Mercedes Lackey - Vows & Honor 06

by Take a Thief [lit]

  The plush coverlet was folded up and waiting for winter to go on his bed, the map made a dark rectangle on one whitewashed wall, and the bookcase—the bookcase was no longer empty.>

  He'd never disliked reading, but he'd also never had a lot of choice about what he read. It had never occurred to him that there might be other things to read than religious texts and dry histories.>

  Then he discovered tales. Poetry. Books written to be read for pleasure. It wasn't the overwhelming addiction for him that it was with some of the Trainees, who would have had their nose in a book every free moment if they could, but for him, reading was as satisfying as a good meal, in his opinion.>

  And a book made a very, very useful thing to demand on a wager. It made him look a great deal more harmless in the eyes of those highborn Blues.>

  So now his bookshelves held two kinds of books; his schoolbooks, and the growing collection of books he could open at any time to lose himself in some distant place or time. And the room now had personality that it hadn't shown before.>

  But that was not what he wanted to think about; it was what had happened at that reception tonight. The whole thing had been good, in that it proved Weaponsmaster Alberich had every intention of using him. But it hadn't gotten them any results. And what could be done within the wall around the Palace wasn't anything near enough, and he knew that Alberich knew that it wasn't enough. One end of the trail might be here, but the other was down near Exile's Gate. Here, there was likely only one person, the man behind it all. There—well, there were a lot of people, there had to be, and plenty of 'em with loose tongues, if you could catch 'em right, or get enough liquor into 'em.>

  Now, Alberich could go down there, fit in, and be talked to. He'd already proved that. But the question was not whether he'd be talked to, the question was who would talk to him. Jass had spoken to him, sold him information, and now Jass was dead. Had anyone made that connection? Skif didn't know, and it was certain-sure that no one was going to tell Alberich if they had. Take it farther; if Alberich pressed too hard and in the wrong direction, someone might decide he was too dangerous to let alone. Now, old Alberich wasn't very like to get himself in serious trouble, not with Kantor to come rescue him at need, but if a white horse came charging into Exile's Gate and carrying off a fellow who was hard-pressed in a fight, there weren't too many folks down there that couldn't put two and two together and come up with the right number.>

  There was that, but there was more. The kinds of people that Alberich would talk to were the bullyboys, other sell-swords. If he was lucky, possibly the tavernkeepers would talk to him. They wouldn't necessarily have the information he needed. There was, however, another set of people who might. The whores, the pawnbrokers, the people who bought and sold stolen goods—they all knew Skif, and they knew things that the folks who practiced their trades in a more open fashion might not.>

  Come to that, Skif knew a few of the other thieves who might trade a word or two with him. You never knew what you were going to find yourself in possession of when you were a thief. It might could be that one of them would have run across something to put Skif on the trail.>

  Particularly intriguing was that thread of information that Alberich had let fall—how the trade in children stolen off the streets and the trade in slaves taken by bandits might be linked. It made a certain amount of sense, that, if you assumed that the slavers were all working together.>

  Skif hummed to himself tunelessly as he considered that. Who would know, if anyone did? There were always rumors, but who would be able to give the scrap of foundation to the rumor?>

  One by one, he ran down the list of his acquaintances, those who had always seemed to know where to start, when you were looking for someone or something—most particularly, those who had pointed him on the trail of Jass. And he dragged out all of the tag bits of information he'd been given that hadn't led him to Jass, but into other paths that had seemed at the time like dead ends.>

  At the moment, he couldn't imagine anything more bizarre than that he, reclining at his ease in his own room of a wing attached to the Palace itself, should be running down the lists of those who owed him favors (and those whose cooperation could be bought) in the most miserable quarter of Haven. Nevertheless—>

  Alberich does it all the time. So I ain't the only one.>

  None of the things he'd been told seemed to lead him to child stealing, nor could he think of anyone he knew likely to really know anything other than just rumors. Reluctantly, he found himself thinking that if there was one black blot in the alleyways of Exile's Gate that might hide part of the answer, it was his own uncle Londer. Londer Galko always skirted the fringe of the quasilegal. Londer was not brave enough to dare the darkest deeds himself, but Skif could tell, even as a child, that he yearned to. The older Londer got, the less he dared, but the more he yearned.>

  Bazie had hinted, more than once, that Londer would have sold Skif in a heartbeat if Skif hadn't already been registered on the city rolls. And even then, if he could have manufactured a believable story about Skif running away—>

  Skif was not at all surprised now that half-witted Maisie had been illegally under-age—perhaps not for the employment at the Hollybush, but certainly for the uses that his cousin Kalchan had made of her. She hadn't looked under-aged, what there was of her was woman-sized, but Londer had to have known. Skif wouldn't be surprised now to learn that Londer himself had sampled Maisie's meager charms before passing her on to his son. Londer had never given his sons anything he hadn't already used (Beel being the exception, but then the idea of Londer attempting the life of a priest was enough to make a cat laugh) and Londer didn't exactly have women lining up to keep him company. In the years since running off, Skif had learned a lot about his uncle, and he'd learned that when it came to women, Londer had to pay for what he got. Since he'd already paid for Maisie, it followed that he'd probably seen no reason why he shouldn't have her first. Not that he'd shown any interest in anything too young to have breasts, but half-wits often matured early, and Londer probably wouldn't even think twice about her real age if he'd taken her.>

  Londer had more-than-dubious friends, too, even by the standards of Exile's Gate. And after the raid on the Hollybush—well, he'd lost what few friends he had around there. Not only because of Maisie, but because he had laid all the blame on his own son, and left him to rot and eventually die in gaol. Kalchan had never recovered enough even to do the idiot's work of stone picking, and Londer had done nothing to help him recover. Business was business, but blood was blood, and people didn't much care for a man who disclaimed responsibility for things that people knew he was responsible for because his unconscious son couldn't refute them. A good thing for Londer that his son never did wake to full sense and died within three moons. The case against Londer died with him, and Skif could only wonder who Londer was friendly with now, given how many people that callousness had offended. Or had that just freed his uncle to edge a little nearer to those dark deeds he secretly admired?>

  Given all of that, Londer probably didn't engage in child snatching for his own puerile entertainment. But that didn't mean he didn't help it along, just because he got a thrill out of doing so. He probably had been frightened enough by his brush with the law not to do anything so dangerous for his own profit either. But it was increasingly likely, in Skif's estimation, that he knew something about it. The Hollybush hadn't, by any means, been Londer's only property. He owned warehouses in places where there wasn't anyone around to notice odd things going on at night.>

  So, a very good place to start would be with his uncle. Skif knew the ins and outs of Londer's house, for more than once, he'd contemplated getting some of what he considered that he was owed out of his uncle. He'd eventually given up on the idea, for the fact was that anything Londer had of value was generally too big to be carried off easily. But because of that, Skif knew the house, and he knew the twisty ways of Londer's mind almost as well as he knew the house.>

  Th
e best way to get information out of him would be to frighten it out. Londer was good at keeping his mouth shut, but not when he was startled, and not when he was genuinely frightened.>

  So Skif set himself to figuring out exactly how he could best terrify his uncle into telling Skif everything he might know or guess about the child stealing and the slavery ring.>

  In his bed, in the dead of night>, Skif decided. Skif was short, even for a boy his age—but a shadowy figure dressed in black, waking you up with a knife to your throat, was likely to seem a whole lot bigger than he actually was. And a hoarse whisper didn't betray that he was too young for his voice to have broken yet.

  Alberich had brought the all-black night-walking suit when he'd collected Skif's clothing. Skif knew a way into Londer's house that not even Londer knew about. Good old Londer! Every window had a lock, every door had two, but he forgot completely about the trapdoor onto the roof. All Skif had to do was get into the yard and shinny up the drainpipe from the gutters. Once on the roof, he was as good as inside.>

  Right enough, if Londer knew anything, Skif would have it out of him. But he needed a suitably convincing story for his black-clad terrorist to ask the questions he needed the answers to. I’ll say I'm lookin' for m'sister, he decided. That's a good story, an' Londer'll probably believe it.>

  Now, getting from here to there.>

  He'd be able to get out of his room easily enough; no one checked beds to see that people were in them around here. The trouble was, how was he to get out of—and more importantly, back inside—the Palace walls?>

  :Me, of course>,: Cymry replied in his head. He jumped; then smiled sheepishly. :Nobody is going to stop a Companion and her Chosen.:

  :You don't mind>?:> he asked, hesitantly. After all, this wasn't precisely going to be a sanctioned excursion.

  : Mind>?: he felt her scorn. :You Just try and do it without me! You wouldn't have a chance.:

  Well, she was probably right.>

  :But what do I do with you while I'm sneakin' around?:> he asked.

  She chuckled. :I’ll take care of that. Trust me, lean always insinuate myself into someone's nearby stable. But I'm not having you so far away that I can't come to your rescue if I have to.:>

  He was both touched and a trifle irritated. Did she think he couldn't take care of himself? He'd been taking care of himself for the past year and more! She hadn't been around then!>

  Now she sounded contrite. :Of course you can take care of yourself, I never doubted that. But your uncle might have guards—:>

  He laughed, silently. :Londer? Old cheap Londer? Not a chance. What he has got is dogs—but he's too cheap to get trained ones, so he just gets nasty ones and keeps 'em hungry to keep 'em mean. Which means—?:>

  Cymry knew; bless her, she got it at once. :They'll eat anything you throw in front of them.:>

  He grinned. :And I know where to get plenty of poppy syrup. Put 'em right to sleep inside a candlemark, then I slip inside and give old uncle a surprise.:>

  :Then what will you do>?: she asked soberly. :When you leave? You aren't—:

  :I'm gonna make him drink poppy hisself>,: Skif reassured her. :No way I'm taking a chance on hitting him hard enough to make sure he stays knocked out. Besides, with that thick head of his—I'd probably break what I hit him with before I knocked him out.:

  He felt her sigh gustily. :Good. Then this will all work. And what then?:>

  :Then>—:> he closed his eyes, but couldn't yet see a direction for himself. :It's early days to make any plans. I'll figure on what to do after I hear what old Londer has to say.:>

  And that would have to do, for now.>

  SKIF looked down on the silent, darkened oblong that was his uncle's yard from the roof of his uncle's house. The roof-tree was not the most comfortable place he'd ever had to perch, but better to rest here than inside the house. Down there somewhere in the shadows were five lumps of sleeping canine that had been completely unable to resist juicy patties of chopped meat mixed with bread crumbs soaked in poppy syrup. Poor miserable animals, Uncle Londer would probably be even harsher with them after their failure to stop him.>

  This was the halfway point, and Skif paused for a breather while he could take one. He'd gotten out of the Collegium through his window, out of the Complex openly on Cymry's back, as if he was going out into the city for any perfectly ordinary reason.>

  Well, perhaps not ordinary, since Trainees as young as he was generally didn't go out to the city after dark. But he'd made sure to look serious, as if someone had sent for him, rather than overly cheerful, as if he expected to find himself in, say, the “Virgin and Stars” tavern that night. No one questioned him, and Heraldic Trainees (unlike the common-born Blues or the Bardic Trainees) were not required to give a reason for leaving the Complex at whatever hour, probably because it was generally assumed that their Companions would not agree to anything that wasn't proper.>

  Once in Haven, Cymry found an unguarded stable near Uncle Londer's house—unguarded because it was completely empty and beginning to fall to pieces, symptom of a sudden change in someone's fortune. There he had changed into his black clothing, feeling distinctly odd as he did so. It seemed that the last time he'd worn this was a lifetime ago, not just a couple of moons. But where he was going, that uniform was a distinct handicap.>

  He hadn't swathed his face and head, or blackened exposed flesh with charcoal just then. He'd still had to get the chopped meat, the bread and the poppy syrup, and not all in the same market square, just so no one would put him and the ingredients together if they were questioned later. That was why he'd left the Collegium early. Markets stayed open late in the poorer parts of town, for the benefit of those whose own working hours were long. Skif had no trouble in acquiring what he needed, and he made his final preparations in that stable by the light of the moon overhead.>

  Then, and only then, did he finish dressing, and with the treated meat stuffed into cleaned sausage bladders which he tied off, and then put into a bag, he had slipped out alone into the darkness.>

  The key to making sure that all five dogs got their doses was to send the bladders over the wall at long intervals. The first and strongest dog wolfed down his portion, then staggered about for a bit and fell asleep. When Skif heard the staggering, he sent over the second bladder; by that time the strongest dog was in no condition to contest the food, and the second strongest got it. It took a while, but Skif was patient, and when he couldn't hear anything other than dog snores, he went over the wall and up the gutter to the roof.>

  Now he sat on the rooftree with his back against one of the chimneys, using its bulk to conceal his silhouette, and took deep, slow breaths to calm himself. His gut was a tight knot—a good reason for not eating much tonight. And he was thirsty, but thirsty was better than being in the middle of a job and having to—well. This would be the first time he had ever entered a house with the intention of confronting someone. Normally that was the last thing he wanted to do, and it had him strung tighter than an ill-tuned harp.>

  So he ran over what he needed to do in his mind until he thought he'd rehearsed it enough, and Mindcalled Cymry.>

  :I'm going in>,: he told her.

  :You know what to do if you get in trouble>,:> she replied, for they had already worked that out. Skif would get outside, anywhere outside, and she would come for him. She swore she could even get into the yard if it was needful. How she was to get over that fence, he had no notion, but that was her problem. Bazie had taught him that once you put your confidence in a partner, you just trusted that he knew what he was doing and went on with your part of the plan. Because once the plan was in motion, there was nothing you could do about what he was responsible for, anyway, so there was no point in taking up some of the attention you should be paying to your part of the job by worrying about him.

  He slipped over the rooftree to the next chimney; the hatch into the crawl space was just on the other side of it. It wasn't locked—it hadn't been locked for the past fiv
e years that Skif knew of. Even if it had been, it was one of those that had its hinges on the outside, and all he would have had to do would have been to knock the hinge pins out and he could have lifted it up from the hinge side. He left it open, just in case he had to make a quick exit and couldn't use the route out he'd planned.>

  The space he slipped down into was more of a crawl space than an attic, too small to be practical to store anything. He crawled on his hands and knees, feeling his way along until he came to the hatch that led down into the hallway separating all of the dozen garret rooms where Londer's servants slept, six on one side of the corridor, and six on the other.>

  Well, where the servants Londer had would have slept, if he'd had more than the three he kept. Like everything else Londer had, his servants were cheap because no one else would have them, and he worked them—screaming and cursing at them all the while—until they dropped. His man-of-all-work was a drunkard, so was his cook, and the overworked housemaid was another half-wit like Maisie. None of them was going to wake up short of Skif falling on them, which obviously he didn't intend to do.>

  Not that he was going to take any chances about it.>

  He found the hatch, which had a cover meant to be pushed up and aside from the hallway below. He lifted it up and put it out of the way, then stuck his head down into the hall and took a quick look around.>

  As he'd expected, it was deserted, not so dark as the crawl space thanks to a tiny window on either end of the hall, and silent but for three sets of snoring.>

  He actually had to stop and listen in fascination for a moment, for he'd never heard anything like it.>

  There was a deep, basso rumbling which was probably the handyman, whose pattern was a long, drawn out sound interrupted by three short snorks. Layered atop this was a second set, vaguely alto in pitch, of short, loud snorts in a rising tone that sounded like an entire sty full of pigs. And atop that was a soprano solo with snoring on the intake of breath and whistling on the exhalation. One was the housemaid and the other the cook, but which was which? The housemaid was younger, but fatter than the cook, so either could have had the soprano.>