Honour Among Thieves

On a map the fortress of Helstrow would have resembled an egg cracked open and let to spread across the top of a table. Its center, its yolk, was the inner bailey—the center of all power in Skrae. Inside a stout wall lay the homes and offices of all the court, as well as the keep and the king’s palace. The buildings there stood tall and crammed close together, some so near that a man could reach out of a window and shake his neighbor’s hand. The white of the egg—the outer bailey, which had its own wall—sprawled in all directions. The houses and workshops and churches there weren’t as tall or as densely packed, yet twenty times as many people lived there, commoners for the most part, all the servants and tradesmen and merchants who fed and clothed and tended to the highborn folk of the court. Malden tried to imagine the place in his head, to secure his first look at it so that he could start to assemble a mental map of the place.

Once they were through the gate, into the outer bailey, any thought of orienting himself was forgotten. The three riders and the dwarf were funneled into a narrow street that curled away ahead of them into a marketplace of countless stalls and small shops. Half-timbered houses loomed over it all, their upper stories leaning out over the streets to shadow the ground level. Malden was thrust immediately into a chaos of color and life, wholly unlike the placid farm country they’d traveled in for so long. His senses were assaulted and for a while all he could do was stare and try to get their bearings.

Smoke from braziers and open fires sent gray tendrils seeking through the crowded, close streets. The horses picked their way through ordure and startled a covey of pigs who went scurrying down a dark alley. Malden wheeled his jennet to the side as a merchant in a russet jerkin went chasing after the pigs with a stick. He nearly knocked over a noble lady, fat and scrubbed pink, as she was carried past in a litter, a pomander of lilies held close under her nose. Malden could barely hear himself think. Everywhere there were the cries of barkers and hawkers, beckoning those with a little coin toward stalls where could be purchased roast meats, fresh apples, fine fabrics, measures of barley or flour or ink or parchment or wine.

“Ah,” Malden said, sighing deeply. “Civilization! It’s good to be back.”

Cythera laughed. “You didn’t enjoy your time out in the countryside? All the fresh air? The green hills and the quiet of the forest?”

“You mean the endless rain and the constant itching from insect bites?” Malden asked. “You ask if I enjoyed sleeping on the cold ground with a rock for my pillow, or perhaps eating meat cooked on an open fire—burned on one side, half-raw still on the other? No, a place like this is where I belong.”

It was true. Malden had spent his entire life until recently in the Free City of Ness, a hundred miles west of here. He’d grown up in twisting cobbled alleys like these. He knew the rhythms of city life, knew where he stood in a crowd. His recent adventures in the wilderness had left him saddle sore and weary. To be back in a city—any city—was a great relief. It would not be long before they left again, and headed back into the farmlands, but he planned on enjoying this brief respite in a place that felt familiar.

The riders made their way carefully through the crowd, headed deep into the maze of streets. The going was slow and they had to stop and wait many times as traffic surged across their path. At one point Croy’s horse pulled up short and Malden’s jennet obediently fell into line. Malden wasn’t ready for the stop and he crashed forward across his horse’s neck. He had only just recently learned to ride, and was far from proficient at it yet. He saw why Croy had halted, though, and was glad the jennet was wiser than he. A procession of lepers was winding its way through the street ahead. They were covered head to toe with cloth, as the law demanded, and carried wooden clappers that they flapped before them in a mournful rhythm. Croy tossed a gold royal to their leader, who caught it with unthinking ease and hid it away instantly. The hand that had emerged from the leper’s robe had only three fingers, and Malden was glad he could not see the rest of the man.

When the lepers were past Croy got them started again, but they didn’t go much farther. He took them down a lane that curled up toward the wall of the inner bailey and ended in the wide, muddy yard of an inn. There a stable boy took their horses, and welcomed them with honeyed words.

As Malden slid down off the jennet’s back, he groaned for his aching muscles and his bowed legs. He’d never gotten used to riding and he was glad to be on his own feet again, even if he felt decidedly unsteady. The whole world still seemed to rock with the swaying gait of the jennet.

All the same, he was surprised by their destination. He had not expected them to spend the night in Helstrow. He would welcome a night in a real bed stuffed with straw, true, but he was more interested in getting to Ness as quickly as possible. He and Cythera would never be alone together again until they were back home, after all. “An inn?” he asked. “Must we spend the night here? I thought we had only to turn Balint over to the local constable and then be on our way again.”

Croy leaned backwards, stretching the muscles of his back. “We need to make sure she receives justice from the king’s own chief magistrate. It may be many days before we can gain audience with him.”

“Days? How many days?” Malden demanded. “Two? Three? As many as a sennight?”

Cythera reached over and brushed road dust off his shoulders. She gave him a knowing look. “Are you in such a hurry to return to Ness? What’s there, waiting for you?”

Malden said nothing, and kept his face carefully still. She was teasing him—after all, she knew exactly why he longed to be back in Ness, where all secrets could be revealed. Yet he had another good reason to return home as quickly as possible. He could not help but reach up to the front of his jerkin and touch a piece of parchment folded carefully and held next to his heart. The others did not need to know what was written there, or the betrayal it tokened. The message on the parchment must remain his alone, for now.

CHAPTER FIVE

Inside the common room of the inn, food and wine was brought to them before they’d even asked for it. Malden was sure they’d be charged for it whether they wanted it or not, so he ate greedily of the cold meat and fresh bread he was served, and drank his first cup of wine down before it touched the table. Riding had left him with a deep thirst.

Croy lifted Balint up onto a chair and let her sit upright, though he left her hands bound. The innkeeper stared but said nothing as Cythera drew the gag away and held a pewter cup toward the dwarf’s mouth.

Balint stared at the cup as if it held poison. “Aren’t you all going to take turns spitting in it first, before I drink? Not that I could tell the difference, not with human wine. I’ll bet it tastes like something you drained from a boil off one of those lepers’ arses.”

There was a reason they had kept her gagged.

Cythera started to take the cup away, but Balint’s head snaked forward and she grabbed at its rim with her lips. She sucked deeply at the drink, then leaned back and belched. “I’ll take some of that food, now.”

Malden frowned at her but he broke off a crust of bread and held it so she could take bites from it. “If you bite my fingers,” he told the dwarf, “I’ll pick you up by your feet and shake you until we get the wine back.”

Something like grudging respect lit up Balint’s eye as she chewed. Curses and oaths were all the dwarves knew of poetry. They competed with each other for who could be more vulgar or rude, and counted a good obscenity as a fine jest. Clearly Malden had scored a point with her.

Cythera didn’t seem to see it that way. “Be more kind,” she said, “please. Balint may be guilty of much, but she still deserves some respect.”

“Ask the elves how much,” Malden said.

“The elves,” Croy said, shaking his head. “That makes me think—when we meet the magistrate, what do we tell him of the elves?”

“If he’s to know of her crimes,” Malden pointed out, “we’ll need to say something. After all, it was their city Balint toppled—nearly killing all of them in the process, not to mention us.”

“Once the king knows the elves are at large in his kingdom, though, I shudder to think what he’ll do. Send his knights to round them up, surely, and then—no. No, I won’t even think of that.” Cythera put her head in her hands. “Can we not just tell him that the elves all perished when Cloudblade fell?”

“And get me cooked for mass murder?” Balint said, her eyes wide. “You know that’s a lie. The elves survived. Most of them, anyway.”

“A blessing you had no hand in achieving,” Croy said. “You did not seem to care if they did all die, when you toppled Cloudblade.”

Malden shook his head. “It matters little. Our king has no authority to have you hanged. The worst he can do is send you north,” he pointed out, “which he’s bound to do anyway, no matter how many of them you killed. So it doesn’t matter what crimes we heap upon you, since the punishment will be the same.”

“I’ll take my lumps for what I did. I acted in the interest of my king, that’s all,” Balint insisted. When the humans didn’t relent and free her on the spot, she shrank within her ropes. “It’s been a long ride and I need to make water,” she said, then, looking away from their faces. “Which of you brave young men wants to pull down my breeches for me?”

Croy recoiled in disgust. That was what Balint had wanted, of course. She smiled broadly and tried to catch Malden’s eye.

It was Cythera who responded, however. “I’ll take her to the privy,” she said, rising from her seat. Once standing, however, she let out a gasp.

Malden spun around in his chair and saw a pair of men coming toward them, pushing their way through the common room. They were not dressed in the cloaks-of-eyes the city watch of Ness wore, but he knew immediately they were men of the law. Each wore a jerkin of leather jack with steel plates sewn to the elbows and shoulders, and each of them had a weapon in his hand. They had gold crowns painted on their cloaks as insignia of office.

Even without their uniforms he would have recognized them as lawmen, just from the smug looks on their faces. They were bigger than anyone else in the room and that look said they knew it. Their rough features and tiny eyes marked them as men who wouldn’t back down from a fight, as well. Malden had spent his whole life learning how to recognize such signs—and learning how to avoid the men who showed them.

“Good sirs,” Croy said, rising and spreading his arms wide in welcome. “I thank you for coming. We’d planned on bringing her to the keep directly, but perhaps you can save us the journey.”

One of the kingsmen—the one who still had most of his teeth—stared down at the dwarf and frowned. “What’s this?”

“Nobody said nothin’ ’bout a dwarf girl,” the other one said, looking at his comrade. A bad scar crossed his neck, just one side of his windpipe.

“This,” Croy said, “is Balint, late of the service of the dwarven envoy at Redweir. She’s broken her oath, and—”

“We didn’t come for a dwarf,” the first one, the toothy one, told Croy.

Malden slowly pushed his chair back from the table. He tried not to make a sound as its legs dragged across the floorboards. So occupied, he failed to notice that he was backing up into a wall. When the back of his head struck the plaster, he looked to either side, searching for windows he might jump out of. He found none.

The scarred one spoke next, saying exactly what Malden expected—and dreaded—to hear. “We’re here,” he announced, “for yer thief.”

Malden jumped up onto his chair. He looked up toward the rafters and saw they were too high to reach, at least ten feet above his head. The two kingsmen had by reflex moved to flank the table on either side, blocking off his escape that way, as well.

“Hold,” Croy said, rising to his feet. “What’s the meaning of this?”

“He was spotted comin’ in through the gate today under false identity. Somebody knew his face, and passed along the particulars. Now we’re to take him in.”

Malden had thought he would be safe here. Though he was well known in Ness he was a stranger in Helstrow. He’d assumed no one here had so much as heard of him. That foolishness had made him lax, made him forget his usual caution.

Cursing himself, he tried to decide which way to run. Normally when he entered a public building like this he would take a moment to memorize all the exits. This time he’d been so tired from the day’s riding he hadn’t bothered.

“But what’s the charge?” Cythera demanded.

Toothy looked at Scar, who looked back at him, as if they couldn’t decide between the two of them which one should answer. “Suspicion of bein’ a thief,” Toothy said, finally. “Now, which one of ye is called Malden?”

Balint began to laugh. Croy started to turn to look at Malden, giving him away.

Malden dropped his hand to his belt, where his bodkin used to be. It hadn’t been a good knife, really, but it had been his. Now it was gone—and in its place was a sword. A sword that should never have been his, a sword Croy had given him under false trust. A sword, more to the point, that he’d never learned how to use.

“Look out, Halbert—he’s got a cutter,” Scar said.

“Hand it over, boy,” Toothy—Halbert—said.

“What, this thing?” Malden asked. Then he drew the sword from its scabbard and let it taste the air. “It’s harmless.”

The sword had a name. It was called Acidtongue. The name came from the fact that while the blade looked like an old piece of iron, pitted and scored by age, it was in fact quite magical—on contact with the air, it secreted a powerful foaming acid that could burn through just about anything.

In olden times when demons walked the land, the sword had been made to fight against them. It was one of the seven Ancient Blades, brother to the one Croy wore at his own belt, and it had magic woven into its very metal. It could sear through demonic flesh that would resist normal iron weapons and cut through even the thickest armored shell or matted, brimstone-stinking fur. Malden knew from personal experience it worked just fine on more worldly substances as well.

With both hands on the hilt, Malden brought the blade around in a tight arc. The blade passed through the middle of a pewter tankard as if it were made of smoke. The top half of the tankard fell to the table with a clink—even as the wine it had contained splashed out across the table in a hissing wave.

Halbert and Scar both jumped back as if he’d thrown a snake at them. They also jumped a little to the side—Halbert to the left, Scar to the right.

Malden split the difference and dashed between the two of them, headed straight for the door.

CHAPTER SIX

Bursting out into the sunlight, Malden turned his head wildly from side to side, looking for any avenue of escape. His foot slipped on a pile of horse droppings and he slid wildly for a long second before he got his feet under him again. Scar and Halbert were already emerging from the inn’s door when he finally spotted his next move.

A low wall ran along one side of the innyard, a pile of unmortared stone attached to the side of the stables. It sloped gently upward toward the thatched roof of the stables and to one as fleet as Malden it was as good as a staircase. He danced up the rocks, hearing them tumble and crash as Scar tried to follow him. It was hard to be light-footed when you were covered in armor.

Malden grabbed a double handful of thatch and hauled himself up onto the roof. From there he looked out on a sea of rooftops belonging to the half-timbered houses he’d seen on the way to the inn. Most had slate shingles—which were hard to run on, as they tended to crack and shift under one’s feet. Far to his left, though he could see the lead-lined roof of a church.

If he could reach the church he could make some real speed. He jumped across a narrow alley to the top of the house nearest the inn and landed on his feet on the sloping roof. He’d come down hard on his left ankle but Malden merely switched his weight to his right foot and kept running. He heard the watchmen shouting for him to halt, but paid no mind. He’d yet to meet a watchman anywhere who could run along roof ridges as nimbly as he.

He was wise enough, however, to know he wasn’t free yet. As he jumped to the next roof he passed over an alley choked with workmen and beggars—and two more kingsmen, who gestured upward with their weapons as he passed. Up ahead he could see a public square where women were gathered around a well, washing clothes. More kingsmen were stationed there.

By Sadu’s eight index fingers, Malden swore, how many men had they sent for him? But then he saw other figures mixed in with the kingsmen. Smaller men, wearing no armor—their hands tied together before them. They had bruised faces and some were limping. They looked broken, and Malden understood.

The local watch wasn’t just after one thief who had entered the gate under false pretenses. They were sweeping up every criminal they could find. He had seen it happen before, in Ness, when the Burgrave of that city wanted to convince the populace of the grip he held on the streets. There was no better way to show one’s passion for law and order than rounding up a dozen thieves and hanging them all together in the market square.

He’d stumbled right into a mess, coming to Helstrow when he did. What an ignominious way to end his career. He hated to think he’d be brought down by something so crass.

Malden had no intention of being taken by the law, especially by the law of a town where he’d never actually committed a crime. He knew exactly what he would have to do, and having a plan put him a little more at his ease. For a while he would have to abandon his friends. He would have to find a cheap hostelry where he could lie low for a few days, then meet up again with Croy and Cythera once their business was done. He could join up with them after they’d dropped Balint off in front of a magistrate, when they were ready to leave again. Croy would probably urge him to turn himself in, but Cythera would smooth things over and the three of them could make a discrete exit from Helstrow fortress. If things got too hot in the meantime he could always climb over the wall and hide among the peasants outside.

But first he had to actually get away. Looking back, toward the inn, he saw that Scar and Halbert had procured a ladder and were even at that moment preparing to come up and catch him.

Had this been Ness, Malden would have known instantly which way to turn. He would have known some blind alley where he could lose his pursuers, or where the nearest bridge might be found so he could leap into the river, or he would remember the location of a root cellar where no one would ever think to look for him. But this was Helstrow, which he knew not at all.

The church he’d been running toward was out of the question. It fronted on the square where the kingsmen were gathering their catch. So he turned instead and headed north, toward the wall that separated the outer and inner baileys. It was the highest point he could see, and he always felt safest up in the air.

Leaping to a thatched roof he tucked and rolled, knowing the tight-packed straw would offer only spongy, uncertain footing. Spitting dry husks from his mouth he started running toward the rough stones of the wall—and then stopped in his tracks.

Up on the wall, between the crenellations, he saw royal guards in white cloaks looking down at him. One of them had a crossbow and was busy cranking at its windlass. In a moment the weapon would be ready to fire.

Crossbow bolts were designed to penetrate steel armor and pierce the vitals beneath. At this range, the shot would probably skewer Malden—who wore no armor at all—like a roasting chicken.

Backpedaling in horror, Malden dashed to the far side of the roof and grabbed its edge. He swung down toward the street and let go to drop the last few feet. He landed in the stall of a costermonger, amidst barrels of apples and pears.

The merchant shrieked and pointed at him.

“Good sir, I beg you, be still!” Malden said, leaning out of the entrance to the stall and looking up and down the street. “The kingsmen are after me, and—”

“Thief! Thief!” the coster howled. He plucked up a handful of plums and threw them at Malden with great force. Sticky juice splattered Malden’s cloak and the side of his face.

Holding up one arm to protect his eyes, Malden ran out of the shop and into a street full of marketers. They turned as one at the sound of the costermonger’s shout and stared at Malden with terrified eyes.

“Murder!” the fruit merchant shouted. “Fire!” The man would say anything, it seemed, to get the blood of the crowd up.

Malden had made a bad miscalculation. Had he dropped into a similar stall in Ness, he would have received a far warmer welcome. The coster would have shoved him under a blanket where he could hide until the coast was clear. But Ness was a Free City, where it was a point of civic pride that no one trusted their rulers. Here, in Helstrow, every man was a vassal of the king—his property, in all but name. And Malden knew from bitter experience that slaves often feared their masters more than they loved freedom.

“Thief! Fire! Guards!” the cry went up, from every lip in the street. A dozen fingers pointed accusingly at Malden, while shopkeepers rang bells and clanged pots together to add to the hue and cry.

“Damn you all for traitors,” Malden spat, and hurried down the street as women pelted him with eggs and rotten vegetables and children grabbed at his cloak to try to trip him. He thrust his arm across his eyes to save himself from being blinded by the shower of filth and ran as fast as he dared on the trash-slick cobblestones.

But just as suddenly as it started, the cry ceased. Malden was left in silence, unmolested. Had he escaped the throng? He’d taken no more than a dozen steps away from them, yet—

He lowered his arm, and saw a knight in armor come striding toward him, sword in hand.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The marketers all fled or pressed into the doors of shops where they could watch from something like safety. Malden was alone with his enemy in a wide open street, alone and very short on options.

The knight clanked as he walked. He wore a full coat of plate that covered him from head to toe. Even his joints were protected by chain mail. The visor of his helmet was down and Malden could see nothing of his face.

Such armor, Malden knew, had an effect on the mind of the man who wore it. It made him believe himself to be invulnerable. Which was true, for all practical purposes—no iron sword could slash through that steel. Spear blades and bill hooks would simply clash off the armor, at worst denting its shiny plates. Protected thus, men tended to think that their safety meant they were blessed by the gods, and that whatever they chose to do was also blessed.

Such armor was a license for cruelty and rapine.

Yet there were weapons that could pierce that protective shell. The bodkin Malden had once carried was designed to pierce even steel, if driven with enough force and good aim. Battle axes were designed to smash through armor by sheer momentum. An arrow from a longbow, as Malden had seen, could cut through it like paper.

And then there was Acidtongue, the sword at Malden’s belt. If he could strike one solid blow with it, the sword could cut the knight in half.

Yet that might be the stupidest thing Malden ever did. Atop the plate, the knight wore a long white tabard that hung down to his knees. Painted on the cloth was a golden crown. This wasn’t a knight errant like Croy, but a knight in full estate, a champion of the king of Skrae. Most likely he was the captain of the watch, superior in rank to all the Scars and Halberts in Helstrow.