Come Hell or High Water: The Complete Trilogy

by Stephen Morris

  Finding one board that seemed to be missing a nail at one end, Hans awkwardly wedged the small iron bar under it and pried while holding the Hand aloft. There was a sudden “crack!” and “snap!” as the floorboard splintered. He froze, waiting to see what reaction would follow. There was a cough and a snort from the next room and then the snoring resumed. None of the other sleeping forms seemed to notice. Hans reached beneath the floor, scraping his knuckles on the rough wood.

  Then he found what he was after, his fingers closing around the leather of the purse amid the dust and mouse droppings under the floor. He tucked both the purse and the iron bar in his belt and stood. Shaking his head, he then stepped into the hallway and pulled the door shut.

  An unexpected noise caught his attention. The door directly in front of him opened and the shopkeeper who rented out the rooms stepped into the hall, bleary-eyed and holding a glowing lantern.

  “Must you go down to the latrines now?” his wife demanded from the room behind him. “Can you not wait until morning?”

  “No, I cannot wait until morning comes,” grumbled the husband, mocking both her voice and words. “If you had remembered to empty the chamber pot earlier, I would not need to go to the latrines now,” he snarled back over his shoulder to her.

  Hans was terrified. The magic of the Hand had failed. Would everyone else in the building awake? He would surely be caught and just as surely abandoned to his fate by both Albrecht and Dietrich. The shopkeeper couldn’t help but see Hans standing in front of him, blocking his access to the stairway, holding the grisly Hand by its stump with the candles dripping wax onto the floor. He pressed his back against the door behind him, hoping against hope to escape into the apartment he had just come from, but the lock had apparently snapped back into place. The door would not move. He bit his lip and held the Hand as close to himself as he dared, not wanting to set fire to his jacket. Maybe it would still protect him in some way. The light from the Hand played across his face and shoulders. The shopkeeper looked up, right into Hans’ eyes. If the shopkeeper was surprised by his discovery of Hans and the Hand on the landing, and paused before raising the alarm, there was a chance that Hans could still dart down the stairs and escape into the night.

  But the shopkeeper stumbled toward the stairs and kicked Hans’ foot, causing the young man to grimace and struggle to not cry out. The shopkeeper swung his lantern about his feet, asking, “What? Did someone leave a package on the landing? Foolish lodgers! Do they want me to fall down the stairs in the dark and kill myself?” Apparently finding nothing, he continued down the stairs and down the hall leading to the back of the building.

  Hans was shocked. The shopkeeper had looked directly into his face, then kicked him and looked directly at his feet, all the time not noticing Hans standing there. Hans could hear the man complaining and stumbling along the hallway below him. The shopkeeper was no waking dream of Hans’ own creation. “The Hand must have rendered me invisible after all!” Hans realized. Where the light of the candles of the Hand had fallen, the shopkeeper had seen nothing. Hearing the shopkeeper bang the door behind him, Hans dashed down the stairs and out the door onto the street, almost knocking over Dietrich and Albrecht.

  Dietrich and Hans came to Albrecht’s shop for the next several nights. The three men would go out each night, Dietrich leading the way and Hans being sent into the houses while Albrecht came to be sure he was not cheated of his share of the stolen goods. Dietrich and Albrecht came to an agreement concerning the sharing of these goods, which left little for Hans. As it was difficult to carry both the Hand and other objects—which were also difficult to sell in Prague, lest they be recognized by the former owners—Dietrich instructed Hans on the most common places for hiding moneyboxes and purses. Hans was to bring the locked boxes out of the homes or shops he had been sent into under the watchful eyes of Dietrich and Albrecht, and then, using the candlelight of the Hand to release the locks, open them in the presence of what were now his two masters. Dietrich and Albrecht would divide the contents between them and give Hans what seemed a pitifully small amount.

  It only took Hans a little more than a week to begin resenting the unfair distribution of the fruit of what seemed to be primarily his labor and risk. “Even if a typical apprentice does make as little as I do, and for much more work, it is unfair of them to expect me to take all the risk of discovery,” he grumbled in his mind. “There is no real, practical risk,” he acknowledged in calmer moments. There had never been any indication that the Hand would fail to protect him. True, the invisibility bestowed by the Hand was unreliable, as was the immobility of those in the houses he entered. But either the immobility of the householders or the invisibility of Hans always seemed to operate, keeping him undetected. It was worrisome that the candle stubs grew shorter each night, Albrecht acknowledging that if there were no light from the Hand, the magic would not unlock the doors or render the householders and their servants helpless. But one evening, Albrecht replaced them. Not with new candles, but with new stubs somewhat taller than the originals.

  Dietrich saw the unrest and resentment building in Hans’ eyes and heard it in his voice. “The boy needs a chance to prove himself, to know he can be trusted,” the master thief reasoned. “Young Hans deserves no less an opportunity.” That evening, after supper, Dietrich told Hans, “The time has come for you to go out alone with Herr Albrecht, m’boy. I am feeling tired and worn tonight. You go out with the hexenmeister and choose a shop or house that seems a worthwhile mark. Find the purse or moneybox and divide the profit with Herr Albrecht according to our usual share and keep the whole of our part of it. Or perhaps give me the usual coins that you would receive. If you go out alone tonight, it is only fair that you receive the lion’s share of the profit. Do you not agree?”

  Hans burst into a broad grin. “I am honored that you would trust such a mission to me so soon, Herr Dietrich,” he replied. “But I will prove that your trust is not misplaced and that such work is well within my grasp.”

  Dietrich did not tell Hans that he would never trust the apprentice with such a task were it not for the Hand of Glory. Apart from the Hand, the apprentice was still too cocky and careless to go out unsupervised by the master. “But what harm can come to the boy while he uses the Hand?” Dietrich asked himself as Hans departed to keep the usual appointment with Albrecht. “If the Hand does fail him, then so much the better that I am not there!” Dietrich chuckled.

  Albrecht opened the door immediately upon hearing Hans’ hesitant rap. “I am surprised and delighted that Herr Dietrich trusts us both,” the hexenmeister wheezed on hearing Hans’ explanation for appearing at the door alone. He retrieved the Hand from its hiding place and lit the candles from the lone light flickering on his worktable. The shadows around them shifted and danced in the five flickering blooms that crowned the fingertips.

  Albrecht insisted that if Dietrich was not there to lead them, then he would select the house that Hans would enter. Hans opened his mouth to protest and insist that Dietrich had instructed him, Hans, to select the house or shop to be robbed, but then caught himself. The old hexenmeister was scurrying along the street ahead of him, as eager to run ahead as a dog let off his leash. Insisting on his rights as Dietrich’s apprentice and representative seemed futile. “He will, no doubt, insist on a larger share than his usual portion,” thought Hans. He did not want to face Dietrich and explain how he had allowed Albrecht to supplant him in his capacity of leader of their little gang. “Herr Dietrich will lose any respect he has for me,” Hans knew. “As will Herr Albrecht, if I allow him to seize control of tonight’s expedition.”

  Albrecht scuttled along the walls of the houses that lined the lanes he turned down, leading Hans on a roundabout tour of the entire Ungelt district. “Such indecision would drive Herr Dietrich mad,” Hans muttered as he struggled to keep up with Albrecht, all the while shielding the flames of the Hand from the night wind. “It is driving me mad!”

  Finally Albrecht stop
ped before a grand door of fine wood and ornate ironwork. “This is the correct house,” he announced, turning to Hans. “When you bring out the gentleman’s purse, we will divide it here, next to the door. There is no reason to return to my shop tonight.” A twisted smile spread across Albrecht’s face. “We can simplify our procedures a bit, do you not agree, if Herr Dietrich is not here?”

  Hans nodded. The only way dividing the evening profits in the street would be safe was if Albrecht intended to take the purse and give Hans a few coins from it. “Herr Dietrich will be furious,” Hans fumed as he slipped within the door with the Hand. He pulled the door shut before Albrecht could protest so the hexenmeister could not follow him inside. “Even if he did not plan to receive much from tonight’s work, he will be furious at me for allowing Herr Albrecht to usurp his place.”

  Hans found himself in the entrance courtyard of an especially grand mansion. Perhaps the grandest mansion of the foreign merchant community. Nevertheless, remembering his master’s lessons about the usual hiding places of coins and jewels, he quickly found the mansion’s study—where no doubt the wealthy merchant who lived here did much of his business—and the large purse of coins tucked away there. Tucking the purse inside his jacket, Hans made his way back to the door he had entered through.

  “How can I prevent Herr Albrecht from taking all these?” he worried, supporting the weight of the purse within his jacket with his free hand. He used the light from the Hand in his other to guide him through the house. “If I strike him, which I could, I may drop either the Hand or the purse and in either case risk discovery. If I try to outrun him, which I certainly can, then the candles of the Hand will certainly be extinguished and Herr Hexenmeister will cry out and raise the alarm. The only solution is to avoid him altogether, which I could do if I could be certain that the Hand’s light would render me invisible and allow me to slip past him. But there is no way to be sure that it will do so.” Hans also realized that since he had pulled the ornate door shut behind him, Albrecht would know that he was there—visible or not—simply because he would have to open the door again to allow his exit.

  He turned down the last hallway and into the courtyard with the door. What to do?

  Then he saw another door across the courtyard. It as framed by snowdrifts, a door into another wing of the house. Perhaps there was an exit onto another street that he could escape through. The house was large and grand enough that it seemed a possibility. He turned into the other door and found his way into the kitchens. Worktables and stoves and fireplaces spread out before him. He imagined the banquets that could be prepared in a kitchen such as this.

  Beyond the kitchens, he knew, there must be a yard or court with a well for water and latrines for the servants. Entering this back courtyard, he discovered what he had been hoping for: a small gate. Using the Hand to unlock it, he peered into the alleyway beyond. The gate did not open onto the same street as the grand entranceway and there was no sign of Albrecht. Or anyone else, Hans was relieved to note. He stepped into the alleyway, unsure of exactly where he was but certain he could find his way back to the inn where Herr Dietrich awaited him.

  He followed the narrow alleyway and stepped into the slightly larger lane that it opened onto. He turned in the direction he thought would lead him towards the inn. “Herr Dietrich will be pleased at my cleverness,” Hans congratulated himself. “But Herr Albrecht will no doubt argue that he has been cheated and that I have stolen what is rightfully his.” He looked at the Hand. Now that he and Herr Dietrich possessed the Hand, was there any need to involve Herr Albrecht in their nightly expeditions again? “Why did Herr Dietrich not insist on keeping the Hand from the beginning?” Hans wondered.

  Looming up in the darkness beside him was the Church of St. Jakub the Apostle. Hans had been inside this church before and knew that there was an alms box placed near the door in which parishioners could deposit coins and gifts for the poor. The Franciscans who served this parish were special advocates of such charity and would distribute the contents of that alms box once or twice a month. He had even come once to receive a coin from the hand of the friars. No doubt a great many coins had been deposited in that box recently on Christmas and Epiphany, coins meant to relieve both the bodily suffering of the needy on earth and the suffering of the needy souls that waited in purgatorial fires for the Last Judgment.

  A thought crystallized in his mind. Why bring back only the purse that he had taken from the mansion? “Herr Dietrich will expect there to be one purse. I can show him this one and he will never suspect that I made a second stop before returning to the inn. If it seems late to him, it is only a small lie to say that Herr Albrecht’s wanderings through the Ungelt delayed us more than usual. I can share this purse with Herr Dietrich and keep the proceeds of the alms box for myself!”

  Even as he mounted the few steps to the door and held the Hand close to the keyhole of the church door, another thought struck him like crashing thunder in a sudden summer storm. “For all that, now that I possess the Hand, is there any need to return to Herr Dietrich at all?” Perhaps. “There is much he could still teach me,” Hans mused. “But with the use of the Hand, are those skills truly necessary? Do I not already possess all I need to live comfortably?” He remembered the words Dietrich had used in their first conversation. “No, not a comfortable life. A wealthy life!”

  The church door opened under the magical influence of the Hand’s light. He stepped into the shadows of the church porch, giving his eyes time to adjust to the gloom. Passing into the church proper, the nave stretched before him. High, narrow windows lined the walls on either side, but little moonlight reached the floor where Hans stood. Suddenly he was much more nervous than he had expected to be as he stood in the House of God intending to take what had been given to the poor.

  “I am still a poor young man,” he argued with himself, then promised, “I will share with those in even greater need. What I take here may even be enough to establish me in security and remove the need to ever use the Hand again!”

  The alms box was more similar to a small chest than a large box. It rested on a short base that raised it slightly from the floor, a long but narrow slit in the lid allowing the charitable to drop in coins. A padlock held the lid shut and chains with padlocks traced their way from rings in the side of the chest to iron rings set in the stone floor of the church.

  Above and behind the chest rose a large wooden statue of the Mother of God. This was no gentle, consoling image of Mary in her subservient role as ancilla domini, handmaiden of the Lord and refuge of sinners, but rather a depiction of her as virgo potens, virgin most powerful and mirror of justice. Her face was stern and her hands spread out before her in prayer and supplication, not in consolation and mercy. Her veil was wrapped around her torso and nearly covered her feet, which were level with the top of the chest. Although the colors were difficult to discern in this light, Hans knew that the dress was blue and the veil deep scarlet adorned with delicate stars, the toes of her shoes a rich papal red. The crown atop her head, signifying her role as queen of the angels and protecting patroness of the Franciscan brotherhood, as well as the halo behind it, were covered with thin sheets of gold. Jewels adorning the crown and halo twinkled in the candlelight of the Hand. A few candles sputtered at the feet of other statues placed near other side altars.

  Hans set down the purse from within his jacket and stepped to the chest. The sound of his footsteps on the stone floor echoed across the nave. He held the Hand next to the padlock and it dropped onto the floor. Holding his breath with anticipation, he raised the lid of the chest and let it fall back against the knees of the Mother of God, who stood silent, watching the scene unfold before her.

  The chest was nearly half full of gold and silver coins that shimmered in the candlelight. Hans had never seen so many coins. “How will I carry them all?” he asked himself, bedazzled at the possibilities that so many coins in his possession made available. “I have nothing to put so many coins int
o,” he complained of his lack of forethought. “Maybe there is something here in the church I can use?” He turned and lifted the Hand, hoping its flickering light might reveal something discarded on the floor around him.

  There was a creak and a groan, as if the timbers of a house were being buffeted by the wind or the beams of a roof were beginning to sag under the weight they were called to support. He started, nearly dropping the Hand. Then he looked around the church, swinging the Hand in an arc above him. Its feeble light was unable to reach the roof and revealed nothing.

  Dismissing the noises, he stepped down onto the floor of the church and walked around the back of the statue to see if it hid something he could use. Nothing.

  Something rustled nearby, as if someone had begun to cross the nave in a woman’s gown or a priest’s cassock.

  “Who goes there?” demanded Hans, worried that someone had been sleeping in the church, hoping for a dream with a message from God or St. Jakub, and had been disturbed by his opening of the chest. He stood, heart pounding, before he remembered the Hand that he held.

  “Of course! Foolish Hans,” he chided himself. Even if someone was in the church but not immobilized by the Hand, it would surely render Hans invisible and prevent his detection. He stood still for another moment and, hearing nothing, returned to the open chest.

  “Perhaps I should simply unlock the chains from the floor and carry the chest away,” he considered. “That might be the most reasonable way to get the thing away from the parish, and I can deal with hiding the chest later.” He walked over to the purse he had left on the floor and retrieved it, intending to deposit it in the chest with the other coins.