David Tallerman - Crown Thief

"I suppose."

"Thank you. Oh, and Damasco," he said, touching fingers to the side of his own neck, "you're bleeding."

I mirrored the gesture. Sure enough, my fingers came back slick with red.

"You should be more careful falling off logs," said Alvantes, and turned back towards the wider clearing.

But I hadn't cut myself when I fell.

I felt suddenly cold, despite the late afternoon warmth. My gaze darted to the far trees, where I'd thought just for an instant that I'd seen movement. There was nothing now. I turned, drawing a mental line across the clearing. The chill deepened, settled in my spine. Buried finger-deep in a tree trunk, directly behind where I'd sat, a thin-bladed knife jutted.

I stared at it in horror. Though I was certain death hovered invisibly nearby, I couldn't help but reach to yank it free. It was light as a feather, delicately balanced — the weapon of a master.

The spell broke. Panic took over. I vaulted the tree trunk, caught my cloak and picks and dashed after Alvantes.

Estrada looked up. "Are you all right?"

"We need to go," I said. "Right now."

"What?"

I strove to steady my voice. "Alvantes is right. If we hurry, we've a chance of a decent night's rest. One more night sleeping rough will be the death of me."

"We were about to set out anyway," said Alvantes.

I grasped my horse's bridle and swung into the saddle. Common sense told me that if Synza was willing to kill me in sight of the others he'd have done it already — but common sense was a whisper in the back of my mind compared to the fear screeching through the rest of it. It was excruciating to wait for Alvantes, Estrada and Saltlick to fall in. I set a quick pace for the first ten minutes, until their curious glances and the undeniable absence of killers leaping from the forest began to calm me a little.

Only then did the realisation truly sink in… Synza had waited to get me alone. So long as I had company, I was safe.

I dropped back to ride between Alvantes and Estrada, ignoring the looks they gave me. My mind was still awhirl. Now, however, it was less fear, more the simple question of self-preservation that set my thoughts spinning.

It wasn't one I had any easy answers to. Only when we came in sight of the Casto Mara did the inkling of an idea present itself. As I'd suspected, the ferry had yet to be repaired. In its place, though, a crude and presumably temporary replica had been constructed. Ropes were strung taut across the river, a rough platform had been constructed from cut logs with mounted metal wheels at either end, and two burly men were hauling it by hand from bank to bank. It was less than half the size of the old ferry and looked distinctly rickety, but it was a way across.

Ever so slowly, the two ferrymen heaved their makeshift transport over from the far bank. When they arrived, they passed another five minutes in whispered conversation, sparing us only the occasional glance.

Estrada was first to lose her patience. "May I ask what the problem is?"

The nearest ferryman looked at her uneasily. "Thing is," he said, "we've rates for people and rates for horses. We don't have rates for…" He pointed at Saltlick. "For anything like that."

"Saltlick is a giant," she said tartly, "but I don't think he'd been offended if you chose to consider him a horse for the duration of our trip."

Saltlick nodded sagaciously. "Horse good."

The ferryman's expression brightened. "Horse it is then. All aboard!"

As it turned out, the craft was sturdier than it appeared. Casta Canto was a logging town after all, and if the folk knew little else they knew wood. After a few minutes, I let myself ignore our creeping, creaking progress in favour of thinking over my next move.

When, what seemed at least an hour later, we brushed against the rough harbour of Casta Canto, my scheme was ready. As Estrada went to pay the two ferrymen I said, "I'll get this. Why don't you go ahead and find us somewhere for the night?"

"Where can we rent rooms?" Estrada asked the ferrymen.

One pointed to a two-storey building a little way up the main street. "Try the Bear Trap first," he said. "Lindi's been cooking up a batch of her famous boar stew."

Estrada nodded and set off, with Alvantes and Saltlick close behind.

"So," I said, "What do we owe?"

The man attempted to calculate on his fingers. "A twelfth-onyx for each of you," he said, "two each for the horses… another two for the man-horse…"

"Let's call it an onyx," I said. "Now, how much more would it take for you to close the ferry for the rest of the day? In fact, to close it and make sure it stays closed until noon tomorrow?"

He squinted in concentration. "We'd have shut up soon enough anyway."

"It has to be now. No more passengers today."

"It'll mean a whole night's drinking," he said, as though this were the only conceivable outcome.

"And the morning too," inserted his companion.

"Ah, right. That's… well, three bottles each, at a pinch…"

I held out two more onyxes. "Will that cover it?"

His eyes widened. "It might."

"No more passengers. I'll be checking."

"No need for that." He sounded faintly offended. "With what this'll pay for, that ferry might be down for a week."

By the time I reached the Bear Trap, the others were just leaving. "What's the problem?" I asked.

"They only have two rooms available," Estrada told me.

That sounded like excellent news to me. "Let's not be needlessly extravagant. Why can't Alvantes and I share?"

Estrada eyed me with astonishment bordering on horror. "Weren't you the one who swore another night without a bed would be the death of you?"

It might. But not as quickly as having a room to myself would if Synza found a way across the Casto Mara. The little bastard had managed to keep up so far. He was nothing if not resourceful. "Our money won't last forever," I pointed out. "Who knows what surprises might be waiting? Let's be practical."

Estrada looked at Alvantes. "He has a point."

"I am not sharing a bed with Damasco."

"I'll take the floor," I said. "I'm sure they can rustle up a few spare blankets."

Alvantes shook his head wearily. "I can't but wonder what goes on in your mind, Damasco. Very well then, if coin is so much more important to you than comfort."

"Coin," I said, "is more important to me than anything. You should know that by now."

Once we'd settled in, my first step was to find a quiet corner of the taproom in which to finish sewing the lock picks into my cloak. This time no one paid me any heed, and I was done in minutes. I sought out Alvantes, where he was tending the horses in the stables to the rear. I nodded to Saltlick, comfortably installed in a double stall no doubt intended for carriages rather than giants, and handed Alvantes my needle and thread. "I suppose there's no point asking what it is you want to hide?"

Alvantes opened his cloak, revealing a rip in the lining. "Who said I want to hide anything?"

He had, of course. Not explicitly, maybe, but Alvantes wasn't one to ask idle questions — or for that matter, to concern himself with a torn lining. Still, if this was how he wanted to play it, I was confident I could find other ways to satisfy my curiosity. I left him to it and, having stepped outside to confirm that the ferry operators had indeed quit their work, returned to the taproom and settled to a cup of wine.

The next I saw of Alvantes was well over an hour later, just as dinner was called, when he handed back my needle and a much-diminished spool of thread.

"May I admire your handiwork?" I asked.

He drew back his cloak, revealing a neat line of stitches. Well, neat it might be, but there was no way it had consumed such quantity of thread as was missing. What was the man up to?