17
THE DISAPPOINTING TRUTH
‘If you’re going to come with me when I make my
rounds, you need to be properly dressed.’ They were back in the
thief-taker’s house. ‘Take your shirt off and then wait here.’ With
that, Master Sy trotted up his creaking stairs into his tiny little
bedroom. Berren heard him walk across the floor and stop at the far
wall. There was a chest there. He knew that. He’d seen it through
the crack when Master Sy had left the door open once.
He looked at his arm.
The wound was still scabbed, still bled if he picked at it, but it
was healing. Another few weeks and it would be gone. Just an angry
red scar in its place. One-Thumb’s mark.
The thief-taker came
down again, carrying something that jingled. Coins, was Berren’s
first thought, lots of small coins; but then the thief-taker laid
out a piece of metal cloth on the table. Ringmail, Berren realised,
after he stared at it for a second. It was a short sleeveless shirt
made out of ringmail. It had seen better days, too. Some of the
links were rusted and it had a rip where something had punched
through it. The sort of hole that an arrow might have made, only
bigger.
Berren ran his
fingers around the edge of the hole. The metal was sharp and
jagged. Definitely too big for an arrow. A spear,
maybe.
‘Beggars can’t be
choosers,’ snapped the thief-taker. ‘It was hard to find something
small enough for a runt like you. You want it or not?’
It wasn’t quite what
Berren imagined when he saw his future self. Dashing swordsman,
yes, blade in hand. Sometimes with a blade in each hand. Inns,
taverns, wenches, fights, but always fights won with panache and
exquisite skill. Yes, he would kill men, men like Jerrin One-Thumb,
but it would be a blur of speed and deadly precision. He would be
like Master Sy in the alley.
The ringmail shirt,
on the other hand, looked like the sort of thing that let you
stagger and crawl away when without it you’d be dead. Except for
the hole where someone obviously hadn’t done anything much but lie
where they were and die anyway. It didn’t look very
heroic.
‘Stupid boy,’ snapped
Master Sy. ‘You think you’re too good for this, eh? You might as
well come out and say it since it’s written all over your face. You
think I’m going to teach sword-fighting to someone who can’t even
be bothered to protect themselves? What a waste that would be.’ He
sniffed, and then unfastened his own shirt. Berren stared. Master
Sy’s armoured vest didn’t have any holes in it. It looked as though
it was made of considerably finer steel too, but it was there
nonetheless. When Berren squinted, it seemed to have a sheen of
colours to it, a slight shimmer of gold or deep blue depending how
the light caught it. ‘See. Are you still too good to wear
steel?’
Berren was still
staring. ‘That’s amazing. Is it magic?’
The anger in Master
Sy’s face faded away. ‘It’s sunsteel, lad. Forged by solar priests
and imbued with their blessing. There are some who say that it has
sorcerous properties. It’s tough, I can tell you that. Best metal
there is for weapons and armour except maybe moonsteel, and as far
as I know, the only forged piece of that in the entire city is the
Overlord’s sword.’ He blew out his cheeks and sat down. ‘You’ll
need an under-vest before you put that on to stop it chaffing. You
might need quite a thick one.’ He nodded at Berren’s arm. ‘I’d wrap
your scratch up, too.’
Berren stripped to
the waist. He ran up to his room and put on a vest, wrapped a
bandage around his arm and then came down and picked up the armour,
uncertain, wondering what to do with it.
‘There’s a hole in
the middle for your head. Sling it on and then lace yourself up on
either side. Nice and tight. Better to have it tight than too loose
and billowing around so everyone knows you’re wearing it. Make sure
the two halves overlap. Gaps can kill you. Chances are they won’t
but you never know where a knife might slip in. Most likely, if
anyone tries to stab you, they’ll try to stab you in the belly. But
they won’t if they know you’ve got this on. Then they’ll go for the
face, the throat, the armpit, the groin. When they do that, armour
like this just slows you down. So don’t let them know you’re
wearing it. Let them find out the hard way.’
The ringmail was
heavy but it seemed to fit him well enough. Berren set about
struggling to lace up the sides. Then he ran his finger over the
spear-hole.
‘You come with me to
do what I do, I need to know you’re safe. When you show me you can
do something more useful than run away really fast at the first
sign of any trouble, I might see about getting that fixed up for
you.’
‘It’s . . . it’s . .
.’ It wasn’t him. Wasn’t who he was going to be. No, this wasn’t
how it would be, this rusty broken mail shirt, but for now he knew
better than to complain. Act pleased, that was best. Act pleased
and hope for a lesson in swords.
‘Yeh, I’m just
swimming in your gratitude,’ grumbled the thief-taker. ‘And no, you
don’t get a sword to go with it. Not until you learn to use
one.’
Berren’s heart nearly
burst out of his chest. That was as good as promising to teach him,
wasn’t it? Master Sy was going to teach him swords!
The thief-taker
walked around behind him and undid all the lacing down both sides.
‘Tighter, lad. Much tighter. This has to fit you like a second
skin. The point is that no one knows you’ve got it on until they
stab you and then instead of falling over dead, you stab them right
back. There.’ He finished redoing the laces. Berren tried to
breathe and found that he couldn’t, at least not all the way any
more.
‘Isn’t that . . .
?’
‘No, it’s not too
tight. The lacing will give a little. By the time we get to where
we’re going, you’ll be fine.’ Master Sy grinned and patted himself
on the chest. ‘When I was forced to run away from my home, this was
one of the few things I managed to take with me. I’ve had it with
me ever since. It’s turned a blade seven times. Seven times I would
have been dead otherwise. You’ll learn, lad. The first time it
saves you, you’ll learn. Come on then. Shirt on, let’s go! No
dawdling!’
He led the way out
into the yard, through the alleys and out into Weaver’s Row and
then turned left, heading up the hill and then down the other side
towards Market Square. The sun had slipped down behind The Peak now
and everything was turning to silhouette and shadow. Weaver’s Row
was wide enough, but all around it, narrow streets and alleys
slowly filled with night. His streets,
Berren reminded himself fiercely. This was his time. Deep twilight, when honest men were
either back at their homes and in their beds or else revelling and
in their cups. This was the time when he and the other boys would
run their errands for Master Hatchet. A word here, a threat there,
sometimes a purse with a few pennies, sometimes a piece of
parchment with a poorly drawn purple blotch on it. Those were
Hatchet’s warnings. Never went down well, being handed one of
those. He’d always hated being the person who had to deliver
one.
Almost on cue he
heard a shout and then running footsteps belting away down one of
the side-streets. Somewhere nearby a dog started barking. The
thief-taker paused for the slightest instant, then kept on going.
Fifty yards or so in front of them, a bored-looking gang of street
militia ignored the sounds too. You learned quickly enough how it
worked in the city. There were the streets that were safe and then
there were the streets that weren’t. After dark, which ones you
used depended entirely on how you and the local militia got
on.
The gang was coming
up the hill towards them. They looked relaxed, didn’t seem too
bothered by anything. Berren’s stomach clenched. As they passed,
Master Sy gave them a short nod and they exchanged greetings.
Berren had to bite his lip to stop himself from walking faster. The
idea that the street militias were his friends now was going to
take some getting used to.
Master Sy was
grinning.
‘Master, where are we
going?’
‘We’re going to see
an old friend of mine who also happens to be a thief.’
Berren frowned,
trying to digest this. How could a thief-taker have a friend who
was a thief?
‘Lad, a thief-taker
has to earn his bread. There’s no reward in grabbing any old petty
pickpocket or cut-purse or robber in off the street. What would you
do with them? Take them to Justicar Kol? He doesn’t want to know.
That sort of thievery is beneath him. Take them to the street
militias? You could if you wanted to but they’ll not thank you for
it and they’ll certainly not pay you.’ He shook his head. ‘If I see
a thief cut a purse and I hunt him down and teach him the error of
his ways, it’s because I hate thieves, that’s all. But this thief
is a friend.’
‘But . . .’ That
still didn’t explain why Master Sy was
friends with a thief.
Abruptly Master Sy
stopped. They were close to the edge of Market Square, still well
lit with night time braziers and torches. Like the docks, the
market never quite went to sleep. It thinned out a lot, but there
were always people there trying to sell something and always people
willing to buy.
‘Look down there.’
Master Sy frowned. ‘You can’t really see it in the dark. I’d heard
of this city, you know, long before I ever came here. Even in my
far-away little backwater, we’d heard about Deephaven. And do you
know what made it so famous to us? That.’ He pointed. ‘The thing
that you can’t see down the end of that street. The Upside-Down
Temple. I’d heard of that long before everything went wrong and . .
.’ He shook himself. ‘When I was younger than you, I always wanted
to come here, just to see the Upside-Down Temple. I thought it must
be the most amazing thing in the world. And then when I did get
here, I had nothing more than the clothes on my back, the sword on
my belt and a belly full of revenge. I had other things to do. It
was more than a year before I was ready to come and see it. It was
like a prize I was going to give myself once I’d started a new life
and at least pretended to abandon the one I’d had.’
The thief-taker took
a deep breath and sighed. ‘And then when I’d done all that and I
did come here, it was tiny. After everything I’d thought it would
be, it was such a disappointment.’ He put a hand on Berren’s
shoulder. ‘Most people are the same, lad,’ he said gently.
‘Especially at your age. Like thief-takers who turn out to wear a
secret skin of armour, maybe. You learn to live with it. Get used
to it, even. And then when you meet someone who isn’t, it’s hard
not to like them. Even if they’re a thief.’ He let out a heavy
sigh. ‘Of course, when in the end they let you down like everyone
else, you’ll feel it all the harder.’