39
TO
HAVE AND TO HOLD
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.
No, wait! He stopped.
Out of breath, he walked slowly back up to the Barrow and peered
inside. The tavern was full, its tiny shutters open wide, flooding
the street around it with the noise of talk and the smell of stale
beer and a whiff of Moongrass. Cautiously, Berren left the crossbow
in the shadows and pushed his way inside. Men stopped what they
were saying and watched; they didn’t stare, but they followed him
with their eyes nonetheless. This time Berren didn’t care. He
pushed his way to where Kasmin was standing with some of his
customers, chuckling at some joke one of them had made. They
stopped when they saw Berren. The old man’s eyes narrowed and his
lips drew back to show his teeth. Kasmin made more sense now. He,
too, knew what the thief-taker could do. That was why he’d been so
scared.
Berren bowed. A
perfect bow, exactly as Master Sy had taught him. ‘Sir. I need your
help.’
‘If Syannis wants
something more, tell him to come and ask for it himself.’ He
glanced left and right at the men beside him. ‘At another
time.’
‘My master didn’t
send me, sir. I am asking your help for me, sir.’
‘You?’ Kasmin sneered
half-heartedly. It was a show, Berren realised. For the men who
were with him. He set himself firm.
‘I need a blade, sir.
A sword.’
The men around Kasmin
roared with laughter. Kasmin didn’t even blink. ‘I have no swords
here, boy, and even if I did they wouldn’t be for
you.’
‘I need—!’ he started
to shout, but a cuff round the face knocked him to the
floor.
‘What you need is
manners,’ snarled Kasmin. He grabbed Berren by the shirt and hauled
him to his feet; then lifted him up into the air and carried him
through the bar and threw him out the door. He stared as Berren
shakily got back to his feet.
‘Sir . . .’ However
much it hurt, he couldn’t give up. He couldn’t face Jerrin and his
gang alone. Not if he hoped to win.
‘Now piss off!’
Kasmin roared, and he turned and strode back into his tavern to a
chorus of raucous shouting. Berren made a series of angry gestures
at the men staring at him through the windows and hurried away. A
minute later he was back, though, this time in the yard behind the
tavern, skulking in the shadows. Kasmin had to have a sword in
there somewhere, he just had to, and one way or another, Berren
needed it. He watched the door to the back of the tavern. He’d been
this way already once.
The door opened.
Kasmin rolled out an empty barrel into the yard. Then he looked
straight at where Berren was hiding. He stood still, then let out a
long breath. ‘Whoever you are, I can smell you. So who’s
there?’
Other times Berren
might have run, but not tonight. If it came to that then he was
closer to the gate than Kasmin. He stepped out into the evening
gloom.
‘Sir, I need a
sword.’
Kasmin shook his head
and laughed. ‘You’re one persistent stable-mucker, aren’t you?
Khrozus!’ he shrugged. ‘I meant what I said. I don’t have a sword
and I wouldn’t give it to you if I did. And no matter what Syannis
and I used to be, if you come into my tavern again like that, I’ll
do more than throw you out onto the street. You’re a thief-taker,
boy. Whatever was once between your master and me, you’re not
welcome here.’
‘I need . .
.’
Kasmin rolled his
eyes to the sky. ‘What bit of no don’t
you understand?’
‘Then will you at
least hold a message for me, for Master Sy?’
‘Fine. Make it
quick.’
‘If I don’t come
back, tell him I went looking for Lilissa. She’s a friend to Master
Sy.’
‘Well her mother was
at least,’ muttered Kasmin. ‘Heard that much.’
‘Tell him Jerrin
One-Thumb took her and I went after him. Tell him . . .’ And then
it all came out, about what he’d found when he’d gone looking for
her, about One-Thumb and the Harbour Men and The Maze and the
harbour-master’s snuffers. Kasmin just stood there. Didn’t move,
didn’t blink. Just stood.
‘Bit long,’ he said,
when Berren finally finished. ‘Don’t know if I’ll remember all
that. But I suppose I got the bits that matter.’ He took a long
look at Berren and sighed. ‘How many of these “Harbour Men” are
there?’
Berren shrugged. ‘At
least five. Probably seven or eight.’ Yeh. Might even be that, he
mused to himself. Jerrin had had friends outside Master Hatchet’s
gang.
‘Then a sword won’t
help you, boy, not when you don’t know how to use it and I ain’t
got one anyway. Go home. Wait for Syannis.’
‘I know Jerrin. He’ll
. . .’ He couldn’t bring himself to say it. ‘He might hurt
her.’
‘He might just hurt
her anyway. After he’s done with killing you.’
Berren said nothing,
just stuck out his jaw. He was going. Right now. No matter what. If
Stealer and a crossbow with one bolt were all he had, then Stealer
and a crossbow with one bolt would just have to do.
Kasmin tipped his
head back and swore loudly at the sky. ‘Ah, for the love of . . .’
He sighed and threw up his hands in despair. ‘Look, boy. If I pass
your message on to Syannis, he’s going to know you were here. And
then he’s going to ask me why I didn’t stop you.’
Berren took a step
towards the street. ‘Because you couldn’t catch me.’
‘Fine. Reckon that
might even be true. Wait there.’ Without pausing for an answer,
Kasmin turned and strode into his tavern. When he came out again,
he was holding a long knife in a sheath. He tossed it at Berren’s
feet. ‘Better for you than a sword. Anyone ever tell you anything
about how to fight? At all?’
Master Sy’s words
were there in his head, just as the thief-taker had spoken them.
‘Run. If you can’t run, stick them good and hard and watch it all
the way.’
‘Good advice as any.’
The old man shook his head. ‘You know you’re fighting too many,
don’t you? You know you’re going to get yourself killed,
right?’
Berren shrugged. He
hadn’t really given it much thought, truth be told. It was a thing
that needed to be done and that was all there was.
‘Going to do it
anyway, eh? Well you bring me my knife back, boy. My lucky blade,
that is. Saved my life twice since I gave up soldiering and came to
this godsforsaken hole of a city. Hold it close, boy. Pick them off
one by one. Don’t play fair. Don’t let them see you coming. Kill
’em from a distance with that crossbow. Ach,’ he waved Berren away.
‘Why am I wasting my breath on you. You’ll be dumb and you’ll get
yourself killed or else you’ll get lucky and learn something.
That’s pretty much how it goes. I could feel that mail you’ve got
on under your shirt. Make the most of it. Now piss off. I got
customers.’ He turned and stamped back inside. Berren watched him
go.
‘Thank you,’ he
called. He tucked the knife and its sheath into his trousers.
Picking up his crossbow and wrapping Master Sy’s coat around him,
he set off once more for Trickle Street. Strange thing was, even
though he knew Kasmin was probably right, he didn’t feel scared at
all.