The Discovery of an Assassin

by Brian Keller

  Cooper returned to examine the glass panel but just couldn’t tell whether it was hinged on the inside. It was too dark to see, and he wouldn’t risk using a lantern even if he’d brought one. He examined the frame, particularly the spot where he knew there was a latch on the inside. He couldn’t discern a gap. He could see where the frame for the glass panel ended and the frame of the door began but there was just no gap between them. It looked like it had been painted over and paint had filled in the tiny line between the boards. “That’s good craftsmanship”, Cooper thought and he quickly pushed away fuzzy memories of watching his father fitting pieces of wood together. He had almost decided that he’d have to work through the five pin lock, but thought to check the glass panel on the other side of the door. He needed to complete this check quickly in case the guardsmen patrolling the grounds were a little early for their next rounds. Cooper ignored all other parts of the frame and centered his scrutiny on the spot to the outside of where the latch was on the other panel. One of the things that stood out to him as he was studying architecture is that builders love symmetry and uniformity. If the latch was located two feet up on the first panel, it was surely the same on this one. He could see a small gap, almost more of an indication of a gap than an actual one. He remembered the sliver of a blade he had taken from the Dreg’s boy and slipped it into the gap. It was a very tight fit. So snug in fact he was concerned that he might not be able to retrieve the small blade. He tried not to imagine failing in this theft all due to the fact that he couldn’t recover a tiny shiv from a window frame. He pried upward and was rewarded with a slight movement of the blade. He began working it upwards and downwards and finally gained some ability to move the blade more freely. He felt the tip of the blade engage the window latch. He wiped a drip of sweat that had worked its way down to the end of his nose. It felt strange to be sweating in the cool night air. He had a decision to make. If he unlatched the window now, he’d not be able to latch it back without being inside. But if he didn’t test the latch, he wouldn’t know if he could actually open the window from the outside. He was not prepared for this. He needed to talk to Skaiven. He had taken too long already, and he needed to get back into the shadows and back across the street. He thought it was odd that he’d feel safer once he got across the street… He’d still be in The Grid, the penalty for discovery was the same if he were captured there or where he was crouched at this moment. He decided the feeling was due to the fact that he felt so exposed being crouched on the porch, in the crisp night air, bathed in the light of the half moon. He quickly reversed his path, moving from shadow to shadow, slipped over the wall and crossed the street in what felt like only a couple heartbeats. Skaiven joined him and they crept away. They didn’t speak until they returned to the safety of the House, then all Cooper’s new information came out in a flood.

  Skaiven listened patiently and waited until Cooper had divulged everything of significance that he could think of before he offered any comments of his own. He offered no criticism, which Cooper thought was odd. He merely asked whether Cooper felt time would be better spent practicing more with locks or getting comfortable working on a short ladder. Cooper asked what he thought about working the latch on the glass panel beside the door. Skaiven asked, ”Is the glass panel hinged or designed to be removable?”. Cooper admitted that he didn’t know. Skaiven arched a thin eyebrow and asked, ”If it’s removable, can you lift it, set it to one side and then pick it back up to put it back into position from the inside? By yourself?” Cooper stared at the surface of the table. Skaiven had made a valid point and Cooper hadn’t thought of that. The House Father understood Cooper’s silence and offered a rare bit of encouragement, “You’re completely new at this kind of work, but you’ve learned a tremendous amount in a very short time. You can’t expect to think of everything now, can you?”. His tone was that of a teacher, or a proper father even. If Cooper had looked up from the table, however, he might have seen that Skaiven was looking at him with an unlikely combination of sorrow and greed. Skaiven was thinking, “What an earner this boy would have become! Sacrifices were always so unfortunate.”. If Cooper pulled this off, he would have enough coin to purchase another House Charter, his new one would be in The Dregs. Of course he’d need to offer up Cooper as a peace offering, not only to the Dreg’s gangs for killing two of their own, but also to the guild since the boy will have fleeced one of the Guild’s wealthier targets. The wealth the boy would deliver to him before being turned over would guarantee Skaiven’s continued survival. He hated the notion of moving to The Dregs, amidst that filth, but he’d have the option of moving back to Batter’s Field later once the coming storm had passed. That boy, Cooper, was too just clever for his own good. He just needed to keep him focused, isolated…. and safe. He couldn’t afford to have him captured or killed before the job was done.

  They worked to design a collapsible ladder and Skaiven had one made before the end of the day. All the next day Cooper was climbing up and down the ladder in a crouched position, sometimes carrying some extra weight and usually blindfolded. While Skaiven was out for a few hours doing whatever it was House Fathers do during the day, Cooper had to practice running up to one of the support poles in the house with the ladder strapped to his back, unhook it, set it up and scamper to the top and crouch there while unlocking a window latch that had been mounted on the pole. When Skaiven came back to the House he had a rice paper screen tucked under his arm and a roll of rice paper in his hand. He placed the screen in front of the pole, under the window latch and then picked up his lash, turned to face Cooper and said, “Unlock the latch three times in two minutes, with no noise and don’t damage my new screen”. Cooper closed his eyes, let his chin drop to his chest and sighed. It was going to be a long day.

  That night Cooper was sent out alone with the ladder to enter the property, unlatch one of the windows, and then return to the House undetected. Skaiven showed him how to secure the ladder across his back but he wasn’t sure how it would affect his stealth and he worried how he would cross the wall. He soon learned that it had only little effect on his ability to move quickly and quietly and the only problem crossing the wall was when the ladder shifted striking him in the back of his head as he turned slightly upside down coming down on the inside of the wall. Not enough to make him dizzy, not even enough to slow him down, but it was enough to make him aware that he needed to adjust how he secured the ladder upon his return. Once on the grounds, moving to the house was simple and setting up and climbing the ladder was just like practicing it, but once atop it he realized that he was completely visible to anyone outside, including any passing City Guard, as well as being in full view of anyone that might be inside that room looking at him through the window. It wasn’t the first time Cooper was glad for the seemingly endless drills Skaiven had subjected him to. There was nothing pleasant about performing the drills over and over again, but the results were undeniable. It took only moments to release the latch. It would take longer to break the ladder down. Cooper dropped down silently and moved the ladder into a nearby shadow and collapsed it. He secured it as Skaiven had showed him but he added an additional strap lower across his back. His return home was uneventful, and thankfully painless.

  Cooper reported his results as he removed the ladder from his back and took off his belt that held the iron dagger Skaiven had handed him earlier tonight and his shiv. The boy was feeling fatigued from lack of sleep, from his rigorous training, and from the fact that he’d had to keep his senses so alerted all night until now. He slumped down in a chair and let his shoulders sag. Cooper asked, “what now?’. Skaiven had been wondering the same thing for the last few days. He knew he needed a plan for how to keep Cooper occupied now that all preparations had been made. He’d already told Cooper that the boy wouldn’t leave the house again until it was time to perform the robbery, but if he was asked ‘why’ the only reason he could give was to ‘stay out of sight just before a job, and for quite awhile afterward’. Keeping the
boy in the House wasn’t Skaiven’s only problem, he needed to keep him from talking to the other kids too. From what he’d seen before, Cooper didn’t interact much with the kids but with the way things had progressed the other kids were naturally curious about what Cooper was doing so they might approach him to ask about it. Any conversation might reveal too much, or at least more than he wanted Cooper to know. He decided that he’d have Cooper spend tomorrow studying the house floorplan and the city map and after every hour of study he would alternate drawing the floorplan or the city map from memory.

  On the evening of the Harvest Festival, Skaiven told Cooper that it was important that no one in the house be killed tonight. If he were discovered, he must either try to render the person unconscious or simply escape. He also explained that the guards employed by the wealthy families were usually more skilled than the City Guardsmen. City Guardsmen just needed to be able to wear the armor they were issued and be strong enough to intimidate the average citizen. A City Guard might be a farmer’s son who’d arrived in town last week and got hired because he could swing a sword without being a danger to himself. Their official status was their primary means of law enforcement. The men the nobles hired to guard their properties were usually sellswords or former soldiers that had served out their enlistment and wanted no more of long marches, cold rations, and sleeping on the ground. These men had training and the more experience they had, the higher wage they could demand. Many nobles also looked at the guards they employed as a kind of status in and of itself. If they were wealthy enough, they could afford the best swordsmen. As a result, these guardsmen were vigilant. If something happened during their shift and they hadn’t prevented it, that’d damage their reputation. Those guards could find themselves unemployed and looking for a job as a City Guard. Cooper was informed that the man he was preparing to rob was just such an employer, and he hired those kinds of guards. Cooper couldn’t help thinking that this information would’ve been welcomed three weeks ago, considering he’d done everything short of actually entering the house during that time span.

  As soon as the sun had set, Cooper was told to go out, find some shadows where he could observe without being seen, and learn the new movements. With fewer guards on duty they would surely adjust their movements accordingly. He hoped that they wouldn’t leave a stationary guard on the central staircase or all their plans could be undone.

  Cooper had crossed the South Bridge at night so many times with Skaiven that the guards didn’t pay much attention to him. He learned that the guards were less diligent at night anyway, since the shops in the Trade Quarter were closed and the cart vendors had already loaded up and gone home. The only businesses open at this hour were taverns, brothels and such. He simply passed by these buildings, keeping enough distance from them so that if someone opened a door he wouldn’t be caught by any light that streamed out. Crossing into The Grid was no longer a problem for him. He was realizing that so much of what he thought was impossible a month ago was simply due to unreasonable, childish fears. Once you viewed a problem for what it was, a solution often became obvious. Like lock picking, the challenge was in correctly identifying how the lock worked. Once that was done, the solution was accomplished by patience, steady hands, and the right tools.

  After observing the house from one shadow or another for about three hours, He felt he knew how the guards had adjusted their movements. There were four guards in total but he only ever saw three patrolling at any one time. The downstairs rooms had someone walk through them every ten to fifteen minutes. The grounds outside and the upstairs rooms were patrolled twice an hour, not exactly as the clocks chimed but close enough that Cooper figured the guards were using the chimes as a cue. When the clocks chimed, two guards would walk around the grounds and one would go upstairs. This would make getting in a little tougher, but once inside he’d have some time to do what he needed. Getting out would be faster than getting in, but Skaiven warned him that getting out is when most thieves got caught. Maybe it was the excitement from having loot in their hands, or maybe it was the feeling that the job was already done that resulted in thieves making mistakes. It would serve him well to heed that warning.

  The City Guard had passed about ten minutes ago so weren’t due back for almost an hour. Cooper was watching two guards walking around the property. They were conversing in low tones but too far away to be heard. The way one of the guards was kicking at dirt clods, He figured they were lamenting how they were patrolling the house while other guards were up at the Harvest Festival party. As these guards entered the house the boy was already halfway across the street. He pulled himself up to peer over the wall to make sure the guards had time to move to the interior of the house and that the guard from upstairs had made it back down to the lower floor. Once he felt confident he slipped over the wall and moved quickly to a shadow behind one of the thick columns that formed an imposing row along the front of the house. He had already selected the window he wanted to use as his entry. It’s possible that it was still unlocked from his foray a couple nights ago. Setting up the ladder made only the slightest of noises. If someone was standing in the street listening, it was doubtful that they would’ve heard anything at all. Cooper climbed the ladder and glanced into the room from a corner of the window. He wasn’t sure if this room had been checked yet since the guards had come back in. He chided himself since he’d been so focused on getting the ladder in position he hadn’t been watching for where the guards were. He didn’t feel comfortable waiting outside the window, out in the open. He stood to examine the latch and saw that it had been relocked. It only took a moment to slip a pick through the gap and shift the latch to open it. He pushed the window frame up a couple inches and listened intently for several moments. He heard nothing. He had half expected to hear the guards talking as they had done outside but the house was silent. He pushed the window open, stepped in, turned and leaned out to retrieve the ladder and slid the window shut behind him. He was inside!

  He quickly collapsed the ladder, listening intently all the while and in a few seconds he had it tied in place on his back. He had considered concealing the ladder somewhere inside and retrieving it on his way out, but it occurred to him that he might not be able to leave the same way he entered. He looked around the room in the dim light provided from the moon outside and was awestruck. He had seen books, of course, but had never seen so many in one place. Not even the bookstores near the college had so many shelves. He shook off the distraction and crept to the door that would open onto the landing below the grand entry staircase. It was in the large, open foyer where he would be at greatest risk to be discovered. He eased the door open just enough to look through the gap with one eye. He saw no one and heard nothing. That meant that the guards were either in the dining room, ballroom, or kitchen. The kitchen occupied the space below and behind the central grand staircase. The northwest corner of the house, which adjoined the kitchen, were the staff quarters. He denied the urge to just sprint up the steps and get upstairs. That would be a foolish risk, but neither could he afford to stay in one place too long. Eventually one of the guards would come his way. He heard a footstep to his left, along the bottom of the staircase and knew from repeatedly drawing the floorplan that there was an indoor privy to the back of the stairs on the south side. That guard must’ve come from the dining room since he hadn’t passed in front of him. He heard a door click shut and knew that the guard had gone into the privy. Cooper lie down on the floor and stuck his head out into the foyer. The door to the dining room must be open because he could see a faint light spilling out. The dining room lamps weren’t lit so that means the light was finding its way out from the kitchen. If the guards were in the kitchen then this was the moment Cooper needed to get up to the second floor. He stepped into the foyer and closed the door behind him. He dropped into a crouch and glided noiselessly across the polished stone floor and onto the staircase. He paused for only a moment at the base of the stairs to listen again and then slipped quickly
up the stairs. Skaiven had told him that walking up the center of a set of steps increased the chance of the stairs creaking. He smiled thinking how that bit of wisdom didn’t apply to steps hewn completely from stone. Still, it made sense to keep to one side, rather than striding right up the middle as if he owned the place. Once at the top, He did not hesitate when he turned right and stepped lightly to the back wall. He was directly over the kitchen now and a creaking floorboard could ruin everything. Cooper couldn’t see a clock but estimated that he had about fifteen minutes or so before the clocks chimed and one of the guards would come upstairs. If all went well that should be enough time and he’d be able to position himself to slip out of the house as the guards patrolling the grounds were coming back in. He knew that the jewelry was kept in a secret closet in the master’s chambers. He was only a few steps away from the door to that room. When his hand rested on the handle, he paused for a moment to listen. From his position, someone would have to be part way up the stairs before they would be able to turn their head to see him so this was a safe place to try to guess where the guards were now. Once he entered through this next door he wouldn’t be able to detect the guard’s movements at all. He figured they were either still in the kitchen or they were below him in the ballroom. He would’ve been able to see the aura from lantern lights if they were in the dining room and the only way into the room with all the books that Cooper came in from was through the foyer. He eased the handle of the door to the master’s chamber and pushed the door open just enough to slip inside. He closed the door behind him and skirted along the edge of the room. He knew that a section of the shelving along the wall would open like a door to reveal the secret room behind it, but he didn’t know if there was a latching mechanism to release the door. He had been in a hurry because he knew this next challenge was likely to take some time. He estimated he still had about ten to twelve minutes before a guard would come upstairs. He’d have a few minutes more if the guard started his upstairs room checks on the other side of the house, but he couldn’t count on that. A little bit of moonlight filtered into the room, making it possible to give the shelves a quick visual search. There was no doubt about it, there was a section of shelving that just didn’t fit. All the shelving supports were single vertical boards with shelves attached to them, except for one section about four feet wide that had two sets of two vertical boards side by side. He thought this looked just like a door frame. He immediately gave that section a pull, and gradually increased the strength he applied. The section didn’t budge. “I suppose it was too much to hope that I could just pull it open. But I had to try. I’d feel foolish if I’d spent ten minutes looking for a latch and all I had to do was pull.’, Cooper thought to himself. With a shrug he went to work looking for some kind of latch or release. He figured most doors have their handles closest to where the normal walking patterns were, but since this was a secret room “usual” didn’t really apply. He almost muttered aloud, “No point in trying to guess. Thinking about it isn’t getting me any closer to finding it.”. He started running his fingers along the edge of the shelving, feeling for anything that didn’t belong. After searching the part closest to the center of the room, he shifted his focus to the other side of the ‘doorway’. He was trying to keep track of time and estimated he had about ten minutes remaining. Time was getting short. It took him a few more minutes to find what felt like a pin that had been pushed through both vertical boards, locking them together. Perhaps what he had to do was remove the pin and he could slide the door open. There wasn’t much of the pin exposed. Certainly not enough to try to grab hold of. “Well, if it isn’t a pull-pin, maybe it’s a push-pin”, he thought. On the shelf right beside the pin was a small candlestick with a candle snuffer beside it. The handle of the candle snuffer looked slightly bent, like it had been bent and straightened a few times. Maybe that had been used to push the pin out? The pin didn’t have to be removed completely, it just had to be pushed far enough so it wasn’t connecting the two boards. Cooper pressed the end of the handle against the pin and started pushing. It wasn’t easy. He could understand how the handle had gotten bent, but he could make the pin move. Once he shifted it about a half inch he was able to grasp it from the exposed end and push-pull the pin the rest of the way. He placed the snuffer back on the shelf and gave the section of shelving a gentle pull. He could feel it shift slightly but it still wasn’t coming open. He exerted a little more strength and it shifted a little bit but only at the top. This shifting was accompanied by a tiny creak. “There must be another pin lower down”, he realized. It took a minute to find it but now that he understood the process this pin presented less trouble for him. With this pin out of the way the secret door responded to a gentle pull and eased open on concealed hinges obviously designed to handle a heavy load. Cooper stepped into the secret room with a feeling of triumph, which quickly dissipated to a feeling of frustration and foolishness. The room was nearly pitch black and he had brought nothing to create light to see with. He could tell that there were several shelves in this room that had boxes and stacks of rolled papers on them, but trying to go through boxes by feel to try to identify valuables didn’t seem like a recipe for success. It would also use up time he didn’t have. He could just grab a box and escape but for all he knew any box could contain the daughter’s prized but worthless doll she played with as a little girl. He tried opening a few of the boxes and they felt locked. This was going to be a real problem. Taking the time to think this through would be using time he couldn’t afford but he had to figure out what he could do. He picked up a couple boxes and shook them a little to listen to the contents jostling around. A couple of them sounded promising but he still didn’t think it wise to try escaping with a box that was half the size of a crate. He started putting picks in the locks, thinking they might be warded locks and all he really had to do was put in the right pick, give it a turn and pop it open. Then he could at least handle the contents of the boxes. He heard the clock’s chime and his blood went cold. He didn’t even have to think about what to do next. He walked over and pulled the shelving back in place with him inside. He just had to hope that the guard didn’t notice the pins sticking out. They were only protruding an inch or less and they weren’t very wide, only slightly wider than a nail, but if the light from a guard’s lantern reflected off the shiny surface of a pin that was usually hidden inside a piece of wood…. Well, that would be all it would take.