– I love it. fust that, hah!… Hey, Milok…-
– Aye?-
– How old’s your daughter?-
The latch clicked, springing free the shutters just as a sword hissed from a scabbard and, amidst wild shouting, a fight was underway at the gate.
– A joke! Honest! fust a joke, Milok!-
Voices now from the front of the house, as Torvald slid his dagger blade between the lead windows and lifted the inside latch. He quickly edged into the dark room, as boots rapped on the compound and more shouting erupted at the front gate. A lantern crashed and someone’s sword went flying to skitter away on the cobbles.
Torvald quickly closed the shutters, then the window.
The infernal purring was beside him, a soft jaw rubbing against a knee. He reached for the cat, fingers twitching, hesitated, then withdrew his hand. Pay attention to the damned thing, right, so when it hears what can’t be heard and when it sees what can’t be seen, yes…
Pivoting in his crouch, he scanned the room. Some sort of study, though most of the shelves were bare. Overreaching ambition, this room, a sudden lurch towards culture and sophistication, but of course it was doomed to failure. Money wasn’t enough. Intelligence helped. Taste, an inquisitive mind, an interest in other stuff-stuff out of immediate sight, stuff having nothing to do with whatever. Wasn’t enough to simply send some servant to scour some scrollmonger’s shop and say ‘I’ll take that shelf’s worth, and that one, too.’ Master’s not too discriminating, yes. Master probably can’t even read so what difference does it make?
He crept over to the one shelf on which were heaped a score or so scrolls, along with one leather-bound book. Each scroll was rolled tight, tied with some seller’s label-just as he had suspected. Torvald began reading through them.
Treatise on Drainage Grooves in Stone Gutters of Gadrobi District, Nine¬teenth Report in the Year of the Shrew, Extraordinary Subjects, Guild of Quarry Engineering. Author: Member 322.
Tales of Pamby Doughty and the World Inside the Trunk (with Illustrations by some dead man).
The Lost Verses of Anomandaris, with annotation. Torvald’s brows rose, since this one might actually be worth something. He quickly slipped the string off and unfurled the scroll. The vellum was blank, barring a short annotation at the bottom that read: No scholarly erudition is possible at the moment. And a publisher’s mark denoting this scroll as part of a series of Lost Works, published by the Vellum Makers’ Guild of Pale.
He rolled the useless thing back up, plucked out one more.
An Illustrated Guide to Headgear of Cobblers of Genabaris in the fourth century, Burn’s Sleep, by Cracktooth Filcher, self-avowed serial collector and scourge of cobblers, imprisoned for life. A publication of Prisoner’s Pit Library, Nathilog.
He had no doubt the illustrations were lavish and meticulous, detailed to excess, but somehow his curiosity was not up to the challenge of perusal.
By now the commotion at the gate had been settled. Various members of the guard had returned from the fracas, with much muttering and cursing that fell away abruptly as soon as they entered the main house on their way to their rooms, telling Torvald that the master was indeed home and probably asleep. Which was something of a problem, given just how paranoid the bastard was and the likely hiding place of his trove was somewhere in his damned bedroom. Well, the world presented its challenges, and without challenges life was worthless and pointless and, most crucially, devoid of interest.
He moved to the door leading to the hallway, pausing to wrap a cloth about his face, leaving only his eyes free. The cat watched intently. Lifting the latch he tugged the door open and peered out into the corridor. Left, the outer, back wall not three paces away. Right, the aisle reaching all the way through the house. Doors and a central landing for the staircase. And a guard, seated facing that landing. Black hair, red, bulbous nose, protruding lower lip, and enough muscles slabbed on to a gigantic frame to fill out two or three Torvald Noms. The fool was knitting, his mouth moving and brow knotting as he counted stitches.
And there was the horrid cat, padding straight for him.
Torvald quietly closed the door.
He should have strangled the thing.
From the corridor he heard a grunting curse, then boots thumping down the stairs.
Opening the door once more he looked out. The guard was gone, the knitting lying on the floor with one strand leading off down the stairs.
Hah! Brilliant cat! Why, if he met it again he’d kiss it-but nowhere near where it licked itself because there were limits, after all, and anywhere a cat could lick itself was nowhere he’d kiss.
Torvald quickly closed the door behind him and tiptoed up the corridor. A cautious glance down the wide, central staircase. Wherever the cat had run off with the ball of wool, it was out of sight, and so too the guard. He faced the ornate double doors directly behind the vacated wooden chair.
Locked? Yes.
He drew his dagger and slid the thin blade between the doors.
Ornate decoration was often accompanied by neglect of the necessary mechanisms, and this lock followed the rule, as he felt the latch lift away. Hoots sounded downstairs. He tugged open the door and quickly slipped inside, crouching once more. A front room, an office of sorts, with a single lantern on a short wick casting faint light across the desk and its strewn heap of papyrus sheets. A second door, smaller, narrow, behind the desk’s high-backed plush chair.
Torvald Nom tiptoed towards it.
Pausing at the desk to douse the lantern, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, crouching yet lower to squint at the crack beneath the bedroom door, pleased to find no thread of light. Drawing up against the panelled wood with its gold-leaf insets now dull in the gloom. No lock this time. Hinges feeling well oiled. He slowly worked the door open.
Inside, quietly shutting the door behind him.
Soft breathing from the huge four-poster bed. Then a sigh. ‘Sweet sliverfishy, is that you?’
A woman’s husky, whispering voice, and now stirring sounds from the bed.
‘The night stalker this time? Ooh, that one’s fun-I’ll keep my eyes closed and whimper lots when you threaten me to stay quiet. Hurry, I’m lying here, petrified. Someone’s in my room!’
Torvald Nom hesitated, truly torn between necessity and… well, necessity.
He untied his rope belt. And, in a hissing voice, demanded, ‘First, the treasure. Where is it, woman?’
She gasped. ‘That’s a good voice! A new one! The treasure, ah! You know where it is, you horrible creature! Right here between my legs!’
Torvald rolled his eyes. ‘Not that one. The other one.’
‘If I don’t tell you?’
‘Then I will have my way with you.’
‘Oh! Isay nothing! Please!’
Damn, he sure messed that one up. There was no way she’d not know he wasn’t who he was pretending to be, even when that someone was pretending to be someone else. How to solve this?
‘Get on your stomach. Now, on your hands and knees. Yes, like that.’
‘You’re worse than an animal!’
Torvald paused at the foot of the bed. Worse than an animal? What did that mean? Shaking his head, he climbed on to the bed. Well, here goes nothing.
A short time later: ‘Sliverfishy! The new elixir? Gods, it’s spectacular! Why, I can’t call you sliverfishy any more, can I? More like… a salmon! Charging upstream! Oh!’
‘The treasure, or I’ll use this knife.’ And he pressed the cold blade of the dagger against the outside of her right thigh.
She gasped again. ‘Under the bed! Don’t hurt me! Keep pushing, damn you! Harder! This one’s going to make a baby-I know it! This time, a baby!’
Well, he did his part anyway, feeding his coins into the temple’s cup and all that, and may her prayers guide her true into motherhood’s blissful heaven. She collapsed on to the bed, groaning, while he backed off, knelt on the cold wooden floor and reached under the bed, knuckles skinning against a large, low longbox. Groping, he found one handle unci dragged it out.
