Den of thieves

Chapter Five

Beyond the locked door was a snug little office, heated by a charcoal brazier and kept insulated by heavy tapestries hanging on the walls. A massive desk faced the door, carved out of some expensive wood that had turned black over time, a very large and detailed map of the city posted behind the desk, a basin for washing one’s face and hands, and a sideboard with a flagon of wine and several goblets. No one sat behind the desk, however. Instead, the room’s sole occupant perched on a stool in the corner, scratching entries in a broad ledger held on a lectern before him.

He was a very thin man with long, mournful features and eyebrows that arched high onto his bare forehead. His black hair had receded well back onto his scalp and was shot through with two streaks of gray. His eyes were at once very dark and very bright-narrow, merciless eyes that did not look up at Malden as he came in.

Malden closed the door behind him and waited patiently for the man to finish his task. There were chairs, but he did not sit down, unsure what to expect inside this cozy room.

The man’s quill pen scratched out a few more figures and then stopped.

“Your mother was a whore,” he said, quite without inflection.

Malden’s chest clenched but he understood what was happening. The man-who was certainly Cutbill, whether he looked like a mastermind of thievery or not-was testing him. Attempting to see if he would come at him in a fury or perhaps merely whine in offense.

There was no denying the truth of the statement, however. “She was. A good woman in a bad situation, who did her best to raise me with care and patience. She died of the sailor’s pox when I was not yet a man.”

Cutbill nodded, as if merely accepting this new bit of information as something to enter into his account book. “Your father?”

“Half the men in this city might claim the title, yet none ever have.”

“Sit down. You may be here awhile,” Cutbill told him. Malden chose a chair near the door. “You lived in a bawdy house for most of your youth, performing small tasks and running errands for the madam. In that time you probably saw your fair share of illicit activity. I daresay you might have engaged in some yourself-rolling drunks, cheating paying clients-or at least tricking them into overpaying-procuring small quantities of various illegal drugs for the harlots. It wasn’t until after your mother died that you began extending your activities to the larger sphere of the city, though.”

“There wasn’t much choice in the matter,” Malden confirmed. “There’s not much room in a brothel for a young man-not when there are so many unwanted boys around to clean the place and run errands. I was given a few coins but told to go forth and find my own fortune. I decided I’d see how honest folk lived. It turned out the city had little use for a whoreson with no estate. This place isn’t kind to those who were born on the wrong side of the sheet.”

If he’d been hoping to evince sympathy from Cutbill, he was disappointed. The clerkish man didn’t even look up.

“I looked for work in various trades. I was too old already-no guild would take me on for prenticing at the advanced age of fifteen. I tried to find occupation as a bricklayer, as a carpenter, even as a stevedore down at the wharves. Each place turned me away-or demanded bribes. The gang bosses who organized such labor all wanted a cut of the pennies I would earn.”

“And you were unwilling to pay such fees.”

“How could I, and survive? It takes money to live in this world, money to eat, money for rent, money for taxes and tithes. The pay that work offered would have put me in debt the first week, and it would only have gotten worse. I’d seen this scheme before, and the ruin it caused.”

“Oh?”

“It is exactly how the pimps keep their stables of women in line.”

“Indeed,” Cutbill said.

Malden fidgeted with the sleeve of his shirt. “There were no opportunities for one like me. None at all. Yet I needed money to survive. I could go out on the streets and become a beggar. Or I could turn to a life of crime. You know which I chose.”

“And found you had a flair for it.”

“You wish to know my life story entire?”

“I already know it. I’m simply confirming it. For the last five years you’ve been making a paltry living pilfering coppers from the unwary. Occasionally you’ve run a trick of confidence, but your real skills seem to lie in your fingers, not your voice. It was only recently you turned to burglary. For only a few months now you’ve been breaking into houses. Care to tell my why you changed your game?”

“People in this city know better than to carry much money when they go out. They know no purse is ever safe. The real money they leave behind, at home. It only seemed logical to follow the money, not the people.”

The master of thieves made a small notation in his ledger. “You know who I am,” Cutbill said. “You spoke my name outside.”

Malden waved one hand in the air. “All of the Free City knows the exploits of great Cutbill, master of thieves, procurer extraordinaire, purveyor of unlawful euphoria, betrayer of confidences, extortionist to the high and mighty-”

“Spare me.”

Malden sat back in his chair, a little dumbfounded. He had not expected the man to speak so plainly-or so abruptly. It was all he could do to keep up.

“You know that I run this city, or, at least, the clandestine commerce within it. That I have organized and consolidated the criminal class. That I have taken in hand the scattered gangs and crews that exist in any city of this size and made of them something more cohesive, something efficient.” Cutbill put down his pen and sat up on his stool, lifting his chin in the air. “You know my reputation. I recounted your history to show I know yours as well.”

Malden held his peace.

“I do not appreciate arse-licking, nor false modesty, nor unplain speaking. So I will say this simply: I have kept a close and admiring eye on you, ever since I became aware of your activities. I keep accounts of all who commit crimes in the Free City of Ness, whether they work for me or not. But you, Malden-you I’ve watched quite closely. You have the skills of a born thief: the lightness of step, the deftness of hands, the ability to keep a secret. And you learned these things all on your own. No mentor guided you, no school drilled you up in the ways of our profession. I find this quite impressive. Or I did so, until tonight.

“Tonight, you went in secret into the house of Guthrun Whiteclay, a master of the worthy guild of potters, and took from him a quantity of silver plate, some fancy cutlery, and a sack of silver coin he had hidden under his bed. Yet you failed to prepare for this jaunt properly.”

Malden frowned. No one, he thought, could have been more prepared than he. “I cased the house for three days. Watched Whiteclay and his wife leave for a fete up at the moothall, saw him lock his front door but forget to latch a window at the side. I wrapped my shoes in cloth to deaden my footsteps. I studied the patrol patterns of the city watch and knew exactly how long I had to get in and out unseen. I even waited for a night when the fog would conceal the moon, and so darken the alley I used for my entrance and escape.”

“Yes,” Cutbill said, “but you forgot to ask anyone if Guthrun Whiteclay had protection. Do you even understand this concept? I have an arrangement with him. Nothing formal, nothing written down, of course. Yet I receive from him each month a certain sum of money. In exchange for this small payment, he is guaranteed against burglary, robbery, blackmail, and murder at the hands of his business rivals. You may think it easier to simply take all that is his and be done with it-but I assure you, over the years I have made many times as much money from this arrangement than you might ever see from reselling his household goods. Now you have cost me money, because I must send out my agents to recover the things you stole and have them returned to Whiteclay’s house before he notices they are missing. Do you understand the magnitude of that task? Do you understand what it will cost me if I fail in it?”

“I see,” Malden said, shifting in his chair. “So this is a shakedown. You wish me to return these things and to give you the silver I worked so hard to acquire. Well, I don’t like it-but what choice have I? You can have your pet swordsman out there skewer me like a pig on a spit if I refuse.”

Malden had the impression that Cutbill had never smiled in his life. One corner of his mouth did pucker, though, as if he were savoring some tasty morsel of knowledge that he had not chosen to share.

“Yes, yes, all of that. But more as well. I want you to join my operation.”

Malden frowned. “I’m sorry?”

“I wish to offer you a job.”