Stephen Deas: The Thief-Takers Apprentice

‘Go and ask him if you like.’ Master Sy must have seen the look of horror on Berren’s face. He laughed out loud. ‘Maybe gold and silks and women and wine bore him, eh lad? He lives here because that’s what he chooses, just like you and me, and that’s all there is to it. Do you still have that knife I gave you?’

Berren shook his head. He didn’t remember losing it, but it was gone. Maybe in the fight with Jerrin and the mudlark boy. Still had Stealer, though.

‘No matter.’ When they reached the gate, Master Sy stopped to talk to one of the guardsmen. They spoke like old friends for a minute or two while Berren fidgeted and cast glances back at the witch-doctor’s house. Then the soldier opened a door into one of the gate towers and went inside. Berren hurried through the gate and out the other side, eager to be going on, but Master Sy didn’t move. A few seconds later, the guardsman came back and gave something to the thief-taker. A crossbow. A big one. They exchanged a few more words and then Master Sy carried the crossbow over to Berren. Up close it looked huge.

‘Don’t suppose you’ve ever held one of these before, have you?’

Berren shook his head.

‘Going to learn now, then. This is a military crossbow issued to soldiers in the service of the emperor. Apparently the old emperors preferred their longbowmen from somewhere down south and stationed them everywhere. Your new one doesn’t seem so bothered. When we return through the gate, remember to give it back. Right.’ The thief-taker hoisted the crossbow over his shoulder and sauntered away down the street towards the Grand Canal Bridge, oblivious to the stares he was getting. Walking down the street with a sword on your hip was one thing. A crossbow over your shoulder was quite another. Once they reached the bridge, Master Sy headed for the riverside. He lifted the crossbow off his shoulder and leaned nonchalantly against the parapet wall. He cocked his head across the river.

Berren looked. Siltside sat straight across the water from where he was standing. The tides were low now. Between Berren and the nearest stilted huts, there were a few hundred yards of sluggish water, and then maybe a quarter of a mile of dead flat mud, gleaming like white gold in the afternoon sun. Berren squinted. The reflections of the sunlight were so bright that he could barely see the ramshackle scatter of houses out there. If he looked hard, though, he could see the holes that the Justicar’s soldiers had burned. The black scars they’d left behind.

‘Have you ever seen a piece of wood that’s just started to rot, Berren? Tiny white-capped shoots grow out of the deep brown of the wood. If you catch the rot then, scratch it away, cut out the roots and treat it with tar, the wood can be saved. But if you don’t, then the rot quickly spreads. You might still only see a few shoots on the outside, but the roots will run everywhere. Then your wood is only good for burning.’ Master Sy glared out over the glittering water. ‘That’s what they are, boy. They’re this city’s rot, but they’re just the bit you see, and Justicar Kol, for all his talk, is too scared to cut out the root. Well if that’s what he wants…’ The thief-taker clenched his teeth. He had a mad look in his eye and he was grinning. Berren wasn’t at all sure he liked the look of that. He was quite certain that if he was a mudlark, now would be the time to be scared and run away. Right now, while the thief-taker was still stoking up his fire. ‘They come from there,’ he said. ‘Our pirates. They come from over there in the middle of the night. Right beneath us.’ He pointed at the bridge under their feet. ‘Then they go up there.’ The other side of the bridge and Talsin’s Forest. ‘And then they vanish under the stinking streets beside the old wall. I reckon they must go all the way along the wall in their little boats, all the way under the roads and the houses, but I reckon they can’t go all the way to Pelean’s Gate, because that means coming through the Shipwright District and out into the open again. No, they must hide their little boats down there and then they scuttle through the streets and back into the tunnels under Reeper Hill. Must have other boats there. Then they muffle their oars, row out a couple of hours before dawn, rob whatever they can rob and slip back again before it gets light. But they’d have to stay there, that’s the thing. They’d have to spend the day in the tunnels and then come out when it’s dark again.’ The thief-taker frowned furiously. ‘How do I know all this? Because the Bloody Dag told me back in Siltside after I cut off his hand and threatened to take the other one. Now Kol’s got him and claims he won’t say a word. Strange. I wish he’d told me how they were getting through Shipwrights without anyone seeing them, even in the middle of the night, but it doesn’t really matter.’ He gave another savage grin. ‘We’ll find that out the easy way. By asking. Do you want to know why I’m the best thief-taker in this city? It’s because I wait and I wait and I wait.’ He took the crossbow and unhooked a metal bar from underneath it. Then he stuck the metal bar into another part, braced the crossbow with his feet and cranked the string back. ‘Are you watching? Yes. I wait until I know everything, and then I strike. I cut out the rot, root and all. I burn the wound and seal it with tar.’ He picked up the crossbow and squinted at it. ‘Our friend the Justicar knows a lot more than he’s telling, and something’s got him rattled. I reckon he’s known our friend Regis is up to his neck in it for some time and wants to leave him be. Well I can’t be doing with that. Here.’ He passed the crossbow to Berren. ‘Point it out over the water. They attacked another ship last night. I knew they would, Bloody Dag or no Bloody Dag. Too obvious a prize to miss. I’ve been waiting for this one for more than a month. That’s why we went to the Captains’ Rest last night, why it had to be exactly last night. I didn’t think it was Regis, and I certainly didn’t think he’d be quite as mad and bold and arrogant as to have us cut down in the street outside, but I knew it was someone. My mistake. It won’t happen again. Now we have to finish it the bloody, messy way. Did you see any mudlarks in The Maze last night?’

Berren nodded. ‘Stank of the canal they did, too.’

‘Well there you go. Might even have been our pirates then.’ He stood behind Berren and showed him where to put his hands on the weapon, how to hold it, how to stroke it with his fingers and press it against his cheek. ‘Hold it steady but not tight. The emperor’s crossbows aren’t the best in the world by any means but they’re made well enough. Right. Got it steady?’

There was a moment of stillness and then Master Sy carefully fitted a bolt in front of the crossbow string. ‘What you’re holding, lad, is the most powerful weapon in the world, in its way. It takes a man about a year of constant practice to become any good with a blade and another ten to truly master it. The same goes for a longbow. Now I’ll admit that either is a better weapon than what you’ve got, once it’s mastered, but that’s not the point. The point is, lad, that with a crossbow, all you have to do is hold it steady, find your target, point it and then a little click on the trigger and if you hit a man out to fifty paces or even more, it doesn’t much matter what armour he’s wearing, down he goes. A vulgar weapon for thugs if you ask me, but no one did. Go on. Point it at something and pull the trigger.’

Berren picked a seagull, sitting on the water about a hundred feet away. He pointed the crossbow as carefully as he could and pulled the trigger. He felt the crossbow jerk, sideways and upwards. The seagull cawed and flapped up into the air. Berren reckoned he must have missed by a good three feet.