“Here now, boy-”
Malden grabbed the cards out of Kemper’s intangible hands and shoved them in his own tunic. “I can’t think when you’re doing that. Now, to bed, all of us.”
He doused the lamp and pulled off his tunic, then got into bed and pulled the blanket up to his chin. He did not, however, get to sleep much that night. Croy made too great a racket with his sobbing tears, and Kemper kept grumbling about his cards.
Enough, enough, enough, Malden thought to himself. Kemper was largely safe from harm, no matter what came. And Croy would be nowhere near the villa when he broke into it. The knight would be useless in any scheme he could imagine.
It was up to him to get the crown back. He could put together a crew but he couldn’t truly count on them. He would have to pass the barrier, get through the hallway of traps, and retrieve the crown, all without being detected. He would then need to do that which might be harder, which was to escape with his skin intact.
Even then his troubles might only begin anew. Anselm Vry might be watching him at that very moment, waiting until he recovered the crown before swooping in and taking all credit for himself. Cutbill might have him killed regardless of what happened, just for causing so much trouble in the first place.
And Hazoth would still have his demon, and Bikker would still have his acid-drooling sword. And both of them would have reason to want him dead.
The problems seemed insoluble.
Well, they always had. He had to keep going.
He had to think of something.
Eventually Malden did sleep, despite the companions of his bedchamber. He sank deep and came back only when the first rays of dawn burst in through the gap between the shutters and the window. He opened his eyes, checked that his bodkin was under his pillow where he left it, and only then sat up.
“Good morning,” Croy said, smiling down at him.
The knight had never looked happier.
“Hmm,” Malden said. He rose and pulled on his tunic, slipped his bodkin into its sheath. Kemper was lying curled in one corner, snoring and farting, dead to the world. Croy, however, was fully dressed and looked like he’d just taken a bath. He had his shortsword out and was polishing it with a cloth.
Malden wondered if the man had gone mad during the night. Maybe Croy was going to kill himself. It was not something he wanted to witness. “You seem recovered from your cares,” he said cautiously.
“Oh, yes. Everything is better now,” Croy said.
“It is?”
“I had a dream, Malden.” He put the sword down and rose to his feet. “No. I tell a lie. It was a vision. I saw Cythera in her bridal veil. I saw myself standing before her, with flowers woven in my hair. And when I woke, I understood. Nothing is broken between us that cannot be repaired. She is merely testing me.”
“Is she, now?”
“Indeed. All the stories of knights and dragons and fair maidens go like this. The maiden refuses to accept the knight’s troth until he slays the beast. He must prove himself, in combat, before she can truly love him.”
“In the stories, you say,” Malden went on.
“Yes. So my path is clear. I will earn her love. I will do this by killing Hazoth. A sorcerer is in many ways like a dragon, is he not? I will slay him. And maybe Bikker as well. And anyone else who opposes me.”
“Even though she asked you not to,” Malden pointed out.
“That,” Croy said, with a gleam of insight in his eye, “is the crux of the test. I will free Coruth. And only then will Cythera look on me with favor once more. What do you think?”
“I suppose,” Malden said, “that anything is possible.”
Chapter Sixty-Five
Malden sent Kemper to keep an eye on Hazoth’s villa-discreetly-while he went over to the Ashes to see Cutbill’s dwarf, Slag. Croy insisted on coming along. “I must do all in my power to assist you. And when the time comes, it must be my swords that cut the sorcerer down,” he said.
“Fine. But for today, you leave them behind,” Malden told him.
The knight errant looked at the thief as if he were mad, but Malden stood firm. Eventually Croy did as he was told, unbuckling the swords from his baldric and stashing them beneath the loose floorboards of Malden’s room.
“Now,” Malden said, “walk from here to the bed and back.”
“This is folly,” Croy said, but he did it.
Malden listened to the man clank his way across the room as if he were a walking thunder crash. “Are you wearing a mail shirt under your jerkin?” he asked.
“No,” Croy said. “What is the point of this?”
Malden studied the man’s dress, then made him take off the baldric. The heavy leather sash was covered in buckles and hooks that clinked together when he moved. With the baldric off, Croy made far less noise than he had before-but somehow his swagger still made the floorboards creak and the room shake.
“You are the noisiest man I’ve ever met,” Malden told him. “You’ll never make it as a thief.”
“But-why in the Lady’s name should I want to be one?”
Malden stared at him. “You’re trying to steal a crown from a wizard’s house. By definition, methinks, that makes you a thief. Or a would-be thief.”
“Ah, I see the problem,” Croy said, smiling. “No, no, we are not common thieves if we take the crown back from Hazoth. We are liberators. Heroes!”
Malden doubted very much that Hazoth would see it that way. He also wasn’t sure how he felt about being called a “common” thief. But he had better things to do than argue. “Walk back this way,” he said, and listened closely. “Maybe it’s your boots?”
Whatever the source of the clamor, there was no more to be done for it. Together they went out into the street and crossed the Stink, keeping well clear of areas regularly patrolled by the city watch. Should a cloak-of-eyes spot Croy, they would give chase on the instant. Not for the first time, Malden thought of turning the knight over to the authorities just to get him out of the way.
When they reached the Ashes he raised one hand in warning. “Don’t jump when you see them. Don’t make any quick move. Just stay calm.”
“See who?” Croy asked, but he didn’t have to wait long to find out.
A boy of no more than eight was standing in the road before them. His face was smeared with ash and he was holding a long shard of broken glass in one hand. He did not speak, of course.
Croy dropped to one knee in the soot. “Why, hello there,” he said, and held his hand out toward the boy. There was a piece of crystallized ginger in it.
Where in the Bloodgod’s name had he gotten a bit of candy? Malden wondered. Perhaps Croy carried sweets around just in case he ever met a child.
He doubted Croy had ever met a child like this. The boy did not take the ginger. He just stood there watching them, his face impassive. Waiting to see whether he should give the signal that would bring a hundred armed children down on the two of them with murderous intent.
“You know me,” Malden told the boy. The boy nodded. “I have business here, with him.” He tapped his chest above his heart. The boy knew what he meant. “This one,” he said, gesturing at Croy, “should not follow me.” He mused for a moment. “But I want him in one piece when I return.”
The boy shrugged. That was up to Croy and how stupidly the knight acted while he was gone. It was the best answer Malden would get.
“Fair enough.” He turned to Croy, who was smiling broadly at the boy and even crossing his eyes to try to make the child laugh. “Croy, he’d rather cut your throat than let you tousle his hair. Just mind yourself while I’m gone. I won’t tarry.”
He jogged around a corner and into the ruin above Cutbill’s lair, where he was quite pleased to see the three oldsters sitting once more on their coffin. “I feared you were driven off by unwelcome visitors, or worse,” he said, and clasped Loophole’s hand.
“Nay, son, we just scarpered at the first sign of trouble,” the old man rep
lied. “That’s one of those things you learn how to do if you want to get to be an old thief. I’m glad to see you alive, though. We weren’t far away, and when we saw you coming in, we wanted to warn you but there was just no way, not without giving away our own position.”
“I understand. It was a close thing but I survived my encounter with the law. Did, ah, did Cutbill tell you anything of what it was about?”
Loophole frowned. “And why would he think to do that? His business is his own. And we don’t ask questions, the answers to which might get us in trouble.”
“Another sound policy,” Malden suggested. Some strange intuition gripped him then-a preternatural sensation that something was deeply wrong. He shot a hand down at his side and grabbed a scrawny arm. ’Levenfingers was trying to lift his purse. Malden laughed with glee. “In this mutable world I am glad to see some things don’t change.”
“It’s good to see you as well, Malden,” ’Levenfingers said. Lockjaw just scowled.
“So, have anything big planned?” Loophole asked.
His face was the picture of innocence. Malden shot him a shrewd look, but the oldster simply blinked as if he didn’t know anything.
Which told Malden what he needed to know. Cutbill might not have told them what had happened, but Malden knew perfectly well that they had asked the dangerous questions-they had just asked them very discreetly. How much they knew would remain a mystery, but it was next to impossible to keep a secret from these three. “Well, as a matter of fact… there’s a certain house on the Lady-park Common, a very special house-do you know the one I mean? I shouldn’t make it any more plain.”
“Then there’s only one you can mean,” ’Levenfingers said with a shiver. “Ooh, I wouldn’t want to be in that place in the dark. But good luck to you. No one’s ever tumbled that place and lived to tell the tale.”
“Even I wouldn’t try it,” Loophole agreed. “And I’d steal pearls off the queen’s throat, were she here now.”
Lockjaw mumbled something and then spat into the charred ruins.
Malden and the other two oldsters turned to stare at him.
“I said, ’ware the eye, and that’s all I’m saying,” Lockjaw snarled. “Now get inside, before someone sees you out here.”
“My thanks,” Malden told him. Then he headed down into the lair and was pleased to find that things had returned to a kind of normalcy. Bellard wasn’t there, of course, but the dice game in the corner was back in swing. More importantly to Malden, Slag was working at his bench, putting together some kind of collapsible fishing pole.
“It’s for taking hats,” Slag said, hefting the pole. “You know the arch under the Royal Ditch bridge? Aye? Windy fucking place. You crouch up in the supports, in the shadows, and you pluck the hats off the wealthy shits as pass underneath, and they think the wind took them.”
“Brilliant,” Malden said.
“It’ll fucking do. What do you want now?”
Malden described his needs while the dwarf scowled at him.
“The climbing gear I have in stock, no problem. This other thing, though-it’ll take a week, maybe more,” Slag told him.
“I can give you no more than three days,” Malden told the dwarf. Even that was pushing things-it meant he would not be ready until the eve of Ladymas.
“Fine. Now pay me. Gilding metal’s not bloody cheap, if you want it to look right.”
“Ah,” Malden said. “Well, perhaps I can owe you.”
It was commonly believed that dwarves never laughed. This was perhaps because most people were not so foolish as to ask them for credit. Slag did laugh at the idea, though the sound was not like a human laugh. It sounded more like a squeaky wheel coming free of a rusted axle.
“It really is important,” Malden said. “Perhaps there is some way we-”
“Sod off,” Slag said, turning back to his fishing pole.
It seemed to be a day for marvels. Lockjaw had given away a secret (or part of one), a dwarf had laughed-and now the door to Cutbill’s office swung open and the guildmaster of thieves leaned out.
“I’ll pay for the work,” Cutbill said.
Malden bowed low toward his master.
“Of course, Malden, you’ll pay me back,” Cutbill said.
“Of course.”
Cutbill shook his head. “At a rather ruinous level of interest.”
Malden bowed lower. “Of course,” he said again.
His business in the lair done, he headed back to the surface. Perhaps Croy had been filleted by the beggar children, he thought. Or maybe they’d just doused him with lamp oil and set him on fire.
One could hope.
Yet when he returned to where he’d left the knight, he stopped in his tracks and just stared. A score of the vile little children had emerged from their hiding places and gathered around Croy. They sat in the dust, staring up at him with rapt faces.
While Croy told them a story.
“… the dragon came swooping down,” Croy was saying as Malden approached, “with fire in his jaw, ready to roast the king’s men in their armor. It was fifty feet from wingtip to wingtip, and its eyes blazed red in the dark as its tail swung out behind it like a pennon flapping in the breeze. And then-”
“It breathed fire and they all died. The end,” Malden said.
The children scattered like crows when a boy throws a rock among them. They hurried back into the ruins, worming their way through gaps and crevices too small for an adult to pass through and were gone.
“We have work to do,” Malden said. “Come with me.”
Croy rose and brushed soot from his breeches. He followed along as Malden headed back into the Stink.
Chapter Sixty-Six
“Where are we going?” Croy asked as they headed up Midden Lane, where the city’s refuse was gathered and sorted and gleaned for anything of value. The smell was horrible, but Malden knew the watch never came down that road.
“A tavern I know.” He stepped in something foul and scraped his leather shoe against the cobblestones. Not that it helped much-in this district the cobbles barely protruded through a thick layer of scum that had hardened into a kind of paving. “There we’ll find bravos willing to sign on for coin. I need men who are good with weapons to fight Hazoth’s retainers-and Bikker, for that matter.”
“I’m going to fight Bikker,” Croy pointed out.
“Not on your own-not wounded as you are. Even Cythera could see you had no chance to take him.”
“And you think a band of common street toughs can? They won’t last a moment against Acidtongue.”
“Well, that’s what they get paid for. To die for some pointless cause. The place is just up here.” Malden lifted his chin and pointed. “They only have to live long enough,” he explained, “to convince the guards to lower the magical barrier. If they die once I’m inside, they’ll have served their purpose. The coin I give them can go to their mothers, or widows, or orphans, what have you.”
Croy shook his head. “No, hold, Malden. I’m quite serious. If you’re going to engage Bikker you need more than brave young men with stilettos. I can’t allow you to throw away lives just for a diversion.”
“It’s all I can afford!” Malden turned on the knight. “You need to understand something, Croy. I know you’ve never wanted for anything in your life. You’ve never had to want for anything since you were a babe. Any problem that might arise could always be met with a sword stroke or a purse of gold, and so you never had to learn about survival. Down here in the Stink that’s all we know. Those children back in the Ashes-they already know more than you ever will. They know when to hold their tongues. And when to cut someone’s throat. They know how to stay alive, and they don’t count the cost too dear.”
“You make them sound like bloodthirsty savages.”
“Yes! Because that is what they are. They are perfectly suited to the life they’ve been handed. I admit it’s an ugly life, but it’s theirs.”
“They just ne
ed a little compassion shown them. I always find that’s worth more than coin.”
“Do you really think a few sweets and a stirring tale of brave hearts will change their plight?” Malden demanded. “They’re among the very few people in this city with less of a chance at life than I have. They’ll never be anything but beggars. Or thieves if they’re lucky. All because their parents died before their time. Tell me where the justice is, there. Tell me why they shouldn’t become savages, if that helps them survive.”
Croy looked confused for a moment. Then he nodded as if he’d thought up the perfect answer. “There’s nothing ignoble about begging,” he pointed out, “if that’s the station the Lady assigns to you.”
“The Lady-” Malden caught himself before he could tell Croy exactly what the Lady could go and do. Knowing Croy, he’d probably take that as blasphemy and burn him at the next convenient stake. “Tell me, Croy,” he said instead. “Did the Lady choose me for a thief?”
The look of confusion passed over Croy’s face again. “Well, no. Since thievery’s a sin in Her eyes. Instead, you should have chosen to enter an honest trade.”
“Had I known it was so easy, I would have become a goldsmith,” Malden sneered. “You think I didn’t try?”
“Not hard enough, apparently.”
Malden’s blood rushed into his face. How dare this hoddypeak of a knight say such a thing to him. What could Croy possibly know of what had driven him to a life of crime? How dare Croy judge him?
But of course, he knew the answer. In Croy’s world the poor were simple, honest folk, too crude in their sensibilities to know anything but how to toil and farm. Knights and lords were there to care for them like kindly parents. To make decisions for them since they were incapable of doing so for themselves.
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