Den of Thieves (15 page)

Chapter Thirty

M
alden rushed back through the arches, thinking Kemper must have slipped up the stairs while he wasn't looking. He sought only to warn his fellow thief that no good would come of heading that way. Yet as he reached the bottom of the stairs he thought better of chasing Kemper up the steps. No doubt the vagabond would be caught as soon as he made the surface. He would only be sacrificing his own freedom if he followed too close on the man's heels.

He had freed the prisoner from his chains. Surely, that was enough of a good turn, and he could be forgiven for thinking of himself next. He had to escape, with the crown, if he didn't want the night's fiasco to be in vain. And he thought he knew a way.

Malden cast about him, looking for something on the floor. He found it back in the torture chamber—a round iron grate that came up easily when he lifted it. It had to be the drain that led out to the river, via the outlet pipe he'd seen when coming in.

The problem with having a dungeon cut into the bosom of a hill was that it would flood every time it rained. The drain was there to alleviate such a shortcoming. It would also make a fine way of disposing of any victims who didn't survive their interrogations—or any parts of them they didn't need anymore.

Putting aside such grisly thoughts as best he was able, Malden dropped down into the drain, then pulled the grating back over his head, cutting off some of the light. The drain proved to be a pipe lined with bricks furred white with niter, about three feet wide, leading down at a steep grade. There was no light in the tunnel, of course, but part of the way down its length he saw a glimmering and started crawling toward it. Compared to some of the things he'd been through since he started working for Cythera and Bikker, the drain was an easy traverse. The worst thing about it was the smell.

It was foul at first. It quickly rose to a level of unbearability. The fetor of the drain made his eyes water, and even when he covered his mouth and nose with the hood of his cloak he could barely breathe. His body fought for clean air but there was none to be had. The source of the stench was no great mystery, Malden thought. The garderobes of the palace must empty directly into this same pipe—a clever enough alternative to having the Burgrave's ordure carted out every week. His guess as to the drain's purpose was confirmed when he reached a patch of light in the tunnel. It was coming down from above, through a shaft much like the one that led to the dungeon—though this time there were no spikes at the bottom. Looking up, he could just make out a circular opening, high, high above him, lit by flickering candlelight. The smell here was much stronger than elsewhere, and the condition of the shaft walls is certainly best left undescribed.

The smell made him want to retch, and the yielding texture of the floor he crawled over made him wince with each foot he covered. Nothing but the promise of freedom and safety kept him moving forward. Still, he supposed it could be worse. There was a fortune in gold waiting for him once he was out of this—no matter how briefly it would remain in his possession. Malden pitied the servant who must come down here and clean this drain every time it filled up, and was probably paid only in room and board.

There were more shafts intersecting the drain as it headed down toward the river. One of them was even in use. He waited patiently until the user was finished, then continued on his way.

At last he came to a point where they could see the outflow pipe. Moonlight streamed in through its grate, though its lower half was clogged with filth and detritus. Malden rushed forward and grabbed the iron bars with his much-abused fingers. He rattled them but they held.

He looked out through the bars, hoping to signal Cythera. Perhaps she had a way of bending iron bars he lacked. But where in Sadu's name was she? The boat should be waiting for him—it was his agreed upon method of egress. If she wasn't there . . .

Then he would just have to swim for it, wouldn't he?

With a sigh, Malden drew his bodkin and began to work at the bars, trying to loosen them enough that he could make good his escape.

Thief
, the crown at his belt said when he was quiet awhile.
Thief, go back.

Malden growled at the thing, never slowing in his work.

Part II
An Unquiet Crown

Interlude

B
ikker made his own exit from Castle Hill, though in a less dramatic fashion than Croy or Malden. In the confusion following the death of the demon, he merely stepped into some shadows by the wall, then through a doorway into a well-lit room near the main gate. Inside, a servant was waiting for him. The withered old man offered to take his cloak—Bikker declined—then offered him a cup of hot mulled wine. This he took, draining the goblet in a single gulp. “Is he here?” Bikker asked.

The servant nodded without looking up. He was busy mending a torn tunic, pulling his bone needle through the old fabric then plunging it down again. The old man was the castle's tailor, and he had a pile of clothes beside him, each item waiting his attention. “When things have calmed a bit, I'm to take you to the chapel. He'll meet you there.”

Bikker eyed the tailor carefully. Was it possible this man was, in fact, his employer? He'd never seen the man who brought him into the cabal. It could be anyone in Ness, anyone with a compelling interest in bringing down the Burgrave. It wasn't an ideal situation for one of Bikker's talents, not knowing who he worked for. He was more accustomed to working for lords and merchants who insisted that he wear their personal livery. After all, what was the point in having a famous knight in your retinue if no one knew he was yours?

Still, Bikker supposed he could understand the need for secrecy. If anyone knew what the cabal was really meant to do, the jig would be up. The Burgrave would make short work of them all, probably hanging them in chains from the castle gates so everyone in Ness could see the wages of treason. Secrecy was paramount. Even Hazoth hadn't been filled in on all the details, and Bikker was certain there were elements of the scheme he didn't know about himself.

He shrugged and demanded another cup of wine. It didn't matter to him what happened to the city. What mattered was that he be far away when it happened. Far enough away not to smell the blood or hear the screams.

When enough time had passed, the tailor handed him a cloak-of-eyes, the traditional garb of the city watch. For the first time, Bikker realized why the castle's tailor would be a useful pawn of the cabal—uniforms and regalia of every kind came through the old man's hands. Any number of disguises would be at his disposal. Bikker threw the too-small cloak over his shoulders and let the tailor lead him through the dim corridors of the chancery, the unassuming building where the city's administrative work was carried out. They came through a dark refectory and then down a short passage that led to a chapel. A gilded cornucopia, symbol of the Lady, hung there above a modest altar. There were no pews, just a scattering of straw-filled cushions on the floor where supplicants could kneel. This was not a chapel for the use of the Burgrave and his family, but for the clerks and scribes of Anselm Vry's ministries—commoners, if well-paid commoners.

With a thin smile, the tailor bid Bikker to kneel. Perhaps he thought it would be amusing to see the knight in an attitude of prayer.

For Bikker it was anything but diverting. There had been a time when he stood vigil in far ruder churches. He'd been a sworn vassal of the king once. A champion of virtue. He took his place on his knees, the muscles of his back locking obediently into place. There was a certain method one learned to kneeling all night, a way of staying upright even when your body demanded sleep. He resisted the urge to place Acidtongue before him, his hands folded neatly on the pommel. He would not mock what he had once been, no matter what Croy might think of him now.

Croy. Croy was here.
Bikker's skin itched at the thought. The foolish knight could cause all kinds of problems if he chose to poke his nose in where it wasn't wanted. Croy still considered himself one of the noble order of the Ancient Blades—which meant that whenever he discovered wrongdoing or malfeasance, he was honor-bound to root it out, uncover the criminals, and bring them to punishment. If Croy even guessed at the work of the cabal . . . but Bikker knew he could handle Sir Croy, if it came to that. He had trained Croy—had taught the younger knight everything he knew about holding a sword. But he hadn't taught Croy everything he knew himself. Bikker still had a few tricks up his sleeve that Croy had never seen.

“It's done,” a voice behind Bikker said, startling him. “The crown has left Castle Hill. Good.” Bikker did not turn to see who was speaking. His employer had been quite clear from the start that he did not wish his face to be seen. “Not as neatly as I'd hoped. But plenty of people saw the guardian demon before it was slain—that was to my liking. It will further humiliate Tarness.”

“If you like, I can ride tonight for Helstrow. There I can inform the king that the Burgrave of Ness has been harboring demons,” Bikker mused. He didn't relish the prospect—he was not well-loved in the royal fortress just now. But it would further their aims, and it would get him far from Ness before things went to perdition.

“Not just now. We'll hold that charge back as insurance. No, Ladymas is almost upon us. When Tarness appears in public without the crown, he'll be unable to explain himself. If we're lucky, the people will riot on their own, without further provocation. By manipulating their anger, we can inspire them to true revolt. The city will collapse under civil strife, and the king will have no choice but to intervene.”

Bikker frowned. He stared up at the cornucopia as he asked, “That's the part I haven't fully grasped. The Burgrave will look a fool if he appears without his crown, true enough. But he's a man of formidable intellectual resources. Surely he'll find some excuse and the people will believe it. They love him, after all.”

“They love
him
. They will not love what they see on Ladymas.” The voice seemed to find this highly amusing. “Trust me, Bikker. I've had years to plot this out. I know exactly what I'm doing.”

“I'm sure,” Bikker said. He wondered if he should tell his employer about Croy. But no. If the cabal thought Croy was a threat, they would take steps to slay the knight errant as a concerted front. Bikker didn't want that. He wanted Croy all to himself. So he held his tongue.

“Now. You know what you must do next? What your role is now?”

“Aye, I'll secure the crown. Get it to Hazoth's villa where it can be hidden.”

“Exactly. Get the crown from the thief—pay him whatever he asks, it doesn't matter.”

Bikker smiled. “Sure, since as soon as the crown is in my hands I can just kill the little fool and take the money back.”

“What? No, you mustn't kill the thief. You're already a wanted criminal after tonight's endeavors. It's still against the law in this city to kill a man, and I don't want Anselm Vry's watchmen to pick you up for such a minor infraction. Not while I still need you. No, just pay the thief and let him be.”

Bikker grunted in frustration. “This doesn't sit well with me. The thief knows too much, and he's hardly to be trusted. Leaving him alive is foolhardy.”

“Yes, I'm aware of it. Which is why Hazoth is going to kill him. No need to get your hands dirty when we have one of the world's greatest sorcerers on our side.”

“As you wish,” Bikker said. Though it still rankled him. Not because he thought Hazoth wouldn't do it. Because he had intended to give Malden—whom he had actually come to respect, after a fashion—a clean death. He could only imagine the particulars, but he was sure that what Hazoth did to the thief would be downright gruesome in comparison.

Chapter Thirty-One

C
roy and Cythera spent much of the night in furtive silence, as they wended their way from Castle Hill all the way down to Parkwall. The city watch was out in force and looking for them, and they had to take great pains to avoid capture.

Twice they came close to discovery. They had docked their little boat in the Smoke, in a place where two tanneries discharged the contents of their vats directly into the Skrait. Cythera thought the smell would keep the watch away and they could debark unseen. They nearly walked right into an armed guard who stood watching a pile of untanned hides that had just been delivered. The guard challenged them as they came up the riverside stairs, and they had to run as he chased them with a club. Croy could have made short work of the man, of course, but that would have just drawn more attention.

The second brush with the watch was more serious. They had arrived nearly at the edge of Ladypark Common, within sight of Hazoth's villa and the house where Croy was staying—only to find the grassy sward crawling with watchmen. The two of them retreated to a tavern a few streets away, where they were able to find out why the common was so heavily guarded. It transpired that a footpad had murdered the footman of a money-changer there earlier in the evening. It had been a particularly bloody killing, and the watch was called down in droves to find evidence and look for the assassin.

“They won't find him,” Cythera said, when she and Croy could speak privately again. “That was Bikker's work.”

“Are you sure?” Croy asked, looking as if he would grab his swords and run out into the night to find the big swordsman.

“No,” she said. “I can't prove anything. But he was supposed to set a number of diversions, all the better to keep the watch away from Castle Hill. I didn't think he'd be so . . . expedient about it.”

Croy settled down then. In his personal book of accounts, Bikker already had enough crimes under his name. One more didn't change how he felt.

They took a room at the tavern under assumed names and spent the night waiting for a knock on their door or the sound of hobnailed boots rushing down the hall. No one came to arrest them, though, or even to ask them difficult questions. When morning finally came it seemed they were safe. The patrols of the watch had diminished in size and frequency, and both of them began to breathe easier.

“I have to go back soon,” Cythera said as she led Croy through the Ladypark Market, a winding street of shops and stalls just uphill from Hazoth's villa. Fishmongers wheeled their carts from door to door—this early, the day's catch had not yet begun to stink—as linkboys hurried home to bed, to wait out the day until their services were again required. Minutes before, the two of them had had the place virtually to themselves, but now the city's throngs closed around them. Bakers and brewers were already at their stations, of course, long before the dawn. With the sun, the market truly came to life, however, filling with women getting their daily shopping done.

Croy found himself strangely unwilling to give up the heightened emotion of their night outrunning the watch. As fraught as it had been with apprehension, he'd savored the time with his lady fair. He supposed, though, that every night, no matter its freight of sweetness or of terror, must end. The morning had broken crisp and clear while they were renewing their old acquaintance—he had longed for the sun to tarry beneath the horizon, but alas, every day must follow in its course.

“If I'm late,” Cythera said, “Hazoth will want to know why. And he has a method of discerning falsehoods.”

“One that works, even on you?” Croy asked. “I thought you were immune to sorcery. Is his too strong for your curse to bear?”

She smiled without mirth. “There is no sorcerer in this world who could break through my curse. But Hazoth, well . . . not every trick he pulls is by magic,” she told him. “He's the cleverest man I've ever met.”

“Cleverer than me?” Croy asked with a hurt look.

“By far,” she said, and this time laughter creased the skin around her eyes. He was glad only that he could still bring her some small joy. There had been a time—a lifetime ago, it seemed—when he would cut capers and dance for her until she clapped her hand over her mouth to keep from guffawing like a fool. Now her aspect had changed for the morose.

“I didn't want to leave, back then,” he said with sudden seriousness. “The Burgrave was my liege lord. When he ordered me away, I had no choice.”

She did not reply. Instead she ducked inside a bakery and emerged again a moment later with a round loaf. When she cracked it open, steam burst from the spongy brown bread inside.

“When was the last time you ate?” she asked. “You were always so busy dashing hither and yon, you would forget to feed yourself. Don't pretend to me, now. I've learned some of my master's art and will see it in your eye.”

“I suppose it's been no more than a day,” he said, thinking of the almonds he'd eaten while he watched her go inside Hazoth's house the day before. He had to admit the bread was making his mouth water. “Not here, though. Let's break our fast properly.”

They found an inn that had just opened its doors, and for a piece of silver they were given a private room. The hostler looked askance at the shifting tattoos on Cythera's face but said nothing, nor was he slow in bringing wine and a half wheel of cheese when they called for them.

“Sit. There,” she said, and pointed at a bench by the room's sole table. Croy did as he was told. “Will you take a cup?” she asked, lifting the flagon.

“You don't need to serve me,” Croy said, and took it from her hands. His fingers touched hers—only the lightest, gentlest of meetings, but enough to make her wince and nearly drop the wine. Croy made as if he hadn't seen her fearful gesture. “You're not my slave. Nor my wife. Yet.”

“Oh, Croy, dreams are fine things, aren't they?” she said.

“Call it no dream. Say vision. Or prophecy.” He cut the bread and the cheese with his belt knife and handed her a slice of the former. She took it very carefully. He studied her face while she ate. The painted vines that curled around her cheekbones sprouted new leaves—and new thorns—while he watched. Around her throat they were as thick as a tangle of briars, with shadows deep and black between them. Once, he saw a pair of bestial eyes glowing in that darkness, but they winked out before he could meet their gaze.

He knew perfectly well what those images meant. Cythera's mother—a woman of fierce demeanor and considerable power—had placed this enchantment on her, that Cythera would never be harmed by curse or spell. Such magic could never penetrate further than the top layer of her skin. Yet that arcane energy must go somewhere, and thus manifested itself as these fell images. The curses lingered on her skin until such time that any man tried to attack her physically—and then they would be released, like a shock jumping from an iron door latch to one's finger in the winter, only with far more lethal results.

It was rare that a woman of Cythera's character was the object of a truly vile curse, though. When Croy had met her—back when he was still employed as the Burgrave's bodyguard—there was only a single tendril of curling vine then, and that disappeared up her sleeve. She might have gone a lifetime without acquiring much more in the way of images, had she not needed money. Penniless, with no skills to earn her keep, nor the willingness to prostitute herself, she had found employment where she could.

Hazoth had taken her into his service when she was still a girl. He made an amulet out of a lock of her hair, which extended the protection of her enchantment to himself. And a sorcerer like Hazoth attracted his fair share of curses—cast by his enemies, of which he had many. He compelled service from the demons of the pit. Such creatures liked not making such bargains, and once they were free of his influence, sent magic to destroy him, or to pull him down into the pit with them where they could torment him forever. Now Cythera bore the brunt of those curses. Since entering Hazoth's service, her collection of tattoos had grown denser with each day.

Cythera's skin crawled with magic, far too much for her to safely contain. Magic never stood still—it was pure action, pure energy, and it hated being bound or constrained. Her skin could hold an enormous magical potential but it had its limit, and once that maximum had been reached, the magic constantly sought to be discharged. The slightest jar, the most well-meaning touch, could release that magic instantly. If Croy grasped her hand in a fit of passion, if he crushed her lips with his own—it would be his end.

He had to admit it was going to make the wedding night complicated. But perhaps they could find a way to release her from her magical burden.

“Come away with me,” he said. “Tonight. Get away from the villa and meet me. We'll be on a ship, sailing for some pleasant southern beach before he even knows you've left him.”

“You think it's that simple?”

“I think it can be, if we choose it.”

She lowered her crust of bread to the table and looked at it very carefully, as if she could read the future there. Perhaps she could. “He would not allow it. I must be near him for our connection to work. He would grow wroth.”

“Let him pout! What harm can he do us? He wouldn't dare hurt you.”

“It's not myself I'm worried about,” she told him. She looked up into his eyes. Her own were untouched by magic images. They were clear and very honest, and brooked no falsehoods. “He has my mother under his thumb. Should he desire it, he could extinguish her life with a wave of one hand.” She reached toward his cheek but did not touch him, only mimed the gesture, her palm hovering a fraction of an inch above his skin. She'd had a long time to learn how not to touch other people. A very long time to live with no one touching her. “Oh, Croy. You should never have come back.”

He stood up quickly from the table, scattering the crumbs of cheese he'd been toying with. “You said you needed to report in. That it would mean trouble if you were late.”

“So I did,” she told him. She rose from the table and wrapped her cloak tightly around herself, furling it over her arms so her hands were safely inside the garment. “You can't escort me any further, of course, or he'll see us together.” She headed for the door, but turned before she slipped through it to take one last look at him. “Try to forget me. I'm lost, Croy.”

“You're enslaved. Which is exactly what your mother was trying to protect against when she enchanted you. Hazoth is precisely the kind of enemy she wanted to forestall. Yet now he uses her against you. You've been captured by him as easily as if he
had
used sorcery to compel you.” The words were harsher than he'd meant them to be. He had no right to speak to her like that, he thought, and shame burned in his cheeks.

“It's like I said,” she told him. “Not every trick he pulls is by magic.” And then she was gone.