Malden smiled. Im not here to rob you, he said. Not tonight, anyway. In fact, my purpose here is quite the opposite. I happened to be strolling past this fine home tonight when I discovered these, he said. He glanced to one side.
The bodies of the three thieves hed surprised lay sprawled on the floor there, facedown.
Dorals face went white.
They were busy at amassing this collection of your goods, Malden said, and gestured at the valuables piled on the carpet. I stopped them before they could make good their escape.
The merchant stared hard at Malden with shrewd, half-closed eyes. Youre no watchman. None of them would lie in wait for me like this.
Malden chuckled. Oh, no. Just a citizen looking after his neighbor. By way of profession, I am the agent of one of your fellow burghers. A man of some influence in the city, though he rarely appears at the moothall. Youll know his name, if you think for it.
Doral pursed his lips. He did not require much prompting. Cutbill. The guildmaster of thieves.
You make his name sound like a curse. When the man in question is about to become your fondest friend. Malden shrugged. These three were none of his. They were private operators, of a kind he despises. They were smart enough to make note of your movements, and even to bribe your servants to sleep elsewhere tonight. They were not clever enough to evade me.
The merchant shook his head. Say what you want. What your master wants, rather. I like not this feigned civility from a man who threatens me with a knife.
Malden shrugged off the mans brusqueness. My master wants nothing. He wishes to give you something you clearly need. Protection. Cutbill can make sure you are never bothered with this unpleasantness again. You see how easily unprincipled rascals made entry to your house. You see how close a thing it was, that you were robbed tonight. Why, if I hadnt been here, youd only now be realizing how much you had lost. There must be let me see fifty gold royals worth of plate and jewels here, and the clothing would fetch some good silver coins if sold to the right consigners. Why risk losing so much, when Cutbill can ensure the safety of your belongings for so little?
How much?
Malden pulled his bodkin out of the desks top. One part in fifty of everything you earn. To be paid monthly, in silver. A trifle.
Thats just robbery by another name, Doral spat. I wont pay it.
Ah, no man would submit to such blandishment, be he a creature of honor. I told Cutbill you were too high-minded to accept his offer. Alas, he bid me make it anyway. Very good. Ill take my leave now, with compliments to you and your lovely wife. Malden stood up from behind the desk and sketched a graceful bow.
If I see you again-
Oh, you shant, Malden told the merchant as he strode toward the door. When next I come, you wont see me at all.
He walked directly past the merchant and reached for the latch of the door.
He didnt make it that far.
Wait, Doral said. We can negotiate something, surely.
I listen attentively, Malden said, and leaned up against the wall.
Chapter Three
It was a long ride from the Golden Slope to the Ashes. Malden had a small wagon and an old, spavined horse to drive down the steep hill that took him from the houses of the wealthy through the district of workshops and manufactories called the Smoke. There he entered a maze of narrow streets that led farther downhill into the Stink, where the poor had their homes. It was just as he entered that zone of wattle-and-daub houses, where the streets and the alleys between them were hard to tell apart, that he heard the first groan from behind him.
The wagon appeared to be full of hay. If he were stopped, Malden could claim to be making a delivery to the stables of an inn nearby-it was close enough to dawn to make sense for such traffic-but if a watchman heard the hay moaning in pain, he might ask questions that Malden would find uncomfortable to answer. So he pulled his team into a very dark, very deserted byway, and leaned back over his cargo. He thumped the side of the wagon very hard with the pommel of his bodkin and waited until he heard another grunt. I know you can hear me, he said to the hay. The three men underneath it, the thieves from Dorals house, were just now waking from their drugged stupor. They would be unable to use their limbs for a while yet, but their ears would be fully recovered. The drug Malden had used on his darts was measured out quite carefully, and he knew its effects well-hed even tested it on himself, to be sure of its efficacy. He knew how groggy and listless it would leave them, and how unable to defend themselves.
Still the hay rustled as they tried to rouse themselves and escape. Malden sighed and said, If I tell you to be quiet, I expect you will try to shout. Its what I would do in your situation. Allow me to point out one thing, however. If I wished to kill you, I could have done so quite easily, hours ago. Instead I did you a very great favor: I saved you from the hangmans noose. Id like to do you another favor, but it depends on my getting to my destination without incident. You may therefore remain silent, and keep your groans to yourself. Or I can stop your breath right now, while youre still too weak to fend me off. Do we have a deal? Cry once for yes, or twice if you wish to die.
Oooh, one of them moaned.
Pluh-pluh-pluz, the second begged.
Gah, the third one muttered. That must be the one hed struck in the tongue.
Very good. Lie still, then, and youll live, for now. Malden got his horse under way again and headed for the Ashes.
That ancient district of the Free City of Ness was named for a calamity that happened well before Malden was born, the Seven Day Fire that claimed half the city. There was very little evidence of the conflagration left in Ness, save for a small zone of houses that had been so decrepit before the fire-and their owners so desperately poor-that they had never been rebuilt. The Ashes had become a section so desolate no one ever wanted to live there again. It was a grim place of streets that verged on nothing but charred ruin, all of it hid during the day by the shadow of the citys towering wall. It was a place decent folk-and thus the city watch-never ventured.
Malden had come to know it well. He could find his way through the labyrinth of vacant lots and piles of rubble, through the lanes where weeds grew up through the soot-stained cobbles and moonlight soaked everything a sodden gray. He knew just where to turn, and, more importantly, just where to stop.
He stood his horse in the middle of a street and leaned forward on the reins. The horse snorted in the cold air, mist making twin plumes from its nostrils.
He did not wait long. Glancing over at a collapsed house to his left, he saw a flicker of motion, and then a boy no more than seven years old stepped out into the street. The boy lingered in a door frame that was warped out of true by fire and time. He wore a tunic made of patched-together rags, and his face was filthy with ash. In his hand he held a stick, no longer than his diminutive forearm, with a twopenny nail driven through its end. A poor urchins eye-gouger, that weapon. Malden had no doubt he was well drilled in its use. The boy, one of a small army of orphaned children with nowhere else to go, worked for Maldens master. The children made sure no one entered the Ashes without being seen, and, if they were unwelcome, made sure they didnt leave again.
Malden nodded at the boy, then made a complicated gesture with his fingers. The boy nodded in return, then stepped back into the darkness and was gone.
The entire interchange took five heartbeats to complete, but it spoke in an elaborate and eloquent vocabulary. The message was plain: Malden had three new recruits with him. He had not been followed. He needed to speak with the boss. The boy had understood, and would see to everything.
Malden jumped down from the seat of his wagon and walked around to the back. He shoved the straw away and let the three men sit up. As they rubbed at their numb faces and shook out their deadened legs, he studied them carefully. They were scrawny, shortish men dressed in dirty clothing. They didnt look like much at all. He knew their type all too well. Men broken down by poverty until they were willing to take the risk of being hanged rather than go another day without coin. Men who labored at menial jobs when they could, or relied on their families for a few coppers to keep them from starving to death when no work was available. Men who had spent every day looking at the houses of rich merchants and wondering why fate had denied them such luxury and comfort. One of them, Malden knew, was a cousin of Doral Knackersons valet. It had been his brilliant idea to buy off the servants and burgle the rich mans house. It must have seemed like such a foolproof plan.
Ive taken your weapons, and the few coins you had on you, he told them. The drug I gave you has no lasting effect, but it will leave you weak for tonight. I really dont recommend making a fuss now. Youve been given a second chance and I hope you will all take it. The job you did tonight was a clumsy affair, poorly planned out and executed with only a modicum of skill. It was enough, however, to gain the notice of my employer.
The three of them stared at him. One of them mouthed Cutbill, but was smart enough not to breathe the name aloud.
Malden nodded. You may know that he runs all the crime in this town. You three thought you could go into business for yourselves. That shows initiative, but also stupidity. No one steals a copper farthing in the Free City of Ness without attracting his attention. You made a choice to try anyway, and now you are under his most exacting scrutiny. You have another choice to make, right now. You can get up, and walk into that building over there. Malden pointed at the ruin of a feed store across the street. It had no roof, but three of its walls still stood. Only darkness lay within. A little girl will take you from there to a place where you can sign on with my crew. Your other option is to walk back up that hill, and here he pointed behind him, and look for honest work, and forswear ever taking up thieving again.
The three of them stared at him. One of them mouthed Cutbill, but was smart enough not to breathe the name aloud.