“Oh, yes,” Cutbill said.
Malden brought the sword up high, as he’d seen Croy do when he wanted to make a devastating cutting stroke. He gripped its hilt with both hands, ready to bring it down fast. The blade could slice through anything, if it was driven with enough force. Cutbill’s flesh and bones wouldn’t stop it for a moment.
One cut-and he would be avenged. He would have satisfaction for the great injustice this man had done to him. Perhaps more important, he would be safe. Cutbill would never be able to turn on him again.
So why did it seem the exact wrong thing to do?
“I never harmed you!” Malden gasped. “I lined your pockets with gold. I strengthened your organization.”
“You were my best thief,” Cutbill agreed. “Perhaps the best I ever saw.” He glanced up at Malden for a moment. “You’ll want to move your left foot back an inch or two. It will give you a better swing. And please, aim for the thinnest part of my neck, here, just below my jawline.”
“I never plotted against you, if that’s what you think. I would never have betrayed you! So why in the name of Sadu’s eight elbows would you turn against me like that? I trusted you. I–I honored you. And you repaid me with treachery!”
“Is that what I did?” Cutbill asked.
“Yes! Unless-” Malden’s face was sweating. What wasn’t he seeing?
“Unless?”
The traps in the rooms above had been deadly, Malden thought, but not quite deadly enough. He’d believed that Cutbill’s summons was merely a lure to lead him into a place where he was certain to die. Where the job could be completed, the task that Prestwicke-Cutbill’s hired assassin-had been unable to finish. The coded message was itself the first trap, an irresistible lure to bring Malden to a place that would be his death. Yet-Cutbill must have known that he could overcome the blade, the tub of oil, certainly the pit in the hallway. In his career as a thief Malden had gotten past far more sinister snares.
But no one else could. Anyone without his experience would have been slaughtered. Anyone less quick than he. Anyone less lucky.
“Unless it was all a test,” Malden said. “Unless you meant me to come to this room. At this moment.”
“In truth, I’d hoped you would come sooner. I didn’t think it would take you so long to figure out my cipher.”
“Don’t anger me!” Malden shrieked. “Your life is forfeit!”
Cutbill laughed. “I think not. Not anymore. A moment ago you might have done it. But not now. You have to know. You have to know the why. Which might be explanation enough in itself why I chose to do this to you. Because you are wise enough, Malden, to never react to a misfortune until you know why it had to happen.”
Malden relaxed his grip on the sword. He could still do it. He could still bring the sword down. Take the bastard’s head.
But no. No, he would not. If he killed Cutbill now, he would never learn the truth.
He put the sword in its sheath.
“Get up,” Malden commanded. “Get up, and start talking.”
Cutbill raised his head. “Nothing would give me more pleasure.”
Chapter Seventy-Eight
“Malden, no one loves me,” Cutbill said. He poured two cups of wine from a pewter jug. He held them both out to Malden to choose which he would drink from. Malden took the one on the left. Cutbill quickly took a drink from the one on the right, to prove he hadn’t poisoned them both. It was all done without much attention, a formalized ritual they both instinctually understood.
“That isn’t… completely true,” Malden said. “The thieves of your guild-”
“They fear me,” Cutbill said. “Perhaps some of the more intelligent among them, who understand a portion of the things I do, even respect me. Please don’t misapprehend me. I have no desire to be loved. I never have. When I was first putting the guild together, I had to make of myself a completely unlovable villain. Do you know anything of how I became who I am?”
“Is this another test?” Malden asked.
“If you like.”
Malden sat down in a comfortable chair, laying Acidtongue in its scabbard across his knees. He thought back on what he’d heard-rumors and hearsay, mostly, but over time he’d established a few real facts. “There’s some mystery about where you came from originally. Whether you were born in Ness or some other place. What I’m sure of is that you took a crew of common thugs and criminals and turned them into the most lethal gang in the city. This was, when-twenty years ago?”
“Twenty-five,” Cutbill corrected.
Malden frowned. Cutbill must be older than he’d thought-or he must have started his career in crime much younger than would seem probable. “By murdering the leaders of other gangs, you consolidated your power. Many of your rivals tried to draw you into open warfare in the streets, but you favored the knife in the dark, the carefully staged accident, and on occasion,” he finished, looking down into his cup, “poisoning.”
“The city watch cared little if one thief or another turned up dead in an alley come morning-but they would never have tolerated gangs of villains attacking one another in broad daylight.” Cutbill shrugged. “Further, had I butchered thieves indiscriminately I would have been left with a weakened force of my own. When I killed one man, I could absorb all his crews, and my organization grew.”
Malden nodded. “In other words, you rose to power because you were nastier than any other criminal in Ness.”
“Instead, say I was more efficient. More practical. I had to make many difficult decisions back in those days. Respond to threats in the same hour they arose. I did not sleep like a normal man, not for many years. Even today the slightest sound or even an odd smell will waken me. It is not a life I recommend.”
“And yet when you absconded from your post, you gave that life to me.”
Cutbill laughed, a short, unpleasant sound that did nothing for Malden’s nerves.
“Why?” Malden demanded. “I originally thought you were afraid of the barbarians, like all the rich men. That you had escaped to some safer place. Yet here you are-hiding in the very place you supposedly fled. Why disappear at all?”
“Because it was your turn.”
Malden just stared at Cutbill.
“You are capable of the one thing I could never achieve. Because of the things I’ve done, the people of Ness think me a shadowy villain. A bogey to scare children with, like Jarald of Omburg.” Cutbill looked up at the ceiling, at the Chapterhouse above them. “You, Malden, are quickly becoming a folk hero. The son of a whore, penniless and despised, who became the most daring-the most dashing-thief in Ness. And now, so much more. They’ll write ballads about you someday.”
“You flatter me.”
“Never,” Cutbill said, quite serious.
Malden shook his head, trying to make sense of this. “But even so, what of it? The guild was doing a brisk business. The money was coming in faster than anyone could spend it. Despite the fact the city’s deserted, we’re actually turning a nice profit by looting abandoned homes. Why wouldn’t you want to be in charge of that?”
Cutbill said nothing for a while. He went to the hearth and poked at the fire. Drained his wine and refilled their cups. Malden wondered if he was trying to think of the proper words. He’d never imagined Cutbill could be at a loss in that regard.
“Because,” he said, at last, “I saw what was coming.”
“The barbarians,” Malden guessed.
“Not the specifics. But I knew that things were about to change. There are signs, if you know how to look for them. I knew I’d taken the guild as far as my abilities allowed. Already there were forces in place that threatened to destroy all I’d made. The relationship I enjoyed with the Burgrave had become increasingly strained. Once, he and I
