Mickey Zucker Reichert - Shadows Realm (31 page)

Astryd and Silme had gathered up the packs before Taziar finished speaking. Briefly, he described the required locksmith’s instruments in layman’s terms. “After you get the supplies, try to find time to give Mat-hilde some idea of when the prison break will happen.” Taziar tensed, awaiting more criticisms of his plot. When none came, he rose, crossed the room and peered out the window. Dawn light drew familiar shadows on the walls of Mardain’s temple, but, mired in his forced emotionlessness, Taziar did not allow himself to study them. Instead, he stared at the alleyway below. Finding it empty, he climbed to the sill. “Best if you’re not seen with me, if possible. We’ll be back together soon.” He did not allow the vaguest trace of doubt to enter his voice, but an image of Astryd’s ashen features haunted him as he shinnied down the wall into the alley.

Once solidly on the dirt pathway, concerns, fears, and fatigue closed in on Taziar. He held his worries at bay, turning the thought and energy they might cost him to the matter at hand. Brushing dust from his cloak, he headed from the back street onto the main market roadway leading to Cullinsberg’s entrance.

The bang and clatter of opening shops and stands assailed Taziar. Merchants and their apprentices scurried through the city in huddled knots, some guiding cart horses down the cobbled streets. Attentive to their wares, the merchants seemed to take no notice of Taziar threading cautiously around them. Unchallenged, he kept to the sidewalks, moving into the roadway whenever displayed wares made the walkways impassable. At length, he discovered a guard in the familiar black and red uniform stationed on the opposite side of the road at the mouth of an alleyway. He seemed to Taz to be the type who would respond with reasoning before threat and threat before violence. He was lean and tall and held a spear in a lax grip as he watched the flow of traffic through slitted eyes.

He’ll do fine.
With exaggerated casualness, Taziar turned his back to the wall of a butcher’s shop and rested his shoulder blades against the granite. Bending his knee, he propped a foot against the wall behind him. The position placed him directly across from the guard.

A cart brimming with hearth logs creaked along the roadway, pulled by a burly chestnut gelding. The topmost layer of wood rocked with each movement, threatening to crash to the street at any moment. Taziar waited until it passed and the lane between him and the guard had cleared once again. The guard visually followed the wagon until it rounded a corner. Then his dark gaze flicked forward. Briefly, the guard inspected Taziar and, apparently finding nothing of interest, he moved on to a middle-aged couple ambling toward the Climber.

Taziar assessed the couple. The man sported the heavily callused hands of a smith or builder, and well-muscled arms completed the picture. A receding line of brown hair dusted with gray revealed a scalp freckled from exposure to the sun. The plump woman at his side wore her locks swept back into a tight bun. Clothes of unsoiled linen suggested a comfortable living. Taziar located their purses by the play of dawn shadow on pocket fabric. He guessed that the woman carried the bulk of their money in a recess in her shift, while the left pocket of the man’s tunic held a smaller amount. Taziar suspected they’d chosen the arrangement to confuse thieves, but he doubted it would succeed against any except a young amateur.
Or maybe I’m overestimating the average pickpocket.

Since Taziar sought attention rather than money, he went after the bait. As the couple wandered by, he slipped his fingers into the man’s pocket, seized the pouch of coins, and ripped it free. Taziar fumbled it intentionally, catching the bag with a dull clink of coins. Through the fabric, he identified six copper barony ducats before whisking it into the folds of his own cloak. He awaited the woman’s scream, the man’s bellow of outrage, the guard’s shouted command above the irregular clamor of the merchants.

But none of those sounds came. Apparently oblivious, the couple continued down the walkway without so much as a break in stride. Dumbfounded, Taziar turned his attention to the guard. The man chewed a fingernail, stopped, and studied the tattered edge. He picked at it with his thumb, then bit at it again.

Irony struck Taziar a staggering blow.
Aga-arin’s almighty ass, I can’t be that good.
Stunned by the revelation, Taziar allowed a young man carrying a crate of chickens on his shoulder to pass unmolested. Taziar’s hand closed over his spoils.
I have to give this back.
He glanced in the direction the couple had taken, but they had disappeared around a corner. Weighing the time the return would cost him against the couple’s affluence, Taziar accepted his newfound money reluctantly.
I’m just going to have to learn to be more inept.
He settled back into his position against the wall.

Within seconds, a young man trotted along the sidewalk, his expression harried. He wore a patched, woolen cloak, sported a blotchy beard, and carried a stand sign tucked beneath his armpit. From a glance, Taziar discovered a pouch of coins in the man’s hip pocket. He closed, every movement deliberately awkward. Jamming his hand into the pocket, Taziar meticulously gouged his fingers into the man’s pelvic bone before scooping the purse free. It flew in a wild arc, and Taziar caught it with a dexterity that belied his earlier clumsiness. He shoved it into his cloak with the other purse.

The stranger spun with a yell of outrage. “Help! Thief!” The lettered board thunked to the cobbles. He swung a punch at Taziar who dodged easily. The guard rushed toward them from across the street. Locking his gaze on the stranger’s hands and seeing that the man intended to grab rather than hit, Taziar suppressed his natural urge to dodge. Thick hands seized the collar of Taziar’s cloak and crossed, neatly closing off his windpipe. He gasped and struggled, suddenly wishing he had not made it so simple for the stranger to catch him.

“Stop!” The guard’s spear jolted against the stranger’s arms. The hands fell away, and Taziar staggered free with a dry rasp of breath. “What’s going on here?”

The stranger answered before Taziar could regain enough air to speak. “He stole my money. Guard, that man is a thief.”

Taziar cringed, aware most of the baron’s guards would seize the opportunity to batter him to unconsciousness.

The guard whirled, his forehead creased. He studied Taziar in the thin light of morning, and his eyebrows arched abruptly in question. His expression went bland as he turned back to face the stranger. “I’m sorry, sir. You’ve made a mistake. This man took nothing.”

Taziar went slack-jawed with surprise, and his victim’s face echoed his like a mirror. “He’s a thief,” the man insisted. “He stole my purse. I demand justice. Are you going to let the little weasel go prey on someone else?”

“I’m sorry,” the guard said with finality. “I was standing here, and I didn’t see him take anything.” He winked at Taziar. “It’s your word against his word.”

“No, it’s not.” Desperate, Taziar abandoned subtlety. “I took his purse I admit it.” To demonstrate, he retrieved the pouch and dangled it before the guard.

The stranger’s eyes went so wide, the whites showed in a circle around the irises, and he made only a feeble gesture to retrieve his property. As the stranger’s fingers touched the strings, Taziar released it. The pouch plummeted to the walkway. A coin bounced free, wound a wobbly course around a cobblestone, and dropped to its side. The guard recovered first. “You’ve got your money back.” He jabbed a finger into the stranger’s arm, then waved curtly at Taziar. “You, be on your way, and don’t cause any more trouble.” Using his spear like a walking stick, the guard returned to his post before the alleyway.

Bending, the stranger rescued his money and his sign and continued silently down the sidewalk as if in a trance. Taziar hurried off in the opposite direction, equally confused. The guard’s reaction made no sense to him. A decade without war had driven Cullinsberg’s soldiers to turn any violent tendencies they might harbor against criminals, orphans, and beggars. Many disdained the justice system, abandoning law for the right price. Taziar shook his head, floored by the idea that he had discovered a guard not only mercifully peaceful, but who disregarded pickpockets without so much as a hint of a bribe.
It was an accident, a bizarre coincidence I’ll probably never understand. How hard can it be to find a normal guard?

Taziar wandered by the stands, noting as he passed that many had not opened because of the holiday. The others would close by midday, and Taziar knew he would need to work fast or lose any chance of getting himself arrested.
Who would have imagined I would find it difficult to get thrown in prison?
He chuckled as he wandered by a barefoot girl in tattered homespun selling flowers. Across the road on the opposite walkway, Taziar saw a guard, eyes glinting from beneath a disorderly mop of hair. One meaty hand prodded an unkempt, young woman who cursed him with oaths vicious as a dockhand’s.

Seizing the opportunity, Taziar darted across the street, narrowly missing a trampling by a pair of mules hauling a groaning wagon. The team pulled up reflexively, with the calm indulgence of habit, but the driver’s blasphemies paled beneath the girl’s coarse profanities.

Oblivious, Taziar skidded across the walkway and caught the guard’s forearm. “Wait! She didn’t do it. I did.”

Startled, the guard and his prisoner stared with perfect expressions of surprise. Gradually, the guard’s features lapsed into the same complacent smirk Taziar had seen on the face of the other sentry. “Did what?” the guard challenged.

Taziar tugged at the guard’s sleeve. “Whatever she did. What are you arresting her for?”

The guard rolled his tongue around his mouth, then spat on the cobbles. “Freelance prostitution.”

I can’t get a break.
Taziar changed his tactics instantly. “You can’t take her in. She’s ... my sister.”

The guard glanced from Taziar’s fair skin and light eyes to the girl’s olive-toned countenance. “Sure.” He brushed off Taziar’s grip. “Go bother someone else.”

“Really. She’s my sister.” He seized the guard’s hand in a grip tight enough to pinch, watched the man’s cheeks redden in annoyance. “You’re my sister. Aren’t you my sister?”

Eager to grasp any chance at freedom, the woman nodded. “I’m his sister.” A harsh Western accent made her claim sound even more ludicrous.

The guard made no attempt to free his hand. “Do I look stupid to you? She’s not your sister, and I wouldn’t let her go if she was your sister.”

Taziar met the guard’s gaze, followed the pursed lines around the stranger’s mouth and read waning tolerance. Carefully, Taziar’s hand skittered across the woven linen of the guard’s uniform. Discovering a pocket in the lining, Taziar dipped his fingers inside. He was rewarded by the grayed, leather braid of a purse’s strings. Seizing it, he pulled it out, released the guard, and slipped the pouch into his own hip pocket. “I’ll bribe you to let her go.”

The guard kept a firm hold on the prostitute’s bony wrists. “How much?”

Taziar groped the contents of the guard’s purse. “Four silver.”

The guard’s grip relaxed. “Fair enough.”

Taziar produced the guard’s pouch, little finger hooked through the braid.

The guard sucked breath through his teeth. The plump face creased into a mixture of emotions Taziar could not begin to decipher. “You little bastard! That’s mine.” He reached for it.

Exploiting the guard’s consternation, the prostitute twisted free and ran. The guard lunged for her, missed, and tensed to give chase.

Taziar shot a foot between the guard’s ankles. The man crashed to the cobbles as the woman sprinted around a bend in the road and was lost to sight.

The guard scrambled to his feet with the natural grace of a warrior. “Why!” he sputtered. His fists clenched to blanched knots, and his cheeks twitched involuntarily. “What in hell ... ? Why did you ... ?” Apparently realizing something more important was at stake, he changed the focus of his verbal attack. “Give me back my purse!”

“No.” Glibly calm, Taziar tucked the pouch back beneath his cloak.
This has to be a dream. I know ancient crones on the street who would kill for less cause than this.
“Why should I?”

The guard flushed to the roots of his hair. His fingers slacked and clutched as he fought some internal battle. But when he spoke, his tone sounded almost pleading. “Please. That’s two weeks’ wages. I’ve got a wife and three children.”

Taziar blinked in astonishment, his sharp retort forgotten in the growing realization that something was terrible wrong. “Aren’t you going to arrest me?”

“Were it my decision ...” The guard’s voice remained dangerously flat. “... I would stave in your insolent, bloody, little skull.” He smiled sweetly, a chilling contrast to his threat. “But the baron has forbidden any of his men to arrest, harm, or even touch you. He says you’re working for us. In truth, I liked you better on the other side of the law ...” He finished from between clenched teeth. “... when I could kill you. Fortunately for you, I’d rather starve for two weeks than lose my job.”

Taziar went still as death, desperately trying to hide surprise behind a less revealing expression. In silence, he handed the pouch of silver to its owner, adding the six copper ducats from his previous heist in honest apology. When he managed to speak in normal tones, he chose to lie. “The baron asked me to test his men’s loyalty to his orders. Forgive my abusive methods, but I wanted to give you fair trial. You passed, of course, with honors.” Taziar bowed his head in a gesture of respect, turned, and wandered off down the street before the guard could reply.

Taziar waited only until he had passed beyond sight of the guard before dropping to his haunches beneath the overhang of the baker’s shop.
What now?
The clop of hooves reverberated from a side street, its rhythm soft in Taziar’s ears.
There’s no way Harriman could know I would try something as crazy as getting myself arrested. Is there?
Taziar slid to one knee, the thought cold and heavy within him.
No
, he answered himself cautiously.
Harriman has other reasons to arrange things so the guards can’t act against me. First, it convinces everyone, guards, underground, and street people, that I am, in fact, the informant. Second, the baron cannot interfere with any plans Harriman might have for me.