Guy Kay - Sailing to Sarantium

"S'all right," the Batiaran artisan was saying with a lordly gesture that nearly toppled his latest flask of wine. "Show you tomorrow. Permit's up'n the room. The best room. Over the kitchen. Thash mush too far away t'night!" He laughed, finding himself extremely amusing, it seemed. Uncle Erytus, visibly relieved, also laughed loudly. He had a terrible, unconvincing laugh, Thelon decided. The red-bearded man stood up, swayed towards their table, poured again for Erytus. He lifted the flask in unsteady inquiry; Thelon's cousins hastily covered their glasses and so he, of necessity, had to do the same.

It was, quite abruptly, too much to endure. Candarian on offer and he was forced to decline? And here he was, in the midst of some utterly unholy nowhere, without any funds at all and only a few days from an encounter that placed his legs-and Jad knew what else-at more than some risk. Thelon made his decision. He'd just had a confirmation of his earlier guess in any case. The man was such a fool.

"My excuses, Uncle," Thelon said, standing, a hand at his belly. Too much of the sausage. Must purge myself, I fear."

"Moderation," said his uncle predictably, a finger lifted in admonition, "is a virtue at table, as elsewhere."

"I agree" said the fatuous artisan, sloshing his wine.

This, Thelon decided, heading towards the archway to the shadowed front room, was actually going to be a pleasure. He didn't go to the latrine across the hall. He went up the stairway, quietly. He was quite good with locks, as it happened.

As it happened, he didn't even need to be.

"Be ready," Crispin said inwardly, ‘I believe we have landed our fish."

"How very nautical of you," Linon replied sardonically. "Do we eat him in salt or sauce?"

"No wit, please. I need you."

"Witless?"

Crispin ignored this. "I'm sending the girl up now."

"Kitten!" he called out, his voice slurred, too loud. "Kitten!"

The girl who had called herself Kasia came over quickly, blue eyes anxious, wiping her hands on the sides of her tunic. Crispin gave her a brief, very direct look, then tilted sideways, spilling some more of his wine, as he pulled the room key from his belt.

He'd had, truly, no idea who might fall for the baits he was offering… the unlocked door, the garrulous drunkenness, crude hints dropped over dinner and wine. Indeed, it had been entirely possible no one would succumb. He had no fall-back plan. No brilliant constellations of tesserae. A door left foolishly open, careless words about a purse upstairs… all he'd been able to devise.

But it seemed someone had risen to his lure. Crispin refused to let himself ponder the ethics of what he was doing when the sullen nephew he'd been watching gave him a too-naked glance and excused himself.

He squinted owlishly up at the girl and pointed an unsteady finger at Erytus of Megarium. "Thish very good friend of mine wants to see my Permit. Gesius's Seal. S'in the leather purse. On the bed. You know the room, "bove the kitchen. Go get it. And Kitten…" He paused, waggled a finger at her. "I know "xactly how much money's in the purse, Kitten."

The Megarian merchant was protesting faintly, but Crispin winked at him and squeezed the girl's rump as she took the key. "Room's not too far for young legs," he laughed. "Might let her wrap "em round me, later, too. One of the merchant's sons let out an alarming giggle before blushing ferociously under his father's swift gaze.

A Karchite at a table across the room laughed loudly, waving his beer at them. Crispin had thought, when he'd first entered the common room, that one of that group might slip away and up. He'd spoken loudly enough for them to hear… but they'd been drinking steadily since mid-afternoon, it seemed, and two of them were fast asleep, heads on the table among the food. The others weren't moving anywhere quickly.

Erytus's bored, angry nephew with the thin mouth and long, fidgety hands had said he was going to the latrine. He wasn't. Crispin was sure of it. He was the fish, and hooked.

If he goes into a room intending to steal, he told himself, he deserves whatever happens. Crispin was utterly sober, however-having spilled, or shared, almost all of his wine-and he didn't really convince himself. It occurred to him, suddenly, before he could push the thought away, that it was possible that a mother, somewhere, loved that young man.

"He's here," Linon said, from the room upstairs.

She went up the stairs again, moving quickly this time past the wall torches, her passage making them waver, leaving a casting of uneven brightness behind and below her. She carried a key. Her heart was pounding, but in a different way this time. This time there was hope, however faint. Where there has been uttermost blackness a candle changes the world. There was nothing to be seen through the windows. She could hear the wind.

She reached the top, went straight on back to the last room over the kitchen. The door was ajar. He had said it might be. He hadn't explained why. Only that if she saw anyone in there when he sent her up, anyone at all, she was to do exactly as he told her.

She entered the room. Stood in the doorway. Saw the outline of a startled, turning figure in the blackness. Heard him swear. Couldn't tell who it was, at all.

Screamed, as she had been told.

The girl's fierce cry ripped through the inn. They heard it clearly, even in the noisy common room. In the sudden rigid silence that ensued, her next frantic shout rang clearly: "There is a thief! Help me! Help!"

"Jad rot his eyes!" roared the red-bearded fellow, first to react, leaping to his feet. Morax rushed out of the kitchen in the next moment, hurrying for the stairs. But the artisan, ahead of him to the archway, went the other way, inexplicably. Seizing a stout stick from by the front door, he stormed out into the black night.

"Mice and blood!" Linon had gasped. We're jumping!" The inner words came right on the heels of the girl's cry.

"Where?" Crispin demanded as he scrambled to his feet downstairs and snarled a curse for the benefit of the others in the room.

"Where do you think, imbecile? Courtyard out the window. Hurry!"

The wretched girl's scream had frightened him almost out of his head, that was the trouble. It was too loud, too. piercingly terrified. There was something raw in it that went far beyond spotting a thief in an upstairs room. But Thelon had no time at all to sort out why; only to know, almost immediately after he did the wrong thing, that what he ought to have done turn calmly to her and, laughing, order her to bring a light so he could more easily fetch the Imperial Permit for the Rhodian to show his uncle, as promised. He'd have so easily been able to talk his way through an explanation of how, on an impulse, a desire to be of assistance, he had come up to the room. He was a respectable man, travelling with a distinguished mercantile party. What else did anyone imagine he was doing? He ought to have done that.

Instead, panicked, stomach churning, knowing she couldn't see him clearly in the dark and seizing that saving thought, he'd grabbed the leather satchel lying on the bed, with papers, money, and what felt like an ornament sticking out halfway, and darted for the window. He'd banged the wooden shutter open hard, swung his feet out and jumped. It took courage in the darkness of night. He'd no idea what lay below in the courtyard. He might have broken his leg on a barrel or his neck when he landed. He didn't, though the blind fall drove him staggering to his knees in the muck. He kept hold of the satchel, was up quickly, stumbling across the muddy yard towards the barn. His mind was racing. If he dropped the satchel in the straw there, he could double back to the front of the inn and lead the chase out onto the road in pursuit of a thief he'd glimpsed on his way back from the latrine after the girl screamed. Then he could reclaim the satchel-or the worthwhile parts of it-before they left.