Den of thieves

Chapter Thirty-Five

The boy’s face was freckled and his chin weak, when the scarf was removed. Malden held onto his cudgel and his jug while he conveyed the message. Walking like a man on the way to the headsman’s block, the boy crossed the common and went right up to Hazoth’s gate. He gave one last look over his shoulder-even though he couldn’t possibly see Malden so far away in the dark-and then stepped inside the open gate.

The effect was immediate, and startling.

A crackling sound rustled through the grass, and then the boy lifted into the air, as if he’d been snatched up by some invisible hand. Inside the sorcerer’s laughable fence all was suddenly action. Guards rushed out to see who the intruder was, and Malden heard dogs barking in their kennels and horses stamping in their stalls.

Slowly the boy sank back down to earth. There was a sudden flash, not of light but of darkness-like the pulsing of shadows after lightning strikes. Malden’s eyes narrowed. He was glad he’d sent the boy in his place. Apparently the iron fence was only a symbol for a quite different kind of protection.

The guards circled the boy and drove him to his knees. The boy lifted his hands above his head as a spear was jabbed into the small of his back. Malden could hear him wailing out his message, the one Malden had made him rehearse several times to get every word right.

You never told me it could talk, the message ran. Let us three meet at midnight, at the Godstone.

It was a risk, sending this message. Someone might be listening-someone who belonged to the city watch or some other enemy. If they were, he had given them the time and place where they could seize him with ease. Hopefully the words were obscure enough to confuse anyone who didn’t know all the particulars of what had happened.

The boy was released unharmed. The guards held him a bit roughly, perhaps, but they didn’t break his bones for his impudence. Once he was beyond the gate again, the boy ran off toward the Stink, not even bothering to return to Malden for payment. Perhaps in his fear he had forgotten the thruppence promised him. Malden dug in the soft soil underneath the bush where he’d found the boy concealing himself. There, he buried the cudgel, the jug, and three pennies, wrapped up in the filthy scarf. If the boy was brave enough or bright enough to return for his things, he well deserved the money.

Then Malden fled back into the night, running the way he’d come, along the top of the Ladypark’s enclosing wall. There was much to prepare.

The fact that his secret employer was a master of the arcane sciences worried him greatly, but not near so much as Bikker did. The big swordsman had killed two men just to create a diversion, and Malden had no doubt that Bikker would be willing to kill him as well. Either the swordsman would want to keep the gold for himself-or more likely, would want to keep him quiet, in the most expedient way possible. When he’d taken this job, Malden believed it was little more than a prank. The crown would be replaced with a duplicate, and no one would ever be the wiser-the Burgrave wouldn’t even publicly acknowledge the theft, out of fear of embarrassment.

Now things had changed. The crown was enchanted, and thus far more important than just some well-wrought lump of gold. The Burgrave would want it back, and stop at little to secure its return. Bikker and his master would want to maintain total secrecy, and the only way they could assure that was to slit his throat and dump his body in the river.

Malden sighed as he ran atop the wall. No one had ever said his new life as a daring burglar was going to be easy. He came to a corner of the wall and slipped down to the street below, a shadowed lane running toward a row of houses in the Stink. The houses there closed in quickly, filling the available space around the common like a miser jealously throwing his arm around a pile of pennies. It felt good to be back on cobblestones, back in a district he knew well. He’d spent his life on these streets, and though he knew all too well their dangers, he knew how to manage them as well. He felt almost safe as he headed uphill, toward the eastern section of the Stink.

Not completely safe, of course. But he felt like he was the master of his destiny again. He felt like he could pull this off. If he was careful. There were still ways he could get his gold and keep his life, but it would take much planning and “Hold, if you please.”

Malden’s heart stopped beating, but only for a moment. He’d seen no one following him, had thought it impossible. Who could this be?

Whoever it was, he did not wish to meet him now.

He leapt back toward the wall of a half-timbered house. Its eaves cast a deep rich shadow on the street below that would hide him. He made no answer to the call. He did not so much as breathe. He considered closing his eyes so they would not glint in any stray beam of starlight. But no, he needed to see what was coming for him.

“It is not my design to hurt you,” the voice said.

Light burst all around him. The other must have had a dark lantern and suddenly drawn back its shade. For a moment Malden could see nothing, and his eyes, adapted as they were to the darkness, burned with pain. Throwing his cloak across his face, he dashed to his left, intent on getting away from the spearing light — and near impaled himself on the point of a sword. He dropped his cloak just in time and drew up short as the tapering point bobbed in the air just inches from his throat. It was no blunt iron weapon either, but good, bright steel of the kind only a dwarf could forge. It would have run him through like a skewer through a sausage.

Squinting, Malden glanced over at the lantern. He could see now that it was sitting unattended on the cobblestones. If he had run toward it and kicked it over, he would be away into the shadows by now and free of this danger.

For the first time he looked down the blade of the sword at the man who held it. He was no watchman, at least. He was a blond man perhaps half again Malden’s age, wearing a jerkin studded with iron and a fine samite cape. A man of some wealth, then, though his boots were muddy. He was smiling, but with warmth-not with the predatory grin of a cat pinning a starling with its claws.

It took a moment for Malden to recognize his accoster. When he did, he was only more confused than before.

“You’re the fellow they were going to hang in Market Square,” he whispered. “The knight. Sir-Sir-Sir Something. Well, it seems you have me at your service, Sir-”

“Croy.”

Malden lifted a hand in salute. The knight knocked the hand away with the flat of his sword.

“I apologize for this rude meeting, but I saw no other way to gain your attention,” Croy told him. Stranger by the minute, Malden thought. He was not used to armed men treating him with civility. “I wish to ask you but a single question. Will you answer?”

“Under the circumstances, I can hardly refuse,” Malden replied.

“I saw you send a message to the villa of Hazoth. And I know someone fitting your description was on Castle Hill the night the tower fell. The night a certain boat was waiting in the river below.”

Malden was especially glad then that this knight was no watchman. If Anselm Vry’s men had put things together as neatly as this fellow, his neck would already be in a noose. “If you say so, milord.”

“You don’t deny it. The boat was there to collect you, wasn’t it? Cythera’s boat. I can see in your eyes it was so. So now I’ll ask you-what business have you with Cythera?”

Malden’s brow furrowed as he tried to understand what was happening. Was he about to be killed for reasons he would never know? Or would this fool let him go if he answered true?

For some reason, Malden thought he just might.

“I did some work for her, that’s all. I’m arranging to receive my payment.”

“In the middle of the night? Strange hours to take wages.”

“I suppose,” Malden said, “that depends on the labor.”

Croy’s face changed. The smile faded a bit and his eyes widened. “Tell me true, now. What job was it?”

Malden considered his reply carefully. “Sir Croy, I think your interest in milady Cythera is not of an, ah, adversarial nature. To be plain, I think you are her friend.”

“More than that, I hope,” Croy said.

Malden’s heart sagged in his chest. Something he hadn’t dared to actually hope for suddenly seemed out of his reach. But more than his feelings were bound to be hurt if he didn’t speak quickly. “I will admit to caring for her myself. If this sentiment is one we share, then surely you will understand it would put her at risk if I answered that question? Especially out here, where someone might overhear?”

“I see,” Croy said. He lowered his sword so it was no longer pointing at any vital part of Malden’s body. “You’re right, it’s too dangerous to have this talk in public. In that case, let us-”

But Malden didn’t hear the rest. He’d found the opening he had sought. As soon as the sword’s point dipped, he twisted sideways and bolted for the dark, jogging to one side only far enough to kick the lantern as he went.

Sir Croy called hold again and gave chase, but not for long. Malden had a head start on him, and in the night that was all the advantage the thief required.