses of the song by the time they passed out of her earshot, and they would probably go through many more before they restarted the tune or found a different song to keep pace with. It was one of dozens of such songs the workers learned to make their work more bearable and more efficient. Haman had explained it to her once.

  “Songs cheer the heart,” he’d said as they’d passed a trio of singing Keepers helping to clean up after a nasty wagon spill near the docks. “A cheered heart makes a better worker. Plus, for anything that requires repetitive motions, it helps to have a rhythm going that everyone can hear. It speeds things along, and it keeps everyone on one pace. It’s why the sailors know so many songs; much of their job requires working as a team and doing things the same way, at the same speed, as everyone around them. Soldiers, too.”

  “Who came up with that?”

  “No idea,” he’d said, dropping a copper blade into a nearby beggar’s bag. “I don’t know if it’s the sort of thing that one person could even be credited for finding out. Some things just get discovered all at once by many people in different places. It’s gone on for centuries, though; I’m sure of that.”

  Skate hadn’t thought about it since then. The road she traveled had already been scraped by the Keepers, but would not stay clear for long; even now, as Guards went about their patrols and wagon wheels bumped and creaked along the stones, the snow was reasserting its command, forming another thin sheet of white that would, within the hour, hide the stones beneath.

  It didn’t matter much; Skate would be out this way again well before that. Already, the colossal housing manor purported alternately to be owned by the Baron or a relative towered at the end of the avenue, where the road intersected with another and simply stopped.

  Skate passed by shops selling decorative luxuries, fresh bread, candlesticks, fine household tools, sweet foreign delicacies, fine clothes, etched silverware, intricate clockwork timepieces, hot bowls of soup, highest-caliber wine, steaming mugs of coffee, and even extravagances like chocolate and jewelry. In the windows of such shops, pedestrians could see haughty eyes roving hungrily over offered goods, and the deferential salesmen, shopkeepers, and clerks bowing and joking and demonstrating, selling the goods to those who had no needs and every desire to buy nonetheless.

  Of course, it wasn’t only shops and stores. People here lived near the Baron’s Palace, where only the wealthiest could afford to build or buy. Through these decorated windows, white and yellow lights from magic and candles mingled to create a golden glow that shimmered like twinkling waves on the white-and-gray palette provided by the half-cleaned streets. Within, the lords and ladies entertained their guests with drinks and food served on platters of silver, all dressed in clothes bought from the smiling and bowing salesmen down the street. By contrast, the servants carrying the platters dressed in plain, sturdy blacks and grays. They worked around the masters and mistresses with deft movements honed by years of practice, never missing a beat, never spilling a drink.

  “Nobility,” Ossertine had said of the lords and ladies.

  Skate snorted, sending a burst of cloud in front of her as she neared the doors of the great manse she’d burgled a few short weeks ago. I don’t see any of that. Just money. Money and connections and closed doors. That’s all.

  Skate stopped short of opening the door and retrieved the letter she’d been charged with delivering. She traced the letters written on the front of the envelope in a flowing, flourishing hand, and confirmed that it bore its recipient’s name: Jack Gherun. Then she walked inside, letter in hand.

  The room looked almost exactly as it had before: imposing to people like her, while welcoming to people like Gherun. The main differences were the fact that there were people sitting in the poofy chairs, sharing cups of something warm and steamy that smelled something like apples, and that the manager behind the dark wood counter was the one she’d had pinned as the more competent one. She steeled herself and approached the desk, turning her nose up only the slightest bit as she gingerly placed the letter on the counter.

  The manager looked up from the ledger he had been studying. “How can I help you, miss?” His voice was polite and soft, as if he were making an effort not to disturb any of the conversations of the tenants in the main hall.

  “I’ve come to deliver a message to Jack—excuse me,” she said, smirking and bringing a hand to her neck in an imitation of embarrassment, “Mr. Gherun. It should be delivered as soon as possible, please.”

  He picked up the letter between thumb and forefinger. “Who is the sender?”

  “I’m sure I have no idea. I was stopped on the street by a gentleman who asked if I knew Mr. Gherun. I responded that I did, and he gave this letter, with instructions to deliver it.”

  “I see.” He tapped the letter lightly on the counter. “And you know Mr. Gherun.”

  “Oh, yes. He’s some relation to my mother, distantly. We just call him Uncle Jack.”

  He set the note down and arched an eyebrow. “Mr. Gherun does not usually receive…visitors.”

  “Oh, I know. And I’m not here to visit. Just to deliver a message and step out of the cold for a moment.”

  He drummed his fingers lightly on the counter, a set of finicky, rolling taps at a time before lifting the letter again and setting it somewhere underneath the counter. Skate frowned and did her best to sound arrogant and annoyed, which wasn’t hard; the man’s apparent wordless refusal to deliver the letter had put her in a bad mood. “You’re not going to deliver it?”

  “I will, you
ng miss, as soon as Mr. Gherun returns. He is out.”

  “He’s never out.” This was an unexpected wrinkle. There had been no reason to assume Gherun would be anywhere other than his own quarters when she’d made her way toward the manse. Realizing her outburst was not a normal thing to have said, she improvised. “Mother says he’s a shut-in.”

  The manager’s eyebrows ruffled a bit at that. “Mr. Gherun is a private individual, it’s true. But he had a social call earlier this morning. He is not a ‘shut-in,’ young miss.”

  “Of course.” She offered a most insincere smile before turning away, making sure her boots clicked just loudly enough to irritate some nearby residents who had been shooting her suspicious glances throughout the whole conversation from one of the small tables in the hall.

  Skate returned once more to falling snow and bitter cold. She threw her hood over her head, the fur-lined coif offering some relief. The cobblestones were almost hidden again. She took a moment to think about Jack Gherun under the shelter of the awning draped over the doorway.

  He’ll get the message, one way or the other. Either the manager would do as she’d asked and deliver it to him, or he’d read it himself and deliver the message afterward. The worst-case scenario, she figured, involved the manager involving the Guard, but even in that case, Gherun would get the message. The Boss—the Big Boss, she reminded herself—wouldn’t like the Guard’s involvement, but these things happened. Besides, she’d bet her last helm on BB having included a line about not getting the Guard involved. Clients who squealed to the Guard usually got a warning visit from one of Shade’s crew. The next day, the clients’d show up in front of the Guard taking back everything they’d said. “I was mistaken,” was the oft-repeated line, followed by apologies for wasting everyone’s time and regular hefty payments to the Ink.

  At some point in her musings, she’d begun walking in the general direction of the Old Town. It had not been a conscious decision; when her mind began to race, her legs had a tendency to move. She’d not moved more than two blocks from the manse before she stopped cold, staring like a startled rabbit into a very unwelcome face.

  Jack Gherun and a man Skate did not recognize were walking on the same stretch of road as she, and now they stood less than five feet apart. Gherun saw her at almost the exact moment she saw him, and interrupted whatever conversation the two had been having with a shout of “You!”

  The word stirred her to movement, but she had only taken a step before both feet were lifted off the ground by a hand around her neck. She flew into a nearby alley, where her back was slammed against the wall hard enough to knock the wind out of her. She looked down to see Gherun, wild-eyed with his arm outstretched. His friend’s hand was also out, making a clutching gesture, but they were several paces away. Magic, she thought stupidly as she clawed at her neck, trying to break the grip of something she could not touch; she was swatting at air. She could breathe, but it was a laborious process, and she did not doubt that the unseen hand could close tighter if the unknown wizard wanted it to.

  “You know this one?” The companion’s voice was deep; she was sure she’d heard it before, but with her feet dangling several feet off the ground, it was not her most pressing concern.

  “It’s her. She’s the one that stole from me.” The wizard gripped tighter. “The one who’s working to ruin my life.”

  The unknown man had a wide, blocky face, like a statue of a brute left unfinished. “She’s young. I expected a lass of some sixteen years, the way you described it.”

  “I may have exaggerated—look, it was dark, and it doesn’t matter. This is her. The oracle doesn’t lie.” Gherun’s face was warped with hate, and he sounded like he was struggling to keep his voice from shaking.

  “Gonna let him kill me, Jack?” Skate asked, not bothering with addressing him as an adult. “Be a bad idea. You got a letter waiting for you. Go read it. I’ll wait.” She thought she sounded confident, but that was hard to tell at the best of times, and less easy to pull off when suspended by throat-restricting magic. Still, she must have done well, since she saw a waver in Gherun’s face—from unbridled hatred to a flash of fear.

  “What are you talking about?” The shaking in his voice was obvious, and any attempt he was trying to make to prevent it was failing miserably. “What letter?”

  “From my Bosses. Go check; I’m serious. I’ll wait here. Have whoever this guy is keep an eye on me if you want,” she said, pointing at Gherun’s friend before immediately returning to trying to take the invisible hand from her throat. “Or don’t, but either way, have him drop me, would you? This is less comfortable than you probably think.”

  Gherun’s face spasmed, warping from rage to fear and back again in rapid order. He eventually said, “Let her down.” The wizard pulled his arm back slightly and lowered her, kicking and gasping, to the ground. The snow buildup was not so high here, so the fall was not padded much—but other than a shock through her legs as she landed, Skate was unhurt.

  She rubbed her throat and coughed. There was still pressure there, but not nearly as much. Gherun pulled his companion close and whispered something in his ear before bolting toward his home and the unwelcome message waiting for him there. The friend turned toward Skate and held a splayed hand up in front of him.

  “You move, and I’ll hurt you.”

  Again, the sense that she knew the voice washed over her, and now that she had time to think, she intended to figure it out. “Sure, no problem.” She took several deep, steadying breaths and used the time to try to place that voice. “How do you know Jack?” she asked. “Family?”

  “Shut up, thief.” The deep-voiced man spoke without much conviction. He was only irritated, not truly upset.

  “Pretty sure I know most of his acquaintances.” She began ticking them off on her fingers. “His cleaning crew, the managers of his home, a group of thieves, a set of wizards—ah!” she said, snapping her finger and pointing at the man. “You must be Gemhide, right? Bakurin Gemhide, who lives in the docks.”

  “How do you know my name?” Gemhide had tensed up, and the splayed hand gripped inward slightly, looking like a claw.

  Skate took a seat against the wall and set her head back, looking up at the sky as snow continued to fall. The buildings protected against the wind and most of the snow. “We know all kinds of things.”

  “‘We’? Are you…” He lowered his hand almost imperceptibly and was about to finish his sentence, but shook his head and thought better of it. “Shut up,” was all he said, and raised his arm back up.

  Skate smiled and closed her eyes. He knows about the Ink. He might have been contacted and brought on as a client. The Ink, after all, did the bulk of their business in the docks and the slums, where they were allowed to operate more or less free of the Guard’s interference. For that reason, most of their protection clients were in the docks. The slums rarely contained anything worth protecting, so the Ink didn’t even bother trying to extort money in a systematic way there. It would be impossible, however, to live for any period of time in the docks and not be aware of the syndicate that ran vice.

  They remained in their respective positions until Gherun returned. He was holding the note, opened but replaced in its envelope, in a quivering hand. He looked about to cry.

  “Jack?” Gemhide turned toward his friend in concern. The broken man said nothing. He handed over the letter and stared at the ground, as if doing so would keep his problems safely away from him. Gemhide turned away slightly to better catch the gray light seeping through the overcast sky in order to read the words on the page. His brow furrowed as he reached the bottom of the one-page note. He folded it back to its compact shape. He looked up at Skate. “Are you one of them?”

  “The ones behind that note? Sure, I’m one of them.” She climbed back up to her feet, swatting the snow off her clothes. “So, we’re done here, right?”

  “Of course we’re not done!” Gemhide’s deep voice had become a growl. “You can�
�t just steal from a person and leave a threatening letter without dealing with it.”

  “You know who sent that letter. You know that I can do whatever I want so long as it’s with permission.”

  “There’s a sign.” Gemhide’s voice had become somewhat strained, restricted by nervousness. “If you’re one of them, show me a sign. Each member has to pierce a bone somewhere on their body.”

  Skate snorted. “Liar.” She rubbed her arms to stave off the cold.

  Gemhide pursed his lips. “Fine. What’s the tattoo look like?”

  “It’s too cold to show you mine. Here,” she said, drawing a rough sketch of the tattoo in the snow: a quill with a drop of ink at the end of the nib. The quill pointed to the left, positioned as if it were writing on a page. It had six divots in the feather. “It’s the same symbol that was pressed on the seal of that letter,” she said with a quick wave at the paper in his hand. She wiped the snow off her glove.

  Gemhide heaved a sigh and turned to Gherun. “She’s one of them. It’s real.” He held the letter out to the other man, who took it wordlessly and slipped it into the fold of his robes.

  Gherun turned his hateful gaze on her. “So, that’s it, then?” The almost-weeping quality of his voice had gone. “Any other news you’d like to deliver?”

  “No, everything I was supposed to give you was in that envelope.” She stepped into the street proper. “And since you did your little trick before you got the letter, we’ll call it square. I won’t tell anyone you attacked one of us. You didn’t know, right?”

  “How generous of you.”

  “It is, really, but you’re mad. I get that. So, I’m gonna leave and let you work through that on your own. We’re not so bad, you know. You really will be protected now.” She turned to Gemhide. “You knew about us already, didn’t you?”

  He nodded and pursed his lips.