A Thief in the Night

chapter Eleven

“So of course, I told him to jump in the river. Head-first,” Malden said, when he’d finished recounting the barbarian’s story.

Cutbill had wanted to hear everything, and Malden did not stint on any detail. The guildmaster of thieves listened attentively, all the while scribbling long strings of figures into his ledger, as if Mörget’s tale was a matter for scrupulous bookkeeping. “You said that? To the barbarian?” he asked, finally looking up.

“Yes! I did. Or, rather, I told Croy to do that. I told Mörget I wasn’t the man he was looking for, but thanked him very much for considering me. I’m not stupid.”

“Hmm,” Cutbill mused. He flipped to an earlier page of his ledger. “Well, that’s settled, then. There are demons afoot once more. Of course, something will have to be done about that—we can’t have such creatures at large.”

“Yes, yes, it must be vanquished. But they hardly need my help with that. The two of them have their magical swords. They’re perfectly adequate to the task.”

Cutbill shrugged dismissively. “Still, I can see why they’d like to have someone along to take care of the traps. A sword—even a magical sword—is of little use to a man who has fallen into a bottomless pit. But you turned down their offer, quite reasonably. It does sound like a dangerous undertaking.”

“Positively foolhardy,” Malden agreed.

“Quite. Though I imagine that for Sir Croy the risk is half the reward. This will give him the chance to prove, once again, just how heroic he is. He’ll reap a great bounty of honor and glory.”

“I suppose such things are what you desire if you’re a titled man’s son, and there is no need to ever work a day in your life.”

“I imagine that would be nice,” Cutbill said.

“He’s going to get himself killed. Him and the barbarian both. As for Mörget, well, good riddance. That man is a threat to decent society. It’s just a matter of time before he kills someone just being here in the city.”

“It’s for the best, then, that he leaves soon.” Cutbill put down his pen and rubbed his chin. “And yet I do not wish him ill.”

“Well, of course not,” Malden said, raising one eyebrow. He wasn’t sure what Cutbill was on about but he could tell the man was already forming a scheme. “I mean, at the very least, I hope he survives long enough to save us all from the demon, but—”

Cutbill lifted his pen for silence. “Hmm. He wants someone to deal with the Vincularium’s traps. I’ll have to think of someone I could send his way. Just in the interest of getting him out of my town faster.”

“Much joy it gives them both, I hope. I’ll have nothing to do with this tomb. As I told them, in no uncertain terms. Of course, then Croy had to go and suggest the place was full of treasure. As if that was all it would take to make my ears prick up. There’s more to life than money.”

“There is?” Cutbill asked, as if he’d never considered the possibility.

Malden had to think about that for a moment. “Yes, there is. There’s living to spend it.”

“Interesting,” Cutbill said. He picked his pen back up. “Just the other day, you were telling me that you needed a large sum of money for a specific reason. Tell me, how is that project going?”

“I thought it was dashed to pieces,” Malden admitted, thinking of Cythera. She had not signed the banns of marriage after all. “But there may be some new hope. All the same, there are easier ways to get the money to buy a house than crawling around in haunted tombs.”

“Most assuredly. Though . . . I might suggest, Malden, that you go and ask someone about the Vincularium. Specifically, about who is buried there.”

“Some moldy old king or other, I have no doubt,” Malden said.

Cutbill frowned. “The treasure is likely to be . . . considerable.”

“The entire interior of that mountain might be made of gold, for all I care. I’m no grave robber.”

“Ah. So it’s because of your deeply felt respect for the dead that you won’t go.”

Malden wrestled with himself. He didn’t ordinarily lie to Cutbill. The man had a way of seeing through to the truth no matter how honeyed a tale one spun. This time, however, he found himself completely incapable of telling the truth.

“Yes,” he said.

“Very good,” Cutbill said. If he believed Malden or not didn’t seem to matter. He wrote in silence for a while, then put down his pen and folded his hands in his lap. Malden had worked for Cutbill long enough to know what that meant. He was about to do something devious. “Malden. Would you do me a favor? Go out to the common room and ask Slag if he would be kind enough to come in here for a moment.”

“Certainly,” Malden said. He was mostly just glad not to be the object of the guildmaster’s plotting. Outside, he found Slag constructing a boiled leather cuirass, laying long strips of hardened leather across a stiffened shirt and then affixing them in place with paste. When Malden approached him, he cursed volubly, but after a moment the dwarf came trooping along after him into Cutbill’s chamber. He had a scowl on his face, as usual, but he had always been an obedient employee.

“This had better be good. My glue’s getting tacky.”

“It will only take a moment, I assure you,” Cutbill said. “Malden here has turned up a very interesting piece of information. It seems there’s a barbarian in town who is forming a crew to go and open the Vincularium. I thought that would be of some small interest to you.”

The scowl went slack on Slag’s face. “Huh,” he said.

Malden rubbed at his chin. He’d never heard the dwarf stymied for a curse before. What was Cutbill up to?

Slag failed to give the game away. He stood there looking pensive but said nothing more. Eventually Cutbill looked up and gave the dwarf a pointed look. “That’s all. You may return to your work.”

Slag nodded and turned to go. He stopped before he reached the door, however, and turned to address Cutbill. “Sir,” he said. Malden had never heard the dwarf use an honorific before. Interesting. “Sir, if it’s all right with you. Well. You know I’m in here every f*cking day, and most nights. I work hard, don’t I? And I serve you well. I haven’t even been sick a day for—how long?”

Cutbill tilted his head to one side as if trying to remember. Then he stuck his thumb in the ledger book and opened it to a page quite near its beginning. “Seventeen years,” he said, after consulting a column of numbers.

The dwarf nodded. “Aye. Well. I think, suddenly, I might be coming down with somewhat. Somewhat lingering.”

“That is unfortunate,” Cutbill said. The look on his face was not what Malden would call sympathetic, but then he couldn’t imagine Cutbill showing fellow feeling for anyone. “You’d better go home, then, until you feel well again. Take as much time as you need. I don’t care if it takes weeks and weeks.”

“Thank ye, sir,” Slag said, and left the room.

When he was gone, Malden stared at the guildmaster of thieves. “What was that about? What’s he after?”

“Like I said, Malden, you might do some asking around about the Vincularium. In this case, it might interest you to know who built it. Of course,” Cutbill said, and flipped back to his current page, “it matters not. Since you have already made up your mind not to go.”