David Tallerman - Giant thief

I allowed myself a small sigh of relief and climbed hand over hand down to the next window. I could feel Saltlick's eyes on me. I couldn't guess whether he was thinking of my safety or willing me to plummet to the ground. I swung onto the sill, dropped lightly to the floor, and hauled the remaining rope in after me.

The room beneath mine was just as I remembered it from earlier in the day. Another couple of steps and I'd have fallen into the sunken bath, which had been drained since I'd last seen it. Panchetto's fat guest was evidently still at the party, and likely would be for some time yet.

That didn't mean I wasn't in a hurry.

My eyes had already adjusted to the dark, so I set to it immediately. There wasn't much furniture in the room: an inset wardrobe like the one in my own chamber, a set of drawers with elaborate carved legs and wrought-metal handles, and small cabinets to either side of the bed. I turned up a little loose change, a silver amulet set with carnelian, and a couple of silk scarves. It wasn't much, but it was a start.

I crept to the drape over the door, lifted one edge and peeped out. The passage was unlit like the one above. I flicked a coin against the wall and waited. When two minutes had passed and no one had come to investigate the sound, I felt satisfied the corridor was unguarded. Why would it be? There was no one to defend against but the thief-in-residence, who for all anyone knew was asleep in his own bed.

There were four rooms to either side of the corridor. I searched them all. After a few finds akin to those I'd made in the fat guest's room, and one chamber containing nothing of any value, I was starting to become despondent. Then number six turned up a brimming moneybag and some jewelled earrings that justified the night's work by themselves. I glanced briefly into the last two, conscious of the time, and returned to my starting place. I'd been dropping off my takes as I went along, and the result was a glittering heap beneath the window.

I leaned out and tapped the wall until Saltlick looked up. I held out the first moneybag, gesturing that I planned to drop it. He raised cupped hands over his head, and I let it fall, fully expecting him to miss it and it to explode on the cobbles with a noise loud enough to stir the whole palace. Not so. He snatched it deftly from the air and placed it at his feet, just as I'd instructed. He managed just as well with the next two, and the last few articles I tucked around my person.

I'd intended to tie the fat guest's sheets onto the end of my rope. Reassured by Saltlick's success and anxious for the passing time, I decided instead to climb as far as I could and drop the last distance. Sure enough, Saltlick caught me with hardly a jolt. I glanced at him with new respect. He was proving a capable partner. For a moment, I almost reconsidered leaving him when this was done.

No. It would be better for both of us if we never set eyes on each other again after tonight. Saltlick could return to his tribe and I could go back to the life I'd been wrenched from all those days ago.

I eyed the pile of treasure at our feet. This time there'd be a difference, though. This time I'd be rich.

I spent a minute stuffing moneybags, loose coins, jewellery, scarves, and a fretted silver candlestick that had taken my fancy into the countless pockets secreted in the back of Saltlick's cloak. The formless garment combined with the giant's natural lumpiness hid them from all but careful examination, just as I'd intended. The padding I'd insisted on would muffle any suspicious clinking. Everything was going to plan.

"Time to leave," I whispered, when the distant rap of approaching footsteps froze me to the spot.

I held perfectly still for a moment, and then realised my right leg was jutting half out of the shadows. "Back!" I hissed, louder than I'd intended, and dragged Saltlick with me into the darkness.

I pressed against the wall, pinning him beside me with one arm. Were we visible? I'd miscalculated. Only a blind man could fail to see a giant standing in that strip of gloom.

The footsteps came closer. Perhaps my fear amplified them, because by the time I saw the patrolling guard I'd have sworn it was a carthorse bearing down on us. He was marching with stiff strides, halfway between the palace and the outer wall. He carried no torch, but his armour was so polished that it seemed to glimmer.

He paced nearer, nearer. I could see his fingers closed on the sword hilt at his hip. Was he looking at us? Would Saltlick stop him if I ordered it? Running was out of the question. I could make out trace lines of hard features beneath his helmet. Nearer, still marching, staring into the night, glancing neither left nor right…

Good discipline is a different thing to good guarding. He marched past without as much as a glance towards the walls. His steps were soon just a receding tap, tap, which quickly faded to nothing. All I could hear was Saltlick's hoarse breathing and the pounding of my own heart. When even that had steadied, I said, "All right. Let's go."

I kept well within the shadow of the palace this time, drawing Saltlick with me. It took us a couple of minutes to skirt round the northeast corner to the front. I picked up the pace after that — I'd noticed earlier that the perspective from the gatehouse excluded most of the courtyard — and only slowed again when we drew near the grand main entrance. There was a pool of torchlight there, and I stopped on its edge. There was only one guard visible, and he had his back to us. I hissed a last instruction to Saltlick and stepped into the light.

We were just a couple of guests, now, with every right to be where we were. I changed to a leisurely swagger, but the effort was wasted. The guard was talking with his colleague, who'd been out of view within the far side of the gatehouse. Neither of them looked round until the last moment.

"Hello," I called, too loudly. "We're just, me and my friend here that is, we're just going to…" Most people are hopeless at feigning drunkenness. Those who aren't understand that the trick is to sound as if you're desperately trying to seem sober. "Well, we've had a couple of drinks you see, with His Highness, and we thought we'd head into the city to look for, you know, a different short of entertainment. I mean sort. I didn't mean to say we're looking for midget ladies. Although, if you know of any…" I winked clumsily.

The nearer guard came forward. "At this hour? We have orders to search anyone leaving the palace after dark." He sounded unsure, and I noticed how his eyes were hovering over the medallion around my neck. I suspected the orders had really been search anyone who looks like they might be Easie Damasco. That was fine, just as long as they hadn't been told to detain us.

"Certainly, officer," I said, "only too happy to please."

At that, as per my instructions, Saltlick loomed forward. His face was mangled into an expression that suggested rage, toothache, constipation, or some unfortunate combination of all three. It wasn't exactly what I'd asked for — in fact, I struggled to stifle a laugh — but the guards looked suddenly very nervous.

The one who'd spoken spent a few moments searching me, patting his way up from my feet to my collar with practised precision. He turned to Saltlick. If the giant's expression had sagged a little, that made it no less off-putting. Still, the guard was a professional. With a timid, "If you could kneel down, sir," he began his search.

I held my breath.

I needn't have worried. Even with Saltlick kneeling, the hidden pockets would have been out of reach to all except a remarkably tall and determined examiner. The guard was neither. The image that sprang to mind was of a blind man trying to calculate the dimensions of a statue covered in shit. His well-trained hands fairly flew over Saltlick's bulk, and the instant he was done he moved back with a sigh of relief.