Den of thieves

Chapter Ninety-Seven

Market Square was thick with crowds, people of every station and profession crammed together into the wide cobblestoned space, with cheers and prayers going up from every lip, with banners unfurled from every high place and gold or brass or tin cornucopias pinned to every hat and tunic. Since dawn the priests of the Lady had been out ministering to the faithful, leading long liturgical plainsongs and invoking the Lady’s blessings on the people, the city, and the king. They had to pick their way with care through streets so crammed with people there was no room to move freely. The citizens of Ness and all the pilgrims who had come for this holiest of days were all abroad, moving back and forth across the city as best they could, paying visits to each other or simply walking, taking in the fine weather while they uttered their prayers and thanks. In a riot of color and noise they praised the Lady.

It was the kind of crowd that could move mountains if it chose. It was the kind of crowd that could, with the slightest push, be inspired to riot. To tear up the city in its excitement. A little wrath, a little shocked surprise, and the whole Free City of Ness could erupt like a burst dam.

The throng gathered thickest and most fervent directly outside the Ladychapel, the great spired and vaulted church where the day’s grand procession would begin. The massive wooden doors were still closed, but men of the watch had to form a double cordon outside to keep the faithful from rushing in and seeing the icons before their proper time. With quarterstaffs and ropes they pushed the crowds back again and again. A few young devotees tried to climb up the heavily carved exterior of the chapel but were knocked down with long poles.

One climber, however, had the brilliant idea to ascend the back of the chapel, where the guards weren’t watching. Of course, he was not one of the faithful overcome by religious zeal. He didn’t want to fall prostrate before the Lady’s altar, nor did he wish to break in and steal the cakes and sweetmeats loaded in the giant golden cornucopia inside either.

Malden clutched at a gargoyle and hoisted himself up to one of the clerestory windows high on the side of the church. The window had been cranked open to let in some air-this close to midsummer, it was already hot just two hours past dawn-so he slipped inside and hid himself in the holy images mounted around the chapel dome.

The acoustics of that place were such, and his senses so sharpened by nervous dread, that he could see and hear everything that took place in the nave below. A red velvet carpet had been unrolled from the altar all the way to the massive doors. Anselm Vry was down there, dressed in a cloak of state. It had the repeating eye motif of a watchman’s cloak, but was brocaded with silver wire. It looked very heavy. The Burgrave was there as well in full regalia, though his head was bare. They stood surrounded by a clutch of green-robed priests who prayed and wafted holy smoke around the Burgrave, while young acolytes went about lighting hundreds of candles and dozens of censers until the icons shone like the sun.

“I said, leave us!” Vry shouted.

“Milord bailiff,” one of the priests insisted, “this is a holy precinct, and your authority here is-”

Vry established that authority by drawing a long dagger and pointing it at the priest’s face. “The Burgrave is not well. I must administer his physic before the procession begins, and I will not have you watch me do so,” he said.

The priest had turned deathly pale when the knife came out. Now he nodded and gestured at his fellows and the acolytes. They streamed out of the nave quickly enough.

When Vry and the Burgrave were alone, the bailiff sheathed his dagger and then turned to look at the Burgrave with disdain. Ommen Tarness was weeping softly, a horrible sound well-amplified by the dome of the chapel. Up on his perch, Malden peered down with unsympathetic interest.

“I don’t want to wear it,” Ommen said, his voice thick with snot. “I won’t! I’m free, finally free. Anselm, I feel… smarter today. I feel like-like I’m waking up from a very long nap, and I’m still groggy, but I feel-”

Vry slapped the Burgrave hard across the face. Then he drew the crown from inside his silver cloak-of-eyes. “We discussed this. You will put on the crown. You will go out there and make your speech. I have an archer standing ready to cut you down if you start to babble. When you’re done speaking the words I gave you, I will emerge and announce that you have been ill and are no longer fit to serve as Burgrave. Then I will take you away from all this, and you’ll never have to wear the crown again.”

“You… promise?” the Burgrave asked. He sounded like a naive child being promised a candy if he was good during a court ceremony. “Never again?”

“Just this one last time. And anyway, this isn’t the crown you’re afraid of. This one doesn’t talk.” He lowered it over Ommen’s head, and the Burgrave bit his lip and mewled but didn’t stop him.

Ommen squeezed his eyes tight as the crown made contact with his scalp. After a moment, though, he opened his eyes wide in surprise. “You’re right! It’s lost its power. I’m still-still me!”

Vry smiled without humor. His expression changed drastically, however, when the crown lifted off Ommen Tarness’s head and started to float away.

Up in the dome, Malden reeled in his line. He held the hat-fishing pole that Slag had made, the one the dwarf meant to be used under the arch of the Royal Ditch. The line strained under the weight of the crown, but Malden brought it up quickly and soon held the crown in his hand. Or rather, the false crown. Slag had made it as well, out of lead coated in gilding metal. It looked very much like the real crown, and had been polished until it shone like gold, but under close scrutiny the cheapness of its manufacture was obvious. Malden had carried it with him throughout his sojourn into Hazoth’s villa. He had known that Vry would show up at the last minute and seize the crown, so he made sure he had something to give the bailiff.

“You! Up there! Thief!” Anselm Vry shouted, peering up into the dome. “That’s a funny jape you’ve made. Now give the damned thing back.”

“Or what, Anselm? You’ll have me killed?” Malden spoke at a normal conversational tone, but the dome amplified his voice until he was sure Vry could hear him. “If I give it back, will you let me live?”

“Give it back! Give it back! I like this one, it’s not as heavy,” Ommen cried.

Vry silenced him with another slap. “Thief, let’s be reasonable. We both know I can’t let you live. I can kill you now, though, quickly and almost painlessly. We can spare you the agony of torture and the embarrassment of being drawn and quartered in public. Surely you’d rather avoid that.”

Malden laughed. “Perhaps you’d be willing to fight for it. Of course, that’s not your style. All your men are outside. You even sent the priests away. You’d have to face me alone.”

“That’s not going to happen. I am curious to know, however, what you thought you could achieve here.”

“I’m going to save my life, and Cutbill’s as well.”

“So you think you can escape,” Vry said. “I suppose it’s possible. You could flee across the rooftops, while my men would have to push through the crowds to give chase. I’ll grant you might make it as far as the city’s walls. What would you do then? You’re no landowner. Once outside the gates, you would become a simple villein. A peasant. Little more than a slave. You would save your life but lose your freedom. I know your type, thief. You don’t want to spend the rest of your days laboring on a farm.”

“Hardly. All right, Vry. I’ll make you a deal. I think you’ll find it a bargain.” Malden swung the crown back out on the end of its line and started to lower it again. “I only wish to assuage my curiosity. Answer a few questions truthfully, and we’ll end this.”

Vry looked around him, as if to make sure no priests were hiding in the corners of the chapel, listening. “Very well.”

Malden unreeled a bit of line. The crown descended a dozen feet, then stopped with a jerk. He must be careful, he thought, not to let the line snap. “You were Bikker’s employer, weren’t you? The theft of the crown was your idea from the beginning.”

Vry’s face clouded with rage. “I’ll admit nothing under this duress, you-”

He stopped talking when Malden started reeling the line in again.

“Yes,” Vry said, balling his fists in anger. “Yes, it was me.”

Malden paid out a dozen more feet of line. “But not you alone. You formed a conspiracy of three to make this happen. I’m impressed, honestly. The chance of such a plot working out is inversely proportionate to how many people know of its existence. You did all this-you may still bring a city to its knees! — with only three people. You promised Hazoth safety for his services. You hired Bikker because as an Ancient Blade he was likely to notice there were more demons about than usual, and he might feel the need to stop you and Hazoth. When Croy returned to town you must have been very worried.”

“Sir Croy? Indeed. The Ancient Blades don’t have any more demons to fight, so they wander the land righting wrongs and helping people.” Vry sneered at the thought. “They’re always poking their noses in where they don’t belong, and since Croy technically outranks me in the peerage, I had to find a way to neutralize him. Juring always had a soft spot for that fool. It took real cunning on my part to have him banished-and then to force the Burgrave’s hand on his return, to enforce the penalty of execution.”

“And when that didn’t work out-when Croy got away-you came up with another scheme. You played him like a fish on a line, pretending to do everything in your power to find the crown. But Croy is a simple man and he doesn’t suspect treachery until it’s proven to him. I myself was nearly fooled by your performance in Cutbill’s lair. It seemed you really wanted to find the crown. Even when you sent your men to Hazoth’s home and had them search the place-even when they left empty-handed, we both thought you were just an overly officious bureaucrat. That you were hampered by rules and laws, and thus ineffectual. You’ve played this game well. I wasn’t entirely sure until I handed you the false crown last night. You acted as if it was talking to you-though we both know it was false. That was when I became certain. You didn’t want the crown back. Even while you made a good show of looking for it, in fact you were making sure nobody could get to it.”

“Very clever of you. Yes,” Vry admitted. “You have the gist of it.”

“I am still not certain why you did it, though,” Malden said. He lowered the crown farther. “What benefit will come to you? When Ommen walks out there and makes a fool of himself before the entire city-the repercussions will be dire. The people will realize they’re being ruled by a fool, and they won’t stand for it. They’ll riot in the streets-especially when you spur them on.”

“No one likes being hoodwinked,” Vry said when Malden paused. “The people of Ness have so much freedom, they love to gripe and grumble about the slightest stricture. If I show them their master is a half-wit, they’ll refuse to obey even his just laws. And when the violence does not stop, when the gutters run red with blood, the king will know that the Burgrave is incapable of running the city. He will surely revoke the city’s charter. Every man in Ness will lose his freedom.”

Malden shrugged. “Every man who does not own property,” he said, and let out more line. “Such as yourself.” The crown was barely six feet above the head of the Burgrave now. “But the free men of Ness are its heart’s blood. Their labor creates wealth. That was Juring Tarness’s brilliant idea-and it worked. It worked for eight hundred years. Free men will work to make something of themselves. What do you stand to gain when they are enslaved?”

“Power, obviously.” Anselm Vry reached up his hands to snatch at the crown. Malden jerked it away from him. Sighing deeply, Vry said, “You don’t understand anything. When the charter is revoked, this city will be plunged into chaos. The only force for law and order inside the walls will be me, and my men of the watch. It will be up to us to keep the city from erupting into mutiny. And when we do-when we suppress revolt, and reestablish the king’s rule here-how grateful do you think he’ll be? He will need someone to rule the city then. Obviously, he will choose me.”

“Thousands may die,” Malden said. “Shops will shut down, entire guilds will go out of business. The city you inherit will be half dead.”

“But it will be mine. To rule as I see fit-by fire and iron. No longer will I be constrained by the laws of the charter. No longer need I answer to the moothall and the guildmasters who control it. It will all be mine, and mine alone. The first year will be hard. There will be little money coming in and people will starve, yes. The second year they will pay me any price I ask for bread. They will accept much higher rates of taxation, in exchange for their lives. It’s a long game I’m playing. But in the end I am guaranteed to win.”

“I can see the appeal,” Malden said. “And I salute you.”

“Oh?”

“You’re far more crooked than any thief I know. You have my respect. Very well. Here’s what you wanted.” With a flick of his wrist, Malden sent the crown dancing through the air to come to rest on Ommen’s head. He cut the line that held it and collapsed his pole. “I wish you much joy of it.”

And then he laughed.

“Watchmen! Priests! Get in here now,” Vry shouted. Doors around the nave flew open and the summoned ones came flooding in.

Ommen Tarness straightened up, his posture improving instantly. “Hold,” he said, and everyone froze. There was something in his voice that commanded attention-and imposed his will on every listener. “I have heard enough,” he said.

Or rather, Juring Tarness said it.