The three thieves turned to look at each other, knowing the jig was up. One by one their faces fell. And then they slumped to the floorboards with a treble thump.
When he was sure they were all down, Malden stepped out of the bed and went to look in their sacks, to see what shiny presents they’d brought him.
Chapter Two
It was not more than an hour later when Malden heard the master of the house come home. He had been out at a gaming hall until closing time, as he was prone to do every night. Malden had done his research on the man, following him for the last three nights all the way from the Royal Ditch back to his home. Typically the man lost more than he won, and he would be followed all the way home by his long-suffering wife, who begged him every night to give up his expensive hobby. The man never said a word, merely took his drubbing as his due. The two of them would be accompanied by a bodyguard and a linkboy who lit his way through the dark streets. Malden closed his eyes and listened as the householder paid off the linkboy and then set his bodyguard to stand watch in the main room of the ground floor. The wife moved straightaway to her chamber, as she did every night, perhaps exhausted by the long journey through the night streets, perhaps simply desiring to get away from her wastrel mate. Malden heard her splash her face with water from the basin, then call for her handmaid, who would not be coming.
The master of the house climbed the stairs ponderously, pausing now and again as if he were so drunk he could not walk a straight line. He came immediately to his strongroom, which served him both as office and sanctum. Before he opened the door, he called for his own servant, a valet, who was also conspicuously absent.
“By the Bloodgod’s eight elbows,” the merchant swore, stumbling inside his strongroom. “Someone strike a light, anyway. Who’s here? I can hear you breathing in there. I promise you, Holger, if this is your idea of a jape at my expense-”
The light from the open door spilled across a glittering treasure, gathered and neatly sorted on the rich carpet of the strongroom. Silver plate and cutlery had been stacked beside bags of coin and fine porcelain. Good clothing, the lady of the house’s jewelry, and even the more expensive sort of cooking spices had been laid out there. The master of the house inhaled deeply to see all his worldly goods of value arrayed so.
Malden struck flint and lighted a taper on the table before him, the table that normally served as the merchant’s desk. “Close the door,” he said.
The merchant’s name was Doral Knackerson. He was not the wealthiest man in the Free City, but he was far from the poorest either. He owned three tanneries down in the Smoke. Malden had walked by those workshops often enough to know the particular gruesome stench of rendered animal carcasses. Strange, he did not detect even a whiff of that unforgettable smell on Doral’s person. It was as if the merchant were unwilling to visit his own property.
The man was middle-aged, with silver wisps of hair around his temples and none up top. He dressed well, but in the specific shabby-looking finery that rich men wore when they went abroad into the less reputable parts of town. He had a stack of coins in his hands-it seemed for once he’d left the gaming table richer than he’d arrived. The silver spilled from his fingers and rolled across the floor as he stared at Malden.
“Thief,” he whispered, then opened his mouth to shout it.
Malden forestalled him by stabbing his bodkin into the surface of the merchant’s desk. The knife was no longer than Malden’s hand, from the tips of his fingers to the heel of his thumb. It had no edge at all, but only a very sharp point that dug easily into the soft wood of the desk.
It was not a particularly effective or very deadly weapon. But it was good for sending a certain kind of message, one that Doral Knackerson must have received loud and clear. He closed his mouth again without so much as calling for his bodyguard.
“Close the door,” Malden said again, very softly.
Doral did as he was told. Malden had made extensive inquiries regarding Knackerson before he came here, and of all the people he had asked, none described Doral as a fool. Good. That would make this much easier.
“You’ll hang for this, thief. Cut my throat, take my belongings-what will you, but you’ll hang for it. Or you may leave right now, empty-handed, and I’ll say nothing of this intrusion to my close personal friend, the Burgrave.”
Malden smiled. “I’m not here to rob you,” he said. “Not tonight, anyway. In fact, my purpose here is quite the opposite. I happened to be strolling past this fine home tonight when I discovered these,” he said. He glanced to one side.
The bodies of the three thieves he’d surprised lay sprawled on the floor there, facedown.
Doral’s face went white.
“They were busy at amassing this collection of your goods,” Malden said, and gestured at the valuables piled on the carpet. “I stopped them before they could make good their escape.”
The merchant stared hard at Malden with shrewd, half-closed eyes. “You’re no watchman. None of them would lie in wait for me like this.”
Malden chuckled. “Oh, no. Just a citizen looking after his neighbor. By way of profession, I am the agent of one of your fellow burghers. A man of some influence in the city, though he rarely appears at the moothall. You’ll know his name, if you think for it.”
Doral pursed his lips. He did not require much prompting. “Cutbill. The guildmaster of thieves.”
“You make his name sound like a curse. When the man in question is about to become your fondest friend.” Malden shrugged. “These three were none of his. They were private operators, of a kind he despises. They were smart enough to make note of your movements, and even to bribe your servants to sleep elsewhere tonight. They were not clever enough to evade me.”
The merchant shook his head. “Say what you want. What your master wants, rather. I like not this feigned civility from a man who threatens me with a knife.”
Malden shrugged off the man’s brusqueness. “My master wants nothing. He wishes to give you something you clearly need. Protection. Cutbill can make sure you are never bothered with this unpleasantness again. You see how easily unprincipled rascals made entry to your house. You see how close a thing it was, that you were robbed tonight. Why, if I hadn’t been here, you’d only now be realizing how much you had lost. There must be… let me see… fifty gold royals worth of plate and jewels here, and the clothing would fetch some good silver coins if sold to the right consigners. Why risk losing so much, when Cutbill can ensure the safety of your belongings for so little?”
“How much?”
Malden pulled his bodkin out of the desk’s top. “One part in fifty of everything you earn. To be paid monthly, in silver. A trifle.”
“That’s just robbery by another name,” Doral spat. “I won’t pay it.”
“Ah, no man would submit to such blandishment, be he a creature of honor. I told Cutbill you were too high-minded to accept his offer. Alas, he bid me make it anyway. Very good. I’ll take my leave now, with compliments to you and your lovely wife.” Malden stood up from behind the desk and sketched a graceful bow.
“If I see you again-”
“Oh, you shan’t,” Malden told the merchant as he strode toward the door. “When next I come, you won’t see me at all.”
He walked directly past the merchant and reached for the latch of the door.
He didn’t make it that far.
“Wait,” Doral said. “We can negotiate something, surely.”
“I listen attentively,” Malden said, and leaned up against the wall.
Chapter Three
It was a long ride from the Golden Slope to the Ashes. Malden had a small wagon and an old, spavined horse
