Honor among thieves

Chapter Thirty-Five

“A ll right,” Malden said. “Well, that’s got me up to date. Now I imagine I need to think about the future. If I’m running this guild, I’ll need to get started. Did Cutbill leave me instructions, at least?” He had never run so much as a card game before. Surely Cutbill wouldn’t just assume he knew how to keep a criminal enterprise in motion.

“He said it’s all in the ledger,” Loophole told him.

Malden nodded and went to the lectern, where the infamous book lay open to a half-filled page. He saw columns and columns of numbers, each with a corresponding notation in a tiny, spidery hand. Very few of the notes meant anything to him, but he assumed they represented quantities of money brought in by various thieves, or paid out in bribes or other expenses. It wasn’t exactly a manual of instructions. Thinking Cutbill must have left him a message in plainer words, he flipped to the next blank page. And found what he was looking for-though it made him even more confused.

The top of the page was inscribed: FOR MALDEN, SHOULD HE RETURN. Those were the only words Malden recognized. The rest were in some bizarre alphabet he’d never encountered before. Or perhaps not in any kind of alphabet at all, but a cipher-for the words were inscribed in circles and triangles and congeries of dots. It looked more like dwarven runes than human writing.

“What do you make of this?” he asked the oldsters, showing them the encoded page.

’Levenfingers looked away. “Well, now, that’s really a private matter-”

Loophole nodded eagerly. “None of our business, properly-”

“None of us can read,” Lockjaw finished.

“Ah,” Malden said. “No, of course not.” It was not that common a skill. He had learned to read and write because he grew up in a brothel that required a bookkeeper. Expecting thieves-even learned, wise, and venerable elders like these three-to know the art was expecting too much. “I beg your pardon.” He took the page in hand and started to tear it from the book. He hesitated, because this was Cutbill’s ledger. In the annals of the thieves of Ness, it was close on being a holy relic.

Still. The page was addressed directly to him. He tore it out and stuffed it into his tunic, right next to Cutbill’s signed contract for his assassination.

“I want word sent to every thief in the city who hasn’t joined on with the Burgrave yet,” Malden told the oldsters. “Have them all meet me tonight. Midnight,” he said, because that was a fitting time for a conclave of thieves. He thought for a moment, then added, “At the Godstone.”

The oldsters agreed to do as he asked. Once he thanked them properly and handed each a bag of coins for expenses, Malden left the office and went back to the common room. Velmont and his crew had come down already and made themselves at home, lounging on the furniture with their dirty boots. That seemed less acceptable, now that it was technically his furniture.

“Velmont,” he said. “You work for me now. Is that a problem?”

“Where’s your famous Cutbill?” the Helstrovian thief asked.

“Gone. He left me in charge. I’ll ask again, is that a problem?”

Velmont held one hand out, palm upward.

Malden nodded and took a dozen coins from his purse. After what he’d given the oldsters, he had precious little left, but that was the cost of doing business. He laid the silver on Velmont’s palm.

“No problem a’tall,” the Helstrovian told him.

“Good.” Malden looked over and saw Slag at his workbench, sorting through his tools as if to make sure nothing had been taken. “Slag-show this bunch around. Find some food for them. I’m sure they’re all hungry after traveling so far.”

“Sure, lad,” Slag said, and rose from his bench. If he was at all surprised that Malden had just taken over the thieves’ guild, he showed no sign of it.

I wish I had the same confidence, Malden thought.

He started for the trapdoor, but Slag stopped him with a look. “Where are you headed?” the dwarf asked. “In case we need you.”

Malden thought of telling the dwarf to mind his own business. But he supposed Slag had a point. If the watch broke in and raided the lair in his absence, he would want to know about it, wouldn’t he? “I’m going to see the witch Coruth.”

“Your prospective mother-in-law,” Slag said with a grin.

That fact hadn’t occurred to him. Instead he’d thought that Coruth might be the one person in Ness who could decipher Cutbill’s instructions.