His eyes were straying towards the wall decorations when something registered in his brain and his gaze snapped back to the lamp, his vision focusing this time on the hair-thin wire that looped around the glass chimney of the lamp and ran across the floor at a height of four inches, barely visible except when it caught and reflected the lamp-light.
Frowning, Skiouros followed the wire's line to the front door, where it ran through a staple and across the opening at ankle height. The hastily inserted tack to which the far end of the cord had been attached was the object preventing the door from slamming closed.
A trap? A foolish one, if so. Anyone entering would almost certainly trip it and set light instantly to the soft furnishings. The house would be an inferno in half a minute and, while no unprepared visitors would have the time to prevent the conflagration, they certainly would have time to get away from it. So what point was the trap?
All caution thrown to the wind now, restraint submerged beneath Skiouros' driving need to know more, the thief raised his leg and with infinite care stepped over the wire and into the room, bringing his other leg over after and then stepping away from the line.
For a moment he tried to decide whether it would be prudent to leave the trap in position rather than removing all doubt that someone had been here, but the fear of a fire raging through the streets and blocks of the city won out and he crossed to the oil lamp, straightening it carefully and removing the loop of wire from the neck before lifting it and placing it on one of the decorative inlaid sideboards. With the tension taken from it, the wire sagged back to the ground and the trap was disarmed.
Again, Skiouros looked around. The décor was truly fine and rather at odds with the exterior, the interior being largely Ottoman in nature while the house presented an Orthodox image in the Greek district. Something about it, though he couldn't quite put his finger on what, suggested that the owner of the house was a woman. The room in which he stood was clearly furnished and decorated for entertaining guests - Ottoman guests by the look of it.
Method to everything. Never change floor until you're certain that the ground is clear, else you could find yourself trapped and your exit blocked. A quick glance at the staircase and a pause to listen confirmed his initial impression that there was no activity up there.
Crossing to the furthest door, he listened intently. Other than the distant clatter of something outside in the wind, nothing could be heard. Inching open the door, he peered inside, allowing time for his eyes to adjust to the dim interior. Nothing. A kitchen and pantry with storeroom, all devoid of movement or sound. Noting the firmly closed door leading out of the rear of the building, he returned to the other exit from the front room.
A cloak room, filled with small boxes and crates; a fine lady's robe hanging on the wall displayed some of the finest Ottoman-style work to be had in the city. Next to it, another lady's cloak hung, dowdy and plain in the Greek style.
A woman of two cultures, then? Or a woman with a habit of masquerading as what she was not? Despite the growing sense of danger, Skiouros' blood pounded excitedly with each new discovery, fuelling his curiosity.
The ground floor was clearly empty. What of the upstairs? That was, after all, where a light had shown through the window. Just because he could discern no activity from here didn't mean there was none.
Crossing to the stairs, Skiouros peered closely at them, taking in the first nine before the staircase turned for its final ascent. A dim golden glow emanated from the corner, indicating a light source somewhere near the top. While reasonably maintained, the boards showed signs of wear, and he picked out the third and fifth boards as ones particularly likely to bow beneath his boot and groan loudly. With a last indrawn breath, he placed his left foot at the very edge of the step, next to the wall, and moved up, putting his weight on it slowly. The step gave what seemed like an alarmingly loud creak, though he knew from experience that his heightened senses and imagination were amplifying what was in truth only a tiny noise.
Another step.
Another creak.
A pause.
There was still no sign of activity from above, and Skiouros carefully skipped the third step and planted his foot on the fourth, hauling himself quietly up with a gentle groan of tortured wood.
Still no sound.
Skip again to step six, and he could see the landing where the stairs turned. A thick, warm rug lay there, probably purposefully made for the task, given the perfect fit.
With stealth and speed, he padded up the remaining steps to the corner and paused for another listen before peering round it.
He could see part of the upper floor now. Strangely, it appeared from this angle that the entire top floor was given over to one room. The golden glow came from somewhere out of sight to the left, hidden behind a wall until he emerged at the top. He did, however, have a reasonable view ahead, and in the far corner of the room stood a bronze bathtub, surrounded by a wall of white and blue tiles. The owner had combined her private bathing area with the sleeping room. Functional, if a little unorthodox.
Still no sound issued from the room, so Skiouros crept up the last few stairs, the room opening up to him first allowing him to take in the floor ahead, and then out to his left as the wall came to an end, giving him a full view of the sizeable upper room.
The first thing that drew his attention as he moved in was the bath and its surroundings, directly ahead. The bronze bathtub with its lion-paw feet stood upon white and blue tiles of the same style as the wall, though the tiles were covered with a wet, swirling pattern of red, where the blood and water from the tub had overflowed and pooled beneath.
He'd not had time to fully register his alarm or react to the sight when his eyes strayed to the left and he took in the second grizzly scene.
Most of the room was taken up by an exceedingly large bed. The walls around it were hung with golden drapes here and there, but not enough to hide the murals that showed every carnal act Skiouros could imagine, and a number he had trouble imagining.
Upon the bed, though, was the true immediate focus of his attentions. A naked man lay sprawled upon the white and gold silk sheets, awkwardly splayed upon a lake of his own blood that had saturated the entire bed and even run to the floor at one side.
Again, Skiouros' instincts told him to run, and again he fought them. There was no inherent danger here now, with the occupant - occupants? - of the room in this condition. And as for the perpetrator of this nightmare? Well, he'd clearly been and gone, leaving the lamp…
A connection clicked in his mind as he realised that the lamp and cord were not a trap but a cover-up. The first person to enter the house after the killer had left would cause a fire that would likely demolish a sizeable section of the Greek enclave, and would certainly have removed all evidence of this butchery. Moreover, it would happen at some random point long enough after the killer made his escape that he would be far away and safe from both flame and discovery when it happened. Indeed, the lamp would have had enough oil to burn for much of the night, the wire and angle were so carefully set as to guarantee a fire unless the visitor was almost preternaturally aware - like a thief. How the killer could know someone would happen by in the next few hours was…
The answer struck him as his eyes took in the murals again: this lady was distinctly no 'lady'. Her clientele were probably carefully timed and would certainly be most numerous during the evening. She would probably have at least two more visitors tonight.
A sudden invigorating sense of urgency thrilled through him as he realised that he might be discovered here by her next client at any time.
He would have to be quick.
Hurrying over to the bed, he put his hand to his nose and mouth. Lykaion may be a soldier, blooded on the field of combat against both Turk and Mamluk, but Skiouros was a thief, not a killer, and had no taste for blood. The tinny odour stuck in his nose and throat, cloying and thick and threatening to make him retch. A quick glance at the body close up forced
him to avert his gaze for a moment until he could master his gullet. Trying not to breathe too deeply, he turned back again.
The man was a Turk, and a well-groomed one, with a neat beard and moustaches. His body would have been a healthy golden colour were it not currently almost white. The killer had cut the man's throat with one stroke from ear to ear and no other sign of struggle or incidental wounding. A quick and efficient kill. The man had died without even trying to make it off the bed.
Staggering back from the body, Skiouros turned and shuffled over to the bronze bathtub, already knowing what to expect.
He was mistaken. Hideously mistaken.
Where the Turk on the bed had been killed with a clean quick stroke, the woman in the bathtub, bobbing around in the dark red water, had been dealt with in the most horrible fashion.
Skiouros almost fell, one hand shooting out to grasp the side of the bath, making it wobble and almost upending it as he vomited copiously into the bloody slick at his feet. In the water, the dismembered body parts sloshed around with the sudden activity, shins knocking into shoulders, the head bouncing off a foot and coming to rest almost comically with a hand across its mouth as if mocking him.
Again, Skiouros staggered, this time away from the bath, still trailing a string of vomit, his face blanching. His foot caught on something and he almost fell. Looking down, he saw the long red robe with extremely expensive cut and the look of a high-ranking Ottoman's wear. Nearby lay a golden shirt of silk and dark red trousers piled onto very expensive shoes. Whoever he was, the victim on the bed was important.
Quickly, Skiouros hurried over to the bed again, trying to hold down what remained of his fine dinner, and scanned the body for anything of use. His gaze fell upon the signet ring on the man's hand and he reached down for it, flinching at the cold shudder that ran through him at the touch of the dead man's cold, grey hand and the sticky blood that pulled and sucked at his palm as it was lifted from the bed. The ring came off with just a little work at twisting, and Skiouros spared it just long enough a glance to make sure it was an identifiable signet before closing his hand around it, stuffing it inside his doublet and into the pouch at his belt.
Feeling the next wave of nausea rising to break on his palate, he turned and fled towards the stairs, skidding to a halt at the last moment as a thought struck him.
Until he worked out whether he was entirely in the clear and what else should be done, it would be better if no one else came across this horrifying scene. That meant discouraging any further clients.
Taking a deep breath at the stairs and steeling himself, he hurried back across the room, pulled all the curtains tightly across the windows and extinguished the lamp. These things done and satisfied that, at least from the street, it would appear that the house was empty or the occupant asleep, he rushed to the stairs once again, this time pounding down them with no thought for silence. Entering the lower room, he crossed to the door and pulled it tightly shut. Unlike most houses in the city, this door was equipped with a lock in which the key still sat, and Skiouros thanked the Lord in his heaven for a small mercy. Turning the key, he effectively sealed the house. With a quick glance out into the street to be sure he was not being observed, he pulled closed the heavy curtains and then paused. Memorising the floor plan and crossing to the cupboard, he closed his eyes and counted to ten to attune his sight to the darkness and then blew on the lamp, extinguishing the flame.
When he opened his eyes once more, he was in a pit of darkness, the only visible light being the faint cracks of moonlight slipping between the curtains. The darkness smelled of burned oil and the tangy blood still raking his nostrils.
Slowly, his eyes began to pick out details in the room, and he crossed it lightly, without touching anything, to the rear door, which he opened slowly and carefully.
The kitchen area was still dark and empty, pristine and tidy. Closing the interior door behind him, Skiouros crossed to the other door that led out to the back of the house. No expensive key lock here; this door was fastened with a small locking bar that could be drawn back or pushed home. Cursing the fact that he would have to leave the rear entrance unlocked, he slid back the bar and opened the door.
The cold air hit him like a welcome wave, cleansing him a little of the stink of blood and death and of burned oil. He shivered, and not entirely with the cold, as he stepped out of the building and into the narrow alley behind. As with all such passages in the city, this one stank of ordure and threatened to ruin his new boots - not that such mundanities were a high priority for Skiouros tonight. Turning, he pushed the door to and hoped it would stay that way in this sheltered position, before hopping around the worst of the mess and scurrying out towards the alley's end.
As the moonlight grew, heralding open space ahead, Skiouros paused and took a deep breath. Even the smell of the shit and the animal carcasses out here in the alley was bliss after the prostitute's house. Approaching the corner, he slowed and looked carefully but very quickly this way and that. There was no sign of life in the main thoroughfare and he had, thankfully, emerged on the far side, at the opposite end from the church of Saint John, and into a cross-street.
The sound of a couple of happy drunks bellowing in Greek issued from the next junction and, before they made an appearance, Skiouros stepped out into the open, quickly looking himself up and down in the moonlight.
He probably appeared deathly pale after his vomiting session, but that was no real issue. His boots had been in blood, but then they had also been in offal, shit and dusty gravel, so there was little chance of that being evident. The only real indicator that anything untoward had happened was the smear of tacky, drying crimson on his hands where he had gripped the bath side and then twisted the ring off the man's bloody finger.
Easily solved.
Still trying to calm his racing heart and return his breathing to normal, his spine tingling with both fear and horror, Skiouros stuffed his hands into the pocket-slits at the sides of his doublet to hide the mess and strolled on down the street.
The drunken revellers turned the corner, there being evidently three of them, rather than the two he'd heard, and staggered past him with barely a glance.
Without paying any further heed to them, Skiouros hurried on to the corner, turned left, right and left again and closed his eyes in relief as he came to the ancient fountain that still provided good drinking water. A grinning face with beard, curly hair and bulging cheeks, carved from a single solid piece of stone, spat a constant stream of crystal water, brought from the hills north of the city, into a wide stone trough. The overflow ran away into a gutter that trickled off down the sloping street towards the Golden Horn.
Wasting no time, Skiouros removed his hands from his doublet and gave them a thorough scrub in the icy water, removing every trace of blood from between his fingers and beneath his nails. That task complete, he flicked off the excess water from his hands and reached into his belt, unhooking his pouch. He noted with irritation the blood smear his hands had left on the soft calfskin, and then opened it, tipping the coins and the signet ring into his other hand.
For a long moment, he stared at the ring with an almost accusatory expression, as though the ornate item had intentionally ruined his day. The very presence of the ring weighed heavier than the gold itself and briefly he considered disposing of it and forgetting all about it. Something deep inside, however, clamped down on his thoughts and he shook his head and straightened.
Carefully, he placed the coins and ring on the flat stone next to the face and gave the pouch a thorough scrub inside and out until only the faintest hint of discolouration remained. Then, hanging it from an iron nail that protruded to one side of the fountain, he proceeded to clean off the ring and each coin before depositing them back in the bag.
As the last silver akce dropped inside, Skiouros heaved a sigh of relief, returned the pouch to his belt beneath the doublet, and set about quickly rinsing the transferred blood traces from the stonework.
Shaking the remaining droplets from his hands and then wiping them on his braes, Skiouros strode off around two more corners with a sense of purpose, only slowing as he laid eyes on his chosen destination: the Olympos Taverna. While he had no urge and no intention of getting drunk, he certainly needed to fortify himself right now and, after all, he'd just ejected every last drop of alcohol from his body.
A drink. And a think.
Walking inside the busy, warm brick structure, Skiouros strode up to the bar, purchased a flask of costly, imported Italian wine, and found himself a space at a table in a shady corner.
The world began to slow and refocus for him as he took a sip of the wine and sagged in the chair. Time to take stock of what had happened.
Clearly the murders in the whore's house had been very deliberate. Their connection with the man - probably a Mamluk - in the market was a little hazy, though. The man had apparently not written the note himself - despite being in Arabic, Judah had believed it written by a Christian and therefore the Mamluk had clearly received the address from someone else. Presumably he had only recently done so, or he would not be carrying the evidence in his purse - thus it had probably come from one of the stallholders in the market. Assuming the dark skinned man had something to do with all this, he would have to have ordered the killing between receiving the address and it being stolen by an unfortunate Greek thief.
Thief's Tale Page 7
