Den of thieves

Chapter Forty-Two

Sir Croy had been raised to be a knight, to be a champion on the battlefield, a slayer of demons, a devout and pious man. He had been trained from birth to command companies of men-at-arms and ride fiery-tempered warhorses.

That night he was called upon for quite a different kind of duty. His patron, the rich merchant who was hiding him from the law, insisted that he attend a dinner party as a guest of honor. He was to be put on display for the merchant’s guests, a symbol to prove the merchant’s largesse and power.

It was the only thing the merchant had asked for in way of payment for his kindness. Croy could not say no. Had a legion of demons erupted from a crack in the world at that particular moment, however, he would never have been happier to smell brimstone on the air.

“They say the Burgrave has taken ill-did you hear that, Croy? Mayhap he was hurt when the tower came down.”

Croy turned to the woman on his left, who had addressed him. She wore a wimple and a ridiculous pointed hat, perhaps to draw attention away from the unfashionable roundness of her face. He could not remember her name. She was the wife of a rich merchant-a dealer in silks? Or maybe it was furs. He only knew that she had been trying to get his attention all night, and when she spoke to him she ran the toe of her slipper up his calf, under the table. Politeness demanded he ignore it. He saw that her cup was nearly empty and he refilled it from the flagon of good wine that sat before him on the table.

“I haven’t been much for the news, of late,” he apologized.

“The Burgrave didn’t appear at the courts of law today,” she went on, as if he’d said nothing. As a dish of roasted larks went past she speared one with her knife and dropped it on her plate. It was the seventh or eighth course-there were dozens more to come, small dishes brought out each as they finished cooking, as was the style at this sort of banquet. When the larks were offered to him next, Croy waved them away. He wasn’t hungry. “I was there. There was a very interesting case waiting to be heard-a man had killed his wife. He said she had been inconstant, which normally would have been the end of it, but the witnesses said she was pregnant, which complicates things. I like to go to the courts of law some days. I like to look at all the men in the dock, they’re so… desperate. So wild. I feel a little thrill whenever they gnash their teeth and demand their innocence.”

As she prattled on he nodded politely. He’d been trained in how to attend such meals, and knew which salt cellar to use, and when it was permitted to belch, and how to keep his fingers from getting too greasy. One couldn’t be a knight and not be versed in polite manners. He had never enjoyed any meal that took half the day, however, and his legs were falling asleep from sitting in one chair for so long.

And his thoughts, of course, were elsewhere. He kept seeing the face of that thief again, the one he’d followed from the Ladypark up into the Stink. Malden, his name was. Cythera had been waiting for him in her boat, Croy recalled, when he had jumped from the wall of Castle Hill. What possible business could that sort have with Cythera? He needed to find out.

“Sometimes I imagine I’m a magistrate, and as the condemned men kneel before me and ask for clemency, I- Oh. Oh, I do beg your pardon,” the merchant’s wife said. She had gone quite pale.

“Are you all right?” he asked, his attention dragged back to her at once.

“It’s just-here I am going on and on about that man they’re going to hang, and you… you were just on those gallows yourself. Even now you’re a wanted man, in hiding from the watch. Why, at any moment they could come and-and-it’s so exciting, I was quite overcome. But I’ve been tactless. You forgive me, don’t you? Please tell me you do.”

The doors at the far end of the chamber opened silently and a face peered through. Croy’s hand automatically started to reach for the swords at his back-though of course they were safely locked away up in his rooms. He was getting jumpy. Inaction and worry were making him a bundle of nerves.

“Of course,” he said. “Will you take some of this sauce?”

“Mmm, please,” she said, and stared deeply into his eyes. “You say you forgive me but I know I’ve been cruel. Perhaps there is some way to… earn your forgiveness?”

A footman in livery came into the room and scanned the table. Moving quietly so as not to disturb the banqueters, he moved around the table and over to where Croy sat. He hemmed and hawed for a while before bending down to whisper in Croy’s ear. “Sir Knight, there is-there is a situation.”

“Hmm?”

The footman licked his lips in apprehension. “Normally I shouldn’t like to interrupt your meal, but-but there is a situation. An uninvited guest, er, that is to say-someone came to the door just now, I would have turned her away, but-”

“Speak freely, man. You’re interrupting nothing of importance,” Croy told him, keeping his voice low so the merchant’s wife wouldn’t hear.

“A woman, not a lady, but-but in some state of distress, has come to the door, and begged of me that I find you, and bring you to her. Just say the word, sir, and I’ll give her a coin and send her on her way, but there was something about her look that made me think she was no beggar. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman with tattoos on her face before-”

Croy didn’t wait for the rest. He jumped up from the table and made a few perfunctory bows before hurrying through the door the footman had left open. He worried he was offending the merchant’s wife, and perhaps even his host, but hopefully they would simply think he needed to use the chamber pot.

Cythera waited for him in the receiving hall. He saw at once she had been crying. He rushed toward her and barely remembered in time not to grab her arms as he begged her to tell him what was wrong.

“I didn’t know where else to go,” she told him. “I know this was a mistake, but-I couldn’t stay in that house a moment longer. I had to get out. I’ve endangered you, now. I’m sure he was watching me when I left-and now he’ll know where you are, Croy-I’m so sorry.”

“I can take care of myself,” he told her. “What happened?”

“I’ve been punished,” she said. She clenched her eyes closed and sagged toward him. She did not touch him, but moved her face quite close to his. “I failed him.”

“Hazoth?” Croy demanded.

She nodded.

Croy looked up at the gallery that overhung the hall but saw no eavesdroppers there. He pulled a chair away from the wall for her and she sank readily into it. Kneeling down next to her, he moved his hands over hers, wishing he could be of more comfort. “What do you mean, you failed him?” he asked.

She shook her head bitterly. “You’ll think me wicked,” she said. “Please… please don’t think me wicked. Last night-you met a thief in the darkened streets, did you not? He was doing some work for Hazoth. Foul business. I was to meet him, with Bikker, and receive the goods he’d stolen.”

“He seemed a good enough sort to me,” Croy said. A twinge of something ignoble went through his heart, but he couldn’t help himself. “A… friend of yours?”

Cythera shook her head. “Oh, he’s just a cutpurse. Someone Bikker found-we needed a thief, and-well, that’s a long tale. The point is this: Hazoth decided he must die. That he knew too many secrets, and that once we had our prize, we were to kill him. Bikker offered to do it, of course, but Hazoth seemed to find it more amusing if I was to be the instrument of destruction.”

“You told him you wouldn’t do it, of course.”

Cythera turned her face away from him. “Croy, I had no choice. I must obey him. So when the business was complete, I–I asked the thief to kiss me.”

Croy’s entire body stiffened, but he said nothing.

“You understand, don’t you? What that would do? Every curse I’ve stored up over the last five years would be released at once, into the poor thief’s body. He would have been slaughtered in an instant. But he refused me. Lucky for him, he knew your name, and knew the effect it would have on me. He’s really very clever for a pickpocket. And then he ran off, and I could not give chase. When I returned and told Hazoth that the thief had escaped, he was furious. He stormed about his library, making books jump off of their shelves, and his eyes glowed with magic. I thought he was going to turn on me and try to blast me with some spell. He has a terrible temper.”

“Did he hurt you? You said he punished you-what did he do? Cythera, tell me!” Croy wanted to grab up her hands or pull her into an embrace. He didn’t, of course. It would be his death.

“He cannot. His magic is no use against me. He can’t even have his guards beat me. And that just made him angrier. So he did the thing I’ve dreaded for so long. He turned on my mother instead.”

“The cur,” Croy swore.

“He has her in one of his rooms, trapped inside a magic circle. She has languished there for so long at his pleasure, but never before has he actually taken advantage of her imprisonment. I thought… I believed that when this time came, he would use magic against her. That he would wrack her with a curse, or perhaps attack her mind with his mind. But he didn’t.”

Cythera covered her face with her hands.

“He had her whipped,” she said. “With a plain leather bullwhip. Ten strokes across her back until the skin peeled away. And… he made me watch.” She lowered her hands and stared into his face. “He made me keep count.”

Croy stood up to his full height. “Wait here while I fetch my swords. I’ll kill him. I swear it, Cythera. I will slay him, and free you and your mother from his bonds, and then-”

“Croy,” she said, very softly, but it was enough to quiet him. “Croy, if you go there now, girded as for war, he will destroy you.”

“If I die for honor, for love, for fellow feeling-”

“You’ll still die. No matter how noble the principle, you can only die for it once. And then you’ll be no help to anyone. I do not wish you to get yourself killed for my mother’s sake, Croy.”

“You can’t ask me to listen to this story and do nothing,” he insisted.

“No,” she said. She straightened the hem of her dress. “No. That isn’t why I came here. There is something you can do. Some action you can take that might help me.”

“Finally,” Croy said, with a sigh. “Tell me all.”