Thief's War: A Knight and Rogue Novel

by Bell, Hilari

But Wiederman’s eyes turned to me, fastening on my neck.

  “Not my fault.” I lifted my collar, displaying the glowing gem. If it winked out now, I was done for.

  “Later.” Wiederman turned and dashed up the stairs. All but one of the guards followed.

  The guard who remained looked nervously at Jack and me, fingering the hilt of his sword. He was about my age, and had probably never seen combat in his life.

  In these peaceful times, most haven’t. Not even sell-swords, unless they dabble in banditry.

  “They’re probably going to need you up there,” Jack said helpfully. “And it’s not like we can chew through the bars with our teeth.”

  “I’ve got orders.” But his eyes strayed to the stairs more and more often.

  Time had stopped creeping. It was only about ten minutes later that a faint sound reached us, a distant, clattering roar. To me it sounded like the kitchen of a busy tavern during the dinner rush, with pots banging and shouted orders.

  Our guard was standing at the foot of the stairs, gazing up, when the door at the top opened. The sounds of battle grew louder, and Michael came pelting down. He’d acquired a sword somewhere, and a coat in the Rose’s colors, and turned his collar around to the back. Even if the guard had seen him on the night he was captured, or on his brief visit this morning, odds were high he wasn’t paying enough attention to recognize him.

  “They’re rushing the house,” Michael said crisply. “We need every man to push them back. Get to your unit.”

  The guard raced up the stairs with Michael behind him. Then the door at the top closed, muting the noise once more, and Michael came quietly back down.

  “I got the keys from Roseman’s office.” He tried the first one in the lock of my door as he spoke. “It’s chaos up there.”

  “Are Liege troops really attacking the house? With enough men to take the town?” I’d set it up, and I still didn’t believe it.

  “I don’t believe it,” said Jack. “Where did they come from? How could they know about us?”

  Michael, who had finally found the right key, ignored him and answered me. “They’ve got a sizeable force out there. Enough to take the house, but Roseman’s guards got their defenses organized in time to beat back the first assault. There’s going to be a blood-bath here, and I don’t see how to stop it.”

  Michael would always want to stop such a thing, but there was a particular urgency in his voice that I didn’t quite understand.

  “We’ll find a way,” I said, as the door swung open.

  “Hey,” said Jack. “What about me? I could help you stop it. I could help you both get out of here. Hey!”

  I followed Michael up the stairs to the kitchen. Men ran through it, and more were watching at the windows with crossbows in their hands. Looking past them, I saw that the Rose’s men still held the kitchen garden.

  Troops in blue and silver livery crowded the windows of the house across the alley. I’d never seen the High Liege’s uniform so close before, since I preferred to scam the local law.

  “Where’s Roseman?” I asked softly. In the bustling confusion, no one paid us any attention.

  “I captured him. I left him under guard.”

  “Then he’ll probably be here any minute! There’s not a man in this town he can’t bribe or—”

  “I didn’t leave men guarding him.” Michael’s voice was thin with guilt, which made no sense…until, suddenly, it all came together.

  “The orphans? You gave him to the orphans?”

  I stopped in front of a mirror—my gem still glowed. And since he’d turned his collar to the back instead of cutting it off, Michael’s must be glowing too. But they’d only stop glowing if Michael had actually killed the man. The jeweler had said nothing about setting him up to die.

  “But they’re just kids!”

  My voice had risen, and several men looked at us. I pulled Michael into the hall and we started up the stairs.

  “What choice had I? Everyone else is too terrified of Roseman to act, even if I’d had some way to organize them! The orphans were the only allies I could reach.” I’d never heard him sound so distraught, not even when Rosamund left him.

  “Don’t worry about it—you’ve probably just made up for every gift day they’ve ever missed.”

  “They promised they wouldn’t kill him. That they’d leave him alive to face the Liege’s justice.”

  “And if you believe that, I’ve got some swampland to sell you. It’s not like they’re sheltered innocents, you know. They’ve been living by crime for months, some of them for years. Judging by what Timasus said when you hired them, this might not even be their first murder.”

  “I have to get back there, Fisk. I have to get back before they do something that can’t be undone.”

  I thought that ship had already sailed, but remembering when I was that young…

  My mother died of a fever, and for years after I’d hated the whole world. If there’d been one person responsible for her death, and I could have killed them, I’d have done it in a heartbeat. And maybe hated the rest of the world less.

  “They won’t be grieving,” I told him. “I don’t see why you should. Can you prove the Rose is dead?”

  “I’m still hoping to prevent that,” Michael said. “Besides, I thought the whole point was to keep it secret.”

  “That was then.” I pulled him into the study. Except for two men, standing by the windows with crossbows, it was empty. And I’d become so accustomed to having guards around that I barely bothered to lower my voice.

  “How did you get into this house?”

  “There are rumors all over the city that the Liege has sent an army,” Michael said. “I went running into the inn, and told my guards that Liege troops had come for the Rose and he wanted every man back at the house, now. They left Lianna locked in her room, but I managed to slip the key under her door. She’ll go to her husband, and he’ll add his men to the Liege’s force. They’re going to take this house, Fisk. Maybe on the next push. They’d just arrived here when they launched it, so their first attack wasn’t coordinated. The next one will be.”

  “Has anyone been killed yet?” It was always harder to make a deal after that.

  “I don’t know. Several wounded, on both sides, but I’m not sure if anyone died.”

  “Then we’d better start now.”

  I went out to the hall and waited till a guardsman rushed by—I didn’t have to wait long. I grabbed his arm and dragged him into the study.

  “We need to talk to all the captains,” I said. “Or at least, most of them, and we need to do it without Wiederman knowing. How many can you bring back here?”

  “I’m taking a message to Captain Bussy now,” the man said. “But why should he talk to you? Aren’t you a prisoner?”

  He looked pointedly at my collar, and then looked at Michael. His eyes widened.

  Michael turned his collar, displaying the glowing stone.

  “Roseman is dead,” I told the man. “We didn’t kill him, as the collars show. But with him gone, all of this…” I waved my hand at the windows, where the guards had dropped all pretense of not listening. “This is a waste of lives. Your lives. Unless you think Wiederman can win this fight, and then make himself Liege of the Erran Plains.”

  The guard snorted. “Not likely. He’s a secretary.”

  “Then you’d better get your captains in here, so we can come up with some way to get everyone out of this with a whole skin. Right?”

  “We’re all going to hang for traitors, anyway,” the guard said. “I’d rather go down by the sword.”

  He sounded just like Michael. I clutched my hair, and tried not to sound too exasperated. “That’s the kind of thinking that will get you killed. I admit, you’ll probably spend several years working off your indebtedness—but that’s better than dead!”

  The man frowned. “I don’t see how you could make that happen.”

  “I don’t expect you to. Which
is why I need to talk to as many captains as you can bring to this room.”

  He finally realized that I might have a plan, and was at the door so fast I almost didn’t have time to hiss “Without Wiederman!” before he vanished.

  Michael eyed me warily. “What are you up to?”

  “Nothing. You want everyone out of here alive. I want us out with our hides intact. Fighting a pitched battle won’t achieve anything. You know that, I know that, and they know it too.”

  I gestured to the guardsmen at the windows, in case he’d forgotten them.

  In the end, eight officers gathered in the study.

  “There’s five not here, but they’re busy. Three of them agreed to abide by what we decide. The other two are loyal to Roseman. Though if he’s dead… Can you prove that?”

  The man who spoke was one of the oldest present, with graying temples and a weathered face. He was probably twice my age, and could doubtless both out-fight and out-run me. I hoped he was too smart to try to out-wit me. Besides, Michael’s forlorn hopes aside, I was pretty sure I was telling the truth.

  “If he’s not dead, he’s being held prisoner till the Liege’s men come for him,” Michael said. “Either way, he won’t be back. If he was free, don’t you think he’d be here now?”

  Me, I thought there was an even chance he’d have run for it, but that wouldn’t occur to a commander.

  Moving slowly, Michael drew his knife and cut off his collar. It took some work, for the leather was thick. The moment it left his neck the stone went dark. From the looks on their faces, I knew my stone had gone dark as well.

  He wouldn’t have dared to do it if the Rose was free, and they all got the point.

  “Alive or not,” I added, “his plot is finished. All that remains is to get out from under the consequences, as well as we can.”

  A younger man, with bronze buttons on his coat and a bristling mustache, glanced at the windows—beyond which lay an army, intent on killing us all.

  “Just how do you propose to do that, Master Fisk? Last I heard, high treason was one of the few bloodless crimes you can hang for.”

  “Ah, but there’s treason and there’s treason,” I said mildly. “There’s actually plotting to take over a huge chunk of the river plain, and there’s simply being hired by a traitor. A traitor who probably didn’t even tell you what he was up to, until you were in too deep to get out. Most of your men probably don’t know anything about Roseman’s real scheme even now. You had to protect them from him, right?”

  They each looked at the others, uncertainty sitting oddly on those stern faces.

  “That’s about half-true,” one of them said. “But I don’t see those men out there buying it.”

  “Well, they certainly won’t if you fight them to the death.” I resisted the temptation to tear my hair. “Wiederman and Markham are the ones they want. If you offered them Wiederman, and promised them Markham in exchange for decent terms of surrender, that should go a long way toward convincing the judicars that you never wanted to rebel against the Liege.”

  While they argued, Michael cut the collar off my neck. The back of the blade was cold and smooth against my skin, and when the collar fell away I drew a great breath into my lungs, as if it had been strangling me—though it had never been at all tight.

  “But who’s going out there to tell them that?” The officer with the mustache gestured to the street. “Suppose they don’t think they need to negotiate? Suppose they just arrest the negotiator and Wiederman, and say, ‘Two down, a few hundred more to go?’”

  “They might,” I admitted. “So you probably want to send Michael out to do your negotiating.”

  All the officers turned to stare.

  “Why me?” I asked. “You’re the one…” Who brought the Liege’s army here. Not something I wanted to say, at just this moment. “You’re the one whose idea this is. And you’re a better negotiator than I am.”

  “But you’ve got the right accent,” Fisk said. “It should keep them from cutting you down on the spot. They might even recognize your name.”

  He put only a slight emphasis on those words, but ’twas clear he’d told them about me when he sent the evidence to bring them. Still…

  “You could take one of our prisoners out with you,” the officer in charge put in. “To prove our good faith. And offer them the other one if they accept our terms.”

  “Make it Wiederman,” Fisk said. “He’s not smart enough to start screaming that your offer to surrender is a trap. Markham is.”

  This unpleasant possibility stopped all of us in our tracks, including me.

  “Suppose he does?” Mustache asked. “Suppose they don’t believe Sevenson here.”

  “Then they’ll attack the house,” said Fisk impatiently. “Which they’re going to do in a few minutes, anyway, so we haven’t much to lose by trying. This is our best chance to get out of this un-hung. And they shouldn’t want to fight any more than we do.”

  That was enough for the officers, most of whom went off to get Wiederman and tell their men about the new plan. They left two men behind, to make sure I didn’t flee. I cast them an exasperated glance, and pulled Fisk into a corner.

  “What is this? You’re the one who sent for them. They’ll recognize your name, not mine.”

  “I told them all about you,” he said. “And I wasn’t kidding about the accent. But mostly, you’re the one who can offer them the thing they really want, which is Atherton Roseman’s body.”

  “He might…” He might still be alive. The orphans had given me their word. And the fastest way to get there, to remove the temptation to break it, was to take the Liege Guard to arrest the Rose.

  “You want everyone out of this house, alive,” Fisk went on. “They want Roseman. You might even be able to get these men out of the noose, if you play it right.”

  I heard a muffled thud from the hallway below, and Wiederman’s voice raised in blistering fury.

  “You’re right,” I said. “I’ll do it.”

  Since Fisk had warned them, they gagged Wiederman and set two husky troopers to drag him along, despite the fact that he was bound and hobbled. He wrested himself out their grip twice, anyway.

  There then came considerable shouting back and forth, as we told the Liege’s men that we wanted to negotiate, that we’d send someone out, unarmed, and to please not use me as a crossbow target.

  I knew this was necessary, but ’twas taking too much time. If Fisk was wrong, if the orphans were still holding to their promise… I had to get back there as soon as I could. Not to save the Rose, but to save them, to preserve their clean young honor.

  On the other hand, if I was shot down the moment I left the house it wouldn’t do anyone much good. So I waited, shifting from foot to foot till the terms were set, and I was free to walk out the front door.

  I carried no weapons, but as I crossed the long front yard, I held my empty hands away from my body and tried to mimic Fisk’s “I’m harmless” expression.

  I could hear Wiederman struggling behind me, the sudden patter of steps as he threw his guards off balance, but I didn’t look back.

  Beyond the gate stood a young sergeant, also unarmed, who asked if I’d be pleased to go with him. Upon my agreement, he led me down the street to an alley that lay between the homes of two of Roseman’s neighbors. ’Twas full of men, armed and ready for assault, and I expected to be seized myself. But instead, one of the three officers clad in Liege blue and silver looked me over and said, “I was right, sir. This is Sevenson.”

  Lianna had reached her husband in time. Captain Dalton had clearly been involved in the first assault; dried blood streaked his face from a cut near his ear, one hand was bruised and swollen, and sweat and dust stained his uniform. His eyes were bright with determination, and the joy of honor redeemed. In this, at least, I had done right.

  “Ah.” The speaker was an older man, with the silver braid of a garrison commander on his tunic. “It seems we have you to t
hank for this, Master Sevenson. You and Master Fisk. He’s a friend of yours I take it?”

  “Fisk is my…” This was not the time to claim knight errantry, even though I’d never earned it more. And ’twas not the part of a knight errant to abandon the men in the house behind me to the noose. They owed the people of this town a considerable debt, in coin or labor, but most of them probably didn’t deserve to die.

  “Yes, Fisk is my friend. And I can’t express how glad I am to see you, sir. Roseman’s men are mercenaries, and I don’t think they knew that he planned treason when he hired them. They’re willing to surrender, if you’ll promise them their lives.”

  “I can’t promise to spare anyone who knowingly plotted treason against the Liege,” the commander said. “In fact, I can’t promise anything. The fate of those who survive the battle will be in the judicar’s hands.”

  “But you can tell the judicars that they surrendered themselves to the Liege’s mercy as soon as Roseman couldn’t touch them, can’t you? That they gave up their treasonous plans the moment they—”

  “Why can’t Roseman touch them?” the commander asked. “I have to admit, I was surprised he let you out to negotiate with us. He has to know that, whatever happens to his men, there can be no mercy for him or his chief subordinates.”

  His cold gaze flicked to the man behind me, but returned almost at once. He wanted the boss, not the staff.

  “Roseman’s not in there,” I said. “I…ah… He’s being held prisoner by people I… Well, I can’t say I trust them, but they’d never let Roseman out of their hands alive. And if we hurry, I might be able to persuade them to turn him over to you—if you can assure them he’ll hang for his crimes.”

  Wiederman made a muffled sound of despair and sagged in the trooper’s arms. The Liege’s men stared.

  “You took the Rose?” Dalton whispered. “You’re holding Atherton Roseman, prisoner?”

  “If they haven’t killed him,” I said. “I’d like to get back in time to prevent that.”

  “If the information Master Fisk sent us proves true, I can promise that he’ll hang,” the commander said. “Where is he?”