Mercedes Lackey - Vows & Honor 06

by Take a Thief [lit]

  When the bakehouse room became unendurable in late spring, he packed up his few possessions and found his new room over a stable that supplied goats and donkeys for delivery carts. Cheap enough, with windows on both sides, it caught a good breeze that kept it cool during the day while he was sleeping. The animals went out each day at dawn—when he got back from his work—and came back at sunset, by which time he was ready to leave. The goats and donkeys took their pungent smells and noise with them, and by the time he had finished eating and was ready to sleep, there was nothing but the sound of the single stableboy cleaning pens and very little smell. It was a good arrangement all around, and if his landlord never asked what he did all night, well, he never asked why on nights of moon-dark a certain string of remarkably quiet donkeys with leather wrapped around their hooves went out when he did and arrived back by dawn.>

  By spring he had gone back to roof work, although he kept his thefts modest and more a matter of opportunity than planning. What he did mostly was listen, for it was remarkable what information could be gleaned at open windows now that the weather was warm. Some of that, he sold to others, who trafficked in such information. Why should he care who paid to keep a secret love affair secret, or who paid to avoid tales of bribery or cheating or other chicanery quiet? It was all incidental to his hunt for Bazie's murderer, but if he could profit by it, then why not? When a valuable trinket was left carelessly on a table in plain sight, though, it usually found its way into his pocket, and then to a fence. His own needs were modest enough that these occasional thefts, combined with his information sales and garden-variety raids on laundry rooms, kept him in ready coin.>

  The beauty of it all was that the three activities were so disparate that no one who knew one of them was likely to connect him with the other two. If it became too dangerous to filch silks, he could step up his roof work. If he somehow managed to get hold of some information that proved dangerous, he could stop selling it, and filch more laundry. And if rumors of a clever sneak thief sent the Watch around on heightened alert, he could stop going for the trinkets and confine himself to listening at chimneys, which sent up no smoke in this lovely weather, but did provide wonderful listening posts.>

  Unfortunately, although he had cultivated acute hearing, it wasn't good enough to enable him to hear what it was that the dour sell-sword was saying.>

  However, it did seem as if the man was buying, not selling, information. When the surreptitious motion that marked the passing of coins from hand to hand finally took place, it was the sell-sword who passed the coins to Skif's target, and not the other way around.>

  Might could be I could sell 'im a bit, if's Lord Orthallen he's wantin' t' hear about>, Skif thought speculatively. He decided to investigate chimneys at the manse at the next moon-dark. They might prove to be useful.

  “Fire,” he heard then, which brought him alert again, and he closed his eyes and put his head down, the better to concentrate.>

  “Bad enough,” the sell-sword grunted. “Ye'd'a seen me a-passin' buckets that night.”>

  Skif's target, who Skif knew as “Taln Kelken,” but who the sell-sword addressed as “Jass,” laughed shortly. “Could'a bin rainin' like'tis now, an' ye'd nawt hev got it out,” he replied, with a knowing tone. “Reckon when a mun hev more'n twenny barrels uv earth tar an' wax painted on mun's buildin', take more'n bucket lines t'douse it.”>

  Earth tar>! Skif had heard rumors that the reason the fire had caught and taken off so quickly was because it had been tarred—but this was the first he'd heard of earth tar and wax! Ordinary pine tar, or pitch, as it was also called, was flammable enough—but the rarer earth tar, which bubbled up from pits, was much more flammable. And to combine it with wax made no sense—the concoction would have been hideously expensive.

  Unless the point was to turn the building into a giant candle.>

  Only one person could know that about the fire. The man who'd set it.>

  Now Skif had that part of the equation, and it took everything he had to stay right where he was and pretend he had dropped into a doze with his forehead on his knees. Anger boiled up in him, no matter that he had pledged he would not do anything until he knew the real hand behind the fire. The bullyboy sounded proud of himself, smug, and not the least troubled that whole families had died in that fire, and others been made bereft, parentless, childless, partnerless.>

  And my family>—gone. All gone.

  “And just how would you know that?” the sell-sword asked. His tone was casual… but there was anger under it as deep, and as controlled as Skif's. The bullyboy didn't hear it, so full of himself he was; maybe only someone with matching anger would have. It shocked Skif and kept him immobile, as mere caution could not have.>

  “That'd be tellin', wouldn' it?” the bullyboy chuckled. “An' that'd be tellin' more'n I care to. 'Less ye've got more'v what brung ye here.”>

  The sell-sword just grunted. “Curious, is all,” he said, as if he had lost interest. “Don’ 'magine th'lad as ordered that painted on 'is buildin' would be too popular 'round here.”>

  “What? A mun cain't hev a coat've sumthin' good put on 'is property 'thout folks takin' it amiss?” the man known as both Jass and Taln said with feigned amazement. “Why man, tha's what's painted on ships t'make 'em watertight! Mun got word inspectors weren't happy, 'e puts the best they is on yon buildin'! Is't his fault some damnfool woman kicks over a cookstove an' sets the thing ablaze afore he kin get th' right surface on't, proper?”>

  “You tell me,” the sell-sword sneered. Evidently he didn't care much for the man he faced. Maybe Taln-Jass couldn't tell it, but there was thick-laid contempt in the sell-sword's voice.>

  The bullyboy laughed, and Skif seethed. “That'd be tellin'. An' I'm too dry t'be tellin'.”>

  Skif thought that this was a hint for the sell-sword to buy his informant a drink, but a scrape of stools told a different story. “This rain ain't liftin' afore dawn,” the arsonist said. “I'm off.”>

  “Sweet dreams,” the sell-sword said, his tone full of bitter irony that wished the opposite.>

  Laughter was his only answer. Skif opened his eyes to see his target turn and shove his way out through the crowd to the door. The sell-sword remained seated, brooding.>

  Then his back tensed. He stood up, slowly and deliberately, and for a moment Skif thought he was going to turn around to look behind him to see who might have been listening to the conversation.>

  Skif shrank back into his alcove as far as he could go, and tried to look sleepy and disinterested. Somehow he did not want this man to know that he had heard every bit of the last several moments.>

  But evidently the sell-sword trusted in the unwritten rules of the Arms. He did not turn. He only stood up, and stalked back out through the crowd, out the door, and into the rain.>

  Two tenants of a nearby, more crowded table took immediate occupation of the little table. And Skif breathed a sigh of relief, before he settled back into his smoldering anger. Because now that he knew who the tool was—that tool would pay. Perhaps not immediately, but he would pay.>

  When the rain died, Skif left; there was still a drizzle going, but not enough to keep him in the Arms any longer. His mind buzzed; his anger had gone from hot to cold, in which state he was able to think, and think clearly.>

  Somehow, he had to find the next link in the chain—the man who had paid for the arson. But how?>

  Loosen the bastard's tongue, that's what I gotta do>. As Skif dodged spills out of waterspouts and kept when he could to the shadows, he went over his options.

  No point tryin' to threaten 'im>. Alone, in his stable loft, he could indulge himself in fantasies of slipping in at a window and taking the man all unaware—of waking the scum with the cold touch of a knife at his throat. But they were fantasies, and Skif knew it. Knives or no, unaware or not, the bullyboy was hard and tough and bigger than Skif. Much bigger.

  So what were his real options? Drink? Drugs?>

  Not viable, neither
of them. He couldn't afford enough of the latter to do any good, and as for the former—well, he'd seen that particular lad drink two men under the table and stagger out with his secrets still kept behind his teeth. The closest he ever got to boasting was what he'd done tonight.>

  Just stick on 'im like a burr>, Skif decided, and ground his teeth. It wasn't the solution he craved. Watch 'im, an stick to 'im. If he takes up summat to 'is rooms, I gotta figger out which chimbley leads t' his, or—

  Suddenly, an idea struck him that was so brilliant he staggered.>

  I don' need all that dosh fer shakin' loose words loose no more>! He knew who had set the fire! So the money he had been using to pay bribes could be used for—

  For a room in th' bastard's own place!>

  Above, below, or to either side, it didn't matter. So long as Skif had an adjoining surface, he could rig the means to hear what was going on no matter how quiet the conversation was. Bribes weren't all he'd been paying for—he'd been getting lessons at spycraft. How to follow someone and not be detected. How to overhear what he needed to. In fact, so long as Skif had a room anywhere in the arsonist's boarding house, he'd be able to eavesdrop on the man. It would just take a little more work, that was all.>

  He lifted his face to the drizzle and licked the cool rain from his lips, feeling that no wine could have a sweeter taste. I'm gonna get you now, he thought with glee. An' once I know what you know—>

  Well.>

  Knives weren't the only weapons. And poisons were a sight cheaper than tongue-loosening drugs.>

  * * * * * * * * * *>

  “I don' need a lot've room,” Skif said to the arsonist's scrawny, ill-kempt landlord, who looked down at him with disinterest in his watery blue eyes. “No cook space, neither. Mebbe a chimbley an' a winder, but mostly just 'nuff room t' flop.”>

  “I mebbe got somethin',” the landlord said at last. Skif nodded eagerly, and did not betray in the slightest that he already knew the landlord had exactly what he wanted, because Skif had bribed the tenant of the highly-desirable room right next to his target to find lodgings elsewhere. Young Lonar hadn't taken a lot of bribing—he was sweet on a cookshop girl, and wanted some pretties to charm her out of her skirts and into his bed. Skif simply lifted a handful of jingling silver bangles from a dressing-table placed too near an open window; they were worth a hundred times to Lonar what Skif would have gotten for them fenced.>

  It had taken him time to work this out, time in which his anger kept ice water flowing in his veins and sparked his brain to clever schemes. First, finding out the arsonist's exact room. Next, casing the place, and discovering who his neighbors were. Then picking the most bribable, and finally, the bribe itself.>

  Lonar had one room—Skif had even been in it several times already. It was ideally suited for Skif's purposes; the back of the arsonist's own fireplace and chimney formed part of one of the inner walls. From the look of the bricked-up back and the boarded-up door in the same wall, the room and the arsonist's had once been part of a larger suite, and the fireplace had been open between the two rooms, giving each a common hearth.>

  * * * * * * * * * *>

  >“Ten copper a fortnight,” the landlord said tersely. >“No cookin', no fires. Chimbley oughter be enough t'keep ye warm'o nights.”

  In answer, Skif handed over enough in copper and silver to pay for the next six moons, and the man nodded in terse satisfaction. This wasn't unusual behavior, especially out someone who had no regular—or obvious—job. When you were flush, you paid up your doss for as long as you could afford. When you weren't, you tried to sweet-talk the landlord as long as possible, then fled before he locked up your room and took your stuff.>

  Probably he expected that Skif would be gone by the end of those six moons.>

  Be nice, but I ain't countin' on it.>

  The landlord handed over a crude chit with an “M”—for Midwinter Moon—on it. That was how long Skif had; if the landlord tried to cheat him by claiming he'd paid for less time, he could show it to a court to prove how long his tenancy was supposed to be. There was, of course, no key to be handed over, not in a place like this one. Tenants were expected to find their own ways of safeguarding their belongings. Some were more interesting than others.>

  Skif pocketed his chit, picked up his pack and bag, and ran up the narrow stairs to the second-floor landing. Three doors faced it; his own was in the middle. His room wasn't much bigger than a closet between the two sets of two rooms each on either side. The door was slightly ajar, and Skif slipped inside quickly, closing it behind him and dropping a bar across it. The room itself wasn't much wider than the door.>

  Lonar hadn't left anything behind but dirt. The walls, floor, and ceiling were a uniform grime color. Impossible to tell if there was paint under the dirt. Closed shutters in the far wall marked the window. From the amount of light leaking in around them, it didn't look as if they were very weathertight. Not that it mattered. Skif wasn't here for the decor. He was, however, here for the walls.>

  Never mind how well the shutters fit, it was the window itself that featured prominently in Skif's plans.>

  He flung open the shutters to let air in, and unrolled his pallet of blankets on the floor, adding his spare clothing beneath as extra padding, and untied the kerchief in which he had bundled the rest of his few belongings. Including the one, very special object that he had gone to a lot of trouble to filch.>

  A glass. A real glass.>

  He set it in the corner out of harm's way, and laid himself down on his pallet, closing his eyes and opening his ears, taking stock of his surroundings. Bazie would have been proud of him.>

  Not a lot of street noise; this house was on a dead-end, and most of the other places on the street also supplied rooms to let. Skif identified the few sounds coming from outside and ignored them, one by one.>

  Above him, footsteps. Four, perhaps five children of varying ages, all barefoot. A woman, also barefoot. That would be Widder Koil, who made artificial flowers with paper and fabric. Presumably the children helped as well; otherwise, he couldn't imagine how she alone would earn enough to feed them all. The voices drifted down from above, edgy with hunger, but not loud.>

  Below, nothing. The first-floor tenant was still asleep; he was a night carter, one of the few tenants here with a respectable and relatively well-paying job.>

  To the left, the wall with no fireplace, four shrill female voices. Whores, four sisters sharing two rooms; relatively Prosperous and without a protector. They didn't need one; the arsonist slept with at least two of them on a regular basis, and no one wanted to chance his anger.>

  And to the right…>

  Snores. The chimney echoed with them. Not surprising; like Skif, the arsonist worked at night The question was, which of the two rooms was the man's bed>

  Skif's hope was that it was not the one with the fireplace, but there was no way of telling if the man was snoring very loudly in the next room, or not quite as loudly in the fireplace room.>

  At least I can hear him.>

  Well there was nothing more to do now. He let his concentration lapse, and consciously relaxed the muscles of his face and jaw as he had learned to do when he wanted to sleep. He would be able to learn more in a few candlemarks. And when his target went out tonight, so would he.>

  * * * * * * * * * *>

  He woke all at once, and knew why. The window above his head showed a dark-blue sky with a single star, his room was shrouded in shadows, and next door, the snoring had stopped.>

  Jass-Taln was awake.>

  He sat up quickly and felt in the corner for his precious glass. He put it up against the wall and put his ear against the bottom of it.>

  The man moved like a cat; Skif had to give him that much grudging credit. He made very little noise as he walked around his rooms, and unlike some people, he didn't talk to himself. No coughing, no sneezing, no spitting; how ironic that a cold blooded murderer made such an ideal neighbor.>

  Ideal. Unless, of
course, you actually wanted to hear what he was up to.>

  Now there was some noise in the fireplace! Skif frowned in concentration, isolating the sounds.>

  Whiffling. Shavings hitting the bricks>. The sound of a hand scraping the shavings together, then putting them in the grate.

  Then the rattling and scratching of a handful of twigs. A log coming down atop them.>

  A metallic clunk startled him, though he should have expected it. Taln-Jass had just slapped a pan down onto the grill over his cooking fire.>

  A while later; the sound of something scraping and rattling in the pan. Eating sounds. Frequent belches.>

  All of which were sweeter than any Bard's music to Skif's ears. The trick with the glass worked, just as his teacher had claimed it would! And it sounded as if the room with the fireplace was the arsonist's “public” room, for all of these noises were nearer than the snores had been. Which meant that when the man brought clients here for private discussions, it would be the room nearest Skif where those discussions would take place.>

  A fierce elation thrilled through him, and he grinned with clenched teeth. Who needed drink, drugs, or even threats when you could listen to your target at will, unnoticed?>

  Now all he needed was time and patience, and both were, at last, on his side.>

  ALTHOUGH Skif' spatience was taxed to the uttermost by the lack of any concrete progress in his quest, he at least was collecting a great deal of personal information on his “neighbor,” Jass. The arsonist, it soon developed, had as many names as there were moons in the calendar.>

  Not only was he known by the two Skif knew, but he was addressed variously as “Hodak” by his landlord, “Derial” by the whores, and various nicknames derived from the slight squint of one eye when he was thinking, his ability to move silently, the fact that a small piece was missing from his ear, and some not-very-clever but thoroughly obscene epithets that passed for humor among his acquaintances.>

  Skif decided on “Jass.” Easy to remember, it had no associations for him other than his target. But he was careful never to personally address the man at all, much less by name, since he wasn't actually supposed to know any of his names. The few times they met on the stairs or the landing, Skif ducked his head subserviently and crammed himself to the wall to let the arsonist pass. Let Jass think that Skif was afraid of him— all that meant was that Jass had never yet gotten a look at anything other than the top of Skif's head.>