Den of Thieves (9 page)

Chapter Sixteen

C
roy hated subterfuge, but sometimes the direct approach was just not appropriate. For instance, when one needs to recover one's property from a locked room inside the palace, and one is under an order of execution, it behooves one to act in a clandestine fashion.

So instead of marching up to the Burgrave's door and asking politely, he had come to this. Masquerading as the lover of a lady-in-waiting, and then sneaking into the most secure room in the city.

“I have the key here, somewhere on my person,” Lady Hilde said, and placed a hand on the bodice of her gown. She seemed to be breathing very hard and her eyes were wide as she stared into Croy's face. “It wasn't easy to get, you know. I had to wait until the castellan fell asleep at his desk. Luckily for you he's so old and decrepit, he didn't wake up even when I took it from his belt. But now—where did I put it?”

He supposed she might be frightened. It was an understandable emotion. They were inside the Burgrave's counting house, a place no one of any rank was permitted to enter after it was locked up for the night. Even by day only the castellan and the bailiff had keys to the place. It was so secure that the castellan hadn't bothered posting guards out front—after all, anyone approaching it from the courtyard would have had to pass dozens of guards already.

Of course, if you had access to one of the Burgravine's ladies-in-waiting, and she was willing to do you a favor, there weren't a lot of places in Ness that were off-limits. Croy felt distinctly uneasy about what he was doing. This was very much counter to his moral code, and he was a man for whom ethics meant everything. Still, he was able to assuage his conscience a bit. He wasn't hear to steal—he was no thief. He had only come here to recover that which belonged to him. That which he was pledged to honor and uphold, in fact: the sword he counted as his soul.

The counting house was built into the wall that surrounded the palace grounds, and had to be the most secure structure in the Free City, because it was where the Burgrave kept his gold when he wasn't spending it. It was a vast trove, stuffed full of bags of coin, coffers overflowing with silver plate, great heaps of gems, and the jewelry of Ommen Tarness's wife, the Burgravine.

None of which was what Croy had come for. His swords had been taken from him when he was arrested, and brought here, placed with the most important relics and treasures of the Free City of Ness. Just behind the locked door he faced. Hilde had claimed she could get the key for him only if he brought her inside with him so she could see the treasures for herself. Lacking a better plan, he had agreed.

“I seem to be having trouble finding the key,” she told him. “Perhaps you can help me look?”

He knelt with his lamp and looked around the floor at her feet.

“No, you foolish man,” she said. “It's somewhere in my dress.”

He opened his mouth to speak, and then found he could not close it again. Hilde was unlacing her corset. “Well? You were so handsome yesterday in Market Square, Croy. So dashing. It made my knees tremble. And other parts of me as well. Of course, it might just be that I haven't had a man all year. My mistress keeps me so busy. Maybe if the Burgrave could perform better his own husbandly duties, I could slip away more often. Oh, no, that's exactly where I want you,” she said, as he began to rise to his feet. She giggled and put a finger on his shoulder, pressing him back down to a kneeling posture.

“Milady,” he said, jumping up, “I fear I misheard you.”

Hilde rolled her eyes. “Don't tell me you're one of those men who doesn't know what to do with a naked woman.” She twitched her shoulders and her kirtle fell to the floor. Underneath it she was wearing nothing but a chemise and knee-length hose.

Croy blushed and averted his eyes. “Milady, I would never spurn, ah, true affection from your quarter, but . . . my heart belongs to another.”

“You're . . . serious.”

He bowed his head and tried to keep his thoughts pure. It was not easy with Hilde's underthings rustling so close to his face.

“Here,” she said, and pressed a long iron key into his hand. “Do what you have to, while I put all this back on. I have no idea how I'm going to lace up this corset without a big, strong man to help, but—oh, never mind.”

“Thank you,” Croy said, and quickly opened the locked door. Beyond was a tiny room with a barred window. For a split second he thought he saw a shoe outside the bars, but that was quite impossible—outside that window would be a sheer drop to the river Skrait, more than a hundred feet down. He turned to look around the room, expecting to have to search high and low for his swords.

In fact, they were the only things present. Where were the religious relics the Burgrave was required to parade through the streets every Ladymas? Where the city's charter, for that matter? Perhaps they'd gone to the same place as the city's gold reserves. The swords lay perfectly alone on a shelf below the window, two long blades in shagreen scabbards. They were all he'd brought with him when he returned to the Free City. He hung them in their proper places on his baldric and stepped back out of the room.

Hilde waited for him near the door, tapping her foot with impatience. “Come along,” she said. “I'll take you through the kitchens so no one sees you. Though it would probably do my reputation some good to be seen in connection with you.”

“I'm a wanted criminal,” he protested.

“You don't understand this city at all, do you?” she asked. “Surely you—”

A high-pitched scream of terror and pain split the darkness outside the door. Croy leaned over Hilde's shoulder to look out into the courtyard just in time to see a man of the city watch come staggering through the main palace gate. A dark stain spread across his cloak-of-eyes as he clutched at an arrow sticking in his side. Before he'd taken a dozen steps he collapsed face first onto the flagstones.

A second scream followed close, and a guard toppled from the battlements of the palace wall. An arrow had pierced him through the neck.

“Murder!” someone shouted. “Murder!” And then an alarm bell started to ring, high-pitched and wild.

Chapter Seventeen

M
alden listened to the clamor beyond the wall for only a moment, then scurried up over the last twenty feet of bricks faster than a spider. He slipped over the crenellations at the top of the wall and found himself on a broad walkway. No guards were in sight. He crept to the far side of the wall and peered through an embrasure, down into the courtyard.

Castle Hill was the residence of the Burgrave and the seat of his administrative functions. It was also a fortress, a keep designed to forestall any invading horde. Within its walls stood the garrison where the Burgrave's personal retinue of soldiers lived, and the central Watch Hall from which the bailiff's civic guardians were dispatched. Both these structures were alive with light now as men in various states of uniform dress came pouring out of their gates to fill the broad courtyard and parade ground. There was a great deal of shouting and confusion, and knots of watchmen in their cloaks-of-eyes were gathered around two bodies that lay lifeless in the grass. A klaxon bell rang with a deafening strident tone. Meanwhile, a detachment of soldiers were storming up and around the walls and towers on the far side of the hill, over where it looked down on Market Square. They were thrusting torches into every shadow, stabbing their iron swords into troughs and haylofts, looking for whoever had shot the two men with arrows.

What, in the Bloodgod's name, had Bikker done? He'd killed two men in cold blood—just to create a moment of chaos.

Of course, Malden had to admit it made a most excellent diversion. Not a single soldier or watch man remained in the northern half of the courtyard. The counting house, the Burgrave's private chapel, and the kitchens were all deserted. So was the palace.

This last was a tall, el-shaped structure made of quarried stone elegantly carved and pierced on its lower level with many arches and broad windows of fine glass. It was airy and light and held up with slender flying buttresses, topped with gargoyles and peaked gables. Even the Ladychapel, the great church that stood across Market Square, was not so delicate in appearance nor more refined in ornament. The palace was a masterpiece of architectural skill. One determined barbarian with a sledgehammer could probably bring it crashing down. It was built around a much older and more sturdy structure that looked like a wart on the face of a princess.

Malden surmised that the tower at the end of the el shape probably supported most of the palace's weight. It stood five stories high and he guessed that its walls were five feet thick, pierced only by a few narrow arrow-slits. This was the original holdfast of Castle Hill's first inhabitants, where the first few settlers had fled whenever the elves came a-raiding. It had stood up against those bloodthirsty devils and the dwarves who came after them (back when the dwarves still had some fight in them), and even the human barbarians who scourged Skrae three hundred years ago, back before King Garwulf the Merciful had swept their tribes across the mountains far to the east. It stood as strong as it had ever been, and was still the highest structure in the Free City.

The tower was where he happened to be headed that night. He was going to break into it, when elves, dwarves, and barbarians had never been able to. Of course, back then the palace hadn't been there. It looked like an anemic toddler could break into that airy confection.

The palace stood about thirty feet clear of the wall, separated from Malden's perch by a wide patch of manicured garden. It was that gap he needed to cross.

He ran along the top of the wall to where he could stand directly opposite the palace roof. He took a moment to reverse his cloak so its darker side was outward, then took one of Slag's tools from his belt. It was a grappling hook made in two parts joined by a central hinge. Folded, it could lie flat on his hip, but when he opened its arms fully the two parts locked into place. The prongs were wrapped in padded leather so that when it connected with stone, the hook would not clang or rattle, but make no more sound than a dull thud.

Of course, with the alarm claxon sounding and the shouts of the men in the courtyard, Malden thought it unlikely that he would be heard if he were beating a drum. But it never hurt to be quiet.

He paid out a long double length of rope through the ring in the grapple's haft, then started to swing it back and forth. When he had the momentum right, he made his toss and watched it arc through the moonlight to kiss the palace roof. It slid for a while, then came to a stop.

Slowly, he drew it back to him by tugging on the doubled rope, twitching it now and again to try to get the hook to catch on a chimney pot or the leg of a gargoyle. The best purchase it found was in the join between two lead roof tiles. It wasn't as secure as he might have liked, but he thought it would hold his weight. Though he tugged and yanked at the rope to make sure, there was only one way to test the grapple's hold. He took the two ends of the rope and tied them tight around the nearest crenellation of the wall. Then he climbed out onto the rope—and hung from it like a monkey, crossing his legs around it and holding on with both hands so his back dangled toward the Burgrave's rose garden, twenty feet below.

The rope sagged a bit but held. Malden exhaled all the air in his lungs. He made his way across hand over hand, sliding his feet forward as he went. In short order he was able to clamber up onto the roof of the palace, where he waited a moment for his heart to stop racing. Then he recovered his grapple and his rope. By doubling the line and tying it off, he'd made a very long loop and was able to pull on one side of the rope until the knot came to his hands. It was a simple matter to untie the knot, then draw the whole rope toward him until he could coil it around his waist. He would have much preferred to leave it in place, and thus have a ready escape route, but couldn't dare leave it where it might be discovered. Looking down into the courtyard, he could see that the soldiers were already extending their search to the northern part of the fortress—it would not be long before they came to search the wall where he had just been.

The diversion had served its purpose well enough. Yet now it was having the opposite effect. Before Bikker started peppering the place with arrows, probably the bulk of the guards had been asleep or otherwise distracted. Now every man in the palace grounds was wide-awake and looking for a furtive trespasser. Malden knew that if they caught him, they would assume he was the phantom bowman—and would kill him before he could even speak in his defense. He cursed Bikker under his breath. Getting in had been easy enough: all told, simply a matter of the strength in his fingers and a little talent at throwing a hook. Getting out would be a great deal harder.

He might as well make it worth his while. Just below him, on the top floor of the palace, a balcony projected from the wall. He could see no lights down there, so he dropped easily to the railing, then pushed open the doors and darted inside.

Chapter Eighteen

M
alden found himself in a small bedroom that looked like it belonged to a lady-in-waiting, with a canopied bed and a large clothing chest. Rushes were strewn on the floor and perfume had been sprinkled around liberally to hide any odors. There was no one inside, so he hurried to the door and pressed his ear against the keyhole. When he was sure no one was patrolling the corridor outside, he slipped out the door and down a hallway lit with oil lamps.

Cythera had told him that what he sought was in the tower, on the same level as this top floor of the palace. “It is in a room that once served as the first Burgrave's bedchamber. It is placed there every night while the current Burgrave sleeps. Beware: it will be guarded well.” One layer of its defense, at least, had been removed. Malden imagined that normally this hallway would have been full of soldiers, but Bikker's diversion had drawn them to the courtyard.

“They'll be away from their posts, but don't think that's the only way to guard a treasure. Men at arms are too easily overcome. Walls can be climbed, and locks picked. The Burgrave knows as much. So he'll have other defenses waiting for you.”

He had paid close attention to her words. Now, he kept his eyelids stretched as he hurried down the corridor and around the el of the building, into the wing that led to the tower room. As he approached the door at its end he was already unraveling the grip of his bodkin and removing his picks and wrenches. A lock with a dead bolt had been built into the massive iron-bound door, but it gave him little trouble.

“Will there be spells on it, enchantments of protection?” he had asked.

“Unlikely. Magic is too unreliable under the best of circumstances. Not to mention expensive to maintain. No, it is not the handiwork of enchanters you need fear. It is the work of dwarves.”

Beyond the door lay a corridor perhaps twenty-five feet long. Tall windows stood every ten feet or so down its length, and moonlight spilled in to form pools of silver on the wooden floor. Between each patch of light lay impenetrable shadows. It was as if the hall were one column of a game board with alternating spaces of light and dark.

“I cannot tell you what traps you may find,” Cythera had said. “I can only tell you to beware any room that seems unused. The palace is a busy and a crowded place, so dust on a floor, or rooms that seem completely empty, are avoided for a reason.”

There were no doors leading off the moonlit corridor, nor any furniture within it. At its far end he could just see the glint of something metallic. Malden stayed outside, beyond the door, and pondered what lay before him. No dust lay on the floor here, at least none he could see in the pale light. Yet there was a sense about the corridor, a feeling of distinct absence he couldn't quite explain. It didn't have the feel of a place that was used often. Ness was an old city, overcrowded even in its infancy. Every stone had been touched by a million hands over the years, every wall brushed by clothing until it was smooth and worn. This hallway, in contrast, looked as if it had been just constructed—by skilled and masterful hands.

Which of course was the hallmark of a dwarf's handiwork. Yes. This was the place.

Cythera had been quite clear. “There are more than three score dwarves living in this city. Their services are sought by all the wealthiest citizens, for they alone can build the cunning devices which are proof against thieves and murderers in the night. A human engineer might devise these fiendish pitfalls, but only a dwarf could build them. The Burgrave will have employed the services of the best among them, and the traps he has laid will be of unusual cunning and danger.”

Well, he had a dwarf on his side, as well. Slag had raised an eyebrow when told what he required, but then, for the first time, Cutbill's dwarf had looked at him with something other than disdain. It wasn't exactly respect he had seen glowing in the dwarf's eyes, but it was at least an acceptance that he wasn't a complete fool.

Malden reached into a pouch at his belt and took out a lead ball wrapped in leather. It was as heavy as a cobblestone in his hand. With an underhand motion he rolled the ball down the hallway, then quickly took a step back from the doorway.

For a moment he felt quite foolish, like a boy playing games in an alley. The ball rolled merrily along through the first pool of moonlight, then disappeared into the darkness beyond.

Malden's heart pounded, however, when a moment later a portcullis gate crashed down from the ceiling, right where his leaden ball was rolling. Six long bars of iron crashed down and smashed into the floor.

He did not so much as breathe as he watched them slowly retract back into the ceiling. There was the ratcheting sound of a spring reloading itself, and then a click as the portcullis snapped back into place.

He peered through the half-dark hallway. The leaden ball he'd rolled was pierced right through its middle, nearly cleaved in two by one of the falling iron spears. Its end must have been razor sharp.

He took another ball from his pouch and threw it with a little more force this time, lofting it so it landed in the midst of the second pool of moonlight. It bounced once, without triggering anything, then rolled into another patch of shadow. A second portcullis identical to the first crashed down, jarring his senses.

“There will be a way through,” Cythera had told him. “Every night the castellan must bring the treasure to the tower room, and every morning he must recover it. For his convenience, the route must not be impossible, nor even onerous. If you know the trick of it, it should be quite easy to make your way through the traps.”

And now Malden thought he had the lay of the thing. The floor was rigged, designed to register any amount of weight that fell on it, but only in the dark sections. Those touched by moonlight would be safe. He got a good run-up, then jumped into the hallway, bounding from one pool of light to the next, careful to never let his feet touch any patch of shadow. One leap, two—he was feeling very pleased with himself for figuring it out—a third leap, directly to the final pool of moonlight at the corridor's end. And that was when he remembered something else Cythera had said.

“These traps are not made to be circumvented, they are made to kill thieves. The dwarf who designs them will know what you are thinking, and will find ways to confound your logic, to surprise you when you least expect it.”

Despite heeding her advice in all other things, he was still not ready when his feet came down on the final pool of moonlight—and the floor gave way. A trapdoor there had been set to hinge open when any weight fell on it, and though Malden was slender and short of stature, he was more than heavy enough to trigger it.