Thief's War: A Knight and Rogue Novel

by Bell, Hilari

  But how could he have posted guards to await me a week ago, when I’d only come up with this scheme about four days past? Mayhap they were looking for someone else?

  “I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else.” I dropped the accent, since ’twas clearly useless. “What were your orders, exactly?”

  “To bring in anyone trying to follow the tax cart,” the first speaker told me. “And that’s what we’re going to do.”

  And so they did, leading me onward for several blocks before they turned down another dark lane, and then another. I thought about shouting for help, but having seen this town’s lack of reaction to a neighbor being beaten in front his own shop, I knew ’twould do no good. I’d lost all sense of direction, but the tall stone wall whose back gate we passed through looked very like the one that surrounded Atherton Roseman’s townhouse.

  They took me in through the kitchen, and neither the cooks who were kneading dough to rise overnight, nor the scullery maids washing the dishes, seemed surprised to see a prisoner at sword point go past their workplace.

  “Where’s the boss?” one of the men with me asked.

  “Study,” a cook replied.

  As we entered a well-lit hall, I noted that my captors moved in the strong, lithe way of trained swordsmen—just as you’d expect from men who wore the black and red livery of Roseman’s household guard. The rooms we passed held beautiful rugs, paintings, statues and tapestries. But I didn’t see the gold- and gem-encrusted opulence I’d expected. ’Twas newer, and less well-worn than the ancient country keep where I’d grown up—but ’twas actually a more tasteful display of wealth than my father’s house.

  The study, on the second floor, was even more inviting. A pleasant fire warded off the spring chill, bookshelves lined the walls…and all of this welcoming warmth was negated by the man who sat in the great upholstered chair.

  The guards hauled me into the room, and pushed me to my knees before him.

  The last criminal Fisk and I had dealt with looked like a nervous clerk. Atherton Roseman looked like a thug, even in a brocaded dressing gown, his open shirt collar trimmed with delicate lace. He was big, mayhap taller than I, and nearly twice as broad. Very little of that bulk was fat, either. His hands were blunt and looked as if they should be wielding a shovel, or crushing a man’s neck.

  He held a thin porcelain cup quite gently, and eyed me with more curiosity than venom.

  “You look more like Sevenson than Fisk.”

  So much for hoping ’twas someone else they sought. It had to be Jack who’d told him, warned him. But it had been over half a year since Master Jack Markham/Bannister/whoever had left us in Huckerston. He had no way of knowing we’d follow him. And the guards said they’d been waiting for me for a week.

  “How did you know I was coming?” I asked.

  “I know everything,” said Roseman. “You’ve been snooping in my business, Master Sevenson. I don’t like snoops.”

  The threat in his calm voice made words like “death” and “dismemberment” superfluous. But ’twas not right for a knight errant to cower. If I was going to die anyway, be cursed if I’d give him the satisfaction. I raised my head and steadied my voice.

  “Others know where I’ve gone. If I don’t come back, my murder will be the first crime you’re charged with. Life debts are paid with the noose. You can kill me. I have no doubt you will. But when the law comes, you’ll hang for it.”

  In truth, the law might not avenge an unredeemed man. But no one here had seen the tattoos on my wrists, so I was surprised when Roseman laughed.

  “The law’s not going to come.”

  “They will. In the end, law always prevails.”

  I thought for a moment our discussion would devolve into a childish round of, no they won’t, yes they will. Then Master Roseman lifted his massive head.

  “Bring him.”

  I wasn’t even surprised when one of my guards went out, and returned moments later dragging Fisk’s bound and battered form. He was conscious, but stumbling unsteadily, and the left side of his face was one solid bruise. When the guard released him, he toppled to his knees beside me.

  “So,” said the Rose. “You still think the law is coming?”

  Michael looked more pissed at me than at the Rose—a ridiculous nickname for a man who looked like a coal heaver, despite his fancy dressing gown.

  “Of all the times to stand and fight,” Michael snarled. “Why didn’t you run?”

  I had to admit, it was a fair question. “What makes you think I didn’t try?”

  Michael looked a bit less irritated. But then one of the thugs who’d arrived at the shop and demanded I go with them broke in.

  “He didn’t run. He was buying time for those vicious brats, while they escaped.”

  Michael was now mollified—but I’d have traded his anger for the sudden interest in Roseman’s face.

  “That orphan gang? Are you sure it was them?”

  “Recognized two of ’em,” the man said. “Looked like they was working in the chandlery, though I can’t be sure.”

  “And you let them get away?”

  The Rose’s voice was mild, but sweat popped out on the thug’s brow.

  “He put up a real fight, boss. And you know how fast they are. And slippery. They even took a dog with ’em, but they was darting though cracks in fences, and into pipes and—”

  The Rose gestured and he fell silent.

  “How did you get those little vandals to work for you?” he asked.

  “Michael brought them in.” I only go with truth when I don’t know what else to say, and this was one of those times.

  The Rose’s heavy regard shifted to Michael, who returned it with more calmness than I felt.

  “I simply asked if they wanted a job. But that wouldn’t work for you. Do you know why that wouldn’t work for you, Master Roseman?”

  The scowl that gathered on the Rose’s beefy face was so formidable that I was actually glad to see Jack stroll into the room.

  He looked the same as he always did, sleek, calm and in control. But he also looked that way when a con was crashing around him, so I didn’t take much comfort from it.

  “It’s not as if they can do you any harm,” he told the Rose, confirming that he’d been eavesdropping. Then he turned to me and added, “I got your message.”

  Jack had always been able to turn gratitude to anger in a heartbeat. I felt Michael’s eyes burning into me, without even glancing at him.

  “You tried to contact him. That’s how they knew I was coming. That’s how they knew to go after you. Curse it, Fisk, I told you not to do that!”

  I had already realized—when the thugs showed up at the shop—that if I hadn’t tried to contact Jack we might not be in this mess.

  On the other hand, if Michael had agreed to let Jack go I wouldn’t have had to contact him. So I didn’t feel all that guilty. This was what came from falling in with Michael’s crazy plans. I should have refused. I should have refused to come to Tallowsport at all!

  “You’re the one who insisted we come here, remember? You were the one who—”

  “It would have worked if you hadn’t—”

  “You shouldn’t be too miffed,” Jack interrupted Michael’s rant. “If he hadn’t warned me, you’d both be dead by now.”

  “That’s true.” Tony Rose had followed this with the lazy interest of a cat watching mice frolic. “Are you sure I can use them, Jack? They don’t seem that bright.”

  “I know you can use Fisk. As for the other…up to you. But you might take a look at his wrists before you make up your mind.”

  “Really?” Roseman sounded more interested than dismayed. “No, you don’t have to pull up his sleeves. I’ll take Jack’s word for it. But that’s not how I’d have read him.”

  I wondered how Jack had known about Michael’s status—though there were several people who might have told him, back in Huckerston. It was another reminder not to underestimate Jack�
��s ability to gather information. Not that I needed it, just then.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Roseman went on. “I don’t rely on other people’s judgment—certainly not the judicars’. I judge men by whether or not I can count on them. Can I trust this one, Jack?”

  I’d thought it was impossible for my heart to sink any lower. I should have known better.

  But Jack hesitated for a moment, and I beat him into speech.

  “You won’t get any use out of me if Michael’s dead.”

  We’d had this conversation once before, on a rain-swept cliff top—so Jack, at least, would believe I meant it. Because that conversation had ended with a broken gang of wreckers, and him on the run.

  “No need for hysterics,” Jack said. “And yes, you made that point the last time we met.” He turned to Roseman. “You need someone who can run a game, someone your captains won’t recognize as a part of your organization. Fisk fits that description. Besides, you appreciate loyalty. Fisk has it, even if it tends to be misdirected.”

  Michael had been listening to this with considerable interest. “Why do you think either of us would ever help you?”

  “Shut up, Michael,” I muttered.

  “No, really. Master Roseman isn’t a fool. He must know we’ll turn on him, or at least flee, the moment we get a chance.”

  “I’m not worried about that,” Roseman said. “Because… Here, I might as well show you.”

  “I’m sure that’s not necessary,” I said swiftly.

  But he rose from his chair with an agility I hadn’t expected from such a big man, and walked out of the room. The guards hauled Michael and me after him, which was more than a little inconvenient with ribs as bruised as mine.

  Jack brought up the rear, whistling under his breath. I had learned betrayal from Jack, too. So it shouldn’t have hurt, this time.

  Michael was right. I’d been an idiot.

  We climbed the stairs to the third floor, then a ladder to the attic—no small feat, with two bound men, but the guards more or less shoved us up. Michael first, then me.

  Usually the lesser servants in a house like this live in the attics. But at the top of the ladder, instead of some housemaid’s bleak, neat room, was a magpie’s nest, a bandit’s legendary lair—or the prop shop of a large theater company.

  Half a dozen flaming candelabra cast golden light over swaths of tattered silk, velvet and feathers, and gleamed on broken swords, and in the glass gems strewn over a battered workbench. In fact, this room was mostly a workshop, despite the rumpled bed near the window, and the draughts board, and the giant puppet that dangled from a rafter like a hanged man. Half its strings appeared to be missing.

  Roseman looked around. “Come out,” he called. “I need work done.”

  “Too many.” I couldn’t tell from which shadowy corner the croaking whisper came. “Too many, scaring the rats. Makes my eyes sparkly.”

  The Rose looked at half a dozen guards, as if they were so common in his life that he’d just noticed their presence.

  “Stan and Willet. You stay. And Jack. Everyone else, out.”

  “But boss…” One of them gestured to Michael.

  Roseman snorted richly. “Four of us, against two bound men? I think we can handle them.”

  Unfortunately, I agreed with him.

  The guards departed, and I wondered why the person lurking in the shadows didn’t count as a fifth man against us.

  Then he stepped out, blinking at the light. His hunched shoulders were wrapped in a shawl, woven out of ribbons in every color imaginable.

  At first I took him for an old man. The flyaway, light brown hair might have been gray, the scraggly stubble a sign of senility and neglect. But the face under that wild hair wasn’t that of a man much past his thirties. It was his eyes that gave the truth away, darting from place to place, resting for long moments on things that no one else could see.

  “Work is a sparrow. Hop hop. Then the snake eats it, and spits the feathers out. Do you want a nice hat? A hat to parade around town, and seduce the ladies?”

  Michael’s expression was soft with pity. I wondered what we were doing here, with even more dread than I’d felt before.

  “I need a pair of collars,” said The Rose. “To keep these two from plotting against me. To keep them from even thinking about it.”

  “Collars? Like I’ve made before, for the little rats, for the little and the big.” The madman nodded to his workbench. “Bright gems, like pretty panther eyes. I can have them for you in just a month.”

  The Rose frowned. “A month? I need them now.”

  “Schemes are part of the mind. Of thoughts and prayers and gingersnaps. To make a spell that warns of plotting, I must know them, their dreams, the freckles on their ears. Can’t reveal scheming in a day or a week, or maybe even a month. Not for skirts and feathers, not at all, for she’s a girl and I don’t see in. But not a year, no. The rats wouldn’t like that.”

  Spell? As in human magic?

  No one knows whether magic comes to humans who are mad, or makes humans mad when it comes to them—but this ragged lunatic was what Michael feared he might become, if he used the magic Ceciel’s potions had given him. I thought that if that was going to happen, it would have done so years ago, but this man’s eerie rambling still chilled my blood.

  Jack, I noticed, wasn’t disturbed by it. And it seemed to make sense to the Rose, which was even more frightening.

  “I need it faster than that,” he said. “How about collars to stop them from killing me? That blood thing you do for a demonstration, with the rats. It’s just a warning system, but if that’s all I can get I’ll make it work.”

  “That won’t take long, just a sunflower,” the madman said. “Only blood is needed for that, no cookie dreams at all.”

  “Then do it,” said the Rose. “But first we’ll show them it works.” He turned to Michael and I. “This isn’t the best he can do, but it will let my men know instantly if either one of you ever kills me. And then they’ll kill you. Simple and effective.”

  I hadn’t realized the rats were real, till one of the guards picked up a cage beside the bed and set it on a table near the workbench.

  The madman wandered over to the bench, opened a drawer and took out two rat-sized collars, each one studded with a chip of glass.

  Atherton Roseman drew on a pair of leather gloves and reached into the cage to extract two squirming rats, which he dumped into a deep kettle on one end of the bench. I could hear them scrabbling for purchase on the slippery metal.

  The Rose removed his gloves and held out a hand to the madman. “Do it.”

  The man sighed. “Might as well only prick you once. Prickory dickory. But not for one of them.”

  He opened another drawer and brought out two full-sized collars, large enough for a dog twice Trouble’s size. They were each inset with a gem so big it had to be glass. They were also unfinished, the leather layers flapping on the ends, no buckle in sight.

  I suddenly became very interested in what was about to happen to those rats.

  But the first victim was Tony Rose. He held out his hand to his mad henchman, who picked up a knife and made a small cut in the Rose’s thumb, then smeared his blood liberally over all four gems.

  The Rose sucked the cut, and gestured to one of the guards, who put on the discarded gloves and picked up a rat. Its teeth didn’t penetrate the leather, but it wasn’t because the rat didn’t try. The madman avoided the scrabbling claws by nicking its ropy tail. Rat blood joined Roseman’s on the small gems—but not the larger ones.

  My thumbs began to feel vulnerable.

  Another guard donned another pair of gloves and scooped the second rat out of the kettle. His tail blood joined his friend’s.

  Then the madman took the small collars in his hands…and held them, doing nothing I could see.

  I heard breath hiss into Michael’s lungs. He was staring at the madman’s hands with utter fascination. And I knew enough
about his ability to see magic to guess what he was staring at.

  See? I said it could be controlled, if you practiced.

  Whether this maker of stylish collars had gotten his magic because of his madness, or been made mad by it, was a question for philosophers. But I was still surprised when—after a considerable struggle to get the collar onto a squirming rat—the blood-stained gem began to glow. Green, oddly enough, beneath the blood.

  I looked at the second collar to see if the gem was green glass, mostly because with that much horror prickling up your spine your mind needs distractions.

  The stone was too small for me to judge its color, but the one attached to the rat was getting brighter.

  “You see that light?” the Rose asked, though everyone in the attic was staring at it. “Those gems are linked now, by blood and magic.”

  “And life.” The creator of the spell wrestled a collar onto the other rat, and the second gem flared like a tiny ember. “Heart beat, blood beat, but don’t beat Sally. She’s a good girl.”

  Sally might have been his sister, his lover, or one of the rats, but tears sprang into his eyes.

  The Rose shrugged. “Take it as far away as you can, in this room.”

  The guard promptly carried his rat to a corner, the green light winking like a firefly as it struggled.

  Then the Rose gestured, and the other guard pressed the nearest rat flat on the bench. His boss picked up a knife. “Look at the gem on the other one’s collar.”

  Since I had no desire to watch even a rat die, I did so—and wasn’t really surprised when I heard the knife blade hit wood, and the gem on the distant rat’s collar went dark. I was more surprised, and all things considered, relieved, when the guard came back with the distant rat still alive and wiggling in his grasp.

  The madman snipped its collar off, and cast the limp leather strip into a waste bin at the end of the bench. The guard returned the living rat to its cage—seemingly none the worse for its blood-brother’s demise.

  I wondered if I could get that discarded collar into Michael’s hands, and whether it would help if I did. Because we were surely going to need magic to get out of this.