42
THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY
They sat at a table together in the Golden Hart, the
closest tavern to The Peak that Master Sy was prepared to afford.
It was a place where rich people went, not thief-takers, and
certainly not a dung-boy cut-purse from Shipwrights. It was the
middle of the day, the sort of time when a place like this was
quiet and empty, but the few people there still stared at them
both, muttering under their breath as Berren and Master Sy passed
their tables. The tavern-keeper, on the other hand, didn’t seem
bothered in the least. He gave the thief-taker a nod as if they
were old friends. Almost before Master Sy was in his seat, a whole
roasted duck was set down on the table in front of them. Then
bread, still warm from the oven, two glasses, and a bottle of
something dark and red. Master Sy picked up the bottle and turned
it over in his hand. He was smiling.
‘Now that’s something
you don’t get to see every day.’ He sighed a happy sigh. He was
limping, Berren had noticed. Not badly, but enough that Berren
could see. ‘You drink much wine in Shipwrights, lad?’
Berren nodded
vigorously. Watery stuff that Hatchet’s boys stole from Club-Headed
Jin when they got the chance, which wasn’t very often. And then
they’d wait for Hatchet to be asleep or drunk, and they’d get it
out and pass it from one to another in the dark. Times like that
they’d all been a gang together.
Times like that. Yeh.
He’d spent most of the night lying awake, thinking of One-Thumb
lying dead in the dirt. Thinking of the horror on Lilissa’s face
when she’d seen the blood on his hands. He’d gone to Trickle Street
to save her, to win her, and somehow, in the saving, he’d lost her.
He’d seen it in her eyes even as they were leaving. It left a
bitter taste, one that jarred with the thief-taker’s good
humour.
Times like that. Yeh.
Times like that hadn’t come around too often. Mostly they’d been at
each others’ throats, like cats in a cage.
‘Well not like this
you haven’t.’ Master Sy broke the wax seal around the bottle’s neck
and levered the cork out with a knife. ‘This is from my home, lad.
It’s come halfway around the world to be here. Just like me.’ He
poured one for himself and then tipped a thimbleful into Berren’s
glass. ‘Mind, though. Remember the beer in the Eight Pillars of
Smoke. This is stronger stuff. Try not to make an idiot of
yourself. Sip it. If you gulp it, it’ll knock you flat. Like all
the best things in life.’
Berren took a sip.
Even as the wine touched his lips, it seemed to steal into his
mouth, setting his tongue on fire. He recoiled and coughed and the
thief-taker laughed. Then Master Sy tore a wing off the duck and
waved at Berren to eat.
‘What happened to
your leg, master?’
‘Oh, I landed badly
chasing one of the Dag’s pirates in the tunnels under Reeper Hill.’
He shrugged.
‘Did you get
them?’
‘They were there
right enough. Hiding away with their loot. Caught them red-handed.
Unfortunately Justicar Kol and his soldiers got there first. Kol
himself.’ He shook his head. ‘I forget, sometimes, that our
Justicar used to swing a sword with the best of them. No.’ He
sighed. ‘Our pirates are all done now. We did what Kol wanted us to
do. We got the Bloody Dag out of Siltside and then we rounded up
his men and now they’re all dead or on their way to the mines and
that’s the end of it.’ Master Sy’s lips twitched, as though he’d
tasted something sour. Berren paused between stuffing strips of
juicy meat into his mouth.
‘What about . . .
?’
‘And where were you
last night?’ This time the thief-taker raised a knowing eyebrow.
Berren flushed and looked away.
‘I went to Mistress
Lilissa, like you said. Just in case.’
‘Hmmm.’ Master Sy
nodded. ‘Didn’t do anything you shouldn’t, I hope.’
Berren shook his
head. What was he supposed to say? Master Sy always knew
everything, always. ‘I kept her safe,’ he said, which was at least
true. ‘I didn’t touch her. I just kept her safe.’
‘Then you did good.’
The thief-taker sniffed and gave Berren a look that cut like glass.
‘Kasmin came by in the small hours. Seems there was some trouble in
the Barrow of Beer last night.’ His eyes didn’t flinch and Berren
felt like they’d nailed him to his chair. ‘He didn’t say much as to
what it was about. Mentioned something about you having a run-in
with a gang from the docks.’
Berren opened his
mouth, but at the sight of the thief-taker, everything he could
think of to say dived straight back down his throat. The
thief-taker raised a hand. ‘I don’t think I want to know anything
about it. Kasmin said you did good, and he doesn’t say that about
much. I half expected to pay a visit to Mistress Lilissa and find
you a bloody mess on the floor again, but no, the next thing I know
you’re on my doorstep. And not even a scratch. Although you do look
as though you were up for most of the night.’
‘Talking.’ Berren
gave a non-committal shrug. Yeh, they’d talked. Not for long,
though. He’d spent most of the night roaming the city. Lilissa’s
face when she’d looked at him had been too hard to bear. You could
hardly blame her for wanting a nice safe fishmonger’s son. Not
after what she’d seen. But still, looks cut worse than blades
sometimes. After that, he couldn’t have slept even if he hadn’t
kept on seeing Kasmin crack One-Thumb’s head open. ‘Did he . . . ?’
Ah, what to say that wouldn’t make things worse? But that was the
thing about Master Sy, the thing that made him the thief-taker he
was. You never knew how much he knew. And the only way to deal with
that was to say nothing at all.
‘Did he
what?’
‘Did he say anything
else?’
At last Master Sy’s
eyes wandered elsewhere and let him go. The thief-taker chuckled.
‘He said I ought to get on and teach you swords before someone else
does. I imagine he meant him.’
Berren almost jumped
out of his seat. For a moment, Jerrin’s dead face stopped staring
at him. For a moment, the memory of Lilissa closing her door was
gone. ‘Did he . . . ? And . . . ?’
‘Patience, lad.’ Very
slowly, Master Sy nodded. ‘Yes, I’ll teach you how to fight with a
sword, lad. You have my solemn promise to that. But letters first.
I’ll get the priests at the solar temple to do it. You’ll do your
letters with them by day, and in the evenings, once you’re started,
I’ll show you how to hold a sword.’
‘Priests?’ Berren’s
faced scrunched up in despair.
‘Yes, priests. You
want to learn swords, you learn letters. That’s the
price.’
Berren slumped and
rolled his eyes.
‘Be good to keep you
out the way for a few months.’ Master Sy gave him a sharp look.
‘Strange thing. Kol’s men didn’t manage to take a single one of
those pirates alive. That’s why I was doing a stupid thing like
chasing after one of them in the pitch black and ended up buggering
my foot.’ He snorted. ‘We can’t take a man like Regis down without
having someone to stand up and point a finger, and there’s no one
left who can do that. Kol doesn’t want to know. We have to let him
go. For now. So best you’re out of the way.’
‘But what about the
Dag?’
‘Already on his way
to the mines, nice and quiet. A few weeks from now he’ll be a
thousand miles away where no one gives a fig what he says. And no
one comes back from the mines. He’ll most likely be dead before the
winter.’
‘But won’t he . . .
?’ Berren shivered. He had visions of snuffers, creeping after him
everywhere he went. ‘Master, won’t the harbour-master . . . Isn’t
he going to try to . . .’
‘He’ll watch us, lad,
and we’ll watch him, and sooner or later he’ll be doing something
he shouldn’t and I’ll be there waiting for him.’
‘Yeh.’ Berren
grinned. ‘In a dark alley.’ Except every time he thought of that,
of the day he’d met the thief-taker, now he saw Jerrin
too.
The thief-taker shook
his head. ‘No, lad. Not like that. That’s not how it works. That
makes us no better than the thieves we catch. Don’t you worry. You
apply yourself to learning your letters and leave our friend the
harbour-master to me. Once I’m done with him, I promise you:
swords.’ Master Sy reached under the table. His hand came back
holding another golden emperor and he slid it across the table.
‘You still got the last one?’
Berren nodded. ‘Most
of it.’
‘You remember what I
told you to do with it?’
He nodded
again.
‘Well here’s another
one, lad. For your part. Now go and get it right this time.’ He
laughed and touched Berren lightly on the back of the hand.
‘Probably best to avoid the sea-docks, though. I’d try the Point if
I were you.’
The thief-taker
pushed back his chair and stretched. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, lad,
I was up all night and I haven’t had any sleep and even
thief-takers have to rest. So I’m going home. And you, lad, for the
rest of today you can do whatever you like. Have some
fun.’
Berren watched his
master hobble away. From behind, the limp looked worse. And then,
once the thief-taker was gone, he sat back in his chair and picked
the duck-carcass clean while he stared out of the window. The
summer sun was high and sunset was still hours away. He smiled the
happy smile of a full belly. He walked outside and stared down the
hillside towards the sea-docks and the dozens and dozens of ships
from every corner of the world, all sitting there in the gleaming
shimmering water. He had two emperors in his pocket. For a day, the
world was his.
He saw One-Thumb
again, for a moment, shouting and cursing and pleading and
whimpering, and this time he smiled at that too. He thumbed his
nose at his ghost and slowly walked down to the sea. Somehow, he
knew the thief-taker was right. Even if he didn’t quite know what
it was yet, he could be anything.
Whatever. I. Like.