shared an understanding. He believed that the guild of thieves served a needful purpose by keeping crime in the city to a certain acceptable level. In recent years, however, my power continued to grow. It was only a matter of time before he decided I was too influential to be allowed to continue. I knew the jig was up when Pritchard Hood became the new bailiff, a man who would have slit my throat with his own hand if he could.”
“He certainly tried to slit mine,” Malden agreed.
“If my organization was going to survive, I needed to prune away the one thing that would hold it back, keep it from growing. From developing into something new. And that one thing was me. I needed to vanish so people would forget how much they feared the guild-it had to shed its evil reputation. But that meant I would need a successor. You were the obvious choice.”
“Because people love me?”
“Because of that, yes, and because you have a brain in your head. You don’t always use it, but when you do you can think your way out of most scrapes. You see beyond the immediate circumstance, and grasp the why and the wherefore.”
“So you tried to kill me, knowing I would survive,” Malden guessed.
“No. I tried to kill you, knowing if you didn’t survive, then I’d made a mistake that could have cost me everything. There was no guarantee for you, Malden. There couldn’t be. I chose Prestwicke very carefully as well.”
Malden frowned. “Prestwicke.” He considered something, something he didn’t like very much. Which made him think immediately that it must be true. “If he had killed me-if he had met the terms of his contract-”
“Then,” Cutbill confirmed, “he would be sitting in that chair, holding that same sword. Drinking my wine, even now.”
Malden swallowed thickly.
“You both made promising candidates. I needed to know which was the better choice. That’s why I tried to have you killed.”
Malden jumped to his feet, wrapping his hand around Acidtongue’s hilt. “Prestwicke was a sadist. A madman!”
“And a devout servant of the Bloodgod,” Cutbill pointed out. “The people wouldn’t have called him Lord Mayor. They would have called him High Priest. But the result would have been the same.” Cutbill placed one hand on Malden’s shoulder. Malden fought the urge to shrug it off. “For many reasons, I’m glad it was you. But he would have served. Now, will you sit down and hear what is to come?”
Chapter Seventy-Nine
“The barbarians will arrive within the week,” Cutbill told Malden.
“That soon? I thought they were bogged down in Redweir,” Malden replied, feeling his heart race. He had hoped-in vain, it now seemed-that the barbarian horde would be stuck in the east for the winter, unable to push west against bad weather and a lack of food. Of course, he’d met Morget before and should have known better. The barbarians thrived on death and destruction. They would probably laugh in the teeth of winter storms and eat frozen grass rather than slow their advance. “We aren’t ready,” Malden said. “I’m not sure how we could ever be ready, but now-”
“How many archers have you trained?”
“Sorry? Archers? Ah,” Malden said. Why hadn’t he thought of that? He’d seen the archers practicing at Helstrow, under edict of the king. He should have implemented the same program for his own people. “Well-”
Cutbill shook his head wearily. “I’m sure you’ve had other things to worry about. Have you at least reinforced the gates? The only real advantage you’ll have against the barbarians is the city wall. It will keep them out for a while, but those gates are weak points that must be shored up if you hope to have a chance.”
Malden could only shrug. Those gates were massive portals of wood reinforced with iron. It had never occurred to him that they could be reinforced further.
“Get Slag on it at once. Give him everything he needs-he’ll definitely prove your best ally in what’s to come. You are about to be besieged. You need to know how these things are done, Malden.” Cutbill rose and went to a shelf behind Malden’s chair. It was stuffed with books and old manuscripts. “The Learned Brotherhood left some things behind when they were driven out of the Chapterhouse. I saved what I could. Here,” he said, handing a book to Malden. “This is Rus Galenius’s Manual of Fortifications. It’s the best volume on the subject that I’ve found.”
Malden opened the book and flipped through its pages. There were copious illustrations. One showed men standing on battlements, turning a crank mounted on the side of a giant kettle. Below them other men threw their arms over their heads as a rain of hot oil or perhaps molten lead came down toward them. Many of the illustrations were cunning diagrams, showing the proper employment of fascines and mottes, or exploded views of siege towers and mantlets. The text was in a language he didn’t know, however. “I can’t read this,” he admitted.
Cutbill stared down at him along his nose. “It’s the high tongue of the Old Empire. Until very recently, every book written in the world was in that language. You don’t even know the basic grammar?”
Malden frowned. “I learned how to read so I could keep the books of a brothel. I was lucky to get that much of an education. I never had a chance to study foreign languages.”
Cutbill nodded sagely and considered this. He reached for another book, then shook his head. “There’s no time for you to learn it now. Slag can at least make sense of the drawings and charts, but you’ll need a translator for the text. The priests of the Lady are all fluent in the high tongue.”
“Perhaps, but they’ve all fled,” Malden said. Which, he thought, you should know already-your spies should have told you as much. Even locked up in the Chapterhouse, Cutbill would have eyes and ears everywhere in the city, and some way of keeping abreast on developments. For Cutbill to claim ignorance now meant he was hiding something. Malden wondered what was really going on here.
Cutbill sat down and steepled his fingers below his nose. “Of course, I can read it. Yes, that’s what we’ll do. You’ll have to come back here every so often for lessons.”
And advice, Malden thought. Whether I want it or not.
He saw the game here. When one dealt with Cutbill, one always needed to be looking for the hidden stratagem. Missing it was fatal. He looked back over the recent events of his life, seeing how Cutbill had shaped them, step by step. When the Burgrave wanted to kill him, Cutbill had forced the lord of the city to spare his life. When Malden had refused to go to the Vincularium, Cutbill made sure he had a very good reason to want to leave the city. When Malden returned to Ness, the leadership of the guild of thieves was waiting for him. Cutbill had made sure all the pieces fit together. If he hadn’t opposed Pritchard Hood in quick order, he wondered how Cutbill would have forced that confrontation. He was certain Cutbill would have had a plan.
Cutbill was a master manipulator because he followed one simple rule. He made sure, always, that when he wished to convince someone to do his bidding, no other course of action was even thinkable. He never told anyone what to do directly. He merely spelled out the dire consequences of doing anything else.
“I’ll advise you on every element of the city’s defense. I’ll give you lists of things you need to get done, and the sooner the better,” Cutbill said. “Together we’ll make a stand, and save Ness.”
“What if I refuse?” Malden said.
Cutbill blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“What if I decide I won’t do your bidding? You’ve groomed me for this role. You’ve given me no choice so far. But a free man always has a choice.”
“I’m offering you help at a time when you desperately need it,” Cutbill pointed out. “What fool would turn that down?”
“The kind of fool who knows that everything has a price. You said earlier you wanted a man with a brain in his head for this job. But that was a lie, wasn’t it? You only want a puppet. A figurehead, capable of being loved by the crowd. But entirely beholden to you, and bound by iron chains to your counsel.”
Cutbill stared at Malden for a very long time without speaking. Finally, he looked away. “I think you should consider carefully before you make a grave error,” he said.
Malden rose to his feet and put a hand on Acidtongue’s hilt. “You didn’t prepare for this, did you? You don’t
