A Court for Thieves

by Morgan Rice

  He took an apple and threw it up. Kate reacted on instinct, bringing the weapon to bear and firing, so that the apple exploded in a shower of fragments. The scent of smoke filled the world for a moment, and the roar of it was almost deafening. It was nowhere near as elegant as a bow or a blade.

  There was something enticing about it though. There was something glorious in the way she could destroy the apple so simply and so powerfully. There was something wonderful in all the lessons Lord Cranston had to teach her, from the fine details of dueling to the proper way to wheel a company without exposing it to a charging foe.

  This was what Kate wanted now. Siobhan had many things to teach her, but that seemed like the kind of fighting that minstrels sang about. This, there was something practical about it, something real. Kate would learn it, the way she learned everything else that came her way.

  And if that meant being there when this New Army came calling, so be it.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Sophia felt every bump in the road as the cart rumbled its way northward, out of the city. She looked back in fear, expecting to find a mob pursuing them at any moment. She wasn’t sure what they could do if it happened. The cart couldn’t outpace a running man, let alone a rider. As they rolled their way through the outskirts of the city, their safety felt like an ephemeral thing, a fine soap bubble likely to be destroyed at any moment.

  I think we’re safe, Emeline sent to her, and it was still strange, receiving sent thoughts from someone other than her sister.

  “Who are you?” Sophia said. She realized how that must sound. “I’m sorry, you saved us, and I’m grateful. It’s just…”

  “You don’t know why,” Emeline said. “And you’re worried that I’m only doing it because I have something worse planned.”

  Sophia nodded. It wasn’t quite the whole of it, but it was a part of it. She’d seen more of the cruelty of the world than any kind of kindness.

  “You said that you know my sister,” Sophia said.

  Emeline nodded. “I met her when I was trying to get out of the city on a barge. We ended up being thrown off it, and then I couldn’t find her. When I heard your call for help, I knew I had to try to keep you safe.”

  “What call for help?” Cora asked, from the side.

  Emeline frowned at that. “She doesn’t know?”

  Sophia knew she should have explained things to Cora, but she hadn’t.

  “Cora, there’s something I have to tell you. I have a talent, a gift. I can see thoughts.”

  She saw Cora’s eyes widen at that. “But that’s… they used to call that witchcraft, in the orphanage. They say people who can do it feast on human blood.”

  “It isn’t witchcraft,” Sophia said. “At least, I don’t think it is. I certainly don’t drink blood, or anything like that. It’s just… something I can do. Something Emeline can do too. I thought Kate and I were the only ones.”

  “Kate thought that too,” Emeline said. “There are more like us than you think.”

  She said it as if it were nothing, when in fact it meant that the whole world was different from the way Sophia had thought. Cora looked even more shocked by the idea.

  “You don’t need to be afraid of us,” Sophia said to her. “It doesn’t make me any different. But if you want, I could stop the cart, and we could go in different directions.” She paused only a moment. “I hope you don’t, though. You saved my life.”

  She could have looked at Cora’s thoughts to find the right things to say, but right then that would have felt like a betrayal. Instead, all Sophia could do was wait.

  “I’ll stay,” Cora said at last. “You’re right, you’re still my friend. Maybe even a better friend to have now. And it isn’t as though there’s anything left for me in the city.”

  “Or me,” Emeline said. “I’ve been trying to find a way out for a while now. There were places I was planning to go.”

  “What places?” Cora asked.

  Emeline hesitated for a moment before she answered. “There’s a place that is supposed to be safe for people like me. I want to find it. What about you? Where would you go if you could go anywhere?”

  “I don’t know,” Cora said. “Somewhere I could be happy. Maybe an island somewhere.”

  There was only one place Sophia wanted to go right then, only one place that mattered.

  “I’m going north,” she said. “There’s a house I have to find, in Monthys.”

  She saw Emeline frown at that. “Monthys is a long way north.”

  “It’s practically in the mountains,” Cora said. “What’s so special about this house?”

  Sophia didn’t tell them all of it, because some of the details she’d had from Laurette van Klet seemed impossible. Still, she could give them the most important one.

  “It was my parents’. I’ll go there alone if I have to, but I am going.”

  Cora looked over at her. “I’ll go with you,” she said. “We’re better off together.”

  “Emeline?” Sophia asked.

  Emeline paused again, but then nodded. “I suppose if I don’t know where I’m supposed to look for Stonehome, north is as good a way to look as any.”

  ***

  They went north, the cart continuing inexorably along roads that seemed to pass from cobbles to dirt and back again at random. At night, they slept beneath it, hobbling the horses in spaces with plenty of grass so that they could feed, taking fruit from the trees or wheat from the nearby fields for themselves. They supplemented it with supplies taken from the cart, or ones they traded for at the farmhouses they passed, swapping the beer that they’d hidden in for bread, cheese, and ham.

  At the first of the inns they passed, Sophia managed to pick up the landlord’s thoughts about her in time to simply turn around and walk out before he could grab for her. At the second, though, she managed to trade more of their stolen ale for sensible traveling clothes of dark wool.

  They passed from the outskirts of the city into the Ridings, and then into the Shires beyond them. The Dowager’s kingdom was not large compared to some of the great empires beyond the Knifewater, but to someone who had grown up within one small compound, and who had then seen little more than one large city, it seemed impossibly huge.

  Huge, and varied. They rolled through fords and over bridges that looked as though they might have been there since the first inhabitants came to the island, and past standing stones that sat by the road, worn into odd shapes by centuries of the wind, with no clue as to what they’d originally been for.

  They traveled for a day or more through a stretch that seemed to be nothing but open fields dotted with hamlets, then had to skirt around a town where so many merchant wagons rolled in that Sophia knew it had to be a market day. They passed through a marshy district where the spaces beyond the roads all gave way to water and reeds, and rolled through valleys between hills as they headed further north.

  There were others on the roads, of course, although the three of them were careful about letting themselves be seen too often, because Sophia knew how vulnerable they would be to bandits or worse. When they heard riders coming, they would try to get off the roads if they could, but even so, they met tinkers and messengers, farmers traveling with their flocks and nobles traveling in closed carriages. On one occasion, they even traveled alongside a troupe of circus performers, heading up to Lonsford for its annual fair.

  Gradually, the landscape started to change, becoming hilly and stone scattered, so that more of the farmers kept sheep or goats than cattle, and the cart became harder to free whenever it got caught in a rut. The streams here ran quickly, and Sophia began to see the watermills that were so popular in the north for grinding flour and more. Occasionally, they passed boats heading upstream, laden with goods from the south. They passed into one of the great forests there, thick with oak and elm and turning the light into a scattered, partial thing.

  Ahead, Sophia heard mewling that sounded so much like a crying child that for a moment,
she was convinced it was one. It was only as they got closer that she realized that it wasn’t a child, but some kind of animal.

  They rounded a bend in the road, and saw that it was indeed an animal, and not just any animal. A forest cat lay on its side, its left rear paw caught in a trap, the stripes of its long gray coat marred by blood. It wasn’t full grown, because the biggest forest cats could take on wolves, but even so, it was the size of a large dog, sharp featured and beautiful.

  And obviously in pain.

  “We’ll have to go around,” Emeline said. “If we go near it, it will kill the horses.”

  “You can’t just mean to leave it like that?” Cora said. “It’s in pain.”

  “Not as much as we will be if we get too close,” Emeline insisted.

  Sophia drew the cart to a halt, stepping down.

  “What are you doing?” Emeline asked. “There’s no point in coming all this way if you’re just going to get yourself eaten.”

  “Shh,” Sophia said, focusing on the creature’s thoughts. They were very different from anything human, and it seemed to take her an age to focus on them, picking them out against the background of a forest filled with other animal minds.

  There were no words, of course. Human language had nothing to do with it, just feeling and intention and understanding. Right now, Sophia could pick out red-tinged pain and anger. She tried to send the idea of calm and safety across to it, and to her surprise, it seemed to work. She walked forward slowly, ready to jump back if it lashed out.

  She laid a hand on its coat, feeling the warmth of it there as she ran her hands through its fur. She could feel how thin it was underneath, and how weak. How long had it been there like that? She jerked back as she heard a rumble that she took for a growl, then laughed as she realized the truth: the creature was purring the way any smaller cat might have.

  Sophia reached for it again, pushing out soothing thoughts as she found the snare that had caught it. It was a horrific thing, set with wire rather than rope, and it seemed to take Sophia forever to cut through it with her short eating knife.

  “There,” she said, as the cat’s leg came clear. “You’re free now.”

  She expected it to run off, but instead, it lay there, looking at her in expectation.

  “Cora,” she said, not taking her eyes off it. “Do we have any meat back there?”

  “I’ll see what I can find,” Cora said, and then she came forward, holding a couple of slices of salt beef, which she tossed down in front of the forest cat. It sniffed at it for a second, then gobbled the food up hungrily.

  “You should go,” Sophia said. “Go back into the forest.”

  It didn’t go, though. Instead, it hobbled over in the direction of the cart.

  “It’s probably just after more food,” Emeline said.

  Cora tossed some more beef down, away from the cart, but the cat ignored it. When Sophia picked the food up and held it out, though, the great cat licked it from her palm as gently as a kitten might have. It was hard to remember that it was only a little more than that, in spite of its size.

  “We can’t take it with us,” Emeline said.

  The forest cat responded by clambering up awkwardly onto the cart, sniffing around for a while before turning and simply going to sleep.

  “I’m not sure that we get a choice,” Sophia said. She reached out, ruffling its ears gently. She wasn’t frightened, because she felt sure that she would sense any intention to hurt them long before it happened and calm it. She flicked the reins and the cart started to move forward. Even then, the forest cat stayed curled up, half-asleep.

  “Are you going to name it?” Cora said.

  “Like some courtly noble with a yapping dog?” Emeline countered.

  The forest cat was nothing like that, but even so, Sophia felt the temptation. “I think I’ll call him Sienne. Would you like that?” Sophia asked the cat, ruffling its ears. It only purred in response.

  “That’s quite a talent you have,” Emeline said. “They would probably love you in Stonehome.”

  Sophia frowned at that. “You mentioned it before, but what is this Stonehome?”

  To her surprise, it was Cora who answered. “It’s supposed to be a place for people who can do impossible things,” she said. “I heard one of the nobles muttering about it once, saying that a servant who had run off had probably gone there. Everyone else shushed her. I don’t think it’s considered lucky to talk about it.”

  “It’s not,” Emeline agreed, “mostly because if you spend your time persecuting a group of people, finding out that they have built a city in the middle of your kingdom is probably terrifying.”

  “It’s a whole city?” Sophia asked.

  “I don’t know,” Emeline admitted. “I’ve never been there. I’ve never even met people who have. But I want to. Can you imagine somewhere where the priests won’t call us witches, and people won’t kick us in the street?”

  Sophia wasn’t sure that she could. She hadn’t experienced the same cruelty as it seemed Emeline had, but only because she’d hidden her talent. She’d certainly heard the masked nuns preaching about the evils of those like her enough.

  “It sounds like a good place,” Sophia said.

  “I hope it is,” Emeline said. “You have to have some kind of hope.”

  “It sounds as though things were pretty hard for you,” Sophia guessed.

  Emeline nodded. “When my parents realized what I was, they threw me out of their home. I had to survive alone on the streets. I was usually fine right up to the moment when I guessed something that someone had only thought, not said. Then, they didn’t want to know me, or they actually attacked me.”

  “I never had that,” Cora said, “but I was given to the orphanage so young I barely remember my parents. When I was indentured to the palace, I was actually happy, because it seemed better than so many of the other things that could have happened. That was before I realized that to the nobles there, I would be nothing. Less than nothing.”

  “Maybe you could come to Stonehome too,” Emeline suggested. “Maybe we could all go.”

  “I still want to find my parents’ house,” Sophia said.

  She saw Emeline nod. “We’ll do that first. But afterwards, promise me that we’ll try to find it.”

  Sophia thought about that. A place designed for people like her seemed like an impossible dream. It seemed like something she could never hope to find, but if it was there, wasn’t it worth trying?

  “I promise.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Kate loved her training, whether it was the strange exercises of sneaking through the camp or the time spent learning tactics. But working with a sword was what she loved most of all. The problem was that after what had happened with the sword master, almost none of the soldiers there wanted to train with her, even with a practice blade.

  Lord Cranston was different, and even though he didn’t have the sheer strength and speed Kate had gotten from the fountain, he made up for it in all the tricks learned in a lifetime of fighting. Kate would find herself reeling back as he kicked dirt up in her face, or dodging away from thrown weapons, or caught by surprise as he pretended injury.

  Kate learned only a few more of the subtleties of swordplay from the commander, but Lord Cranston taught her plenty about fighting in the midst of a battle. He made her train hemmed in on all sides, where she couldn’t use speed and movement to avoid the attacks of her enemies. He made her learn the hack and thrust of violence without skill or beauty to it.

  Even so, Kate thought she was doing well enough. She had more strength than her size should have given her, and more speed too, thanks to the fountain’s effects. She had an instinct for the right moment to cut, and her time with Siobhan had taught her the moment to defend, if only because of all the ghostly blades that had pierced her flesh before.

  “Where did you learn to do this?” Lord Cranston asked. “I can’t imagine that they teach this kind of fighting in an or
phanage.”

  “They taught me plenty about violence,” Kate said. “But no, I learned this in the forest.”

  She didn’t want to say much more than that until she was sure how Lord Cranston would react. The fact that he’d recruited her rather than killing her said that he was a practical man, but how would a soldier like him react to talk of magic?

  “In the forest?” Lord Cranston asked. “Were you taught by the trees?”

  He laughed at that, but Kate caught a flicker of his thoughts. He’d heard the old stories about the swordsman Argent, even if he’d never really believed them. He was wondering about that now, and about what it might mean about Kate. If he knew that she could hear his thoughts like this, how would he react? Kate couldn’t imagine that he would be happy. He might even believe that it placed his company in danger, having someone around who could pluck plans from his mind like that.

  “Something like that,” Kate agreed. “What’s next?”

  Lord Cranston appeared to think for a moment, then gestured to the flat practice field beyond the tents.

  “What do you see?” he asked.

  Kate frowned at that. She doubted that the answer was going to be a field. “I don’t know, it’s a field, it’s flat—”

  “Is it, though?” Lord Cranston asked her. “What about if I asked you to find cover in it?”

  Kate looked around it and shook her head. “There’s just grass.”

  “Look closer,” Lord Cranston said. He lay down on his front and gestured for her to do the same. Kate did it, and stared out over the flat expanse of the grass without quite knowing what she was looking at.

  Except that now she saw that it wasn’t flat. Instead, small bumps and hollows dotted the field, with minor slopes and even a ridge partway across. Kate was surprised that she hadn’t seen it all before.

  “No landscape is truly flat,” Lord Cranston said. “Even on the salt plains of Morgasa, there are variations in the ground, and a commander makes use of every one. Never ignore an advantage.”