Honour Among Thieves

“I have come for two reasons only,” Mörgain said, “and they are both now achieved. I came to give you warning, for among my people, only base cowards attack without warning. We are coming. You have been warned.”

“And the other reason?” Ulfram asked.

“To prove I have more courage in my heart than any man.”

The king nodded sadly. “I imagine you must. Because you would make an excellent hostage. I could seize you right now and force your clansmen to return to their steppes in exchange for your safety.”

Mörgain laughed.

Croy knew that laugh. He’d heard a deeper, slightly louder version before. Mörget had laughed like that. It was the laugh of one who found violent death to be the ultimate jest.

“Any man who touches me will die. Perhaps some man will kill me, or even take me alive,” she said. “But he will still die. I will be avenged, even if it takes fifty thousand warriors. If it takes every clan of the east, their bodies piled up outside these walls to make siege towers. If it takes the last drop of blood in the last vein of my people, the man who touches me will die. Now. Dare you take me hostage?”

Croy turned to watch the king’s face. There was no fear there. He refused to be intimidated—or at least he refused to let Mörgain see that her threats had worked. Croy felt a certain pride at that. This was the man he served.

“Not when I have a better use for you. Go from here in peace,” Ulfram said, “and take word to your Great Chieftain. I’ll meet with him under the flag of parley, in a place and time of his choosing. Go. I will not stay you. Frankly I don’t want you in my home another second.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

After Mörgain left, no one spoke for some while. Croy grew uneasy, standing against the wall with his hand on his sword hilt. The king, his liege, was clearly distressed—Ulfram sat in his chair, chin in hand, deep in thought.

“It’s far worse than I thought,” the king said, at last. “I thought they would give us a chance to pay tribute in exchange for peace.” He shook his head. “Croy—Sir Croy. You were there. You saw the mountain come down. How wide is this pass? How many men can march abreast through it?”

Croy’s brow furrowed as he considered that. “When the mountain fell, it wreaked terrible damage on the surrounding land. The pass is perhaps a quarter of a mile across.”

“That big? That big!” Ulfram got up and ran to the door. He waved outside and Croy heard footsteps in the hall. “My scouts told me it was passable, but they forgot to mention it was wide enough to march an entire army through. Incompetence everywhere! A hole that big in my kingdom. The barbarians will flood through. There’ll be no stopping them.”

“Your majesty,” Sir Hew said. “I suspect you knew this was coming.”

The king looked up at his Captain of the Guard. “I knew they were massing the clans just east of the mountains, yes.”

“Already you’ve begun the process of conscription. We’ll have an army ready before they arrive,” Hew went on.

“An untrained rabble,” Ulfram told him. He waved one hand in frustration. “And only a few real knights to lead them.”

“We could send to the northern kingdoms, to hire more soldiers.” The kingdoms of Skilfing, Ryving, Maelfing and Anfald were constantly at war with each other, and in times of peace they hired their soldiers out as mercenaries.

“Already done,” the king said. “Skilfing has promised to come to our aid as soon as they’re finished making their own war on Maelfing. They won’t arrive for many weeks, though—and the barbarians are only days away.”

“What of the Old Empire?” Croy asked.

The king shook his head. The first settlers of Skrae had been exiles from the continent across the southern sea, a land ruled for thousands of years by a grand imperial court. “I sent an envoy as soon as I heard about the new pass, of course,” Ulfram said, “but the Emperor there has no love for us, not even after all this time. And I wouldn’t trust him if he did send us troops. They’d probably beat the barbarians, then stick around to conquer us as well. No, we’ll have to rely on the army we have. But we’ve had too much peace, for too long! Barely any man in Skrae remembers how to lift a sword. We’re fat and soft. The barbarians—if they’re anything like her—will run roughshod over us.”

One by one, the king’s councilors filed in from the hall. The exchequer, the seneschal, the chancellor, the Duke of Greenmarsh, the Archpriest of the Lady, many more Croy had never met. The Baron of Easthull nodded in a friendly way to Croy, but was quickly drawn into conversation with a man who wore the golden chain of the keeper of the royal seals. These were the most powerful men in Skrae—and unlike their king they all looked terrified.

A table was brought in and maps unfurled across its surface. Croy was asked a thousand questions, very few of which he could answer, but he did his best. Cythera had a few more answers, but she lacked any military training and couldn’t speak to strategy. Yet the need for information seemed endless. Even Malden was interrogated about what he’d seen of the land near Cloudblade’s ruin.

Everyone crowded around the maps, working out where the invasion would come from. “The forest—here—will slow them down a bit, but we can expect at most ten days’ grace before they reach the river Strow,” Sir Hew said.

“If we could only hold them off until winter,” the king said, wringing his hands. “Just a few months. No army can march properly through a bank of snow. They’d have to either make camp where we could harry them, or, more likely, withdraw into the mountains and wait for spring. By then we could fortify the pass and seal them back where they belong.”

“There might be a way to slow them at least,” Croy suggested. “Here,” he said, pointing to the map, quite near where the new pass lay, “there is an old fort. It’s where we met Herward. It’s half in ruins, but the walls still stand. My liege, give me five hundred men, and I’ll hold it for a month, though it cost me my life.”

The king stared at the map. Then he took a step back from the table and shook his head. “No,” he told Croy.

“I beg you, Majesty! Allow me this chance to prove my honor.”

“I said no, Sir Croy. Your five hundred would be overrun, eventually. Every man of them slain, and still you wouldn’t buy us enough time. I can’t sacrifice that many on a noble gesture. No, we will make our defense here, at Helstrow.”

Sir Hew cleared his throat but the king shot him a piercing glance. “I have spoken,” he announced.

Silence fell across the room.

“When word of this gets out, everyone in the outer bailey will try to flee. I can’t allow that. Seal the gates of the outer bailey—all of them. No man will leave Helstrow, not until I bid it,” Ulfram declared. “Redouble our efforts to conscript the population. I want every soul within these walls dedicated to preparing for the attack. As for you three Ancient Blades—go now, and make yourselves useful. Train as many of the rabble as you can. My councilors and I have a great deal of work to do, and you’re wasting our time.”

Croy’s cheeks burned. His heart raced in his chest. He bowed deep and said, “My liege.” Then he nodded at Cythera and Malden and hurried them out of the chamber.

It was not until they were beyond the gates of the palace that any of them spoke again. It was Cythera who spoke first. “I can’t believe he just let Balint go like that—after all she did!”

“We cannot gainsay him,” Croy told her. “He is the Lady’s appointed sovereign, and his word is law.”

“He’s a man. And any man can be a fool,” Malden insisted.

Croy’s blood surged to hear the slander, but he knew better than to take Malden’s words too seriously. The thief didn’t understand what he was talking about. “He’s a king, and that’s all that matters. It is his right to do as he sees fit, for all our sake.”

“Not mine. I know nothing of war,” Malden admitted, “but he’s making a mistake, isn’t he? Sir Hew seemed to think your strategy could have worked. It could have kept the barbarians bottled up. Instead he’s going to just let them march up to his gate so he can have a nice chat with their king. Or whatever it is they have instead of a king. He’s going to talk to them, when all they want is to destroy us.”

Croy’s honor wouldn’t allow him to agree. But he knew enough of military history to say, “If the barbarians come through the pass unhindered, they’ll have time before the first snow falls to establish a strong foothold inside Skrae’s borders. Once they’re here, it’ll be a hard thing to drive them out again.”

The thief placed a hand on Croy’s shoulder. Croy could feel Malden’s fingers shaking. “I—I’m not good enough with this sword to fight in battle,” he said. “I can’t stay here. I can’t stand beside you.”

Croy closed his eyes. Cowardly words, but truthful ones. “No, Malden, you can’t. Which is why you’re leaving Helstrow tonight—and you’re taking Cythera with you.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

After darkness fell, Malden and Croy headed back into the outer bailey. The air was crisp with autumn’s chill, but Helstrow’s streets were full of people heading this way and that, as if they didn’t know where to go but didn’t dare go to their homes. The kingsmen were out in force, hauling away anyone they could find who could be legally conscripted. Even the slightest offense was enough to get a man arrested that night. Public drunkenness, failure to keep a pig off the street—things that were commonplaces in peace time had become hanging offenses, it seemed. Nor were the women of Helstrow left unaccosted. They were herded toward churches and public houses, where they would be put to work making bandages and bowstrings.

Malden still wore his old green cloak, but Croy had put on a tabard with the colors of the king, green and gold, and the people they passed gave them a wide berth. The swords on their hips probably made room for them as well.

The two of them passed a bloody-handed preacher standing on the lip of a well, shouting for all who would hear it the old religion of the bloodgod—heresy in a fortress-town dedicated to the Lady. More than a few young men had stopped to listen, perhaps thinking Sadu could save them from the coming barbarians. When the crowd saw Croy’s colors, though, they ran off into the night.

“They’d do better putting their faith in the king,” Croy said, through clenched teeth. He found the piglet the holy man had sacrificed hidden in the well’s bucket. He tossed it angrily into the street.

“They’re terrified,” Malden told him. He could sympathize. “They’ll turn to anything that offers some hope.” He looked ahead into the dark street, lit only by the moon. “Is it much farther now?”

“The conscripts you want are being held in a churchyard by the outer wall,” Croy told him. “It’s only a few streets from here. Once you find these men—”

“It’s better if you don’t know what I’ll do after that,” Malden told him. “We’ll part ways as soon as they’re freed.”

Croy nodded. “Malden,” he said, “this may be the last time I have a chance to talk to you about … something that has been troubling me.”

Malden tensed, wondering what the knight was talking about. Was he going to change his mind now, and demand that Malden stay and help with the defense of Helstrow?

“There is no time for Cythera and I to be wed before you leave,” Croy went on, looking away from Malden’s face. “I have her promise, but … Malden. I’ve never doubted your friendship. Yet I saw something, under Cloudblade. Something I cannot explain.”

Malden’s heart stopped beating for a moment. “You saw her kiss me.”

Croy couldn’t seem to speak.

This might be the moment, Malden thought, when he tells me he’s going to have to kill me. He considered which way he would run.

But Croy lived by a code of honor. And that meant he had to give a man a chance to defend himself. “Why did she do it?” he asked.

The thief licked his lips. What he said next was going to have to be very carefully worded. Cythera had said she would tell Croy everything when they returned to Ness. Implicit in that was that he shouldn’t tell Croy himself. He couldn’t tell Croy that he and Cythera loved each other. That the betrothal between the knight and Cythera was already broken.

There was good reason for that silence. Still, Malden burned to have it all out in the open. It would make life so much simpler. In all likelihood, it would also make his life much shorter. Yet he found he couldn’t quite lie. “Allow me to explain. At that moment—the moment of that kiss—I was moments from certain death. The assassin, Prestwicke, was going to kill me. I was a condemned man and I had no hope of survival. I begged her for that kiss, as the last request of a dying man. In such a case, what woman could refuse?”

Croy’s eyes were wide and his face had turned bright red. He was embarrassed, Malden realized, to even have to ask. If another man had caught Malden kissing his betrothed, a lesser man than Croy he doubted that explanation would have sufficed. Yet Malden saw other emotions in Croy’s face. Gratitude. Relief. Croy had wanted so badly for there to be a simple, innocent explanation that he probably would have accepted anything Malden said. Anything other than the full truth.

“Surely you don’t doubt her constancy,” Malden insisted. “Her honor—”

“Her honor is my honor, and I would die to defend it. And you’re right, she could not refuse you in a moment like that. She is such a compassionate woman. You see why I love her? Do you understand the strength of my feelings?”

“I think I do,” Malden said, softly.

“But that very quality I love makes her vulnerable. Men can be schemers. They can take advantage of woman’s gentler nature, and women aren’t always wise enough to resist their charms.”

Not for the first time Malden remembered that Croy had never spent much time around women. Malden, who had been raised by harlots, thought he might know the female mind a little better. He also knew just how well women could resist men’s charms—when they chose to. He decided not to share this knowledge, just then.

“Someone else, someone with a less noble heart than yours, Malden, might have taken advantage of that situation. They might have asked for more than a kiss. If she were in a situation where she had to compromise herself, she might question the promise she made to me.”

“Put these thoughts from your mind! Croy, you have enough to worry about!”

Croy shook his head. “I need to ask your aid, Malden, and please, don’t refuse this. I need you to watch her. Make sure she stays safe. And … and pure. I—” Croy let out a little gasp. His fists were clenched before him. “I would die, my soul would shrivel, if I ever learned she did not love me any longer. It would pain me more than arrows through my vitals, Malden!”

“I swear this, Croy,” he said. “No new lover will come near her. I won’t so much as let her be alone with any man but me.”

There were tears in Croy’s eyes when he grasped Malden in a crushing embrace. “You are my friend, after all. I doubted it sometimes—but you are my true friend.”

“Put all your trust in me,” Malden told him. And for the first time in his life, he felt the pangs of conscience for deceiving someone. But he knew he would feel pangs of another sort—the sort one feels with two feet of steel shoved through one’s belly—should Croy ever learn the truth.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

He made a point of saying no more until they reached the churchyard.

It was a gloomy place for men to sleep, even thieves. Yet the conscripts would have been disconsolate even if they’d been billeted in the courtly homes of the inner bailey. To a man they looked beaten and exhausted. While Malden had been brought to his audience with the king, these men had spent the day training. Shouting serjeants had put them through endless paces, teaching them the basics of how to use a bill hook as a weapon or how to march and even run in heavy leather harness. The reward for all that hard work was that now they were chained together in groups of six so they could not run away, given a bowl of thin pottage each to eat, and then utterly ignored by their captors.

Malden supposed it was better than being hanged in a public square. He wondered how many of the groaning men would agree. Well, at least for one of them the future held a little more promise. He scanned the crowd among the graves until he found Velmont, his friend from his own previous confinement.

“That one,” he told Croy.

They approached the chained men and Velmont looked up with half a smile when he saw Malden. Then he glanced down at the sword on Malden’s belt and his face fell. Malden realized he must be wondering if the man he’d spoken to while chained up in the banquet hall had in fact been an informer for the kingsmen. He had to admit to himself that if their positions were reversed he would have a hard time of trusting Velmont. “Just keep quiet, and this will go well for you,” he whispered.

“You had me good, didn’t you?” Velmont asked, ignoring what Malden had said. “All that talk o’ being brothers in the trade.”

“Be of good cheer, Velmont,” Malden told the man. “I’m not here to do you any harm.”

“You’re no thief, are you?” Velmont asked. He spat into the weeds between two graves. “What is it you want now, more o’ our secrets?”

“These others with you—are they part of your crew?” Malden asked.

“You want me to start giving up names? You’ll have to beat ’em out of me.”

“Listen to my proposal before you reject it,” Malden told him. He put his hand on the iron collar fastened around Velmont’s neck, but the thief jerked away from him. “I’m going to free you, you fool!”

“Oh, aye, free me from me mortal station, I’d reckon. With all I told ye … I gave out plenty enough to end up swingin’ from a rope.”

Croy bent to study the chains holding Velmont, and drew his belt knife to break the lock. Malden looked up and saw they’d been observed. The guards set to watch the conscripts had been huddled around a fire near the church, but now a serjeant in a rusted kettle hat came running toward them. He had a green and yellow ribbon wound around the brim of his helmet, and a thick truncheon in his hand.

“Saving your grace, sir knight,” the man said, addressing Croy, “but may I ask exactly what you think you’re doing here?”

Malden’s hand dropped toward the hilt of Acidtongue, but Croy stepped in front of him and leaned close to the serjeant’s face. “The king’s work,” he said. His voice was hard—harder than Malden had ever heard it before. “I’ve been sent on this fool’s errand by Sir Hew himself, the Captain of the Guard. I want it done quickly so I can get back to more important things. Now, release these men.”

“But—they’re criminals!” the serjeant protested.

“They’re wanted at the keep for a special detail. We need laborers to oil and clean every piece of iron in the armory before morning. Of course, if you’d prefer, I can take you and your men instead.”

Malden’s jaw dropped. He’d never heard Croy talk to anyone with such an air of command—or threat. Nor had he ever heard Croy lie. He would have thought the knight incapable of dissembling. It seemed the knight had hidden depths.

The serjeant shook his head hurriedly. “No, no sir. I’ll fetch the keys.”

In short order Velmont and the five men he’d been chained with were free. The serjeant offered to bind their hands. “I don’t think that’s necessary,” Croy told him. “The two of us are armed well enough to control a half dozen dogs like this.”

“As you’d have it, sir,” the serjeant said. When he was dismissed he went gratefully back to his fire, glad to have escaped Croy’s attention. There would be no more trouble from that quarter.

Malden and Croy led the six conscripts down an alley and around a corner before they spoke again. Croy clasped Malden’s hands and said, “It’s done. I’ll make sure Cythera is waiting for you at the inn, with full packs and some food. Malden, if the war goes poorly, or I am killed—”

“We’ll meet again,” Malden told him. “Get back before Sir Hew wonders where you’ve been.”

Croy nodded. “Lady speed you on your path,” he said, and hurried off into the night. Malden watched him go for a moment, then turned around to face the conscripts.

Before he could say a word to Velmont, however, a hand reached across his front and slipped the buckle of his belt. Acidtongue fell to the cobbles and Malden, too surprised to think clearly, bent to retrieve it.

A stone came down on the back of his head, hard enough to send his brains spinning.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Cythera stood by the window in their room at the inn, watching the street through a narrow gap in the shutters. It was near midnight, but the fortress city still rumbled with activity, and a fair amount of traffic still moved through the narrow lanes. Groups of men—soldiers, or simply men who had gathered together for security—hurried this way and that on errands, their heads down, their voices low, showing few lights. All of Helstrow was terrified of what was coming.

Coruth had tried to warn her of this, she was sure. Of the coming invasion and the war that would follow. Cythera tried to remember the words the boy had spoken in the alley, words sent across a hundred miles. Surely this was what Coruth had meant. The swords coming together, men brought low or carried to high station. What else could it mean?

A knock at the door startled her. She hurried across the room and reached for the latch, but hesitated before opening. Croy had been quite clear in his instructions, and for once she’d agreed with him. They could not be too careful now. The king was unwilling to let anyone leave Helstrow, whether or not they could fight. If his agents found out that Cythera planned to escape they would try to stop her. She did not call out to ask who was at the door, only waited a moment, her nerves jangling.

A second knock came after a short pause. And then a third right away. That was the signal.

She opened the door and saw Croy there. He pushed past her into the room without speaking. He held a pair of heavy packs which he set down on the bed. “It’s done,” he whispered. “I can’t stay long.”

She nodded, understanding. The less said the better. No one in Helstrow was sleeping now, and it was impossible to know who might hear them.

Croy lifted one hand as if he might touch her cheek. Instead his fingers moved to her lips. She blinked, unsure of what he was trying to communicate. “I’ll come to Ness as soon as I can,” he whispered. “If I can.”

Cythera closed her eyes. If he lived through the invasion, he meant.

Cythera didn’t know if she’d ever truly loved Croy. When he’d asked for her hand in marriage it had seemed like a way to escape her father. Later it had sounded like a grand adventure. Now she knew she could never be happy as his wife, that only Malden could give her life she wanted.

Yet she had never doubted Croy’s love, or his kindness. He had been so good to her and her mother—she owed him far more than she could repay. And here she was, betraying him. She opened her mouth, absolutely convinced she had to tell him the truth. She would tell him everything about Malden. She would beg his forgiveness. It was the right thing to do.

“Don’t speak,” he told her. “Just listen. When we meet again we’ll get married, right away. I won’t worry about the banns, or about all the formalities and niceties. I’ll take you to the Ladychapel in whatever clothes we’re wearing, day or night. If we must we’ll wake the priests and force them to perform the ceremony. I’ll kneel with you before the altar there and take your hand and it will be done. It will be forever.”

She had to tell him. It was unthinkable cruelty not to.

“I can see it in my mind’s eye, even now. The candles. The golden cornucopia above the altar. I can smell the incense. Yes,” he said, and he leaned forward to rest his forehead against hers. “Yes. That image is going to get me through anything that’s to come. I don’t care about the bloodshed. I don’t care about the danger. I will see only your face as you give yourself to me. As I give myself to you.”