Museum of Thieves

by Lian Tanner

No, he was there, but only just. Goldie’s eyes kept drifting away from him and she had to force them back again.

  ‘It doesn’t work at all well in bright light,’ said Sinew. As soon as he spoke she could see him clearly again. ‘Unless there’s a bit of a crowd. Then you can slip through it unnoticed, as long as you don’t move suddenly. Sudden movements catch the eye, and they’ll give you away in an instant. Now, why don’t you have a go?’

  Goldie did her best to empty her mind, the way Sinew instructed. It wasn’t easy. Thoughts kept creeping back in. She got impatient with herself, and that made it worse.

  ‘Don’t try so hard,’ said Sinew. ‘Don’t think so hard!’

  But although Goldie practised for days, she couldn’t even come close to Imitation of Nothingness.

  ‘Never mind,’ said Sinew. ‘It took us all a while. Keep trying.’ And he handed her over to Herro Dan.

  The old man taught Goldie how to walk so lightly that she could tread on eggshells without breaking them. He taught her how to interpret the sound of other people’s footsteps – how heavy they were, and how quick, and whether the person making them was sick or well, man or woman, dangerous or harmless.

  He showed her how to hide things in the palm of her hand or up her sleeve. He showed her how to deal with her fear.

  ‘Don’t try and push it away,’ he said. ‘If you fight it, you make it stronger. You gotta greet it politely, like an unwanted cousin. You can’t make it leave you alone, but you can do what you have to do, in spite of it.’

  Then he handed her over to Olga Ciavolga.

  From the old woman, Goldie learned how to pick locks and jemmy open windows, and how to tell if someone was lying, and how to make her own lies sound like the truth.

  She learned how to steal honeycomb from a hive and fish from a stream. And when to steal secretly and when to steal boldly, and when not to steal at all.

  The lessons seemed to touch something deep inside her. She ate them up as if they were food and she had been starving since the day she was born. Every day she practised. And when night came she dreamed about Ma and Pa. And trouble that was getting closer and closer . . .

  One evening, Sinew called them all together in the kitchen. ‘As you know,’ he said, ‘I’ve been searching the city. I’ve followed every rumour, every whisper, almost before it was spoken. I’ve found nothing. The bombers have left Jewel, there’s no question of that. If they were still here I would’ve found some trace of them. As for the Blessed Guardians—’

  He looked at Goldie. ‘Official word is that the search for you has been called off, but I’m not sure I believe it. They haven’t crossed you off the register of children, which is odd. But they’re keeping their mouths shut as tight as oysters and I couldn’t find out more.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know what to think. The shifting hasn’t got any worse over the last few weeks. Maybe the danger has passed us by.’

  Herro Dan shook his head. ‘The shiftin’ hasn’t got worse, but it hasn’t got better either. Whatever’s out there, it’s not goin’ away. Didn’t you find anythin’? Nothin’ at all?’

  ‘We-ell,’ said Sinew slowly. ‘Someone seems to have broken into the Protector’s office a while back. No one reported anything missing, but there are some scratch marks that shouldn’t be there, on one of the ground-floor windows. It might have happened on the same night Goldie came here. But then again, it might not.’

  ‘Sounds bad to me,’ muttered Herro Dan, ‘though I dunno why. All I know is, the danger hasn’t gone. I can feel it in me bones. It’s out there somewhere, right now. I think it’s waitin’ for somethin’. I just wish I knew what.’

  The Fugleman was practising with his new sword. It was a fine weapon, especially made for him, with a silver hilt and a straight blade. As he stepped back and forth, parrying with an imaginary foe, he thought about his plans. Things were falling into place nicely. Now all he needed was the lieutenant marshal.

  According to the Fugleman’s spies, the militiaman had not been court-martialled after all. This did not surprise the Fugleman; his sister had always been weak-minded. Instead of punishing the man as he deserved, she had merely confined him to barracks. He had been allowed back to his duties this morning.

  A smile curled around the Fugleman’s mouth. If he had judged his man correctly, he wouldn’t have to wait long. In fact . . .

  A sharp rap sounded on the door of his office. The Fugleman felt a surge of satisfaction. With one final thrust he skewered the office curtains at heart level. Then he pulled out his pocketwatch. Perfect timing. ‘Come!’ he said.

  The door flew open and the lieutenant marshal of militia marched in. His uniform was polished and pressed as if he was on parade. There was a sheen of sweat on his face. He strode across the carpet and snapped to attention in front of the Fugleman. ‘Your Honour! I hope it is not too late to call on you?’

  The Fugleman slid his sword into its scabbard. ‘Lieutenant marshal, what a pleasure to see you again! Too late? Of course not! My staff have gone home but I am here, working into the night as always.’ He gripped the militiaman’s hand. ‘I am relieved to see you out of detention. I am only sorry that all my pleadings could not free you earlier. But I did manage to persuade the Protector not to court-martial you.’

  ‘Thank you, Your Honour,’ said the lieutenant marshal, blinking rapidly. ‘I am in your debt! If it had not been for you, I—’

  ‘No need for thanks,’ said the Fugleman. ‘It was my pleasure. We cannot afford to lose men of your talents. Now, have you had a chance to think about . . .?’ He let his voice trail off.

  The lieutenant marshal nodded vigorously. ‘As you suggested, Your Honour, I have been thinking about the security of the city. I hope that we will remain at peace for as long as possible. But if a serious threat should emerge, it would be my duty to serve the Seven Gods—’ He paused and looked meaningfully at the Fugleman. ‘To serve the Seven Gods in any way that was required of me.’

  ‘Very good,’ said the Fugleman. ‘Very good! And are your fellow militiamen as . . . ah . . . loyal to the Seven as you are?’

  ‘Some of them, Your Honour. I have been sounding them out in subtle ways. I could give you a list of names.’

  ‘Very good!’ said the Fugleman again. He laid the sheathed sword across his desk and sat down in his chair, watching the militiaman with a ferocious curiosity, the way a cat will watch a mouse that it holds in its claws. ‘Of course, if such a threat does emerge, the city will require a strong leader . . .’

  ‘Like yourself,’ said the lieutenant marshal quickly.

  ‘You’re too kind.’ The Fugleman opened the door of the wine cabinet that was built into the desk. His eyes flickered over the slim blue book that he had hidden there. ‘A glass of best Merne claret to drink a toast to the Seven?’ he murmured.

  The lieutenant marshal nodded. Without being asked, he sat down in one of the visitors chairs, took off his cap and wiped his sleeve across his forehead.

  The Fugleman bent over the wine bottle to hide his contempt. The militia were truly a pathetic bunch. There wasn’t a real killer among them. But they would do until he found something better. Which should be quite soon now . . .

  .

  he next morning, Herro Dan took Goldie to the long balcony called the Lady’s Mile. It ran right down one side of an enormous hall full of tattered banners and moth-eaten tapestries. Patches of moss clung to the stone wall beside it, and tiny white flowers grew in the cracks. When Goldie looked over the balustrade, she could see tables below, and chairs that seemed to shift and sigh in the smoky air, as if a crowd of people had just left them.

  ‘It’s time you learned the First Song, lass,’ said Herro Dan. ‘It’s what we sing to quiet the museum when it’s unsettled. I couldn’t teach it to you any earlier. You have to build up strength to sing the First Song, strength of body and strength of mind—’

  He stopped abruptly and inclined his head as if he had heard something unexpected.


  Goldie listened. From somewhere far away there came a popping sound. It was so faint that she thought she must have imagined it. But when she looked at Herro Dan, he was staring back at her with worried eyes.

  ‘That’s not right,’ he murmured. ‘That’s not right at all! I better go and take a look.’

  Goldie wasn’t sure how long the old man would be, so she stayed where she was for a little while. But then she grew restless and made her way back to the kitchen. To her surprise, Toadspit was waiting for her, his face alight with excitement.

  ‘Your Blessed Guardians are back!’ he said, as soon as she walked through the door. ‘They’re in the front rooms! And they’ve brought a couple of trainees!’

  Goldie’s heart sank. ‘I thought they’d given up. Why are they still looking for me?’

  ‘According to Guardian Hope, they’re not,’ said Sinew, pulling out a chair for Goldie. ‘She says they’re doing a survey. A historical survey. Old paintings, things like that.’

  Olga Ciavolga snorted. ‘Do they expect us to believe such nonsense?’

  ‘I don’t think they care if we believe it or not,’ said Sinew.

  ‘So what is their real purpose?’ said Olga Ciavolga.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe they’re looking for Goldie. Maybe it’s something else.’

  ‘We could go and see,’ said Toadspit, jerking his thumb at Goldie. ‘Her and me. We could spy on them.’

  Goldie stared at him, appalled. To her relief, Sinew shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘Come on, Sinew,’ pleaded Toadspit. ‘I’ve done it before, watched people in the front rooms. They won’t see us. And we might find out what they’re up to.’

  ‘I said no!’

  Toadspit gave a phh of disgust. ‘And you’re the one who’s always going on about over-protective adults.’

  Olga Ciavolga looked thoughtful. ‘It might not be such terrible idea.’

  ‘Yes!’ said Toadspit.

  No! thought Goldie.

  ‘I don’t think—’ began Sinew.

  ‘The Blessed Guardians are taking an interest in us for the first time in many years,’ interrupted Olga Ciavolga. ‘Why? Is it connected with Goldie? Or with the trouble that is coming? Have they discovered things that they should not know about the museum and what it contains? We must find the answers to these questions.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘You are concerned for the safety of the children, Sinew, as am I. But Toadspit is right; he has spied on visitors before and never once been seen.’

  ‘But Goldie—’

  ‘She has learned much since she came here. And she does not have to go. No one will make her. It is entirely up to her.’

  But it wasn’t, of course. Not with Toadspit sitting there grinning, as if he knew how much Goldie dreaded the thought of seeing Guardian Hope again. And Olga Ciavolga, expecting her to make a sensible decision when she’d hardly ever made a decision in her life before she came here.

  And even Sinew, his worried face suddenly reminding Goldie of Pa, so that her stomach clenched with homesickness, and she knew that if she sat there for a minute longer she’d start crying like a baby, and probably never stop.

  She stood up quickly. ‘I’ll go,’ she said, and the look of surprise on Toadspit’s face was almost enough to make it worth it.

  ‘You,’ said Guardian Hope, ‘are under-guardians. And I am your over-guardian.’

  The two trainees from the School of Blessed Guardianship gaped at her. They had told Hope their names, but she had already forgotten them. Their faces were equally forgettable. What mattered was that they were hers.

  Well, hers and Comfort’s, officially. But hers really.

  It seemed like forever since Hope had reported back to the Fugleman with a description of the museum and its confusing rooms. At the end of her report she had shown him the scrap of silk ribbon and requested permission to cart Sinew off to the House of Repentance and – ahem – persuade him to tell them where the Roth girl was.

  Instead, the Fugleman had pulled Hope and Comfort out of the museum altogether. For weeks Hope had had to contain her impatience. And all the while the knowledge that the girl was there, in the building somewhere (laughing at her, no doubt, and thumbing her nose), had simmered away inside her until she could hardly think straight.

  But the meeting with the Fugleman early this morning had reassured her. There was not such a great clash between His Honour’s plans and hers after all. If she did what he asked, she should find the girl very soon . . .

  With an effort, she dragged her thoughts back to the under-guardians. Comfort was handing them a large sheet of paper, a pencil and a yardstick. ‘I believe you already have your instructions,’ he said.

  The trainees continued to gape like idiots.

  ‘Oh, for Great Wooden’s sake,’ snapped Hope. ‘Get on with it!’

  They were not even slightly efficient, of course. They used the yardstick so clumsily and slowly that Hope was forced to shout at them several times. But in the end, they managed to measure the width of the museum’s entrance and the distance from the front door to the stone archway. They measured the height of the archway and its thickness. They wrote the numbers down on the sheet of paper, and drew diagrams in thin black lines. Then they moved into the first display room and did the same thing all over again.

  It was in the third room that the trouble started. One of them went ahead to make a preliminary survey and got lost for more than an hour. The other made mistake after mistake with the measurements, never getting the same one twice. If it hadn’t been for the Fugleman (and the girl tucked away somewhere, thinking herself safe), Hope would have thrown up her hands in frustration and gone home.

  Then they lost the sheet of paper . . .

  Toadspit lay flat on his belly behind the broken cabinet. Goldie crouched beside him, her body tense.

  She wasn’t sure how they had got here. She had followed Toadspit blindly through the Staff Only door into the front rooms, trying not to think about where they were going. She felt as if she had forgotten every single one of her lessons. Once she blundered into a table and Toadspit turned and scowled at her. She stuck her tongue out at him, and that made her feel slightly better.

  The cabinet was in a corner, with display cases and tables on either side. Toadspit dragged her behind it and pushed her down. Then he lay next to her. And they waited.

  When Goldie heard Guardian Hope’s voice, she wanted to jump to her feet and run back the way they had come. Her wrist burned as if a silver cuff might be snapped around it at any moment.

  ‘. . . are idiots,’ said Guardian Hope as she stalked into the room. ‘Did you hear me? Complete idiots, both of you! Can’t you do a simple job without having your hands held like children? How do you expect to get the scale right if you can’t even measure things accurately?’

  ‘Standards are slipping, colleague,’ said Guardian Comfort mournfully. ‘They are not what they were when we did our training.’

  ‘With respect, colleague,’ snapped Guardian Hope, ‘it’s nothing to do with standards. It’s basic common sense! Measure this. Measure that. Go here. Go there. What could be more simple? But can these two fools do it? No, they cannot!’

  There was a crack in the back of the cabinet. Goldie slid her eye up to it, and the room tilted and came into focus. There was Guardian Comfort! There was Guardian Hope! And there were the trainees, both young men. The brass punishment chains around their waists were as new and shiny as their faces.

  ‘I— I’m sorry, honoured colleague,’ gulped one of the trainees. ‘We will do better! Won’t we, colleague?’

  ‘We will,’ mumbled his friend.

  ‘Hmph,’ grunted Guardian Hope. ‘Get on with it then. This is your last chance, mind! Mess it up again and you’ll be sorry.’

  Goldie watched as the two young men unrolled a large piece of paper and laid it carefully on one of the display cases. They weighed down its corners with rocks. Then they took a yardst
ick and a pencil from the folds of their robes and began to measure the distance from the doorway of the room to the first corner.

  Goldie felt a stirring of excitement. Her lessons were coming back to her now and she could see what needed to be done. If I crept along the wall THAT way . . .

  Toadspit tapped her arm. ‘I go see what’s on paper,’ he signed. ‘Wait here. Don’t move. Don’t do anything stupid.’

  Goldie’s fingers flashed. ‘No! I go! You wait!’ And before Toadspit could stop her, she unfolded herself and slipped away.

  She could feel his eyes on her as she slid silently along the wall behind the tables and display cases, but she didn’t look back. She thought about what Sinew had taught her. Camouflage . . .

  The legs of one of the tables were burnt, and she ran her fingers over them and smeared the charcoal on her skin. Her face and arms blended with the shadows and the broken wood. Her heart beat fiercely in her chest. It seemed to take no time at all to get to where she was going. The display case loomed above her. Her hand crept upwards and tilted the rocks. Without a sound, the paper slithered off the case. Goldie caught it before it hit the ground.

  ‘The same measurement twice?’ said Guardian Hope in a sarcastic voice. ‘Can it be true?’

  ‘I-I believe so, honoured colleague,’ said one of the trainees.

  ‘Well, mark it down quickly, idiot, before it changes.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course!’

  Goldie slid away just in time. From deep in the shadows she heard the young man’s voice change. ‘Um . . . honoured colleagues, the paper—’

  ‘Yes, idiot, on the paper, where else?’

  The trainee bent over and peered at the floor beneath the display case. ‘It’s gone!’

  Guardian Hope sighed loudly. ‘Don’t be ridiculous! You’ve put it down somewhere else.’

  As the young man moved away from the display case, patting the pockets of his robe, Goldie scanned the piece of paper. It took her a moment to make sense of all the lines and numbers. Some of them had been crossed out and re-drawn, and she could see where the old marks were.