Chapter Two
We should be getting back.
I say this 'cause Zoë has reappeared, after leaving me wandering through Tanath's market alone. I'm drowning in a sea of people. The clothes on display here are not as rich as at the Emperor's capital. There the colours are brighter, the materials better and the jackets a longer length. But these are still rich enough. This is a merchant town and there's plenty of money about.
But that doesn't mean they're safe. Any one of them could be a hostile. Any one of them could have a tool up their sleeve, or at their back.
Zoë looks up at me. When you struggle to make five foot two inches tall, looking up at people is a fact of life, not a metaphor. She says, "Plenty of time yet. Now, what have you got?"
I proffer my bag of supplies. In it is everything on the list, enough to feed three strapping warriors, us two girls and one boy.
I can't believe how expensive it is to buy your own food.
Zoë the thief does a double take, like the idea of paying for things startles her.
"Can't be joy using your own mint. How much was it? What! What did you verbal them down from? Oh, no."
She casts her eyes to the gods and makes little fists in front of her.
"You dropped the asking, didn't you?"
I glance around the marketplace, scanning for potential targets. Busy masses of people bustle to and fro. Everyone with something to do. Some place in this vast web of human chaos. Even the street vendors move back forth, energised, their voices carrying over the hubbub of the crowd. Cries promising only the finest meat, vegetables, linen, jewellery and more tempt the ears.
And I'm about to be publicly lectured about how the world works by a halfling thief.
"I told you to verbal them. Haggle, girl! No-one drops the asking. No, it doesn't matter if they said that is the real asking, they're blinding you. Dropping at all is slow, but dropping the asking?! Gods, it's like dealing with a scrapper."
I think scrapper means a child. I'm getting better at de-coding Zoë-speak, but sometimes I still just nod and pretend I know what she's going on about.
Passers by look at us. They seem harmless, just amused. Zoë does like to prattle.
"If I wasn't with you, you'd be short your bag by now. The others are only hanging off 'cause I said you were mine."
Mine?
"Just a thief expression. Slang."
Anyway, two did. A couple of boys.
"The little shits! You didn't rough them did you?"
No. Not badly.
Zoë sniffs and looks around, reaching into her little bag. "Serves them right for getting fingered," she says as she produces a large green apple.
"Do you want to spy some sights?"
It's not good being in the open like this. Too many angles to cover. There's a group of males staring at us, have been since we wandered into the market. Can't detect any tools, but they could be carrying concealed. And another male is studying the crowd, but paying particular attention to us. He could be the ring leader.
Zoë squints against the morning sunlight, looks over her shoulder and sighs.
"The boys are spying out your leather clad ass and most likely wondering if I'm you're girlfriend or not. And that," she jerks her thumb, "is Goran. He's a stick. Straight today."
Now she looks at me and sighs. "Constabulary. Plain clothes. He's on market law and order duty."
She says "law and order" while rolling her eyes.
"He'd normally be over here roughing me by now, but I think you give him the shivers. If he had some friends he might ask you about those big knives you're carrying, but he's not paid enough to do it alone. Are you expecting a war?"
It pays to be prepared.
"Don't you get the shivers, dear, I'll keep you safe." She smiles her big, impish smile and half her face turns into white teeth.
"Now," she says, slipping her arm around mine, "Let's go explore some more of mighty Tanath City, which you claim to have lived in for many years but curiously appear to have spied very little of. Did they keep you in a closet in the Assassins' Guild?"
She might want to say that a little louder, some of the civilians may not have heard.
"Or perhaps chained spread-eagle in the dungeon, serving to pleasure a seemingly endless line of poor, stressed out, whack job associates after they've been out on a hard night's slaughter?"
Why does she have to talk like that? Just because I'm on leave from the Guild does not mean I want them disrespected. And professional hitters are not "whack jobs". At least we have a proper guild. From what Zoë says, the Thieves' Guild sounds more like some sort of anarchist commune.
She squeaks, high pitched and girly, enjoying laughing at me. She waves at Goran, grinning at full power, bright green apple held high.
I hope she paid for that.
"Don't be slow," she says. "I stole it."
We walk through the market, me trying to disentangle my arm, struggling like a fly in a spider's web.
Zoë and I pass the squat stone keep that dominates the centre of Tanath and wander through the craftsmens' sector. Their houses are built on a tiny patch of land. Their workshops are on the ground floor, the living rooms on the floors above. The levels are built outward, getting bigger as they go. They have to do it that way, Zoë says, because land is so expensive. Buy the tiniest plot you can, and build your house out like a great oak. Your family gets bigger, just build another layer on top. Some of the structures look so top-heavy that a strong wind might blow them over.
The houses in Tanath are mostly painted black, red or blue. Those colours are cheap to make. The pitch and linseed paint is, however, a fire hazard. That's why, says Zoë, lecturing, many years ago the Councillors decreed that straw roofs should be replaced with tiles. Those that could afford to did so. This directive was quietly applauded by the Thieves' Guild, as tile will support the weight of a person. Makes sneaking across roofs so much easier. Imagine the embarrassment that ensures when a straw roof gives way, and you find yourself lying in some mark's living room with a broken leg.
This I know.
"Done some sneaking across roofs in your time, have you?"
No comment.
Tanath river bisects the town. Barges and flat-bottomed ships line the wharf, taking on and discharging boxes of all shapes and sizes. There's livestock in pens waiting passively for their fate to be decided. Bale after bale of wool is being unloaded from one barge by a stream of ant-like stevedores.
Tanath has a thriving cloth industry, says Zoë the tour guide. Which is good as it's easy to steal some nice warm clothes in the winter months. "In other cities, it can be rough for thieves in the cold. But we can go right on working."
We head across the broad stone expanse of Feldnar's Bridge. He has his statue at the either end of it. He holds his bronze sword pointing at the heavens, green now and dotted with bird shit, his shield positioned theatrically like no trained soldier would. Zoë has no idea who Feldnar was.
Finally something she doesn't know.
I scrape away at the green bronze base. It has a date on it showing it be very old. Before the time of the Unification. Which means Feldnar may have been one of those nobles who stood in opposition to his Highness. One of the barbarian kings who wages ceaseless war amongst themselves before the Emperor united the lands and brought peace. It should be torn down. This statue's presence is disrespectful to the Emperor.
Zoë lets out a very long yeeeessss.
It's true, we all owe our happiness to the Emperor.
"You need to get out more."
Zoë needs to read a history book.
"Show me one scribed before the Emperor came to power and I will."
You can't expect a thief to have respect for authority I suppose.
Zoë puts her fingers in her ears and mutters something about not wanting to hear another rant from me. She walks off down the street and doesn't take her fingers away until I've promised to drop the subject. Which I do because it's already become clear that explaining to some people how lucky they are to live in such a golden age is a waste of time. People will find something to complain about no matter what.
I catch up to her. She twirls theatrically, one hand held high, and falls backward. Either I catch her or she hits the cobblestones.
Zoë looks up at me and says, "You have strong arms. Shall we dance?"
There is no way I am participating in one of Zoë's silly dance routines.
"Maybe later then." Zoë scampers off and I follow.
Pigs cross our path, let loose by their owners to scavenge for refuse. Citizens throw their trash right out onto the street, usually missing the open sewers and occasionally hitting a passer-by. Then cries of outrage and apologies follow. Get too close to the sewer ditches in summer and your eyes will water, your nose burn.
The pigs at least clear up the mess.
"If you're really hanging, you can often find enough to chew in the piles. If the piggies haven't got to it first. You just have to time it right."
Be calm my crawling skin.
Someone almost trips over a little porcine snuffler and sends it squealing on its way with a gentle boot. A face, close, screaming at me, twisted and spitting. Muscles tighten, a breath sucked in, reflexes take control and I just about draw. Zoë tugs on my sleeve, pulling me away from the doomsayer, telling me that the end is nigh, the lord will come and purge my wickedness, I am sin. I must repent and accept him.
He says he can see the blood on me.
"Now that's a whack job," says Zoë. "Hate them. They shiver the marks, make them jumpy. There seems to be more of them every day."
We continue, past a troupe of minstrels, whose playing drowns out the prophet and his judgements. Zoë tosses them a coin as she passes.
Don't thieves take stuff, not gave it away?
"They need it more than me," she says. She looks up to the sun and gauges the time. "Besides, it was your mint."
What?
"Your joy deed for the day. Now," Zoë says as she hands my money bag back, "there's a parade happening on the main road. Soon."
I'm peering into my bag, trying to count how much is left. Sounds nice. Do you like parades?
"Ah-huh. They're wonderful. All the bright shiny colours, the entertainment, a big crowd of marks completely dreaming by the aforementioned. Candy from a scrapper."
Candy from a...? She hustles off and I'm dragged after like there's some invisible rope between us.
"Shuffle on," she says, "we need to get there or the others will have fingered all the easy pickings. We need to recover your mint."
Get my coin back?
Zoë stops, turns and takes a big breath, expelling it through her nose. She says, "It's a circle." Zoë hold up a finger and twirls it in the air. "You give, you let someone take, someone gets what they need, you get what you need. The musician needed some mint, now we need some mint so we go get one from a mark who doesn't need that mint."
Someone who doesn't need a coin?
"Yes, most people have more than they need. They hoard. Hoarding is sin. It means someone who needs misses out. Now hurry, we need to line up and look town. As town as you can look anyway. And stop repeating everything I say. It makes you sound slow."
Slow? Me?
"Forget it. Follow and learn from the master, my wee scrapper."
For Zoë, stealing came as naturally as breathing. Want. Take. Have. She'd been doing it all her life. It was a family business, and they were all involved in some form of theft or black-market activity. No need for Zoë to lie to her parents about what she did, they were positively aglow at the tales of her acquisitions. Though, years ago, she said mother had told her to stop sending lists of everything she'd stolen that week, as it would've been incriminating evidence if the letter had fallen into the wrong hands.
"In hindsight, that was a pretty slow thing to do."
Three days after she joined, Zoë comes to me with a bracelet, a gold band with an intricate inlay of deer in the forest, and their hunters. She stole it.
That is the word she used when she gave it to me.
"I stole this for you," she announced, her huge brown eyes shining. Zoë enunciated the phrase 'stole for you' in the same manner that others would say 'lovingly hand-crafted for you'.
I'm wearing that bracelet now, on my left wrist. Zoë insists. She makes her hurt face if it's not there. Citizens of Tanath have gathered along the main road through the town. Cobbled, flat and broad, you feel like you can breathe here after the narrow claustrophobic lanes of the rest of the town.
Shouts and cries up ahead, the clatter of hooves. The crowd parts. We're pushed to one side with the mass. Heads crane and peer, straining to see what's coming. The crowds noise further along rises again as they see the column. Now a troop of horse trots past us, in formation. We see scarlet jackets, gold-laced epaulettes, white breeches. We see rows of silver spear tips, pennants bearing the mark of the royal house fluttering in the breeze. We see fine mounts, chestnut, grey, black, roan. We see Imperial lancers.
A full squadron of them. Two, maybe three hundred.
The Emperor's regular army are the best trained, best equipped troops in the land. Disciplined and focused. They never break, they never lose. They serve the Emperor faithfully and, under the Emperor's wisdom and guidance, maintain order and control throughout the land. They're models on which we could all base ourselves.
The squadron is divided into troops, each lead by a captain, sabre drawn and gaze fixed to the front. Behind him ride the junior officers, NCOs, bugler, and then the rest of the troop, four abreast.
They take ten minutes to pass. Each rider stares straight ahead, never acknowledging the cheers and claps of the crowd, maintaining perfect formation, perfect symmetry. The hooves on stone cobbles are a roar, rising and falling like a tidal wave with the gaps between each troop of horse. My ears still echo after the last has passed. The musty scent of horses hangs in the air.
"They're here on exercises," says a man nearby.
"Aye," says his associate, "and to deflower every young rose they can lay their hands on, I bet. That's the sort of exercise those boys like."
"But, better them in town than outlanders."
"Aye. But only just."
Game face.
Say nothing to these ignorant peasants disrespecting their betters.
Zoë returns. Frell, I didn't notice her leave. That means I must have been dreaming. Hitters who like to dream end up dreaming forever in the big sleep.
Breathe.
Discipline.
"Are you alright?" says Zoë. "Come on, we have to shuffle. Work to do. And, oh... We'll have to sort that." She's looking at my waist. My money bag is gone.
Frell it. How could I have...?
Game face.
"See what I mean? Towns get dreamed by parades. Never mind. Wait here."
She pats me on the butt before I can stop her and darts away into the crowd and for a moment I lose sight of her. I jog to catch up. Zoë has short legs, but they're hyperactive legs. Being out in the town with her is a constant game of catch up.
She disappears into a tiny side street, and as I round the corner she has some waif bailed up against the wall. He looks about twelve, raggedy clothed and grimy faced.
"Karl, don't dream." The waif is now staring at me. Zoë glances. "I said not that one. You were running that square. Who fingered mine?"
"Dunno, Zo'. Honest."
Zoë presses her finger against the boy's forehead, pushing back until his head is pressed against the blue wooden planks of the house behind him.
"Don't frell with me Karl. Don't you frell with me." Zoë is hissing in the boy's ear, eyes slitted, looking big next to the skinny child. His eyes are on Zoë now, wide and bright.
"Drop the mint, or I'll slip you to her. She'll start cutting on you, Karl. She'll cut your smith fingers and shuffle toes off and you'll crawl around on your hands and knees for the rest of your slow life fingering rat dung. There's plenty of urchins in the gutter I can see for. Don't need you.
"Look at her, Karl, look at that face. She's a frelling killer, Karl, stone cold, and you've gone and got her all hot an' bothered like."
Zoë twists Karl's head toward me, her hand tight on his jaw, his flesh going white around the edges to match the white circle on his forehead.
I give him my game face. Can't think what else to do.
"Oh bay, oh bay," Karls says through Zoë's vice grip.
Zoë lets go and steps back as Karl rummages through his bag, producing half a dozen money bags, spilling them on the ground in a tinkling pile. Zoë picks up my bag, looks inside, then tosses it to me.
"I didn't know which one you wanted."
"How many blade-packing, pale-skinned women in did you see out there, Karl? Black hair? Pony tail? Tight leather pants? Ring a bell does it? Does she seem town to you, Karl?"
I steal a glance at my trousers.
Karl's eyes are shiny with tears now. One trickles down his dirty cheek, leaving a white trail in the middle of his brown.
Zoë stares at him for half a minute while the boy sobs.
"Oh, sweetie," says Zoë, her eyes going wide, mouth a small 'o' shape. "Oh, sweetie, no tears, no tears." She wipes his wet cheek with her sleeve. Karl's face is half white, half brown now.
"You're a big boy, Karl." She's holding him close, hugging the waif against her. "Big now, and hard. And big, hard lifters follow orders. When they play they play for their own. Not for others, not for themselves, but for those that's there's." She's pressed along the length of him, his face pressed into her shoulder, hand at the back of his head, hand sliding down his back. She moves up and down him, very gently, rubbing.
I look away, checking the street. The crowd has all but dispersed. When I look back I immediately go back to checking the street. She has her hand down the front of his pants.
The boy must be a bit older than he looks.
I stare out into the street for long minutes and concentrate on the crowd noise. Any noise but the ones coming from behind me.
When the noises stop I look again, Zoë is holding Karl by the back of the head and is wiping her other hand on his jacket. She looks into his eyes. "You all joy now? Good. Dry those peepers and get back, join the rest. Divvy up, fair and square now. And," she says, holding a coin up in front of his face, "you get yourself a nice sweet. You did very well today. Zoë is proud of you." Karl looks at the shiny metal, biting his lower lip, hypnotised for a moment. His eyes go from the coin to Zoë and back before he snatches the prize away.
Karl sniffs and wipes away the last remnants of his tears. Zoë leans in and kisses him on the mouth. Quickly. Then again, longer and slower.
I check the street again.
"Now go," she says. "Shuffle boy, we don't have all day."
Zoë takes him down the narrow street, gives him a boost and Karl's waifish little body disappears upward, scaling the piping and onto the roof top, struggling under the bag of ill-gotten gains on his back.
"And clean yourself up next time, you look like a thief," Zoë says to the sky.
Stone cold?
"Now you're down two coins. Never mind, we'll get them next time."
Stone cold killer?
"Oh, I didn't mean that. I know you're just a big fluffy bunny." Zoë saunters close, hips gyrating in some sort of sexy dance movement. "Just wanting to be stroked."
She puts her hands on my hips and I step back, but she steps forward, her big, brown eyes underneath arched eyebrows.
I am not stone cold, I'm a professional. There's a big difference.
"Sure, Bunny, sure. I understand that. I thought it'd be a compliment. And don't worry about Karl. The little ones have to be taught how to play the game. Otherwise they end up dangling. You know? Stretched. End of a rope?"
She does have a point. The Assassins' Guild pushes the new recruits to the point of breaking, and beyond. Weeds out the weak. Toughens up the strong. No-one outside is going to give a hitter a break, so they teach you that in the Guild. If you can't make it in there, you won't make it on a job. The pain will keep you alive, separate a professional from an amateur.
So is he your boyfriend?
Zoë snorts with laughter. "Hullo," she says, "he's barely sixteen."
Then Zoë is part of some sort of gang?
"Later, Stone Cold. We have to get back to the boys. They'll be wondering where we got to. Mathok will be missing you. Parts of him will, anyway."
Quick as lightning Zoë squeezes my ass and before I can get my hands on hers she's turned and dashed out on to the main street.
Stop doing that, I say to the street. I head after her, playing catch up.
Afternoon is turning into evening when Zoë and I return to the Inn we're lodging at. There's a living room and a bedroom. The bedroom door is shut. The window has the heavy double shutter closed against the coming cold of the night. The smell is of burnt candle wax, recycled breath and men.
The walls are plain wood, worn and scratched by years of uncaring lodgers. No fire hazard paint on the inside. Bundles of gear and equipment are strewn round the floor in random piles. Mine lies untouched, just as I left it, bags packed away, my tools arranged in order of size. Side-sword first. Then daggers. Then throwing knives.
Poignards would be second but I'm wearing them.
The boys are clustered around the table playing cards. Zoë skips in and I stagger slightly, manoeuvring the bag around the door jam. Mathok rises to his feet and take a step toward me, pausing and looks back at Arns, who gives an almost imperceptible nod of his head. Mathok moves over to take the bag but I move past him, bumping him as I go, and deposit it in the corner. Mathok stands there, all ebony skin and muscles, empty handed, between me and the card game, looking lost. Altus gives a little snort and drops cards onto the table.
"Gimme three," he says.
Arns deals three and two more to Mathok when he returns to the table.
"Go well? You have been gone long." says Arns in his thick Eastern Plainsland accent. Luckily he speaks slowly or I'd have trouble following him.
Arns still wears the traditional dress of his tribe. Fur jacket, fur gauntlets, fur boots. And, yes, fur dress. For lack of a better word.
Mathok used to dress similarly, but one night, as we lay side by side on the bed, I'd raised the subject.
~ ~ ~
"How do you mean different?" he said.
Sometimes when you go to a different land, it's wise to try and blend in a little. Makes it easier to talk to the locals. Know what I mean?
Though muscle-bound, black warriors standing over six feet tall weren't a common sight in Tanath. That's why I said blend in a little.
"If you think this is a good idea. I will think about it. And when you are with my tribe, you will wear our garb."
Furry hides?
"Yes, but do not fear." He glides a finger over my belly, ending teasing the hair down there. "I will not ask you to wear very much of it."
The best I could come up with was, We'll see.
Time to change the subject. I reached down and wrapped my hand around him. His eyes went wide. Mathok was always so reticent in bed. I had to take the initiative just about every time. A lion on the battlefield, a pussycat in the bed.
I stroked him until he was fully hard, then moved down his body, kissing his abs as I went. He murmured a soft protest but I ignored him. Mathok was always so shy about me blowing him, like he associates it with whores or something. Warriors and their code of honour. Assassins are all about getting the job done, whatever it takes.
Any doubts Mathok had disappeared when I took him in my mouth. He's a big man and I always got a sore jaw out of this.
I ran his cock in and out of my mouth, pausing to work at the tip before plunging down again. Keeping a steady rhythm.
If you're going to do something you should be good at it. The best. Strive for excellence. This applies to giving head as much as it applies to anything else.
I eased off, he's gone too close too soon. One hand stroked while I liked and suckled his balls. Mathok won't admit it but he really likes it when I do that. The muscles in his thighs tense and relax.
A girl learns how to service a man properly when seconded to the bodyguard to the ambassador of Xian-Li.
The ambassador spied me at review, when has making an inspection of the Guild, and requested I was assigned as his local bodyguard while he was visiting the Empire. He was important man, a man that always got what he wanted. Turned out he wanted me for something other than my martial prowess. He got it. He visited three or four times a year. The ambassador was a corpulent slug and could no longer perform. Now he liked to watch.
So I got to know the rest of the bodyguard intimately.
I just kept reminding myself that it was an honour to serve the Emperor in what ever way was required, as I soaked my bruises in the ambassador's hot tub. This went on for nearly two years before the fat pervert was murdered by a noble in his home court. Something to do with the noble's wife.
Mathok had wished the ambassador was still alive when I mentioned him, so he could have the honour of killing him.
I swallowed over the cock in my throat, pulled slowly out, got a breath, then swallowed Mathok whole again, holding him there for as long as I could. And repeat.
And repeat.
I have no problem with a man coming in my face. The guilty thrill of something that's so wrong. But Mathok would never do such a thing, not even on my body. He would never sully me, he said. Mathok's favourite position was me on top, with me leaning forward on him, so my hair shrouded us both. Then he would work his hips and frell me long and slow. A really nice way to do it. And he was always so concerned that I should cum before him. Sex with Mathok was nice. To give Mathok his thrill, now that he was on the edge, I held my mouth over him, even though he wanted me to pull away. He protested. I swallowed. And he lost control.
It easier to have them go in your throat than your mouth. That way you mostly avoid the taste. Mathok shuddered and I rode him, holding myself over him till he was drained and I felt him start to shrink. He pulled me up and squeezed me tight against him. We kissed.
Mathok always kissed me right on the mouth straight afterward. He liked to make me feel clean. Some men, they can make you feel dirty after doing that to them. Make you feel like you're a slut. But not Mathok, he always kissed me gently. Trying to tell me I'd done something right.
That's a really nice thing to do.
Two days after that, Mathok had walked in wearing the breeches and tunic of a townsman. Arns looked him up and down, made that noise in the back of his throat that he does, and said that only barbarians wear trousers.
I took him somewhere private and started undoing the belt on his new breeches.
~ ~ ~
Zoë says, "There's Lobsters in town."
"Oh, great. Imperials are just what we need," says Altus. "They just love us free swords." "And she dropped the asking."
Zoë, the little betrayer.
Arns' massive, shark-like jaw tightens. The cards seem tiny in his hands. "Wealth is low. Cannot afford such mistakes."
"Give her a second one. She's a scrapper when it comes to the street. My sin anyway. I should've scryed her the whole time. Plus it made the coin swappers happy. Brought some joy to the world."
Arns makes his 'hrrumph' noise. Zoë sticks her face about two inches from Arns' and tells him to relax. He 'hrrumphs' again but quieter this time. Zoë smiles and glances down at his cards.
"Oooh! You've got a red square! You're going to top!"
"Fold," says Altus.
"Fold," says Mathok.
Arns throws his cards onto the table and leans back, wood creaking under his weight.
"See, you topped them! Aren't you joy?"
Arns sighs, rising out of his chair, his head almost to the ceiling and scoops Zoë up, dangling her one handed by the ankle, like she's a feather. He's huge. Mathok is big, but Arns is bigger.
He swings Zoë gently back and forth and says, "Win not as much as I should have."
Zoë squeals, flashing teeth, and tries to keep her oversize tunic from falling down and flashing her breasts.
"If little thief is not quiet, she will be dropped out of window. Does she understand?"
"But I helped you top! Some of the glitter must be mine!"
Arns gives up and, rights her, and lets Zoë down gently.
"We play for matches. Have no money. Less now assassin spends it all."
He doesn't even look at me. Mathok does his best to do a grin, but it looks more like a grimace.
"I'm hungry," says Altus.
Zoë leaps up, offering to cook. Mathok rises quickly, suppressing panic. "No, that is fine. I will cook tonight."
None of us are in the mood for another of Zoë's wild culinary experiments. Mathok rummages through the grocery bag and produces a small silver candelabrum.
"What?"
Zoë gasps and bounds over. "You see what I stole for us! It's tidy!"
She plonks the candelabrum on the table, scattering loose cards.
"Perfect," she says.
Altus leans close, examining. "How much do you reckon that's worth?"
Arns says, "It is dishonourable to profit from stolen goods. That is not the way of warrior. It is like stabbing someone in the back. Weak."
Game face.
"Please don't start that Arns. She may be trained as an assassin but she can fight normal. You've seen her, she's got moves," says Altus.
"That was sparring."
"She can give Mathok a run for his money though."
"We have no need of more warriors. We needed thief. She lies about being thief. She bad thief. We have to hire real thief."
True, I did misrepresent my skills a little when I did the job interview a couple months ago. But doesn't everyone? There was a bit of a stink when the truth came to light, but luckily Zoë turned up the next day asking if the thief's position she'd heard about was still open. That'd eased the tension but Arns thinks that an assassin is a perversion of his almighty warrior code.
Altus is still trying for me. That may be because he's really on my side, or he's just looking for an argument 'cause he's in a foul mood. Rangers don't like cities. They're noisy and smell and unhygienic, he says. He gets depressed if stuck in a city too long. They're boring, he says.
"Look, she's got special skills that may be useful, one day."
"We not do murder."
Discipline.
Game face.
Zoë says, "Scrappers, come now. I think we're just getting a bit stir crazy in this room. You lot are anyway. You need to dance more."
"Well, you live in this frell hole. We don't. Gods, we need to get a job. And soon." Altus runs his hand through his disorderly, shoulder-length locks. Perhaps that's what Rangers are supposed to look like, but he needs to find a comb. He takes out a weed stick and says, "There's no work this close to the centre of the empire. We need to be out on the fringe."
Zoë is standing, waving her arms about, gyrating her hips.
"Tried," says Arns. "Jobs there pay little. And do not smoke in here. Those make a man weak." Altus looks up, mutters something to the Gods, and deposits the paper cylinder back in his breast pocket.
Zoë says, "At least we have a nice candlestick holder." She twirls and steps side to side.
"Which apparently we can't even sell. Why can't you steal money for once, Zoë?"
Zoë looks affronted. Eyebrows raised, hips jiggling to a rhythm only she can hear, she says, "Why finger mint when you can just go straight for the things you need? Why be a slow with the middle man?"
She looks at me and smiles, lips a thin line, showing no teeth. Her smile says, Keep your mouth shut.
Altus is making a great show of chewing on the candelabrum. "Because this tastes like crap and money can be used to buy actual food. And drink. And smoke."
The bedroom door opens and a pale face appears. Prod and I lock eyes.
"Prod?" says Arns.
"It's alright, Uncle," he says after a pause. "I just need one of my books."
"Get it then. It is alright." Arns is looking at me, muscles tense along his frame.
Altus blows air out his mouth and looks at his cards. Zoë says, "Hi, Prod."
She's now sitting on Arns' knees trying to show him how best to win at cards. A vital part of which involves having a couple up your sleeve.
"Good evening, Zoë. I trust you had a good day at the market?"
Prod eases his long, thin body out of the doorway and over to a stack of leather-bound books. The only time he looks away from me is when he selects one of his books.
"Yes, thanks. We got played buying food."
Why is it that news of my purchasing failure ranks higher than Imperial troops? Should someone alert the town crier?
Prod smirks. "Really? That doesn't sound like you, Zoë. How unfortunate."
Zoë waves at nothing in particular. "Was a little bit my sin, I cough."
Prod looks late-teens, maybe early twenties. Blonde haired, blue eyed, well kept. He talks with the accent of the rich, educated classes. No way is Arns his real uncle. The boy spends all his time with his nose buried in books, studying useless, arcane subjects. Useless sums him up. I gather he's supposed to be studying the arcane arts, meaning he contributes nothing to the group. Unless being pompous and using lots of long words counts as a contribution. He usually tries to pretend I don't exist, but sometimes I catch him staring.
I have no idea what his problem is.
Prod looks away from me, maybe feeling less threatened now he knows of my mercantile incompetence.
"What a lovely candelabrum," he says. "Early Tan-Zheng dynasty, I would say. The fluting is distinctive."
"Truth?"
"What's it worth?"
"A considerable sum if you could sell it. But as they're quite rare, sourcing an illicit buyer for something of that nature might be fraught."
"That's OK. I am going to keep it because it's tidy."
Prod smiles at Zoë. "Quite."
He slinks back to his room, book clutched to his chest, glancing at me as he goes. As the door shut behind him, Arns sinks a couple inches back into his chair.
This is hopeless. I say, I'm going to train in the courtyard.
Everyone turns and looks at me, silent.
"I sometimes forget you can speak," Altus says.
"Quiet, smarty," Zoë says. "She knows more words than you."
Mathok looks up from slicing vegetables. "Do you need someone to spar with?"
I'm just going to go through some cartas. Shadow fence. Visualise.
Arns shuffles the deck of cards. "Imagine your enemy is facing you."
Practise. Self. Control.
Game face.
Breathe.
I spin, grab some tools and march out of the room. Behind me, Altus says, "Frell this. I'm off to get a drink. Purchased with the last of my private stash, if you're wondering."
I'm in the corridor when Altus calls me to stop.
"Look," he says, "don't let Arns get to you. He'll come around. He just takes responsibility for our situation personally, and things ain't going too well."
He hates me.
"Dislikes intensely. But he's a good man. He'll come round. Stick with it."
He takes a step forward and I step back. It's reflex. You need to maintain enough distance to have a chance if someone draws. Doesn't matter how fast you are, there's a critical distance under which no-one can react to an attack in time.
Altus purses his lips. I say sorry. He tells me to forget it.
"Would you like to go for a drink?"
I don't drink. And I need to train.
"Sure. I mean you haven't done that since this morning, you must be getting rusty."
Game face.
"Hey, sorry. That was just a joke."
I tell him I understand, and that I really need to go train right now.
"Sure," he says. "In that case..." Altus examines his boots. "Could I borrow a little money? I'm kinda short right now."
Continued in Chapter Three
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