Honor among thieves

Chapter Forty

Malden moved out of the way as she swept toward him, her long dress whirling around her. She went to the bucket and bent low over it, speaking incantations he couldn’t follow. The words were in no language he knew, but he swore they sounded more like a mother soothing a crying baby than a witch invoking dark powers. He pressed himself up against the wall and tried not to move.

“Who are you? Why are you here?” Coruth shrieked, spinning around to face him. Her eyes didn’t focus on his features, however. They didn’t seem focused on anything.

“Coruth, it’s me, Malden,” he said.

“Malden?” she asked, as if trying to remember the name. Then, “Malden!” Her eyes snapped to his face, and her mouth curled in a warm smile. She rushed to embrace him with something like fondness. “So very good of you to come, my boy. So very good of you to visit an old woman and her spinster daughter.”

“Mother!” Cythera said from the door. “Malden, please forgive her. She was very far away there, for a moment.”

“Seeing,” Coruth agreed. “Far seeing. Dangerous stuff.” She dropped into a chair and put her legs up on a table. Leaning her head back, she exhaled noisily. “You can get lost so easily when you’re that far from your body. And of course there’s no guarantee you’ll like what you find. Malden,” she said, leaning toward him, “how fare you? I haven’t seen you in quite a while.”

“I live, which is something I’m always grateful for,” he said with a shrug. “Beyond that, it seems the wheel of luck turns for us all. Helstrow has fallen, and-”

“Redweir will be next,” Coruth announced. Her mouth tightened into a defensive scowl. “The barbarians move quickly-that’s one of their greatest tricks. They are not hampered by complicated supply lines, for they ravage every land they cross, and provender themselves on the spoils. Each chieftain commands his own clan with great autonomy, so there’s no need for companies to sit in garrison waiting for orders from on high.” She shook her head. “Redweir will fall. But they won’t stop there. They’ll turn west. They’ll come here.”

Malden felt all the blood rush out of his face. “You’ve… seen this? With the second sight?”

“Don’t need to,” Coruth said, waving one bony hand. “It’s just logical. Everyone here knows it’s coming. That’s why anyone who could has already left.” She gave him a shrewd look. “Cutbill, they say, even Cutbill has fled.”

Malden was shocked that Coruth even knew Cutbill’s name. Yet he supposed a witch might know anyone-and know their business, too, and more than they wanted. He nodded. “Yes, I learned that just a short while ago myself.”

“And with him gone, who will minister to the thieves?” Coruth asked.

Had it been anyone else, Malden would have lied. No need advertising his new position-that was likely to get him killed or arrested. This was Coruth, however. She would see through any falsehood. “As a matter of fact,” he told her, “that’s why I came to speak with you. He left me in charge.”

The witch’s eyes widened and her smile returned. She did not seem surprised that Cutbill would choose Malden as his successor. “Did you hear that, Cythera? He’s a guildmaster now! A man of position. You could do a lot worse.”

“I take it you know that Cythera and I have-” Malden said. Or tried to say.

“I know all, see all,” Coruth said, with a twinkle in her eye. “If she wishes to marry you, I won’t stop her. That’s her decision to make.”

“Right now, I’ve decided to see to our supper,” Cythera said, and hurried into the kitchen.

For a while Coruth and Malden sat in silence. Eventually the witch took a pouch from her belt and spilled its contents into her hand, what looked like dried fruit. Malden would not have ventured a guess as to what it actually might be. Coruth took one of the desiccated things and tucked it under her tongue.

“You didn’t come for advice on love,” she said quietly.

Malden took out the page he’d torn from Cutbill’s ledger. “No,” he said. “I came to ask your help with this. It’s some kind of cipher, but I can’t make odds or orts of it.”

Coruth nodded and studied the paper carefully for a while. Then she brought it to her face and sniffed it. Rubbed it between her fingers and listened to the way it squeaked. “No magic to it. Nor would I expect such from Cutbill.”

“Why not?”

Coruth smiled. “Because then I could have read it for you as easily as if it were written in plain Skraeling. No, this cipher is meant to be broken the hard way. He meant you to work this out on your own.”

“I may not have time for that. I have to meet with his-rather, with my thieves tonight. I need to tell them something, give them some direction. Otherwise they’ll think I’m just a puppet, someone to keep the books while Cutbill’s gone. If I want them to actually follow my orders, I need them to know I can actually give some.”

“Then you have your work cut out for you,” Coruth said, handing the page back to him. “This message isn’t for me, at any rate. He would not have enciphered it had he wished someone else to read it. I can’t solve your riddle, Malden. But I can show you how it is to be done, if you like.”

“That would be most kind,” he said. “I can pay you, of course, for your trouble.”

“No, you can’t,” Coruth said. “I won’t take your money. You saved me from eternal imprisonment once, Malden, and I will not forget that.” She gave him a smile that looked almost matronly. “I may be your mother-in-law someday as well.”

“I won’t ask for Cythera’s hand as some kind of reward,” Malden said. “She’d never love me, not truly, if she thought I’d bought her somehow.” He shook his head. “No, she must decide to take my hand freely.”

“Good man. Now,” Coruth said, “before Cythera has finished cooking for us-you will stay to eat, won’t you? — let’s discuss ciphers, and their proper use, and how they can be broken.”