The Dungeoneers (3 page)

“Do you know what the magistrate does to pickpockets?” his father roared, reaching out with his cobbler's hands and snatching one of Colm's, the one with all of its fingers. “They take your hand. Right here!” He pinned Colm's fist to the table, made a chopping motion just above his wrist. It didn't hurt, but it startled him. Colm's father had never
grabbed him quite like that before.

“Please, Ro,” Colm's mother pleaded. “He was only trying to help.”

Colm didn't speak. He knew anything he said now would only make it worse. Besides, his mother had just said the only thing he could think of. His father shook his head and let go. Then he started to gather up the pile of gold and silver, scraping it across the table toward him. Colm rubbed his wrist and tucked both hands under his arms. “We have to go back,” his father said. “Return all this money. I hope you memorized the faces of the poor people you stole from.”

“They weren't poor,” Colm muttered. Half of the purses he had swiped were from the belts of ladies and gentlemen who wore twice that much gold on their necks and fingers.

“That's not the point!” his father yelled.

Colm couldn't look his father in the face. He certainly couldn't tell him that it was
exactly
the point, even though he wasn't sure about that anymore either. His eyes kept coming back to the pile of coins, then up to the window and his sisters, looking like the crowd at a funeral procession.

“Rove,” Mina Candorly intruded. “It's already dark out. You're not going to find anyone tonight. Let it wait till morning, and we will think of what to do with the money.”

Colm turned and stared at his mother. The way she said it.
What
to do with it. As if there was a choice?

His father's mouth worked back and forth, like he was chewing leather. Then he growled like a wild dog and pointed
a raw, rough finger at Colm. “First thing tomorrow, we are going to take this to the magistrate and beg for leniency. Then we will spend all day, if we have to, tracking down every single person you stole from and returning their money, along with an apology and a promise to work off the debt you owe them for their forgiveness.”

Colm stood silent.

“Do you understand?” his father yelled.

“Yes, sir,” Colm mumbled.

“Go to your room. No supper. You probably stole something to eat already today.”

Colm wanted to protest. As a point in fact, he
had
passed by a fruit seller and noticed that several apricots had fallen beneath the cart, and he had actually helped the man gather them—he'd had no intentions of stealing from a peddler. Should he say something about that? Should he mention Seysha's medicine or the empty pantry? Say something about how he had gathered in only a few hours what it would take his father months to earn?

And how easy it had been?

Instead he blurted out, “I didn't get caught. Nobody saw me.”

But apparently that wasn't the right thing to say, either.

“
I
caught you,” his father said. “
I
know. And even if I hadn't, I'd hope your conscience would catch up to you eventually.”

“Dad, I . . . ,” Colm started to say, but his father raised a hand.

“I don't want to hear it right now. Just go.”

Colm looked to his mother, who nodded. He noticed his
sisters' eyes on him. Celia gave him a sympathetic shrug.

Colm walked to his room and quietly shut the door.

That night his stomach hurt. He sat and listened to the dinnertime conversation, what little of it there was. His father had demanded that no one speak of the money or of Colm, which, apparently, was all any of his sisters wanted to talk about, so nobody said much of anything. When Elmira asked where Colm was, his father said, “Hopefully on his knees in his room, praying for forgiveness,” and left it at that. After supper, the sisters were sent to their own rooms to read.

Colm listened to the doors close, then heard his mother scraping the dishes. Even over the rumbling of his stomach, Colm could hear his parents whispering about him, his father's voice still gruff but at least quieted.

“What was he thinking?”

“He was thinking he could help,” his mother replied. “He's a smart boy. And resourceful. And it's not as if you make any attempt to hide our troubles, always griping about how much everybody eats, how much it costs to fix things, how there's never enough to go around.” Colm heard the clatter of dishes being stacked on one another.

“That's still no excuse,” Rove Candorly hissed. “I won't have my son skulking about like a scoundrel or some petty thief, dipping his fingers into pockets, fishing for coins. Where'd he even learn to do something like that, anyways? I'm certain none of his sisters taught him. You
know
what the penalties for thieving are.”

Colm looked at his right hand. He had gotten used to being short a finger. In truth, it hadn't been much of a hindrance—there were very few things five fingers could do that four couldn't—and today being short a finger almost seemed a blessing, his one hand slipping more easily in and out of pockets. But to lose the whole hand? Colm tucked them both under his chin for safekeeping.

“What does it matter where he learned it?” he heard his mother say. “He's obviously good at it.”

“Mina!” His father's voice rose, then lowered again. “You can't be serious.”

“I'm only saying that it's remarkable, if you think about it. To pickpocket that many people in broad daylight and
not
get caught.”

“You're not suggesting it's
admirable
, what he did? He stole from people. Innocent, hardworking people.”

“Well, as to that, I'm not sure how innocent or hardworking every person in town is, not to speak of those sleazy merchants from upriver who charge twice what they should for half of what you need. And you tell me if you've ever seen a nobleman lift a finger to help someone beneath him. And no, I'm not suggesting it's a
good
thing. I'm just saying it's . . .
astonishing
. It's a shame that he can't put that talent to better use.”

“Now it's a
talent
? Our son is a criminal, and you are singing his praises? You're incorrigible, woman.”

“Lucky for me you're too stubborn to leave.”

Colm held his breath, waiting for one of them to speak again.
When they did, it was his father's voice, its edge blunted. Now resigned and thoughtful.

“It
is
a lot of coin,” he mused. “I wonder how much is there.”

And then his mother's voice, an even softer whisper, nearly impossible to make out through the crack beneath Colm's door.

“Let's count it. Just to see,” she said.

A few hours later, after the table was cleared and all the candles had been snuffed, Colm heard his door open a crack and saw a wooden bowl of cold, congealed stew pushed inside, a hunk of bread sticking out of the top like a plume. He caught the flash of long strawberry curls before they disappeared, and he thought that there was more than one thief in the Candorly house that night.

C
olm's father was gone the whole next day, leaving a small pile of shoes waiting by his bench to be repaired. He was gone, and so were all the coins Colm had taken. Colm's mother said that his father had decided to go to see the magistrate without him, afraid that Colm might do or say something to make it worse. The magistrate was the authority on most things in Felhaven, mediating disputes and enforcing the laws, elected by the villagers and nobles alike and serving as the chief official—though it was said those with deep coffers could persuade him to more consistently see their point of view. The plan was to see what the magistrate had in mind for punishment and then bring Colm before him afterward to have it meted out.

Colm tried to picture the magistrate. He had seen him on occasion, during festivals and funerals. A large figure with a
plump, pink face and jowls that sagged like a bloodhound's. He didn't seem intimidating himself, but he no doubt had intimidating men who worked for him. At least his father and the magistrate were on good terms; Rove Candorly always fixed the man's shoes for free.

Colm spent the day on his chores, trying to hide behind his work, dodging his sisters whenever possible. Not because they were being mean. If anything, it was the opposite. It took an evening of whispers among themselves, he guessed, but they understood what he had done, and more important, why. Kale and Carmen, the other two triplets, managed to corner him behind the barn, where they proceeded to smother him in hugs.

“It was stupid,” they said.

“You shouldn't have done it.”

“I've never seen Father so angry.”

But also, “It was very sweet.”

And “How
did
you do it?”

And “Don't worry. He'll get over it eventually.”

The elder twins, Cally and Nila, promised that they would not let the magistrate touch one hair on his body and vowed to fight tooth and nail if some armed guard showed up at the door. Elmira called him a “widdle feef,” but in such an admiring way that he didn't take the slightest offense. They all brought him oatcakes and tried to distract him, and left him alone when he asked. Colm tried to focus on what he was doing—weeding or milking—but his eyes kept coming back
to the road leading from the house to the center of Felhaven. A road that his father would be coming back on. Maybe trailing the magistrate. Or someone worse. Someone with a butcher's blade.

He would have to give the money back. That he understood. It wasn't his to take, though one could make the argument that once he had it, it might as well have been his family's to keep. He would have to apologize. He imagined there might even be some kind of public spectacle. Maybe they would put him in the stocks. He could stomach that. As long as he could keep both of his hands. If he saw someone with a blade—like that man yesterday, with the ax across his back—Colm had already made up his mind what he would do. He just wasn't sure where he would go.

By midafternoon, everyone was quiet, and nobody was hungry for once. Colm's father had been gone too long. The walk into town was only a couple miles. The magistrate was a busy man, of course, but even at that, Rove Candorly should have been home by now. Colm's mother paced the kitchen, holding a rolling pin, ready to club anyone who dared take her only son.

“Maybe they are finding out who the money belongs to and just giving it back,” she said to nobody in particular. “Maybe they don't even need an apology from you.” But even through her airy voice, Colm could tell she didn't believe it. He finished his chores and escaped to his room, rubbing his wrist.

He found Celia sitting on his bed.

“I thought we agreed that
I
was the problem child,” she said. She was very astute for a ten-year-old. Sharper than her twin sister, though not quite as pretty. Not that Colm thought of them that way. If cornered, he would tell you that none of his sisters was the least bit good-looking.

“Nice to have Dad mad at someone else for a change?” he asked.

Celia shrugged. Colm sat beside her, and she leaned over and settled her head down, the butterfly pin lighting on his shoulder. They both looked out the window at the road.

“What was it like?” she said softly. “I mean, how did it feel, when you took it?”

Colm shook his head, chin rubbing against her hair. He liked it when she leaned on him. It made him feel stronger than he really was. He thought back to yesterday afternoon in the square, the purse strings unraveling, the weight of the coin in his hands. He felt frightened, of course. And nervous. And guilty, he supposed.

But that was all before and after. At the moment, at the very moment when his fingers slipped into the satin pocket or cinched around the silk strings, Colm had felt nothing, only the smooth fabric on the pads of his fingers, only the hollow sound of his own heart beating in his ears. No fear. No guilt. Just the exhilarating rush.

“I don't know,” he said, looking at his hands again, as he had a hundred times today. “I guess you can't do the wrong thing, even for the right reasons.”

“Hmph,” Celia said, taking his hands in hers. “I do things just because I
want
to do them.”

She turned and glanced out Colm's bedroom window again, and her face blanched. Colm looked to see two figures walking up the path to the house. His father had finally returned.

And he wasn't alone.

There was the sound of footsteps on the porch outside. Muffled voices. Then the door opened.

Rove Candorly stepped in, his hands chapped with cold. He looked haggard; his eyes were creased with worry. Behind him stepped the second figure. It was certainly not the magistrate. It was someone Colm had never seen before. He was tall and gaunt, the antithesis of Colm's father. Clean-shaven and hollow cheeked, wearing a long brown cloak that covered a tunic of studded leather and black pants caked in mud. Black leather gloves hugged both hands, and a hood covered the top half of his head, concealing even his eyes.

Colm's own eyes went instinctively to the man's belt. There was no coin purse hanging there, but there was a sword. An ivory handle polished smooth and a blade, long and thin, like its owner.
That's the sword that will take off my hand,
Colm thought to himself.
And this is the man who will take it.

He turned and looked at his mother's face, her own hands cupped to her mouth to find an armed man in her house. Behind him, Colm's seven sisters—Seysha was still bedridden for the day—formed a united front. Elmira sat on Kale's
shoulders. Colm remembered what the twins had said to him—
tooth and nail
—but he didn't want any of them getting hurt. They hadn't done anything wrong. This was all on him. He wouldn't let them get in the way.

“Mina,” Colm's father said, rubbing his hands together and nodding toward the stranger. “This is Mr. Finn Argos.”

The stranger pulled back his hood, revealing a nest of tangled black hair and penetrating blue eyes. A ragged white scar etched a jagged path across one cheek. He looked young, maybe halfway between the ages of Colm and his father, and save for the one mark, his face was alabaster smooth. He gave Colm a look, a flash that shot straight down the boy's spine into his bowels, then turned to his mother. His voice purred.

“It's just Finn,” he said. “And please excuse the intrusion, Mrs. Candorly. I apologize for bothering you at this hour.” Colm realized all his sisters were just staring at the stranger—the older ones with eyes low, lashes up. The stranger noticed as well. “And what a lovely family you have. Seven daughters?”

“Eight,” Mina Candorly corrected. “I'm afraid one isn't feeling well.”

The stranger shook his head in admiration. “Eight daughters. And each just as beautiful as their mother.” He smiled, revealing a fence of polished teeth, most of them pearl, but punctuated by one each of silver and gold. It was the smile of a man who always gets what he asks for, often without even
asking. Colm's mother blushed, as did two of three triplets. Colm didn't like this man already. He seemed . . . slippery, somehow. Rove Candorly cleared his throat.

“Mr. Argos . . .”

“Finn,” the stranger corrected.

“Mr. Ar—
Finn
has come a long way,” Colm's father said. “I'm sure he's thirsty.”

“Some wine would be much appreciated, if you have it,” the stranger said. “Water, if otherwise.”

Mina Candorly didn't move, but the four oldest girls tripped over themselves to find a cup. The stranger turned abruptly. “And you must be Colm,” he said, removing his gloves. “A pleasure to meet you.”

The stranger held out his hand and Colm took it tentatively, afraid that this Finn Argos might grab it the way his father had, then reach for his sword with the other, doing the deed right there in the kitchen, making a puddle of blood on the floor. But instead he just took Colm's hand in his own. Colm noticed the man's hands were warm, his fingers long and callused.

All four of them.

He was missing one. The last one. The smallest one. Was missing them on both hands, in fact; though judging by the thick spiderweb of tissue, you could tell that he had had them once, unlike Colm.

“I have you beat,” the stranger said, holding up both hands and wiggling eight fingers. Nila handed the man a cup of
water—Colm didn't know the last time his parents had been able to afford wine.

“You say you've come a long way,” Colm's mother pressed, making no attempt to hide her unease. The magistrate's house was close to the town center. An hour by foot, if you walked slow and tossed stones along the way. How far did you have to go to find someone who could cut off a hand? Weren't there at least half a dozen butchers in Felhaven? Something didn't seem right.

“Yes, I'm afraid it is quite a trek from the castle.”

“Castle?” Cally said.

“Are you a prince?” ten-year-old Meera added. Celia slapped her twin's shoulder.

The stranger laughed. “A prince? Hardly.”

“But you must be a prince, if you live in a castle,” Meera insisted, slapping her sister back.

“I assure you, dear lady, there are many that live in castles who have no claim to a throne. Just ask the men hanging in their dungeons. No. Point of fact, I am neither prince nor king. I am only a humble teacher.” He took a sip of his water and flung another sidelong look Colm's way. Colm took a step back, tucking his hands into his pockets, making them harder to get to.

Mina Candorly cast a similar squinted look in her husband's direction. “A teacher of what, exactly?”

“Do you mind if I sit?” the stranger asked, pointing to the long oak table that barely held the lot of them for supper, even
with Elmira sitting on her mother's lap. “A bit of a trek, as I said.”

Colm's mother nodded and found a seat of her own. Colm's father sat as well. Everyone else stood, including Colm. He wanted to be able to bolt for the door.
Always be sure you can outrun them.
But one look at this mysterious Mr. Argos was enough to convince Colm that he wouldn't be fast enough.

“I teach lots of things,” the stranger said, adjusting the hilt of his sword. “History. Economy. Engineering.”

“Engineering?” Mina Candorly said.

The man nodded. “I am well versed in the inner workings of certain mechanical contraptions.”

“That's a lot,” Kale remarked.

“It keeps me in demand,” the stranger replied.

“And what . . .” Mina Candorly paused, as if gathering enough breath to speak again. “What function do you serve for the magistrate, exactly?” Colm knew what she was asking. She was asking if he was here to carry out Colm's sentence, whatever it was.

The confident smile surfaced again. “I do not work for the magistrate of Felhaven,” Finn replied.

“Then why—” Mina started to say, but stopped when Colm's father put a hand on her shoulder. He and the stranger exchanged looks.

“Perhaps, Mr. Candorly, I could take my cup to your porch. The stars are just starting to peek, and it's a nice view out here near the countryside. That might give you and Mrs. Candorly some time to converse.”

“That would be most appreciated,” Colm's father said.

Then the stranger turned to Colm.

“Would you like to join me?”

Colm could think of very few things he would like less. Stepping into the near darkness with this man and his two metal teeth, sword at his side, and only four fingers on each hand. Colm glanced over at Celia, then looked at his father. His father nodded sternly. He didn't have a choice.

The stranger grabbed his cup and held open the door.

“After you,” he said.

Colm waited for the shackles. For the sack to be thrown over his head. For the thick rope to be slipped around his neck. But nothing of the sort happened. Instead, the strange Mr. Argos with the blue eyes and the single scar found one of the wood stools that Colm had helped his father build and pulled it across from the other, motioning for Colm to have a seat. Colm noticed the man had another blade strapped above his boot, tucked away.

“Eight sisters.” The man whistled, shaking his head. Colm sat. The stools were uncomfortable—Rove Candorly was an expert on shoes, but a terrible maker of furniture. Finn Argos didn't seem to mind. Colm got the impression he had been in much less comfortable places. “I only had two sisters myself, and it was enough to make me run away from home when I was a boy.”

“You ran away from home?” Colm asked.

“Five or six times,” Finn replied. “I had trouble sitting still.
An adventurous spirit. Always on the move. Wore out several pairs of boots—your father could help with that, I imagine. When I was about your age, I ran away for good. Not
from
something, exactly, more
to anything
. I had heard stories growing up, of men who made their fortunes out in the wilds.” The stranger waved a four-fingered hand at the horizon. “Who ventured out with nothing but a sharp sword and fierce determination and who came back rich as kings. Men—and women—who banded together to descend into the darkness for the promise of a better life. And I was determined to be one of them.”