Valdemar 07 - Take a Thief

by Mercedes Lackey

  Not that Skif cared what it looked like—he’d been invited to eat, and eat he surely would. He fell on the food, cutting two nice thick slices of bread and buttered them generously, pouring himself a mug of tea. Bazie watched him with an oddly benevolent look on his face.

  “Eat good, but don’ eat full afore a job,” he said, in a manner that told Skif this was a rule, and he’d better pay close attention to it. “Nivir touch stuff as makes ye gassy, an’ nothin’ that’ll be on yer breath. Whut if ye has t’ hide? Summun smells onions where no onions shud be, or wuss—” He blew a flatulent razz with his lips, and the other boys laughed. “Oh, laugh if ye like, but I heerd boys been caught that way! Aye, an’ growed men as shoulda knowed better!”

  Skif laughed, too, but he also nodded eagerly. Bazie was no fool; no matter that what his gang purloined was small beer compared with jewels and gold—it was obviously supplying them with a fair living, and at the moment, Skif wouldn’t ask for more.

  “Nah, good gillyflar tea, tha’s the stuff afore a job,” Bazie continued with satisfaction. “Makes ye keen, sharp. Tha’s what ye need.” He waited while Skif finished his bread and butter and drank a mug of the faintly acidic, but not unpleasant, tea. He knew gillyflower tea from the temple, where it occasionally appeared with the morning bread, and it did seem to wake him up when he felt a little foggy or sleepy.

  “Nah, t’day Deek, I don’ want wipes,” Bazie continued. “I got sum’thin’ I been ast for, special. Mun wants napkins. Ye ken napkins?”

  Deek shook his head, but Skif, who had, after all, been serving in Lord Orthallen’s hall as an ersatz page, nodded. “Bits uv linen—’bout so big—” He measured out a square with his hands. “Thicker nor wipes, kinda towels, but fine, like. Them highborns use ‘em t’ meals, wipes their han’s an’ face on ’em so’s they ain’t all grease an’ looks sweetly.”

  “Ha!” Bazie slapped his knee with his hand. “Good boy! Deek, where ye think ye kin find this stuff?”

  Deek pondered the question for a moment, then suggested a few names that Skif didn’t recognize. “We h’aint touched any on ’em for a while.”

  “Make a go,” Bazie ordered. “I needs twa dozen, so don’ get ’em all in one place, eh?”

  “Right. Ye ready?” Deek asked, looking down at Skif, who jumped to his feet. “We’re off.”

  “Not like that ‘e ain’t!” Lyle protested. “Glory, Deek, ’e cain’t pass i’ them rags!”

  Bazie concurred with a decided nod. “Gi’e ‘im summat on ourn. ’Ere, Lyle—i’ the cubberd—”

  Lyle went to the indicated alcove and rummaged around for a moment. “’Ere, these’re too small fer any on’ us—”

  The boy threw a set of trews and a knitted tunic at Skif who caught them. They were nearly identical to Deek’s; the same neat and barely visible patches, the same dark gray-brown color. Happy to be rid of his rags, Skif stripped off everything but his smallclothes and donned the new clothing.

  Now Bazie and Lyle nodded their satisfaction together. “We’ll boil up yer ol’ thin’s an’ mend ‘em a bit—ye kin ’ave ’em back when ye git back,” Bazie said. “We don’ wan’ yer nuncle t’ wonder where ye got new close.”

  “Yessir,” Skif said, bobbing his head. “Thenkee, sir!”

  Bazie laughed. “Jest get me napkins, imp.”

  Now properly clothed so that his ragged state wouldn’t attract attention, Skif was permitted to follow Deek out into the streets.

  They walked along as Skif had already learned to, as if, no matter how fine the neighborhood, they belonged there, that they were two boys who had been sent on an errand that needed to be discharged expeditiously, but not urgently.

  Deek, however, knew every illicit way into the laundries and wash houses of the fine houses on these streets, and he led Skif over walls, up trees, and across rooftops. Together they waited for moments when the laundresses and washerwomen were otherwise occupied, and dropped down into the rooms where soiled linens were sorted for washing.

  It was Skif who picked out the napkins from among the rest—no more than two or three lightly soiled squares of linen at each place. He chose nothing that was so badly grease-stained that it was unlikely it could be cleaned, nor did he pick out items that were new.

  Once retrieved, Deek did something very clever with them. He folded them flat, and stuffed them inside the legs of his trews and Skif’s, so that there was no way to tell that the bits of fabric were there at all without forcing them to undress. When they had the full two dozen, with no close calls and only one minor alarm, Deek called a halt, and they strolled back to Bazie’s.

  Skif was tired, but very pleased with himself. He’d kept up with Deek, and he’d been the ones to pick out the loot Bazie wanted. Nothing new, nothing over-fine, nothing that would be missed unless and until a housekeeper made a full inventory. Not likely, that; not in the places that Deek had selected.

  They made their way up, over, and down again, and back to Bazie’s den. This time when Deek knocked, it was Bazie himself that opened the door for them, and Skif watched with covert amazement as he stumped back to his seat like some sort of bizarre four-legged creature, supporting himself on two wooden pegs strapped where his legs had been, and two crutches, one for each arm.

  “Aaa—” Bazie said, in a note of pain, as he lowered himself down to his seat and quickly took off the wooden legs. “When ye brings back th’ glimmers, young’un, I’ll be gettin’ proper-fittin’ stumps, fust thing.” He gestured in disgust at the crude wooden legs. “Them’s no better nor a couple slats. How’s it that a mun kin be sa good wi’ needle an sa bad wi’ whittlin’?”

  He put the crutches aside, and looked at them expectantly.

  “Here ye be, Bazie!” said Deek, taking the lead, and pulling napkins out of his trews the way a conjure mage at a fair pulled kerchiefs out of his hand. Skif did the same, until all two dozen were piled in front of their mentor.

  “Hah! Good work!” Bazie told them. “Nah, young’un—ye look an ye tell me—wha’s the big problem we got wi’ these fer sellin’ uv ’em?”

  That was something Skif had worried about. Every single napkin they’d taken had been decorated with distinctive embroidered initials or pictures on the corners. “Them whatchacalls in th’ corners,” Skif said promptly. “Dunno what they be, but they’s all different.”

  “They’s t’ show what owns ’em, but ol’ Bazie’s gotta cure for that, eh, Deek?” Bazie positively beamed at both of them, and took out a box from a niche beside his seat. He opened it, and Skif leaned forward to see what was inside.

  Sewing implements. Very fine, as fine as any great lady’s. Tiny scissors, hooks, and things he couldn’t even guess at.

  His mouth dropped open, and Bazie laughed. “Ye watch, an ye learn, young’un,” he said merrily. “An’ nivir ye scorn till ye seen—”

  Bazie took out the tiniest pair of scissors that Skif had ever seen, and a thing like a set of tongs, but no bigger than a pen, and several other implements Skif had no names for. Then he took up the first of the napkins and set to work on it.

  Within moments, it was obvious what he was doing; he was unpicking the embroidery. But he was doing so with such care that when he was finally done, only a slightly whiter area and a hole or two showed where it had been, and the threads he had unpicked were still all in lengths that could be used.

  “Nah, I’ll be doin’ that t’ all uv them, then into th’ bleach they goes, an’ no sign where they come from!” Bazie rubbed his hands together with glee. “An’ that’ll mean a full five siller fer the lot from a feller what’s got a business in these things, an’ all fer a liddle bit uv easy work for ye an me! Nah, what sez ye t’ that, young’un?”

  Skif could only shake his head in admiration. “That—I’m mortal glad I grabbed fer Deek’s ankle yesterday!”

  And Bazie roared with laughter. “So’m we, boy!” he chuckled. “So’m we!”

  4

  SKIF did not go out ag
ain, nor did Deek. Instead, they emptied out the cauldron of its warm, soapy, green-gray water, pouring it down a drain hole in the center of the room, and refilled it with fresh. This was no mean feat, as it had to be done one bucketful at a time, from the common pump that everyone in the building shared—which was, predictably, in a well house attached to the side of the building to keep it from freezing. Bazie had special buckets, with lids that kept the water from slopping, but it still made for a lot of climbing.

  No wonder Bazie was ready t’ bring me in! Skif thought ruefully, as he poured his bucketful into what seemed to have become a wash cauldron without a bottom. His arms ached, and so did his back—this business of becoming a thief was more work than it looked!

  “How often d’ye empty this’un?” he asked Bazie, who was mending a stocking as dexterously as he had unpicked the design on the napkins.

  “Once’t week,” Bazie replied. “We saves all th’ whites fer then. Wouldna done it early, forbye th’ napkin order ’s on haste, an’ ye’re here t’ hep.”

  Skif sighed, and hefted the empty bucket to make another journey. This was like working at the Hollybush—

  He had no doubt that he would be the chief cauldron filler until Bazie took on another boy, so he had this to look forward to, once a week, for the foreseeable future.

  On the other hand, Bazie appeared to feed his boys well and treat them fairly. Skif had plenty of time to think about the situation, to contrast how Raf, Deek, and Lyle all acted around Bazie and how well-fed (if a bit shabby) they looked. So Bazie wasn’t running a gang that was wearing silks and velvets and had servants to do their work. So he and the rest of the boys had to do a hauling now and then. They were eating, they were warm, and Bazie was a good master. What was a little hard work, set against that?

  So he hauled and dumped, hauled and dumped, while his arms, back, and legs complained on every inward journey. When the cauldron was at last filled, Bazie let him rest for just long enough to drink another mug of tea. When the tea was gone, Bazie put him to building up the fire beneath the cauldron, then adding soap and a pungent liquid that he said would whiten the worst stains. When the water was actually boiling, at Bazie’s direction he added the napkins, then other articles that should have been white. There wasn’t a lot; pure white was a very difficult state to attain, so the boys didn’t steal anything that should be white.

  “Dunno how them Heralds does it,” Bazie said, half in wonder and half in frustration. “Them Whites, ’sall they wears, an’ how they nivir gets stains, I dunno.”

  “Magic,” Deek opined cheekily, and Bazie laughed.

  “Gimme stick,” Deek told Skif. “Take a breather.” Deek took over then, stirring while Skif lay back on a pile of straw-stuffed sacks that served as cushions, letting his aches settle.

  Lyle arrived, tapping his code on the door, and Deek let him in. Raf was right behind him. Both boys began emptying their pockets and the fronts of their tunics as soon as they came in. Skif sat up to watch as Bazie supervised.

  What came out of their clothing wasn’t kerchiefs and other bits of silk this time, but metal spoons, knives, packets of pins and needles, fancy pottery disks with holes in the middle—

  “Ah,” Bazie said with satisfaction. “Wool Market good, then?”

  “Aye,” the boy named Raf said. “Crowd.” This was the one that Skif hadn’t seen much of yesterday, and if someone had asked him to point Raf out in a crowd he still wouldn’t be able to. Raf was extraordinarily ordinary. There was nothing distinctive in his height (middling), his weight (average), his face (neither round nor square), his eyes and hair (brown), or his features (bland and perfectly ordinary). Even when he smiled at Skif, it was just an ordinary, polite smile, and did nothing; it seemed neither warm, nor false, and it certainly didn’t light up his features.

  Bazie watched him as he examined the other boy and mentally dismissed him—and Bazie grinned.

  “So, young’un, wot ye think’o Raf?” he asked.

  “Don’ think much one way or ’tother,” Skif said truthfully.

  Bazie laughed, and so did Raf. “Na, ye don’ see’t, does ye?” Bazie said.

  “Wall, he wouldn’ see it now, would’e?” Raf put in. “If’n ’e did, that’d be bad!”

  The others seemed to think this was a great joke, but it was one that Skif didn’t get the point of. They all laughed heartily, leaving him sitting on the stuffed sacks looking from one to the other, perplexed, and growing irritated.

  “Wha’s the joke?” he asked loudly.

  “Use yer noggin—” Lyle said, rubbing his knuckles in a quick gesture over Skif’s scalp. “Raf’s on the liftin’ lay, dummy. So?”

  “I dunno!” Skif retorted, his irritation growing. “Whazzat got ter do wi’ wot I think uv ’im?”

  “It ain’t wot yer think uv ‘im, ’tis ’is looks,” Deek said with arch significance, which made the other two boys go off in gales of laughter again, and Bazie to chuckle.

  “Well, ‘e ain’t gonna ketch no gurls wi’ ’em,” Skif replied sullenly. “’E don’ look like nothin’ special.”

  “And?” Deek prompted, then shook his head at Skif’s failure to comprehend. “Wot’s special ’bout not special?”

  Finally, finally, it dawned on him, and his mouth dropped open in surprise. “Hoy!” he said. “Cain’t give no beak no ways t’ find ’im!”

  A “beak,” Skif knew, was one of the city watchmen who patrolled for thieves and robbers, took care of drunks and simple assault and other minor crimes. Anything major went to the Guard, and anything truly big went to one of the four City Heralds—not that Skif had ever seen one of these exalted personages. He’d never seen a Guard either, except at a distance. The Guards didn’t bother with the neighborhoods like this one, not unless murder and mayhem had occurred.

  Bazie nodded genially. “Thas’ right. Ain’t no better boy fer learnin’ th’ liftin’ lay,” he said with pride. “Even’f sommut sees him, ‘ow they gonna tell beak wot ’e looks like if’n ’e don’ look like nothin’?”

  Now it was Skif’s turn to shake his head, this time in admiration. What incredible luck to have been born so completely nondescript! Raf could pick pockets for the rest of his life on looks like his—he wouldn’t even have to be particularly good at it so long as he took care that there was nothing that was ever particularly distinctive about him. How could a watchman ever pick him out of a crowd when the description his victim gave would match a hundred, a thousand other boys in the crowd?

  “‘E’s got ’nother liddle trick, too,” Bazie continued. “‘Ere, Lyle—nobble ’im.”

  Not at all loath, Lyle puffed himself up and seized Raf’s arm. “‘Ere, you!” he boomed—or tried to, his voice was evidently breaking, and the words came out in a kind of cracked squeak. He tried again. “’Ere, you! You bin liftin’?”

  Now Raf became distinctive. Somehow the eyes grew larger, innocent, and tearful; the lower lip quivered, and the entire face took on a kind of guileless stupidity mingled with frightened innocence. It was amazing. If Skif had caught Raf with his hand in Skif’s pocket, he’d have believed it was all an accident.

  “Whossir? Messir?” Raf quavered. “Nossir. I’m be gettin’ packet’o pins fer me mum, sir. . . .” And he held out a paper stuck full of pins for Lyle’s inspection, tears filling his eyes in a most pathetic fashion.

  Bazie and Deek howled with laughter, as Lyle dropped Raf’s arm and growled. “Gerron wi’ ye.”

  As soon as the arm was dropped, Raf pretended to scuttle away with his head down and shoulders hunched, only to straighten up a few moments later and assume his bland guise again. He shrugged as Skif stared at him.

  “Play actin’,” he said dismissively.

  “Damn good play actin’,” Bazie retorted. “Dunno ‘ow long ye kin work it, but whilst ye kin, serve ye better nor runnin’ from beaks.” He set his mending aside and rubbed his hands together. “’Sall right, me boys. ‘Oo wants t’fetch dinner?”
>
  “Me,” Raf said. “Don’ wanta stir washin’, an’ don’ wanta sort goods.”

  The other two seemed amenable to that arrangement, so Raf got a couple of coins from Bazie and took himself off. The napkins in the cauldron were finally white enough to suit Bazie, so Skif got the job of pulling the white things out and rinsing them in a bucket of fresh water, while Lyle hung them up and Deek sorted through the things that Lyle and Raf had brought back.

  Presently he looked up. “Six spoons, two knifes, packet uv needles, three uv pins, empty needlecase, four spinnin’ bobs,” he said. “Reckon thas ’nuf wi’ wot we alriddy got?”

  Bazie nodded. “Arter supper ye go out t’ Clave. Ye kin take napkins t’ Dooly at same time. An’ half th’ wipes. Lyle, ye’ll take t’ rest uv th’ goods t’ Jarmin.”

  “Kin do,” Lyle replied genially, taking the last of the napkins from Skif. “Young’un, git that pile an’ dunk in wash, eh?”

  He pointed to a pile of dingy shirts and smallclothes in the corner with his chin. “Thas ourn,” he added by way of explanation. “Ye kin let fire die a bit, so’s its cool ’nuf fer the silks when ourn’s done.”

  Skif had wondered—the stuff didn’t seem to be of the same quality as the goods that the boys brought back to Bazie. Obediently, he picked up the pile of laundry and plunged it into the wash cauldron and began stirring.

  “Ye moght be a wonderin’ why we does all this washin’ an wimmin stuff,” Bazie said conversationally. “I tell ye. Fust, I tell m’boys allus t’ nobble outa the dirty stuff—’cause thas inna pile, an nobody ain’t counted it yet. See?”

  Skif nodded; he did see. It was like playing a page at Lord Orthallen’s meals. Food was checked before it became a dish for a meal, it was checked for pilferage before it was taken to the table, and it was checked when it came back to the kitchen as leftovers. But there was that moment of opportunity while it was in transition from kitchen to table when no one was checking the contents. So, dirty clothing and linen probably wasn’t counted—why should it be? But if you stole something off a wash line, or out of a pile of clean clothing intended for a particular person, it would be missed.