David Chandler - Den of thieves

“It’s done,” Malden said, and no more.

“When? Where shall it occur?”

“Keep your eyes open,” Malden told him.

They moved through the crowd drawing as little attention as possible. Malden stopped at several stalls and even haggled for a moment with a seller of thread, though he had no intention of buying anything. Croy kept staring at the faces passing by, but there was no help for that. Malden made sure they stayed close to wherever Cythera went, but not too close. When the diversion came he was no more than ten yards away.

“Sir, please sir, my sister, she’s gone mad with fever, and she’s locked me out of our house. Sir, please, I need your help, I need your axe, milord, please, I need you to chop down our door.” It was the ribbon girl, though Malden barely recognized her. She had tucked her hair up inside a snood and turned her ragged kirtle inside out to show a different color. Such talent-Malden hoped Cutbill knew what a marvel he had in his employ, and what she was worth. “Sir, please, your help is most needed!”

Hazoth’s retainer snarled and kicked at the girl but she was fast enough to avoid being struck. The tale she spun was obviously something she’d come up with on the spot, but the details didn’t matter. The retainer shouted for her to leave off, and suddenly every eye in the market was turned in his direction.

It wasn’t so much that the marketers were astounded that a grown man would shout at a girl like that, or threaten her with a naked blade. It was hardly likely they’d been moved by her impromptu tale of woe. But entertainment was where you found it in the Free City of Ness-and this looked like it could be diverting indeed.

Not for the first time Malden gave thanks for the prurience of his fellow citizens. Now that they were all distracted, he could move where he liked through the crowd, and no one would see him go. Better yet, they wouldn’t see Croy. The big knight was simply impossible to make inconspicuous-unless people had something else to look at.

Most importantly of all, no one was looking at Cythera. She slipped between the shoulders of two burly men who were laughing at the sight of a toughened bravo beset by a street urchin. Instantly Cythera was swallowed up by the crowd.

“There,” Malden said, and pointed to a dark alley closest to where Cythera had disappeared. “Go. Now,” he said, and clouted Croy on the arm. The knight headed straight for the alley, and Malden worked his way through the crowd in the same direction, though not by such a direct route.

At the mouth of the alley he stopped and looked into its shadows. Cythera and Croy were already there, deep in conversation. Malden took one last look out at the market. The ribbon girl had managed to pull a length of poplin from a bolt and was weaving it through the bravo’s legs. She did it so deftly it looked like she’d pulled the cloth by accident, caught it with her flailing hands. Anyone lacking Malden’s trained eye would have no idea what she was doing or what fruit it was about to bear.

Hazoth’s retainer lifted one mailed hand to swat the girl away but she was already gone-along with his purse. He must have realized that as soon as he returned his hand to his belt, because he cried out that he’d been robbed. He tried to give chase but was tangled in the poplin and fell flat on his face. The owner of the bolt of poplin came storming out of his booth to berate the fallen retainer, and the crowd laughed riotously at this spontaneous farce.

Perfect. Malden reminded himself to ask for the girl’s name. She was born to the game, he could tell.

“-solve all our problems with one stroke,” Croy was saying, his voice rising in volume. Malden came rushing toward the knight to shut him up. “And it will only cost-”

Cythera did Malden’s work for him by interrupting.

“Last night he had her arm broken,” she said, speaking over Croy’s words. Her voice was ice hanging in the air.

The effect on Croy could not have been more profound if she’d slapped him across the face. “What? I don’t understand,” he said. He looked like a whipped dog.

“Did you think Hazoth would not hear of your antic at the palace?” Cythera demanded. “Calling on Vry to storm his home. Such a fool! I cannot believe I ever pinned hopes on your star, Croy.” She turned away from the knight in disgust. “Hazoth knows about our connection, of course. He believes I set you to this reckless end. I could not convince him otherwise, and when I refused to confess, he sent two of his men with a bar and a piece of rope. They tied her arm double, and then twisted the rope with the bar until I heard the bone snap.”

A tear ran down the garden of painted lilies that decorated Cythera’s cheek.

“I meant only to-”

“I know what you meant to do! How much do good intentions mean in your world, Croy? In this storybook place you inhabit, where brave knights ride to the rescue of poor helpless women, is there glory in merely wanting to do good? Because in my world-and his,” she said, jabbing a finger toward Malden, “what’s in your heart means nothing. Not when all your best hopes and desires only make things worse.”

Malden watched the two of them closely. Croy was like one thunderstruck, unable to speak or move. Cythera was so wracked with care that her skin was ashen under the vines and flowers on her face.

There was no time for this.

“Milady,” he said, “we have moments only before your watchdog comes sniffing for you. Think me not heartless.”

“No, Malden, I know you care,” she said. She took a cloth from her sleeve and dabbed at the tears on her face, though with such gentle and hesitant motions she barely mopped up any of them. “What say you?”

“I am taking an enormous risk by trusting you. I have no way of knowing you will not repeat to Hazoth everything I say. Yet I have no choice but to ask your help. I seek to get the crown back. Once it is in my hands, Anselm Vry will have no choice but to arrest Hazoth, and likely execute him. Your mother will be freed, and you with her. Croy will be so beloved by the Burgrave that his banishment will be lifted, and with it the noose that belongs around his neck.”

“And you, Malden? What will you gain? Can I afford your services?”

“I get my heart’s desire,” he said. He lowered his eyes. “But you need not pay that price. Meet with us tonight if you can. I have a room in the Stink.” He described the street where he lived and how to reach it from Parkwall.

“Very well,” she said. “At midnight, Hazoth will retire to his bedchamber and be occupied there until dawn. I’ll come then.”

“My thanks,” Malden said. He watched her head back into the square, never once looking back. “Croy-we have to go now. There is no more time.”

The knight didn’t move. “Her arm?” he asked, his voice very small.

“Come! Or be damned,” Malden hissed. “I only needed you to make contact with her. Get yourself killed now, if that’s how you’ll find your glory. But if you would aid me-if you would aid Cythera further-come. Now.”

Eventually, Croy followed where Malden led.

Malden spent the day drawing crude maps of the villa, showing all of its entrances and exits that he knew of, and the location of each room he and Kemper had seen. He studied them over and over with a feverish intensity. Endlessly he made corrections to them as he remembered something, as some detail that had previously seemed trivial suddenly offered new possibilities-or new hazards. His hands grew black with charcoal as he drew the maps again and again, then tore them up and made new drafts.

As confounded as he might seem to an outside observer, Malden was in his element. This was what he had been born for, he now knew. There were two kinds of thieves in the world, in his experience. There were those who turned to crime because they wanted money and they didn’t want to work for it. Those were the kind of thieves who ended up very quickly swinging from a rope. The other kind were the sort for whom a perfectly planned burglary was a labor of love-a work, in fact, of art. The planning, the considering of angles, the second-guessing of one’s own abilities and of one’s opponents’ motivations, the sudden inspirations that made the impossible seem, at least in theory, possible-these were what drew Malden to his profession, and in a way, he was quite happy poring over his maps.