Overcome with curiosity, Jalkan bundled himself up in his heavy cloak and walked across town to the district where the convenium was supposedly located.
There was a crumbling old stone wall surrounding the tired-looking structure, and the building itself was quite nearly hidden by trees and bushes.
Jalkan was very disappointed. He’d hoped that the abandoned convenium might prove to be of some value, but it was quite obvious why the place wasn’t bringing in any money. A good sneeze would probably bring it tumbling down.
Then, even as he was turning away in disgust, his eye caught a faint glimmer of light coming through a crumbling board that partially covered one of the windows. Unless it happened to be on fire, the ancient building was obviously not as deserted as it had seemed at first glance.
This might turn out to be useful, so Jalkan clambered over a low place in the crumbling wall and approached the disreputable structure. As he drew closer, he began to hear some people talking inside. He raised up on his tiptoes to peer through the cracked board that covered the window.
Inside the supposedly empty convenium there was an extremely fat man seated at a rough table with a smoking lamp at one end, and the fat man was holding up a rather splendid metal tray. “This is solid silver, Esag. It’s worth a lot more than just one gold crown.”
“I could maybe go as high as one and a half, Rabell, but it’s got that coat of arms engraved on it, so I can’t just put it in the window of my shop. If that silly aristocrat your people stole it from happens to walk by and sees it there, he’ll have the law on me before the sun goes down.”
Jalkan nearly choked. “It’s a den of thieves!” he gasped, “and they’re not paying us so much as a penny for its use!”
“I can let you have the tray for two crowns, Esag,” the fat man conceded, “but that’s as low as I’ll go.”
“You’re an out-and-out swindler, Rabell,” Esag grumbled.
“You don’t have to buy it if you don’t want to, Esag,” the fat man said. “I’ve got a lot of other customers.”
Esag took two gold coins from his purse, slapped them down on the table, and left with the silver tray.
Then a burly-looking ruffian with a little girl at his side came out of the shadows. “You bargain real good, Rabell,” he said in a raspy voice.
“I could have that idiot for lunch any day of the week, Grol,” Rabell sneered. He held out one of the gold crowns. “Here’s your half, good friend.”
“I’ve been meaning to talk with you about that, Rabell,” the ruffian said. “It seems to me that your arrangement just ain’t none too fair. I mean, Baby-Girl and me are sort of partners, and she ain’t getting her fair share.”
“That’s between you and her, Grol. Half and half is our standard arrangement. You and Baby-Girl steal it, and I sell it.”
Grol grumbled a bit, but he did take the gold coin. “I don’t know how much longer Baby-Girl’s going to be able to do our stealing for us, Rabell,” he said. “She’s growing awful fat for some reason, and it’s getting harder and harder for her to wiggle through them little windows to get inside them houses to steal stuff. It ain’t going to be too much longer afore I’ll have to find some new little child to do the stealing.”
“That’s your problem, Grol,” Rabell replied. “Now move along. There are quite a few other people waiting to show me what they’ve stolen.”
Jalkan did not sleep well that night. As a member of the clergy, it was his duty to bring the matter to the attention of his Oran, but he knew his superior well enough to be fairly sure that Oran Paldor would most probably approach the fat thief Rabell who was operating the business in the abandoned convenium and demand a sizeable share of the profits. He was almost positive also that Paldor would neglect to tell his superiors about the arrangement. Paldor would be most grateful to Jalkan, of course, but not quite grateful enough to share the profits.
There was an alternative, of course, and the alternative was much, much more attractive than doing his duty.
“This is church property, Rabell,” Jalkan told the fat man the next afternoon in the crumbling old convenium. “You can’t just walk in off the street and take it over without church permission. I think you might just be in a lot of trouble.”
“Don’t get excited,” Rabell told him with a note of resignation. “I’ll be out of here before the sun goes down.”
“I didn’t say that you have to leave, Rabell. All I meant was that you should pay the church for the use of this splendid convenium. I think the term is ‘rent.’ You can stay if you pay.”
“Get to the point, Jalkan. How much do you want?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Half sounds about right to me.”
“Forget it. I can set up shop in some other place.”
“Don’t get excited, Rabell. That was only a suggestion. It’s open to negotiation.”
“Not until you stop lying to me, it isn’t. The church has no part in this, and all the money I give you will go into your own purse. Isn’t that what you’ve got in your greedy little mind?”
“Well . . .”
“I thought so. Don’t blink, Jalkan, because if you do, I won’t be here when you open your eyes again.”
“I can really make it worth your while, Rabell,” Jalkan said a little desperately.
“You’d better make it good,” Rabell growled.
“I’m a Hiera in the Amarite church, and I’ve frequently been inside the palaces of the higher-ranking clergymen. I can tell you exactly where in those palaces the valuables are kept. That should be worth something, wouldn’t you say?”
“Well, maybe. I’d also need to know how well those palaces are guarded. The little children we use to do the stealing for us are extremely valuable, so I won’t take any chances with them.”
“How in the world did you ever come up with this idea?” Jalkan asked curiously.
“Where have you been, Jalkan?” Rabell demanded. “This has been going on for generations. When I was just a little boy, I was the best thief in the whole city of Kaldacin. I could wriggle through the bars on any window in town, and if there weren’t any windows, I could crawl in through rat holes.” He reached down and put his hands on his paunch. “I’ve gained quite a bit of weight since then, though.”
“I noticed that, yes. What do you think, Rabell? Would the information I give you about the location of valuables be worth a fair share of the loot?”
“We can give it a try, I suppose—but only what we get from those places you tell me about. I’ve got quite a few teams out there, and they’re robbing fancy houses all over town.”
“There’s something I don’t quite understand there, Rabell,” Jalkan admitted. “Couldn’t you make more money if you eliminated the ruffians who tell the children which houses to rob?”
“You want me to stand guard out in the street while the children are inside the house stealing anything they can lay their hands on? Are you out of your mind?”
“Ah,” Jalkan said. “I guess that does make good sense.”
“Let’s get down to business here, Jalkan,” the fat man suggested. “I’ll need to know quite a bit about one of these church palaces before I risk one of the children.”
“I know just the place, Rabell,” Jalkan said, rubbing his hands together.
“How are things going, Rabell?” Jalkan asked the fat man a few days later.
“Better than I’d expected,” Rabell replied. “That house you pointed out to me was almost a gold mine. I turned that one over to Grol and Baby-Girl. She had to make eight trips from the kitchen to the window to haul out all the loot. That set of dishes and the silverware brought in a lot of money.”
“I’ve been looking into a few other houses,” Jalkan said. “There are a couple of them that we might want to consider. Let’s settle accounts, and then we can talk about them.”
2
I think I must have offended my Oran,” Jalkan complained to the elderly servant in Adnari Radan’s pala
ce. “He claims that we need exact measurements of every church building in all of Kaldacin for church records, but I think he’s lying through his teeth. This is the most tedious chore I’ve ever had laid on me since I first entered the church, and I’ll be old and grey before I get even halfway through it.”
“We live but to serve,” the servant said piously.
“Of course we do,” Jalkan agreed sardonically. “Is this the Adnari’s study?” he asked, pointing at an ornate door. “I wouldn’t want to disturb him.”
“He’s over in the convenium right now.”
“This won’t take more than a few minutes,” Jalkan said. “I’m sure you have other matters to attend to. I won’t disturb anything, and I’ll close the door when I leave.”
“I do have some chores to take care of, Hiera Jalkan,” the old man said. “Are you sure you won’t need me?”
“I’ve been doing this for weeks now, my friend,” Jalkan replied. “A few more times and I should be able to do it in my sleep.”
The old man smiled and went off down the hall. Jalkan went into Adnari Radan’s study and looked around. This one seemed to be filled with all sorts of valuable items. Jalkan quickly began to scribble notes describing some of the more valuable objects. It appeared that Adnari Radan had some very expensive tastes. He had to get this place on Rabell’s list.
He was whistling as he returned home and bounded up the stairs to his second-floor cell.
Then he stopped suddenly. There were three iron-faced men in the distinctive uniforms of the church Regulators, the internal police of the Amarite church, waiting.
He turned to run back down the stairs, but the Regulators were too quick for him. They seized him and slammed him up against the wall. “You’re under arrest, Hiera Jalkan,” one of them announced in an almost bored tone of voice.
“But I haven’t done anything!” Jalkan protested.
Almost casually, one of the Regulators drove his fist into Jalkan’s belly, knocking the wind out of him. Then, while he was gasping for breath, the Regulators slapped him into chains.
“You’re in custody now, Hiera Jalkan,” another Regulator declared. “You will come with us, and if you give us any trouble, the three of us will beat you to within an inch of your life.”
“What are the charges?” Jalkan demanded.
“That’s none of our concern,” the Regulator replied. “We were told by Adnari Estarg to bring you in, and that’s exactly what we’re doing.”
Jalkan began to tremble violently. Adnari Estarg was the most powerful man in the Amarite church, and he had a fearsome reputation. Church law forbade the death penalty for priests and even for novices, but it was widely known in Kaldacin that Adnari Estarg could come up with forms of punishment that made the death penalty seem almost preferable.
The Regulators dragged their violently trembling prisoner through the streets of Kaldacin to the splendid palace adjoining the huge, ornate convenium that marked the center of the Amarite faith. Then they took him up an ornate marble staircase to a splendidly furnished study on the second floor of the palace. They pushed him down onto his knees before the throne of a portly man garbed in the crimson robe of an Adnari of the church.
“The prisoner Jalkan, Your Grace,” the Regulator who’d done most of the talking announced.
“Excellent,” the chubby churchman said, rubbing his hands together. “That’ll be all, gentlemen. I’ll deal with this miscreant myself.”
“As you wish, Your Grace,” the Regulator said with a slight bow, and then the three of them left the study, closing the door behind them.
“Shameful, Hiera Jalkan,” Adnari Estarg said. “Shameful, shameful, shameful. What am I going to do with you, you naughty boy?”
The Adnari’s tone actually sounded almost amused. “You do realize that you’ve profaned a sacred convenium by turning it into a den of thieves, don’t you?”
“It’s been long abandoned, Your Grace,” Jalkan protested.
“That doesn’t mean that the sanctification’s been revoked, Jalkan,” the Adnari insisted.
“It wasn’t originally my idea, Your Grace. The old convenium had been long deserted, and the leader of a group of thieves just moved in and set up shop without anybody’s permission.”
“Why didn’t you report that to your Oran?”
“Well . . .” Jalkan desperately groped for some sort of explanation that wouldn’t get him deeper in trouble.
“I’m waiting, Jalkan.”
“I lost my head, Your Grace,” Jalkan confessed. “The thieves are making heaps of money, and . . .” Jalkan faltered.
“And you seized the chance to take most of it away from them, didn’t you?”
“Only a quarter, Your Grace,” Jalkan protested. “I thought at first that I could get more, but Rabell wouldn’t stand for it.”
“Rabell?”
“The fat man who hires the thieves. They steal and he sells what they’ve stolen. The really clever part of the business is the use of children.”
Adnari Estarg’s head came up sharply. “Children?” he exclaimed. “What part could children play in this?”
“They’re the ones who do the actual stealing, Your Grace. As I understand it, the thieves have been using children for years and years. People with valuables in their houses usually have barred windows, but the children Rabell hires are so small that they can slip right between the bars and get inside with almost no trouble at all. Rabell tells me that when he was a child, he was the best thief in all of Kaldacin.”
“And just exactly what part do you play in this grand scheme, Hiera Jalkan?”
“Ah—I’d really rather not say, Your Grace,” Jalkan replied nervously.
“I’m sure that the Regulators can come up with a way to make you change your mind, Hiera Jalkan,” the Adnari said ominously.
“Well—” Jalkan said nervously, “I sort of find houses and such with lots of valuable things inside.”
“And just exactly how do you gain entrance into these various houses?” the Adnari pressed.
“Well, they’re mostly the houses—and palaces—of the wealthier members of the clergy, Your Grace. I told them that the Church scholars had issued a rule that the exact dimensions of every piece of Church property and all Church buildings must be recorded in the Church register. That opens a lot of doors for me, and I’m able to have a look around inside every building owned by any member of the clergy. When I come across a place with a lot of valuables inside, I go tell Rabell about it, and he arranges the robbery. I get a quarter of all the money the robbery brings in. He has thieves robbing other places as well, he tells me, but I only get paid for the ones I tell him about.”
“Ah, now it’s starting to make some sense,” Adnari Estarg said. “You’re very clever, Hiera Jalkan, but you do know that you’ve committed a serious offense, don’t you?”
Jalkan began to tremble violently again.
“Don’t shake so much, dear boy,” Adnari Estarg told him. “I think I’ve come up with a way for you to expiate this naughty sin you’ve committed—for a price. Everything has a price—or had you already noticed that?”
“I’ll pay anything, Your Grace,” Jalkan vowed in a trembling voice.
“You will indeed, Jalkan. Now, then, let’s get down to business here. How many of these tiny children can this scoundrel Rabell put his hands on?”
“I’m not really sure, Your Grace. I haven’t had much contact with their handlers.”
“Handlers?”
“They’re the men who more or less own the children. They decide which house they want to rob and stand guard outside while the child is inside stealing.”
“Our business seems to be very well organized.”
“Our business?”
“You might want to advise Rabell that I’m the senior partner now. I’ll put together an order about recording dimensions of church buildings and put my seal on it. That’ll get you into some houses and palaces you probably don
’t even know about. Our glorious Naos, Parok VII, is so senile now that he doesn’t know night from day. That means that the senior Adnari—me—is running the Church, so what I say is the law. I think our first step should be to put these ‘handlers’ you mentioned into the uniforms of Church Regulators. That should be very useful. Nobody argues with the Regulators. You’d better go advise your fat friend that the situation’s changed just a bit.”
The Treasured One: Book Two of The Dreamers Page 10