the best prospect any of them could come up with.
“Enough!” Markham rose with a sour look “You two have managed to reduce my profits to nothing in the space of an hour. I’m for home and bed, a poorer and sadder man.”
“Bah,” Tapper said, looking at the coins in front of him. “You lost but a copper or two in total.”
“I’m an honest trader, not some rich noble. Besides, I swear I’m down twice that sum,” the fat man said as he stumped from the tavern. Several of the customers laughed at his display, but Markham didn’t mind. All had occurred as he’d hoped. Tapper and Clyde thought that they had determined the course of apprentice beggar for the boy. All the while, however, Markham had steered them to it-as instructed by the man he took orders from, the learned sage…
…No. He mustn’t even think of that name. In any event, it was out of his hands now. Sharp Clyde would manage things from here on. If he succeeded, then another would take over. Who that was, even Markham didn’t know. It was enough that his part had gone smoothly and as planned.
Tapper and Clyde spent a little more time and money at the Four Pots so as not to arouse suspicion. The place was frequented mostly by laborers and the common workers from the brewery nearby, but there was no harm in avoiding unnecessary risks. One could never be certain who was a spy, an informant, or the like.
“I cursed my assignment to the workhouse,” Clyde said quietly to Tapper. “Now it seems lucky indeed that I pissed off the captain and got the Old Citadel assignment as punishment.”
“Not much there in the way of income for a thief, though,” Tapper observed.
Clyde grinned. “I thought so at first, but there are plenty of coins to be picked up-bribes for adjusting the work schedule, bribes from the better-off inmates for special treatment, and good money for selling off prisoners.”
“Selling prisoners?”
“Sure. Change identities with some corpse due for discharge soon, or a falsified death sometimes. Then the former prisoner can be sold into indenture. Of course,” Clyde added thoughtfully, “it’s more profitable to have a long-termer buy freedom that way, but not many with that much money need to use such means to escape.”
The nondescript locksmith looked at his associate with new admiration. “So you’ll sell the kid as an indentured servant, take Markham’s coin too, and be paid as a guard in the bargain!”
“None of which will make me a wealthy man. Tapper,” the thief said as he nodded agreement. “I still need to get out and about in order to make ends meet.” He referred to his trade, naturally.
Tapper, older and less interested in carousing, managed quite well on his fees for services from the Balance to augment the income from his trade and kickbacks from thieves. He understood what Clyde remarked on, though. High living In Old City cost plenty. If it was done in New Town, it was even more expensive. “It’s hard to keep a full purse,” Tapper agreed.
“True, friend, in more ways than one… when I’m about,” Clyde said with a wink.
Laughing together, the two then departed the tavern. Tapper headed toward the secret thieves’ portal that would enable him to return to his place in the Foreign Quarter, and Clyde turned north to go back to the prison where he was barracked.
Next morning Clyde made a point of finding out where the boy was. Gord was the kid’s name, and he was a skinny, weak-looking little urchin. His group was a mixed lot of weaklings, children, and the aged. They were quartered together In a common cell and taken out six days of the week to work off their crimes against the city and its honest citizens. Their assignments were fairly light ones, considering they were being punished. Toil was the lot of the poor anyway, and what the gang of criminals had to do each day was no more strenuous than what many free persons had to manage. Of course, they did get the dirtiest and most dangerous work, but that could be expected as well.
Clyde found out that Gord had been on the workhouse roll for only five days. “They certainly are keeping close tabs on this one, and acting fast,” he murmured to himself, thinking that he had good cause to ask for more than a hundred zees for getting the lad out. He’d demand two luckies for the accomplishment, twice the sum promised, and expected he’d get it, too.
It was just after sunup, so Clyde headed for the prisoners’ section of the massive old fortress. He wanted to get another first-hand look at the boy as he was marched off to work. Tomorrow was a day of rest for the prisoners, an opportunity for Clyde to pull the lad out of the cell and get him away. No really careful body count was kept, so it would be easy to forge a document saying that the child prisoner known as Gord of the Slum Quarter of Old City had died accidentally while serving his term of imprisonment.
Clyde was in for a surprise.
He arrived in time to see that the lad had taken things into his own hands, so to speak, by using what meager means he could devise to make himself appear stricken with some sort of contagious plague. The trick was one that any good thief or accomplished beggar would see through immediately, just as Clyde did. However, the stupid clods who were the regular guards at the prison were completely fooled.
“Now that’s very clever and considerate,” Clyde thought to himself. “He’s saved me a lot of work and taken away the risk, too!”
Clyde got the “body” out, and the records of the workhouse showed Gord dead of disease, type unknown. In reality the boy was indentured, just as his secret benefactor, Markham, had instructed. The fat trader was glad when he heard the news from Clyde (although he already knew the truth from his other sources), but not quite so elated when he heard what followed.
“You expect twice the pay I promised?” Markham asked with a tinge of angry incredulity in his voice, repeating the request so as to give his irritation a chance to die down.
Clyde smiled serenely. “Yes, Markham, I do expect just that.”
The fat trader paid, grumbling loudly, but was actually very satisfied inside. It was a cheap price to pay for the lad’s safety. Safety? Well, more like a better chance of survival. Markham knew well the master of beggars in Greyhawk, and the fat trader also was aware of the clandestine thieving activities of the group. One of the trusted masters of the place was also one of Markham’s agents.
Theobald’s ascension from leadership of the Beggars’ Guild to the head position of the recently formed Beggars’ Union made the already egotistical man full of hubris. Obscenely fat, lazy, and a dangerous psychotic, the Beggarmaster was not one to trust or cross. Now the guild of beggars had allied itself with peddlers, tinkers, actors, and similar riffraff to form the Beggars’ Union, and Theobald sat haughtily atop the entire organization.
It was an odd association, but one that actually worked. The beggars brought goods they found, expropriated, or were given and dispensed them to peddlers for sale, or to tinkers to repair and then sell. They also traded with these groups for goods. Actors, the lowest of society save the beggars themselves, were paid to assist the latter in their performances on the streets, and when out of work the actors could then likewise earn a living with a bowl. Certain street gangs were also brought into the association, as were wandering folk and traveling entertainers.
Theobald had forged the union In order to increase his own power, of course. It combined all of the elements that the Thieves’ Guild disdained. The gross master of beggars hated the thieves, for they had both respect and wealth. Theobald was bent on gaining both as well, and at the expense of the more prestigious guild of thieves.
Chinkers was as skillful a beggar as any in Grey-hawk. In the process of perfecting his art, Chinkers had learned petty thievery and the craft of convincing others to become part of a scheme that resulted in their being fleeced. Certain thieves would employ him as an assistant, a cloyer to enable them to pick pockets or cut purses more easily. These fellows taught Chinkers more skills. Soon the beggar could sham merchandise, switching real for fake or actually making the shoddy seem otherwise. He could counterfeit coins, forge, and cheat at games such as dice and plaques. Why, thereafter, he still chose to practice begging as well, even Chinkers couldn’t say, but he did.
Then Theobald decided to displace the thieves of the city with his own beggars, found willing teachers, and began to arrange instruction for his most trusted minions. Chinkers was one of those trusted souls, and in a short time there were a half-dozen trained beggars able to perform as well as any cutpurse or robber belonging to the Thieves’ Guild, with Chinkers better than the rest.
One day soon thereafter, the three outlaw thieves who had agreed to take the treasured gold orbs of the Beggarmaster in return for teaching his lieutenants the craft of thievery were invited to a banquet in Theobald’s own quarters.
