7
A CUP OF TEA AND A BAD TASTE

‘Myla! Soraya! Lucius!’ Halfway across the square, a boy of about seven bolted across the stones. Two girls, somewhat younger, ran after him waving wooden swords. ‘Come here!’ The girls ran straight in front of Berren, forcing him to lurch sideways, but that just made him collide with the woman running after them instead. They both staggered away, the woman calling out a stream of apologies, Berren too busy checking his purse to hear what she’d said. Old habits died hard. He watched as the woman caught up with first the girls and then the boy, picking them up in her arms one after the other and scolding them soundly while they giggled and laughed. They were rich, you could see that from their clothes. Almost anyone who came up to The Peak was either rich or a novice at the temple.

‘Come on, lad!’ Master Sy was already a dozen yards ahead. ‘No time to dawdle.’

Berren sighed. Here he was, apprenticed to Master Syannis, the best thief-taker in Deephaven. He’d earned his first golden emperor at the age of thirteen. Not been given it, but earned it. He was learning letters, even if he hated them, in the great temple of the Sun. He’d earned the gratitude of a prince and he was about to be taught swords by the greatest fighters in the empire. And yet …

And yet?

And yet sometimes he would have given it all to be a fishmonger’s son, quiet and dim and unassuming, amounting to nothing very much and yet oafishly content.

‘Come on, come on! They’ll ring the bell for midday prayers soon and then we might as well forget about being served in here.’ Master Sy pushed open an impressive door of dark carved wood. Berren followed him into a dim room. The air was rich, thick with a hundred different scents and spices – sweet jasmine, bitter liquorice, pungent nutmeg and cloves and cinnamon, all layered over flowers and pipeweed and tea. Even Master Sy paused as though taken aback.

‘Right.’ The thief-taker pushed on deeper into the tea-house. The room was nearly empty except for a pair of girls about Berren’s age who were wearing … Berren squinted. They were dressed like pageboys except they very obviously weren’t. They wore their shirts loose and their breeches tight. As Master Sy approached, they smiled and bowed. Berren stared, hoping they’d bow to him too, but they didn’t. He caught Master Sy looking at him, one eyebrow raised.

‘The proprietors of the Golden Cup know very well who their patrons are.’ The thief-taker wrinkled his nose. ‘Fat old men who like to leer.’ The two serving girls exchanged a glance and giggled. Master Sy bowed back to them and then asked for a string of things that Berren had never heard of. It was as though he’d suddenly started speaking another language, something completely alien like the tongue of the black-skinned sea-traders. The girls seemed to understand, though; they nodded and hurried away. Berren wistfully watched them go, thinking of them beside the sword-monk who was supposed to be his teacher. See, now that was how a girl was supposed to look …

‘Mouth closed, boy.’ Master Sy was already sitting down. Berren quickly followed beside him.

‘They were …’ He looked for the right word and couldn’t find it.

‘Lovely?’ offered Master Sy. Berren nodded. That would have to do. They were like all the best of the women he’d seen with the prince, the curved beauties from the higher reaches of Reeper Hill, mixed with the honest earthiness of Lilissa. If there was a word for that, he didn’t know it.

‘Gorgeous,’ he sighed.

‘The Grim has the pick of all the girls in the city, or at least the poor ones, which amounts to much the same. Rich men come here, and I promise you: every girl The Grim puts to work becomes a mistress to one of them. Sometimes a man in the throes of passion lets slip a little secret or two. Sometimes those secrets somehow make their way back The Grim. Somehow, to some, this comes as a surprise.’ He raised an eyebrow and shrugged. ‘Rich fools. Deephaven’s contribution to the empire.’

‘The Grim?’ Berren snorted. Last he’d heard, The Grim had been some pirate who’d made his fortune during the civil war before Berren had been born. He’d been a pirate then and the rumours around The Peak were that he was still a pirate now, just a different sort of pirate. Hardly a dirty old man running a tea-house, surely?

‘Yes. I hear he chooses them himself.’ Master Sy leaned back and spread out his arms. ‘The Golden Cup. They say they brew the best tea in the city and bake the best pastries. Master Mardan and Master Fennis both swear these teahouses will be all the rage soon. Deephaven will be full of them and then Varr and the City of Spires and everywhere else in the empire. I think Master Fennis is even considering throwing in his sword and giving up thief-taking altogether to go and start one in Varr.’ He laughed. ‘Can’t see it myself. You imperials are all too dark and dour and gloomy for something like this. I gather the prince came here soon after he arrived and didn’t think much of it at all. I told Fennis he should try his luck further south. Go to Torpreah or Helhex where it’s warmer. Varr?’ He shook his head, still laughing. ‘The place is buried in snow for half the year. What would they do with a house like this?’ Then he frowned. ‘Keep your eyes open for Kol. He’s supposed to be joining us.’

He was interrupted as one of the serving girls came back with a silver tray. She leaned over the table, laying out an array of small silver cups and bowls. Berren tried not to stare. The girl wore her shirt loose. You could see all the way down to …

For an instant she caught his eye. Hastily, Berren looked away, blushing furiously. The girl smiled very slightly then finished by setting down a plate with a dozen tiny little things that Berren might have called cakes if they’d been about ten times bigger.

‘Is there anything else I can give you gentlemen?’ she asked, glancing again at Berren. Yes, Berren wanted to say, but all the air had been sucked out of him. Master Sy smiled politely.

‘Thank you, that will be all.’

The girl left. ‘Master, don’t you …?’

‘This isn’t Reeper Hill,’ said Master Sy sharply. ‘They’re not ground-floor girls here, and even if they were, the likes of you and I couldn’t afford them.’

‘But.’ But what? He sighed again. Master Sy was frowning. He never liked talking about women.

‘Right. While we’re waiting for Kol, watch carefully while I show you how this works. Not that you’re ever likely to need to know how to pour tea properly, but you might as well learn.’

The thief-taker started doing things with the teapot and the various minuscule bowls of this and that. Berren pretended to pay attention while watching the serving girls out of the corner of his eye. He couldn’t stop thinking about the monks, either. As soon as they were done here, he was going to get to see them fight. A demonstration! And then after that, they were going to teach him! The best sword-monks in the whole world and they were going to teach him! Him! He couldn’t sit still.

Maybe she was actually a boy who happened to look a bit like a girl. They wouldn’t really make him train with a girl, would they?

‘I’ll give up, shall I?’ grumbled Master Sy. He didn’t sound angry. If anything, he was almost smiling, something Berren rarely got to see. ‘No, no, you’re right. You go ahead and stare at pretty girls. I suppose you deserve it. We did very well out of His Highness’s stay here.’ The thief-taker patted his pocket. ‘I’ve got a handful of silver crowns for you. Our prince certainly pays better than Justicar Kol ever did, and the justicar, when he bothers to get here, owes me a purse too.’ His almost-smile turned into a full grin. ‘And with half the city’s thief-takers on bodyguard duty for the last few months, I’m sure Kol’s got a nice backlog of bounties that need sorting out. He’s probably pissing himself thinking that we’re all going to retire or else spend the next few months in our cups while the city goes to rats.’ The thief-taker lifted his teacup. He closed Berren’s fingers around the other cup and lifted Berren’s hand into the air between them. Then he touched the two cups together. ‘Here’s to us then, lad. The best thief-takers in the city. What shall it be this time? There’s goods going missing in the sea-docks again.’ There were always goods going missing in the sea-docks. Ever since one of the harbour-masters had tried to have them both killed, Master Sy had taken to watching them all. Every one of them had their fingers in something.

Berren shook his head. ‘Can we do something else? I’m bored of the docks and they all still think it was one of us who murdered that fat bastard VenDormen.’

‘They do.’ For a moment, Master Sy smiled again. ‘Don’t you find that very useful? Makes them all nicely scared of us.’

‘Makes them keep their mouths shut too.’

‘Some of them.’ The thief-taker shrugged. ‘There have been barges robbed down at the river docks. Whole cargoes vanishing in the night.’

‘Mudlarks,’ sniffed Berren. ‘Kol just wants an excuse to send you over there with some of his soldiers to burn them out again.’

‘Probably.’

‘What about whoever it was who tried to break into the prince’s rooms, eh? Isn’t there a reward up for that?’

Master Sy snorted. ‘Won’t be from Kol. He doesn’t usually worry too much about people getting murdered. Things getting stolen, that’s more his interest. There’s been some curious stuff showing up in the night markets of late. A few wagoners getting a little too rich. Velgian tells me they even had Taki black powder. Maybe we’ll start there.’

‘But no one else even saw what happened!’ Berren had a picture clear in his mind. A silhouette in the scent garden of the Watchman’s Arms. Short with two swords slung across his back, almost exactly like a sword-monk.

‘Lad, that’s trouble of the worst sort. Best you keep out of it.’ Which was the thief-taker’s way of saying he was already thinking about it. ‘I tell you what interests me: someone broke into the courthouse a while back. Killed two guards and stole some papers. Kol’s paying well to get whoever did it. Very well.’

Berren shrugged. He was just the apprentice, after all. He wasn’t sure he cared what they did. He’d be stuck in the temple learning letters and swords for however long the sword-monks were here anyway. Master Sy could go and do what he liked.

Learning swords from a girl. He shuddered.

The thief-taker wasn’t smiling now. If anything he was looking angry. Outside, across the square in the Temple of the Sun, the noon bells started to ring, calling the faithful to prayer. ‘No.’ Master Sy shook his head. ‘Best leave that one well alone.’

Berren shrugged again. ‘What if it was a monk?’ he asked, eyeing the serving girls as they walked past.

‘Then you’d be dead and the prince too most likely. Might as well ask if it was one of ours. A bad thief-taker.’

‘Don’t they all go bad, sooner or later?’ That’s what Master Sy used to tell him. Don’t trust any of the others. Too much temptation.

The thief-taker glared at him. ‘Go on then, lad, who was it?’

‘Can’t be Master Mardan or Master Fennis. Too tall, both of them.’

‘Velgian’s worse with a blade than with those fearful rhymes of his.’ The thief-taker laughed. ‘Did you know he got mugged? He was down near the river docks on his way back from the River Gate the day after your little set-to at the Watchman’s Arms and he got jumped, right outside the House of Cats and Gulls. Couple of mudlarks. One of them thumped him in the face, the other one cut his purse and they left him there, sitting on his arse in the slime with nothing but a bloody nose to show for it.’ Master Sy shook his head. ‘Some thief-taker, eh? Tiarth isn’t in the city at the moment. I suppose there’s plenty of others though. Plenty of snuffers too.’ The Golden Cup was growing noisy. Even though the temple bells were still pealing, men were coming through the doors in a steady stream. Fat men, mostly, all of them dressed in rich clothes. For a moment, Berren forgot about Master Sy. He stared open-mouthed as one of them groped the serving girls and laughed to his friends. The girls put on a good show of being amused. Whether they meant it or not, Berren couldn’t tell.

‘Money, lad,’ hissed the thief-taker. ‘The guild-house is right next door. A few pious fellows go out across the square to the temple for midday prayers. Most of them come in here for Grim’s sweetmeats. They have riches, lad, more than you can dream. They can make you into a prince of the city or they can swat you away without even blinking. These are the ones who pay Justicar Kol, these men. We take their coin. Everyone does, one way or the other, even your precious prince. Watch them closely by all means, but do it with care.’

Master Sy finished his tea and poured himself another. For a few minutes they watched the growing crowd in silence together. Now and then the thief-taker would point out a face and whisper a name. As the Golden Cup grew full, one of the serving girls slipped over and whispered in Master Sy’s ear. The thief-taker nodded. A moment after she went, he got to his feet.

‘Come on, lad. I don’t know what’s happened to Kol, but we don’t want to be late for your monks.’

Berren frowned. He knew exactly how long noon prayers took and it was longer than this. He glanced down at the pastries still left on the table.

‘In your pockets, lad.’ They didn’t even go out the same way they’d come in; they slipped out the back as though they were servants.

‘She asked us to leave, didn’t she?’

Master Sy didn’t answer, but once they were outside, he stopped. The look on his face when he turned was enough to make Berren take a step back.

‘The Golden Cup isn’t for us, lad. It’s for fat f–’ He took a deep breath. The anger fell into slow retreat. He seemed to reach for some different words but couldn’t find any. Eventually he simply shook his head. ‘Not for the likes of us. That’s all there is to it. Come on, lad. I don’t think we’ll be coming back.’