A Court for Thieves

by Morgan Rice

  The same thing that awaited Sophia now: being sold like an animal.

  How long did she hang there, held in place no matter how she tried to get away? Long enough that the sun was over the horizon, at least. Long enough that when the masked nuns came to cut her down, Sophia’s limbs gave way, leaving her to collapse to the courtyard’s stones. The nuns made no move to help her.

  “Get up,” one of them ordered. “You don’t want your debt to be sold looking like that.”

  Sophia continued to lie there, gritting her teeth against the pain as feeling crept back into her legs. She only moved when the nun lashed out, kicking her.

  “Get up, I said,” she snapped.

  Sophia forced herself to her feet, and the masked nuns took her by the arms the way Sophia imagined a prisoner might be escorted to her execution. She didn’t feel much better at the prospect of what was due to come for her.

  They took her to a small stone cell, where there were buckets waiting. They scrubbed her then, and somehow the masked nuns managed to turn even that into a kind of torture. Some of the water was so hot that it scalded Sophia’s skin as it washed away the blood, making her scream with all the pain that she’d experienced when Sister O’Venn had beaten her.

  More of the water was icy cold, in a way that made Sophia shiver with it. Even the soap the nuns used stung, burning at her eyes as they scrubbed her hair and bound it back in a rough knot that had nothing to do with the elegant designs of the palace. They took away her white underdress and gave her the gray shift of the orphanage to wear. After the fine clothes Sophia had worn in the previous days, it scratched at her skin with the promise of biting insects. They didn’t feed her. Presumably, it wasn’t worth it, now that their investment in her was at an end.

  That was what this place was. It was like a farm for children, fattening them up just enough with skills and fear to make useful apprentices or servants and then selling them on.

  “You know that this is wrong,” Sophia said as they marched her toward the door. “Can’t you see the things you’re doing?”

  Another of the nuns cuffed her at the back of the head, making Sophia stumble.

  “We provide the Masked Goddess’s mercy to those who need it. Now, be silent. You’ll fetch a worse price if your face is bruised from being slapped.”

  Sophia swallowed at that thought. It hadn’t occurred to her quite how carefully they’d hidden the marks of her beating beneath the dull gray of her shift. Again, she found herself thinking of farmers, although now it was about the kind of horse trader who might dye a horse’s coat for a better sale.

  They took her along the corridors of the orphanage, and now there were no watching faces. They didn’t want the children there to see this part, probably because it would remind too many of them of the fate that was to come for them. It would encourage them to run, when the beating last night had probably terrified them into never daring it.

  In any case, they were heading into the sections of the House of the Unclaimed where the children didn’t go now, into the spaces reserved for the nuns and their visitors. Most of it was plain, although there were notes of wealth here and there, in gilded candlesticks, or in the shine of silver around a ceremonial mask’s edges.

  The room they led Sophia to was practically plush by the standards of the orphanage. It looked a little like the receiving parlor of some noble house, with chairs set around the edges, each with a small table holding a goblet of wine and a plate with sweetmeats. There was a table at one end of the room, behind which Sister O’Venn stood, a length of folded vellum beside her. Sophia guessed that it would be the tally for her indenture. Would they even let her know the amount before they sold it on?

  “Formally,” Sister O’Venn said, “we are required to ask you, before we sell on your indenture, if you have the means to repay your debt to the goddess. The amount is here. Come, you worthless thing, and find out what you’re actually worth.”

  Sophia didn’t get a choice; they took her to the table and she looked down at it. She wasn’t surprised to find every meal, every night of lodging annotated. It came to so much that Sophia recoiled from it instinctively.

  “Do you have the means to pay this debt?” the nun repeated.

  Sophia stared up at her. “You know I don’t.”

  There was a stool in the middle of the floor, carved from hard wood and completely at odds with the rest of the room. Sister O’Venn pointed to it.

  “Then you will sit there, and do so demurely. You will not speak unless required to. You will obey any instruction instantly. Fail, and there will be punishment.”

  Sophia hurt too much to disobey. She went to the low stool and sat, keeping her eyes downcast enough that she wouldn’t attract the attention of the nuns. Even so, she watched as figures came into the room, men and women, all with the sense of wealth around them. Sophia couldn’t see much more of them than that, though, because they wore veils not unlike those of the nuns, obviously so no one would see who was interested in buying her like chattel.

  “Thank you for coming in at such short notice,” Sister O’Venn said, and now her voice held the smoothness of a merchant extolling the virtues of some fine silk or perfume. “I hope that you will find it worthwhile. Please take a moment to examine the girl, and then make your bids with me.”

  They surrounded Sophia then, staring at her the way a cook might have examined a cut of meat at the market, wondering what it would be good for, trying to see any trace of rot or excessive sinew. A woman ordered Sophia to look at her, and Sophia did her best to obey.

  “Her coloring is good,” the woman said, “and I suppose she might be pretty enough.”

  “A pity they won’t let us see her with a boy,” a fat man said with a trace of an accent that said he’d come from across the Knifewater. His expensive silks were stained with old sweat, the stink of it disguised by a perfume probably better suited to a woman. He glanced over to the nuns as if Sophia wasn’t there. “Unless your opinion on that has changed, sisters?”

  “This is still a place of the Goddess,” Sister O’Venn said, and Sophia could pick out the genuine disapproval in her voice. Strange that she would balk at that, when she didn’t at so much else, Sophia thought.

  She reached out with her talent, trying to pick out what she could from the minds of those there. She didn’t know what she hoped to accomplish, though, because there was no way she could think of to influence their opinions of her one way or another. Instead, it just gave her an opportunity to see the same cruelties, the same harsh ends, again and again. The best she could hope for was servitude. The worst made her shiver with fear.

  “Hmm, she does quiver beautifully when she’s afraid,” one man said. “Too fine for the mines, I guess, but I’ll put in my bid.”

  He walked to Sister O’Venn, whispering a figure to her. One by one, the others did the same. When they were done, she looked around the room.

  “Currently, Meister Karg has the highest bid,” Sister O’Venn said. “Does anyone wish to raise their offer?”

  A couple seemed to consider it. The woman who had wanted to look into Sophia’s eyes walked over to the masked nun, presumably whispering another figure.

  “Thank you, all of you,” Sister O’Venn said at last. “Our business is concluded. Meister Karg, the contract of indenture now belongs to you. I am required to remind you that should it be repaid, this girl will be free to go.”

  The fat man snorted beneath his veil, pulling it away to reveal a ruddy face with too many chins and not improved by the presence of a bushy moustache.

  “And when has that ever happened with my girls?” he shot back. He held out a pudgy hand. Sister O’Venn took the contract, placing it in his grip.

  The others there made small sounds of irritation, although Sophia could sense that several of them were already thinking about other possibilities. The woman who had raised her bid was thinking that it was a pity she had lost, but only in the way it irritated her when one of he
r horses lost a race against those of her neighbors.

  All the while, Sophia sat there, unable to move at the thought of having her entire life handed over to someone so easily. A few days ago, she’d been about to marry a prince, and now… now she was about to become this man’s property?

  “There is just the matter of the money,” Sister O’Venn said.

  The fat man, Meister Karg, nodded. “I will deal with it now. It is better to pay in coin than bankers’ promises when there is a ship to catch.”

  A ship? What ship? Where did this man plan to take her? What was he going to do with her? The answers to that were easy enough to snatch from his thoughts, and just the idea of it was enough to make Sophia half rise, ready to run.

  Strong hands caught her, the nuns clamping their grips around her arms once more. Meister Karg looked over at her with casual contempt.

  “Have her taken to my wagon, would you? I will settle things here, and then…”

  And then, Sophia could see that her life would become a thing of even worse horror. She wanted to fight, but there was nothing she could do as the others led her away. Nothing at all. In the privacy of her head, she screamed for her sister’s help.

  Yet it seemed that Kate either hadn’t heard—or didn’t care.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Again and again, Kate died.

  Or “died” at least. Illusory weapons slid into her flesh, ghostly hands strangled her into unconsciousness. Arrows flickered into existence and shot through her. The weapons were only things formed from smoke, pulled into existence by Siobhan’s magic, but every one of them hurt as much as a real weapon would have.

  They didn’t kill Kate, though. Instead, each moment of pain merely brought a sound of disappointment from Siobhan, who watched from the sidelines with what seemed to be a combination of amusement and exasperation at the slowness with which Kate was learning.

  “Pay attention, Kate,” Siobhan said. “Do you think I’m summoning these dream fragments for my entertainment?”

  The figure of a swordsman appeared in front of Kate, dressed for a duel rather than an all-out battle. He saluted her, leveling a rapier.

  “This is the Finnochi derobement,” he said in the same flat monotone the others seemed to have. He thrust at her and Kate went to parry with her wooden practice sword, because she’d learned to do that much, at least. She was fast enough to see the moment when the fragment changed direction, but the move still caught her off guard, the ephemeral blade slipping through her heart.

  “Again,” Siobhan said. “There is little time.”

  In spite of what she said, there seemed to be more time than Kate could have imagined. The minutes seemed to stretch out in the wood, filled with opponents trying to kill her, and as they tried, Kate learned.

  She learned to fight them, cutting them down with her practice sword because Siobhan had insisted that she set her real blade aside to avoid the risk of real injury. She learned to thrust and cut, parry and feint, because every time she made a mistake, the ghostly outline of a blade slid into her with a pain that felt all too real.

  After the ones with swords were the ones with sticks or mauls, bows or muskets. Kate learned to kill a dozen ways with her hands, and to read the moment when a foe would fire a weapon, throwing herself flat. She learned to run through the forest, jumping from branch to branch, fleeing from foes as she dodged and hid.

  She learned to hide and move silently, because every time she made a noise, the ephemeral enemies descended on her with more weapons than she could match.

  “Couldn’t you just teach me?” Kate demanded of Siobhan, shouting it into the trees.

  “I am teaching you,” she replied as she stepped from one of those nearby. “If you were here to learn magic, we could do that with tomes and gentle words, but you are here to become deadly. For that, pain is the greatest teacher there is.”

  Kate gritted her teeth and kept going. At least here, there was a point to the pain, unlike in the House of the Unclaimed. She set off back into the forest, sticking to the shadows, learning to move without disturbing the least twig or leaf as she crept up on a fresh set of conjured foes.

  Still she died.

  Every time she succeeded, a new foe appeared, or a new threat. Each was harder than the last. When Kate learned to avoid human eyes, Siobhan conjured dogs whose skin seemed to billow into smoke with every step they took. When Kate learned to slip past the defenses of a duelist’s sword, the next foe wore armor so that she could only strike at the gaps between the plates.

  Whenever she stopped, it seemed that Siobhan was there, with advice or hints, encouragement or just the kind of maddening amusement that spurred Kate on to do better. She was faster now, and stronger, but it seemed as though it wasn’t enough for the woman who controlled the fountain. She had the feeling that Siobhan was preparing her for something, but the other woman wouldn’t say what, or answer any questions that weren’t about what Kate needed to do next.

  “You need to learn to use the talent that you were born with,” Siobhan said. “Learn to see the intent of a foe before they strike. Learn to pick out the location of your enemies before they find you.”

  “How do I practice that when I’m fighting illusions?” Kate demanded.

  “I direct them, so I will allow you to look at a fraction of my mind,” Siobhan said. “Be careful though. There are places you do not want to look.”

  That caught Kate’s interest. She’d already come up against the walls the other woman kept in place to stop her from looking at her mind. Now she was going to get to peek? When she felt Siobhan’s walls shift, Kate plunged inside as far as the new boundaries would let her.

  It wasn’t far, but it was still far enough to get a sense of an alien mind, as far from any normal person’s as Kate had ever seen. Kate recoiled from the sheer strangeness of it, pulling back. She did so just in time for an ephemeral foe to thrust a blade through her throat.

  “I told you to be careful,” Siobhan said while Kate gagged. “Now, try again.”

  There was another swordsman in front of Kate. She focused, and this time she caught the moment when Siobhan told it to attack. She ducked, cutting it down.

  “Better,” Siobhan said. It was as close to praise as she came, but praise didn’t stop the constant testing. It just meant more foes, more work, more training. Siobhan pushed Kate until even with the new strength she had, she felt ready to collapse from exhaustion.

  “Haven’t I learned enough?” Kate asked. “Haven’t I done enough?”

  She watched Siobhan smile without amusement. “You think that you are ready, apprentice? Are you really that impatient?”

  Kate shook her head. “It’s just—”

  “That you think you have learned enough for one day. You think that you know what is coming, or what is needed.” Siobhan spread her hands. “Perhaps you are right. Perhaps you have mastered what I want you to learn.”

  Kate could hear the note of annoyance then. Siobhan didn’t have the kind of patience as a teacher that Thomas had shown with her.

  “I’m sorry,” Kate said.

  “It’s too late for sorry,” Siobhan said. “I want to see what you’ve learned.” She clapped her hands. “A test. Come with me.”

  Kate wanted to argue, but she could see that there was no point to it. Instead, she followed Siobhan to a spot where the forest opened out into a roughly circular clearing bordered by hawthorns and brambles, wild roses and stinging nettles. In the middle of it, a sword sat, balanced across a tree stump.

  No, not just a sword. Kate instantly recognized the blade that Thomas and Will had made for her.

  “How…” she began.

  Siobhan jerked her head toward it. “Your blade was unfinished, as you were. I have finished it, as I am trying to improve you.”

  The sword did look different now. It had a grip of swirling dark and light wood that Kate suspected would fit her hand perfectly. It had markings down the blade that were in no languag
e she’d seen before, while now the blade shone with a wicked-looking edge.

  “If you think you are ready,” Siobhan said, “all you have to do is walk in there and take your weapon. But if you do, know this: the danger is real in there. It is no game.”

  If it had been another situation, Kate might have taken a step back. She might have told Siobhan that she wasn’t interested, and waited a little longer. Two things stopped her from doing that. One was the insufferable smile that never seemed to leave Siobhan’s face. It taunted Kate with the assurance that she wasn’t good enough yet. That she would never be quite good enough to live up to the standards Siobhan set for her. It was an expression that reminded her too much of the contempt the masked nuns had shown her.

  In the face of that smile, Kate could feel her anger rising. She wanted to wipe the smile from Siobhan’s face. She wanted to show her that whatever magic the woman of the forest might possess, Kate was up to the tasks she set. She wanted some small measure of satisfaction for all the ghostly blades that had plunged into her.

  The other reason was simpler: that sword was hers. It had been a gift from Will. Siobhan didn’t get to dictate when Kate got to take it.

  Kate took a run up and leapt to a branch, then jumped over the ring of thorns surrounding the clearing. If this was the best that Siobhan could manage, she would take her blade and scramble back out as easily as walking along a country road. She dropped into a crouch as she landed, looking across to the sword that waited for her.

  There was a figure holding it now, though, and Kate found herself staring at it. At herself.

  It was definitely her, down to the last detail. The same short red hair. The same wiry litheness. This version of her, however, wore different clothes, dressed in the greens and browns of the forest. Her eyes were different too, leaf green from edge to edge and anything but human. As Kate watched, the other version of her drew Will’s blade, slicing it through the air as if testing it.