Honor among thieves

Chapter Thirty-Eight

The river Skrait twisted through Ness, carving its way between Castle Hill and the Royal Ditch before diving straight for Eastpool. There it widened out to make a natural haven for river boats. The land on either side of this harbor, also called Eastpool, was a district of tar-stinking wharves and low shacks. It gave home to the fish market by day and a steady trade in the seedier commodities after dark. It was a natural magnet for thieves, yet Cutbill’s charges rarely ventured there alone, since its quays and unpaved lanes were patrolled constantly by rivermen carrying spikes and harpoons-men who did not trust the watch to keep them safe.

In Malden’s experience there had been no time of day or night when Eastpool was not crowded with fishwives and burly salters, with sea captains and pirates looking for a place to lie low. Now, though, like all the Free City, it was a desolate wasteland, almost untenanted. He saw a few women gathered around a jug of strong spirits. They were watching the fishing boats that had been pulled up on the banks and turned hull up to resist the sun. He saw a few confused looking sailors, just in from far ports of call and unknowing of the war or the game fate was playing with Skrae. Yet in many of the twisty ways he passed through, under the shade of half the shanties in Eastpool, Malden was alone.

He headed down the Ditchside Stair toward the water and there he was able to hire a rowboat from a one-armed man who looked very glad for his custom. Yet when Malden told him where he wished to row to, the boatman scowled and demanded a deposit on guarantee of return.

“I shall be quite welcome there, I assure you. I’m known there, and fondly,” Malden told the man, but failed to convince him.

“There’s those in this world like their privacy, and Coruth, she don’t welcome nobody,” the boatman insisted. “Even old friends.”

Malden sighed and turned over an extra shilling, which he doubted he would get back even if he returned the boat in perfect condition. The boatman would probably insist the rowboat had been contaminated just by coming in contact with the Isle of Horses.

It mattered little. If he was truly master of the guild of thieves now-ha, he thought, it’s but some trick Cutbill’s playing, as he’d been thinking all day-then he could afford the surcharge. He leapt into the little boat and grabbed up its oars.

He’d never cared much for rowboats, since you couldn’t see where you were going when you rowed. Yet this time he was almost glad to be pulling himself backward across the Skrait’s slow current. The Isle of Horses was none too easy on the eyes. It had been named for a calamity long passed, during a very rainy year when the Skrait had swollen and flooded its banks and was far too wild to navigate. Still, ships had tried, for Ness was the richest port in Skrae, and paid well for cargo. One ship foundered just inside Eastpool, run aground on a shoal. It sank with all hands and all its goods aboard, yet somehow a consignment of horses managed to escape the wreck and make their way onto the only available piece of dry land. Every attempt to retrieve the animals failed in the foaming water of a bad storm, and for days the people of Eastpool had been forced to listen to the screams of terrified beasts as the water rose, every hour coming a foot closer to washing the island away altogether.

The island survived, but no one found any trace of the horses when the storm had passed. The locals considered the tiny scrap of land haunted now, and neither landed there nor used it for any purpose. It was one of the few uninhabited parcels of land inside the city’s walls, and that should have made it invaluable as the city’s population grew and crowded every available square foot. Yet no one had ever tried to live there-until Coruth claimed it for her own.

Barely six feet above the water at its highest point, the Isle of Horses was choked with gorse and bramble. Coruth’s house was its only salient feature, a shack made of driftwood from which odd lights were often seen by night and sometimes noises issued that could not be explained. The perfect home for a witch.

Malden pulled at the oars until his boat grated on the rocky beach below the house. Because he had not announced his arrival-he knew no way to contact Coruth save to knock on her door-he stood awhile in the boat, letting himself be seen, before he stepped down onto the strand.

When there was no response from the house, he tried calling out, shouting that it was Malden and he wished to speak with Coruth. That elicited no response either.

So he jumped down from the boat, onto the pebbled shore, and started walking toward the house.

He’d taken no more than a half dozen steps before a rope, half buried in the pebbles, shifted under his foot as he trod on it. Instantly he felt the rope shift as it took up tension and he cursed silently. A trap-a trap he should have seen, because this was no magical ward. It was one of the simplest traps he’d ever encountered. The rope stretched away toward a post to which hundreds of cockle shells had been loosely nailed. As the pressure of his foot tightened the rope, it waggled the post and the shells chimed together-a soft, pleasant sound that was lost in the sighing of the wind. Having tripped enough alarms in his life, he knew someone would hear it.