The Hand That Takes

by Taylor O'Connell

  Bartley gave him a sullen look. “More room at the Gold Gate for people to gather, and they will be less suspicious, seeing how every other thief in the city is going to be on the Bridge of the Lady.”

  Vinny sighed and spoke as if addressing a small child. “If we go picking at the Gold Gate we’ll be lucky to get out of there with iron dingés and a few copper krom between the three of us.”

  “We’ll be lucky to get away with our heads,” said Bartley. “Or for that matter, unlucky, because if we go to the bridge, we will most like be hoisted up in crow-cages come evenfall.”

  It was Sal’s turn to sigh. “None of us are going to the cages so long as we’re careful. But it might be you’d rather sit this one out?”

  The words cut just as Sal had intended. Bartley’s chest puffed out, and his eyes narrowed.

  “Well,” said Vinny, “will you be joining us on the Lady, or should we expect to find you at the Gold Gate once our pockets are full to bursting?”

  “I’m going in for a cap,” Bartley said. “Anyone care to join me?”

  “Best keep your wits about you,” Sal cautioned, but Bartley was never one to listen to sense.

  Instead, the Yahdrish went into the Hog Snout alone.

  Vinny looked to Sal, worry plastered across his face. Sal merely shrugged.

  When Bartley returned, a smile stretching cheek to cheek, he asked the other two if they should get drinks before making their way to the bridge.

  Vinny cleared his throat.

  “The vendors will have set up shop, and people will already be arriving,” said Sal. “We’d do well to get our places now. Elsewise we’re going to find ourselves out a day’s pay.”

  Vinny motioned with his head, and they walked up the street, moving in conjunction with the crowds of revelers all making their way to wherever they planned to view the duke’s retinue. The trio took alleyways as often as streets. The alleys were virtually deserted, offering a respite from the people bustling along the cobblestone streets like herds of cattle. When he did find himself in a crowd, Sal used the opportunity of close contact to pick a few pockets, but as they neared the Street of Rags, Sal kept his hands to himself.

  “I noticed your limp has healed,” said Sal.

  Bartley gave him a sheepish look. “Went to a Talent. Same mender Odie took Anton to. She put it right as rain. ”

  “Did you, now?” Sal asked. “

  “Cost me six gold krom.”

  “You didn’t go to no mender,” Vinny scoffed.

  “And how should you know?”

  “Because you haven’t got six krom,” said Vinny. “Before Luca’s job you told me you didn’t have two iron dingés to rub together. So unless you went to the loan sharks again, you didn’t see no Talent.”

  Bartley looked at his feet.

  “You didn’t,” said Sal. “Lady’s sake, Bartley, what’s the interest?”

  “None of your damned business is what it is.”

  “You should have come to me,” Sal said. “I’d lend you the coin, and you’d get to keep your thumbs even if you couldn’t pay me back by week’s end.”

  “A man has his pride,” Vinny mocked.

  “A man has his needs,” said Bartley. “Coming face to face with death gives a man a man’s hungers.”

  “Ah,” said Vinny, raising a finger. “And without coin or whore, our Bartley would starve for pleasure, this is known.”

  “What would either of you boys know of a man’s pleasures?” said Bartley. “I have appetites that only a professional woman could satisfy.”

  “Only for want of a real profession would a woman satisfy your appetites,” said Vinny.

  “Would you claim courtesanship an unworthy profession?” Bartley asked.

  “Courtesans? As well stuff a pig in armor and call him a knight,” said Vinny. “You’ve never stuffed anything with more class than a two-bit streetwalker. This isn’t Vinigre. You and I both know there are no courtesans in Pargeche.”

  “There are all sorts of exotic women working in Dijvois,” Bartley said. “Yet all the different women from different places speak but the same tongue once I’ve laid them on their backs.”

  “The tongue of silence?” asked Vinny.

  Sal laughed, and Bartley turned red as a coral crab.

  “You wouldn’t know a real woman if she slapped you in the face with her tit,” said Bartley. “Tell him, Salvatori, there’s nothing wrong with the working girls in Dijvois. They’re as good as the whores anywhere else in the world.”

  Sal shrugged.

  “Well, tell him, would you?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” said Sal.

  Bartley gave a short bark of laughter. “Now don’t go acting as though you’ve never bought yourself a wench.”

  Sal tried to think of a way to change the subject. Instead he remained silent, not daring to look Bartley in the eyes lest he surmise the truth of things.

  “How should you know what the whores are like in the rest of the world?” said Vinny. “You were born in Low Town and haven’t left the city walls since you were weaned.”

  Bartley ignored the sally, unwilling to drop the issue concerning Sal’s chastity. “Surely you’ve had a woman, Salvatori?”

  Vinny stopped and looked at Sal, as a silent question played across his face.

  Sal shrugged and kept walking.

  “No?” said Bartley. “Is it possible?”

  “Lay off,” said Vinny. “Slaying whores by the hundreds is nothing to brag about. When’s the last time you had a woman that didn’t take your coin before your seed?”

  “Not ever?” said Bartley, still ignoring Vinny. “Can it truly be that our little Salvatori is a maid?”

  Sal flushed with embarrassment. He felt his palms grow clammy, his head faintly dizzy.

  “How could this be?” said Bartley, an impish grin spreading across his face. “There must be at least one woman in the city who’d be willing to make a man out of you.” Bartley had been about to say something else when he stopped short. It seemed he had finally realized the route they were traveling. “Not this way,” Bartley said.

  “Well, that shut him up right and good,” said Vinny.

  Sal cleared his throat. “It’s the fastest way to the Bridge of the Lady, and you’ve already put us far enough behind.”

  Bartley planted his feet, crossed his arms, and shook his head. “I won’t. There are other ways to reach the bridge. ”

  “There are,” Vinny allowed, “but we’re taking the Street of Rags, Yahdrish, now get going.”

  Sal usually avoided the Street of Rags whenever possible; they all did, and not only because of the Magistrate’s Compound. There was a time when the street had been referred to by its proper name, the Street of Justice, but when the new magistrate took over and erected the crow-cages, the citizens of Dijvois began to refer to it as the Street of Rags, because it was where, they said, the magistrate hung out his dirty laundry.

  The crow-cages—six in all, forged of black iron and twisted steel, each just large enough to contain a man—hung from scaffolding and spanned the length of the street. They were a warning to the criminals of Dijvois, a warning Sal and his friends took to heart. They knew the risks of their chosen profession, and the crow-cages were the grimmest of reminders as to where it could end.

  Inside four of the cages were prisoners. Three of them were slumped to the bottom of their cages, either dead or dying. One man remained standing. As he drew closer, Sal could see the prisoner was naked, his scalp crudely shaven, his red, sun-beaten skin peeling and blistered. The cage wouldn’t allow him to stand up straight, so he hunched, fingers clenching the iron grate.

  The prisoner mumbled something through cracked lips, but Sal and his friends pretended not to hear.

  They were alone on the street, aside from the prisoners and two steel caps that stood sentry outside the Magistrate’s Compound.

  The steel caps were known for their visorless coned helms. They wore midn
ight blue tabards over chain brigandines, the white axe and crescent moon of the magistrate blazoned proudly on their chests. Each man carried a six-foot poleaxe and, scabbarded at either hip, a long knife and a single-edged sword.

  As if the crow-cages weren’t bad enough, Sal had heard rumors of the under-cells, a dungeon below the Magistrate’s Compound where the magistrate’s inquisitors kept devices far more terrible than the crow-cages. He prayed to all the gods he never found himself in that dungeon.

  They pushed through the crowd on Beggar’s Lane until the Low Town bridge tower façade loomed before them. No fewer than three crossbowmen stood sentry atop the tower. Sal made mention of them to his friends. Should they need to run off the bridge, they would want to slip past the tower unnoticed.

  Bartley nudged Sal with an elbow, then pointed to the six steel caps beneath the tower arches.

  “No need to draw attention to ourselves,” said Vinny. “Go on now.”

  They passed beneath the arches of the Low Town bridge tower and stepped onto the Bridge of the Lady. On their immediate right was an immense limestone statue carved in the likeness of the Lady White, goddess of the moon. The statue was what gave the bridge its name; it was the last physical representation of the Lady White left in Dijvois, the sole survivor of the iconoclasm that had followed the rise of the Vespian Order.

  A scant few in Pargeche still worshiped the Lady White. She was an archaic goddess, not so old as the Godstone, perhaps, but one that rivaled the Lord that was Light himself.

  It was she, the Lady White, who lit the night sky while Solus slept. When his eye would open and rise again into the sky of day, the Lady would flee until the next evenfall, when she could once again rise among the stars.

  Sal brushed the hem of the Lady’s limestone dress for luck. He had never been a pious man, but as the Lady White was the patron goddess of thieves, assassins, and their like, Sal had made her his own.

  “What in the Light’s name was that?” Vinny whispered in his ear. “What happened to not attracting attention?”

  Sal shrugged and spoke with more confidence than he felt. “No one saw. Besides, it was just a little touch.”

  “And nobody knows what that touch means? Right in front of the bloody steel caps,” Vinny said, incredulous. “Light’s blessing, if I don’t work with two of the most witless jackanapeses in the city.”

  “And what did I do?” Bartley asked.

  Vinny only shook his head.

  “Right. Should we get to work, then?” asked Sal .

  “You lot go ahead. If you want to work deuces I’ll be elsewhere,” said Vinny. “I’m going to distance myself before one of you does something that gets me thrown in a crow-cage.”

  At that, Vinny stalked off. Bartley looked at Sal and rolled his eyes. They shared a smile and wordlessly went to work.

  On a regular day the Bridge of the Lady was highly trafficked, with one half designated for oxcarts, horse-drawn carriages, and the smaller wagons pulled by mules, the other half for pedestrian traffic crossing between Low Town and High Town.

  On the day of End, the Bridge of the Lady was a veritable marketplace, with merchant stalls crowding either side, and shoulder-to-shoulder foot traffic. No carriages, wagons, or oxcarts were allowed to cross for the day.

  The energy in the air was electric. Vendors cried their goods: “Hotcakes, hot fresh hotcakes”; “Mince pies, get your mince pies!”

  The Vespian monks, dressed in their dun brown habits, hoods raised to protect their shaved pates from the morning sun, stood beside a stack of kegs and filled mugs with frothing brown ale for a copper krom a pint. Come Fitzen, the monks would be giving away whatever they weren’t able to sell on End, to make room for the stock they would brew from the year’s last barley harvest.

  Beneath the massive bronze statue of King Bethelwold the Great a band played, filling the air with the sweet sounds of lute, pipes, and fiddle.

  The statue of the long-dead king showed a handsome man, his posture proud, his sword raised high, the crown of sovereignty his brow. According to legend, it was only because of King Bethelwold the Great that the citizens of Dijvois celebrated the day of End.

  In times of old, the king’s court had resided permanently within the walls of the great port city of Dijvois, ruling from the throne upon High Hill. The city had been abandoned by the First Empire, and later became a key stronghold of the kingdom of Pargeche, but as time moved on, more land was conquered and subjected to Pairgu rule. As the kingdom grew, the kings of Pargeche began to feel their grasp of their expanding nation slowly slipping through their fingers. Rebellions arose, and neighboring kingdoms threatened war. For a time, the future of Pargeche balanced on a sword’s edge.

  In a stroke of brilliance, or so the historians claimed, one king managed to quell the internal disputes and marshal his armies to batter back the invading hosts of both Nelgand in the west and Skjörund in the east. During his reign he had been known as Bethelwold the Third, but the historians had dubbed him Bethelwold the Great.

  King Bethelwold ruled for twenty-seven years before he went to his sickbed with consumption, an illness from which he never recovered. During his reign he was responsible for not only the reunification of Pargeche but also the codification of Pairgu common law, the founding of the monastic university, and the establishment of the King’s Pilgrimage.

  Unlike those who came before him, Bethelwold the Great did not merely rule his kingdom from the throne in Dijvois. Instead, Bethelwold wintered in the great city, and, following the early rains of spring, traveled throughout his country. He held court in the keeps of his vassal lords and observed the entirety of his lands, until his eventual return to the throne in mid-autumn. The tradition was carried on by the successive rulers of the Pairgu, and Pargeche had remained one kingdom united. Since the first pilgrimage, the citizens of Dijvois had celebrated the day of the king’s return, and eventually it became known as the day of End.

  The singer was halfway through “ Piddle on the Diddler.” Sal weaved his way between the onlookers, slipping his hand into jerkin pockets and cutting purse strings with his finger-knife as he went.

  “For when a diddler diddles a dame,

  to his house there falls great shame.

  Piddle on the diddler if you know what’s good.

  Piddle on the diddler as right you should.

  A diddler tries to shrug the blame,

  but all who know will curse his name.

  Piddle on the diddler, for all do see

  the diddler’s ways bring infamy. ”

  The fiddler stepped out in front of the rest and cut a jaunty tune on the fiddle strings while the singer stomped a foot in time.

  “And if the diddler diddles your sis,

  well, go on now, give the diddler a kiss.

  Don’t piddle on the diddler, give him a pass.

  Don’t piddle on the diddler, lest you keep the lass.

  Now, everyone knows there is no crime

  half so bad as a girl diddled in the blind.

  Though before you go piddle, consider you this:

  If not for that diddler, who’d diddle your sis?”

  As the singer moved into the sixth verse, Sal’s gaze lingered on one of the women watching the band.

  She had long, raven-black hair and wore a blue silk dress imprinted with a subtle floral pattern. The blue was not the typical woad often used by Pairgu dyers, but lapis lazuli, like something right off a vellum page from the holy book. She sparkled like a sapphire in the sun.

  Sal was drawn closer, like a moth to a flame. Gold glinted, and he noticed she wore gold teardrop earrings set with small sapphires.

  The woman was intent on the band, laughing with the rest, as others clapped and the band played and sang their bawdy song.

  Although she seemed entirely focused on the performance, the woman in the blue dress clutched her purse tight to her bosom. A prudent measure, as it rendered the purse virtually unattainable.

 
Sal thought he could get his hands on the sapphire earrings. They had to be worth a fistful, and they were hanging there like fruit, ripe for the taking.

  “ ‘Hypocrisy!’ the diddler would scream,

  for diddling is not all diddling seems.

  He’d point the finger; they’d fall to their knees.

  The diddler would smile, for the diddler’d be pleased.

  At long last, the diddler would b e

  vindicated and piddle free!

  He’d hold up his hands, and he’d make a big scene.

  Then out from his mouth would come the obscene.

  ‘Everyone’s a diddler, you fools, don’t you see?

  We all ought to piddle on you, not on me.’ ”

  Sal moved up right behind the woman in the blue dress. She smelled good, sweet with an undercurrent of spice. He felt a pang of guilt as he moved his hand into position.

  He reached out for the earring.

  Trumpets sounded, cutting through the din of the crowd.

  Sal was shoved in the back.

  His hand slipped, and he clouted the woman on the ear.

  Everyone was bustling. Sal was elbowed and shouldered, then shoved to the ground. When he got back up, he’d lost sight of the woman.

  The music stopped. A blanket of tension fell over the jostling crowd.

  Then there was cheering, another blast of trumpets, and the crowd began to settle as the standard of the crowned eagle flapped into view.

  Even now, under the subjugation of Nelgand, Duke Tadej was allowed to continue the tradition as had his ancestors, the kings of old. The duke and his entourage would complete the year-long pilgrimage by making the climb up High Hill and onto the throne of the High Keep.

  Today, Duke Tadej had returned to Dijvois at last.

  The ducal standard was a golden eagle on a field of black. In one talon it grasped a scepter, in the other a scroll. Behind the standard bearer rode a host of ducal guards, each armored in a panoply of steel and armed with a lance, shield, and longsword.

  Three men rode abreast just behind the guards. The man riding on the left flank had black hair and a scar that ran from his ear down to the corner of his mouth. Sal knew him to be Urek Shatterspear. The man was a war hero who had served as captain of the ducal guard as long as Sal could remember .