Take a Thief (16 page)

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Take a Thief

Skif traced the last line of the lid of the safe-cupboard and found the keyhole easily enough. No one had made any effort to hide it, and he slid his lock pick out of a slit pocket in his belt and went to work by touch.

Before very long, he knew for a fact that Kalink had been cheated, for this was the
cheapest
lock he had ever come across in a fancy house. It wasn't the work of more than a few moments to tickle it open, and ease the lid of the safe-cupboard open.

With the lid resting safely on the floor, Skif reached into the cupboard and began lifting out heavy little jewel cases, placing them on the floor until he had emptied the cupboard. What he wanted was gold and silver.

Gold was soft; with a hammer and a stone, Skif could pound chains and settings into an amorphous lump, which any goldsmith would buy without a second thought and at a reasonable price. Silver wasn't bad to have; you could cut it up with a chisel and render the bits unidentifiable. He'd rather not have gemstones; you couldn't just take them to a goldsmith, and you wouldn't get more than a fraction of their worth.

So he opened each box and examined its contents by feel; rejecting out-of-hand all gem-studded rings, earrings, and brooches. He selected chains, bracelets, pendants, anything that was mostly or completely made of metal. The emptied boxes went into the bottom of the cupboard, with the rest stacked on top. With luck, the theft wouldn't even be uncovered for days after Kalink and his wife returned. By then, of course, everything would have been disposed of, melted down— it might even become part of whatever baubles the mistress picked to replace what was lost!

Each piece he selected, he wrapped in one of Bazie's purloined silk handkerchiefs to cut down on sound and stored in one of the many pockets of his "sneak suit." It didn't do a thief a great deal of good to be chiming and chinking when he moved!

He hesitated once or twice, but in the end, opted to be conservative in what he chose. He had no way of getting rid of that triple rope of pearls, for instance, nor the brooch that featured a huge carven cabochon. And when his fingers told him that the piece he was holding was of finely-

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detailed enamel, he couldn't bear the idea of destroying something that so much work and creativity had gone into. The same, for the wreath of fragile leaves and flowerlets— a clever way of getting around the fact that a commoner couldn't wear a coronet. But the rest of what he chose was common enough, mere show of gleaming metal, without much artistry in it.

He replaced the last box and eased the lid back down on the cupboard.

Now came the fun part: getting out.

He didn't want the maid to get into trouble; that was hardly fair. If he left the window in her room with the catches undone, she'd be the first to be blamed. So after he slid out from under the bed, he crept across the mistress' room to try the next door over.

It was a bathing room, and he laughed silently.
Good old Kalink! Nothing
but the best for him for certain-sure. Nothing but the latest!
There was an indoor privy, everything flushed away with water after you'd done, and a boiler to heat bath water, all served from a cistern on the roof. Good place to leave open.

He opened the catch on the window and pushed open the shutters that served this room instead of ironwork. Let Kalink presume that this was how his thief got in, and wonder how on earth he came up the wall from the yard, or down the wall from the steeply-pitched roof.

Now he returned to the maid's room. He'd go out the way he came, but he had a trick to use on the kind of simple bar catches on that window. A loop of string on each of them let him pull them closed again once he'd closed the window behind him.

By now the moon was down, and there wasn't a chance anyone could see him. In moments, he was down in the alley, running like a cat, heading for his next destination. He didn't dare be caught in
this
outfit! There would be no doubt in anyone's mind that of what his business was!

But there was a remedy for that, too. Two streets over was that wonderfully handy cavity in Lord Orthallen's wall, and that was where 104

Take a Thief

he'd left a set of breeches and a tunic. In the safety of the utter blackness, he pulled the bricks loose and extracted them. The hood of his shirt became a high collar, the scarf around his face and throat went around his waist beneath the tunic. He wiped the charcoal from his face with the inside of the tunic, and in very little time, a perfectly respectable young lad was strolling down the street with a bundle under his arm. He could be anyone's page boy or young servant on any of a dozen errands, and he even passed patrols of the Nightwatch twice without any of them stopping or even looking at him.

If they had, they'd have found nothing worse than a bundle of gentleman's underthings. And if he was asked, he'd mumble and hide his face and say he couldn't
rightly
say, but his mistress had told him to take them quietly to a certain gentleman and there wasn't anything else he could tell them.

The Watch would, of course, assume that the gentleman in question had been forced to make a hasty exit from a bedroom where he'd had no business being and had left the least important of his clothing behind. As it was no business of the Watch to oversee the morals of anyone, Skif would be sent on his way, perhaps with a laugh.

The closer he got to his destination, the more relaxed he felt. Already he was planning where to take the metal, how to show the two boys to pound the gold and silver into flat, indistinguishable sheets.

Hunger caught up with him then; he hadn't eaten much, following Bazie's dictum that a full stomach made for a slow thief. Bazie wasn't actually expecting him for some time yet, since it was always his habit to go home by as circuitous a route as possible. A thief might be expected to hurry back to his den to hide his loot— and so a thief who feared pursuit
would
do. But no one knew that Skif carried a small fortune about his person, nor did any sign of it show. No one knew that the Kalink household had been robbed this night. There was no pursuit.

So why hurry back?
A thief runs when no one chases him,
was another of Bazie's dictums, and he was right. If Skif
looked
guilty, acted guilty, the Watch
might
detain and search him, just on principle.

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Take a Thief

So, as soon as he reached a street of inns and taverns— the same one, in fact, where he had robbed the kitchen of a burning tavern so very long ago— he drifted to the busiest, a hostelry called the "White Rider" with a sign of a Herald and his Companion.

The place was packed full, with not one, but two musicians, one at each fireplace, holding forth. It was, of course, impossible to hear either of them in the middle of the room. Skif found a place on a bench next to a weary woman and her brood of four children, got the attention of a serving girl by grabbing her apron as she went by, and ordered food. He tried ordering wine— he always did— and the girl smirked. When she came back with his meat pie and drink, the drink was cider. He sighed and paid her.

While the wealthy were
out
of the city, the common folk came in. A great deal of business happened here in the fall, before the snows made it hard to travel. Skif picked out half a dozen different accents just from where he was sitting.

There could not have been a more vivid contrast to Skif's old home, too cold three seasons of the year, full of sullen silences, always in semi-darkness. Here it was cozy, and the air vibrated with talk and sound. There were plenty of lights, and there was no problem seeing what you were eating. The tabletop got regularly wiped down with clean rags, and although the floor was collecting a fair bit of debris over the course of the evening, Skif had no doubt it would start out the next day being swept clean enough to eat off of. The cooking aromas were all tempting, and there was no reek of stale beer and wine. If the customers themselves were a bit whiffy, well, it had been a hard day for some of them.

Skif relaxed further, his belly full of good food and cider. The woman gathered up her herd and left, to be replaced by a couple of equally weary fellows who could have been any sort of craftsman or farmer. Or possibly skilled laborers, come for one of the hiring fairs.

They both seemed rather concerned, huddling together to murmur at each other, and finally the one nearest Skif asked him politely what the least expensive meal was.

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Skif gave them a friendly grin, and his recommendation.

They's a right couple 'uv conies!
he thought, wondering which of the lads who worked this inn on the liftin' lay would lighten their pockets before they found work. Not that it was inevitable of course, but it was likely.

You had choices in the liftin' lay; you could work half a dozen of easy marks like these two, or you could go for one big score who'd be cannier, better guarded. In either case there was about the same amount of risk, for each time you worked a mark in a crowd, you increased the risk of getting caught.

Well, that wasn't his outlook. He didn't work the liftin' lay anymore, and the two lads back with Bazie were too ham-handed for it right now. He finished the last of his cider, shoved the pottery mug to the middle of the table, and extracted himself from the bench, taking his bundle with him.

From here on, his story— if he was caught by the Watch— would change.

Now he was bringing his father's clothing home from the pawnshop. It wasn't at all unusual for a family to have articles of clothing in and out of pawn all the time, and in some families, in more often than out.

And as he stepped out into the street, sure enough, a Watchman across the street caught sight of him, frowned, and pointed his truncheon at him.

"You! Boy!" he barked. "Halt there!"

Obediently, and with an ingratiating, cringing smile, Skif obeyed.

"What've ye got there?" the Watchman asked, crossing the street. Skif held out his bundle, hunching his shoulders, and the Watchman poked it with his truncheon. "Well? Speak up!"

" 'S m' Dad's shirt 'n' smalls, m'lor'," Skif sniveled. "Jest got 'em f'om Go'den Ball, m'lor'." With the fall hiring fairs going on all over Haven, the set of good linen smallclothes that had been in pawn all summer
would
come out again, for someone who was going to a hiring fair would be dressed in his best.

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Then they'd go right back in again, if the job was only until winter and the end of hunting season.

"Open it," the Watch demanded. Skif complied; no one paid any attention to them as he did so, firstly because you didn't interfere with the Watch, and secondly because you didn't want the Watch's attention brought down on you.

The Watchman's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "If yer Dad's smalls 've been in the nick, what're ye doin' eatin' at yon Rider?" he demanded.

A stab of alarm mixed with chagrin pierced Skif, but he didn't show it.

Even as he opened his mouth, he had his answer. After all, this was Quarter-Day, or near it— servants and laborers with year-round jobs got paid four times a year. " 'Tis out'a me
own
wages, m'lor!" he said with a touch of indignation. "M'Dad got a busted arm an' m'Ma didn' say nothin'

till now, when I got me Quarter-Days!" Now he let his tone turn grumbling. "Reckon a lad kin hev a bit uv dinner when 'e's missed 'is own so's 'e kin help out 'is own fambly on 'is own half-day!"

There; just enough story to let the Watchman fill in the rest on his own—a son in service, a father injured and out of work, neither parent saying anything until the boy had the money to retrieve the belongings they'd put in pawn to see them over the lean time. Common servants got a half a day off— which usually began well into the afternoon and was seldom truly a

"half-day" —once every fortnight or so. Servants as young as Skif usually didn't leave their employer's houses except on the half-day off after they'd gotten paid. Servants like Skif pretended to be wouldn't have gone out during dinner time either, which was probably why the Watchman had been suspicious, for why would a common servant spend his wages on food he could have gotten for free at his master's table? Or if he was visiting his parents, why hadn't
they
fed him?

But— Skif's story had him visiting his parents, discovering the situation, and going out after the pawned clothing. Presumably there was nothing in the house to eat, his job wouldn't include the benefit of "broken meats" to take home to his relatives, and as a result, he was missing a meal to do his duty to his parents. Skif was rather proud of his fabrication.

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The Watchman grunted. "Wrap it up, then, boy, and keep moving," was all he said. Skif ducked his head and tied up the bundle again, then scuttled away.

The back of his neck was damp with sweat. That had been a close one! He made a mental note not to use that story or that inn again any time soon.

But with the haul he'd just made, he shouldn't have to.

Better be careful. Be just my luck now t' get hit with some'un pullin' a
smash'n'grab.
That was the crudest version of the liftin' lay, a couple of boys careening at full speed down the street, one after the other. One would knock a mark over, while the other came in behind and scooped up whatever he dropped. If that happened to Skif, while the Watchman's eye was still on him, the Watchman would be suspicious all over again if Skif didn't pursue his attackers, or refused to swear out charges against them.

And at the moment, he couldn't afford the suspicions that might lead to being searched!

So he clutched his bundle tightly and raised his eyes to look up and down the street for the little eddies of activity that would mark a couple of smashers on a run.

And that was when he saw the red glow above the rooftops.

Fire.

He picked up his pace.

A
big
fire.

And from the look of it— somewhere near home. There would be a crowd, a mob— and a mob meant opportunity, even in a neighborhood as poor as his, for fire drew spectators from all over. He might not be an expert at the liftin' lay, but he was good enough to add to his take in the kind of crowd drawn by a big fire.