They got to the alley beside the merchant’s house, a fine two-story L-shaped stone structure with many small balconies and windows, without incident. Oliver continued to express his doubts and Luthien continued to ignore him. The young man had found a purpose in life, something that went beyond discarding winter coats where the poor children of Tiny Alcove might find them. He thought himself the proverbial knight in shining armor, the perfect hero who would rescue his lady from the evil merchant.
He never thought to ask if she needed rescuing.
The house was quiet—all the area was quiet, for few thieves bothered to come this way and thus few guards patrolled the streets. A single candle showed through one of the house’s windows, on the short side of the “L.” Luthien led Oliver to the wall of the darker section, the main section.
“I cannot talk you out of this?” Oliver asked one final time. When Luthien scowled at him, he tossed his magical grapnel, which caught above a balcony and just below the roof. This time Oliver went first, fearing to let the anxious Luthien up on that balcony without him. The way the young man was behaving, Oliver feared he would crash through the doorway, slaughter everybody in the house, then walk up to the Ministry, woman in arms, and demand that Duke Morkney himself pronounce them married!
The halfling made the balcony and slipped over to the door. Confident that no one was about, he came back to the rail to signal for Luthien to follow.
Oliver wasn’t really surprised to see the young Bedwyr already halfway up and climbing furiously.
He would have hissed out a scolding at his impetuous companion, but something else caught the halfling’s attention. Looking across the courtyard to a window showing the flicker of a candle, Oliver saw a woman—the beautiful slave, he knew from her long tresses, shining lustrously even in the dim light. The halfling watched curiously as the woman tucked that hair up under a black cap, then picked up a bundle, blew out the candle, and moved for the window.
Luthien’s hand came over the top of the railing and the young Bedwyr began to pull himself up. He was stopped as he straddled the railing by the smiling halfling, Oliver motioning for him to look over his shoulder.
A makeshift rope, a line of tied bedsheets, hung from window to ground, and a lithe form, dressed in gray and black, similar to Oliver’s thieving clothes, nimbly made its way down.
Luthien’s lips tightened into a grimace. Some thief had dared to break into the house of his love!
Oliver didn’t miss the expression and understood where the anger was coming from. He put a hand on Luthien’s shoulder, turning the young man to face him, then put a finger over his pursed lips.
The lithe form dropped to the ground and slipped off into the shadows.
“Well?” Oliver asked, indicating the rope.
Luthien didn’t understand.
“Are you going back down?” the halfling asked. “We have no more business here.”
Luthien looked at him curiously for a moment, then blinked in amazement and snapped his gaze across the small courtyard. When he looked back to Oliver, the halfling was smiling widely and nodding.
Luthien slid down the rope, and Oliver followed quickly, fearing that the young man would run off into the night. Oliver’s humor about the unexpected turn of events faded quickly as he began to understand that even though this slave was apparently not what she appeared to be, this might be a long and difficult evening.
The halfling hit the ground, gave three tugs to retrieve his grapnel, and ran off after Luthien, catching the man two blocks away.
Luthien stood at a corner, peeking around the stone into an alley. Oliver slipped in between his legs and peeked around from a lower vantage point.
There stood the half-elven slave—there could be no doubt now, for she had removed the cap and was shaking out her wheat-colored tresses. With her were two others, one as tall as Luthien but much more slender, the other the woman’s size.
Luthien looked down at Oliver at the same time the halfling turned his head to look up at Luthien.
“Fairborn,” the halfling mouthed silently, and Luthien, though he had little experience with elves, nodded his agreement.
Luthien let Oliver, more versed in the ways of trailing, lead as they followed the group to the richer section of Montfort. The young Bedwyr could not deny the obvious, but still he was surprised when the three elves slipped into a dark alley, set a rope and quietly entered the second-story window of a dark house.
“She does not need your help,” Oliver remarked in Luthien’s ear. “Leave this alone, I beg.”
Luthien could not find the words to argue against Oliver’s solid logic. The woman did not need his help, so it appeared, but he would not, could not, leave this alone. He pushed Oliver away and kept his gaze locked on the window.
The three came back out in a short time—they were efficient at their craft—one of them carrying a sack. Down to the alley they went, and the slave woman gave a deft snap of the rope that dislodged the conventional grappling hook.
Oliver dove into the fold of Luthien’s cape, and Luthien fell back motionless against the wall as the three came rushing out, passing barely five feet from the friends. Luthien wanted to reach out and grab the half-elf, confront her there and then. He resisted the urge with help from Oliver, who apparently sensing his companion’s weakness, had prudently grabbed a tight hold on both of Luthien’s hands. As soon as the three elven thieves were safely away, Oliver and Luthien took up the chase all the way back to the northwestern section.
The three parted company in the same place they had met the other two taking the sack and the slave heading back for her master’s house.
“Leave this alone, I beg,” Oliver whispered to Luthien, though the halfling knew beyond doubt that his plea was falling on deaf ears. Luthien didn’t have to trail the woman now, knowing her destination, so he slipped ahead instead. He ducked behind the last corner before the merchant’s house, melted under the folds of his cape and waited.
The woman came by, perfectly silent, walking with the practiced footsteps of a seasoned thief. She moved right past the camouflaged Luthien, glanced both ways along the street and started across.
“Not so much a slave,” Luthien remarked, lifting his head to regard her.
He nearly jumped out of his boots at the sheer speed of the half-elf’s movements. She whipped about, a short sword coming out of nowhere, and Luthien shrieked and ducked the metal blade clicking off the stone above his head. Luthien tried to move to the side, but the woman paced him easily, her sword flashing deftly.
In the blink of an eye, Luthien was standing straight again, his back to the wall, the tip of a sword at his throat.
“That would not be so wise,” came Oliver’s comment from behind the woman.
“Perhaps not,” came a melodic, elven voice from behind the halfling.
Oliver sighed again and managed a glance over his shoulder. There stood one of the woman’s companions, grim-faced, sword in hand and its tip not so far from the halfling’s back. A bit to the side, further down the alley, stood the other female, bow in hand, an arrow trained upon Oliver’s head.
“I could be wrong,” the halfling admitted. He slowly slid his rapier back into its sheath, then even more slowly, allowing the elf to watch his every move, reached for a pouch and produced his hat, fluffing it and plopping it on his head.
The woman’s green eyes bored into Luthien’s stunned expression. “Who are you to follow me so?” she demanded, her jaw firm, her expression grave.
“Oliver,” Luthien prompted, not knowing what he should say.
“He is a stubborn fool,” the halfling gladly put in.
Luthien’s expression turned sour as he regarded his loyal companion.
The woman prodded slightly with the sword, forcing Luthien to swallow.
“My name is Luthien,” he admitted.
“State your business,” she demanded through gritted teeth.
“I saw you in the market,” the
young man stammered. “I . . .”
“He came for you,” Oliver put in. “I tried to tell him better. I tried!”
The woman’s features softened as she regarded Luthien, and a note of recognition came into her eyes. Gradually, she eased her sword away. “You came for me?”
“I saw him hit you,” Luthien tried to explain. “I mean . . . I could not . . . why would you allow him to do that?”
“I am a slave,” the woman replied sarcastically. “Half-elven. Less than human.” Despite her bravado, a certain tinge of anger and frustration became evident in her tone as she spoke.
“We are standing in the street,” the male elf reminded them, and he motioned for Oliver to get back into the alley. To the halfling’s relief, the thief put up his sword and the other one eased her bowstring back and removed the arrow.
The half-elf bade Luthien to follow, but hesitated as he walked by, looking curiously at the shadowy image he had left behind on the wall. Smiling with a new perspective, she followed Luthien into the alley.
“You are all half-elven,” Oliver remarked when he had the moment to study the three.
“I am full Fairborn,” the woman with the bow answered. She looked at the male, an unmistakable connection between them. “But I do not desert my elven brethren.”
“The Cutters,” Oliver remarked offhandedly, and all three of the elven thieves snapped their surprised looks upon him.
“A notorious thieving band,” Oliver explained calmly to Luthien, who obviously had no idea of what was going on. “By reputation, they are all of the Fairborn.”
“You have heard of us, halfling,” the woman with Luthien said.
“Who in Montfort has not?” Oliver replied, and that seemed to please the three.
“We are not all elves,” the half-elven woman answered, looking back over her shoulder at Luthien, a look that truly melted his heart.
“Siobhan!” the male said sternly.
“Do you not know who we have captured?” the woman asked easily, still looking at Luthien.
“I am Oliver deBurrows,” the halfling cut in, thinking that his reputation had preceded him. To Oliver’s disappointment, though, none of the three even seemed to take note that he had spoken.
“You have left a curious shadow behind,” Siobhan remarked to Luthien. “Out in the street. A crimson shadow.”
Luthien looked back that way, then turned to Siobhan and shrugged apologetically.
“The Crimson Shadow,” the male half-elf remarked, sounding sincerely impressed. He slid his sword completely away then, nearly laughing aloud.
“And Oliver deBurrows!” the halfling insisted.
“Of course,” the male said offhandedly, never taking his gaze from Luthien.
“Your work is known to us,” Siobhan remarked, her smile coy. Luthien’s heart fluttered so badly he thought it would surely stop. “Indeed,” she continued, looking to her friends for confirmation, “your work is known throughout Montfort. Truly you have put the merchants on their heels, to the delight of many.”
Luthien was sure that he was blushing a deeper red than the hue of his cape. “Oliver helps,” he stuttered.
“Do tell,” the deflated halfling muttered under his breath.
“I would have thought you a much older man,” Siobhan went on. “Or a longer-living elf, perhaps.”
Luthien eyed her curiously. He remembered Brind’Amour’s words that the cape had belonged to a thief of high renown, and it seemed that Siobhan had heard of the cape’s previous owner, as well. Luthien smiled as he wondered what mischief the first Crimson Shadow might have caused in Montfort.
“It grows late,” remarked the elven woman from further down the alley. “We must go, and you,” she said to Siobhan, “must get back inside your master’s house.”
Siobhan nodded. “We are not all of the Fairborn,” she said again to Luthien.
“Is that an invitation?” Oliver asked.
Siobhan looked to her companions, and they, after a moment, nodded in reply. “Consider it so,” Siobhan said, looking back directly at Luthien, making him think, in the secret hopes of his heart, that the invitation was more than to join the thieving band.
“For you and for the esteemed Oliver deBurrows,” she added, her tone revealing that extending the invitation to Oliver, however kindly phrased, had come more as an afterthought.
Luthien looked over her shoulder to Oliver, and the halfling gave a slight shake of his head.
“Consider it,” Siobhan said to Luthien. “There are many advantages to being well connected.” She flashed her heart-melting smile one last time, as if confirming to the stricken Luthien that she had more than a thieving agreement in mind. Then, with a nod to her departing companions, she started across the street toward her impromptu rope.
Luthien never blinked as he watched her graceful movements, and Oliver just shook his head and sighed.
CHAPTER 19
IN HALLOWED HALLS
FEIGNING INTEREST, Duke Morkney leaned forward in his wooden chair, his skinny elbows poking out of his voluminous red robe, hands set on his huge desk. Across from him, several merchants spoke all at once, the only common words in their rambling being “theft” and “Crimson Shadow.”
Duke Morkney had heard it all before from these same men many times over the last few weeks, and he was truly growing tired of it.
“And worst of all,” one merchant cried above the tumult, quieting the others, “I cannot get that damned shadow stain off of my window! What am I to reply to the snickers of all who see it? It is a brand, I say!”
“Hear, hear!” several others agreed.
Morkney raised one knobby hand and thinned his lips, trying to bite back his laughter. “He is a thief, no more,” the duke assured them. “We have lived with thieves far too long to let the arrival of a new one—one that conveniently leaves his mark—bother us so.”
“You do not understand!” one merchant pleaded, but his face paled and he went silent immediately when Morkney’s withered face and bloodshot amber eyes turned upon him, the duke scowling fiercely.
“The commoners may help this one,” another merchant warned, trying to deflect the vicious duke’s ire.
“Help him what?” Morkney replied skeptically. “Steal a few baubles? By your own admission, this thief seems no more active than many of the others who have been robbing you of late. Or is it just that his calling card, this shadowy image, stings your overblown pride?”
“The dwarf in the square . . .” the man began.
“Will be punished accordingly,” Morkney finished for him. He caught the gaze of a merchant at the side of his desk and winked. “We can never have too many dwarvish workers, now can we?” he asked slyly, and that seemed to appease the group somewhat.
“Go back to your shops,” Morkney said to them all, leaning back and waving his bony arms emphatically. “King Greensparrow has hinted that our production is not where it should be—that, I say, is a more pressing problem than some petty thief, or some ridiculous shadows that you say you cannot remove.”
“He slipped through our trap,” one of the merchants tried to explain, drawing nods from three of the others who had been in on the ambush at the Avenue of the Artisans.
“Then set another trap, if that is what needs be done!” Morkney snapped at him, the duke’s flashing amber eyes forcing the four cohorts back a step.
Grumbling, the merchant contingent left the duke’s office.
“Crimson Shadow, indeed,” the old wizard muttered, shuffling through the parchments to find the latest word from Greensparrow. Morkney had been among that ancient brotherhood of wizards, had been alive when the original Crimson Shadow had struck fear into the hearts of merchants across Eriador, even into Princetown and other cities of northern Avon. Much had been learned of the man back in those long-past days, though he had never been caught.
And now he was back? Morkney thought the notion completely absurd. The Crimson Shadow was a man—a lon
g-dead man by now. More likely, some petty thief had stumbled across the legendary thief’s magical cape. The calling card might be the same, but that did not make the man the same.
“A petty thief,” Morkney muttered, and he snickered aloud, thinking of the tortures this new Crimson Shadow would surely endure when the merchants finally caught up to him.
“I work alone,” Oliver insisted.
Luthien stared at him blankly.
“Alone with you!” Oliver clarified in a huffy tone. The halfling stood tall (relatively speaking) in his best going-out clothes, his plumed chapeau capping the spectacle of Oliver deBurrows, swashbuckler. “It is very different being a part of a guild,” he went on, his face sour. “Sometimes you must give more than half of your take—and you may only go where they tell you to go. I do not like being told where to go!”
Luthien didn’t have any practical arguments to offer; he wasn’t certain that he wanted to join the Cutters anyway, not on any practical level. But Luthien did know that he wanted to see more of Siobhan, and if joining the thieving band was the means to that end, then the young Bedwyr was willing to make the sacrifice.
“I know what you are thinking,” Oliver said in accusatory tones.
Luthien sighed deeply. “There is more to life, Oliver, than thievery,” he tried to explain. “And more than material gain. I’ll not argue that joining with Siobhan and her friends may lessen our take and our freedom, but it might bring us a measure of security. You saw the trap the merchants set for us.”
“That is exactly why you cannot join any band,” Oliver snapped at him.
Luthien didn’t understand.
“Why would you so disappoint your admirers?” Oliver asked.
“Admirers?”
“You have heard them,” the halfling replied. “Always they talk of the Crimson Shadow, and always their mouths turn up at the edges when they speak the name. Except for the merchant-types, of course, and that makes it all the sweeter.”
Luthien shook his head blankly. “I will still wear the cape,” he stammered. “The mark . . .”
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