“Just this one last time. And anyway, this isn’t the crown you’re afraid of. This one doesn’t talk.” He lowered it over Ommen’s head, and the Burgrave bit his lip and mewled but didn’t stop him.
Ommen squeezed his eyes tight as the crown made contact with his scalp. After a moment, though, he opened his eyes wide in surprise. “You’re right! It’s lost its power. I’m still-still me!”
Vry smiled without humor. His expression changed drastically, however, when the crown lifted off Ommen Tarness’s head and started to float away.
Up in the dome, Malden reeled in his line. He held the hat-fishing pole that Slag had made, the one the dwarf meant to be used under the arch of the Royal Ditch. The line strained under the weight of the crown, but Malden brought it up quickly and soon held the crown in his hand. Or rather, the false crown. Slag had made it as well, out of lead coated in gilding metal. It looked very much like the real crown, and had been polished until it shone like gold, but under close scrutiny the cheapness of its manufacture was obvious. Malden had carried it with him throughout his sojourn into Hazoth’s villa. He had known that Vry would show up at the last minute and seize the crown, so he made sure he had something to give the bailiff.
“You! Up there! Thief!” Anselm Vry shouted, peering up into the dome. “That’s a funny jape you’ve made. Now give the damned thing back.”
“Or what, Anselm? You’ll have me killed?” Malden spoke at a normal conversational tone, but the dome amplified his voice until he was sure Vry could hear him. “If I give it back, will you let me live?”
“Give it back! Give it back! I like this one, it’s not as heavy,” Ommen cried.
Vry silenced him with another slap. “Thief, let’s be reasonable. We both know I can’t let you live. I can kill you now, though, quickly and almost painlessly. We can spare you the agony of torture and the embarrassment of being drawn and quartered in public. Surely you’d rather avoid that.”
Malden laughed. “Perhaps you’d be willing to fight for it. Of course, that’s not your style. All your men are outside. You even sent the priests away. You’d have to face me alone.”
“That’s not going to happen. I am curious to know, however, what you thought you could achieve here.”
“I’m going to save my life, and Cutbill’s as well.”
“So you think you can escape,” Vry said. “I suppose it’s possible. You could flee across the rooftops, while my men would have to push through the crowds to give chase. I’ll grant you might make it as far as the city’s walls. What would you do then? You’re no landowner. Once outside the gates, you would become a simple villein. A peasant. Little more than a slave. You would save your life but lose your freedom. I know your type, thief. You don’t want to spend the rest of your days laboring on a farm.”
“Hardly. All right, Vry. I’ll make you a deal. I think you’ll find it a bargain.” Malden swung the crown back out on the end of its line and started to lower it again. “I only wish to assuage my curiosity. Answer a few questions truthfully, and we’ll end this.”
Vry looked around him, as if to make sure no priests were hiding in the corners of the chapel, listening. “Very well.”
Malden unreeled a bit of line. The crown descended a dozen feet, then stopped with a jerk. He must be careful, he thought, not to let the line snap. “You were Bikker’s employer, weren’t you? The theft of the crown was your idea from the beginning.”
Vry’s face clouded with rage. “I’ll admit nothing under this duress, you-”
He stopped talking when Malden started reeling the line in again.
“Yes,” Vry said, balling his fists in anger. “Yes, it was me.”
Malden paid out a dozen more feet of line. “But not you alone. You formed a conspiracy of three to make this happen. I’m impressed, honestly. The chance of such a plot working out is inversely proportionate to how many people know of its existence. You did all this-you may still bring a city to its knees!-with only three people. You promised Hazoth safety for his services. You hired Bikker because as an Ancient Blade he was likely to notice there were more demons about than usual, and he might feel the need to stop you and Hazoth. When Croy returned to town you must have been very worried.”
“Sir Croy? Indeed. The Ancient Blades don’t have any more demons to fight, so they wander the land righting wrongs and helping people.” Vry sneered at the thought. “They’re always poking their noses in where they don’t belong, and since Croy technically outranks me in the peerage, I had to find a way to neutralize him. Juring always had a soft spot for that fool. It took real cunning on my part to have him banished-and then to force the Burgrave’s hand on his return, to enforce the penalty of execution.”
“And when that didn’t work out-when Croy got away-you came up with another scheme. You played him like a fish on a line, pretending to do everything in your power to find the crown. But Croy is a simple man and he doesn’t suspect treachery until it’s proven to him. I myself was nearly fooled by your performance in Cutbill’s lair. It seemed you really wanted to find the crown. Even when you sent your men to Hazoth’s home and had them search the place-even when they left empty-handed, we both thought you were just an overly officious bureaucrat. That you were hampered by rules and laws, and thus ineffectual. You’ve played this game well. I wasn’t entirely sure until I handed you the false crown last night. You acted as if it was talking to you-though we both know it was false. That was when I became certain. You didn’t want the crown back. Even while you made a good show of looking for it, in fact you were making sure nobody could get to it.”
“Very clever of you. Yes,” Vry admitted. “You have the gist of it.”
“I am still not certain why you did it, though,” Malden said. He lowered the crown farther. “What benefit will come to you? When Ommen walks out there and makes a fool of himself before the entire city-the repercussions will be dire. The people will realize they’re being ruled by a fool, and they won’t stand for it. They’ll riot in the streets-especially when you spur them on.”
“No one likes being hoodwinked,” Vry said when Malden paused. “The people of Ness have so much freedom, they love to gripe and grumble about the slightest stricture. If I show them their master is a half-wit, they’ll refuse to obey even his just laws. And when the violence does not stop, when the gutters run red with blood, the king will know that the Burgrave is incapable of running the city. He will surely revoke the city’s charter. Every man in Ness will lose his freedom.”
Malden shrugged. “Every man who does not own property,” he said, and let out more line. “Such as yourself.” The crown was barely six feet above the head of the Burgrave now. “But the free men of Ness are its heart’s blood. Their labor creates wealth. That was Juring Tarness’s brilliant idea-and it worked. It worked for eight hundred years. Free men will work to make something of themselves. What do you stand to gain when they are enslaved?”
“Power, obviously.” Anselm Vry reached up his hands to snatch at the crown. Malden jerked it away from him. Sighing deeply, Vry said, “You don’t understand anything. When the charter is revoked, this city will be plunged into chaos. The only force for law and order inside the walls will be me, and my men of the watch. It will be up to us to keep the city from erupting into mutiny. And when we do-when we suppress revolt, and reestablish the king’s rule here-how grateful do you think he’ll be? He will need someone to rule the city then. Obviously, he will choose me.”
“Thousands may die,” Malden said. “Shops will shut down, entire guilds will go out of business. The city you inherit will be half dead.”
“But it will be mine. To rule as I see fit-by fire and iron. No longer will I be constrained by the laws of the charter. No longer need I answer to the moothall and the guildmasters who control it. It will all be mine, and mine alone. The first year will be hard. There will be little money coming in and people will starve, yes. The second year they will pay me any price I ask for bread. They will accept much higher rates of taxation, in exchange for their lives. It’s a long game I’m playing. But in the end I am guaranteed to win.”
“I can see the appeal,” Malden said. “And I salute you.”
“Oh?”
“You’re far more crooked than any thief I know. You have my respect. Very well. Here’s what you wanted.” With a flick of his wrist, Malden sent the crown dancing through the air to come to rest on Ommen’s head. He cut the line that held it and collapsed his pole. “I wish you much joy of it.”
And then he laughed.
“Watchmen! Priests! Get in here now,” Vry shouted. Doors around the nave flew open and the summoned ones came flooding in.
Ommen Tarness straightened up, his posture improving instantly. “Hold,” he said, and everyone froze. There was something in his voice that commanded attention-and imposed his will on every listener. “I have heard
