Valdemar 07 - Take a Thief

by Mercedes Lackey

  Whether it would be the right answer was another question entirely. But he knew who to consult on it.

  The Collegium cook, a moon-faced, eternally cheerful man called Mero, had turned up three days ago. The Collegium bells signaling the proper order of the day had resumed when Mero returned. So now, when Skif awoke at the first bell of the day and went down to the kitchen at the bell that signaled breakfast, he would join Kris and the girl Jeri and some of the teachers around a table in the kitchen for a real cooked meal. With so few to cook for, Mero declined help in cooking, but afterward they all pitched in to clean up. Some of Skif’s daydreams about food were coming to pass—Mero even made homely oat porridge taste special.

  After breakfast came Skif’s first appointment of the day. It wasn’t exactly a class . . . especially not this morning.

  And this morning, he could hardly eat his breakfast for impatience to get out to the salle, where some of the weapons training was done. He cleared the table by himself so that he could leave quickly.

  He ran to the salle, a building that stood apart from the rest of the Collegia, and for good reason, since it needed to be a safe distance from anywhere people might walk, accidentally or on purpose. The Trainees from all three Collegia learned archery, and even some of the Blues, the students who weren’t Trainees at all. And some of those archery students were, to be frank, not very good.

  Skif, although he had never shot a bow in his life, had proved to be a natural at it, somewhat to his own surprise. Seeing that, Alberich had tried him with something a bit more lethal and less obvious than an arrow. He’d tried him in knife throwing.

  Skif had been terrifyingly accurate. Where his eye went, so did whatever was put in his hand. He had no idea where the skill had come from—but at least his ability to fight with a knife, or with the blunted practice swords, was no better than anyone else’s.

  Alberich had promised something in the way of a surprise for him this morning, and Skif was impatient to see what he meant, as well as impatient to speak with him.

  When Skif arrived at the salle, Alberich was throwing a variety of weapons at a target set up on the other side of the room. Alberich was a hair more accurate than Skif, but Alberich’s skill came from training, not a natural talent. Nevertheless, Skif watched with admiration as Alberich placed his weapons—knives, sharpened stakes, and small axes—in a neat pattern on the straw-padded target. He didn’t interrupt the Weaponsmaster, and Alberich didn’t stop until all the implements he’d lined up on a bench behind him were in the target.

  The salle, a long, low building with smooth, worn wooden floors, was lit from above by clerestory windows. This was because the walls were taken up with storage cabinets and a few full-length mirrors. For the rest, there wasn’t much, just a few benches, some training equipment, and the door to Alberich’s office. For all Skif knew, Alberich might even have quarters here, since he hardly ever saw the Weaponsmaster anywhere else.

  “So, you come in good time,” Alberich said, as the last of his sharpened stakes slammed into the target. He turned toward Skif, picking up something from the bench where his weapons had been. “Come here, then. Let us see how these suit you.”

  “These” proved to be little daggers in sheaths that Alberich strapped to Skif’s arms, with the daggers lying along the inside of his arms. Once on, they were hidden by Skif’s sleeves, and he flexed his arms experimentally. They weren’t at all uncomfortable, and he suspected that with a little practice wearing them, he wouldn’t even notice they were there.

  “Of my students, only two are, I think, fit to use these,” Alberich said. “Jeri is one. It is you that is the other. Look you—” He showed Skif the catch that kept each dagger firmly in its sheath—and the near-invisible shake of the wrist that dropped it down into the hand, ready to throw, when the catch was undone.

  Skif was thrilled with the new acquisition—what boy wouldn’t be?—but unlike most, if not all, of the other Trainees, he had seen men knifed and bleeding and dead. Men—and a woman or two. Even before he left his uncle’s tavern, he’d seen death at its most violent. And he knew, bone-deep and blood-deep, that death was what these knives were for. Not target practice, not showing off for one’s friends. Death, hidden in a sleeve, small and silent, waiting to be used.

  Death was a cold, still face, and blood pooling and clotting on the pavement. Death was floating bloated in the river. Death was ashes and bones in the burned-out hulk of a building.

  Death was someone you knew found still and cold, and never coming back. And these little “toy” daggers were death. Not to be treated lightly, or to be played with.

  But death was also being able to stop someone from making you dead.

  “Can you kill a man?” Alberich asked suddenly, as Skif contemplated the dagger in his hand.

  Skif looked up at the Weaponsmaster. As usual, his face was unreadable. “Depends on th’ man,” Skif replied soberly. “If you’re talkin’ in cold blood, I’d a took Jass down like a mad dog, just ’cause he killed m’friends, and I’d’a done it soon as I knew who his master was. In the dark. In the back. An’ if somethin’ happens, an’ his master won’t come up on what’s due him—mebbe I’d do him, too. If you’re talkin’ in hot blood, if I was come at myself—someone wantin’ me dead—aye, I’d kill him.”

  Alberich nodded, as if that was expected. “So. When are you going to display these to your friends?” he prodded. It sounded casual, but it was prodding.

  Skif shook his head. “These—they’re for serious work. Not for showin’ off. ‘Less you order me, Master Alberich, I ain’t even gonna wear these, ’cept t’ practice. That’s like balancin’ a rock over a door t’ see who gets hit. I ain’t got a hot temper, but I got a temper like anybody else. Losin’ temper makes people do stupid things.”

  Death was a fight over nothing, and a lost temper, and blood where a simple blow would have served the same purpose. Over and over again, in the streets outside Exile’s Gate, Death came when tempers worn thin by need or hurt, anger or drink, flared and blades came out. Alberich, in his guise of the sell-sword, was one of the few in those taverns that Skif had ever seen who went out of his way to avoid killing—to avoid even causing permanent harm.

  Alberich gave a brief nod of satisfaction, and went on to drill Skif in the use of his new weapons. He said nothing more as the knives went into the target again and again; he was satisfied that Skif was going to be sensible, and dismissed the question as answered. That was another thing that Skif had come to realize about Alberich in the last week. Where other people—even a few Heralds—were inclined to harp on a subject that worried them, Alberich examined the subject, asked his questions, made his statements, came to his decisions, and left it alone.

  If he trusted the person in question.

  And he trusted Skif.

  That was a very, very strange realization. But when he had come to it last night, it had been the catalyst for his own decision this morning.

  “Master Alberich,” he said, when the knives had been taken off and wrapped up in an oiled cloth to keep the sheaths supple and catches rust free. “I got a thought. Sooner or later some’un’s gonna let it slip what I was. An’ that’s gonna cause some trouble.”

  Alberich gave him one of those very penetrating glances, but said nothing.

  “But I think that you want t’keep at least part of what I can do real quiet.”

  Now the Weaponsmaster nodded slightly. “Have I not said it? Your skills could be—more than useful.”

  Skif clasped his hands behind his back. “So I had an ideer. What if we go ahead an’ let part of it out? Just that I was on th’ liftin’ lay. ‘Cause there’s this—ain’t too many as does the roof work an’ th’ liftin’ lay, an’ if people know I done th’ one, they won’t look for t’other.” He grinned. “I can turn it into a kinda raree-show trick, y’ken? Do th’ lift fer laughs. I’d like—” he continued, with a laugh, “—t’see yon Kris’ face when I give ’im his liddle silv
er horse back, what he keeps in his pocket.”

  Alberich raised one eyebrow. “You have the itching fingers,” he said, though without accusation.

  “A bit,” Skif admitted. “But—what d’you think?”

  “I think that you have the right of it,” Alberich replied, and Skif’s spirits lifted considerably. “It is your skill in other things, and not as the picker of pockets, that is of primary value, at least for now. And when you have your Whites, the novelty of your past will have worn off, those within the Circle will not trouble to speak of it, and most outside the Circle will never know of it. So if there is a thing to be taken amidst a crowd of strangers, you will likely not find eyes on you.”

  That made perfect sense. One of the pickpockets Skif knew had spent an entire year just establishing himself as a lame old beggar who was always stumbling into people. Then when no one even thought twice about him, he began deftly helping himself to their purses, and there wasn’t a man jack of the ones that were robbed that even considered the lame old beggar was the culprit.

  Alberich’s eyes looked elsewhere for a flicker of time, then returned to him. “Those who need to know what you are about,” he said, “Will know. The rest will see an imp of mischief.” He leveled a long gaze at Skif.

  Skif shrugged. “Won’t keep nothing,” he said, quite truthfully. “Never took more’n I needed t’live comfortable, or Bazie did. That was Bazie’s way—start t’ take more, get greedy, get caught.”

  “A wise man, your Bazie,” Alberich replied, with nothing weighting his tone.

  Skif shrugged again. “So, I don’ need nothing here. Livin’ better than I ever did. An’ you brought me my stuff.”

  With the purse of money, left in the loft at the Priory. . . .

  And when that money runs out, what then?

  “If there is need for silver to loosen tongues, or even gold, the Queen’s coffers will provide,” Alberich said gravely, giving Skif a sudden chill, for it seemed as if the Weaponsmaster read Skif’s mind before Skif even finished the thought. “And for the rest—for there are Fairs, and there are taverns, and perhaps there will be the giving and receiving of gifts among friends, there is the stipend.”

  “Stipend?” Skif asked.

  “Stipend.” Alberich smiled wryly. “Some of ours are highborn, used to pocket money, some used to lavish amounts of it. We could forbid the parents to supply it, but why inflict hardship on those who deserve it not? So—the stipend. All Trainees receive it alike. Pocket money, for small things. Since you have money already—”

  He paused.

  And I am not asking you where it came from, nor demanding that you give it back, said the look that followed the pause.

  “—then you will have yours on the next Quarter-Day, with the others.”

  “Oh. Uh—thank you—” Skif, for once, felt himself at a loss for words. Blindsided, in fact. This wasn’t something he had expected, another one of those unanticipated kindnesses. There was no earthly reason why the Heralds should supply the Trainees—him in particular—with pocket money. They already supplied food, clothing, wonderful housing, entertainment in the form of their own games, and the Bardic Collegium on the same grounds.

  Why were they doing these things? They didn’t have to. Trainees that didn’t have wealthy parents could just do without pocket money.

  But Alberich had already turned away. He brought out a longer knife, and was preparing the salle for another lesson in street fighting. That, Skif could understand, and he set himself to the lesson at hand.

  “It’s a fool’s bet,” Herald-Trainee Nerissa cautioned a fascinated Blue four weeks later. “Don’t take it.”

  But the look in her eyes suggested that although honesty had prompted the caution, Nerissa herself really, truly wanted to see Skif in action again.

  Eight Trainees, two from Bardic Collegium and six from Herald’s, and three Unaffiliated students, were gathered around Skif and a fourth Blue in the late afternoon sunshine on the Training Field.

  The group surrounding Skif and the hapless Blue were just as fascinated as Nerissa, and just as eager. Skif himself shrugged and looked innocent. “Not a big bet,” he pointed out. “Just t’fix my window so’s the breeze can get in and them—those—moths can’t. He says he can, says he has, for himself and his friends, and I don’t think it’d put him out too much.”

  “It seems fair enough to me,” said Kris. “Neither one of you is wagering anything he can’t afford or can’t do.” He pointed at the Blue. “And you swore in the Compass Rose that Skif could never pull his trick on you, because you in particular and your plumb-line set in general were smarter than the Heraldic Trainees.”

  The Blue’s eyes widened. “How did you know that?” he gasped.

  Kris just grinned. “Sources, my lad,” he said condescendingly, from the lofty position of a Trainee in his final year. “Sources. And I never reveal my sources. Are you going to take the bet, or not?”

  The Blue’s chin jutted belligerently. “Damn right I am!” he snapped.

  “Witnessed!” called four Herald Trainees and one Bardic at once, just as Alberich came out to break the group up and set them at their archery practice.

  At the end of practice, once Alberich had gone back into the salle, virtually everyone lingered—and Skif didn’t disappoint them. He presented the astonished Blue with the good-luck piece that had been the object of the bet, an ancient silver coin, so worn away that all that could be seen were the bare outlines of a head. The coin had been in a pocket that the Blue had fixed with a buttoned-down flap, an invention against pickpockets of his own devising, that he was clearly very proud of.

  In a panic, the boy checked the pocket. It was buttoned. He undid it and felt inside. His face was a study in puzzlement, as he brought out his hand. There was a coin-shaped lead slug in it.

  Skif flipped his luck piece at him, and he caught it amid the laughter of the rest of the group. He was good-natured about his failure—something Skif had taken into consideration before making the bet—and joined in the laughter ruefully. “All right,” he said, with a huge sigh. “I’ll fix your window.”

  As the Blue walked off, consoled by two of his fellows, Herald-Trainee Coroc slapped Skif on the back with a laugh. “I swear, it’s as good as having a conjurer about!” the Lord Marshal’s son said. “Well done! How’d you think of slipping him that lead slug to take the place of his luck piece?”

  Skif flushed a little; he was coming to enjoy these little tests and bets. Picking pockets was something he did fairly well, but he didn’t get any applause for it out in the street. The best he could expect was a heavy purse and no one putting the Watch on him. This, however—he had an audience now, and he liked having an audience, especially an appreciative one.

  “I figured I’d better have something when Kris told me that Henk had been a-boasting over in the Compass Rose, an’ told me I had to uphold the Heralds’ side,” Skif replied, with a nod to Kris. “We’ve all seen that luck piece of his, so it wasn’t no big thing to melt a bit of lead and make a slug to the right size. After that, I just waited for him to say something I could move in on.”

  “But when did you get the coin?” Coroc wanted to know. “I mean, Alberich broke us up right after he took the bet, and you didn’t get anywhere near—”

  Coroc stopped talking, and his mouth made a little “oh” when he realized what Skif had done.

  “—you took it off him before the bet!” he exclaimed.

  “When there was all that joshing and shoving, sure,” Skif agreed. “I knew he’d take the bet; after all that about his special pocket, he’d never have passed it up. He figured it’d be a secret I wouldn’t reckon out, and I’d lose. But even if Kris hadn’t told me, I’d have figured it anyway,” he added. “The button shows, when you look right, and he ain’t no seamstress, that buttonhole ain’t half as tight as it could be.” That last in a note of scorn from one who had long ago learned to make a fine buttonhole. “Anyway, I had t
o have the slug, ’cause I knew once he took the bet he’d be a-fingering that pocket t’ make sure his luck piece was there.”

  “It’s a good thing you haven’t shown up a Gift other than moderate Thoughtsensing,” Kris laughed, “or he’d have been accusing you of Fetching the thing!”

  Skif preened himself, just a little, under all the attention. If having Skif around was entertaining for his fellow Trainees, the admiration each time he pulled off something clever was very heady stuff for Skif. He’d begun beautifully, a couple of days after full classes resumed, when Kris’s best friend Dirk had asked innocently where he’d come from and what his parents did. He’d put on a pitiful act, telling a long, sad, and only slightly embellished story of his mother’s death, the near-slavery at his uncle’s hands, his running away, and his tragic childhood in the slums near Exile’s Gate. All the while, he was slowly emptying goodhearted Dirk’s pockets.

  “But how did you live?” the young man exclaimed, full of pity for him. “How did you manage to survive?”

  By this time, of course, since everyone in the three Collegia loved a tale, he’d drawn a large and sympathetic audience.

  “Oh,” Skif had said, taking Dirk’s broad hand, turning it palm upwards, and depositing his belongings in it. “I turned into a thief, of course.”

  Poor Dirk’s eyes had nearly bulged out of his head, and this cap to a well-told tale had surprised laughter out of everyone else. Word very quickly spread, but because of the prankish nature of Skif’s lifting, there wasn’t a soul in Herald’s Collegium, and not more than one or two doubters in Bardic and Healers’, that thought him anything other than a mischief maker, and an entertaining one at that. Those few were generally thought of as sour-faced pessimists and their comments ignored.

  Not, Skif thought to himself somberly as he accepted the accolades of his fellows with a self-effacing demeanor, but what they mightn’t be right about me, ’cept for Cymry.

  Except for Cymry. That pretty much summed it up. Everyone among the Heraldic Trainees was willing to accept Skif as a harmless prankster because he’d been Chosen, because Companions didn’t Choose bad people. And if anyone among the teachers thought differently, they were keeping their doubts to themselves.