his cloak across his face, he dashed to his left, intent on getting away from the spearing light – and near impaled himself on the point of a sword. He dropped his cloak just in time and drew up short as the tapering point bobbed in the air just inches from his throat. It was no blunt iron weapon either, but good, bright steel of the kind only a dwarf could forge. It would have run him through like a skewer through a sausage.
Squinting, Malden glanced over at the lantern. He could see now that it was sitting unattended on the cobblestones. If he had run toward it and kicked it over, he would be away into the shadows by now and free of this danger.
For the first time he looked down the blade of the sword at the man who held it. He was no watchman, at least. He was a blond man perhaps half again Malden’s age, wearing a jerkin studded with iron and a fine samite cape. A man of some wealth, then, though his boots were muddy. He was smiling, but with warmth-not with the predatory grin of a cat pinning a starling with its claws.
It took a moment for Malden to recognize his accoster. When he did, he was only more confused than before.
“You’re the fellow they were going to hang in Market Square,” he whispered. “The knight. Sir-Sir-Sir Something. Well, it seems you have me at your service, Sir-”
“Croy.”
Malden lifted a hand in salute. The knight knocked the hand away with the flat of his sword.
“I apologize for this rude meeting, but I saw no other way to gain your attention,” Croy told him. Stranger by the minute, Malden thought. He was not used to armed men treating him with civility. “I wish to ask you but a single question. Will you answer?”
“Under the circumstances, I can hardly refuse,” Malden replied.
“I saw you send a message to the villa of Hazoth. And I know someone fitting your description was on Castle Hill the night the tower fell. The night a certain boat was waiting in the river below.”
Malden was especially glad then that this knight was no watchman. If Anselm Vry’s men had put things together as neatly as this fellow, his neck would already be in a noose. “If you say so, milord.”
“You don’t deny it. The boat was there to collect you, wasn’t it? Cythera’s boat. I can see in your eyes it was so. So now I’ll ask you-what business have you with Cythera?”
Malden’s brow furrowed as he tried to understand what was happening. Was he about to be killed for reasons he would never know? Or would this fool let him go if he answered true?
For some reason, Malden thought he just might.
“I did some work for her, that’s all. I’m arranging to receive my payment.”
“In the middle of the night? Strange hours to take wages.”
“I suppose,” Malden said, “that depends on the labor.”
Croy’s face changed. The smile faded a bit and his eyes widened. “Tell me true, now. What job was it?”
Malden considered his reply carefully. “Sir Croy, I think your interest in milady Cythera is not of an, ah, adversarial nature. To be plain, I think you are her friend.”
“More than that, I hope,” Croy said.
Malden’s heart sagged in his chest. Something he hadn’t dared to actually hope for suddenly seemed out of his reach. But more than his feelings were bound to be hurt if he didn’t speak quickly. “I will admit to caring for her myself. If this sentiment is one we share, then surely you will understand it would put her at risk if I answered that question? Especially out here, where someone might overhear?”
“I see,” Croy said. He lowered his sword so it was no longer pointing at any vital part of Malden’s body. “You’re right, it’s too dangerous to have this talk in public. In that case, let us-”
But Malden didn’t hear the rest. He’d found the opening he had sought. As soon as the sword’s point dipped, he twisted sideways and bolted for the dark, jogging to one side only far enough to kick the lantern as he went.
Sir Croy called hold again and gave chase, but not for long. Malden had a head start on him, and in the night that was all the advantage the thief required.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Knightly interruptions notwithstanding, Malden’s preparations were finished long before midnight. He scouted out Godstone Square-a modest plaza deep in the Stink, where the residents were unlikely to open their windows at night-and found the proper spot to lie in wait, then gathered together the tools he needed. This largely amounted to stealing some poor citizen’s clothesline and digging an old but still sound basket out of a rubbish pile in an alley. Not the most sophisticated tools, but the simplicity of Malden’s plan was its strength.
The Stink at that hour of night was all but deserted. Up on the Golden Slope, across the river in the Royal Ditch, the rich would be up and about, taking their night’s entertainment in gambling houses or playing cards or listening to chamber music in their well-lighted apartments. They would be out in the streets in the murk of night, led along the wide avenues by the linkboys who ran through the streets carrying pitch torches. Down here, though, the poor could afford little light after the sun set. Candles were expensive, oil lamps doubly so. The people of the Stink kept out of their dark streets, sleeping early behind thick shutters and locked doors. Only thieves prospered after dark here. Thieves like Malden.
He took his place, then settled in to wait. His body drooped with the need for sleep and his belly was far from full but he’d learned a long time ago how to ignore his muscles and wait in silence for long periods of time.
It was no more than two hours later when Bikker and Cythera approached the square. They came silently, without lights, and walked directly up to the Godstone itself in the middle of the crossroads.
A monolith about fifteen feet tall, inscribed with dread runes that time had weathered to illegibility, it had been a center for the worship of the Bloodgod centuries ago. The first Burgrave had ritually defiled it, however, and the people stopped coming. Too big and too heavy to be carted away, it waited out the years and the rain in mute witness. Even the bloodstains that once washed its lower half had faded away to nothing, and now it served only as a landmark, an unloved boil on the face of an unloved district. Neither Cythera nor Bikker even looked at it as they approached. Their eyes studied the shadows, the corners, the recessed doorways of the houses around them.
They did not think to look up. Malden stirred himself carefully-his limbs were stiff with immobility-and cleared his throat.
His two employers did not flinch. As one they turned their faces upward and looked upon him where he crouched atop the stone. Bikker looked annoyed. Cythera looked merely like she wished to be somewhere else.
He could sympathize. “Did you bring the gold?” he asked.
Bikker’s face softened. “You could at least have picked a less public meeting place.”
“Certainly. A dark alley, perhaps? Or maybe we could have met at the top of a cliff above the Skrait, so you could just push me in.”
“You don’t trust us?” Cythera asked. There was no hurt in her tone.
“I don’t trust him. He killed two just to draw attention.” Malden rose to his feet and paced back and forth atop the stone. It was just barely two strides across. “As for you-I can imagine why you took your little boat away. I don’t think any of us expected things to turn out this way.”
“If you mean we didn’t expect you to bungle the job,” Bikker growled, “you’re right, there.”
Malden laughed-though not loudly. “We all survived. I have the thing you want. As long as you have my gold, I think we did just fine.”
Cythera reached beneath her cloak and drew forth a bulging sack. It looked heavy in her slim hands, but she showed no sign of effort as she lifted it. “All the same, you’d do well to lie low after this. We drew more scrutiny than we would have liked. And they’ll be looking for the object.”
“Bah,” Bikker said. “They probably think it’s buried in the rubble. Come down here, boy, and give it to me. Then we’ll leave your gold. Then we’ll never see each other again, if you know what’s good for you.”
“I have a better notion.” Malden kicked the basket over the side of the stone so it dropped to the cobbles at their feet. The clothesline tied to its handle had its other end in his hand. “Put the gold in there and I’ll raise it up. Then I’ll throw you your prize.”
“Out of reach of my sword, up there,” Bikker said. His face showed a kind of grudging admiration. “Of course,
