The Thief Who Went to War

by Michael McClung

  “Hey, constable? I hate to be a bother, but I’ve got a fucking arrow in me and it hurts like a bastard. Could you maybe pull it out?”

  “Shaddup.”

  “All right. It’s your floor that’s getting bloody.” It was a slow drip, though, so I wasn’t going to die soon. I hoped.

  I cooled my heels there for an hour or so, then a young physicker showed up carrying a big satchel. He was positively baby-faced. Exhausted looking, but still.

  “What are you, twelve?” I asked him.

  He rolled his eyes. “Who knew archery butts could talk? Shut it and hold still.”

  He inspected my shoulder, grunted, then called two of the watch to hold me down. He opened up the hole in my coat and shirt wider with a pair of scissors, looked at it some more, then dug a leather-wrapped stick out of his satchel.

  “Bite down on this,” he told me, holding it out.

  “It’s still got drool on it from your last victim.” But I took it.

  And then he cut the arrow out of my arm. I only screamed a little, honest. Then he splashed some rotgut in the hole and started sewing. I moved on to moaning at that point. When he was done, he took his stick back and tossed it into his satchel. Then he took out a jar of some foul-smelling stuff and smeared it liberally on the arrow wound, and then gave the cut on my face a quick daub. Then he wrapped the wound in a strip of linen, over my shirt and coat, and tied it off.

  “You can cut the stitches out in a week or so. Try to keep it clean and dry.” He stopped in the cell’s doorway. “Hope they don’t hang you. I’d hate to see my effort wasted.”

  “That’s sweet. I hope puberty treats you gently.”

  Five minutes after he left, Kluge showed up. He stared at me, arms crossed.

  “Hey, Kluge. Did you find the shitbird who torched my house yet?”

  I took his silence as a no.

  “How about the crazy mage lady? Is she dead? Please tell me you killed her.”

  “You’ve had a busy day, Amra,” he finally said, and I knew he hadn’t karked Gammond either.

  I shrugged with one shoulder. “I’ve had busier. Sadly.”

  “Well, it isn’t over yet.” He turned to one of the watchmen. “Secure her and load her up, and give me whatever she was carrying on her person. All of it, mind you.”

  “Yeah,” I told them. “The last time, you fuckers ‘lost’ all my money and knives.”

  This time I got shackles and manacles. Then I got tossed in a watch wagon, which was just a horse-drawn cage. Lucernans liked to throw things at suckers who’d got caught by the watch, and the watch was happy to accommodate. If I was lucky, it would just be rotten produce. If I was less lucky, it would be the contents of chamber pots. Or rocks. I resigned myself to indignity.

  Then Kluge came out and shook his head. “Not the wagon. My coach.”

  “As you say, commander.” They hauled me out of the cage and shoved me into the coach. Kluge got in after me and banged on the roof, and we were off.

  “Not that I’m complaining, but why the coach?”

  “I don’t want you smelling any worse than you already do.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Not like it matters in Havelock.”

  “We aren’t going to Havelock. Not directly, at least. We might not go there at all. It depends on you, really.”

  “So where are we going?”

  “The Lord Governor wishes to have a word with you.”

  I slumped back against the bench. “Fuck me.”

  He grunted. Stared out the window. “The mage earlier. What did he want from you?”

  I saw no reason to lie. “She wanted to know where Holgren was. I know female mages are rare, but honestly Kluge, I already told you it was a woman. Her name is Gammond, by the way.”

  He grunted. “With a face so disfigured, it was difficult to judge.”

  “So she got away.”

  “Any idea why this Gammond wanted Holgren’s location?” Obviously, he didn’t want to talk about it.

  “Revenge. She was a leader of the Bellarian rebels. She made the mistake of crossing Holgren, and came away the worse for it. There’s probably a lesson in there.”

  “Interesting.”

  “I suppose I should thank you for, uh, sticking an oar in.”

  “How gracious of you.”

  “It is, isn’t it? See, I’m not so bad. You might even call me civil. Too civil for shackles and such.” I jangled my chains hopefully, but he didn’t take the bait.

  “That reminds me. What were you doing in a boat with two corpses?”

  “Trying not to drown, mostly. Also trying not to get murdered.”

  “A little more specificity, please.”

  “All right. Bad people are trying to kill me, and it’s your fault. Actually, that cancels out your good deed this afternoon, now that I think about it. I retract my previous gratitude.”

  “How is it I am responsible for your troubles, exactly?”

  “It’s just you and me in here, Kluge. Don’t pretend.”

  “I don’t recall taking out a contract on you, Amra Thetys.”

  “No, but you did put it about in unsavory places that Holgren had made certain arrangements with Morno. You knew that would get nasty interested parties riled up. Did you think that wouldn’t spill over onto me? You’re not the sharpest knife in the block, but you aren’t that stupid.”

  He sort of scrunched up his eyebrows and stared at me, hard. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Sure you don’t. Your little feud with Holgren got a fisherman murdered tonight, though. He was a good sort. He survived a demonic bear, for fuck’s sake, and did not deserve to go out like that. You also got me an arrow in my arm. And my boot.”

  “I’m going to say this exactly once. Holgren Angrado is a criminal and a dangerous individual. The world would be a safer place without him in it. But when I come for him, it won’t be through a third party, and it won’t be by betraying the Lord Governor’s trust. I am neither a coward nor a conniver.”

  I believed him. I didn’t want to believe him, because it was Kluge, and Kluge could go hump himself all day long. But I did.

  “Then you’ve got a rat in the Governor’s manse. I’d say that wasn’t my problem, but it very fucking much is, as tonight has proved.” I shrugged, and instantly regretted it.

  “Who is it that made an attempt on your life tonight?”

  “I didn’t catch their names.”

  “I will never understand why your sort do not cooperate, even when your life is at stake.”

  “My sort, Kluge? Really?”

  “It’s just you and me here, Amra, as you pointed out. You’re a thief. You consort with the criminal element. You have never done an honest day’s work in your life.”

  “Oh, we’re being honest? All right. How many innocent people have you jailed, Kluge? How many have done a little jig at Traitor’s Gate because you decided they would, and evidence be damned? I remember the speech you gave me in Havelock; every fucking word of it. ‘If we want you to hang, you’ll hang.’ That’s what you fucking told me. You think you’re better than me? You hold a whip, and you pretend it’s justice. That’s your sort.”

  He looked like he wanted to hit me. I damn sure wanted to hit him.

  “I don’t call it justice. I call it necessity. I do what I do so that you can walk down most streets without being murdered for your shoes. You weren’t here when the governor was first appointed. You did not have to suffer the riots he was forced to put down using magic when he could, and the sword when he could not.”

  I laughed. “Morno’s no mage, and you’re no hero.”

  “You of all people should know it doesn’t take a mage to wield and artefact. And I never claimed to be a hero. I do what is necessary, so that those days of chaos never return. I ask for no thanks. I expect no reward. And I most certainly have no compunction about stringing up career criminals on scant evidence, if it means the largest city on the Dr
agonsea doesn’t descend into chaos. I keep the peace you take for granted.”

  I clapped, though it pained me, though the chains made it a chore. “I could live with that, Kluge, if you were truly infallible, instead of just being convinced you were.”

  “I have no interest in debating you, of all people, on how best to address the ills of society.”

  “Good. You’d lose.”

  The rest of the ride passed in silence.

  EVENTUALLY THE COACH turned onto the Promenade, which no wheeled traffic was allowed to do unless on official business. I got to see all the manses, and the empty socket of my own once-home, from the window of a coach. So that was a new experience for me. Life is made up of little moments, after all.

  We came to the governor’s manse. Kluge hopped out. I, shackled and manacled, shuffled to the carriage door and got pulled out by a couple of burly fellows in livery. They weren’t sadistic about it, but they weren’t gentle, either.

  “Fucking hells! I just got stitches!”

  The one on the stitches side had the decency to look apologetic, but it didn’t make it to his lips or anything. Both of them kept hold of my arms and marched me inside. The entry hall wasn’t as big as you might imagine, but it was decorated in a style that befitted the second most powerful man in the country. Which is why I started laughing when I saw the painting.

  “Something amuses?” Kluge asked.

  I gestured with my chin towards a pretty painting of the Ose, with its narrowboats in morning fog. “That one, the det Gellar. It’s a fake.”

  Kluge shrugged and started climbing stairs. Not an art aficionado, then.

  They dragged me after him, down a short hall, and into a well-appointed office. A biggish man sat behind a biggish desk. He looked tired. His thinning hair was close-cropped, military fashion and utterly unfashionable. He was reading a book, and by the looks of it, whatever was going on in it displeased him.

  “Amra Thetys, my lord,” Kluge announced. Rather needlessly, in my opinion. How many scarred women had Morno been expecting? The man looked up from his book. His expression didn’t change. Maybe that was just his face.

  “Governor Morno, I presume.” I executed a travesty of a curtsey, both because I was chained and being held by two men, and because I had only the haziest notion of what a curtsey looked like.

  He just kept staring. When he finally spoke, it wasn’t what I expected, and it definitely wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

  “You. You owe me a case of Gol-Shen ’47.”

  Ah, fuck. Fuck me. Fucking hells. “I have no idea-”

  He raised a hand. I shut my mouth. He snapped his fingers and a servant brought in a small crate. The servant set the crate at my feet and removed the lid. Inside were five empty wine bottles.

  “Every year, for five years, you’ve sent me an empty bottle of the wine you stole from me. By my calculations that leaves nineteen. Now. You aren’t an utter cretin, so I want you to consider carefully the next words that come out of your mouth. Keep in mind that I have been waiting more than half a decade to ask the following question, and be mindful of the fact that what you stole from me is, quite literally, irreplaceable. Nod if you understand.”

  I nodded.

  “Excellent. Where are the remaining bottles?”

  I knew when to admit defeat. “There’s a little roadside shrine to Vosto on Tar Street. The altar has a false panel in the back.” Even if somebody had found them by chance there, almost nobody would’ve taken them. You don’t steal what would appear to be an offering of wine to the god of fools and drunkards. Not even me.

  Morno nodded to the servant, who took the crate away and presumably set about recovering his master’s booze. I was going to miss that wine; there was nothing else like it, and no more where it came from. That particular vintage, from that particular year, was legendary. Which is why I’d stolen it in the first place.

  I cleared my throat. “You wouldn’t by any chance want to tell me who collected the reward, would you, governor?” Since there were only two people who knew who’d stolen the wine, and I was one and Holgren was the other, I was more than a little curious.

  He stared at me, and the stare said I should keep my mouth shut unless he wanted me to open it. “As it happens, an anonymous, civic-minded citizen sent me a letter. They did not request compensation. Now, the rest of our conversation will proceed under the assumption that you have told me the truth. If that proves not to be the case, you’ll be in for a very bad time.” He turned to Kluge. “You have her personal possessions?”

  Kluge did. He set a canvas packet on the desk. Morno undid the twine clasp and slid the contents out onto the desk.

  Two knives. A sadly depleted purse. A silver necklace with a bloodstone pendant. And a little velvet drawstring bag, inside of which were the souls of murdered children, in the form of a shining green glass marble.

  Morno touched none of them. “Tell me,” he said to Kluge.

  “The pendant holds a location spell, a beacon. Simple but durable. The work of a mage, of course; presumably Holgren Angrado.”

  “And the bag’s contents?”

  Kluge hesitated. “Magical, my lord. More I cannot say.”

  “You did not open it?”

  “I thought it unwise.”

  Morno looked at me. “What is in the bag, mistress Thetys?”

  I sighed, shrugged a little. “Sadness. Heartbreak. Violation.”

  “Be more specific.”

  “A few years ago, there was a purge of street rats in Bellarius. Maybe you heard about it.”

  “I asked for the contents of the bag, not a lesson in Bellarian history.”

  “Inside the bag are the souls of the murdered street children of Bellarius, the victims of the Purge.”

  Give him credit, he didn’t scoff. “Why are you in possession of such a thing?”

  “Because I haven’t figured out what to do with them yet.”

  “Is that for you to decide?”

  “As a matter of fact. I didn’t ask for the responsibility, but I also couldn’t refuse it.”

  He frowned. Well, frowned more. Then he leaned back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling. He looked really comfortable and it made me jealous. The silence stretched a bit. I fidgeted. I had a suspicion about what was coming next.

  “Where is Holgren Angrado?” he finally asked.

  Yet another suspicion proven true in a whole life’s worth. “I don’t know, and that’s the gods’ honest truth. Ask the gentlemen. They already tried to beat it out of me.”

  He sat forward slowly, his eyes now locked on mine. “The gentlemen?”

  “Yes, the gentlemen. From Coroune? Except they aren’t very gentle, and not all of them are men.” It was obvious that he didn’t know they’d already had a chat with me, which meant one of two things – either they weren’t really the gentlemen, or they hadn’t bothered to let him know what they were about. Which was interesting.

  “When did they question you?”

  I had to think. Dead gods, had it only been the evening before? It had. I told him so.

  “And how do you know who they were?”

  “Well, they told me. And when I asked to see the writ, one of them showed me his.”

  “Describe it to me.”

  “A tattoo on the left chest, above the nipple, with a little shiny dangling below, about the size of a gold mark.” It might have been my imagination, but I thought I saw his hand twitch toward his own chest as I described it. It wouldn’t have surprised me at all if Morno was also one of the gentlemen. He’d hanged noblemen in his time, with as little fanfare as he’d hanged the most common of murderers. It took more than balls of stone to do so; you’d need the ironclad backing of the king. Having that backing defined the gentlemen.

  Morno’s eyes had gone from vaguely bored and irritated to glittery and cold.

  “Get her a chair,” he told Kluge.

  I enjoyed being able to sit almost as much as I enjoyed
watching Kluge being made to fetch and carry. Morno stood and walked around to the front of desk, then rested his backside against it. He crossed his arms.

  “Tell me everything.”

  “All right. But out of curiosity, and I’m sure you understand that I have to ask – what’s in it for me, exactly?”

  He just stared.

  “Come on. Work with me, Governor.” I gave him my most charming smile. The one that small children only sometimes ran away from.

  He just kept staring.

  “Really? Nothing?”

  He glanced at Kluge and nodded to me. Kluge removed the chains. He didn’t seem pleased about it. It was a start, at least.

  “Right, so, the fuckers ambushed and kidnapped me outside the Necropolis last night...” I spilled everything, including what I’d overheard once I’d made my escape. I’m no snitch, but is it really snitching when you snitch on the authorities, to the authorities? No, friends, it isn’t. Because fuck ‘em. I was more than content to let them eat each other, if they were hungry enough. Both on general principles and because if Morno and the gentlemen spent quality time in a pissing contest, it meant they’d have less piss to splash my way, maybe.

  Throughout the recounting of my time with the gentlemen, Morno was stone-faced. Until I got to the part where that bitch Mar mentioned Tuyet, whoever the fuck that was. Morno seemed to know the name, though, and by the way the lord governor’s jaw tightened, he wasn’t Tuyet’s bosom companion.

  When I ran out of words, Morno mulled over what I’d had to say. Then he turned and picked up the little bag of souls, and tossed it to me. I caught it and waited for the other shoe to drop.

  “That one is your burden,” he said, “and I won’t keep you from carrying it. But you won’t need the rest in the Dragonfly Tower.”

  I didn’t get the chance to tell him somebody in his offices had flappy lips.

  TWENTY

  IF YOU’RE POOR, OR even if you’re not poor but not otherwise important, you got sent to Havelock if you got done up. There you would rot in dank and probably lightless confines. But if you were nobility, or if the powers that be wanted to keep you in relatively decent shape while they decided what to do with you, you got sent to the Dragonfly Tower. In other words, it was Lucernis’s posh prison.