What a fine and clever fellow am I. What a wise and cunning scoundrel. My mother would be proud indeed.
Such feelings put a bounce in his step and he made good time as he wended his way downhill, through the Smoke and the Stink, down to the Ashes. In the charred embers down by Westwall he even began to whistle a jaunty tune.
He saw no sign of the urchin army that guarded Cutbill’s hiding hole. All to the good-they must recognize him now, he considered, and kept back out of respect. As well they should! Journeyman thief! Man of station!
He came around the corner of the ruined inn and merrily hailed the three old veteran thieves where they sat on their coffin… except they weren’t there.
Odd.
Lockjaw, ’Levenfingers, and Loophole never budged from that spot, in his experience. Still, he supposed they must sleep sometime. And it was, by the standards of the larcenous crew, still very early. The sun wasn’t even over Castle Hill as yet. Malden shrugged and found the trapdoor that led down into Cutbill’s headquarters.
“Bellard? Anyone? It’s Malden, and I’m coming down,” he said in a forced whisper. He knew from previous visits the strange acoustics of the stairwell leading down, which widened as it descended and thus amplified all sounds that issued from its top. Malden thought it wise to announce his entry into that place, if the old trio could not do it for him.
Yet at the bottom no one waited for him, nor was he challenged by any sentry. The common room was, in fact, empty. Slag had deserted his workbench. No whores were sleeping it off on the divan, and for the very first time no gamblers were throwing dice upon the wall.
It took a moment for Malden to notice what else was different. First off he saw this: the divan was shoved out of its place, its legs having scuffed the stone floor. A booted foot stuck out from behind it. As Malden approached, with dread in his heart, he saw that it was Bellard back there. And Bellard was not down for drink, or white snuff, or even just a late night.
Blood frothed on the bravo’s lips. His eyes stared at nothing at all.
“Bellard,” Malden said, bending over the body. “Bellard, who did this?” He saw that Bellard was clutching at his stomach, and lifted the dead man’s hand away. The wound beneath was a deep gouge that pierced his vitals. Clotted blood lay thick around the injury. It looked like someone had taken an axe to Bellard’s middle.
Malden heard something-a door being drawn back, perhaps. A foot scraping on stone. He whirled about and saw, secondly, this: the ancient and historied lock that had always warded Cutbill’s door was broken in pieces and lay scattered on the floor. And Cutbill’s impregnable door stood slightly ajar.
Malden tried to run. He did not get far. The door slammed open and men with halberds wearing cloaks-of- eyes came boiling out. “Seize him,” someone said, “whoever he is.” And then a dozen hands were on him and they dragged him inside, into what had been Cutbill’s private sanctum.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The rough hands that dragged Malden inside the door threw him down to land on hands and knees. The butt of a halberd struck him in the back, and someone put a boot on his neck and pushed him down to the floor. His bodkin was wrenched from its sheath and his purse dragged out of his belt. A man of the watch found the sack of gold at his back and tore at it until it burst open and coins bounced and rolled across the rushes that strewed the floor.
“Lady’s kneecaps, there’s a treasure,” someone swore. Malden could see little from where he lay save for boots and the bottom of Cutbill’s desk. He could hear the voices of half a dozen men, however, and knew he was hopelessly outnumbered.
“Stolen, do you think?”
“Of course-where are we, but the citadel of crime?”
“Ought to seize it for the city coffers.”
“Make an accounting of it, so we can split it later and-”
“Count it. All of it. And then place it here.” When this last voice spoke, the watchmen around Malden all came to attention. “Let him up, so I may speak with him,” the voice said. The boot on Malden’s neck moved away and he scrambled backward to get to his feet. Finally he was able to see what was happening in the office.
The watch lined the walls of the room, the points of their halberds almost scraping the ceiling. In the center of the room Cutbill sat at his ledger, quill pen in his hand-just as Malden remembered him from their last meeting.
Standing next to him was Anselm Vry.
Malden recognized the bailiff of the Free City, as would any citizen of Ness. After the Burgrave, Vry was the human face of the city. As bailiff he not only led the watch but also saw to every administrative detail of city life- enforcing the Burgrave’s edicts, seeing that weights and measures were kept scrupulously exact, overseeing the moots of the trade guilds. He was the second most powerful man in the city, and if he were here personally, it could mean only one thing. He knew the crown had been stolen, and he wanted to find it at any cost.
Malden had already seen the price that Bellard had paid.
“Is he one of yours?” Vry asked, staring at Malden.
The question was directed, however, at Cutbill. “One of my thieves? No, of course not,” Cutbill answered. He made a notation in his ledger. “Look at the state of his clothing. My fellows can afford to dress themselves.”
“And this money? This gold?” Vry demanded.
Cutbill did look up then. He glanced at the stacks of gold coins a watchman was placing on his desk. Then he turned his gaze on Malden and lifted one eyebrow. He was sending Malden a message, which was this: be circumspect and do not gainsay me. Malden was wise enough not to acknowledge that he had received the instructions.
Cutbill gestured dismissively with his pen. “The money is mine, yes. This boy is merely here to deliver it. Perhaps before we say anything else, he should be sent on his way.”
Vry studied Malden with concentrated disdain. “Very well. Give him his knife back-he’s no danger to anyone with that pig-cutter.”
“Boy,” Cutbill said, “if you leave by the door to my left, you’ll find yourself well on your way back to the Stink.”
Malden nodded and accepted his bodkin from the watchman holding it. He did not ask why Cutbill was sending him out through the door on the left, when it was the door directly behind Cutbill’s desk that led back to the surface. He pushed back the tapestry that hid the specified door and stepped through. Beyond was a tiny room with no other exits-a closet, really, empty of furnishings or ornament.
It did have one defining feature, however. Just to one side of the door, at the height of a man’s eyes, a very small hole had been drilled through the wall. Someone looking through that hole could see-and hear-anything that happened in Cutbill’s office.
So this was a spy chamber. If Cutbill had sent him here, it was with good reason. Malden placed his eye against the hole and made himself silent.
Back in the office, the bailiff and the guildmaster of thieves were already in close consultation.
“If it was one of your thieves who stole the crown,” the bailiff said, “I will hang every one of your crew. You I’ll have drawn and dismembered, and your remains scattered across the kingdom. I’ll have this place torn down, and your organization-”
“It was not one of mine. Of that I can assure you. Not one of my thieves would think the prize worth the effort. After all, how could they sell the crown once they had it? No fence in the Free City would accept it, much less pay for it. That means its value for us is nil. You must look elsewhere, milord Vry.”
“Perhaps someone else commissioned the theft. Someone who would stand to gain by embarrassing the city.”
“But why would one of my thieves take on such a job? Surely they would know how much trouble it would cause for my operation. I do not recruit dullards or fools.”
In the closet, Malden winced.
