Take A Thief v(-3

by Mercedes Lackey

  The dressing room led directly to the corridor, and probably the reason that the stair came out into it at all was the very sensible one of convenience for the original master and builder of the house, who probably would have chosen this suite for himself. Water for baths would come straight up the stair from the kitchen in cans, to be poured into the bath in the dressing room. If the master was hungry and rang for service, his snack would be brought up in moments, freshly prepared.

  This corridor was short; it ran between the old master suite to two other sets of rooms. It extended the width of the house and had a window on either end, with the staircase leading downward for the family's use on Skif's right. Three doors let out on it, besides the one that Skif stood in. The one on Skif's side led to a second bedroom separate from the master suite, probably intended for a superior personal maid or manservant. The two opposite were probably for guests or children in the original plan. One was now Londer's, and heaven only knew what he did with the other.

  Skif put his ear to the door nearest him on that side.

  It was definitely occupied, although the slumberer was no match for the trio upstairs. Just to be sure, Skif eased down the corridor and checked the other.

  Silent and, as turning the door handle proved, locked as well.

  He returned to Londer's room, took a steadying breath, and took out —

  — another bladder of oil. Because he did not want Londer to wake up until Skif's knife was at his throat.

  Only when the hinges were saturated did Skif ease the door open, wincing at the odor that rolled out.

  Well, the old man hasn't changed his bathing habits any.

  After the cleanliness of Bazie's room, the Priory, and the Collegium, Skif's nose wrinkled at the effluvia of unwashed clothing, unwashed sheets, unwashed body, rancid sweat, and bad breath. It wasn't bad enough to gag a goat, but it was close.

  If this wasn't so important, I'd leave now. It made his skin crawl to think of getting so close to that foul stench, but he didn't have much choice.

  Londer had his windows open to the night air, so at least he could see. And at least he wasn't going to smother in the stink.

  He took a deep breath, this time of cleaner air, and slipped inside.

  Londer didn't wake until the edge of the knife — the dull edge, did he but know it — was against his throat. Skif had tried to time his entry for when the moon was casting the most light on the streetward side of the house. In fact, moonlight streamed in through the windows, and Skif could tell from the sheer terror on Londer's face that he was having no trouble seeing what there was to see of Skif.

  “Don't move,” Skif hissed. “And don't shout.”

  “I won't,” Londer whimpered. “What d'you want from me?”

  Londer shivered with fear; Skif had never seen anyone actually doing that, and to see Londer's fat jowls shaking like a jelly induced a profound disgust in him.

  “You can start,” hissed Skif, “by telling me what you did with my sister.”

  Londer looked as if he was going to have a fit right there and then, and Skif thought he might have hit gold — but it turned out that Londer had just gotten rough with one of his paid women, and he thought that Skif was her brother. Not but that Skif was averse to seeing him terrified over it, but that wasn't the street he wanted to hound his uncle down.

  So he quickly established that the apocryphal sister was one of the children snatched off the streets, and the interview continued on that basis.

  Skif must have looked and sounded twice as intimidating as he thought, because Londer was reduced in very short order to a blubbering mound of terror and tears. Skif would have been very glad to have the Heraldic Truth Spell at his disposal, but he figured that fear was getting almost as much truth out of Londer as the Spell would have.

  Unfortunately, there was very little to get. Londer knew some of what was going on, as Skif had thought; he knew some of the men who were doing the actual snatches, what their method was for picking a victim, how they managed it without raising too much fuss, and where they went with the victims afterward. Which, as Skif had guessed, was one of Loader's own warehouses. But who the real powers behind the snatches were, he had no idea; his knowledge was all at street level. Even the warehouse had been hired by a go-between.

  Which was disgusting enough. Londer whimpered and carried on, literally sweating buckets, trying to make out that the poor younglings grabbed by the gang were better off than they'd be on the street. Sheltered and fed, maybe, but better off? If they were incredibly lucky and not at all attractive, they'd find themselves working from dawn to dusk at some skinflint's farm, or knotting rugs, sewing shirts, making rope, or any one of a hundred tasks that needed hands but not much strength.

  If they were pretty — well, that was something Skif didn't want to think about too hard. There had been a child-brothel four streets over from the Hollybush that had been shut down when he was still with Bazie — there were things that even the denizens of Exile's Gate wouldn't put up with — but where there was one, there were probably more. The only reason why this one had been uncovered was because someone had been careless, or someone had snitched.

  But by far and away the single most important piece of information that Skif got was that the man who was in charge of the entire ring always came to inspect the children when they were brought to the warehouse. It seemed he didn't trust the judgment of his underlings. If there was ever to be a time to catch him, that would be it.

  When Skif had gotten everything he thought he could out of Londer, he took the knife away from the man's throat. Londer started to babble; an abrupt gesture with the knife shut him up again, and Skif thrust a bottle made from a small gourd at him.

  “Drink it,” he ordered.

  Londer's eyes bulged. “Y'wouldn't poison me — ”

  “Oh, get shut,” Skif snapped, exasperated. “I'd be 'shamed to count ye as a kill. ‘Tis poppy, fool. I've got no time t' tie ye up an' gag ye, even if I could stummack touchin' ye. Now drink!”

  Londer pulled the cork with his teeth and sucked down the contents of the bottle; Skif made him open his mouth wide to be sure he actually had swallowed it, and wasn't holding it. Then he sat back and waited, knowing that it was going to take longer for the drug to take effect on the man because of Londer's fear counteracting it. Meanwhile, his uncle just stared at him, occasionally venturing a timid question that Skif did not deign to answer. If he really was someone out to discover the whereabouts of a young sister, he'd spend no more time on Londer than he had to, and tempting as it was to pay back everything he owed Londer in the way of misery, such torment would not have been in keeping with his assumed role.

  And it might give Londer a clue to his real identity.

  So he stayed quiet, focusing what he hoped was a menacing gaze on the man, until at long, long last, Londer's eyelids drooped and dropped, his trembling stopped, all his muscles went slack, and the drug took him over.

  Only then did Skif leave the room, taking the bottle with him.

  His exit via the garret room and the drainpipe was uneventful, as was his exchange of clothing in the stable and his escape from that part of town. It almost seemed as if there was a good spirit watching over him and smoothing his way.

  He said as much to Cymry, once they were up in among the mansions of the great and powerful.

  :I wish you'd gotten more information, then,: she replied ruefully. :I hate to think that much good luck was wasted on essentially trivial knowledge.:

  “Not as trivial as y'might think,” he replied thoughtfully, for a new plan was beginning to take shape in his mind. It was a plan that was fraught with risk, but it might be worth it.

  And he was not going to carry out this one alone…

  “Out late, aren't you, Trainee?” said a voice at his stirrup, startling him. He looked down to discover that Cymry had brought him to the little gate in the Palace walls used by all the Trainees on legitimate business, and the Gate Guard was look
ing up at him with a hint of suspicion.

  :Tell him the truth, loon,: Cymry prompted, as he tried to think of something to say. He hadn't expected that Cymry would try to take them in the same way they'd gone out.

  “I had t'see my uncle in Haven,” he said truthfully. “He didn't think he was gonna live. There was summat I needed t'hear from him.”

  :Very good. He really didn't think you'd leave him alive, did he?:

  The Guard's demeanor went from suspicious to sympathetic. “I hope his fears weren't justified — ”

  Skif stopped himself from snorting. “I think he was more scared than anything else,” he replied. “When I left, he was sleepin' off a dose of poppy, and I bet he'll be fine in the morning.”

  :Lovely. Absolute truth, all of it.:

  Evidently the Guard either had relatives who were overly convinced of their own mortality, or knew people who were, because he laughed. “Oh, aye, I understand. Well, I'm sorry you're going to have your sleep cut short; breakfast bell is going to ring mighty early for you.”

  Skif groaned. “Don't remind me,” he said, as the Guard waved him through without even taking his name. “Good night to you!”

  He unsaddled Cymry and turned her loose, and slipped into his room again via the window, thus avoiding any potentially awkward questions in the hall. He'd had the wit to clean himself up thoroughly at that stable, so at least he needed to do nothing more than strip himself down and drop into bed — which he did, knowing all too well just how right that Guard had been.

  Tomorrow, though… he had to arrange an interview with the Weaponsmaster. The sooner, the better.

  All during his classes the next day he had only half his mind on what was going on. The other half was engaged in putting together his plan, and as importantly, his argument. Herald Alberich wasn't going to like this plan. It was going to be very dangerous for Skif, and Skif knew for certain that Alberich would object to that.

  During Weapons Class, Skif managed to give Alberich an unspoken signal that he hoped would clue Alberich to the fact that he needed to talk privately. Either he was very quick on the uptake, or else Cymry had some inkling of what was going on inside Skif's head and put the word in to Alberich's Kantor; in either case, just as class ended, Alberich looked straight at Skif and said, “You will be at my quarters here at the salle, after the dinner hour.”

  The others in the class completely misconstrued the order, as they were probably intended to. So as they all left for their next class, they commiserated with him, assuming that something he had done or not done well enough was going to earn him a lecture.

  “I know what it is. It's that you dragged yourself through practice. Whatever you were doing last night to keep you up, you shouldn't have been,” Kris said forthrightly. “You've got rings like a ferret under your eyes. If you thought he wasn't going to notice that, you're crazed.”

  “He'll probably give you a lecture about it, is all,” opined Coroc.

  “I suppose,” Skif said, and sighed heavily. In actuality, he really wasn't that tired, although he expected to be after dinner. That was probably when it would all catch up with him.

  “Whatever it was, it can't have been worth one of Alberich's lectures,” Kris said flatly.

  Skif just yawned and hung his head, to feign sheepishness that he in no way felt.

  His next class was no class at all, it was a session in the sewing room, where he couldn't stop yawning over his work. The other boys in his classes had twitted him about his self-chosen assignment on the chore roster, until he pointed out that he was the only boy in a room full of girls. They'd gotten very quiet, then, and thoughtful — and stopped teasing him.

  Today he was very glad that this was his chore, because the girls were far more sympathetic about his yawns and dark-circled eyes than the boys had been. Not that they let him off any — but they did keep him plied with cold tea to keep him awake, and they did make sure he got the best stool for the purpose — one that was comfortable, but not so comfortable that he was going to fall asleep.

  A quick wash in cold water while the rest of them were having hot baths woke him up very nicely, and he hurried through his dinner, now as much anxious as eager. Alberich wouldn't like the plan, but would he go along with it anyway? It was probably his duty to forbid Skif even to think about carrying it out, even though it was the best and fastest way to get the man they were both after.

  Well, Alberich could forbid him, but that wouldn't stop him. He just wouldn't use that plan; he'd come up with something else.

  So as he walked quickly across the lawn, with the light of early evening pouring golden across the grass, he steeled himself to the notion that Alberich would not only not like the plan, but would put all the resources of the Collegium behind making sure Skif didn't try it alone.

  Well, I won't. I dunno what I'll do, but I can't do that one alone, so there 'tis. He didn't need Cymry warning him against it; the entire plan depended on having someone else — by necessity a Herald or Trainee — standing by. There was not one single Trainee that Skif would dare even bring down to Exile's Gate quarter in the daytime, much less at night. So it would have to be a Herald, and the only one likely to agree to this would be Alberich. Which brought him right around to crux of the matter again.

  He entered the salle, and went to the back of it, where one of the mirrors concealed the door to Alberich's other set of quarters. It was no secret that they were there, but it wasn't widely bruited about either. Maybe the concealed door was older than Alberich, who knew? Skif could think of a lot of reasons why hidden rooms might come in handy.

  He tapped on the wall beside the mirror, and it swung open as Alberich pushed on the door from within.

  He stepped inside. Alberich closed the door behind him and brought him through a small room that served him as an office and contained only a desk and a chair. On the other side of a doorway to the left were the private quarters, a suite that began with a rather austere room that contained only two chairs, a ceramic-tiled wood stove, and a large bookcase. Alberich gestured to the nearest chair. The sole aspect of the room that wasn't austere was the huge window along one wall, made up of many small panes of colored glass leaded together, forming a pattern of blues and golds that looked something like a man's face, and something like a sun-in-glory. It looked as though it faced east, so it wasn't at its best, just glowing softly. Most of the room's illumination came from lanterns Alberich had already lit. Skif made a note to himself to nip around to the back of the salle some time after dark; with lanterns behind it, the window must be nearly as impressive as it would be from within the room in early morning.

  But Alberich didn't give Skif a chance to contemplate the window, though, since his chair had him facing away from it. A pity; he'd have liked to just sit there and study it for a time. Someone had told him that the Palace chapel had several windows like this, as did the major temples in Haven, but this was the first time he'd seen one close up.

  The Weaponsmaster barely waited for him to settle himself.

  “So, your little excursion into the city last night bore some fruit?” was Alberich's question.

  Good, he's already gotten everything from Cymry and Kantor and maybe the Guard but the “who “ and maybe the “why.” That was a bit less explanation he'd have to give. “I visited m'uncle Londer Galko,” Skif said, then smiled. “Though he didn't know 'twas me. Went masked, and in over roof. You know. I scared him pretty thorough, good enough I figger he told me the truth.”

  As well Alberich should know, since he'd been the one who brought Skif's things from his old room, and had probably examined every bit. Skif experienced in that moment a very, very odd sensation of comfort. It was a relief to be able to sit here and be able to be himself completely. It was like being with Cymry, only a more worldly sort of Cymry.

  “That was wise.” Alberich leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and looked thoughtful. “I would not have thought of Londer Galko as a source of informatio
n for our needs.”

  “I didn' either, till I stopped lookin' for a man what needed a building burned, and started thinkin' about what I picked up while I was lookin' for him,” Skif replied. “An' put that with what you tol' me about the slavers. There's summat snatchin' younglings off the streets — not many, just the ones that haveta sleep there. More of 'em than you thought, I bet. You don't hear 'bout it, 'cause they ain't the kind that'd be missed.”

  “We hear more than you might think,” Alberich put in, but also nodded. “Although if this is true, we are not hearing of most of them. Go on.”

  “Londer ain't the kind t'get his fingers where they might get burned, not after that mess with th' Hollybush, but if there's somethin' dirty goin' on, he probably knows summat about it. He likes bein' on the edge of it, not so close he gets hurt, close enough he can kind of gloat over it. So — I paid 'im a visit.” Skif launched into a full explanation, frankly describing everything he had done last night, leaving nothing out. He hadn't, after all, done anything that he'd been forbidden. Nobody had put a curfew on the Trainees, no one had told him not to leave the Collegium grounds, he hadn't stolen anything. All he'd done was to terrorize one filthy old man who'd been the cause of plenty of misery himself over the past several years.