38
THE ART OF ASKING QUESTIONS
‘What d’you want, thief-taker?’ Threehands sounded
sullen now. The one at the end who’d been bleeding had slumped
sideways. He wasn’t breathing any more.
‘Mudlarks,’ said
Master Sy with infinite patience. ‘You know, people like you. They
come across the river. They go up the canal. They steal from ships
in the harbour. They come back again. You must know something about
that. You’re not shifting what they steal, but nothing comes
through Talsin’s Forest without you knowing about it. And these are
your friends. So you must know something.’
Threehands wrinkled
his nose and shrugged. ‘You’re fishing for turds, thief-taker.
Nothing goes up and down the canal any more. Not even the shit that
used to float down from Pelean’s Gate.’ He glanced at Berren and
sneered. ‘There’s always a few of the emperor’s new soldiers
floating face-down in the water, but they ain’t got anything and
they don’t go anywhere. Mudlarks, though?’ He shrugged again and
stuck out his bottom lip. ‘Plenty of us about. Don’t know nothing
about any coming across the daughter. So now you’ve had your fun
and wasted your time, why don’t you take your pet house-boy out of
here and stick your sword up his stained glass where it’ll be all
warm and comfortable instead of waving it in my face.’
For the first time,
the man in the middle looked up and spoke. ‘We got friends,
Undertaker. We cross the right palms with silver. You’ll never work
again after this.’
‘That so,
Blacksword?’
‘No, thief-taker.’
Threehands was shaking his head. ‘You won’t get the chance. You’ll
be saying hello to steel before the night’s done.’
‘Really, Threehands?
And who’s going to do that? I know it’s not going to be you because
when you were born someone took out your spine and put an eel in
its place. Slippery and twisting and hard to break maybe, but
you’ve not got the balls to face me in some alley, not tonight, not
ever.’
Threehands glanced at
the man beside him, the one Master Sy had called Blacksword. Berren
took a step away, still holding the crossbow ready. He wasn’t sure
which one of them bothered him the most. Threehands with his
swearing and his cursing, who obviously meant every word of it. Or
the other one who didn’t say anything, but whose eyes spoke of too
many dead men at his feet.
‘Lad, you don’t know
these folks, so let me tell you something about them. Threehands
here gets his name because even when you can see the two hands on
the ends of his arms, he’s got another one in your pocket.
Blacksword, you might think he got his name from some piece of
wicked-looking steel, but actually he got it from a whore. Bits
rotted off, didn’t they, eh Blacksword?’
‘You want to lick
them, thief-taker?’ Blacksword yawned. When he looked up at all,
mostly he looked at Berren rather than at Master Sy. Every time it
made Berren shiver. Yes, boy, I’m looking at
you. Remembering you. Remembering who you are.
Master Sy shook his
head. ‘See, lad. These are a pair of thieves who think they own the
world. Little men who all started like you. Remember that, lad.
Once upon a time they walked the streets clearing dung for a penny
a week. Now Threehands here thinks he matters. He’s got men like
your Master Hatchet wrapped around his finger. He pays money to the
city so that people like me leave him alone. Don’t you,
Threehands?’
Threehands blew a
snort and shook his head. ‘You don’t know the half of it,
thief-taker. Piss off now and maybe I’ll give you until nightfall
to get out of the city.’
‘He runs his gangs
and he buys men like Blacksword here to keep men like me away from
him.’ Master Sy grinned. ‘How’s that working out for you,
Threehands? Anyway, lad. He thinks he’s important, too important
for us to touch him. He really does. Well, lad, here’s your first
real lesson. You ain’t worth a brown bit as a thief-taker if the
thieves don’t soil their trousers when they see you coming. ’ He
lunged forward and took a back-handed swing with his sword so fast
that Berren wasn’t sure whether he’d seen it right. No one moved.
Then Blacksword spasmed, gurgled, and half his face fell off. He
rolled over onto the floor, twitching and arching his back. Master
Sy’s sword had caved in his temple on one side and come out of his
cheek on the other, splitting him neatly in two along a line that
ran just under his nose. Berren gulped. The thief-taker rounded on
Threehands. Threehands backed away into a corner.
‘You . . . You . . .
You can’t! I’m going to mess you up, thief-taker. I’m going to
carve you so bad that your mother won’t recognise you.’ The
sneering disdain was all gone now, though. Berren could see
Threehands for what he really was. A coward.
‘My mother’s dead,’
said Master Sy shortly. ‘My father too, before you go there. Thank
you for bringing back those painful memories. You make what I have
to do now so much easier.’ He sheathed his sword and jumped onto
Threehands, dragging him to his feet. Berren skittered away.
Madness! Threehands was beaten and broken, but he was also a lot
bigger than Master Sy. He wasn’t about to miss out on his
opportunity, either. He went for the thief-taker with everything he
had, fists and feet. Berren stumbled back to the door, ready to
run. The two men were too close and moving around each other too
fast for him to dare the crossbow. And yet, as he watched,
something strange happened. For all that Threehands looked bigger
and stronger, he never seemed to land a punch on Master Sy. He
lunged, and every time the thief-taker somehow wasn’t there. Master
Sy, on the other hand, landed blow after blow. Not like Threehands’
great swinging fists, but short punches that seemed to find their
mark every time, mostly into the ribs and kidneys. Punch after
punch after punch, and then Threehands gave a roar and hurled
himself at Master Sy and somehow ended up face-down on the floor.
The thief-taker landed on his back with a tiny knife in his hand.
He put it straight to Threehands’ throat. Berren watched, heart
pounding. Half of him wanted to run, but a macabre curiosity held
him fast.
‘Mudlarks,’ the
thief-taker said, and with a flick of his wrist cut off an ear.
Threehands screamed. ‘Canal.’ He stabbed the knife into Threehands’
shoulder and twisted. Threehands shrieked again. The knife moved
back to Threehands’ throat. ‘Everything you know. Right
now.’
‘Khrozus’ blood!’
Threehands squirmed like and eel but Master Sy had him fast.
‘Kelm’s Teeth! Pelean’s screaming ghost!’
‘That’s the feel of a
blade inside your flesh. I’m just going to keep on going deeper and
deeper until I hear what I want to hear. Yes, yes, keep wriggling
and squirming. It’s a good test for me. I’ll do my best not to cut
into anything important until I decide I want
to.’ Master Sy leaned forward to shout the last three words
into Threehands’ ear.
Berren’s skin
prickled. Half of him still wanted to run, but now he wasn’t sure
which one of the two men scared him the most.
‘Yes, yes, yes. Don’t
kill me, thief-taker. Your promise. Your word.’
‘Tell me what I want
to hear and I’ll leave you alive, Threehands. My word as a
gentleman.’
‘Yeh. Right. Whatever
you think that is. Ahhhh!’ Threehands screwed up his face as Master
Sy tightened his grip. ‘Yeh, yeh. There are mudlarks who go up the
canal now and then. Something to do with the docks. I don’t know
what they do there.’
‘How do they get into
the inner city, Threehands?’
‘How should I know?
Find out for yourself, thief-taker. Maybe they fly. Maybe they turn
invisible. Maybe they’re snow-faeries in disguise.’
‘Not helpful,
Threehands, not helpful. No, that’s not enough to keep you alive.
Where do they leave their boats?’
‘The usual place,
thief-taker. We look after them until they come back.’
‘For a
price.’
‘Do I look like a
bleeding philosopher?’ He squealed as Master Sy twisted the
knife.
‘Philanthropist. What
about once they get into the city?’
‘Not my patch and you
know it, thief-taker. Could be anything. Don’t much care as long as
they pays their dues to pass up the canal. Stuff in the docks, is
what I heard. Like you said.’
‘What stuff in the
docks?’ Master Sy shifted his weight, digging a knee harder into
Threehands’ back. Threehands groaned.
‘I don’t know! They’re just hands, I know that much.
They don’t even know what they’re heading over to do. Someone
inside the city tells them. Something to do with ships. That’s all
I know!’
‘Yes, yes.’ Master Sy
sighed. ‘Sad thing is, that’s probably true. Well let’s suppose I
have a fair idea who it is. You still haven’t told me enough for me
to have bothered coming out here. I could have guessed all this
from the comfort of my rocking chair. What about coming back? How
do they come back? That’s what I really want to know.’
‘Same way. They come
back the next night, right late and always soaking wet and
stinking. Straight out of the canal. Out from under the water like
they’re fish-men or something.’
‘Are they fish-men?’
‘Don’t be a half-wit,
thief-taker. There’s no such thing. That’s just stories for
frightening the likes of your soldier-boy. ’
Master Sy smiled. ‘Do
they have poles with them, Threehands. Short bamboo
poles?’
‘Yeh.’ Through the
pain, Threehands managed to sound puzzled. ‘How’d you
know?’
The smile grew wider.
Master Sy withdrew his knife. ‘They walk under the water,
Threehands, breathing through tubes. That’s how they get through
Shipwrights. People would notice boats, but the tip of a pole? In
the dark? That would work. Thank you, Threehands. That’s the last
piece of the puzzle.’ For a moment, the thief-taker relaxed.
Straight away, Threehands convulsed, kicking his legs up and
twisting, trying to free himself. He almost managed it, but after a
few seconds of furious grunting, the thief-taker had him pinned
again.
‘Now now,
Threehands.’
‘You got what you
want and you’ve killed three of mine already. Now piss off before
you become the most important thing in the rest of my
life.’
‘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.