Stephen Deas: The Thief-Takers Apprentice

‘No, I didn’t think so.’ Master Sy stabbed the knife into the wooden table. For a moment, Berren felt a tremor of doubt, a little voice that told him to run, run away now, that that was the best thing to do. But it was only a little voice, half lost in a crowd. Swords. He wanted to learn swords. A hundred other things, too, but mostly swords. He wanted to be someone who could face down four men in a street and be the one who walked away. And the only person who could ever give him that was sitting down in front of him, offering him the fruit of princes. The thief-taker pushed the plate to him. Berren eyed it hungrily. He could smell its juices, sweet and sharp both at once.

‘I was born in a city called Tethis. You won’t have heard of it.’ Master Sy chuckled. ‘Kasmin and your witch-doctor Saffran Kuy are probably the only others in Deephaven who have. Tethis had a king. Still does, I suppose. We and the other Small Kingdoms were vassals of the sun-king, but we were so small and so far away that no one much cared about us. I doubt he even knew we existed.’ He laughed again, sad, lost in memories. ‘We used to fight each other a lot. Mercenary armies, since none of us could afford one of our own. And only in the summer months, between planting and harvest. We were all so gods-damned poor. Must seem strange to you, living in this empire of yours, with an emperor grand enough to rival the sun-king himself, and this his second greatest city. Look across the river, over at the mudlarks. That was our world. We didn’t even have any temples, any priests, not any worth speaking of. But still, it was my kingdom, and I was a prince and I lived in a palace, even if it wasn’t a grand one.’ He looked at Berren and then looked at the dragonfruit. ‘I’ve never had one of these before either, but I’m told the air does something to them. After a few minutes they go bland and sour. It’s like eating mulched paper. So are you going to eat that or not?’

Berren picked up the fruit and sniffed it. It was the best thing he’d ever smelled.

Which made him think of the perfume seller on Market Square, and his look of disdain as Berren had asked how much a vial of his Servin Lily scent would cost. He bit into the red flesh of the fruit and couldn’t help smile as the flavours of spring and flowers and all the passions he’d ever known blossomed inside his mouth. Deadly. Deadly and rich. That’s what he wanted.

‘Good, eh?’

He nodded.

‘Saffran Kuy and his brothers came to Tethis when I was about your age, give or take a year or two. Garrent doesn’t much like him. I suppose you might have noticed that.’ Master Sy paused, watched the blank shrug in Berren’s face, and nodded in satisfaction. ‘That’s just the edge of it. The sun-priests hate him. They’ve tried to drive him away from here more than once. They call him a necromancer and say that he raises the dead. Rubbish, all of it, but that sort of persecution was why they came to Tethis. It was a place where they could work in peace. Or so they thought.’ His voice trailed away. Berren took another mouthful of fruit. The juices made his head buzz.

‘What work?’ he asked, without really thinking.

‘Oh, I don’t really know.’ The thief-taker’s brow furrowed. ‘Whatever magi do. If there’s a dark side to them then I certainly never saw it. I never really asked too many questions. Saffran saved my life once and now he’s done it again. That’s all I need to know. When a man saves your life, that’s a debt that goes far beyond anything else.’ He winced. ‘I paid that debt once. Now I suppose I shall have to pay it all over again.’ He sighed and shook his head. ‘Where was I? Oh, Tethis. Yes. I did a terrible thing, back in Tethis. Or rather, Saffran did a terrible thing because I’d asked him to. Such a mistake. And we never had a chance to put it right, either, because they hadn’t been with us for a year before…’

The thief-taker abruptly got up and walked across the room. ‘I think you know the rest. Soldiers came. Mercenaries hired by the merchantmen of Kalda. The kingdom was taken. Stolen. Come on, lad. Eat your fill and then let’s go.’

‘You were really a prince?’ First Garrent and then Kasmin, but he’d never quite believed it. Couldn’t. Not Master Sy the thief-taker.

‘I was.’ The thief-taker shrugged. ‘That was along ago, lad. A past best forgotten.’ The way his eyes flashed told Berren it was anything but. ‘Kasmin, Saffran Kuy, me, plenty of others – fate picked us up and scattered us. Some of us fell here in Deephaven. And that’s all there is; nothing more to know.’

‘Master…’ He wanted to ask about the knife up in Master Sy’s room. Was that some king’s treasure he’d stolen as he fled? But the thief-taker was getting ready to leave and Berren knew better than to press his luck. Another time, perhaps. When they’d had their next little victory and the thief-taker let his guard down for a moment. ‘Master, where are we going?’

‘I know where the last of our pirates are hiding. Time to put them in irons.’

‘You do?’

He smiled. ‘Yes. Kol’s going to be there, and his soldiers too. It’ll be messy. Worse than Siltside. But I know where they keep their boats now. I know where they come from and how they move through the city, and I know who’s been helping them do it. I didn’t understand before, but now I do, and so now we finish our work. You want to learn about how to be a thief-taker? You want to see it happen, the real truth of it? Then now is the time. You can come, at least for a part of it.’

Berren stuffed the rest of the fruit into his mouth and grabbed a hunk of bread and a slab of cheese. Master Sy smiled.

‘Good lad. I’ll keep you safe this time, I promise you. And I promise you I’ll never take Lilissa a-thief-taking again. That was stupid. I never thought Regis was a part of this, but it was stupid anyway. I could have seen you both killed and then where would I be?’

The thief-taker picked up his belt and his sword and buckled them around his waist. He moved with a smooth, quick purpose, like the Master Sy that Berren had always known. Berren grinned and jumped to his feet.

‘Where are we going?’

Master Sy paused for a breath at the door. ‘To Talsin’s Forest, lad. To the canal. Don’t forget your ringmail.’

They went back the way Berren had come, back out along Weaver’s Row and Moon Street, straight down the Godsway to the River Gate. By the time they got there, the rain had stopped and the clouds had split apart. The cobbles along the waterfront steamed, baked under the summer sun once more. The smell was back too, although muted and dull, as if the worst had been washed away into the river. Berren’s pace picked up as they passed the witch-doctor’s door. He couldn’t help but stare.

‘That’s the one, lad. Never you mind what Teacher Garrent tells you, there’s nothing wrong with Saffran Kuy. Maybe there’s no such thing as a mage who’s pure, maybe all wizards have a darkness to them, but then Saffran’s no worse than any other. Go to Kol or the Eight Pillars of Smoke if you ever need some help, but when even that’s not enough, you come here. Wizards, lad, can do most anything they set their mind to.’

Berren wasn’t so sure of that. There had to be plenty of things that wizards couldn’t do, otherwise the emperor would be a wizard too, right? ‘If wizards can do whatever they like, why does he live here? Why live in a crumbling old warehouse on the stinking riverfront of a city that’s not even his own?’ Or why didn’t he do something when soldiers had come with swords and spears to Master Sy’s home. That was more the question Berren wanted to ask, except he didn’t dare.