Paul Durham - Dishonour Among Thieves

Folly arrived just behind them. “There you are,” she said, gasping for breath.

Quinn struggled to remove his helmet.

“What happened back there?” Bramble demanded. He grabbed Quinn’s helmet and yanked it off with a pop. Quinn rubbed the red welt it had left across his forehead.

“Rye hit the Constable with a fish,” Folly said.

Bramble looked at Rye in disbelief and shook his head. “Perhaps we need to discuss the meaning of inconspicuous.”

They followed him to an obscure flight of carved stone steps tucked under a crumbling archway. It was called Mutineer’s Alley. No guards or gate blocked their path, but everyone in Drowning knew where those steps led. And it was no place for the unwelcome.

Rye glanced over her shoulder as they started down. No soldiers followed, but someone was standing in the shadows of the backstreet she and Quinn had taken to reach Dread Captain’s Way. She thought it looked like the Constable’s squire.

Bramble nudged her with an elbow. “A fish, eh?”

Rye shrugged sheepishly.

“That’s my niece,” he said with a wink.

She looked back again, but the squire, if he had been there at all, was now gone.

At the bottom of a deep embankment, below the village itself, sat the Shambles. Its black-market shops, grog houses and gambling dens had grown up like persistent weeds on the damp edges of the village, until eventually the Earl had stopped trying to pluck them. The Laws of Longchance weren’t enforced here. The Shambles was not a safe place for allies of the Earl.

Shortstraw chittered happily as they worked their way down Little Water Street, the snail trail of a dirt road that traced the banks of River Drowning. Dinghies bobbed at the docks. In the distance, where the mouth of the river met the sea, Rye could see the tall mast of an anchored schooner silhouetted against the sky. Rye was sure the invisible eyes of the Shambles were on them, but their faces were familiar here.

At the end of the street, a four-storey inn squatted in the shadow of the great arched bridge that spanned the river’s narrowest point. Overhead, a black banner with a white fishbone logo snapped in the wind. The thick iron doors of the Dead Fish Inn rose above them like portals to a castle, and they always struck Rye as more suited to withstanding a siege than welcoming guests. But at that moment, there was no place she would rather be.

HE AIR WAS stale with stout and sailor sweat, which made perfect sense since a small fleet of grog-swigging boatmen had congregated at the centre of the inn. They’d pushed aside the tables and chairs and huddled in a large circle around two blindfolded, bare-knuckled combatants. The men traded wild, flailing punches over the cheers and groans of the onlookers.

Folly’s two oldest brothers, the twins Fitz and Flint, leaned against a heavy beam and watched with interest from under their manes of white-blond hair. The twins, each massive individually, had been born conjoined at the hip, giving them the formidable aura of a two-headed giant. Their matching glowers and otherworldly appearance ensured even the surliest patrons of the Dead Fish behaved themselves.

So it was that Rye, her uncle and her friends arrived relatively unnoticed. Rye pulled her hood from her head and the inn’s roaring fireplaces immediately warmed her chilled cheeks. A woman bustled past balancing a full serving tray of empty glasses on her round belly with one hand. She paused at the sight of the children, blinked in disbelief, and abruptly dropped her tray on to a table. The woman’s hair was as white-blonde as Folly’s except for a single streak of silver that she pushed behind her ear.

“Riley O’Chanter!” Faye Flood exclaimed. “What in the Shale are you doing here?”

Before Rye could answer, Folly’s mother threw her arms around her and pressed her tight. Faye’s stomach was as hard as a melon and, when she saw the look of concern on Rye’s face, she waved it off.

“Don’t worry about my little shelf,” she said, rattling her fingers on her belly. “Flood babies are a hardy lot. More important, how did you get here?”

Folly jumped in excitedly. “I went to find her. There was a storm—”

“Rat in the jacks! There you are, Folly,” Faye interrupted. “I’ve hardly seen you the past two days, love. Your chores are piling up.”

Folly’s face fell.

“We’ve got freebooters in port,” Faye continued, with a nod to the crowd of sailors circling the brawlers. “There are bar rags and linens in need of washing. You can play with your friends after you’ve finished.”

Folly frowned at Rye with a look that said I told you , and slumped off.

“As for you, Riley dear, Abby is around here somewhere.” Faye glanced about.

But Rye’s gaze had already found her. Her mother’s face seemed even more lined with worry than it had just days before, but to Rye she was still the most beautiful woman in the whole village. Rye felt her eyes well up with tears.

Abby opened her arms wide. Rye stepped forward and buried her face in her mother’s shoulder. She didn’t let go for a long while.

Rye started to ask questions but Abby just pressed her head back to her shoulder and held her close. Once Rye had settled, Abby eased her towards the Mermaid’s Nook, the secluded corner of the inn that housed Rye’s favourite table. Rye set her walking stick on the carved tabletop and sat down.

“Mama,” Rye said finally, “the Willow’s Wares?”

“Don’t give it another thought,” Abby said quietly. “It was just a building. No more than brick and wood. What’s important is that we are all safe now.”

“Are we?” Rye asked.

“Of course,” Abby said.

“But we were attacked this morning.”

Rye explained their encounter with the sniggler and detailed the Constable’s announcement on Market Street. Abby listened intently.

“And this,” Rye added, unfurling the crumpled parchment in her pocket.

Abby looked over the Earl’s proclamation. Rye watched her mother’s grim face. Abby was silent.

Finally, Abby spoke. “Do I always look that cross?” She arched a playful eyebrow.

“Sometimes,” Rye said, but she was not calmed by her mother’s jest. “The Earl is searching for us,” she said matter-of-factly.

Abby nodded. “It seems so. Not that he’ll find us easily.” She gave Rye just a hint of a knowing grin. “No one here knows our names.”

The correct answer when asked about someone’s identity at the Dead Fish Inn was always, Who? Never heard of him . Abby tossed the parchment into the roaring fireplace.

“But why come after us now?” Rye asked. “Does he believe this new Constable will protect him?”

Abby shook her head gravely. “That I don’t know. But if Longchance seeks trouble hard enough he’s sure to find it sooner or later. I expect your father will be here shortly. When he arrives … he, your uncle, the others … will be certain the matter is addressed.”