you can’t stay up there forever. Eventually you’ll have to come down, and I can wait a long time.”
Malden favored him with a grim smile. If it came to that, he knew he could leap to the wall of the nearest house and be over its roof before the swordsman could climb the Godstone. He didn’t say as much.
“Enough,” Cythera said, and placed her sack in the basket. Malden hauled it up quickly, before Bikker could grab at it. It was as heavy as he expected-there must be ten pounds of gold in the sack. His heart lurched at the prospect. Opening the sack, he was relieved to see it was not full of stones or bars of lead. Quickly, he counted the money. One and a hundred golden royals! The exact amount he needed. He tied the sack to his back underneath his cloak.
“Many thanks,” Malden said. “As for your prize-it’s at the bottom of a horse trough two streets to the west. I would have brought it with me, but I couldn’t bear its incessant babbling.”
“You-You blasted fool,” Bikker frothed. “What if some vagrant stumbled upon it and hawked it already to a pawner?”
Malden shifted his shoulders so the gold at his back clinked. “Not my problem anymore.”
Bikker cursed and dashed out of the square, shouting for Cythera to stay and watch Malden. When he was gone, Malden slipped easily down the side of the Godstone, using the carved runes as handholds, and bowed deeply before her.
“It’s not wise to anger him,” she said with a sigh.
“I don’t intend to meet him again.” Malden turned on his heel to dash away. Something stopped him. He should have known better, especially after meeting Croy, but he couldn’t help himself. What if there was a chance? “You, on the other hand-”
“Me? You’d wish to see me again?” she asked.
“I think I made that clear, when last we spoke. If you’re amenable.”
A strange look crossed her eyes. Her face was too opaque with tattoos for him to read it. “Then perhaps,” she said, “I have something you might like to hear. There’s another reward. From my master.”
“Hazoth?” Malden said, confused. “I want nothing else from him.”
“Then take it from me,” she said, her voice soft and low. She stepped toward him and smiled. “A kiss. Just one. Don’t you find me desirable?”
Malden laughed, but more from uncertainty than the humor of it. “More than any woman I’ve known in a long time.”
“Perhaps I find you handsome. Perhaps I merely want to show my proper thanks.”
Malden’s heart raced. The offer certainly held its attractions. Yet it seemed strange she should offer it as coming from Hazoth. What had she meant?
She was very beautiful. Especially by moonlight. White flowers were blooming in the ink just below her left eye. Exotic, and all the more comely for it.
She moved closer, close enough to embrace him.
Malden took a step back. Something was happening here, something he didn’t understand. There was one thing he definitely needed to know. “Oh, milady, you’ve tempted me sore. But I’m not sure my new friend Sir Croy would approve,” he said.
“Croy,” she said, like a woman waking from troubled dreams. She blinked rapidly and straightened her posture. It was all Malden needed to hear. The offer of a kiss had not been given in good faith. Hazoth must have charmed her into making it-or maybe Sir Croy was testing him for some reason. “Did you say-”
Before she could finish her question, though, Malden was gone. He was really getting quite good at slipping away in the dark.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
An hour later Malden was fast, and finally, asleep.
He did not go home to his room above the waxchandler’s, of course. That was for fear that he’d find Bikker waiting there, his nasty sword dripping acid on the floorboards. Instead he took to sleeping rough, under the Cornmarket Bridge, just below Market Square. It was an odd and exposed place to doss. The bridge passed not over a river, but over the very houses of the Golden Slope. It had been built to allow goods to be brought from the Smoke straight to Market Square, without disturbing the wealthy citizens in their mansions. Its span was like a ribbon of stone floating over the rooftops, and where Malden perched he had a good view of a hundred chimney pots directly below, each of them trailing a thin stream of smoke. It was like lying on a cloud. It was a strangely exposed location, but its oddity made it ideal-no one would think to look for him there. In his rumpled, dusty cloak he looked the very picture of the broken men who frequented the place. None challenged him as he found a spot between two stone plinths and curled up, his cowl pulled tight around his face for warmth.
Only once, during the night, was he disturbed. In his sleep he felt rude fingers test the fabric of his cloak. His eyes snapped open and he was instantly awake. Should someone steal the gold now, it would be a foul jest, would it not?
His hand was already loosely closed on the hilt of his bodkin. He rolled slightly onto his side and drew it from its sheath as the hand grew more bold and insinuated itself into his clothing. Then he spun about on his hip and brought the knife up where it could be seen.
“Och, m’lud,” the beggar who’d been trying to roll him pleaded, filthy hands up and fingers spread wide, “there ain’t nothin’ needful in that.”
“Glad to hear it,” Malden said. “Find elsewhere to bed down, or someone less wary to plunder.”
The beggar nodded heartily and scurried away. Malden went back to sleep.
When he woke, before he opened his eyes, he reached around behind him and touched the sack of gold at his back. Still there.
He let himself smile broadly and luxuriate in the feeling. A fortune, and though it would be gone shortly, by spending it he would earn the right to replace it.
Today, he thought, will be the best of my life.
Then he opened his eyes. In the morning light the space under the bridge lost much of its charm. It was strewn with refuse and furry with gray, stunted weeds that never got enough sun. The penniless men who lived there lingered long in their slumber, brains still addled by the night’s freight of cheap drink. All but one, who had a fire going-it looked like it was made of old table legs-and a pot made from a pikeman’s rusty helmet. Whatever stew he was cooking up to break his fast smelled evil and looked worse, so when he offered to share it, Malden politely declined.
Exiting his erstwhile lair, he crawled out on one of the supports of the bridge and then clambered up and over its rail. A drover with a load of dressed stone bound for the palace gazed at him askance, but Malden had never yet been hurt by a nasty look. He fell in with the crowd of people heading down into the Golden Slope-servants and tradesmen and carters of sweetmeats and fuel, honest men up early to get to their work and earn another day’s wage.
Malden did not sneer at them, for he pitied them some. They would slave and toil for decades until their backs gave out and their beards grew long, and it would profit them little. They would die as they had lived, beholden to masters who cared not a jot for their welfare. Whereas he himself, who had been spurned by their society as not good enough-well, he had only to drop off his earned fortune, to pour it out dramatically across Cutbill’s desk-and then, and then!
And then he would be a full member of the guild. He would be a thief in good standing, with protection from arrest and a dwarf to make his tools for him. He would be, in certain circles, a gentleman of stature. He could begin to make money, real money, for himself. He would buy a fine new cloak, he thought, and rent better rooms. He would drink good wine from now on, instead of weak ale, and eat meat at least one meal a day. His standard of living-and concomitantly, his life expectancy-would improve by great measure, and all manner of things would improve.
And best of all-most important of all-he would be truly free. A man with money could not be made a slave. He could travel where he liked and count himself safe. He could escape the tawdry past and make his own fortune. His own future.
