Den of thieves

Chapter Sixty

The button seller looked up with a broad smile as Malden approached his stall. “Well met, sir, come, come, take a look here, finest horn-and not just ox horn, no sir, this is made of shavings from a unicorn’s famed weaponry. Proof against poison, sir, you’ll never need fear bad drink or food again.”

Malden frowned. He met the button seller’s eye with a meaningful look and then placed his hand on a barrel of sequins. He pushed his fingers through the thin bits of metal, as if he would root around in the bottom of the barrel. The ribbon girl’s takings were at its bottom, he was sure. The button seller stared at him with suspicion in his eyes, but only a moment. Next, Malden stepped over to a barrel full of assorted buttons. Many of them were broken and all were worn and discolored.

“You want none of that dross, I assure you,” the merchant told him. “Come, look at these. Genuine pearl, from the shells of clams as big as carts. They grow in only one sheltered cove in the far and mysterious Northern Kingdom called the Rifnlatt, and cost a pretty penny to import, but for you sir, well, I like your look, so-”

Malden took a coin from his purse-a tuppence-and dragged it across the surface of the buttons, digging a narrow furrow through them. With two more sweeping curves and a couple more lines he sketched a simple drawing of a heart transfixed with a key.

The button seller stopped talking at once. He reached for the coin and took it from Malden’s hand, in the process smoothing out the buttons and obliterating Malden’s handiwork. “I’m up to date on my payments,” the merchant insisted. “Move on before someone sees us together.”

“He-you know of whom I speak-calls on your aid. You’ll be rewarded.”

The button seller cast a suspicious glance at Croy, who was standing a ways off, trying to look inconspicuous and failing, utterly.

Malden sighed. “He’s a mark,” he said, a half lie. “I’m running a game on him. But to pull it off I need a distraction. Did you see a woman come through here, wearing a velvet cloak, followed by a bravo with a barrow? If you saw her face you’ll remember her, for it was painted from chin to hairline in vines and flowers.”

“Aye,” the button seller agreed. “I saw her.”

“I need the bravo out of the way so I can speak with that woman. The guard doesn’t need to be distracted… permanently, just for a few minutes. Do you think you can help me?”

“For-For him,” the merchant said, meaning Cutbill, “I can.”

“My thanks. And his.” Malden wandered away from the stall, one hand reaching for a bolt of patterned damask hanging from the next stall over. Croy came running over to join him, and Malden cursed the knight silently. If he didn’t need Croy to gain Cythera’s favor he would never have come out with him like this.

“It’s done,” Malden said, and no more.

“When? Where shall it occur?”

“Keep your eyes open,” Malden told him.

They moved through the crowd drawing as little attention as possible. Malden stopped at several stalls and even haggled for a moment with a seller of thread, though he had no intention of buying anything. Croy kept staring at the faces passing by, but there was no help for that. Malden made sure they stayed close to wherever Cythera went, but not too close. When the diversion came he was no more than ten yards away.

“Sir, please sir, my sister, she’s gone mad with fever, and she’s locked me out of our house. Sir, please, I need your help, I need your axe, milord, please, I need you to chop down our door.” It was the ribbon girl, though Malden barely recognized her. She had tucked her hair up inside a snood and turned her ragged kirtle inside out to show a different color. Such talent-Malden hoped Cutbill knew what a marvel he had in his employ, and what she was worth. “Sir, please, your help is most needed!”

Hazoth’s retainer snarled and kicked at the girl but she was fast enough to avoid being struck. The tale she spun was obviously something she’d come up with on the spot, but the details didn’t matter. The retainer shouted for her to leave off, and suddenly every eye in the market was turned in his direction.

It wasn’t so much that the marketers were astounded that a grown man would shout at a girl like that, or threaten her with a naked blade. It was hardly likely they’d been moved by her impromptu tale of woe. But entertainment was where you found it in the Free City of Ness-and this looked like it could be diverting indeed.

Not for the first time Malden gave thanks for the prurience of his fellow citizens. Now that they were all distracted, he could move where he liked through the crowd, and no one would see him go. Better yet, they wouldn’t see Croy. The big knight was simply impossible to make inconspicuous-unless people had something else to look at.

Most importantly of all, no one was looking at Cythera. She slipped between the shoulders of two burly men who were laughing at the sight of a toughened bravo beset by a street urchin. Instantly Cythera was swallowed up by the crowd.

“There,” Malden said, and pointed to a dark alley closest to where Cythera had disappeared. “Go. Now,” he said, and clouted Croy on the arm. The knight headed straight for the alley, and Malden worked his way through the crowd in the same direction, though not by such a direct route.

At the mouth of the alley he stopped and looked into its shadows. Cythera and Croy were already there, deep in conversation. Malden took one last look out at the market. The ribbon girl had managed to pull a length of poplin from a bolt and was weaving it through the bravo’s legs. She did it so deftly it looked like she’d pulled the cloth by accident, caught it with her flailing hands. Anyone lacking Malden’s trained eye would have no idea what she was doing or what fruit it was about to bear.

Hazoth’s retainer lifted one mailed hand to swat the girl away but she was already gone-along with his purse. He must have realized that as soon as he returned his hand to his belt, because he cried out that he’d been robbed. He tried to give chase but was tangled in the poplin and fell flat on his face. The owner of the bolt of poplin came storming out of his booth to berate the fallen retainer, and the crowd laughed riotously at this spontaneous farce.

Perfect. Malden reminded himself to ask for the girl’s name. She was born to the game, he could tell.

“-solve all our problems with one stroke,” Croy was saying, his voice rising in volume. Malden came rushing toward the knight to shut him up. “And it will only cost-”

Cythera did Malden’s work for him by interrupting.

“Last night he had her arm broken,” she said, speaking over Croy’s words. Her voice was ice hanging in the air.

The effect on Croy could not have been more profound if she’d slapped him across the face. “What? I don’t understand,” he said. He looked like a whipped dog.

“Did you think Hazoth would not hear of your antic at the palace?” Cythera demanded. “Calling on Vry to storm his home. Such a fool! I cannot believe I ever pinned hopes on your star, Croy.” She turned away from the knight in disgust. “Hazoth knows about our connection, of course. He believes I set you to this reckless end. I could not convince him otherwise, and when I refused to confess, he sent two of his men with a bar and a piece of rope. They tied her arm double, and then twisted the rope with the bar until I heard the bone snap.”

A tear ran down the garden of painted lilies that decorated Cythera’s cheek.

“I meant only to-”

“I know what you meant to do! How much do good intentions mean in your world, Croy? In this storybook place you inhabit, where brave knights ride to the rescue of poor helpless women, is there glory in merely wanting to do good? Because in my world-and his,” she said, jabbing a finger toward Malden, “what’s in your heart means nothing. Not when all your best hopes and desires only make things worse.”

Malden watched the two of them closely. Croy was like one thunderstruck, unable to speak or move. Cythera was so wracked with care that her skin was ashen under the vines and flowers on her face.

There was no time for this.

“Milady,” he said, “we have moments only before your watchdog comes sniffing for you. Think me not heartless.”

“No, Malden, I know you care,” she said. She took a cloth from her sleeve and dabbed at the tears on her face, though with such gentle and hesitant motions she barely mopped up any of them. “What say you?”

“I am taking an enormous risk by trusting you. I have no way of knowing you will not repeat to Hazoth everything I say. Yet I have no choice but to ask your help. I seek to get the crown back. Once it is in my hands, Anselm Vry will have no choice but to arrest Hazoth, and likely execute him. Your mother will be freed, and you with her. Croy will be so beloved by the Burgrave that his banishment will be lifted, and with it the noose that belongs around his neck.”

“And you, Malden? What will you gain? Can I afford your services?”

“I get my heart’s desire,” he said. He lowered his eyes. “But you need not pay that price. Meet with us tonight if you can. I have a room in the Stink.” He described the street where he lived and how to reach it from Parkwall.

“Very well,” she said. “At midnight, Hazoth will retire to his bedchamber and be occupied there until dawn. I’ll come then.”

“My thanks,” Malden said. He watched her head back into the square, never once looking back. “Croy-we have to go now. There is no more time.”

The knight didn’t move. “Her arm?” he asked, his voice very small.

“Come! Or be damned,” Malden hissed. “I only needed you to make contact with her. Get yourself killed now, if that’s how you’ll find your glory. But if you would aid me-if you would aid Cythera further-come. Now.”

Eventually, Croy followed where Malden led.