Thief's War: A Knight and Rogue Novel

by Bell, Hilari

  “We’ve tested those collars at a distance over sixty miles,” Tony Rose told us. “When any member of the blood bond kills another, the light in both stones goes out. Doesn’t matter how far apart they are. Or who kills who. Whom?”

  “Whom,” I confirmed. The mad jeweler went behind me, and grasped one of my bound hands. I managed not to wince at the cut, at the feel of my bleeding thumb sliding over leather and smooth glass. “But it’s only if Michael or I kill you that the gems go out, right? I’d hate to die because another of your enemies got lucky.”

  “Oh, I’m not that unreasonable,” said the Rose. “If someone else scrags me, your gems will go right on glowing. And you live.”

  “It can’t be made to work the other way,” the madman said. “I tried and tried, not lied and lied. Has to be one of the bond who does the—”

  Roseman’s big hand lifted and slapped him, so hard the madman fell sprawling at his master’s feet. Evidently we weren’t supposed to know there was anything beyond his or his master’s ability. He cowered for a moment, then looked up at the Rose and began to laugh.

  Tony Rose laughed with him.

  Michael looked away, as if from some obscenity.

  I watched, wondering if the lunatic might be turned. If anyone could undo this binding, it was him.

  “But when you killed the rat, making the stones go dark, it didn’t kill the other rat,” Michael pointed out.

  “Well, technically, it’s not the collars that keep you from killing me.” Roseman sounded quite affable about it. “It’s my orders to your guards that if they ever see those stones go dark, they’re to kill you instantly, no questions asked. That’s what will keep you from trying anything…unwise.”

  The mad jeweler had gone behind Michael now, collecting his blood. We stood in silence as he held the collars and gazed at them—though all I could see was a ragged man, looking at two leather bands. But when he stood, took a needle and thread from the bench, and laid the collar around Michael’s throat, the gem began to glow—not green this time, but pale gold. This stone was large enough that I could see small sparks drifting inside it, like bubbles in sparkling wine. Indisputably magic, human magic, for all to see.

  And for Roseman’s men to see. If either Michael or I killed Roseman, the stones in both our collars would go dark. And assuming Roseman’s men would obey his orders after he was dead—which, I noted, Roseman didn’t seem to doubt—they’d promptly kill us to avenge their master. If we were ever alone with Roseman, in a place where we could flee together afterward, the stones going dark wouldn’t matter…which guaranteed that Roseman would never allow us, unguarded, into his presence.

  But there was some hope. I made a mental note to turn the stone out of sight when I went out. Because all these eerie, elaborate precautions indicated that at least one of us would be allowed to go out, at some point, alone. Which also, not incidentally, meant we were going to live. Unless we did something stupid. Which I wasn’t going to, though I wouldn’t have put it past Michael.

  “What if we both run off?” he asked, proving my point. “Or what if one of us runs away without the other? Or cuts the collar off?”

  The madman was doing a neat job of stitching the collar closed on his neck.

  “The moment that collar leaves your body the stones stop glowing,” Roseman said. “But if you both managed to escape at the same time, you could run off, cut the collars, and that would be that.”

  I noticed that he didn’t sound particularly worried.

  “But if just one of you gets away…well, without a hostage I couldn’t trust the other, could I?”

  He didn’t need to expand on this point.

  “As it is,” he went on, “you’ll work for me as long as those gems keep glowing. If you work well, they’ll keep glowing. If either of you tries to run, or fails me, I’ll kill you. And when the other’s stone goes out, my men will kill him. And yes, there are ways you could arrange to escape at the exact same time,” he continued, answering my thoughts. “But that kind of timing takes a lot of planning—and I’m not going to give you the chance.”

  With a sinking heart, I watched the madman tie off his thread and cut it, finishing with Michael’s collar.

  “Take him away,” Roseman told the guards.

  Michael was foolish enough to struggle, and got tossed down the ladder for his pains. I didn’t hear any bones snap and, judging by his furious curses as they hauled him off, he hadn’t broken anything important.

  The jeweler came up and slipped the second collar around my neck, the leather smooth and stiff. My mouth was so dry I had to swallow before I spoke.

  “I’ll have to be allowed to see that he’s alive and well treated. At regular intervals. Or I might begin to believe that he isn’t.”

  “The collar will tell you he’s alive,” Roseman said. “Or at least, if one of your guards stares at your throat and then pulls a knife and kills you, you’ll know he isn’t. As for seeing him, that’s going to be tricky. I’m sending him to my country estate.”

  So much for sneaking down to Michael’s cell at midnight to drop a note through the bars. The madman’s hands, stitching my collar closed, were dry and deft. And it wasn’t too small. It was only in my imagination that it was getting tighter and tighter around my throat.

  “I want to see him once a week, at least. I’ve only got your word for how these collars work.”

  The Rose gazed at me for a long moment. “I might allow that. If you can earn it. But I don’t advise you to assume I’m lying about those gems. I really don’t.”

  “Fisk’s too smart to do something that stupid.” Jack hadn’t turned a hair as all this went on. “He’s just wiggling in the trap. But you won’t find a way to twist out of this one, lad. So you might as well get over it, and get on with it. Tony’s promised me that after this first job, if you work out, he’ll put you on salary. There are bonuses for successful jobs, too. Like I’ve been trying to tell you, this is good work!”

  How well I remembered that exasperated tone.

  “He could still abandon his friend and run,” The Rose pointed out. “I’m not trusting him with anything serious. Not till I’m sure of him.”

  “Fisk won’t leave anyone to die. Much less a friend. He’s soft.” Jack’s lips curled with contempt. “That’s why I had to dump him.”

  That wasn’t why Jack dumped me. But…

  “He’s right,” I told Roseman. “If you’ve got Michael as a hostage, you’ve got me.”

  Riding into Tallowsport on the River Road, at the slow pace of the food train, took a full day. Riding out toward the north, on the Hillboro Road, we reached Roseman’s country house in just seven hours.

  The guards, four of them, kept my hands bound till we left the city. Once we were out on the country roads—and they were certain there’d been time to stitch Fisk’s collar into place—they turned the reins over to me.

  The Green Moon was riding high and nearly full, the half-full Creature Moon setting. In this flat open land, ’twas light enough I could have kicked my horse to a gallop and fled. I might even have eluded their pursuit.

  But without me as a hostage, they’d kill Fisk. Riding on a sound horse, with my captors not even paying much attention, I was as tightly bound as I’d ever been in my life.

  Though I was so furious with Fisk for warning Jack Bannister, that I was almost… No, I wasn’t tempted to consider fleeing. But of all the lame-brained, idiotic, futile… And he claimed I was too trusting!

  If it did nothing else, my fuming passed the time.

  ’Twas after midnight when we passed through the gates, set in a tall stone wall, and rode up the long drive. Rose Manor was larger than the townhouse, newer, and even more richly furnished—but still with a restrained good taste the High Liege’s decorators would have approved.

  I didn’t see much of the house that night, however. Half a dozen servants, clad in their night robes, came to answer my guards’ thunderous knocking. They glan
ced curiously at the collar around my throat, but the eerie sparkle of the gem occasioned no comment. I was not the first hostage Roseman had sent here.

  Inside the house the guards went off to their own quarters, and ’twas a footman who showed me to my bed—not in some noisome cell, but in an ordinary guest room on the third floor. He bade me a polite “Good night.”

  I sat on the bed and listened to the sound of his retreating footsteps. I expected to hear the approaching footsteps of a guard, who would surely come to watch my door. But I heard nothing.

  After a time I went to peer up and down the corridor. No guard. The lamps had been turned low, but I could see that no one stood watch at the top of the great staircase. Even if the front door was locked, the ground floor windows probably opened with a simple latch.

  I went over to my window, turned the latch, and swung the glass panes inward with no more effort than ’twould take to open a window in my bedroom at the chandlery.

  I hoped Hannibas would take care of the shop. I knew the orphans would take good care of True. Though Fisk, ever practical, had told them that if they had to flee, and couldn’t feed him, they were to take the dog to our old landlady, and tell her we’d settle for his care when we returned for the horses.

  If we returned for the horses.

  Looking out, I could see that the wall surrounded the grounds, though it was several feet lower in back. I could have climbed it without much trouble. But the place was not completely unsecured, for a guard came strolling across the lawn in what looked like an accustomed patrol. He was so unconcerned by the presence of a prisoner that he didn’t even bother to look up, to see me watching him.

  Were they so sure of these collars? I was a good enough woodsman to slip out of a downstairs window, and creep from shadow to shadow till I escaped the grounds. But I’d not be able to reach Atherton Roseman’s townhouse in time to free Fisk before my escape was reported.

  Even if I waited till tomorrow, set out as early as I dared, and got lucky and found a horse I could steal—’twould still be past dawn when I reached the city, and they’d get word of my escape near noon. Not enough time to plan and execute a jail break, unless we were both fiendishly lucky. And angry though I was, I wasn’t about to bet Fisk’s life on that kind of luck.

  So I closed the window and went to bed, hoping tomorrow would bring something that offered a better chance of success.

  * * *

  The first thing I sought in the morning was breakfast, for I’d missed last night’s dinner and was hungry enough to eat even jail food.

  Instead of that, another footman directed me to the dining room. Master Roseman’s thugs were breaking their fast at one end of the long table, and a young woman, a few years older than me with rich brown hair braided about the crown of her head, sat alone at the other end.

  She wore a leather collar, studded with a pale blue gem that glowed in a way that was rapidly becoming familiar.

  My heart began to pound, and my appetite vanished. But if I wanted to talk to her, ’twas best to appear casual. I gathered a plate of pastry, coddled eggs and ham, poured myself a cup of tea, and seated myself at the lady’s side.

  My shirt collar was open, so she’d already seen that I was in the same straits as she. When I ventured a “Good morning,” her lips twisted in an expression that was nothing like a smile.

  “You don’t have to be circumspect, sir. They’d not care if you pulled me into the hall for a private chat right now. They know they have us.”

  Thin fingers rose to touch the collar around her neck, a gesture I had seen before.

  “Your…husband? is the captain of the High Liege’s guard, isn’t he?”

  Her eyes flew wide. “How did you know? Is he… That beast hasn’t… He can’t be dead, or I would be too.”

  “No, don’t be alarmed. I chanced to meet him, that’s all, some time before I encountered Master Roseman. He’d turned his gem to the back, but…” I touched my own collar lightly, though I was already coming to hate the thing. “’Tis an unusual ornament, and I noticed.”

  “Did he appear well?” Her hands clenched on her napkin.

  “Yes, though I thought him a trifle brusque with my request. Haven’t you seen him recently?”

  How long had Roseman been holding her here?

  “We’re allowed to meet once a month,” she said. “For an hour. Sometimes longer, if Gervase has been ‘behaving.’”

  “Well, now I understand why he brushed off my complaints of corruption in the town. I was surprised at that, in a servant of the High Liege.”

  I dropped a spoonful of honey in my tea and stirred, hoping a more conversational tone might let her relax, for she was strung as taut as a lute. Small wonder, with her very life dependant on her distant husband’s “good behavior.”

  This time, her smile seemed more real.

  “The Liege had heard rumors of corruption in Tallowsport. He sent Gervase because he was certain of his honor and his loyalty. Along with a senior judicar, to look into the matter. When the judicar met with an ‘accident,’ the Liege believed Gervase’ report that it was an accident. Because he trusted him.” Her lips tightened. “We had only been married for a year.”

  What had it cost a trusted man to choose between love and honor? I had no blame for his decision, for there was a lady—now traveling with a troupe of players in the northern parts of the Realm—who was…now my dear cousin, and nothing more.

  But that had been her choice, freely made—not a criminal’s use of extortion and magic.

  “Are we the only people here, besides Roseman’s guards and servants?”

  “Yes, though he brings house parties, sometimes. In spring and summer for horse racing, and hunting parties in the fall. He’s usually doing business with his guests, as well. I’m expected to stay out of their way.”

  “How long have you been here?” I asked.

  “Almost two years.” She took a sip of tea, and I noticed that she hadn’t even tasted the meager slice of toast on her plate.

  “’Tis a long time.” I looked up the table to where Roseman’s thugs ate their breakfast, ignoring us. “You haven’t gotten to know any of your guards?”

  “I tried at first,” she said. “But the Rose’s men are as loyal as he claims. He pays well, and he chooses them well too. I didn’t find one I could bribe. And my husband’s visit that month was cancelled.”

  It sounded like a small thing, unless you saw her mouth tremble.

  “Roseman will pay for his cruelty,” I promised her. To her, and the orphans, too. “For all the evil he’s wrought, for all his victims.”

  And if that meant Fisk must grieve for Jack Bannister, so be it. None who served the Rose were innocent.

  “Then I hope you brought an army,” she said. “And that you don’t care much for your…wife, mayhap?”

  “Not a wife. Fisk is my friend…”

  I hesitated, for I didn’t wish to have this woman who needed an ally so badly think me a lunatic. But it had never been more true than at this moment.

  “Fisk is my friend, and my squire,” I finished firmly. “I’m a knight errant, in search of adventure and good deeds.”

  Her jaw dropped and she shrank from me, as anyone might from a stranger who made so ludicrous a claim. But then her eyes met mine, searching. I know not what she found, but her whole face brightened as she laughed. And for the first time, I saw why a man might love this woman more than honor.

  “Then good luck to you, sir knight. I’m afraid you’ll need it.”

  “My name is Michael.” And since I had observed her eyes as well, I added gently. “I couldn’t help but notice…do they drug you?”

  Those dilated eyes flashed up, and a bit of color warmed her pale cheeks.

  “No. Not the way you mean. I don’t have the right disposition for a prisoner, I’m afraid. These last few years, I’ve had a hard time sleeping. Master Roseman is generous enough to provide me with a sedative. Well, my husband insi
sted, because after a while I was falling apart.” She took another sip of tea. “The effects linger, in the morning. By luncheon I’ll be fine.”

  She might also be addicted to laudanum for the rest of her life—yet another hold the Rose would have on her and her spouse.

  Generous be hanged.

  “My mother is a skilled herb talker,” I said, using the country phrase for those who know how to safely harvest and brew magica plants. “She taught me a great deal. Mayhap I can make you a tisane that will let you sleep without so many side effects.”

  She was so fearful, so unhappy. Without even thinking, I sent a wave of calmness surging through my animal handling gift…and felt the lid slide off the bright pool of magic, which ever since I drank Lady Ceciel’s potions has lived somewhere inside me.

  Or mayhap ’twas always there, and her potions just uncovered it. Whatever the case, I saw the tense muscles in my new friend’s neck relax for the first time since I’d met her.

  “I’m Lianna,” she said. “And if you could brew something else to help me sleep, I’d appreciate it. Master Roseman’s potion works, but it makes me dizzy and I feel so…heavy in the morning.”

  I had a notion that I could push my gift further, with magic and will, and she’d grant me the trust I needed then and there. But if I did that, I wouldn’t deserve her trust. I willed the lid that covered my magic shut. And if part of me was sorry for it, as some of her tension returned, I knew I’d done her nothing but good.

  Surely such small bits of magic as this, which I’d been using on and off for months, wouldn’t drive me as mad as that poor jeweler.

  “You don’t believe I’m going to stop the Rose,” I said. “There’s no reason you should. But we’re going to help you, my squire and I.”

  Which meant I’d best find some way to communicate with Fisk, for I had no doubt he was plotting and scheming just as I was. And the way our luck was running, I’d put high odds on each of our schemes foiling the other if we couldn’t coordinate them.

  That was what the Rose was counting on, after all. But I know full well that betting against Fisk’s cleverness is a serious mistake.