rich. That’s what he wanted.
‘Good, eh?’
He nodded.
‘Saffran Kuy and his brothers came to Tethis when I was about your age, give or take a year or two. Garrent doesn’t much like him. I suppose you might have noticed that.’ Master Sy paused, watched the blank shrug in Berren’s face, and nodded in satisfaction. ‘That’s just the edge of it. The sun-priests hate him. They’ve tried to drive him away from here more than once. They call him a necromancer and say that he raises the dead. Rubbish, all of it, but that sort of persecution was why they came to Tethis. It was a place where they could work in peace. Or so they thought.’ His voice trailed away. Berren took another mouthful of fruit. The juices made his head buzz.
‘What work?’ he asked, without really thinking.
‘Oh, I don’t really know.’ The thief-taker’s brow furrowed. ‘Whatever magi do. If there’s a dark side to them then I certainly never saw it. I never really asked too many questions. Saffran saved my life once and now he’s done it again. That’s all I need to know. When a man saves your life, that’s a debt that goes far beyond anything else.’ He winced. ‘I paid that debt once. Now I suppose I shall have to pay it all over again.’ He sighed and shook his head. ‘Where was I? Oh, Tethis. Yes. I did a terrible thing, back in Tethis. Or rather, Saffran did a terrible thing because I’d asked him to. Such a mistake. And we never had a chance to put it right, either, because they hadn’t been with us for a year before…’
The thief-taker abruptly got up and walked across the room. ‘I think you know the rest. Soldiers came. Mercenaries hired by the merchantmen of Kalda. The kingdom was taken. Stolen. Come on, lad. Eat your fill and then let’s go.’
‘You were really a prince?’ First Garrent and then Kasmin, but he’d never quite believed it. Couldn’t. Not Master Sy the thief-taker.
‘I was.’ The thief-taker shrugged. ‘That was along ago, lad. A past best forgotten.’ The way his eyes flashed told Berren it was anything but. ‘Kasmin, Saffran Kuy, me, plenty of others – fate picked us up and scattered us. Some of us fell here in Deephaven. And that’s all there is; nothing more to know.’
‘Master…’ He wanted to ask about the knife up in Master Sy’s room. Was that some king’s treasure he’d stolen as he fled? But the thief-taker was getting ready to leave and Berren knew better than to press his luck. Another time, perhaps. When they’d had their next little victory and the thief-taker let his guard down for a moment. ‘Master, where are we going?’
‘I know where the last of our pirates are hiding. Time to put them in irons.’
‘You do?’
He smiled. ‘Yes. Kol’s going to be there, and his soldiers too. It’ll be messy. Worse than Siltside. But I know where they keep their boats now. I know where they come from and how they move through the city, and I know who’s been helping them do it. I didn’t understand before, but now I do, and so now we finish our work. You want to learn about how to be a thief-taker? You want to see it happen, the real truth of it? Then now is the time. You can come, at least for a part of it.’
Berren stuffed the rest of the fruit into his mouth and grabbed a hunk of bread and a slab of cheese. Master Sy smiled.
‘Good lad. I’ll keep you safe this time, I promise you. And I promise you I’ll never take Lilissa a-thief-taking again. That was stupid. I never thought Regis was a part of this, but it was stupid anyway. I could have seen you both killed and then where would I be?’
The thief-taker picked up his belt and his sword and buckled them around his waist. He moved with a smooth, quick purpose, like the Master Sy that Berren had always known. Berren grinned and jumped to his feet.
‘Where are we going?’
Master Sy paused for a breath at the door. ‘To Talsin’s Forest, lad. To the canal. Don’t forget your ringmail.’
36
THE GRAND CANAL
They went back the way Berren had come, back out along Weaver’s Row and Moon Street, straight down the Godsway to the River Gate. By the time they got there, the rain had stopped and the clouds had split apart. The cobbles along the waterfront steamed, baked under the summer sun once more. The smell was back too, although muted and dull, as if the worst had been washed away into the river. Berren’s pace picked up as they passed the witch-doctor’s door. He couldn’t help but stare.
‘That’s the one, lad. Never you mind what Teacher Garrent tells you, there’s nothing wrong with Saffran Kuy. Maybe there’s no such thing as a mage who’s pure, maybe all wizards have a darkness to them, but then Saffran’s no worse than any other. Go to Kol or the Eight Pillars of Smoke if you ever need some help, but when even that’s not enough, you come here. Wizards, lad, can do most anything they set their mind to.’
Berren wasn’t so sure of that. There had to be plenty of things that wizards couldn’t do, otherwise the emperor would be a wizard too, right? ‘If wizards can do whatever they like, why does he live here? Why live in a crumbling old warehouse on the stinking riverfront of a city that’s not even his own?’ Or why didn’t he do something when soldiers had come with swords and spears to Master Sy’s home. That was more the question Berren wanted to ask, except he didn’t dare.
‘Go and ask him if you like.’ Master Sy must have seen the look of horror on Berren’s face. He laughed out loud. ‘Maybe gold and silks and women and wine bore him, eh lad? He lives here because that’s what he chooses, just like you and me, and that’s all there is to it. Do you still have that knife I gave you?’
Berren shook his head. He didn’t remember losing it, but it was gone. Maybe in the fight with Jerrin and the mudlark boy. Still had Stealer, though.
‘No matter.’ When they reached the gate, Master Sy stopped to talk to one of the guardsmen. They spoke like old friends for a minute or two while Berren fidgeted and cast glances back at the witch-doctor’s house. Then the soldier opened a door into one of the gate towers and went inside. Berren hurried through the gate and out the other side, eager to be going on, but Master Sy didn’t move. A few seconds later, the guardsman came back and gave something to the thief-taker. A crossbow. A big one. They exchanged a few more words and then Master Sy carried the crossbow over to Berren. Up close it looked huge.
‘Don’t suppose you’ve ever held one of these before, have you?’
Berren shook his head.
‘Going to learn now, then. This is a military crossbow issued to soldiers in the service of the emperor. Apparently the old emperors preferred their longbowmen from somewhere down south and stationed them everywhere. Your new one doesn’t seem so bothered. When we return through the gate, remember to give it back. Right.’ The thief-taker hoisted the crossbow over his shoulder and sauntered away down the street towards the Grand Canal Bridge, oblivious to the stares he was getting. Walking down the street with a sword on your hip was one thing. A crossbow over your shoulder was quite another. Once they reached the bridge, Master Sy headed for the riverside. He lifted the crossbow off his shoulder and leaned nonchalantly against the parapet wall. He cocked his head across the river.
Berren looked. Siltside sat straight across the water from where he was standing. The tides were low now. Between Berren and the nearest stilted huts, there were a few hundred yards of sluggish water, and then maybe a quarter of a mile of dead flat mud, gleaming like white gold in the afternoon sun. Berren squinted. The reflections of the sunlight were so bright that he could barely see the ramshackle scatter of houses out there. If he looked hard, though, he could see the holes that the Justicar’s soldiers had burned. The black scars they’d left behind.
‘Have you ever seen a piece of wood that’s just started to rot, Berren? Tiny white-capped shoots grow out of the deep brown of the wood. If you catch the rot then, scratch it away, cut out the roots and treat it with tar, the wood can be saved. But if you don’t, then the rot quickly spreads. You might still only see a few shoots on the outside, but the roots will run everywhere. Then your wood is only good for burning.’ Master Sy glared out over the glittering water. ‘That’s what they are, boy. They’re this city’s rot, but they’re just the bit you see, and Justicar Kol, for all his talk, is too scared to cut out the root. Well if that’s what he wants…’ The thief-taker clenched his teeth. He had a mad look in his eye and he was grinning. Berren wasn’t at all sure he liked the look of that. He was quite
