Honor Among Thieves (31 page)
A Change of Station
“H
alt, here,” Mörgain said, and the paltry remnants of her band formed up behind her steed. Wincing a little—Sir Croy had given her many new bruises to remember him by—she dropped from her horse to the surface of the road. Behind her a dozen reavers stood glancing at each other as if they wondered what she was up to. Let them wonder in silence, she thought. If they started questioning her decisions, she would act then.
She had seen something lying in the dust and wanted to know what it was. Some half-formed thought was wriggling at the back of her mind and she wanted to let it hatch from its chrysalis and try its wings.
Stooping, she picked up an apple and studied it carefully. Then she looked up at the trees that overhung the road, trying to see where it might have fallen from. Most likely it meant nothing. Still . . .
It was Halvir, one of her strongest warriors, who chose to speak for the rest. “Chieftess, we need to return to Helstrow as quickly as possible. The Great Chieftain needs to know about the Skraeling resistance we met.”
“We broke Sir Croy’s force,” she said, turning the apple back and forth in her hand. Not looking up. “He’ll be no trouble for us now, even if he survived the berserkers.” Those trance-crazed warriors were still out in the trees, either attacking every living thing they saw or having already collapsed into the deep slumber that always followed their mania. She would round them up tomorrow and reward them for carrying the day. In the meantime she had only this handful of reavers, the only survivors of Croy’s well-orchestrated attack, to work with. It might be enough.
If she returned to Helstrow now, she would gain glory and tribute from her father. She had, after all, broken a surprise attack from a superior force. Yet Mörgain knew it would not be enough. Mörget was returning as the conqueror of a city. His achievement would eclipse hers and he would never let her forget it.
No. She would bring something else back, when she returned to the Great Chieftain. She would be able to say she’d met the last army of Skrae—and crushed them, utterly annihilated them. And that meant finding their hiding hole and burning them out.
Mörget would not be able to match that.
Since her birth, Mörgain’s glory had been sullied, overshadowed by the greatness of her father and brother. Scolds sang songs about their journeys and their duels, about how Mörg had seen every land in the world, and how Mörget had bested every man who ever stood against him. The songs they sang about Mörgain made men laugh. The girl who would play with knives, they’d called her. Then the girl who would be chieftess. Of late they’d stopped singing the songs—she’d killed enough men that her exploits didn’t seem so funny anymore. Yet still she was considered weaker than her brother. Until she could prove herself Mörget’s better, she would never be satisfied.
“We have some time to play with,” she said. “Time to strike another blow. Perhaps a fatal one.”
Halvir had been made bold by her near defeat on the road. “We’re wounded and tired, and long to return to the fortress, Chieftess. Why this delay?”
She stared at him in surprise. Her brother, she knew, would strike the man down just for defying him. He would never allow his men to speak to him in such a way. Yet perhaps she had inherited some of her father’s wisdom. Mörg, she knew, always wanted to hear what his subordinates thought. He understood they might have seen something he missed, or have come up with some creative solution to a problem that vexed him.
She decided to take a middle course, and pretend his defiance was beneath her notice. The buzzing of a pesky fly. “Is there not a manor house near here?” she asked. “There was one on the map I saw in Helstrow.”
The reaver frowned. “Aye, a place called Easthull, not so much as a quarter mile away. Yet we had reports from Mörget’s men that it was abandoned. There was no smoke from its chimneys and its gates were locked up tight. No lights showed at night. He assumed it was untenanted. That all the Skraelings fled from this part of the road.”
“Apparently not all of them,” Mörgain said. She held the apple up where Halvir could see it.
Someone had taken a bite out of it. Recently. Its pale flesh was brown around the edges but not yet rotten.
Halvir scowled. He didn’t seem to understand.
“Look up,” she said. Above them an apple tree bent its branches over the road. Here and there a red fruit sagged on a limb, though not so many as one might expect. And there were no rotten apples lying on the side of the road, nor any others trampled in the dust. Only the one she’d found. “Someone has been collecting these. Perhaps storing them away for the winter. Someone who lives close by, but who is clever enough not to show himself when we ride past.”
Halvir’s nostrils flared. Did he see it now? Or was he only angered that she’d showed him up? For many men that was the only possible reaction when a woman demonstrated she had a brain in her head—or an arm capable of swinging a sword. She wondered idly if she would have to kill Halvir before the day was out. As an example to the others, and to stop his wagging tongue.
“You saw the men Sir Croy led against us,” she told him. “A rabble, poorly trained. Barely clothed. But they had one great advantage—they were organized. Better so than we were, and that cost us many men. Croy gathered every man he could find to fight us and he trained them himself. He must have had someplace to bring them, a staging ground from which to plan his attack.”
“So you would raid Easthull, and find that place,” Halvir said. He turned his head away, but he nodded. “Perhaps find Sir Croy as well. His head would be a good prize to bring the Great Chieftain. Yet if we find the manor deserted and empty—”
“At the very least we’ll have a place to sleep tonight,” Mörgain pointed out.
Halvir seemed not wholly convinced. Yet he knew better than to challenge her further. Mörgain mounted her horse and led the way. The manor was very close indeed, and easy enough to find if you were looking for it. As promised, the gates were locked and the house shut up, but Mörgain’s nerves keened as she approached anyway. This was the greatest glory she knew, the finest pleasure. To approach a place with sword in hand and no idea what one would find.
The thrill of discovery, she thought. The thrill of finding new enemies to destroy. Who knew what was inside that house? Dust and shadows? Sir Croy, nursing some wound that left him helpless to fend her off?
The body of the long-sought-for king of Skrae? Now
there
would be a prize.
They tied ropes to the gate and used her horse’s strength to pull it down. It fell into the road with a great thud. Surely anyone inside the house would have heard that sound, but no door opened, there was no flash of color at a window as someone peered out to see what was happening. Mörgain drew Fangbreaker and moved in, crouching low as if she were braving an enemy revetment and expected to be peppered with arrows.
Behind her the dozen reavers came on, not nearly so cautious.
“Look at the door,” Halvir said, loud enough to be heard inside the house.
Mörgain did not turn to chastise him, but instead did as he’d suggested. Fallen leaves had piled against the bottom of the manor house door. No one had gone in or out that way in weeks, it looked like. Mörgain began to wonder if she’d made a mistake after all.
“I weary of this,” Halvir said, and strode forward, past Mörgain.
So when a western peasant jumped out of a tree above their heads, he landed on Halvir, not Mörgain. The little man knocked the reaver to the ground and started pounding on his head with a rock. Blood flowed and Halvir shouted in pain.
It seemed Mörgain would be spared the task of killing the reaver herself.
Mörgain lunged forward with Fangbreaker and skewered the peasant. The civilized man screamed and died, even as two dozen of his fellows erupted from side doors of the house or came running out of the stables, crying for blood and swinging weapons.
The reavers behind Mörgain had all fought in raids before. They formed up in a tight knot at her back, swords and axes ready. They were outnumbered. Yet Mörgain only took one look at the weapons the peasants carried—sticks and farm tools—and a wicked smile bloomed on her face.
She’d found what she was looking for, surely.
M
alden grabbed onto a window ledge and hauled himself upward. One foot on the casement, he thrust his arms up to grasp the sharp edge of a roof, then swung himself up with a grunt and scrabbled up the shingles toward the roof ridge. Dancing around a chimney pot, he dashed to the edge of the roof and leaped into empty space, barely catching the head of a marble statue in the square beyond. Before he’d lost his momentum, he kicked off the statue’s shoulders and somersaulted onto a second floor balcony across the way.
Through the windows of the house he’d landed on, he saw a family of four sitting at table, taking their midday meal. The father looked up and for a moment made perfect eye contact with him—a thief, climbing around on the outside of his house.
The man gave him a cheery wave and rushed to the window to fling it open. “Lord Mayor! Lord Mayor!” he called, but Malden was already on his roof and running up the slope of shingles as fast as he could.
There had been no time to acknowledge the change that had come over his life. No time to reflect and even think about what he was doing. He’d been so busy since the people carried him through the streets and put a garland of dried roses on his head. Too busy to think or even stop and reflect on the burden he now bore. The only peace and quiet Malden ever got anymore was on top of someone’s roof, running as if every man in the watch was after him.
Except there was no more city watch, and the people chasing him all wanted to shake his hand and express their gratitude.
In the week since the death of Pritchard Hood, things had changed in Ness. The people owned their own city now. It had always been a Free City, and the people of Ness had always enjoyed certain liberties. Freedom from royal taxes. Freedom from conscription. Freedom to own property, and to keep their own money. All those things were guaranteed in their charter, a piece of paper Juring Tarness had signed eight hundred years ago. They had a saying in Ness: “City air makes you free.” Of course, there had been limits on that freedom. All other rights not specifically listed in that document were still the province of the king.
Now there was no more king. There was no more Burgrave. Only, now, a Lord Mayor. There had been much debate about what to call the new leader of Ness. The title they’d eventually chosen was not a Skraeling honorific at all—it was the name given to the men of the Northern Kingdoms who were elected to serve as the leaders of their mercantile cities. It was technically incorrect, since Malden was no lord by birth or right, but the people did love calling him by his new title.
A title Malden hated, because it made him the enemy of freedom.
Freedom was one of the few things he truly loved or believed in. Freedom was what he’d sought all his life, even as all the lords and knights and kings tried to take it away from him. Freedom was wonderful—at least until your neighbor decided to be free with your property, or your spouse, or your life. Then someone had to step in and take away his freedom to preserve yours.
Malden, who had spent his entire life hating watchmen and judges and especially rulers, was now the one who sent people to the gaol. The one who sat in judgment at their trials and decided who was worthy of freedom and who must be constrained for the good of Ness. The one who would have to punish miscreants, as soon as he figured out a way to do so that didn’t make his stomach cramp and tie itself in knots.
There had been no hangings in Ness since the night Castle Hill was razed. There had been a dozen murders, though. Just that morning he’d had to send Velmont and a crew of thieves into a bad part of the Stink. Because there were no watchmen left, it was up to the thieves to maintain order—something they found hilariously funny, though Malden had not laughed when he asked this of them. A man, a citizen, deranged in his faculties, had killed his own daughter. He claimed he was going to take her blood to the Godstone and make proper sacrifice there. The madman thought that reinstituting human sacrifice was the only way to drive off the barbarians.
Malden had him put in chains. After talking briefly with the man, he was convinced that were the murderer’s freedom returned to him, he would only find somebody else to kill. The murderer had six more daughters, and two infant sons.
“Enough,” Malden said out loud, up on the rooftops, because all this thinking nearly made him miss a step. Twenty-five feet aboveground, on a roof of crumbling shingles, a misstep would be fatal.
And if he died here, who would keep Ness from descending into anarchy?
He ran the rest of the way to the Lemon Garden feeling like a black wind was howling through him. When he dropped down into the courtyard beside the withered lemon tree—all its fruit was gone now, he saw—he felt almost human.
Unfortunately, the courtyard wasn’t empty. The whole city knew that Malden had taken the private room upstairs as his office. Men and women from every corner of Ness came now, and paid the tupenny fee Elody demanded (the price of her quickest and least sanitary engagements) just to get in the door.
“Lord Mayor! There’s no one working the grist mill in Chapeldown Lane—I can’t get the flour I need to make bread!”
“Lord Mayor! My wagon threw a wheel this morning, but the wheelwright says he can’t find any bodgers to make new spokes!”
“Lord Mayor! I put an image of the Lady in my window last night, you know, just in case—and a gang of boys broke my window with rocks!”
“Lord Mayor, please, a moment!”
“Lord Mayor!”
“Lord Mayor!”
Their breath filled the courtyard, cutting through the chill in the air but making Malden’s head spin. They pressed close and grabbed at his clothing, all trying to get his attention, just for a moment.
Malden felt faint. He felt a desperate need to escape. He scuttled up the swaying trunk of the lemon tree and jumped to the gallery above. More supplicants awaited him there, but he was able to duck inside his private room and bar the door before they could do more than shout his name. They knocked and begged through the portal, but for a moment, at least, he was alone.
Or rather—alone with the one person in all of Ness he wanted to see. On the bed, Cythera turned over and opened one bleary eye to look at him. Then she smiled.
There were some small compensations for being called Lord Mayor.
