Thief's War: A Knight and Rogue Novel (10 page)

“You didn’t tell the chandler that. You didn’t tell any of us…that.”

“I’m sorry,” I began. “’Tis—”

“I told the chandler about Michael,” Fisk interrupted. “And I told him the truth.”

I wondered what Fisk had told him.

“If the chandler knew
that
,” Hannibas said, “he wouldn’t have made the choice he did. He’d have… Oh.”

“Exactly,” said Fisk. “Who do you trust more? Michael? Or Atherton Roseman?”

Hannibas’ scowl vanished into a look of troubled bafflement.

“You can trust me,” I told them all. “I had some…difficulty with the Liege’s law. But what I did was not dishonorable. I swear it.”

Timasus snorted. “Ain’t like the law gives a flip about us. Don’t see why we’d care about it.”

As far as the other orphans went, that seemed to settle the matter. But for some time after that, I would look up suddenly and catch Hannibas gazing at me with worry in his eyes.

Those first days, as we cleaned up the shop and started making and selling candles, were interesting in many ways. Hannibas and Timasus took charge of the backroom as if they’d been born to it, while Fisk handled our finances and manned the front room, in his persona of the chandler’s timorous nephew.

Fisk was wary of allowing me to become known in this neighborhood, lest someone report my presence to Roseman’s thugs, so I was relegated to distant errands, and helping Jer with tasks that required strength and little skill. The children learned to handle the rest with remarkable speed.

Working together, they slowly began to trust us, and Fisk and I learned bits of their past. Though listening to them talk to Hannibas taught us more.

“How’d you lose that eye?” he asked Timasus one day. “Did the Rose’s thugs do it, as a lesson t’ your parents or something?”

“Nah.” Timasus, stirring chips of wax into a melting tub, didn’t look up. “’Least, not deliberate. My Pa, he was a baker, and he fell behind on his payments. Like your chandler here, only he really didn’t have the money. Second time, they was going t’ break his hands. For a baker, can’t knead…” He shook his head.

“So what happened to you?” Hannibas persisted. I wouldn’t have dared, but after a moment Timasus went on.

“I ran t’ try t’ stop ’em. Which was stupid, but I was only six. I bit one of ’em, and he threw me aside. My eye hit the corner of a table. It hurt horrible, and I was all wobbly and dazed. Mam wrapped a clean cloth over my face and told me to run ‘t next door, and I did. But I wouldn’t have, if I’d knowed what she was going t’ do.”

“I heard about that, I think.” Hannibas voice was matter-of-fact, but his face had paled. “The Baker’s Wife. Killed three of the Rose’s thugs with a bread paddle, she did.”

“Only two,” said Timasus. “According t’ what the neighbors said, anyway. But after…”

“I’m sorry,” Hannibas said. “She was a brave woman.”

The others had fallen silent, listening.

“Brave don’t mean nothing with the Rose,” Timasus said coldly. “The Rose’s guard, the Rose’s judicar, the Rose’s noose. And all of us, hiding like rats in the walls, trying t’ nibble at his great house. Master Michael promised t’ help us hit him, in exchange for us saving him from them thugs, and that’ll do for now. But one of these days, when we’s old enough, when they’s enough of us, we’s going ‘t have a chat with Tony bloody Rose. Then we’ll see who’s nothing but a pack of lousy orfinks.”

A murmur of agreement swept the room, and the cold hate in those young faces chilled my heart. I had made them no such promise, whatever they thought, but their lust for vengeance troubled me.

Atherton Roseman must indeed be brought down, before he broke more children’s souls.

The next day, Hannibas sent me out to a market nearer the countryside to buy herbs to scent a batch of sickroom candles. Since I wasn’t expected back soon, I took a detour to find the headquarters of the High Liege’s guard.

I knew better than to go to the town guard. The children, customers, the suppliers we dealt with, all told us that the whole town government was in the Rose’s pocket.

But I knew something of the world outside this town, and I couldn’t believe the High Liege would appoint a corrupt man to such an important post.

I told the clerk at the outer desk that I wished to see the ranking officer, to make a complaint.

Even when your clothes are splotched with wax, a noble’s accent and a confident tone can get you a long way. It took only half an hour to work my way past his subordinates, into the presence of the Liege Guard’s commander.

It didn’t look like the office of a corrupt man. Fisk has taught me to look for the small luxuries that betray a man living beyond his means. But the inkpot on the desk was plain pottery, and the blue and silver coat of a Liege guardsman, hanging on the rack behind, him was of unadorned wool. No bright gold buttons, no rings on his hands. The day was mild enough he’d chosen to work in his shirtsleeves, and that shirt was ordinary linen, without even a scrap of lace.

He was young for such a post, in his late twenties I thought, despite some lines of care that marred his pleasant face.

“I understand you have some complaint?” he asked briskly.

“I’ve recently acquired a business, here in Tallowsport, and I’ve been told there’s a special tax, beyond the one paid to the city’s treasury.”

“There is such a tax.” His expression was so guarded, I could read nothing from it.

“Yes, but this one’s paid every two weeks, and all other taxes are quarterly.” I tried to sound guileless without being too stupid. “Men come to fetch these payments instead of billing you, and ’tis curst high! I couldn’t help but wonder if the High Liege has approved this.”

“Pay the tax,” he said. “That’s all I can do for you, sir. Pay the tax, on time, without grumbling.”

He put a hand to his throat as he spoke. Under his shirt I glimpsed a thick strap of leather encircling his neck, for all the world like True’s collar. He saw me looking at it, and his hand fell away.

“Tallowsport is a rich city with a thriving market. If you’re competent at your trade, you’ll manage. Don’t complain to the Town Guard, either. And don’t come back. There’s nothing anyone can do.”

He met my eyes as he spoke, his own as bleak and bitter as Timasus’, and I wondered what troubled him. But clearly he could offer me no aid, so I thanked him and departed.

I had difficulties enough, without also trying to rescue the captain of the Liege Guard.

I tried not to show it to the children, and I certainly wasn’t going to admit it to Michael, but I was getting nervous.

Things were going too well.

The thugs had bought my act. Michael’s odd work gang, led by Hannibas, had the shop running smoothly. It looked as if we’d make the twelve silver roundels we’d need for the next payment. Even young Will’s rescue from the food train had gone off without a hitch.

It was Jack who used to say that when you thought a scam was going too well, it usually was. And Jack had a nasty habit of being right about things like that.

So I took the time, after I’d delivered a batch of candles that had been ordered for a wedding, to stop off at yet another tavern and leave my message there.

This tavern was of a better class than most, matching the wealthy neighborhood here on the rise of land west of the port and north of the river. Some of the early manors built on The Rise, as this upper-class area was called, had a view of both the river and the sea.

The tavern didn’t have a view, but the floors were clean, the brass handles on the taps gleamed, and glasses for wine as well as mugs for ale were stacked behind the bar.

I seated myself on a tall stool and ordered the cheapest ale the house offered, since I didn’t plan to drink much of it.

When the bartender brought my mug I told him, “I’m looking for a man who lives here in Tallowsport. But I don’t know his last name.”

“City as big as the Port, that’s a problem,” the man said pleasantly. “What’s his trade?”

Con men have no guild, so answering that wouldn’t help me.

“I’m not sure.” I let a rueful note creep into my voice. “We were talking horses, you see. And drinking a bit, so I don’t remember as much as I should.”

The man nodded, with professional politeness.

“He’s in his thirties or forties,” I went on. “Middling height and build. Brown hair and eyes.”

The bartender snorted. “That’s four men in this room. Except for the age, it could be you. Any scars, distinguishing marks, mannerisms?”

“Not that I remember,” I said. “But his first name was Jack. I think. If you should see him, tell him that I’ve changed my mind. I want to buy his black horses. He’d probably have a tip, for the information.”

The bartender’s eyes narrowed in sudden suspicion—this sounded so much like a code that few would fail to recognize it as such. But as Jack had pointed out, they also wouldn’t care.

“Does he know how to get in touch with you?”

“No,” I said, and left the address of our old rooming house, adding that a note left with the landlady would reach me.

I’d been leaving this message with tavern keepers on and off since we reached Tallowsport. And if things were going as well as they seemed to be, Jack would never get that message. But if he was expecting me, he’d have told a number of barkeepers to pass on that message about the black horses, if anyone ever asked.

There are a lot of taverns in a city this size, but I needed to learn more about what Tony Rose was up to. And I needed to warn Jack to get out.

We came up with this system after one of our cons had gone spectacularly wrong. It was a lost heir scam—easier than most, since the rich mark had no children of his own. This left him free to choose between his wastrel nephew, and the nephew who’d gone missing as a child and had now “returned,” conveniently claiming near total amnesia.

I’m pretty sure the old man knew I wasn’t his nephew—he just wanted to send his real heir a stern message. And since receiving that message resulted in the heir offering me some really nice family jewelry if I’d agree to vanish again, that suited Jack and me just fine.

It wasn’t till after he’d handed over the loot, and gotten out of our reach, that the real heir turned the dogs loose…and sent the local guard after us, as well.

I suppose he planned to say that I’d stolen the jewelry, proving—as he’d correctly claimed from the start—that I wasn’t his long lost cousin.

It’s impossible for a man to outrun a dog pack, and I’d rather take my chances with the judicars than be mauled. I leapt into the lower branches of a tree and was about half-way up the trunk when Jack—who was supposed to be waiting at a tavern in a nearby town—rode up to the base of my tree.

“Throw down your coat. I’ll lead them off.”

Even as I stripped, I noted that A) he wasn’t where he said he’d be, and B) he clearly hadn’t trusted me to bring this off alone—though under the circumstances, I could hardly complain about that.

Jack caught the coat and cantered off, leaning down to trail it against weeds and bushes till the dogs fixed on his horse’s scent instead. The dogs had followed him, the sheriff and his men had gone thundering after the dogs, and I was climbing down the tree before I finally realized that C) if those dogs were as vicious as they sounded, Jack had probably saved my life.

By the time I reached the tavern rendezvous our descriptions had been plastered all over the countryside—if I hadn’t needed to find Jack, I’d have been racing into the next fief. Instead I was disguised as a beggar so ragged they wouldn’t let me in the door. I had to hover in the street outside until Jack—who was not only disguised as a tinker, but carried a full pack and had sharpened several knives before I approached him—finally showed up.

The first thing he said to me was, “We’ve
got
to think of a better way than this to find each other if we lose contact.”

Over the next few months, we figured out the method I was using now. And at the time, it didn’t occur to me to wonder if he’d have bothered to come for me if
he’d
been the one holding the loot.

Jack’s morals might be lacking in many ways, but some of the orphans’ stories were enough to turn even his stomach. On the other hand, he was also capable of turning a blind eye to anything he didn’t want to see.

However, Jack was a realist above all, and there was no way this kind of corruption could escape the High Liege’s notice forever. Sooner or later the Liege Guard would descend on the town, and then Atherton Roseman and everyone associated with him would go down.

It would happen sooner, if Michael had his way. He was undeniably crazy, but I had long since stopped underestimating what Michael could accomplish when he set his mind to it.

After hearing the orphans’ stories, I understood his desire to see the Rose…not just cut, but torn out by the roots. Then burned, so not even a seed of his making could sprout.

Do roses have seeds? Gardening is something I know nothing about, but I knew that I was one of Jack’s seeds. Or at least a plant he’d tended, shaped…and dumped horse shit over at regular intervals, too.

I owed him nothing—but I couldn’t stand by and watch him hang, either.