Thief's War: A Knight and Rogue Novel

by Bell, Hilari

  “I have no idea where they went.” To my shame, my voice held the desperate honesty of real fear. “I don’t know how to find them.”

  “You’ll figure it out.” His casual certainty was more terrifying than any threat. “I’m not so unreasonable as to expect instant results. But I do expect results.”

  He removed Lianna from his carriage—she was pale, and had wrapped her arms about herself despite the heat. Then Roseman drove off, leaving us to the guards. They’d probably been ordered to make us watch till the warehouse had burned down, but after a few hours it became clear that complete destruction would take a long time. The fire brigade had succeeded in keeping the neighboring buildings safe, so there were no further distractions, and they eventually grew bored and took us to the same inn where I’d been kept before.

  And it seemed that despite their own woes, someone was keeping track of my whereabouts. Soon after I arrived in my room, a rock with a note from Fisk wrapped around it came flying through my open window. When I looked out, there was no one in sight…so I untied the note and read it.

  Dinner that night was a well-sauced saddle of mutton, with mashed turnips, pickled beets, a salad of spring lettuce, and a dried cherry tart.

  I wasn’t hungry.

  Soon after Tony Rose returned from the countryside, I got Michael’s reply—and swore. I’d told him everything I’d discovered, including my tentative plans, but all he said was, I can do it. When?

  Come to think of it, putting a detailed plot to murder Atherton Roseman on paper might not be a good idea. With the inventories of a ship I was investigating spread over the desk before me, I wrote back:

  Are you in the city? Our first friend here will send word when the baby’s ready to come. We should have roughly four hours after that, before the event. You’re in charge of bringing the proper jewelry to commemorate the occasion. Are you sure you can do it?

  Two days later, a small grubby hand slipped the reply into my pocket. It was larger than I’d expected, enclosed in a folded letter addressed to My dear cousin, Lieutenant Elliston of the Gollford Guards. If the recipient believed it, the contents of that letter would fetch the High Liege’s troops almost as quickly as the rest of my evidence. I wondered who Lianna Dalton was.

  Michael’s note was a lot shorter.

  I’m here in the Port. And I’m not sure of anything.

  Send for the troops.

  * * *

  I sent my messenger off to Gollford the next morning, and he promised to make sure the chandler read my letter when he passed through Hinksville. And that the chandler would send his warning to the inn and Captain Rigsby’s house, as well as Roseman’s townhouse.

  One of my ship captains had already departed on his scheduled voyage. I sent another a note that his mother had taken ill, and would like to see him.

  I told Rigsby he had four days, give or take a day, to get ready to grab his family and sail the moment he got word of the blessed arrival.

  I’d have spent those four days working on my forged evidence, but I’d finished with it long ago. It would be more convincing if the ink wasn’t damp, so I stifled the urge to tinker with it.

  Four days dragged by. Then another. I was beginning to think my messenger had fallen and broken his neck, or gone on a drunken binge, or just decided to keep on riding, and not bother to drop off my evidence on his way to the other end of the Realm.

  But a few hours after dawn on the sixth day, while I lay sleepless, staring at the ceiling, the sound of galloping hoofbeats and shouts reached my ears.

  As the rider drew nearer, words emerged. “It’s coming, it’s coming, Tilda’s baby’s coming. It’s on its way, it’s coming, the baby’s on the way.”

  It was a young voice, maybe an apprentice, who could be forgiven for excitement and enthusiasm even at this hour. I hadn’t known if the chandler could be trusted with the details—but it was nice to know that if he couldn’t, I’d been right about his wife.

  Just to make sure, the boy galloped around the Rose’s block, passing this house twice before going on to spread the word elsewhere.

  I got up at the usual time. I dressed in my usual clothes, and took all the ships’ papers down to the study, sending to the kitchen for rolls and tea. I had some trouble forcing the rolls down but I didn’t let it show. I was about to go ask for an audience with the Rose, when a guard showed up and said the boss wanted to see me. Now.

  I put on a slightly startled expression, and picked up my papers and ledgers before I went with him.

  Roseman was in his office, and for once the luck was running my way—both Jack and Wiederman were with him. And of course, the usual mob of guards.

  The boss looked up as I came in, studying the glowing gem at my throat.

  “You’re now on gem watch, Master Fisk. Your friend slipped away from my men over an hour ago. He’s proved…trickier than I expected.”

  “Maybe your men just lost track of him,” I said. “Michael won’t leave me.”

  “If he turns up in the next few hours, we’ll know you’re right,” the Rose said. “If not…”

  “He will.”

  And his timing was perfect, too. Any signs of nervousness I showed would be put down to fear that Michael had skipped on me.

  “I was about to ask to see you, anyway,” I went on. “Late last night, I found the final clue.”

  Roseman’s attention, which had begun to drift, returned to me. “You’ve got them all? You’re sure?”

  “There aren’t that many,” I said. “And three of them have departed since I began investigating, which tells you something right there. The reason it took so long, is that it’s not the captains that are skimming from you…well, they are, but it’s not just the captains.”

  “What do you mean?” The words were quiet, but there was an ominous weight beneath them. No one cheated the Rose.

  “Except for a few small matters, the captains’ books balanced,” I said. “They didn’t always get the best prices—all the stuff you’re dumping in port cities really is depressing the market for valuables. But for the most part, they’ve sold what your ledgers say you’ve given them, and brought back the price they were paid, minus the cut you agreed to.”

  “Then why is Rigsby’s wife always wearing new gowns?” the Rose demanded. “Why are Conning’s stables almost as good as mine?”

  Because they were idiots.

  “Because they’re not just selling the goods you gave them,” I said. “They’re getting loot from another source, and getting a bigger cut for it than you’re giving them. I suspect they’re selling it first, for higher prices, but I can’t prove that.”

  “But where would they get more loot? It all goes to…”

  Roseman’s gaze was already turning aside, because the loot didn’t go directly to him. It went to Jack.

  Jack had his features under control, but I thought he paled slightly.

  “I’ve always reported every item that came to me.” His voice was impressively steady. “It’s Wiederman and his clerks who parcel it up to send to the captains. He’s the one who keeps those ledgers. If something’s gone astray, that’s where.”

  “If anything is missing,” Wiederman put in angrily. “You’ve only got his man’s word for that.”

  “Let me show you what I found.” I put my papers on the desk, and opened a ledger for the boss.

  I’d been careful, just a hint of other goods here, a larger than expected profit there. The best of it was an offer for “two pearl necklets, one with an ivory cameo, and a man’s seal ring,” none of which appeared on the Rose’s ledger for that voyage. The paper was crumpled, as if someone had thrown it at a trash basket and missed, and some helpful clerk had found it, smoothed it out and filed it.

  A splendid job, if I said so myself. After Herbert, I’d stopped scamming the innocent. That didn’t mean I hadn’t kept my hand in.

  Jack cast me a couple of suspicious looks, but even he couldn’t be sure. He’d begun to s
weat now, a light haze of perspiration that made his face shine.

  Wiederman, who had less practice in commanding his expression, was visibly frightened. “I recorded all the stuff he gave me to record. If something else went to the captains, it came from Markham.”

  Even the guards, four of whom were in the room with us, were growing tense. Several hands were already on their sword hilts.

  I was tense too, for a different reason. I was betting my life and Michael’s that Roseman’s dedication to loyalty went both ways. That he wouldn’t condemn a man who might be loyal to him, unless he was sure.

  Because right now, they were both doing a really good imitation of a guilty man.

  “I had no contact with the captains,” Jack was saying. “I turned the goods over to Wiederman. Disposing of them was his job, using men he recruited.”

  “You could have made contact with them secretly,” Wiederman snarled. “And it’s your man who’s bringing all this forward, trying to discredit me!”

  “It might equally discredit me,” Jack shot back. “If I was trying to pull something, Fisk is the last person I’d bring in. If he was working for me, don’t you think the evidence would point clearly to you, instead of to both of us? Unless this is some trick of Fisk’s, for purposes of his own.”

  They looked at me. I shrugged.

  “The captains were cheating you for years before I got to town. All I did was figure out how they’re doing it. Why would I risk my life, and Michael’s, lying about anything?”

  How to betray a friend, without a twitch of remorse, was the final lesson I’d learned from Jack.

  “Tony, I’ve been with you for years,” Wiederman said. “From the start. You can’t believe—”

  “And I brought in the man who found proof you’re being betrayed,” said Jack. “Wiederman argued against it.”

  “Enough,” said the Rose. “I don’t know who’s skimming, but—”

  A soft knock interrupted him.

  The guardsman who opened the door looked nervous, from which I gathered that our voices had carried into the hall.

  “I’m sorry, boss, but you said you wanted to be told when Sevenson turned up. He just came in, and he says he needs to talk to you. Says it’s urgent.”

  Roseman looked from me, to Jack, to Wiederman, and back to me.

  “I don’t know who’s betrayed me,” he said. “But I’m going to find out. For certain. And when I do… Take all of them,” he told the guards. “Lock them up in the cells. I’ll do my own investigating, and then we’ll have another chat.”

  Wiederman continued to curse Jack and protest his innocence as they dragged him down to the cellar, but Jack didn’t bother to argue.

  I said nothing to anyone, going where the guards directed me. I’d guessed they’d search us, so I wasn’t worried when they did. If I’d known there were cells in this house, I’d have crept down at night and hidden a few picks in them before they even thought to set a guard on my door.

  It was possible that Jack had done that, and I’d look for them, but I doubted I’d find anything. He was always more cocky than I, certain the con would go our way. That we wouldn’t need the escape plans I “wasted my time” creating.

  The cell was an empty store room, stone walled, with a stout, iron-barred door that allowed the guards to make sure the stone in my collar kept glowing. There weren’t a lot of places to hide even a lock pick. Most people don’t know this, but it’s possible to be bored and terrified at the same time.

  There was nothing else for me to do—it was up to Michael now.

  Except for one thing. The job of getting Jack out of the noose was mine alone.

  Michael would have said that I owed Jack nothing, and he was right. But there were too many bright memories mixed with the bad, too much he’d taught me. For better or for worse, Jack had made me the man I am, every bit as much as Michael had.

  I owed Jack nothing…I also owed him everything.

  The guard who escorted me to Roseman’s office was agitated, which I took to be a good sign.

  I hadn’t been in that house since the night I was captured, and I’d never seen this room. There was nothing extraordinary about it—except that a man richer than my father ever dreamed of being had an office that looked less rich. And my father isn’t an ostentatious man.

  If the Rose was subsidizing the sale of cheap food for this entire vast city, ’twas a wonder he wasn’t in rags.

  Neither Jack nor Wiederman was in attendance, which I took as a further sign that Fisk’s plan to create chaos was working.

  Unfortunately, Fisk wasn’t there either.

  “Where’s Fisk?” I asked, before Roseman could speak.

  “You should be worried about that. If you’d been gone a few more hours, your friend might not be anywhere at all. Ever.”

  I had turned my collar so that the stone showed when I approached the house. Now I looked at the window behind the desk—even with the sun shining outside, I saw a faint reflection of its golden glow.

  But his threats made the weight in my pocket feel a bit lighter.

  “I had to go alone,” I said. “I was following a lead. I’ve found the apothecary who sold the drug the children gave your rider.”

  “Does that help us find them?” Roseman was already reaching for a pile of papers on one side of his desk. Some of them bore Fisk’s writing. “I’ll send someone to follow up, later, but right now I’ve got—”

  “Later won’t work,” I said. “He’s too frightened. And you can’t send someone else, because he’ll only talk to you.”

  Anger dawned in Roseman’s face, but his voice was still mild. “Why should I waste my time talking to some—”

  “He says he sold the drugs to someone he’s seen with you,” I said. “He thought the man was in your employ, though he’s not sure of that. The man didn’t give his name, but the apothecary says if you come in to him, he can describe his customer. And he’s afraid, because what if the man you send—”

  “Is the man who bought the drugs.” Roseman’s fist clenched on a piece of paper, crumpling it. “Do you know what happened here this morning?”

  Knowing what Fisk had intended, I could make a fair guess.

  “No. How could I? I’ve been talking to apothecaries.”

  “No one talked to him, boss,” the guard who’d brought me there put in. “We didn’t even tell him, when he asked where Fisk was.”

  “Where is Fisk?” I let my voice grow sharper. “What’s going on?”

  “Fisk is in a cell,” said Roseman. “With a lot of guards keeping an eye on him. Markham and Wiederman, too. I don’t trust anybody. I especially don’t trust you.”

  I shrugged. “The apothecary won’t talk to anyone but you. He doesn’t want to end up “silenced.” He wants you to come with me, alone. I was thinking that if you recognize the description, the man he saw might lead us to the children. But if you don’t care enough to spend a few hours pursuing it, that’s fine with me.”

  The shrewd eyes, so unexpected in that broad face, went to the stack of papers.

  “If the answer was there, I’d know it already.” He turned to one of the four guards who’d taken up stations around the room. “Who hired you to work for me?”

  “Well, I’m under Captain Jonat, who negotiated the contract for all his men,” the guard said uneasily. “But it was Wiederman who recruited us. I think Wiederman hired all us guards. But Captain Jonat says it’s you we work for. And we do. Honest.”

  He swallowed, and managed to stop babbling.

  “So I really can’t trust anyone,” Roseman murmured. “Not until I get this figured out.” His gaze fastened on the glowing gem at my throat.

  “If you didn’t hold Fisk, I’d be the last person you could trust,” I told him.

  “But I do hold Fisk,” he said. “And I’m still not fool enough to trust you. Get Phearson and Moult,” he told a guard. “They’ll go with us.”

  “But they’re… Are yo
u sure, boss. They’re good men, and loyal. We’re all loyal. But you’ll have to tell them what to do. We never assign them to do anything without a partner.”

  “That’s why I want them,” Roseman said. “Because they won’t be plotting anything on their own.”

  “The apothecary said if you bring any of your men he won’t be there.” I had to fight to keep my voice neutral. Guards coming with us was the one thing I hadn’t figured out how to deal with—except by convincing the Rose not to bring them.

  “It won’t be Phearson or Moult he sold the drugs to,” Roseman said. “And if he can describe the buyer to me…well, that might solve my problem right there.”

  That problem would certainly be solved when the Liege’s men arrived—and by the time they did, I had to have Roseman locked down or Fisk’s life would be forfeit. I had to get those guards out of the way!

  When Phearson and Moult showed up, I understood their selection better. Phearson was a big blocky man, and Moult was short and blocky. Neither face displayed the signs of quick intelligence.

  Told that they were to accompany Master Roseman and me, they said “Yes boss.” and showed no curiosity about anything else.

  We left the house swiftly, with no time for me to leave something behind that one of them could be sent back for. Or to get into the medicine chest, and steal something to slip into a beer they wouldn’t have time to drink.

  Walking down to the port, I considered trying to push them in front of a passing carriage—though ’twould be both too obvious and impossible, since Roseman walked with me and they trailed behind.

  The presence of these two could demolish all our plans. Between them, they might be strong enough to break the chain, and they could certainly defend their master. Or stop me from escaping, or break my neck for the Rose. Which would bring Fisk to his death in turn.

  If Lianna could manipulate Roseman into bringing her into town, surely I could figure out how to get rid of two guards! She was currently locked in her room at the inn, under guard, but here in town where she’d wanted to be. I’d even found a way to make use of her presence. And I wasn’t too proud to steal a stratagem from a lady.