Stephen Deas1: The Thief-Takers Apprentice

‘Oh, I mean to be.’ Master Sy turned and slashed his knife across the back of Threehand’s left knee. Threehands screamed.

‘You bastard!’ He must have seen the knife come up a second time. The scream turned into a begging whimper.

‘No! No! Please, not…’

The knife slashed the back of the other knee. Berren had no illusions about what Master Sy had just done. Threehands had been hamstrung. He’d never walk again. For someone who lived the way Threehands lived, Master Sy might as well have killed him. It would have shown more mercy.

‘Respect, Threehands.’ Master Sy got up. ‘No respect.’ He looked at Berren. ‘There’s two things that thieves have to know about you. The first is that you keep your word. If you say you’ll let them go, you let them go. If you promise not to kill them, you let them live. The second thing is that their life is yours. That you are the be-all and the end-all of their existence. That no one owns them more than you do. They have to know that, they have to know, from the moment they see you, that there is only one thing they can do, and that is to tell you everything you want to know and then pray that it’s enough. They need to fear you as though you’re the gods themselves manifest before them. Don’t you, Threehands?’

‘Every penny I have is on your head,’ Threehands slurred. ‘Every penny.’

‘Nowhere near enough, Threehands. Come on lad.’ He put his arm around Berren’s shoulder and turned him away, pushing him firmly but gently out into the bright evening light of the street. As they left, he glanced back into the shadows. ‘Hey, Threehands. Anyone I should send your way to help you out?’

A strangled scream tore out of the gloom. ‘I’ll see you dead, thief-taker. I’ll get a priest. I’ll get something. I’ll be waiting for you, you and your puppy. Some dark night, some dark alley, you’ll never know… You royal hunt!’

Master Sy froze. He patted Berren on the shoulder. ‘Excuse me, lad. I won’t be having language like that.’

He turned and went back. Berren didn’t look. It was better that way. Better not to know. There was some incoherent screaming and then a sort of gargling sound and then nothing. A moment later, Master Sy came back out.

‘Did you kill him?’

Master Sy shook his head. ‘Of course not. I promised I’d let him live and that’s what I’ve done.’ In his hand he had a ragged piece of bloody flesh. It looked, Berren thought, uncomfortably like a tongue. Master Sy glanced at it and then carelessly tossed it down the street. ‘I can’t promise he won’t bleed to death, of course. Sometimes that happens. But most probably he’ll live. For a bit.’

With the satisfied smile of a job well done, the thief-taker strode off down the street. ‘Home now, lad. This last bit’s not for you. Not quite sure where we stand with Kol, and messing with him isn’t like messing with the Dag across the river. Best you stay out of it. Too dangerous. You should get yourself some sleep. Big day tomorrow, if all goes well. Actually, you know what? Maybe you should find another place to bed down, just for tonight. Just in case. Ask Lilissa if she’ll lend you her floor. I’m sure she’ll understand. You never know. There are some crazy dangerous people in this city.’

Shaking, a little bemused and certainly glad to be away, Berren hurried alone back to the River Gate and up the Godsway. After what he’d just seen, he could only agree.

Some time with Lilissa. So much had happened. It was hard to remember that it was only last night that they’d spent the night together hiding in The Maze. Hard to remember that only this morning she’d saved him from One-Thumb. Since then, he’d seen Master Sy kill a man in cold blood and mutilate another. He shuddered. The thief-taker had had Threehands’ blood all over him. He looked the part. A butcher. Was that right, doing that to a man, even to a thief? Then again, Threehands had been clear about what was going on in his mind. Berren supposed he ought to be glad.

Whenever he stopped to think, his head filled up with Threehands and Lilissa. Listening to Lilissa breathe in the dark. Master Sy clutching Threehands’ tongue. Running away from Jerrin. Blacksword’s face, split in half. The man beside him, quietly dying while they talked. Holding Lilissa’s hand outside the upside-down temple. Kissing her. There was a lot that hadn’t been said. Somewhere he still had half a bag of spice cakes back at Master Sy’s house. They might be crushed to crumbs by now, but cake was still cake. Cake would help. They’d talk. He’d tell her what he’d seen today.

Except when Berren reached her house, someone had been there before him. Her tiny door hung open, flapping feebly back and forth in the evening breeze. As he came closer he caught a smell of her in the air. The smell of flowers. Lavender.

Cautiously, he went inside. Behind the door, everything had been turned upside down. Every piece of furniture was smashed, every piece of cloth ripped and slashed. On the opposite wall, someone had scratched a symbol. He’d had a good enough idea who’d done this even before, but now he knew. One-Thumb; the sign made that plain as the sun in the sky. One-Thumb, and he was waiting for him round the back of Trickle Street with his Harbour Men. They’d taken Lilissa and now they were taunting him. Come and get her if you can.

He clenched his fists. What he ought to do was wait. Wait until Master Sy came back from wherever he was under Reeper Hill, and show him what they’d done. They’d be dead. No doubts about that. One-Thumb, Sticks, Waddler, Hair, the mudlark boy, whoever he was. Probably Hatchet and every one of his dung-boys. The thief-taker had shown what he could do today, what was lurking behind his manners and his quiet talk. He was a murderer, a snuffer, the best and the worst of them. For a moment, as Berren thought of Master Sy’s fury, he almost laughed. Jerrin hadn’t the first idea what he’d done.

Or maybe he did. Berren’s laughter faded. Jerrin in The Maze last night had been no accident. Maybe he knew where the thief-taker was. Or maybe he thought Master Sy was dead. Maybe, maybe, maybe…

He stood up. He understood well enough what he had to do. The sign scratched into the wall was for him, for him and no one else. That was Jerrin’s challenge. Come on, thief-taker boy. I’ve got your girl. Take her back if you think you’re a man. A bitter laugh escaped him, because Lilissa wasn’t his at all. Until yesterday she’d belonged to some fishmonger’s son he couldn’t even name. And even that didn’t make the slightest bit of difference. He had to do what he had to do. He wasn’t a boy any more. Not now.

He scurried back to Master Sy’s house and let himself in through the back. There he took one of the thief-taker’s coats from the peg by the door and wrapped it around him. It didn’t fit, was much too big, but it hid the crossbow. That was what mattered. Bad enough walking up the Godsway carrying it, but around the docks… Around the docks, that would mark him as a snuffer, and the worst sort at that.

He thought about waiting until hours after nightfall, but what would Jerrin do if he thought no one was coming? What would he do to Lilissa if he got bored of waiting? What if something happened to her because he didn’t come? So he didn’t wait; instead he ran, out of the house, up the long straight climb to the top of the hill and down the other side into Market Square. The flower-seller and his bodyguards were still there; Berren barely noticed. He ran on, across the square, oblivious to the twilight crowds still teeming there. Braziers were lighting up and with them the first night-time smells of smoke and coal and burned fish, but all Berren could smell was lavender. In the edges of The Maze, he ran straight past the Barrow of Beer.