by T L Ford
* * * * *
Back at the Inn, Kevin sent Robbie and Kent off to procure food and he led Angela into his room. When he shut the door, she leaned over gasping for air. She looked up, clutching her stomach. "This show we've got going is hard on me."
"I figured I'd better get you out of there before you turned blue from lack of breathing. That was quite a performance. When did you learn to jump like that?"
"It was in the book. I had my father run up practice lines during the doldrums, and Robbie, Kent, and I just sort of took to it. It's not as hard as it looks. It's just easier with a net or water to splash into if you miss."
Kevin moved to rub her shoulders as she stretched. "And did you miss often?"
"We all did and still do."
"That was too risky then," he reprimanded. The thought of her falling from that height made him cringe. "You could easily have just done the course."
"You wanted a good exhibition and it was within my range. I was pretty certain I could make it."
"With even a chance of falling, you shouldn't have."
She shrugged and stretched her legs out. "I'll be a bit sore tomorrow, but no harm's been done."
"I thought De Siedes might pop," Kevin said, more than a little gleefully.
"He did seem vexed." Angela untied her strings and loosened her outfit again and sat down in the chair. "You heard that man ask about being my apprentice?"
"Yes, you should start your own guildhall somewhere."
She gazed at him incredulously.
"Seriously. I can't hold you back. You'll become frustrated being my Dauphin and I'd personally prefer you didn't kill me to take over. We can split Merryweather's treasure and that'll give you plenty to start." Kevin went over and sat on his bed. He'd come to this conclusion as he watched her pass the tests; he needed to make the offer. She was already at a Grand Master level, perhaps even better than De Siedes. If she wanted to take over Merryweather hall, she certainly could. It was therefore better if she created her own Guild and the best thing for him to do would be to get out of her way if that was what she was going to do. "You'll have plenty of members as soon as you announce it."
She ignored this. "I think we should increase the size of our hall. We're going to need the space when people start coming for training. We could start a school of sorts for guildmembers and exponentially increase our population. We geas them to you and to me and with two of us to run the lair, we'll each be free to travel. I know you'd like to visit Behr. And I'm not ready to be trapped in an underground cavern for the rest of my life."
"Hmmm. It's true, I would like the freedom to get out and I know you'd take care of the place, but a guildhall cannot have two Guildmasters."
"It won't. It's your lair. I think I might like to set up the town to support the number of thieves we're going to gain. I have a few ideas that might increase our population. I can set up my 'Court' in the Inn of Shadows."
There was a knock at the door. When Angela moved to stand, Kevin waved her back down and answered it himself. It was Robbie with their food. Robbie brought it in, smiled at Angela, and set the tray on the table and left again. Kevin pulled the table over next to the chair. They ate quietly, each to their own thoughts.
When they finished eating, Kevin passed the tray back outside the door. "Crawl into my bed and get some sleep. You're going to need it. I'll stand guard and wake you in plenty of time, My Dauphin."
"Ok. I mean, as you command, Master," she grinned and he turned his back while she slipped out of her clothes and into his bed. She didn't want to be wrinkly for her last test.
* * * * *
Kevin woke her about a half hour before she was supposed to be at the arena, surprised she'd actually been able to sleep. He certainly hadn't before his last test. Angela yawned and stretched, stiff and mildly achy in several unexpected places. She held the blanket over her body. "Do you have water and a cloth? I'd like to wash a little before we head out."
Kevin went over to the door and asked the guard outside for warm water, cloth, and towel. While they waited, he asked, "Are you certain you wouldn't rather have your own lair?"
"Have I displeased you so much that you don't want me around?"
"Definitely not. I couldn't be more pleased. It's just tradition that when the Dauphin exceeds his Guildmaster in skill and the Guildmaster screws up that the Dauphin kills him and takes over."
"Let's break that tradition," she decided for him. 'You're the only thing standing between me and madness,' she thought. She didn't really want to be Guildmaster, but she didn't want to break his heart to tell him so. She simply wasn't cold and mean enough to pull it off without it destroying what was left of her soul. "I intend to see you live to a fine old age, older than any Guildmaster has ever lived before. I think if I can continue as your Dauphin, we can both get what we want. You wanted a loyal, skilled Dauphin when you picked me and trained me, and I wanted a profession that would assure me that I wouldn't ever have to beg or go hungry again. Now that we have that, we should decide what we want next, don't you think?"
"What is it you think you want next, My Dauphin?"
"I want to be myself. No one pushing me to become a lady. I don't want to kill anyone again. I don't want anyone insulting me again, either. I don't want them calling me a 'bed toy' as if I were a useless non-person and I want to kill them if they do. I don't want to have to pretend I'm less than I am. Do you know I wanted to tell De Siedes to move his knife targets back twice as far so it would at least have been a challenge for me? I don't want to be a bad person. I want to be a lady that my mother would have been proud of."
"Sounds somewhat contradictory," Kevin murmured. He answered the door when someone knocked and Kevin took the water and linens over to Angela.
"Yeah," Angela concluded glumly as she quickly washed her face and underarms. "I'm afraid it is. I'm too young to be a Master. De Siedes was right after all."
"Nonsense. Get dressed and let's go finish the forms."
"What is it you want, Master?"
"I want you to get out of bed and go pass the last test. There will be plenty of time afterward to define the future. After this, no one is going to call you a bed toy again."
* * * * *
Angela stood calmly in the arena waiting for the last applicant to arrive. Guildmaster de Siedes was sitting on his throne, his Dauphin standing at his side. Angela deduced her knife throwing display was the reason for the apparent alertness of the man's Dauphin. She'd chosen to keep her cloak with her for this test and the generous material could have hidden any number of projectiles. The final applicant arrived in a rush, almost missing the start.
"Your final test of mastery is to steal treasure and/or coins of a minimum value of 100 platinum between now and tomorrow at this time. You may begin." Guildmaster de Siedes stood and left. 100 platinum plus the Guild tithe for visiting guildmembers. The tithe was unspoken, but any Master worth his weight would know. Angela turned and strode out of the arena. No time at all to spare. She stopped briefly, to bow to her Master, and jogged out. Kent and Robbie tried to follow, but she disappeared into a shadow, reversed her cloak, and slipped off before they could find her.
Two hours later she estimated she was at about five platinum worth and it would get harder once the sun came up in another hour. There simply weren't enough people out. Likely the locals had been warned to stay clear of the streets on this and the following night. She started walking a spiral pattern through the streets, working her way outwards.
Eventually, she came across a wide square clearing. Centered in that was a square building with a guard stationed at each corner. She moved to detour around it and then stopped, curious. She watched from the shadows. The guards remained alert and there were two additional guards at the only entrance. A building like that should have something of value in it, she thought.
If she bent one of those trees back across the way, she could sling herself across through the air and land on the roof. From there, she c
ould cut out an entrance and see. If there was anything of value, it could put her much closer to her goal. If not, well, nothing lost but a little time that she didn't have enough of anyway. She went over to a tree fairly far from the back side of the building and studied the problem. She'd need a sturdy rope and a place to stash what she already had.
It took her fifteen precious minutes to collect rope and hide her loot, another fifteen to silently prepare the tree, removing branches and leaves that might make a sound. The delay cost two and a half platinum she'd not been able to collect, she estimated. Adjusting her cloak so it would give her pseudo-wings, she prepared for the leap. She cleared her mind, pushed herself into that hyper-sensitive awareness, and envisioned the success. She reviewed each of the suggestions from the artifact, and cut the dagger holding the tree rope. She flew across, using the cape to give her additional lift and slow her descent. It was just barely enough. She landed on the roof, rolling.
Angela lay still on the roof, listening to the guards below discussing if they had actually heard 'an odd thump sound'. They eventually settled and she looked about. There was a hatch on the roof. She crawled as silently as possible to it. She wished she had Robbie's absolute silence. She inspected the hatch and was suddenly confused. The hatch was trapped, poisoned, in fact. Class B, she identified as she disarmed it, that would have fired off at anyone going either direction. A Master's well-tended trap.
She closed her eyes to give herself time to adjust to the potential darkness and quietly lifted the hatch open and peered in. The darkness was absolute but she was able to move to the side to let just enough moonlight in to see a hallway. Setting her grapple, she lowered herself in. She disarmed three other deadly traps as she made her way down the hallway. Whoever had set them definitely did not expect anyone to come this far. She arrived at a disguised hatchway leading down. She would have missed it if she hadn't taken off her shoes to be certain of her footing in the dark. She found its latch, but didn't open it. This had to be trapped too. She searched it two more times before eventually finding the hair-strand-sized wire that would pull something from the side. She disarmed that equally deadly trap and opened the hatch. It dropped into a tunnel. Down she went.
Angela disarmed several more traps and a dim light in the distance down the hall let her know that she was in the guild's internal lair, the one prohibited to visitors. She almost turned around right then to head back, but then came up with an audacious plan. She was not a bed toy. No, she was not that.
She searched and avoided several people. De Siedes chambers had to be here somewhere and he was still in Court for a while yet. She eventually found an ornate door that opened to an equally ornate room. This was it. She recognized several shirts she'd seen the man wearing. Quickly, for to be caught here would mean certain death, she searched the room. She settled on a small gold statue that she estimated was worth about 150 platinum. She tucked it into her knife sash and wrapped extra material around it to keep it from falling. She darted back out of the room. Her hyper-focus at this point was almost painful as she made her way to the hatch, rearming the traps in the tunnel as she went.
Angela used her grapple to climb up and reset the hatch's lock and trap. She worked her way back down the hall, resetting each and every trap exactly how it had been. Back on the roof, she reset the last deadly poisoned trap with a sigh of relief. Now all she needed to do was get off the roof. She threw some rocks she'd brought along for the purpose, and as the guards on the back side of the building looked in the direction of the sound, she jumped down, launching herself as far away from the building as she could, and ran off into the darkness. She circled back around to see if the guards were acting as if they had seen her, but they were merely standing at their posts as if nothing strange had happened.
Now all she needed was the forty platinum or so tithe, and a little extra to ease the sting of the stolen statue. Angela saw that the sun was starting to rise, its orange, pre-dawn light already changing the colors of the shadows. She found some clothes that might fit her and took those off a laundry line, leaving three gold in a nearby sock as payment. She changed out of her night costume, into a bland brown dress of a local shop worker. She topped that off with some soot in her hair which she pulled down and tangled and rubbed dirt on her arms and face. No one was likely to recognize the elegant Dauphin de Merryweather. She wrapped her things in the cloak-turned-brown-sack and went on her way.
By mid-morning, she had all that she needed, taken from wealthy early morning shoppers, and went down by the harbor to watch the fishers. Her father's ship was still in the harbor, as promised, and Angela wondered if he'd completely disown her after this. Jamil was surely reporting the events.
She bought herself some lunch and found a quiet spot under one of the piers to eat it. When she finished, she hugged the sack, resting her head on it, and watched the peacefully hypnotic surf. She was tired but did not dare sleep. She'd done it. She had only to deliver this last bit to be a Master thief.
She had never spent much time thinking about her skills compared to other thieves, but she did then. It was not conceit, but simple fact, that she'd never seen anyone better. Kevin had made her one of the best and she had to admit she liked winning, liked pushing herself to her best. She liked the confidence and control.
But to be what? A thief? A night crawler? Someone who killed? She rubbed at her hand that still felt like it had that Red Cliff man's blood on it. Yet if she hadn't done that, Wade would still be trapped in that pit being tortured. What good could she dredge out of this life? Would she really be able to help the people of her town? Make it something her mother would be proud of? Could she postpone becoming Guildmaster indefinitely?
The afternoon faded to dusk and then to full dark, giving her an excellent view of the sunset. She listened as the dock activity changed from boisterous unloading and loading to the quiet sound of lines tapping nearby wood and whispers of night watches. She crawled out and checked the moon. It was only around midnight. She still had a couple hours left which would be enough to bathe and change if she didn't dawdle.
She arrived at the inn and at first, her own guildsmen didn't recognize her. When they did, they quickly let her in. She went up to her room, found someone who promised to bring bath water, and started unpacking her cloak. Ingenious design to have it additionally reverse at a seam and turn into a sack. It was quite a handy outfit. She'd have to make herself more of them. She sorted out the treasure, rolled it into an uncut royal blue velvet with the statue safely padded in the center. This, she put in a fine blue sack.
The water arrived along with Kent. "Where have you been?" he demanded, worried.
"I was out stealing? You remember? That test thing?" she answered, confused.
"You were supposed to come back here and have us help. All Masters have followers or apprentices to do their bidding, but we can't do it without your direct request. It's part of the rules."
"Oh," she said in a small voice, biting her lip. "I didn't know that. Sorry, Friend."
"We've all been out looking for you. How much more do you need? There are only a couple hours left, but we might be able to make it."
"Nothing. I don't need anything more at all," she confessed.
"That's impossible," he said. "They pick that absurd amount so you have to get help."
"Oh," she repeated in an even smaller voice. She looked over at the steaming bath water. "Do something for me, will you, Kent?"
"Of course."
"I'm going to get a bath. Please stand guard outside the door and tell everyone that comes by that I have all I need. Don't let anyone in, except our Master, and only him if he still wants to after you explain that I'm naked."
Kent briefly looked like he wanted to throttle her, but he ducked outside.
Angela lowered herself into the hot water and felt her still-stiff muscles begin to relax. She leaned back and closed her eyes. 'Well,' she thought, 'That was certainly something of a major mistake.'
&nb
sp; * * * * *
Angela dressed in a simple blue velvet dress that matched the blue of the velvet her treasure was in. She chose a polished platinum pendant. The pendant reached midway between her chin and the dress' low neckline. Her hair was half-braided and loose around her neck as it had been that first night, but now decorated with platinum beads. She added a simple platinum chain belt, and put on the matching cloak, with its platinum clasp. The ensemble was elegant, rather than erotic, with the platinum designed to torment the greed of her fellow guildmembers, and to suggest that the 100 platinum theft was really paltry.
Beside her, Kevin still fumed that she refused to tell him what she'd stolen. She just assured him that it was enough. He'd given her a lengthy lecture that luckily had to end as soon as they'd exited the inn. He said at least three times that he regretted ungeasing her for this one thing alone.
Inside the arena, one of De Siedes' apprentices told her to display her plunder on a table that had been set up specifically for her. The other applicants were busy setting out their treasures, with the help of their fellow guildmembers. Angela did not set hers down, but stood, holding it. The apprentice came back by and reiterated his command. "Thank you, but I'll wait for your Master. It will unroll with no effort."
"He may not be coming. He's asked Guildmaster de Bains to step in for him if he's more than an hour late."
"Your Dauphin would be fine, then, but I will wait for one of them."
"Dauphin is with my Master. If your treasure is not on the table by the whistle, which will be any minute now, it won't count."
Angela frowned. "Don't touch it then." She removed the rolled velvet from its bag, and leaving it rolled, she set it on the table. She waited. The other tables all had impressive displays. She could barely fathom a city that could support that much theft in one night. The whistle sounded and they all waited. The noise volume indicated much speculation on her pitifully small lumpy roll.