David Chandler: Honor among thieves

When the lepers were past, Croy got them started again, but they didn’t go much farther. He took them down a lane that curled up toward the wall of the inner bailey and ended in the wide, muddy yard of an inn. There, a stable boy took their horses and welcomed them with honeyed words.

As Malden slid down off the jennet’s back, he groaned for his aching muscles and his bowed legs. He’d never gotten used to riding and was glad to be on his own feet again, even if he felt decidedly unsteady. The whole world still seemed to rock with the swaying gait of the jennet.

All the same, he was surprised by their destination. He had not expected them to spend the night in Helstrow. He would welcome a night in a real bed stuffed with straw, true, but he was more interested in getting to Ness as quickly as possible. He and Cythera would never be alone together again until they were back home, after all. “An inn?” he asked. “Must we spend the night here? I thought we had only to turn Balint over to the local constable and then be on our way again.”

Croy leaned backward, stretching the muscles of his back. “We need to make sure she receives justice from the king’s own chief magistrate. It may be many days before we can gain audience with him.”

“Days? How many days?” Malden demanded. “Two? Three? As many as a sennight?”

Cythera reached over and brushed road dust off his shoulders. She gave him a knowing look. “Are you in such a hurry to return to Ness? What’s there, waiting for you?”

Malden said nothing, and kept his face carefully still. She was teasing him-after all, she knew exactly why he longed to be back in Ness, where all secrets could be revealed. Yet he had another good reason to return home as quickly as possible. He could not help but reach up to the front of his jerkin and touch a piece of parchment folded carefully and held next to his heart. The others did not need to know what was written there, or the betrayal it tokened. The message on the parchment must remain his alone, for now.

Inside the common room of the inn, food and wine was brought to them before they’d even asked for it. Malden was sure they’d be charged for it whether they wanted it or not, so he ate greedily of the cold meat and fresh bread he was served, and drank his first cup of wine down before it touched the table. Riding had left him with a deep thirst.

Croy lifted Balint up onto a chair and let her sit upright, though he left her hands bound. The innkeeper stared but said nothing as Cythera drew the gag away and held a pewter cup toward the dwarf’s mouth.

Balint stared at the cup as if it held poison. “Aren’t you all going to take turns spitting in it first, before I drink? Not that I could tell the difference, not with human wine. I’ll bet it tastes like something you drained from a boil off one of those lepers’ arses.”

There was a reason they had kept her gagged.

Cythera started to take the cup away, but Balint’s head snaked forward and she grabbed at its rim with her lips. She sucked deeply at the drink, then leaned back and belched. “I’ll take some of that food now.”

Malden frowned at her but broke off a crust of bread and held it so she could take bites from it. “If you bite my fingers,” he told the dwarf, “I’ll pick you up by your feet and shake you until we get the wine back.”

Something like grudging respect lit up Balint’s eye as she chewed. Curses and oaths were all the dwarves knew of poetry. They competed with each other for who could be more vulgar or rude, and counted a good obscenity as a fine jest. Clearly Malden had scored a point with her.

Cythera didn’t seem to see it that way. “Be more kind,” she said to him, “please. Balint may be guilty of much, but she still deserves some respect.”

“Ask the elves how much,” Malden said.

“The elves,” Croy said, shaking his head. “That makes me think-when we meet the magistrate, what do we tell him of the elves?”

“If he’s to know of her crimes,” Malden pointed out, “we’ll need to say something. After all, it was their city Balint toppled-nearly killing all of them in the process, not to mention us.”

“Once the king knows the elves are at large in his kingdom, though,” Cythera said, “I shudder to think what he’ll do. Send his knights to round them up, surely, and then-no. No, I won’t even think of that.” She put her head in her hands. “Can we not just tell him that the elves all perished when Cloudblade fell?”

“And get me cooked for mass murder?” Balint said, her eyes wide. “You know that’s a lie. The elves survived. Most of them, anyway.”

“A blessing you had no hand in achieving,” Croy said. “You did not seem to care if they did all die, when you toppled Cloudblade.”

Malden shook his head. “It matters little. Our king has no authority to have you hanged. The worst he can do is send you north,” he pointed out, “which he’s bound to do anyway, no matter how many of them you killed. So it doesn’t matter what crimes we heap upon you, since the punishment will be the same.”

“I’ll take my lumps for what I did. I acted in the interest of my king, that’s all,” Balint insisted. When the humans didn’t relent and free her on the spot, she shrank within her ropes. “It’s been a long ride and I need to make water,” she said then, looking away from their faces. “Which of you brave young men wants to pull down my breeches for me?”

Croy recoiled in disgust. That was what Balint had wanted, of course. She smiled broadly and tried to catch Malden’s eye.

It was Cythera who responded, however. “I’ll take her to the privy,” she said, rising from her seat. Once standing, however, she let out a gasp.

Malden spun around in his chair and saw a pair of men coming toward them, pushing their way through the common room. They were not dressed in the cloaks-of-eyes the city watch of Ness wore, but he knew immediately they were men of the law. Each wore a jerkin of leather jack with steel plates sewn to the elbows and shoulders, and each of them had a weapon in his hand. They had gold crowns painted on their cloaks as insignia of office.

Even without their uniforms he would have recognized them as lawmen, just from the smug look on their faces. They were bigger than anyone else in the room, and that look said they knew it. Their rough features and tiny eyes marked them as men who wouldn’t back down from a fight as well. Malden had spent his whole life learning how to recognize such signs-and learning how to avoid the men who showed them.

“Good sirs,” Croy said, rising and spreading his arms wide in welcome. “I thank you for coming. We’d planned on bringing her to the keep directly, but perhaps you can save us the journey.”

One of the kingsmen-the one who still had most of his teeth-stared down at the dwarf and frowned. “What’s this?”

“Nobody said nothin’ ’bout a dwarf girl,” the other one said, looking at his comrade. A bad scar crossed his neck, just one side of his windpipe.

“This,” Croy said, “is Balint, late of the service of the dwarven envoy at Redweir. She’s broken her oath and-”

“We didn’t come for a dwarf,” the first one, the toothy one, told Croy.

Malden slowly pushed his chair back from the table. He tried not to make a sound as its legs dragged across the floorboards. So occupied, he failed to notice that he was backing up into a wall. When the back of his head struck the plaster, he looked to either side, searching for windows he might jump out of. He found none.

The scarred one spoke next, saying exactly what Malden expected-and dreaded-to hear. “We’re here,” he announced, “for yer thief.”