Mercedes Lackey - Take A Thief

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He woke from the oddest dream that morning — a dream he couldn't quite fathom, unless it had come from yesterday's encounter with Bazie. He had been climbing like a spider along the ledge of a building, several stories up. It was the dead of a moonless night, and he was dressed all in black, including a black hood that covered everything except for a slit for his eyes. And he had the impression that there was a girl behind him, although he hadn't seen any girls at Bazie's.

It was an interesting dream, though, wherever it had come from.

He heard Kalchan snorting and moving around in the next room, slowly waking up; it must be morning, then. Somehow

Kalchan had the knack of being able to wake up at exactly the same time every morning, although it usually took him some time to go from sleep to full wakefulness. The one and only time that knack had failed him, he'd been dead drunk after swilling himself senseless on the free wine given out at some Guild Midwinter Feast three years ago. Not that Kalchan belonged to any Guilds, but he'd somehow managed to get himself invited or sneak in, and he'd certainly drunk far more than his share. He'd gotten back to the tavern on his own two feet, but had fallen straight onto the bedding that Skif and the cook had laid out in anticipation of his return, and he hadn't awakened until noon. Then, between anger at losing a whole morning's custom, and the temper caused by his hangover, he'd beaten Skif black and blue, blacked Maisie's eyes, and kept them all working and away from the Temple largesse of Midwinter Day. All taverns closed the afternoon of Midwinter Day — there was no point in remaining open, since there was a Feast laid on at the Temples for anyone who attended the Service beforehand. It was the one time of the year that Skif, Maisie, and the cook got a chance to stuff themselves sick on good, toothsome food, and Kalchan kept them from it, and beat them again the next day for good measure. That had marked the lowest point of Skif’s life, and if he'd been bigger or older, he'd have run away and damn the consequences.

They never let him oversleep by that much again, not even though it meant a beating for awakening him. Not even broken bones would keep Skif from a Temple Midwinter Feast.

He was already up and waiting for Kalchan to unbar the kitchen door by the time his cousin waddled into the room. Kalchan looked at him with nothing other than his usual irritated glare, and performed that office, then turned and went back into the common room, leaving Skif to start the fire or go wait for the pony cart in the yard as he preferred.

For a wonder, when the cook had remembered to bank the fire, she'd actually done it right. There must not have been as much beer in the pitcher as she had thought. There was one coal left, not a lot, but enough to get some flames going with the help of lint, straw, and a little tallow. For once, Skif was done with his morning duties early, and he dashed out before Kalchan noticed.

That meant he was waiting at the Temple door long before any of the other pupils, and decided against his usual custom to go into the sanctuary and watch Beel and his fellow priests perform the service. Not that he cared one way or another about religion, but the sanctuary was a place to get out of the cold and to sit down.

For a service like this one, where no one was really expected to come join in the worship, there was no grand procession up the center of the Temple. Instead, a few priests came in from doors on either side of the altar, lit candles and incense, and began very quiet chanting. If you knew the chants and wished to join, you could — otherwise, you could observe and pray, according to your own nature.

He was the only person in the sanctuary other than the priests, and he had found a marginally warm place in the shadows of a pillar, so they probably didn't even notice him. They certainly didn't make any effort to pitch their voices to carry, and the distant murmur, combined with the fact that he could lean up against the pillar, allowed him to drop into a drowse again.

He drifted back into the dream of this morning; it seemed to be a continuation of the same story. This time he and the girl were crouched together in a closet, listening to something in the next room. The murmur of the priests at their devotions blended with the murmurs in the dream. Then the dream changed abruptly, as dreams tended to do, and he found himself incongruously staring deeply into a pair of large, deep blue eyes that filled his entire field of vision.

Blue eyes? Whose blue eyes? He didn't know anyone with blue eyes.

Abruptly, the bell signifying the end of the service rang, and he started awake.

Huh, he thought with bemusement. Haven't dreamed this much in — can't 'member when. Must've been ev'thin' I et!

He got to his feet when the priests were gone, sauntered out of the sanctuary, and joined the rest of the pupils now gathering for their lessons.

But today was going to be different. For the first time ever, he put real effort into his attempts to master numbers. If he was going to have a position with Bazie's gang, he didn't want the authorities looking for him to clap him back into lessons. There was always a chance that they would catch him. If that happened, his uncle would know exactly where to find him.

No, the moment that Bazie had a place for him, he wanted to be able to pass his test and get released from school. Then he could disappear, and Uncle Londer could fume all he wanted. At the moment, he couldn't see how hanging with Bazie's gang could be anything but an improvement over the Hollybush.

His determination communicated itself to his tutor, and the younger boy put more enthusiasm into the lesson than Skif had expected. By the end of it, he'd made more progress in that single morning than he had in the four years he'd been taking lessons.

When lessons were over and the bell rang, he got ready to shoot out the door with the rest, but before he could, he felt a heavy hand on his shoulder, holding him in his seat.

Beel. He must have noticed something was different. Skif's stomach knotted, and his heart sank. He was in trouble, he must be — and for once, he didn't know why, or for what reason. And that made it worse.

“You can all go — ,” said Beel, whose hand, indeed, it was — but Beel's hand kept Skif pinned where he was.

Only when the room had emptied did Beel remove his hand from Skif's shoulder, and the young priest came around in front of him to stand looking down at him soberly.

“Skif — do you do work at the tavern in the afternoons?” Beel asked, a peculiarly strained expression on his face.

What?

Skif hesitated. If he told the truth, surely Beel would tell his father that Skif was a regular at playing truant from the Hollybush, and he would be in trouble. But if he didn't — Beel was a priest, and might be able to tell, and he would be in worse trouble.

But Beel didn't wait for him to make up his mind about his answer. “I want you to do something for me, Skif,” he said urgently, his eyes full of some emotion Skif couldn't recognize. “I want you to promise me that today you won't go near the tavern from the time lessons let out until the time darkness falls.”

The look Skif wore on his face must have been funny, since Beel smiled thinly. “I can't tell you why, Skif, but I hope that you can at least trust the priest if you can't trust your cousin. My father… is not as clever as he thinks he is. Someone is angry, angry at him, and angry at Kalchan. I think, unless he can be persuaded to curb his anger, that he is going to act this afternoon. You have nothing to do with all this, and you do not deserve to be caught in the middle.”