Den of Thieves

CHAPTER SIX

Neither of them spoke for a while, as the meaning of Cutbill’s words sank in. Malden had expected something quite different when he answered Cutbill’s summons. Mostly, he’d expected to have to pay back the money he’d taken, and then receive a savage beating (if not worse) by way of a receipt.

“I’ve always worked alone,” he said finally.

“And I cannot allow you to continue doing so. You are too good at this to be independent,” Cutbill informed him. “I don’t like competition. I’d much rather have you in my stable. There are compensations you’ll gain from accepting, of course. You know I have a considerable fraction of the city watch on my payroll, and more than one noble in the palace as well. Right now if you are caught stealing so much as one penny from a church collection box, you’ll be hanged for your trouble. Under my wing, you will have some measure of safety from that fate. Furthermore you’ll be allowed the services of my dwarf, Slag, who can provide tools of a fineness and quality you’ll never gain from any human blacksmith. You can continue to pick your own jobs, though of course you must abstain from burgling any of my clients. And I have something else to offer you.”

“Oh?”

“Your heart’s desire. The thing you truly covet. I can offer you freedom.”

“Every man in Ness is free. There are no slaves here,” Malden pointed out. It was what made Ness a Free City. Outside of its walls most men and women were villeins, peasants, cotters—little more than slaves. They owned neither land nor livestock nor the clothes on their backs. They could not be married without the approval of their lord, nor could they move away from their farms unless they were sold to some other liege—and even then they could take nothing with them but their children.

But in Ness a man was his own. He could work to make a life for himself and his family, or he could laze about and eventually starve in the street. But it was his own choice. The city’s charter guaranteed the right of a man to do either.

“I didn’t say you were a slave. Rather, you’re a prisoner. You have no family, no birthright. You dress like a common laborer and you have the accent of a peasant. If you tried to leave this city—if you stepped outside its walls—you would be scooped up by the first reeve who saw you. He would sell you to some petty baron and you’d spend the rest of your days tilling some field. Ness is a very large prison, Malden, and the door of your cell is wide open. But only because the powers that be know you’ll never leave.”

“If I had enough money—”

“But you don’t, and living the life you do, you never will. If you keep operating independently you’ll end up swinging from a rope or, if you’re lucky, dying in poverty in some hovel. Come work for me and we’ll change that. It will take time. You will work harder for me than you ever would for some shopkeeper. But your money will be your own. And with enough money, even the son of a whore can be a man of importance. He can go where he likes and live as he chooses. Freedom, Malden, is what I offer. True freedom.”

Malden found his heart was racing. Cutbill did know him, heart and soul. How many times had he thought the same thing? How many times had he cursed fate for making him his mother’s son?

“I will admit,” he said, choosing his words carefully, “that is a strong incentive. May I ask what you get out of this arrangement?”

“I’ll take a cut of everything you earn for my trouble. Let us say, nine parts of every ten.”

Malden gaped in surprise. That deal was shameless robbery—worse than any demand a pander would make. But of course he must consider its author. There was in Cutbill’s face a certain hardness of line that told Malden the numbers were non-negotiable. “And if I refuse your offer?”

“Then you are free to go, to walk out the door you came in by. Of course, in my disappointment I might forget to give Bellard the all-clear sign, and he may think you are trying to flee against my wishes.”

“Of course,” Malden said. “Well, in that case, I suppose my answer must be—”

Cutbill interrupted him. “You’re probably thinking, right now, that you can rob me in some way. That you can short the money you turn over to me. Find some way to make my terms more agreeable. You’ve proved you’re clever. Perhaps you think yourself more clever than me.”

“Perish the thought,” Malden said.

“I have no reason to believe you will play fair with me. So for a while, at least, you’ll be under probation. You may eventually earn full position in my organization. I fancy our business here to be like unto one of the trade guilds. Each new member must serve a period of apprenticeship, at the end of which he demonstrates his ability to perform the duties and the functions of the craft. For instance, one of Guthrun Whiteclay’s apprentices might make an especially elegant and large drinking vessel—which would be called his masterpiece, because he made it to impress his master.”

“I’m too old for prenticing,” Malden insisted.

“Agreed. And I think we can consider your burglary tonight your masterpiece, because it certainly did impress me. So we’ll start you off as if you were a journeyman, the next rank and title in our hypothetical guild. But there is another bar to entry at that level. One must pay one’s guild dues, to be considered a member in good standing. So I’ll expect a payment from you immediately, before you may enjoy any privilege of your new employment.”

Malden clamped his mouth shut. What he wanted to say was this:

Why, you loathsome double-dealing toothfish of a blasted cheat, is there no limit to the depths of your ignobility, your mendacity? You’ve held me here at threat of death, and bled me dry, and now you wish a gratuity for the service?

What he actually said was this:

“How much?”

Cutbill flipped through the pages of his ledger. He consulted an entry near the beginning of the book, then looked up and for the first time directly into Malden’s eyes. “I think one hundred and one golden royals should be enough. Or do you think that too little, after all the trouble you caused me tonight?”

“I …” Malden was briefly unable to speak. “I imagine … I think that I will laud your generosity to all I meet.”

“Good. You can go now.” Cutbill picked up his pen again and returned to writing in his book.

Malden rose from his chair. His legs shook. His hands had been steady when he picked the poisoned lock. He had not flinched when an arrow passed through his shadow. Yet now his body was rebellious to his commands. He turned toward the door. “You know, you never actually gave me the chance to say yes or no.”

“I never do. In any business negotiation, if the outcome is not certain before you even begin, then you are fated to get the lesser hand. Remember that, Malden. Oh, and don’t go through there.”

Malden looked at the door. It was the only exit from the room that he could see. “But of course. You haven’t given the all-clear signal.”

“There is no such signal. If you walk through that door, Bellard will run you through, no matter what I do or say. I think that might sadden him—he seems to have a liking for you. So go through there instead.” Cutbill flicked his pen toward one of the tapestries behind him. When Malden lifted it he found a very long corridor ending in a flight of stairs leading upward. Not looking back, he climbed until he found a trapdoor that opened on an alley in the Stink—the district of poor people’s homes that lay just inside the city wall. The neighborhood of his own home, though he still had a long walk ahead of him.

He had only one thought as he headed there.

One hundred and one royals.

It was a fortune. It was a bondage—until he paid it, he would be Cutbill’s slave, working for nothing but the payment of that blood price. It might take him a year to earn as much, even if he redoubled his efforts, even if he picked only the richest plums—plums, he was certain, that were already on Cutbill’s list of protection.

One hundred and one! Royals! Coins so valuable the average journeyman in an honest guild might earn but one for a year’s work. All of the plate and cutlery he’d taken from Guthrun Whiteclay, if sold to a very forgiving and generous fence, would earn him but two royals, perhaps three.

One hundred and one!

He reached his lodgings barely cognizant of the path he’d taken. He had a room above a waxchandler’s shop, not much at all, but it was clean. He had a mattress full of straw which he went to as soon as he arrived. The plates and silver he had stashed underneath, below a loose floorboard. He was not surprised to find them gone. One of Cutbill’s thieves must have broken in here to get them back. In their place was a bottle of cheap wine. A strip of paper was wound around its neck. When he unfolded the note he read:

Welcome to the guild.

It was signed, of course, with a crude drawing of a heart transfixed by a key.

CHAPTER SEVEN

He drank the whole bottle and got rather drunk and lay in his bed with the world whirling around him, alternately cursing and blessing Cutbill’s name. The guildmaster of thieves had held him to ransom—a ransom so large as to be absurd. Only a fool would take the offer, only an idiot would think he could make a hundred and one gold royals before he was stooped and old.

And yet … and yet … he kept coming back to what Cutbill had said. Freedom. Not a slave, but a prisoner. But he could break those shackles. Free himself, if he had the cash. Money meant everything in Ness, just as it meant everything the world around. A man with money was his own—he could buy fine clothes, buy a house of his own, buy, in short, respect. The good honest folk spat at him in the street now. With enough money they would tip their hats when he walked past. No, when he rode past, in a fine carriage, with a liveried servant driving the horses …

It was unimaginable. Impossible. And yes, alone, he could never do it. He could never be more than a petty thief, a second story man, fated to an ignominious death. But with Cutbill, with the power of the guild of thieves behind him …

His whole life could change. It could mean something, just like his mother had always wanted. Just like she’d dreamed of. Despaired of, on her deathbed.

All that was standing between him and that future was a stack of gold coins.

What could he do, then, but go back to work? But what kind of work, ah, there was the problem. His brain was seized by a fever of schemes and plans, but none of them paid off. At first he thought to burgle his way out of the debt, but that turned out to be … problematic. All the wealthiest citizens of the Free City were already on Cutbill’s protection list. His options were therefore limited, and a couple days later he was back at the old routine, in the city’s central Market Square. Right in the shadow of Castle Hill and its twenty foot wall.

No better place for the game he had planned.

“Forgive me, good sir, and the blessings of the Lady upon you!”

It was the oldest trick in the book, but that was how they got so old: they still worked. Malden had his right arm in a sling tied around his neck. Three mangled fingers and a fourth badly infected stump protruded beyond the edge of the cloth—a grotesque wound that would make most people look away rather than risk a closer inspection. With Market Square as crowded as it was that day, it was inevitable that the splinted arm would bump the occasional passerby. So far he had accidentally jostled a lady of quality with her hair in cauls at the sides of her head, the liveried servant of a noble house in black and green, and a fat merchant in a plumed hat wider than his shoulders.

“Pardon me, miss, it’s this blasted arm,” he would say, or “May the Lady save your grace, sir, I am sorry.” They would turn to sneer and perhaps kick him away, but once they saw the arm they tended to murmur some words of empty forgiveness and then hurry off before he could start begging.

By then, of course, he already had their purses open. The broken arm was a fakery. Slag the dwarf had carved it from wood and then painted it to perfectly match Malden’s skin tone. It was hollow inside and open at the bottom, so his real arm fit easily into the gap. In his actual right hand he had a tiny pair of sharpened shears and a square of damp felt. It was the work of a moment as his mark was turning away from him to cut open their fat purses and let the coins inside fall soundlessly into the cloth. Mostly he was securing pennies, groats, and farthings, nothing too worthy. At this rate, he calculated, he would pay off his debt to Cutbill in about twenty years.

Still, on a day like this, volume of business could make up for poor pickings. The Market Square was thronged from side to side, even though this was not a market day. The anonymity a big crowd offered made it easy, too.

Malden stopped for a while to take in the sights. It was impatient greed that carried more thieves up the gallows than any watchman or thief-taker. It was not wise to take too many purses even from so thick a crowd, lest someone raise the hue and cry and every man check their purse at once. Then it would be up to his feet and not his fingers to keep him alive. Anyway, even a working man like himself could enjoy the spectacle laid out for this day’s entertainment.

Where the shadow of Castle Hill best cut the sunlight and the heat of the day, a wooden viewing platform had been set up, and there the mightiest men of the city sat with goblets of mulled wine, waiting on their entertainment. Men whom even Malden recognized. Ommen Tarness, the Burgrave himself, had come. The ultimate ruler of the city sat on a carved wooden throne, his simple coronet of gold polished and gleaming at his temples. He was dressed in cloth-of-gold and brocade, with an ornamental brass key hung around his neck. Despite the gaudy clothes, his face was that of a man used to command, the stern-eyed countenance of a ruler. There was little of mercy in that face, and much of resolution.

On his right hand, under a canopy, sat Murdlin, envoy of the Dwarf Kingdom. It was quite rare to see a dwarf by daylight—they were subterranean creatures by wont, and hated the sun. Murdlin had a wide-brimmed hat pulled low over his eyes but still he seemed agitated. His legs kicked at the air where they dangled from the seat of a human-sized chair. The dwarf’s hair had been slicked down with bear fat for the occasion, and his beard had been braided in a hundred plaits, each set with a carnelian bead.

On the left of the Burgrave was the sorcerer Hazoth, his face veiled in black crape as befit one of his dread profession. There were stories about that man to chill the blood. It was said Hazoth had lived in Ness since ages past—no one knew exactly how old he was, but he had lived far past his allotted span. In the olden times supposedly he had summoned demons to save Skrae from the elves and then the dwarves in the endless wars that marked the kingdom’s early years; that he had made the earth quake and the sky rain fire. Of course he didn’t do things like that anymore. Summoning even a minor imp was enough to get a man burnt at the stake. Still, people drew back and turned their eyes aside wherever Hazoth went, and whispered stories that no one dared to disbelieve.

Behind these three stood the bailiff Anselm Vry and his reeves, the Burgrave’s retainers, minor nobles, knights, ladies, and countless servants, enough so the wooden platform groaned with all their weight.

Below them, standing on the cobbles of the square, were the grand people of the Golden Slope, the district of the city inhabited by merchants, burgesses, guildmasters, and those of independent means. A colorful lot in their fitted hoods and gathered tunics, their checked and particolored hose, their snoods and wimples and wide baldrics. None so gaudy, of course, as their liveried servants, who wore hues bright enough that anyone could tell them apart at a distance. There were a scattering of drab cloaks and doublets as well, of course, for any such gathering could not help but attract beggars and the hawkers of sweetmeats and wine. Then there were the bravos and the hired guards, who favored black silk or leather dress, to show how serious was their profession. Yet even these made some concession to the gaiety of the crowd by draping garlands of flowers around the brims of their kettle helmets or tying the favors of their ladies to the hafts and hilts of their weapons. Today, by decree, everyone was to show some sign of pomp and excitement.

After all, it wasn’t every day you got to see a public hanging.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The accused was brought into the square on a hurdle, hoodwinked and bound. He wore nothing but a pair of breeches and a white nightshirt. His hair was blond and cut very short, and his chin had been shaved for his execution. Even with a filthy cloth tied around his eyes, Malden could see he had the face of a poet but the body of a warrior. Under the loose shirt the man’s body rippled with muscle. More than one woman in the crowd turned to whisper excitedly to her neighbor as the cart trundled past on its voyage to the gibbet.