A Thief in the Night

chapter Thirteen

Malden knew if he wasn’t going on Croy’s grand adventure, he needed to get back to work. He wasted little time finding his next assignment, though of course he had to tarry until nightfall before he could begin to work. Cutbill had a lead that took him into the Royal Ditch, the valley just north of Castle Hill that was formed by the course of the river Skrait. The narrow streets atop the ditch were lined with gambling houses and brothels, with drug dens and pawnshops that asked few questions. Old, familiar territory for Malden, though little that went on there was truly lucrative enough to interest him anymore. What the Royal Ditch did possess to compel him was a scattering of old friends.

He found one shortly after dark, exactly where he expected her to be. Every part of Morricent’s face was painted, with the white lead caked so thick around her eyes that it hid all the wrinkles. She’d been at work in Pokekirtle Lane long enough to know all the tricks of her trade: she doused herself in sweet perfumes, she pitched her voice unnaturally high, like an infant’s, she wore her hair down with green ribbons woven amongst her curls, like a twelve-year-old girl celebrating her first chapel ceremony. Yet Morricent was old enough to remember Malden’s mother.

His mother, who had spent some time in Pokekirtle Lane herself, though she died before she needed to start painting with white lead.

Malden had been born in a whorehouse, and spent his childhood inside its walls, working first at cleaning it and then later learning how to keep its books. When his mother died during his adolescence he’d been forced to leave and find his own way in the world—a hard thing for a penniless boy with no family. Yet he had not been cast out without pity. The whores of Ness were a close sisterhood, and they stuck together better than any guild of workmen. Malden was guaranteed a warm welcome now whenever he stopped in at any brothel in the city, and even the semi-independent streetwalkers knew his face and always had a smile for him. Morricent was no exception.

“Malden! You’ve come to keep a girl company on a wretched night,” Morricent cooed as he leaned up against her particular stretch of wall. The bricks were wet with mist, and dark clouds covered the moon. It was indeed a bad night to be out of doors, especially while wearing as little clothing as Morricent did. One more trade secret. “Such a warmhearted fellow. Here, come help me chase away the cold.” Morricent’s hand was already under Malden’s tunic, plucking at the belt that held up his breeches.

He grasped her wrist and pulled it gently free of his clothes. As he lifted her fingers to his lips, instead, and placed a gentle kiss on the back of her hand, her eyes grew wide.

“Milady,” he said, “nothing would please me more, save—I have business tonight, pressing business.”

He released her hand. She closed it fast enough to keep from dropping the coins he’d slipped into her downturned palm.

“Gareth sent me to you, saying you might have some information for me.” Gareth was Morricent’s pimp. Not a bad sort, as they went—mostly his role was to collect the money his stable of women earned. He never beat them and was actually just a middleman for a wealthy gambler named Horat, who paid the city watch to stay out of the Royal Ditch. Horat, in turn, answered to Cutbill, whose interests ranged far and wide.

“I’ll tell you anything you want to know, Malden, of course. You don’t have to pay for words.”

“Ah, but I impose on your valuable time. I understand you had a customer last night, a hairy fellow with a mole on his cheek just here.” Malden indicated the spot on his face. “Talkative cove. Wanted to brag all about something big he had planned.”

Morricent nodded and leaned close to whisper. “He said he would take me someplace nice, next time. A room at an inn, even, with wine and sweetmeats, instead of a bare patch of wall and a sprig of mint to freshen my mouth after, like usual.” She shrugged. “I hear promises from that sort all the time, so perhaps I did not look sufficiently convinced. He wanted me to believe he was about to come into money, so I would fuss over him like a real lover. So he told me about this job he had lined up, told me all the angles, and I had to admit it sounded like a nice bit of work. Simple as sifting flour, he kept saying, and no crew to split the swag with.”

Malden got the particulars from her, then bowed and took her hand again. “He’s one of your regulars?” he asked.

Morricent nodded.

More coins flowed into her palm. Silver this time. “After tonight,” Malden said, “you may see a lot less of him. Even if he does come back I’m afraid there’ll be no room at an inn.”

Morricent’s fingers rubbed at one of the coins he’d given her. Malden knew what she was doing—even without bringing it to the light she could tell by the feel what denomination he’d given her. “Methinks I can get my own room now, and all the sweetmeats I like, and a bed for just me. Now that’s a rare enough thing to be treasured. Thank ye, Malden,” she said, and kissed him on the cheek.

He was enough of a gentleman to wait until he was out of Pokekirtle Lane before wiping her white lead off his face.

The job was going to take place that very night, halfway across the city. He had to hurry if he wanted to catch Morricent’s client in the act. This wasn’t a typical housebreaking either, and he had to think on how he would get his wrench into the would-be thief’s works.

Malden always thought best up in the clear air of the rooftops. He moved quickly, jumping across alleyways and making good time across the sloped roofs of the Smoke, the zone of workshops and tanners’ yards that separated the wealthy uphill parts of the city and the poorer districts down by the wall.

Some of the manufactories and smithies of the Smoke were open all night. The big furnaces there that smelted iron were never allowed to die down, because it cost too much to get them back up to heat once they were cold. Similarly, there were some industries so in demand that the shop masters kept their apprentices working at all hours, taking their places at the workbenches or sleeping in their communal beds in shifts. Therefore Malden had to be careful as he ran along the roofline of a fuller’s shed and then up the brick side of a sifting tower beyond. If he was seen now he could get away easily enough, but any honest citizen who spotted him up on the rooftops would know he was at no legal business. They would call out “Thief! Thief!” and the hue and cry might alert his mark. That would ruin everything. The mark might run off, forgetting his scheme, thinking it too risky—or at the very least he would be overly cautious, expecting someone to come up behind him at any moment and put a hand on his shoulder. That would make Malden’s work difficult. It could also make it dangerous. The mark would be armed, and desperate enough to attack at the first sign of trouble.

No, if he was to take this man, he needed to have the advantage of surprise. It was the best lesson he’d learned from Cutbill—if your mark knew you were coming, the game was already fouled. Better the mark never saw him coming. Never, in fact, guessed that anyone was on to him.

Morricent’s regular was a wheelwright’s apprentice named Pathis. He’d reached the grand old age of thirty without ever advancing in that career—either he was too lazy to apply himself, or his master had no faith in his abilities. Trapped in employment of the most menial kind, knowing he was too old now to ever make a change, he must have spent every day scheming, trying to think of some way to get enough money together to start a new life. Perhaps Pathis had never heard of Cutbill, nor that there was already an organized army of criminals in the Free City. Certainly he had no idea that freelance larceny was frowned on by the powers that be.

So when an opportunity came along, an easy way to make some quick coin, Pathis had jumped at the chance. It might have been the first enterprising thing he’d done in his entire life, and it might well be the last. The shop where he worked stood next to a hire paddock, an empty lot between two workshops that was rented out to farmers bringing their livestock to market. He must have seen the vast number of animals that went through the paddock every day, and thought of the price each one would fetch. Of course, it wasn’t easy to steal sheep or cows or horses, since every animal was branded with its owner’s mark, and no one would buy livestock from a thief without knowing its provenance.

No one, that is, who wished to butcher said animals for their meat, or sell them on to others. Yet two roads down from the wheelwright’s shop there was a tannery. Pathis could hardly have avoided noticing that—the reek the place (and all the others like it) gave off, of death and acrid dissolution, was what gave the Stink its name and low rents. Tanners needed animals all the time, and weren’t likely to ask too many questions. Animals were their stock in trade. Dead ones, anyway.

And so one simple, ugly, brilliant, nasty idea had flourished in the otherwise barren garden of Pathis’s mind.

Malden climbed to the top of the sifting tower and had an excellent view of all the surrounding streets. He did not know if Pathis would come from his shop, or from his home down in the Stink, or from some tavern after building up enough liquid courage to carry out his foul employment. But from atop the tower Malden could be sure he’d see the would-be thief coming.

He did not have long to wait. Pathis appeared in Greenmantle Stair, coming up the hill from the Stink, not even bothering to keep to the copious shadows of that dark night. He looked exactly as he’d been described to Malden, and he already had his knife in his hand.

Keeping out of sight, Malden started to climb back down the side of the tower, toward a dark alley near the hired paddock. It was time to get to work.