The Thief's Gamble

by Juliet E. McKenna

  The women spent a long moment exchanging glances which conveyed nothing to Casuel. One of them looked round the square and the people going about their business; she nodded to her companion.

  'She's with her children, round the far side.'

  'Brown dress with a blue apron,' the second added. The two of them moved away, crossing over to the well where they stood in apparently idle conversation, empty baskets swinging loosely on their arms.

  The widow was not hard to find as Casuel walked briskly round the buttercross. She was about his own age, thin face tired as she packed her panniers with some heels of bread and vegetables that Casuel's mother would have rejected as unfit for her pigs.

  'Just sit down and stop Miri rampaging around, will you?' she snapped at a ragged little boy who was chasing pigeons with his younger sister. The child opened his mouth to protest, wisely thought better of it and grabbed the girl by her tattered skirt, plumping down his skinny behind on the lowest step.

  'Shouldn't those children be in bed?' Casuel frowned, looking at the length of the shadows.

  'What's it to you?' The woman did not snap at him. She simply sounded defeated, not even looking at him, pushing ineffectually at wisps of hair escaping her headscarf as she tied the little girl's apron strings.

  'I'm sorry, let me introduce myself.' Casuel bowed low. 'I am Casuel Devoir. I understand you are the Widow Teren?'

  'Pleased to meet you, I'm sure,' the widow replied, standing and looking at him, bemused. The children simply stared at him, mouths open.

  'I had been hoping to see your husband…' Casuel halted at the sight of the numb pain on the three faces before him. 'I heard of your loss,' he went on hurriedly, 'and was hoping I might be able to assist you somehow.'

  A spark of life returned to the woman's dark eyes. 'Drianon knows we could do with some help. Here.' She passed a frayed basket to Casuel and slung the yoke of her panniers over her shoulders. 'Like you said, this pair should be in bed. Walk me home and we can talk there.'

  Casuel opened his mouth to protest but shut it again. He had to have that information, he told himself. If it was important to Darni, it was doubly so to him. He walked after the woman and children, awkwardly trying to hold the basket to prevent the sharp spikes of wicker damaging his clothing. To his relief, the widow soon turned down a narrow entry and knocked on the door of a neat row-house. An older child with a squalling infant in her arms opened up, using her foot to foil a determined toddler's attempt at escape.

  'Get your supper and take it in the back.' The widow settled herself on a low settle near the fire and opened her bodice. The children obediently filled bowls with thick soup and helped themselves to the coarse bread, filing out through the narrow door.

  'I beg your pardon, I'll wait outside while you nurse your child.' Casuel turned to go, scarlet as the baby suckled with evident enjoyment and no little noise.

  'I've my family to see to and I've been up since before dawn.' The widow's voice was uncompromising. 'This is the only time I get to sit down, so talk to me now or leave.'

  Casuel cleared his throat and concentrated on staring into the meagre fire.

  'I understand your husband used to be in the household of Lord Armile.'

  'That's right. What's it to you?'

  'I am interested in doing business with his lordship, I deal in books and manuscripts. Do you happen to remember your husband ever talking about the library at Friern Lodge?'

  He turned his head despite himself at hearing the widow's tired laugh.

  'It was me did the telling to him, what with me dusting the cursed place every other day.'

  'You were a servant too?'

  'Upper housemaid, until my lord decided to turn us both out for daring to wed without his permission.' Venom thickened the woman's voice and she blinked away tears as she hushed her startled baby.

  Casuel did not know what to say. Women were enough of a mystery and crying women were completely beyond him. To his intense relief, the woman shook her head after a moment and sniffed.

  'What do you want to know?' she asked.

  'I'm interested in works dealing with the fall of the Tormalin Empire. Do you know what I'm talking about? Do you recall anyone perhaps mentioning any books on that subject?'

  The widow lifted the child, laid it over her shoulder until it belched loudly and settled it to the other breast, her face thoughtful. She reached up and unknotted her head scarf, shaking loose fine dark hair sprinkled with white at the crown. 'I think we'd get on a lot better if you stopped treating me like some lackwit, Messire whatever your name was,' she said tartly at last. 'I'd read a good number of those books myself before we were turned out, so I should imagine I can tell you what you need to know. Before I do, I'd like to know why you want to know and what that might be worth to you.'

  Casuel hesitated, not wishing to antagonise such an unexpected source of information, but struggling for a reply. He opted reluctantly for as much of the truth as he dared. 'I have a customer interested in literature dealing with that period of history. If Lord Armile has any such, I could then approach him and see if he might be interested in selling. Do you remember any titles, names of authors?'

  'Hoping he doesn't know the value of what he has and working your way round to it like an afterthought.' There was a hint of laughter as well as a sharp edge in the widow's voice. 'Not so honest, are you, for all your fancy graces? Not that I mind. I'll serve his lordship an ill turn if I can and glad to, Drianon rot his stones.'

  Casuel opened his mouth to defend his honour then shut it again. 'What can you tell me?' He took a waxed note-tablet from a pocket.

  'Let's agree a price,' the woman countered, fixing him with a stern eye that made Casuel feel about five years old. 'I want to take my children back to my own village. I need carriers' fare and the price of a cart for our belongings.'

  'Will five Marks cover it? Tormalin?' Casuel reached for his money pouch.

  The widow blinked. 'That would do handsomely.'

  She kissed her sleeping baby's fluffy head and laid the child in a wicker crib, then to Casuel's profound relief laced her bodice, looking up at him with a smile teasing her lips. 'Bargaining prices for books not the same as haggling for horses then, is it?'

  Casuel made a half-bow. 'I can drive as hard a bargain as any man, madam; my father is a pepper merchant and taught me his trade well. However he is a man of honour and has also taught me that one should offer charity, not seek advantage, when encountering widows and orphans.'

  Besides, the money would put some decent clothes on their backs so the widow needn't present her family to her relations as beggars, he thought with some satisfaction.

  'And you don't get drunk on holy days and you remember your mother at every shrine to Drianon, I take it.' There was more humour than irony in her voice now. 'Let me get the children to bed and then I'll tell you what I know. All I ask is you stitch that bastard up tighter than a festival fowl's arse.'

  She looked at the pot over the fire and bit her lip. 'You'd better step out for something to eat; we've nothing to spare, I'm sorry.'

  The third chime of the night was sounding before Casuel finally made his way back to the marketplace and the inn, elation filling him as he strode along, despite the repeating taste of a pie which he now suspected had contained horsemeat. A breeze blew a gust of warm soapy air across his path.

  'Allin!' he exclaimed, remembering her with a guilty start. 'No matter; she can't have come to much grief in a wash-house.'

  Nevertheless he quickened his step but was held up by a man at the door, whom it appeared, having drunk rather too much, had inexplicably decided this was the time to dispute the cost of his laundry.

  'Excuse me.' Casuel pushed past to see Allin deep in conversation with the washerwoman.

  'If he's taking advantage, you can stay here. Just to do the linens, nothing more. We'll look after you.'

  'Evening, your honour.' The redhead greeted him loudly and stepped into his path,
his cloak over her arm.

  Allin scrambled to her feet, cheeks red, her hair freshly dressed with ringlets coiling in the damp air.

  'Are you ready?' Casuel enquired curtly, taking his cloak and handing over a Mark. 'I think we should return to the inn. I want to make an early start tomorrow.'

  The washerwoman gave Allin a rough kiss of farewell. 'You know where we are, dear.'

  Casuel tutted impatiently as Allin tied her shawl about her.

  'Did you find the widow?' she enquired as they picked their way back to the inn through the dim moonlight.

  'I did.' His good humour returned. 'You know, this should be quite straightforward. According to her, Lord Armile barely knows what he's got on his shelves. He simply inherited the collection along with the title. I think I should find something to impress Usara, and perhaps even Planir.'

  Almost as satisfying, an extra Mark had persuaded the widow to deny all knowledge of the library should anyone else come enquiring, Darni or Shiv, for instance. Casuel decided not to burden Allin with that detail.

  He strode into the inn and halted on the threshold, surprised to see it as busy as before.

  'Excuse me, I bespoke a room earlier.' He held up a hand to intercept the maidservant, her hair now coming loose from its pins and her apron stained with ale and food.

  'Yon's the door to the stairs. Find one of the maids up there to bother.' She brushed past him, sweeping up a handful of flagons from a table as she went.

  'Excuse me—' Casuel began indignantly but the girl was gone.

  'Come on,' he snapped at Allin crossly and pushed through the carousing farmers to the stairs. Once upstairs he was none too pleased to find his bag shoved under a bed in a room crowded with nine others.

  He went into the narrow corridor and beckoned a harassed maid with an armful of well-worn blankets.

  'That's right, your honour. You in there and the lady in the women's room upstairs.'

  'We bespoke two chambers,' he began indignantly.

  'There's none to be had on a market day.' The woman made to push past him, annoyed when Casuel prevented her. 'There's no use kicking up about it. If you don't want the bed, I can let it five times over.'

  Casuel coloured at her tone. 'Oh all right then.'

  He escorted Allin up to the long garret above, relieved to find a group of clean, decently dressed farmwives already there. He returned to his own bed and dragged out his travelling bag, deciding to make some notes before he settled down.

  Casuel drew a shocked breath, his grievance at the petty annoyances of the inn evaporating.

  'Raeponin pox the lot of them!'

  Someone had been going through his things! He shuddered with distaste at the thought of grubby sneak-thieves pawing through his linen, however slight the disturbance. He checked his various volumes, laying them on the bed, and reached down to the bottom of the bag for his packet of papers and letters. It was still sealed with his own signet but as he brought his candle closer Casuel could see the tell-tale smudges where the wax had been lifted off with a hot knife blade. He cracked the seal and sorted through his notes, hands shaking with indignation.

  'Greetings.'

  Casuel turned, surprised to be addressed in oddly formal Tormalin. A blond man in neat travelling clothes had taken the bed next to him.

  'Good evening,' he replied curtly.

  'You're a long way from home.' The stranger shook out his blankets and smiled.

  What business was that of this undersized fellow? 'I travel in the course of my trade,' Casuel replied repressively.

  'You deal in books, I see?' The blond man's eyes were blue and cold, despite the warmth of his smile.

  'Among other things.' This curious character could answer a few questions himself, thought Casuel. 'I don't recognise your accent, where do you hail from?'

  'I have travelled from Mandarkin.' The man's smile broadened. 'I find it much warmer here.'

  If you're Mandarkin-born, I'm an Aldabreshi, Casuel thought. That lie might satisfy peasants who've never travelled more than ten leagues from their homes, but he had met several Mandarkin in Hadrumal and this man's accent was nothing like theirs. Something was not quite right here.

  He yawned ostentatiously. 'Excuse me, I'm for my bed.'

  Casuel took off his boots and breeches and got beneath the soft blankets, promising himself a thorough bathe and complete change of linen when he returned to a civilised hostelry.

  'Raeponin only knows how anyone's supposed to sleep with that row going on,' he muttered to himself as the hubbub from the tap-room continued unabated.

  Men in various states of drunkenness and undress began entering the room and Casuel huddled under his blankets in an attempt to isolate himself from the unsavoury gathering. The room gradually quietened, the thick darkness broken only by intermittent snores, usually interrupted by a kick from a neighbouring bed.

  Surprisingly, it seemed Casuel had barely closed his eyes before the morning light was streaming through the shutters and the maid was hammering on the door to announce breakfast. He dragged himself reluctantly from the blankets, temples pounding and eyes gritty, unrefreshed after a night of unexpected and peculiar dreams. Conversations with Usara, other people he knew in Hadrumal, that scrying he'd done of Ralsere and Darni, all manner of inconsequential nonsense and memories had jumbled together, rolling over and around in his sleeping mind.

  Allin soon gave up trying to engage him in conversation over breakfast and they departed shortly after in gloomy silence.

  Travor's Pottery, the Drede Road,

  West of Eyhorne,

  16th of For-Autumn

  I woke early, a little cramped, but I'm not complaining. Geris was still deeply asleep so I dropped a kiss on his tousled head and slipped out. Cold water soon had me fully awake and I began to hear movement in the rest of the house. I reached under my pillow for the book; I didn't fancy explaining why I'd held on to it. I wondered where Shiv's room was; if I could put it with the others, I felt sure he would not say a thing.

  A heavy tread passed my door and I opened it a crack to see Darni's back heading for the staircase.

  'So what are you doing about Conall? Do you know when he's coming?'

  I couldn't hear the reply but it was clear he was talking to Shiv further down the stairs. I closed the door silently behind me and tried the next room along. It had Darni's kit in it so I moved on. Shiv's room not only had the books on the dresser but also the mysterious coffers at the end of the bed. I sniffed and rubbed a hand over my mouth.

  Curiosity got Amit hanged. My mother had told me that jolly little tale for children often enough but it had never seemed to take. Caution, however, was a lesson I had learned. This was one time in my life when I wished briefly I did know more about wizards. Would Shiv have some magic woven around these boxes that would have him charging back up the stairs if I so much as touched them? Had Darni been standing guard at the inn to protect the boxes, or was that just a subterfuge to explain his presence in the yard as he waited for me?

  My palms itched and I fingered my lockpicks. Saedrin's stones; what did I have to lose? It wasn't as if I was going to take anything and even if Shiv did find out and threw me out of this masquerade, which I somehow doubted, I was no worse off than I had been the day before last. He would not renege on the deal over the ink-horn and half the value of that would see me happily on a coach to Col. Sorgrad and Sorgren would be there by now and I could work with them.

  I closed the door and settled myself to work on the nearest lock. It was a good piece but nothing I could not handle and I soon had it free of the hasp. I raised the lid of the coffer; it was full of neat velvet-wrapped bundles. I reached in for a handful and unrolled a couple. I let out a slow breath of mystification. There were certainly some valuable pieces in there, rings and necklaces of old gold with gems cut ten generations out of fashion, but they sat next to trinkets you could pick up for a couple of Marks: a little crystal jar with a silver lid, a chatelaine's w
aist-chain with keys, scissors and pomander, a needle case for the obsessed embroiderer. There were a couple of daggers, but while one was decorated with filigree and gems to an extent which made it unwieldy, the other was a plain and serviceable knife that you'd use to cut your meat and bread. Strangest of all was a broken sword. The shards of blade were lost but the deer-horn handle was as carefully wrapped as the priceless bracelet next to it. Tales of lost swords proving rights to kingship and broken blades reforged are the stuff of Lescari romances - and Lescari politics come to that - but I could not see Shiv falling for that kind of nonsense.

  High-pitched voices and running feet went hammering past the door and I hurriedly replaced everything and locked up the box. The children seemed to have descended on Geris so I was able to slip downstairs under cover of the commotion. Breakfast was a chaotic meal with people coming in and out so it was a while before I realised we had been joined by a grey-haired old man with a fussy manner at odds with his serious face.

  'Shiv?' I nodded an enquiring eyebrow in the newcomer's direction.

  Shiv swallowed his mouthful. 'Sorry, I keep forgetting you don't know everyone yet. This is Conall.'

  'Pleasure.' I shook the hand he offered.

  'Conall, this is Livak. She's a gambler by rights, but she's kindly been helping us get hold of some of the more difficult pieces.'

  It was better than simply being introduced as a common house-breaker, I suppose, but what was this 'kindly helping'? I let it pass.

  'You had the wit to pick up some books, Geris tells me?' Conall's eyes were bright with interest.

  Saedrin save me from wizards and scholars, I thought. When would I ever be able to get back to decent, ordinary folk: horse copers, swindlers, gamblers and the like?

  'Can you use the study, please? I want to get on.' Harna started whatever it is that mothers of small children do all day and we retreated next door.

  'Now these are very interesting.' Conall rubbed his hands together with glee. 'Heriod's Almanac. I've only seen one other copy of this version and it was badly corrupted.' He leafed through it, scanning the cramped script eagerly. 'Have you checked on the phases of the moons for the changes of season? What about the festivals - are there any clues there? Can we pinpoint the generation at all?'