The slate floors cool the bottoms of her feet while she shuffles to the window. Midmorning sun and the sound of carts and voices pour into the room when she opens the shutters. No glass here; the outside air smells like roasting meat, still-wet pavement, and the bird droppings from a nest wedged in a stone cornice above the window. With a deeper inhalation, she even catches acrid whiffs from Smeltertown.
The window faces roughly east. Leaning her head and shoulders out, she searches for the glint of sunlight off the River Ost. The men last night carried her across First Bridge to the east bank of the river, which would probably put her in the wrong place to see the water from an east-facing window. Still, just because she can’t see the river doesn’t mean she has a sixing clue about her location. The buildings across the street could be hiding a view of Fifth Bridge for all she knows.
Actually, that’s not true. If she were next to Fifth Bridge, she’d probably be bathing in diamonds and toweling off with Tulpan silk. Or at the very least, she wouldn’t notice soot stains on the stonework across the street. And the street would be three times as wide. And sure as the Miser’s greed, there wouldn’t be a beggar on the street corner to the right. Missing a lower leg, the man jiggles a cup at passersby.
Over rooftops in that direction, thick haze hides the view. Most likely, that’s Smeltertown, stewing in its own mess. Unless the wind has shifted, throwing smog over Rat Town or even up to In Betweens.
Basically, she wouldn’t bet three coppers on her guess at a location. She claps the shutter closed and pads to the door.
Myrrh smirks as the bar lifts from its housing easily; last night she was so exhausted, the weight of the smooth hardwood plank was almost too much for her grip. She lowers it to the floor one-handed before tugging the door open.
Silence echoes in the hallway. She peers at the other doors, each closed and uninviting. Before bed, Glint led her down just one flight of steps, which means the sitting room is one floor up. Seems the best place to start looking for him. She heads for the stairwell.
“Down here.”
She jumps when his voice floats up the stairs from somewhere below. How did he hear her padding barefoot on smooth stone? Which reminds her…she glances down at her feet. Only a fool gets caught wearing shoes—or lack thereof—she can’t run in.
“Forgot something,” she calls.
“You won’t need shoes until after breakfast.”
Seriously, how did he know? Myrrh shakes her head and goes back for her boots anyway.
On the next floor down, a locked door bars passage off the landing. With a shrug, Myrrh keeps descending. The stairs end at a wide archway that opens into a dining room. Glint sits at a long wood table, polished like the one upstairs. Half-a-dozen chairs would fit easily at each side. Right now, there are only two.
A wheel of cheese stands directly on the polished wood. Glint hasn’t bothered with plates, but he’s brought out a basket of fruit and a paring knife. He has a foot propped on the other chair, but at her approach, he sits up straight and nudges the chair out with his toe.
“Where’s Nab?” she asks.
“On his way. We’re moving cautiously to throw off pursuit.”
“How soon?”
“By tonight.”
He pulls Hawk’s dagger from the sheath, looks at the cheese, then runs a finger down the oiled blade. After examining the residue on his fingertip, he shakes his head and sets the blade aside.
Next to her place at the table.
As she sits, she lays a hand on the hilt, recalling last night’s desire to steal the dagger and use it to slit his throat. He raises an eyebrow when she meets his gaze.
“I got the feeling you don’t like the word audition. My apologies. But if I’m going to learn to trust you, we must start somewhere.”
She pats her hip, feeling for the dagger’s sheath. But of course, it’s not there. Her belt, along with her dark woolens, is probably still in the upstairs room where she woke. She settles for moving the blade out of his reach.
Glint draws a long knife from his belt and sets it beside the fruit. Just out of her reach.
“But since we haven’t yet established that trust, I’d like to prepare for an even fight,” he says with a smirk.
She gets the sense that he doesn’t really believe the fight would be even. He’s too arrogant to accept the idea that he might lose.
“Where are we?” she asks. “And if you don’t want me reaching toward your weapon, please pass the fruit.”
He slides the basket toward her. “Which district, you mean? Lower Fringe.”
A long way from home. Glint’s men had to have carried her for at least two hours to get here. More if they used the thieves’ paths for secrecy. That’s way too long for her to have remained unconscious after fainting in a panic to get air.
She fixes him with a hard stare. “What did you drug me with?”
“I regret the necessity.”
“I still want an answer.”
“Nightbark. As long as you avoid another dose within the next seven days, you’ll be fine.”
She grabs an apple and sinks her teeth into the crisp flesh. Tart juice floods her mouth as she chews. Nightbark is difficult to acquire. But it’s not nearly as rare—or expensive, she imagines—as glimmer. Glint has resources. More than she would guess based on the half-furnished state of this place.
“Lower Fringe isn’t the most likely spot for your sort of work,” she comments.
“Our sort of work. Don’t pretend you’re any different. And yes, it’s a strange choice with so much Shield presence, especially around this area of the district.”
“Which area is that?”
He jabs a thumb over his shoulder, toward the back wall. “Fourth Bridge is about a block that way.”
Fourth Bridge. The main access to Maire’s Quarter from anywhere east of the River Ost. The captain of the Shield Watch lines guardsmen shoulder to shoulder across the span. More defend the Lower Fringe waterfront, standing stone-faced every few paces. Only a lunatic would base a criminal operation a block from that many city guardsmen. Which apparently, Glint is.
“Why should I believe you about Nab?”
He smiles, amused. “You know, he’s almost as feisty as you. Kicked one of my men in a rather unpleasant place.”
“I’d like proof you have him.”
“Later.”
“Why not now?”
“Because I’m eating breakfast, and I’ve asked my associates to stay away so that we could speak in peace. I said I’d take care of it, and I have.” A harsh edge has entered his voice.
Myrrh takes another bite of her apple as she shrugs a shoulder. Whether it angers him or not, she won’t act like the meek child he seems to expect. She chews in silence while Glint toys with the paring knife. After a moment, he pulls the cheese close, leaving a wide smudge on the polished table, and starts cutting out a small wedge.
“Be a shame to scar your tabletop.”
He casts her a sideways glance. “I may not know how to cook, but I am rather good with a knife.”
True to his word, the piece of cheese comes away clean. No scratches mar the table.
“I’m curious: did they build the walls around the table, or did you hire a woodworker to construct the table right here? Clearly it didn’t fit through the door.”
He smirks. “It was here when I bought the place. You’ll just have to choose your own answer. Cheese?”
“Please.”
As he hands over a creamy white wedge, he meets her eyes. “I’d like to get down to business if you don’t mind.”
She raises a brow in invitation.
“Today, you’ll take an allowance of coin and purchase a few items. You need more pockets in your work clothes. Something with a better hood, but not a cloak. Wool is okay for reconnaissance, but you need leather for defense on any close work.”
Myrrh holds tight to her anger, though
the condescension makes her fingers itch to snatch her dagger.
His eyes flick to the blade she’s thinking of drawing across his throat. “I assume you’ve already trained with blades that length. I’ll find time over the coming days to help with the rapier and”—he glances at her arm and shoulder—“short sword if you have the grip for it.”
She can’t help shaking her head. “You’re still acting like I want to be your underling. And for that matter, like I need your instruction.”
He taps a finger on the table. “Pressing matters have made me abrupt. I apologize for that. But listen, Myrrh. I have plans that I’d like to make you part of. Work that Hawk and I began together.”
“Plans that you won’t tell me about.”
“Not yet.”
“I’ve always been freelance.”
“And you’ve spent your life building a network of contacts, safe houses, and stashes. I get it. But that’s gone now. You have to start over. I’d like to humbly offer that you’d do well to start over with me.”
“I don’t get the sense you do anything ‘humbly.’”
He chuckles. “Maybe not. Leading men and women twice my age has forced me to project confidence.”
“Anyway, I should accept all this on your word alone?”
“Don’t forget the evidence. What was his name? Warrell? Plus, I’m bringing Nab to you.”
Her apple is down to a lumpy core dangling from the stem. She holds it up to question what she should do with it.
“Leave it. Someone will deal with it later.”
With a shrug, she drops it on the polished tabletop. Droplets of juice splatter.
“If I take your money and go shopping, I’ll be in debt. I don’t like that.”
“What if I call it a gift?”
“I like charity even less.”
“Then do a job for me tonight. As payment. Worst case, you’ll have worked your first contract outside of Rat Town. No different than freelancing, but in this case, you have the option to consider a longer-term arrangement.”
She plucks her piece of cheese from the table. It’s nutty, smooth on her tongue. Idly running a finger along her dagger’s hilt, she taps a foot and thinks.
“I’ll consider the job but only after I see Nab.”
“Fair.”
She holds out her hand. “I’ll need a purse I can keep under my tunic.”
Chapter Five
THE FIRST LEATHERWORKER raises an eyebrow at her request for pockets sewn inside the sleeves and along the ribs of a jacket. Myrrh ignores his reaction and fingers a thick belt with three buckles that fasten in the front. It’s sized for a man.
“And something like this,” she says. “But add a second sheath on the opposite hip.”
“You want all this today?” He glances around the shop as if to draw her attention to the half-finished work on the forms.
“If you want my business.”
His lip twitches, but he agrees. Nice thing about Crafter’s Row: there are a dozen or more tradespeople per specialty. Makes for a nice buyers’ market, especially when the client offers discretion when it comes to whether the seller sets aside coin for the Maire’s taxes.
She picks a different shop to order trousers. It’s just better not to be too memorable.
Clouds thicken over the city after midday, and a light drizzle begins to fall. Myrrh buys a cloak because she’s tired of being wet but adds a woolen undershirt with a tight-fitting hood because Glint asked for it. Afterward, she traces a winding route through the streets, passing in and out of the southern portion of Lower Fringe to familiarize herself with the lay of this part of the city. Her eyes pick out darker alcoves, loose sewer grates, and plank bridges that cross from rooftop to rooftop. Like in every part of the city, the thieves’ paths crisscross the territory. An ever-shifting network of tunnels, alleys, bridges, and open windows that provide unseen passage for Ostgard’s underworld. If the situation hasn’t changed since she last heard, Porcelain Hand controls the territory around Lower Fringe and Crafter’s Row. They likely have urchins watching entrances to the paths, collecting tolls from nonmembers in good standing, raising the alarm if an enemy draws near.
Myrrh needs no access to the paths today. The small reputation she had with the Shields in Rat Town and the Spills is nothing here. And besides, she doubts a Shield would recognize her now. The fine weave and precise hems of her linen clothes give the appearance of a respectable citizen, even if her sheathed dagger makes her look overly cautious.
Around the time evening adds a dirty glow to the drizzling mist, she fetches her purchases, haggling a bit because she can. No one else is going to buy the finished items—at least not right away—and the makers will still earn nearly half again their usual rate if they don’t pay the Maire’s taxes.
She pulls the cloak tight as she winds her way back into Lower Fringe, the cobbled streets closing in tight while the buildings rise tall and block out the sky. Merchants and clerks, those who can’t afford a mansion farther north or in Maire’s Quarter, shuffle home with heads bowed. Hawkers open oiled canopies over their displays, crying out offers on kitchen knives and bundled flowers, sweet buns and offerings for the Patron’s shrine. With a blade at her hip, most passersby give Myrrh a wide berth.
But not a big man with work-hardened knuckles and an ugly grin. He smells like liquor and jabs an elbow into her shoulder when she refuses to step out of his way as others on the street do.
Myrrh curls her lip at his reek, the stench of Ost water soaking the cuffs of his pants, body odor and the smell of sweat coming from his pores. He likely works the docks, and from the particular hint of sewage, she guesses it’s First Docks rather than Third. The smell of the Ost gets progressively worse as the water flows through the city from Fifth Bridge and under three more to the bridge and docks where she ran into trouble last night. Below First Bridge, it’s sometimes so foul with runoff from the Smeltertown slag heaps that the water stings the skin. She doesn’t even want to think about what would happen to someone who fell in.
The man walks sideways as he looks back at her. Just waiting for her to challenge. Maybe he ran into trouble, lost his wages. Maybe that’s why he’s a couple hours walk from First Docks. Back in Rat Town, she would have put him down with a couple swift kicks, a duck under a swipe aimed at her head, maybe a dagger strike deep enough to sting but not to kill. Not here. Not until she sees Nab and knows he’s okay.
She shakes her head and keeps walking. Back to Glint and the work she owes him tonight.
***
When Myrrh steps through the front door into the dining room, Nab lowers the turkey leg he’s gnawing. His look demands that she not come rushing over like he’s some little kid in need of a mother. Even though he is. But with Glint hanging out by the front windows, inspecting heavy brocade curtains that have replaced the shutters that were there this morning, Nab doesn’t want to show it.
Wasn’t that long ago, maybe eight years, that she felt the same way. An urchin holding too tight to a gift of stale bread, narrowing her eyes to pretend she was just as hardened as the crooks and smugglers that clung to Hawk like a life raft in those days. Before Slivers moved into Rat Town and swallowed up the work.
She grants Nab his wish, acknowledging him with a nod rather than the hug she wants to wrap him in. Her next breath is easier to take. The kid’s alive. She owes Glint for that.
“A cloak,” Glint comments.
Myrrh shuts the heavy door, muffling the sounds from the street. “Because I’m sick of getting rained on. But I also got this. Just like you ordered.” She pulls the hooded tunic from a canvas sack she bought to hold her other purchases. The wool is dark. Not quite black, but it won’t make much difference for night work. She holds it by the shoulders, shaking the garment until he smirks and nods.
“Have you eaten?” he asks. “Good to fill your stomach before heading out. I plan to send you on an errand into the night market on
the Neck—you’ll want to cross Maire’s Quarter to get there.”
Myrrh’s steps stutter as she approaches the table. True, Maire’s Quarter and the Neck are twin peninsulas made by a sweeping S curve in the River Ost. The juts of land wrap around one another like a pair of fish, each chasing the other’s tail. Someone with the proper papers and a respectable bearing could easily cross Fourth Bridge into Maire’s Quarter, and from there, cross Third Bridge to reach the Neck and its night market. But she’s neither respectable nor blessed with paperwork bearing the Maire’s seal.
Of course from here, it would take three times as long to reach the night market by other paths. But thieves just don’t stroll beneath the Maire’s nose.
Nab sets his nearly stripped turkey leg directly on the table and yawns as he stands. Myrrh cringes, feeling strangely responsible for his bad manners. Then she remembers how Glint eats and shrugs. The mess from breakfast has already been polished away. No doubt the same will happen tonight.
“You seem hesitant,” Glint says. She can’t see his features because of evening light falling through the window behind him, but she senses his smirk.
“No, you’re right. Maire’s Quarter is the best route.”
Nab makes a little shocked noise. She glares at him for doubting.
“Well then,” Glint says, “since you won’t need extra time to hike all the way around, perhaps we should have a proper dinner. We can discuss tonight’s work while we eat.”
He strides across the room and kicks a door. Moments later, a red-cheeked man pokes his head out and nods in response to Glint’s low request. A boy scurries out with a rag, straightens the chairs—there are three now—and wipes down the table, carrying away the turkey leg. He then hurries back through the door and returns with a square tablecloth and a pair of candlesticks. Once laid out and held down by the candles, the cloth covers just a third of the table, but the gold-thread embroidery speaks to the cost.
Myrrh doesn’t realize she’s taken a surprised step back until her heel catches on the edge of a slate tile.
Mistress of Thieves (Chronicles of a Cutpurse Book 1) Page 3