The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble's Braids (8 page)

Chapter Thirteen

They brought me to a lantern-lit room. There was a scarred wooden table. There were two chairs, both facing me on the opposite side of the table. There was a door behind the table, opposite the one they’d brought me through. They ran a chain through my manacles and locked it to a massive iron staple in the stone floor, and then they stood back, within billy-swinging distance. And then we waited. Slowly my watering eyes adjusted to the light.

After maybe five minutes the door opened and two men walked in. The first I recognized. Inspector Kluge. The second I’d never seen before.

He was a heavy, unlovely man. Deeply inset dark eyes that glittered in the lamplight. Close-cropped, receding, greying hair. Heavy, pockmarked face and thin lips. A small scar bisected one of his thick eyebrows. But he was immaculate. His wide, square nails were clean and manicured. He wore an embroidered black waistcoat over a pure white linen shirt, and his starched collar was buttoned right up to his jaw line, biting slightly into the loose skin of his neck. This man had money, was used to money. He said nothing, only took a seat and looked at me. His face was impassive.

Kluge sat on the edge of the table nearest me. He scanned a sheaf of papers that he’d brought into the room.

“You put a knife into a man’s arm, and you put another knife to another man’s neck. You destroyed a rather expensive tavern window. The tavern keeper will want recompense. The injured and threatened parties did not care to prefer charges, but the crown does not require them to, in order to try you for a violent crime, Amra Thetys. Or do you still prefer Marfa?”

“Amra is fine.”

He put the papers aside and looked at me for a long while.

“We know who you are. We know what you are. The only reason you don’t yet have a date with the hangman is because we believe you can assist us.”

“You’d hang me for a tavern brawl?”

“No. For that you could spend three years in Havelock. By the time you got out, you would be toothless from the poor diet, and your body would be wasted from malnutrition. Your eyesight would probably never recover from the dark hole you’d be consigned to. You might perhaps become a charwoman. Or you could sell scraps of salvaged cloth down in Temple Market. That is the best you could hope for, Amra.

“If you swing, it will be either for theft, or for aiding in the murder of a noble. It doesn’t really matter. If we want you to hang, you’ll hang.”

I nodded. I didn’t doubt what he said. Any of it.

“Well, then, I can’t think of anything I’d rather do than help you, Inspector Kluge.”

He smiled. “I knew you were a sensible creature.” He stood and motioned to the other, silent man. “May I present to you Lord Osskil det Thracen-Courune. Corbin’s elder brother.”

“I’d bow, or curtsey. If I knew how, and if I could.” I rattled the chains. He ignored it.

“I am going to ask you questions,” he said, “and you are going to answer immediately, and without prevarication. Do you understand?”

“Certainly. I have an expansive vocabulary.”

“Did you have anything to do with the death of my brother?”

“No.”

“Do you know who did?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me who.”

“I don’t think so.”

The guard was quick with his billy. He slammed it into the back of my thigh and I went sprawling. Chained, I couldn’t raise my hands, and so I broke my fall with my face.

“Get up,” said Kluge. I worked my way to my feet, nose bleeding and probably broken.

Osskil asked again. “Who is responsible for my brother’s death?”

“Before I answer, do you mind if I share a few thoughts?”

A short silence, pregnant with violence. Then, “Why not,” he said, face expressionless.

“If I tell you now, what’s to stop you from sending me right back into that hole?”

“If you don’t tell us,” said Kluge, “you will certainly go back into that hole. Until they take you to Harad’s Square.”

I nodded. “Maybe so, maybe no. But the man who killed Corbin might never be caught then.”

Silence reigned. Then Osskil spoke up. “Tell me what I want to know, and I guarantee you will go free once the murderer has been punished.”

“Release me and I’ll take you to bastard.”

The guard reared back to smack me down again, but Osskil raised his hand.

“I’m curious about you, Amra Thetys. Who was my brother to you?”

“A friend. A colleague, so to speak.”

“Were you lovers?”

I laughed. “No, Lord Osskil. Your brother and I weren’t lovers.”

“What were you doing there, at that house? Where they found the body.”

“I went to look for him. He was supposed to stop by my house about midnight. When he didn’t show up, I started to worry, so I went looking for him.”

“Why were you worried?”

I suppose I could have lied. But I didn’t see the point.

“Look, you know your brother was a thief. He was a good one, if that means anything to you. He stole some things for someone, and they tried to stiff him his commission. He was going to meet them that night to settle the account. They weren’t nice people. He asked me to look after his damned dog if he didn’t show up by morning.”

Kluge sniffed. “What you aren’t saying is louder than what you are, Amra.”

I shook my head. “Fine. He’d acquired a lot of statues for his client, and they’d taken all but one from him and neglected to pay him. But that one they missed? They wanted it badly, or so he said. He was supposed to meet and discuss his payment. It was going to be substantially higher than originally agreed to. He called it a bad faith penalty or some such. Obviously he went to the meet, and ran into more bad faith.”

“Why did he go to you at all? Did he want help?”

“No. He wanted me to hold onto the last statue for him. I turned him down. I didn’t want the risk. But I did agree to look after his dog should anything go wrong.” I hoped the one lie would go unnoticed amidst all the truth.

Kluge changed the topic. “Tell me about the fight in the tavern, Amra.”

“What about it?”

“Witnesses say you drew steel and attacked without any provocation. Three men walk in, you throw a knife into one man’s arm and then throw yourself out the window.”

“Is there a question in there?”

“Why did you attack three men, two of which were obviously swordsmen, without provocation?”

“I owed them money. They’d come to collect, and I didn’t have it.”

“If that was all there was to it, I might believe you. But then you lead them on a chase and return to the tavern, and hold up the man who seems to be the employer of the group. You threatened him.”

“I wanted him to cancel my debt.”

“Mages aren’t generally in the business of loaning money to thieves. Or anyone.”

“He was a mage? I doubt he was a powerful one. Well, you’d know better than I, Inspector Kluge. But I don’t see why mages can’t take up any line of work they want. Loan sharking. Even detective work.”

He smiled a tight smile. “I think the two incidents are connected. I think those men had something to do with Corbin Hardin’s death. I think you tried to brace the killer, perhaps to blackmail money for your silence, and it went awry.”

“And I think I should be half a foot taller, and rich as Borkin Breaves. Thinking something doesn’t make it so.”

“But if I think it, Amra, if I think it strongly enough, you hang. So if I’m wrong, it falls on you to convince me of the truth.”

I sighed. I ached, I was tired, I was hungry. A wave of dizziness came over me. “Do you mind if I sit?” I asked, and started to squat. One of the guards put a billy under my chin and lifted.

“Let her,” said Osskil. And the club went away.

“You are too kind, lord.” I got as comfortable as I could. Osskil stood up and dragged his chair around the table.

“You might not want to get too close,” said Kluge.

“I don’t believe she’s much of a threat. She can barely stand.”

I chuckled. “It’s not me you have to worry about, Lord Osskil. It’s the lice.”

He stiffened a little. “Oh,” was all he said. He set his chair down a couple of feet from me and settled in it, leaning forward to look in my eyes.

“If I give you my word you will be freed, will you tell me who killed my brother?”

I considered. He could probably be trusted. Nobles were generally particular about keeping their word. I shook my head, though.

“You don’t believe I can be trusted?”

“It’s not that. There’s another problem.”

“What other problem?”

“I swore I’d kill the bastard myself. If you go and do it, then what’s my word worth?”

He just stared at me for a moment, and then he laughed. I suppose the idea of a thief worried about keeping her word was funny at that. I just waited it out.

Eventually his laugher trailed off into silence.

“You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“You think only nobles do what they say the will?”

“No. Most of my peers wouldn’t think twice about breaking an oath. But why would you care about honor?”

“If you have to ask, you wouldn’t understand. Let me ask you a question, if I may.”

“Why not,” he said again in that curiously flat manner of his.

“When was the last time you saw your brother? Alive, I mean.”

His face went impassive. I began to suspect that’s what he looked like when he was deciding whether to be angry.

“Why?”

“Because in all the time I knew Corbin, he never mentioned you. He spoke of his daughter, a little. Once he mentioned his wife, when he was drunk. But he never mentioned his old man, and he never talked about a brother.”

“What are you getting at?”

“Just this. For the past three years I’ve drunk with Corbin, eaten with him, laughed with him and once or twice I even cried with him. If I’d wanted it, I could have slept with him, though gods only know why he wanted to, considering the mess I’ve made of my face over the years. But I thought at the time it would just complicate our friendship.

“We watched each other’s back, and bragged to each other about scores. We lent each other money and we bet on the horses, and the cards, and the dice. The day before he died, he asked me to look after his dog. And the morning he died, I had to pull that howling mutt away from the smell of his blood. I’m the one that got to tell his lover that he’d died, and how. But somehow I’m the one who’s chained to a floor, and you’re the one laughing when I say I’m going to kill the man who did it.”

I shook my head. I was a little bitter. “Life’s a funny thing, when you think about it, lord.”

“You think I didn’t love my brother?” I heard a hint of roughness in his voice.

“I have no idea.”

“You’re right. You don’t. The Corbin you knew was a different man.”

“That’s my point exactly. The man whose death you came to avenge was already dead. I don’t know who killed Corbin Hardin det Thracen-Courune. I
do
know who killed Corbin Hardin, the thief. That’s who I have a score to settle with. Who do
you
have a score with, Lord Osskil?”

His face paled. I thought he was going to hit me, but he stood up and turned away. The silence stretched on and on. Osskil broke it first.

“Let her go, Kluge.”

“My lord, I hardly think—”

“I said let her go free. Do it now.”

“But Lord Osskil—”

“Do not make me say it a third time, Inspector.”

“As you wish, my lord.”

Osskil stuck out his hand. I didn’t know what he wanted at first. Then I got it. I put my hand in his and he hauled me up. He didn’t even wipe it, afterward.

“Amra, I am lodging at the Thracen manse, on the Promenade. I hope you will call on me, that I may be of assistance to you in your... endeavor. Corbin’s funeral is tomorrow at noon, at the Necropolis. You are welcome to attend.” And he walked out, just like that. Kluge trailed after him, snapping out a ‘release her’ over his shoulder.

The guards undid the chain, the shackles, the manacles. The one who had made Gerard eat shit said, “You must have struck a nerve.”

“I guess so.”

“You want some advice? You walk out the gates, you keep walking ‘till you get to the docks. Then you board a boat. The first one away. Because as soon as this lord leaves town, Kluge will round you up. And next time, you won’t never see the light of day again.”

Chapter Fourteen

They kept my knives. Said they were misplaced, along with all my coin. I wasn’t particularly surprised. I walked down an arched corridor to a huge set of double doors. The guard opened a pedestrian door cut into the huge left-hand gate, and the sunlight streaming in made my eyes water. The world was a blur. Street traffic was a howling din. How had I never noticed how loud Lucernis was before?

Slowly my eyes adjusted, and I set off. Three blocks from Havelock I saw a signboard featuring a straight razor and a spray of whitehearts. As soon as I walked in to the barber, a booming voice assaulted my sensitive ears.

“Oy! Out with you. No beggars in ‘ere!” He was absurdly tall, and thin as a stick, and his waxed, bald head reflected the morning light. He was making shooing gestures. Probably because he could smell me from across the room. I was his only customer besides an old man dozing on a bench.

I leaned against the doorframe and lifted my left foot. I pulled and twisted the heel of my boot until it swung out, revealing the little cavity I’d paid extra for. I pulled out three gold marks and flipped one to the barber.

“My name is Dorn,” he said. “Welcome to my shop, mister...?”

“Since I barely look human, I won’t take offense to that.”

He colored. “Don’t do women.”

I flipped him the other marks. I’d just given him what he’d make in a month. More than a month. “For that much you will.”

“Always thought I’d been missing out on half my custom, sticking to men. What would you like today, miss?”

“If I don’t get clean very, very soon, I’m going to kill someone. I’m going to need a bath. No, two baths. With hot water. Not cold, not tepid. Boiling hot. I’ll need new clothes and food. No gruel, no water, and no Kerf-damned rye bread. Wine, lots of it. And I have
got
to get rid of these lice. Do you have anything for that?”

“That really works, you mean?”

“Yes.”

He smiled, and brought out his straight razor. “It’s not just the lice. It’s the nits. And they make their home down at the roots of yer hair.”

“Shit.”

~ ~ ~

I stepped out of Dorn’s shop four hours later, in new clothes, fed, bald, and vaguely human. The only things that hadn’t gone into the fire were my boots and Bosch’s single strand of hair. I still itched, but was fairly certain I had been thoroughly deloused and de-nitted. My new look drew stares. One passing matron looked at me with something akin to horror in her eyes. I was going to have to get a hat.

“Should have seen me before,” I told her. She hurried off. And I did the same.

~ ~ ~

When I reached out to unlock my door, a wispy face materialized in the wood grain, opened its eyes and said “Amra.” I shrieked and reached for where a knife should have been.

“Holgren is coming. Stay here.” Then it disappeared. Damned magic.

I unlocked the normal-once-more door and slipped inside.

My place was thoroughly, unutterably destroyed. Someone with a lot of time and patience had taken everything apart. Every pillow was ripped open, every stick of furniture was in splinters. My clothing was charred rags in the grate. Floorboards were pried up and paintings slashed. Delicate glasswork was halfway back to the sand it had been made from. If someone had given me two pennies for the whole lot, they would have overpaid.

I checked my hidey-hole. They had found that, too. Empty. That was a good chunk of my money gone.

They’d missed two good knives and one bottle of terrible wine. That was it. That was all I had left, besides a little money on deposit with a moneylender who didn’t care about the provenance of his customers’ coin. That, and my very, very well protected retirement money, which I had promised myself I’d never touch until I got too old to do what I do.

Oh, well. After Havelock, I was much less upset than I might otherwise have been. Prison, I found, was wonderful for clarifying your priorities. I cleared some of the debris from a corner and sat down with my bottle to wait for Holgren.

He walked through the door less than an hour later. Holgren didn’t bother with knocking. Or locks, for that matter. He took a look around, one eyebrow raised.

“Did you upset the housekeeper?”

“Ha ha. Somebody turned the place while I was in prison.”

“You were in prison?”

“Don’t remind me. Wine?” I held out the bottle.

“Is it any good?”

“The very best I have.”

He took a sip. Swallowed, reluctantly. “That’s ghastly.”

“True.” I took another swig. “Tell me, how is it that everybody in Lucernis seems to know where I live, when I haven’t told anybody?”

He shrugged, paused. “Ah, Amra?”

“Yes?”

“What in Gorm’s name have you done to your hair?”

“It’s the latest fashion. You don’t like it?’

“I’d always assumed
hair
was an integral part of any hairstyle.”

“Sure, insult my home, my wine and my looks, why don’t you.”

“What are friends for?”

That took me aback a little. Holgren was likeable enough for a mage, and I trusted him to a certain degree, but friends? I don’t make friends easily.

“What did you want, anyway?”

“It’s about that toad you left with me. Actually, it’s about what’s inside the toad.”

“I’ll bite. What’s inside the toad?”

“I’m not exactly sure.”

The thing about Holgren, he doesn’t realize when he’s being frustratingly cryptic. Probably doesn’t.

“There’s a vein that throbs in your forehead. I’ve never noticed that before. Your hair must have hidden it.”

“Will you tell me what’s so important about the unspecified thing in the toad?”

“Oh. Well, that’s just it. I want to melt it down. To find out.”

“I might need the toad. As a bargaining chip.” Actually I was surprised he’d thought to wait for my permission. 

“Whatever is inside, it’s ancient. Definitely pre-Diaspora. And it’s powerful, Amra. The most powerful artefact I’ve ever personally run across.”

Pre-Diaspora meant that whatever it was, it was more than a thousand years old. Possibly much, much more. From the Age of Gods. From humanity’s first cultures, before the Cataclysm that killed millions and saw the survivors fleeing for their lives. The time of the Diaspora, when the gods went mad and the race of man ran screaming in every direction, abandoning an entire continent. An age of myth and legend. And powerful and deadly artefacts.

“How powerful are we talking, Holgren?”

“I believe the thing inside the statuette is, in some way, self-aware. Probably intelligent, possibly even alive.”

“Magical, then.”

“Yes. But not human magic. I suspect that whatever it is, it was god-forged.”

“And you want to let it out of the toad? Doesn’t that strike you as a tad dangerous? I seem to recall you saying something like it being ‘dangerous and distasteful.’”

He shrugged. “What can I say? I’ve always been the curious sort.”

“You mages are all mad.”

“Don’t oversimplify, Amra. So?”

“So what?”

“Do I have your permission?”

I sighed. “Why not?”

“Good. I’d tell you to pack your things, but I suspect there’s nothing to pack.”

The first faint stirrings of suspicion started to claw their way through my guts. “Why should I want to pack?”

“Well you can’t stay here, can you? Not with the contract and all.”

My blood went cold. Suspicion blossomed into dread. “What contract?” I said in as calm a voice as I could muster.

“I didn’t tell you? Someone’s put a thousand mark bounty out on you. Or your corpse, rather, but only if it’s intact.”

“What? When?”

“Two days ago, I think. Yes, two. Must have slipped my mind.”

“How does something like that slip your Kerf-damned mind?”

He seemed slightly affronted. “Well they aren’t after me, now are they? Don’t worry. You’ll come stay with me. It’s the safest place for you. That I guarantee.”

“Do you have any idea what people will do for that kind of money, Holgren?”

“Oh yes. Almost anything. But attacking a mage in his own sanctum is unlikely to be one of them.”

“Why my whole corpse?” I wondered. But I already had an idea.

“I can only assume they’re able to use necromantic measures to extract information. Such measures require the body to be intact to a great degree.”

“They want the toad.”

“They want the toad,” he agreed.

I put my head in my hands. I was tired. I had sworn to kill Corbin’s murderer, but I didn’t see how I was going do that, since I was going to be busy dodging every back alley tough with a blade, club, rock or heavy fist. I would be looking over my shoulder every second, and waiting for assassins in my sleep.

“I should leave Lucernis.”

“For that much money, there will be assassins following you to any city on the Dragonsea. Anyone who vaguely matches your description is likely to get a knife in the heart. Your best course of action is to find and deal with whoever offered the contract. Or you could match the offer, I suppose.”

“Oh, sure. Can you turn around for a minute while I pull a thousand marks out of my arse?” I meant it as sarcasm, but it gave me an idea. A costly idea, but an idea.

“It was just a thought. No need to get ugly.”

“Well having a price on my head hasn’t improved my mood.” I took a deep breath.

“We will get it all sorted, Amra. You’ll see. Come, let’s go.” He stuck a hand out and helped me up.

“Holgren.”

“What?”

“Why are you helping me?”

His brow furrowed. “Why shouldn’t I?”

“Because I’ve landed in the shit wagon, and there’s no way you’re going to come away clean from this if you help me out.”

He cracked one of his rare smiles. Well, rare in that it wasn’t condescending. Not terribly condescending, anyway. “I like you, Amra. You’re capable and you have two wits to rub together. You’re good at what you do. And it won’t hurt to have you in my debt. Reason enough?”

“Not really, no.”

He laughed. “Gods above, but you’re suspicious. Come on, the day is wasting, and the longer that dog is left alone, the greater the destruction is likely to be.” He dug out a frayed piece of string from a pocket and handed it to me. “Tie this around your wrist.”

“What is it?”

“Just a fetish. It will suggest to inquisitive eyes that they see nothing interesting. I don’t want to fight a running battle through the streets of the city.”

“Magic?”

“What do you think?”

“How long is this thing good for?”

“It should be effective for two or three days.”

“How effective is it? How does it work, exactly?”

“That depends. Anyone who knows you well won’t be discomfited. They’ll see you just as you are. To anyone who doesn’t know you, you’ll be just another face in the crowd. An unremarkable one. But any physical contact will negate the effects.”

“What about if I just talk to someone?”

“Well, the longer you converse, the less effective it will be. Passing pleasantries won’t violate the spell. A heated discussion will.”

“How much do you charge for something like this?”

“If I sold such things, I imagine I could make fifty marks or so. But I don’t sell my ability, Amra. At least not directly.”

“Why the hells not?”

“I just don’t.”

I shut up, being able to take a hint when it suited me. I tied the string on to my wrist one-handed, tightening the knot with my teeth. And then we were off.

I knew Holgren’s fetish was the real thing by the time we’d got to Daughter’s Bridge and not a single person had taken a second look at me despite my bald head. Holgren was a damned good mage. Made me wonder yet again why he chose to steal for a living.

~ ~ ~

Despite his professed curiosity, Holgren seemed in no rush to melt down the toad. I had expected him to toss it in a crucible and stoke the fire. Instead he rambled on about some series of preparations involving the laying of wards and whatnot. I had no idea what he was talking about, and frankly didn’t much care about the details.

“How long?” I asked him.

“A day, perhaps two. Likely two. I want to take care.”

“Good. I want to be around to see what’s inside, Kerf knows why. But I have some errands to run. You sure this bracelet is good for another day or so?”

“If any knives sprout from your back I’ll give you a full refund.”

“Comforting.”