A Fool of Sorts Page 4

“Two a day,” Sal said. “Come now, you know I haven’t got it now, but I’ll have the nine before the end of the week. I have a plan.”

  “Left, you said, wasn’t it?” Anton grabbed Sal’s wrist and pulled him close.

  Sal was powerless to fight him off as Anton jerked out a hooked knife and placed the sharp edge against Sal’s left thumb.

  “Gah, please, Anton—”

  “What, no japes?”

  Sal struggled but couldn’t pull free. Anton was too strong.

  “Please, Anton—”

  “Oh, but this isn’t your wiping thumb,” Anton said, applying pressure until a bead of blood dripped down the blade.

  “Anton, I—”

  The bigger man let go and shoved Sal away.

  “Whoreson!” Sal cursed and clutched his thumb. The cut was shallow, but it stung like hell.

  “The next time, I take the bloody thing,” Anton said. “And that is no jape, kid.”

  “You’ll get your due tomorrow, by evenfall,” Sal said.

  “Oh, and how is that?”

  “I have a plan,” Sal said, nursing his thumb.

  “Have a plan, do you?”

  “Was going to tell you before you started hacking limbs, but it seems I was a tick slow on the draw.”

  “Well, what’s the plan? And don’t you lie to me, not again.”

  “Not again? Anton, when have I ever lied to you?”

  “Playing the fool? Or are you truly as stupid as that?”

  Sal swallowed, jogging his memory for anything he might have lied about recently, but there was only one lie that came to mind. One lie he’d told Anton, just after they’d met. “I don’t think of myself as a fool, though I’d wager the witless ones never do.”

  “It’s only the truly stupid that think themselves smarter than everyone else. When one is too short-sighted to see further than the tip of his own nose, the world looks small and quite easily manipulated.”

  Sal shifted his weight uncomfortably as he waited for the other boot to drop.

  “If you don’t think yourself a fool, Salvatori, then you must think me one.”

  Sal smiled uncomfortably, trying to look as though he were not terrified.

  Anton still held the hooked knife. He cleared his throat and arched an eyebrow. “Well?”

  Sal shrugged.

  “Not willing to come clean?”

  “I’m not certain I know just what it is you want me to say?”

  “How about you say something like, Antonio Russo—dear, sweet, indelibly handsome Antonio—by all the gods on high, forgive me, for I have lied. I am a little shit-heel twerp and do not know when to start telling the truth.”

  Sal sighed. “How did you find out?”

  “I’m connected, how would I not find out?”

  “Didn’t expect you’d ask around, I suppose.”

  “Right. Well, I don’t take on urchins until I’ve made certain they’ve not worked anyone over before. Why lie to me?”

  Sal shrugged. “I thought that if I told you he was my uncle, you might not give me the work.”

  “And you’re bloody right about that. Light’s name, do you have any idea what a man like Stefano Lorenzo would do to me if anything happened to you?”

  “He wouldn’t care,” Sal said. “If anything happened to me, that is.”

  Anton spat, “That’s not a wager I’d care to take.”

  “I take it my thumbs are safe, then?” Sal asked with a smirk.

  Anton smiled back. “Not if I don’t get my krom, kid, and I mean that. I may not take your thumbs, but if I go to your uncle to collect your dues, I suspect he may.”

  The threat sank deep. Sal may be safe from harm by Anton’s hand, on account of his uncle, but there was no one to stay his uncle’s hand.

  “Like I told you,” Sal said, “I’ve got a plan.”

  “Sure, and you had better hope it works out just right,” Anton said. “You’ll find me at the Rusted Anchor when you have my coin.”

  “Hold on, yeah? You don’t want to hear the plan?”

  Anton shook his head. “Evenfall, and not a turn after.”

  Sal nodded. “I’ll be there.”

  Sal crossed Town Road, narrowly avoiding an oxcart that trundled past. He ignored the shouts from the driver and slipped into Town Square as he kept sight of his mark.

  The plan was simple, snatch and run. It was dangerous, but Sal was confident he could get in and out without anyone even noticing, so long as he was quick enough.

  The mark was a bagman. Not just any bagman, but a Svoboda lackey by the name of Oldrez Venturi, one of Don Svoboda’s personal collection mules. Sal had followed the man for nigh on a week. Noting every habit, tick, and fancy the bagman had. Most importantly, he took note of the stops which Oldrez made.

  Each day began the same, a stop to the chamber pot and a mug of ale to break his fast. The bagman would make his routes, collecting from the various shopkeepers and business owners that paid tribute to Don Svoboda. The course varied each day of the week. The bagman wended his way through Svoboda controlled districts, street by street, his coin purse growing heavier with each stop. However, there was one stop that held consistent each day. The bagman would finish his routes in a little Dahuaneze teashop on the north end of Town Square.

  Sal suspected Oldrez favored the teashop, not for the tea, but for the young Dahuaneze serving girl—with whom, he would spend the majority of his time in the little shop making conversation. All the while, the coin purse sitting on the table, just waiting to be snatched.

  Sal looked out on Town Square as he leaned up against a trinket seller’s wheeled cart. The vendor was Vordin, or maybe Norsic. Sal always had trouble telling the difference between the two. Not only did they look quite similar—tall and broad-shouldered, blonde-haired and fair-skinned—but all Skjorund accents sounded the same to Sal’s ear. Though, judging by the way the vendor pointedly ignored Sal, he took the man for a Vordin.

  The great fountain at the center of Town Square was vast enough to swim in. Something which orphans often did, until chased off by patrolling steel caps. In the middle of the fountain, the bronze statue of the ancient hero monk, Uthrid Stormbreaker. A former abbot of Knöldrus Abbey, the Vespian Order claimed the old monk once slew a demon or some such nonsense. Whatever the man really did, his statue stood taller than any other in the city, second only to the statue of Bethelwold the Great.

  Sal’s attention was grabbed by a beautiful woman perusing perfumes, when he noticed he was not the only one eyeing the woman. A pair of steel caps elbowed one another as they chatted in low tones and laughed, their eyes like hungry predators. Sal didn’t like seeing the City Watch, but so long as the steel caps’ attention remained on the woman and not on Sal, he didn’t much mind. Still, their presence would make his plans all the more difficult.

  Oldrez had short legs and a fat round belly. Sal didn’t think he’d have any trouble outrunning the man once he had the coin purse. The City Watch was another matter. One often found himself outrunning one pair of steel caps, only to run right into reinforcements.

  The bagman passed the fountain, his coin purse tucked under his arm, his trajectory aimed directly for the little Dahuaneze teashop. Sal took a moment to steel his nerves before he moved closer. The pieces were falling into place, everything was going to plan.

  Oldrez put his hand on the door of the teashop and pushed, when someone darted in and snatched the coin purse right out of the bagman’s thick fingers.

  Sal cursed, hardly able to believe what had just happened. The thief was a Yahdrish by the look of him, short but quick, as he easily outpaced Oldrez, who had shouted and stumbled over in his attempt to make chase.

  The Yahdrish kid seemed to be making for the south entrance, directly between Sal and the pair of steel caps that had been gawking at the woman. The steel caps noticed the commotion and moved for the Yahdrish.

  Without thought to what he was doing, nor to why he was doing it, Sal sho
ved the trinket vendor’s cart. The Vordin vendor let out a cry of dismay, but Sal ignored the man, putting all his weight into the thrust.

  The cart rolled, picking up speed as it slammed directly into the pair of steel caps.

  The trinket vendor made a swipe at Sal, but he dodged the hand and sprinted to catch up with the Yahdrish boy. That bastard had his coin purse, and Sal meant to take it.

  “Sacrull’s balls, but you really got them, didn’t you?” asked the Yahdrish as Sal moved up alongside him. “Come on, I know of a good place to hide.”

  Caught off guard by the invitation, Sal hesitated before he reached out to take the purse.

  “Fuck!” shouted the Yahdrish as three steel caps surged through the south entrance.

  Sal grabbed him by the arm and steered him west. “This way.”

  Oldrez, it seemed, had resumed the chase, coming down on them from the north. The two previous steel caps had recovered from their bout with the trinket cart, and they closed in from the east. From the south, the three new steel caps joined in.

  Sal and the Yahdrish boy ran as fast as their feet would take them, out the west entrance of Town Square and up the Singing Bridge. Once they’d hit the Cathedral District, Oldrez and the armored steel caps were nowhere in sight, but neither Sal nor the Yahdrish kid slowed their pace. They took the Street of Steel up to Knöldrus Road and cut dead east.

  Suddenly, the Yahdrish grabbed him by the arm and tugged. “In here.”

  Sal was nearly pulled off his feet but managed to keep from falling over as he stumbled around the rubble and wreckage about the tower and ducked through the door. The Yahdrish slammed the door shut and plopped down on one of the stone steps, the coin purse still clutched tight under his arm. They were in what had once been a watchtower but was now a decrepit ruin connected to the perimeter wall of Knöldrus Abbey.

  “I didn’t realize anyone could get in here anymore,” Sal said.

  “You couldn’t,” the Yahdrish replied. “Took me a week to get in. I had to dig out that door there before I could do anything. And the Sacrull damned nails those monks used—anyway, thanks for saving my skin back there. You were brilliant, the way you pushed that cart right into those bloody steel caps.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Sal said, his gaze shifting to the coin purse. “Those steel caps would have beaten you bloody if they’d caught you, then I’d have probably seen you winched up in a crow-cage by morning. Which is a whole lot better than what would have happened if Don Svoboda’s bagman had caught up with you.”

  “That fat Pairgu?” the Yahdrish asked. “That stuffed sausage didn’t stand a chance of catching me. More than likely, he keeled over just before the Singing Bridge.”

  “What were you thinking, anyhow?” Sal asked.

  The curly haired Yahdrish shrugged. “Saw the fat man with the purse and I figured I could make a clean getaway.”

  Sal shook his head. The Yahdrish was a damned fool, but Sal couldn’t help from liking the kid. He was short and somewhat squirrely, had black curly hair and a hooked nose, green eyes, and olive skin.

  “I’m Salvatori,” Sal said, reaching out a hand.

  “Bartholomew Shoaly,” said the Yahdrish boy.

  4

  When Hounds Bay

  “But it would rain this night of all nights,” said Vinny, brushing long, wet hair from his eyes. “This should clear soon enough. Though, if it doesn’t, we’ll find ourselves out a fortnight’s planning.”

  Sal was rusted as old chainmail so far as second-story work was concerned, and the wet wasn’t going to help. He’d wanted the details planned out as meticulously as possible, which had taken a significant amount of time, much more than the average job. A full fortnight in which Sal had forsworn the use of skeev. Eight days of headaches and sporadic moments of sweating, followed by chills that ran to his very core. The one consolation of the past fortnight had been when Lilliana finally agreed to meet with him once more.

  “East Market,” Lilliana had told him. “Two hours before midday, and don’t be late.”

  He had no intention of being late for their meeting. He had waited too long, come too far back from his mistake, to mess things up again.

  “The rain will certainly make the climb more difficult,” Sal admitted, “but I’m willing to roll the bones if you are.”

  Vinny scratched the bit of blonde stubble poking from his chin. He cupped his other hand and collected droplets of rain. The rainfall had increased, hampering the line of sight afforded by their shuttered lanterns to less than an arm’s reach. “No one will be looking for second-story work tonight, not in this weather. Might be this rain is in our favor if we play things right and avoid the rooftops until we need.”

  Sal nodded. If it was difficult for them to see, it would be equally difficult for the steel caps.

  They crossed the Tamber by way of High Bridge, often undermanned by the City Watch, as most of High Bridge’s traffic came from the monks of Knöldrus Abbey or the craftsmen from the Street of Steel. Though in this weather, the bridge was entirely deserted of foot traffic. When they reached the east bank, the steel caps remained inside the warm, dry bridge tower, not bothering to pose a question to either thief.

  Sal and Vinny made their way along the curve of the Kingsway until they reached High Gate. Conveniently, the home they planned to enter was built with the intent of taking advantage of the structural integrity of the city wall. Meaning, the home was built to butt up flush against the wall. The disadvantage of this, so far as the owner was concerned, was that it made the roof of the home quite easily accessible.

  The crumbling mortar of the stone wall provided plenty of handholds, allowing the pair to scale it with ease. A quick step up to the roof and Vinny was working at the locked window with a pry and tapper. The method was rudimentary, and though loud, it was reliable.

  Within the span of ten heartbeats, Vinny pried open the window. A loud bang sounded, accompanied by a flash of light.

  “Gah!” Vinny cried out and stumbled back a step, shielding his eyes with a raised arm. “Bloody ward.”

  “You oaf,” Sal chuckled and examined Vinny for any burns, but it seemed the half-Norsic had only been startled by the small explosion.

  After checking the window sill for any untriggered wards, the pair climbed inside. They entered into the solar of Lord Marcus Horvat, Seventh Seat of the High Council and a man of great wealth in his own right. Lord Marcus’ home seemed no more special than the next when looked on from without, but from within, it was clear at a glance that Marcus Horvat was a man of expensive tastes.

  Though they’d not seen the inside until that moment, the fortnight spent in preparation revealed many insights about his lordship. He was frugal but not unwilling to pay good coin for quality. Unlike much of Dijvous nobility, Lord Marcus preferred function to opulence, his clothing well cut and finely made, yet not ostentatious—his home much in the same. Still, it might have been worth the extra krom to invest in better security. One never knew when someone might slip through a window.

  Vinny tilted his head toward the door.

  Sal nodded and began to rifle through the solar as Vinny went for the bedrooms.

  The rain stopped suddenly, and Sal smiled to himself as he dripped water on the floorboards.

  The solar was organized, everything in its respective place in the drawers of the ebony wood writing desk. A golden letter knife with a pearl handle caught his eye, and he pocketed it, when the parchment beneath the letter knife became apparent to him.

  Sal had learned to read as a young child; his uncle had insisted on it. He’d claimed no man would ever rise high in the world without his letters. Sal picked up the piece of parchment and began to read. It was a shipping manifest, but the bit that interested Sal was that the consignor of the document was scratched out as the Holy Vespian Order of Knöldrus Abbey.

  Just then, Sal heard a woman’s scream.

  He dropped the manifest and ran to the door, poking his he
ad out to see what had caused the commotion.

  Vinny bolted up the stairs, headed directly for Sal.

  “Run!” Vinny yelled at him.

  Sal turned and made for the window. He heard another scream.

  “Help, help, I’m being robbed!”

  Sal nearly leaped headlong through the open window. Vinny followed swiftly behind, and they began to move as quickly as they could across rain-slick shingles.

  He saw lanterns lighting as they ran along the top of the wall, then onto a roof. Sal leaped and landed on the next rooftop, when he began to hear the baying and barking of dogs amid the shouts and general commotion of the High Town residents.

  “Thief!” someone shouted. “Thief on the rooftops!”

  His chest began to burn, and his breath quickened. He did his best not to slip as he ran, but he wanted to distance himself from the Horvat residence as quickly as possible. The baying of the hounds drew ever closer. Dogs were the last thing Sal wanted to deal with.

  He leaped and landed on the roof of the next home. Only, he didn’t land. Instead, he went directly through the thatching.

  Sal landed on a table, which drove the air from his lungs and sent stars popping behind his eyes. He quickly came to as one of the table legs gave way, dumping him unceremoniously to the dirt floor. The ringing in his ears slowly dissipated, and suddenly, he realized a woman was screaming. He turned to see the woman crouched on a straw mattress, clutching a blanket to her bare chest. There was a man, naked as his name day, moving to position himself between Sal and the woman, as if to protect her.

  The door burst open. Hounds barked, and the woman continued to scream as two snarling mastiffs burst through the open doorway.

  Sal ducked behind the broken table, and the beasts continued past him, leaping at the naked man.

  By that point, the naked man had managed to retrieve a short sword. As the hounds leaped, the man took a wild swing.

  One of the hounds snapped its powerful jaws around the man’s sword-arm. The other clasped him about the upper thigh.

  The woman screamed even louder.