Roland Green: Knights of the Crown

His moccasins were smeared with an herbal oil that made it hard for any animal hunting by scent to track him. Every few paces he also dropped a small biscuit, baked from deergrass flour and both tempting and soporific to dogs and leopards.

Nothing lurked anywhere, nothing sprang out at him, and he reached the house without working up more sweat than the warm night had already raised under his clothing. He knew of thieves who did their night work, in spring and summer at least, in no more than a loinguard and tool belt, but that seemed an invitation to being assaulted and even repelled by common thorns.

Pirvan chose to maintain his dignity in the profession he practiced, if he could not turn to another.

From the rough plan of the house he’d obtained through devious means (including, but not limited to, indiscreet servants), he knew that the main strongroom was in the cellar, as usual. Another strongroom was off the kitchen, in the charge of the cook and holding the ceremonial tableware-doubtless valuable, but also heavy to remove and easily recognizable. (Those who melted down gold and silver articles were not above taking one bribe from a thief to hide his tracks, and another from the local watch to describe his face.)

There were also lesser strongrooms on the two family floors, and no doubt something on the upper floors for the servants who made enough (honestly or otherwise) to have possessions thieves would covet. Pirvan would not contemplate preying there; a ladies’ maid might have scrimped for ten years to buy a moonstone ring.

Nor would he have time or tools to defeat the kitchen or cellar locks. For that sort of work, only the thieves willing to invest in unlawfully potent magic or hideously expensive tool kits could escape without corrupting a servant. Pirvan had numerous objections to this course of action, not least of which was that you put your future in the hands of someone who, if bribed once, might be bribed a second time. One could not corrupt others without corrupting oneself (not wise for one whose work constantly threatened to push him over into evil.)

So it had to be the two family floors. What was the best way in? All the way up to the roof would give him the best chances to spy out the ground without being seen or (if lucky) heard by wakeful spit boys in the dormitories. However, the roof was a long way up, and its edge (at least on this side) was free of protrusions on which to catch a rope. The wall was almost equally free of climbing vines, close-crowding trees, trellises, or other conveniences for the thief in a hurry.

However, that was only one of at least seven and probably more walls. The house had originally been built as a simple square. It had soon thereafter sprouted protrusions on at least three sides, designed more to increase usable space than for beauty of design or keeping out intruders.

Pirvan began his circuit of the house.

On the third side he came to that amorous couple whom he had feared. They were making enough noise that he was in no danger of stumbling over them, as he would have needed to do to attract their attention. If their enthusiasm had not already wakened the whole house, Pirvan thought, those within could hardly be alert or watchful.

The fourth side offered a two-story wing, with a balcony atop it. The balcony railing would have been easy to hook, but Pirvan preferred loops to hooks (the debate over their respective merits was loud and long among those thieves whose night work required either). Fortunately the balcony’s uprights also ended in complex brass ornaments, with delicate lacing around solid cores, elven work, probably, or at least elven influenced-but stout enough to support Grimsoar One-Eye climbing a warship’s anchor chain.

Pirvan briefly wished that he had Grimsoar One-Eye either ready on the balcony to haul him up or at least waiting outside to cover their retreat. Dividing the fruits of tonight’s work would be no great matter with Grimsoar. Their methods for night work differed as greatly as their bodies-Grimsoar would make two of Pirvan-and they had not worked together for more than a year. Yet this had not made any great difference to their friendship.

Another brief wish: Would he ever find work where friends would be present in body instead of just his thoughts?

“ He who wishes for stars will fall into ditches ,” was a motto the thieves had adopted for their own, even if they had not invented it.

Pirvan cleared his mind of all but attention to his work and unwound the rope from his waist.

* * * * *

Reaching the balcony was the work of moments, and retrieving his rope the work of only a few more. He studied the grounds as he coiled the rope; the amorous pair was still at their night work. The woman seemed to have her eyes cast upward, but whether she saw anything farther than her partner’s forelock was open to doubt.

Pirvan had expected that the balcony would lead him to a corridor straight to the stairways. Instead, looking in through the metal lattices of the shutters showed him fine brocade curtains, and a gap in the curtains showed him a bedroom. A lady’s, he judged-and therefore not honorable prey, only a proper passageway to such.

For a short while, Pirvan had to wonder if he would ever reach the passageway. If the shutters weren’t dwarf work, they were something not much less robust. Cutting the metal without waking half of Istar would have taxed a dragon’s strength and ingenuity; it blunted several of Pirvan’s tools. It was only after this that he discovered the cunning lock, working from both outside and inside but virtually invisible from the outside. He had unblunted tools enough to make short work of that, and by the favor of Reorx the hinges did not squeal when he opened the shutters.

Inside was definitely the bedchamber of a wealthy young woman, doubtless a daughter of the house, perhaps even Eskaia herself. A night lamp let Pirvan see new masonry and fresh plaster where the walls were not covered thickly with paint or tapestry. Clearly there had been some alterations made to the family quarters since he had finished assembling his map.

Staying half behind curtains, half in shadow, Pirvan studied the room. The great canopied bed stood a dagger’s length off the floor and appeared to be occupied-at least the dark curls spread out over the pillow were no doll’s. Pirvan listened, heard soft but even breathing, and steadied his own breath until it was inaudible.

The room displayed wealth without flaunting it, and Pirvan’s opinion of the room’s occupant rose. Unfortunately, everything in the room was, as prey, even worse than dishonorable. It was like the ceremonial dinnerware, either too distinctive to dispose of safely or too stout to remove at all.

The table by the wall, for example-rose marble legs, a black marble top, a screen of silver and ebony set with aquamarine, and in the screen a silvered mirror and dozens of little gilded niches holding crystal pots with gold or even jeweled lids. Exquisite work, all of it, doubtless the lady’s grooming table, equally doubtless worth a good-sized farm-and so heavy that it would need two minotaurs willing to sweat to lift it!

Pirvan noted in his mind to collect one or two of the cosmetic pots if he needed to make a quick escape this way with nothing else to show for his night’s work. Then he sidled toward the door-at the exact moment that a key rattled in the lock.

Pirvan’s quickness knew few limits when his life or freedom were in danger. The night lamp was beyond the reach of his hand, but not beyond the reach of his dagger’s heavy pommel. It flickered out like a serpent’s tongue, crushing the flame out of the wick. Acrid smoke fought with and was finally subdued by the scent of roses and delicate perfume.

The door opened moments after Pirvan had found the best if least dignified concealment in the room-under the bed. He had time to hope that the newcomer was not a lover who was about to agitate the bed in conjunction with its occupant. At least one thief Pirvan knew had been seriously hurt under such circumstances, then captured because the bed’s occupants were not too besotted to notice the moans coming from under the bed!