Valdemar 07 - Take a Thief

by Mercedes Lackey

  Skif swarmed up the tree by feel, edged along the branch that hung over the opposite side, and dropped down quietly to the ground, his heart on fire with anger.

  Revenge. That’s what he wanted. And he knew the best way to get it, too. If he didn’t have a specific target, he could certainly make all of them suffer, at least a little. Just wait until they all came back from their fancy country estates! Wait until they returned—and came back, not just to things gone missing, but to cisterns and sewers plugged up, wells and chimneys blocked, linens spoiled, moths in the woolens, mice in the pantry and rats in the cellar! He’d cut sash cords, block windows so they wouldn’t close right, drill holes in rooftops and in water pipes. It would be a long job, but he had all summer, and when he got through with them, the highborn of Valdemar would be dead certain that they’d been cursed by an entire tribe of malevolent spirits.

  No time like right now, neither, he thought, with smoldering satisfaction as he fingered the sharp edge of his new knife.

  So what if he didn’t have a specific target. They were all alike anyway. So he’d make it his business to make them all pay, if it took him the rest of his life.

  11

  SKIF had every intention of beginning his campaign of sabotage that very night, but when he tried to get near the district where the homes of the great and powerful were, he found the Watch was unaccountably active. There were patrols on nearly every street, and they weren’t sauntering along either. Something had them alerted, and after the third time of having to take cover to avoid being stopped and questioned, he gave it up as hopeless and headed back to his room with an ill grace.

  He got some slight revenge, though; as he turned a corner, a party of well-dressed, and very drunk young men came bursting out of a tavern with a very angry innkeeper shouting curses right on their heels. They practically ran him over, but in the scuffle and ensuing confusion, he lifted not one, but three purses. Making impotent threats and shouting curses of his own at them (which had all the more force because of his personal frustrations), he turned on his heel and stalked off in an entirely different direction.

  Once out of sight, he ducked into a shadow, emptied the purses of their coins into his own pouch, and left the purses where he dropped them, tucking his pouch into the breast of his tunic. Then he strolled away in still another direction. After a block or two, there was nothing to connect him with the men he’d robbed. That was a mistake that many pickpockets made; they hung onto the purses they’d lifted. Granted, such objects were often valuable in themselves—certainly the three he’d taken had been—but they also gave the law a direct link between robber and robbed.

  As he walked back toward his room, he managed to get himself back under control. Taking the purses had helped; it was a very small strike against the rich and arrogant bastards, but a strike nevertheless. Just wait till they get to a bawdy house, an’ they’ve gotta pay—he thought, with grim satisfaction. They better ’ope their friends is willin’ t’ part with th’ glim! Skif had seen the wrath of plenty of madams and whoremasters whose customers had declined to pay, and they didn’t take the situation lightly—nor did they accept promissory notes. They also employed very large men to help enforce the house rules and tariffs. When young men came into a place in a group, no one was allowed to leave until everyone’s score had been paid. Those who still had purses would find them emptied before the night was over.

  The thought improved his humor, and that restored his appetite. Now much fatter in the pocket than he had been this afternoon, he decided to follow his nose and see where it led him.

  It took him to a cookshop that stood on the very border of his neighborhood, halfway between the semirespectable district of entertainers, artists, musicians (not Bards, of course), peddlers, and decorative craftsmen and their ’prentices, and his own less respectable part of town.

  I’ve earned a meal, he decided; taking care not to expose how much he had, he fished out one of the larger coins from his loot and dropped the pouch back into his tunic. Best to get rid of the most incriminating of the coins.

  He eased on in; it was full, but not overcrowded, and he soon found space at the counter to put in his order. With a bowl of soup and a chunk of bread in one hand, and a mug of tea in the other, he made his way back outside to the benches in the open air where there were others eating, talking, or playing at dice or cards. Hot as it was, there were more folk eating under the sky than under the roof.

  As was his habit, he took an out-of-the-way spot and kept his head down and his ears open. He was very soon rewarded; the place was abuzz with the rumor that someone had broken into the home of the wealthy merchant, Trenor Severik, and had stolen most of his priceless collection of miniature silver figurines. Severik had literally come home in time to see the thief vanishing out the window. Hence, the Watch; every man had been called out, the neighborhood had been sealed off, and anyone who couldn’t account for himself was being arrested and taken off to gaol. It seemed that one of those arrested was an acquaintance of several of those sitting near Skif.

  “Hard luck for poor Korwain,” one of the artists said, with a snicker. “He couldn’t say where he’d been—of course.”

  His friends nearly choked on their meals. “I told him that woman was trouble,” said another, whose dusty beard and hair bedecked with stone chips proclaimed him to be a sculptor. “Two sittings, and she’s got me backed into a corner, tryin’ to undo m’britches!” He shuddered, and the rest laughed. “Patron of arts, she calls herself! My eye!”

  “Heyla, we tried to warn you, so don’t say we didn’t!” called a fellow with a lute case slung over his back. “Korwain knew it, so he’s only got himself to blame!”

  “That’s what happens when you let greed decide your commissions for you,” put in another, whose mouth looked like a miser’s purse and whose eyes gloated at a fellow artist’s misfortune. “I’d rather live on bread in a garret and serve the Temples than feast on marchpane and capon and—”

  “Your paintings are so stiff they wouldn’t please anyone but a priest, so don’t go all over pious on us, Penchal!” catcalled the first artist.

  That set off an argument on artistic merit and morality that Skif had no interest in. He applied himself to his soup, and left the bowl and mug on the table while the insults were still coming thick and fast, and rapidly building to the point where it would be fists, and not words, that would be flying.

  At least now he knew why the Watch was up, and he wouldn’t dare try anything for days, even a fortnight. Why would anyone bother to steal the collection of silver miniatures, anyway? They were unique and irreplaceable, yes, but you’d never be able to sell them anywhere, they were too recognizable, and you wouldn’t get a fraction of their value if you melted them down. Oh, a thief could hold them for ransom, Skif supposed, but he’d certainly be found out and caught.

  The only way the theft made sense was if someone had gotten a specific commission to take them. It was an interesting thought. Whoever had made the commission would have to be from outside Haven; what was the use of having something like that if you couldn’t show it off? Anyone in Haven would know the collection as soon as it was displayed. The client could even be outside Valdemar altogether. So the thief, too, might be from outside Valdemar. . . .

  Huh. That’d be somethin’, he thought, keeping an eye out for trouble as he made his way back home. Have’ta be some kinda Master Thief, I guess. Somebody with all kinds uv tricks. Wonder if they’s ’prentices fer that kinda work? He’d never heard of a Master Thief, much less one that took on protégés, but maybe that sort of thing happened outside of Valdemar. Like mebbe they’s a whole Guild fer Thieves. Wouldn’ that be somethin’!

  He amused himself with this notion as he worked his way homeward. He never, even when he had no reason to believe that he was being followed, went back home directly. He always doubled back, ducked down odd side passages, even cut over fences and across back gardens—though in the summer, that could be
hazardous. In his neighborhood, no one had a back garden for pleasure. People used every bit of open ground to grow food in, and often kept chickens, pigeons, or a pig as well. And they assumed anyone coming over the fence was there to steal some of that precious food. Those that didn’t have yards, but did have balconies, grew their vegetables in pots. Those that had nothing more than a window, had window boxes. Even Skif had a window box where he grew beans, trailing them around his window on a frame made of pieces of string. It was just common sense to augment what you could buy with what you could grow, but that did make it a bit more difficult to take the roundabout path until after the growing season was over.

  It wasn’t as late as he’d thought; lots of people were still up and about, making it doubly hazardous to go jumping in and out of yards. The front steps of buildings held impromptu gatherings of folks back from their jobs, eating late dinners and exchanging gossip. Most of the inns and cookshops had put benches out onto the street, so people could eat outside where it was cooler. It was annoying; Skif couldn’t take his usual shortcuts. On the other hand, so many people out here meant more opportunities to confuse a possible follower.

  With that in mind, he stopped at another cookshop for more tea and a fruit pie. More crust than fruit, be it added, but he didn’t usually indulge in anything so frivolous, and the treat improved his temper a bit more. Not so much that he forgot his anger—and the burning need to find out who Jass’ boss was—but enough so that he was able to look as though nothing in his life had changed in the last few candlemarks.

  He paid close attention to those who sat down to eat after him, but saw no one that had also been at the previous cookshop. That was a good sign, and he quickly finished his tea and took the shortest way home.

  Jass wasn’t back yet. Neither were his girls—which meant that Jass probably wasn’t going to set his fire tonight. Skif watered his beans and stripped for bed, lighting a stub of a candle long enough to actually count his takings.

  His eyes nearly popped out of his head, and he counted it twice more before he believed it.

  Gold. Five gold crowns, more than he’d ever had in his life! He’d thought the tiny coins were copperbits, not gold, and he’d paid for his meal and his treat with larger silver royals so as to get rid of two of the most conspicuous coins in his loot. He’d never dreamed the men could have been carrying gold.

  Gold. Gold meant—everything. With gold, he suddenly had the means to concentrate entirely on finding Bazie’s murderer. He wouldn’t have to work the entire summer. With gold, he had the means to offer the kind of bribe that would loosen even the most reluctant of tongues.

  With gold—he could follow up on the only real clue he had that wasn’t connected to Jass.

  “. . . my lord Orthallen gave you high recommendations . . .”

  Gold could actually buy Skif a way into Orthallen’s household—you didn’t just turn up at a Great Lord’s doorstep and expect to be hired. You had to grease palms before you got a place where you could expect to have privileges, maybe even collect tips for exemplary service. Gold would purchase forged letters of commendation—very rarely did anyone ever bother to check on those, especially if they were from a household inconveniently deep into the countryside. Those letters could get Skif into, say, a position as an under-groom, or a footman. A place where he’d be in contact with Lord Orthallen’s guests, friends, and associates. Where he could hear their voices.

  This one encounter changed everything. . . .

  Maybe.

  It was one plan. There were others, that would allow Skif to hang onto the unexpected windfall. Jass wouldn’t have been paid for the job entirely in advance—he’d have to collect the rest, and maybe Skif could catch him at it. There were other places where Skif could go to listen for that familiar, smooth and pitiless voice.

  But the idea of insinuating himself into a noble household was the kind of plan that the craggy-faced sell-sword would not be able to anticipate. If he knew anything at all about Skif, he’d know that in the normal course of things, pigs would fly before someone like Skif would get his hands on enough money to buy his way into Lord Orthallen’s household.

  So Skif carefully folded the five gold coins into a strip of linen and packed them with his larger silver coins in the money belt that never left his waist. Then he blew out his candle, laid himself down, and began his nightly vigil of listening for Jass and Jass’ business.

  Because while gold might add to his options, if Bazie had taught him anything at all, it was to never, ever abandon an option just because a new one opened up.

  But Jass didn’t come back that night, nor the next day. Skif fell asleep waiting to hear his footsteps on the stairs, and woke the next morning to the unaccustomed sound of silence next door. He waited all day, wondering, with increasing urgency, what was keeping the man from his own rooms.

  By nightfall, though, he knew why.

  At dusk, a three-man team of the Watch came for Jass’ two girls, escorting them off, rather than taking them off under guard, so it wasn’t that they were arrested or under suspicion. Skif was at his window when they showed up, and he knew before they ever came in view that something was wrong, for the whole street went quiet. People whisked themselves indoors, or around corners, anything to get out of sight, and even the littles went silent and shrank back against their buildings, stopping dead in the middle of their games, and staring with round eyes at the three men in their blue-and-gray tunics and trews. The Watch never came to this part of town unless there was something wrong—or someone was in a lot of trouble.

  Skif ducked back out of sight as soon as they came into view, and when he heard the unmistakable sound of boots on the staircase, huddled against the wall next to the door so that no one peering underneath it would see his feet.

  What’re they here for? For me? Did that feller turn me in? Did summun figger I lifted them purses? His mind raced, reckoning the odds of getting out via his emergency route through the window if they’d come for him, wondering if that sell-sword had somehow put the Watch onto him. And if he had—why?

  The footsteps stopped at his landing, and his heart was in his mouth—his blood pounding in his ears—every muscle tensed to spring for the window.

  But it wasn’t his door they knocked on—and they knocked, politely, rather than pounding on it and demanding entrance. It was the girls’ door, and when one of them timidly answered, an embarrassed voice asked if “Trana and Desi Farane” would be so kind as to come down to the Watch-station and answer a few questions.

  Skif sagged down onto the floor, limp with relief. Whatever it was, it had nothing to do with him.

  Now, everyone knew that if the Watch had anything on you, they didn’t come and politely invite you to the Watch Station. When someone came with that particular request, it meant that you weren’t in trouble, though someone else probably was. But if you were asked to come answer questions and you refused, well . . . you could pretty much reckon that from then on, you were marked. And any time one of the Watch saw you, they’d be keeping a hard eye on you, and they’d be likely to arrest and fine you for the least little thing. So after a nervous-sounding, unintelligible twitter of a conversation among all four of the sisters, Trana and Desi emerged and five sets of footsteps went back down the staircase.

  Now he had to see what was up! When Skif peeked out around the edge of the window, he saw that two of the Watch were carrying lit lanterns, making it very clear that the two girls weren’t being manhandled, or even touched. And he could see that the two girls had taken long enough to lace their bodices tight, pull up their blouses, and drop their skirts where they were usually kirtled up to show their ankles. They were definitely putting on a show of respectability, which only made sense. That was the last he saw of them until just before dark.

  They returned alone, but gabble in the street marked their arrival, waking Skif from a partial doze.

  Their sisters must have been watching from the window; they flew down th
e stairs to meet them, and half the neighborhood converged on them. Skif took his time going downstairs, and by then the block was abuzz with the news that Jass had been found dead in a warehouse that afternoon, and the girls had been brought in to identify the body. There was no question but that he was the victim of foul play; he’d been neatly garroted, and his body hidden under an empty crate. He might not even have been found except that someone needed the crate and came to fetch it, uncovering this body.

  Damn. . . . Skif couldn’t quite believe it, couldn’t quite take it in. Dead? But—

  By the time Skif drifted to the edge of the crowd to absorb the news, Trana and Desi were sobbing hysterically, though how much of their sorrow was genuine was anyone’s guess. Skif had the shrewd notion that they were carrying on more for effect than out of real feeling. Their sisters, with just as much reason to be upset, looked more disgruntled at all of the attention that Trana and Desi were getting than anything else.

  Skif huddled on the edge of the crowd, trying to overhear the details. There weren’t many; he felt numb, as if he’d been hit by something but hadn’t yet felt the blow. Before a quarter candlemark had passed, the landlord appeared.

  He had tools and his dimwitted helper; he pushed past the crowd and ran up the stair. The sounds of hammering showed he was securing the door of Jass’ room with a large padlock and hasp. An entire parade, led by the girls, followed him up there where he was standing, lantern in one hand, snapping the padlock closed. “There may be inquiries,” he said officiously when Desi objected, claiming that she’d left personal belongings in Jass’ rooms. “If the Watch or the Guard wants to inspect this place, I’ll be in trouble if I let anyone take anything out.”

  There wouldn’t be any inquiries, and they all knew it; this was just the landlord’s way of securing anything of value in there for himself.

  But if they knew what I knew—Skif thought, as he closed and bolted his own door, and put his back to it.