Den of Thieves

by David Chandler

  In Market Square, vendors fought over the best places to set up their stalls. Most of the disputations were only squalls of words, with the occasional brandishing of a piece of paper as one or another claimed the right to a certain favorable spot. These pieces of paper were of limited utility, however, since most of them had been written by one of Cutbill’s expert forgers. The few authentic ones sold for ten times the price, but in the presence of so many counterfeits, they could not be honored either. Occasionally a fistfight broke out, which the few watchmen on hand had trouble breaking up. There was real money to be made at a fair day, after all.

  On the Golden Slope, where most houses were already deserted, the last few wealthy citizens supervised their servants as they packed chests full of clothes and food for the next two days. Anyone who could afford to, fled the city during fair days and locked their houses up tight, because it was commonly believed that crowds spread plague. Some of Cutbill’s best agents were on the rooftops, making notes.

  Down in the Smoke the giant furnaces were banked, a laborious process that was only performed twice a year. The fires that smelted and shaped the Free City’s iron had to be throttled down slowly and precisely, lest the forges cool off too rapidly and crack under the stress. Normally the furnaces were kept roaring all through the day and night. The law required that all fires be put out during fair days, however. During the festivities the population of Ness would triple, and should any house catch fire there would be no way to check the conflagration before it spread across town.

  In the Stink every shrine of the Bloodgod was holding late services, accepting the small sacrifices of fish and meat the people brought. They lined up for blocks just to leave their scraps and make the proper signs. The poor couldn’t afford to displease either god or goddess, and so made a point of placating both in quick succession. At dawn they’d be on their knees in the little chapels of the Lady that dotted their neighborhoods, trying hard to stay awake through the morning prayers.

  The watchmen took full advantage of the piety of the poor to break into more of their homes and rummage through their meager belongings. No crown was discovered in these searches, but plenty of copper coins and pieces of cheap jewelry were. It was a holiday for the watch as much as for everyone else.

  At every inn the house was full, and travelers were forced to bed down in the stables, or sleep six to a bed in the house, and there was no wine to be had, only new ale and strong beer.

  At the Lemon Garden, Elody opened her doors and hung a brass cornucopia over her door, advertising the special rate she gave to pilgrims far from home. She’d brought in extra girls for the increased foot traffic—honest women every other day of the year who wore masks tonight to make a little extra cash, since they could find cheap expiation in the morning for any sins they committed this night.

  On the Goshawk Road opposite the northern wall of Castle Hill, the gambling houses closed their doors—but not their tables. The devoted card players and dicers inside kept their voices low in case the watch was listening, but that just drove the stakes higher. Fights broke out there just as in Market Square, but these ended much more quickly. Either the proprietors of the gaming houses ejected the brawlers with due dispatch (if they were of the more common sort), or (in the case of the gentry) helped the combatants make assignations for future duels. To be held only after Ladymas, of course. No nobleman would be so uncouth as to shed blood on the Lady’s sacred day.

  In the Ashes the beggar children who watched over Cutbill’s lair gathered in a burned-down chapel and worshipped their own image of the Lady. It was only a charred piece of an old tavern sign that showed a less-than-divine woman holding a giant ale tankard, but the faith in the children’s eyes burned no less bright for it. If anyone needed to court fortune and abundance, it was these urchins.

  In the Ladypark a yale bleated as it was brought to bay by a pack of feral dogs. It turned to face them with its wicked swinging horns, but it was severely outmatched. If the yale knew it was sacred to the goddess, it didn’t know how to call upon her aid.

  In a rarely used chapel on Castle Hill, a certain figure sat with a bottle of wine and a good book. He would not be sleeping that night—at least until he heard from his fellow cabal members, Bikker and Hazoth. When he was certain the ungrateful thief was dead and Ghostcutter was ready to be passed on to a new owner, then he might relax—but only for a moment, before the real work of the conspiracy began.

  All across the city hymns were sung. They could be heard through every window and on every street corner.

  Everywhere people made merry, or atoned for sins, or simply enjoyed the warm summer’s night.

  And on Parkwall Common an ogre walked sedately across the grass and up unto the gates of Hazoth’s villa. The guards there challenged him and shouted for him to leave, but he ignored them, and all else. As if he’d found a pleasant place to spend the evening, the ogre sat down on the grass just beyond the gate, and watched the house with his massive, staring eyes. After a while he folded his hands in his lap. He made no attempt to enter, nor gave any sign of violence. Yet a lightning stroke touching the rose window would have elicited less surprise.

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  At the side of the house, Malden crouched with Kemper beneath a willow bush. He peered through the dark trying to see what was happening. There were torches guttering at the gate, and he could make out the ogre plain enough, but he needed to see how the guards reacted to Gurrh’s presence.

  “Ye’ll know when it’s time, lad,” Kemper soothed.

  “We need to be ready to move at a moment’s notice,” Malden insisted. “Are you prepared? You know what you must do?”

  “Aye. Now quit yer jawin’. Look, there. Is yon bastard this Bikker ye’re so afeared of?”

  “It is,” Malden said, grinding his teeth together. The big swordsman was leaning against the side of the villa, scratching at his beard. He did not look well pleased, which was comforting. He kept craning his head around the side of the house to see what the ogre was up to. Which was nothing.

  Malden had foreseen this. It was quite possible that Bikker would see through this phase of the plan. The ogre couldn’t get through the barrier any more than Malden could. The guards were completely safe inside—and of course, they would be perfectly safe even if the barrier were lowered. Bikker might know the meaning of the runes on the ogre’s face and realize he had nothing to fear from the monster.

  Yet it would take a man with ice water in his veins not to worry when such a brute showed up on his doorstep for reasons unknown. Bikker was smart, he was disciplined, but Malden was counting on the fact that he had hot blood in him. If Bikker wouldn’t respond to the ogre’s presence, Gurrh had been told to make him react.

  “Now, Gurrh,” Malden said, as if the ogre could hear him.

  Perhaps he could—who knew what the hearing of an ogre was like? Without apparent provocation, Gurrh rose to his feet and went over to the fence that ringed the villa. He grasped one of the wrought-iron uprights and tore it loose from the crossbeams with a noise like a demon being dragged out of the pit—a groaning, shrieking sound that set Malden’s hair on end. The upright came loose with a clang, and suddenly Gurrh was holding what looked very much like a wicked spear.

  The ogre, smiling broadly, swept it through the air and brought it clanging along the other uprights of the fence. The noise was rhythmic and intense and impossible to ignore. A guard shouted for the ogre to stop but his voice was lost in the clamor.

  It was enough, perhaps. The guards rushed backward, away from the fence, caterwauling in their fear. Just as Malden had hoped, at the side of the house Bikker pushed himself away from the wall and came striding out toward the gate.

  “You there,” the hairy knight called. “You—beastie. What in the name of all that’s perverse do you think you’re doing?”

  Gurrh shrugged and brought his spear around for another pass. The clanging, banging noise was even louder this time. It was enough
to hurt Malden’s ears, even so far away. Gurrh seemed to pay no attention to Bikker’s demand—he looked for all the world like some mindless brute who had just taken a fancy to making that dreadful racket for his own reasons.

  The fact that he was obviously there for some distinct purpose must, Malden hoped, be driving Bikker mad. Bikker might be a ruffian, but he was also a trained soldier, and Malden had learned from Croy that the one thing soldiers hate more in the world is an enemy doing something they don’t understand.

  “The master of this house doesn’t want to be disturbed,” Bikker announced. “I don’t know your game—though I can guess your owner, I think. Leave now or I’ll set my dogs on you.”

  Gurrh made a third racket, and suddenly Bikker was moving, taking long strides toward the barrier. “Lower this damned thing,” he shouted, and the captain of the guard came running forward to salute. “You three—and you, boy, drive this thing off.”

  The four guards he’d chosen balked at the task, but it didn’t take more than a few clouts to get them moving. Bikker must have really put a fear into them, Malden thought. They waited for the captain to make the necessary gesture to lower the barrier, then dashed out through the gates brandishing their polearms. They jabbed and thrusted at the ogre the way a swain pokes at a pig to scare it into motion, but the ogre easily fended off their blows with his spear. One glaive blade got past his defense and scored a hit on his hairy stomach, but Gurrh just laughed. The blade bent and then snapped off its pole.

  “Sadu’s blood an’ balls,” Kemper said, astonished.

  “All the old stories say how hard it is to slay an ogre, that no normal weapon can cut their furry pelts. Come—this is our time to act. We must be quick.”

  The thief and the card sharp ran across the grass toward the fence. Malden slipped through between two uprights while Kemper just walked through them. The two of them kept very low as they hurried across the garden. Malden was terrified that Bikker would turn around and see them, but his attention seemed absorbed by the ogre.

  This was exactly according to plan. Thanks to Croy’s recklessness, Hazoth had come to expect an attack on the house—a direct, frontal attack of the kind a knight would make against a fortress. The ogre appeared to be providing exactly that.

  Which was not to say this was going to be easy.

  Malden and Kemper slipped around the back of the house. Only one guard remained in the garden, and he was doing his best to see what was happening at the front while not technically deserting his post. Bikker had trained and disciplined these guards into a formidable fighting force, but he’d only had a few days to do it. He could not have completely broken all their bad habits in that time.

  The back door of the house, which led into the preparatory room behind the dining chamber, was in deep shadow. There were no torches or other lights back there—they would have served no purpose but to ruin the night vision of the guard. Even better, Malden saw that the high window above the preparatory door was open to catch the night air, as it had been a quite warm day. Perfect.

  Kemper walked through the door and disappeared. Malden took a length of rope from around his waist and uncoiled it. It was not very thick, nor even particularly strong, but Slag had dipped one end of it in molten silver—at Cutbill’s expense. The silver gave that end some extra weight, so that Malden could toss the end up and through the preparatory window. He let the rope play out, then grasped it tight when he felt it go taut. The other reason for the silver was to allow Kemper to hold it. He braced Malden from inside while the thief climbed up to the preparatory window and through. He clambered down in the darkness and dropped a few feet to the floor. There was just enough light to see Kemper’s teeth glinting in the gloom.

  Malden pulled the rope through the window and tied it once more around his waist. No point leaving it there where the guard might notice it—he didn’t intend to leave the house by this same window.

  He felt a clammy coolth pass through his elbow—that was Kemper’s touch—and reached inside his tunic to take out Kemper’s cards. They were a bit damp with Malden’s sweat. He handed them to Kemper, who took them without a word.

  Together they made their way through the dining chamber and into a corridor that ran from one end of the villa to the other. Windows along one wall shed enough moonlight to show a hall furnished with small tables, a chest of silver plate, and thick carpets on the floor that would soak up the sound of footfalls.

  Kemper gave Malden a silent salute, then started off down the corridor. He paused at one of the tables and on its top laid a card, the two of hearts. Next he stopped at the chest. Its lid creaked as it opened. Malden tensed and prepared himself to run, but a mouse might make as much noise. Kemper slipped the seven of acorns inside the chest and closed it again, this time without a sound.

  All correct. Malden parted ways with Kemper then, heading back through the dining room and into a servant’s closet. A narrow flight of wooden stairs led up to the second floor from there.

  A window pierced the wall by the stairwell, and through it Malden could hear the ogre laughing and Bikker shouting terse orders.

  Perfect.

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  The second floor of the villa was as silent as a tomb. Malden reached the top of the stairs and stepped into a hallway with a single candle burning at its far end. There was just enough light to see the doors on either side. Framed pictures hung on the walls here, and he stole a glance at one, but it made his head hurt so he looked away quickly. It didn’t seem possible that the woman in the picture would be able to accommodate the giant insect she’d taken as a lover. He did not intend to waste time resolving how it was done.

  Kemper had explored this floor and found little of interest—bedrooms, a garderobe or two, linen closets. Malden made his way down the carpeted hall as noiselessly as possible, ignoring the doors until he saw one begin to open. Instantly he pressed himself against the wall and pulled his hood down over his eyes so they would not shine in the candlelight.

  He heard a woman’s sigh as the door opened fully, letting pale light out into the hall. The woman’s shadow was projected on the wall opposite, and he could see from the silhouette that it was Cythera.

  He would gladly have made himself known and spoken with her. She could provide valuable information that would aid him in his skulduggery. On the other hand he had far better reason not to let her see him. If he startled her, she might cry out. At the very least, if she spoke to him, someone else might hear them. He could not afford to take that chance.

  So before she stepped out into the hall, he took the great risk of opening the door nearest to him and slipping inside. He did it quickly but without making any noise at all. Luckily it seemed the room he’d entered was empty—an unused bedroom, with the furniture all shoved up against one wall and covered in cloths. He pressed his ear against the keyhole of the door and listened as Cythera stepped out into the hall and walked away. He counted to one hundred in his head before he considered leaving the empty bedroom again.

  When he was certain it was safe, he tried the door’s latch—and found that it had locked behind him. He wanted to curse but didn’t risk the sound. What kind of door locked automatically from the inside? It made very little sense to him. Whoever stayed in this room would be trapped until someone came along and let them out.

  He turned and looked again at the furniture against the wall. There was a bed, a clothes press, a basin on a stand, a low stool—all common enough fixtures. Something about the bed looked odd to him, though, and he twitched the cloth back to have a closer look. It was then he saw the manacles bolted to the headboard, and the bloodstains on the straw-filled mattress. He let the cloth go in disgust. Curiosity got the better of him, though, and he lifted the lid of the clothes press.

  Inside, instead of the garments he’d expected, he saw trays full of rusted steel implements. He recognized only a few of them—a saw, a hammer, a variety of shears and pincers in various gauges. A great
many knives. There was one tool with a watertight leather bulb at one end and a long tube on the other, and something else that resembled a meat hook stretched out long and thin.

  He could hardly guess at their purpose, but then something occurred to him. He looked to his left and saw it again as if for the first time. There was one piece of furniture in the room he definitely recognized, from his childhood. The stool. A low three-legged stool about twelve inches high. It was the kind of stool midwives used.

  When Malden realized what that meant and where he was, he wanted to close his eyes and just make this all go away. He wanted to jump in the Skrait and drown, because at least then he could die clean.

  He was wasting time. He closed the press and pulled the cloth back over the bed exactly as it had been, then went to the door and unwrapped the lock picks hidden in the hilt of his bodkin. The lock on the door was a simple mechanism, easily defeated, and soon he had the door open. Yet as he was stepping back into the hall and closing the door behind him, again a sensation, unbidden and very much unwanted, came to his mind.

  Malden had the distinct impression someone was coming up behind him. Was it Cythera, returning from some errand? Or a less welcome intruder? He flattened himself against the wall, knowing his only chance was to hide in the semidarkness of the hall. It was a forlorn hope. The light from the candle was plenty to see by—but his reflexes were such he couldn’t help but try to hide.