“It is, in fact. I offer you nothing, Malden. I don’t owe you anything. You protected this city because you were one of its citizens. Any man of Ness would have done the same.”
“Hmm,” Malden said.
“So I offer you nothing, save freedom. Freedom not just for yourself. For every man willing to reach out and grasp it.”
“Tread carefully, Tarness.” Sir Hew rose to his feet. “You’re talking mutiny. Insurrection.”
“I am talking of rights. Not just rights granted by some antiquated charter signed by a king long dead.” The Burgrave frowned and looked upward. “I speak of rights every man has, by virtue of being born.”
Malden drank some wine. He waited to hear if there was anything else. Any further offers, any further appeals. There were none. The three of them had said what they’d come to say.
And so there it was. He must choose, it seemed, between one ruler or another. He could allow the Burgrave to return to Castle Hill (he would have to rebuild his palace, but that was a minor detail) and restore Ness to what it had once been. Or he could turn the city over to Hew and Croy and declare for the kingdom, and become a lord in his own right.
Or-and the thought made Malden smile despite himself-he could refuse both entreaties. He could keep the gates sealed. He could stay on as Lord Mayor. Oh, they wouldn’t like it. The Burgrave and the regent would want to take Ness at any cost. But Malden could buy them off. He could turn Slag over to one or the other, and in return he could have Ness as his very own fief.
The people would stand behind him. They loved the Burgrave in their way-just as they always had, loved him just as much as they hated him. And they were all Skraelings, and loyal to the flag and Queen Bethane-as loyal as free people in a free city that didn’t pay taxes could ever be. The Lord Mayor, though, was their hero. He had saved Ness in its darkest time. He had worked miracles with nothing, and he had delivered them from certain death.
It would be a hard fought thing, but he could stay exactly where he was.
And in truth that had a certain appeal. He had been born the lowliest of Ness’s citizens. The son of a whore, and then a thief. Now he was a great man and well beloved and he held all the power of the city in his hands. As much as every day of his reign had been misery and toil, beset by endless problems (very few of which had gone away-the city was still starving and his thieves were still restless with nothing to steal), for a moment, for just one moment, he had become more than what he’d been born into. He’d been respected, and adored. And he had possessed power, which, it seemed, was the closest thing to freedom a man had in this world.
In the process he’d lost Cythera. He’d nearly lost Slag. Velmont had betrayed him and Cutbill had used him to his own nefarious ends. But everywhere he went in the city, people had smiled and lifted their hands and been glad to see him.
“Perhaps,” Malden said, “you’d be kind enough to let me sleep on this decision,” he said, patting the bedclothes by way of jest.
He did not expect what came next.
“No, damn you,” Croy said, storming across the room. He leaned over Malden and for a moment their eyes locked. “You’ll give us your answer now.”
Malden heard the words. They did not register within his brain, however, because Croy had communicated something far more important with a look.
He knows, Malden thought.
He knows about what Cythera and I had.
He glanced down at the bed on which he sat. The same bed where he and Cythera had played at being man and wife for a few precious, irrecoverable nights.
Croy growled, low in his throat, like a barbarian.
Ah. Well. That changed everything, didn’t it?
“Very well,” Malden said, and rose carefully from the bed. Croy did not take a step back, so Malden had to snake around him. “Very well. You need a decision now. I understand you must be very impatient, after having been through so much.” He went over to the table where the wine bottle stood. A broad casement window above the table looked out on the dwindling sunlight of afternoon.
He was a thief. He thought, still, like a thief.
When he entered the room he’d made sure that window was unlatched. Just in case.
“Here is what I have to say, then.”
The three of them leaned close to hear it.
“Work it out between yourselves, you bastards.” He threw one foot up on the table and vaulted out the window, which flung open under his weight. Three faces rushed to watch him as he scrambled up to the roof of the Lemon Garden, then danced away across the rooftops.
Epilogue
He’d made his decision. He’d been forced to pick between responsibility and death. Like a good thief, he picked the third option no one else had seen: he picked freedom.
A little boat awaited him at the Ditchside Stair. It was, in point of fact, the same boat Velmont had intended to use to escape from the city. Malden had not been able to ascertain what happened to the Helstrovian thief-but he had it on good authority that Velmont didn’t need the boat anymore. Cutbill had seen to that.
Slag was already aboard. The dwarf had fitted himself with a new wooden arm to replace the one he’d lost. He waved merrily as Malden approached, his real hand grasping the painter that held the boat to the dock. Balint sat at the rudder, looking bored and anxious to be gone. Malden had one more stop to make before he left, however.
Cutbill sat on a stool in a tiny cookshop nearby, little more than a stall with a counter where fishermen could sit and eat fish stew before they set out for their catch. The guildmaster of thieves had a wide-brimmed hat pulled low over his eyes.
“Half the city is looking for you,” Cutbill said. “It seems you left a bit of business unresolved.”
“Hardly. I did what I set out to do-I kept the city safe from the barbarians.”
“Ah, but responsibility never actually ends,” Cutbill said. “I should know. A problem solved is simply the first step toward discovering the next problem. Still, I imagine our wise and just rulers will handle things just fine without you. Tell me, was it difficult to give up all that power?”
Malden shrugged. “You should know that, too.”
Cutbill nodded. “Yet now here you are, running away like a thief again.”
“Croy will kill me the very first second he gets the chance,” Malden admitted. “He knows I’ve been swiving his betrothed. How she might have felt about things makes no difference to him.”
“The Burgrave might have protected you,” Cutbill suggested.
“Tarness? From the second he was forced to acknowledge my existence he’s always wanted to kill me for one reason or another. Now he’s got even more cause-I stole his city.”
“So you’re running because your life is in danger.”
Yes, Malden thought. Isn’t that reason enough?
Except it wasn’t.
Malden looked up at the ruins of Castle Hill. “If I stayed it would mean more trouble for Ness, and she’s been through enough lately. If I gave preference to one army, the other wouldn’t just go away. The one who lost out would besiege the city-again-and only further this misery. If they both take the city, they’ll have to work together to put it back together again. For a while, at least, they’ll have to pretend to like each other. And as long as that fragile peace lasts, the people of Ness won’t suffer and die for ideals they never understood, much less believed in.”
Cutbill nodded. “Well played.”
Malden sighed. “The people won’t see it that way. Some of them will call me a coward. Some of the same people who called me a hero yesterday. I admit it will bother me.”
“I never thought the love of the people was what you desired,” Cutbill said. “It’s too fickle a commodity to be relied on anyway.”
