Honor Among Thieves (9 page)
H
e made a point of saying no more until they reached the churchyard.
It was a gloomy place for men to sleep, even thieves. Yet the conscripts would have been disconsolate even if billeted in the courtly homes of the inner bailey. To a man they looked beaten and exhausted. While Malden was brought to his audience with the king, these men had spent the day training. Shouting serjeants had put them through endless paces, teaching them the basics of how to use a bill hook as a weapon or how to march and even run in heavy leather harness. The reward for all that hard work was that now they were chained together in groups of six so they could not run away, each given a bowl of thin pottage to eat, and then utterly ignored by their captors.
Malden supposed it was better than being hanged in a public square. He wondered how many of the groaning men would agree. Well, at least for one of them the future held a little more promise. He scanned the crowd among the graves until he found Velmont, his friend from his own previous confinement.
“That one,” he told Croy.
They approached the chained men, and Velmont looked up with half a smile when he saw Malden. Then he glanced down at the sword on Malden’s belt and his face fell. Malden realized he must be wondering if the man he’d spoken to while chained up in the banquet hall had in fact been an informer for the kingsmen. He had to admit that if their positions were reversed, he would have a hard time of trusting Velmont. “Just keep quiet, and this will go well for you,” he whispered.
“You had me good, didn’t you?” Velmont asked, ignoring what Malden had said. “All that talk o’ being brothers in the trade.”
“Be of good cheer, Velmont,” Malden told the man. “I’m not here to do you any harm.”
“You’re no thief, are you?” Velmont asked. He spat into the weeds between two graves. “What is it you want now, more o’ our secrets?”
“These others with you—are they part of your crew?” Malden asked.
“You want me to start giving up names? You’ll have to beat ’em out of me.”
“Listen to my proposal before you reject it,” Malden told him. He put his hand on the iron collar fastened around Velmont’s neck, but the thief jerked away from him. “I’m going to free you, you fool!”
“Oh, aye, free me from me mortal station, I’d reckon. With all I told ye . . . I gave out plenty enough to end up swingin’ from a rope.”
Croy bent to study the chains holding Velmont, and drew his belt knife to break the lock. Malden looked up and saw they’d been observed. The guards set to watch the conscripts had been huddled around a fire near the church, but now a serjeant in a rusted kettle hat came running toward them. He had a green and yellow ribbon wound around the brim of his helmet and a thick truncheon in his hand.
“Saving your grace, Sir Knight,” the man said, addressing Croy, “but may I ask exactly what you think you’re doing here?”
Malden’s hand dropped toward the hilt of Acidtongue, but Croy stepped in front of him and leaned close to the serjeant’s face. “The king’s work,” he said. His voice was hard—harder than Malden had ever heard it before. “I’ve been sent on this fool’s errand by Sir Hew himself, the Captain of the Guard. I want it done quickly so I can get back to more important things. Now, release these men.”
“But—they’re criminals!” the serjeant protested.
“They’re wanted at the keep for a special detail. We need laborers to oil and clean every piece of iron in the armory before morning. Of course, if you’d prefer, I can take you and your men instead.”
Malden’s jaw dropped. He’d never heard Croy talk to anyone with such an air of command—or threat. Nor had he ever heard Croy lie. He had thought the knight incapable of dissembling. It seemed that Croy had hidden depths.
The serjeant shook his head hurriedly. “No, no sir. I’ll fetch the keys.”
In short order Velmont and the five men he’d been chained with were free. The serjeant offered to bind their hands. “I don’t think that’s necessary,” Croy told him. “The two of us are armed well enough to control a half dozen dogs like this.”
“As you’d have it, sir,” the serjeant said. When he was dismissed, he went gratefully back to his fire, glad to have escaped Croy’s attention. There would be no more trouble from that quarter.
Malden and Croy led the six conscripts down an alley and around a corner before they spoke again. Croy clasped Malden’s hands and said, “It’s done. I’ll make sure Cythera is waiting for you at the inn, with full packs and some food. Malden, if the war goes poorly, or I am killed—”
“We’ll meet again,” Malden told him. “Get back before Sir Hew wonders where you’ve been.”
Croy nodded. “Lady speed you on your path,” he said, and hurried off into the night. Malden watched him go for a moment, then turned around to face the conscripts.
Before he could say a word to Velmont, however, a hand reached across his front and slipped the buckle of his belt. Acidtongue fell to the cobbles, and Malden, too surprised to think clearly, bent to retrieve it.
A stone came down on the back of his head, hard enough to send his brains spinning.
C
ythera stood by the window in their room at the inn, watching the street through a narrow gap in the shutters. It was near midnight, but the fortress city still rumbled with activity, and a fair amount of traffic still moved through the narrow lanes. Groups of men—soldiers, or simply men who had gathered together for security—hurried this way and that on errands, their heads down, their voices low, showing few lights. All of Helstrow was terrified of what was coming.
Coruth had tried to warn her of this, she was sure. Of the coming invasion and the war that would follow. Cythera tried to remember the words the boy had spoken in the alley, words sent across a hundred miles. Surely this was what Coruth had meant. The swords coming together, men brought low or carried to high station. What else could it mean?
A knock at the door startled her. She hurried across the room and reached for the latch, but hesitated before opening. Croy had been quite clear in his instructions, and for once she’d agreed with him. They could not be too careful now. The king was unwilling to let anyone leave Helstrow, whether or not they could fight. If his agents found out that she planned to escape, they would try to stop her. She did not call out to ask who was at the door, only waited a moment, her nerves jangling.
A second knock came after a short pause. And then a third right away. That was the signal.
She opened the door and saw Croy there. He pushed past her into the room without speaking. He held a pair of heavy packs, which he set down on the bed. “It’s done,” he whispered. “I can’t stay long.”
She nodded, understanding. The less said, the better. No one in Helstrow was sleeping now, and it was impossible to know who might hear them.
Croy lifted one hand as if he might touch her cheek. Instead his fingers moved to her lips. She blinked, unsure of what he was trying to communicate. “I’ll come to Ness as soon as I can,” he whispered. “If I can.”
Cythera closed her eyes. If he lived through the invasion, he meant.
She didn’t know if she’d ever truly loved Croy. When he asked for her hand in marriage, it seemed like a way to escape her father. Later it sounded like a grand adventure. Now she knew she could never be happy as his wife, that only Malden could give her the life she wanted.
Yet she had never doubted Croy’s love, or his kindness. He had been so good to her and her mother—she owed him far more than she could repay. And here she was, betraying him. She opened her mouth, absolutely convinced she had to tell him the truth. She would tell him everything about Malden. She would beg his forgiveness. It was the right thing to do.
“Don’t speak,” he told her. “Just listen. When we meet again we’ll get married, right away. I won’t worry about the banns, or about all the formalities and niceties. I’ll take you to the Ladychapel in whatever clothes we’re wearing, day or night. If we must, we’ll wake the priests and force them to perform the ceremony. I’ll kneel with you before the altar there and take your hand and it will be done. It will be forever.”
She had to tell him. It was unthinkable cruelty not to.
“I can see it in my mind’s eye, even now. The candles. The golden cornucopia above the altar. I can smell the incense. Yes,” he said, and he leaned forward to rest his forehead against hers. “Yes. That image is going to get me through anything that’s to come. I don’t care about the bloodshed. I don’t care about the danger. I will see only your face as you give yourself to me. As I give myself to you.”
“Croy,” she managed to say, though her voice cracked, “there’s something—”
He wasn’t finished, though. “I had a teacher once, a fencing master, who told me there were only two ways to ride into battle. You could go in expecting to die, but wanting to die honorably, and the Lady would favor you and you would live. Or you could go to war with a reason to survive, a reason to keep going—and the Lady would make sure you were victorious. He said the latter was always better. I’m going to fight for you, Cythera. I’m going to fight to make sure I get that moment in the Ladychapel.”
“You . . .” she said. “You should know that . . . you should . . .”
The words were there in her throat. She could no more have conjured them forth, though, than she could fly to the moon. She opened her eyes to look at him. Perhaps that would help her summon up the strength to do what was right.
There were tears on his cheeks, but he was smiling.
If she told him now, she would destroy him. It was wrong to keep this secret, all the same. She still felt that way. But it would have taken a saint to say the words, and Cythera knew she was no saint. So she did what a witch would do instead. What her mother would do.
“You’ll be a hero, then,” she told him. “You’ll be a champion of Skrae. What woman could resist that?”
He laughed, a sound of happiness in that dark hour. He kissed her on the cheek, and then he left her there. Hurried back out into the night, to do what he must.
When he was gone she shivered for a while, though she was not cold. Then she went back to the window to continue her vigil—this time waiting for Malden to come and take her away.
M
alden never actually lost consciousness, but between the pain in his head and the fact that he was shoved through the dark streets by a group of angry men who beat him every time he faltered, he had little idea where he was taken. He saw torches and doorways pass by, now was looking down at cobblestones, now up at an empty, cold sky. He was bounced down a flight of stairs and thrown onto a surface of packed earth in a place that smelled of old mildew. He was turned on his side and saw a wall of stone, crisscrossed with the glittering tracks of snails.
And then a bucket of stagnant water was dumped across his face, and he fought and spluttered and shouted as he desperately tried to sit up. The wooden bucket bounced off his shoulder and he drew back in fresh pain.
But suddenly he could think clearly again. He could hear many men grumbling all around him and see them silhouetted against a fire at the far side of the room.
He could hear their voices just fine.
“Slit his throat. Bury him down here, aye. But what of his fuckin’ sword? Can’t sell that, any fence’d know it for a Ancient Blade, jus’ lookin’ at it. And then we’d have every bleedin’ kingsman in town down here, wantin’ to ask questions and crack heads.”
“I say we cut off his fingers and toes, till he tells us who he really is.”
“And I say—and my word is law, yeah?—I say, we don’t got much time till that knight comes lookin’ for him. So we settle this now, we do it quiet, and we all find someplace else to be till it blows o’er.”
There were more grumbling protests, but the voices never grew too loud. And then a man with a knife no longer than his thumb came toward Malden, his free hand out to grab his hair and pull his head back. The size of the knife was not reassuring. They were going to cut his throat. It didn’t take a very big knife to slash a man’s windpipe.
Malden scuttled backward until his back hit a wall. He was out of options. “Don’t you lot practice the ancient custom of sanctuary?” he demanded.
The man with the knife stopped where he was.
A much bigger man, with a head as bald and round as the moon, came stomping forward. “What’re you talkin’ about?” he demanded.
“I’m assuming that Velmont brought me to the local guild of thieves. I very much hope I’m not mistaken. In Ness, where Cutbill runs the guild, we practice the custom of sanctuary. Any thief, no matter where he’s from, can demand the right to hide out in one of our safe houses, and he cannot be denied. As long as his dues are paid up.”
The man with the knife turned to face the bald one. In silhouette, Malden could tell it was Velmont who’d been about to slit his throat.
“He’s speakin’ true, boss,” Velmont said.
“Aye, save for one thing. Sanctuary’s for thieves. And you ain’t no thief, kingsman. Now be quiet while we murther you.”
“Velmont,” Malden insisted, “tell them. You and I spoke of many things this morning. Things only a thief would know. And tonight, after I’d engineered my own escape, I came back for you. If all I wanted was to make trouble for you, why would I loose your chains? Why would I be so stupid as to put myself in your power? I’m no kingsman! I’m just a thief, like you.”
Velmont lowered his knife hand but he didn’t back off. “I saw that man you were with. For a thief, you’ve got some pretty funny friends.”
“I tricked that knight into helping me,” Malden told him. “I stole that sword and everyone just assumed I was one of them.” That made a certain degree of sense. No man in Skrae who fell below the class of freeholder was allowed by law to even touch a sword. Wearing one on your hip would automatically convince a lot of people you were of a certain social level and deserving of a certain level of trust. “It was a long shot, but it was my only chance of getting out of the fortress alive.”
“But e’en then, why would some blasted knight help the likes o’ you?” the boss inquired.
“Because he wanted someone to smuggle his betrothed out of here, before the fighting starts. A woman named Cythera.”
The thieves looked at each other skeptically. There was some grumbling, but the boss cut it off with a gesture.
“A woman, I might add,” Malden went on, “who I’ve already swived.”
Laughter erupted among the gathered thieves of Helstrow. The boss tried to silence it, but every thief enjoyed a good jest at the expense of a landed knight. By besmirching Cythera’s honor—though not by lying—Malden had just scored a point with the crew.
He needed to win over their leader, though. The boss went to one corner of the room where a thickly recessed window was set into the wall very close to the ceiling. They must be in a cellar, Malden realized. Probably beneath a tavern or a gambling hall. The boss stared up through the window as if expecting to see a kingsman staring back down at him. Then he hobbled back over to Malden, who saw that he had a wooden leg. It would be difficult to convince a man like that to take a journey of a hundred miles on foot. Yet that was exactly what he needed to do.
“I need to get out of here. Tonight, with the woman. I’ll pay handsomely to anyone who can help me with that,” Malden said softly.
He knew that in Ness the possibility of money changing hands never failed to get a thief’s attention. The Helstrovian crew seemed no different.
“The walls are sealed,” Malden went on. “And I’m a stranger here. I don’t know the secret ways of this place. But the man who does could be very rich once I’m free.”
“Mayhap I know a way out,” Velmont said.
“Shut it, Vellie!” the boss thundered. “I’ll hear no more o’—”
“Ye’ll hear what I have to say, by the Bloodgod’s guts,” Velmont shot back. “If there’s silver to be had—or at very least, the promise o’ silver—I’m listening.”
Malden nodded. He had no money to give these thieves, not now. But at least they’d stopped talking of slitting his throat. It also sounded like there was still a chance at escape. He’d hoped for this—that Velmont or his organization would have some secret route out of the fortress. “I’m glad to hear it. Maybe it’s good for you as well. Maybe you should come with me when I leave. By tomorrow it’ll be too late. Every one of you will be conscripted. Forced to fight. And believe me—you don’t want to face what’s coming for you. The barbarians are only ten days from the river, and coming fast.”
“Barbarians?” one of the thieves asked, and suddenly the clamor in the cellar made Malden’s ears hurt. He realized with a start that the thieves had no idea why their king was girding for war. Most likely no one had bothered to inform the populace of the news from the East. “How many of ’em? Are they on horseback? I’ve heard they got witches that can curdle a man’s blood with one nasty look!”
“There’s still time for all of us to flee,” Malden said. “It must be tonight, though. If we do it now, we’re refugees. If we do it tomorrow, we’re deserters, and they hang deserters,” he pointed out.
“Why don’t you just tell me where your lady’s at,” the boss said to him. “I’ll make sure she gets where she oughta be, eh?”
“Do you think me such a fool? I leave with her—and any of you that want to come. Any of you who want to live through the next fortnight, that is.” Malden shook his head. “The barbarians are fearsome enemies. Some of them paint their faces red, to show they’ve drunk human blood. Their women paint their faces like skulls, because they say it’s the only way to get the men to kiss them. Come with me, now, and we’ll travel together to Ness. There, Cutbill will grant you more than sanctuary. He’ll make you full members in our guild. He’ll shower you with gold.”
Malden was barely aware of everything he was saying and all the promises he’d made. He would have said anything to get the thieves on his side.
“Listen, boss,” Velmont said, “I think he’s tellin’ the truth—”
“I didn’t ask for your opinion, Vellie,” the boss told the thief. “It’s my decision to make. And I say we stay put.”
The crowd of thieves fell silent. Dead silent. Malden felt the blood in his veins jumping as his heart sped in his chest.
“I lived right here me whole life, and I ain’t runnin’ now,” the boss said. “War’s good for our kind. They send all the kingsmen out to fight, and leave us here, alone with all the pickin’s. No, we’re not leavin’. And if he won’t tell me where this lady is, and this knight’s pile o’ gold, I’ll find ’em me own way. Now. I believe I told you once already. Cut ’im.”
Velmont looked down at the knife in his hand.
“Sorry ’bout this, but it’s hard times,” he said.
Malden flattened himself against the wall. There was no escape.
Then Velmont took a step to the side—and slashed his knife across the throat of his boss. Blood flew from the wound and misted the far wall, as bright as the snail tracks there. The boss clutched at his neck but made no sound whatsoever as he collapsed. The other thieves drew back in terror, pressing themselves up against the far wall. They didn’t shout or make a peep of surprise or fear, though. These were men who’d seen murder before, men who knew when to keep silent. For a while the only noise in the cellar was the drumming of the boss’s wooden leg on the earthen floor. Eventually that, too, stopped.
Velmont turned to face his fellow thieves, gory knife still in hand. “He was a good boss, in ’is way, but he was gonna get us all killed. I’m sidin’ with the fella that wants to save our skins. Any man of you have a problem with that?” he demanded.
His question evoked more silence.
“Good.” He put his knife away. Then he bent down to offer Malden a hand up. “Now. Let’s talk about how I expect to get us all out o’ Helstrow, without marchin’ us through the front door.”