David Chandler - Den of thieves

“You’re the thief Kemper, are you not?” Malden asked.

“For the nonce. Sooner’n I’d like, I’ll go by a different name,” Kemper agreed.

“I’m… sorry?”

“They’ll be calling me ‘the late’ thief Kemper, if’n you don’t get me down.”

Malden recovered his wits with a start. “Of course, at once,” he said. He hurried to the wall where the other end of the strap was tied around an iron hook. He undid the knot with shaking fingers and lowered Kemper carefully to the floor.

For a while the vagabond merely rolled about on the flagstones, his face split by a piteous grin.

“Oh, I’ve never found such happiness at the bottom of a flagon, nor between a girl’s legs,” Kemper moaned. “Ye’ll never know such ecstasy, lad, and ye should be thankful for that.”

Malden had many questions for the man. “How did you come to be here? It was just this morning I saw you, at Cutbill’s. You were safe enough there-how were you taken so soon after?”

Kemper grimaced. “A man can only abide so much stale bread and water. Cutbill gave me sanctuary, to be sure, but his hospitality was a mite lacking, if you catch me. Of all things, water to drink, ye’d think I was a horse! If I wanted real victuals, I decided I must go abroad. I snuck forth just afore dawn, made right for the Smoke, where I knew I could catch a game.”

Kemper rolled over onto his side and moaned in pleasure. “Found it easy enough. Didn’t reckon one o’ the players was a cloak-of-eyes on his off-shift. The bastard recognized me just fine and tried to haul me out o’ there. Figured I was safe enough, as I’ve always been. Been caught more times’n you’ve kissed a girl, I figure, and always got free again before. Never thought they’d ken out me one weakness. Now, if ye please, me hands and ankles.”

Malden went to free the vagabond’s extremities and found they were bound by matching chains of bright metal, seemingly far too thin to hold up Kemper’s weight. They tinkled merrily when he pulled them free.

“Keep’m as souvenirs, if ye like,” Kemper told Malden, when he saw how the thief stared at the chains. “I’ve no desire to see’m again. Should be worth a mite, seein’ they’re solid silver.”

“Silver?” He could make no sense of it. He knew nobles could demand that they be hanged with a silken rope, rather than the hempen cord commoners received. But why in the world would a petty thief be strapped with silver? It made no sense.

“Good ’gainst curses,” Kemper said, as if that explained everything. “Mind, I’ll need a cut on what ye sell’m for.”

“But of course,” Malden said. He pulled the chains free and stared at them in his hands. Why bind a man with silver? What had Kemper meant about curses? He lifted his eyes to ask the man directly, but in vain. Without a sound, without so much as a fare-thee-well, Kemper had disappeared.

Malden rushed back through the arches, thinking Kemper must have slipped up the stairs while he wasn’t looking. He sought only to warn his fellow thief that no good would come of heading that way. Yet as he reached the bottom of the stairs he thought better of chasing Kemper up the steps. No doubt the vagabond would be caught as soon as he made the surface. He would only be sacrificing his own freedom if he followed too close on the man’s heels.

He had freed the prisoner from his chains. Surely, that was enough of a good turn, and he could be forgiven for thinking of himself next. He had to escape, with the crown, if he didn’t want the night’s fiasco to be in vain. And he thought he knew a way.

Malden cast about him, looking for something on the floor. He found it back in the torture chamber-a round iron grate that came up easily when he lifted it. It had to be the drain that led out to the river, via the outlet pipe he’d seen when coming in.

The problem with having a dungeon cut into the bosom of a hill was that it would flood every time it rained. The drain was there to alleviate such a shortcoming. It would also make a fine way of disposing of any victims who didn’t survive their interrogations-or any parts of them they didn’t need anymore.

Putting aside such grisly thoughts as best he was able, Malden dropped down into the drain, then pulled the grating back over his head, cutting off some of the light. The drain proved to be a pipe lined with bricks furred white with niter, about three feet wide, leading down at a steep grade. There was no light in the tunnel, of course, but part of the way down its length he saw a glimmering and started crawling toward it. Compared to some of the things he’d been through since he started working for Cythera and Bikker, the drain was an easy traverse. The worst thing about it was the smell.

It was foul at first. It quickly rose to a level of unbearability. The fetor of the drain made his eyes water, and even when he covered his mouth and nose with the hood of his cloak he could barely breathe. His body fought for clean air but there was none to be had. The source of the stench was no great mystery, Malden thought. The garderobes of the palace must empty directly into this same pipe-a clever enough alternative to having the Burgrave’s ordure carted out every week. His guess as to the drain’s purpose was confirmed when he reached a patch of light in the tunnel. It was coming down from above, through a shaft much like the one that led to the dungeon-though this time there were no spikes at the bottom. Looking up, he could just make out a circular opening, high, high above him, lit by flickering candlelight. The smell here was much stronger than elsewhere, and the condition of the shaft walls is certainly best left undescribed.

The smell made him want to retch, and the yielding texture of the floor he crawled over made him wince with each foot he covered. Nothing but the promise of freedom and safety kept him moving forward. Still, he supposed it could be worse. There was a fortune in gold waiting for him once he was out of this-no matter how briefly it would remain in his possession. Malden pitied the servant who must come down here and clean this drain every time it filled up, and was probably paid only in room and board.

There were more shafts intersecting the drain as it headed down toward the river. One of them was even in use. He waited patiently until the user was finished, then continued on his way.

At last he came to a point where they could see the outflow pipe. Moonlight streamed in through its grate, though its lower half was clogged with filth and detritus. Malden rushed forward and grabbed the iron bars with his much-abused fingers. He rattled them but they held.

He looked out through the bars, hoping to signal Cythera. Perhaps she had a way of bending iron bars he lacked. But where in Sadu’s name was she? The boat should be waiting for him-it was his agreed upon method of egress. If she wasn’t there…

Then he would just have to swim for it, wouldn’t he?

With a sigh, Malden drew his bodkin and began to work at the bars, trying to loosen them enough that he could make good his escape.

Thief, the crown at his belt said when he was quiet awhile. Thief, go back.

Malden growled at the thing, never slowing in his work.

Interlude

Bikker made his own exit from Castle Hill, though in a less dramatic fashion than Croy or Malden. In the confusion following the death of the demon, he merely stepped into some shadows by the wall, then through a doorway into a well-lit room near the main gate. Inside, a servant was waiting for him. The withered old man offered to take his cloak-Bikker declined-then offered him a cup of hot mulled wine. This he took, draining the goblet in a single gulp. “Is he here?” Bikker asked.