Dash regarded the boots, trousers, and jacket that had been secured for him by the Mockers. They were serviceable, but nothing remotely as good as the ones taken from him by his captors.
Lysle Riggers, the Upright Man, looked at him as he rose to leave. “Not yet, boy.” The old man waved away Trina and the others of his company in the room, leaving Dash alone with his great-uncle. When the door was shut behind Trina, the old man said, “You must understand something. I don’t think you’re going to get your amnesty for us, so this conversation may have no meaning. If you do not, shortly I will die. Healing priests can only do so much, and I am an old man, anyway. Another will come forward to take the office I hold. Who he will be I cannot know, though I have a couple of guesses. John Tuppin might take the office—he’s strong and shrewd and many are afraid of him. Trina might, if she’s smart and silent, which she is, and can keep behind the scenes. But whoever it is, the agreements you and I reach will not be binding upon him. As I said, if you can’t get the Prince to agree to giving us pardon for past crimes, it doesn’t matter.
“But if you return with promises, they had best be kept, for if you are forsworn to the Mockers, no matter how high you rise, where you live, or what great office comes to you, eventually one of our brotherhood will find you in the night and your life will end. Do you understand?”
Dash said, “I understand.”
“Know this as well, Dashel Jamison: once you step through that door you have taken blood oath not, by word or deed, to betray what you have seen here, nor may you bear witness against any who you’ve met. It is an oath made by silence, for you may not live to leave Mother’s without such oath.”
Dash didn’t like being threatened, but he had heard enough stories about the Mockers from his grandfather to have no doubt that what Lysle was saying was not an idle threat. Dash said, “I know the rules as well as anyone born here.”
“No doubt you do. My younger brother struck me as being a man with little modesty. I suspect you know as much about the workings of the Mockers as my own men.” The Upright Man waved a bony scarred hand at Dash. “Before he came to my little shop, years ago, to tell me how the land lay and how I would be required to conduct the business of the Mockers, I would have wagered our ways and secrets were inviolate. In moments I learned that Jimmy the Hand had been watching us as we had been watching him, more, he had others watch us while he was not about. In the end, he was a far better Duke than I was leader of the Mockers.”
Dash shrugged. “If Patrick does as I request, it all ends, anyway.”
The old man laughed. ‘ “Think you that a pardon will take this ragged brotherhood of ours and set our feet upon the straight and narrow path? Within minutes of such pardon some of our more reckless youth will be cutting purses in the market square or breaking into warehouse cellars, young Dash. The dodgy path is as much a part of who we are as it is a choice in life.
“Some, like your grandfather, find an escape, a way to better themselves, but most are confined to Mother’s and the sewers of the city, the rooftops—the Thieves’ Highway—and a short life ending with a hangman’s rope. It is as much a prison as the one in the basement of the palace, this life, for there is little chance of escape.”
Dash shrugged. “At least everyone, you, Trina, the rest, will have a choice. Most men can’t ask more than that.”
The old man laughed his dry laugh. “You’re wise beyond your years, Dash, if you really understand that and are not merely mouthing words heard at the knee of another. Now go.”
Outside Dash found his three companions from the work gang waiting. Gustaf and Talwin were together, while Reese stood next to some Mockers. “You coming with me?” asked Dash.
Reese shook his head. “Not me. I was a Mocker before they caught me, and these are my people. This is my home.”
Dash nodded. Looking at the other two, he said, “You?”
Gustaf said, “I’m a swordsman without a sword. I need a job. You hiring?”
Dash smiled. “Yes, I’ll hire you.”
Talwin said, “I just want to get out of the city.”
“Then it’s the three of us.”
Trina came and stood before Dash. “Well, Puppy, I’ll show you back to the safest way out. Wait until nightfall, then get out of the outer camps. Rumors are starting to circulate that the Prince’s army is getting close and men are sleeping close to their swords. There aren’t many friends to be found in a place like that.”
Dash nodded and asked, “Weapons?”
“We have some for you,” said the heavy set man who had been his first captor, the man Dash knew as John Tuppin. “We’ll give them to you just before you leave.”