Demonkin (54 page)

“What kind of money were you talking about?” asked the captain.

“Twenty or thirty thousand,” Natia replied as she raised her mug to take a drink. Her eyes watched the captain’s face while she took a drink, and it was hard for her to keep a straight face. The captain’s jaw dropped, and his eyes widened as if he had just discovered a goldmine.

“You have that kind of gold?” the captain asked in awe.

“Sure,” smiled Natia. “I am usually pretty good about finding good gamblers to partner with. At least I have been in other cities. I haven’t been too successful in Giza yet.”

“Why would you even think of leaving the other cities with such a partner?”

Natia smiled broadly. “When you keep breaking the bank, the people running the games have a tendency to get angry. You have to give them a few months to build up their reserves again, so I travel around from city to city.”

“Clever,” smiled the captain. “I see that you understand a great deal more about the games than you let on. Would you like to go to a game tonight?”

“I would love to,” replied the gypsy princess. “Are you sure that you can win?”

“You just watch me,” grinned the captain. “Meet me here just after sundown. And bring your gold.”

“I will be waiting,” smiled Natia. “Does this mean you are leaving? You haven’t finished your meal.”

“I will have to rearrange the schedule for the center,” stated the captain as he rose to his feet. “We will be up late, and I don’t want to have to be at work too early in the morning.”

“Certainly,” Natia said cheerily. “See you tonight.”

Natia watched the captain leave and then she dallied over her meal. When she was finished, she returned to the Palace Keep and took a nap. When she woke, the sun was heading for the horizon. She quickly dressed and filled her sheaths with knives. Almost as an afterthought, she pulled a shawl out of her pack and put it on. She moved across the city at a leisurely pace and arrived at the Tap and Mug precisely at sundown. When she went inside, she saw that the captain had not yet arrived. She sat down at a table and ordered a meal. She was finished with the meal when Captain Beck arrived.

“I thought you had forgotten me,” teased Natia.

“Not a chance,” grinned the captain. “Let’s go. I don’t want to be late.”

Natia rose and started towards the door with the captain when she suddenly halted.

“My lucky shawl,” she cried as she turned and raced back to the table. She picked the shawl up from the seat next to where she was sitting and put it on as she returned to the door. “We don’t want to gamble without my shawl.”

“Lucky shawl?” balked the captain. “I find skill is more important than luck.”

“Perhaps,” shrugged Natia, “but I always wear it to games, and it hasn’t failed me yet.”

As they hurried across the city to an area of fine mansions, Natia noticed a caravan moving through the streets of Giza. She smiled inwardly when she saw a familiar face on the seat of one of the wagons. She almost chuckled out loud when she read the name on the side of one of the wagons. It read Spino Mercantile.

Captain Beck halted in front of a large mansion. He eased the gate open and they walked along the path to the front door. Two burly men stood outside the door. Captain Beck greeted the men, and they promptly opened the door for him and his guest.

Natia marveled at the lavish interior of the mansion. In a city where the poor were starving to death, the mansion stood out as an extravagant waste of gold. Each door was trimmed in gold, and huge crystal candelabras lined the corridors. Huge paintings covered the walls, and the carpets were thick and plush. The mansion was filled with hundreds of people. Some were military men, but others were the elite of society. Servants flitted around serving drinks to anyone who wanted one.

Four large rooms were set up as gambling parlors, and Captain Beck toured each of them before deciding where to play. He led Natia to a table and promptly sat down. He looked over his shoulder at Natia and requested some gold. Natia smiled at him as she reached under her tunic and brought out a large pouch. She stealthily handed the pouch to the captain, and he opened it and emptied the contents onto the table. Twenty one-thousand-gold pieces slid from the pouch. A few of the elite nearby raised eyebrows, but their attention was fleeting and they soon turned away from the captain with the pile of gold in front of him. A waiter arrived almost immediately and offered drinks to the captain and Natia. The captain grinned widely as he grabbed two drinks from the tray. Natia took a single glass of red wine.

As the seats around the table filled up, Natia turned slowly and gazed at the other people in the room. The game staff all wore red uniforms and the servants were dressed in white. The players ran the gamut from elegance to casual, and no one seemed to mind the different extremes. As her eyes took everything in, she saw one of the servants standing in a corner. She smiled inwardly when she recognized Headman and she headed towards him. The elf saw her coming and nodded towards the doorway leading to another room. Natia altered her course to comply with Headman’s instructions, and the two of them met in a small room off the kitchen.

“A servant?” questioned Natia.

“Not many people know what I look like,” smiled the elf. “I have found that such a lowly position allows me to observe everything without restricting my movements. Your wine is untainted by the way.”

“And the captain’s drinks?”

Headman merely smiled. “I see that you managed to get him here. You can leave the rest to me. For now, his drinks are normal. The man is so greedy that we may not even need to spike them, but we will see if he is still sober when your gold runs out.”

“Don’t bleed him too soon,” cautioned Natia. “I want him to pass out as soon as he arrives home.”

“He will play normally for a couple of hours or so and then we will change dealers. That is when the fun will begin. I have enough people standing by so that if he changes tables, we will have him covered. We are going through a lot of trouble just to get a copy of his keys.”

“This is not about the keys,” grinned Natia. “It is much more devious than that. In fact, I am going to need you to host another game the night of the new moon. Can you do that?”

Headman frowned in silence for a while before answering. “Hosting a game in Giza is not an easy task. This mansion, for example, is owned by a family who just departed for a trip to Valdo. They are not even aware that we are using it. I don’t know if we can find another suitable place in time to honor your request.”

“It doesn’t have to be a mansion,” Natia countered. “Can’t you get access to an abandoned warehouse? There must be dozens of them in the city.”

“We could do that easily,” replied Headman, “but the elite would never stoop so low.”

“I don’t care if the elite show up,” retorted the gypsy princess. “It only matters that Beck shows up, and he will. He will have ten-thousand in gold, and you will get to keep it this time.”

The offer had the desired effect. Headman’s eyes brightened and he nodded in agreement. “We will have a game the night of the new moon,” he promised.

“Good,” smiled Natia. “Keep Captain Beck at that game until I arrive to take him. There is one other favor I need from you. Do you have a way into the chambers of Judge Julius?”

“The hanging judge?” balked the thief. “I thought he was some kind of a friend of yours?”

“He is. I still need a way to sneak into his office at night. Can you help me?”

“We can get into most places in this city,” frowned Headman, “but that will be a tough one. The building is well guarded day and night. I am not sure that we can do it, but I will ask some of my men who have a better knowledge of that building.”

“Let me know as soon as possible,” replied Natia. “If you can’t help, I will need to change my plans.”

“I will try to find out tonight,” promised the thief. “You should get back to the captain before he misses you.”

Natia laughed. “I actually don’t want people to associate me with him, but I want him to think that people are noticing us together. It is a fine line to walk. We will talk later.”

Headman nodded and left the room. Natia gave him a head start and then returned to the room where Captain Beck was gambling. For a while, she stood across the table from him and smiled at him often. She noted that he was a very emotional man, showing both his pleasure and displeasure far too much to make a good gambler. For some reason, he seemed to be winning more than losing, but the Knight of Alcea knew that was all about to change. When she noticed the dealer signaling to another dealer, she moved around the table to stand behind the captain. She lifted a fresh glass of red wine off the tray of a passing waiter and deliberately spilled it on her shawl.

“My lucky shawl,” cried Natia as the wine dripped onto the floor.

Everyone turned to glance at her, but their attention spans were shortened as the new dealer arrived. Natia fumed silently with her lips pressed tightly together. Captain Beck shrugged and returned his attention to the table.

“My lucky shawl is ruined,” she whispered in his ear. “I am going to try to clean it before the stain sets.”

The captain nodded distractedly, and Natia returned to the kitchen. She dallied as she cleaned and dried the shawl. When she was done with that, she made herself a meal and visited once more with Headman.

“He is just about out of gold,” the thief reported, “and he can barely speak clearly enough to be understood. I think it is time to take him home. I just ordered his last drink to be spiked.”

“Excellent,” smiled the gypsy princess. “Give me an hour and then send your man.”

Headman nodded silently, and the Knight of Alcea returned to the gaming room. She moved silently through the crowd until she was standing behind the captain. She leaned over and whispered in his ear.

“It is time to go, Captain. We will have to return another night to seek our revenge. Let me take you home.”

Captain Beck turned to look at Natia, but his eyes refused to focus. He turned back to the table, downed the last of his drink, and pushed himself to his feet, nearly toppling the chair he had been sitting in. Natia took his arm and guided him out of the room.

“I think they were cheating me,” the captain said loudly in a slurred voice.

“Keep your voice down,” Natia urged in a whisper. “If you accuse them of cheating, they will not allow us to return and win our gold back.”

“How are we going to get it back?” he scowled. “I can never get my hands on that kind of money again.”

“I can,” promised Natia. “Don’t worry about it. Be quiet so we can come back.”

Captain Beck wanted to argue the point, but he was incapable of it. The words that came out of his mouth made no sense, and Natia guided him out of the building. Had the captain been sober, he would have questioned how Natia knew the way to his home, but the thought never occurred to him. She helped him up the stairs and steadied him as he unlocked the door. She guided him to the bed, and with a gentle shove, sent him sprawling into unconsciousness.

She immediately unclipped his key ring and then lit a candle. For half an hour, she explored the small apartment and smiled triumphantly when she found his hiding spot. Most city dwellers had some hiding place in their homes to make it difficult for thieves to rob them. Beck’s was a large knot in the floorboards. He had removed the knot and shaved it down to a thin covering. In the small space underneath was a small pouch. Natia opened it and counted the coins. It was a meager twenty-three in gold. She shoved the coins back into the pouch and placed the pouch back into its hiding place. A moment later, a tall figure appeared in the open doorway.

“Do you have the keys?”

Natia nodded and handed the key ring to the man. He took it and disappeared out the door. Natia blew out the candle and closed the door without locking it. She sat in a chair and waited. Two hours later, the man returned. He didn’t bother to knock as he entered the apartment. He handed two key rings to Natia and waved silently as he retreated out of the apartment. Natia lit the candle again and examined the two key rings. One was new and shiny, and she shoved that one into her pouch. She returned the other key ring to Beck’s belt and then left the apartment, leaving the door unlocked.

* * * *

Garth Shado stood near the window in the dining room of Sidney Mercado’s estate outside Ur. He watched as three riders approached the main building of the estate. When he recognized the riders, he moved onto the front porch to greet them.

“I see my message was delivered,” greeted Garth.

“It was,” replied Karl Gree. “I thought I would bring Captain Marez and his sister out to meet you.”

“I have already met Althea,” smiled Garth. “Captain Marez, I am pleased to meet you.”

“I have heard much about you, Garth Shado. Your exploits are the tales of legends.”

“I hope those legends are not associated with my name,” frowned Garth. “That could make life a little uncomfortable for me.”

“Actually,” replied the Tyronian patriot, “you are referred to as the Death Stalker. Only a few of my senior men are aware of your true name. I felt that was necessary should something happen to the three of us.”

“I do not think it is wise to cater to such legends,” Garth said. “Each and every fighter is a patriot, and we would be wise not to focus on some mythical being. I am every bit as much flesh and blood as you or your sister.”

Captain Marez was obviously disappointed by Garth’s reaction, but he sighed and nodded in acceptance. Garth looked at Karl and noticed that Althea could not keep her eyes off of the Cordonian hunter. Troubling thoughts started to intrude on Garth’s mind, and he pushed them away. He nodded towards the door of the house and led the others into the dining room.

“My time here is extremely short,” Garth said once they were all inside. “Are there any problems that you need me for?”

“Everything is going as well as can be expected,” Karl replied. “We still need a way into the keep, but we are working on that. How is everything else going?”

“Well,” Garth replied evasively as he turned to Captain Marez. “We will be stirring the hornets nest in a couple of days. You should have your people ready just in case. I do not expect it to affect you up here in Ur, but you can never tell how the Federation might react. It is better to be prepared.”