by Katie Roman
“I will take care of her,” Nathaniel said when Jim finally stopped to take a breath. “In fact, let the Queen of Thieves know I will be stopping by the Angel this evening to share a drink with her.”
Jim’s face went white. “You can’t! She’ll gut you and serve you up to her men as dinner! Send one of your men! We need the likes of you on the Lane, Captain.”
Nathaniel held up a hand to stop Jim. “Tell her I am coming to discuss the upcoming winter with her. If you haven’t noticed, supplies are scarcer every day. The Guild and Guard have always worked together in hard times to provide for the Lane. No, I am not going to challenge Kara, Master Little. This is merely a peaceful business meeting. Can you relay this message?”
Jim nodded. “Good man.” Nathaniel smiled. “I will see you this evening.”
After Jim scampered off, Jeffrey touched Nathaniel’s elbow. “He’s right…she’ll gut you.”
Nathaniel ignored him. “Send for Captain Brach and tell him I need help patrolling the Lane tonight. I want extra patrols set around the Angel just in case.”
~*~*~
Thom looked Nathaniel up and down, his eyebrow cocked. “You’re doing what? Are you a fool with a death wish? First Jack spins tales for his father, and now you’re going to walk straight into the lion’s den?”
“I need to speak to this Kara woman, Thom. People are hungry and frightened, and it’s always fallen to the Thieves’ Guild to help the Lane. I am merely reminding her of this.”
Thom wagged his finger in Nathaniel’s face but the captain pushed it away, feeling like a child who was being scolded. “I promise you this woman needs no reminding. She is ignoring the traditional duties because she’s in the duke’s pocket. She is intentionally keeping people weak and hungry and afraid so they don’t revolt. Remember that you are no longer dealing with Marcus, who tolerated your annoying code of honor.”
“Tolerated? Marcus planned to ransack the guard houses and start a war in this city!” Nathaniel retorted in a fiery burst, letting his anger get the better of him. Immediately, he and Thom stopped to listen, but the clinking of dishes, laughter, and banter from the guards’ dining area didn’t falter. The guards were so loud they didn’t hear his outburst.
Nathaniel continued, quieter this time, “You act as though Marcus was some savior who could do no wrong. He did plenty to terrorize Glenbard.”
“You’re a pup, Moore. You’ve only ever lived through Marcus’s rule. And you’re right – he did do plenty to make his people fear him, and his actions cost him the Death Dealer’s friendship.” Thom rubbed his temples. “But Marcus put aside differences and made alliances when it was what was best for the Lane. I can’t defend everything he ever did, but I’ve seen five kings and queens of the Guild. Marcus was by far the best one. This Kara will not be forming any alliances with you or anyone else. If you go in there tonight, with men surrounding the Angel, it will be a bloodbath.”
“You’re being paranoid, Thom.” Nathaniel sat on his bed and pulled on his boots.
“I’m only trying to help you. My mother was the Queen of Thieves once, and she was a bit like Kara. She did not negotiate, and she did not let uppity guards walk into her dwelling without punishment. You’ll be floating in the bay come morning.” Nathaniel steadfastly ignored him. “What about your men?” Thom asked softly.
The captain paused and looked up at Thom. The thief stood by the door now, his arms crossed over his chest. “What about them?”
“You’re posting extra patrols…what do you think will happen to them? I’m willing to bet Kara has a spy or two here who already knows this. Are you willing to risk their lives as well as your own?”
“It is our sworn duty to keep the peace and to see to our citizens.”
“At the very least, summon her here,” Thom pleaded. “Have the entirety of the Lane guards at your back. You cannot walk up to her alone as you used to do with Marcus.”
Nathaniel laced up his boots without another word. When the captain stood to leave, Thom caught him by the arm. “If you really want peace for the people, you will not subject yourself to Kara. Leave well enough alone.”
Nathaniel tugged his arm back. “I have a job to do,” he replied, and with that, he left.
~*~*~
At one time, the Angel was a bright and happy place. Though Marcus made it the home of the Thieves’ Guild, Guild business was not conducted openly. It was taken to a private room or the stables, or even out to the privies. Not every patron was Guild in those days, and there was no need for honest folk to hear their plans. The Angel Inn was a very different place now.
It was near the dinner hour, and the inn should have been bustling with people seeking a quick, warm meal. Instead, only a few hardened men and women sat around the fire. Jim Little and his cook, Jeremiah, huddled behind the front counter, looking like scared rabbits in a den of wolves. The new Queen of Thieves sat closest to the fireplace, her hard eyes fixed on Nathaniel as he entered.
The captain had yet to see the new queen before this moment, but she was as unremarkable and unnoticeable as Thom had described. Yet even from across the common room, her eyes radiated a coldness that chilled Nathaniel to his very core. She said a few words and her thieves moved away from her, one bringing a chair over and placing it in front of her. Nathaniel didn’t recognize any of the people loyal to Kara.
The queen crooked a finger and Nathaniel sauntered over. He moved to sit in the new chair, but Kara put her feet on it before he had a chance. His insides burned white hot with rage at the insult, but he kept his outward demeanor cool. This was not a social call; it was a call to action for the good of the Lane.
“What brings the righteous Captain Nathaniel Moore to my quaint little court?”
“Aren’t you taking the ‘queen’ title a bit too far? This rabble hardly constitutes proper courtiers.”
Kara looked around and shrugged. “They fawn over me and do what I say, so they will suffice. Now, Captain,” she hissed the word, as though it burned her to say it. “You haven’t answered my question.”
“Since His Grace imposed martial law, necessities have become scarce. I am here to discuss the winter ahead and how we are going to keep the Lane alive until spring. I realize I am a bit late in coming to you, but things have been hectic everywhere.”
“I’m not sure I understand you correctly. We are plenty well stocked here.”
Nathaniel cut his eyes to Jim, who nodded once. Returning his attention to Kara, he found her smirking. “And you will dispense these goods to the Lane?”
“Why ever would I bother?” She inspected her nails, looking bored with the conversation.
“Because it is your ‘queenly’ duty to make sure your people are fed in hard times. With the crop failures and the duke strictly rationing the city’s stores to his army, it has always fallen on the Guard and the Guild to help their own.” Nathaniel balled his fists and hid them behind his back so she couldn’t see how mad she made him.
“I have seen to my thieves.”
“And what about everyone else on the Lane?”
“The people and the cowards who left the Guild when Marcus was deposed were told that the payment of one gold sovereign would see them through the winter.”
Nathaniel let his mouth drop open in horror. “A gold piece a family?” How had he not heard of this?
“A person,” Kara corrected. She stopped looking at her nails and turned her calculating eyes back to Nathaniel, waiting.
Nathaniel fell into a stunned silence, and a minute or two passed before he found his voice again. “No Lane family can afford that! Are you mad?”
“Grain and oil are expensive. I can’t just give them away.”
“No, you charge a copper, maybe two per family. It has always been done this way.”
“Has it, now? Why don’t you tell me more about how it has always been, Captain?”
Nathaniel ripped the chair out from under Kara’s feet, throwing it across the commo
n room. Her thieves moved to stand behind her, but she held up a hand to keep them still.
“The Guild feeds its people, and the Guard helps bring in supplies by supplementing their own. Both sides work together because we have to. Who do you think you are? Slitting my guards’ throats? Dumping bodies in the market? Sneaking off for secret councils with His Grace?”
His last statement obviously hit a chord, as Kara’s smirk disappeared and her lip curled up in a snarl. Her eyes narrowed. She snapped her fingers and a tall, muscular man stepped forward.
“Paul, teach the captain some respect.”
Nathaniel was able to dodge Paul’s first attempt. He grabbed his baton and held it up to strike Paul, yelling, “Marcus never would have dared!”
His assertion was met with a slow, cold laugh. Kara cracked her knuckles and shook her head. “Did it ever occur to you that there’s a reason Marcus isn’t king anymore? He let self-righteous fools like you walk around, trying to destroy the Guild when he should have killed you outright and put his own captain in the Rogue’s Lane guard house.”
“I came here in peace!”
“Paul, Samuel, take him out back.”
Paul and a second huge man advanced on Nathaniel. He cracked Paul’s arm with his baton when he tried to grab him, and then rammed the baton into Samuel’s gut. Nathaniel saw a few other thieves circling behind him out of the corner of his eye and aimed his baton at fingers, arms, and heads that moved within his line of sight, but for each whack he got in, someone kicked or punched him. Finally, someone restrained him with a bear hug and dragged him from the Angel. Jim and Jeremiah were nowhere to be seen to help.
Three thieves proceeded to dispense their own brand of justice in the alley, hitting Nathaniel in every tender spot he had. Warm, sticky blood ran freely down his face. His fingers still clasped the baton, but he couldn’t raise it anymore. The three thieves just grunted and laughed.
“Get out of here!” one yelled after a hard kick to Nathaniel’s ribs.
There was no verbal response, but suddenly the onslaught stopped. Nathaniel tried to peer into the darkness, but his eyes wouldn’t focus.
“Unhand him, wretch,” a voice said. It was soft and a bit muffled.
“The Death Dealer used to serve the Guild,” a thief spat.
“We’re not Death Dealers, we are only seekers of justice,” another voice answered.
Around him, Nathaniel heard the sounds of a struggle. There were grunts of pain, followed by someone screaming for mercy, but all Nathaniel had strength to do was cover his ears. Gentle hands rolled Nathaniel over onto his back.
“We need to get him to a healer.”
“Ridley?” Nathaniel was aware that his ears played a trick on him, since he knew Ridley sat locked away in the temple of Diggery.
Cool hands touched Nathaniel’s forehead. “Can you carry him?”
Nathaniel didn’t hear a response, but someone hoisted him up under the armpits and someone else took hold of his feet.
~*~*~
The world slowly came back into focus, but Nathaniel found he couldn’t move without pain snaking through his body. So he remained on his back, looking up at the ceiling of an unfamiliar room. Thom’s face moved into view.
“Good, you’re awake.” His tone was harsh, but his features softened when he smiled.
“What happened?”
“Exactly what I feared would happen.”
Nathaniel slowly moved his hand, using it as his eyes while he was stuck on his back. On his wrist he felt bandages rub against his skin and linen wraps around his ribs. Moving his hand to his head, ignoring the pain momentarily, he touched his head, wrapped similarly to his ribs and wrist.
“You’ll live, or so this note from the healers says.” Thom waved a shred of paper in Nathaniel’s face.
“Where’s Ridley? Why was she out in the alley?”
“She wasn’t, though you seemed to think she was. You talked to Marcus’s cook, Ginger, as though she were Ridley the whole walk to the healers.”
“And the Death Dealer? I heard the thieves say something about the Dealer.”
Nathaniel felt Thom sit on the bed near his feet. “Jeffrey and I played a bit of dress-up to sneak through the shadows. We followed you to the Angel because I warned your clerk you were going to end up dead if you went.”
“So you took care of those men?”
“They won’t be doing Kara’s bidding again.”
Nathaniel cringed. “I’ll have to try and petition His Grace for assistance against her. Again.”
“Don’t bother; Jeffrey already tried. His Grace will eventually come by wishing you well, thanking you for your service, and dismissing you from your duties.”
Nathaniel’s insides turned to water. “She’ll kill me. At least with the Guard, I had men at my back.” He fought to sit up. Thom got up and helped him, putting a few pillows behind his back to help support him.
“You’re not friendless. The Rogue’s Lane guards were out in force last night taking her thieves into the lock-up. Captain Brach came by this morning, quite ready to forgive my status as a wanted man since I saved your hide. As long as he isn’t dismissed as well, he’ll shelter you.”
“What about you?”
Thom smiled, showing all his teeth. “Those who know I am in Glenbard aren’t likely to give me away. As such, I will do what I do best and gather information for you. And speaking of which, you will be pleased to know that your accusation of Kara consorting with the duke rattled her. I followed her about in the early morning, as she tends to skulk her way up to the castle to hold her rendezvous. Either her lackeys believed your claim or she thinks they did, but either way she’ll be keeping her distance from her master.”
“What are we going to do about all of this? We aren’t going to survive the winter the way things are going.”
Thom raised an eyebrow. “We take it one day at a time. We find Kara’s weakness and drive her out, and then we’ll find the duke’s weakness and do the same. We will weather this storm and survive.”
~*~*~
Kara sat alone in her private room in the Angel. The bumbling fool innkeeper didn’t hassle her. He was too terrified to do so. This was for the best, because her current guest didn’t wish to be bothered.
The duke did his best to blend in with the denizens of Rogue’s Lane, but his bearing was too proud to fully blend in. Though Kara did give him credit for putting on a filthy gray cloak and torn hose, and the dirt on his face added a nice touch. He frowned at their surroundings, looking displeased. Kara took a great deal of joy making him come to her at the Angel. Here, she didn’t have to bow and scrape as befitted his status, because it would draw far too much attention.
“Such filth,” Robert proclaimed.
“Well, if Captain Moore wasn’t forever sniffing around where he didn’t belong, we would not have to meet here.” Her tone gave away her considerable glee at seeing the duke so uncomfortable. “Let me get at him; rid the city of him.”
“No. I let you get away with slicing up a few guards, but if you hurt Captain Moore again I’ll be forced to take action. He will be useful when the spring offensive begins. Men like him will be needed in this city to keep order. Right now, our job is to keep the people quiet. If Glenbard riots, others across Cesernan will join in. If I am to launch a successful campaign against Sera in the spring, I can’t have my army fighting peasants at home.”
Kara rolled her eyes. “All about this silly war. Is that why Marcus still lives? So he and Captain Moore can work together in the spring to keep the peasants happy?”
Robert nodded. “We will need men like them. Men like that will never look past the city’s needs for their own benefit. You leave a mess in your wake, and Marcus will work hard to fix it. The people will be so consumed with their own selfish needs that they’ll not say a word against our war.”
Kara wouldn’t call feeding one’s child a selfish need, but she wasn’t being paid to comment. She was bei
ng paid to distract and terrorize as needed, but she couldn’t help feeling the king was being stupid to ignore his people’s needs for the glory of war against Sera.
“Do not go after Moore,” Robert reiterated. “He is staying with the captain of the Golden Road guard house for now. I dismissed him from duty until he is ‘healed’, but it is likely your goons destroyed him for service.” The duke narrowed his eyes, but Kara only shrugged. “Not a hand is to be laid on him, understand?”
Kara nodded. “He will sniff around more, though. He is like a bloodhound. Once he has a scent, he will track until he finds it.”
“Not a hand,” Robert repeated.
The duke put up the hood on his cloak and stalked to the door. Outside, his man Gillam waited, keeping eavesdroppers away. Kara bid the duke goodnight and crawled into bed.
Eight
Grace woke in the morning feeling hungry, thirsty, and generally miserable. Overhead, the sun was already trying to break through the treetops. Though the leaves provided some shade, everything still felt stuffy and hot. Diggery had already left, and there was no sign she ever sat watch. Well, almost no sign.
A few trail signs were placed on the jungle floor, leading Grace away from her sleeping spot. Since the goddess didn’t leave food or drink, the young woman hoped there was a town or at least a well not far up the way. With a few grunts, Grace got to her feet and began her trek through the trees.
She followed a path that seemed to stretch on forever. Birds sang out, bugs swarmed around her head, and little skittering things darted up trees as Grace crunched along. She kept her eyes on the ground, watching to make sure she didn’t miss a single trail sign, but as the day went on it became harder and harder to keep going. She stopped more frequently, her body threatening to collapse. Her thoughts became fuzzy from the heat and lack of water. Why did she continue to march on into uncertainty? If she stopped now, would Diggery lift her out of the jungle?