As a noble studying to become a knight, Alanna had spent a good amount of time at the inn called The Dancing Dove. This was George’s headquarters, the royal palace for the thieves who swore allegiance to the Rogue. It was the place they gathered when they were not about their business as thieves. There were a number of entrances and exits, some known only to George and Old Solom, the innkeeper. George and Ercole entered through one of these, emerging in the darkened hallway that stretched behind the stairs to the upper stories. Sheltered by the dark, they could watch the entire common room, filled to its rafters with thieves, prostitutes, flower sellers, fences, forgers, peddlers, fortune-tellers, healers and sorcerers with small Gifts, merchants doing secret business, rogue priests, even a nobleman or two. Old Solom and his maids bustled about, serving food and drink while keeping a watchful eye on the table beside the great hearth—the place where George was wont to sit.
George smiled grimly. Nearly all of the people in the common room were quiet and fearful. When he sat by the fire, the din was so loud a man couldn’t hear himself think. Now the loudest noises were made by Solom or the maids.
The man named Claw was at George’s table, although not, the thief-king noted, on George’s “throne.” His back was to the two men in the hallway, and only his immediate friends—three vicious brutes George would not want at his back—sat with him. George searched the room for his own court and found Scholar in a drunken huddle on the other side of the fire. Lightfingers was nowhere to be seen. Rispah was still in Port Caynn, but Orem and Shem were at the back of the room, playing dice.
Making sure each of the six knives he carried was ready, George nodded to Ercole. Stepping into the light, the older man at his back, he tapped Claw on the shoulder. “Thanks for keepin’ it warm for me, friend,” he drawled in his sweetest voice.
Claw jumped, knocking over his tankard. Brown ale spilled unheeded over his breeches as he stared at George. “But—you—”
“I know, I said I’d be stayin’ in Port Caynn a bit longer,” George said agreeably. “But there! I got that lonesome for all these friendly faces, and that bored without you lot keepin’ me on my toes.” Orem and Shem had moved to the front door and were guarding it with drawn knives. Two other men George knew he could trust came to cover the rear exit and Ercole’s back. “You’re drippin’,” he added, sliding onto his “throne.” Not for a second did his eyes leave Claw. The man had a reputation for doing the totally unexpected, and he might be crazy enough to attack George now.
Claw stared at George for a long moment, his single pale eye unreadable. Finally he turned and snapped to his henchmen, “Why are you goggling at me? Get a cloth or something, and mop up this mess.” His eye swiveled back to George’s face. “Welcome back, Majesty.” He ignored one man’s clumsy efforts to wipe the ale from his breeches. “I trust your journey home was uneventful.”
“A bit chilly.” Claw had lost his initiative, but it still paid to take no chances. George accepted a tankard of mulled wine from Solom without looking at the old man. “Has all been quiet here?”
“Quiet as the Black God’s temple.” At last Claw moved away from the table, his men at his back.
“Don’t go,” George said, waving an expansive hand. “Sit with me and tell me what’s passed, these weeks I’ve been away. ’Twould be a pity if I’d patched up my trouble in Port Caynn to find it fostered here.”
The one-eyed thief hesitated, and George hoped that the man would be mad enough to refuse. It would be all the excuse he needed, and Claw could never hope to equal him with knives. Then Claw snapped at one of his men, “Get me a clean chair!”
The man hurried to obey as George realized, Claw talks like a noble.
“Let me buy you a drink.” George smiled, beckoning Solom over. “I’ve a bone to pick with you, my friend.”
Claw shook his head when Solom offered him wine, and with a shrug the innkeeper refilled George’s tankard. “What could I have done to give offense, Majesty?” Claw asked, his face blank and innocent.
“You cleared a maidservant to wait on me and mine in Port Caynn, and she tried to poison me. Surely you looked into her background, Master Claw?”
“A maidservant? I sent no maidservant to wait on you,” the other thief replied.
George slid the grimy slip of paper across the table for Claw’s scrutiny. The one-eyed man looked it over carefully, turning it this way and that in the light as he pursed his lips. At last he shook his head and returned the paper. “It’s a truly excellent forgery,” he announced calmly. “But it is a forgery, nonetheless. I never wrote this letter.”
“You’re certain?” George asked quietly. “Best think hard, for I’d not appreciate hearin’ otherwise at some future date.”
“Ask anyone in this room,” Claw offered, gesturing widely to their staring audience. “Did I ever send a serving woman to wait on his Majesty at the Port?”
Heads were shaken slowly as George realized (with some admiration) that Claw had found the perfect excuse. With no witnesses and the woman dead without having named her sponsor, he was in the clear.
“You’re lucky, Friend Claw,” he told the younger man. “Mayhap you’ll always be so lucky: to be innocent of the plots of others, of course.”
“I hope to be, Majesty,” Claw replied with a tiny smile. “I do not wish to become involved in any losing propositions.”