The boy was released unharmed. The guards held him a bit roughly, perhaps, but they didn’t break his bones for his impudence. Once he was beyond the gate again, the boy ran off toward the Stink, not even bothering to return to Malden for payment. Perhaps in his fear he had forgotten the thruppence promised him. Malden dug in the soft soil underneath the bush where he’d found the boy concealing himself. There, he buried the cudgel, the jug, and three pennies, wrapped up in the filthy scarf. If the boy was brave enough or bright enough to return for his things, he well deserved the money.
Then Malden fled back into the night, running the way he’d come, along the top of the Ladypark’s enclosing wall. There was much to prepare.
The fact that his secret employer was a master of the arcane sciences worried him greatly, but not near so much as Bikker did. The big swordsman had killed two men just to create a diversion, and Malden had no doubt that Bikker would be willing to kill him as well. Either the swordsman would want to keep the gold for himself—or more likely, would want to keep him quiet, in the most expedient way possible. When he’d taken this job, Malden believed it was little more than a prank. The crown would be replaced with a duplicate, and no one would ever be the wiser—the Burgrave wouldn’t even publicly acknowledge the theft, out of fear of embarrassment.
Now things had changed. The crown was enchanted, and thus far more important than just some well-wrought lump of gold. The Burgrave would want it back, and stop at little to secure its return. Bikker and his master would want to maintain total secrecy, and the only way they could assure that was to slit his throat and dump his body in the river.
Malden sighed as he ran atop the wall. No one had ever said his new life as a daring burglar was going to be easy. He came to a corner of the wall and slipped down to the street below, a shadowed lane running toward a row of houses in the Stink. The houses there closed in quickly, filling the available space around the common like a miser jealously throwing his arm around a pile of pennies. It felt good to be back on cobblestones, back in a district he knew well. He’d spent his life on these streets, and though he knew all too well their dangers, he knew how to manage them as well. He felt almost safe as he headed uphill, toward the eastern section of the Stink.
Not completely safe, of course. But he felt like he was the master of his destiny again. He felt like he could pull this off. If he was careful. There were still ways he could get his gold and keep his life, but it would take much planning and—
“Hold, if you please.”
Malden’s heart stopped beating, but only for a moment. He’d seen no one following him, had thought it impossible. Who could this be?
Whoever it was, he did not wish to meet him now.
He leapt back toward the wall of a half-timbered house. Its eaves cast a deep rich shadow on the street below that would hide him. He made no answer to the call. He did not so much as breathe. He considered closing his eyes so they would not glint in any stray beam of starlight. But no, he needed to see what was coming for him.
“It is not my design to hurt you,” the voice said.
Light burst all around him. The other must have had a dark lantern and suddenly drawn back its shade. For a moment Malden could see nothing, and his eyes, adapted as they were to the darkness, burned with pain. Throwing his cloak across his face, he dashed to his left, intent on getting away from the spearing light—
—and near impaled himself on the point of a sword. He dropped his cloak just in time and drew up short as the tapering point bobbed in the air just inches from his throat. It was no blunt iron weapon either, but good, bright steel of the kind only a dwarf could forge. It would have run him through like a skewer through a sausage.
Squinting, Malden glanced over at the lantern. He could see now that it was sitting unattended on the cobblestones. If he had run toward it and kicked it over, he would be away into the shadows by now and free of this danger.
For the first time he looked down the blade of the sword at the man who held it. He was no watchman, at least. He was a blond man perhaps half again Malden’s age, wearing a jerkin studded with iron and a fine samite cape. A man of some wealth, then, though his boots were muddy. He was smiling, but with warmth—not with the predatory grin of a cat pinning a starling with its claws.
It took a moment for Malden to recognize his accoster. When he did, he was only more confused than before.
“You’re the fellow they were going to hang in Market Square,” he whispered. “The knight. Sir—Sir—Sir Something. Well, it seems you have me at your service, Sir—”
“Croy.”
Malden lifted a hand in salute. The knight knocked the hand away with the flat of his sword.
“I apologize for this rude meeting, but I saw no other way to gain your attention,” Croy told him. Stranger by the minute, Malden thought. He was not used to armed men treating him with civility. “I wish to ask you but a single question. Will you answer?”
“Under the circumstances, I can hardly refuse,” Malden replied.
“I saw you send a message to the villa of Hazoth. And I know someone fitting your description was on Castle Hill the night the tower fell. The night a certain boat was waiting in the river below.”
Malden was especially glad then that this knight was no watchman. If Anselm Vry’s men had put things together as neatly as this fellow, his neck would already be in a noose. “If you say so, milord.”
“You don’t deny it. The boat was there to collect you, wasn’t it? Cythera’s boat. I can see in your eyes it was so. So now I’ll ask you—what business have you with Cythera?”
Malden’s brow furrowed as he tried to understand what was happening. Was he about to be killed for reasons he would never know? Or would this fool let him go if he answered true?
For some reason, Malden thought he just might.
“I did some work for her, that’s all. I’m arranging to receive my payment.”
“In the middle of the night? Strange hours to take wages.”
“I suppose,” Malden said, “that depends on the labor.”
Croy’s face changed. The smile faded a bit and his eyes widened. “Tell me true, now. What job was it?”
Malden considered his reply carefully. “Sir Croy, I think your interest in milady Cythera is not of an, ah, adversarial nature. To be plain, I think you are her friend.”
“More than that, I hope,” Croy said.
Malden’s heart sagged in his chest. Something he hadn’t dared to actually hope for suddenly seemed out of his reach. But more than his feelings were bound to be hurt if he didn’t speak quickly. “I will admit to caring for her myself. If this sentiment is one we share, then surely you will understand it would put her at risk if I answered that question? Especially out here, where someone might overhear?”
“I see,” Croy said. He lowered his sword so it was no longer pointing at any vital part of Malden’s body. “You’re right, it’s too dangerous to have this talk in public. In that case, let us—”
But Malden didn’t hear the rest. He’d found the opening he had sought. As soon as the sword’s point dipped, he twisted sideways and bolted for the dark, jogging to one side only far enough to kick the lantern as he went.
Sir Croy called hold again and gave chase, but not for long. Malden had a head start on him, and in the night that was all the advantage the thief required.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Knightly interruptions notwithstanding, Malden’s preparations were finished long before midnight. He scouted out Godstone Square—a modest plaza deep in the Stink, where the residents were unlikely to open their windows at night—and found the proper spot to lie in wait, then gathered together the tools he needed. This largely amounted to stealing some poor citizen’s clothesline and digging an old but still sound basket out of a rubbish pile in an alley. Not the most sophisticated tools, but the simplicity of Malden’s plan was its strength.
The Stink at that hour of night was all but deserted. Up on
the Golden Slope, across the river in the Royal Ditch, the rich would be up and about, taking their night’s entertainment in gambling houses or playing cards or listening to chamber music in their well-lighted apartments. They would be out in the streets in the murk of night, led along the wide avenues by the linkboys who ran through the streets carrying pitch torches. Down here, though, the poor could afford little light after the sun set. Candles were expensive, oil lamps doubly so. The people of the Stink kept out of their dark streets, sleeping early behind thick shutters and locked doors. Only thieves prospered after dark here. Thieves like Malden.
He took his place, then settled in to wait. His body drooped with the need for sleep and his belly was far from full but he’d learned a long time ago how to ignore his muscles and wait in silence for long periods of time.
It was no more than two hours later when Bikker and Cythera approached the square. They came silently, without lights, and walked directly up to the Godstone itself in the middle of the crossroads.
A monolith about fifteen feet tall, inscribed with dread runes that time had weathered to illegibility, it had been a center for the worship of the Bloodgod centuries ago. The first Burgrave had ritually defiled it, however, and the people stopped coming. Too big and too heavy to be carted away, it waited out the years and the rain in mute witness. Even the bloodstains that once washed its lower half had faded away to nothing, and now it served only as a landmark, an unloved boil on the face of an unloved district. Neither Cythera nor Bikker even looked at it as they approached. Their eyes studied the shadows, the corners, the recessed doorways of the houses around them.
They did not think to look up. Malden stirred himself carefully—his limbs were stiff with immobility—and cleared his throat.
His two employers did not flinch. As one they turned their faces upward and looked upon him where he crouched atop the stone. Bikker looked annoyed. Cythera looked merely like she wished to be somewhere else.
He could sympathize. “Did you bring the gold?” he asked.
Bikker’s face softened. “You could at least have picked a less public meeting place.”
“Certainly. A dark alley, perhaps? Or maybe we could have met at the top of a cliff above the Skrait, so you could just push me in.”
“You don’t trust us?” Cythera asked. There was no hurt in her tone.
“I don’t trust him. He killed two just to draw attention.” Malden rose to his feet and paced back and forth atop the stone. It was just barely two strides across. “As for you—I can imagine why you took your little boat away. I don’t think any of us expected things to turn out this way.”
“If you mean we didn’t expect you to bungle the job,” Bikker growled, “you’re right, there.”
Malden laughed—though not loudly. “We all survived. I have the thing you want. As long as you have my gold, I think we did just fine.”
Cythera reached beneath her cloak and drew forth a bulging sack. It looked heavy in her slim hands, but she showed no sign of effort as she lifted it. “All the same, you’d do well to lie low after this. We drew more scrutiny than we would have liked. And they’ll be looking for the object.”
“Bah,” Bikker said. “They probably think it’s buried in the rubble. Come down here, boy, and give it to me. Then we’ll leave your gold. Then we’ll never see each other again, if you know what’s good for you.”
“I have a better notion.” Malden kicked the basket over the side of the stone so it dropped to the cobbles at their feet. The clothesline tied to its handle had its other end in his hand. “Put the gold in there and I’ll raise it up. Then I’ll throw you your prize.”
“Out of reach of my sword, up there,” Bikker said. His face showed a kind of grudging admiration. “Of course, you can’t stay up there forever. Eventually you’ll have to come down, and I can wait a long time.”
Malden favored him with a grim smile. If it came to that, he knew he could leap to the wall of the nearest house and be over its roof before the swordsman could climb the Godstone. He didn’t say as much.
“Enough,” Cythera said, and placed her sack in the basket. Malden hauled it up quickly, before Bikker could grab at it. It was as heavy as he expected—there must be ten pounds of gold in the sack. His heart lurched at the prospect. Opening the sack, he was relieved to see it was not full of stones or bars of lead. Quickly, he counted the money. One and a hundred golden royals! The exact amount he needed. He tied the sack to his back underneath his cloak.
“Many thanks,” Malden said. “As for your prize—it’s at the bottom of a horse trough two streets to the west. I would have brought it with me, but I couldn’t bear its incessant babbling.”
“You—You blasted fool,” Bikker frothed. “What if some vagrant stumbled upon it and hawked it already to a pawner?”
Malden shifted his shoulders so the gold at his back clinked. “Not my problem anymore.”
Bikker cursed and dashed out of the square, shouting for Cythera to stay and watch Malden. When he was gone, Malden slipped easily down the side of the Godstone, using the carved runes as handholds, and bowed deeply before her.
“It’s not wise to anger him,” she said with a sigh.
“I don’t intend to meet him again.” Malden turned on his heel to dash away. Something stopped him. He should have known better, especially after meeting Croy, but he couldn’t help himself. What if there was a chance? “You, on the other hand—”
“Me? You’d wish to see me again?” she asked.
“I think I made that clear, when last we spoke. If you’re amenable.”
A strange look crossed her eyes. Her face was too opaque with tattoos for him to read it. “Then perhaps,” she said, “I have something you might like to hear. There’s another reward. From my master.”
“Hazoth?” Malden said, confused. “I want nothing else from him.”
“Then take it from me,” she said, her voice soft and low. She stepped toward him and smiled. “A kiss. Just one. Don’t you find me desirable?”
Malden laughed, but more from uncertainty than the humor of it. “More than any woman I’ve known in a long time.”
“Perhaps I find you handsome. Perhaps I merely want to show my proper thanks.”
Malden’s heart raced. The offer certainly held its attractions. Yet it seemed strange she should offer it as coming from Hazoth. What had she meant?
She was very beautiful. Especially by moonlight. White flowers were blooming in the ink just below her left eye. Exotic, and all the more comely for it.
She moved closer, close enough to embrace him.
Malden took a step back. Something was happening here, something he didn’t understand. There was one thing he definitely needed to know. “Oh, milady, you’ve tempted me sore. But I’m not sure my new friend Sir Croy would approve,” he said.
“Croy,” she said, like a woman waking from troubled dreams. She blinked rapidly and straightened her posture. It was all Malden needed to hear. The offer of a kiss had not been given in good faith. Hazoth must have charmed her into making it—or maybe Sir Croy was testing him for some reason. “Did you say—”
Before she could finish her question, though, Malden was gone. He was really getting quite good at slipping away in the dark.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
An hour later Malden was fast, and finally, asleep.
He did not go home to his room above the waxchandler’s, of course. That was for fear that he’d find Bikker waiting there, his nasty sword dripping acid on the floorboards. Instead he took to sleeping rough, under the Cornmarket Bridge, just below Market Square. It was an odd and exposed place to doss. The bridge passed not over a river, but over the very houses of the Golden Slope. It had been built to allow goods to be brought from the Smoke straight to Market Square, without disturbing the wealthy citizens in their mansions. Its span was like a ribbon of stone floating over the rooftops, and where Malden perched he had a good view of a hundred chimney pots directly below, e
ach of them trailing a thin stream of smoke. It was like lying on a cloud. It was a strangely exposed location, but its oddity made it ideal—no one would think to look for him there. In his rumpled, dusty cloak he looked the very picture of the broken men who frequented the place. None challenged him as he found a spot between two stone plinths and curled up, his cowl pulled tight around his face for warmth.
Only once, during the night, was he disturbed. In his sleep he felt rude fingers test the fabric of his cloak. His eyes snapped open and he was instantly awake. Should someone steal the gold now, it would be a foul jest, would it not?
His hand was already loosely closed on the hilt of his bodkin. He rolled slightly onto his side and drew it from its sheath as the hand grew more bold and insinuated itself into his clothing. Then he spun about on his hip and brought the knife up where it could be seen.
“Och, m’lud,” the beggar who’d been trying to roll him pleaded, filthy hands up and fingers spread wide, “there ain’t nothin’ needful in that.”
“Glad to hear it,” Malden said. “Find elsewhere to bed down, or someone less wary to plunder.”
The beggar nodded heartily and scurried away. Malden went back to sleep.
When he woke, before he opened his eyes, he reached around behind him and touched the sack of gold at his back. Still there.
He let himself smile broadly and luxuriate in the feeling. A fortune, and though it would be gone shortly, by spending it he would earn the right to replace it.
Today, he thought, will be the best of my life.
Then he opened his eyes. In the morning light the space under the bridge lost much of its charm. It was strewn with refuse and furry with gray, stunted weeds that never got enough sun. The penniless men who lived there lingered long in their slumber, brains still addled by the night’s freight of cheap drink. All but one, who had a fire going—it looked like it was made of old table legs—and a pot made from a pikeman’s rusty helmet. Whatever stew he was cooking up to break his fast smelled evil and looked worse, so when he offered to share it, Malden politely declined.
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