Sharp Ends: Stories from the World of The First Law (4 page)

‘Morning, Shevedieh,’ said Crandall. He was trouble of an altogether less pleasant variety. A rat-faced little nothing, thin at the shoulders and slender in the wits, pink at the eyes and runny at the nose, but he was Horald the Finger’s son, and that made him a whole lot of something in this town. A rat-faced little nothing with power he hadn’t earned, which made him tetchy brutal, and prickly spiteful, and jealous of anything anyone had that he didn’t. And everyone had something he didn’t, even if it was just talent, or looks, or a shred of self-respect.

Shev hitched that professional smile back up though it was hard to think of anyone she wanted less in her place. ‘Morning, Crandall. Morning, Mason.’

Mason ducked in just behind his boss. Or his boss’s son, anyway. He was one of Horald’s boys from way back, broad face criss-crossed with scars, ears all cauliflowered up and a nose so often broken it was shapeless as a turnip. He was as hard a bastard as you’d find anywhere in Westport, where hard bastards were in plentiful supply. He looked over at Shev, still stooping on account of his towering frame and the low ceiling, and gave an apologetic twitch of the mouth. As if to say,
Sorry, but none of this is up to me. It’s up to this fool.

The fool in question was peering at Shev’s Prayer Bells, and without bending down, mouth all twisted with contempt. ‘What’s these? Bells?’

‘Prayer Bells,’ said Shev. ‘From Thond.’ She tried to keep her voice calm as three more men crowded past Mason into her place, trying to look dangerous but finding the room too tight for anything but uncomfortable. One had a face all pocked from old boils and eyes bulging right out, another had a leather coat far too big for him, got tangled with a curtain and near tore it down thrashing it away, and the last had his hands shoved deep in his pockets and a look that said he had knives in there. No doubt he did.

Shev doubted she’d ever had so many folk in her place at once. Sadly, they weren’t paying. She glanced at Severard, saw him shifting nervously, licking his lips, held out her palm to say,
Calm, calm
, though she had to admit she wasn’t feeling too calm herself.

‘Didn’t think you’d be much for prayer,’ said Crandall, wrinkling his nose at the bells.

‘I’m not,’ said Shev. ‘I just like the bells. They lend the place a spiritual quality. You want a smoke?’

‘No, and if I did I wouldn’t come to a shit-hole like this.’

There was a silence, then the pock-faced one leaned towards her. ‘He said it’s a shit-hole!’

‘I heard him,’ said Shev. ‘Sound carries in a room small as this one. And I’m well aware it’s a shit-hole. I’ve got plans to improve it.’

Crandall smiled. ‘You’ve always got plans, Shev. They never come to nothing.’

True enough, and mostly on account of bastards like this. ‘Maybe my luck’ll change,’ said Shev. ‘What do you want?’

‘I want something stolen. Why else would I come to a thief?’

‘I’m not a thief any more.’

‘Course you are. You’re just a thief playing at running a shit-hole Smoke House. And you owe me.’

‘What do I owe you for?’

Crandall’s face twisted in a vicious grin. ‘For every day you don’t have a pair o’ broken legs.’ Shev swallowed. Seemed he’d somehow managed to become more of a bastard than ever.

Mason’s deep voice rumbled out, soft and calming. ‘It’s just a waste is what it is. Westport has lost a hell of a thief and gained a very average husk-seller. How old are you? Nineteen?’

‘Twenty-one.’ Though she sometimes felt a hundred. ‘I’m blessed with a youthful glow.’

‘Still far too young to retire.’

‘I’m about the right age,’ said Shev. ‘Still alive.’

‘That could change,’ said Crandall, stepping close. As close to Shev as Carcolf had been and a very great deal less welcome.

‘Give the lady some room,’ said Severard, lip stuck out defiantly.

Crandall snorted. ‘Lady? Are you fucking serious, boy?’

Shev saw Severard had that stick of hers behind his back. Nice length of wood, it was, just the right weight for knocking someone on the head. But the very last thing she needed was him swinging that stick at Crandall. He’d be carrying it up his arse by the time Mason was through with him.

‘Why don’t you go out back and sweep the yard?’ said Shev.

Severard looked at her, jaw all set for action, the fool. God, maybe he was in love with her. ‘I don’t want—’

‘Go out back. I’ll be fine.’

He swallowed, shot the heavies one more glance, then slid out.

Shev gave a sharp whistle, brought all the hard eyes back to her. She knew well enough what having no choice looked like. ‘This thing you want. If I steal it, is that the last of it?’

Crandall shrugged. ‘Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t. Depends whether I want something stolen again, don’t it?’

‘Whether your daddy does, you mean.’

Crandall’s eye twitched. He didn’t like being reminded he was just a little prick in his daddy’s big shadow. But Shev was always saying the wrong thing. Or the right thing at the wrong time. Or the right thing at the right time to the wrong person, maybe.

‘You’ll do as you’re told, you little gash-licking bitch,’ he spat in her face, ‘or I’ll burn your shit-hole down with you in it. And your fucking Prayer Bells, too!’

Mason gave a disgusted sigh, scarred cheeks puffed out. As if to say,
He’s a rat-faced little nothing, but what can I do?

Shev stared at Crandall. Damn, but she wanted to butt him in the face. Wanted to with all her being. She’d had bastards like this kicking her around her whole life. Almost be worth it to kick back just once. But she knew all she could do was smile. If she hurt Crandall, Mason would hurt her ten times as bad. He wouldn’t like it, but he’d do it. He made a living doing things he didn’t like. Didn’t they all?

Shev swallowed. Tried to make her fury look like fear. The deck was always stacked against folk like her.

‘Guess I haven’t got a choice.’

Crandall blasted her with shitty breath as he smiled. ‘Who does?’

Never consider the ground, that’s the trick to it.

Shev straddled the slimy angle of the roof, broken tiles jabbing her in the groin as she inched along, thinking about how much she’d rather be straddling Carcolf. Down in the busy street to her right some drunk idiots were haw-hawing way too loud over a joke, someone else blabbering in Suljuk which Shev didn’t understand more than one word in thirty of. Down in the empty alleyway on her left it seemed quiet, though.

She inched to the chimney, keeping low, just a shadow in the darkness, slipped the loop of her rope over it. Looked solid enough but she gave a good heave to check. Varini used to tell her she weighed two-thirds of nothing but even so she’d almost dragged a chimney clean off once and would’ve taken a tumble into the street with half a ton of masonry on her head if not for a luckily placed windowsill.

Careful, careful, that’s the trick, but a healthy streak of good luck doesn’t hurt, either.

Her heart was pounding now and she took a long breath and tried to settle it. Out of practice was all. She was the best thief in Westport, that was well known. That was why they wouldn’t let her stop. Why
she
wouldn’t let her stop. That was her blessing and her curse.

‘Best thief in Westport,’ she muttered to herself and slid down the rope to the edge of the roof, peering over. She could see the two guards flanking the doorway, lamplight gleaming on their helmets.

About the right time, and she heard the whores’ voices, shrill and angry. Saw the guards’ heads turn. More shrieking, and she caught the briefest glimpse of the women struggling before they went down in the gutter. The guards were drifting down the alleyway to watch and Shev smiled to herself. Those girls put on a hell of a show for a couple of silvers.

Seize your moment, that’s the trick to it.

In a twinkling she swung over the eaves, down the rope and in through the window. It had only taken a few coppers to get the maid to leave the shutters off the latch. She pulled them to as she dropped onto the other side. Someone was on their way down the stairs, a light tread, unhurried, but Shev was taking no chances. She nipped to the candle and pinched it out with her gloved fingers, sank the corridor into comfortable darkness.

The rope would still be dangling but there wasn’t much to do about that. Couldn’t afford a partner to hoist it back up. Have to hope she was long gone by the time they noticed.

In and out quick, that’s the trick to it.

She could still hear the whores screeching in the street, no doubt having attracted quite the crowd by now, folk betting on the outcome and everything. There’s something about women fighting that men can never seem to take their eyes away from. Specially if the women in question aren’t wearing much. Shev hooked a finger in her collar and dragged a bit of air in, squashing a stray instinct to go and take a peek herself, and padded softly down the corridor to the third door, already slipping out her picks.

It was a damn good lock. Most thieves wouldn’t have even bothered with it. Would’ve moved along to something easier. But Shev wasn’t most thieves. She shut her eyes, and touched the tip of her tongue to her top lip, and slid her picks inside, and started to work the lock. It only took her a few moments to tease out the innards of it, to tickle the tumblers her way. It gave a little metal gasp as it opened up for her, and Shev slipped her tongue and her picks away, eased the knob around – though she was a lot less interested in knobs than locks, being honest – worked the door open a crack and slipped through just as she heard the boots on the stairs, and felt herself grinning in the darkness.

She hadn’t wanted to admit it, least of all to herself, but God, she’d missed this. The fear. The excitement. The stakes. The thrill of taking what wasn’t hers. The thrill of knowing how damn good she was at it.

‘Best fucking thief in Westport,’ she mouthed and eased over to the table. The satchel was where Crandall had said it’d be, and she slipped the strap over her shoulder in blissful, velvet silence. Everything just the way she’d planned.

Shev turned back towards the door and a board creaked under her heel.

A woman sat bolt upright in the bed. A woman in a pale nightdress, staring straight at her.

There wasn’t supposed to be anyone in here.

Shev raised her gloved hand. ‘This is nothing like it looks—’

The woman let go the most piercing scream Shev ever heard in her life.

Cleverness, caution and plans will only get a thief so far. Then luck’s a treacherous bitch and won’t always play along, so boldness will have to take you the rest of the way. Shev raced to the window, raised her black boot and gave the shutters an almighty kick, splintering the latch, and sent them shuddering open as the woman heaved in a whooping breath.

A square of night sky. The second storey of the buildings across the way. She caught a glimpse of a man with his head in his hands through the window directly opposite. She thought about how far down it was and made herself stop. You can’t think about the ground. The woman let blast another bladder-loosening scream. Shev heard the door wrenched wide, guards yelling. She jumped through.

Wind tugged, flapped at her clothes, that lurching in her stomach as she started to fall. Like doing the high drop when she was tumbling with that travelling show, hands straining to catch Varini’s. The reassuring smack of her palms into his and the puff of chalk as he whisked her up to safety. Every time. Every time but that last time when he’d had a drink too many and the ground had caught her instead.

She let it happen. Once you’re falling, you can’t fight it. There’s an urge to flail and struggle but the air won’t help you. No one will. No one ever will, in her experience.

With a teeth-rattling thud she dropped straight into the wagon of fleeces she’d paid Jens to leave under the window. He looked suitably amazed to see her floundering out from his cargo, dragging the satchel after her and scurrying across the street, weaving between the people and into the darkness between the ale-shop and the ostler’s, the shouting fading behind her.

She reeled against the wall, gripping at her side, growling with each breath and trying not to cry out. Rim of the cart had caught her in the ribs and from the sick pain and the way her head was spinning she reckoned at least one was broken, probably a few more.

‘Fucking ouch,’ she forced through gritted teeth. She glanced back towards the building as Jens shouted to his mule and the wagon rolled off, a guard leaning out of the open window, pointing wildly across the street towards her. She saw someone slip out of a side door and gently push it closed. Someone tall, and slim, a strand of blonde hair falling from a black hat and a satchel over her shoulder. Someone with a hell of a walk, hips swaying as she drifted quietly into the shadows.

The guard roared something and Shev turned, stumbled on down the alley, squeezed through the little crack in the wall and away.

Now she remembered why she’d wanted to stop and run a Smoke House instead.

Most thieves don’t last long. Not even the good ones.

‘You’re hurt,’ said Severard.

Shev really was hurt, but she’d learned to keep her hurts as hidden as she could. In her experience, people were like sharks, blood in the water only made them hungry. So she shook her head, tried to smile, tried to look not-hurt with her face twisted up and sweaty and her hand clamped to her ribs. ‘It’s nothing. We got customers?’

‘Just Berrick.’

He nodded towards the old husk-head, sprawled out on the greasy cushions with eyes closed and mouth open, spent pipe beside him.

‘When did he smoke?’

‘Couple of hours past.’

Shev gripped her side tight as she knelt beside him, touched him gently on the cheek. ‘Berrick? Best wake up, now.’

His eyes fluttered open, and he saw Shev, and his lined face suddenly crushed up. ‘She’s dead,’ he whispered. ‘Keep remembering it fresh. She’s dead.’ And he closed his eyes and squeezed tears down his pale cheeks.

‘I know,’ said Shev. ‘I know and I’m sorry. I’d usually let you stay long as you need, and I hate to do this, but you got to get up, Berrick. Might be trouble. You can come back later. See him home, eh, Severard?’