Mercedes Lackey - Takes A Thief FR UC.htmst1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } 
Takes a Thief
Mercedes Lackey
ISBN 0756400082
October 10, 2001
OFFICIAL TIMELINE FOR THE HERALDS OF VALDEMAR SERIES
By Mercedes Lackey
Sequence of events by Valdemar reckoning
 
BF --------------------- >         Prehistory: Era of the Black Gryphon
                                               THE MAGE WARS
                                               The Black Gryphon
                                               The White Gryphon
                                               The Silver Gryphon
 
------------------------------ >        Founding of Valdemar
 
AF ---------------------- >          Reign of Elspeth the Peacemaker
                                               THE LAST HERALD-MAGE TRILOGY
                                               Magic's Pawn
 
AF ---------------------- >          Reign of Randale
                                               THE LAST HERALD-MAGE TRILOGY
                                               Magic's Promise
                                               Magic's Price
 
AF --------------------- >         Reign of Theran
                                               Brightly Burning
 
AF --------------------- >         Reign of Co-consorts Arden & Leesa
                                               VOWS AND HONOR TRILOGY
                                               The Oathbound
                                               Oathbreakers
                                               Oathblood
 
AF --------------------- >         Reign of Roald
 
AF --------------------- >         Reign of Sendar
 
AF --------------------- > Reign of Selenay
                                               Take a Thief
                                               THE HERALDS OF VALDEMAR TRILOGY
                                               Arrows of the Queen
                                               Arrow's Flight
                                               Arrow's Fall
                                               KEROWYN'S TALE
                                               By the Sword
                                               THE MAGE WINDS TRILOGY
                                               Winds of Fate
                                               Winds of Change
                                               Winds of Fury
                                               THE MAGE STORMS TRILOGY
                                               Storm Warning
                                               Storm Rising
                                               Storm Breaking
 
                                               Owlflight
                                               Owlsight
                                               Owlknight
"GERRUP."
Skif's dreams shattered, leaving him with vague fragments of being somewhere 
warm, cozy, and sweet-scented. A toe scientifically applied to Skif's rib cage 
with enough force to bounce him off the back wall of the under-stair cubby he 
called his own reinforced the otherwise incomprehensible order that he wake up. 
He woke, as ever, stiff, cold, and with a growling stomach.
It was the beginning of another beautiful day at the Hollybush Tavern.
An' good mornin' to you, too, bastard.
He scrambled to his feet, keeping hunched over to avoid hitting his head on the 
staircase, his ratty scrap of a blanket clutched in both hands. His uncle's 
eldest son looked him up and down, and grunted -- probably disappointed that Skif 
was awake enough that a "pick-me-up" cuff to the side of the head wasn't going 
to be necessary this time.
Skif squinted; Kalchan was a monolithic silhouette against the smoky light from 
the open kitchen door, narrower at the top and swiftly widening where shoulders 
would be on an ordinary human, his only distinguishing characteristics from neck 
to knee being a pair of pillowlike arms and the fat bulging in rolls over his 
waistband. Skif couldn't see his face, which was fine as far as he was 
concerned. Kalchan's face was nothing he cared to examine closely under any 
circumstances.
"Breffuss," Kalchan grunted, jerking his head over his shoulder so that his 
greasy locks swung in front of his face. Skif ducked his head and quickly folded 
his blanket, dropping it on the pad of rags over straw that served him as a 
pallet. He didn't need to dress; in the winter he slept in every stitch of 
clothing he owned. Satisfied that Skif was on duty, Kalchan went on to awaken 
the rest of the tavern staff.
Yah, an' do not a hand's worth of work, neither.
"Breakfast," was what Kalchan had said, but he hadn't meant that it was time for 
Skif to partake of that meal.
As soon as he was out of the way, Skif scuttled out into the kitchen and began 
the tedious business of lighting the fires, hindered by the fact that his 
uncle's penny-pinching ways were reflected in every aspect of his purchases. For 
firewood, he relied on the rag-and-bone men who swept out fireplaces and ovens 
in more prosperous households, sifting out the ashes for sale to the tanners and 
soap makers, and selling the clinkers and partially-burned ends of logs to 
people like Londer Galko, keeper of the Hollybush Tavern. Nor would Uncle Londer 
actually buy a decent firestarter, much less keep a candle or banked coals going 
overnight; Skif had to make do with a piece of flint and one of some other rock. 
The fact that at least half of this "firewood" had been doused with water --  which 
was, in fact, the law -- before the ragmen picked it up didn't make it any easier 
to light.
Before he could do anything about a fire, Skif went to the pile of sweepings 
from the floor of the common room that he'd collected last night after the last 
drunken lout had been rolled out the door. Every bit of dust and fluff that 
looked as if it might possibly catch fire became his tinder. At worst case, he'd 
have to sacrifice a precious bit of the straw stuffed into his boots for warmth.
Heh. Sommun' been trackin' in straw. Hayseed from country, prolly. Oh, ayah -- here 
be nice dust bunny, too.
Swearing under his breath, Skif hacked his two bits of rock together, trying to 
generate sparks, hoping one of them would land in the tiny patch of lint and 
fluff. When one finally did, and finally cooperated with his efforts, he coaxed 
it into a tiny flame, then got the flame to take hold of the driest of the wood. 
He nursed it tenderly, sheltering it from the drafts along the floor, begging it 
to take. Finally, he set it on the sooty hearth, surrounded it with what was 
left of the dry wood from last night, and slowly fed it until it was large 
enough to actually cook over.
Only when the kitchen fire was properly started did the slattern used by Uncle 
Londer as a cook, dishwasher, and general dogsbody finally shuffle down the 
stairs from the loft where she slept into the room, scratching head and buttocks 
at the same time without ever dislodging any of the vermin who called her 
"home." Skif often wondered why so few people who ate here died. Perhaps it was 
only because their stomachs were already full of the acidic potions his uncle 
sold as wine and beer, and once a stomach was full of that rotgut, nothing that 
came in from the food lived long enough to cause sickness.
The kitchen door stood open to the cold courtyard; Kalchan came in that way 
every morning, bringing the day's supplies. Uncle Londer never bought more of 
anything for the inn than he absolutely had to. Now Skif braced himself to head 
outside into the cold.
Where 'ud it hurt if 'e bought for a week? Wouldn' 'e get it cheaper that way?
Skif ran out into the courtyard to unload the wagon -- hired for the purpose by the 
candlemark, together with a boy to drive it. The quicker Skif unloaded the 
thing, the less Uncle Londer would be charged -- and if he didn't save Uncle Londer 
every possible pennybit, he'd learn about it when Kalchan's fist connected with 
his head.
The boy stared at the ears of his donkey, studiously ignoring Skif, who was so 
much lower in the social scale than he was. This boy had a coat, new boots, both 
clean.
Ah, stuck up! Skif thought, and stuck out his tongue at the unresponsive back.
First off, a half-sack of flour, followed by a tub of tallow grease thriftily 
saved from cookshops where they skimmed off the grease from roasting and frying, 
and resold to those who could not afford butter and candles. Maisie would be put 
to taking peeled rushes and dipping them in the melted grease to make the tallow 
dips that served the tavern as lights, and the cook would use the same grease in 
baking and on the bread.
Skif moved it carefully and set it down beside the flour; sometimes the stuff 
was still liquid underneath, and he didn't dare spill it.
Then came a bucket of meat scraps, which would serve for the soup and meat pies.
I don' wanna know what that meat came from. Reckon it might meow…
Next, a peck of withered, spotty turnips, another of dried beans and peas that 
were past their best and smelled of mold. Last of all, two barrels of beer and 
one of wine. Both represented the collected dregs from barrels all over the 
city, collected last night from one of the large merchants who supplied goods to 
other inns and taverns. Needless to say, this was the cheapest conceivable form 
of beverage; it even cost less than the sweet spring water collected from 
outside Haven. It was so awful that Guild cooks wouldn't even use the stuff in 
sauces; stale and loaded with sediment, it smelled sour even through the wood of 
the barrel. Skif got the barrels off the wagon quickly, and the boy turned the 
wagon just as quickly and sent his donkey trotting out into the street. Skif 
lugged the food into the kitchen where old Moll, the cook, took charge of it 
all. Only she or Kalchan were allowed to touch the food and drink once it came 
off the wagon.
Skif had no intention of touching any of it. He never ate here -- not that Uncle 
Londer encouraged him to.
He wasn't done yet; he had to bring in enough water from the courtyard pump to 
fill the half-barrel in the kitchen -- one bucket at a time. He stumbled on the 
rutted, frozen dirt of the courtyard; his boots, stuffed with straw for extra 
warmth, were far too big for him. He didn't care; better too big than too small.
Leastwise they don' pinch.
Now Skif went out into the common room to ready it for the first customers, 
lighting the fire there with a brand from the kitchen fire, arranging bits of 
wood on either side of the hearth to dry, taking the benches down off the 
tables, and the shutters off the windows. The oiled paper in the windows didn't 
do a great deal to keep out the cold, but with snow in the street outside, there 
was some light getting in this morning, so it was just as well that oiled paper 
hindered more than it helped in that direction. Skif would never want to see 
what the common room looked like in the full light of the sun,
As horrible as the food and drink here in the Hollybush were, there were two 
customers waiting for Skif to open the door. He knew them both by sight; two men 
who would down a minimum of six mugs of foul beer and choke down a slice of 
stale, burned bread with a scraping of nameless fat before shambling off 
somewhere, not to be seen until the next morning. Presumably, they had jobs 
somewhere and this was their breakfast.
They slumped down on the benches nearest the door, and Skif yelled for Maisie, 
the fourth member of Uncle Londer's tavern staff. As usual, she emerged from her 
own cubby of a blocked-up stair that once led to the second floor (which, unlike 
Skif's, had a flap of patched canvas for a door) followed by Kalchan. As usual, 
she said nothing, only scuttled into the kitchen for the customer's beer and 
bread, her face set in a perpetual mask of fear. Kalchan hitched at his trews 
and grinned, showing yellowed teeth, and followed her into the kitchen.
Skif shuddered. As awful as his position was here, Maisie's was worse.
This was a tavern, not an inn, and the kitchen and common room were all there 
was of the place. The tenement rooms upstairs, although they belonged to Uncle 
Londer, were not available for overnight guests, but were rented by the month. 
There was a separate entrance to the rooms, via a rickety staircase in the 
courtyard. This limited the tenants' access to the inn and the fuel and food 
kept there. Uncle fully expected his tenants to pilfer anything they could lay 
their hands on, and they responded to his trust by doing so at every possible 
opportunity. Not that there were many opportunities; Kalchan saw to that.
Now Skif was free to leave at last for the lessons that every child was required 
by Valdemar law to have until he was able to read, write, and cipher. Not even 
Uncle Londer had been able to find a way to keep Skif from those lessons, much 
as he would have liked to.
Skif didn't wait around for permission from Kalchan to leave, or his cousin 
would find something else for him to do and make him late. If he was late, he'd 
miss breakfast, which would certainly please Kalchan's sadistic notion of what 
was amusing.
See ya -- but not till dark, greaseball!
He shot out the door without a backward look, into the narrow street. This was 
not an area that throve in the morning; those who had jobs were usually at them 
by dawn, and those who didn't were generally out looking for something to put 
some money in their pockets at least that early, or were sleeping off the 
results of drinking the vile brews served in the Hollybush or other 
end-of-the-alley taverns. The Hollybush was, in fact, located at the end of the 
alley, giving Uncle Londer the benefit of giving custom no chance to stumble 
past his door.
There were other children running off up the alley to lessons as well, though 
not all to the same place as Skif. He had to go farther than they, constrained 
by his uncle's orders. If Skif was going to have to have lessons, his uncle was 
determined, at least, that he would take them where Uncle Londer chose and 
nowhere else.
Every child in this neighborhood was running eagerly to their various teachers 
for the same reason that Skif did; free and edible breakfast. This was an 
innovation of Queen Selenay's, who had decided, based on her own observation, 
that a hungry child doesn't learn as well as one with food in his belly. So 
every child in Haven taking lessons who arrived on time was supplied with a 
bacon roll and a mug of tea in winter, or a buttered roll and a piece of fruit 
in summer. Both came from royal distribution wagons that delivered the supplies 
every morning, so there was no use in trying to cheat the children by scrimping. 
But if a child was late, he was quite likely to discover that his attendance had 
been given up for the day and someone else had eaten his breakfast, so there was 
ample incentive to show up on time, if not early, for those lessons, however 
difficult or boring a child might find them.
Skif had no intention of missing out on his share. His stomach growled as he 
ran, and he licked his lips in anticipation.
Unless luck went his way, this might be the only really edible food he'd get for 
the rest of the day -- and there was no doubt in his mind that the rest of the 
children in his group were in the same straits.
The narrow, twisting streets he followed were scarcely wide enough for a donkey 
cart. The tenement houses, three stories tall including the attics, leaned 
toward the street as if about to fall into it. There was not enough traffic to 
have worn away the packed, dirty snow heaped up against the walls of the houses 
on either side, and no incentive for the inhabitants to scrape it away, so there 
it would remain, accumulating over the course of the winter until it finally 
thawed and soaked into the dirt of the street, turning it to mud.
But that would not be for several moons yet. There was all of the winter to get 
through first. At least the cold kept down the smell -- from backyard privies, 
chicken coops, pigeon houses, pig sties. The poor tried to eke out their meager 
foodstuffs any way they could. Pigeons were by far the most popular, since they 
could fly away by day to more prosperous parts of town and feed themselves at 
someone else's expense. There were clouds of them on every available perch, 
sitting as close together as possible for warmth, and whitening the broken 
slates and shingles of the rooftops with their droppings. Of course, with all 
the snow up there, the droppings were invisible in winter.
Skif was finally warm now, his breath puffing out whitely as he ran. He had no 
coat, of course, but no child in his neighborhood had a coat. There were three 
ways to get warm in the winter -- work until you were warm, do something that kept 
you near enough to the fire that you weren't freezing, or -- be as creative about 
finding warmth as Skif was.
After six turnings, he was in a slightly more respectable neighborhood. The 
streets were marginally wider, a halfhearted attempt to remove the snow had been 
made, and there were a few dark little shops on the first floors of the tenement 
houses. More chimneys sported thin streams of smoke, and at the end of this 
final street, just before it joined one of the main thoroughfares, was the 
Temple of Belden. It wasn't a large Temple as such things went; it had only four 
priests and a half-dozen novices. But the Order of Belden was a charitable 
order, which was just as well, since there wasn't much scope for anything but 
charity down here.
As such, one of the charitable acts performed here was to educate the poor 
children of the area. But Skif wasn't here because he had chosen the place, or 
even because Uncle Londer had picked it from a number of options. He was here 
because his second cousin, the middle son of his uncle's brood of three, was a 
novice here.
Cousin Beel had as little choice about his vocation as Skif did; Uncle Londer 
wished to impress his social superiors with his sense of charity, and so Beel 
became a novice. Beel seemed to like the life, though -- or, he liked it as much as 
this curiously colorless young man could like anything. Beel was as forgettable 
as Kalchan was remarkable.
Skif pushed open a little side door in the chapter house next to the Temple. The 
door opened directly into a public room with several tables and benches in it; 
there were thirty or forty other children that took lessons there, and about 
half of them were already sitting on the benches, waiting for their meal. Skif 
slid in beside one of the smaller girls, a tiny big-eyed thing called Dolly. She 
smiled up at him in welcome; he was her protector and kept her from being 
harassed by any of the more aggressive children who would try to bully her 
outside of classes for anything that they thought they could get from her.
He took her cold little hands in his and held them until they warmed while they 
waited for the last of the children to straggle in. Skif heard her stomach growl 
while they waited; his answered hers, and she gave a little giggle.
Finally a small bell rang somewhere in the Temple marking the end of the First 
Service, and a door at the back of the room opened. Beel and one other novice 
entered, carrying baskets. The delicious aroma of bacon wafted gently to where 
Skif sat, trying not to fidget; every eye in the room was riveted on those 
baskets as Beel and the other novice left and returned with steaming pots of tea 
and thick clay mugs.
Cor! Can they move any slower?
It seemed an eternity before the last of the paraphernalia of breakfast finally 
was brought in and arranged to Beel's liking. Only then were the children 
permitted to come up to him, one at a time, and receive their rolls and mugs. By 
then, of course, the rolls were stone cold and the tea at best lukewarm.
It didn't matter. So long as the rolls weren't frozen hard as stones, so long as 
the tea wasn't a block of ice, there wasn't a child here that wouldn't devour 
every crumb and drink down every drop. Some of them began eating and drinking 
while they walked back to their places, but not Skif, and not Dolly either, for 
she followed his example. It wasn't for the sake of manners; Skif didn't have 
any, no more than any of the others. It was because he had figured out that if 
he ate over the table, he could catch every crumb, and he did. When they were 
done, he and Dolly licked their fingers and picked up the tiniest fragments from 
the wood.
Lukewarm as the tea was, it was still warmer than the room. The mug served 
double duty as a hand warmer until the tea was gone. They weren't allowed to 
linger over it, though, not with two novices standing over them.
Then Beel's fellow novice collected the empty mugs and vanished, leaving Beel to 
his teaching duties.
Skif should, in fact, not be here at all. He read and wrote as well as any of 
the children at these tables, and the law said only that children had to be able 
to read, write and figure to a certain level before their compulsory education 
was complete, not at what age a child could be released. Skif enjoyed reading 
and even took a certain aesthetic pleasure in writing; it would have been hard 
for him to feign being bad at either. Beel probably would have quickly caught on 
before long and sent him back to the tavern where he'd quickly be slaving for 
Kalchan --  and doing without his breakfast. But figuring had never come easy to 
him, and it was boring besides. He still couldn't add two numbers of two figures 
each and come up with the same answer twice in a row, and in all likelihood 
neither answer would be the right one. Needless to say, although he pretended 
that he was trying, his progress was glacial. He had to make some progress, of 
course, or even Beel would suspect something, but he was going to put off the 
evil day when Beel would pronounce his education complete for as long as he 
could.
In the meantime, since he was so good at reading and writing, during those 
lessons Beel saw no reason why he should not take some of the workload off of 
his own shoulders, and Skif was put to tutoring the youngest children, including 
Dolly. He didn't mind; he was big enough to be able to bully those who weren't 
at all interested in learning things, and Beel had no objection to his 
delivering admonitory cuffs to the ear if it became necessary to keep 
discipline. That was the main thing that was hard about being the tutor; littles 
like Dolly who wanted to learn just needed some help over the rough spots.
It was turn and turn about then, and time for one of the other boys to tutor 
Skif -- along with children three years his junior -- in figures. For Skif, this was 
the worst part of the day, and not because he himself was a discipline problem; 
being anywhere other than the tavern was an improvement and he wasn't eager to 
get himself kicked out.
It was horribly cold in this room -- there was a fire, but it didn't get things 
much above freezing and by now they were all suffering from icy hands and feet. 
He was bored. And breakfast had long since worn thin. Only in summer was this 
part of the day bearable, for as cold as the temple buildings were in winter, 
they made up for it by being pleasant in summer, and smelled of ancient incense 
rather than the reek of privies, of garbage, and of the muck of all of the 
animals hidden away in back courts.
There!
The heads of every child in the room, Skif's included, came up as the bell 
summoning the faithful to Midday Service rang from the top of the Temple. If 
they'd been a pack of dogs, their ears and tails would have quivered. Novice 
Beel sighed.
"All -- ," he began, and the children literally leaped from their seats and 
stampeded for the door before he could finish. " -- right -- ," Skif heard faintly 
behind him as he scooped up Dolly and shoved his way with the rest through the 
open door with her held protectively in front of him.
Once outside, he broke away from the mob of children, bringing Dolly with him. 
The rest streamed in every direction, and Skif hadn't a clue what made them all 
so anxious to get where they were heading to do so at a run. Maybe it was the 
prospect of finding a little warmth somewhere. Without a word, he wrapped his 
arm around Dolly's thin shoulders and turned her in the direction of her home. 
Since a few days after her first appearance in the schoolroom, when he'd caught 
some of the older children teasing and tormenting her, he'd played her guardian. 
Her father brought her in the morning on the way to his work at the docks, but 
Skif was her escort home, where she would join the rest of the children in her 
family and her mother at their laundry. In winter, despite having to struggle 
with soaking, heavy fabric and harsh soap that irritated and chapped the skin, a 
laundry wasn't a bad place to work, since you could always warm up in the room 
where the washing coppers were kept hot over their fires. Dolly never lingered 
once they arrived; she only cast Skif a shy smile of thanks and scampered inside 
the building, where a cloud of steam poured out into the street from the 
momentarily open door.
His self-appointed duty complete, Skif was now free for as long as he could keep 
out of the way of his relatives.
Kalchan would work him until he dropped, not serving customers, since that was 
Maisie's job, but doing everything else but cooking -- and "everything else" 
included some things that made Skif feel sick just to think about. On the other 
hand, out of sight was definitely out of mind with Kalchan, and so long as Skif 
didn't claim meals, his eldest cousin probably thought he was in lessons during 
the daylight hours. Fortunately Beel had suffered enough under his older 
brother's fist as a child that he didn't go out of his way to enlighten Kalchan 
as to Skif's whereabouts out of school.
That did leave him some options. Sometimes he could find someone with errands to 
run; sometimes he could shovel snow or sweep crossings for a pennybit. There was 
refuse to haul off for the rag-and-bone men if they came up short a man. But 
none of that was to be counted on as a source of food or money to buy it, and 
Skif had finally hit on something that was.
It took him far out of his own neighborhood, and into places where his ragged, 
coatless state was very conspicuous. That was the drawback; before he reached 
his goal, he might be turned back a dozen times by suspicious folk who didn't 
like the look of him in their clean and prosperous streets.
Eventually he left the tenements and crooked, foul streets and penetrated into 
places where the streets were clean and kept clean by people whose only job was 
to sweep them. The transition was amazing to him, and even more amazing was that 
there were single families that lived in buildings that would serve to house a 
dozen or more families in his area. He didn't even try to venture onto those 
streets; there were all sorts of people there whose only job was to keep people 
like him out.
Now he went to the alleys, slinking from bit of cover to bit of cover. There was 
plenty of cover here; permanent rubbish bins where ashes, broken crockery, bits 
of wood, scraps from food preparation too small or too spoiled for anyone from 
these houses to consider useful were left for the rubbish collectors. This was 
where the wood -- and possibly some of the foodstuffs -- bought by Uncle Londer came 
from. Skif knew better than to rummage in those bins; they "belonged" to the 
rubbish collectors who guarded their territories jealously, with curses, kicks, 
and blows. But the rubbish collectors didn't care who they saw in their alleys 
so long as he left the bins alone, and they ignored Skif as if he was invisible. 
Sometimes there were other things left back here as well, usually weeds, bags of 
dead plants and leaves, sticks and trimmings from gardens. It all made places 
for a small boy like Skif to hide. These alleys were faced by blank walls that 
rose well above Skif's head, but not all of those walls were as impervious as 
they seemed.
He had skipped over three or four social strata now,- he'd known better than to 
look for a mark among people like Dolly's parents or the small merchants. Such 
folk feared to lose what they'd built up and were as penurious in their way as 
his uncle; they didn't share what they had, and when they caught someone trying 
to get a bit for himself, punished him with fury. No, when Skif decided that he 
was going to help himself to the bounty of others, he knew he'd need to find 
someone who had so much that he couldn't keep track of it all, and so many 
servants that it wasn't possible even for them to do so.
The drawback was that in such a rich household, there were privileges that were 
jealously guarded, and as he knew very well, even those things that the owner 
thought were refuse had value. The cook and her staff all had the rights to such 
things as fat skimmed from the cooking, the burned or otherwise "spoiled" bits, 
and "broken meats" -- which last were cooked leftover items that had been cut into 
or served from without actually having been on someone's plate. Depending on the 
household, unless such items were designated to go to the poor, the cook and 
helpers could sell such items from the back door, or give them to relatives who 
were less well-provided-for, or a combination of all of these things. 
"Scrapings" -- the leftovers scraped from plates into a slop bucket by the 
dishwashers -- belonged to the dishwashers in some households, or were fed to 
household animals in others, and again could be sold or carried off, if not fed 
to animals.
Stale bread and cake were the provenance of the pastry cook, sometimes a 
different entity from the head cook, who had the same options.
All these leftover items were jealously guarded from the time they became 
leftovers. But from the time they left the hands of the cooks until the moment 
that they were brought back to the kitchen, no one was paying any great amount 
of attention to the quantities on platters in a so-called "great" household.
And that was where Skif had found his little opportunity to exploit the 
situation.
He noted the first breach in the defenses by the cloud of sweet-scented steam 
rising over the wall; this was a huge household that had its own laundry. Making 
sure that he wouldn't be spotted, he kicked off his boots and hid them inside 
the wall, squeezing them in through a place where he'd found a loose brick. It 
had occurred to him more than once that he was probably using someone else's 
hiding place -- bricks in well-tended walls like this one didn't just "come loose" 
by accident. He wouldn't be the least surprised to learn that someone (or 
several someones) in this great house had once used the place to store small 
articles purloined in the course of duties, to be retrieved and carried off 
later.
Now barefooted, he climbed nimbly over the top and into the open laundry yard, 
full of vats of hot water, bleaches, and soap in which household linens soaked 
before being pounded by a dozen laundresses, rinsed, and hung up to dry. Between 
the vats, sheets and towels were strung on lines crisscrossing the yard. The 
bleaches were so harsh that these vats were kept in the open, and away from the 
rest of the laundry where the clothing was cleaned, for a careless splash could 
ruin a colored tunic forever. The steam and the hanging linens gave him cover to 
get into the room where the livery for the pages was stored once it had been 
laundered, and on his way through, he grabbed a wet towel out of one of the vats 
to take with him.
The pages -- there were at least twenty of them -- went through a dozen sets of livery 
apiece in a week, for the servant who had charge over them insisted on absolute 
cleanliness.
This room -- which they called a "closet" although it was as big as the Hollybush's 
common room -- held only shelves that were stacked with tabbards, tunics, and trews 
for every possible size of boy. They didn't wear boots or shoes, perhaps because 
they were so young that they would probably outgrow boots or shoes too quickly; 
instead, they wore colored stockings with leather bottoms, which could fit a 
wide variety of feet. Hence, Skif's current barefoot status.
The rest of the livery was designed to be oversized on practically any child, so 
Skif would have no difficulty in fitting into whatever was clean. Within 
moments, his own clothing was hidden under piles of discarded but clean tabards 
too worn to be used for anything but really dirty jobs, but too good to be 
relegated to duty as rags. A quick wipe all over himself with the damp towel -- a 
dirty boy would stand out dreadfully among the clean pages -- and a quick change of 
clothing, and Skif was now a page.
Just in time for luncheon.
Now properly outfitted, and hence invisible to the rest of the staff, he dropped 
the filthy towel in a pile of others waiting to be cleaned, trotted out of the 
laundry just as if he was on an errand. He crossed a paved court to the 
kitchens, slipped inside the door, and joined the line of pages bringing common 
food into the lord's Great Hall. He made certain to take a platter heavily laden 
with a pile of what looked like boiled baby cabbages no bigger than his thumb; 
by the time it got to the table, two of them were in his pockets.
This Lord Orthallen must be a very important person. Every day he entertained a 
horde of people at his table, perhaps fifty or sixty of them, besides the dozen 
or so of his own immediate family. That was just guests; there was a small army 
of his own servants and retainers at still lower tables, but they had to serve 
themselves from great bowls and platters brought from the kitchen by one of 
their own number.
Skif and the other pages served only the guests, who got foods that were 
designed to be eaten with one's own knife and hands. After the tiny cabbages, he 
purloined a dainty little coin-sized meat pie, a soft roll of white bread, a 
cube of cheese, more cheese wrapped in pastry, a small boiled turnip, and an 
apple. That was all his pockets would hold. He made certain that he was in the 
procession of pages that got the platters going to those who sat below the 
lord's salt -- he didn't have the manners to serve at the head table and he knew 
that he'd be recognized for an interloper. Those who sat lower were too busy 
eating, gossiping, and watching their betters to pay attention to the pages.
Once his pockets were full, Skif made certain to "accidentally" get some grease 
on the front of his tabard -- an accident that occurred to at least three of the 
pages at every meal, since many of them were young and they were all rushing to 
and fro. As he expected, he was sent to the laundry to change.
Once there, he swiftly changed back into his own clothing, left the soiled 
uniform with others like it, and went back up --  but not over the walls and into 
the alleys.
After all, why should he? He had nothing particular to do out there. His friends 
were all too busy working or on schemes of their own to get themselves fed to 
have any time for play --  playing was what the fortunate children of the rich did. 
For the moment, he wanted a warm place to rest and eat, and there was one right 
here at hand.
There was an attic over the laundry, a loft area that was barely tall enough to 
allow him to walk hunched over, where old tubs and some of the laundry stores 
were kept. It got more than enough heat from the laundry below to be comfortably 
cozy and more than enough steam to keep down the dust. Here, Skif curled up 
inside an overturned wooden tub for extra concealment and dug into his purloined 
food.
He could, of course, have eaten three times what he'd stolen -- but it was twice 
what he'd get at the tavern, and not only entirely edible, but tasty to boot.
With his stomach relatively full, he curled up in the tub for a nap. Here, and 
not in his cubby at the Hollybush, was where he could sleep in comfort and 
security. And he did.
No matter how comfortable he was, Skif slept like a cat, with one eye open and 
one ear cocked, in case trouble stole upon him, thinking to catch him unaware. 
So even though he didn't know what woke him, when he woke, he came alert all at 
once, and instead of jumping to his feet, he stayed frozen in place, listening.
Wood creaked slightly, somewhere in the loft. Was it a footstep? The sound came 
again, a trifle nearer, then fabric brushed against something harder. There was 
someone up here with him.
Now, it wouldn't be one of the laundry servants on proper business; they came up 
the stair, clumping and talking loudly. It might be a servant or a page come up 
here to nap or escape work -- if it was, although Skif would have a slight 
advantage in that the other wouldn't want to be caught, he had a profound 
disadvantage in that he didn't belong here himself, and the other could 
legitimately claim to have heard something overhead and gone to investigate. If 
that was the case, he'd be stuck under this tub until the other person left.
It might also be something and someone entirely different -- a thief, who wouldn't 
want to be found any more than Skif did, who might flee, or might fight, 
depending on the circumstances, if Skif came out of hiding.
He didn't know enough yet; better to wait. It was highly unlikely that the other 
would choose Skif's particular tub to hide himself or anything else underneath. 
It was out of the way and smallish, and Skif had chosen it for precisely those 
reasons. Instead, he peered under the edge of it, as the surreptitious sounds 
moved closer, thanking his luck that it wasn't dusty up here. Now would be a bad 
time to sneeze.
It sounded, given the direction the sounds were coming from, as if the unknown 
had gotten into the loft the same way that Skif had, through the gable window at 
the end. Skif narrowed his eyes, waiting for something to come into his area of 
vision among the slats of the wooden tubs. The light was surprisingly good up 
here, but the sun was all wrong for Skif to see a shadow that might give him 
some notion of who the other intruder was. The creaking gave Skif a good idea 
that the fellow moved toward the stairs, which meant he was at least thinking of 
using them to descend into the laundry itself. That wasn't an option Skif would 
have chosen -- unless, of course, the fellow was a thief, and was planning on 
purloining something from the laundry itself. There was plenty of stuff to steal 
in there; silk handkerchiefs and scarves, the embroidered ribbons that the young 
ladies of the household liked to use for their necks and hair and the young men 
liked to give them, the gossamer veils they wore in public -- all light, easy to 
carry, presumably easy to sell. The only reason Skif hadn't helped himself 
before this was that he didn't know where to dispose of such things and was not 
about to share his loot with Kalchan.
A foot slid slowly into view; not a big foot, and most importantly of all, not a 
foot clad in the soled sock of a page or liveried indoor servant. This was a 
foot in a half-boot of very flexible black leather, laced tight to the ankle and 
calf, much worn and patched, not much larger than his own, attached to a leg in 
rusty black trews with worn places along the hem. This foot, and the person who 
wore those trews, did not belong here. No one in Lord Orthallen's service wore 
anything of the sort.
Skif made a quick decision, and struck. Before the other knew he was there, 
Skif's hand darted from under the tub, and Skif had the fellow's ankle held fast 
in a hand that was a lot stronger than it looked.
Skif had half expected a struggle, or at least an attempt to get free, but the 
owner of the ankle had more sense than that -- or was more afraid of the attention 
that the sounds of a struggle would bring than anything Skif could do to him. So 
now, it was the other's turn to freeze.
Skif mentally applauded his decision. He thought he had a good idea of what was 
going through the other fellow's mind. Now, the arm that Skif had snaked out 
from beneath the tub was clad in a sleeve that was more patch than whole cloth. 
So Skif obviously didn't belong here either, and the two of them were at an 
equal advantage and disadvantage. For either to make noise or fuss would mean 
that both would be caught --  and no point in trying to claim that one had seen the 
other sneak over the wall and followed to catch him either. An honest boy would 
have pounded on the back entrance to report the intruder, not climbed up after 
him. No, no -- if one betrayed the other, both of them would be thrown to the City 
Guard.
So the other fellow did the prudent thing; he stayed in place once Skif let go 
of him so that Skif could slip out from under the tub. Like it or not, for the 
moment they were partners in crime. Skif, however, had a plan.
There was a moment when the other could have tried to knock Skif out and make a 
run for it, but he didn't. Such an action would have been noisy, of course, and 
he still might have been caught, but with one unconscious or semiconscious boy 
on the floor to distract those who would come clambering up here, he might have 
been able to get away. Skif breathed a sigh of relief when he was all the way 
out from under the tub and was able to kneel next to it, looking up at the 
interloper.
What he saw was a boy of about fifteen, but small for his age, so that he wasn't 
a great deal taller than Skif. His thin face, as closed and impassive as any 
statue's, gave away no hint of what he was thinking. His eyes narrowed when he 
got a good look at his captor, but there was no telling what emotion lay behind 
the eyes.
His clothing was better than Skif's -- but then again, whose wasn't? Skif wore 
every shirt he owned -- three, all ragged, all inexpertly patched by his own hands, 
all faded into an indeterminate brown -- with a knitted tunic that was more hole 
than knit over the top of it all. His linen trews, patched as well, were under 
his woolen trews, which for a change, had been darned except for the seat which 
sported a huge patch made from an old canvas tent. This boy's clothing was at 
least all the same color and the patches were of the same sort of material as 
the original. In fact, unless you were as close as Skif was, you wouldn't notice 
the patches much.
He had long hair of a middling brown color, and a headband of dark braided 
string to keep it out of his eyes. His eyes matched his hair, and if he'd been 
fed as well as one of the page boys his face would have been round; as it was, 
the bones showed clearly, though not nearly as sharply defined as Skif's.
There were other signs of relative prosperity; the other boy's wrists weren't as 
thin as Skif's, and he showed no signs of the many illnesses that the poor were 
prone to in the winter. If he was a thief -- and there was little doubt in Skif's 
mind that he was -- this boy was a good enough thief to be doing well.
The two of them stared at each other for several moments. It was the older boy 
who finally broke the silence.
"Wot ye want?" he asked, in a harsh whisper.
Until that moment when he'd seized the other's ankle, Skif hadn't known what he 
wanted, but the moment his hand had touched leather, his plan had sprung up in 
his mind.
"Teach me," he whispered, and saw with satisfaction the boy's eyes widen with 
surprise, then his slow nod.
He squatted down beside Skif, who beckoned to him to follow. On hands and knees, 
Skif led him into the maze of tubs and empty packing crates until they were 
hidden from view against the wall, next to the chimney.
There they settled, screened by stacks of buckets needing repair. From below 
came the steady sounds of the laundry, which should cover any conversation of 
theirs.
"Ye ain't no page, an' ye ain't got no reason t'be in the wash house. Wot ye 
doin' here?" the boy asked, more curious than annoyed.
Skif shrugged. "Same as you, only not so good," he replied. He explained his 
ruse to get fed to the boy, whose lips twitched into a thin smile.
"Not bad done, fer a little," he acknowledged. "Noboddie never pays mind 
t'littles. Ye cud do better, though. Real work, not this pilferin' bits uv grub. 
I kin get through places a mun can't, an ye kin get where I can't. We might cud 
work t'gether."
"That's why I want ye t'teach me," Skif whispered back. "Can't keep runnin' this 
ferever. Won' look like no page much longer."
The boy snorted. "Won't need to. Here, shake on't." He held out his hand, a 
thin, hard, and strong hand, and Skif took it, cementing their bargain with a 
shake. "M'name's Deek," the boy said, releasing his hand.
Skif was happy to note that Deek hadn't tried to crush his hand in his grip or 
otherwise show signs of being a bully. "Call me Skif," he offered.
Deek grinned. "Good. Now, you stay here -- I come back in a tick, an' we'll scoot 
out by th' back t'gether." He cocked his head down at the floor, and it was 
pretty clear that there wasn't anyone working down in the laundry anymore. It 
was probably time for supper; the laundresses and some of the other servants ate 
long before their betters, and went to bed soon after sundown, for their work 
started before sunrise.
Skif nodded; he saw no reason to doubt that Deek would play him false, since he 
was sitting on the only good route of escape. He and Deek made their way back to 
Skif's tub; Skif ducked back inside, and Deek crept down the stairs into the 
laundry.
Deek came back up quickly, and the quick peek of silk from the now 
slightly-bulging breast of his tunic told Skif all he needed to know. As he had 
expected, Deek had managed to slip downstairs, purloin small items of valuable 
silk, and get back up without anyone catching sight of him. As long as he took 
small things, items unlikely to be missed for a while, that weren't such rare 
dainties as to be too recognizable, it was quite likely that the owners 
themselves would assume they'd been mislaid. No specially embroidered 
handkerchiefs, for example, or unusual colors of veils. He beckoned to Skif, who 
followed him out over the roof, both of them lying as flat as stalking cats as 
they wiggled their way along the tiles, to minimize the chance of someone 
spotting them from below. From this position, they couldn't see much; just the 
lines of drying linens in the yard, the tops of bushes past the linens that 
marked the gardens, and the bulk of the magnificent mansion beyond. If anyone 
looked out of the windows of the mansion, they would be spotted.
Not likely though.
The pipe-clay tiles were infernally cold after the warm wash-house attic, and 
Skif clenched his teeth together to keep them from chattering. As he slid 
belly-down along them, they kept finding tears and rents to protrude through, 
right against his bare skin. The edges of the tiles caught on his rags, too; he 
had to move carefully, and make sure that nothing had snagged as he moved, to 
keep from dislodging one of them and sending it down with a betraying clatter. 
It seemed to be getting a little darker, although the sky was so overcast that 
Skif couldn't tell where the sun was. That was good; the closer it was to dusk, 
the less likely anyone would see them.
Already his bare feet ached with cold. The most risky part of this procedure was 
the moment that they got down from the roof onto the top of the wall. The roof 
actually overhung the wall, so that they had to dangle over the alley and feel 
with their toes for their support. And of course, this put them in clear view of 
anyone in the alley.
But as Skif already knew, it was too early for scrap collectors and too late for 
the rag-and-bone men, too late for tradesmen and too early for those delivering 
special items that Lord Orthallen's cooks did not have the expertise to prepare 
in time for an evening's feast. There was no one in the alley.
Deek went first; Skif followed. He slipped his legs over the edge of the roof 
and lowered himself down, hanging on grimly to the lead gutters, groping after 
the rough stone of the wall somewhere underneath the overhang with his benumbed 
toes.
When he finally got his feet on it and set them solidly, he eased himself down 
and under the overhang, his arms hurting with the strain. Deek crouched there, 
waiting for him with great patience, and he paused for just a moment to shake 
some feeling back into his fingers.
From the wall, they climbed down to the alleyway; Skif noted with concealed glee 
that Deek came down the same route that he himself used. "Wait a mo -- ," he said, 
as Deek made to move off, and retrieved his boots from the hidden nook.
Deek's mouth dropped open. "Cor! That be right handy, that do!" he whispered in 
amazement.
Skif just grinned, and shoved his boots on quickly. They still couldn't afford 
to be caught here; someone might search them. Deek wasted no more time, but led 
Skif off in the opposite direction from which Skif had come. He didn't go that 
way for long, however; just far enough to get back into a more modest area. Then 
he cut back in the direction that Skif had expected. He didn't slow down, not 
for a moment, and Skif had to stretch his legs to keep up with him. For all 
that, he didn't look like a boy who was somewhere he shouldn't be; he strode 
with his head up, paying close attention to anything that stood out like a 
landmark, quite as if he had an errand he'd been sent on. Skif tried to emulate 
him.
As they worked their way back toward the south and east, Deek started to talk, 
quietly enough so that it wasn't likely they'd be overheard. " 'Sjest me an' a 
couple boys, an' Bazie," Deek said. "Bazie, he's the clever cuz what tells us 
how t'nobble. Cain't do it hisself; ain't got no legs. But 'e kin show us, an' 
he innerduced us t'the fence, so we gotta place t'sell the swag."
"He gonna have a prollem with me?" Skif wanted to know.
Deek shook his head. "Nah," he said decisively. "We bin one short since Larap 
tookt off on 'is own. No flop an' no feed, though," he added, casting a look 
aside at Skif. "Not lessen' ye bin wi' th' gang a sixmun."
"Gotta flop," Skif replied shortly. "An' I kin feed m'self. I kin wait."
But secretly, he was astonished at his good luck. That he even had a chance for 
a new place to sleep and meals -- if he could just get out of Uncle Londer's 
clutches. Anything would be better than the Hollybush!
Deek laughed, and slapped Skif on the back, as they turned a corner and entered 
a working-class neighborhood where they could leave the alleys and take to the 
streets. This wasn't one anywhere near the Hollybush, and Skif wondered just how 
far they were from the tavern.
Far, I hope, he thought. Don' want Kalchan catchin' wind uv this.
Each turning that Deek made took them deeper into the kind of areas that Skif 
called home, though nothing looked familiar. The streets grew narrower, the 
buildings shabbier and in worse repair. Another corner turned, and they came 
unexpectedly into a little square, where there was a market going at full shout, 
with barrows and stalls everywhere. Deek ignored the noise, the hagglers, the 
confusion of people and barrows; he pushed in between a rag-and-bone man selling 
bundles of half-burned wood, and a barrow full of broken and cracked pottery, 
leading Skif into a narrow passage between two buildings not much bigger than 
his own slim shoulders.
Then, with an abrupt turn in the half dark, he darted into an opening in one 
wall and up a staircase. Skif followed, taking care where he put his feet, for 
there was plenty of debris on the rickety wooden stairs, some of it slippery. 
The stairs were steep, and switched back and forth, with landings on each floor 
that led to two or three closed doors.
At the top, however, there was only a single door, which Deek opened without 
knocking. Skif followed him inside, only to be confronted by a long hallway with 
more doors, lit from above by a single skylight with some translucent stuff in 
it that let in enough light to make out the doorways. Deek went straight to the 
end of the hall, much to Skif's bafflement. There was nothing there but the 
blank wall, an expanse of water-stained plaster with a couple of old, rusted 
hooks on it.
Deek paused at the end, and grinned back over his shoulder at Skif. "Figger it 
out, yet?" he taunted, then pulled on a hook.
A door separated itself from the cracked plaster, the lines of the door 
previously completely hidden in the cracks.
Deek motioned to Skif to go inside, and closed the door behind him. Now they 
went down a stair, more of a ladder than a staircase, one somehow sandwiched 
between the walls of buildings on all four sides; and in a moment, Skif realized 
that this must be an air shaft, and at some point someone had jury-rigged a 
stair inside it. There were windows looking into the shaft, but most of them had 
shutters over them to keep out the cold air. They climbed down and down until 
they passed through the bottom of the shaft, and Skif knew that they were below 
street level. If he hadn't already guessed that, the sudden increase in dampness 
would have given it away.
There was a door at the bottom of the stair; Deek knocked on this one in a 
definite pattern that Skif didn't quite catch. The door swung open, and Deek 
grabbed his arm and pulled him inside.
Another boy, this one older than Deek, with hair of a mousy blonde color, closed 
the door behind them. Skif stood at Deek's side, and took it all in without 
saying a word.
It was warm down here, warm and humid. The source of the warmth was a -- 
 -- copper wash boiler. Which was also the source of the moisture. It sat in a 
brickwork oven in the far corner of the stone-walled room, a chimney running up 
the corner behind it, with a fine fire burning beneath it, and presumably, 
laundry soaking in it. Hanging just below the ceiling were strings of drying 
wash.
Silk objects hung there, expensive silk, mostly scarves and handkerchiefs, a few 
veils, some lady's stockings and finely-knit silk gloves -- and a few perfectly 
ordinary shirts and tunics and trews, stockings, all darned and patched.
Well, hey, if they're washin' the swag, they might's well wash their own stuff, 
I guess.
The fire beneath the cauldron, despite the name of "wash boiler" was not hot 
enough to boil the water, only to keep it warm. Next to the cauldron was a 
remarkable figure, seated on a stack of flat cushions, busily darning the heel 
of a silk stocking with fingers as fine and flexible as a woman's. He was bald, 
shiny-pated in fact, with enormous shoulders and chest muscles beneath a shabby 
tunic. The legs of his equally patched trews were folded under at the knee, as 
Deek had implied. He didn't look up from his work.
There were two more boys in the room, one stirring the laundry with a stick, the 
other cracking and peeling hard-boiled eggs at an old table with one broken leg 
propped up and crudely nailed to an old keg. Skif tried not to look at the eggs; 
his pilfered lunch had long since worn thin. Besides the table and the stool the 
boy sat on, of furnishings there were none. There were boxes in various states 
of repair, old kegs, half-barrels, and a wide variety of cushions, quilts, and 
other linens. Anything that was made of fabric, unlike the rest of the contents 
of the room, was neatly patched and darned and in good repair -- and clean, very 
clean. There was plenty of light here, from a motley assortment of lamps and 
candles. And there was definitely one thing missing -- the usual smell of poverty, 
compounded of dirt, mildew, grease, mouse, and sweat.
The man finished his darning and, with a gusty sigh, tossed the stocking in with 
the rest of the laundry in the wash boiler. Only then did he look up. His eyes, 
a startling black, seemed to bore right into Skif's brain.
"Where ye get this'un?" he asked Deek, turning his gaze on Skif's companion.
If Deek had possessed such a thing as a cap, he'd probably have snatched it off 
and held it diffidently in front of him in both hands. As it was, he ducked his 
head. " 'E caught me, Bazie," Deek told the man. " 'E wuz in th' wash-house 
loft, an' 'e caught me cummin' in." Then, having gotten the difficult bit over 
with -- admitting that he'd been caught by a mere child, he continued with more 
enthusiasm, describing Skif's own "lay" and his wish to be taught. The other two 
boys pretended not to listen, but Skif caught them watching him surreptitiously.
"Figgered 'e cud take Larap's place, mebbe, if n 'e makes it past sixmun," Deek 
concluded, looking hopefully at his mentor.
Now Bazie transferred his unwavering gaze to Skif. "Ye livin' rough?" he asked, 
and Skif knew that he'd better tell the truth.
"At Hollybush," he replied shortly. "Kalchan's m'cuz, Londer's m'nuncle."
Evidently Bazie knew the Hollybush, since he didn't ask where or what it was. 
His gaze became even more piercing. "Bonded?"
With relief Skif shook his head. "Nuh-uh!"; he denied vigorously. "Ma didn' bond 
me 'fore she croaked. Londer's pretty het 'bout it, but ain't nothin' 'e kin do 
now. An' 'e niver cud put me out, 'cuz 'e took me in, on th' rolls an all, 
reckonin' t' get me bonded."
A bonded child was just short of property; required to serve in whatever 
capacity his "guardian" chose until he was sixteen, for the privilege of being 
sheltered and fed. Skif's mother had neglected (perhaps on purpose) to bond her 
toddler to her brother when her man left her and she fell ill -- she worsened and 
died before Londer could get the bond signed and sworn to. It was too late now; 
no notary would swear to a faked bond. Well -- no notary would swear to a faked 
bond for the pittance of a bribe that was all that Londer would offer.
By the point when Skif's mother died, Londer was already on record with the same 
Temple Beel served at as the responsible party for his sister and nephew (hoping 
to get Skif's bond). As such, he was technically required by law to care for 
Skif until the age of twelve without any benefit. At twelve, which was no more 
than a couple of years away, he could turn Skif out, but he probably wouldn't. 
Skif was still supplying free labor at no real cost to him, and as long as that 
was going on, Londer would let sleeping dogs lie.
Now, the fact was that although Skif was under no obligation to serve at the 
Hollybush for his keep, the only thing he could coerce out of Kalchan and Londer 
was a place to sleep. The food they offered him -- the leavings from customers' 
meals -- a pig wouldn't touch. If he wanted to eat, he had to either find alternate 
ways of getting meals (as he had) or do even more work than he already was. And 
as long as he wanted to sleep at the Hollybush, which though wretched, was 
infinitely better and safer than trying to find a place on the street, he had to 
obey Kalchan's orders whenever he was around the tavern. There were a lot of 
things that could happen to a child on the street -- "living rough" -- and most of 
them were far worse than being beaten now and again by Kalchan, who had no taste 
for little boys or girls.
'Course, if 'e thunk 'e cud get away wit' it, 'e'd hev no prollem sellin' me. 
Kalchan would sell his own mother's services if he thought he wouldn't get 
caught. As it was, on the rare occasions when Skif got dragooned into "helping," 
he often had to endure the surreptitious caresses and whispered enticements of 
some of the customers who had wider ideas of pleasure than Kalchan did. As long 
as Kalchan didn't actually accept money in advance for the use of Skif's body, 
there was nothing that Skif could report to Temple or Guard.
And as long as Kalchan didn't take money in advance, the customers could only 
try to entice a boy; they wouldn't dare try to force him in public. The 
likelihood of one of them cornering Skif somewhere private was nonexistent. 
There wasn't a wall built he couldn't climb, and he knew every dirty-fighting 
trick there was for getting away from an adult.
After some time, during which Skif felt very uncomfortable, Bazie nodded. Now, 
at last, he showed a faint sign of satisfaction. " 'E might cud do," he said to 
Deek. "Give 'im a try."
Deek grinned, and elbowed him.
"Wouldn' mind puttin one i' th'eye uv that bastid Londer," Bazie continued, a 
gleam in his own black eyes. "Yew work out in one moon, yer in."
Deek sucked in his breath; he had told Skif it would be six moons, not one, 
before he'd be accepted into the gang. Skif was amazed himself, and tried hard 
not to grin, but failed.
Bazie raised an eyebrow. "Don' get cocky," he cautioned. " Tis as much t' put 
one i' the eye uv Londer."
Skif ducked his head. "Yessir," he said earnestly. "I unnerstan' sir." But he 
couldn't help feeling excited. "Ye'll be teachin' me, then?"
"Ye kin start now, at boiler," Bazie grunted, gesturing to the boy at the 
cauldron. "Ye take Lyle's stick."
Skif was not at all loath. For the second time today -- the first had been when he 
was asleep in the wash-house loft -- he was warm. Stirring a cauldron full of 
laundry was nowhere near as much work as toting rubbish for the rag-and-bone 
men.
Lyle was happy enough to give over the stick to Skif, who industriously stirred 
away at the simmering pot. Every so often, at Bazie's imperious gesture, he'd 
lift out a kerchief or some other piece of fabric on the stick. If Bazie 
approved, the second boy took it and hung it up to dry; if not, it went back in 
the pot.
Meanwhile Deek sorted his loot by color into baskets along the wall; Bazie, 
darning yet another silk stocking, noted Skif's incredulous stare as he did so, 
and snorted. "Ye think 'm gonna ruin goods w' dye runnin'? Think agin! We gets 
twice fer th' wipes 'cause they's clean an' mended, boy -- thas a fair piece fer 
damn liddle work wi' no risk!"
Well, put that way -- 
Skif kept stirring.
Lyle began taking down kerchiefs that were dry; Bazie continued to mend, and 
Deek picked through one of the baskets, looking for more things that needed 
fixing. The third boy finished peeling the hard-boiled eggs, and stood up.
" 'M off, Bazie," he said. He was clearly the oldest, and Bazie looked up from 
his mending to level a measuring gaze at him.
"Ye mind, now," the man said, carefully. "Ye mind whut I said, Raf. Ye slip one, 
an' move on. No workin' a crowd on yer lone."
The boy Raf nodded impatiently with one hand on the doorknob. As soon as Bazie 
finished speaking, he was already out the door. Bazie shook his head.
"He don' lissen," the man said with gloom.
"Ah, he lissens," Deek assured their mentor. " 'E's jest inna hurry. They's a 
street fair a-goin' by Weavers, an' 'e wants t' get to't afore they pockets is 
empty."
Bazie didn't seem convinced, but said nothing to Deek. "Lemme see yer hands," he 
said to Skif instead, but shook his head sadly over the stubby paws that Skif 
presented for his inspection. "Ye'll not suit th' liftin' much," he decreed. " 
'Least, ye'll nivver be a master. Ye got t'hev long finners fer the liftin'. Kin 
ye climb?"
Deek answered for him. "Like a squirrel, I seen 'im," the boy chimed in 
cheerfully. "An' look at 'is nose an' feet -- 'e ain't gonna get big for a good bit 
yet, maybe not fer years."
Bazie examined him carefully from top to toes. "I thin' yer right," he said 
after a moment. "Aye. Reckon ye got a matey, Deek."
"That'll do," Deek replied, with a grin, and turned to Skif. "We'll be learnin' 
ye th' roof walkin', then, wi' me. In an' out --  winders, mostly."
"An' ye live t' see summer, ye'll be doin' the night walks," Bazie said with a 
little more cheer. "Won't be wipes yer bringin' 'ome then, nossir."
Deek snorted, and Skif felt his heart pounding with excitement. "Not likely!" 
Deek said with scorn. "Wipes? More like glimmers!"
"Ye bring 'ome the glimmers, and we'll be findin' new digs, me lads," Bazie 
promised, his eyes gleaming with avid greed. "Aye that, 'tis us'll be eatin' 
beef an' beer when we like, an' from cookshop!"
Lyle, however, looked worried, though he said nothing. Skif wondered why. It was 
clear from the wealth of kerchiefs --  "wipes" -- and other things here that Bazie was 
a good teacher. Skif saw no reason why that expertise shouldn't extend to 
second-story work and the theft of jewelry.
He'd never actually seen any jewelry that wasn't fake, all foiled glass and tin, 
but he could imagine it. He could imagine being able to eat all he liked of the 
kinds of food he served to Lord Orthallen's guests, too, and possessing fine 
clothing that wasn't all patches and tears -- 
" 'Nuff moon-calfin'," Bazie said sharply, recalling them all to the present. 
"Boy -- Skif -- be any more i' the pot?"
"Jes' this," Skif said, fishing out the last of the garments on the end of the 
stick. Bazie examined it, and grunted.
"That'll do," he decreed, and Lyle took it to hang it up. "Deek, next lot."
Deek brought over the next batch of wash, which was of mingled saffrons, tawnys 
and bright yellows, and dumped it in the cauldron. Lyle got up and took the 
stick from Skif without being prompted and began energetically thrusting the 
floating fabric under the water.
"Ye kin hev two eggs, Boy, an' then Deek'll get ye 'thin sight uv Hollybush," 
Bazie declared. "Eat 'em on th' way."
"Yessir!" Skif said, overjoyed, mouth watering at the idea of having two whole 
boiled eggs for himself. He picked a pair out of the bowl, tucking them in a 
pocket, and followed Deek out the door and up the rickety staircase.
Once down on the street he and Deek strolled along together like a pair of old 
friends, Deek putting in a laconic comment now and again, while Skif nibbled at 
his eggs, making them last. He'd had boiled eggs before this -- they were a regular 
item at Lord Orthallen's table -- but not so often that he didn't savor every tiny 
bite. Once Deek darted over to a vendor's wagon and came back with a pair of 
buns, paying for them (somewhat to Skif's surprise) and handing one to his new 
"mate."
"Why didn' ye nobble 'em?" he asked in a whisper.
Deek frowned. "Ye don' mess yer nest," he admonished. "Tha's Bazie's first rule. 
Ye don' take nuthin' from neighbors. Tha' way, they don' know what we does, an' 
'f hue-an'-cry goes up, they ain't gonna he'p wi' lookin' fer us."
Well, that made sense. It had never occurred to Skif that if your neighbors knew 
you were a thief, you'd be the first one they looked for if something went 
missing. He ate his bun thoughtfully, as Deek pointed out landmarks he could use 
to find his way back tomorrow.
"I got lessons," Skif pointed out reluctantly, and Deek laughed.
"No worries," the boy replied. "Bazie won' be 'wake 'till midday. Ye cum then. 
Look -- ye know this street?"
Skif looked closer at the street they had just turned onto, and realized that he 
did -- he had just never come at it from this direction before. "Aye," he told 
Deek. "Hollybush be down there -- ," and pointed.
"G'wan -- ," Deek gave him a little push. "See ye midday."
The other boy turned on his heel and trotted back through the gloom of dusk 
along the way they'd come, and in a moment Skif couldn't make him out anymore.
With a sigh and a bowed head, he trudged toward his uncle's tavern and the cold 
welcome that awaited him. But, at least, tonight he had something to look 
forward to on the morrow.
KALCHAN never asked him where he'd been, so long as he came back before dark. He 
just welcomed Skif back with a cuff to the ear, and shoved him into the kitchen. 
By now, the kitchen was full of smoke, and the cook coughed and wheezed while 
she worked. It wasn't just the fault of the chimney, which certainly could have 
used a cleaning -- the cook routinely burned the bottom crust of the bread, burned 
what was on the bottom of the pot, dripped grease on the hearth, which burned 
and smoked.
Skif didn't have to be told what to do, since his duties were exactly the same 
thing every day. Poor half-witted Maisie, on the other hand, had to be told 
carefully how to go about her business even though it was all chores she'd done 
every day for the last however-many years. That was why, if Skif wasn't back by 
dark and the time when the big influx of customers came, he'd get more than a 
cuff on the ear. If you gave Maisie one thing to do, then interrupted her with 
something else, she became hysterical and botched everything.
First, the water barrel had to be filled again -- not because anyone had used much 
of it in cleaning, but because like everything else in the Hollybush, it was 
old, used, and barely functional. It had a slow leak, and it cost nothing to 
have Skif refill it. To have it mended would have meant paying someone.
So back and forth Skif went, doing his best not to slosh the icy water on 
himself, particularly not down his boots. When the barrel was full, the next 
chore was to take the bundle of twigs on a stick that passed for a broom and 
sweep the water and whatever else was on the floor out into the courtyard, where 
the water promptly froze (in winter) or turned into mud (in summer). Since Skif 
was the one who went into and out of the courtyard most often, it behooved him 
to at least sweep it all to one side if he could.
Next was to bring wood in from the woodpile in the courtyard and mend the fire 
in the common room, which was also full of smoke, but not as bad as the kitchen. 
Then he collected the wooden plates left on tables, carried them to the kitchen 
and thriftily scraped the leavings back into the stew pot over the fire. It 
didn't matter what went in there, since it all blended into the anonymous, lumpy 
brown muck, well flavored with burned crud from the bottom, that was already 
there. A quick wipe with a rag, and the plates were "clean" and ready for the 
next customer.
Mugs were next; he'd figured that it was better to take plates in stacked and 
not try to mix mugs and plates, for if he tried, he'd drop something and get 
beaten for breaking it. These were crude clay mugs with thick bottoms to make 
the customer think he was getting more beer than he was. Those didn't even get a 
wipe with the rag, unless they'd been left in a plate and had greasy gravy all 
over them; they were just upended and stacked beside the plates. There was no 
tableware to bother collecting; Londer wouldn't have anything that could be so 
readily stolen. In this, however, he was exactly like every other tavern keeper 
around this area. Customers ate with their own wooden spoons, usually hung on 
the belts beside their money pouches. Some ate with their personal belt knives, 
although these useful implements were used less often. The food in cheap taverns 
was generally soup or stew, and didn't need to be cut up -- nor was there often 
anything in the bowl or on the plate large enough to be speared on the point of 
a knife. Those who had no spoon shoveled the food into their mouths with 
improvised implements of heavy black bread. Black bread was all that was ever 
served at the Hollybush; made of flour that was mostly made of rye, buckwheat, 
and wheat chaff, like everything else associated with Uncle Londer, it was the 
cheapest possible bread to make. The strong taste covered a multitude of 
culinary sins, and since it was already black, it had the advantage of not 
showing how badly it was burned on the bottom.
When mugs and plates were collected, it was time to add to the stew in the 
cauldron. The cook put Skif to work "chopping vegetables" while she cut the meat 
scraps. The stew kept going day and night over the fire had been depleted by 
lunch and early dinner, and now had to be replenished. Londer's picks at the 
market were like everything else; more of what better inns and kitchens threw 
out. With a knife that had been sharpened so many times that it was now a most 
peculiar shape and as flexible as a whip, Skif chopped the tops and tails of 
turnips, carrots, whiteroots, and beets and flung them into the cauldron, along 
with the leftover crusts of burned bread too hard to serve even their customers. 
The cook added her meat scraps, and began stirring, directing him to deal with 
the bread she had removed from the bake oven built into the side of the chimney. 
There were only three rather lumpy loaves, but they wouldn't need more than 
that. The bread was used mostly as an implement, and secondarily to soak up the 
liquid part of the stew so that every drop paid for could be eaten.
Skif sawed at the bread -- better bread would not have held up under the treatment 
he gave Kalchan's loaves, but this stuff was as heavy and dense as bricks and 
just about as edible. Every slice was thriftily measured out to the minimum that 
the customers would stand by means of two grooves cut in the tabletop, and once 
cut, was "buttered" with a smear of fat and stacked up waiting to be slapped 
onto a plate. No one ever complained that it was stale; Skif was not certain it 
would be possible to tell a stale slice from one freshly cut off of these 
loaves.
When the bread was done, it was time to go get plates again; business was 
picking up.
Skif could not imagine what brought all these customers to the Hollybush, unless 
it was that Kalchan's prices were cheaper than anyone else's. It certainly 
wasn't the food, which would have poisoned a maggot, or the drink, which would 
have gagged a goat. And Maisie was no draw, either; plain as a post, with her 
dirty hair straggling down her back and over her face, she skulked among the 
tables like a scared, skinny little starling, delivering full plates and empty 
mugs while Kalchan followed in her wake, collecting pennybits and filling the 
mugs from his pitcher. Only Kalchan dispensed drink; the one time that Skif had 
dared to do so in Kalchan's momentary absence, his cousin had left stripes on 
his back with his leather belt. No one actually ordered anything -- there wasn't 
anything to order by way of choice. You sat down at a table and got beer, bread, 
and stew -- or beer alone, by waving off Maisie's proffered plate or sitting at the 
fireside bench with the steady drinkers. When customers were done, Skif came 
around and collected their plates and mugs. If one wanted more, he waited until 
Maisie came around again and took another laden plate from her; if not, he took 
himself off. This way Kalchan never had to worry about a customer complaining he 
hadn't been served when he'd paid, or about a customer sneaking off without 
paying. The only exceptions to this rule were the folk occupying the two benches 
in front of the fireplace. They got beer, period, and signified they wanted 
refills by holding up their mugs to Kalchan. When they were done, they left 
their mugs on the floor -- which were usually claimed by another bench warmer 
before Skif could collect them.
Skif made his rounds in an atmosphere thick with smoke and the fug of unwashed 
bodies, grease, stale beer, and burned food. Light came from tallow dips held in 
clamps on the wall, and from the fire in the fireplace. It wasn't much, and all 
the smoke dimmed the light still further. He couldn't have made out the faces of 
the customers if he'd wanted to. They were just an endless parade of 
dark-shrouded lumps who crammed food into their mouths and went their way 
without ever saying anything to him if he was lucky. Every so often one would 
fondle Maisie's thigh or breast, but if Kalchan caught him at it, he would have 
to pay an additional pennybit for the privilege.
There wasn't any entertainment in the Hollybush. Kalchan didn't encourage 
self-entertainment either, like singing or gaming. Most of the customers didn't 
know each other, or didn't care to, so conversation was at a minimum. As for 
fighting -- it was wisest not even to consider it. Kalchan discouraged fighting by 
breaking the heads of those who fought with the iron-headed club he carried at 
his side, and dumped the unconscious combatants outside. The drunks here were 
generally morose and quiet, and either stumbled out of the door on their own two 
feet when their money ran out, or passed out and were unceremoniously dumped in 
the street to free up space for another customer. Once in the street, an 
unconscious, former customer had better hope that friends would take him home, 
or the cold would wake him up, because otherwise the thieves would strip him of 
everything of value and drop him in a gutter.
Difficult as it was to believe, customers kept coming in, all night long. The 
benches and tables were never empty until just before closing; Skif and Maisie 
never had a moment to rest. He'd tried once to reckon up how much money -- in the 
tiniest of coins, the pennybit -- Kalchan took in of a night. There were four 
pennybits to a penny; beer was two a mug, bread and stew were three for a plate. 
Just by way of comparison, a mug of good, clean water from something other than 
a pump in dubious proximity to a privy cost two pennybits (but it wouldn't get 
you drunk -- and a mug of sweet spring water was three) and a bun like the one that 
Deek had bought him this afternoon was a full penny. So you could have something 
wholesome, though not much of it, for the same price as a full meal in the 
Hollybush. Evidently, bad as it was, there were enough people who felt they were 
getting value for their money to keep coming. The two fireside benches sat four 
each, and the four tables accommodated six eaters. Unless they planned a night 
to get drunk, the tables cleared pretty quickly. Skif figured that there were 
probably a couple hundred customers in here over the course of a day.
That was where Skif's grasp of numbers broke down -- but he reckoned that the 
Hollybush brought in a couple hundred pennies in a night, and maybe a third of 
that during the day. Uncle Londer obviously had a good thing going here. His 
costs were low, buying cheap as he did, and the hire of his help was even lower. 
Maisie was a half-wit; Uncle Londer paid some relative of hers for her services. 
Whatever he paid, it wasn't much, and she never saw any of it; all she got was 
food and a place to sleep. Skif's labor was free, of course, and he seldom ate 
here. And the cook -- 
Well, he didn't know what the cook got. He never saw her getting paid, but she 
stayed, so she must have been getting something. It couldn't have been that 
much; even he could cook better than she did.
Maybe the attraction for her was the unlimited supply of beer. He never saw her 
without a mug somewhere nearby, and she had the yellowish color of someone who 
was drinking herself to death, although her shuffling footsteps were steady and 
she never seemed drunk.
The upshot was, this place was mostly profit for Londer, that much was for sure. 
Skif wasn't going to feel at all guilty about vanishing in a moon. Uncle Londer 
could just find himself another boy or do without.
What Kalchan was getting out of the situation was less clear; certainly he had 
Maisie's dubious charms to enjoy whenever he cared to, he did get real food 
rather than tavern swill, and he had his own special butt of drink that no one 
else touched, but what else was he getting? Every night after he locked the 
front door, he waddled down to his father's home with the night's takings, and 
came back empty-handed except for the box that held his own dinner. He slept in 
the common room on a greasy featherbed piled high with blankets that were stored 
during the day in the unused staircase. Was Londer splitting the profit with his 
son? If he was, what in Havens was Kalchan spending it on? It wasn't clothing, 
it wasn't women -- not even the shabbiest streetwalker would touch Kalchan with a 
barge pole without a lot more up front than the penny or two Kalchan was likely 
to offer.
It had occurred to Skif lately that maybe Cousin Kalchan was just as stupid as 
he looked, and Uncle Londer gave him nothing in return for his labors at the 
Hollybush. If so, he didn't feel in the least sorry for him.
By the time that Kalchan dumped the last of the bench warmers outside and locked 
the front door, Skif was absolutely dead on his feet. Not tired -- he'd had that 
nap in the wash house -- but aching from neck to toes and longing for a chance to 
sit down.
Kalchan threw the bolt on the front door, and waddled out the back; when Skif 
heard the door slam shut behind him, he dropped down onto a bench to rest for a 
moment. The cook brought in three plates of stew and bread, and dropped them on 
the table. Skif took one look at the greasy, congealing mess, and pushed it 
toward Maisie, who had come to rest across from him and was already shoveling 
her food into her mouth as if she was afraid it was going to be taken from her 
at any moment. The cook had brought her own mug and picked up the beer pitcher 
that Kalchan had left on a table, shaking it experimentally. Finding there was 
still beer in it, she took it, her mug, and her plate to the fireside and 
settled down facing the remains of the flames, her back to her fellow workers.
Maisie finished her plate, picked up the platter in both hands and licked it, 
then went on to Skif's portion. She never said thank you, she never said 
anything. She never even acknowledged his presence.
Skif shuddered, got to his feet, and plodded into the now-deserted kitchen.
From his cubby, he took a tiny tin pot and a packet of chava leaves that he'd 
filched from Lord Orthallen's kitchen. Dipping water out of the barrel, he added 
the leaves and brewed himself a bedtime cup of bitter chava. The stuff was 
supposed to be good for you and make you feel relaxed and calm; at any rate, at 
this time of year it made a nice warm spot in his belly that let him get off to 
sleep.
He drank it quickly to get it down before Kalchan came back and then retreated 
to the cubby. The tin pot was shoved into the farthest corner where he kept a 
few other things that Kalchan didn't think worth taking -- his own wooden spoon, a 
couple of pretty pebbles, some bird feathers, a spinning top he'd found. Then he 
wrapped himself up in his cast-off blankets, pillowed his head on his arms, and 
waited for Kalchan to get back, feigning sleep.
The only light in the kitchen came from the fire, and it was dying, it was the 
cook's job to bank it for the night, but she forgot more than half the time, 
which was why he had to start it again in the morning. When Kalchan came back, 
grunting and snorting, it was hardly more than a few flames over glowing coals. 
Kalchan pulled the door shut and dropped the bar over the inside, paying no 
attention to Skif.
Which meant that it had been a good night by Kalchan's standards. If it hadn't 
been, he would either have hauled Skif out and knocked him around a bit before 
letting him get back to his bed, or he'd have bawled for the cook and had her 
lay into Skif.
Kalchan's return was the cook's signal to go on up to her loft. She shuffled in, 
dropped the curtain over the door, shoved ashes over the coals, and limped up 
the stairs. There was some sound of fumbling with cloth overhead, then silence.
Meanwhile, Kalchan settled down to his dinner, which he had brought back from 
his father's kitchen. In theory, half of that dinner was supposed to be Skif's, 
but in all the time he'd lived here, he'd never gotten a morsel of it. Kalchan 
"shared" it with Maisie -- that is, he dropped tidbits to her as if she was a dog, 
in return for which -- 
Skif generally tried to be asleep by that time, the moment when Kalchan's 
bedding was arranged to his satisfaction beside the fireplace, and Maisie was 
arranged to his satisfaction in it. And tonight, both exhaustion and the unusual 
circumstance of having had three decent meals in a day conspired to grant him 
his wish for slumber.
* * * * * * * * * *
He woke from the oddest dream that morning -- a dream he couldn't quite fathom, 
unless it had come from yesterday's encounter with Bazie. He had been climbing 
like a spider along the ledge of a building, several stories up. It was the dead 
of a moonless night, and he was dressed all in black, including a black hood 
that covered everything except for a slit for his eyes. And he had the 
impression that there was a girl behind him, although he hadn't seen any girls 
at Bazie's.
It was an interesting dream, though, wherever it had come from.
He heard Kalchan snorting and moving around in the next room, slowly waking up; 
it must be morning, then. Somehow
Kalchan had the knack of being able to wake up at exactly the same time every 
morning, although it usually took him some time to go from sleep to full 
wakefulness. The one and only time that knack had failed him, he'd been dead 
drunk after swilling himself senseless on the free wine given out at some Guild 
Midwinter Feast three years ago. Not that Kalchan belonged to any Guilds, but 
he'd somehow managed to get himself invited or sneak in, and he'd certainly 
drunk far more than his share. He'd gotten back to the tavern on his own two 
feet, but had fallen straight onto the bedding that Skif and the cook had laid 
out in anticipation of his return, and he hadn't awakened until noon. Then, 
between anger at losing a whole morning's custom, and the temper caused by his 
hangover, he'd beaten Skif black and blue, blacked Maisie's eyes, and kept them 
all working and away from the Temple largesse of Midwinter Day. All taverns 
closed the afternoon of Midwinter Day -- there was no point in remaining open, 
since there was a Feast laid on at the Temples for anyone who attended the 
Service beforehand. It was the one time of the year that Skif, Maisie, and the 
cook got a chance to stuff themselves sick on good, toothsome food, and Kalchan 
kept them from it, and beat them again the next day for good measure. That had 
marked the lowest point of Skif's life, and if he'd been bigger or older, he'd 
have run away and damn the consequences.
They never let him oversleep by that much again, not even though it meant a 
beating for awakening him. Not even broken bones would keep Skif from a Temple 
Midwinter Feast.
He was already up and waiting for Kalchan to unbar the kitchen door by the time 
his cousin waddled into the room. Kalchan looked at him with nothing other than 
his usual irritated glare, and performed that office, then turned and went back 
into the common room, leaving Skif to start the fire or go wait for the pony 
cart in the yard as he preferred.
For a wonder, when the cook had remembered to bank the fire, she'd actually done 
it right. There must not have been as much beer in the pitcher as she had 
thought. There was one coal left, not a lot, but enough to get some flames going 
with the help of lint, straw, and a little tallow. For once, Skif was done with 
his morning duties early, and he dashed out before Kalchan noticed.
That meant he was waiting at the Temple door long before any of the other 
pupils, and decided against his usual custom to go into the sanctuary and watch 
Beel and his fellow priests perform the service. Not that he cared one way or 
another about religion, but the sanctuary was a place to get out of the cold and 
to sit down.
For a service like this one, where no one was really expected to come join in 
the worship, there was no grand procession up the center of the Temple. Instead, 
a few priests came in from doors on either side of the altar, lit candles and 
incense, and began very quiet chanting. If you knew the chants and wished to 
join, you could -- otherwise, you could observe and pray, according to your own 
nature.
He was the only person in the sanctuary other than the priests, and he had found 
a marginally warm place in the shadows of a pillar, so they probably didn't even 
notice him. They certainly didn't make any effort to pitch their voices to 
carry, and the distant murmur, combined with the fact that he could lean up 
against the pillar, allowed him to drop into a drowse again.
He drifted back into the dream of this morning; it seemed to be a continuation 
of the same story. This time he and the girl were crouched together in a closet, 
listening to something in the next room. The murmur of the priests at their 
devotions blended with the murmurs in the dream. Then the dream changed 
abruptly, as dreams tended to do, and he found himself incongruously staring 
deeply into a pair of large, deep blue eyes that filled his entire field of 
vision.
Blue eyes? Whose blue eyes? He didn't know anyone with blue eyes.
Abruptly, the bell signifying the end of the service rang, and he started awake.
Huh, he thought with bemusement. Haven't dreamed this much in -- can't 'member 
when. Must've been ev'thin' I et!
He got to his feet when the priests were gone, sauntered out of the sanctuary, 
and joined the rest of the pupils now gathering for their lessons.
But today was going to be different. For the first time ever, he put real effort 
into his attempts to master numbers. If he was going to have a position with 
Bazie's gang, he didn't want the authorities looking for him to clap him back 
into lessons. There was always a chance that they would catch him. If that 
happened, his uncle would know exactly where to find him.
No, the moment that Bazie had a place for him, he wanted to be able to pass his 
test and get released from school. Then he could disappear, and Uncle Londer 
could fume all he wanted. At the moment, he couldn't see how hanging with 
Bazie's gang could be anything but an improvement over the Hollybush.
His determination communicated itself to his tutor, and the younger boy put more 
enthusiasm into the lesson than Skif had expected. By the end of it, he'd made 
more progress in that single morning than he had in the four years he'd been 
taking lessons.
When lessons were over and the bell rang, he got ready to shoot out the door 
with the rest, but before he could, he felt a heavy hand on his shoulder, 
holding him in his seat.
Beel. He must have noticed something was different. Skif's stomach knotted, and 
his heart sank. He was in trouble, he must be -- and for once, he didn't know why, 
or for what reason. And that made it worse.
"You can all go -- ," said Beel, whose hand, indeed, it was --  but Beel's hand kept 
Skif pinned where he was.
Only when the room had emptied did Beel remove his hand from Skif's shoulder, 
and the young priest came around in front of him to stand looking down at him 
soberly.
"Skif -- do you do work at the tavern in the afternoons?" Beel asked, a peculiarly 
strained expression on his face.
What?
Skif hesitated. If he told the truth, surely Beel would tell his father that 
Skif was a regular at playing truant from the Hollybush, and he would be in 
trouble. But if he didn't -- Beel was a priest, and might be able to tell, and he 
would be in worse trouble.
But Beel didn't wait for him to make up his mind about his answer. "I want you 
to do something for me, Skif," he said urgently, his eyes full of some emotion 
Skif couldn't recognize. "I want you to promise me that today you won't go near 
the tavern from the time lessons let out until the time darkness falls."
The look Skif wore on his face must have been funny, since Beel smiled thinly. 
"I can't tell you why, Skif, but I hope that you can at least trust the priest 
if you can't trust your cousin. My father… is not as clever as he thinks he is. 
Someone is angry, angry at him, and angry at Kalchan. I think, unless he can be 
persuaded to curb his anger, that he is going to act this afternoon. You have 
nothing to do with all this, and you do not deserve to be caught in the middle."
And with those astonishing words, Beel turned and left, as he always did, as if 
nothing out of the ordinary had ever transpired between them.
After a moment, Skif shook off his astonishment and slowly left the building. 
Once out in the sunlight, he decided that whatever Beel was hinting at didn't 
really matter, because he had no notion of going back to the tavern during the 
day anyway. He was going to meet Deek, and get his first lessons in the fine art 
of thievery!
Deek wasn't lurking anywhere on the way to the building where Bazie's "laundry" 
was, but Skif remembered the way back to Bazie's, including the secret passages, 
perfectly. He suspected that this was his first test, and when he rapped on the 
door in an approximation of Deek's knock, it was Deek himself who opened it with 
a grin.
"I tol' ye 'e'd 'member!" Deek crowed, drawing Skif inside.
"An' I agreed wi' ye," Bazie said agreeably. "If 'e hadn', 'e wouldn' be much 
use, would'e?"
There was new laundry festooning the ceiling today --  stockings and socks. Only 
Lyle was with Bazie and Deek; the third boy was nowhere to be seen.
" 'J'eet yet?" asked Lyle, as Deek drew him inside. At Skif's head shake, the 
other boy wordlessly gestured at the table, where half of a decent cottage loaf 
of brown bread waited, with some butter and a knife. Beside it was a pot of tea 
and mugs. Buttered bread, half eaten, sat on a wooden plate next to Bazie. All 
in all, it was the sort of luncheon that wouldn't disgrace the table of a 
retiring spinster of small means.
Not that Skif cared what it looked like -- he'd been invited to eat, and eat he 
surely would. He fell on the food, cutting two nice thick slices of bread and 
buttered them generously, pouring himself a mug of tea. Bazie watched him with 
an oddly benevolent look on his face.
"Eat good, but don' eat full afore a job," he said, in a manner that told Skif 
this was a rule, and he'd better pay close attention to it. "Nivir touch stuff 
as makes ye gassy, an' nothin' that'll be on yer breath. Whut if ye has t' hide? 
Summun smells onions where no onions shud be, or wuss -- ," He blew a flatulent 
razz with his lips, and the other boys laughed. "Oh, laugh if ye like, but I 
heerd boys been caught that way! Aye, an' growed men as shoulda knowed better!"
Skif laughed, too, but he also nodded eagerly. Bazie was no fool; no matter that 
what his gang purloined was small beer compared with jewels and gold -- it was 
obviously supplying them with a fair living, and at the moment, Skif wouldn't 
ask for more.
"Nah, good gillyflar tea, tha's the stuff afore a job," Bazie continued with 
satisfaction. "Makes ye keen, sharp. Tha's what ye need." He waited while Skif 
finished his bread and butter and drank a mug of the faintly acidic, but not 
unpleasant, tea. He knew gillyflower tea from the Temple, where it occasionally 
appeared with the morning bread, and it did seem to wake him up when he felt a 
little foggy or sleepy.
"Nah, t'day Deek, I don' want wipes," Bazie continued. "I got sum'thin' I been 
ast for, special. Mun wants napkins. Ye ken napkins?"
Deek shook his head, but Skif, who had, after all, been serving in Lord 
Orthallen's hall as an ersatz page, nodded. "Bits uv linen -- 'bout so big -- ," He 
measured out a square with his hands. "Thicker nor wipes, kinda towels, but 
fine, like. Them highborns use 'em t' meals, wipes their han's an' face on 'em 
so's they ain't all grease an' looks sweetly."
"Ha!" Bazie slapped his knee with his hand. "Good boy! Deek, where ye think ye 
kin find this stuff?"
Deek pondered the question for a moment, then suggested a few names that Skif 
didn't recognize. "We h'aint touched any on 'em for a while."
"Make a go," Bazie ordered. "I needs twa dozen, so don' get 'em all in one 
place, eh?"
"Right. Ye ready?" Deek asked, looking down at Skif, who jumped to his feet. 
"We're off."
"Not like that 'e ain't!" Lyle protested. "Glory, Deek, 'e cain't pass i' them 
rags!"
Bazie concurred with a decided nod. "Gi'e 'im summat on ourn. 'Ere, Lyle -- i' the 
cubberd -- "
Lyle went to the indicated alcove and rummaged around for a moment. " 'Ere, 
these're too small fer any on' us -- ,"
The boy threw a set of trews and a knitted tunic at Skif who caught them. They 
were nearly identical to Deek's; the same neat and barely-visible patches, the 
same dark gray-brown color. Happy to be rid of his rags, Skif stripped off 
everything but his smallclothes and donned the new clothing.
Now Bazie and Lyle nodded their satisfaction together. "We'll boil up yer ol' 
thin's an' mend 'em a bit -- ye kin 'ave 'em back when ye git back," Bazie said. 
"We don' wan' yer nuncle t' wonder where ye got new close."
"Yessir," Skif said, bobbing his head. "Thenkee, sir!"
Bazie laughed. "Jest get me napkins, imp."
Now properly clothed so that his ragged state wouldn't attract attention, Skif 
was permitted to follow Deek out into the streets.
They walked along as Skif had already learned to, as if, no matter how fine the 
neighborhood, they belonged there, that they were two boys who had been sent on 
an errand that needed to be discharged expeditiously, but not urgently.
Deek, however, knew every illicit way into the laundries and wash houses of the 
fine houses on these streets, and he led Skif over walls, up trees, and across 
rooftops. Together they waited for moments when the laundresses and washerwomen 
were otherwise occupied, and dropped down into the rooms where soiled linens 
were sorted for washing.
It was Skif who picked out the napkins from among the rest -- no more than two or 
three lightly soiled squares of linen at each place. He chose nothing that was 
so badly grease-stained that it was unlikely it could be cleaned, nor did he 
pick out items that were new.
Once retrieved, Deek did something very clever with them. He folded them flat, 
and stuffed them inside the legs of his trews and Skif's, so that there was no 
way to tell that the bits of fabric were there at all without forcing them to 
undress. When they had the full two dozen, with no close calls and only one 
minor alarm, Deek called a halt, and they strolled back to Bazie's.
Skif was tired, but very pleased with himself. He'd kept up with Deek, and he'd 
been the ones to pick out the loot Bazie wanted. Nothing new, nothing over-fine, 
nothing that would be missed unless and until a housekeeper made a full 
inventory. Not likely, that; not in the places that Deek had selected.
They made their way up, over, and down again, and back to Bazie's den. This time 
when Deek knocked, it was Bazie himself that opened the door for them, and Skif 
watched with covert amazement as he stumped back to his seat like some sort of 
bizarre four-legged creature, supporting himself on two wooden pegs strapped 
where his legs had been, and two crutches, one for each arm.
"Aaa -- " Bazie said, in a note of pain, as he lowered himself down to his seat and 
quickly took off the wooden legs. "When ye brings back th' glimmers, young'un, 
I'll be getting' proper-fittin' stumps, fust thing." He gestured in disgust at 
the crude wooden legs. "Them's no better nor a couple slats. How's it that a mun 
kin be sa good wi' needle an sa bad wi' whittlin'?"
He put the crutches aside, and looked at them expectantly.
"Here ye be, Bazie!" said Deek, taking the lead, and pulling napkins out of his 
trews the way a conjure mage at a fair pulled kerchiefs out of his hand. Skif 
did the same, until all two dozen were piled in front of their mentor.
"Hah! Good work!" Bazie told them. "Nah, young'un -- ye look an ye tell me -- wha's 
the big problem we got wi' these fer sellin' uv 'em?"
That was something Skif had worried about. Every single napkin they'd taken had 
been decorated with distinctive embroidered initials or pictures on the corners. 
"Them whatcha-calls in th' corners," Skif said promptly. "Dunno what they be, 
but they's all different."
"They's t' show what owns 'em, but ol' Bazie's gotta cure for that, eh, Deek?" 
Bazie positively beamed at both of them, and took out a box from a niche beside 
his seat. He opened it, and Skif leaned forward to see what was inside.
Sewing implements. Very fine, as fine as any great lady's. Tiny scissors, hooks, 
and things he couldn't even guess at.
His mouth dropped open, and Bazie laughed. "Ye watch, an ye learn, young'un," he 
said merrily. "An' nivir ye scorn till ye seen -- ,"
Bazie took out the tiniest pair of scissors that Skif had ever seen, and a thing 
like a set of tongs, but no bigger than a pen, and several other implements Skif 
had no names for. Then he took up the first of the napkins and set to work on 
it.
Within moments, it was obvious what he was doing; he was unpicking the 
embroidery. But he was doing so with such care that when he was finally done, 
only a slightly whiter area and a hole or two showed where it had been, and the 
threads he had unpicked were still all in lengths that could be used.
"Nah, I'll be doin' that t' all uv them, then into th' bleach they goes, an' no 
sign where they come from!" Bazie rubbed his hands together with glee. "An' 
that'll mean a full five siller fer the lot from a feller what's got a business 
in these things, an' all fer a liddle bit uv easy work for ye an me! Nah, what 
sez ye t' that, young'un?"
Skif could only shake his head in admiration. "That -- I'm mortal glad I grabbed 
fer Deek's ankle yesterday!"
And Bazie roared with laughter. "So'm we, boy!" he chuckled. "So'm we!"
Skif did not go out again, nor did Deek. Instead, they emptied out the cauldron 
of its warm, soapy, green-gray water, pouring it down a drain hole in the center 
of the room, and refilled it with fresh. This was no mean feat, as it had to be 
done one bucketful at a time, from the common pump that everyone in the building 
shared -- which was, predictably, in a well house attached to the side of the 
building to keep it from freezing. Bazie had special buckets, with lids that 
kept the water from slopping, but it still made for a lot of climbing.
No wonder Bazie was ready t' bring me in! Skif thought ruefully, as he poured 
his bucketful into what seemed to have become a wash cauldron without a bottom. 
His arms ached, and so did his back -- this business of becoming a thief was more 
work than it looked!
"How often d'ye empty this'un?" he asked Bazie, who was mending a stocking as 
dexterously as he had unpicked the design on the napkins.
"Once't week," Bazie replied. "We saves all th' whites fer then. Wouldna done it 
early, forbye th' napkin order's on haste, an' ye're here t' hep."
Skif sighed, and hefted the empty bucket to make another journey. This was like 
working at the Hollybush -- 
He had no doubt that he would be the chief cauldron filler until Bazie took on 
another boy, so he had this to look forward to, once a week, for the foreseeable 
future.
On the other hand, Bazie appeared to feed his boys well and treat them fairly. 
Skif had plenty of time to think about the situation, to contrast how Raf, Deek, 
and Lyle all acted around Bazie and how well-fed (if a bit shabby) they looked. 
So Bazie wasn't running a gang that was wearing silks and velvets and had 
servants to do their work. So he and the rest of the boys had to do a hauling 
now and then. They were eating, they were warm, and Bazie was a good master. 
What was a little hard work, set against that?
So he hauled and dumped, hauled and dumped, while his arms, back, and legs 
complained on every inward journey. When the cauldron was at last filled, Bazie 
let him rest for just long enough to drink another mug of tea. When the tea was 
gone, Bazie put him to building up the fire beneath the cauldron, then adding 
soap and a pungent liquid that he said would whiten the worst stains. When the 
water was actually boiling, at Bazie's direction he added the napkins, then 
other articles that should have been white. There wasn't a lot; pure white was a 
very difficult state to attain, so the boys didn't steal anything that should be 
white.
"Dunno how them Heralds does it," Bazie said, half in wonder and half in 
frustration. "Them Whites, 'sall they wears, an' how they nivir gets stains, I 
dunno."
"Magic," Deek opined cheekily, and Bazie laughed.
"Gimme stick," Deek told Skif. "Take a breather." Deek took over then, stirring 
while Skif lay back on a pile of straw-stuffed sacks that served as cushions, 
letting his aches settle.
Lyle arrived, tapping his code on the door, and Deek let him in. Raf was right 
behind him. Both boys began emptying their pockets and the fronts of their 
tunics as soon as they came in. Skif sat up to watch as Bazie supervised.
What came out of their clothing wasn't kerchiefs and other bits of silk this 
time, but metal spoons, knives, packets of pins and needles, fancy pottery disks 
with holes in the middle -- 
"Ah," Bazie said with satisfaction. "Wool Market good, then?"
"Aye," the boy named Raf said. "Crowd." This was the one that Skif hadn't seen 
much of yesterday, and if someone had asked him to point Raf out in a crowd he 
still wouldn't be able to. Raf was extraordinarily ordinary. There was nothing 
distinctive in his height (middling), his weight (average), his face (neither 
round nor square), his eyes and hair (brown), or his features (bland and 
perfectly ordinary). Even when he smiled at Skif, it was just an ordinary, 
polite smile, and did nothing; it seemed neither warm, nor false, and it 
certainly didn't light up his features.
Bazie watched him as he examined the other boy and mentally dismissed him -- and 
Bazie grinned.
"So, young'un, wot ye think'o Raf?" he asked.
"Don' think much one way or 'tother," Skif said truthfully.
Bazie laughed, and so did Raf. "Na, ye don' see't, does ye?" Bazie said.
"Wall, he wouldn' see it now, would'e?" Raf put in. "If'n 'e did, that'd be 
bad!"
The others seemed to think this was a great joke, but it was one that Skif 
didn't get the point of. They all laughed heartily, leaving him sitting on the 
stuffed sacks looking from one to the other, perplexed, and growing irritated.
"Wha's the joke?" he asked loudly.
"Use yer noggin -- " Lyle said, rubbing his knuckles in a quick gesture over Skif's 
scalp. "Raf's on the liftin' lay, dummy. So?"
"I dunno!" Skif retorted, his irritation growing. "Whazzat got ter do wi' wot I 
think uv 'im?"
"It ain't wot yer think uv 'im, 'tis 'is looks,"; Deek said with arch 
significance, which made the other two boys go off in gales of laughter again, 
and Bazie to chuckle.
"Well, 'e ain't gonna ketch no gurls wi' 'em," Skif replied sullenly. " 'E don' 
look like nothin' special."
"And?" Deek prompted, then shook his head at Skif's failure to comprehend. 
"Wot's special 'bout not special?"
Finally, finally, it dawned on him, and his mouth dropped open in surprise. 
"Hoy!" he said. "Cain't give no beak no ways t' find 'im!"
A "beak," Skif knew, was one of the city watchmen who patrolled for thieves and 
robbers, took care of drunks and simple assault and other minor crimes. Anything 
major went to the Guard, and anything truly big went to one of the four City 
Heralds -- not that Skif had ever seen one of these exalted personages. He'd never 
seen a Guard either, except at a distance. The Guards didn't bother with the 
neighborhoods like this one, not unless murder and mayhem had occurred.
Bazie nodded genially. "Thas' right. Ain't no better boy fer learnin' th' 
liftin' lay," he said with pride. "Even'f sommut sees him, 'ow they gonna tell 
beak wot 'e looks like if'n 'e don' look like nothin'?"
Now it was Skif's turn to shake his head, this time in admiration. What 
incredible luck to have been born so completely nondescript! Raf could pick 
pockets for the rest of his life on looks like his -- he wouldn't even have to be 
particularly good at it so long as he took care that there was nothing that was 
ever particularly distinctive about him. How could a watchman ever pick him out 
of a crowd when the description his victim gave would match a hundred, a 
thousand other boys in the crowd?
" 'E's got 'nother liddle trick, too," Bazie continued. " 'Ere, Lyle -- nobble 
'im."
Not at all loath, Lyle puffed himself up and seized Raf's arm. "'Ere, you!" he 
boomed -- or tried to, his voice was evidently breaking, and the words came out in 
a kind of cracked squeak. He tried again. "'Ere, you! You bin liftin'?"
Now Raf became distinctive. Somehow the eyes grew larger, innocent, and tearful; 
the lower lip quivered, and the entire face took on a kind of guileless 
stupidity mingled with frightened innocence. It was amazing. If Skif had caught 
Raf with his hand in Skif's pocket, he'd have believed it was all an accident.
"Whossir? Messir?" Raf quavered. "Nossir. I'm be gettin' packet'o pins fer me 
mum, sir…" And he held out a paper stuck full of pins for Lyle's inspection, 
tears filling his eyes in a most pathetic fashion.
Bazie and Deek howled with laughter, as Lyle dropped Raf's arm and growled. 
"Gerron wi' ye."
As soon as the arm was dropped, Raf pretended to scuttle away with his head down 
and shoulders hunched, only to straighten up a few moments later and assume his 
bland guise again. He shrugged as Skif stared at him.
"Play actin'," he said dismissively.
"Damn good play actin'," Bazie retorted. "Dunno 'ow long ye kin work it, but 
whilst ye kin, serve ye better nor runnin' from beaks." He set his mending aside 
and rubbed his hands together. " 'Sall right, me boys. 'Oo wants t'fetch 
dinner?"
"Me," Raf said. "Don' wanta stir washin', an' don' wanta sort goods."
The other two seemed amenable to that arrangement, so Raf got a couple of coins 
from Bazie and took himself off. The napkins in the cauldron were finally white 
enough to suit Bazie, so Skif got the job of pulling the white things out and 
rinsing them in a bucket of fresh water, while Lyle hung them up and Deek sorted 
through the things that Lyle and Raf had brought back.
Presently he looked up. "Six spoons, two knifes, packet uv needles, three uv 
pins, empty needlecase, four spinnin' bobs," he said. "Reckon thas 'nuf wi' wot 
we alriddy got?"
Bazie nodded. "Arter supper ye go out t' Clave. Ye kin take napkins t' Dooly at 
same time. An' half th' wipes. Lyle, ye'll take t' rest uv th' goods t' Jarmin."
"Kin do," Lyle replied genially, taking the last of the napkins from Skif. 
"Young'un, git that pile an' dunk in wash, eh?"
He pointed to a pile of dingy shirts and smallclothes in the corner with his 
chin. "Thas ourn," he added by way of explanation. "Ye kin let fire die a bit, 
so's its cool 'nuf fer the silks when ourn's done."
Skif had wondered -- the stuff didn't seem to be of the same quality as the goods 
that the boys brought back to Bazie. Obediently, he picked up the pile of 
laundry and plunged it into the wash cauldron and began stirring.
"Ye moght be a wonderin' why we does all this washin' an wimmin stuff," Bazie 
said conversationally. "I tell ye. Fust, I tell m'boys allus t' nobble outa the 
dirty stuff -- 'cause thas inna pile, an nobody ain't counted it yet. See?"
Skif nodded; he did see. It was like playing a page at Lord Orthallen's meals. 
Food was checked before it became a dish for a meal, it was checked for 
pilferage before it was taken to the table, and it was checked when it came back 
to the kitchen as leftovers. But there was that moment of opportunity while it 
was in transition from kitchen to table when no one was checking the contents. 
So, dirty clothing and linen probably wasn't counted -- why should it be? But if 
you stole something off a wash line, or out of a pile of clean clothing intended 
for a particular person, it would be missed.
"So, we gets stuff tha' way, but if's dirty, it ain't wuth so much. 'F it were 
just th' odd wipe we git from liftin' lay, wouldn' be wuth cleanin' -- an' thas why 
most on liftin' lay don' clean whut they nobble, 'cause they gotta get glim fer 
it now so's they kin eat." Bazie peered at Skif to see if he was following. "Us, 
we pass straight onta couple lads as has stalls in market, 'cause what we got's 
clean an' got no markin's on't. Looks jest like wha' ye'd sell t' market stall 
an' yer ol' mum croaked an' ye're droppin' 'er goods. We spread it 'round t' 
several lads so's it don' look bad."
That made perfect sense. The used-clothing merchants buying the things had to 
know they were stolen, of course -- either that, or they were idiots -- but there was 
no other way to tell. And once Bazie's loot was mixed up with all the other 
things in a merchant's stall, it all looked perfectly ordinary. Servants often 
got worn, outgrown, or outmoded clothing from their masters as part of their 
wages or as a bonus, and most of that ended up with a used-clothing merchant. 
Then those who wished to appear well-to-do or seamstresses looking for usable 
fabric for better garments would find bargains among the bins. Pickpockets 
unlike Bazie's gang, who lifted used kerchiefs and the like -- and outright 
muggers, who assaulted and stripped their victims bare -- would have to sell their 
soiled goods to a rag man rather than directly to a stall holder.
"Me old mam made me learn th' sewin'," Bazie continued. " 'M a pretty dab 'and 
at un. Mended stuff's wuth more'n tore-up, an' unpickin' the pretties makes 'em 
plain -- well, like napkins. All it costs's time -- an' hellfires, I got time!"
"Smart," Skif said, meaning it. Bazie looked pleased.
"Some lads thinks as is sissy stuff, 'an' couldn' stick i' wi' us," Deek put in, 
scornfully. "Some lads, sayin' no names but as rhymes with scare-up, thinks is a 
waste uv time."
"Some lads'll end up under the beak inside a moon," Lyle said lazily. " 'Cause 
some lads kin ony think uv glim an' glimmers, an' don't go at thin's slow. I 
don' care, long's I gets m' dinner!"
Bazie laughed, as Skif nodded agreement vigorously. "Thas m' clever lads!" Bazie 
said approvingly. "Roof over t'head, full belly an' warm flop -- thas' th' ticket. 
Glim an' glimmers kin wait on learnin t' be better nor good."
"Righto," Deek affirmed. "Takes a mort'o learnin'. They's old thieves, an' 
they's bold thieves, but they ain't no old, bold thieves."
That seemed excellent advice to Skif, who stirred the cauldron with a will.
It wasn't until he began pulling garments out with the stick that Skif noticed 
his own clothing was in with the rest -- and that Bazie had neatly mended and 
patched it while he was gone. He'd resewn Skif's clumsy work to much better 
effect, and Skif felt oddly touched by this considerate gesture.
Raf returned as he started on the next lot of purloined scarves, carrying a 
packet and another loaf of bread. "They's mort'o doin's over t' Hollybush," he 
said as he handed Bazie the packet.
Skif's head snapped around. "What doin's?" he asked sharply.
"Dunno fer certain-sure," Raf replied. "Summun sez a couple toughs come in an' 
wrecked t' place, summun sez no,'twas a fight, an' ev'un sez summun's croaked, 
or near it. All I knows's theys beaks an' a Guard there now. Figgered ye shud 
know."
Bazie mulled that over, as Skif stood there, stunned, the wash stick still in 
his hands. "Reckon five fer supper," he said judiciously. "Huh."
"I cud go wi'im arter dark," Lyle offered. "We cud reck th' doin's."
Bazie shook his head. "Nay, no goin' near -- Raf! Ye good fer goin' out agin? Hev a 
drink i' th' Arms?"
The grandly named "King's Arms" was the nearest rival to the Hollybush, and its 
owner had no love for Kalchan or Uncle Londer. One reason for the rivalry was 
economic -- the Arms didn't serve the kind of swill that the Hollybush did, and 
charged accordingly. Many, many of the poorest customers opted for quantity over 
quality, and their custom went to Kalchan. If anything bad had happened to the 
Hollybush or its owner, the buzz would be all over the Arms.
"Oh, aye!" Raf laughed. "They don' know me there, an' leastwise ye kin drink th' 
beer 'thout bein' choked."
"Arms beer's nought so bad," Bazie said complacently. "Here -- ," he flipped a 
fivepenny coin at Raf. "Get a drink and fill me can, an' come on back."
Raf caught the coin right out of the air, picked up a covered quart beer pail, 
and saluted Bazie with two fingers. "I'm be back afore the bacon's fried," he 
promised.
Skif could only wonder what had happened -- and how Beel had known that it would. 
And what if Beel hadn't given him that timely warning? He could have walked 
straight into a fight, or a trap, or who knew what trouble.
A shiver ran down his back -- for his own near miss, and not for anything that 
might have happened to Kalchan. In fact, he sincerely hoped that Kalchan was at 
the very least cooling his heels in the gaol. Given all the rotten things that 
Kalchan had done -- just the things that Skif knew about -- he had a lot coming to 
him.
He shook his head and went back to his stirring. Bazie had been watching him 
closely, and seemed satisfied with what he saw. "Ye mot not hev a home," he 
ventured.
Skif shrugged. "Hell. Bargain's a bargain. Ye said, a moon, I'll not 'spect a 
flop afore that. 'F nobuddy's there, I kin sneak in t' sleep. I kin sleep on 
roof, or stairs, or summat." He managed a weak grin. "Or even Lord Orthallen's 
wash house."
Bazie now looked very satisfied; evidently Skif had struck exactly the right 
note with him. No pleading, no asking for special consideration -- he'd got that 
already. Just matter-of-fact acceptance.
'Sides,'tis only for a moon. That ain't long. Even in winter.
Actually, the wash house wasn't a bad idea. Skif had slept there once or twice 
before, when Kalchan had decided that in addition to a set of stripes with the 
belt, he didn't deserve a bed, and locked him out in the courtyard overnight. 
From dark until dawn the only people there would be the laundry maids, who slept 
there, and none of them would venture up to the storage loft after dark. The 
ones that weren't young and silly and afraid of spirits were old and too tired 
to do more than drop onto the pallets and snore. It would be cold, but no worse 
than the Hollybush.
The only difficulty would be getting in and out, since beaks and private guards 
were on the prowl after dark in force.
Well, he'd deal with the problems as they came up and not before. Hard on me if 
I can't slip past a couple beaks.
He didn't have very long to wait for his news; by the time the next batch of 
laundry was in the cauldron, Raf returned with Bazie's pail of beer and a mouth 
full of news.
"Well!" he said, as soon as Deek let him in. "Ol' Londer did hisself no good 
this time! What I heerd --  'e cheated a mun, sommun wi' some brass, an' th' mun 
got a judgment on 'im. So's the judgment sez the mun gets Hollybush. On'y 
nobuddy tol' yon Kalchan, or Kalchan figgered 'e weren't gonna gi'e up, or 
Londer tol' Kalchan t' keep mun out. So mun comes wi' bullyboys t' take over, 
an' Kalchan, 'e sez I don' think so, an lays inta 'em wi' iron poker!"
"Hoo!" Skif said, eyes wide with glee. "Wisht I'da been there!"
"Oh, nay ye don' -- cuz it went bad-wrong," Raf corrected with relish. "Th' cook, 
she comes a-runnin' when she hears th' ruckus, lays in w' stick, an th' girl, 
she tries t' run fer it, an' slippet an starts t' scream, an' that brings beaks. 
So beaks get inta it, an' they don' love Kalchan no more nor anybuddy else, an' 
they commences t' breakin' heads. Well! When 'tis all cleared up, they's a mun 
dead wi' broke neck, an' Kalchan laid out like cold fish, t'cook ravin', an' 
t'girl -- ," Raf gloated, " --  t'girl, she turn out t'be bare fifteen, no schoolin', 
an' pretty clear Kalchan's been atop 'er more'n once!"
"Fifteen!" Skif's eyes bulged. "I'da swore she was eighteen, sure! Sixteen, 
anyroad!"
Then again -- he'd simply assumed she was. There wasn't much of her, and she wasn't 
exactly talkative. She had breasts, and she was of middling height, but some 
girls developed early. Wasn't there a saying that those who were a bit behind in 
the brains department were generally ahead on the physical side?
"Thas' whut Londer, 'e tried t'say, but they got th' girl's tally from Temple 
an' she's no more'n bare fifteen an' that jest turned!" Raf practically danced 
in place. "So ol' Londer, he got it fer not schoolin' th' girl, an' puttin' er 
where Kalchan cud tup 'er, an not turnin' over Hollybush proper. Cook's hauled 
off someplace, still ravin'. Girl's taken t' Temple or summat. Kalchan, he's 
wust, if'e wakes up, which Healers sez mebbe and mebbe not, 'e's up fer murder 
an fer tuppin' the girl afore she be sixteen."
Skif had to sit down. Kalchan and Uncle Londer had always come out on top of 
things before. He could scarcely believe that they weren't doing so now.
"Good thing ye weren' there," Bazie observed mildly. "Kalchan 'ud say t'was you 
was tuppin' girl."
"Me? Maisie?" Skif grimaced. "Gah, don' thin' so -- ugh! Druther turn priest!"
"Well, wouldna' be call fer th' law if 'twas you. Couple kids foolin' 'round's a 
thing fer priests, not the law. Summun old's Kalchan, though, thas different, 
an' reckon 'f ol' Londer don' 'ang 'is boy out t' dry, he'll say 'twas you." 
Bazie rubbed his chin speculatively. "Don' 'magine girl 'ud conterdick 'im."
"Don' fergit, she's in Temple," Lyle piped up. "Dunno 'f they'd git 'er t'talk. 
Mebbe use Truth Spell."
"It don' matter," Skif decided. "I don' want nothin' t'do wi' em. I ain't goin' 
back."
Londer wouldn't know where he was, nor would Kalchan, who was, in any event, in 
no position to talk. The trouble was Beel knew he had stayed away. So would Beel 
send anyone looking for him? And should he tell Bazie about all of this?
Reluctantly, he decided that he had better.
"This's gettin' complisticatered," he said unhappily, and explained about Beel, 
and Beel's warning.
The others all sat silent for a moment, their eyes on him.
"This Beel, 'e knows nowt 'bout us?" Bazie asked, his head to one side, 
quizzically.
Skif shook his head. '"E ain't niver sed much t'me afore this," he replied. "I 
allus figgered 'e wuz jest Londer's eyes. Niver reckoned on 'im warnin' me." He 
considered the odd conversation a little further. "Must've known, an' didn' warn 
his Da neither. Niver reckoned on 'im stickin' t' th' law -- an' ye kin bet Londer 
wouldn't. Huh. Turned on 'is own Da!"
Bazie nodded slowly. "Niver know wut bein' in Temple'll do wi' a mun," he said 
sagely. "Gets t'thinkin' 'bout 'is own soul, mebbe. Starts thinkin' 'is ol' man 
cud stan' bein' took down a peg, mebbe figgers th' ol' man cud stand t' get held 
'countable. Figgers a kid don' need t' get mixed up in't."
"Point is, ain't nobuddy knows 'bout us," said Raf. He stared intently at Skif 
for a very long and uncomfortable moment. Finally, the older boy seemed to make 
up his mind. "Bazie, I sez we votes now. Young'un ain't behind wi' helpin', an' 
Deek sez 'e's good over roof. Bring 'un in."
Bazie looked at the other two as Skif blinked with bewilderment, what on earth 
was he getting at?
"Aye!" Deek exclaimed. "In by me!"
"Makes three," said Lyle lazily. " 'E's already done more'n a couple days than 
You Know did in a week."
Now Skif realized what they were saying, and his heart leaped as he looked to 
Bazie, the leader, the teacher -- 
"Oh, I'd already reckoned," Bazie said with a smile. " 'E might's well jump in. 
Lyle, ye take 'im wi' ye t' Jarmin, so's Jarmin gets t' know 'is face, an' 'e 
gets t' know th' proper pay fer th' goods."
He clapped Skif on the back. "Yer in, young 'un. They's room 'nuf an' a bed 
nobuddy got, an' plenty t' go 'round. Ye're well-come."
"Hey! Les' eat!" Deek exclaimed, before Skif could really get it fixed in his 
mind how his life had just been turned around, that he had just been fully 
accepted into the gang. That he never had to go back to Kalchan and the misery 
of the Hollybush again.
And no more lessons!
Bazie laughed, and distributed the labor. Skif was set to cutting the loaf and 
buttering the slices, Deek to frying slices of fat bacon over the fire beneath 
the cauldron, Lyle to get the plates and pot of mustard, Raf to pour small beer 
for all of them. Skif was a bit surprised by that last. Kalchan never shared 
beer with anyone -- but Raf divided the quart equally among the five of them with 
Bazie's approval.
It was the first friendly meal that Skif had ever shared with anyone; the first 
time he had ever, within memory, eaten in a leisurely manner.
While they ate, Bazie decided what goods they would take to each buyer as soon 
as darkness fell. It would be better to take their bundles of goods out under 
the cover of night, just to be certain that no one in their building saw them 
toting around unusually bulky packages. Once they were out in the street, of 
course, they would just be three boys carrying out errands, but their neighbors 
in the building shouldn't be given the excuse to be nosy.
As soon as dinner was polished off and the last of the laundry hung up to dry, 
Skif and Lyle packed up the goods for Jarmin, the old clothes seller. Evidently 
Jarmin was a man who catered to those with a taste for finer things; almost all 
of the fancier goods were going to him. When everything had been selected, they 
each had a fairly bulky bundle wrapped in oilcloth. Bazie showed Skif how to use 
a piece of rope to make a crude backpack of it, to keep his hands free.
"Take a stick," he cautioned Skif; Lyle had already selected a stout cudgel from 
six or so leaning over in a corner near the door. "Plenty uv folk out there'll 
beat ye jest hopin' ye got summat they want."
Like I don't know that! Skif thought -- but he didn't make any comments, he just 
selected a stick for himself.
The packs made negotiating the stairs a little awkward, but they got out all 
right, and Lyle strode down the street with the air of someone who had a place 
to get to in a hurry. Skif had to trot to keep up with him. For all that Lyle 
acted lazy back in the room, he could certainly put out some energy when he 
chose to!
He didn't waste any breath on talking either. What he did was to keep his eyes 
moving, up and down the street, peering at doorways, watching for trouble. Skif 
followed his example. Until now, he hadn't been out on the street much at night, 
and he was very conscious of how vulnerable two boys were. There wasn't much 
light. Nobody wasted much money on street-lamps around these neighborhoods. What 
little there was came from windows and a few open doors, and from the torches 
people carried with them.
They didn't have a torch, but Skif didn't really want one. Certainly having a 
torch or a lantern made it easier to see your way, but it also made it very 
clear how many people were in your group and whether or not you had anything 
that looked worth stealing. Plus you couldn't see past the circle of light cast 
by the torch, which made it easier for you to be ambushed.
The street was anything but deserted, despite the darkness. People came and went 
from cookshops and taverns, groups of young toughs strolled about looking for 
whatever they could get into, streetwalkers sauntered wherever there was a bit 
of illumination, with their keepers (if they had one) lurking just out of sight 
of potential customers. There were ordinary working men and women, too, coming 
home late from their jobs. For a bit it would only be a little more dangerous to 
be out on the street than it was during the day.
Skif had figured that this "Jarmin" would be somewhere nearby, but apparently he 
was wrong. They must have gone a good ten blocks before Lyle made a turn into a 
dead-end street that was very nicely lit up indeed.
If the dim and sullen Hollybush had been at one extreme of the sorts of taverns 
frequented by the poor, this was at the other. The whole back of the cul-de-sac 
was taken up by a tavern blazing with tallow-dip lights; that had torches in 
holders right outside the door, and light spilling from parchment-covered 
windows. There was music, raucous laughter, the sounds of loud talk. A group of 
men were betting on a contest between two tomcats out in the street, and with 
them were three or four blowsy females of negotiable virtue, hanging on their 
arms and cheering on the two oblivious cats.
On either side of the tavern were shops, still open. Skif never got a chance to 
see what the one on the left sold, because they turned immediately into the one 
on the right.
This was their goal; an old-clothes shop that specialized in fancy goods of all 
sorts, but mostly for women. Skif had a shrewd idea where most of the females 
from the tavern spent their hard-earned coins.
Jarmin, a perfectly ordinary, clerkly sort of fellow, had an assistant to help 
him, and when he saw Lyle entering the front door, he left the customer he was 
attending to the assistant and ushered them both into the rear of the shop.
"Have you got sleeves?" Jarmin asked, as soon as he dropped the curtain 
separating front from back behind them. "I particularly need sleeves. And veils. 
But particularly sleeves. And I don't suppose you've got silk stockings -- ,"
Lyle shrugged out of his pack, and Skif did the same. "Aye, Jarmin, all uv that. 
This's Skif; 'e's wi' us now. I'm be showin' 'im th' way uv things."
"Yes, yes." Jarmin dismissed Skif entirely, his attention focused on the packs. 
"You know, if you just have some good sleeves and stockings, I can sell a dozen 
pairs tonight, for some reason -- ,"
"All or nowt, Jarmin. Ye know that. Ye takes all or nowt." Lyle had gone from 
lazy boy to shrewd salesman in the time it had taken to reach this place, and 
Skif marveled at him as he bargained sharply with the fretful shopkeeper. At 
length they arrived at a price that was mutually satisfactory, and Skif tried to 
look as indifferent as Lyle did. It was hard, though; he'd never seen so much 
money before in all his life.
Aye, but that's from how much work? A week, mebbe? An' there's five uv us 
t'feed.
Lyle divided the cash between them. "Just i'case," he said darkly, and showed 
Skif how to wrap it so that it didn't clink and tuck it inside his tunic where 
it wouldn't show. Only then did they ease out of the shop, where already Jarmin 
had frowsty girls crowding around the counter demanding shrilly to see the new 
goods.
If Lyle had set a brisk pace going out, he did better than that coming back. 
Only when they were safely in the building and heading up the stair did he 
finally slow down, with Skif panting behind.
"Sorry," he said apologetically. "Hate goin' out. Got caught oncet, 'fore I 
worked fer Bazie."
"No worries," Skif assured him. "I don' like it much, neither."
In fact, he didn't feel entirely comfortable until he was safely back in Bazie's 
room, where they pulled out their packets of coin and turned the lot over to a 
grinning Bazie.
"Good work," he told them both. "Fagged out?"
"'Bout ready t' drop," Skif admitted; now that they were back in the warmth and 
safety, the very long day, with all of its hard work and unexpected changes in 
his life suddenly caught up with him.
"Not me!" Lyle declared, and made a growling face. "Ready t' match ye at 
draughts, ol' man!"
Bazie chuckled. "Show th' young'un 'is cupbard, then, an' I'll get us set."
Lyle pulled on Skif's sleeve, and took him to the side of the room opposite the 
laundry cauldron, where he opened what Skif had taken to be shutters over a 
window. Shutters they were, but they opened up to a cubby long enough to lie 
down in, complete with a straw-stuffed pallet, blankets, and a straw-stuffed 
cushion. By Skif's standards, it was a bed of unparalleled luxury, and he 
climbed up into it without a moment of hesitation.
Lyle closed the shutters for him once he was settled, blocking out most of the 
light from the room beyond. Within moments, he was as cozy and warm as he had 
ever been in his life, and nothing was going to keep him awake. In fact, the 
sounds of laughter and dice rattling from the other room couldn't even penetrate 
into his most pleasant of dreams.
IF Skif thought he was going to get off easy by no longer attending lessons at 
the Temple, he got a rude awakening the next day.
He was used to getting up early, and he woke -- or so he guessed -- at or near his 
usual time. For a moment, he was confused by the total darkness, scent of clean 
laundry and the lack of stench, and most of all, by the fact that he was warm 
and comfortable. He had never awakened warm and comfortable before. Even in the 
middle of summer, he was generally stiff from sleeping on the dirt floor, and 
except in the very hottest days and nights, had usually had all the heat leeched 
from his body by the floor. Initially he thought he was still dreaming, and 
moaned a little at the thought that now he was going to have to awaken to 
Kalchan, cold, and misery.
Then he sat up, hit his forehead on the inside of the sleep cubby before he got 
more than halfway up, and remembered where he was. He lay back down -- he hadn't 
hit his head that hard, since he hadn't tried to get up very fast.
I'm at Bazie's. Ol' Kalchan's in trouble, deep, 'n so's m'nuncle. An' I don't 
never have t'f go back t' th' tavern!
He lay quietly on his back, stroking the woolen blanket with one hand, tracing 
the lines of each patch. It must have been patched and darned by Bazie; the 
seams were so neat and even. No one else was stirring, though, and for the first 
time he could remember, he lay back in his bed and just luxuriated in the 
freedom to lie abed as long as he cared to. Or as long as the others would let 
him -- but it looked as if the rest were in no hurry to get about their business.
What was this new life going to be like? The other three boys seemed content and 
well-nourished, and he couldn't see how a legless man like Bazie could force 
them to stay if they didn't want to. There would be hard work, and a lot of it; 
he knew that much from yesterday, when he'd hauled water all afternoon. Danger, 
too. Despite the fact that the other boys had a cavalier attitude about being 
caught, there was a lot of danger involved in the life of even a petty thief, 
and the penalties were harsh. Plenty of people meted out their own punishments 
on those they nobbled, before the beaks were called, which generally meant a bad 
beating first, then being clapped in gaol, then any of a variety of punishments.
Official punishments were many and varied, none of them very appealing. Which's 
the point, I s'pose. A thief could be transported to work in someone's fields, 
could be sent to work as a general dogsbody for the Guard, could be left in 
gaol, could get lashes -- it all depended on the judge. That was for the first time 
you got caught. After that, the punishments were harsher.
But he wouldn't think about that until after he'd been caught for the first 
time. If he was. If he was clever, fast, smart -- he might never be. Why not? I bin 
keepin 'from gettin' caught 'till now, an' I'm just a young'un. Ye'd think I'd 
just get smarter as I get bigger.
There would be a lot of learning time, though, a great many menial chores as 
well, and he couldn't expect to share in the profits even his own hauls brought 
in for a while. That didn't matter; life here would be a paradise compared with 
what his life had been like at the tavern. In fact, he didn't much care if all 
he did was wash the stuff the others brought in for the next year! It wouldn't 
be any harder than working at the tavern, and he'd be full and warm all the 
time, with a bed like he'd never had before and clothing that wasn't more hole 
than fabric.
He lay in the darkness contemplating his future until he heard someone stirring, 
heard the shutters of another bed open, and the pad of feet on the floor. He 
turned on his side and saw a flicker of light through the cracks in the shutters 
of his cubby. He pushed them open cautiously, and looked out.
"Heyla, 'nother lark, eh?" Raf said genially. "Come gimme 'and, then."
Skif hopped out and shut the cubby doors behind him. Raf was bent over the fire 
under the wash cauldron, coaxing a flame from the banked coals. "Take yon tallow 
dip, take a light from here, an' light them lamps," he ordered, jerking his head 
at a tallow dip on the otherwise clean table behind him, barely visible in the 
dim and flickering light from the hand-sized fire. Skif picked it up, lit it at 
Raf's little fire, and went around the walls to relight the lamps he vaguely 
recalled hanging there. There were a lot of oil lamps -- four! -- and all of them were 
cobbler's lamps with globes of water-filled glass around the flame to magnify 
the light, the most expensive kind of oil lamp there was. Skif was impressed; he 
hadn't paid any attention before, other than to note absently that although this 
room didn't have any windows there was plenty of illumination. It was 
interesting; Bazie didn't spend money on luxuries, but in places where it 
counted -- the good soap for the laundry, for instance, and the lighting, and 
decent fuel for the fireplace under the wash boiler, Bazie got the best.
When he was done, he blew out the tallow dip and put it with the others in a 
broken cup above the firebox. By this time the shutters of another cubby, one 
just above Skif's, had been pushed open by a foot, and Deek's tousled head poked 
out.
"Eh, Bazie?" he called, yawning. "Yon ge'op? Me'n Raf'r op. Young'un Skif, too."
"Aye," came a muffled reply, and the shutter to a third eased open. This one was 
larger -- taller, rather -- and Bazie was sitting up inside, peering out at them, the 
stumps of his legs hidden under his blanket. Satisfied that the fire was well 
started, Raf got up, and Deek swung himself out and down onto the floor. The two 
of them went to Bazie's cubby and linked hands. Bazie put an arm around each of 
their shoulders and swung himself onto the "chair" made by their hands.
They carried him to a door beside the one that led outside --  one that Skif hadn't 
noticed before. Bazie let go of Raf's shoulder, which freed one of his hands, 
and opened it, and they carried him inside. There was evidently another room 
there that Skif had no notion existed.
The door swung open enough to see inside. The room was a privy! Skif gaped, then 
averted his eyes to give Bazie a little privacy -- but it wasn't just any privy, it 
was a real water closet, the kind only the rich had, and there was a basin in 
there as well. The boys shut the door and left their leader in there with the 
door closed until a little later, when a knock on the door told he was finished. 
They carried him back to his usual spot beside the fire, directly under one of 
the lamps.
"And mornin' t'ye, young'un," Bazie said genially.
"Mornin' Bazie," Skif replied, wondering with all his might just how anyone had 
gotten a water closet built down here, and where Bazie had gotten the money to 
do so. And why -- 
"Skif, ye're low mun now -- 'tis yer task t' fetch water fer privy an' all," said 
Bazie, which answered at least the question of where the water for flushing came 
from. "An' t'will be yer task t' keep it full. Which -- ," he added pointedly, " -- it 
needs now."
"Yessir," Skif said obediently, and went for the buckets. Well, at least one 
thing hadn't changed -- here he was, fetching water first thing in the morning!
It took about three trips to fill the tank above the privy and the pitcher at 
the basin, and another trip to fill the water butt that served for everything 
except the wash boiler. By that time all three boys were up and tidying the room 
at Bazie's direction. After a breakfast of hard-boiled eggs and tea, he ordered 
them all to strip down and wash off, using the soapy laundry water and old 
pieces of towel which were dropped back into the wash cauldron when they were 
done. Then, much to Skif's utter amazement, instead of putting their old 
clothing on, they all got new, clean clothing -- smallclothes and all -- from the same 
cupboard as his outfit from yesterday had come out of. Their old clothing went 
straight into the piles waiting to be washed.
"What's on yer mind, young'un?" Bazie asked as he tried to keep his eyes from 
bulging.
"D'we -- get new duds ev'ry day?" he asked, hardly able to believe it.
"D'pends on how hard ye bin workin'," Bazie replied, "But aye, an' it'll be ev' 
third day at least. Ye're dirty, ye stan' out. Ye canna stan' out -- an' mind wut I 
tol' ye 'bout smell."
Skif minded very well, and he couldn't believe how thorough Bazie was; it was 
brilliant, really.
"Thas' why yon fancy privy -- " Raf said with a chuckle.
"Heh. 'Twas coz ye didn' fancy carryin' me t' t'other, up an' down stair," Bazie 
countered, and they both laughed. "But aye, could'a had earth closet, or jest 
dropped privy down t'sewer 'thout it bein' water closet, but there'd be stink, 
ye ken, an' that'd be on us an' on t'goods we washed, eh? So we got mun t' put 
in water closet when' we took't this place."
Raf sighed. "Took a mort'o th' glim, it did," he said wistfully. "Didn' know 
ye'd saved tha' much, ye ol' skinflint."
"Kep't fer when we needed't" Bazie replied. "Yer wuz liddler nor th' young'un. 
Had Ames an' Jodri an' Willem then --  an' we made't up quick enow."
"Wut happened t' them?" Skif asked cautiously, fearing to uncover some old, bad 
news.
But Bazie laughed. "Ames's off! Took't up wi' some travelin' show, run's t' 
cup'n'ball lay, liftin' i' th' crowd. Jodri, 'e's on 'is own, took't t' sum 
place t'South. An' Willem made th' big 'un -- got hisself th' big haul, an' smart 
'nuff t' say, thassit. Bought hisself big 'ouse uv flats, like this'un, on'y in 
better part uv town, lives i' part an' rents out t'rest. Set fer life." Bazie 
chuckled, and Skif sighed with relief. If Bazie wasn't lying -- and there was no 
reason to think that he was -- then his "pupils" had done well for themselves.
And so should he.
It also spoke well that Bazie was perfectly pleased about their success and 
didn't begrudge them their independence.
"Nah, young'un, ye did good yestiddy, but'tis in m'mind that mebbe ye shouldn' 
be seed fer a bit?" Bazie made a question out of it, and Skif was in total 
agreement with him.
"If th' Guard's got inta it -- what wi' th' girl Maisie an' all --  mebbe they lookin' 
fer me," Skif replied. "Ol' Kalchan, well, 'e got hisself in bad deep, an' 
Guard'll be lookin' fer witness t' whut 'e done. An' ol' Londer, 'e'll be 
lookin' fer me t'shet me up."
"No doubt. Mebbe -- permanent." Bazie lost that expression of pleasant affability 
that Skif had become accustomed to. "I know sumthin' uv ol' Londer, an' -- mebbe 'e 
wouldn' dirty 'is 'ands personal, but 'e knows plenty as would take a 'int 'bout 
gettin' ye quiet."
Skif shuddered. He had no doubt about that. " 'F I'm not 'bout, 'e'll let ol' 
Kalchan 'ang. Specially 'f Kalchan don' ever wake up. An' 'e'll say, 'e didn' 
know nothin' 'bout th' girl, an' no one t' say otherwise."
Londer had three sons, after all. He could afford to lose one.
Hellfires, 'e'll prolly get a girl and breed him a couple more, just t' be on 
th' safe side, Skif thought with disgust. He rather doubted that his uncle's 
long-dead spouse had enjoyed a love match with the man, for Londer never 
mentioned or even thought of her so far as he could tell. And Londer wouldn't 
have any trouble finding another bride either. All he had to do was go down to 
the neighborhood where the Hollybush had been or one like it, and he could buy 
himself a wife with a single gold piece. There were dozens of husbands who would 
sell him their own wives, or their daughters, brothers who would sell sisters, 
dozens of women who would sell him their own selves.
Well, that was hardly anything Skif could do something about.
"I think ye're gonna be m'laundry maid fer a fortn't or so, young'un," Bazie 
said. Skif was disappointed by that, of course, but there really wasn't any way 
around it. He had to agree, himself. He didn't want to get picked up by the 
Guard, and he surely didn't want his uncle looking to keep him quiet. There 
wasn't going to be any excitement in washing up scarves and veils -- but he figured 
he might as well put a good face on it.
"Nawt s'bad," he replied, as cheerfully as he could. "Don' mind doin' laundry, 
'specially bein' as it's pretty cold out there."
Raf, Lyle, and Deek looked pretty pleased over the situation, though. Well, they 
should be, since it got them out of hauling water, washing, and taking out 
whatever trash couldn't be burned.
"Cheer up," Raf said, clapping him on the back. "Bazie's nawt s'bad comp'ny, eh, 
Bazie? An' 'tis warm enuf in 'ere, real cozy-like. Better nor that there 
'Ollybush, eh?"
"Oh, aye, an' 'e ain't 'eerd all me tales yet," Bazie laughed. "So I got an 
audience wut won' fall asleep on me!"
One by one, the other boys went out to prowl the streets and see what they could 
filch, leaving Skif alone with Bazie. Little did Skif guess what lay ahead of 
him when he finished all the chores Bazie set him -- including, to his utter shock, 
washing the stone floor! -- and the last of what Bazie referred to as their "piece 
goods" were hung up on the lines crisscrossing the ceiling to dry.
Lunchtime had come and gone by then, and the boys had flitted in and out, 
leaving swag behind to be cleaned and mended, when Bazie said, "Right. Skif, 
fetch me th' book there -- i' th' shelf next t' loaf."
Obediently, Skif went to the set of shelves that held their daily 
provisions -- Bazie never kept much around, because of the rats and mice that 
couldn't be kept out of a room like this one -- and found the book Bazie wanted. It 
wasn't difficult, since it was the only book there, a battered copy of a 
housewife's compendium of medicines, recipes, and advice lacking a back cover. 
He brought it over and started to hand it to the old man,
"Nay, nay -- ," Bazie said. "Sit ye down, 'ere, where light's best, an' read it. 
Out loud."
Puzzled, but obedient, Skif opened it to the first page and began to read. It 
was hardly the most fascinating stuff in the world, but Bazie followed his every 
word, frowning with concentration as he sounded out a few terms that were 
unfamiliar to him, and correcting him on the one or two occasions when he didn't 
say the words quite right.
"That'll do," Bazie said with satisfaction when he finished the chapter. "Ye 
read good 'nuff. Na, get ye bit uv charcoal from fire, an' copy out that fust 
receipt on table."
"On table?" Skif asked, flabbergasted. "That'll make right mess!"
"An' ye kin wash 't off, after," Bazie countered, in a tone that brooked no 
argument. So Skif fished out a burned bit of stick and did as he was told, with 
Bazie leaning as far forward as he could to see just how neat Skif's writing 
was.
"That'll do," he said again, when Skif finished. "Wash that, but don' drop th' 
charcoal. Ye're gonna do sums."
"Sums?"; Skif squeaked, turning around to stare at the old man. "Sums? Wut 
good're sums gonna do a thief?"
"They're gonna make sure ye ain't cheated by fence, tha's wut," Bazie replied, 
as sternly -- no, far more sternly -- than ever Beel was. "Ye thin' I'm gonna let ye 
tak' th' swag t' fence if ye cain't even tell if's cheated ye? 'Ow ye think me 
other boys did so well, eh? 'Ow ye think Raf an' Lyle an' Deek knows wut's wut?"
"Aw, Bazie -- ," Skif wailed.
"An' none uv yer 'aw, Bazie.' I ain't havin' no boys here wut cain't do th' 
bizness. Get th' coal in yer 'and an' sit ye down." The look in Bazie's eye 
warned Skif that if he argued, he might find himself out on the street, promises 
or no promises. With a groan, he bent over the scrubbed table, and prepared to 
reveal the depth of his ignorance.
And it was abysmal. It wasn't long before Bazie called a halt to the 
proceedings, with Skif wondering the whole time if Bazie wasn't going to 
reconsider, now that he knew what a dunce his "new boy" was.
"Skif, Skif, Skif," Bazie sighed, looking pained. "Oh, lad --  tell me 'ow 'tis 
summun as smart as ye are got t' be so iggnerent."
"I didn' wan' miss me breakfust," Skif said humbly, head hanging in shame. "T' 
Queen sez ever' young'un whut's still takin' lessons gets breakfust. Niver did 
like sums, so's easy 'nuff not t' learn 'em."
Silence from Bazie for a moment, then, much to Skif's relief, a chuckle. "Well, 
'tis 'onest 'nuff answer, an' nay so stupid a one," Bazie replied. "Well, 
young'un, ye're 'bout t' learn them sums, an' learn 'em t'hard way."
"The hard way," Skif soon learned, was to get them by rote.
Bazie drilled him. And drilled him. And then, when he grew hoarse and Skif 
thought he might be done for the day, at least, Bazie paused only long enough 
for a mug of hot tea to lubricate his throat and began the drill all over again. 
Only when Skif was mentally exhausted did Bazie give over, and at that point, 
Skif was only too pleased to haul water instead of reckoning his four-times 
table.
Shortly after that, Lyle returned with the makings of dinner and helped Skif put 
together a satisfying meal of bacon, day-old bread, and apples. As the bacon 
fried and the bread toasted, the other two appeared with a new lot of loot. Raf 
brought in more sleeves -- this lot was a bit worn and threadbare about the hems, 
but Bazie examined them and gave it as his opinion that he could make a sort of 
trim out of some of them that would serve to cover the worn parts, making them 
look new.
Deek brought back only a couple of scarves and kerchiefs, but a great deal of 
news for Skif.
"Yer Nuncle Londer's 'angin' 'is boy Kalchan out t' twist on 'is own, which I 
guess we all figgered," he announced, as Skif and Lyle tucked thick slabs of 
bacon between two pieces of toasted bread and added mustard before handing them 
around. "It don' look like ol' Kalchan's gonna be much like hisself, though. 
Healers say 'is skull wuz fair cracked, an' they figger 'is brains is addled. 
They reckon 'e'll be good fer nowt but stone pickin' fer 'is life, an' I reckon 
they'll put 'im out wi' sum farmer or 'tother."
Skif snorted. "'E wuz no prize anyroad," he countered. "But if 'e's addled, 
reckon 'e cain't conterdick Nuncle Londer." But it was an odd thought. Kalchan, 
who never turned his hand to any physical labor if he could help it, eking out 
the rest of his life in the hard and tedious work of picking stones out of farm 
fields to make them easier to plow. Such work was endless, or so he'd heard; it 
seemed that no matter how many stones one dug out of a given field, there were 
always more working themselves to the surface.
Serves 'im right. It might not be a punishment that accurately fit the crime, 
but it suited Skif. His only regret was that, once again, Uncle Londer was going 
to escape the consequences.
But it don' bother me 'nuff that I wanta go talk t' Guard about it.
The new owner of the Hollybush had already moved his own people in. The cook was 
gone, no one knew where, but possibly still in Guard custody. The Hollybush was 
back in business, but with slightly better food and drink and slightly higher 
prices, or so Deek's sources had told him. The new people were a hard-faced 
woman who acted as cook, and her henpecked husband who managed the drink, and 
their three grown children. Rumor had it that the two daughters, who acted as 
serving wenches, could be had for a modest price, plying their trade in the 
curtained-off alcove that had served Maisie as a sleeping cubby. Given that 
there were probably no wages being paid to the children, plus the added income 
brought in by the daughters, the place would probably remain profitable despite 
higher prices that would drive some customers elsewhere.
What was important to Skif was that there was no point in going back after his 
meager belongings; by now anyone who was grasping enough to serve as madam to 
her own daughters would have claimed everything usable for herself.
Well, they were welcome to it.
" 'F I nivir 'ear uv m'nuncle agin, 'twill be too soon," Skif proclaimed loudly. 
"An' whoivir's got the 'Ollybush kin 'ave it, much good may't do 'em. 'Eard awt 
uv Maisie, though?"
"Yer cuz Beel, wut's wi' th' Temple, took 'er, they sez," Deek told him. 
"Cleaned 'er up, 'ad 'Ealers wi' 'er. They sez she's t'work i' Temple, i' 
kitchen, mebbe scrubbin' an' cleanin'."
"She nivir did me 'arm," Skif observed slowly. "Nawt thet she 'ad more'n a 
scatterin' uv wits t' begin wi'. Ol' Beel -- 'e dun me a good turn, reckon 'e's dun 
wut 'e cud fer Maisie."
"Like I sed," Bazie put in, when comment seemed called for, "Niver know wut a 
mon'll do, when 'e gets in Temple. I reckon ol' Londer ain' gonna be too pleased 
wi' yon Beel from 'ere on."
Skif smiled slowly. "Reckon yer right, Bazie."
* * * * * * * * * *
The next several days passed much as the first had. Skif had originally been 
more than a little cautious around Bazie, especially when he found himself alone 
with the man. Crippled or not, Skif was in Bazie's control, and there was always 
the possibility that Bazie's interests in his boys went beyond the obvious. But 
Bazie never once showed anything but an honest friendliness that was both 
nurturing and practical. If Skif had ever known a real father, he would have 
recognized the odd feelings he was having now as being those of a son for a 
caring father -- and he would have seen that Bazie's actions were like those of a 
caring father for his sons. He only knew that he liked Bazie enormously, and he 
trusted the man more and more with every moment. For his part, Bazie pretty much 
took care of his own needs, requiring only to be carried to and from the water 
closet. Skif was impressed by how calmly self-sufficient he was. He had guessed 
by now that Bazie was at least forty or fifty years old, and yet he never seemed 
old.
There was one thing, however, that Bazie always insisted on which seemed rather 
odd to Skif. One of his daily chores was to set a handful of wheat to soaking, 
and rinse the sprouting grains from previous days. When the sprouts got to a 
certain length, Bazie would eat them. He didn't seem to like them very much, but 
he doggedly munched them down.
" 'F ye don' like tha' muck, why'd ye eat it ev' day?" Skif finally asked.
" 'Cuz I like m' teeth," Bazie said shortly. " 'F I don' eat tha' muck, seein' 
as I niver sees th' sun, 'twon't be long 'fore I lose m'teeth an' gets sick. 
Tha's wut Healer tol' me fust time m' teeth started bleedin' an' I got sick. 
Mucky grass's cheapest stuff 'round, so's tha's wut I eat in winter. Summer, 
'course, they's good stuff i' market."
As the days passed, Skif finally grew bold enough to voice some of his curiosity 
about this most curious of situations. Besides, getting Bazie to talk made a 
welcome break from being drilled in sums as he scrubbed or stirred the laundry 
kettle.
At first, his questions were about commonplaces, but eventually he got up the 
courage to start asking more personal things. And, finally, he asked the most 
important of all.
"Bazie -- wut 'appened t' yer legs?" he ventured, and waited, apprehensively, for a 
hurt or angry reply.
But Bazie voiced neither. Instead, he gazed at Skif for a moment. " 'Tis a long 
story, but 'tothers 'ave 'eard it, an' likely they'll figger it oughta be me 'as 
tells ye." He paused. "Ye ever 'ear uv th' Tedrel Wars?"
Skif shook his head.
"Thought not." Bazie sighed gustily. "Wuz back yon twenny yearn, easy, mebbe 
thutty. Well, I wuz in't. Tedrel mercs -- tha's mercenaries, they's people wut 
fights wars fer money, fer them as don' figger on doin' the fightin' 
thesselves -- they wuz paid t'come up from south, t' fight 'gainst Valdemar fer 
Karse. On'y 'twasn't t' be known thet they wuz doin' it fer Karse; they wuz a 
lot uv promises made 'bout Tedrels gettin' t' hev t'half uv Valdemar when they 
won." He shook his head. "Daft. 'Course, I didn' know thet. I wuz young 'n dumb, 
didn' think about nawt but loot an' wimmin."
"You wuz with 'em?" Skif asked, turning to look at him, mouth agape.
"Oh, aye. Stupid." He shook his head. "Furst fight, practic'ly, got m' legs took 
off at knee. Didn' know then if 'twas good luck thet I lived, or bad. Got took 
up wi' rest uv prisoners, an' when war wuz over, didn' hev nowhere t' go. On'y I 
wuz in meres cuz I wuz caught thievin' an' had t' 'ide, so me'n a couple other 
young fools decided we stick t'gether an' see 'f I cud teach 'em wut I knew 
'bout thievin'. So we did, an' I did."
"Wut 'appened to 'em?" Skif asked.
Bazie shrugged. "Went back 'ome when they had th' glim, an' by then, I 'ad young 
Ames 'n Jodri, an' I reckoned I 'ad a good thing. I teach the young 'uns an' 
they share th' swag. Works out." He smiled -- a little tightly. "Sorta like gettin' 
some uv th' loot I wuz promised. Heh. Mebbe I ain't got part uv Valdemar, but 
Valdemar's still feedin' me. An' I'm still alive, so I reckon I'm doin' all 
right."
Skif pondered all of that; it was kind of interesting. "So, how come ye take 
sech good care uv us, eh?" he asked.
Bazie laughed aloud. "An' ye'd do what if I didn'? Run off, right? 'Sides, I 
kinda like the comp'ny. 'Ad a good fam'ly an' I miss it. Me da wuz a good 'un, 
on'y 'e got 'urt, an' died, an' I 'ad t' do wut I culd fer me an' mum an' m' 
brothers -- till they got sick an' died i' plague. Allus wished I'd 'ad family uv 
me own, on'y they's nuthin' but hoors wi' mere army, and wut wimmin 'ud hev a 
fam'ly wi' me now?" He shrugged. "So I reckon I make me own fam'ly, eh?"
"They sez, i' Temple," Skif ventured, "thet friends is th' fam'ly ye kin choose. 
I sure's hellfires wouldn' hev chose m' nuncle, nor Kalchan. Reckon this way's a 
bit better."
He was rewarded by a beaming smile from Bazie -- and perhaps, just a hint of 
moisture in his eyes, hastily and covertly removed with a swipe of the hand. 
"Aye," Bazie agreed. "Reckon tha's right."
Skif quickly turned his questions to other topics, mostly about life as a 
mercenary, which Bazie readily answered.
"'Tis a life fer the young'n stupid, mostly, I'm thinkin'," he admitted. 
"Leastwise, wuz wi' Tedrels. Seems t' me, if yer gonna fight, mebbe ye shouldn' 
be fightin' fer things summun else thinks is 'portant. But 'twas lively. Did a 
mort'a travelin', though 'twas mostly on shank's mare. Got fed reg'lar. Seems t' 
me that lot uv lads joined thinkin' they wuz gonna get rich, an' I knew thet 
wouldn' 'appen. Reg'lar merc, 'e don' get rich, 'specially not Tedrels."
"Why?" Skif wanted to know.
Bazie laughed. '"Cause Tedrels wuzn't Guild mercs, tha's why! Tedrels, they sez, 
useta be in they own land, but got run out. So they took up fightin' fer people, 
th' whole lot uv 'em. By time I 'id out wi' em, Tedrels took wut nobuddy else 
would, cuz th' fights they took't weren't real smart. Ain't no Guild merc 
comp'ny wud fight 'gainst Valdemar! And ain't no Guild comp'ny wud fights for 
Karse. They's bunch uv fanatics, an' they ain't too good t'their own folk." He 
pondered for a moment. "Ye know, I kinda wondered 'f they figgered t' use us up, 
so's they wouldn' hev t' pay us. But I guess Cap'n wuz pretty desp'rate, so they 
took't th' job." He shook his head. "I'druther be'n 'onest thief. I figger'd t' 
make m'self scarce when th' coast wuz clear, on'y it niver wuz, an' they allus 
'ad an eye lookin' fer deserters."
"Huh. So how come they ain't no problem gettin' folks fer Guard, 'f goin' t' 
fight's a dumb thing?" Skif wanted to know.
"Oh, th' Guard, thet's different," Bazie acknowledged. "They's got 'onor. When 
they ain't 'elpin' beaks, they's watchin' Border, cleanin' out bandits an' 
slavers." He shook his head. "Got no use fer bandits an' slavers. Us, we on'y 
take frum people kin afford a bit took't frum 'em. Tha's rule, right?"
Skif nodded; he'd already been given that rule numerous times. Here in the 
poorer part of town, the only legitimate targets, by Bazie's rules, were the 
people like Kalchan and Uncle Londer. Most thefts were out of the pockets and 
possessions of those who had the money to spare for luxury.
"Bandits an' slavers, they's hurtin' people nor better orf than us'n," Bazie 
declared. "So, bein' in Guard's 'onor'ble. An' Valdemar Guard takes care uv 
their own, so's not so daft t' join op."
This was getting altogether too confusing and complicated for Skif, and 
evidently Bazie saw from his expression that he was sorely puzzled.
"Don' worry 'bout it fer now," he cautioned, "'Tis all complisticated, an' real 
'ard t' 'splain. 'Ellfires, sometimes I cain't figger it out."
Skif pursed his lips, but decided that Bazie was probably right. There was just 
far too much in life that was altogether too complicated to try and work out. 
Like religion -- if the Gods cared so much about people, why did they allow the 
Kalchans and the Londers -- and worse -- to go on doing what they did? Why wasn't 
everybody fed and warm and happy? Why were there rich people who had piles more 
things than they needed, and people like him who didn't have anything?
It was all far more than he could wrap his mind around, and eventually he just 
had to give up on it all.
Maybe someday he'd have some answers. For right now, he had food in his belly, a 
warm place to sleep, and friends.
And what more could anyone ask for, really? Gods and honor and all the rest of 
that stuff could go hang. He would put his loyalty with those who earned it.
SKIF was excited; finally, two weeks after he had officially joined the gang, 
something he had been hoping for all along happened. Bazie decided that when the 
boys returned from their own forays into the streets, although his talent 
probably lay in the area of burglary, he ought to have training in "the liftin' 
lay" -- the art of the pickpocket.
All three of the boys were enthusiastic when Bazie put it to them. " 'E might's 
well as not!" Raf exclaimed. "Ain't no 'arm, an' 'e might 'ave th' touch arter 
all."
Deek nodded. " 'Sides, Bazie, any mun kin run shake'n'snatch. An' fer that, we 
orter 'ave a new'un anyroad."
So Raf and Deek got out some bits and pieces from various cupboards, and began 
to put together a most peculiar object. When they were done, there was something 
like a headless man standing in the middle of their room, one hung all over with 
bells.
"There!" Bazie said, looking at their handiwork with pleasure. "Mind, yon's not 
wut a mun wants t' 'ave in 'is place when beaks come callin'. Dead giveaway, 
that. But I do sez, I done good work wi' that lad. Ye'll no find a better 'un 
this side uv th' Border."
So Bazie had built this thing in the first place? It was very sturdy, in spite 
of being assembled from a lot of apparently disparate bits. In the mannequin's 
pockets were handkerchiefs, around his "neck" was a kerchief, and he had two 
belt pouches slung from his belt and a third tucked into the breast of his 
tunic.
Skif could not imagine how anyone could get at any of these tempting articles. 
Even the belt pouches were slung right under the mannequin's stuffed arm. But 
Raf, their expert, was about to show him.
"Watch close, young 'un," Bazie chuckled. "Yon Raf's slick."
He strolled up to stand beside the mannequin, looking from side to side as if he 
was observing the traffic in a street. Meanwhile -- without ever so much as 
glancing at his quarry -- his hand moved very, very slowly toward one of the 
handkerchiefs just barely hanging out of a pocket. Thread by thread, almost, he 
delicately removed it, and when it fell free of the mannequin's pocket, he 
whisked it into his own so quickly it seemed to vanish. As slowly as it had 
seemed to move, the whole business had not taken very long -- certainly it was 
reasonable to think that a target would have remained standing beside the thief 
for that period of time, especially in a crowd or at the side of a busy street 
with a lot of traffic on it.
"Tha's th' 'ard way," Bazie told Skif, who watched with wide eyes. "Raf, 'e's 
th' best I ivir showed. 'E's got th' touch, fer certain-sure."
Now Raf sidled up to the other side of the mannequin, still casual and calm; he 
pretended to point at something, and while the target's attention was presumably 
distracted for a moment, out came a knife no bigger than a finger, and between 
one breath and the next, the strings of both belt pouches had been slit and 
knife and pouches were in Raf's pocket.
And all without jingling a single bell.
Now it was Lyle's turn, and he extracted the remaining handkerchief without 
difficulty, although he was not as smooth as Raf. "I'm not near that good," Deek 
said, "So I'm got t' do th' shake'n'snatch. Tha' takes two."
He got up, and he and Lyle advanced on the mannequin together. Then Lyle 
pretended to stumble and fell against it, setting all the bells jingling; as it 
fell into him, Deek grabbed for it. " 'Ey there, lad!" he exclaimed. "Steady on! 
An' you --  watch where yer goin', you! Mussin' up a gennelmun like that!"
Skif would have expected Deek to pretend to brush the mannequin off, and get 
hold of his goods that way, but Deek did nothing of the sort. He simply set it 
straight. They both moved off, but now the mannequin no longer had the kerchief 
around its neck, and Deek held up both the kerchief and the pouch that had been 
tucked inside its tunic triumphantly.
"Tha's th' easy road, but riskier," Bazie noted. "Chance is, if mun figgers 'e's 
been lifted, 'e'll send beaks lookin' fer th' shaker -- tha's Lyle."
"An' I'm be clean," Lyle pointed out. "Ain't nothin' on me, an' beak'll let me 
go."
"But if 'e knows th' liftin' lay, it'll be Deek 'e'll set beak on, an' Deek 
ain't clean. Or mun might even be sharp 'nuff t' figger 'twas both on 'em," 
Bazie cautioned. "Ye run th' shake'n'snatch, ye pick yer cony careful. Gotta be 
one as is wuth it, got 'nuf glim t' take th' risk, but one as ain't too smart, 
ye ken? An' do't when's a mort uv crowd, but not so's ye cain't get slipput 
away."
Skif nodded solemnly.
"Na, 'tis yer turn. Jest wipes, fer now."
Skif then spent a humbling evening, trying to extract handkerchiefs from the 
mannequin's pocket without setting off the bells. Try as he might, with sweat 
matting his hair from the strain, he could not manage to set off less than two. 
And here he'd thought that he'd been working hard, hauling water and doing 
laundry, or going over walls and roofs with Deek! That had been a joke compared 
with this!
At length, Bazie took pity on him. "That'll be 'nuff, lad," he said, as Skif 
sagged with mingled weariness and defeat. "Ye done not bad, fer th' fust time. 
Ye'll get better, ye ken. Put yon dummy i't' corner, an' leave 'im fer now. Time 
fer a bit uv supper."
Skif was glad to do so. It was beginning to occur to him that the life of a 
thief was not as easy as most people believed, and most thieves pretended. The 
amount of skill it took was amazing; the amount of work to acquire that skill 
more than he had imagined. Not that he was going to give up!
I'll get this if't kills me.
"So, wha's news, m'lads?" Bazie asked, deftly slicing paper-thin wafers of sweet 
onion. This was going to be a good supper tonight, and they were all looking 
forward to it. Deek and Skif had done well for the little gang.
Lyle sliced bread and spread it with butter that Skif had gotten right out of a 
fancy inn's kitchen that very morning. He and Deek had been down in the part of 
town where the best inns and taverns were, actually just passing through, when 
one of those strokes of luck occurred that could never have been planned for.
The inn next to the one they had been passing had caught fire -- they never found 
out why, only saw the flames go roaring up and heard the hue and cry. Everyone 
in the untouched place they'd stopped beside, staff and customers alike, had 
gone rushing out -- either to help or to gawk -- and he and Deek had slipped inside in 
the confusion.
Somehow, without having a plan, they'd gotten in, snatched the right things, and 
gotten out within moments. For one thing, they had gone straight to the kitchen 
as the best bet. Taking money was out of the question; they didn't know where 
the till was. There was no time to search for valuable property left behind in 
the confusion. Without discussion, they had gone for what they needed, where 
they knew they would find something worth taking.
The kitchen.
Like the rest of the inn, it was deserted -- when the chief cook left, everyone 
else had taken the excuse to run out, too. There must have been a big delivery 
not long before, since the kitchen was full of unwrapped and partially unwrapped 
parcels of food.
It was like being turned loose in the best market in town. Skif had grabbed a 
wrapped block of butter, a cone of sugar, and a ham, and a handful of the brown 
paper the stuff had come wrapped in. Deek had gone for a whole big dry-cured 
hard sausage, a string of smaller ones, and half a wheel of cheese. Then out the 
back and over the wall they went, into an alley that was full of smoke and hid 
them beautifully. As soon as they were in the smoke, Skif and Deek pulled out 
the string bags they always brought with them just in case something in the 
nature of foodstuffs presented itself. Quickly wrapping up the articles in paper 
under cover of the smoke, they stuffed their booty into the bags, then came 
running out of the smoke into the crowd, coughing and wheezing far more than was 
necessary, acting like innocents who'd gone shopping for their mums and been 
caught in the alley. No one paid them any mind -- they were all too busy ogling the 
fire and the bucket brigade or craning their necks to see if the fire brigade 
had gotten to the burning inn yet. Skif and Deek had strolled homeward openly, 
carrying enough food to last them all for weeks. All of it luxury stuff, too -- not 
the sort of thing they got to taste more than once in a while. They had eggs a 
lot, since they were pretty cheap, with just about anyone who had a bit of space 
keeping pigeons or chickens, even in the city.
Bread was at every meal; bread was the staple of even the poorest diets.
Roots like tatties and neeps were cheap enough, too, and cabbage, and 
onions -- even old Kalchan had those at the inn. Dried pease and beans made a good 
soup, and Kalchan had those, too, though more often than not they were moldy.
Skif had eaten better with Bazie than he ever had in his life, even allowing for 
what he'd snitched from Lord Orthallen's kitchen. Good butter, though -- butter 
that was all cream and not mixed half-and-half with lard -- they didn't see much of 
that. Deek's cheese wasn't the cheap stuff that they generally got, made after 
the cream had been skimmed from the milk. And as for ham and sausages -- sausages 
where you didn't have to think twice about what might have gone into them --  well, 
those were food for the rich. And sugar -- 
Skif had never tasted sugar until he started snitching at Lord Orthallen's 
table. Bazie had a little screw of paper with some, and once in a while they all 
got a bit in their tea. Now they'd be able to sweeten their tea at every meal.
Each of them had a slice of bread well-buttered, with a thin slice of onion 
atop, and a slice of hard sausage atop that. The aroma of sage and savory from 
the sausage made Skif's mouth water. Bazie had put some of his sprouting beans 
on his slice, and had taken a second slice of buttered bread to hold it all 
together. Skif hoped the sprouts wouldn't taste bad with all that good stuff in 
and around it. They were going to eat like kings for a while.
"Kalchan croaked." That was from Lyle, with his mouth full. "They sez. Nobuddy 
sez nothin' 'bout Londer. I ast 'round 'bout Skif. Don' seem nobuddy's lookin' 
fer 'im now. Reckon they figger 'e saw t'set-to an' run off."
"Huh." Skif shrugged. "Tol' ye about th' fire. Tha's all we saw." Deek nodded 
agreement, but his mouth was full, so he added nothing.
"White shirt's sniffin' 'round Little Puddin' Lane," said Raf. "Dunno why; 
askin' a mort'uv questions, they sez."
Huh. Wonder what Herald wants down there? There wasn't anything down in that 
part of town that a Herald should have been interested in; Little Pudding Lane 
was just a short step above the neighborhood of the Hollybush so far as poverty 
went.
"Stay clear uv them for now," Bazie advised. "They got ways'uv tellin who's 
lyin'."
"No fear there!" Raf promised. "Ain't gonna mess wi' no witchy white shirt!"
Be stupid to, Skif reflected. Not that he'd ever actually seen a Herald, except 
once, passing at a distance. Even then, he wasn't sure it had been a Herald. It 
could just have been a pale-colored horse.
Bazie shrugged. "Dunno they be witchy, jest sharpish. Ah, like's not, 'tis 
summat got nawt t'do wi' likes uv us. When any'un seed a white shirt down here, 
eh?"
"Not so's I kin 'member," Raf, the oldest, said at last. Skif and Deek both 
shook their heads.
"Saw 'un oncet, passin' through," Lyle offered, and grinned. "Passin' fast, too! 
Reckon had burr under 'is saddle!"
"White shirt's don' bother wi' us," Bazie said with certainty, and finished the 
last bite of his supper with great satisfaction. "Slavers, raiders, aye. Big 
gang'uv bandits, aye. E'en summat highwayman, e'en footpad, 'f 'e's stupid 'nuff 
to murder along'uv robbin'. But us? A bit'uv cheese here, a wipe there? Nothin' 
fer them. Tis th' beaks we gotta watch for. But all th' same -- ," he finished, 
brow wrinkling, "steer clear'uv 'em. They nivir done me no 'arm, e'en wi' me an' 
the' rest fightin' 'em, but they nivir done me no favors either, an' Kar-sites 
allus said they was uncanny." He laughed. "Well, demons is wut they said, but 
figger the source!"
When Skif went to bed that night, though, he wondered what would have brought a 
"white shirt" -- a Herald -- down as close to their territory as Little Pudding Lane. 
It had to be something important, for as Bazie said, the Heralds didn't bother 
themselves about petty thieves as long as it was only a crime against property 
and not against a person.
Bazie had strict rules about that, too -- not the least because if by some horrible 
accident someone was hurt, it could be a hanging offense. It made no sense to 
court that kind of trouble all for the sake of some loot you could get another 
time. Better to drop everything and run if it all went bad. Even if you were one 
of a team, there was no point in coming to the rescue when that would only mean 
that two of you would be caught instead of one.
The worst that would happen to any of them would be some time in gaol, and 
perhaps a beating administered by the victim; only Raf had a previous offense 
against him, and he would take care to give another name if he was caught. Bazie 
had coached Skif on this with great care. The very best ploy was to get rid of 
anything you had on you, so you'd be clean. If you couldn't do that, the next 
best was to act scared, and cry and carry on and say that you were starving, had 
no job, and couldn't get one, then produce a convincing cough as if you were 
very sick. None of them were so well-fed that they looked prosperous, though 
none of them ever went hungry either, and they could probably carry the story 
off as long as the beaks didn't get involved. Lyle, with his innocent face and 
ability to make his eyes seem twice their size, had gotten away with that more 
than once.
Wish I could, Skif thought with envy. But -- Lyle was another on the liftin' lay, 
and it was easier to get away with that when you were caught out on the street 
than it was when you were caught in someone's house.
Raf was sitting up with Bazie, although Deek and Lyle had already gone to bed. 
Their voices came easily through the shutters of his bed. "Lissen, Bazie, 
Midwinter Fair's a-comin', an' I'm thinkin' we should be workin' it in twos," 
Raf said quietly. "One liftin', an' one t'carry. Mebbe I'm bein' nervy, but I 
don' like t'idea uv yon white shirt sniffin' round."
"You reckon?" Bazie sounded interested. "Hadn' tried that afore, hevwe?"
"Ain't's risky. Reckon I take's the young'un, Lyle take Deek. An ev'ry time we 
gets a lift, we takes it t' carrier. Carrier brings it here. Then no matter how 
wrong 't all goes, ain't no'un caught wi' more'n one lift on'im." Raf sounded 
very sure of himself, and truth to tell, Skif agreed with him. It would be a lot 
more work that way for the carrier, who would have to run back and forth between 
wherever the Fair they were working was being held, and here, but Raf was right. 
No matter what happened, no matter what went wrong, no one would be caught with 
more loot than a single kerchief or pouch.
"Som'thin' got ye spooked?" Bazie asked shrewdly. Skif could imagine Raf's 
shrug. "Can't 'magine white shirts lookin' fer lifters."
"Mebbe. Somethin' i' th' air. Not like white shirts t' be i' this t' th' chancy 
parts'uv town. Somethin's up. An' -- ," Raf paused. "Lots'uv forners pretendin' not 
t'be forners lurkin' about, i'taverns, askin' questions, little too 
casual-like."
"Na, ye stay clear'uv them, boy!" There was real alarm in Bazie's voice. "Tha's 
stuff fer th' highborns! Ain't no call t'get mixed up wi' them!"
"Eh." Raf agreed, but he still sounded worried. "Bazie, ye gotta wonder -- how long 
afore their bizness gets down amongst us? Ye know whut they sez -- rotten apple 
falls fastest and futhest."
"On'y thin' you an' me an' the likes'uv us got t' 'ave t'do wi' them is t' get 
out uv way when they falls."
And that seemed to be the end of that. Skif was asleep before Raf helped Bazie 
into bed.
* * * * * * * * * *
When the Midwinter Fairs began, the first thing they had to do was try and 
figure out which ones they would work, because every other thief and pickpocket 
in Haven would be doing the same. Bazie had a shrewd way of eliminating them, 
based on the number of beaks assigned to each, the general level of prosperity, 
and the number of drunks by midafternoon. He wanted a moderate number of beaks, 
a slightly-better-than-middle level of prosperity, and a high level of drunks. 
So, not too surprisingly, he decided that they should work the Fair associated 
with the Brewers Guild. He also picked one very large Fair held just outside the 
city, where there were going to be a large number of tent taverns because it was 
playing host to a series of contests among performers. Not Bards; in fact, Bards 
were excluded. These were to be contests among ordinary musicians with no Gifts.
He chose a third Fair for no reason that Skif could tell, but Raf and Deek 
grinned over it so broadly that he figured he'd get the joke when he saw it.
The last chosen was the first Fair of the seven days of Midwinter Festival; Lyle 
went out with Deek early in the afternoon, with Skif and Raf following about a 
candlemark later.
It was an overcast day, the still air with a soft feeling about it, and humid. 
The clouds hung low, so low they looked about to touch the roofs of the 
buildings to either side of the narrow street. Skif kept looking up as they 
walked down the streets, heading for the square where the Fair had been set up. 
Weather like this meant snow, the kind that packed together easily.
He wasn't disappointed; it came drifting down shortly after they got on their 
way, big, fat, fluffy flakes of it.
"Is snow good or bad fer bizness?" Skif asked anxiously. Midwinter had never 
been more than a date to him before this; he'd avoided the Fairs, since he 
hadn't any money to spend and kids as ragged as he'd been back in the bad 
Kalchan days were generally chased away by stall holders and beaks. Why bother 
to linger about the edges of a place you wouldn't be allowed into? So he hadn't 
any idea what to expect, or whether weather would make any difference in the 
number of people crowding the aisles between the stalls.
Raf cast a glance upwards and smiled. "This kinda snow's good," he opined. "Gets 
people playful, belike. Gets 'em thinkin' 'bout fun, an' not 'bout keepin' an 
eye out. Na, snow wit' a nasty wind, tha's diff'rent. Or colder, tha's 
diff'rent, too. This's near-perfek. Perfek 'ud be sun, right arter this kinda 
snow." He scratched his head speculatively. "This weather 'olds, reckon there'll 
be drink stalls an 'ot food stalls down t'river, too, an' aside summa th' ponds 
i' fancy parks. People'll be skatin', makin' snow stachoos an' forts, 'avin' 
snowball fights."
"Kids?" Skif asked. "Littles?"
Raf laughed. "Na, growed people, too! Graybeards, even! I seed 'em!"
Skif could only shake his head at the notion of full-grown adults having the 
leisure to pursue snow sports.
They heard the Fair long before they saw it, a jangle of instruments, laughter, 
loud voices, echoing down the narrow street. And when they saw it, it was just a 
patch of color at the end of the street. Only as they approached it did the 
patch resolve into people, waving banners, and a couple of tents bedecked with 
painted signs on canvas.
Obviously, there was far more to it than that to account for all the noise, but 
that was all they could see at the end of the street.
This was usually the cattle market, where larger livestock was bought and sold 
once every fortnight. Part of the market --  the part where really fine horses and 
stud bulls and prize milch cows were sold -- was actually underneath a building on 
ten tall stone pillars. It was like a fine house where the ground floor had been 
reserved for stalls for beasts. Skif didn't know what went on in the building 
atop those pillars, but it was probably some sort of commerce. The rest of the 
place was just an open square, which on market days had rough wooden pens set up 
for the more plebeian stock; sheep, goats, donkeys, mules, and those cattle and 
horses without aristocratic lineage.
As they came to the end of the street, the Fair filled that square and even 
edged onto the walkways around the perimeter. And the first thing that met 
Skif's astonished eyes was a woman, in a flounced dress so short he could see 
her legs up to the thigh, balancing along a rope strung from the eaves of a shop 
to the staircase of the stone cattle stalls.
"Na, young'un," Raf said in his ear, "Iff'n ye kin do that, ye kin call yersel' 
a roof walker, eh?"
Skif shut his open mouth and followed Raf into the aisles of the Fair. Within a 
very short time, it became perfectly obvious to him why Bazie had picked this 
Fair for them to prowl. There were next to no women among the patrons, and very 
little besides food and drink for sale. The drink was all alcoholic; mulled 
ales, wines, and ciders, cold beer, cold wine, and cold spirits of wine, which 
Skif had only heard of, never seen. The food was all hot, spicy, or salty. The 
rest of the stalls were uniformly for either entertainment or games of chance. 
And there were more entertainers in this place than Skif had ever seen in his 
lifetime. Jugglers, acrobats, musicians -- that was only the start of it. There 
were trick riders, most of them women and attired very like the girl on the rope 
overhead -- a man who did the most astonishing things with a loop of rope -- a 
fire-eater -- a sword swallower. And girl dancers, whose costumes were even more 
abbreviated than the riders! Which was probably why most of the patrons here 
were men and boys…
The dancers, of which there were two different troupes, and a set of raree shows 
promising to display the most amazing oddities, held pride of place in the stone 
cattle stalls. They'd used their tents to fashion canvas-walled rooms beneath 
the roof, firmly anchored to the stone sides of the stalls, making it impossible 
to lift the corner for a free look, to the acute disappointment of the boys 
swarming the place. The rest of the entertainers had to make do with their 
tents.
Raf found a good place for him to stand out of the way, just beside the stone 
staircase, where he also had a fine view of the ropedancers. He disappeared into 
the crowd.
Wake up now, he told himself sternly. Ye're here t' work, not gawk.
It was hard, though -- so many distractions, what with the dancers going across the 
rope when the crowd tossed enough in their dish to make it worth their while, 
with the glimpses of men on stilts at the farther edge of the Fair, the music 
coming from the dancers' stalls, and the enthusiastic bawling of the tent men, 
each proclaiming that nothing had ever been seen like the wonders in his tent.
Well, certainly Skif had never seen anything like this.
Just as he was starting to get cold, Raf reappeared with a cunningly-made paper 
cone full of hot chestnuts, which they shared -- and under cover of which, Raf 
passed Skif a fat belt pouch. After Skif had peeled and eaten enough nuts to 
warm hands and stomach, Raf took back the half-empty cone and loudly told him to 
run on home.
After a brief whining plaint, Skif trotted off, exactly like a younger brother 
chased off by an elder. And once away from the Fair, he broke into a loping run. 
In no time at all he had left the pouch with Bazie to be examined and counted, 
and he was on his way back, more than warmed up by his exertions.
It took longer for Raf to return the second time; Skif hoped that this meant he 
was being very careful. He also hoped that by the time he brought back Raf's 
second or third lift, Bazie would tell him that they'd collected enough for the 
day. Although this Fair was exciting and completely fascinating, Skif couldn't 
help being nervous about the composition of the crowd -- mostly male, and mostly 
drinking. It wouldn't take much for an ugly situation to develop.
The ropedancers didn't seem to mind his being there, though, which was a plus; 
he'd been afraid they might chivvy him off. While he waited for Raf to appear 
again, he watched them closely, trying to figure out how they did it. There were 
four of them; two girls, a young man, and a little boy; the latter didn't walk 
the rope himself, he seemed to be there mostly to balance on the shoulders of 
the young man.
Reckon since ye cain't see up his skirt fer an extra thrill, they figger they 
gotta have th' little'un there t' make it more dangerous.
Of the two girls, the youngest was the most skilled; while the older one just 
walked the rope, stopping midway for some one-footed poses, the younger one had 
an entire repertoire of tricks. So far Skif had seen her balance on one foot 
while she drew the other up with her hands to touch her heel against the back of 
her head, dance a little jig in the middlemost part of the rope, jump up and 
come down on the rope again, and make three skips with a jump rope out there. It 
was even-up between her and the older one for the dancers called out most often --  
the older one was, well, older, and had breasts and all, but the younger one was 
more daring.
It soon became obvious to Skif that the young man and the little boy were there 
to draw the crowd -- they were the ones that went out for free. The girls didn't 
dance unless there was enough money collected in the tin bucket hung at the side 
of the stone staircase -- and there was an older man with them who emptied it every 
time one of them went out. Skif thought there was a distinct family resemblance 
there with all of them.
Just then, Raf came up again, this time with a pair of waxed paper cones full of 
hot mulled cider. He handed one to Skif.
"Be kerful drinkin'," he cautioned, in a lowered voice. "They's summut in 
bottom."
"Seen Lyle?" Skif asked in a normal tone. "'E sed 'e'd be 'ere, didn' 'e?"
"Oh, aye, an' 'is mum's gonna be right riled," Raf said cheerfully, as Skif 
sipped the hot, spicy liquid, fragrant with apples. " 'E's 'ad a pair uv beers 
an' 'e's a-workin' a third."
Lyle's gotten two lifts and Raf saw him working a third? That was good news. By 
this point Skif understood why Raf had warned him. There was something hard and 
heavy at the bottom of the cone, heavy enough that if he didn't finish the cider 
quickly and carefully, the cone might start to disintegrate and leak. "I'm gonna 
go 'ome an' see'f Mum'll be lettin' us stay past dark," he offered.
Raf gave him a nod. "I be over t'orse dancers," he said, and wandered away as 
Skif trotted off again.
He continued to sip at the hot cider until he could actually see what was in the 
bottom. It looked like jewelry -- chain, with a seal attached. And from the taste 
now in the cider, it was silver. He ducked into a blind alley and fished the 
thing out, dumped the last of the cider and then, thinking, put it back into the 
paper cone. Nobody as poor as he was would waste waxed paper by throwing it 
away -- it was too useful as a spill for starting fires. So he screwed the thing up 
into a spill shape with the chain and seal inside, and went on his way again.
Bazie was pleased with the lift, but gave no hint that he was ready for them to 
stop, so back Skif went again.
Raf had warned him that he might be noticed -- by the rope-dancers themselves, if 
no one else -- if he went to the same spot a third time. The new meeting point was 
the tiny corral holding the trick riders; Raf had pointed out a good place the 
first time they'd gone past, where a farm cart full of hay was pushed up against 
the corral fence. That was where Skif went, propping hands and chin on the lower 
railing as he watched one of the riders riding -- standing -- on the back of a 
remarkably placid horse.
A heavy hand gripped his shoulder.
Skif jumped -- or tried to; with that hand on his shoulder, he couldn't do more 
than start. Heart racing, he turned his head, expecting a beak. I'm clean! he 
thought, thanking his luck that he was. I'm clean! 'E cain't do more'n tell me 
t'get out!
But it wasn't a beak that held his shoulder. It was his cousin Beel.
"Beel!" he squeaked.
"I'm pleased you recall one family member, Skif," Beel said gravely. "I'd like 
to know where you have been."
Skif thought quickly. "Wuz runnin' errand, came back, an saw t'fight," he said, 
trying to look absolutely innocent. "Saw beaks in't, an --  well, 'ad t'spook, 
Beel. Couldn' do nothin', so I 'ad t'spook."
Beel nodded. "But then where have you been? Why didn't you come to -- "
Skif took a chance and interrupted. "Beel -- I cain't go back t' Nuncle Londer," he 
whispered. "Them beaks, they want me t'tell 'em stuff 'bout Maisie -- but ye know 
tha's stuff Nuncle don' want me t'tell!"
The corners of Beel's mouth turned down, but he took his hand from Skif's 
shoulder. "It would be wrong of me to -- put temptation in the path of anyone, let 
alone my own father," he said reluctantly. He didn't say what temptation, but 
they both knew what it was. "Just tell me -- no, don't tell me where you are and 
what you're doing -- but are you continuing with your lessons, at least?"
Skif groaned, and Beel smiled reluctantly. "Am I! They's wus'n you! Set me a 
sum, I dare ye!"
"Twelve plus fifteen," Beel asked instantly, knowing that Skif couldn't have 
added that when he'd run.
"Twenny -- ," Skif screwed his eyes shut and concentrated. "Twenny-se'en!" He 
looked up at his cousin triumphantly. Beel lifted his hands, conceding defeat.
"But what should I say if my father asks if I've seen you?" the priest wondered 
out loud, worriedly. "Lying -- ,"
Skif clambered up into the hay. "Tell 'im ye seed me i' cattle market, then ina 
farm cart frum t'country," he suggested pertly. "An'twon't e'en be a fib!"
Now Beel smiled ruefully, and shook his head. "You're too quick and facile for 
your own good, Skif," he said. "You worry me. But all right -- if Uncle Londer 
thinks you've gone and hired yourself out as farm labor, he's not going to 
bother trying to find you." He rested one hand on Skif's head -- in a blessing? -- and 
moved off into the crowd.
Fortunately no one else seemed to have been paying any attention to this 
interchange. Skif clambered down out of the cart -- reluctantly, for the hay had 
been soft and warm -- before anyone from the trick riders' group could scold him 
for being up there.
He was still sweating, just a little. That had been a narrow escape. How could 
he ever have guessed that Beel of all people would show up here? This was not 
the sort of atmosphere he'd expect a priest to seek out!
He looked anxiously for Raf, hoping the older boy hadn't been caught. After much 
too long a wait, he spotted Raf working his way through the crowd coming toward 
him. The relief was enough to make him feel light-headed.
"Time t' go," Raf said as soon as the two of them were together. "Wut I got 
now'll gi' Bazie 'nuff, an' I sore yer cuz 'ere."
"I did more'n see 'im," Skif said, as they worked their way out to the street 
together. He explained what had happened as they walked together toward home.
"Aw, hellfires!" Raf responded, making a motion of wiping his forehead. "Tha's a 
close'un!"
"Too close," Skif agreed. "I took't chance on Beel bein' a good'un -- ye ken 'e 
warned me, afore th' to-do. An' 'e is, I guess."
"Well, I saw 'im doin' some beggin' fer Temple; guess tha's 'ut brung 'im 
there," Raf said. "I'd made lift, an' I nipped off t'look fer ye."
It had been far too close a call and Skif's heart was still beating hard. But at 
least they'd made some good lifts today, and no harm done.
Skif had managed -- by luck and a glib tongue -- to squeak out of danger again.
IT was a good, dark night -- not quite moonless, but it had been a day moon, 
shining in the blue sky half the afternoon, and it would be down before Skif was 
done with tonight's job. Right now, the shadows were perfect for getting into 
his target. Skif sniffed the air appreciatively, but silently; it was crisp and 
cold, with a hint of wood smoke, but not as much as there would have been if all 
of the fireplaces in his target house were running. With a dry autumn this year, 
there was no treacherous ice on the roof or tops of the walls. In the fall the 
first bit of cold kept people off the street at night and tucked up in a cozy 
tavern, instead of wandering about, taking a chance of getting run off by the 
Watch for the fun of gawking at the show homes of the rich. All except for the 
rich themselves, of course, who were making the rounds of their estates -- if they 
had them -- or their friends' estates. It was hunting season, and no one who was 
anyone would be caught dead in Haven at this time of year, not when they could 
go out to the country and use the slaughter of wild game as an excuse to have 
house parties.
It was very strange. Granted, wild game was a luxury, and featured prominently 
in the menus of the rich. But surely their foresters and servants could do a 
better job of going after it than people who didn't hunt for a living.
Still, all to the good. A smart lad with the wit to go and hold horses outside 
the Great Houses always knew who was having a country-house party and who was 
going to it. When the master was away, the servants left behind took their own 
sort of holiday, and getting into and out of a place was child's play.
Well, it was if the "child" was Skif.
Hidden in a join of two walls, where one stuck out a little farther than the 
other and left a vertical slot of dark shadow, Skif waited until the Watch 
passed. There was always the Nightwatch to reckon with, in the fine 
neighborhoods. When he'd worked by day, snatching things out of the laundries of 
many of the fancy houses he now robbed, he hadn't had to worry about the 
Nightwatch.
Not that he worried too much about them now -- so long as he knew the schedule. He 
kept his head turned away as they passed with their lantern to keep from having 
his night vision ruined, then nicked across the top of Jesolon's wall to the top 
of Kalink's.
The home of the arrogant "new money" grain merchant Kalink was his goal tonight. 
The irony was that this Kalink wasn't even the one who made the money -- that had 
been the work of the old man, who according to gossip had been perfectly content 
to live quietly, if comfortably, in the country until he died. Not the son, 
though. Gossip grudgingly admitted he had as good a head for business as the old 
man, maybe better, but he wasn't going to molder in the countryside, not he! He 
got himself a show-wife, long on looks and short on wits, and had this brand new 
manor house built right up against Jesolon's, first tearing down the smaller 
place that had been there. He hadn't been content to simply add on -- no, nothing 
was good enough for him but brand new, nor would he hear any advice on the 
subject. It didn't matter to him that having walls run right up to the side of a 
house just made a road for a thief to walk on -- hadn't he the very latest in locks 
and catches and other theft-foiling hardware? Hadn't he ornamental ironwork on 
all the windows?
Hasn't he left enough room between them bars to put a donkey through? Skif 
snickered to himself, as he slipped over the roof of the stable to the uneven 
triangle of shadow just against the wall of the house that the moon wouldn't 
reach at this time of night. He managed it all without a hint of sound, not the 
rattle of a stone, not the slip of a slate. In his all-black "sneak suit," with 
hands in black gloves and face wrapped in a black scarf, smeared with charcoal 
where the scarf didn't reach, the only part of him visible was his eyes.
Oh, yes, indeed, Kalink was "new money" in Haven and proud of it. Proud enough 
to have halved the space where his garden had been in order to put in a stable 
for a single horse, the fool! True enough, a horse was a very expensive, very 
conspicuous luxury in the city, but one horse would only pull a cart (which 
there was no room for) or a tiny, two-wheeled, half-carriage called a "gig," 
that would only carry two people at a time (and which barely fit in the stable 
with the horse). Your servants couldn't use it for real shopping, it was fair 
useless for transporting anything large or heavy, if you had a country estate or 
summer home as Kalink did, you still had to hire a wagon to carry your baggage 
when you went back for hunting season or summer. You had to drive it yourself, 
for there wasn't room for a driver. It was good for two things -- for arriving at a 
fancy "do" with the wife, and for the wife or a daughter to go off with a 
servant to drive to make her daytime social calls. If wife or daughter couldn't 
drive, the only way your women could use it for their shopping was if they 
arranged for whatever they bought to be delivered.
Which was, of course, what Kalink's brainless bit of a show-wife always did, 
though she did have wit enough to be able to drive herself, so she took her 
personal maid instead of a manservant. Skif's lip curled in contempt. Very nice.
And in exchange for this ostentatious bit of status-flaunting merchandise, you 
lost half your garden, and had to have an extra boy around to drive and to tend 
the creature from dusk to dawn, just to keep the beast from stinking up the 
neighborhood and drawing flies.
The show-wife had a weakness for jewelry, and brainless though she might be, she 
had a true expert's eye for picking out the best. And a boy who volunteered to 
hold m'lady's horse while she browsed through the goldsmiths' row in search of 
more of the stuff heard a lot.
Especially when m'lady was discussing with her new maid what to do with her 
purchases. And since m'lady was in a hurry to go on her social calls as well as 
brainless, and the maid was new and didn't know where the concealed cupboard for 
the valuables was, m'lady told her all about it right then and there instead of 
waiting until she was back home and showing her.
Now came the only tricky part. Skif wasn't going to take his eyes off the garden 
below, or the garden next door, so he had to reach up over his head and feel for 
the ledge of the gabled window there, then pull himself up onto the windowsill 
by the help of the bars there and the strength of his arms alone. Quietly. 
Smoothly. So that no movement of a shadow-within-a-shadow would draw the 
attention of someone he hadn't spotted.
The Nightwatch had some good, sharp men on it -- not many, but some. That was why 
Skif took no chances by turning his back. And when he'd finished with Kalink, 
he'd never hit this neighborhood again, no matter how juicy it seemed.
With hands wrapped around the bars on the window, he drew himself up into the 
enclosure; like the work of the rope-dancers, it looked smooth and easy, but it 
was hard work. Hard enough to make his arms scream as he pulled himself up, 
braced himself, pulled himself farther up, braced, then finally got himself up 
onto the windowsill. He wedged his thin body between two of the bars, and 
waited. Watching, listening, for any sign of another shadow down below, now 
slipping out of cover to go and fetch his fellow thief catchers.
Nothing.
Just for good measure, he waited until fingers and toes were chilled, but not 
numb and clumsy, and only then did he slip the special, paper-thin, flexible 
knife blade from the sheath strapped to his ankle and slip the catches -- for there 
were two, which was Kalink's idea of being clever -- of the window beside him. He 
didn't open the window, though. Not yet.
From out of the breast of his tunic came a tiny bladder full of lamp oil, which 
he used on the bottom edge of the window to ease its passage; this was no time 
to have it stick. Then he squirted the last of it on the hinges -- no time to have 
them groan either! Only then did he push the two halves of the window open, 
shove his body sideways between the bars, and feel with his foot for the floor, 
all of it moving as slowly as a tortoise. When he was certain that his footing 
was secure, he put all of his weight on it, brought the other leg in through the 
window -- and closed it, putting on one of the catches to hold it shut. There were 
plenty of jobs that had been ruined because the thief forgot to close the window 
behind himself on a cold night, and some servant felt a draft.
Skif knew where he was; the room used by the show-wife's maid. He'd watched over 
the course of several nights when Kalink and his wife were at some party or 
other, knowing that the girl would have to stay up to help her mistress undress. 
The windows of the master's bedroom might have fancy locks on them, but the 
maid's cubby wouldn't, and it was a guarantee that the maid's room would give 
off right onto the master's bedroom. That was one of Bazie's first lessons when 
Skif began doing real work -- the layout of the fancy houses.
The weak point in a house was always the personal maid's room, or the 
manservant's, but the maid was the easiest target. The personal maid -- she had 
special status, because she had to be able to do more than just run errands. 
Fine sewing and embroidery, hairdressing, getting her mistress into and out of 
her fancy clothes and doing it unobtrusively -- that was just the start of her 
duties. She might have to cook sweet and soothing dainties if her mistress was 
indisposed and the cook had gone to bed, she certainly had to be able to do a 
bit of nursing if her mistress was ill, pregnant, or elderly. Depending on where 
her loyalties were, she might be the master's spy on his wife -- or run discreet 
messages and make assignations with her mistress' lovers. She had to know how to 
make and apply beauty treatments, even cosmetics. And she had to be available 
day or night, except when the mistress was out of the house and hadn't taken her 
along.
All that required a room of her own, adjoining the master's bedroom -- or the 
mistress's, if husband and wife didn't share a bed. And since the last thing the 
mistress would tolerate was the ability of her maid to go sneaking off without 
the mistress knowing about it, the maid generally had to go through the master's 
bedroom to get to the rest of the house. That prevented the maid from 
entertaining men in her own room, and greatly curtailed her ability to slip off 
and be entertained by them elsewhere. A good lady's maid was something no woman 
wanted to lose, so it was worth the effort to keep her from the lure of 
masculine company.
After all, she might get married, or pregnant, or both. Then what would her 
mistress do?
Dismiss her, of course, and go on the hunt for another; this was a quest more 
fraught with hazard and emotional turmoil than the search for a new cook. One 
could train a new maid, of course, but then one would have to be willing to put 
up with a great deal while the girl was in training.
Skif remained crouched on the floor and waited while his eyes adjusted to the 
deeper darkness in this tiny room. He reached out cautiously and encountered the 
rough wool of a blanket to his right.
So -- the bed was there. He moved carefully to avoid making the floorboards creak, 
and edged over to the bed. Making sure not to lean on it, he located the head 
and the foot, then eased down to the foot and felt for the wall.
From the wall, he found the door, and eased it open, creeping through it 
practically on hands and knees.
His nose told him that he was in the bedroom, and that the room was the 
exclusive domain of the mistress, for the aroma of perfume and scent in here was 
far heavier than most men would tolerate. So -- the mistress and master slept 
separately. He'd rather expected that; the show-wife, whether she knew it or 
not, shared her husband's attentions with a lady of -- earthier qualities. Kalink 
kept her in a nice little set of rooms near the cattle market, where she had 
once been a barmaid. The show-wife was just that; a trophy to be displayed 
before other men and eventually got with an heir.
Well, this was his goal. He grinned to himself. Old Kalink thought he was being 
so clever! Most hiding places for valuables were in concealed wall cupboards, 
but according to the wife, Kalink had the brilliant notion to put his in the 
floor, under the bed. Well, Kalink thought it was a brilliant idea. Skif would 
not only be able to get at it with ease, he'd be hidden while he went through 
the goods at his leisure.
The bed was easy enough to see, even in the dim light from the three unshuttered 
windows, for the curtains hadn't been drawn since the mistress wasn't home. 
There was plenty of moonlight in this enormous room, which faced south and 
west -- poor little maid, she had her window on the east side, where the sun would 
smack her right in the eyes if she hadn't gotten up by dawn. Skif kept his head 
down, though, and still moved cautiously, traveling crabwise below the level of 
the windows. The bed was one of those fashionable, tall affairs that you needed 
a set of steps to get into -- 
 -- so that you could get to the safe-cupboard under it, of course -- 
 -- and Skif slid beneath it with plenty of room to spare.
Now, for the first time, he drew an easy breath. If he found what he thought he 
was going to find, this one haul of loot would keep him and the two new boys 
Bazie had taken in, and do so in fine style for a year or more.
Which we need. They ain't liftin' enough t'keep us in old bread.
He slipped off one glove, and felt along the floorboards for the tell-tale crack 
that would show him where the edge of the lid was, and whatever sort of 
mechanism there was to lock it shut.
He was the last of the old lot; Deek had undergone an unexpected growth spurt 
that turned him into a young giant and made his intended occupation of house 
thief entirely impractical. He served as a guard for a traveling gem merchant 
now --  who better to watch for thieves than a former pickpocket? Last Skif had 
heard, he was on his way to Kata'shin'a'in.
Raf had gotten caught, and was currently serving out his sentence on the Border 
with Karse, for he'd made the mistake of getting caught with his hand on the 
pouch of a Great Lord.
Lyle had given up thievery altogether, but only because he'd fallen in love 
instead. He'd gone head over heels with a farmer's daughter one Fair Day in the 
cattle market, and she with him, and over the course of six weeks had managed to 
charm her old father into consenting to marriage. Lyle had taken to country life 
as if he'd been born to it, which amazed all of them, Lyle himself not the 
least.
Bazie had gotten two new boys just before Lyle fell to the love-god's arrows, 
and it was left to him and Skif to train them up. That was why Skif was going 
for a big stake now; the boys weren't up to the lifting lay yet, and only one 
was adequate at swiping things out of laundries. Skif had the feeling that Bazie 
had taken them more out of pity than anything else; Lyle had brought them in 
after finding them scouring the riverbanks --  mudlarking -- for anything they could 
salvage. Thin, malnourished, and as ignorant as a couple of savages, even Bazie 
wasn't about to try and pound reading, writing, and reckoning lessons into them. 
That fell on the head of some poor priest at the nearest Temple.
Skif traced the last line of the lid of the safe-cupboard and found the keyhole 
easily enough. No one had made any effort to hide it, and he slid his lock pick 
out of a slit pocket in his belt and went to work by touch.
Before very long, he knew for a fact that Kalink had been cheated, for this was 
the cheapest lock he had ever come across in a fancy house. It wasn't the work 
of more than a few moments to tickle it open, and ease the lid of the 
safe-cupboard open.
With the lid resting safely on the floor, Skif reached into the cupboard and 
began lifting out heavy little jewel cases, placing them on the floor until he 
had emptied the cupboard. What he wanted was gold and silver.
Gold was soft; with a hammer and a stone, Skif could pound chains and settings 
into an amorphous lump, which any goldsmith would buy without a second thought 
and at a reasonable price. Silver wasn't bad to have; you could cut it up with a 
chisel and render the bits unidentifiable. He'd rather not have gemstones; you 
couldn't just take them to a goldsmith, and you wouldn't get more than a 
fraction of their worth.
So he opened each box and examined its contents by feel; rejecting out-of-hand 
all gem-studded rings, earrings, and brooches. He selected chains, bracelets, 
pendants, anything that was mostly or completely made of metal. The emptied 
boxes went into the bottom of the cupboard, with the rest stacked on top. With 
luck, the theft wouldn't even be uncovered for days after Kalink and his wife 
returned. By then, of course, everything would have been disposed of, melted 
down -- it might even become part of whatever baubles the mistress picked to 
replace what was lost!
Each piece he selected, he wrapped in one of Bazie's purloined silk 
handkerchiefs to cut down on sound and stored in one of the many pockets of his 
"sneak suit." It didn't do a thief a great deal of good to be chiming and 
chinking when he moved!
He hesitated once or twice, but in the end, opted to be conservative in what he 
chose. He had no way of getting rid of that triple rope of pearls, for instance, 
nor the brooch that featured a huge carven cabochon. And when his fingers told 
him that the piece he was holding was of finely-detailed enamel, he couldn't 
bear the idea of destroying something that so much work and creativity had gone 
into. The same, for the wreath of fragile leaves and flowerlets -- a clever way of 
getting around the fact that a commoner couldn't wear a coronet. But the rest of 
what he chose was common enough, mere show of gleaming metal, without much 
artistry in it.
He replaced the last box and eased the lid back down on the cupboard. Now came 
the fun part: getting out.
He didn't want the maid to get into trouble; that was hardly fair. If he left 
the window in her room with the catches undone, she'd be the first to be blamed. 
So after he slid out from under the bed, he crept across the mistress' room to 
try the next door over.
It was a bathing room, and he laughed silently. Good old Kalink! Nothing but the 
best for him for certain-sure. Nothing but the latest! There was an indoor 
privy, everything flushed away with water after you'd done, and a boiler to heat 
bath water, all served from a cistern on the roof. Good place to leave open.
He opened the catch on the window and pushed open the shutters that served this 
room instead of ironwork. Let Kalink presume that this was how his thief got in, 
and wonder how on earth he came up the wall from the yard, or down the wall from 
the steeply-pitched roof.
Now he returned to the maid's room. He'd go out the way he came, but he had a 
trick to use on the kind of simple bar catches on that window. A loop of string 
on each of them let him pull them closed again once he'd closed the window 
behind him.
By now the moon was down, and there wasn't a chance anyone could see him. In 
moments, he was down in the alley, running like a cat, heading for his next 
destination. He didn't dare be caught in this outfit! There would be no doubt in 
anyone's mind that of what his business was!
But there was a remedy for that, too. Two streets over was that wonderfully 
handy cavity in Lord Orthallen's wall, and that was where he'd left a set of 
breeches and a tunic. In the safety of the utter blackness, he pulled the bricks 
loose and extracted them. The hood of his shirt became a high collar, the scarf 
around his face and throat went around his waist beneath the tunic. He wiped the 
charcoal from his face with the inside of the tunic, and in very little time, a 
perfectly respectable young lad was strolling down the street with a bundle 
under his arm. He could be anyone's page boy or young servant on any of a dozen 
errands, and he even passed patrols of the Nightwatch twice without any of them 
stopping or even looking at him.
If they had, they'd have found nothing worse than a bundle of gentleman's 
underthings. And if he was asked, he'd mumble and hide his face and say he 
couldn't rightly say, but his mistress had told him to take them quietly to a 
certain gentleman and there wasn't anything else he could tell them.
The Watch would, of course, assume that the gentleman in question had been 
forced to make a hasty exit from a bedroom where he'd had no business being and 
had left the least important of his clothing behind. As it was no business of 
the Watch to oversee the morals of anyone, Skif would be sent on his way, 
perhaps with a laugh.
The closer he got to his destination, the more relaxed he felt. Already he was 
planning where to take the metal, how to show the two boys to pound the gold and 
silver into flat, indistinguishable sheets.
Hunger caught up with him then; he hadn't eaten much, following Bazie's dictum 
that a full stomach made for a slow thief. Bazie wasn't actually expecting him 
for some time yet, since it was always his habit to go home by as circuitous a 
route as possible. A thief might be expected to hurry back to his den to hide 
his loot -- and so a thief who feared pursuit would do. But no one knew that Skif 
carried a small fortune about his person, nor did any sign of it show. No one 
knew that the Kalink household had been robbed this night. There was no pursuit.
So why hurry back? A thief runs when no one chases him, was another of Bazie's 
dictums, and he was right. If Skif looked guilty, acted guilty, the Watch might 
detain and search him, just on principle.
So, as soon as he reached a street of inns and taverns -- the same one, in fact, 
where he had robbed the kitchen of a burning tavern so very long ago -- he drifted 
to the busiest, a hostelry called the "White Rider" with a sign of a Herald and 
his Companion.
The place was packed full, with not one, but two musicians, one at each 
fireplace, holding forth. It was, of course, impossible to hear either of them 
in the middle of the room. Skif found a place on a bench next to a weary woman 
and her brood of four children, got the attention of a serving girl by grabbing 
her apron as she went by, and ordered food. He tried ordering wine -- he always 
did -- and the girl smirked. When she came back with his meat pie and drink, the 
drink was cider. He sighed and paid her.
While the wealthy were out of the city, the common folk came in. A great deal of 
business happened here in the fall, before the snows made it hard to travel. 
Skif picked out half a dozen different accents just from where he was sitting.
There could not have been a more vivid contrast to Skif's old home, too cold 
three seasons of the year, full of sullen silences, always in semi-darkness. 
Here it was cozy, and the air vibrated with talk and sound. There were plenty of 
lights, and there was no problem seeing what you were eating. The tabletop got 
regularly wiped down with clean rags, and although the floor was collecting a 
fair bit of debris over the course of the evening, Skif had no doubt it would 
start out the next day being swept clean enough to eat off of. The cooking 
aromas were all tempting, and there was no reek of stale beer and wine. If the 
customers themselves were a bit whiffy, well, it had been a hard day for some of 
them.
Skif relaxed further, his belly full of good food and cider. The woman gathered 
up her herd and left, to be replaced by a couple of equally weary fellows who 
could have been any sort of craftsman or farmer. Or possibly skilled laborers, 
come for one of the hiring fairs.
They both seemed rather concerned, huddling together to murmur at each other, 
and finally the one nearest Skif asked him politely what the least expensive 
meal was.
Skif gave them a friendly grin, and his recommendation.
They's a right couple 'uv conies! he thought, wondering which of the lads who 
worked this inn on the liftin' lay would lighten their pockets before they found 
work. Not that it was inevitable of course, but it was likely. You had choices 
in the liftin' lay; you could work half a dozen of easy marks like these two, or 
you could go for one big score who'd be cannier, better guarded. In either case 
there was about the same amount of risk, for each time you worked a mark in a 
crowd, you increased the risk of getting caught.
Well, that wasn't his outlook. He didn't work the liftin' lay anymore, and the 
two lads back with Bazie were too ham-handed for it right now. He finished the 
last of his cider, shoved the pottery mug to the middle of the table, and 
extracted himself from the bench, taking his bundle with him.
From here on, his story -- if he was caught by the Watch --  would change. Now he was 
bringing his father's clothing home from the pawnshop. It wasn't at all unusual 
for a family to have articles of clothing in and out of pawn all the time, and 
in some families, in more often than out.
And as he stepped out into the street, sure enough, a Watchman across the street 
caught sight of him, frowned, and pointed his truncheon at him.
"You! Boy!" he barked. "Halt there!"
Obediently, and with an ingratiating, cringing smile, Skif obeyed.
"What've ye got there?" the Watchman asked, crossing the street. Skif held out 
his bundle, hunching his shoulders, and the Watchman poked it with his 
truncheon. "Well? Speak up!"
" 'S m' Dad's shirt 'n' smalls, m'lor'," Skif sniveled. "Jest got 'em f'om 
Go'den Ball, m'lor'." With the fall hiring fairs going on all over Haven, the 
set of good linen smallclothes that had been in pawn all summer would come out 
again, for someone who was going to a hiring fair would be dressed in his best.
Then they'd go right back in again, if the job was only until winter and the end 
of hunting season.
"Open it," the Watch demanded. Skif complied; no one paid any attention to them 
as he did so, firstly because you didn't interfere with the Watch, and secondly 
because you didn't want the Watch's attention brought down on you.
The Watchman's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "If yer Dad's smalls 've been in the 
nick, what're ye doin' eatin' at yon Rider?" he demanded.
A stab of alarm mixed with chagrin pierced Skif, but he didn't show it. Even as 
he opened his mouth, he had his answer. After all, this was Quarter-Day, or near 
it -- servants and laborers with year-round jobs got paid four times a year. " 'Tis 
out'a me own wages, m'lor!" he said with a touch of indignation. "M'Dad got a 
busted arm an' m'Ma didn' say nothin' till now, when I got me Quarter-Days!" Now 
he let his tone turn grumbling. "Reckon a lad kin hev a bit uv dinner when 'e's 
missed 'is own so's 'e kin help out 'is own fambly on 'is own half-day!"
There; just enough story to let the Watchman fill in the rest on his own -- a son 
in service, a father injured and out of work, neither parent saying anything 
until the boy had the money to retrieve the belongings they'd put in pawn to see 
them over the lean time. Common servants got a half a day off -- which usually 
began well into the afternoon and was seldom truly a "half-day" -- once every 
fortnight or so. Servants as young as Skif usually didn't leave their employer's 
houses except on the half-day off after they'd gotten paid. Servants like Skif 
pretended to be wouldn't have gone out during dinner time either, which was 
probably why the Watchman had been suspicious, for why would a common servant 
spend his wages on food he could have gotten for free at his master's table? Or 
if he was visiting his parents, why hadn't they fed him?
But -- Skif's story had him visiting his parents, discovering the situation, and 
going out after the pawned clothing. Presumably there was nothing in the house 
to eat, his job wouldn't include the benefit of "broken meats" to take home to 
his relatives, and as a result, he was missing a meal to do his duty to his 
parents. Skif was rather proud of his fabrication.
The Watchman grunted. "Wrap it up, then, boy, and keep moving," was all he said. 
Skif ducked his head and tied up the bundle again, then scuttled away.
The back of his neck was damp with sweat. That had been a close one! He made a 
mental note not to use that story or that inn again any time soon.
But with the haul he'd just made, he shouldn't have to.
Better be careful. Be Just my luck now t' get hit with some'un pullin' a 
smash'n'grab. That was the crudest version of the liftin' lay, a couple of boys 
careening at full speed down the street, one after the other. One would knock a 
mark over, while the other came in behind and scooped up whatever he dropped. If 
that happened to Skif, while the Watchman's eye was still on him, the Watchman 
would be suspicious all over again if Skif didn't pursue his attackers, or 
refused to swear out charges against them. And at the moment, he couldn't afford 
the suspicions that might lead to being searched!
So he clutched his bundle tightly and raised his eyes to look up and down the 
street for the little eddies of activity that would mark a couple of smashers on 
a run.
And that was when he saw the red glow above the rooftops.
Fire.
He picked up his pace.
A big fire.
And from the look of it -- somewhere near home. There would be a crowd, a mob -- and a 
mob meant opportunity, even in a neighborhood as poor as his, for fire drew 
spectators from all over. He might not be an expert at the liftin' lay, but he 
was good enough to add to his take in the kind of crowd drawn by a big fire.
He moved into a trot. Get home, empty out his pockets, then go out in the mob -- 
He joined a stream of running, shouting spectators and would-be helpers, all 
streaming toward the fire like so many moths attracted to the light. Now he 
could see the lick of flames above the rooftops. He was jostled on all sides and 
had to concentrate to keep hold of the bundle and keep his own head cool while 
everyone around him was caught up in the fever of the moment.
And he couldn't help notice that he was getting nearer and nearer to his own 
home. Excitement began to take on a tinge of alarm. Hellfires! It's close! 
Wonder who -- 
He turned the corner with the rest of the mob -- and stopped dead.
His building. His home. Now nothing but flames.
THIS was no place for a Herald. But then Herald Alberich was no ordinary Herald.
He hunched over his drink and rubbed at eyes that watered from the smoke filling 
the room, his ears filled with the droning of drunks, his nose wrinkling at the 
stench of too many unwashed bodies, burned food, and spilled beer. He had been 
in this part of Haven to meet an informant in a disgusting little hole of a 
tavern called "The Broken Arms" -- an obvious and unsubtle reference to what would 
happen to a patron who displeased the owner. The sign above the door, crudely 
and graphically painted, enforced that -- human arms do not normally bend in four 
places.
The informant had never showed his face, which didn't really surprise Alberich. 
He'd never reckoned the odds to be better than even at best. The man might have 
gotten cold feet; or he might even be entirely cold at this point -- cold and dead. 
If so, it was fifty-fifty whether Alberich would ever find out what had happened 
to him. Bodies didn't always turn up. Even when the river was frozen over, there 
were plenty of ways in which a corpse could vanish without a trace. The people 
Alberich suspected of intrigue against the Queen were powerful, and had a very 
great deal to lose if they were unmasked. They had the ways and means to insure 
that more than one petty informant vanished without a trace if they cared to 
make it so.
The Herald sipped his stale beer, and watched the rest of the customers from 
beneath lowered eyelids. In the back of his mind, he felt his Companion fretting 
at the situation, and soothed him wordlessly. He knew that no one was going to 
recognize him, no matter what Kantor thought. Alberich did not stand out in this 
crowd of ne'er-do-wells, pickpockets, and petty thieves.
He probably wouldn't had he not bothered to disguise himself; he never would 
wear the traditional uniform of Herald's Whites even when presiding over the 
classes of Heraldic Trainees in his capacity as the Collegium Weaponsmaster, 
preferring instead a leather uniform of a slightly darker gray than the color 
used by the Trainees.
Herald's Whites -- let those with fewer sins on their souls wear the Whites. He'd 
have worn black, if the Queen hadn't expressly forbidden it.
"Bad enough that you look like a storm cloud,"; she'd told him. "I won't have 
them calling you 'Herald Death.' You stand out quite enough as it is from the 
rest of the Heraldic Circle."; He didn't point out to her that they might as 
well call him "Herald Death," that his business was Death, the ways and means of 
dealing it out. He simply bowed and let her have her way. She was the Queen, 
after all.
But at the moment, he was not on official duty, and he wore nothing like a 
uniform; his clothing was as drably no-colored, as tattered and patched as that 
of any man around him. His unfashionably short hair was concealed beneath an 
ancient knitted cap of indeterminate shape and origin. Only his sword and 
knives -- themselves both disguised beneath plain, worn leather sheaths -- would have 
told a different story about him.
Or perhaps not; to a slum-dwelling bullyboy, his sword was his life, and many of 
them bore weapons of superior make. A blade that bent or snapped, or wouldn't 
hold an edge, wasn't the sort of tool to risk your life on. Alberich was 
supposed to be that sort of sell-sword, a man whose blade went to the man with 
the price of it, with no questions asked on either side.
In the absence of his informant, Alberich was going to have to pretend he was 
here for the same reason as everyone else; to get drunk. He would probably have 
to use this tavern again, and he definitely needed to keep in character; he 
didn't dare break this carefully constructed persona. It had taken too long to 
build.
Most of the beer was going to hit the floor, though. Like many of the patrons 
here, he had his own mug, a leather-jack, tarred on the inside to make it 
waterproof and kept tied to his waist when not in use. Only, unlike theirs, his 
had a hole in the bottom; he seldom took an actual sip when the mug went to his 
lips. He relied on the slow but steady leak and the crack in the table he sat at 
to conceal where the rest of it got to. No one in this place was going to notice 
beer on the floor under the layer of rushes that hadn't been changed for a year 
or more. Only when his mouth dried or he needed something to wash the stench of 
the place from his tongue did he actually drink. The beer, stale and flat, was 
still preferable to the taste left behind in breathing the miasma of this 
miserable tavern.
Impatience made his head throb, and he forced himself to look bored instead of 
pained. He was wondering just how many more mugs of the noxious stuff he'd have 
to down before he pretended to stagger out, when the street outside erupted into 
what sounded like a riot.
Shouts -- screams! His heart rose into his throat, and his pulse hammered in his 
ears as every nerve in his body reacted to the alarm.
He -- and virtually everyone else in the tavern -- jumped to their feet and ran for 
the door. He wasn't slow to react, but there were still plenty of people who 
were between him and it. He ran right into a wall of jostling bodies.
He told himself that this was a good diversion to get out and back to the 
Collegium, but he couldn't help himself. The noise out there was of panic and 
fear, and he had to respond. For the rest, of course, any disturbance held a 
potential for profit…
Sweat stink mingled with a different kind of smoke -- this was coming from the 
street outside. The noise now was like nothing he'd heard off a battlefield. He 
shoved his way through the crush at the door ruthlessly, elbowing one man in the 
ribs and brutally kicking another in the knee to get them out of the way. Both 
men swore and turned on him; both shrank out of the way when they saw who it 
was. He had a formidable reputation here; another reason why he was reluctant to 
sacrifice this persona. He could virtually come and go as he liked unmolested, 
and it had taken him no few knife fights to build that reputation. He had yet to 
draw his sword in here, which was a mercy, though his opponents only thought he 
was showing his contempt for them by meeting their swords with his knives. The 
poor fools had no idea that he was saving them from almost certain death at his 
hands if he pulled the longer blade. It wasn't his skill he was worried about, 
it was theirs; he'd seen drunken brawls end fatally when one idiot slipped and 
rammed himself onto another's sword. It had happened while he watched far too 
often to want to see that happen with him holding the blade. And it wasn't 
because he liked them that he spared their wretched lives, it was because if he 
killed a man, even by accident, the Watch would come, and there would be 
questions, and there would go his hard work in establishing Rokassan among the 
bully-boys.
That was why it was Alberich here, and not another Herald. He was… practical.
He delivered another elbow blow to a set of ribs, this time with enough force to 
it to make the man in his way whuff, curse, and bend over, and Alberich was out 
into the not-so-open street.
It should have been dark and relatively empty. It wasn't. It was filled 
wall-to-wall with a churning mass of spectators and a growing number of those 
who actually were doing something. A lurid red glow reflected off their filthy, 
upturned faces as the wretched denizens of this neighborhood organized 
themselves into lines of hands that passed buckets of water away toward 
Alberich's right.
The source of the glow was as hellish as any Sunpriest sacrificial fire Alberich 
had ever seen in Karse.
An inferno that had once been a building raged madly against the black of the 
night sky. It was one of the nearby tenement blocks, and it was a solid sheet of 
flame from its foundation to its roof. It couldn't have been more fully 
involved, and Alberich was struck motionless for a moment at the sight, for he 
couldn't imagine how it had gotten that way so quickly -- short of a Red-Robe 
Priest's demon calling. For one horrible moment he wondered wildly if a Red-Robe 
had infiltrated the capital of Selenay's Kingdom -- 
But then an acrid whiff told him the real reason the building was so thoroughly 
engulfed.
Tar. Someone had been painting the sides of the building with tar. The heavy 
black smoke roiling over the tips of the highest flames confirmed it. A sudden 
wind drove it down into the street, and screams turned to coughs and gasps.
Now, that wasn't uncommon in this part of the city. Landlords didn't care to 
spend more than they had to on maintenance of these old buildings, and when they 
got word that an inspection was in the offing, they frequently created a new and 
draftless facade by tarring and papering the exterior with any of a number of 
cheap substitutes for real wooden siding. The work could be done in a day or 
less, and when finished, presented a less ramshackle appearance that generally 
fooled overworked inspectors into thinking that the building was in better shape 
than it actually was. With so many buildings to inspect and so little time, the 
inspector could easily convince himself that this one didn't need to be looked 
at any closer, and move on. The work would hold for a while, but soon the paper 
would disintegrate, the tar soak into wood left un-painted for so long that it 
soaked up anything, and the place would revert to its former state. A little 
darker, perhaps, and for a while the tar would fill in the cracks that let in 
the winter winds, but nothing more.
Still… it seemed odd to Alberich that the thing should be blazing with such 
fiendish enthusiasm. Slum landlords were as stingy with their tar and paper as 
they were with everything else, and to burn like this, someone must have laid 
the stuff on with a trowel -- 
"Stop him! Stop that boy!"
Alberich sensed, rather than saw, the swirl in the crowd that marked someone 
small and nimble bouncing off the legs of those around him. Then a wiry, hard 
body careened into his hip.
He was running to the fire. Somehow, Alberich knew that --  and his Foresight 
showed him what would happen if the boy made it through the crowd.
A small body writhing in the flames, screaming, dying --  An echo of the 
sacrificial fires of Karse. His gorge rose.
Automatically he reached out and snared the tunic collar of the boy before he 
could get any farther.
The boy turned on him, a spinning, swirling fury. "Let me go!" he screamed. "Let 
me go!"; He spat out a stream of invective that rivaled anything Alberich had 
ever heard, and flailed at Alberich's arm with hard little fists. "I gotta get 
in there, ye bastid! I gotta!"
Screaming and writhing in the flames…
Alberich didn't bother arguing with the brat, who was red-faced and hysterical, 
and he didn't have time to calm him. No doubt his family was in there -- 
Gods. He pulled the boy off his feet, and the brat still fought.
Well, if they were, they were all dead, or they were somewhere out in the 
street, sobbing over the loss of their few possessions. Nothing could survive 
that inferno, but there was no reasoning that point. Alberich couldn't let the 
boy go -- 
But there was work here; he might not be dressed in Whites, but he knew his 
duty, which was to help to save the buildings around the doomed one. He couldn't 
do that if he was playing nursemaid. With a grimace of pity, Alberich pulled his 
dagger as the boy continued to struggle toward the blaze, and tapped him behind 
the ear with the pommel nut the first moment the target presented itself.
The boy went limp. Alberich was still near enough to the door of the tavern to 
struggle back and drop him just inside, as far out of harm as possible in this 
neighborhood. Then he joined one of the many bucket brigades coalescing out of 
the mob. Until the Guard and the pumps and hoses arrived, they had to help 
convey water to soak down the buildings to either side of the fire to keep it 
from spreading. Already Kantor was raising the alarm for him, and help could not 
be more than a few moments away.
But he felt a moment of pleasure at the way people around him were responding to 
the emergency. So they weren't all villains, even though that was all he'd met 
since he began frequenting The Broken Arms. Even in this neighborhood, people 
could work together.
With one accord, the water throwers wisely concentrated their efforts on the 
buildings that were merely in danger and let the blazing tenement burn itself 
out. Anything and everything that could hold water was being pressed into 
service, with men and strong women sending the heavy, laden vessels toward the 
fire and smaller women and children passing the empties back to be filled again. 
Alberich's concentration narrowed to a few, vital tasks. Breathing. Taking the 
bucket. Passing it on with a minimum of spillage. Turning back for another.
Before he lost track of anything but the pain in back, shoulders, and arms and 
the cold that soon penetrated his soaking wet hands, legs, and feet, Alberich 
saw buckets, pots, pans, and even a chamberpot making the circuit up and back, 
up and back, while people shouted incoherent directions, and the flames laughed 
at their efforts.
* * * * * * * * * *
Skif woke stiff and cold, with his head aching so much it hurt to open his eyes. 
He would just as soon have rolled over and gone back to sleep, but the pounding 
pain behind one ear and the cold prevented him from doing so -- as did the sudden 
and electrifying realization that he wasn't in his bed.
He sat up abruptly, despite a stab of agony that made him yelp.
The cold, gray light of the street coming in at an open door next to where he 
sat completely disoriented him. Where was he?
This isn't home -- 
Then it all came back, in a rush. The triumph of the successful run.
The fire.
The man who'd grabbed him, keeping him from -- from -- 
With an inarticulate howl of grief, he scrambled to his feet and staggered out 
into the street.
He coughed in the miasma of fog and stale smoke that met him like a wall. He 
fought through it, staggered a few paces --  and stared, unbelieving, at the 
absolute ruin of his home.
Gone. All gone. A few blackened timbers stuck up out of the wreckage, marking 
where the staircase had been. The rest --  was an unidentifiable pile of charred 
wood and still-smoldering wreckage.
The vultures were already hauling away whatever they could claw out, for in this 
place, even charcoal could serve to help eke out firewood and grant a few more 
hours of warmth. They had baskets, barrows -- their clothing and faces black with 
soot.
Somewhere under there was his home -- Bazie -- and the boys.
Another howl tore itself out of his throat, and he hurled himself at the 
burned-out building, scrambling over what was left of the wall to the corner 
where the secret stair should have opened to Bazie's little den. It was 
underground -- surely it was safe, surely they were safe -- 
They have to be safe!
But he couldn't help thinking… how long it took them to get Bazie out on the 
rare occasions when he emerged from the room. What a struggle it was to get him 
to the latrine, much less up the stairs. And that was on a bright spring day, 
not amid choking smoke and flames -- 
He began to dig, frantically, first with his bare hands, then with a piece of 
board until that broke, then with the blade of a shovel he found, still hot 
enough to blister. His throat closed, his gut clenched. He welcomed the pain in 
his hands -- he should have been there! If he'd been there -- if only -- 
He dug, with his eyes streaming tears and his heart breaking, dug and dug and 
dug until finally he was too exhausted to dig anymore.
He collapsed among the wreckage, and wept, leaning against a broken beam, until 
his sides ached and his eyes burned, and still he could not weep himself free of 
the pain.
Gone. All gone… I should have been here. All gone… it's my fault. All gone, all 
gone…
Around him, people continued to scavenge, oblivious to his grief, or ignoring 
it. His grief turned to anger, then, and he stood up and tried to scream at them 
for the plundering ghouls that they were -- but his throat was raw and his brain 
wouldn't work and all he could do was moan.
In the end, it was Jarmin, unlikely Jarmin, clerkly proprietor of the shop who 
bought their plundered silks, who found him there, whimpering like a whipped 
dog. Jarmin, who stepped mincingly into the wreckage, looked him up and down and 
asked, without any expression at all, "Got swag?"
Skif, shocked out of his grief for a moment by the sheer callousness of the 
query, began to shake his head. Then, suddenly remembering that triumph that 
seemed to have happened a hundred years ago, nodded.
Jarmin took him by the elbow and hauled him to his feet. Shock sealed his mouth 
and made him docile, though his aching eyes still streamed tears, his gut ached, 
and deep inside he wanted to strike out at whatever was nearest.
To strike out at himself.
Gone, all gone!
They picked their way to the street, with Jarmin still holding tightly to Skif's 
elbow, and once there, Jarmin headed determinedly toward his own shop. Skif just 
went along, too heartbroken to think, too full of bottomless mourning to care if 
Jarmin was about to lead him off somewhere to kill him for his loot.
Let him. I deserve it. I wasn't there.
They entered the shop, all of its tawdriness only too apparent by day. The girls 
were nowhere to be seen as Jarmin shoved Skif before him, past the counter, 
through a flap of hanging cloth, then up a narrow staircase that ended in a room 
just under the roof. A single dirty window covered with oiled parchment let in 
enough light to see by. There was a pallet there, and blankets, and some storage 
boxes; nothing else. Jarmin had to stoop to fit under the rooftree, and he 
shoved Skif roughly down onto the pallet, and gestured impatiently at his tunic.
Skif read the gesture for the demand that it was, and slowly undid his clothing 
to pull out the jewelry he'd taken last night. He laid it out on the pallet. 
Jarmin squatted down beside him and examined it piece by piece, grunting a 
little, but otherwise saying nothing.
Now he's gonna kill me. Skif could form the thought, but couldn't muster 
anything beyond the grief to care what happened to him. Care? No, that wasn't 
true. He cared. He deserved death. If he'd gotten back sooner, if he hadn't been 
so determined to bring back every damned piece that couldn't be traced -- 
I'd have been there. I'd have noticed in time. I'd have gotten them out.
Gone. All gone.
He just sat where he was, staring at his own hands, while Jarmin turned the 
jewelry over and over in his hands.
Finally the fence pulled the kerchief off his own neck and bundled it all up. He 
shoved the ends under his belt and knotted them, got up slowly and painfully, 
then descended the staircase. It looked from where Skif sat as if he was sinking 
into the floor…
Tears began again, burning his eyes and his raw cheeks, and Skif didn't even 
bother to wipe them away. His nose closed up, his gut spasmed, and his thoughts 
ran around and around in a tight little spiral, like a mouse in a trap. Gone. My 
fault. I should have been there.
A moment later Jarmin was back again, a bundle of cloth under one arm, a jug in 
his hand.
"Here," he said gruffly. "These ought to fit you." He dropped the clothing down 
next to Skif, who stared at it without comprehension. "Even swap; the swag for 
these, food, and this room for three moons. After that, you get another place or 
start paying." As Skif stared at him as if he was speaking in a foreign tongue, 
he glanced at the jug in his hand as if he was surprised by its presence. "Oh, 
aye. And you get this."
He shoved it at Skif until Skif took it from him perforce.
"Go on. Pop the cork and drink it," Jarmin said fiercely.
Numbly, Skif obeyed. The cork came out with difficulty; the liquid inside tasted 
of cherries and burned like fire, burned him from his tongue to his gut, all the 
way down.
He knew as soon as he tasted it what it was, though he had never done more than 
sip a bit before this, the dregs left in some rich man's glass; spirits-of-wine, 
and worth its weight in silver. He gasped at the fire in it, but didn't spill a 
drop; it would bring blessed oblivion, which now he wanted more than he'd ever 
wanted anything. It went to the head quickly; in a few swallows, he was dizzy. A 
few swallows more, and he had trouble holding the jug. Jarmin, his eyes gleaming 
fiercely in the half light, steadied it for him and helped him lift it to his 
mouth.
"Keep drinking, boy," he heard, as from a far distant land. " 'Twon't take the 
hurt away, but it'll numb it for a while."
Numb… Numb was good. Maybe if he was numb, he wouldn't keep seeing Bazie and the 
boys… and the flames.
He swallowed again, the stuff burning its way down into his belly. Now he was 
more than dizzy; the room swam around him and tilted disconcertingly. Jarmin 
took the jug, corked it, and set it aside as he sagged down onto the pallet.
The room was definitely moving, but he didn't care. He just didn't want to have 
to watch it, so he closed his eyes. "Best thing for you, boy," he heard, then 
footsteps on the stair.
He didn't actually pass out; he hadn't drunk quite enough for that. But every 
time the numbness and the dizziness started to wear off, he heaved himself up 
onto his elbow and took another long pull at the jug until it came back again. 
Now and again he tired of simply feeling the room circling him and opened his 
eyes to watch the ceiling rotate. When the light started to fade, Jarmin 
appeared again with a lantern and bread and sops, a chamberpot, and a big jug of 
water. He made Skif eat and drink all of the water before he took the lantern 
and the plates away. Skif took some more pulls on the jug, then, and as shrill 
voices and the cajolery of the girls drifted in through the window, he let the 
liquor take him away to a place where nothing mattered anymore.
* * * * * * * * * *
Jarmin told him later that he'd stayed drunk for a week. Sometimes he cried, but 
only when he was alone. Sometimes he heard someone moaning, and dimly realized 
that it was himself. All he knew was that the jug was, temporarily, his best 
friend. Jarmin kept it full, but insisted on his eating and drinking water, an 
annoyance he put up with because it meant that Jarmin would top off the jug.
He retained enough of sense and the cleanliness Bazie had drummed into him to 
make proper use of the chamberpot. It never seemed to stink, so Jarmin must have 
kept it clean as well.
Jarmin also came up to talk to him now and again. For a while, he ignored the 
words and the man because he didn't want to go to the place where words meant 
something. For a while, that is, until something Jarmin said jarred him back 
into thinking.
"Word is," Jarmin said, into Skif's rosy fog, "That fire was set.";
Set? Skif opened his eyes with an effort. "Wha?" he managed, mouth tasting of 
old leather and liquor.
Jarmin didn't look at him, and his tone was casual. "Word is that the landlord 
got a surprise inspection, and was going to have to fix the place. Or get fined. 
Going to cost him dearly, either way. So he burned it instead, and is calling it 
a terrible accident."
Understanding -- and anger -- stirred sluggishly. "He --  burned it?"
Jarmin shrugged, as if it all mattered not a whit to him. "Word is, that's the 
case. Don't who the landlord is -- was," he corrected. "You know how it is. 
Probably some high-necked merchant, or even highborn. Couldn't possibly be 
connected with us, nor where we live. Couldn't soil himself by openly owning the 
place, but takes our copper right enough. So long as no one knows where he got 
it. But he wouldn't want to have to spend good coin either, not when burning it 
costs him less and allows him to sell the lot afterward."
Anger burned away the fumes of the liquor -- hot as the flames that had destroyed 
his only family. "He burned it?" Skif repeated, sitting up, fists clenching.
"Word is that. Whoever he is." Jarmin shrugged, then with a sly look, pushed the 
jug toward Skif.
Skif pushed it back, still dizzy, but head getting clearer by the moment.
He burned it. Or ordered it burned, whoever he is.
"No warning, of course," Jarmin continued casually. "Because that would tip off 
the inspectors that he didn't mean to fix it. And the highborn don't care how 
many of us burn, so long as an inconvenient building is gotten rid of. That is 
how it is."
There was light in the window and relative quiet on the street. It must be day, 
and the girls were asleep. Skif was still drunk, and he knew it, but he was 
getting sober, more so with every breath, as his anger rose and rose, burning 
like the flames that had taken his family. He looked down at himself, and saw 
that he was still wearing the filthy clothing he'd been brought here in. The 
pile of clean stuff still lay at the foot of the pallet. "Wanta bath, Jarmin."
"Comes with the room," Jarmin said indifferently. "I'll tell madam. Get yourself 
downstairs when you can."
He descended the stairs, and Skif waited until he could stand without too much 
wavering. Then he picked up a shirt, trews, and socks, and followed.
Jarmin was behind the counter tending to a customer, but waved him out the door. 
Skif tottered out, blinking owlishly at the daylight, and the door of the 
brothel next to Jarmin's shop opened. An oily-looking fellow beckoned to him, 
and Skif went in.
He wasn't given any time to look around the shabby-luxurious "parlor" where 
customers came to choose from the girls if they hadn't already picked one. The 
oily fellow hustled him into the back where there was -- 
A laundry.
Only the remains of the liquor and the firmest of controls kept Skif from 
breaking down right there and then. The urge to wail was so great he practically 
choked.
There were several tubs, two of which had girls in them, three of which had 
laundry. Before he could lose his head and bawl, a burly woman with 
work-reddened hands and a tight, angry mouth stripped him before he could open 
his mouth and shoved him into the last of the tubs. She didn't give him a chance 
to wash himself either; she used the same brush and lye soap that she used on 
the linen on his hide, with the same lack of gentleness.
The bristles lacerated his skin, his scalp. He didn't let out a single sound as 
she scrubbed as if she intended to take his skin off, then made him stand, 
rinsed him with a bucket of water cold enough to make him gasp, and bundled him 
in a sheet. His own clothing went into one of the tubs with laundry in it, and 
she handed him the plain trews, socks, and shirt he brought with him, leaving 
him to clothe himself as she turned back to her work. He noticed that the girls 
didn't get the same ungentle treatment. They were allowed to bathe themselves 
and did so lazily, completely ignoring his presence.
Well, that was all right. He didn't want any stupid whores fussing over him like 
he was some sort of animate doll. He didn't want their sympathy. He didn't want 
anyone's pity.
Hard. I gotta be hard. That's what I gotta do.
He dried himself off -- the laundress snatched the sheet away from him before he 
could lay it down and popped it back into a tub -- and got the clothing on. It was 
rather too big, but that hardly mattered. All he had left now were his own 
boots, which he pulled on, and left without a backward glance.
His head was clear enough now, and while the laundress had scrubbed him, his 
grief had somehow changed, shrunk, condensed down into a hard, cold little gem 
that formed the core of a terrible anger that seemed almost too large to contain 
in so small a compass as his heart.
Revenge. That was what he wanted, more than anything in the world. And he wasn't 
going to rest until he got it.
He walked into Jarmin's shop, and the old man gave him a sharp glance, then a 
nod of satisfaction. "You'll do," was all he said, and tossed him a pouch.
It clinked. Skif opened it and found a little money; mostly copper, a bit of 
silver. He tucked it inside his shirt. It was little enough. Jarmin was cheating 
him, of course. The room, the food, the clothing, the baths -- none of that was 
worth a fraction of what he'd stolen. Jarmin wasn't giving him anything.
And Skif didn't want anything but this -- the expected cheating, the usual 
grifting. No more kindness. No more generosity. He could move on from here 
without looking back or regretting anything. This was a business transaction for 
Jarmin. Save one of the best thieves he knew and ensure a steady supply of goods 
for his shop -- as simple as that.
So he didn't thank the man for the money; he just nodded curtly and went back 
out into the street. He knew what the money was for -- tongues weren't loose 
without money. And Skif was going to have to find a lot of tongues to loosen. It 
was going to take a long time, he already knew that. That was fine, too. When 
revenge came, it would come out of nowhere. The enemy would never know who it 
was that hit him, or why.
Just as disaster had come upon him, and with equal destruction in its claws. 
When he was finished, whoever had killed Bazie would be left with nothing, 
contemplating the wreckage of what had been his life, with everything he valued 
and loved gone in an instant.
Just like Skif.
Skif smiled at the thought. It was the last smile he would wear for a very long 
time.
SMOKE drifted over the heads of the customers; it wasn't from the fireplace, but 
from the tallow dips set in crude clay holders on the tables and wedged into 
spaces between the bricks around the room. Skif sat as far from the door as it 
was possible to be, in the "odd" corner of The Broken Arms, a kind of 
rectangular alcove just before the walls met, into which someone had wedged a 
broken-legged stool, making a seat hemmed in on three sides with brick. The 
brick was newer here, so this might be an old entrance; gone now, since the next 
building over was built right up against this one. Or maybe it had been a window 
slit; you couldn't have used it as a door, not really. It was too short and too 
narrow. Maybe a former fireplace, before the big one was put in, before this 
room became a tavern. No, it wasn't big enough for a man to be comfortable 
sitting here, but it was perfect for him. Here he could spend hours unnoticed, 
the wenches had gotten so used to it being empty.
Before things got so crowded, he'd bought himself a jack of small beer and a 
piece of bread and dripping, so his stomach was full but not full enough to make 
him drowsy. Meanwhile the number of customers rose, and the place got warmer. 
This nook was a good place to tuck himself into when he wanted to eavesdrop on 
conversations. Eavesdropping was almost as good as paying for information, and 
it cost nothing. He'd become adept at being able to sort one set of voices from 
all of the babble and concentrate on them. Once in a while one of the wenches 
would notice that he was there, and like this afternoon, he'd buy a mugful of 
small beer and a piece of bread so that they'd leave him alone, but that was 
only when the place was less than half full. When it was crammed tight, as it 
was now, he'd be overlooked all night.
He'd already wedged himself up onto the seat, knees just under his chin and his 
arms wrapped around them, so not even his feet were in anyone's way. Every bench 
and stool at every table was full; not a surprise with rain coming down in 
barrel loads outside. Not a good night for "business," except within walls.
Not that anyone in the Arms was going to do any business. That sign over the 
door wasn't there for a joke. That was what made and kept the Arms so popular; 
when you walked in here, you knew you'd come out with your purse no lighter than 
the cost of your food and drink. The women wouldn't try and get you drunk so 
they could talk you into paying for wine for them either. The wenches here 
weren't hired for their looks, gods knew -- absolute harridans, most of 'em. They'd 
been hired because they knew the liftin' lay, and how to spot someone at 
business. One whistle from one of them, and the miscreant would find himself on 
the street with his own arms looking just like the ones on the sign. It was a 
good dodge for the wenches, for certain-sure; a young thing, plain though she 
might be, would still have an excuse to come sidling alongside of a fellow with 
a bit of an invitation. An old hag wouldn't; and though her fingers might still 
be wise, they weren't as nimble as a young thing's, so if she tried the old 
dodge of stumbling into a fellow, the odds were that he'd be clapping his hand 
to his belt pouch before she could get into it. And if he didn't, and she got 
it, her feet wouldn't carry her as far or as fast anymore. The older you got in 
the trade, the likelier it was you'd be caught that fatal third time, and unless 
she got herself a gaggle of littles to teach the trade to -- taking everything they 
lifted, of course -- there wasn't much an aging woman could do to turn a penny. 
There weren't a lot of women who learned the high roads or the ketchin' lay, 
professions that could keep you going for a long time, so long as you were 
limber enough to climb or bold enough to cosh.
Not that Skif held with the ketchin' lay. Bazie'd turned up his nose at it; 
didn't take a mort of skill nor brains to take a cosh to a fellow's head and 
make off with his goods. And the Watch and the Guards didn't give a third or 
even second chance to anyone caught at that trade; caught once, you saw ten 
years of hard labor for the Guard.
The women Skif knew didn't hold with the ketchin' lay either, though he wasn't 
sure what the difference was between laying a fellow out with a cosh and taking 
his goods when he was drunk dead asleep. Whatever, that was still another trade, 
and an old hag couldn't ply it either.
So it was good business all around for "Pappa" Serens. He had the reputation 
now, and always had himself a full complement of cheap serving wenches, seeing 
as he gave them all bed space, drink, board, and a couple of coppers now and 
again. They got free access to the cheapest beer after closing, as much as they 
cared to drink, and to the dregs of every barrel and mug of whatever price 
during the hours of custom, so long as they didn't get drunk. Every one of 
Serens' four "girls" had her own pottery pitcher back in the kitchen, and no mug 
belonging to the tavern ever went back out to the custom without being 
drained -- every drop -- into one of those pitchers. Since by this point in their 
lives what they were mostly interested in was a warm bed and enough drink to 
knock them out every night, nobody was complaining about the low wages. The 
drinking killed them off, of course, but the moment that one was carried out the 
door on a board, another came in on her own two feet to replace her.
Serens supplied a unique commodity for this part of the city. You could go to a 
dozen taverns to lift skirts, to a dozen more for a cheaper drunk than you got 
here, even to a couple for a bigger meal at the same price. The Arms, however, 
was the only place Skif knew of where you could set yourself down without 
worrying about fingers at your belt pouch, have beer that wouldn't choke you and 
a meal that wouldn't sicken you, and talk about anything to anyone, unmolested. 
The wenches were ugly, but they kept their mouths shut, and their eyes on their 
own business. There were occasional fights, but it was generally some young 
bullyboy trying to prove something, it usually went outside, and the older, 
wiser sell-sword he'd picked would settle him down quick enough. And if it 
didn't go outside and racketed among the benches, Seren himself, big as a bull 
and quick as a stag, would settle it, and The Broken Arms would have another 
gutterside advertisement of how the proprietor treated those who broke the 
rules.
Tonight, with waterfalls pouring from the clouds outside and the wind in the 
right direction so that the chimney drew properly instead of sending smoke into 
the room, there wouldn't be any disturbances. Everyone was too comfortable to 
want to find himself out in the dark and rain. Skif could stay here tucked up 
until closing. And he would; right now his doss was a stable garret, cheap 
enough and cool enough even by day, now it was summer, but boring. Worse, with 
the rain pouring down; it'd lull him to sleep and mess him up. He slept by day, 
not by night, and he didn't need to find himself starting to nod in the middle 
of a job because he'd let his sleeping and waking patterns get messed up.
Besides, if he wasn't going to be able to work tonight, he might as well see if 
he couldn't pick up something interesting.
In the months since the fire, he'd made some progress finding out who was 
responsible -- not anywhere near as fast as he'd have liked, but not so little that 
he was disappointed. He'd traced the money and responsibility up the line from 
the immediate "landlord" to whom they'd paid their rent, through two middlemen, 
both of whom were worse off for the loss of the building and neither of whom 
actually owned it. There, he'd come to a dead-end, but someone had given orders 
it be burned and someone had carried out those orders, and there weren't too 
many who were in the business of burning down buildings. Skif had, he thought, 
identified them all.
He had no intention of going up to any of them and confronting them about it. In 
the first place, there was nothing he could offer in the way of a bribe or a 
threat to get them to talk. In the second place, doing so would likely get him 
dead, not get him answers. So he was taking the slow and careful path, much 
though it irked and chafed him; coming here as often as he could to listen to 
their talk. For here was where all dubious business was conducted, and here was 
where the one who was really responsible might come to commission another such 
job.
In point of fact, as luck would have it, one of Skif's targets sat not a foot 
away from him tonight, making it absurdly easy to pick out his words from amidst 
the babble all around him.
So far it had been nothing but idle talk of bets won and lost, boasting about 
women, tall tales of drinking bouts of the past. On the other hand, the man 
hadn't been talking to anyone but his cronies. He was a professional, and well 
enough off by the standards around here; he didn't have to spend his evening in 
the Arms. He could get himself a woman, have a boy deliver a good tavern meal to 
his room, or find a better class of place to drink in. So maybe, just maybe, 
he'd come here tonight to make a contact, or even a deal.
When he got up to ask someone at one of the two-person tables if he'd move to 
the seat he had just vacated -- for a monetary consideration -- and take his comrade 
with him, Skif felt a thrill of anticipation and apprehension. He was meeting 
someone!
The door at the front of the tavern opened and closed, and there was a subtle 
movement in the crowd. It wasn't that the tavern patrons actually moved away 
from the newcomer, but they did make room for him to pass. They hadn't done that 
for anyone since Skif had been sitting there, which meant that whoever had come 
in was respected, but not feared. So he wasn't one of those half-crazed bullies, 
he wasn't someone that people feared could be set off into a rage. But they gave 
him room. You earned that here.
When the man made his way to Skif's part of the tavern, Skif knew why people 
gave him room. He didn't know the man's name, but he knew the face -- closed, 
craggy, hard. The man was a sell-sword; he didn't start quarrels, but those that 
others started with him, he finished, and he was so good he never actually drew 
his sword when fights were picked with him. After the third bullyboy to go 
outside with him wound up in the dust, finished off by a man with two knives 
against their swords, no one picked another fight with him. Defeat was one 
thing; anyone could have a bad day and get beaten in a fight. Humiliation was 
another thing altogether. You could live down a bad day; you lived with 
humiliation forever, if only inside your own head.
So nobody bothered this man anymore.
He took his seat at the little table across from Skif's target with an attitude 
that said -- quite calmly -- that he had expected that the seat would be free and 
would be kept free for him.
But to Skif's disappointment, even though he strained his ears as hard as he 
could, he couldn't make out anything more than an occasional word, and none of 
them had anything to do with the fire.
"Rethwellan" was one word. "Vatean" was another. The first was a country 
somewhere outside of Valdemar; the second he recognized as a merchant -- a very 
wealthy merchant --  and a friend of the great Lord Orthallen. Skif still filched 
food from Lord Orthallen on a regular basis; he'd gone back to it in the wake of 
the fire, after his three moons had run out. It was hard to go back to the roof 
road, and the liftin' lay didn't pay enough for him to have a room, buy drinks 
to loosen tongues, and eat, too. So all this winter past, he'd lifted silks and 
fenced them, lived in a little box of a garret room tucked into the side of the 
chimney of a bakehouse -- wonderfully warm through the rest of the winter, that 
was -- and went back to mingling with the servants in Lord Orthallen's household to 
get his food. Only now he knew far, far more. Now he knew how to slip in and out 
of the household, knew how to conceal more and what to conceal. He knew what 
delicacies to filch and trade for entire meals of more mundane foodstuffs. That, 
perhaps, was the best dodge.
With educated eyes, he soon learned how to get into and out of the storage rooms 
without being caught. The easiest way was to bribe one of the delivery boys to 
let him take what had been ordered to Lord Orthallen's manse. Now these days he 
no longer bothered to disguise himself as a page. While the cook or the butler 
was tallying what had come in on his pony cart, he would carry foodstuffs into 
the storage room and leave a window unlocked. Then he would come back once the 
frantic work of preparing a meal had begun, slip in, help himself to whatever he 
wanted, and slip out again. He wasn't buying a lot of food anymore.
When the bakehouse room became unendurable in late spring, he packed up his few 
possessions and found his new room over a stable that supplied goats and donkeys 
for delivery carts. Cheap enough, with windows on both sides, it caught a good 
breeze that kept it cool during the day while he was sleeping. The animals went 
out each day at dawn -- when he got back from his work -- and came back at sunset, by 
which time he was ready to leave. The goats and donkeys took their pungent 
smells and noise with them, and by the time he had finished eating and was ready 
to sleep, there was nothing but the sound of the single stableboy cleaning pens 
and very little smell. It was a good arrangement all around, and if his landlord 
never asked what he did all night, well, he never asked why on nights of 
moon-dark a certain string of remarkably quiet donkeys with leather wrapped 
around their hooves went out when he did and arrived back by dawn.
By spring he had gone back to roof work, although he kept his thefts modest and 
more a matter of opportunity than planning. What he did mostly was listen, for 
it was remarkable what information could be gleaned at open windows now that the 
weather was warm. Some of that, he sold to others, who trafficked in such 
information. Why should he care who paid to keep a secret love affair secret, or 
who paid to avoid tales of bribery or cheating or other chicanery quiet? It was 
all incidental to his hunt for Bazie's murderer, but if he could profit by it, 
then why not? When a valuable trinket was left carelessly on a table in plain 
sight, though, it usually found its way into his pocket, and then to a fence. 
His own needs were modest enough that these occasional thefts, combined with his 
information sales and garden-variety raids on laundry rooms, kept him in ready 
coin.
The beauty of it all was that the three activities were so disparate that no one 
who knew one of them was likely to connect him with the other two. If it became 
too dangerous to filch silks, he could step up his roof work. If he somehow 
managed to get hold of some information that proved dangerous, he could stop 
selling it, and filch more laundry. And if rumors of a clever sneak thief sent 
the Watch around on heightened alert, he could stop going for the trinkets and 
confine himself to listening at chimneys, which sent up no smoke in this lovely 
weather, but did provide wonderful listening posts.
Unfortunately, although he had cultivated acute hearing, it wasn't good enough 
to enable him to hear what it was that the dour sell-sword was saying.
However, it did seem as if the man was buying, not selling, information. When 
the surreptitious motion that marked the passing of coins from hand to hand 
finally took place, it was the sell-sword who passed the coins to Skif's target, 
and not the other way around.
Might could be I could sell 'im a bit, if's Lord Orthallen he's wantin' t' hear 
about, Skif thought speculatively. He decided to investigate chimneys at the 
manse at the next moon-dark. They might prove to be useful.
"Fire," he heard then, which brought him alert again, and he closed his eyes and 
put his head down, the better to concentrate.
"Bad enough," the sell-sword grunted. "Ye'd'a seen me a-passin' buckets that 
night."
Skif's target, who Skif knew as "Taln Kelken," but who the sell-sword addressed 
as "Jass," laughed shortly. "Could'a bin rainin' like'tis now, an' ye'd nawt hev 
got it out," he replied, with a knowing tone. "Reckon when a mun hev more'n 
twenny barrels uv earth tar an' wax painted on mun's buildin', take more'n 
bucket lines t'douse it."
Earth tar! Skif had heard rumors that the reason the fire had caught and taken 
off so quickly was because it had been tarred -- but this was the first he'd heard 
of earth tar and wax! Ordinary pine tar, or pitch, as it was also called, was 
flammable enough -- but the rarer earth tar, which bubbled up from pits, was much 
more flammable. And to combine it with wax made no sense -- the concoction would 
have been hideously expensive.
Unless the point was to turn the building into a giant candle.
Only one person could know that about the fire. The man who'd set it.
Now Skif had that part of the equation, and it took everything he had to stay 
right where he was and pretend he had dropped into a doze with his forehead on 
his knees. Anger boiled up in him, no matter that he had pledged he would not do 
anything until he knew the real hand behind the fire. The bullyboy sounded proud 
of himself, smug, and not the least troubled that whole families had died in 
that fire, and others been made bereft, parentless, childless, partnerless.
And my family -- gone. All gone.
"And just how would you know that?" the sell-sword asked. His tone was casual… 
but there was anger under it as deep, and as controlled as Skif's. The bullyboy 
didn't hear it, so full of himself he was; maybe only someone with matching 
anger would have. It shocked Skif and kept him immobile, as mere caution could 
not have.
"That'd be tellin', wouldn' it?" the bullyboy chuckled. "An' that'd be tellin' 
more'n I care to. 'Less ye've got more'v what brung ye here."
The sell-sword just grunted. "Curious, is all," he said, as if he had lost 
interest. "Don' 'magine th'lad as ordered that painted on 'is buildin' would be 
too popular 'round here."
"What? A mun cain't hev a coat've sumthin' good put on 'is property 'thout folks 
takin' it amiss?" the man known as both Jass and Taln said with feigned 
amazement. "Why man, tha's what's painted on ships t'make 'em watertight! Mun 
got word inspectors weren't happy, 'e puts the best they is on yon buildin'! 
Is't his fault some damnfool woman kicks over a cookstove an' sets the thing 
ablaze afore he kin get th' right surface on't, proper?"
"You tell me," the sell-sword sneered. Evidently he didn't care much for the man 
he faced. Maybe Taln-Jass couldn't tell it, but there was thick-laid contempt in 
the sell-sword's voice.
The bullyboy laughed, and Skif seethed. "That'd be tellin'. An' I'm too dry t'be 
tellin'."
Skif thought that this was a hint for the sell-sword to buy his informant a 
drink, but a scrape of stools told a different story. "This rain ain't liftin' 
afore dawn," the arsonist said. "I'm off."
"Sweet dreams," the sell-sword said, his tone full of bitter irony that wished 
the opposite.
Laughter was his only answer. Skif opened his eyes to see his target turn and 
shove his way out through the crowd to the door. The sell-sword remained seated, 
brooding.
Then his back tensed. He stood up, slowly and deliberately, and for a moment 
Skif thought he was going to turn around to look behind him to see who might 
have been listening to the conversation.
Skif shrank back into his alcove as far as he could go, and tried to look sleepy 
and disinterested. Somehow he did not want this man to know that he had heard 
every bit of the last several moments.
But evidently the sell-sword trusted in the unwritten rules of the Arms. He did 
not turn. He only stood up, and stalked back out through the crowd, out the 
door, and into the rain.
Two tenants of a nearby, more crowded table took immediate occupation of the 
little table. And Skif breathed a sigh of relief, before he settled back into 
his smoldering anger. Because now that he knew who the tool was -- that tool would 
pay. Perhaps not immediately, but he would pay.
When the rain died, Skif left; there was still a drizzle going, but not enough 
to keep him in the Arms any longer. His mind buzzed; his anger had gone from hot 
to cold, in which state he was able to think, and think clearly.
Somehow, he had to find the next link in the chain -- the man who had paid for the 
arson. But how?
Loosen the bastard's tongue, that's what I gotta do. As Skif dodged spills out 
of waterspouts and kept when he could to the shadows, he went over his options.
No point tryin' to threaten 'im. Alone, in his stable loft, he could indulge 
himself in fantasies of slipping in at a window and taking the man all 
unaware -- of waking the scum with the cold touch of a knife at his throat. But 
they were fantasies, and Skif knew it. Knives or no, unaware or not, the 
bullyboy was hard and tough and bigger than Skif. Much bigger.
So what were his real options? Drink? Drugs?
Not viable, neither of them. He couldn't afford enough of the latter to do any 
good, and as for the former -- well, he'd seen that particular lad drink two men 
under the table and stagger out with his secrets still kept behind his teeth. 
The closest he ever got to boasting was what he'd done tonight.
Just stick on 'im like a burr, Skif decided, and ground his teeth. It wasn't the 
solution he craved. Watch 'im, an stick to 'im. If he takes up summat to 'is 
rooms, I gotta figger out which chimbley leads t' his, or -- 
Suddenly, an idea struck him that was so brilliant he staggered.
I don' need all that dosh fer shakin' loose words loose no more! He knew who had 
set the fire! So the money he had been using to pay bribes could be used for -- 
For a room in th' bastard's own place!
Above, below, or to either side, it didn't matter. So long as Skif had an 
adjoining surface, he could rig the means to hear what was going on no matter 
how quiet the conversation was. Bribes weren't all he'd been paying for -- he'd 
been getting lessons at spycraft. How to follow someone and not be detected. How 
to overhear what he needed to. In fact, so long as Skif had a room anywhere in 
the arsonist's boarding house, he'd be able to eavesdrop on the man. It would 
just take a little more work, that was all.
He lifted his face to the drizzle and licked the cool rain from his lips, 
feeling that no wine could have a sweeter taste. I'm gonna get you now, he 
thought with glee. An' once I know what you know -- 
Well.
Knives weren't the only weapons. And poisons were a sight cheaper than 
tongue-loosening drugs.
* * * * * * * * * *
"I don' need a lot've room," Skif said to the arsonist's scrawny, ill-kempt 
landlord, who looked down at him with disinterest in his watery blue eyes. "No 
cook space, neither. Mebbe a chimbley an' a winder, but mostly just 'nuff room 
t' flop."
"I mebbe got somethin'," the landlord said at last. Skif nodded eagerly, and did 
not betray in the slightest that he already knew the landlord had exactly what 
he wanted, because Skif had bribed the tenant of the highly-desirable room right 
next to his target to find lodgings elsewhere. Young Lonar hadn't taken a lot of 
bribing -- he was sweet on a cookshop girl, and wanted some pretties to charm her 
out of her skirts and into his bed. Skif simply lifted a handful of jingling 
silver bangles from a dressing-table placed too near an open window; they were 
worth a hundred times to Lonar what Skif would have gotten for them fenced.
It had taken him time to work this out, time in which his anger kept ice water 
flowing in his veins and sparked his brain to clever schemes. First, finding out 
the arsonist's exact room. Next, casing the place, and discovering who his 
neighbors were. Then picking the most bribable, and finally, the bribe itself.
Lonar had one room -- Skif had even been in it several times already. It was 
ideally suited for Skif's purposes; the back of the arsonist's own fireplace and 
chimney formed part of one of the inner walls. From the look of the bricked-up 
back and the boarded-up door in the same wall, the room and the arsonist's had 
once been part of a larger suite, and the fireplace had been open between the 
two rooms, giving each a common hearth.
* * * * * * * * * *
 "Ten copper a fortnight," the landlord said tersely. "No cookin', no fires. 
Chimbley oughter be enough t'keep ye warm'o nights."
In answer, Skif handed over enough in copper and silver to pay for the next six 
moons, and the man nodded in terse satisfaction. This wasn't unusual behavior, 
especially out someone who had no regular -- or obvious -- job. When you were flush, 
you paid up your doss for as long as you could afford. When you weren't, you 
tried to sweet-talk the landlord as long as possible, then fled before he locked 
up your room and took your stuff.
Probably he expected that Skif would be gone by the end of those six moons.
Be nice, but I ain't countin' on it.
The landlord handed over a crude chit with an "M" -- for Midwinter Moon -- on it. That 
was how long Skif had; if the landlord tried to cheat him by claiming he'd paid 
for less time, he could show it to a court to prove how long his tenancy was 
supposed to be. There was, of course, no key to be handed over, not in a place 
like this one. Tenants were expected to find their own ways of safeguarding 
their belongings. Some were more interesting than others.
Skif pocketed his chit, picked up his pack and bag, and ran up the narrow stairs 
to the second-floor landing. Three doors faced it; his own was in the middle. 
His room wasn't much bigger than a closet between the two sets of two rooms each 
on either side. The door was slightly ajar, and Skif slipped inside quickly, 
closing it behind him and dropping a bar across it. The room itself wasn't much 
wider than the door.
Lonar hadn't left anything behind but dirt. The walls, floor, and ceiling were a 
uniform grime color. Impossible to tell if there was paint under the dirt. 
Closed shutters in the far wall marked the window. From the amount of light 
leaking in around them, it didn't look as if they were very weathertight. Not 
that it mattered. Skif wasn't here for the decor. He was, however, here for the 
walls.
Never mind how well the shutters fit, it was the window itself that featured 
prominently in Skif's plans.
He flung open the shutters to let air in, and unrolled his pallet of blankets on 
the floor, adding his spare clothing beneath as extra padding, and untied the 
kerchief in which he had bundled the rest of his few belongings. Including the 
one, very special object that he had gone to a lot of trouble to filch.
A glass. A real glass.
He set it in the corner out of harm's way, and laid himself down on his pallet, 
closing his eyes and opening his ears, taking stock of his surroundings. Bazie 
would have been proud of him.
Not a lot of street noise; this house was on a dead-end, and most of the other 
places on the street also supplied rooms to let. Skif identified the few sounds 
coming from outside and ignored them, one by one.
Above him, footsteps. Four, perhaps five children of varying ages, all barefoot. 
A woman, also barefoot. That would be Widder Koil, who made artificial flowers 
with paper and fabric. Presumably the children helped as well; otherwise, he 
couldn't imagine how she alone would earn enough to feed them all. The voices 
drifted down from above, edgy with hunger, but not loud.
Below, nothing. The first-floor tenant was still asleep; he was a night carter, 
one of the few tenants here with a respectable and relatively well-paying job.
To the left, the wall with no fireplace, four shrill female voices. Whores, four 
sisters sharing two rooms; relatively Prosperous and without a protector. They 
didn't need one; the arsonist slept with at least two of them on a regular 
basis, and no one wanted to chance his anger.
And to the right…
Snores. The chimney echoed with them. Not surprising; like Skif, the arsonist 
worked at night The question was, which of the two rooms was the man's bed
Skif's hope was that it was not the one with the fireplace, but there was no way 
of telling if the man was snoring very loudly in the next room, or not quite as 
loudly in the fireplace room.
At least I can hear him.
Well there was nothing more to do now. He let his concentration lapse, and 
consciously relaxed the muscles of his face and jaw as he had learned to do when 
he wanted to sleep. He would be able to learn more in a few candlemarks. And 
when his target went out tonight, so would he.
* * * * * * * * * *
He woke all at once, and knew why. The window above his head showed a dark-blue 
sky with a single star, his room was shrouded in shadows, and next door, the 
snoring had stopped.
Jass-Taln was awake.
He sat up quickly and felt in the corner for his precious glass. He put it up 
against the wall and put his ear against the bottom of it.
The man moved like a cat; Skif had to give him that much grudging credit. He 
made very little noise as he walked around his rooms, and unlike some people, he 
didn't talk to himself. No coughing, no sneezing, no spitting; how ironic that a 
cold blooded murderer made such an ideal neighbor.
Ideal. Unless, of course, you actually wanted to hear what he was up to.
Now there was some noise in the fireplace! Skif frowned in concentration, 
isolating the sounds.
Whiffling. Shavings hitting the bricks. The sound of a hand scraping the 
shavings together, then putting them in the grate.
Then the rattling and scratching of a handful of twigs. A log coming down atop 
them.
A metallic clunk startled him, though he should have expected it. Taln-Jass had 
just slapped a pan down onto the grill over his cooking fire.
A while later; the sound of something scraping and rattling in the pan. Eating 
sounds. Frequent belches.
All of which were sweeter than any Bard's music to Skif's ears. The trick with 
the glass worked, just as his teacher had claimed it would! And it sounded as if 
the room with the fireplace was the arsonist's "public" room, for all of these 
noises were nearer than the snores had been. Which meant that when the man 
brought clients here for private discussions, it would be the room nearest Skif 
where those discussions would take place.
A fierce elation thrilled through him, and he grinned with clenched teeth. Who 
needed drink, drugs, or even threats when you could listen to your target at 
will, unnoticed?
Now all he needed was time and patience, and both were, at last, on his side.
ALTHOUGH Skif' spatience was taxed to the uttermost by the lack of any concrete 
progress in his quest, he at least was collecting a great deal of personal 
information on his "neighbor," Jass. The arsonist, it soon developed, had as 
many names as there were moons in the calendar.
Not only was he known by the two Skif knew, but he was addressed variously as 
"Hodak" by his landlord, "Derial" by the whores, and various nicknames derived 
from the slight squint of one eye when he was thinking, his ability to move 
silently, the fact that a small piece was missing from his ear, and some 
not-very-clever but thoroughly obscene epithets that passed for humor among his 
acquaintances.
Skif decided on "Jass." Easy to remember, it had no associations for him other 
than his target. But he was careful never to personally address the man at all, 
much less by name, since he wasn't actually supposed to know any of his names. 
The few times they met on the stairs or the landing, Skif ducked his head 
subserviently and crammed himself to the wall to let the arsonist pass. Let Jass 
think that Skif was afraid of him --  all that meant was that Jass had never yet 
gotten a look at anything other than the top of Skif's head.
A man of many trades was Jass. Over the course of three fortnights, Skif 
listened in to his conversations when he had someone with him in his 
rooms -- pillow talk and business talk, and boasts when deep in his cups. He wasn't 
"just" an arsonist. If he had been, he'd have gone short more often than not, as 
that wasn't a trade that he was called on to practice nearly often enough to 
make a living at it. Together with all four of the whores he practiced a 
variation on the ketchin' lay where one of the girls would lure an unsuspecting 
customer into Jass' clutches where the would-be lecher soon found himself hit 
over the head and robbed.
He was also known for setting fires, of course -- though, so far since Skif had 
moved in, they were all minor acts of outrage, designed to frighten shopkeepers 
into paying for "protection" from one of the three gangs he worked for, or to 
punish those who had refused to do so. On rare occasions, he sold information, 
most of which Skif didn't understand, but seemed to have to do with intrigues 
among some of the city's wealthier folk. Where he got these tidbits was a 
mystery to Skif, although there was a direct connection with the darker side of 
Haven, in that the information generally was about who among Jass's cronies had 
been hired by one of the upright citizens, and for what dirty job.
The craggy-faced sell-sword was not the only one interested in Jass' 
information. There were at least three other takers to Skif's knowledge, two of 
whom transacted their business only within the four walls of Jass's fireplace 
room.
But to Skif's growing impatience, not once had Jass been commissioned by the 
same person who had put him to igniting the tenement house.
Skif might have learned more -- this summer brought a rash of tiny, "mysterious" 
fires to blight the streets of Haven -- but he had to eat too. Frustratingly, he 
would sometimes return to his room after a night of roof walking only to hear 
the tail end of a conversation that could have been interesting, or to hear Jass 
himself come in after a long night of -- what? Skif seldom knew; that was the 
frustrating part. He might learn the next day of a fire that Jass could have 
been responsible for, or the discovery of a feckless fool lying coshed in an 
alley, who had trusted in the blandishments of a face that drink made desirable 
that might belong to one of Jass' girls. But unless Jass boasted specifically, 
there was no way of telling what could be laid at his door and not someone 
else's.
Midsummer came and passed, remarkable only for Midsummer Fairs and the fine 
pickings to be had at them, and Skif was no closer to uncovering the real 
culprit behind the fire. Day after day he would come awake in the damp heat of 
midday whit a jolt the moment that the snoring in the other room stopped, and 
lie on his pallet, listening. Swet prickled his scalp, and he spread himself out 
like a starfish in a vain hope of finding a hint of cooler air. He longed for 
the breezes of his stable loft, but still he lay in the heat, waiting for a 
word, a clue, a sign.
He had thought that he knew how to be patient. As days became weeks and weeks 
tuned to moons, he discovered he knew nothing at all about patience. There was 
times when his temper snapped, when he wanted to curse, rail at fate and at the 
man who was so obstinately concealing his secrets, to pound the floor and walls 
with his fists. That he did not of these things was not a measure of his 
patience, but rather that he did not dare to reveal himself to Jass by an 
overheard gaffe of his own.
The more time passed, the more his hatred grew.
Bu at least he was not alone in hating and despising Jass, The sell-sword was no 
friend to the arsonist either, not if Skif was any judge. Twice he had caught 
the man glaring at Jass' back with an expression that had made Skif's blood turn 
cold.
Twice only -- no more than that, but the second time had been enough to convince 
Skif that the first was no fluke. Whatever he had done to earn the sell-sword's 
enmity, Skif was certain that only the fact that Jass was, and remained, useful 
to the man that kept Jass alive and unharmed.
One stifling day, Skif lay on the bare boards of his room dressed in nothing 
more than a singlet, eyes closed and a wet cloth lying across them in an attempt 
to bring some coolness to his aching head. He could only breathe in the 
furnacelike air, and reflect absently on how odd it was that this part of town 
actually stank less than some better-off neighborhoods. But that was simply 
because here, where there was nothing, everything had a value. Even nightsoil 
was saved and collected -- tannery 'prentices came 'round to collect urine every 
morning, paying two clipped-pennybits a pot, and the rest went straight into 
back-garden compost heaps. People who had birds or pigs collected their leavings 
for their gardens, and as for the dung from horses and donkeys -- well, it was 
considered so valuable that it barely left the beast's bum before someone 
scuttled out to the street and scooped it up. Nothing went to waste here, no 
matter how rotten food was, it went into something's belly. As a consequence, 
the only stench coming off these streets and alleys was of sweat and grime and 
stale beer, but nothing worse than that. Why, Skif could hardly bear to walk in 
the alley of a merchants' neighborhood in this weather!
Jass' snores still echoed up the chimney; how could the man sleep in heat like 
this?
The faintest breath of air moved across the floor, drifting from the open window 
to crawl under the crack beneath the door. Drops of sweat trickled down Skif's 
neck and crept along his scalp without cooling him appreciably.
A fly droned somewhere near the ceiling, circling around and around and bumping 
against the grime-streaked paint in a mindless effort to get beyond it. It could 
have flown out the window, of course, but it was determined to find a way 
through to the next story of the house, no matter how unlikely a prospect that 
seemed.
Skif felt a curious kinship with the fly. At the moment, his own quest seemed 
just about as futile.
And he was just as stupidly, bullheadedly determined not to give it up.
He wondered if perhaps -- just perhaps -- he ought to start spending the day somewhere 
other than here. Somewhere in a cellar perhaps, where he would be able to doze 
in blessed coolness. So long as he managed to awaken before Jass did, and get 
back here…
But as sure as he did that, Jass would change his habits and start sleeping, at 
least in part, by night, so that he could conduct some of his business by 
daylight.
At least I'm savin' money on eats, he thought wryly. In this heat he had no 
appetite to speak of, and spent most of his food money on peppermint tea. It was 
easy enough to make without a fire; just put a pot full of water and herb 
packets on the windowsill in the sun, and leave it to brew all day. And it 
cooled the mouth and throat, if not the body.
Skif found himself thinking longingly of rain. A good thunderstorm would cool 
the city down and wash the heaviness out of the air. Rain was his enemy -- he 
wouldn't, couldn't work in the rain -- but it would be worth not working for one 
night.
In weather like this, anyone who could afford to went off into the country 
anyway. Houses were shut up, furniture swathed in sheets, valuables taken away 
with the rest of the household goods. Only those few whose duties kept them here 
remained; Lord Orthallen, for one -- he was on the Council, and couldn't leave. 
Which was just as well for Skif's sake, since his larder was supplying Skif's 
peppermint and the sugar to sweeten it.
Next door, the snoring stopped. Jass was awake at last.
No sounds of cooking this past fortnight; Jass was eating out of cookshops 
rather than add to the heat in his rooms by lighting a fire.
Within moments Skif knew that there was no point in lingering around this 
afternoon; Jass would be going out and probably not returning until after 
nightfall, if then.
No point in Skif staying inside either. He wasn't going to sleep, not here. He 
might as well see if there was somewhere, anywhere in the city where there was a 
breath of cooler air.
In loose breeches, barefoot, and with his shirtsleeves rolled up, he was soon 
out into the street, where virtually everyone looked just as uncomfortable and 
listless as he. For once, the narrow streets proved a blessing; not much sun got 
past the buildings to bake the pounded dirt and add to the misery.
It occurred to him that Temples, constructed of thick stone, just might harbor 
some lingering coolness in their walls. In fact -- the Temples over in wealthier 
parts of Haven usually had crypts beneath them, which would certainly be as cool 
as any wine cellar, and a deal quieter.
Aye, but then I get preached at, or I get asked what I want. They find me i' the 
crypt, they run me out, sure as sure. Them Priests is like ants, always where ye 
don' want 'em. Wisht I could find me a Temple crypt wi' nawt about.
Well… maybe he could; there were plenty of the highborn who had their own 
chapels, and private crypts, too, in the city cemeteries. There, he'd run little 
risk of being disturbed.
Some might have second thoughts about seeking a nap among the dead, but Skif 
wasn't one of them.
A candlemark later, Skif slipped down the stairs of a private chapel in one of 
the cemeteries reserved for the highborn. The chapel was above, where those who 
were queasy about any actual contact with the dead could pray; Skif headed down 
into the family crypts. Said lordling was gone, the house shut up, with only a 
couple ol maids and an old dragon of a housekeeper. So there wouldn't be any 
impromptu visits by the family. The chapel had been locked, but that was hardly 
going to stop Skif.
He'd picked this place in particular because the family was known for piety and 
familial pride -- and because there hadn't been a death in more than a year. 
Napping among the dead was one thing; napping among the recently-interred was 
another. And family pride, Skif hoped, would have seen to it that the crypt was 
kept clean and swept. He didn't mind the dead, but spiders were something else 
and gave him the real horrors.
It was darker than the inside of a pocket down here, but his hunch had been 
right. It was blessedly cool, and he pressed his overheated body up against the 
cold marble walls with relief while he waited for his eyes to adjust. Some light 
did filter down the staircase from the chapel windows above, and eventually Skif 
was able to make out the dim shape of a stone altar, laden with withered 
flowers, against the back wall. He sniffed the air carefully, and his nose was 
assaulted by nothing worse than dust and the ghosts of roses.
There were two rows of tombs, each bearing the name and station of its occupant 
graven atop it. No statues here; this family wasn't quite lofty enough for 
marble images of its dead adorning the tombs.
Skif yawned, and felt his way to the stone table at the back of the chapel, 
meant for flower offerings. Just in case someone came down here, he planned to 
take his nap in the shadows beneath it.
Stone didn't make a particularly yielding bed, but he'd slept on stone plenty of 
times before this; it would be no worse than sleeping on the floor of his 
uncle's tavern, and a lot quieter.
He was very pleased to note that his hunch had paid off; even beneath the table 
there wasn't much dust. He laid himself out in the deep shadow with his back 
pressed against the wall and his head pillowed on his arm. The stone practically 
sucked the heat right out of his body, and in moments, for the first time in 
days, he fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
It seemed only heartbeats later that something jolted him awake.
He froze, his eyes snapping open, and saw the wavering light of a single candle 
illuminating the staircase he had only just crept down.
"Yer certain-sure there ain't gonna be nobody here?"
That's Jass! Skif thought in shock. What's he doing here?
Surely not grave robbing -- the amount of work it would take to get into one of 
these tombs was far beyond anything the Jass that Skif knew would be willing to 
do! Even supposing there was anything of value interred there…
"I'm quite sure," said a smooth and cultured voice. "Rovenar and his family are 
at his country estate, and none of his father's friends are still alive to pay 
him a graveside visit. Besides, it would hardly matter if anyone did come. I 
have the key; Rovenar trusts me to see that no one gets in here to work any 
mischief in his absence. If anyone should appear, I am simply doing him that 
favor, and you, my servant, have accompanied me."
"Servant?" Jass growled. It was amazing how well the stairs worked to funnel 
sound down here; Skif would have thought they were in the same room with him.
The voice laughed. "Bodyguard, then." The voice was clearly amused at Jass' 
attitude toward being taken as a servant.
It occurred to Skif that if he was seeing the light of a candle up there, it 
must be later than he'd thought when he was initially startled awake. It must 
have been the turning of the key in the lock on the chapel door that woke him, 
and he blessed the owner who had put in a door that locked itself on closing.
Whatever brought Jass and the unknown gentleman here, it had to be something out 
of the ordinary.
"What'd ye want t' meet here for?" Jass grumbled. "Place fair gives me th' 
creeps."
"It is cool, it is private, and we stand no chance of being overheard," the 
voice replied. "And because I have no mind to pay a call on you. I pay you; you 
can accommodate yourself to me."
Skif winced. Nothing could have been clearer than the contempt in those words.
But either Jass was inured to it, or he was oblivious to it.
Mebbe he just don't care. Anyone who'd been entrusted with the key to a 
lordling's chapel had to have money, at least, and the song of that money must 
ring in Jass's ears, deafening him to anything else.
"So wut's th' job this time that you don' want ears about?" Jass asked bluntly. 
"It better pay better nor last time."
"It will," the voice said coolly. "Not that you weren't paid exactly what the 
last job was worth -- and I suspect you made somewhat more, afterward. I'm given to 
understand that you are considered something of an information broker."
"Ye never give me enuff fer quiet," Jass said sullenly.
Skif felt as if he'd been struck by lightning. Bloody 'ell! This's where Jass 
gets 'is stuff about th' highborns!
"I don't pay for what I don't require," the voice countered. "Just remember 
that. And remember that when I do pay for silence, I expect it. Don't disappoint 
me, Jass. You'll find I'm a different man when I've been disappointed."
A shiver ran down Skif's back at the deadly menace of that voice, and he was 
astonished that Jass didn't seem to hear it himself. Jass was either oblivious 
or arrogant, and neither suggested he'd be enjoying life for very much longer 
unless he realized he was treading on perilous ground. "Th' job," he simply 
prompted impatiently, quite as if he was the one in charge and not his client.
"Simple enough," the smooth, cultured voice replied. "Another fire, like the one 
I commissioned last winter. But this time, I don't want any cleverness on your 
part. No earth tar, no pine tar, no oil or mineral spirits; nothing to encourage 
the blaze. The warehouse will be left open for you, so start it from the 
inside."
Skif froze; he couldn't have moved to save his life. There it was -- everything 
he'd been looking for. Except that he couldn't see who Jass was talking to, and 
he'd never heard that voice before.
Jass growled. "Ain't gonna burn good," he complained. "Might even save it, if -- ,"
"Nonsense," the voice replied firmly. "In this heat and as dry as it's been? 
It'll go up like chaff. People were suspicious the last time, Jass. There were 
enquiries. I had a great deal of covering up to do. It was exceedingly 
inconvenient for me, a considerable amount of totally unexpected work. What's 
more, some of that work went to saving your neck. Some of the tenants didn't get 
out -- and if the fire had been traced back to you, they'd have hanged you for 
murder."
Jass actually laughed, but it had a nasty sound to it. "Well, they didn't, did 
they? Tha's cuz there weren't no witnesses. I seen t' that. Tha's why people 
didn' all get out. 'Cause I quieted 'em."
Skif's heart turned to ice.
"And that is supposed to show me how clever you are?" The man snorted. "You're 
very good at what you do, Jass, and my lord Orthallen gave you high 
recommendations, but you've become arrogant and careless. Stick to what you're 
told to do. Don't try to be clever. And if you get caught, I'll wash my hands of 
you, don't think I won't."
"Jest gimme th' job," Jass growled, and the voice related details and 
instructions.
Jass thinks if 'e's caught, 'e kin turn 'is coat an' tell on milord, there, 
savin' 'is own neck. But Skif was listening, as Jass was not, and he knew that 
if Jass was ever caught, his life wasn't worth a bent pin. If there was even the 
chance that the Watch was on to Jass, his employer would ensure his silence in 
the most effective way possible.
It wouldn't take much -- just another interview in an out-of-the-way place like 
this one. Only Jass would not be meeting "milord," and there would be an extra 
corpse in the cemetery.
There was a metallic chink as money passed from one hand to another, and Jass 
counted it.
"Remember what I said," the voice warned. One set of footsteps marked the 
owner's transit to the door of the chapel, and Jass got up to follow. "Don't get 
creative. Just set the fire, and get out."
"Awright, awright," Jass sneered. "My lord.";
The light vanished; the candle must have been put out. The door swung quietly 
open on well-oiled hinges, with only a faint sigh of displaced air to mark it 
opening. Then it shut again with a hollow sound, and the key rattled in the 
lock.
'E's gettin' away! I dunno 'oo 'e is, an 'e's gettin' away!
Skif practically flew up the stairs, no longer caring if he was discovered, so 
long as he could see who that voice belonged to!
Too late. Not only were they gone, he couldn't even hear footsteps. He flung 
himself at the windows -- hopeless; not only was it dark outside, but the windows 
didn't open and they were made of colored glass as well. There was no way he 
could see anything through them -- except for one single blob of light, a lantern, 
perhaps, receding into the darkness. He returned to the door, but you couldn't 
just open it from within once you got inside, it had to be unlocked from the 
inside as well as from the outside. Cursing under his breath, he got out his 
lock picks again, knowing that this would cost him yet more time, in the dark 
and fumbling in his hurry.
He cursed his clumsy fingers and the lock picks that suddenly turned traitor on 
him; at last he heard the click of the tumblers and wrenched the wretched door 
open.
There wasn't a single light to be seen within the four walls of the cemetery. 
They'd gotten far enough away that they were out of sight among the tombs, and 
by now Jass and his employer would have gone their separate ways, with nothing 
to show the connection between them, nothing to prove that "milord" wasn't just 
paying a sentimental or pious visit on the anniversary of someone's death.
No! Skif wasn't going to give up that easily.
From here there was only a single path winding among the chapels, crypts, and 
trees, and Skif tore up it. There were only two entrances, and he thought he 
knew which one "milord" would take. He had to catch the man before he left the 
cemetery -- he had to! He had to know -- 
With his heart pounding and his eyes burning with rage, he abandoned everything 
but the chase. At a point where two private chapels faced one another across the 
path, where he might have slowed, just in case there was someone lurking in the 
shadows, he only sped up.
And at the last moment as he passed between them, too late to avoid the ambush, 
he sprung a trap on himself.
A trap that took the form of a cord stretched at knee-height along the path.
Skif hit it, and went flying face-first into the turf. The impact knocked the 
breath out of him and left him stunned just long enough for the ambusher to get 
on top of him and pin him down.
He fought -- but his opponent was twice his size and had probably forgotten more 
dirty tricks than Skif knew. Ruthless, methodical, he made short work of one 
young boy. Before he could catch the breath that had been knocked out of him by 
the fall, Skif found himself gagged, his hands tied behind his back, pulled to 
his feet, and shoved into one of those two chapels.
The door shut with an ominous brazen clang. Skif's feet were kicked out from 
beneath him before he could lash out at his captor, and he went to the floor 
like a sack of meal.
There was a rattle of metal, and the shutter of a dark lantern opened. Skif 
blinked, eyes watering at the light, as the craggy sell-sword who had bought so 
much information from Jass peered down at him
"Well, well. A trap for a fox I set, and I catch a rabbit," the man said, 
looking down at Skif with no humor in his face whatsoever. He wasn't talking 
like one of the denizens of Haven's rough streets anymore; he had an accent that 
Skif couldn't place. "Now, why is it, I wonder, that wherever I find Jass, also 
you I find?"
Skif glared at him over the gag, daring him to try something. Not that he had 
the slightest idea of what he was going to do if the man made a move…
But the man only stooped swiftly, and seized one of Skif's ankles. Kick as hard 
as he could, Skif could do nothing against the man's greater strength; at the 
cost of a bump on the head that made him see stars, he gained nothing and found 
himself with both ankles trussed and tied to his wrists, which were in turn tied 
behind his back. Only then did the man take off the gag, taking care not to let 
his hands get within range to be bitten.
He squatted easily beside Skif, sitting on his heels. "I believe it's time 
speech we have, you and I," he said, frowning. "And it is that I hope for your 
sake that you aren't Jass' errand boy."
He stared hard at Skif for a long time; Skif worked his jaw silently, and 
continued to glare at him, although he was beginning to feel a little -- odd. As if 
there was something messing about inside his head.
So if 'e wants ter talk, why don't 'eget on wi' it? he thought furiously. And at 
that exact moment, the man smiled grimly, and nodded to himself.
"What were you doing here?" the sell-sword asked as soon as Skif's mouth was 
clear of the threads the cloth had left on his tongue.
"Sleepin'!" Skif spat, and snarled in impotent fury. If it hadn't been for this 
bastard, he'd have found out who Jass' employer was! He made up his mind not to 
tell the man one word more than he had to.
"In a cemetery?" The man raised one eyebrow.
Skif found angry words tumbling out of his mouth, despite his resolution not to 
talk. "Wha's it matter t'you? Or them? They's not gonna care -- an' it's a damn 
sight cooler an' quieter here than anywheres else! Them highborns is all playin' 
out i'country, they ain't gonna know 'f I wuz here!"
"You have a point," the man conceded, then his face hardened again. "But why is 
it that you just happen sleeping to be in the same place where Jass goes to have 
a little chat?"
"How shud I know?" Skif all but wailed. "I drops off, next thing I knows, he's 
up there yappin' t' summun an' I wanta know who!"
If he'd had his hands free, he'd have clapped both of them over his mouth in 
horror. His tongue didn't seem to be under his control -- what was happening to 
him?
"Oh, really?" The man's other eyebrow arched toward his hairline. "And why is 
that?"
"Becuz Jass' the bastid what set th' big fire an' burned me out -- an' the mun whut 
was with 'im wuz th' mun what paid 'im t' do it!" Skif heard himself saying 
frantically. "I know'd it, cuz I 'eerd 'im say so! 'Is boss set 'im another fire 
t' start right whiles I was listenin'! An' I wanta know who he is cuz I'm gonna 
get 'im, an' then I'm gonna get Jass, an -- ,"
"Enough." The man held up a sword-callused palm, and Skif found his flood of 
angry words cut off again. Just in time, too; there had been tears burning in 
his eyes, and he didn't want the man to see them. He blinked hard to drive them 
away, but he couldn't do much about the lump in his throat that threatened to 
choke him.
Wut in hell is happenin' to me?
But the man darted out a hand, quick as a snake, and grabbed Skif's shoulder and 
shook it. That hand crushed muscle and bone and hurt -- 
"Now, to me you listen, boy, and engrave my words on your heart you will -- ," the 
man said, leaning forward until all Skif could see were his hawk-sharp, 
hawk-fierce eyes. "You playing are in deeper waters than you know, and believe 
me, to swim in them you cannot hope. Your nose out of this you keep, or likely 
someone is to fish you out of the Terilee, with a rock around your ankles tied, 
if find you at all they do."
Skif shuddered convulsively, and an involuntary sob fought its way out of his 
throat. The man sat back on his heels again, satisfied.
"Jass will to worry about shortly, much more than the setting of fires have," 
the man said darkly. "And he will answer for the many things he has responsible 
been for."
"But -- "
"That is all you need to know,"; the man said forcefully, and the words froze in 
Skif's throat.
The sell-sword pulled out a knife, and for one horrible moment, Skif thought 
that he was dead.
But the man laid it on the floor, just out of reach, and stood up. "Too clever 
you are, by half," he said, with a grim little smile. "Now, about my business I 
will be. The moment I leave, getting yourself loose you can be about. Manage you 
will, quite sure I am."
He dropped the shield over the dark lantern, plunging the chapel into complete 
blackness. In the next moment, although Skif hadn't heard him move, the door 
opened, a tall, lean shadow slipped through it, and it closed again.
Skif lost no time in wriggling over the stone floor to the place where the man 
had left the knife. When he was right on top of it, he wriggled around until he 
could grab it. As soon as he got it into his hands, he sawed through the cord 
binding his wrists to his ankles. Not easy -- but not impossible. The man had left 
him enough slack in his ropes to do just that.
Once that was cut, he managed to contort his body enough to get his arms back 
over to the front of himself and then sawed through the bindings at ankle and 
wrist. It was a good knife; sharp, and well cared for. If it didn't cut through 
the cords holding him as if they were butter, he wasn't forced to hack at them 
for candlemarks either.
But all the time his hands were working, his mind was, too.
Who -- and what -- was that man? How had he managed to get Skif to tell him everything 
he knew? Why did he want to know so much about Jass?
Why'd 'e lemmego? Why'd 'e warn me off?
Not that Skif had any intention of being warned off. Oo's 'e think 'e is, 
anyroad? Oo's 'e think 'e was talkin' to? If there was one thing that Skif was 
certain of, it was his own expertise in his own neighborhood. However clever 
this man thought he was, he wasn't living right next door to his target, now, 
was he? He hadn't even known that Jass was the one who'd set that fire -- Skif had 
seen a flicker of surprise when his own traitorous mouth had blurted that 
information out. He might think himself clever, but he wasn't as good as all 
that.
But 'ow'd 'e make me talk? More to the point, could he do it again if he got 
Skif in his hands?
Best not to find out.
'E won' catch me a second time, Skif resolved fiercely, as he cut through the 
last of the cords on his wrists and shook his hands free.
He stood up, sticking the knife in his belt. No point in wasting a good blade, 
after all. His anger still roiled in his gut; by now Jass was far off, and his 
employer probably safe in his fancy home.
I'll know 'is voice, though, if I ever hear it agin. Small consolation, but the 
best he had.
He slipped out the door of the chapel and closed it behind himself, not caring 
if he left this one unlocked or not. Around him the dead kept their silence, 
with nothing to show that there had ever been anyone here. Crickets sang, and 
honeysuckle sent a heavy perfume across the carefully manicured lawn. Jass had 
picked a good night for a clandestine meeting; the moon was no bigger than a 
fingernail paring.
Skif made his way to the spot where the wall was overhung by an ancient 
goldenoak -- he hadn't come in by a gate, and he didn't intend to leave by one 
either. All the while his mind kept gnawing angrily on the puzzle of the 
sell-sword. Bastid. Oo's 'e t' be so high i' th' nose? Man sells anythin' 'e's 
got t' whosever gots the coin! Hadn't he already proved that by buying 
information from Jass? An' wut's 'e gonna do, anyroad? Where's 'e get off, 
tellin' me Jass's gonna go down fer the fire? Why shud 'e care?
Unless -- he had a wealthy patron himself. Maybe someone who had lost money when 
the fire gutted Skif's building?
Or maybe Jass' own employer was playing a double game --  covering his bets and his 
own back, hiring someone to "find out who set the fire" so that Jass got caught, 
the rich man could prove that he had gone far out of his way to try and catch 
the arsonist. Then no matter what Jass said, who would believe him?
The thought didn't stop Skif in his tracks, but it only roiled his gut further. 
The bastards! They were all alike, those highborns and rich men and their 
hirelings! They didn't care who paid, so long as their pockets were well-lined!
Skif swarmed up the tree by feel, edged along the branch that hung over the 
opposite side, and dropped down quietly to the ground, his heart on fire with 
anger.
Revenge. That's what he wanted. And he knew the best way to get it, too. If he 
didn't have a specific target, he could certainly make all of them suffer, at 
least a little. Just wait until they all came back from their fancy country 
estates! Wait until they returned -- and came back, not just to things gone 
missing, but to cisterns and sewers plugged up, wells and chimneys blocked, 
linens spoiled, moths in the woolens, mice in the pantry and rats in the cellar! 
He'd cut sash cords, block windows so they wouldn't close right, drill holes in 
rooftops and in water pipes. It would be a long job, but he had all summer, and 
when he got through with them, the highborn of Valdemar would be dead certain 
that they'd been cursed by an entire tribe of malevolent spirits.
No time like right now, neither, he thought, with smoldering satisfaction as he 
fingered the sharp edge of his new knife.
So what if he didn't have a specific target. They were all alike anyway. So he'd 
make it his business to make them all pay, if it took him the rest of his life.
SKIF had every intention of beginning his campaign of sabotage that very night, 
but when he tried to get near the district where the homes of the great and 
powerful were, he found the Watch was unaccountably active. There were patrols 
on nearly every street, and they weren't sauntering along either. Something had 
them alerted, and after the third time of having to take cover to avoid being 
stopped and questioned, he gave it up as hopeless and headed back to his room 
with an ill grace.
He got some slight revenge, though; as he turned a corner, a party of 
well-dressed, and very drunk young men came bursting out of a tavern with a very 
angry innkeeper shouting curses right on their heels. They practically ran him 
over, but in the scuffle and ensuing confusion, he lifted not one, but three 
purses. Making impotent threats and shouting curses of his own at them (which 
had all the more force because of his personal frustrations), he turned on his 
heel and stalked off in an entirely different direction.
Once out of sight, he ducked into a shadow, emptied the purses of their coins 
into his own pouch, and left the purses where he dropped them, tucking his pouch 
into the breast of his tunic. Then he strolled away in still another direction. 
After a block or two, there was nothing to connect him with the men he'd robbed. 
That was a mistake that many pickpockets made; they hung onto the purses they'd 
lifted. Granted, such objects were often valuable in themselves -- certainly the 
three he'd taken had been -- but they also gave the law a direct link between 
robber and robbed.
As he walked back toward his room, he managed to get himself back under control. 
Taking the purses had helped; it was a very small strike against the rich and 
arrogant bastards, but a strike nevertheless. Just wait till they get to a bawdy 
house, an' they've gotta pay -- he thought, with grim satisfaction. They better 
'ope their friends is willin' t' part with th' glim! Skif had seen the wrath of 
plenty of madams and whore-masters whose customers had declined to pay, and they 
didn't take the situation lightly -- nor did they accept promissory notes. They 
also employed very large men to help enforce the house rules and tariffs. When 
young men came into a place in a group, no one was allowed to leave until 
everyone's score had been paid. Those who still had purses would find them 
emptied before the night was over.
The thought improved his humor, and that restored his appetite. Now much fatter 
in the pocket than he had been this afternoon, he decided to follow his nose and 
see where it led him.
It took him to a cookshop that stood on the very border of his neighborhood, 
halfway between the semirespectable district of entertainers, artists, musicians 
(not Bards, of course), Peddlers, and decorative craftsmen and their 'prentices, 
and his own less respectable part of town.
I've earned a meal, he declared; taking care not to expose how much he had, he 
fished out one of the larger coins from his loot and dropped the pouch back into 
his tunic. Best to get rid of the most incriminating of the coins.
He eased on in; it was full, but not overcrowded, and he soon found space at the 
counter to put in his order. With a bowl of soup and a chunk of bread in one 
hand, and a mug of tea in the other, he made his way back outside to the benches 
in the open air where there were others eating, talking, or playing at dice or 
cards. Hot as it was, there were more folk eating under the sky than under the 
roof.
As was his habit, he took an out-of-the-way spot and kept his head down and his 
ears open. He was very soon rewarded; the place was abuzz with the rumor that 
someone had broken into the home of the wealthy merchant, Trenor Severik, and 
had stolen most of his priceless collection of miniature silver figurines. 
Severik had literally come home in time to see the thief vanishing out the 
window. Hence, the Watch; every man had been called out, the neighborhood had 
been sealed off, and anyone who couldn't account for himself was being arrested 
and taken off to gaol. It seemed that one of those arrested was an acquaintance 
of several of those sitting near Skif.
"Hard luck for poor Korwain," one of the artists said, with a snicker. "He 
couldn't say where he'd been -- of course."
His friends nearly choked on their meals. "I told him that woman was trouble," 
said another, whose dusty beard and hair bedecked with stone chips proclaimed 
him to be a sculptor. "Two sittings, and she's got me backed into a corner, 
tryin' to undo m'britches!" He shuddered, and the rest laughed. "Patron of arts, 
she calls herself! My eye!"
"Heyla, we tried to warn you, so don't say we didn't!" called a fellow with a 
lute case slung over his back. "Korwain knew it, so he's only got himself to 
blame!"
"That's what happens when you let greed decide your commissions for you," put in 
another, whose mouth looked like a miser's purse and whose eyes gloated at a 
fellow artist's misfortune. "I'd rather live on bread in a garret and serve the 
Temples than feast on marchpane and capon and -- ,"
"Your paintings are so stiff they wouldn't please anyone but a priest, so don't 
go all over pious on us, Penchal!" catcalled the first artist.
That set off an argument on artistic merit and morality that Skif had no 
interest in. He applied himself to his soup, and left the bowl and mug on the 
table while the insults were still coming thick and fast, and rapidly building 
to the point where it would be fists, and not words, that would be flying.
At least now he knew why the Watch was up, and he wouldn't dare try anything for 
days, even a fortnight. Why would anyone bother to steal the collection of 
silver miniatures, anyway? They were unique and irreplaceable, yes, but you'd 
never be able to sell them anywhere, they were too recognizable, and you 
wouldn't get a fraction of their value if you melted them down. Oh, a thief 
could hold them for ransom, Skif supposed, but he'd certainly be found out and 
caught.
The only way the theft made sense was if someone had gotten a specific 
commission to take them. It was an interesting thought. Whoever had made the 
commission would have to be from outside Haven; what was the use of having 
something like that if you couldn't show it off? Anyone in Haven would know the 
collection as soon as it was displayed. The client could even be outside 
Valdemar altogether. So the thief, too, might be from outside Valdemar…
Huh. That'd be something he thought, keeping an eye out for trouble as he made 
his way back home. Have'ta be some kinda Master Thief, I guess. Somebody with 
all kinds uv tricks. Wonder if they's 'prentices fer that kinda work? He'd never 
heard of a Master Thief, much less one that took on protégés, but maybe that 
sort of thing happened outside of Valdemar. Like mebbe they's a whole Guild fer 
Thieves. Wouldn' that be somethin'!
He amused himself with this notion as he worked his way homeward. He never, even 
when he had no reason to believe that he was being followed, went back home 
directly. He always doubled back, ducked down odd side passages, even cut over 
fences and across back gardens -- though in the summer, that could be hazardous. In 
his neighborhood, no one had a back garden for pleasure. People used every bit 
of open ground to grow food in, and often kept chickens, pigeons, or a pig as 
well. And they assumed anyone coming over the fence was there to steal some of 
that precious food. Those that didn't have yards, but did have balconies, grew 
their vegetables in pots. Those that had nothing more than a window, had window 
boxes. Even Skif had a window box where he grew beans, trailing them around his 
window on a frame made of pieces of string. It was just common sense to augment 
what you could buy with what you could grow, but that did make it a bit more 
difficult to take the roundabout path until after the growing season was over.
It wasn't as late as he'd thought; lots of people were still up and about, 
making it doubly hazardous to go jumping in and out of yards. The front steps of 
buildings held impromptu gatherings of folks back from their jobs, eating late 
dinners and exchanging gossip. Most of the inns and cookshops had put benches 
out onto the street, so people could eat outside where it was cooler. It was 
annoying; Skif couldn't take his usual shortcuts. On the other hand, so many 
people out here meant more opportunities to confuse a possible follower.
With that in mind, he stopped at another cookshop for more tea and a fruit pie. 
More crust than fruit, be it added, but he didn't usually indulge in anything so 
frivolous, and the treat improved his temper a bit more. Not so much that he 
forgot his anger -- and the burning need to find out who Jass' boss was -- but enough 
so that he was able to look as though nothing in his life had changed in the 
last few candlemarks.
He paid close attention to those who sat down to eat after him, but saw no one 
that had also been at the previous cook shop. That was a good sign, and he 
quickly finished his tea and took the shortest way home.
Jass wasn't back yet. Neither were his girls -- which meant that Jass probably 
wasn't going to set his fire tonight. Skif watered his beans and stripped for 
bed, lighting a stub of a candle long enough to actually count his takings.
His eyes nearly popped out of his head, and he counted it twice more before he 
believed it.
Gold. Five gold crowns, more than he'd ever had in his life! He'd thought the 
tiny coins were copperbits, not gold, and he'd paid for his meal and his treat 
with larger silver royals so as to get rid of two of the most conspicuous coins 
in his loot. He'd never dreamed the men could have been carrying gold.
Gold. Gold meant -- everything. With gold, he suddenly had the means to concentrate 
entirely on finding Bazie's murderer. He wouldn't have to work the entire 
summer. With gold, he had the means to offer the kind of bribe that would loosen 
even the most reluctant of tongues.
With gold -- he could follow up on the only real clue he had that wasn't connected 
to Jass.
"… my lord Orthallen gave you high recommendations…"
Gold could actually buy Skif a way into Orthallen's household -- you didn't just 
turn up at a Great Lord's doorstep and expect to be hired. You had to grease 
palms before you got a place where you could expect to have privileges, maybe 
even collect tips for exemplary service. Gold would purchase forged letters of 
commendation -- very rarely did anyone ever bother to check on those, especially if 
they were from a household inconveniently deep into the countryside. Those 
letters could get Skif into, say, a position as an undergroom, or a footman. A 
place where he'd be in contact with Lord Orthallen's guests, friends, and 
associates. Where he could hear their voices.
This one encounter changed everything…
Maybe.
It was one plan. There were others, that would allow Skif to hang onto the 
unexpected windfall. Jass wouldn't have been paid for the job entirely in 
advance -- he'd have to collect the rest, and maybe Skif could catch him at it. 
There were other places where Skif could go to listen for that familiar, smooth 
and pitiless voice.
But the idea of insinuating himself into a noble household was the kind of plan 
that the craggy-faced sell-sword would not be able to anticipate. If he knew 
anything at all about Skif, he'd know that in the normal course of things, pigs 
would fly before someone like Skif would get his hands on enough money to buy 
his way into Lord Orthallen's household.
So Skif carefully folded the five gold coins into a strip of linen and packed 
them with his larger silver coins in the money belt that never left his waist. 
Then he blew out his candle, laid himself down, and began his nightly vigil of 
listening for Jass and Jass' business.
Because while gold might add to his options, if Bazie had taught him anything at 
all, it was to never, ever abandon an option just because a new one opened up.
* * * * * * * * * *
But Jass didn't come back that night, nor the next day. Skif fell asleep waiting 
to hear his footsteps on the stairs, and woke the next morning to the 
unaccustomed sound of silence next door. He waited all day, wondering, with 
increasing urgency, what was keeping the man from his own rooms.
By nightfall, though, he knew why.
At dusk, a three-man team of the Watch came for Jass' two girls, escorting them 
off, rather than taking them off under guard, so it wasn't that they were 
arrested or under suspicion. Skif was at his window when they showed up, and he 
knew before they ever came in view that something was wrong, for the whole 
street went quiet. People whisked themselves indoors, or around corners, 
anything to get out of sight, and even the littles went silent and shrank back 
against their buildings, stopping dead in the middle of their games, and staring 
with round eyes at the three men in their blue-and-gray tunics and trews. The 
Watch never came to this part of town unless there was something wrong -- or 
someone was in a lot of trouble.
Skif ducked back out of sight as soon as they came into view, and when he heard 
the unmistakable sound of boots on the staircase, huddled against the wall next 
to the door so that no one peering underneath it would see his feet.
What're they here for? For me? Did that feller turn me in? Did summun  figger I 
lifted them purses? His mind raced, reckoning the odds of getting out via his 
emergency route through the window if they'd come for him, wondering if that 
sell-sword had somehow put the Watch onto him. And if he had --  why?
The footsteps stopped at his landing, and his heart was in his mouth -- his blood 
pounding in his ears -- every muscle tensed to spring for the window.
But it wasn't his door they knocked on -- and they knocked, politely, rather than 
pounding on it and demanding entrance. It was the girls' door, and when one of 
them timidly answered, an embarrassed voice asked if "Trana and Desi Farane" 
would be so kind as to come down to the Watch-station and answer a few 
questions.
Skif sagged down onto the floor, limp with relief. Whatever it was, it had 
nothing to do with him.
Now, everyone knew that if the Watch had anything on you, they didn't come and 
politely invite you to the Watch Station. When someone came with that particular 
request, it meant that you weren't in trouble, though someone else probably was. 
But if you were asked to come answer questions and you refused, well… you could 
pretty much reckon that from then on, you were marked. And anytime one of the 
Watch saw you, they'd be keeping a hard eye on you, and they'd be likely to 
arrest and fine you for the least little thing. So after a nervous-sounding, 
unintelligible twitter of a conversation among all four of the sisters, Trana 
and Desi emerged and five sets of footsteps went back down the staircase.
Now he had to see what was up! When Skif peeked out around the edge of the 
window, he saw that two of the Watch were carrying lit lanterns, making it very 
clear that the two girls weren't being manhandled, or even touched. And he could 
see that the two girls had taken long enough to lace their bodices tight, pull 
up their blouses, and drop their skirts where they were usually kirtled up to 
show their ankles. They were definitely putting on a show of respectability, 
which only made sense. That was the last he saw of them until just before dark.
They returned alone, but gabble in the street marked their arrival, waking Skif 
from a partial doze.
Their sisters must have been watching from the window; they flew down the stairs 
to meet them, and half the neighborhood converged on them. Skif took his time 
going downstairs, and by then the block was abuzz with the news that Jass had 
been found dead in a warehouse that afternoon, and the girls had been brought in 
to identify the body. There was no question but that he was the victim of foul 
play; he'd been neatly garroted, and his body hidden under an empty crate. He 
might not even have been found except that someone needed the crate and came to 
fetch it, uncovering this body.
Damn… Skif couldn't quite believe it, couldn't quite take it in. Dead? But -- 
By the time Skif drifted to the edge of the crowd to absorb the news, Trana and 
Desi were sobbing hysterically, though how much of their sorrow was genuine was 
anyone's guess. Skif had the shrewd notion that they were carrying on more for 
effect than out of real feeling. Their sisters, with just as much reason to be 
upset, looked more disgruntled at all of the attention that Trana and Desi were 
getting than anything else.
Skif huddled on the edge of the crowd, trying to overhear the details. There 
weren't many; he felt numb, as if he'd been hit by something but hadn't yet felt 
the blow. Before a quarter candlemark had passed, the landlord appeared.
He had tools and his dimwitted helper; he pushed past the crowd and ran up the 
stair. The sounds of hammering showed he was securing the door of Jass' room 
with a large padlock and hasp. An entire parade, led by the girls, followed him 
up there where he was standing, lantern in one hand, snapping the padlock 
closed. "There may be inquiries," he said officiously when Desi objected, 
claiming that she'd left personal belongings in Jass' rooms. "If the Watch or 
the Guard wants to inspect this place, I'll be in trouble if I let anyone take 
anything out."
There wouldn't be any inquiries, and they all knew it; this was just the 
landlord's way of securing anything of value in there for himself.
But if they knew what I knew -- Skif thought, as he closed and bolted his own door, 
and put his back to it.
He began to shake.
Of all the people who could have wanted Jass dead, the only one with the money 
to get the job done quietly was the smooth-voiced man in the cemetery. What had 
the sell-sword said? "You're in deeper waters than you can swim -- ," or something 
like that. Deep waters -- his knees went weak at how close he'd come last night to 
joining Jass under that crate. If he'd been caught down in that crypt -- 
Skif sat down on his bedroll and went cold all over. There was at least one 
person in Haven who knew that there was a connection between Skif and Jass. And 
that craggy-faced sell-sword just might come looking for him, to find out 
exactly what, and how much, Skif knew.
I got to get out of here. Now!
The thought galvanized him. It didn't take him long to bundle up his few 
belongings. More and r. ore people were showing up to hear the news directly 
from the girls, and the more people there were moving around, the better his 
odds were of getting away without anyone noticing. He watched for his chance, 
and when a group of their fellow lightskirts descended on Desi and Trana and 
carried them off to the nearest tavern, the better to "console" them, he used 
the swirl of girls and the clatter they generated to his advantage. He slipped 
out behind them, stayed with them as far as the tavern, and then got moving in 
the opposite direction as quickly as he could.
He didn't really have any ideas of where he was going, but at the moment, that 
was all to the good. If he didn't know where he was going, no one else would be 
able to predict it either.
The first place that anyone would look for him would be here, of course, but as 
Skif trudged down the street, looking as small and harmless as he could manage, 
he put his mind to work at figuring out a place where someone on his track was 
not likely to look. What was the most out of character for him?
Well -- a Temple. But I don' think I'm gonna go lookin' t' take vows --  was his 
automatic thought. But then, suddenly, that didn't seem so outlandish a notion. 
Not taking vows, of course -- but -- 
Abruptly, he altered his path. This was going to be a long walk, but he had the 
notion that in the end, it was going to be worth it.
* * * * * * * * * *
Skif made his eyes as big and scared as he could, and twisted his cap in his 
hands as he waited for someone to answer his knock at the Temple gate. This 
Temple was not the one where his cousin Beel was now a full priest; it wasn't 
even devoted to the same god, much less the same Order. This was the Temple and 
Priory of Thenoth, the Lord of the Beasts, and this Order took it on themselves 
to succor and care for injured, sick, and aged animals, from sparrows and 
pigeons to broken-down carthorses.
It existed on charity, and as such, was one of the poorest Temples in Haven. And 
one thing it could always use was willing hands. Not everyone who worked here in 
the service of Thenoth was a priest or a novice; plenty of ordinary people 
volunteered a few candlemarks in a week for the blessing of the God.
Now, what Skif was hoping was that he could hide here for the sake of his labor. 
He hoped he had a convincing enough story.
The door creaked open, and a long-nosed Priest in a patched and dusty brown robe 
looked down at him, lamp in one hand. "If you be seekin' charity, lad, this 
be'nt the place for ye," he said, wearily, but not unkindly. "Ye should try 
the -- ,"
"Not charity, sor," Skif said, putting on his best country accent. "I be a 
norphan, sor, mine nuncle turn me out of the far-um, and I come here t'city 
a-lookin' for horse-work, but I got no character. I be good with horses, sor, 
an' donkeys, an' belike, but no mun gi' me work withouten a character."
The Priest opened the door a little wider, and frowned thoughtfully. "A 
character, is't? Would ye bide in yon loft, tend the beasts, and eat with the 
Brethren for -- say -- six moon, an' we give ye a good letter?"
Skif bobbed his head eagerly. "Ye'd gi' me a good character, then? Summut I can 
take fer t'work fer stable?"
He's taken it! he thought with exultation.
"If ye've earned it." The priest opened the gate wide, and Skif stepped into the 
dusty courtyard. "Come try your paces. Enter freely, and walk in peace."
Skif felt his fear slide off him and vanish. No one would look for him here -- and 
even if they did, no one would dare the wrath of a God to try and take him out. 
So what if his story wasn't quite the truth?
I don' mind a bit'uv hard work. God can't take exception t'that.
The priest closed the gate behind them, and led Skif into and through the very 
simple Temple, out into another courtyard, and across to a stabling area.
As he followed in the priest's wake, Skif was struck forcibly by two things. The 
first was the incredible poverty of this place. The second was an aura of peace 
that descended on him the moment he crossed the threshold.
It was so powerful, it seemed to smother every bad feeling he had. Suddenly he 
wasn't afraid at all -- not of the sell-sword, not of the bastard that had arranged 
for Bazie's building to burn -- 
Somehow, he knew, he knew, that nothing bad could come inside these walls. 
Somehow, he knew that as long as he kept the peace here, he would not ever have 
to fear the outside world coming in to get him.
That should have frightened him… and it didn't.
But he didn't have any leisure to contemplate it either, once they entered the 
stable. Skif had ample cause now to be grateful for the time he'd spent living 
in that loft above the donkey stable where he'd gotten acquainted with beast 
tending --  because it was quite clear that the Order was badly short-handed. One 
poor old man was still tottering around by the light of several lamps, feeding 
and watering the motley assortment of hoof stock in this stable.
Skif didn't even hesitate for a moment; this, if ever, was the moment to prove 
his concocted story, and a real stableboy wouldn't have hesitated either. He 
dropped his bedroll and belongings just inside the stable door, and went 
straight for the buckets; reckoning that water was going to be harder for the 
old fellow to carry than grain or hay. And after all, he'd had more than his 
share of water carrying when he'd been living with Bazie…
The old man cast him a look of such gratitude that Skif almost felt ashamed of 
the ruse he was running on these people. Except that it wasn't exactly a ruse… 
he was going to do the work, he just wasn't planning on sticking around for the 
next six moons. And, of course, he was going to be doing some other things on 
the side that they would never know about.
As he watered each animal in its stall, he took a cursory look at them. For the 
most part, the only thing wrong with them was that they were old -- not a bad 
thing, since it meant that none of them possessed enough energy or initiative to 
try more than a halfhearted, weary nip at him, much less a kick.
Poor old things, he thought, venturing to pat one ancient donkey who nuzzled him 
with something like tentative affection as he filled its watering trough. And 
these were the lucky ones -- beasts whose owners felt they deserved an honorable 
retirement after years of endless labor. The unlucky ones became stew and meat 
pies in the cookshops and taverns that served Haven's poor.
"Bless ye, my son," said the old priest gratefully, as they passed one another. 
"We be perilous shorthanded for the hoof stock."
"Just in stable?" Skif asked, carefully keeping to his country accent.
The priest nodded, patting a dusty rump as he moved to fill another manger. 
"With the wee beasts, the hurt ones, there's Healer Trainees that coom t'help, 
an' there's folks that don't mind turnin' a hand with cleanin' and feedin'. But 
this -- ,"
Skif laughed softly. "Aye, granther, this be work, eh?"
The old priest laughed himself. " 'Struth. They say there's a pair of novices 
coming up, come winter, but till then -- ,"
" 'Till then, I'll be takin' the heavy work, granther," Skif heard himself 
promise.
When the last of the beasts were watered and fed, the old man showed him his 
place in the loft, and left him with a lantern, trudging back to the Chapter 
House. Like his last bed above a stable, this was in a gable end with a window 
supplied with storm shutters, piled high with hay, that looked out over the 
courtyard. He spread out his bedroll, stowed his few possessions in the rafters, 
blew out the lantern, and lay down to watch the moon rise over the roofs of 
Haven.
This's been -- about th' strangest day of m'life, he thought, hands tucked behind 
his head. What was just about the strangest part of it was that he had literally 
gone from a state of fearing for his very life, to -- this.
There was such an aura of peace and serenity within these walls! What might have 
seemed foolish trust under any other circumstances -- after all, he was just some 
stranger who'd shown up on their doorstep, and at night, yet -- was perfectly 
understandable now that Skif could see the poverty of the place himself. There 
literally was nothing to steal. If he didn't do the work he'd promised, he 
wouldn't be fed, and he'd be turned out. There was no reason for the Brethren 
not to trust him.
He should have been feeling very smug, and very clever. He'd found the perfect 
hiding place, and it was well within striking distance of the manors of the high 
and mighty.
Instead, all he could think was that, as workworn and weary as both the priests 
had seemed, there had also been something about them that made his cleverness 
seem not quite as clever as he'd thought it was. As if they had seen through his 
ruse, and didn't care. And that didn't make any sense at all.
I've got to think this through --  he told himself, fighting the soporific scent of 
cured hay, the drowsy breathing of the animals in their stalls beneath him, and 
the physical and emotional exhaustion of the last day and night.
It was a battle he was doomed to lose from the start. Before the moon rose more 
than a hand's breadth above the houses, he was as fast asleep as the animals 
below.
* * * * * * * * * *
Skif started awake, both hands clutching hay, as a mellow bell rang out directly 
above his head. For a moment he was utterly confused -- he couldn't remember where 
he was, much less why he'd been awakened by a bell in the pitch-dark.
Then it all came back, just as someone came across the courtyard bearing a lit 
lantern.
Hellfires! he thought, a little crossly, yet a little amused. I shoulda known 
this lot'd be up afore dawn! Mebbe I ain't been so smart after all!
"Heyla, laddie!" called the aged voice of last night from below. "Be ye awake?"
"Oh, aye, granther," Skif replied, stifling a groan. "I be a-coomin' down."
He brought last night's lantern down with him, and he and the old man made the 
morning rounds of the stable in an oddly companionable silence. The old man 
didn't ask his name -- and didn't seem to care that Skif didn't offer it. What he 
did do was give Skif the name and history of every old horse, donkey, mule, and 
goat in the stable, treating each of them like the old friend it probably was.
When they finished feeding and watering, the old man led Skif into the Chapter 
House, straight to a room where others of the Order had stripped to the waist 
and were washing up. Not wanting to sit down to breakfast smelling of horse and 
goat, Skif was perfectly willing to follow their example. From there they all 
went to breakfast, which was also eaten in silence -- oat porridge, bread, butter 
and milk. Skif was not the only person who wasn't wearing the robes of the 
Order, but the other two secular helpers were almost as old as the priest who 
tended the stable. There were younger priests, but they all had some sort of 
deformity or injury that hadn't healed right.
One and all, either through age or defect, they seemed to be outcasts, people 
for whom there was no comfortable niche in a family, nor a place in the society 
of other humans. Maybe that was why they came here, and devoted themselves to 
animals…
Yet they all seemed remarkably content, even happy.
After breakfast, it was back to the stable, where Skif mucked out the stalls 
while the old priest groomed his charges. Even the goats were brushed until 
their coats shone -- as much as the coat of an aged goat could. Then it was time 
for the noon meal, with more washing-up first, then the old man had him take the 
couple of horses that were still able to do a little work out to help carry a 
few loads about the compound. He and his charges hauled firewood to the kitchen, 
feed grains to bird coops, rubbish out to be sorted, muck to bins where muck 
collectors would come to buy it.
The place was larger than he'd thought. There were mews for aging or permanently 
injured hawks and falcons, a loft for similarly injured doves and pigeons, 
kennels for dogs, a cattery, a chicken yard that supplied the Order with eggs, a 
small dairy herd of goats, and a place for injured wildlife. It was here that 
Skif caught sight of a couple of youngsters not much older than he, wearing 
robes of a pale green, and he realized with a start that these must be the 
Healer Trainees he'd heard about. It was, quite literally, the first time he had 
ever seen a Healer of any rank or station, and he couldn't help but gawp at them 
like the country bumpkin he was pretending to be.
Then it was time for the evening meal -- all meals were very plain, with the noon 
and evening meal consisting of bread, eggs, cheese, and vegetables, with the 
addition of soup at the noon meal and fruit at the dinner meal. Then came the 
same feeding and watering chores he'd had last night, and with a start, he 
realized that the entire day had flowed past him like a tranquil stream, and he 
hadn't given a single thought to anything outside the four walls of the Order.
And realized with an even greater start that he didn't care, or at least, he 
hadn't up until that time.
And he felt a very different sort of fear, then. The place was changing him. And 
unless he started to fight it, there was a good chance that it wouldn't be long 
until no one recognized him. And possibly even more frightening, he had to 
wonder how long it would be before he wouldn't even recognize himself.
SKIF decided that no matter how tired he was, he was not going to put off the 
start of his vendetta any longer. And he wasn't going to let the deep peace of 
this place wash away his anger either.
When he finished watering the animals for the night and the old priest tottered 
back to the Chapter House, he blew out his lantern, but perched himself in the 
loft window to keep an eye on the rest of the Priory.
One by one, lights winked out across the courtyard. Skif set his jaw as a drowsy 
peace settled over the scene, and hovered heavily all around him. He knew what 
it was, now -- this was the Peace of the God, and it kept everyone who set foot 
here happy and contented.
Granted, that wasn't bad for those who lived here; there were no fights among 
the animals, and there was accord among those who cared for them. But this peace 
was a trap for Skif; it would be all too easy to be lulled by it until he forgot 
the need for revenge -- forgot what he was. He didn't want to forget what he was, 
and he didn't want to become what this place wanted him to be.
When the last light winked out, he waited a little longer, marking the time by 
how far above the horizon a single bright star rose. And when he figured that 
everyone would surely be asleep, he moved.
For someone like Skif, there was no challenge in getting over the walls, 
silently as any shadow. He knew where to go first, too. If he could not strike 
at his foe directly, he could at least strike at someone who was near to his 
real target. Serve the rich bastard right, for trusting someone who would murder 
innocent people just because they were in his way. Besides, all those rich 
bastards were alike. Even if this one hadn't actually murdered poor folks, he 
probably wouldn't care that his friend had.
And my Lord Rovenar was oh, so conveniently away on his family estate in the 
country.
Lord Rovenar's roof was fashionably paved in slate. It was with great glee that 
Skif proceeded to riddle the entire roof with cracks and gaps. The next time it 
rained, the roof would leak like a sieve.
There was also a cistern up here, a modern convenience that permitted my lord 
and his family to enjoy the benefits of running water throughout the mansion. 
Skif hastened the ruin of the upper reaches of the building by piercing the 
pipes leading downward, creating a slow leak that would empty the cistern 
directly into the attics, and from there into the rest of the house.
Besides rainwater, the cistern could be filled by pumping water up from the 
mansion's own well. But by the time Skif was finished, any water pumped up would 
only drain into the attics with the rest of it.
So much for vandalism on the exterior. Skif worked his way over to an attic 
window, which wasn't locked. After all, the servants never expected anyone to be 
up on the roof, and cer tainly wouldn't expect that anyone who did get up on the 
roof would dangle himself over the edge, push open the shutters with his feet, 
and let himself inside. His night had only just begun.
* * * * * * * * * *
When he let himself out again, this time from a cellar window, his pockets were 
full of small, valuable objects and the trail of ruin had continued, though most 
of it would take days and weeks before it was discovered. Skif had left food in 
beds to attract insects and mice, and had ensured that those pests would invade 
by laying further trails of diluted honey and crumbs all over the house around 
the baseboards where it was unlikely that the maids -- slacking work in the 
master's absence -- would notice. He left windows cracked open -- left shutters ajar. 
Insects would soon be in the rooms, and starlings and pigeons colonizing the 
attic. The skeleton staff that had been left here would not discover any of 
this, for his depredations took place in rooms that had been closed up, the 
furnishings swathed in sheets. My lord would return to a house in shambles, and 
it would take a great deal of money and effort to make it livable again.
He ghosted his way across the kitchen garden and over the wall, using a trellis 
as a ladder. But once on the other side, he laid a trail of a different sort -- all 
of those valuable trinkets he'd filled his pockets with. He scattered them in 
his wake, and trusted to greed to see to it that they never found their way back 
to their true owner again. He took nothing for himself, if for no other reason 
than that it would prevent anyone from connecting him with the trail of damage.
He slipped easily back over the Temple walls and got into his bed in the loft in 
plenty of time for a nap. When the bell sounded and woke him, if he wasn't fully 
rested, at least he didn't look so exhausted that anyone commented on it.
Although the meals he'd shared with the Brethren yesterday had been shared in 
silence, evidently there was no actual rule of silence, for the noon meal 
brought a flurry of gossip from the outside world.
"The Master Thief struck again last night," said one of the younger priests to 
the rest of the table. "The streets are full of talk."
"And he must be from somewhere outside Haven, so they say," added another with a 
shake of his head. "Singularly careless, he was; he left a trail of dropped 
objects behind him, I heard. I can vouch that there are so many people scouring 
the alleys for bits of treasure that some of the highborn have asked the Guard 
to drive them back to the slums."
"I hope," said the Prior, with great dignity, "that the Guard declined. The 
alleys are public thoroughfares; they do not belong to the highborn. Neither is 
the Guard answerable to those with noble titles who are discomfited by the poor 
outside their walls. There cannot be any justification for such a request."
"Since there are still treasure hunters looking in every nook and cranny, I 
suspect they did decline," the young priest said cheerfully. He seemed highly 
amused, and Skif wondered why.
The Prior shook his head sadly. "I know that you have little sympathy when rich 
men are despoiled of their goods, Brother Halcom."
"If the gods choose the hand of a thief to chastise those who are themselves 
thieves, I find it ironic, but appropriate, sir," Brother Halcom replied evenly. 
"This Master Thief has so far robbed two men who have greatly oppressed others. 
You know this to be true."
"Nevertheless, the thief himself commits a moral error and incurs harm to his 
soul with his actions," the Prior chided him gently. "You should spend less time 
gloating over the misfortune of the mighty and more in praying that this 
miscreant realizes his errors and repents."
Brother Halcom made a wry face, but the Prior didn't see it. Skif did, however, 
and he noted when the young priest rose from the table that his leg ended in a 
dreadful club foot. The priest had spoken in the accents of someone who was 
highly educated, and Skif had to wonder how much Brother Halcom knew personally 
about the two who had "officially" been robbed.
And whether he knew anything about the one that Skif had despoiled…
For one moment, he wondered if the young man had really meant what he said. He'd 
sounded sympathetic.
Fah. He'll have no time fer the likes of me, no doubt, he thought, hardening his 
heart. Well, look who's stuck muckin' out the stalls, an who's playin' with the 
broke-winged birds! Push comes t' shove, money an' rank stands together 'gainst 
the rest of us what always does the dirty work anyroad.
He finished his meal and went back out to clean kennels.
With the Master Thief out last night -- and everybody and his dog hunting for the 
goodies that Skif had let fall -- the last thing Skif was going to do was to go out 
again tonight. No, things would have to cool down a bit before he ran the 
rooftops again. It gave him a great deal of pleasure, though, to lie back in the 
sweet-smelling hay and contemplate last night's work. The only thing that 
spoiled his pleasure was the thought that this unknown Master Thief was going to 
get all of the credit for his work.
On the other hand, it would probably anger the Master Thief to be saddled with 
the eventual blame for all of the vandalizing Skif had done.
And at the moment, no one would be looking for a mere boy; they'd be trying to 
catch a man. This Master Thief was proving rather useful to Skif's campaign.
I s'pose I oughta be grateful to 'im, Skif thought, but he didn't feel grateful.
In fact, after a while, he realized that he wasn't as satisfied with last 
night's work as he thought he should be. It just wasn't enough, somehow. He was 
thrashing around at random, blindly trying to hit the one he truly wanted to 
hurt and hoping that somehow in the chaos he'd connect with a blow. And even 
then -- how did putting holes in someone's roof measure up to burning down a 
building and committing coldblooded murder in the process?
It didn't, and that was that. I want him, Skif thought angrily. I want the 
bastard what ordered it!
Nothing more -- but nothing less. And right now, he was settling for less.
Still, that Brother Halcom had a point, too. He'd seemed to think that the two 
highborn nobles that had been robbed had pretty much deserved it and probably 
Lord Rovenar had done a dirty deed or two in his life, and Skif had been nothing 
more than the instrument of payback. That wasn't a bad thought.
Brother Halcom knew the highborn…
Brother Halcom might know enough to give Skif a clue or two to the identity of 
the one highborn that Skif really wanted. So maybe Skif ought to see if he could 
get Brother Halcom to talk.
Finding someone to hurt that he knew deserved it might feel better than this 
random lashing out.
And maybe, just maybe, Brother Halcom would know who the smooth-voiced highborn 
was.
* * * * * * * * * *
Skif watched Brother Halcom from a distance for a full week before making a 
tentative approach. He learned two things in that time; Brother Halcom was from 
a highborn family, and he was here because he wanted to be. Not that his family 
hadn't tried to get their "deformed" offspring out of sight, but they'd chosen a 
much more comfortable -- and secluded -- Temple for him to enter. Halcom had stood up 
to them, and threatened to make a scene if he wasn't allowed his choice.
That gave Skif a bit more respect for the man, and Halcom's value rose again in 
his eyes when he realized that Halcom didn't shirk the dirty work after all. He 
just did the small things, rather than the large. He did his share of cleaning --  
usually cleaning up after the Healer Trainees when they'd finished treating a 
sick or injured animal. When there was a beast that needed to be tended all 
night, it was Halcom, like as not, who stood the vigil. And when an animal was 
dying, it was Halcom who stayed with it, comforting it as best he could.
Finally, Skif found a moment to make a cautious overture to the young priest. 
Halcom had hobbled out to the stable to assist, not a Healer Trainee, but a 
farrier who often donated his time and expertise, and Skif was also called on to 
help. The injury was a split and overgrown hoof on a lamed carthorse; Halcom was 
asked to hold the horse's head, since he, more than anyone else, was able to 
keep animals calm during treatment. And Skif was there to hold the hoof while 
the farrier trimmed it and fastened a special shoe to help the hoof heal.
When the farrier had left, and Skif had taken the horse back to its stall, 
Halcom seemed disinclined to leave. "You've been doing good work here, friend," 
Halcom said, looking around at the rest of the stable without getting up from 
the hay bale he was sitting on. "I'm glad you came here. Poor old Brother Absel 
just isn't up to the heavy work anymore."
"Thankee, sor," Skif said, keeping to his persona of country bumpkin, and 
bobbing his head subserviently. "Would ye might be a-givin' me a character, too? 
That be what'm here for."
"I could probably do better than that, if what you want is stable work," Halcom 
admitted, but with a raised eyebrow. "I've no doubt I could recommend you to 
several people for that. Is that what you want?"
"Oh, aye, sor," Skif replied, feigning eagerness.
"Balderdash," Halcom countered, startling Skif. "You're better than that. You 
don't really want to be a lowly stable hand for the rest of your life, do you?" 
His eyes gleamed with speculation. "You are much too intelligent for that. What 
are you aiming at? Master of Horse? Chief Coachman?"
"Ah -- ," Skif stammered, before he got his wits together. "But I've got no 
training, sor. Dunno much but burthen beasts, and never learnt to drive."
Halcom waved that aside as of no consequence. "Nor have most boys your age when 
they go into service. As small as you are, though -- learning to handle the reins 
could be problematic. I'm not sure you could control a team."
"I be stronger nor I look, sor," Skif said, stung.
Halcom laughed, but it didn't have that sly, mean sound to it that Skif had half 
expected. "Oh, you'd make a fine smart little footman, sitting up beside your 
master on a fashionable chariot, but I'll tell you the truth, lad, there is not 
a single highborn or man of means and fashion that I'd feel comfortable sending 
you to in that capacity. The good men have all the loyal footmen they need -- and 
the others -- ," he shook his head. "I won't send you to a bad master."
"Ye might tell me who they be, sor?" Skif offered tentatively. "If I didna know 
it, I might take a place I was offered -- "
"So you can avoid them?" Halcom nodded thoughtfully. "That's no bad idea. Clever 
of you to think of it." And he proceeded, with forthright candor, to outline the 
character of every man he thought Skif ought not to take service with. He was so 
candid that Skif was, frankly, shocked. Not at the litany of faults and even 
vices -- his upbringing in the worst part of Haven had exposed him to far worse 
than Halcom revealed. No, it was that Halcom was not at all reticent about 
unrolling the listing of faults of his "own kind."
As Halcom spoke, Skif found himself at war within himself. He wanted to trust 
Halcom, and he had sworn never to trust anyone. More than that, he wanted to 
like Halcom. It seemed to him that Halcom could easily become a friend.
And he did not want any more friends.
"That leaves plenty of good masters to take service with, mind," Halcom pointed 
out when he was finished, and smiled. "And for all my differences with my own 
family, I can quite cheerfully recommend you to take service with them. They're 
quite good to those who serve them well."
Huh. It's only their own flesh'n'blood that they muck about with, eh? Skif 
thought. Guess you'n'me have more in common than I thought.
"It was your own uncle that turned you out, wasn't it?" Halcom said suddenly, 
startling Skif again with his knowledge of Skif's "background." Halcom laughed 
at his expression, wryly. "I suppose we have more in common than either of us 
would have suspected."
" 'Twas your nuncle sent ye off?" Skif ventured.
Halcom nodded, and his face shadowed. "My existence was an embarrassment," he 
admitted sourly. "My uncle feared that my presence in his household would cast a 
shadow over some pending betrothal arrangements he was negotiating. My 
father -- his younger brother -- has no backbone to speak of, and agreed that I ought 
to be persuaded to a vocation."
"What?" Skif asked indignantly. "They figger you'd scare the bride?"
"My uncle suggested that the prospective bride's father might rethink his offer 
if he thought that deformity ran in my family," Halcom said bluntly, his mouth 
twisting in a frown. "Since my parents are dependent on his generosity for a 
place, I suppose I can't blame them…" He sighed deeply, and his expression 
lightened. "In the end, really, I'm rather glad it happened. I had very little 
to do with myself, I'm really not much of a scholar, and --  well, needless to say, 
I'm not cut out for Court life either. I've always loved animals, and neither 
they, nor my fellow Brothers, care about this wretched leg of mine. And I did 
manage to shame my uncle into making a generous donation when he dumped me 
here."
Skif nodded his head, concealing as best he could that he was racked by an 
internal struggle. He really, truly wanted to be Halcom's friend. And he really, 
truly, did not want to make another friend that he knew he would only lose.
I ain't stayin' here forever, he told himself sternly. He wouldn' be so nice if 
he knew what I was. Hellfires, he'd turn me straight over to th' Watch if he 
knew what I was!
But he could almost hear the place whispering to him. It wanted him to stay. He 
could have a friend again. No one here would care what he had been, only what he 
was now, and what he might become. Oh, he'd never be rich -- but he'd never starve 
either.
He steeled himself against the seductive whispers of peace. Him? Bide in a place 
like this? Not when he had a debt to repay! Not when there was someone out there 
that was so ruthless he would do anything to anyone who stood in his way!
Besides, this place would put him to sleep in a season. He'd turn into a sheep 
inside of a year. And if there was one thing that Skif had no desire to become, 
it was a sheep.
"Well, I imagine you've heard more than enough to send you to sleep about me," 
Halcom said, hauling himself to his feet again. "And I still have my charges to 
attend to. I won't keep you from your own duties any more, lad -- but do remember 
what I've told you, and that if you want a second letter of commendation to go 
with the Prior's when you leave, I will be happy to write one for you."
That last, said as Halcom turned to go, had the sound of a formal dismissal, 
superior to inferior.
There, you see? he taunted that seductive whisper. I ain't a friend to the likes 
of a highborn, even if his people did cast 'im off. A mouse might's well ask a 
hawk t'be his friend. Hawk even say yes -- till he got hungry.
* * * * * * * * * *
Another week passed, and the city was struck with a heat wave that was so 
oppressive people and animals actually began dying.
The Queen closed the Court and sent everyone but her Privy Council out of the 
city. But there was nowhere for the poor and the working classes to go, and even 
if there had been, how could ordinary people just pack up and leave? How would 
they make a living, pay their bills, feed their children? Life in Haven went on 
as best it could. As many folk as could changed their hours, rising before dawn, 
working until the heat grew intolerable, enduring as best they could until late 
afternoon, then taking up their tasks again in the evening. The Prior knew a 
clever trick or two, though, and the Brethren began going through the poorer 
neighborhoods, teaching people what the Prior had taught them -- for although it 
was the Lord of the Beasts that the Brethren served, nevertheless, Man was 
brother to the Beasts.
Water-soaked pads of straw in windows somehow cooled the air that blew through 
them, so long as there was a breeze. And if there wasn't, the cheapest, more 
porous terra-cotta jars filled with water and placed about a room also helped to 
cool the air as the water evaporated from them. Stretching a piece of heavy 
paper over a frame, then fastening that frame by one side to the ceiling and 
attaching a cord to a corner created a huge fan that would create a breeze when 
the winds themselves didn't oblige; there were always children to pull the cord, 
and they didn't mind doing so when the breeze cooled them as well. And the same 
cheap terra cotta that was used for those jars could be made into tiles to be 
soaked with water and laid on the floor -- also cooling a room or the overheated 
person who lay down on them. It helped; all of it helped.
People were encouraged to sleep on flat rooftops or in their gardens or even in 
parks by night, and in cellars by day.
But there was always someone greedy enough to want to make a profit from the 
misfortune of others. Suddenly the dank and dark basement rooms that had been 
the cheapest to rent became the most expensive. Not all landlords raised the 
rents on their cellars, but many did, and if it hadn't been so stiflingly hot, 
there might have been altercations over it.
But it was just too hot. No one could seem to get the energy even to protest.
Skif was terribly frustrated; it was nearly impossible to move around the city 
by night without being seen! And yet, with all of the wealthy and highborn gone, 
it should have been child's play to continue his vendetta! Why, the huge manors 
and mansions were so deserted that the Master Thief must have been looting them 
with impunity, knowing that no one would discover his depredations until the 
heat wave broke and people returned to Haven.
Hellfires, Skif thought grumblingly, as he returned from an errand to the 
market, through streets that the noon heat had left deserted. It'd be easier to 
make a run by day than by -- 
Then it hit him. Of course! Why not make his raids by day? He was supposed to be 
resting, like everyone and everything, during the heat of the day. No one would 
miss him at the Priory, and there would be no one around to see him in the 
deserted mansions, not with the skeleton staffs spending their time in the cool 
of the wine cellars, most of them asleep if they had any sense!
That's pro'lly what the Master Thief's doing! he thought with glee. He was 
delighted to have thought of it, and enjoyed a moment of mental preening over 
his own cleverness.
Well, he certainly would not be wearing his black "sneak suit" for these jobs. 
His best bet was to look perfectly ordinary. The fact was, he probably wouldn't 
even need to get in via the rooftops; the doors and windows would all be 
unlocked. After all, who would ever expect a thief to walk in the kitchen door 
in broad daylight?
He brought the bag of flour and the basket of other sundries he'd been sent for 
to the kitchen and left it on the table.
The Brother who acted as cook had changed the routine because of the heat. A 
great many things were being served cold; boiled eggs, cheese, vegetables and so 
forth. Actual cooking was done at night and in ovens and on brick stoves erected 
in the kitchen courtyard. The biggest meal of the day was now breakfast; the 
noon meal was no longer a meal, but consisted of whatever anyone was able to eat 
(given the heat, which killed appetites), picked up as one got hungry, in the 
kitchen. Big bowls of cleaned, sliced vegetables submerged in water lined the 
counters, loaves of bread resided under cheesecloth, boiled eggs in a smaller 
bowl beside them. There was butter and cheese in the cold larder if anyone 
wanted it, which hardly anyone did.
Skif helped himself to carrot strips and celery and a piece of bread; he ate the 
bread plain, because he couldn't bear the thought of butter either. The place 
might just as well have been deserted; the only sign that there had been anyone 
in the kitchen was the lumps of bread dough left to rise under cloths along 
their shelf.
Skif wasn't all that hungry either, but he ate and drank deeply of the cooled 
water from yet another terra-cotta jar. Then he went straight back out, as if he 
had been sent on a second errand. Not that there was anyone about to notice.
He sauntered along the streets, watching the heat haze hovering above the 
pavement, keeping to the shade, and noting that there still were a few folk out. 
They paid no attention to him, and he gave them no more than a cursory glance.
There was not so much as a hint of the Watch. No surprise there; what was there 
for them to do? There would be no fights, and it was too hot for petty theft, 
even if there was anything open at noon to steal from.
Where to hit? That was the question. He had no clear target in mind, and he 
wasn't as familiar with who belonged to which great mansion as he would have 
liked. Finally he decided, for lack of any other ideas, to bestow his attentions 
on one Thomlan Vel Cerican, a charming fellow who had amassed a great deal of 
wealth by squeezing his poor tenants and giving them as little in the way of 
decent housing as he could get away with. He was one of the landlords who had 
responded to the current heat wave by evicting tenants from the newly-desirable 
basement rooms and charging a premium rate for them -- sending the evicted to live 
in the attics.
It seemed as good a reason as any to wreak as much havoc as humanly possible on 
him. If he hadn't burned his own buildings to avoid having to make repairs, it 
was only because he had balked at actually destroying anything he owned.
So Skif's steps took him in the direction of the great homes of those who 
aspired to be counted among the highborn, not those who had actually gotten to 
that position.
There was still no sign of Watch, Guards, or anyone else. He strolled along the 
street, not the alley, and nothing met his interested gaze but shuttered and 
curtained windows behind the gates. These houses, while imposing, did not boast 
the grounds and gardens of those of the true nobility. Land was at a premium 
within the second set of city walls.
There were three sets of walls, in fact -- four, if you counted the ones 
surrounding the Palace and the three Collegia. Each time that the city of Haven 
had outgrown its walls, a new set had been built. When that happened, land 
within the previous walls became highly desirable. Now, between the first set 
and the Palace walls, only the highborn, those with old titles, had their 
mansions (and indeed, manors), which had enormous gardens and landscaped 
grounds. Between the second and first, those who had newer titles, most less 
than a generation old, and the wealthy but not ennobled kept their state. Lesser 
dwellings had been bought up and razed to make way for these newer mansions. 
There were gardens, but they were a fraction of the size of those of the Great 
Lords of State. But there were parks here, places where one could ride or stroll 
and be observed. Between the third walls and the second lived most of the rest 
of the city, although the populace had already begun to spill outside the walls, 
and many of those whose wealth was very recent had taken to building mansions 
that aped those of the Great Lords of State, but outside the walls altogether, 
where land was cheaper.
Eventually, Skif supposed, another set of walls would be built, and then it 
would be his neighborhood that would be razed to make way for the mansions of 
the wealthy.
Skif passed one of the parks, and decided to take a rest near a lily-covered 
pond. It was deserted, the air shimmering with heat above the scorched lawns 
between the trees. His target was on the other side of this park, and it 
occurred to him that it wouldn't be a bad idea to observe it from the comfort of 
the park while he cooled off a little.
Even though he had sauntered along in slothful fashion, he was still sweating. 
He pulled his linen shirt away from his body and threw himself down in the shade 
of a huge oak tree beside the pond. The ground was marginally cooler than the 
air or his body, but there were no signs that anyone was actually sleeping here 
at night, despite the suggestions of the authorities.
Skif wasn't surprised. The Watch probably was discouraging the poor from moving 
into the parks in this section of the city, even though there were more of them 
here than between the second and third walls. The Watch was answerable directly 
to the wealthy folk living here -- as opposed to the Guard, which was answerable to 
the Crown. Even though they were not here to witness the poor camping out of a 
night in "their" park, not one of the moneyed lot who lived around here even 
wanted to consider the prospect. The local Watch probably had orders to clear 
out campers as fast as they arrived.
Skif turned his head to peer between bushes nearby, thinking he heard something. 
Some zealous Watchman, perhaps? If so, he'd better be prepared with a story 
about why he was here.
He had heard something, but it wasn't a member of the Watch.
There was a horse wandering loose around the park, taking nibbles out of the 
grass, sampling the flowers. It was a handsome creature, white as snow, and 
still wore a saddle and bridle. Reins dangled from the bridle -- no, it was a 
bitless hackamore, he saw. No one would leave reins dangling like that -- your 
horse could all too easily catch a leg in them, stumble, fall and perhaps break 
a leg.
But if you didn't tie the reins off properly when you left a horse waiting, the 
horse could jerk them loose and wander off, leaving them dangling just like 
these were.
For one wild moment, Skif thought -- Is that a Companion?
But no -- if it had been a Companion, there would certainly be a Herald somewhere 
about. And besides, the saddle and hackamore were old, very plain, well-worn. 
Everyone knew that Companions went about in elaborate blue-and-silver tack, with 
silver bridle bells and embroidered barding. There were plenty of white horses 
around that weren't Companions. It was something of an affectation in some 
fashionable sets to ride white horses, or have a carriage drawn by matched teams 
of them.
No, some idiot hadn't tied his horse properly. Or, far more likely given the 
worn state of the tack, some groom had taken his master's mare out for some 
exercise and had combined the chore with some errand of his own. He hadn't tied 
the horse up, and she'd pulled her reins loose and wandered away. That groom 
would be in a lot of trouble -- but since there wasn't anyone combing the park 
looking for this beast, evidently he hadn't missed her yet.
Well, his loss was Skif's gain.
Working at the Priory had given him a lot more familiarity with horses than he'd 
had before. He'd even learned to ride. And faced with this opportunity for 
profit on four legs, he grinned broadly.
You're mine! he told the grazing mare. Lessee; horse fair's runnin' over on the 
east side. Or I kin take her out of the walls altogether an' sell her. Or I kin 
take her t'Priory an' collect th' reward when she shows up missin'….
The last option wasn't a bad notion, though the first was the real money maker.
The horse moved around the bushes and out of his sight; knowing that she was 
probably some high-strung well-bred beast, he got up slowly and began to stalk 
her. If he, a stranger, was going to catch her rather than spooking her, he'd 
have to catch her by surprise.
When she actually moved between two thick, untrimmed hedges, he could hardly 
believe his good luck. She couldn't have gotten into a better situation for him 
to corner her!
Knowing that a horse is averse to backing up, he ran around to the front of the 
hedges, and struck.
Making a dash out of cover, he grabbed for the reins and the saddle in the same 
movement, hauling himself into the saddle before she had time to do more than 
snort. And somehow, before he realized it, he was in the saddle and in control!
For just about a heartbeat.
Because in the next moment, the horse tossed her head, jerking the reins out of 
his hand, and set off at a gallop, and all he could do was cling desperately to 
the pommel of the saddle.
ALL Skif could do was hold on, with every aching finger, with knees and thighs, 
wrists and ankles. If he could have held on with his teeth, he would have. If he 
could have tied his hair to the saddle, he would have.
He'd lost the stirrups almost at once, shortly after he lost the reins. That 
didn't give him a lot of options; either cling on like a burr, or try to jump 
off. But the mare was going so fast, he knew if he jumped, he'd get hurt.
Badly, badly hurt -- 
And that was if he was lucky. He'd seen someone who'd been thrown from a 
galloping horse, once. The poor fool had his back broken. Healers could fix 
that, he'd been told, if the Healer got to you quickly enough, if you were 
important enough to see a Healer. He'd seen countless people thrown from runaway 
wagons, and they always ended up with broken arms and legs. That was bad enough.
She was at the gallop, head down, charging along as if she'd gone mad, pounding 
down the paved streets, the occasional bystander gawking at them as they tore 
past. No one tried to stop the runaway horse, and all that Skif could do was 
hang on tight and trust to the fact that as hot as it was, she'd tire soon. 
She'd have to tire soon. She was only a horse, just a fancy horse, she couldn't 
run forever -- 
He closed his eyes and crouched over the saddle, gripping her with his thighs 
and holding onto the pommel of the saddle with all his might. Her mane whipped 
at his face, it was like being beaten with a fly whisk, and he gasped with every 
driving blow of her hooves that drove the pommel into his gut. She'd be slowing 
any moment now.
Any moment now…
Oh, please -- 
He cracked his eye open, and closed it again.
She wasn't slowing. If anything, she was running faster. People, shops, pavement 
blurred past so fast he was getting sick. His eyes watered as some of her mane 
lashed across them.
How was that possible?
Hellftres! I stole a racehorse! Of all the stupid, idiot things to have done -- 
He opened his eyes again, just in time to see a wagon pull across the street in 
front of them and stop.
She's got to stop now -- 
She raised her head a little, and her ears cocked forward.
She's not gonna stop!
The driver stared at them, then abruptly dove off the seat. The mare increased 
her pace; he felt her muscles bunch up under his legs.
She's gonna jump it!
She shoved off, her forequarters rising; he clawed desperately at the saddle as 
his weight shifted backward. He screamed in terror, knowing he was going to 
fall, then the wagonbed was underneath him -- 
She landed; he was flung forward, his nose and right eye slamming into her neck. 
He saw stars, and his head exploded with pain. Somehow, some way, he managed to 
hang on. The thought of falling off terrified him more than staying on.
She didn't even break stride as she continued her run and careened around a 
corner; sweat flew off her, and she didn't even seem to notice. She was off 
around another corner, pounding through a half-empty market, then toward the 
last of the city walls.
No -- 
But she wasn't listening to what he wanted.
She plunged into the tunnel beneath the walls, and for a moment her hooves 
echoed in the darkness, sounding like an entire herd of horses was in here with 
him.
There were Guards on the wall! Surely, surely they would stop her --  Then she was 
out, with no sign of a Guardsman.
Skif dared another glance, out of the eye that wasn't swelling. Through his 
tears all he could see was a road stretching ahead of them, the road leading 
away from Haven. He couldn't even tell which road; all he knew for certain was 
that they were flying down a roadway, and people were scattering out of their 
way, shouting curses after them.
The mare wove her way in and out of the traffic with the agility of a dancer. He 
actually felt the touch on his ankle as they brushed by other riders, the 
whiplike cut of a horse's tail as it shied out of the way. And somehow, she was 
getting faster.
He knew if he tried to throw himself off now, he'd die. It was just that simple. 
No one, not even an experienced rider, could slip off a horse at speeds like 
this and live. He wouldn't just break bones, he'd break his neck or his skull 
and die instantly. All he could do was what he had been doing; hang on, try not 
to get thrown, and hope that when she stopped, he'd be able to get off of her 
without her killing him.
He gritted his teeth together, hissing with the pain of his eye and nose, so 
full of fear there was no room in his head for anything else.
The sounds of shouting and cursing were gone. He dared another glance. There 
were no more buildings beside the road now, nothing but fields with tiny 
farmhouses off in the distance. The road still had plenty of traffic, though, 
and the mare wove her way in and out of it with a nonchalance that made the hair 
on the back of his head stand up. People weren't shouting and cursing at them 
because they were too busy trying to get out of the way.
He had never been so terrified in his entire life.
He squeezed his eyes tight shut again, and for the first time in his life, began 
to pray.
* * * * * * * * * *
Skif was limp with exhaustion, dripping with sweat and aching so much that he 
wasn't sure he even cared what happened to him now.
He also had no idea where he was. The mare had gotten off the main road and was 
still running, though not at the headlong pace she'd held through the city. This 
was a normal gallop -- if anything this mare did was normal!
This was a country road, rutted dirt, with trees on both sides that met over his 
head, forming a tunnel of green. If his eye and nose hadn't hurt so much -- and if 
he hadn't been so terrified -- he'd never been anywhere like this before in his 
life.
He had no idea how far they were from Haven. A long way, that was about all he 
could tell. So in addition to the rest of it, he was hopelessly lost, and 
completely outside familiar territory.
And the sun was setting.
He wanted to cry.
He did cry; tears leaking silently out from the corners of his eyes. His nose 
felt as if it was the size of a cabbage, and it throbbed.
The mare suddenly changed direction again, darting into a mere break in the 
trees, down a path so seldom used that there weren't even any cart tracks in it. 
She slowed again, to a trot.
Now he could hear what was going on around him; birds, the wind in the trees, 
the dull thud of the mare's hooves on the turf. So this was what people meant by 
"peaceful countryside"? Well, they could have it. He'd have given an arm for his 
loft room right now.
He could probably have gotten off her back at this point --  but for what? He 
didn't even know where he was! Here they were in the middle of a complete 
wilderness, with no shelter, nothing to eat, and no people, so where would he 
go? Somehow he had to convince this devil beast to get him back home -- 
Now she slowed to a walk, and all he could do was slump over her neck, as the 
light coming through the trees took on an amber cast. She was sweating, but no 
more than one of the horses he was familiar would have been after a moderately 
hard job. She should have been foaming with sweat. Foaming? She should be 
collapsed on the ground by now!
Head bobbing with each step, she ambled down the path, and then, with no more 
warning than when she'd started this run, she stopped.
Skif looked up through eyes blurring with exhaustion and tears of frustration 
and fear.
Now what?
They stood in a tiny clearing, in front of the smallest building he had ever 
seen. They were completely surrounded by trees, and the only other object in the 
clearing was a pump I next to the building with a big stone trough beneath it. 
He couldn't hear anything but birds and the wind. If there were any humans 
anywhere around, there was no sign of them. For I the first time in his life, 
Skif was completely alone.
He'd have given anything to see a single human being. Even a Watchman. If the 
Watch had showed up, he'd have flung himself into their arms and begged them to 
take him to gaol.
Every muscle, every bone, every inch of Skif's body was in pain. His nose and 
eye hurt worst, but everything hurt. He sat in the saddle, blinking, his bad eye 
watering, and choked back a sob. Then he slowly pried his fingers, one at a 
time, away from the pommel of the saddle.
He looked down at the ground, which seemed furlongs away, and realized that he 
couldn't dismount.
It wasn't that he didn't want to, it was that he couldn't. He couldn't make his 
cramped legs move. And even if he could, he was afraid to fall.
Then the mare solved his problem by abruptly shying sideways.
He didn't so much slide off the saddle as it was that the horse and her saddle 
slid out from underneath him. He made a grab for the pommel again, but it was 
too late.
He tumbled to the ground and just barely managed to catch himself so that he 
landed on his rump instead of his face, in a huge pile of drifted leaves.
It hurt. Not as badly as, say, hitting hard pavement would have, but it still 
hurt.
And it knocked what was left of his breath out of him for a moment and made him 
see stars again.
When his eyes cleared, he looked around. He sat in the middle of the pile of 
old, damp leaves, dazed and bewildered at finding himself on the ground again. 
"Ow," he said, after a moment of consideration.
The mare turned, stepping lightly and carefully, and shoved him with her nose in 
the middle of his chest.
He shoved back, finally roused to some sensation other than confusion. "You get 
away from me, you!" he said angrily. " 'f it wasn't for you, I -- "
She shoved at him again, and without meaning to, he looked straight into her 
eyes. They were blue, and deep as the sky, and he fell into them.
:Hello, Skif,: he heard, from somewhere far, far away. :My name is Cymry, and I 
Choose you.:
And he dropped into a place where he would never be alone or friendless again.
* * * * * * * * * *
When he came back to himself, the first thing he did was stagger to his feet and 
back away from the Companion. Never mind the wonderful dream he'd been in -- it was 
a dream. It couldn't be real. Something was terribly wrong.
His Companion Cymry looked at him and he felt her amusement.
His Companion. And that was just not possible.
"Are you outa your mind?" he croaked, staring at her.
:No,: she said, and shook her head. : I Choose you. You're a Herald -- well, you 
will be after you go through the Collegium and get your Whites. Right now, 
you're just a Trainee.:
"Like hell!" he retorted feelingly. "You are crazy! Or -- I am -- " It occurred to him 
then that all this might just be some horrible dream. Maybe when he'd jumped 
onto the horse, it had thrown him, and he was lying on his back in that park, 
knocked out cold and hallucinating. Maybe he hadn't even seen the horse, the 
heat had knocked him over and he was raving. None of this was happening -- that 
must be it -- 
:Don't be stupid,: Cymry replied, shoving at him with her nose. :Be sensible! Do 
you ever have black eyes and a broken nose in a dream? It's not a dream, you're 
not unconscious, and are Chosen. And you're going to be a Herald.:
"I don't bloody well think so!" he said, trying to back further away from her 
and coming up against the wall of the little building. "If you think I am, 
you're crazy. Don' you know what I am?"
How could this be happening? He didn't want to be a Herald! Oh, even Bazie had 
spoken about them with admiration, but no Heralds were ever plucked out of a 
gutter, not even in a tale!
:Of course I do,: she replied calmly. :You're a thief. A rather good one for 
your age, too -- :
"Well, then I can't be a Herald, can I?" He groped for words to try and convince 
her how mad, how impossible this was. Even though, deep inside, something cried 
out that he didn't want it to be impossible. "Heralds are -- well, they're all 
noble an' highborn -- "
She snorted with amusement at his ignorance. :No they aren't. Not more than a 
quarter of them at most, anyway. Heralds are just ordinary people; farmers, 
craftsmen, fisherfolk --  ordinary people.:
"Well, they're heroes -- ,"
:And none of them started out that way,: she countered. :Most of them started 
out as ordinary younglings, being Chosen by a Companion. There wasn't anything 
special about them until then -- not visibly, anyway.:
"They're good!"
She considered that for a moment, head to one side. :That rather depends on your 
definition of "good," actually. Granted, they are supposed to uphold the law,: 
she continued thoughtfully, :But in the course of their duties, plenty of them 
break the law as much as they uphold it, if you want to be technical about it.:
"But -- but -- ," he spluttered, as the last light pierced through the tree trunks and 
turned everything a rosy red, including Cymry. "But -- Heralds are -- they do -- "
:Heralds are what they have to be. They do what the Queen and the country need,: 
Cymry said, supremely calm and confident. :We Choose those who are best suited 
to do those things and supply those needs. And what makes you think that the 
Queen and country might not need the skills of a thief?:
Well, there was just no possible answer to that, and even though his mouth 
opened and closed several times, he couldn't make any sounds come out of it.
She paced close to him, and once again he was caught --  though not nearly so 
deeply -- in those sparkling sapphire eyes. :Now look -- I'm tired and hungry and 
sweaty. So are you.:
"But -- " They were in the middle of nowhere! Where was he -- ? How was he -- ?
:This is a Way Station, and as a Herald Trainee -- don't argue! -- you're entitled to 
anything in it.: She whickered softly. :1promise, there's food and bedding and 
just about anything you might need in there. There's also a bucket of water 
inside to prime the pump with. I suggest that before it gets too horribly dark, 
you pump up some water, clean both of us up, and get us both some of the food 
that's waiting. You are hungry, aren't you? You can eat and rest here for the 
night, and we can talk about all of this.:
She cocked both of her ears at him, and added, :And while you're at it, it 
wouldn't hurt to make a poultice for that black eye you're getting. It's 
becoming rather spectacular.:
* * * * * * * * * *
Herald Alberich, Weaponsmaster to Heralds' Collegium and sometime intelligence 
agent for Queen Selenay, put down the brush he'd been using on Kantor's mane and 
stared at his Companion in complete and utter shock.
Companions didn't lie -- but what Kantor had just told him was impossible.
"You must be joking!" he said aloud, in his native tongue.
Kantor turned his head to look at his Chosen. :As you well know,:  he said, with 
mock solemnity, :I have no sense of humor.:
"In a pig's eye," Alberich muttered, thinking of all of the tricks his Companion 
had authored over the years -- including the one of smuggling himself past the 
Karsite Border to Choose and abduct one Captain Alberich of the Karsite Army.
:But I assure you, I am not joking. Cymry has managed to Choose that young scamp 
you've caught eavesdropping on you over the past couple of months. He is a 
thief, and she'll probably be delivering him to the Collegium some time 
tomorrow. So I suggest you prepare your fellow Heralds. He promises to make 
things interesting around here.: Kantor arched his neck. :But before you do 
that, you might take that brush along my crest; it still itches.:
"What in the name of Vkandis Sunlord are we supposed to do with a thief?" 
Alberich demanded, not obliging Kantor with the brush.
:What you always do with the newly Chosen. You'll train him, of course.: Kantor 
turned his head again and regarded his Chosen with a very blue eye. :Hasn't it 
occurred to you that a skilled thief would be extremely useful in the current 
situation that you and the Queen have found yourselves in? Scratch a thief, 
you'll find a spy. Set a thief to take a thief, and you have been losing state 
secrets.:
"Well -- "
:Of course it has. All you have to do is appeal to the lad's better instincts 
and bring them to the fore. I assure you, he has plenty of better instincts. 
After all, he's been Chosen, and we don't make mistakes about the characters of 
those we Choose. Do we?: Kantor didn't have any eyebrows to arch, but the 
sidelong look he bestowed on Alberich was certainly very similar.
"Well -- "
:So there you are. About that brush in your hand -- :
Belatedly, Alberich brought the brush up and began vigorously using it along 
Kantor's crest. The Companion sighed in blissful pleasure, and closed his eyes.
And Alberich began to consider just how he was going to break the news about 
this newest trainee to Dean Elcarth and the rest.
Assuming, of course, they weren't already having similar conversations with 
their Companions.
* * * * * * * * * *
It was a good thing that Bazie had taught him how to cook. Yes, there was food 
here, but it wasn't the sort of thing the ordinary city-bred boy would have 
recognized as such.
:I'd have told you what to do,: Cymry said, her head sticking in the door, 
watching him, as he baked currant-filled oatcakes on a stone on the hearth. He'd 
also put together a nice bean soup from the dried beans and spices he'd found, 
but he didn't think it would be done any time soon, and he was hungry now. :I 
wouldn't let you starve. I'm perfectly capable of telling you how to use just 
about anything in this Way Station.:
"Somehow I ain't s'prised," he replied, turning the cakes deftly once one side 
was brown. "Is there anything ye can't do?"
:I'm a bit handicapped by the lack of hands,: she admitted cheerfully.
She -- and he -- were both much cleaner at this point. Beside the pump, there had been 
a generous trough, easily filled and easily emptied. After she'd drunk her fill, 
and he had washed and brushed her down as she asked, he'd had a bath in it. Then 
he emptied it out and refilled it for her drinking. The cold bath had felt 
wonderful; it was the first time in a week that he'd been able to cool down. 
He'd also washed up his clothing; it was hanging on a bush just outside. It was 
a lot more comfortable to sit around in his singlet, since there wasn't anyone 
but Cymry to see him anyway.
She'd told him which herbs to make into a poultice that did a lot to ease the 
ache of his eye and nose, and more to make into a tea that did something about 
his throbbing head. She already knew, evidently, that he could cook, and had 
left him alone while he readied his dinner over the tiny hearth in the Way 
Station. Now he couldn't imagine why he hadn't figured out she was a Companion 
immediately.
Unless it was just that the idea of a Companion wandering around in an old worn 
set of tack was so preposterous, and the idea of a Companion deciding to make a 
Herald out of a thief was still more so.
:I told them to tack me up in the oldest kit in the stables that would fit me,: 
she offered, as he scooped the oatcakes off their stone and juggled one from 
hand to hand, waiting for it to cool enough to eat. He gave her a curious stare.
"Ye -- ye kidnapped me!" he accused.
:Well, would you have come with me if I'd walked up to you and Chosen you?: she 
asked, her head cocked to one side. :I am sorry about your nose, but that was an 
accident.:
"But -- "
:I've known for several weeks that you were my Chosen,: she said, as if it was 
so matter-of-fact that he shouldn't even be considering any other possibility. 
:I've just been waiting for the opportunity to get you alone where I could 
explain things to you.:
"But -- "
:You've already lost this argument, you know,: she pointed out. :Three times, 
infact.:
He gave up. Besides, the cake was cool enough to eat. And he was hungry enough 
by this point to eat the oats raw, much less in the cakes he'd just made.
He put a second poultice on his eye and nose and lay back in the boxbed that 
filled most of the Way Station. It had a thick layer of fresh hay in it, covered 
over with a coarse canvas sheet; it was just as comfortable as his bed in the 
Priory, and although he wasn't sleepy yet, he didn't really want to venture out 
into the alien environment outside his door. He heard things out there; all 
manner of unfamiliar sounds enlivened the darkness, and he didn't much care for 
them. There were wild animals out there, owls and bats and who knew what else. 
There could be bears…
:You don't for one moment think that I would let anything hurt you, do you?: The 
unexpected fierceness of that question made him open his good eye and turn his 
head to look at her, where she lay half-in, half-out of the doorway.
"I don' know anything 'bout you," he admitted, slowly. "Nothin' at all 'bout 
Companions."
:Well, I wouldn't.: She sighed. :And you're about to learn a great deal about 
Companions.:
"No, I ain't. They're gonna take one look at me an' throw me out," he replied, 
stubbornly.
:No, they aren't. They already know who you are, what you are, and that I'm 
bringing you in tomorrow.:
"What?" he yelped, sitting up straight, keeping the poultice clapped to his eye 
with one hand.
: Well, not everybody, just the people who need to. The Dean of the 
Collegium -- that's the Herald who's in charge of the whole of Heralds' Collegium. 
Herald Alberich, the Weapons-master. The Queen's Own and the Queen. A couple of 
the other teachers. They all know, and they aren't going to throw you out.: She 
was so matter-of-fact about it -- as if it shouldn't even occur to him to doubt 
her. :As to how they know, I told them, of course. Actually I told them through 
their Companions, but it amounts to the same thing.:
He flopped back down in the bed, head spinning. This was all going much too fast 
for him. Much, much too fast. "Now what am I gonna do?" he moaned, mostly to 
himself. "I can't ever go back -- th' Watch'd hev me afore I took a step -- "
:You couldn't go back anyway.: Cymry replied.
"But -- "
:Skif -- do you really, really want me to leave you?: The voice in his mind was no 
more than a whisper, but it was a whisper that woke the echoes of that 
unforgettable moment when he felt an empty place inside him fill with something 
he had wanted for so long, so very, very long -- 
"No," he whispered back, and to his profound embarrassment, felt his throat 
swelling with a sob at the very thought.
:I didn't think so. Because I couldn't bear to lose you.: Her thoughts took on a 
firmer tone. :And I won't. No one tries to separate a Companion and her Chosen. 
That would be --  unthinkable.:
He lay in the firelit darkness for a long time, listening to the strange night 
sounds in the woods outside, the beating of his own heart, and his own thoughts.
Then he sighed heavily. "I guess I gotta be a Herald," he said reluctantly. "But 
I still think there's gonna be trouble."
:Then we'll face it together. Because I am never, ever going to let anyone 
separate us.:
* * * * * * * * * *
In the morning, gingerly probing of his nose and the area around his eye -- and the 
fact that he could actually open that eye again -- proved that the poultice had 
done its work. He cleaned himself up in the cold water, and donned his shirt and 
trews -- wrinkled and a little damp, but they'd have to do. They both ate, he 
cleaned the things he'd used and shut the Way Station up again. He'd been stiff 
and sore when he woke up, but he knew from experience that only moving around 
would make that kind of soreness go away. Besides, at the moment, he couldn't 
wait to get back to the city where he belonged. Whatever people saw in "the 
country" was invisible to him. The silence alone would drive him crazy in a day.
There was just one problem, of course -- and that was that he wasn't going home, he 
was going to this Collegium place. As he mounted Cymry's well-worn saddle -- with a 
great deal more decorum this time -- he shook his head slightly. "I still think 
there's gonna be trouble," he predicted glumly.
:Skif, there will always be trouble where you are,: she replied mischievously. 
:We'll just have to try to keep it from getting out of hand!:
Without a backward glance, she started up the forest trail, going in a few paces 
from a walk to a trot to an easy lope. It was very strange, riding her, now that 
he knew what she was. For one thing, she wasn't a horse -- he didn't have control 
over her, and that was the way it was supposed to be, not an accident. But as 
they moved out of the woods and onto roads that had a bit of morning traffic, he 
began to notice something else.
Now that they weren't charging down the road in a manner threatening to life and 
limb, people paid attention to Cymry, they clearly knew what she was, and they 
looked at her, and by extension her rider, with respect.
Or at least they did until they saw his black eye.
But even then, they looked at him with respect only leavened with sympathy. And 
since they weren't galloping at a headlong pace, but rather moving in and out of 
the traffic at a respectable, but easy trot, some people actually began to call 
greetings to him and her.
"New-Chosen, aye, lad?" said a farmer, perched so high on the seat of his wagon 
that he was eye-to-eye with Skif. And without waiting for an answer, added, 
"Here, catch!" and tossed him a ripe pear.
Startled, he caught it neatly, and the second one that the same man tossed to 
him, before Cymry found another opening in the traffic and moved smoothly ahead.
:If you'd cut that up into quarters, I'd like some.:
He was only too pleased to oblige, since he had the feeling that was what the 
farmer intended anyway. The little eating knife he always kept in his belt was 
accessible enough, and since he didn't have to use the reins, he didn't have to 
try and cut the pears up one-handed. She reached around and took each quarter 
daintily from his hand as he leaned over her neck to hand it to her.
Everywhere he looked, he met smiles and nods. It was a remarkable sensation, not 
only to be noticed, but to elicit that reaction in total strangers.
He did feel rather -- naked, though. He wasn't at all comfortable with all of this 
noticing.
:Don't worry. You'll blend in once you're in your Grays. You'll be just another 
Trainee.:
He was getting used to her talking in his head --  Mindspeech, she called it -- and he 
was starting to get vague pictures and other associations along with the words. 
When she talked about being "in his Grays," he knew at once that what she meant 
was the uniform of the Heraldic Trainees, modeled after the Heralds' own 
uniforms, but gray in color.
:That's so people don't expect you to know what you're doing yet,: she told him, 
looking back over her shoulder at him with one eye. :And by the way, you don't 
have to actually talk to me for me to hear and understand you.:
So she knew what he was thinking. That wasn't exactly a comforting thought. A 
man liked to have a little privacy -- 
:And when you're a man, I'll give it to you.:
"Hey!" he said, staring at her ears indignantly, and garnering the curious 
glances of a couple driving a donkey cart next to him.
:Oh, don't be so oversensitive! I won't eavesdrop! You'll just have to learn not 
to "shout" all your thoughts.:
Great, now he would have to watch, not only what he did and said, but what he 
thought… This Herald business was getting more unpleasant all the time.
:It's not like that, Skif,: she said coaxingly. :Really it isn't. I was just 
teasing you.:
He found a smile starting, no matter how he tried to fight it down. How could he 
possibly stay angry with her? How could he even get angry with her? And maybe 
that was the point.
He wasn't sure how long it had taken them to get from the park where he'd found 
her to the Way Station where they stopped, but it took them most of the morning 
to get back to Haven. The Guards on the walls paid absolutely no attention to 
him, although they had to have seen him careening down the road yesterday. Cymry 
didn't volunteer any information as he craned his neck up to look at them, then 
bestowed a measuring glance at the two on either side of the passage beneath the 
wall. He wondered what they were thinking, and what they might have said or done 
yesterday.
They sure didn't try to stop us, anyway. Not that it was likely that they'd have 
had much luck -- not with only two Guards on the ground and Cymry able to leap a 
farm wagon without thinking about it. Maybe it was just as well they hadn't 
tried. He might have ended up with both eyes blackened.
Once they got inside the city walls, though, people stopped paying as much 
attention to them. Well, that wasn't such a surprise, people saw Heralds coming 
and going all the time in Haven. On the whole, he felt a bit more comfortable 
without so many eyes on him.
Their progress took him through some areas he wasn't at all familiar with as 
they wound their way toward the Palace and the Collegia. He didn't exactly have 
a lot to do with craftsmen and shopkeepers -- his forte was roof walking and the 
liftin' lay, not taking things from shops. That had always seemed vaguely wrong 
to him anyway; those people worked hard to make or get their goods, and taking 
anything from them was taking bread off their tables. Helping himself to the 
property of those who already had so much they couldn't keep track of it, now, 
that was one thing -- but taking a pair of shoes from a cobbler who'd worked hard 
to make them just because he took a fancy to them was something else again.
Once they got in among the homes of the wealthy, though, it was a different 
story. He eyed some of those places, all close-kept behind their shuttered 
windows, with a knowing gaze. At one point or another he had checked out a great 
many of them, and he knew some of them very, very well indeed. The owner of that 
one had not one, but two mistresses that his wife knew nothing about -- and they 
didn't know about each other. He treated them all well, though, so to Skif's 
mind none of them should have much to complain about. Sometimes he wondered, 
however, where the man was getting all the money he spent on them…
:He's honest enough, but there are others,: Cymry put in. :You see what I mean 
by needing your skills?:
He furrowed his brow and concentrated on thinking what he wanted to say instead 
of saying it out loud. :I suppose -- : he said dubiously.
But they were soon past the second wall, out of the homes of the merely wealthy, 
and in among the manses of the great. And Skif had to snicker a little as they 
passed Lord Orthallen's imposing estate. It was the first time he'd come at it 
from the front, but he couldn't mistake those pale stone walls for any other. 
How many times had he feasted at m'lord's table, and him all unaware?
They passed Lord Orthallen's home, passed others that Skif had not dared 
approach, so guarded around were they by the owner's own retainers. And finally 
there was nothing on his right but the final wall, blank and forbidding, that 
marked the Palace itself.
His apprehension returned, and he unconsciously hunched his head down, trying to 
appear inconspicuous, even though there was no one to see him.
No -- there was someone.
The next turning brought them within sight of a single Guardsman in dark blue, 
who manned a small gate. Cymry trotted up to him quite as if she passed in and 
out of that gate all the time, and the man nodded as if he recognized her.
"This would be Cymry," he said aloud, casting a jaundiced eye up at Skif, who 
shrank within himself. "They're expecting you," he continued, opening the gate 
for them to pass through, although he didn't say who they were.
Cymry walked through, all dignity, and began to climb the graveled road that led 
toward an entire complex of buildings. Skif tensed. Now I'm injbr it, he 
thought, and felt his heart drop down into his boots.
HE sat in Cymry's saddle like a sack of grain, and waited for doom to fall on 
him. She had taken him up the path, through what looked like a heavily-wooded 
park, past one enormous wing of a building so huge it had to be the Palace. 
Eventually they came to a long wooden building beside the river in the middle of 
a huge fenced field -- he'd have called it a stable, except that there weren't any 
doors on the stalls…
Then again, if this was where Companions stayed, there wouldn't be any need for 
doors on the stalls, would there?
It had a pounded-dirt floor covered ankle-deep in clean straw, and there was a 
second door on the opposite side, also open. These gave the only light. Cymry 
walked inside, quite at home.
The building was oddly deserted except -- 
Except -- 
For three people who were very clearly waiting for him just inside the door. One 
was an odd, birdlike man, slight and trim, hardly taller than Skif, with a cap 
of dark gray hair and an intelligent, though worried, expression. The second was 
taller, with a fairly friendly face which at the moment also bore a distinctly 
worried expression. Both of them wore the white uniform only a Herald was 
allowed to wear.
His "welcoming committee," evidently.
He couldn't see the third one very well, since he was standing carefully back in 
the shadows. The third person wasn't wearing the white uniform though; his 
clothing was dark enough to blend in with the shadows.
Could be sommut from the Guard, he thought gloomily. Gonna haul me off t' gaol 
soon's the other two get done with me.
:He's not, and you're not going to gaol,: said Cymry. But that was all she said. 
He couldn't find it in himself to feel less than uneasy about the shadowy 
lurker.
She stopped a few paces away from the two men, and Skif gingerly dismounted, 
turning to face them with his hands clasped behind his back. A moment later, he 
dropped his eyes. Whatever was coming, he didn't want to meet their faces and 
see their disgust.
"So," said the smaller one, "you seem to be the young person that Companion 
Cymry has Chosen."
"Yessir," Skif replied, gazing at his ill-shod toes.
"And we're given to understand that you -- ah -- your profession -- you -- " The man fumbled 
for words, and Skif decided to get the agony over with all at once.
" 'M a thief, sir," he said, half defiantly. "Tha's what I do." He thought about 
adding any number of qualifying statements -- that it had been a better choice than 
working for his uncle, that no one had offered him any other sort of employment 
and he had to eat; even that if Bazie hadn't been around to take him in and 
train him, he'd probably be dead now and not Chosen. But he kept all of those 
things to himself. For some reason, the clever retorts he had didn't seem all 
that clever at the moment.
The shorter man sighed. "I suppose you're expecting me to give you an 
ineffective and stuffy lecture about how you are supposed to be a new person and 
you can't go on doing that sort of thing anymore now that you're a Trainee."
Skif stopped looking at his toes and instead glanced up, startled, at the 
speaker. "Uh -- you're not?"
"You are not stupid," the man said, and smiled faintly, though his tone sounded 
weary. "If you've already played over that particular lecture in your mind, then 
I will skip it and get to the point. I am Dean Elcarth. I am in charge of 
Herald's Collegium. The moment you entered the gate here, so far as we are 
concerned, whatever you were or did before you arrived here became irrelevant. 
You were Chosen. The Companions don't make mistakes. There must be the makings 
of a Herald in you. Therefore you are welcome. But when you get in trouble, and 
you will, because sooner or later at least half of our Trainees get in trouble, 
please remember that what you do reflects on the rest of us as well, and Heralds 
are not universally beloved among a certain faction of the highborn. The others 
will give you the details as they see fit, but the sum of what I have to say is 
that you are supposed to be part of a solution, not part of a problem, and I 
hope we can show you why in such a way that you actually feel that in your 
deepest heart."
During this rather remarkable speech, Skif had felt his jaw sagging slowly. It 
was not what he had expected to hear. His shock must have been written clearly 
on his face, because the Dean smiled a little again. "This is Herald Teren," he 
continued, gesturing to the other man, who although friendlier, was looking 
distinctly worried. "He is, technically, in charge of you, since he is in charge 
of all of the newly Chosen. You'll be getting your first lessons from him, and 
he will show you to your new quarters and help get you set up. Under normal 
circumstances, he would have picked out a mentor for you among the older 
students -- but these are not normal circumstances. So although one of the older 
students will be assigned as a mentor, in actuality you will have a very 
different, though altogether unofficial mentor."
"That," said a grating voice that put chills up Skif's back, "myself would be."
He knew that voice, and that accent -- though when he'd heard it before, it hadn't 
been nearly so thick.
And when the third figure stepped out of the shadows, arms folded over his 
chest, scar-seamed face smiling sardonically, he stepped back a pace without 
thinking about it. Skif had never seen the hair before -- stark black with thick 
streaks of white running through it -- because it had been hidden under a hood or a 
hat. But there was no mistaking that saturnine face or those cold, agate-gray 
eyes. This was the sell-sword who'd spoken with (and spied on?) Jass, who had 
threatened Skif in the cemetery.
"You!" he blurted.
"This is Herald Alberich, the Collegium Weaponsmaster," said the Dean, "And I 
will leave you with him and Teren."
"But you can't b-b-be a Herald -- ," Skif stammered. "Where's yer, yer white -- ,"
"Herald Alberich has special dispensation from Her Majesty herself not to wear 
the uniform of Heraldic Whites," Herald Teren interrupted, as Alberich's 
expression changed only in that he raised his right eyebrow slightly.
And now, suddenly, an explanation for Skif's own rather extraordinary behavior 
in the cemetery hit him, and he stared at the Herald in the dark gray leather 
tunic and tight trews with something like accusation. "You Truth Spelled me!"
Now that he knew Alberich was a Herald, there was no doubt in his mind why he 
had found himself telling the man what he knew that night in the cemetery. 
Everyone knew about Heralds and their Truth Spell, though Skif was the first 
person in his own circle of acquaintances who'd actually undergone it, much less 
seen it.
The two Heralds exchanged a glance. "Elcarth's right," said Teren. "He's very 
quick."
"Survive long he would not, were he not," Alberich replied, and fastened his 
hawklike eyes on Skif, who shrank back, just as he had that night. "I did. 
Because there was need. Think on this -- had you by any other been caught, it would 
not have been Truth Spell, but a knife."
Skif shivered convulsively, despite the baking heat. The man was right. He 
gulped.
Alberich took another couple of steps forward, so that Skif was forced to look 
up at him. "Now, since there is still need, without Truth Spell, what you were 
about in following that scum, you will tell me. And fully, you will tell it."
There was something very important going on here; he didn't have nearly enough 
information to know what, or why, but it was a lot more than just the fact that 
Jass had been killed, though that surely had a part in it. But Skif raised his 
chin, stiffened his spine, and glared back. "T'you. Not t'im. I know you. I don' 
know 'im."
The Heralds exchanged another glance. "Fair enough," Teren said easily. "I'll be 
outside when you're ready for me to take him over."
Herald Teren turned and strode out the door on the other side of the stable. 
Skif didn't take his eyes off Alberich, whose gaze, if anything, became more 
penetrating.
"Heard you have, of the man Jass, and his ending." It was a statement, not a 
question, but Skif nodded anyway. "And? You followed him for moons. Why?"
" 'E burned down th' place where m'mates lived." Skif made it a flat statement 
in return, and kept his face absolutely dead of expression. "They died. I heard 
'im say 'xactly that with m'own ears, an' 'e didn't care, all 'e cared about was 
'e didn' want t' get caught. Fact, 'e said 'e got rid of some witnesses afore 'e 
set th' fire. Might even've been them."
Alberich nodded. "He was not nearly so free with me."
Skif tightened his jaw. "Honest -- I was in the cem'tery by accident, but I was 
where I could 'ear real good. An' I 'eard 'im an' th' bastid what hired 'im 
talkin' 'bout a new job, an' talkin' 'bout the old one. I already figgered I was 
gonna take 'im down somehow -- but only after I foun' out 'oo 'twas what give 'im 
th' order."
A swift intake of breath was all the reaction that Alberich showed -- and a very 
slight nod. "Which was why you followed him." A pause. "He was more than 
that -- more than just a petty arson maker, more even than a murderer. As his 
master was -- is. Which was why I followed him."
Skif only shook his head. Alberich's concerns meant nothing to him -- 
 -- except -- 
"You know 'oo 'e is!" he shot out, feeling himself flush with anger. "The boss! 
You know!" He held himself as still as a statue, although he would cheerfully 
have leaped on the man at that moment, and tried to beat the knowledge out of 
him.
But Alberich shook his head, and it was with a regret and a disappointment that 
went so deeply into the tragic that it froze Skif where he stood. "I do not," he 
admitted. "Hope, I had, you did."
At that moment, instead of simply glaring at him, Alberich actually looked at 
him, caught his eyes, and stared deeply into them, and Skif felt a sensation 
like he had never before experienced. It was as if he literally stood on the 
edge of an abyss, staring down into it, and it wasn't that if he made a wrong 
move he'd fall, it was the sudden understanding that this was what Alberich had 
meant when he'd said that these were waters too deep for Skif to swim in. There 
were deep matters swirling all around him that Skif was only a very tiny part 
of, and yet -- he had the chance to be a pivotal part of it.
If he dared. If he cared enough to see past his own loss and sorrows, and see 
greater tragedy and need and be willing to lay himself on the line to fix it.
:Chosen -- please. This is real. This is what I meant when I said that we needed 
you.:
He gazed into that abyss, and thought back at Cymry as hard as he could --  :Is 
that the only reason you Chose me?:
Because if it was -- 
 -- if it was, and all of the love and belonging that had filled his heart and soul 
when he first looked into her eyes was a lie, a ruse to catch someone with his 
particular "set of skills" -- 
:Are you out of your mind?: she snapped indignantly, shaken right out of her 
solemnity by the question. :Can't you feel why I Chose you?:
That answer, unrehearsed, unfeigned, reassured him as no speech could have. And 
something in him shifted, straining against a barrier he hadn't realized was 
there until that moment.
But he still had questions that needed answering. "An' if ye find this 'master,' 
no matter how highborn 'e is," he asked slowly, "ye'll do what?"
"Bring him to justice," Alberich replied instantly, and held up a hand, to forgo 
any interruptions. "For murder. Of your friends, if no other can be proved, 
although -- "
"There are others?" Skif asked -- not in amazement, no, for if the bastard, whoever 
he was, had been coldhearted enough to burn down a building full of people, he 
surely had other deaths on his conscience.
Now, for the first time, Alberich's face darkened with an anger Skif was very 
glad was not aimed at him. "Three of which I know, and perhaps more. And there 
is that which is worse than murder, which only kills the body. Slaving, for 
workers, but worse, to make pleasure slaves. Behind it, he is. In small -- in the 
selling of children, here, even from the streets of Haven. And in large, very 
large, wherein whole families are reaved from their homes and sold OutKingdom."
Skif heard himself gasp. There had always been rumors of that in the streets, 
and Bazie had hinted at it -- but even his uncle hadn't stooped that low.
Worse than murder? Well -- yes. He closed his eyes a moment, and thought about 
those rumors a moment. If the rumors were more than that, and the 
children -- orphans or the unwanted -- who vanished from Haven's streets ended up in 
the place where Bazie had intimated they went -- 
 -- and if there really were entire villages full of people who were snatched up 
and sold OutKingdom -- 
"Worse," he heard himself agreeing.
"And one answer there is, for such evil." Alberich's stone-like expression gave 
away nothing, but Skif wasn't looking for anything there. He already had his 
answer; forget anything else, he and this iron-spined man had a common cause.
And somewhere inside him, the barrier strained and broke.
"I'm in," was all he said. "I'm with ye." Alberich's eyes flickered briefly, 
then he nodded.
"More, we will speak, and at length. Now -- ,"
There were a great many things Alberich could have said. If you want revenge, 
you'd better keep your nose clean, for instance, or if you get yourself thrown 
out of here for messing up, neither one of us will get what he wants. Or you'll 
have to work hard at being respectable, because it's going to take someone who 
looks respectable to trap this bastard.
He said none of those things. He let another of those penetrating looks analyze 
Skif and say something else. Something -- that had warning in it, but against 
danger and not mere misbehavior. Something that had acceptance in it as well, 
and an acknowledgment that Skif had the right to be in this fight. And Skif 
nodded, quite as if he had heard every bit of it in words.
Alberich smiled. It was the sort of smile that said, I see we understand one 
another. That was all, but that was all that was needed.
A moment later, the sound of boots on the straw-covered floor marked Herald 
Teren's return. "Later speech, we will have," Alberich promised, as Teren 
reached them. "For now --  other things."
* * * * * * * * * *
The other things were not what Skif had expected. Not that he'd really had any 
inkling of what to expect, but not even his vaguest intuitions measured up to 
his introduction to the Collegium and his first candlemarks as a Trainee.
"If you're all right, then, follow me," Herald Teren said, and started off, 
quite as if he assumed Skif would follow and not bolt. Which Skif did, of 
course; it seemed that he was "in for it" after all, but not in the way he'd 
thought. His emotions were mixed, to say the least.
On top of it all was excitement and some apprehension still. Just beneath that 
was a bewildered sort of wonder and the certainty that at any moment they would 
realize they'd made a mistake -- or that fearsome Alberich would call the Guards. 
He'd lived with what he was for so long…
Beneath that, though -- was something still of the new image of the world and his 
place in it that he'd gotten during that encounter with Alberich. That -- granted, 
the world stank, and a lot of people in it were rotten, and horrible things 
happened -- but that he, little old Skif, petty thief, had a chance that wasn't 
given to many people, to help make things better. Not right; the job of making 
everything right was too big for one person, for a group of people like the 
Heralds, even -- but better.
And under all of that, slowly and implacably filling in places he hadn't known 
were empty, was a feeling he couldn't even put a name to. It was big, that 
feeling, and it had been the thing that had broken through his barriers back 
there, when Cymry reaffirmed her bond with him. It was compounded of a lot of 
things; release, relief, those were certainly in there. But with the release 
came a sense that he was now irrevocably bound to something -- something good. And 
accepted by that "something." A feeling that he belonged, at last, to something 
he'd been searching for without ever realizing that he'd been looking. And there 
was an emotion connected with Cymry in there that, if he had to put a name to 
it, he might have said (with some embarrassment) was love. It was scary, having 
something that big sweep him up in itself. And if he had to think about it, he 
knew he'd be absolutely paralyzed -- 
So he didn't think about it. He just let it do whatever it was going to do, 
turning a blind eye to it. But he couldn't help but feel a little more cheerful, 
a little more at ease here, with every heartbeat that passed.
And there was plenty to keep him distracted from anything going on inside him, 
anyway.
Teren led him away from the stable and toward a building that absolutely dwarfed 
every other structure he had ever seen. And if he was impressed, he hated to 
think how all those farmboys and fisherfolk Cymry had talked about must have 
felt when they first saw it.
The building was huge, three-and-a-half stories of gray stone with a four-story 
double tower at the joining of two of the walls just ahead of them. "This is 
Herald's Collegium and the Palace," Teren said, waving his hand in an arc that 
took in everything. "You can't actually see the New Palace part of the structure 
from here; it's blocked by this wing next to us, which is where all the 
Kingdom's Heralds have rooms."
"But most uv 'em don't live here, at least, not most of th' time," Skif stated, 
on a little firmer ground. "Right?"
Teren nodded. "That's right. The only Heralds in permanent residence are the 
teachers at the Collegium and the Lord Marshal's Herald, the Seneschal's Herald, 
and the Queen's Own Herald. Have you any idea who they are?"
Skif shook his head, not particularly caring that he didn't know. This new 
feeling, whatever it was, had a very slightly intoxicating effect. "Not a clue," 
he said. "I figger ye'll tell me in them lessons. Right?"
"Right, we'll leave that to Basic Orientation; it isn't something you need to 
understand this moment." Teren seemed relieved at his answer. "Now, straight 
ahead of us is Herald's Collegium, which is attached to the residence wing, both 
for the convenience of the teachers and -- ," he cast a jaundiced eye on Skif " -- to 
try and keep the Trainees out of mischief."
Skif laughed; it was very clear from Teren's tone and body language that he 
meant all Trainees, not just Skif. He couldn't help but cast an envious glance 
at the wing beside them, though; he couldn't help but think that as a Trainee, 
he'd probably be packed in among all the other Trainees with very little 
privacy.
"Healer's Collegium and Bardic are also on the grounds, on the other side of 
Heralds,' " Teren continued, waving his hand at the three-and-a-half story wing 
ahead of them. "You'll share some of your classes with students from there. 
Healer Trainees wear pale green, Bardic Trainees wear a rust red rather than a 
true red. There will also be students who wear a pale blue which is similar to, 
but darker than, the pages' uniforms. Those are a mixed bag. Some of them are 
highborn whose parents choose to have them tutored here rather than have private 
teachers, but most are talented commoners who are going to be Artificers."
"What's an Artificer?" Skif wanted to know.
"People who build things. Bridges, buildings, contrivances that do work like 
mills, pumps," Teren said absently. "People who dig mines and come up with the 
things that crush the ore, people who make machines, like clocks, printing 
presses, looms. It takes a lot of knowing how things work and mathematics, which 
is why they are here."
"Keep that away from me!" Skif said with a shudder. "Sums! I had just about 
enough of sums!"
"Well, if you don't come up to a particular standard, you'll be getting more of 
them, I'm afraid," Teren said, and smiled at Skif's crestfallen face, "Don't 
worry, you won't be the only one who's less than thrilled about undertaking more 
lessons in reckoning. You'll need it; some day, you may have to figure out how 
to rig a broken bridge or fix a wall."
They entered in at a door right in the tower that stood at the angle where the 
Herald's Wing met the Collegium. There was a spiraling staircase paneled in dark 
wood there, lit by windows at each landing. Skif expected them to go up, but 
instead, they went down.
"First, Housekeeping and Stores," Teren informed him. "The kitchen is down here, 
too. Now, besides taking lessons, you'll be assigned chores here in the 
Collegium. All three Collegia do this with their Trainees. The only thing that 
the Trainees don't do for themselves is the actual cooking and building repair 
work."
Skif made a face, but then something occurred to him. "Highborn, too?" he asked.
"Highborn, too," Teren confirmed. "It makes everyone equal -- and we never want a 
Herald in the field to be anything other than self-sufficient. That means 
knowing how to clean and mend and cook, if need be. That way you don't owe 
anyone anything -- because we don't want you to have anything going on that might 
be an outside influence on your judgment."
"Huh." By now, they had reached the lowest landing and the half cellar -- which 
wasn't really a cellar as Skif would have recognized one, since it wasn't at all 
damp, and just a little cooler than the staircase. Teren went straight through 
the door at the bottom of the staircase, and Skif followed.
They entered a narrow, whitewashed room containing only a desk and a middle-aged 
woman who didn't look much different from any ordinary craftsman's wife that 
Skif had ever seen. She had pale-brown hair neatly braided and wrapped around 
her head, and wore a sober, dark-blue gown with a spotless white apron. "New 
one, Gaytha," said Teren, as she looked up.
She gave him a different sort of penetrating look than Alberich had; this one 
looked at everything on the surface, and nothing underneath. "You'll be a ten, I 
think," she said, and stood up, pushing away from her desk. Exiting through a 
side doorway, she returned a moment later with a pile of neatly folded clothing, 
all in a silver-gray color, and a lumpy bag. "Here's your uniforms -- now let me 
see your shoes."
When Skif didn't move, she gestured impatiently. "Go ahead, put your foot on the 
edge of the desk, there's a lad," she said. With a shrug, Skif did as he was 
told, and she tsked at his shoes.
"Well, those won't do. Teren, measure him for boots, there's a dear, while I get 
some temporaries." She whisked back out again while Teren had Skif pull off his 
shoes, made tracings of his feet, then measured each leg at ankle, calf and 
knee, noting the measurements in the middle of the tracing of left or right. By 
the time he was finished, the Housekeeper was back with a pair of boots and a 
pair of soft shoes. Both had laces and straps to turn an approximate fit into a 
slightly better one,
"These will do until I get boots made that are fitted to you," she said briskly. 
"Now, my lad, I want you to know that there are very strict rules about washing 
around here." This time the look she gave him was the daggerlike glare of a 
woman who has seen too many pairs of "washed hands and arms" that were dirty 
down to the wristbone. "A full bath every night, and a thorough washup before 
meals -- or before you help with the meal, if you're a server or a Cook's helper. 
If you don't measure up, it's back to the bathing room until you do, even if all 
that's left to eat when you're done is dry crusts and water. Do you understand?"
"Yes'm," Skif replied. He wasn't going to point out to this woman that a dirty 
thief is very soon a thief in the gaol. That was just something she didn't need 
to know.
"Good." She took him at his word -- for now. He had no doubt he'd be inspected at 
every meal until they figured out he knew what "clean" meant. "Now, I don't 
suppose you have any experience at household chores -- "
"Laundry an' mendin' is what I'd druther do; dishes, floor washin', an' 
scrubbin' is what I can do, but druther have laundry an' mendin'," he said 
immediately. "Can boil an egg, an' cut bread'n'butter, but nought else worth 
eatin'."
"Laundry and mending?" The Housekeeper's eyebrows rose. "Well, if that's what 
you're good at -- we have more boys here than girls, so we tend not to have as many 
hands as I'd like that are actually good at those chores."
Her expression said quite clearly that she would very much like to know how it 
was that he was apt at those tasks. But she didn't ask, and Skif was hardly 
likely to tell her.
"This boy is Skif, Chosen by Cymry," Teren said, as Gaytha got out a big piece 
of paper divided up into large squares, each square with several names in it.
"I've got you down for laundry and mending for the next five days," Gaytha said. 
"Teren will schedule that around your classes and meals. We'll see how you do."
"Off we go, then." Teren said, and loaded Skif's arms with his new possessions.
Back up the steps they went, pausing just long enough at the first floor for 
Teren to open the door and Skif to look through it. "This is where the 
classrooms are," Teren told him, and he took a quick glance down the long hall 
lined with doors. "We're on Midsummer holiday right now, so all but two of the 
Trainees are gone on visits home. It's just as well; with this heat, no one 
would be able to study."
"Do what they's does in th' City," Skif advised, voice muffled behind the pile 
of clothing. "They ain't gettin' no holidays. Work from dawn till it gets too 
hot, then go back to't when it's cooled off a bit."
"We're ahead of you there," Teren told him. "It's already arranged. Follow me up 
to the second floor."
Teren went on ahead, and Skif found him holding open the door on the next 
landing. He stepped into another corridor, this one lined with still more doors. 
But it ended in a wall, and seemed less than half the length of the one on the 
first floor. It was a bit difficult to tell, because the light here was very 
dim. There were openings above each door that presumably let the light from the 
room beyond pass through, and that was it for illumination.
"You won't be living on this side of the common room," Teren told him. "This is 
the girls' side. The common room where you take all meals is between the boys' 
and girls' side. Come along, and you'll see."
He led the way down the corridor, opened a door, and Skif preceded him into the 
common room. There were windows and fireplaces on both sides, and the place was 
full of long tables and benches, rather like an inn. Skif made a quick 
reckoning, and guessed it could hold seventy-five people at a time -- a hundred, if 
they squeezed in together. "How many of them Trainees you got?" he asked, as 
Teren held the door in the opposite wall open for him.
"Forty-one. Twenty-six boys, fifteen girls." Teren turned to catch his grimace. 
"That does make for some stiff competition among the ladies -- or are you not 
interested in girls yet?"
"Never thought 'bout it," he said truthfully. "Where I come from -- "
Where I come from, you don' get no girl 'less you pays for 'er, an' I got better 
things t'spend m' glim on, he thought. But no point in shocking this man. He'd 
probably go white at the thought.
"And this is your room," Teren said, interrupting his thoughts, opening one of 
the doors. Eager now to put down his burdens, Skif hurried through the door.
He was very pleasantly surprised. There was a good bed, a desk and chair, a 
bookcase, and a wardrobe. It had its own little fireplace -- no hoping to get 
warmth from the back of someone else's chimney! -- and a window that stood open to 
whatever breeze might come in. All of it, from the wooden floor to the furniture 
to the walls, was clean and polished and in good condition, though obviously 
much-used. When Skif set his clothing down on the bed, he was startled to 
realize that it was a real mattress, properly made and stuffed with wool and 
goose down, not the canvas-covered straw he'd taken as a matter of course.
He had never, not once, slept on a real mattress. He'd only seen such things in 
the homes of the wealthy that he'd robbed.
"Grab a uniform and I'll take you to the bathing room," Teren told him, before 
he could do more than marvel. "You need to get cleaned up and I'll take you down 
to the kitchen for something to eat. Then I'll take you to Dean Elcarth, and he 
can determine what classes you'll need to take."
It didn't seem that Herald Teren had any intention of leaving Skif alone.
With a stifled sigh, Skif picked out smallclothes, a shirt, tunic, trews, and 
stockings, debated between the boots and the shoes and finally decided on the 
latter as probably being more comfortable, With an eye long used to assessing 
fabric, he decided that the trews and tunic must be a linen canvas, the shirt 
was of a finer linen, the boots of a heavier canvas with leather soles and 
wooden heels. Interesting that the temporary boots were of canvas rather than 
leather -- they'd be quicker to make up, and a lot more forgiving to feet that 
weren't used to boots. Or even shoes -- some of the farmboys who came in to the 
markets went barefoot even in the city, right up until the snow fell.
Trailing behind the Herald, wondering if the man considered himself to be guide 
or guard, Skif left his room.
The bathing room was a shock. Copper boilers to heat the water, one with a fire 
under it already, pumps to fill them, pipes carrying cold and hot water to 
enormous tubs and commodious basins, boxes of soft, sage-scented soap and piles 
of towels everywhere -- 
Skif forgot Teren's presence entirely. No matter how hot it was, he reveled in a 
bath like no one he knew had ever enjoyed. He soaked and soaked until the aches 
of that horrible ride with Cymry were considerably eased and he felt cleaner 
than he ever had in his whole life.
In fact, it was only after he'd dried off (using a towel softer than any blanket 
he'd ever owned) and was half dressed in the new clothing that Teren spoke, 
waking him to the Herald's presence.
"Mop up your drips with the towel you used, and wipe out the tub, then drop the 
towel down that chute over there. Send your old clothing after it." Teren nodded 
toward a square opening in the wall between two basins, and Skif finished 
dressing, then obeyed him. How long had he been there? Had he left while Skif 
was filling the tub? It bothered him that he couldn't remember.
I always know where people are. Am I losing my edge?
Teren waited for him by the door, but held out a hand to stop him before he went 
back through it. "Hold still a moment, would you?" he asked, and put a single 
finger under Skif's chin, turning his face back into the light from the windows. 
"I thought most of that was dirt," he said contritely. "I beg your pardon, Skif. 
Before I take you to Elcarth, I'd like you to see a Healer for that nose and 
eye."
Another moment of mixed reaction -- a little resentment that the man would think he 
was so slovenly that he'd have that much dirt on his face, and small wonder that 
the House keeper had been so abrupt! But that was mingled with more 
astonishment. A Healer? For a broken nose?
But within moments, he found himself sitting across from a green-clad Healer, a 
fairly nondescript fellow, who examined him briskly, said "This will only hurt 
for a moment," and grabbed his nose and pulled.
It certainly did hurt, quite as much as when he'd hit Cymry's neck in the first 
place. It hurt badly enough he couldn't even gasp. But the Healer had spoken the 
truth; it only hurt for a moment, and in the very next moment, it not only 
stopped hurting, it stopped hurting.
He opened his eyes -- and both of them opened properly now -- and stared into the 
Healer's grin. "You'll still look like a masked ferret," the fellow said 
cheerfully, "but you should be fine now."
"How did you do that anyway?" Teren asked, as they made their way back to 
Herald's Collegium and Skif's interview with Herald Elcarth.
"Cymry jumped a wagon, an' I hit 'er neck with my face," he replied ruefully, 
and found himself describing the entire wild ride in some detail as they walked.
"She made you think you'd stolen her?" Teren said at last, smothering laughter. 
"Forgive me, but -- "
"Oh, it's pretty funny -- now," Skif admitted. "An' I s'ppose it'll be funnier in a 
moon, or a season, or a year. Last night, I c'n tell you, it weren't funny at 
all."
"I can well imagine -- ," By this time, they were back down the stairs into the 
half basement in the Collegium again. "It'll be funnier still when you've got 
yourself on the outside of some lunch. Here's the kitchen -- " Teren opened a door 
identical to the one that led to the Housekeeper's room, but this one opened 
onto an enormous kitchen, silent and empty. "I haven't had anything since 
breakfast either." He gave Skif a conspiratorial wink. "Let's raid the pantry."
"USUALLY, our cook, Mero, is down in the kitchen," Teren told him as they 
cleaned up what little mess they'd made. "Now listen, I am not telling you this 
because I think you're going to filch food, I'm telling you this because all 
boys your age are always hungry, and after the last couple of centuries running 
the Collegium, we've figured that out. When Mero is here, you can ask him for 
whatever you want to eat and if he isn't knee-deep in chaos, he'll be delighted 
to get it for you. When he's not here -- and I know very well from my own 
experience how badly you can need a midnight snack -- only take food from the 
pantry we just used. The reason for that is that Mero plans his meals very 
carefully -- he has to, with so many inexpert hands working with him -- and if you 
take something he needs, it'll make difficulties for him."
Skif thought fleetingly of the number of times he'd taken food from Lord 
Orthallen's pantry -- and hoped it hadn't made difficulties for that cook.
Odd. He wouldn't have spared a thought for that yesterday.
"Now. Healed, fed, and ready for Dean Elcarth?" Teren didn't wait for an answer, 
but strode off, heading for the stairs.
This time they walked through the corridor that held all the classrooms; again, 
it was lit by means of windows over each classroom door. From the spacing, the 
rooms were probably twice the size of the one they'd given Skif.
Why so many and so much room?
Maybe in case it was needed. Just because they only had forty-six Trainees now 
didn't mean they couldn't have more at some other time. And Teren had said that 
the classes were shared with Bardic and Healer Trainees -- and those others. That 
would be interesting.
They passed through the double doors that marked the boundary between Collegium 
and Herald's Wing, and Teren turned immediately to a door on the left. "This is 
where I'll leave you for now. I will see you tomorrow, and we'll start Basic 
Orientation. And a couple of the other introductory classes. That way, when 
everyone gets back and Collegium classes start again, you'll be able to join 
right up."
He tapped on the door; a muffled sound answered, and Teren opened it, and 
putting a hand just between Skif's shoulder blades, gently propelled Skif inside 
before he got a chance to hesitate.
The door shut behind him.
Skif found himself in a cluttered room, a very small room, but one that, from 
the open door to the side, must be part of a larger suite. There were four 
things in this room, besides Dean Elcarth; books, papers, chairs, and a desk. 
There were bookshelves built into the wall that were crammed full of books; 
books and papers were piled on every available surface. Elcarth motioned to Skif 
to come in and take the only chair that wasn't holding more books, one with a 
deep seat and leather padding that was cracked and crazed with age.
He sat in it gingerly, since it didn't look either sturdy or comfortable. He 
should have known better; nothing bad that he'd assumed about the Heralds ever 
turned out to be right. The chair proved to be both sturdy and comfortable, and 
it fit him as if it had been intended for him.
Herald Elcarth folded his hands under his chin, and regarded Skif with a mild 
gaze. "You," he said at last, "are a puzzle. I must say that Myste and I have 
searched through every Chronicle of the Collegium, and I cannot find a single 
instance of a thief being Chosen. We've had several attempted suicides, three 
murderers -- which, I will grant, were all self-defense, and one of them was Lavan 
Firestorm, but nevertheless, they were murderers. We've had a carnival 
trickster, a horse sharper, and a girl who pretended to be a witch, told 
fortunes which turned out to be correct ForeSight, but also took money for 
curses she never performed, relying instead on the fact that she'd be long gone 
before anyone noticed that nothing bad had happened to the person she cursed. 
We've had a former assassin. We've even had a spy. But we've never had a thief."
Skif tried to read his expression, and didn't get any clues from it. Elcarth 
merely seemed interested.
"So, I have to ask myself, Skif. Why you? What is it about you that is so 
different that a Companion would Choose you?" He tilted his head to the side, 
looking even more birdlike. "Alberich, by the way, has told me nothing of why he 
recognized you. In fact, he didn't say much at all about you, except that he 
knew who you were, but until Kantor told him, he had not known you were 
specifically a thief."
"What d'ye wanta know?" Skif asked. The best way to limit the damage might be to 
get Elcarth to ask questions, so that he could carefully tailor his answers.
"More to the point, what do you want to tell me?" Elcarth countered. 
"Usually -- not always, but usually -- the Chosen sitting where you are start pouring 
out their life stories to me. Are you going to be any different?"
"I ain't the kind t'pour out m'life story to anybody," Skif replied, trying not 
to sound sullen, wondering just how much he was going to have to say to satisfy 
the Dean's curiosity. "I dunno. I ain't never hurt nobody. I stick t'the liftin' 
lay an' roof work…"
He hadn't given a second thought to whether Elcarth would understand the cant, 
but Elcarth nodded. "Picking pockets and house theft. Which explains why you 
were in that park in broad daylight. Taking advantage of the fact that no one 
was about in the heat, hmm?"
Skif blinked. How had -- 
"Your trail out of the city was shatteringly obvious," Elcarth pointed out. "Not 
to mention hazardous. From the moment Cymry left the park with you, there were 
witnesses, many of them members of the City Guard. But that only tells me what 
you do, not what you are -- and it's what you are that is what I need to know." At 
Skif's silence, he prodded a little more. "Your parents?"
"Dead," he answered shortly. But try as he might, he couldn't stand firm in the 
face of Elcarth's gentle, but ruthless and relentless questioning. Before very 
long, Elcarth knew something of his Uncle Londer, of Beel, and of Bazie and 
Bazie's collection of "boys" -- and he knew what had happened to all of them. 
Especially Bazie. And he knew about the fire.
He managed to keep most of the details to himself, though; at least he thought 
he did. The last thing he wanted was to start unloading his rage on Elcarth. It 
was a handle to Skif's character that Skif didn't want the Dean to have.
But he didn't manage to keep back as much as he would have liked, though, and 
just talking about it made his chest go tight, his back tense, and his stomach 
churn with unspoken emotion. Part of him wanted to tell this gentle man 
everything -- but that was the "new" part of him. The old part did not want him to 
be talking at all, and was going mad trying to keep him from opening his mouth 
any more than he had.
Fortunately at that point, Elcarth changed the subject entirely, quizzing him on 
reading, figuring, writing, and other subjects. That was what he had expected, 
although he didn't care for it, and his stomach soon settled again. It took 
longer for the tension to leave his back and chest, but that was all right. The 
tension reminded him that he needed to be careful.
Outside the office, the day moved on, and the heat wave hadn't broken. Thick as 
these stone walls were, the heat still got into Elcarth's office and both of 
them were fanning themselves with stray papers before the interview was over. "I 
think I can place you, now," Elcarth said, by late afternoon. "But I'm going to 
be putting you in one class you probably aren't going to appreciate."
"Figuring!" Skif groaned.
"Actually -- no. Not immediately. I'm going to ask Gaytha to teach you how to speak 
properly." Elcarth sat back and waited for Skif's reaction.
If he'd expected Skif to show resentment, he got a surprise himself. "Huh. I 
s'pose I can see that -- though you shoulda 'eard -- heard -- me afore -- before -- Bazie got 
hold of me." Actually he wasn't at all displeased. You didn't get to be a good 
thief by being unobservant, and Skif had known very well that his speech 
patterns would mark him out in any crowd as coming from the "bad part of town" 
near Exile's Gate. If he was going to consort with the highborn and be taken 
seriously, he'd better stop dropping his "h's".
Among other things.
And he might as well start being careful about how he spoke now. "Is that all 
you want with me?" he asked, watching every syllable, adding as an afterthought, 
"sir."
"For now." Elcarth studied him, and Skif forced himself not to squirm 
uncomfortably under that unwavering gaze. "I hope eventually you'll feel freer 
to talk to me, Skif." He looked for a moment as if he was about to say more, 
then changed his mind. "I believe you have another interview before you -- "
"I -- " Skif began, but a tap on the door interrupted him.
"Come!" called Elcarth, and the door was opened by Herald Alberich. Who was, of 
course, the very last person that Skif wanted to see at this moment, when 
Elcarth had him feeling so unbalanced and unsettled.
Alberich looked at him for a moment, but not with the gaze of a hawk with prey 
in sight, but with a more measuring, even stare. "Come, I have, to take our new 
one off, Elcarth," he said simply. "Companion's Field, I think. Cooler it will 
be there."
"Well, I'm satisfied with him, so he's all yours," Elcarth replied, making Skif 
wince a little. But Alberich smiled, ever so slightly.
"Your Cymry is anxious to see the work of the Healer," he said to Skif. "And it 
is that I have evaluation of my own to make. Please -- come."
He reached out and beckoned with one hand, and Skif got reluctantly to his feet.
Unlike Teren, Alberich did not seem inclined to lead Skif anywhere. Instead, he 
paced gravely beside Skif, hands clasped behind his back, indicating direction 
with a jerk of his chin. They left the Herald's Wing by the same door through 
which they'd first entered the Collegium; Skif recognized the spot immediately. 
There were plenty of trees here, and Skif was glad of the shade. And glad of the 
light color of the Trainee uniform. He hated to think what it would have been 
like if the outfit had been black.
"To the riverbank, I think," Alberich said, with one of those chin jerks. "You 
are puzzled by my accent."
"Well -- aye," Skif admitted. "Never heard naught like it."
"Nor will you. It is from Karse that I am. A Captain I was, in the service of 
Vkandis Sunlord." With a glance at Skif's startled face, Alberich then turned 
his face up toward the cloudless sky. "We have something in common, I think. Or 
will have. The thief and the traitor -- neither to be trusted. Outside the Heraldic 
Circle, that is."
Skif swallowed hard. A Karsite. A Karsite offlcer. From the army of Valdemar's 
most implacable enemy.
"But -- why -- "
"That is what I -- we, for Kantor suggested this -- wish to be telling you," Alberich 
said gravely as they approached the riverbank. His face cleared, then, as they 
rounded a section of topiary bushes and the river appeared, dazzling in the sun. 
"Ah, there they are!"
Two Companions waited for them, and Skif knew Cymry from the other immediately, 
though how, he couldn't have said. He rushed to greet her, and as he touched 
her, he felt enveloped in that same wonderful feeling that had been creeping in 
all afternoon, past doubts, past fears, past every obstacle. He pulled her head 
down to his chest and ran his hands along her cheeks, while she breathed into 
his tunic and made little contented sounds. He could have stayed that way for 
the rest of the afternoon…
But Alberich cleared his throat politely after a time, and Skif pulled away from 
her with great reluctance. "A grotto there is, in the riverbank. Cool as a 
cellar in this heat, and our Companions will enjoy it as well."
Cymry seemed to know exactly where they were going, so Skif let her lead him. 
Skif kept one hand on her neck and followed along. She led him down a 
steeply-sloped, grassy bank to the edge of the river itself, and there, partly 
out of sight from the lawn above, was a kind of ornamental cave carved into the 
bank, just as Alberich had said. It was just about tall enough to stand up 
inside, and held three curved, stone benches at the back. Nicely paved, 
ceilinged, and walled with flagstone, it was wonderfully cool in there, and the 
two Companions took up positions just inside, switching their tails idly, as 
Alberich and Skif took seats on built-in benches at the back.
This wasn't so bad. Without the Herald looming over him, without actually having 
to look him in the eyes, Skif felt more comfortable. And in the dim coolness, 
the Herald seemed a bit more relaxed. Alberich cleared his throat again, as soon 
as they settled. "So. It is you who have been telling tales for the most of 
today. Let someone else, for a candlemark."
"Suits," Skif said shortly, and leaned back into the curved stone bench.
"Karse," Alberich began, meditatively. "I left my land, and to an extent, my 
God. They call me traitor there. Think you -- it is odd, that I love them both, 
still?"
"I dunno," Skif replied honestly. "Dunno much 'bout Gods, an' -- truth t'tell, I 
never thought overmuch 'bout anythin' like a whole country. Mostly didn' think 
'bout much past m'own streets."
Alberich nodded a little, his gaze fixed on the river flowing outside the 
grotto. "No reason there was, why you should."
Skif shrugged. " Ol' Bazie, he didn' think much of Karse, an' I reckon he 
thought pretty well of Valdemar, when it comes down t'cases. Least -- " Skif 
thought hard for a moment, back to those memories that he hadn't wanted to think 
about at all for a very long time now. "Huh. When he lost 'is legs, 'twasn't 
Karse as saw 'im Healed, nor the Tedrels. 'Twas Valdemar. An' he 'ad some good 
things t'say 'bout Heralds."
"Tell me," Alberich urged mildly, and Skif did. It was surprising, when he came 
to think about it, how much good Bazie had said about Valdemar and its Heralds, 
especially considering that he'd fought against both.
Alberich sighed. "I love my land and my God," he said, when Skif was through. 
"But -- both have been -- are being -- ill served. And that is neither the fault of the 
land, nor the God."
He told his story concisely, using as few words as possible, but Skif got a 
vivid impression of what the younger Alberich must have been like. And when he 
described being trapped in a building that was deliberately set afire to execute 
him, Skif found himself transposing that horror to what Bazie and the boys must 
have felt.
But there had been no Companion leaping through the flames to save them. There 
had been no happy ending for Bazie.
"It was the King's Own and another Herald who came at Kantor's call," Alberich 
said meditatively. "Which was, for my sake, a good thing. Few would question 
Talamir's word, fewer dared to do so aloud. So I was Healed, and I learned -- yes," 
he said, after he glanced at Skif. "Oh, smile you may, that into Grays I went, 
and back to schooling at that age! A sight, I surely was!" He shook his head.
"Why?" Skif asked. "Why didn' you just tell 'em t' make you a Herald straight 
off?"
"And knowing nothing of Heralds or Valdemar? Stubborn I am often, stupid, never. 
Much I had to unlearn. More did others have to learn of me. Selenay, after 
Talamir, was my friend and advocate -- after them, others. More than enough work 
there was here, to keep me at the Collegium, replacing the aged Weaponsmaster. 
More than enough reason to stay, that others have me beneath their eye, and so 
feel control over me in their hands." He smiled sardonically. "Did they know 
what I learn for the Queen here, it is that they would send me out to the 
farthest Border ere I could take breath thrice."
Since Skif had seen him at work, he snickered. Alberich bestowed a surprisingly 
mild glance on him.
"Now, your turn, it is, for answering questions," he said, and Skif steeled 
himself. "But first of all, because I would know -- why choose to be a thief?"
An odd question, and as unexpected as one of Alberich's rare smiles. Skif 
shrugged. " 'Twas that -- or slave for m'nuncle Londer. Wasn't much else goin' -- an' 
Bazie was all right."
His heart contracted at that. All right! What a niggardly thing to say about a 
man who had been friend, teacher, and in no small part, savior! Yet -- if he said 
more, he put his heart within reach of this Herald, this Alberich, who had 
already said in so many words that he would use anything to safeguard Valdemar, 
the Queen, and the Heralds…
And that's bad, how? whispered that new side of him.
Shut up! replied the old.
Skif became aware that a moment of silence had lengthened into something that 
Alberich might use to put a question. He filled it, quickly. "Bazie was pretty 
good t'us, actually." He paused. "You gonna Truth Spell me again?"
Alberich shook his head. "What I did was done in need and haste. Much there is I 
would learn of you, but most of it will wait. And what I would know, I think you 
will tell freely for the sake of your friends."
So now, for a second time, Alberich asked questions about Jass and Jass' master, 
this time helping Skif to pry out the least and littlest morsel of information 
in his memory. This time, though, the questions came thoughtfully, as slow as 
the heat-heavy air drifting above the riverbank and cloaking it in shimmer, each 
question considered and answered with the same care. Alberich was right about 
this much. In this case, Alberich's goals and Skif's were one, and the two 
voices inside him were at peace with one another.
The light had turned golden as they spoke, and the heat shimmer faded. There had 
been a long time since the last question, and Skif slowly became aware that 
lunch was wearing thin. As his stomach growled, Alberich glanced over at him 
again, with a half-smile.
"You know your way about, I think," the Weaponsmaster said. "Tomorrow we will 
meet, and you will begin your training with me, and with others."
Then, with no other word of farewell, Alberich rose and stalked out, his 
Companion falling in at his side like a well-trained drill partner.
* * * * * * * * * *
"You've been mighty quiet," Skif said to Cymry in the silence.
:You were doing perfectly well without me,: she replied, with a saucy switch of 
her tail. :Well Here you are, left perfectly alone on the Palace grounds. You 
can go and do whatever you want; no keeper, no guardian. You could go climb to 
the Palace roof if you wanted to, bearing in mind the Queen's Guard might catch 
you. Or hasn't that occurred to you yet?:
It hadn't, and the revelation hit him like a bucket of cold water.
"You sure?" he gasped.
:As sure as I'm standing here.: She switched her tail again, but this time with 
impatience. :They trust you. Isn't it time you started to trust them? Just 
start, that's all.:
An odd, heavy feeling came into his throat. Once again, the sense that something 
portentous had happened, something that he didn't understand, came over him.
It was more than uncomfortable, it was unsettling, in the sense of feeling the 
world he knew suddenly shift into something he no longer recognized.
"I'm hungry," he announced, hastily shunting it all aside. "An' I reckon I saw 
some ham an' bacon in that pantry."
Cymry whickered; it sounded like a chuckle. :I reckon you saw more than that. Go 
on, come back and meet me here once you've stuffed yourself.:
Skif got up, and now that he was moving again, he felt every single bruise and 
strain from yesterday's ride.
Was it only yesterday? It felt like a lifetime ago…
As he got up, he actually staggered a little with stiffness. Cymry moved quickly 
to give him a shoulder to catch himself on, and after he'd steadied himself, he 
gave her a self-conscious little kiss on her forehead.
:Go on,: she said playfully, giving him a shove with her nose. :Just don't eat 
until you're sick.:
You didn't become a successful thief without learning the layout of a place on 
the first time through it. Nevertheless, Skif couldn't help but feeling a little 
self-conscious as he made his way across the grass, overshadowed by the silent 
building. And he couldn't help looking for those who might be looking for him. 
But there were no watchers; Cymry had been right. And when he left the heat of 
the outdoors for the cool of the great kitchen, he discovered it just as 
deserted as it had been when Teren brought him.
He opened the pantry doors and stood amid the plenitude, gazing at the laden 
shelves and full of indecision. Bacon or ham? White bread, or brown? It was too 
hot to eat anything cooked-up fresh, besides being far too much trouble, but 
there was an abundance of good things that could be eaten cold. His mouth 
watered at the sight of a row of ceramic jars labeled "Pikld Beets," but the 
discovery of a keg of large sour cucumber pickles made him change his mind about 
the beets. There were so many things here that he had only tasted once or twice, 
and so many more he'd seen, but never tasted -- 
But although Cymry had warned him playfully about eating himself sick, he was 
mindful of that very consideration. Too many times he'd seen people in his own 
streets do just that, when encountering unexpected abundance. After all, none of 
this was going to disappear tomorrow, or even later tonight (unless he ate it) 
and he wasn't going to have his access to it removed, either.
When this Cook gets back t'work --  Oh, there was a thought! If there was so much 
here ready for snacking, what wonderful things must the Cook prepare every day? 
Visions of the kinds of things he'd seen in the best inns passed through his 
mind --  minced-meat pasties, stews with thick, rich gravy, egg pie and oh, the 
sweets…
Eventually he made his selections, and put a plate together. He ate neatly and 
with great enjoyment, savoring every bite, finishing with a tart apple and a 
piece of sharp cheese. Then, as he had when he had eaten earlier with Teren, he 
cleaned up after himself and put everything away.
A glance through the windows above the great sink as he was washing up showed 
him that the sky had gone to red as the sun set. There would be plenty of time 
to spend with Cymry, and at that moment, there was nothing in the world that he 
would rather have been doing.
Back up and out he went, under a sky filled with red-edged, purple clouds, 
passing trees just beginning to whisper in an evening breeze, through the 
quietude that seemed so strange to him after the constant noise of the city 
proper. Cymry waited for him where he had last seen her, watching the sun set 
and turn the river to a flat ribbon of fire.
He put an arm over her shoulder, and they watched it together. How many times 
had he watched the sun rise or set above the roofs of the city? Too many to 
count, certainly, but he'd never had as much time as he would have liked to 
enjoy the sight, even when it was a truly glorious one like tonight.
Come to that, there had never been anyone with him who understood that it was a 
glorious sight until tonight. Bazie would have -- but Bazie had spent most of his 
time in the cellar room, and there was never the time or leisure for his boys to 
bring him up for a sunset.
They stood together until the last vestige of rose faded from the clouds, and 
only then did they realize that they were not alone.
Behind them were another Herald and Companion, who must have come up behind them 
so quietly that not even Skif's instincts were alerted -- and that took some skill.
Skif didn't even know they were there until Cymry reacted, with a sudden glance 
over her shoulder, a start and a little jump.
Then he looked behind, and saw the strangers.
He turned quickly, sure that they were somewhere they shouldn't have been, but 
the tall, elderly man standing with one arm around his Companion's shoulders 
(even as Skif had stood with Cymry) smiled and forestalled any apology.
"I beg your pardon, youngling, for startling you," the man said, his voice 
surprisingly deep for one as thin as he was. "We often come here to admire the 
sunset, and didn't see any reason to disturb your enjoyment. Rolan tells me that 
you are Skif and Cymry."
The man's uniform was a touch above the ones that Herald Teren and Dean Elcarth 
had worn; there was a lot of silver embroidery on the white deerskin tunic, and 
Skif would have been willing to bet anything he had that the trews and shirt 
this Herald wore were silk.
The Companion was something special as well; he was just a little glossier, just 
a little taller, and had just a touch more of an indefinable dignity than any of 
the others Skif had seen thus far did.
:This is the Queen's Own Herald Talamir and Rolan, the Grove-Born,: Cymry said 
hastily in his mind, in a tone that told Skif (even though he had no idea what 
the titles meant) that these two were somehow very, very special, even by the 
standards of Heralds.
"Yessir, Herald Talamir," Skif said, with an awkward bob of his head. It was a 
very odd thing. He had seen any number of highborn, and never felt any reason to 
respect them. He did respect the Heralds he'd met so far -- but this man, without 
doing more than simply stand there, somehow commanded respect. But at the same 
time, there was an aura of what Beel might have called mortality and what others 
might have called fey that hung about him.
The Herald's smile widened. "And I see that you and Cymry Mindspeak. That is 
excellent, especially in so early a bond." Talamir stepped forward and extended 
his hand to Skif, and when Skif tentatively offered his own, took it, and shook 
it firmly but gently. "Welcome, Skif," was all he said, but the words were a 
true greeting, and not a hollow courtesy.
"Thankee, sir," Skif replied, feeling an unaccountable shyness, a shyness that 
evidently was shared by Cymry, who kept glancing at the other Companion with 
mingled awe and admiration. Talamir seemed to expect something more from him, 
and he groped for something to say. "This's -- all kinda new t'me."
"So I'm told." Mild amusement, no more. No sign that Talamir had been told 
anything of Skif's antecedents. "Well, if you feel overwhelmed, remember that 
when I first arrived here, I was straight out of a horse-trading family, I'd 
never spent a night in my life under anything but canvas, and the largest city I 
ever saw was a quarter of the size of Haven. My first night in my room was 
unbearable; I thought I was going to smother, and I kept feeling the walls 
pressing in on me. Eventually, I took my blankets outside and slept on the lawn. 
Very few of us are ready for this when we arrive here, and -- " he chuckled softly, 
the merest ghost of a laugh, " -- sometimes here is even less ready for us. But we 
adapt, the Trainee to the Collegium and the Collegium to the Trainee. Even if it 
means pitching a tent in the garden for a Trainee to live in for the first six 
months."
Skif gaped, totally unable to imagine this elegant gentleman living in a tent, 
but quickly shut his mouth. "Yessir," he replied, his usually quick wits failing 
him.
He had no idea how to end this conversation, but the Herald solved his dilemma 
for him. "Have a good evening, youngling," Talamir said, and he and his 
Companion turned and drifted off through the dusk like a pair of spirits, making 
no sound whatsoever as they moved over the grass. The moon, three-quarters now, 
had just begun to rise, and its light silvered them with an eldritch glow.
"Is't just me," Skif asked, when he was pretty sure they were out of earshot, 
"Or are they spooky?";
:They're spooky,: Cymry affirmed, with an all-over shiver of her coat. :Rolan is 
Talamir's second Companion. Taver was killed in the Tedrel Wars, when Talamir 
and Jadus were trying to rescue the King. They say that everyone thought Talamir 
was going to follow Taver and King Sendar until Rolan came and pulled him back. 
Ever since then, Talamir's been --  otherworldly. Half his heart and soul are here, 
and half's in the Havens, they say.:
Skif shook his head. All this was too deep for him.
:Still!: Cymry continued, shaking off her mood. :His mind is all here, and 
Talamir's mind is better than four of any one else's! Would you like to see 
Companion's Field?:
"I thought this was Companion's Field," Skif replied confusedly.
She made a chuckling sound. :This is only the smallest corner of it. Most of it 
is across the river. Think you can get on my back without a boost?:
"Please. I can pull m'self up a gutter on t'roof without usin' legs," he 
retorted. "I oughta be able t' get on your back!"
She stood rock still for him, and after a moment of awkwardness, he managed to 
clamber onto her bare back. Stepping out into the twilight at a brisk pace, she 
took him across the river on a little stone bridge, and they spent a candlemark 
or two exploring Companion's Field.
Finally the long day caught up with him, and Skif found himself yawning and 
nodding, catching himself before he actually dozed off and fell off Cymry's 
back. Cymry brought him right back to the place where they'd met, and from 
there, he stumbled up to his room.
Someone had come along and lit the lanterns set up along the walls, so at least 
he wasn't stumbling because he couldn't see. When he got to the door of his 
room, he discovered that someone had also slipped a card into a holder there 
that had his name on it.
A sound in the corridor made him turn; his eyes met the brilliant blue ones of 
an older boy -- hair soaking wet and wrapped in a light sleeping robe, on his way 
out of the bathing room. The other boy smiled tentatively.
"Hullo!" he greeted Skif. "I'm Kris; you must be the new one, Skif. It's me and 
Jeri here over Midsummer."
"Uh -- hullo," He eyed Kris carefully; definitely highborn, with that accent and 
those manners. But not one with his nose in the air. "Jeri a girl or a boy?"
"Girl. She'll be your year-mate; got Chosen six moons ago. Oh, I made sure I 
left enough hot water for a good bath."
"Thanks." That decided him. Maybe he'd already had one bath today, but he was 
still stiff and sore, and another wouldn't hurt.
Kris was still looking at him quizzically. "I hope you don't mind my asking -- but 
how did you get that black eye? It's a glory! If you haven't seen it, it's gone 
all green and purple around the edges, and black as black at your nose."
"Smacked it inta Cymry's neck," Skif admitted ruefully. "Ain't never jumped on a 
horse afore."
Kris winced in sympathy. "Ouch. Better go soak. Good night!"
"Night," Skif replied, and got a robe of his own to take the boy's advice.
When he got back to his room and started putting his new belongings away to 
clear his bed so he could sleep, he found one last surprise.
On the desk were all of his things. Every possible object he owned except the 
most ragged of his clothing from both his room next to Jass', and the Priory. 
Including his purse, with every groat still in it.
Startled, he tried to think at his Companion. :Cymry!: he "called" her, hoping 
she'd answer.
:What do you need?: she asked sleepily, and he explained what he'd found.
:Who did that? And how come?: he finished. It worried him…
:Oh. That would be Alberich's doing, I expect,: she replied. Usually they go 
send someone to tell families that the Chosen's arrived safely, and to get their 
belongings, if they didn't bring anything with them. Don't you want your 
things?:
Well, of course he wanted his things. :I just -- :
The fact was, he worried. Who went there. What they'd said. And how they'd known 
where he came from…
:Kantor says it was all Alberich's doing, at least getting your things from your 
room.: Well, that was one worry off his mind. Alberich would have gone as the 
sell-sword, and intimidated his way in. Good enough. :He sent off the usual 
Guardsman to the Priory. They'll have told the Priory you were Chosen, and the 
Guardsman would have brought someone hired to take your place, so the Priory 
won't go shorthanded. Kan for says Alberich didn't tell your old landlord 
anything. Is that all right?:
Since it was exactly what he would have wanted had he been asked, he could only 
agree. :Aye. That's fine, I reckon.: In fact, he couldn't think of anything else 
he could possibly want.
:Get some sleep,: she told him. :It'll be a long day tomorrow.:
A longer one than today? With a sigh, he climbed into bed, feeling very strange 
to be in such a bed, and even stranger not hearing the usual noises of the city 
beyond his walls.
But not so strange that he was awake for much longer than it took to find a 
comfortable position and think about closing the curtains he'd left open to let 
in every bit of breeze. About the time he decided it didn't matter, he was 
asleep.
A SCANT week later, Skif was just about ready to face all the returning 
Trainees. He knew what the Heralds of Valdemar were about now -- at least, he knew 
where they'd come from and what they did. And he was starting to get his mind 
wrapped around why they did it. If he didn't understand it, well, there were a 
great many things in the world that he didn't understand, and that didn't keep 
him from going on with his life.
Something had happened to him over the course of that week, and he didn't 
understand any of it. The things he had always thought were the only truths in 
the world weren't, not here anyway. He was going to have to watch these Heralds 
carefully. They might be hiding something behind all this acceptance and 
welcome.
But since a lot of what was going on with him had to do with feelings, he came 
to the unsatisfactory and vague conclusion that maybe it wasn't going to be 
possible to understand it. He was caught up like a leaf in the wind, and the 
leaf didn't have a lot of choice in where the wind took it. If it hadn't been 
that Cymry was a big part of that wind -- 
Well, she was, and despite everything he'd learned until this moment, he found 
himself thinking and feeling things that would have been completely unlike the 
boy he'd been a fortnight ago. Soft, was what he would have called what he was 
becoming now, but what he was now knew that there was nothing soft about where 
he was tending. If anything, it was hard… as in difficult.
And difficult were the things he was learning, and the things he was going to 
learn, though truth to tell, it was no more work than he was used to setting 
himself. Physical exertion? The weapons' work he was doing, the riding, none of 
it was as hard as roof walking. Book learning? Ha! It was mostly reading and 
remembering, not like having to figure out a new lock. Even the figuring -- the 
mathematics, they called it --  wasn't that bad. Since he could already do his 
sums, this new stuff was a matter of logic, a lot like figuring out a lock. The 
real difference was that he was obeying someone else's schedule and someone 
else's orders.
Yet he'd run to Bazie's schedule and Bazie's orders, and thought no worse of it, 
nor of himself.
For every objection his old self came up with, the new one -- or Cymry -- had a 
counter. And if there was one thing he was absolutely certain of, it was that he 
would not, could not do without Cymry. She didn't so much fill an empty place in 
him as fill up every crack and crevice that life had ever put in his heart, and 
make it all whole again. To have Cymry meant he would have to become a Herald. 
So be it. It was worth it a thousand times over.
And once again, just as when he'd been with Bazie, he was happy.
He hadn't known what happiness was until Bazie took him in. Moments of pleasure, 
yes, and times of less misery than others, but never happiness. He'd learned 
that with Bazie, and since the fire, he hadn't had so much as a moment of real, 
unshadowed happiness.
Now it was back. Not all the time, and there were still times when he thought 
about the fire and raged or wept or both. He wasn't going to turn his back on 
these people, not until he figured out what their angle was. But for the most 
part it was back, like a gift, something he'd never thought to have back again.
After that, he knew he couldn't leave. Out there, without Cymry, he'd go back to 
being alone against the world. In here, with her, there was one absolutely true 
thing he was certain of. Cymry loved and needed him, and he loved and needed 
her. The rest -- well, he'd figure it all out as it came.
But he woke every day with two persistent and immediate problems to solve. When 
his fingers itched to lift a kerchief or a purse, he wondered what would happen 
if he gave in to the urge -- and when Kris and Jeri accepted him without question 
as one of themselves, he worried what would happen when they (and the rest of 
the Trainees) learned he'd been a thief. Cymry might be the center of his world, 
but he'd had friends before in Bazie and the boys, and he liked having them. He 
didn't want to lose the ones he was getting now.
He woke one morning exactly six days after he had arrived, a day when he knew 
the rest of the Trainees would begin coming back in, signaling the beginning of 
his real classes tomorrow, although it would probably take two or three more 
days for all of them to make it back. It helped, of course, that they all had 
Companions, and however long their journeys were, they would travel in a 
fraction of the time it took an ordinary horse to cross the same distance. He 
had met most of his teachers, and even begun lessons designed to allow him to 
fit into the classes with some of them. He had no idea how many of them -- besides 
Alberich and Teren -- knew his background either.
And eventually, it would come out. Secrets never stayed secret for long. 
Eventually someone would say something.
He had worried over that like a terrier with a rat; in fact, he'd gone to bed 
that night thinking about it. And when he woke, it was with an answer at last.
Whether it would be the right answer was another question entirely. But he knew 
who to consult on it.
The Collegium cook, a moon-faced, eternally cheerful man called Mero, had turned 
up three days ago. The Collegium bells signaling the proper order of the day had 
resumed when Mero returned. So now, when Skif awoke at the first bell of the day 
and went down to the kitchen at the bell that signaled breakfast, he would join 
Kris and the girl Jeri and some of the teachers around a table in the kitchen 
for a real cooked meal. With so few to cook for, Mero declined help in cooking, 
but afterward they all pitched in to clean up. Some of Skif's daydreams about 
food were coming to pass -- Mero even made homely oat porridge taste special.
After breakfast came Skif's first appointment of the day. It wasn't exactly a 
class… especially not this morning.
And this morning, he could hardly eat his breakfast for impatience to get out to 
the salle, where some of the weapons training was done. He cleared the table by 
himself so that he could leave quickly.
He ran to the salle, a building that stood apart from the rest of the Collegia, 
and for good reason, since it needed to be a safe distance from anywhere people 
might walk, accidentally or on purpose. The Trainees from all three Collegia 
learned archery, and even some of the Blues, the students who weren't Trainees 
at all. And some of those archery students were, to be frank, not very good.
Skif, although he had never shot a bow in his life, had proved to be a natural 
at it, somewhat to his own surprise. Seeing that, Alberich had tried him with 
something a bit more lethal and less obvious than an arrow. He'd tried him in 
knife throwing.
Skif had been terrifyingly accurate. Where his eye went, so did whatever was put 
in his hand. He had no idea where the skill had come from -- but at least his 
ability to fight with a knife, or with the blunted practice swords, was no 
better than anyone else's.
Alberich had promised something in the way of a surprise for him this morning, 
and Skif was impatient to see what he meant, as well as impatient to speak with 
him.
When Skif arrived at the salle, Alberich was throwing a variety of weapons at a 
target set up on the other side of the room. Alberich was a hair more accurate 
than Skif, but Alberich's skill came from training, not a natural talent. 
Nevertheless, Skif watched with admiration as Alberich placed his 
weapons -- knives, sharpened stakes, and small axes -- in a neat pattern on the 
straw-padded target. He didn't interrupt the Weaponsmaster, and Alberich didn't 
stop until all the implements he'd lined up on a bench behind him were in the 
target.
The salle, a long, low building with smooth, worn wooden floors, was lit from 
above by clerestory windows. This was because the walls were taken up with 
storage cabinets and a few full-length mirrors. For the rest, there wasn't much, 
just a few benches, some training equipment, and the door to Alberich's office. 
For all Skif knew, Alberich might even have quarters here, since he hardly ever 
saw the Weaponsmaster anywhere else.
"So, you come in good time," Alberich said, as the last of his sharpened stakes 
slammed into the target. He turned toward Skif, picking up something from the 
bench where his weapons had been. "Come here, then. Let us see how these suit 
you."
"These" proved to be little daggers in sheaths that Alberich strapped to Skif's 
arms, with the daggers lying along the in side of his arms. Once on, they were 
hidden by Skif's sleeves, and he flexed his arms experimentally. They weren't at 
all uncomfortable, and he suspected that with a little practice wearing them, he 
wouldn't even notice they were there.
"Of my students, only two are, I think, fit to use these," Alberich said. "Jeri 
is one. It is you that is the other. Look you -- " He showed Skif the catch that 
kept each dagger firmly in its sheath -- and the near-invisible shake of the wrist 
that dropped it down into the hand, ready to throw, when the catch was undone.
Skif was thrilled with the new acquisition -- what boy wouldn't be? -- but unlike 
most, if not all, of the other Trainees, he had seen men knifed and bleeding and 
dead. Men -- and a woman or two. Even before he left his uncle's tavern, he'd seen 
death at its most violent. And he knew, bone-deep and blood-deep, that death was 
what these knives were for. Not target practice, not showing off for one's 
friends. Death, hidden in a sleeve, small and silent, waiting to be used.
Death was a cold, still face, and blood pooling and clotting on the pavement. 
Death was floating bloated in the river. Death was ashes and bones in the 
burned-out hulk of a building.
Death was someone you knew found still and cold, and never coming back. And 
these little "toy" daggers were death. Not to be treated lightly, or to be 
played with.
But death was also being able to stop someone from making you dead.
"Can you kill a man?" Alberich asked suddenly, as Skif contemplated the dagger 
in his hand.
Skif looked up at the Weaponsmaster. As usual, his face was unreadable. "Depends 
on th' man," Skif replied soberly. "If you're talkin' in cold blood, I'd a took 
Jass down like a mad dog, just 'cause he killed m'friends, and I'd'a done it 
soon as I knew who his master was. In the dark. In the back. An' if somethin' 
happens, an' his master won't come up on what's due him -- mebbe I'd do him, too. 
If you're talkin' in hot blood, if I was come at myself -- someone wantin' me 
dead -- aye, I'd kill him."
Alberich nodded, as if that was expected. "So. When are you going to display 
these to your friends?" he prodded. It sounded casual, but it was prodding.
Skif shook his head. "These -- they're for serious work. Not for showin' off. 'Less 
you order me, Master Alberich, I ain't even gonna wear these, 'cept t' practice. 
That's like balancin' a rock over a door t' see who gets hit. I ain't got a hot 
temper, but I got a temper like anybody else. Losin' temper makes people do 
stupid things."
Death was a fight over nothing, and a lost temper, and blood where a simple blow 
would have served the same purpose. Over and over again, in the streets outside 
Exile's Gate, Death came when tempers worn thin by need or hurt, anger or drink, 
flared and blades came out. Alberich, in his guise of the sell-sword, was one of 
the few in those taverns that Skif had ever seen who went out of his way to 
avoid killing -- to avoid even causing permanent harm.
Alberich gave a brief nod of satisfaction, and went on to drill Skif in the use 
of his new weapons. He said nothing more as the knives went into the target 
again and again; he was satisfied that Skif was going to be sensible, and 
dismissed the question as answered. That was another thing that Skif had come to 
realize about Alberich in the last week. Where other people -- even a few 
Heralds -- were inclined to harp on a subject that worried them, Alberich examined 
the subject, asked his questions, made his statements, came to his decisions, 
and left it alone.
If he trusted the person in question.
And he trusted Skif.
That was a very, very strange realization. But when he had come to it last 
night, it had been the catalyst for his own decision this morning.
"Master Alberich," he said, when the knives had been taken off and wrapped up in 
an oiled cloth to keep the sheaths supple and catches rust free. "I got a 
thought. Sooner or later some'un's gonna let it slip what I was. An' that's 
gonna cause some trouble."
Alberich gave him one of those very penetrating glances, but said nothing.
"But I think that you want t'keep at least part of what I can do real quiet."
Now the Weaponsmaster nodded slightly. "Have I not said it? Your skills could 
be -- more than useful."
Skif clasped his hands behind his back. "So I had an ideer. What if we go ahead 
an' let part of it out? Just that I was on th' liftin' lay. 'Cause there's 
this -- ain't too many as does the roof work an' th' liftin' lay, an' if people 
know I done th' one, they won't look for t'other." He grinned. "I can turn it 
into a kinda raree-show trick, y'ken? Do th' lift fer laughs. I'd like -- ," he 
continued, with a laugh, " -- t'see yon Kris' face when I give 'im his liddle 
silver horse back, what he keeps in his pocket."
Alberich raised one eyebrow. "You have the itching fingers," he said, though 
without accusation.
"A bit," Skif admitted. "But -- what d'you think?"
"I think that you have the right of it," Alberich replied, and Skif's spirits 
lifted considerably. "It is your skill in other things, and not as the picker of 
pockets, that is of primary value, at least for now. And when you have your 
Whites, the novelty of your past will have worn off, those within the Circle 
will not trouble to speak of it, and most outside the Circle will never know of 
it. So if there is a thing to be taken amidst a crowd of strangers, you will 
likely not find eyes on you."
That made perfect sense. One of the pickpockets Skif knew had spent an entire 
year just establishing himself as a lame old beggar who was always stumbling 
into people. Then when no one even thought twice about him, he began deftly 
helping himself to their purses, and there wasn't a man jack of the ones that 
were robbed that even considered the lame old beggar was the culprit.
Alberich's eyes looked elsewhere for a flicker of time, then returned to him. 
"Those who need to know what you are about," he said, "Will know. The rest will 
see an imp of mischief." He leveled a long gaze at Skif.
Skif shrugged. "Won't keep nothing," he said, quite truthfully. "Never took 
more'n I needed t'live comfortable, or Bazie did. That was Bazie's way -- start t' 
take more, get greedy, get caught."
"A wise man, your Bazie," Alberich replied, with nothing weighting his tone.
Skif shrugged again. "So, I don' need nothing here. Livin' better than I ever 
did. An' you brought me my stuff."
With the purse of money, left in the loft at the Priory…
And when that money runs out, what then?
"If there is need for silver to loosen tongues, or even gold, the Queen's 
coffers will provide," Alberich said gravely, giving Skif a sudden chill, for it 
seemed as if the Weaponsmaster read Skif's mind before Skif even finished the 
thought. "And for the rest -- for there are Fairs, and there are taverns, and 
perhaps there will be the giving and receiving of gifts among friends, there is 
the stipend."
"Stipend?" Skif asked.
"Stipend." Alberich smiled wryly. "Some of ours are highborn, used to pocket 
money, some used to lavish amounts of it. We could forbid the parents to supply 
it, but why inflict hardship on those who deserve it not? So -- the stipend. All 
Trainees receive it alike. Pocket money, for small things. Since you have money 
already -- "
He paused.
And I am not asking you where it came from, nor demanding that you give it back, 
said the look that followed the pause.
" -- then you will have yours on the next Quarter-Day, with the others."
"Oh. Uh -- thank you -- " Skif, for once, felt himself at a loss for words. 
Blindsided, in fact. This wasn't something he had expected, another one of those 
unanticipated kindnesses. There was no earthly reason why the Heralds should 
supply the Trainees -- him in particular -- with pocket money. They already supplied 
food, clothing, wonderful housing, entertainment in the form of their own games, 
and the Bardic Collegium on the same grounds.
Why were they doing these things? They didn't have to. Trainees that didn't have 
wealthy parents could just do without pocket money.
But Alberich had already turned away. He brought out a longer knife, and was 
preparing the salle for another lesson in street fighting. That, Skif could 
understand, and he set himself to the lesson at hand.
* * * * * * * * * *
"It's a fool's bet," Herald-Trainee Nerissa cautioned a fascinated Blue four 
weeks later. "Don't take it."
But the look in her eyes suggested that although honesty had prompted the 
caution, Nerissa herself really, truly wanted to see Skif in action again.
Eight Trainees, two from Bardic Collegium and six from Herald's, and three 
Unaffiliated students, were gathered around Skif and a fourth Blue in the late 
afternoon sunshine on the Training Field.
The group surrounding Skif and the hapless Blue were just as fascinated as 
Nerissa, and just as eager. Skif himself shrugged and looked innocent. "Not a 
big bet," he pointed out. "Just t'fix my window so's the breeze can get in and 
them --  those -- moths can't. He says he can, says he has, for himself and his 
friends, and I don't think it'd put him out too much."
"It seems fair enough to me," said Kris. "Neither one of you is wagering 
anything he can't afford or can't do." He pointed at the Blue. "And you swore in 
the Compass Rose that Skif could never pull his trick on you, because you in 
particular and your plumb-line set in general were smarter than the Heraldic 
Trainees."
The Blue's eyes widened. "How did you know that?" he gasped.
Kris just grinned. "Sources, my lad," he said condescendingly, from the lofty 
position of a Trainee in his final year. "Sources. And I never reveal my 
sources. Are you going to take the bet, or not?"
The Blue's chin jutted belligerently. "Damn right I am!" he snapped.
"Witnessed!" called four Herald Trainees and one Bardic at once, just as 
Alberich came out to break the group up and set them at their archery practice.
At the end of practice, once Alberich had gone back into the salle, virtually 
everyone lingered -- and Skif didn't disappoint them. He presented the astonished 
Blue with the good-luck piece that had been the object of the bet, an ancient 
silver coin, so worn away that all that could be seen were the bare outlines of 
a head. The coin had been in a pocket that the Blue had fixed with a 
buttoned-down flap, an invention against pickpockets of his own devising, that 
he was clearly very proud of.
In a panic, the boy checked the pocket. It was buttoned. He undid it and felt 
inside. His face was a study in puzzlement, as he brought out his hand. There 
was a coin-shaped lead slug in it.
Skif flipped his luck piece at him, and he caught it amid the laughter of the 
rest of the group. He was good-natured about his failure -- something Skif had 
taken into consideration before making the bet -- and joined in the laughter 
ruefully. "All right," he said, with a huge sigh. "I'll fix your window."
As the Blue walked off, consoled by two of his fellows, Herald-Trainee Coroc 
slapped Skif on the back with a laugh. "I swear, it's as good as having a 
conjurer about!" the Lord Marshal's son said. "Well done! How'd you think of 
slipping him that lead slug to take the place of his luck piece?"
Skif flushed a little; he was coming to enjoy these little tests and bets. 
Picking pockets was something he did fairly well, but he didn't get any applause 
for it out in the street. The best he could expect was a heavy purse and no one 
putting the Watch on him. This, however -- he had an audience now, and he liked 
having an audience, especially an appreciative one.
"I figured I'd better have something when Kris told me that Henk had been 
a-boasting over in the Compass Rose, an' told me I had to uphold the Heralds' 
side," Skif replied, with a nod to Kris. "We've all seen that luck piece of his, 
so it wasn't no big thing to melt a bit of lead and make a slug to the right 
size. After that, I just waited for him to say something I could move in on."
"But when did you get the coin?" Coroc wanted to know. "I mean, Alberich broke 
us up right after he took the bet, and you didn't get anywhere near -- ,"
Coroc stopped talking, and his mouth made a little "oh" when he realized what 
Skif had done.
" -- you took it off him before the bet!" he exclaimed.
"When there was all that joshing and shoving, sure," Skif agreed. "I knew he'd 
take the bet; after all that about his special pocket, he'd never have passed it 
up. He figured it'd be a secret I wouldn't reckon out, and I'd lose. But even if 
Kris hadn't told me, I'd have figured it anyway," he added. "The button shows, 
when you look right, and he ain't no seamstress, that buttonhole ain't half as 
tight as it could be." That last in a note of scorn from one who had long ago 
learned to make a fine buttonhole. "Anyway, I had to have the slug, 'cause I 
knew once he took the bet he'd be a-fingering that pocket t' make sure his luck 
piece was there."
"It's a good thing you haven't shown up a Gift other than moderate 
Thoughtsensing," Kris laughed, "or he'd have been accusing you of Fetching the 
thing!"
Skif preened himself, just a little, under all the attention. If having Skif 
around was entertaining for his fellow Trainees, the admiration each time he 
pulled off something clever was very heady stuff for Skif. He'd begun 
beautifully, a couple of days after full classes resumed, when Kris's best 
friend Dirk had asked innocently where he'd come from and what his parents did. 
He'd put on a pitiful act, telling a long, sad, and only slightly embellished 
story of his mother's death, the near-slavery at his uncle's hands, his running 
away, and his tragic childhood in the slums near Exile's Gate. All the while, he 
was slowly emptying goodhearted Dirk's pockets.
"But how did you live?" the young man exclaimed, full of pity for him. "How did 
you manage to survive?"
By this time, of course, since everyone in the three Collegia loved a tale, he'd 
drawn a large and sympathetic audience.
"Oh," Skif had said, taking Dirk's broad hand, turning it palm upwards, and 
depositing his belongings in it. "I turned into a thief, of course."
Poor Dirk's eyes had nearly bulged out of his head, and this cap to a well-told 
tale had surprised laughter out of everyone else. Word very quickly spread, but 
because of the prankish nature of Skif's lifting, there wasn't a soul in 
Herald's Collegium, and not more than one or two doubters in Bardic and 
Healers', that thought him anything other than a mischief maker, and an 
entertaining one at that. Those few were generally thought of as sour-faced 
pessimists and their comments ignored.
Not, Skif thought to himself somberly as he accepted the accolades of his 
fellows with a self-effacing demeanor, but what they mightn't be right about me, 
'cept for Cymry.
Except for Cymry. That pretty much summed it up. Everyone among the Heraldic 
Trainees was willing to accept Skif as a harmless prankster because he'd been 
Chosen, because Companions didn't Choose bad people. And if anyone among the 
teachers thought differently, they were keeping their doubts to themselves.
"Time to get to the baths," Kris reminded them. "Otherwise the hot water's going 
to be gone." That sent everyone but Skif on a run for their quarters. Skif 
lingered, not because he didn't care about getting a hot bath, but because 
Alberich had given him an interesting look that he thought was a signal.
He made certain that no one was looking back at him, then sidled over to the 
salle entrance. Alberich was, as he had thought, waiting just inside.
"Working, and working well, is your plan of misdirection," the Weaponsmaster 
observed calmly.
"So far." Skif waited for the rest. There had to be more; Alberich wasn't going 
to give him a look like that just to congratulate him on his cleverness.
"Would it be that you would know the voice of Jass' master, heard you it again?" 
Alberich asked.
Skif felt a little thrill run through him. So Alberich was going to use him! He 
wasn't just going to have to sit around while the Weaponsmaster prowled the 
slums in his sell-sword guise.
"I think so," Skif said, after giving the question due consideration. "But, he'd 
have to be talking -- well, he'd have to be talking like he thought he was way 
above the person he was talking to."
"Condescending." Alberich nodded. "That, I believe, I can arrange. There is to 
be a gathering of Lord Orthallen's particular friends tonight. Get you to that 
place without challenge, I can do. It is for you to get yourself into a place of 
concealment where you can hear and observe, but not be noticed."
"Oh, I can do that!" Skif promised recklessly. "You just watch!"
"I intend to, since it will be myself at this gathering, as guard to Selenay 
with Talamir," Alberich replied. "I wish you at the door into the Herald's Wing 
at the dishwashing bell."
He turned and retreated into the shadows of the salle, and Skif whirled and ran 
for the Collegium.
He got his bath -- lukewarm, but he hardly noticed -- and ate without tasting his 
supper, in such haste that he came close to choking once. He was in place long 
before the bell rang, and Alberich, arriving early, smiled to see him there. And 
to see him in the uniform of a page, the pale-blue and silver that all of 
Selenay's pages wore.
"Come," was all he said, and he didn't ask where Skif had gotten the uniform. As 
it happened, he hadn't stolen it, he'd won it, fair and square. Another little 
bet. He'd had the feeling that he might need it at some point, and he was still 
small enough to pass for one of the pages without anyone lifting an eyebrow.
Won't be able t'pull that much longer, though, he thought with regret. He'd 
learned a lot, impersonating a page in Lord Orthallen's service, and he hoped to 
learn more, slipping into the Palace proper.
"I trust you know how to serve," Alberich murmured, as they walked together down 
the corridor, servants whose duty it was to light the lamps passing by them 
without a second glance.
Skif just snorted.
"I should like to note," Alberich went on, as they made a turn into the second 
half of Herald's Wing, "that I specified you be in a place of concealment."
"Hide in plain sight," Skif retorted. "When does any highborn look at a page?"
"Unless it is his own kin -- a point you have made. Well, this may serve better 
than having you lurking in the rafters." Alberich nodded a greeting to a Herald 
just emerging from his room; the other saluted him but showed no sign of wanting 
to stop and talk.
"Can't see nobody's face from the rafters," Skif pointed out.
They made another turning, into a section that looked immensely old, much older 
than the Collegium or the Wing attached to it. Skif looked about with avid 
curiosity; they must be in the Old Palace now, the square building upon which 
all later expansions had been founded. The Old Palace was rumored to date all 
the way back to the Founding of Valdemar, and it was said that King Valdemar had 
used the old magics that were only in tales to help to construct it. Certainly 
no one in these days would have attempted to build walls with blocks of granite 
the size of a cottage, and no one really had any idea how the massive blocks 
could have been set in place to the height of six stories. There were even 
rumors that the blocks were hollow and contained a warren of secret passages. 
Unlikely, Skif thought, but it would be impossible to tell, unless you knew 
where a door was, because the outer walls were at least two ells thick, and you 
could tap on them until you were a graybeard and never get a hollow echo.
Alberich stopped, just outside a set of massive double doors. "This, the 
reception chamber is. The reception will be in slightly less than a candlemark. 
Your plan?"
"Set an' ready," Skif said boldly. "You go do whatever you're gonna do, an' 
leave me here."
Alberich nodded, and continued on his way. Skif checked the door of the chamber, 
and found it, as he had expected, unlocked.
He slipped inside.
The walls were plastered over the stone, and the plaster painted with scenes out 
of legends Skif didn't even begin to recognize. Candle sconces had been built 
onto the walls to provide light later, and there was an enormous fireplace truly 
large enough to roast an ox. There was no fire in it now, of course, but someone 
had placed an ox-sized basket of yellow, orange, and red roses between the 
andirons as a kind of clever fire substitute. The room looked out into the 
courtyard in the center of the Old Palace; here the walls were not of the 
massive thickness of the outer walls, and the windows ran nearly floor to 
ceiling, with a set of glass doors in the middle that could be opened onto the 
courtyard itself. There were sideboards along the wall, covered with snowy linen 
cloths, set up to receive foodstuffs, though none were there yet except two 
baskets of fruit. Candles and lanterns waited on one of the tables, though none 
had been put in their sconces and holders, nor lit. Skif took a tall wax taper, 
and went out into the corridor, lighting it at one of the corridor lamps. He 
then went about the room setting up the lights, quite as if he'd been ordered to 
do so. There seemed to be too many lanterns for the room, so after 
consideration, he took the extras out into the courtyard and hung them on the 
iron shepherd's crooks he found planted among the flowers for that purpose.
Roughly a quarter-candlemark later, a harried individual in Royal livery stuck 
his head in the door and stared at him. "What -- Did I order you to light the 
lamps?" he asked, sounding more than a bit startled.
Skif made his voice sound high and piping, more childlike than usual. "Yes, 
milord," he replied, with a bob of his head. "You did, milord."
The man muttered something under his breath about losing one's mind as the hair 
grayed, then said, "Carry on, then," waving a hand vaguely at him.
Skif hid his grin and did just that. It was one of the things he'd learned 
impersonating a page at Lord Orthallen's. If a boy was doing a job (rather than 
standing about idly), people would assume he'd been set the task and leave him 
alone. Even if the person in charge didn't recall setting the task or seeing the 
boy, that person would take it for granted that it had just slipped his mind, 
and leave the boy to carry on.
When the upper servant appeared again, with a bevy of boys clad just as Skif was 
in tow, Skif was relieved to see that none of them were the boy he'd won his 
uniform from. That had been his one concern in all of this, and with that worry 
laid to rest, he paid dutiful attention to the servant's instructions. He 
actually paid more attention than the real pages, who fidgeted and poked each 
other -- but then, they were yawningly familiar with what their duties were, and he 
wasn't.
The food arrived then -- tidbits, rather than a meal, something to provide a 
pleasant background to the reception. He managed to get himself, by virtue of 
his slightly taller stature, assigned to carry trays of wine glasses among the 
guests. That was a plus; he'd be able to move freely, where Alberich would be 
constrained to go where the Queen did.
When all was in readiness, the doors into the courtyard (now nicely lantern-lit, 
thanks to Skif's efforts) and the doors to the corridor were flung open, the 
page boys took their places, and the guests began to trickle by ones and twos 
into the room for the reception.
ALBERICH stood at Selenay's right hand as she circulated among Lord Orthallen's 
guests. He wore his formal Whites, something he did only on the rarest of 
occasions. He was not at all comfortable in what, for the first two decades of 
his life, had been the uniform not only of the enemy, but of the demon lovers. 
Only three people knew that reason, however; to tell anyone but Selenay, 
Talamir, and Myste would have been to deliver a slap in the face to those who 
had rescued and cared for him and taken them into their midst.
Sometimes, though, he did wear the uniform, when the need to do so outweighed 
personal discomfort. In this case, he wore his Whites because he would be far 
more conspicuous in his favored dark gray leather than in his Heraldic uniform.
Talamir stood at Selenay's left, where he could murmur advice into her ear if 
she needed it. Alberich stood on her right, where his weapon hand was free.
He watched everyone and everything, his eyes flicking from one person to the 
next, and he never smiled. This evidently bothered some, though not all, of Lord 
Orthallen's guests -- the ones who had never seen Alberich before and only knew of 
him by reputation. Those who frequented Court functions were used to the way he 
looked at everyone as if he saw a potential assassin.
He did, however. Everyone was a potential assassin. Of course the likelihood 
that any of them actually were assassins was fairly low. But he was the Herald 
who had saved Selenay from death at the hands of her own husband, cutting the 
Prince down with the Prince's own sword. He saw treachery everywhere, or feigned 
that he did, and when he looked at someone he didn't know with suspicion in his 
eyes, that person tended to get very nervous.
Sometimes he wished that he didn't have quite so formidable a reputation. 
Sometimes he wished that he could just look at someone and not have them flinch 
away.
That was about as likely at this point as for him to turn as handsome as young 
Trainee Kris.
That was what Herald-Chronicler Myste said, anyway, looking at him from behind 
those peculiar split-lensed spectacles of hers that forced her pull her head 
back to peer down her nose when she was reading and tilt her chin down to peer 
through the top half when she was looking at anything past the length of her 
arms. "What do you expect?" she'd ask him tartly. "The man who'll cut down a 
prince wouldn't hesitate at  putting a blade in the heart of a man of lesser 
rank. But for the gods' sake don't ever try smiling at them. You aren't any good 
at faking a smile, and when you try, you look as if you were about to jump on 
people and tear their throats out with your teeth."
A pity Myste was perhaps the Herald who was the most inept with weapons in the 
entire Circle. He could do with a dose of her good sense here tonight. Not that 
she'd enjoy it, of course. She would far rather be where she could avoid all 
this interminable nonsense, in her quarters, either writing up the current 
Chronicles or going over old ones, a glass of cold, sweet tea at her elbow.
Where she would probably knock it over at least once tonight. Hopefully when she 
did, the glass would be empty. If it wasn't, well, at least the papers on her 
floor were discards, unlike the ones piled all over Elcarth's office.
Alberich pulled his attention back to the reception. The heat wave had finally 
broken, though the thick stone walls of the Old Palace kept every room in it 
comfortably cool even during the worst of the heat. With the doors open, there 
was a pleasant scent coming from the roses in the courtyard. No one had gone out 
there, though, for Selenay and Orthallen were in here. No matter how tired 
anyone's feet got, he wouldn't leave where the power was.
If Alberich's gaze rested more often than usual on a particular page, 
circulating among the guests with a tray of wineglasses, probably no one was 
going to notice. It was a very ordinary-looking boy: small, dark, curly-haired. 
If he moved more gracefully than the usual lot, that wasn't likely to be noticed 
either. Alberich was pleased with the way he was looking up at the people he was 
serving -- not staring enough to make him seem insolent, just paying respectful 
attention. Very good, very smooth. The boy must have done something like this 
before, many times, though Alberich doubted it had been for any purpose other 
than to filch food from whatever noble household he had infiltrated.
Lord Orthallen, on whose behalf this reception was being held, also circulated 
among the guests quite as if he was the one who was the host, and not the Queen. 
This particular festivity was a reward for those who had helped Orthallen to 
conclude a set of delicate negotiations that would ultimately benefit the Crown 
substantially, according to Myste. Alberich was not at all clear on just what 
those negotiations were, only that they had involved a number of men (and a few 
women) of vastly disparate backgrounds, many of whom had personal differences 
with each other.
One thing they all had in common, though. They were all very, very wealthy.
That much showed in their costumes, rich with embroidery and of costly 
materials, and in their ornaments, heavy gold and silver and precious gems. The 
details didn't matter to Alberich, though Myste would have been studying them 
with the eye of one who would be recording every subtle detail later in her 
writings. That was the problem of living around a Chronicler; he never knew just 
what detail, what secret that he assumed was just between them would end up in 
one of her Histories, to be goggled at by some other generation of Heralds to 
come.
Right now, he was in the unusual position of having part of his attention 
devoted to something other than Selenay and her welfare. He watched that one 
small boy, not as a hunter watched prey, but as the prey watches a hunter, alive 
to every nuance in his behavior, waiting for the slightest sign that the boy 
recognized a voice he'd only heard once.
When he told the boy that he could arrange for him to hear words spoken in tones 
of condescension, he had not been promising more than he could deliver. Although 
these people had worked together for Orthallen's cause, they had not forgotten 
rank and perceived rank and all of the tangle of quarrels that had made it so 
difficult to get them to work together -- they had merely put those things aside 
for the moment. And although they were now basking in the unanticipated presence 
of Royalty, those things still remained. Where the Queen gazed, all was harmony, 
but the moment that she took her attention away, the claws were unsheathed, 
though subtly, subtly, with a care not only for the Queen's presence, but for 
the watchful eye of her guardian.
Who might misinterpret what he saw. And in Alberich's case -- 
Well, no one wanted Alberich to misinterpret anything.
So rather than bared claws and visible teeth, there were mere hints of rivalries 
and competitions, mostly carried out in tone and carefully chosen words.
Oh, there would be condescension in plenty, among those able to read tone and 
words so exactly that they could choose to ignore what they heard or exaggerate 
the offense. Small wonder the crude bully Jass hadn't heard what the boy had 
read in his master's tone. The wonder was that the boy had read it so 
accurately.
Well. Every Herald, every Trainee, is a wonder, small or great.
It could be that this boy was -- or would be -- more of a wonder than most. There were 
still those -- not Heralds, mostly --  who doubted the wisdom of having a thief as a 
Trainee. And the boy was not yet committed to becoming a Herald; Alberich, so 
apt at reading the unspoken language of gesture and tone, knew that better than 
any. If it had been a case of trusting to the boy by himself to come around, to 
learn to trust, to understand what it was they were doing, Alberich would have 
been the first to say, "No. He is a danger to us, and cannot be trusted past his 
own self-interest." But there was more than that; there was the Companion. And 
so, Alberich was always the first, not the last, to say "Peace. He will be ours, 
soon enough."
The boy was good; very good. Alberich had no difficulty in imagining him moving 
through a crowd of just about any sort of folk save, perhaps, the highest, and 
remaining completely unnoticed. He was, after all, a pickpocket; that was the 
way of the game. The unobtrusive prospered; the rest wound up in gaol. Watching 
the boy was the only entertainment he had, though, and in the end the reception 
was, as such things generally were, deadly dull. These people were small; in the 
normal course of things, no matter how wealthy they were, they would never have 
seen Selenay except from the back of the Audience Chamber, or at most, stood 
before her for a few, brief moments while she passed some judgment in their 
favor or against them. They would never have watched as she bent that cool, 
thoughtful gaze on each one alone, never have heard her inquiring as to the 
details of their lives. For that moment of reflected glory, they were content to 
be restrained and to keep their masks firmly in place, their smiles unwavering.
And although the boy had shown a moment or two of hesitation, there was no 
sudden recognition. The reception came to its predictable end when Selenay had 
had a private word with each and every one of Orthallen's guests, and withdrew, 
along with Talamir and Alberich. And after that, the guests would depart 
swiftly, there being nothing there to hold them. The boy Skif would have to 
extricate himself from the toils of the Page Master as best he could.
And when he did -- just as swiftly as Alberich had reckoned he would -- he found 
Alberich waiting for him in his own room.
Alberich had taken some thought to the needs of boys and had brought with him 
something other than the things, good though they were, that lay in Mero's free 
pantry. He had gone down to the Palace kitchen, and commanded some of the 
dainties that Selenay's Court feasted on. He calculated that having had such 
things paraded beneath his nose all night, the boy would not be emotionally 
satisfied with bread and cheese, however good those common viands were, and if 
he was anything like Alberich had judged him, he had not filled himself at 
dinner.
So when Skif pushed open his own door, there was Alberich, beneath a lit lantern 
mounted on the wall, sitting at his ease in the boy's chair, the covered platter 
beside him on the desk.
The boy started, but covered it well. "Didn' think t'see you afore the morrow," 
he said matter-of-factly as he sat down on his bed.
"Good service demands immediate reward," Alberich replied, and uncovered the 
platter.
Then pulled out the two glasses and half-bottle of wine from beneath the chair. 
The boy gaped at him -- then shut his mouth and looked at the wine. There was a 
brief flash of greed there. But thankfully, no need. Good. That was one thing 
that Alberich had worried about. Trouble with drink started early among those 
who lived near Exile's Gate. Alberich had seen children as young as ten caught 
by the addiction of drink, there.
"I didn' think we was allowed -- " Skif began, though his nose twitched as Alberich 
uncorked it, and he was young enough that his yearning showed, a little more. He 
must be getting very weary of the spring water, fruit juice, ciders, teas and 
milk that were all the Trainees were ever offered.
"It is only half a bottle, and I intend to share it with you," Alberich replied, 
pouring the glasses full and handing him one. "That is hardly enough for even an 
innocent to be drunk upon. I suspect you've had a deal stronger in your time, 
already."
The boy accepted the glass and to his great credit, took a mouthful and savored 
it, rather than draining the glass. "So this's what all the fuss is about," he 
said, after he allowed the good vintage to slip down his throat. "This is what 
the good stuff's like."
"It is," Alberich agreed. "And now, I fear, it is spoiled you'll be for the goat 
piss that passes itself off as wine near Exile's Gate."
"Dunno how you drunk it, and that's for certain-sure; I allus did my drinkin' a 
little higher up the street," Skif replied, putting his glass down and reaching 
for the nearest tidbit, a pasty stuffed with morels and duck breast. Of course, 
he didn't know that until he bit into it, and as it melted on his tongue, the 
boy's face was a study that very nearly made Alberich chuckle. He didn't, 
though; children's dignity was a fragile thing, and this lad's rather more so 
than others.
"They been passin' those under my nose all night, and if I'd known how they 
tasted -- " Skif shook his head. "This is too much like reward, Weaponsmaster. The 
plain fact is there were three men that sounded something like the one we want, 
and not one I'd be willin' t'finger."
"Reward is not exclusively earned by accomplishing a task," Alberich noted, 
pushing the platter toward the boy, but taking a pastry himself. He hadn't eaten 
any more than the boy had, though Selenay had nibbled all evening, and he wanted 
something in his stomach to cushion the wine. "Sometimes reward is earned just 
in the making of the attempt."
"Huh." Skif chose a different dainty, and washed it down with wine. "Now what 
d'we do?"
"I will try and find another opportunity to put you where you can observe some 
of the ones I suspect," Alberich told him. "If I do not, it is that you will go 
to hunt on your own. Yes?"
Skif shrugged, but Alberich read in the shrug that he had considered doing so, 
if he had not already made an attempt or two. "I got cause," was all he said, 
and left it at that.
"Meanwhile -- I hunt in a place you cannot, for no boy, however disguised, would be 
permitted to the discourses of the Great Lords of State," Alberich continued.
Skif cocked his head to the side. "Shut the pages out, do they?" he asked 
shrewdly, and sighed. "Not like I ain't busy."
A most unchildlike child, Alberich reflected later, as he left the boy to finish 
his feast. But then, most, if not all, of the children from that quarter were 
more-or-less unchildlike. They'd had their childhood robbed from them in various 
ways; Skif's was by no means the most tragic. He'd had a loving mother, for 
however short a time he'd had her. He'd had a kind and caring guardian and 
mentor in the person of the thief trainer. That was more, much more, than many 
of his fellows had.
And if Selenay had even an inkling of the horrors in the twisted streets of her 
own capital, she would send out Heralds and Guard and all to scour the place 
clean. There would be a grim forest of gallows springing up overnight.
And her own people would speak her name with hate -- and it would be all in vain, 
for half a candlemark after we'd gone, the scum would all be back again. This 
was the cost of welcoming any and all who sought shelter under Valdemar's 
banner. Sometimes what came in was not good. Not all, or even many, of the 
former Tedrel mercenaries who had remained in Valdemar were of Bazie's stamp.
Alberich sought his quarters -- he actually had quarters both with the other 
Heralds and in the salle, but the latter was less convenient tonight. It was too 
late, or not late enough, for a visitor; his room was empty, and in a way, he 
was relieved. He was not fit company tonight; there was too much of a mood on 
him.
It was more of a relief to get himself out of the Whites and into a sleeping 
robe, and then into bed. There had been a double reason for the wine this 
evening; it was not only to prove to the boy that Alberich considered him -- in 
some things -- to be an adult. It was to make certain that tonight, at least, he 
would not be slipping out to snoop and pry on his own. That Taltherian wine was 
strong stuff; Alberich might have made certain that the greater part of the 
bottle went inside him, but there was more than enough there to ensure that Skif 
slept.
For that matter, there was more than enough there to ensure that Alberich slept, 
he realized, as he went horizontal and found a moment of giddiness come over 
him. It came as something of a surprise, but one he was not going to have any 
choice but to accept.
Then again, neither would Skif.
Which thought was a safeguard, of sorts.
* * * * * * * * * *
Skif lay back against a bulwark of pillows propped up against the wall and 
headboard of his bed, and stared out at the night sky beyond his open window. 
Not that he could see much, even with his lantern blown out; the lower half of 
the window was filled by a swath of cheesecloth stretched over a wooden frame 
that fit the open half of the window precisely. You couldn't slip a knife blade 
between the frame and the window frame.
Trust a Blue to be that fiddly.
It worked, though. Not a sign of moth or midge or fly, and all the breeze he 
could want. He thought he might want to dye the cloth black though, eventually, 
just to get that obtrusive white shape out of the way.
The wine Alberich had brought had been a lovely thing, about as similar to the 
stuff Skif had drunk in the better taverns as chalk was to cheese. He'd 
recognized the power with the first swallow, though, and he'd been disinclined 
to take chances with it. He'd stuffed his belly full of the fine foods Alberich 
had brought, which slowed the action of the wine considerably, which was good, 
because he wanted to think before he went to sleep.
He put his hands behind his head and leaned into his rather luxurious support.
Luxurious? Damn right it is. When the best my pillows have been till now was 
straw-filled bags? This place was pretty amazing, when it came right down to it. 
Maybe for some people the uniforms were a bit of a come-down, but not even the 
worst of his was as mended and patched as the best of his old clothing. And for 
the first time in his life to have boots and shoes that actually fitted him -- 
Didn't know your feet wasn't supposed to hurt like that, before.
His room had taken on the air of a place where someone lived, in no small part 
because of Skif's little wagers. Mindful of the impression he was hoping to 
create, he always wagered for something he knew wouldn't put the person who was 
betting against him to any hardship. So in many cases, particularly early in the 
game, that wager had been a cushion against a small silver coin -- which, of 
course, Skif knew he wasn't going to lose. Skif preferred sitting in his bed to 
study, unless he actually had to write something out, and any Trainee could make 
as many cushions for himself as he cared to -- fabric and cleaned feathers by the 
bagful were at his disposal in the sewing room as Skif well knew. Palace and 
Collegia kitchens went through a lot of fowl, most of which came into the 
complex still protesting. The Palace seamstresses bespoke the goose-down for 
featherbeds, the swansdown for trimming, and the tail feathers for hats. Wing 
feathers went off to the fletchers and to be made into quill pens. That left the 
body feathers free for the claiming, so there were always bags full of them for 
anyone who cared to take worn-out clothing and other scrap material to make a 
patchwork cushion or two.
Skif now had nearly twenty piled up behind him. And for those whose pockets ran 
to more than the stipend, some of the more top-lofty of the Blues, he'd wagered 
against such things as a plush coverlet, a map to hang on his wall so that he 
wouldn't need to be always running up to the Library, and, oddly enough, books.
The plush coverlet was folded up and waiting for winter to go on his bed, the 
map made a dark rectangle on one whitewashed wall, and the bookcase -- the bookcase 
was no longer empty.
He'd never disliked reading, but he'd also never had a lot of choice about what 
he read. It had never occurred to him that there might be other things to read 
than religious texts and dry histories.
Then he discovered tales. Poetry. Books written to be read for pleasure. It 
wasn't the overwhelming addiction for him that it was with some of the Trainees, 
who would have had their nose in a book every free moment if they could, but for 
him, reading was as satisfying as a good meal, in his opinion.
And a book made a very, very useful thing to demand on a wager. It made him look 
a great deal more harmless in the eyes of those highborn Blues.
So now his bookshelves held two kinds of books; his schoolbooks, and the growing 
collection of books he could open at any time to lose himself in some distant 
place or time. And the room now had personality that it hadn't shown before.
But that was not what he wanted to think about; it was what had happened at that 
reception tonight. The whole thing had been good, in that it proved 
Weaponsmaster Alberich had every intention of using him. But it hadn't gotten 
them any results. And what could be done within the wall around the Palace 
wasn't anything near enough, and he knew that Alberich knew that it wasn't 
enough. One end of the trail might be here, but the other was down near Exile's 
Gate. Here, there was likely only one person, the man behind it all. There -- well, 
there were a lot of people, there had to be, and plenty of 'em with loose 
tongues, if you could catch 'em right, or get enough liquor into 'em.
Now, Alberich could go down there, fit in, and be talked to. He'd already proved 
that. But the question was not whether he'd be talked to, the question was who 
would talk to him. Jass had spoken to him, sold him information, and now Jass 
was dead. Had anyone made that connection? Skif didn't know, and it was 
certain-sure that no one was going to tell Alberich if they had. Take it 
farther; if Alberich pressed too hard and in the wrong direction, someone might 
decide he was too dangerous to let alone. Now, old Alberich wasn't very like to 
get himself in serious trouble, not with Kantor to come rescue him at need, but 
if a white horse came charging into Exile's Gate and carrying off a fellow who 
was hard-pressed in a fight, there weren't too many folks down there that 
couldn't put two and two together and come up with the right number.
There was that, but there was more. The kinds of people that Alberich would talk 
to were the bullyboys, other sell-swords. If he was lucky, possibly the 
tavernkeepers would talk to him. They wouldn't necessarily have the information 
he needed. There was, however, another set of people who might. The whores, the 
pawnbrokers, the people who bought and sold stolen goods -- they all knew Skif, and 
they knew things that the folks who practiced their trades in a more open 
fashion might not.
Come to that, Skif knew a few of the other thieves who might trade a word or two 
with him. You never knew what you were going to find yourself in possession of 
when you were a thief. It might could be that one of them would have run across 
something to put Skif on the trail.
Particularly intriguing was that thread of information that Alberich had let 
fall -- how the trade in children stolen off the streets and the trade in slaves 
taken by bandits might be linked. It made a certain amount of sense, that, if 
you assumed that the slavers were all working together.
Skif hummed to himself tunelessly as he considered that. Who would know, if 
anyone did? There were always rumors, but who would be able to give the scrap of 
foundation to the rumor?
One by one, he ran down the list of his acquaintances, those who had always 
seemed to know where to start, when you were looking for someone or 
something -- most particularly, those who had pointed him on the trail of Jass. And 
he dragged out all of the tag bits of information he'd been given that hadn't 
led him to Jass, but into other paths that had seemed at the time like dead 
ends.
At the moment, he couldn't imagine anything more bizarre than that he, reclining 
at his ease in his own room of a wing attached to the Palace itself, should be 
running down the lists of those who owed him favors (and those whose cooperation 
could be bought) in the most miserable quarter of Haven. Nevertheless -- 
Alberich does it all the time. So I ain't the only one.
None of the things he'd been told seemed to lead him to child stealing, nor 
could he think of anyone he knew likely to really know anything other than just 
rumors. Reluctantly, he found himself thinking that if there was one black blot 
in the alleyways of Exile's Gate that might hide part of the answer, it was his 
own uncle Londer. Londer Galko always skirted the fringe of the quasilegal. 
Londer was not brave enough to dare the darkest deeds himself, but Skif could 
tell, even as a child, that he yearned to. The older Londer got, the less he 
dared, but the more he yearned.
Bazie had hinted, more than once, that Londer would have sold Skif in a 
heartbeat if Skif hadn't already been registered on the city rolls. And even 
then, if he could have manufactured a believable story about Skif running away -- 
Skif was not at all surprised now that half-witted Maisie had been illegally 
under-age -- perhaps not for the employment at the Hollybush, but certainly for the 
uses that his cousin Kalchan had made of her. She hadn't looked under-aged, what 
there was of her was woman-sized, but Londer had to have known. Skif wouldn't be 
surprised now to learn that Londer himself had sampled Maisie's meager charms 
before passing her on to his son. Londer had never given his sons anything he 
hadn't already used (Beel being the exception, but then the idea of Londer 
attempting the life of a priest was enough to make a cat laugh) and Londer 
didn't exactly have women lining up to keep him company. In the years since 
running off, Skif had learned a lot about his uncle, and he'd learned that when 
it came to women, Londer had to pay for what he got. Since he'd already paid for 
Maisie, it followed that he'd probably seen no reason why he shouldn't have her 
first. Not that he'd shown any interest in anything too young to have breasts, 
but half-wits often matured early, and Londer probably wouldn't even think twice 
about her real age if he'd taken her.
Londer had more-than-dubious friends, too, even by the standards of Exile's 
Gate. And after the raid on the Hollybush -- well, he'd lost what few friends he 
had around there. Not only because of Maisie, but because he had laid all the 
blame on his own son, and left him to rot and eventually die in gaol. Kalchan 
had never recovered enough even to do the idiot's work of stone picking, and 
Londer had done nothing to help him recover. Business was business, but blood 
was blood, and people didn't much care for a man who disclaimed responsibility 
for things that people knew he was responsible for because his unconscious son 
couldn't refute them. A good thing for Londer that his son never did wake to 
full sense and died within three moons. The case against Londer died with him, 
and Skif could only wonder who Londer was friendly with now, given how many 
people that callousness had offended. Or had that just freed his uncle to edge a 
little nearer to those dark deeds he secretly admired?
Given all of that, Londer probably didn't engage in child snatching for his own 
puerile entertainment. But that didn't mean he didn't help it along, just 
because he got a thrill out of doing so. He probably had been frightened enough 
by his brush with the law not to do anything so dangerous for his own profit 
either. But it was increasingly likely, in Skif's estimation, that he knew 
something about it. The Hollybush hadn't, by any means, been Londer's only 
property. He owned warehouses in places where there wasn't anyone around to 
notice odd things going on at night.
So, a very good place to start would be with his uncle. Skif knew the ins and 
outs of Londer's house, for more than once, he'd contemplated getting some of 
what he considered that he was owed out of his uncle. He'd eventually given up 
on the idea, for the fact was that anything Londer had of value was generally 
too big to be carried off easily. But because of that, Skif knew the house, and 
he knew the twisty ways of Londer's mind almost as well as he knew the house.
The best way to get information out of him would be to frighten it out. Londer 
was good at keeping his mouth shut, but not when he was startled, and not when 
he was genuinely frightened.
So Skif set himself to figuring out exactly how he could best terrify his uncle 
into telling Skif everything he might know or guess about the child stealing and 
the slavery ring.
In his bed, in the dead of night, Skif decided. Skif was short, even for a boy 
his age -- but a shadowy figure dressed in black, waking you up with a knife to 
your throat, was likely to seem a whole lot bigger than he actually was. And a 
hoarse whisper didn't betray that he was too young for his voice to have broken 
yet.
Alberich had brought the all-black night-walking suit when he'd collected Skif's 
clothing. Skif knew a way into Londer's house that not even Londer knew about. 
Good old Londer! Every window had a lock, every door had two, but he forgot 
completely about the trapdoor onto the roof. All Skif had to do was get into the 
yard and shinny up the drainpipe from the gutters. Once on the roof, he was as 
good as inside.
Right enough, if Londer knew anything, Skif would have it out of him. But he 
needed a suitably convincing story for his black-clad terrorist to ask the 
questions he needed the answers to. I'll say I'm lookin' for m'sister, he 
decided. That's a good story, an' Londer'll probably believe it.
Now, getting from here to there.
He'd be able to get out of his room easily enough; no one checked beds to see 
that people were in them around here. The trouble was, how was he to get out 
of -- and more importantly, back inside -- the Palace walls?
:Me, of course,: Cymry replied in his head. He jumped; then smiled sheepishly. 
:Nobody is going to stop a Companion and her Chosen.:
:You don't mind?: he asked, hesitantly. After all, this wasn't precisely going 
to be a sanctioned excursion.
: Mind?: he felt her scorn. :You Just try and do it without me! You wouldn't 
have a chance.:
Well, she was probably right.
:But what do I do with you while I'm sneakin' around?: he asked.
She chuckled. :I'll take care of that. Trust me, lean always insinuate myself 
into someone's nearby stable. But I'm not having you so far away that I can't 
come to your rescue if I have to.:
He was both touched and a trifle irritated. Did she think he couldn't take care 
of himself? He'd been taking care of himself for the past year and more! She 
hadn't been around then!
Now she sounded contrite. :Of course you can take care of yourself, I never 
doubted that. But your uncle might have guards -- :
He laughed, silently. :Londer? Old cheap Londer? Not a chance. What he has got 
is dogs -- but he's too cheap to get trained ones, so he just gets nasty ones and 
keeps 'em hungry to keep 'em mean. Which means -- ?:
Cymry knew; bless her, she got it at once. :They'll eat anything you throw in 
front of them.:
He grinned. :And I know where to get plenty of poppy syrup. Put 'em right to 
sleep inside a candlemark, then I slip inside and give old uncle a surprise.:
:Then what will you do?: she asked soberly. :When you leave? You aren't -- :
:I'm gonna make him drink poppy hisself,: Skif reassured her. :No way I'm taking 
a chance on hitting him hard enough to make sure he stays knocked out. Besides, 
with that thick head of his -- I'd probably break what I hit him with before I 
knocked him out.:
He felt her sigh gustily. :Good. Then this will all work. And what then?:
:Then -- : he closed his eyes, but couldn't yet see a direction for himself. :It's 
early days to make any plans. I'll figure on what to do after I hear what old 
Londer has to say.:
And that would have to do, for now.
SKIF looked down on the silent, darkened oblong that was his uncle's yard from 
the roof of his uncle's house. The roof-tree was not the most comfortable place 
he'd ever had to perch, but better to rest here than inside the house. Down 
there somewhere in the shadows were five lumps of sleeping canine that had been 
completely unable to resist juicy patties of chopped meat mixed with bread 
crumbs soaked in poppy syrup. Poor miserable animals, Uncle Londer would 
probably be even harsher with them after their failure to stop him.
This was the halfway point, and Skif paused for a breather while he could take 
one. He'd gotten out of the Collegium through his window, out of the Complex 
openly on Cymry's back, as if he was going out into the city for any perfectly 
ordinary reason.
Well, perhaps not ordinary, since Trainees as young as he was generally didn't 
go out to the city after dark. But he'd made sure to look serious, as if someone 
had sent for him, rather than overly cheerful, as if he expected to find himself 
in, say, the "Virgin and Stars" tavern that night. No one questioned him, and 
Heraldic Trainees (unlike the common-born Blues or the Bardic Trainees) were not 
required to give a reason for leaving the Complex at whatever hour, probably 
because it was generally assumed that their Companions would not agree to 
anything that wasn't proper.
Once in Haven, Cymry found an unguarded stable near Uncle Londer's 
house -- unguarded because it was completely empty and beginning to fall to pieces, 
symptom of a sudden change in someone's fortune. There he had changed into his 
black clothing, feeling distinctly odd as he did so. It seemed that the last 
time he'd worn this was a lifetime ago, not just a couple of moons. But where he 
was going, that uniform was a distinct handicap.
He hadn't swathed his face and head, or blackened exposed flesh with charcoal 
just then. He'd still had to get the chopped meat, the bread and the poppy 
syrup, and not all in the same market square, just so no one would put him and 
the ingredients together if they were questioned later. That was why he'd left 
the Collegium early. Markets stayed open late in the poorer parts of town, for 
the benefit of those whose own working hours were long. Skif had no trouble in 
acquiring what he needed, and he made his final preparations in that stable by 
the light of the moon overhead.
Then, and only then, did he finish dressing, and with the treated meat stuffed 
into cleaned sausage bladders which he tied off, and then put into a bag, he had 
slipped out alone into the darkness.
The key to making sure that all five dogs got their doses was to send the 
bladders over the wall at long intervals. The first and strongest dog wolfed 
down his portion, then staggered about for a bit and fell asleep. When Skif 
heard the staggering, he sent over the second bladder; by that time the 
strongest dog was in no condition to contest the food, and the second strongest 
got it. It took a while, but Skif was patient, and when he couldn't hear 
anything other than dog snores, he went over the wall and up the gutter to the 
roof.
Now he sat on the rooftree with his back against one of the chimneys, using its 
bulk to conceal his silhouette, and took deep, slow breaths to calm himself. His 
gut was a tight knot -- a good reason for not eating much tonight. And he was 
thirsty, but thirsty was better than being in the middle of a job and having 
to -- well. This would be the first time he had ever entered a house with the 
intention of confronting someone. Normally that was the last thing he wanted to 
do, and it had him strung tighter than an ill-tuned harp.
So he ran over what he needed to do in his mind until he thought he'd rehearsed 
it enough, and Mindcalled Cymry.
:I'm going in,: he told her.
:You know what to do if you get in trouble,: she replied, for they had already 
worked that out. Skif would get outside, anywhere outside, and she would come 
for him. She swore she could even get into the yard if it was needful. How she 
was to get over that fence, he had no notion, but that was her problem. Bazie 
had taught him that once you put your confidence in a partner, you just trusted 
that he knew what he was doing and went on with your part of the plan. Because 
once the plan was in motion, there was nothing you could do about what he was 
responsible for, anyway, so there was no point in taking up some of the 
attention you should be paying to your part of the job by worrying about him.
He slipped over the rooftree to the next chimney; the hatch into the crawl space 
was just on the other side of it. It wasn't locked -- it hadn't been locked for the 
past five years that Skif knew of. Even if it had been, it was one of those that 
had its hinges on the outside, and all he would have had to do would have been 
to knock the hinge pins out and he could have lifted it up from the hinge side. 
He left it open, just in case he had to make a quick exit and couldn't use the 
route out he'd planned.
The space he slipped down into was more of a crawl space than an attic, too 
small to be practical to store anything. He crawled on his hands and knees, 
feeling his way along until he came to the hatch that led down into the hallway 
separating all of the dozen garret rooms where Londer's servants slept, six on 
one side of the corridor, and six on the other.
Well, where the servants Londer had would have slept, if he'd had more than the 
three he kept. Like everything else Londer had, his servants were cheap because 
no one else would have them, and he worked them -- screaming and cursing at them 
all the while -- until they dropped. His man-of-all-work was a drunkard, so was his 
cook, and the overworked housemaid was another half-wit like Maisie. None of 
them was going to wake up short of Skif falling on them, which obviously he 
didn't intend to do.
Not that he was going to take any chances about it.
He found the hatch, which had a cover meant to be pushed up and aside from the 
hallway below. He lifted it up and put it out of the way, then stuck his head 
down into the hall and took a quick look around.
As he'd expected, it was deserted, not so dark as the crawl space thanks to a 
tiny window on either end of the hall, and silent but for three sets of snoring.
He actually had to stop and listen in fascination for a moment, for he'd never 
heard anything like it.
There was a deep, basso rumbling which was probably the handyman, whose pattern 
was a long, drawn out sound interrupted by three short snorks. Layered atop this 
was a second set, vaguely alto in pitch, of short, loud snorts in a rising tone 
that sounded like an entire sty full of pigs. And atop that was a soprano solo 
with snoring on the intake of breath and whistling on the exhalation. One was 
the housemaid and the other the cook, but which was which? The housemaid was 
younger, but fatter than the cook, so either could have had the soprano.
All three were so loud that he could not imagine how they managed not to wake 
themselves up. It took everything he had to keep from laughing out loud, and he 
wished devoutly that he dared describe this to one of the Bardic Trainees. 
They'd have hysterics.
At least now he knew for certain that the last thing he needed to worry about 
was making a noise up here.
He grabbed the edge of the hatch and somersaulted over, slowly and deliberately, 
lowering himself down by the strength of his arms alone until his arms were 
extended full-length. His feet still dangled above the floor, so he waited for 
the moment when the chorus of snores overlapped, and let go, hoping the noise 
would cover the sound of his fall.
He landed with flexed knees, caught his balance bent over with his knuckles just 
touching the floor, and froze, waiting to see if there would be a reaction.
Not a sound to indicate that anyone had heard him.
Heh. Not gonna be hard figuring which rooms are empty! That had been a serious 
concern; he needed to find an empty room with a window, get into it, get the 
window unlocked and opened for his escape, because now that he was inside, he 
knew that there was no way he was going to get out the way he came in. If there 
had been a ladder to let down from the crawl space, that would have been ideal, 
but there wasn't.
By great good fortune, the room nearest the drainpipe he wanted to use was one 
of the empty ones -- no thief could survive long who wasn't able to tell where he 
was inside a house in relation to the outside without ever being inside. Out of 
the breast of his tunic came one of his trusty bladders of oil, and he oiled the 
hinges to the dripping point by feel before he even tried to open the door.
There was a faint creak, but it was entirely smothered in snores; the door 
opened onto a completely barren room, not a stick of furniture in it. Moonlight 
shone in through the dirty window, finally giving him something to see by. After 
the absolute dark of the crawl space and the relative dark of the hallway, it 
seemed as bright as day.
Moving carefully with a care for creaking floorboards, he eased his way over to 
the window, and out came the oil again. When catches, locks, and hinges were all 
thoroughly saturated, he got the window open wide, checked to make sure he could 
reach the drainpipe from its sill, and left it that way. He did, however, close 
the door to the room most of the way, just in case one of the three snorers woke 
up and felt impelled to take a stroll. They were too dimwitted to think of an 
intruder, but they might take it into their heads to close the window, which 
would slow his retreat.
The servants' stair lay at the end of the hallway, and it was just the narrow 
sort of arrangement that Skif would have expected from the age of the house. In 
this part of the city, land was at a premium, so as little space as possible 
within a home was "wasted" on servants' amenities. But fortunately, whoever had 
built this stair had done so with an eye to silence in his servants, and had 
built it so sturdily that it probably wouldn't creak if a horse went down it.
Not even Londer's neglect could undo work that solid, not in the few years that 
Londer had owned the house anyway.
Down the stairs went Skif, and now he had to go on the memories of a very small 
child augmented by as much study of the house from outside as he had been able 
to manage. Londer's bedroom, as he recalled, and as study of the house seemed to 
indicate, was on the next floor down, overlooking the street. A curious choice, 
given that street noise was going to be something of a disturbance and would 
certainly be obtrusive early in the morning. But Londer wanted to see who was at 
his door before they were announced, and the other choice of master bedroom was 
over the kitchen and under the servants' rooms. Altogether a poor choice for 
someone who probably knew all about the snorers' chorus and didn't want it 
resonating down into his bedroom. Nor would he want the aromas of the cook's 
latest accident permeating his bedroom and lingering in the hangings.
He stifled another laugh as he felt his way down the stair, tread by tread.
He could only wonder what Londer had thought when he discovered the amazing 
snoring powers of all three of his servants.
This stair should come out beside the room just over the kitchen that Londer 
used for his guests. Important guests, of course, not people like his sister and 
her young son. They'd lived in one of the garret rooms, though Skif couldn't 
remember which one, since they hadn't lived there for long.
When he reached the landing, once again he stopped and listened. Aside from the 
now faint chorus from Snore Hall above, there was nothing.
He took a precautionary sniff of the air, for a room that was occupied had a 
much different scent than one that had been shut up for a while. If Uncle had a 
guest that Skif didn't know about, the guest became an unforeseen complication, 
a possible source of interference.
But the scent that came to his nose was of a room that had lain unused for a 
very long time; a touch of mildew, a great deal of dust. And when he emerged 
from the stair he found himself, as he had reckoned, in the dressing room to 
that unused guest suite.
The dressing room led directly to the corridor, and probably the reason that the 
stair came out into it at all was the very sensible one of convenience for the 
original master and builder of the house, who probably would have chosen this 
suite for himself. Water for baths would come straight up the stair from the 
kitchen in cans, to be poured into the bath in the dressing room. If the master 
was hungry and rang for service, his snack would be brought up in moments, 
freshly prepared.
This corridor was short; it ran between the old master suite to two other sets 
of rooms. It extended the width of the house and had a window on either end, 
with the staircase leading downward for the family's use on Skif's right. Three 
doors let out on it, besides the one that Skif stood in. The one on Skif's side 
led to a second bedroom separate from the master suite, probably intended for a 
superior personal maid or manservant. The two opposite were probably for guests 
or children in the original plan. One was now Londer's, and heaven only knew 
what he did with the other.
Skif put his ear to the door nearest him on that side.
It was definitely occupied, although the slumberer was no match for the trio 
upstairs. Just to be sure, Skif eased down the corridor and checked the other.
Silent and, as turning the door handle proved, locked as well.
He returned to Londer's room, took a steadying breath, and took out -- 
 -- another bladder of oil. Because he did not want Londer to wake up until Skif's 
knife was at his throat.
Only when the hinges were saturated did Skif ease the door open, wincing at the 
odor that rolled out.
Well, the old man hasn't changed his bathing habits any.
After the cleanliness of Bazie's room, the Priory, and the Collegium, Skif's 
nose wrinkled at the effluvia of unwashed clothing, unwashed sheets, unwashed 
body, rancid sweat, and bad breath. It wasn't bad enough to gag a goat, but it 
was close.
If this wasn't so important, I'd leave now. It made his skin crawl to think of 
getting so close to that foul stench, but he didn't have much choice.
Londer had his windows open to the night air, so at least he could see. And at 
least he wasn't going to smother in the stink.
He took a deep breath, this time of cleaner air, and slipped inside.
Londer didn't wake until the edge of the knife -- the dull edge, did he but know 
it -- was against his throat. Skif had tried to time his entry for when the moon 
was casting the most light on the streetward side of the house. In fact, 
moonlight streamed in through the windows, and Skif could tell from the sheer 
terror on Londer's face that he was having no trouble seeing what there was to 
see of Skif.
"Don't move," Skif hissed. "And don't shout."
"I won't," Londer whimpered. "What d'you want from me?"
Londer shivered with fear; Skif had never seen anyone actually doing that, and 
to see Londer's fat jowls shaking like a jelly induced a profound disgust in 
him.
"You can start," hissed Skif, "by telling me what you did with my sister."
Londer looked as if he was going to have a fit right there and then, and Skif 
thought he might have hit gold -- but it turned out that Londer had just gotten 
rough with one of his paid women, and he thought that Skif was her brother. Not 
but that Skif was averse to seeing him terrified over it, but that wasn't the 
street he wanted to hound his uncle down.
So he quickly established that the apocryphal sister was one of the children 
snatched off the streets, and the interview continued on that basis.
Skif must have looked and sounded twice as intimidating as he thought, because 
Londer was reduced in very short order to a blubbering mound of terror and 
tears. Skif would have been very glad to have the Heraldic Truth Spell at his 
disposal, but he figured that fear was getting almost as much truth out of 
Londer as the Spell would have.
Unfortunately, there was very little to get. Londer knew some of what was going 
on, as Skif had thought; he knew some of the men who were doing the actual 
snatches, what their method was for picking a victim, how they managed it 
without raising too much fuss, and where they went with the victims afterward. 
Which, as Skif had guessed, was one of Loader's own warehouses. But who the real 
powers behind the snatches were, he had no idea; his knowledge was all at street 
level. Even the warehouse had been hired by a go-between.
Which was disgusting enough. Londer whimpered and carried on, literally sweating 
buckets, trying to make out that the poor younglings grabbed by the gang were 
better off than they'd be on the street. Sheltered and fed, maybe, but better 
off? If they were incredibly lucky and not at all attractive, they'd find 
themselves working from dawn to dusk at some skinflint's farm, or knotting rugs, 
sewing shirts, making rope, or any one of a hundred tasks that needed hands but 
not much strength.
If they were pretty -- well, that was something Skif didn't want to think about too 
hard. There had been a child-brothel four streets over from the Hollybush that 
had been shut down when he was still with Bazie -- there were things that even the 
denizens of Exile's Gate wouldn't put up with -- but where there was one, there 
were probably more. The only reason why this one had been uncovered was because 
someone had been careless, or someone had snitched.
But by far and away the single most important piece of information that Skif got 
was that the man who was in charge of the entire ring always came to inspect the 
children when they were brought to the warehouse. It seemed he didn't trust the 
judgment of his underlings. If there was ever to be a time to catch him, that 
would be it.
When Skif had gotten everything he thought he could out of Londer, he took the 
knife away from the man's throat. Londer started to babble; an abrupt gesture 
with the knife shut him up again, and Skif thrust a bottle made from a small 
gourd at him.
"Drink it," he ordered.
Londer's eyes bulged. "Y'wouldn't poison me -- "
"Oh, get shut," Skif snapped, exasperated. "I'd be 'shamed to count ye as a 
kill. 'Tis poppy, fool. I've got no time t' tie ye up an' gag ye, even if I 
could stummack touchin' ye. Now drink!"
Londer pulled the cork with his teeth and sucked down the contents of the 
bottle; Skif made him open his mouth wide to be sure he actually had swallowed 
it, and wasn't holding it. Then he sat back and waited, knowing that it was 
going to take longer for the drug to take effect on the man because of Londer's 
fear counteracting it. Meanwhile, his uncle just stared at him, occasionally 
venturing a timid question that Skif did not deign to answer. If he really was 
someone out to discover the whereabouts of a young sister, he'd spend no more 
time on Londer than he had to, and tempting as it was to pay back everything he 
owed Londer in the way of misery, such torment would not have been in keeping 
with his assumed role.
And it might give Londer a clue to his real identity.
So he stayed quiet, focusing what he hoped was a menacing gaze on the man, until 
at long, long last, Londer's eyelids drooped and dropped, his trembling stopped, 
all his muscles went slack, and the drug took him over.
Only then did Skif leave the room, taking the bottle with him.
His exit via the garret room and the drainpipe was uneventful, as was his 
exchange of clothing in the stable and his escape from that part of town. It 
almost seemed as if there was a good spirit watching over him and smoothing his 
way.
He said as much to Cymry, once they were up in among the mansions of the great 
and powerful.
:I wish you'd gotten more information, then,: she replied ruefully. :I hate to 
think that much good luck was wasted on essentially trivial knowledge.:
"Not as trivial as y'might think," he replied thoughtfully, for a new plan was 
beginning to take shape in his mind. It was a plan that was fraught with risk, 
but it might be worth it.
And he was not going to carry out this one alone…
"Out late, aren't you, Trainee?" said a voice at his stirrup, startling him. He 
looked down to discover that Cymry had brought him to the little gate in the 
Palace walls used by all the Trainees on legitimate business, and the Gate Guard 
was looking up at him with a hint of suspicion.
:Tell him the truth, loon,: Cymry prompted, as he tried to think of something to 
say. He hadn't expected that Cymry would try to take them in the same way they'd 
gone out.
"I had t'see my uncle in Haven," he said truthfully. "He didn't think he was 
gonna live. There was summat I needed t'hear from him."
:Very good. He really didn't think you'd leave him alive, did he?:
The Guard's demeanor went from suspicious to sympathetic. "I hope his fears 
weren't justified -- "
Skif stopped himself from snorting. "I think he was more scared than anything 
else," he replied. "When I left, he was sleepin' off a dose of poppy, and I bet 
he'll be fine in the morning."
:Lovely. Absolute truth, all of it.:
Evidently the Guard either had relatives who were overly convinced of their own 
mortality, or knew people who were, because he laughed. "Oh, aye, I understand. 
Well, I'm sorry you're going to have your sleep cut short; breakfast bell is 
going to ring mighty early for you."
Skif groaned. "Don't remind me," he said, as the Guard waved him through without 
even taking his name. "Good night to you!"
He unsaddled Cymry and turned her loose, and slipped into his room again via the 
window, thus avoiding any potentially awkward questions in the hall. He'd had 
the wit to clean himself up thoroughly at that stable, so at least he needed to 
do nothing more than strip himself down and drop into bed --  which he did, knowing 
all too well just how right that Guard had been.
Tomorrow, though… he had to arrange an interview with the Weaponsmaster. The 
sooner, the better.
All during his classes the next day he had only half his mind on what was going 
on. The other half was engaged in putting together his plan, and as importantly, 
his argument. Herald Alberich wasn't going to like this plan. It was going to be 
very dangerous for Skif, and Skif knew for certain that Alberich would object to 
that.
During Weapons Class, Skif managed to give Alberich an unspoken signal that he 
hoped would clue Alberich to the fact that he needed to talk privately. Either 
he was very quick on the uptake, or else Cymry had some inkling of what was 
going on inside Skif's head and put the word in to Alberich's Kantor; in either 
case, just as class ended, Alberich looked straight at Skif and said, "You will 
be at my quarters here at the salle, after the dinner hour."
The others in the class completely misconstrued the order, as they were probably 
intended to. So as they all left for their next class, they commiserated with 
him, assuming that something he had done or not done well enough was going to 
earn him a lecture.
"I know what it is. It's that you dragged yourself through practice. Whatever 
you were doing last night to keep you up, you shouldn't have been," Kris said 
forthrightly. "You've got rings like a ferret under your eyes. If you thought he 
wasn't going to notice that, you're crazed."
"He'll probably give you a lecture about it, is all," opined Coroc.
"I suppose," Skif said, and sighed heavily. In actuality, he really wasn't that 
tired, although he expected to be after dinner. That was probably when it would 
all catch up with him.
"Whatever it was, it can't have been worth one of Alberich's lectures," Kris 
said flatly.
Skif just yawned and hung his head, to feign sheepishness that he in no way 
felt.
His next class was no class at all, it was a session in the sewing room, where 
he couldn't stop yawning over his work. The other boys in his classes had 
twitted him about his self-chosen assignment on the chore roster, until he 
pointed out that he was the only boy in a room full of girls. They'd gotten very 
quiet, then, and thoughtful -- and stopped teasing him.
Today he was very glad that this was his chore, because the girls were far more 
sympathetic about his yawns and dark-circled eyes than the boys had been. Not 
that they let him off any -- but they did keep him plied with cold tea to keep him 
awake, and they did make sure he got the best stool for the purpose -- one that was 
comfortable, but not so comfortable that he was going to fall asleep.
A quick wash in cold water while the rest of them were having hot baths woke him 
up very nicely, and he hurried through his dinner, now as much anxious as eager. 
Alberich wouldn't like the plan, but would he go along with it anyway? It was 
probably his duty to forbid Skif even to think about carrying it out, even 
though it was the best and fastest way to get the man they were both after.
Well, Alberich could forbid him, but that wouldn't stop him. He just wouldn't 
use that plan; he'd come up with something else.
So as he walked quickly across the lawn, with the light of early evening pouring 
golden across the grass, he steeled himself to the notion that Alberich would 
not only not like the plan, but would put all the resources of the Collegium 
behind making sure Skif didn't try it alone.
Well, I won't. I dunno what I'll do, but I can't do that one alone, so there 
'tis. He didn't need Cymry warning him against it; the entire plan depended on 
having someone else -- by necessity a Herald or Trainee -- standing by. There was not 
one single Trainee that Skif would dare even bring down to Exile's Gate quarter 
in the daytime, much less at night. So it would have to be a Herald, and the 
only one likely to agree to this would be Alberich. Which brought him right 
around to crux of the matter again.
He entered the salle, and went to the back of it, where one of the mirrors 
concealed the door to Alberich's other set of quarters. It was no secret that 
they were there, but it wasn't widely bruited about either. Maybe the concealed 
door was older than Alberich, who knew? Skif could think of a lot of reasons why 
hidden rooms might come in handy.
He tapped on the wall beside the mirror, and it swung open as Alberich pushed on 
the door from within.
He stepped inside. Alberich closed the door behind him and brought him through a 
small room that served him as an office and contained only a desk and a chair. 
On the other side of a doorway to the left were the private quarters, a suite 
that began with a rather austere room that contained only two chairs, a 
ceramic-tiled wood stove, and a large bookcase. Alberich gestured to the nearest 
chair. The sole aspect of the room that wasn't austere was the huge window along 
one wall, made up of many small panes of colored glass leaded together, forming 
a pattern of blues and golds that looked something like a man's face, and 
something like a sun-in-glory. It looked as though it faced east, so it wasn't 
at its best, just glowing softly. Most of the room's illumination came from 
lanterns Alberich had already lit. Skif made a note to himself to nip around to 
the back of the salle some time after dark; with lanterns behind it, the window 
must be nearly as impressive as it would be from within the room in early 
morning.
But Alberich didn't give Skif a chance to contemplate the window, though, since 
his chair had him facing away from it. A pity; he'd have liked to just sit there 
and study it for a time. Someone had told him that the Palace chapel had several 
windows like this, as did the major temples in Haven, but this was the first 
time he'd seen one close up.
The Weaponsmaster barely waited for him to settle himself.
"So, your little excursion into the city last night bore some fruit?" was 
Alberich's question.
Good, he's already gotten everything from Cymry and Kantor and maybe the Guard 
but the "who " and maybe the "why." That was a bit less explanation he'd have to 
give. "I visited m'uncle Londer Galko," Skif said, then smiled. "Though he 
didn't know 'twas me. Went masked, and in over roof. You know. I scared him 
pretty thorough, good enough I figger he told me the truth."
As well Alberich should know, since he'd been the one who brought Skif's things 
from his old room, and had probably examined every bit. Skif experienced in that 
moment a very, very odd sensation of comfort. It was a relief to be able to sit 
here and be able to be himself completely. It was like being with Cymry, only a 
more worldly sort of Cymry.
"That was wise." Alberich leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and 
looked thoughtful. "I would not have thought of Londer Galko as a source of 
information for our needs."
"I didn' either, till I stopped lookin' for a man what needed a building burned, 
and started thinkin' about what I picked up while I was lookin' for him," Skif 
replied. "An' put that with what you tol' me about the slavers. There's summat 
snatchin' younglings off the streets -- not many, just the ones that haveta sleep 
there. More of 'em than you thought, I bet. You don't hear 'bout it, 'cause they 
ain't the kind that'd be missed."
"We hear more than you might think," Alberich put in, but also nodded. "Although 
if this is true, we are not hearing of most of them. Go on."
"Londer ain't the kind t'get his fingers where they might get burned, not after 
that mess with th' Hollybush, but if there's somethin' dirty goin' on, he 
probably knows summat about it. He likes bein' on the edge of it, not so close 
he gets hurt, close enough he can kind of gloat over it. So -- I paid 'im a visit." 
Skif launched into a full explanation, frankly describing everything he had done 
last night, leaving nothing out. He hadn't, after all, done anything that he'd 
been forbidden. Nobody had put a curfew on the Trainees, no one had told him not 
to leave the Collegium grounds, he hadn't stolen anything. All he'd done was to 
terrorize one filthy old man who'd been the cause of plenty of misery himself 
over the past several years.
Still -- 
Alberich didn't look disgusted, and he didn't look annoyed, but Skif got a 
distinct impression that he was poised between being amused and being angry. 
"You -- " he said at length, leaning back in his chair and pointing a finger at 
Skif, " -- are the sort who would find a way around any order, so I shall not give 
you one. This information interesting is -- useful, possibly -- "
"But if I was to go out all ragged an' kip down on th'street where I know they's 
been snatching?" Skif asked. "While you kept a watch? It'd be more'n useful, I'm 
thinkin'. We got what we need for the makings of a nice little trap. An' it's 
one you can't set without a youngling for bait." He stabbed his thumb at his 
chest. "Me. You daren't use anyone else."
Alberich's face went very, very still. "If you did not Mindspeak with Cymry -- " he 
said, very slowly.
"But I do. An' you got Kantor. So 'tween them we can Mindspeak each other. An' I 
got some ideas that'll keep me from gettin' coshed, 'cause I know how they been 
workin'," Skif replied, and sat back himself. "You'll know when I get took, an' 
you can follow. You'll know when th' man hisself shows up. We can do more'n 
figger out who he is. We can catch 'im."
"It is very dangerous. You could be hurt," Alberich pointed out immediately. 
"You can attempt to protect yourself, but that does not mean you will succeed."
"Then I get hurt," Skif dismissed, feeling his jaw tense and his own resolve 
harden. "It'll be worth it."
Alberich half-closed his eyes and laced his fingers together, occasionally 
looking up at Skif as though testing his mettle. If this long wait was supposed 
to test his patience as well, it wasn't going to work that way, for the longer 
Alberich thought, the better Skif reckoned his odds to be.
And when at last Alberich spoke, he knew he'd been right.
"Very well," the Weaponsmaster said. "Let me hear the whole of this plan of 
yours. I believe that you and I must do this thing."
SKIF widened his eyes pleadingly and held out his bowl to anyone who even 
glanced at him. He certainly looked the part of a beggar boy. He hadn't worn 
rags like these since he'd been living at the Hollybush. It was a good thing 
that it was still very warm at night, or he'd be freezing in the things. They 
were more hole than cloth, and he couldn't imagine where Alberich had found 
them, couldn't imagine why anyone in the Collegium would have kept them.
At least they were clean. His need for authenticity didn't run to dirt and lice, 
and fortunately, neither did Alberich's; a little soot smeared across his 
forehead, chin, and cheekbones provided the illusion of dirt, and that was all 
that was required.
This time the place where Skif's transformation had taken place had been 
supplied by Alberich, not that Skif was surprised at the Weaponsmaster's 
resources. Alberich couldn't have walked out of the Complex in his sell-sword 
gear, after all.
Alberich brought him to an inn where a Herald and a Trainee could ride into the 
stable yard unremarked. No surprises there; the innkeeper greeted him by name, 
and they took Cymry and Kantor to the stable, to special loose-boxes without 
doors. Then came the surprise, in the form of a locked room at the back of the 
stable to which Alberich had the key, and which contained both a trunk of 
disguise material and a rear entrance onto an alley. A beggar boy slipped out 
that entrance into the shadows of dusk somewhat later, and after him, a 
disreputable sell-sword whose face would be moderately familiar in the Exile's 
Gate quarter. Another purpose for all that soot on Skif's features was to 
disguise them. It wouldn't do for him to be recognized.
Skif made his way quietly to Exile's Gate itself; then as if he had come in the 
Gate, he wandered the street in his old neighborhood, training his voice into a 
tremulous piping as he begged from the passersby. Mostly he got kicks and 
curses, though once someone gave him an end of a loaf, and two others offered a 
rind of bacon and a rind of cheese. Beggars here got food more often than coin, 
though there was little enough of the former. Skif went a little cold when he 
thought about a child trying to live on such meager fare.
He got a drink at a public pump and wandered about some more as the streets grew 
darker and torches and a few lanterns were put up outside those businesses that 
were staying open past full dark. There were streetlights, but they were very 
few and often the oil was stolen, or even the entire lamp. He was ostensibly 
looking for a place to sleep on the street, out of the way of traffic. Actually 
he knew exactly where he was going to go to sleep, but he had to make a show out 
of it, because the child snatchers were almost certainly watching him. He also 
kept hunched over, both to look more miserable and to look smaller. The younger 
the children were, the more timid they were, the better the snatchers liked 
them.
And behind him, going from drink stall to tavern, was Alberich. There was great 
comfort in knowing that.
:Kantor says Alberich is very surprised at how good you are at this.:
:A thief that gets noticed doesn't stay out of gaol long,: he replied, though he 
was secretly flattered. Now, if he'd really been trying to make his way as a 
beggar, he would never be doing it this way. He'd have bound up his leg to look 
as if he'd lost it, or done the same with an arm. No sores, though; people 
around here would stone him into some other quarter for fear of a pox. Then he'd 
stand as straight as he could and catcall the people passing by, a noisy banter 
that was impossible to ignore. He'd be cheeky, but funny, and not insulting. 
People liked that; they liked seeing a display of bravado, especially in a 
cripple. He'd be making a better go of it than this thin, wistful waif he was 
impersonating. And the child snatchers would avoid him. A child like that would 
never tame down, and would cause nothing but trouble.
In his persona of woeful beggar child, he had a single possession that was going 
to make this entire ruse work -- a wooden begging bowl. Perfectly in character with 
what he was, no one would even remark on it. And it was going to keep him from 
being knocked unconscious, because it was much deeper than the usual bowl and 
fit his head exactly like a helmet. Once he curled himself up in his chosen spot 
for the night and pulled his ragged hood over his head, he'd slip that bowl over 
it under the rags. When the snatchers came along and gave him that tap on the 
head to keep him from waking up when they grabbed him, he'd be protected.
He also had weapons on his person; his throwing daggers were concealed up his 
sleeves. Alberich hadn't needed to tell him to bring them. Having them made him 
feel a good deal safer, although his first choice of weapon wouldn't have been 
one that you threw at the enemy. Or it wouldn't have been if he wasn't so 
certain of his own accuracy. It was very unlikely that he'd be searched. These 
beggar children never had anything of value on them. If they once had, it was 
long snatched by those older and stronger than they were.
As he trudged away from the streets where people were still carrying on the 
minutiae of their lives and toward the warehouses and closed-up workshops, he 
felt eyes on him. The back of his neck prickled. The warehouse section of 
Exile's Gate was where most of the children had vanished from, and he knew now, 
with heavy certainty, that the snatchers were somewhere out there watching him, 
waiting for him to settle.
Alberich was out there, too, and had taken to the same covert skulking as Skif's 
stalkers. He was hunting the hunters, watching the watchers, to make sure that 
if anything went wrong, Skif wouldn't be facing it alone.
: He's seen two of them, anyway,: reported Cymry.
He would never, ever have attempted this by himself, or even with someone who 
didn't also have a Companion. The key to this entire plan was that Kantor and 
Cymry could Mindspeak to each other, keeping Skif and Alberich aware of 
everything that was going on.
The buildings here were large, with long expanses of blank wall planted directly 
on the street -- you didn't want or need windows in a warehouse. There weren't a 
lot of places where a tired child could curl up to sleep. But where there was a 
doorway that was just big enough to fit a small body, or a recessed gate, it was 
dark and it was quiet, and no one was likely to come along to chivvy one off 
until dawn. Mind, any number of adult beggars knew this too, so the first few 
places Skif poked his nose into were occupied, and the occupants sent him off 
with poorly-aimed blows and liberal curses. He lost his bacon rind to one of 
them, not that he fought for it.
But when he did find a place, it was perfect for the child snatchers, and thus 
perfect for his purposes. It was a recessed doorway, a black arch in a darkened 
street, with no one in sight in either direction.
He sat down on the doorstep and pretended to eat his crust and cheese rind, then 
with a calculatedly pathetic sigh that should be audible to his stalkers, he 
curled up with his back to the street and his rags pulled up over his head. If 
that wasn't an invitation, he'd turn priest.
As he stirred and fidgeted, "trying to get comfortable," he slipped his wooden 
bowl over his head, exactly as he had planned. Once he had, he felt a good deal 
safer, and the back of his neck stopped prickling so much. There had been the 
possibility that the snatchers, lured by how harmless he seemed to be and the 
loneliness of the street, would try for the grab before he curled up for the 
night. He was glad their caution had overcome their greed.
Gradually he stopped moving around, as a child would who was settling into 
sleep. He wouldn't find a tolerable position on this stone doorstep anyway, not 
after he'd gotten accustomed, not only to a bed, but to a comfortable bed.
Spoilt, that's what I am.
Once "asleep," he held himself still as a matter of pride, although the stone 
under his hip was painfully hard and his arm was getting pins and needles. 
Eventually, he had to shift off of that, but when he moved, it was only the 
formless stirring that a child would make when deeply asleep. He should be 
asleep; the beggar child he was counterfeiting was in the midst of one of the 
better moments of its short life. It had a full belly, a quiet place to lie 
down, it was neither too cold nor too hot. No one was going to chase it away 
from this shelter until morning, and if rain came, it wouldn't even get too wet. 
Never having known a soft bed, the stone of the doorway would be perfectly 
acceptable since countless feet had worn the step down in a hollow in the middle 
into which Skif's body fit perfectly.
Well, he hadn't had to sleep on the street, ever. That was partly because he was 
smart, but there was no telling how much he'd accomplished was because he'd been 
lucky. Mostly, he liked to think, it was because he'd been smart -- though if Bazie 
hadn't taken him in, his life probably would have been a lot different. Harder, 
maybe. It depended on what he would have done after Beel warned him away from 
the Hollybush. If he'd gone back to Beel, he'd have had to make a statement 
against his uncle -- 
That could have gone badly for him. He'd known that even when he'd been that 
young -- it was the reason he'd run off in the first place. Maybe he'd have been 
safe in Beel's Temple, maybe not. Finding out which could have been bad.
If he'd run, though… I think maybe I'd have hidden in the storage room of 
Orthallen's wash house. Then what? He didn't know. How long could he have gone 
on, sleeping in hidden places, stealing food from kitchens in the guise of a 
page?
Cymry interrupted his speculations. :Kantor says they've all gotten together. 
There are three of them,: Cymry reported, interrupting his thoughts. She sounded 
indignant. :Three of them! For one little child!:
Skif wasn't surprised. A pretty child, or one that was strong, was a valuable 
commodity. Having two to make the snatch and one to stand guard meant they could 
grab it with a minimum of damage to the merchandise. :That's so one can be a 
lookout in case their target's gone inside a yard or something,: Skif told her. 
:But I have to agree. Even two seems kind of much for someone my size.:
:It's disgusting.: He had to smile at the affronted quality in her words. :Not 
that the whole thing isn't disgusting, but -- :
:I understand,: he told her. And he did. It was disgusting. He could think 
abstractly about a child as "merchandise," but the minute he allowed himself to 
get outside of those abstractions, he was disgusted.
:Skif, be ready; they're moving in.:
He heard them in the last few paces; if he'd really been asleep, particularly if 
he was an exhausted child with a full belly, it wouldn't have disturbed him, but 
he heard their soft footfalls on the hard-packed dirt of the street. They were 
cautious, he gave them that, but waiting for them to finally make their move was 
enough to drive him mad. He had to grit his teeth and clench his muscles to stay 
put when every instinct and most of his training screamed at him to get up and 
defend himself.
Then they were on him, all three of them in a rush.
He was enveloped in a smelly blanket. Instinct won over control and he felt the 
mere beginnings of a reaction -- but before he could even move, much less come up 
fighting, someone hit him a precise blow to the head.
The bowl took most of it, as he'd anticipated, but his head and ears still rang 
with it. In fact, for just a moment, he saw stars. He went limp, partly with 
intent, partly with the shock of the blow, and when he could move again, he 
regained control over himself and stayed properly limp.
They didn't dally about. They bundled him up cocoonlike in the blanket, one of 
the snatchers threw the bundle over his shoulder with a grunt of effort, and 
they were off at a lope. Whoever had Skif must have been a big man, because he 
carried Skif as if he was nothing.
Cymry did not ask "Are you all right," because she knew he was. And what she 
knew, Alberich knew. So there was no point in wasting time with silly questions, 
when Alberich needed to concentrate on following Skif's captors, and Skif had 
immediate concerns of his own to deal with. Skif concentrated on breathing 
carefully in that foully smothering blanket, staying limp, and keeping up the 
ruse that he was as completely unconscious as that blow to the head should have 
rendered him. This was the hardest part of the plan -- to literally do nothing 
while his captor carried him off, and hope that Alberich could keep up with 
them. They only had to get to their goal, which might or might not be Londer's 
warehouse. Alberich had to stay with them while remaining unseen.
Not the easiest task in the world; Skif had shadowed enough people in his life 
to know how hard it really was.
He'd have to get the bowl off his head, too, at some point in the near future, 
or they'd figure out he wasn't what he seemed and he wasn't unconscious. 
Definitely before he got unwrapped, or he'd be in a far more uncomfortable 
position than he was now. So as the man jogged along, Skif worked his hands, a 
little at a time, up toward his head.
The blanket smelled of so many things, all of them horrid, that he hated to 
think of what had happened in it and to it. It wasn't so much a blanket as a 
heavy tarpaulin of something less scratchy than wool. Was it sailcloth? It could 
be. He wasn't so tightly wrapped up in it that he couldn't move. He'd been 
"sleeping" with his arms up against his chest, so he shouldn't have too far to 
work them to get his hands on that bowl…
He was glad he hadn't eaten much, since his head and torso were dangling upside 
down along his captor's back, the stench of the blanket was appalling, and the 
man's shoulder essentially hit him in the gut with every step. If there was a 
better recipe for nausea, he didn't know it. He'd have been sick if he hadn't 
been cautious about not eating much beforehand.
Bit by bit, he worked his arms higher, moving them only with the motion of the 
man who carried him, slowly working his hands up through the canvas towards the 
bowl. Then, at long last, with the tips of his fingers, he touched it.
With a sigh of relief, he pushed with his fingertips and ducked his head at the 
same time as the man stumbled. The bowl came off his head and fell off into the 
folds of the blanket. He was rid of it, and now he could -- 
 -- not relax, certainly. But wait, be still, try to ignore the reek of the 
blanket, and remember the next part of the plan.
:It looks as if your uncle's warehouse really is the goal,: Cymry said.
He wished he could see. Hellfires, I wish I could breathe!
But if Londer's warehouse was the goal, it couldn't be very much longer. 
Alberich was supposed to have scouted the place during the day, so he'd be 
familiar with the outside, at least. Skif just wished that the Weaponsmaster was 
as good at roof walking as he was -- if only they could have switched parts -- 
Don't worry about your partner. If he says he can do something, and you've got 
no cause to think otherwise, then let him do his job and concentrate on yours.
Well, that was easy to say, and hard to do, when it all came down to cases.
It seemed forever before the men stopped, and when they did, Skif was gritting 
his teeth so hard he thought they might splinter with the tension. They knocked 
on the door, quite softly, in a pattern of three, two, and five.
:Got it,: Cymry said. :Alberich doesn't know if he's going to try going in that 
way, but if he does, that will make it easier.:
The door creaked open. "Got 'nother one?" said a voice in a harsh whisper, with 
accents of surprise. "Tha's third'un tonight!"
"Pickin's is good," said the man to Skif's right, as the one carrying him 
grunted. "Got'r eyes on two more prime 'uns, so le's get this'un settled."
"Boss'll be right happy," said the doorkeeper, as the men moved forward and 
closed the door behind them.
"Tha's th'ideer," grunted the man with Skif.
They moved more slowly now, and to Skif's dismay there was a fair amount of 
opening and closing of doors, and direction changes down passages. This place 
must be a veritable warren! How was Alberich supposed to find him in all of this 
if he got inside?
:Let us worry about that,: said Cymry -- right before there was the sound of 
another door opening, then the unmistakable feeling that his captor was 
descending a staircase.
Descending a staircase? There's a cellar to this place? There isn't supposed to 
be a cellar here!
Skif was in something of a panic, because part of the emergency plan figured in 
the Companions coming in as well as Alberich, and the Companions were not going 
to be able to get down a narrow, steep set of stairs into a cellar.
He had to remind himself that he was not alone, he was armed, and he was 
probably smarter than any of these people. No matter what happened here, sooner 
or later they would have to take him outside this building, and when they did, 
he could escape.
Even if he and Alberich couldn't actually catch the head of this gang of slavers 
right now, so long as Skif could get a good look at him, they'd have him later.
What's the worst that can happen? he asked himself, and set himself to imagining 
it. Alberich wouldn't get in. He'd be held for a while, maybe with other 
children, maybe not. The master of this gang would inspect them; Skif could make 
sure he saw enough he would be able to pick him out again. Then --  well, the 
question was how attractive they found him.
He had to stop himself from shuddering. Just by virtue of being healthy and in 
good shape, he was as pretty as most of the street urchins they'd been picking 
up. Which meant there was one place where they'd send him.
Now the panic became real; his throat closed with fear and he had trouble 
breathing. Oh, no -- oh, no -- 
In all his years on the street, he had never really had to face the possibility 
that he might end up a child-whore. Now he did, for if he couldn't get away from 
these people, or they found out what he was doing -- 
His imagination painted far worse things than he had ever seen, cobbled up out 
of all the horrible stories he had ever heard, and his breath came in short and 
painful gasps. He went from stifling to icy cold. What if their -- the brothel was 
here, in this building? They wouldn't have to take him outside. They wouldn't 
have to move him at all. He wouldn't get a chance to escape -- they could keep him 
here as long as they wanted to, they could -- they would! strip him down first and 
find his knives. What would they do to him then? Drug him, maybe? Kill him? Oh 
no, probably not that, not while they could get some use out of him -- 
Don't panic. Don't panic.
How could he not panic?
:Chosen -- we won't let that happen. We'll get to you, no matter what -- :
But how would they? How could they? It would take a small army to storm this 
place, and by then -- 
The man carrying him got to the bottom of the stair and made a turning. "This 
brat's awful quiet," he grunted to his fellow. "Ye sure ye didn' 'it 'im too 
'ard?"
"No more'n the rest uv 'em," the other snapped. " 'E's breathin', ain't 'e?"
"Aye -- just don' wanta hev'ta turn over damaged goods. Milord don't care fer 
damaged goods." The man hefted Skif a little higher on his shoulder, surprising 
him into an involuntary groan, caused as much by desperation as by pain.
"There, ye see?" the second man said in triumph. "Nothin' wrong wi' 'im. 'E's 
wakin' up right on time."
"Les' get 'im locked up, then," said the one from the door.
There was the sound of a key turning in a lock, a heavy door swinging open. 
Then, quite suddenly, Skif found himself being dumped unceremoniously onto 
something soft.
Well, softish. Landing knocked the breath out of him, though he managed to keep 
from banging his head when he landed. He heard the door slam and the key turn in 
the lock again before he got his wits back.
He struggled free of the stinking confines of the blanket, only to find himself 
in the pitch dark, and he was just as blind as he'd been in the blanket. He felt 
around, heard rustling, and felt straw under his questing hands. The "something 
soft" he'd been dumped on was a pile of old straw, smelling of mildew and dust, 
but infinitely preferable to the stench of the blanket.
He got untangled from the folds of that foul blanket, wadded it up, and with a 
convulsive movement, flung it as far away from himself as possible. The wooden 
bowl that had saved his skull from being cracked clattered down out of the folds 
of it as it flew across the room.
Which wasn't far, after all; he heard it hit a wall immediately. His prison was 
a prison then, and a small one. He got onto his hands and knees, and began 
feeling his way to the nearest wall. Rough brick met his hands, so cheap it was 
crumbling under his questing fingers, a symptom of the damp getting into it.
He got to his feet, and followed it until it intersected the next wall, and the 
next, and the next -- and then came to the door.
A few moments more of exploring by touch proved that this wasn't a room, it was 
a cell; it couldn't have been more than three arm's lengths wide and twice that 
in length.
Not a very well-constructed cell, though. Rough brick made up the walls, and the 
floor was nothing more than pounded dirt with the straw atop it. And when Skif 
got to the door, he finally felt some of his fear ebbing. The lock on this door 
had never been designed with the idea of confining a thief. He could probably 
have picked it in the pitch-dark with a pry bar; the throwing daggers he wore 
were fine enough to work through the hole in the back plate and trip the 
mechanism.
I can get out. That was all it took to calm him. These people never intended to 
have to hold more than a few frightened children down here. As long as they 
thought that was what he was, he'd be fine. If this was their child brothel, he 
could get out of it.
:Or you can jam the lock and keep them out until we get in,: Cymry pointed out, 
and he nearly laughed aloud at what a simple and elegant solution she had found 
for him. Yes, he could, he could! Then help could take as long as it needed to 
reach him. Even if they set fire to the warehouse to cover their tracks, he 
should be safe down here. He remembered once, when one of the taverns had caught 
fire, how half a dozen of the patrons had hidden in the cellars and come out 
covered in soot but safe -- and drunk out of their minds, for they'd been trapped 
by falling timbers and had decided they might as well help themselves to the 
stock.
:Will you be all right now?: Cymry asked anxiously.
:Right and tight,: he told her. And he would be, he would.
He had to be. Everything depended on him now.
He would be.
* * * * * * * * * *
He heard the men enter and leave again twice more, and each time a door creaked 
open somewhere and he heard the thump of some small load landing in straw. He 
winced each time for the sake of the poor semiconscious child that it 
represented.
Between the first and the second, Cymry told him that Alberich had gotten into 
the building, but could tell him nothing more than that. It was not long after 
that the men arrived with the second child -- and soon after that when the cellars 
awoke.
There was noise first; voices, harsh and quarrelsome. Then came heavy footsteps, 
and then light. So much light that it shone under Skif's door and through all 
the cracks between the heavy planks that the door was made up of.
Then the door was wrenched open, and a huge man stood silhouetted against the 
glare. Skif didn't have to pretend to fear; he shrank back with a start, 
throwing up his arm to shield his eyes.
The man took a pace toward him, and Skif remembered his knives, remembered that 
he didn't dare let anyone grab him by the arm lest they be discovered. He 
scrambled backward until he reached the wall, then, with his back pressed into 
the brick, got to his feet, huddling his arms around his chest.
The man grabbed him by the collar, his arms and hands not being easy to grab in 
that position, and hauled him out into the corridor and down it, toward an 
opening.
The corridor wasn't very long, and there were evidently only six of the little 
brick cells in it, three on each side. It dead-ended to Skif's rear in a wall of 
the same rough brick. The man dragged Skif toward the open end, then threw him 
unceremoniously into the larger room beyond, a large and echoing chamber that 
was empty of furnishings and lit by lanterns hung from hooks depending from the 
ceiling. Skif landed beside three more children, all girls, all shivering and 
speechless with fear, tear-streaked faces masks of terror. Facing them were five 
men, four heavily armed, standing in pairs on either side of the fifth.
Was this the hoped-for mastermind behind all of this?
"'Ere's th' last on 'em, milord," said the man who'd brought Skif out. "The fust 
two ye said weren't good fer yer gennelmen. This a good 'nuff offerin'?"
Skif looked up from his fellow captives. For a moment, he couldn't see the man's 
face, but he knew the voice right enough.
"Very nice," purred the man, with just an edge of contempt beneath the approval. 
"Prime stock. Yes, they'll do. They'll do very nicely."
It was the same voice that had spoken with Jass in the tomb in the cemetery. And 
when "milord" came into the light, Skif stared at him, not in recognition, but 
to make sure he knew the face later. If this man was one of those that had 
attended Lord Orthallen's reception, Skif didn't recall him… but then, he had a 
very ordinary face. What Bazie would have called a "face-shaped face" with that 
laugh of his -- neither this nor that, neither round nor oblong nor square, 
nondescript in every way, brown hair, brown eyes. He could have been anyone.
The man was wearing very expensive clothing, in quite excellent taste. That was 
something of a surprise; Skif would have expected excellent clothing in 
appalling taste, given the circumstances.
Milord -- well, the clothing was up to the standards of the highborn, but something 
about him didn't fit. Since being at the Collegium, Skif had met a fair number 
of highborn, and there was an air about them, as if everyone they met would, as 
a matter of course, assume they were superior. So it was second nature to them, 
and they didn't have to think about it. This man wore his air of superiority, 
and his pride, openly, like a cloak.
So what, exactly, was he? He had money, he had power, but he just didn't fit the 
"merchant" mold either. Yet he must have influence, and someone must be feeding 
him information, or he never would have been able to continue to operate as 
successfully and invisibly as he had until now.
The man gestured, and one of the four men with him grabbed the shoulder of the 
girl he pointed at, hauling her to her feet. She couldn't have been more than 
eight or nine at most, thin and wan, and frightened into paralysis. The man 
walked around her, surveying her from every angle. He took her chin in his hand, 
roughly tilting her face up, even prying open her mouth to look at her teeth as 
tears ran soundlessly down her smudged cheeks, leaving tracks in the dirt. He 
didn't order her to be stripped, but then, given that she wasn't wearing much 
more than a tattered feed sack with a string around it, he didn't really need 
to.
"Yes," the man said, after contemplating her for long moments, during which she 
shivered like an aspen in the wind. She was a very pretty little thing under all 
her dirt, and Skif's heart ached for her. Hadn't her life been bad enough 
without this descent into nightmare? How could a tiny little child possibly 
deserve this?
And this was the man who had ordered the deaths of Bazie and the two boys with 
no more concern than if he had crushed a beetle beneath his foot. This man, with 
his face-shaped face -- this was the face of true evil that concealed itself in 
blandness. No monster here, just a man who could have hidden himself in any 
crowd. He would probably pat his friends' children genially on the head, even 
give them little treats, this man who assessed the market value of a little girl 
and consigned her to a fearful fate. He was valued by his neighbors, no doubt, 
this beast in a man's skin.
Skif hated him. Hated the look of him, the sound of his voice, hated everything 
about him. Hated most of all that he could smile, and smile, and look so like 
any other man.
"Yes," the man said again, with a bland smile, the same smile a housewife might 
use when finding a particularly fat goose. "Pretty and pliant. This one will be 
very profitable for us."
"Oh -- it is that I think not, good Guildmaster," said a highly accented voice from 
the doorway. Skif's heart leaped, and when Alberich himself walked through the 
door, sword and dagger at the ready, it was all he could do to keep from 
cheering aloud.
THERE was a moment of absolute silence, as even the Guildmaster's professional 
bodyguards were taken by surprise. But that moment ended almost as soon as it 
began.
The man who'd brought Skif out bolted for the door behind the Guildmaster, 
disappearing into the darkness. All four of the bodyguards charged Alberich, as 
the Guildmaster himself stood back with a smirk that would have maddened Skif, 
if he hadn't been scrambling to get out of the way. He pushed the three little 
girls ahead of him into the partial shelter of the wall, and stood between them 
and the fighting. Not that he was going to be able to do anything other than try 
and push them somewhere else if the fighting rolled over them.
Not that he was going to be able to do anything to help Alberich. He knew when 
he was outweighed, outweaponed, and outclassed. This fight was no place for an 
undersized and half-trained (at best) adolescent. Besides, Alberich didn't look 
as if he needed any help, at least not at the moment.
The Weaponsmaster had been impressive enough in the salle and on the training 
ground; here, literally surrounded by four skilled fighters, Skif could hardly 
believe what he was seeing. Alberich moved like a demon incarnate and so quickly 
that half the time Skif couldn't see what had happened, only that he'd somehow 
eluded what should have killed him -- 
Still -- four to one -- maybe he'd better do something to try and drop the odds.
Skif slipped the catches on his knives and then hesitated. The combatants were 
all moving too fast and in unpredictable ways. He'd never practiced against 
anything but a stationary target; if he threw a knife, he could all too easily 
hit Alberich, and if he threw a knife, he'd also throw away half of his own 
defenses.
:Skif, get the children out now!:
Cymry's mental "shout" woke him out of his indecision; with a quick glance to 
make sure the Guildmaster (what Guild was he?) was too far away to interfere, 
Skif grabbed the wrists of two of the three -- the third was clinging to the arm of 
the second -- and pulled them onto their feet. Then he got behind them and 
slowly -- trying not to attract the eye of their chiefest captor -- he herded them in 
front of him, along the wall, and toward the door that Alberich had entered by.
One of the three, at least, woke out of her fear to see what he was trying to 
do. She seized the wrists of both of the others and dragged them with her as 
they edged along the wall. Her eyes were fixed on that doorway; Skif's were on 
the fight.
It was oddly silent, compared with the tavern- and street-fights he was used to. 
There was no shouting, no cursing, only the clash of metal on metal and the 
occasional grunt of pain.
And it was getting bloody. All of the bodyguards were marked -- not big wounds, but 
they were bleeding. It looked as if the four bodyguards should bring Alberich 
down at any moment, and yet he kept sliding out from beneath their blades as 
Skif and his charges got closer and closer to their goal. Skif wanted to run, 
and knew he didn't dare. He didn't dare distract
Alberich, and he didn't dare grab the attention of the Guildmaster.
Ten paces… five…
There!
The girl who was leading the other two paused, hesitating, on the very 
threshold, her face a mask of fear and indecision. She didn't know what lay 
beyond that door -- it could be worse than what was here.
"Run!" Skif hissed at her, trusting that Alberich had already cleared the way.
The girl didn't hesitate a moment longer; she bolted into the half-lit hallway, 
hauling the other two with her. Skif started to follow -- hesitated, and looked 
back.
There was a body on the floor, and it wasn't Alberich's. While Skif's back was 
turned, the Weaponsmaster had temporarily reduced the odds against himself by 
one.
But Alberich was bleeding from the shoulder now. Skif couldn't tell how bad the 
wound was, and Alberich showed no sign of weakness, but the leather tunic was 
slashed there, and bloody flesh showed beneath the dark leather whenever he 
moved that arm. Skif's throat closed with fear. Somewhere deep inside he'd been 
certain that Alberich was invulnerable. But he wasn't. He could be hurt. And if 
he could be hurt -- he could die.
At that moment, the Guildmaster finally noticed that his prizes had escaped.
"Stop them!" he shouted at his men. "Don't let them get away!"
Skif froze in the doorway, but he needn't have worried. No one was taking orders 
now. The fighters were too busy with Alberich to pay any attention to Skif, 
although they redoubled their efforts to take the Weaponsmaster down.
:Skif, run! Get out of there now!: Cymry cried.
"No!" he said aloud. He couldn't go -- not now -- he might be able to do something -- 
The lantern flames flickered, and shadows danced on the walls, a demonic echo of 
the death dance in the center of the room. It was confusing; too confusing. Once 
again Skif felt for his knives and hesitated.
Alberich was tiring; oh, it didn't show in how he moved, but there was sweat 
rolling down his face. He had taken another cut, this time across his scalp, and 
blood mingled with the drops of sweat that spattered down onto the dirt floor 
with every movement.
Skif still didn't dare throw the knives, even with one of the opponents down. He 
edged away from the door, and looked frantically for something else he could 
throw.
Alberich's eyes glittered, and his mouth was set in a wild and terrible smile. 
He looked more than half mad, and Skif couldn't imagine why his opponents 
weren't backing away just from his expression alone, much less the single-minded 
ferocity with which he was fighting. He did not look human, that much was 
certain. If this was how he always looked when he fought in earnest, no wonder 
people were afraid of him.
No wonder he had never needed to draw a blade in those tavern brawls.
Skif's eye fell on a pile of dirty bowls stacked against the wall on the other 
side of the doorway -- the remains, perhaps, of a meal the child snatchers had 
finished. It didn't matter; they were heavy enough to be weapons, and they were 
within reach.
He snatched one up and waited for his opportunity. It came sooner than he'd 
hoped, as Alberich suddenly rushed one of the three men, making him stumble 
backward in a hasty retreat. That broke the swirling dance of steel for a 
moment, broke the pattern long enough for Skif to fling the bowl at the man's 
head.
It connected with the back of his skull with a sickening crack that made Skif 
wince -- not hard enough to knock him out, but enough to make him stagger, dazed.
And that moment was just enough for Alberich to slash savagely at his neck, 
cutting halfway through it. The man twisted in agony, dropping to the floor, 
blood everywhere as he writhed for a long and horrible moment, then stilled.
Skif froze, watching in fascination, aghast. Alberich did not. Nor did the two 
men still fighting. They reacted by coming at Alberich from both directions at 
once, and in the rain of blows that followed, Alberich was wounded again, a 
glancing slash across the arm that peeled back leather and a little flesh -- but he 
delivered a worse blow than he had gotten to the head of the third man, who 
dropped like a stone. At which point the first man who'd been felled stood up, 
shaking his head to clear it, and plunged back into the fray.
Skif shook himself out of his trance and flung two more bowls. Neither connected 
as well as the first; the first man remaining was hit in the shoulder, and the 
second in the back. But the distraction was their undoing, for they lost the 
initiative and Alberich managed to get out of their trap, nor could they pin him 
between them again.
The fight moved closer to the Guildmaster -- Alberich got the second man in the 
leg, leaving his dagger in the man's thigh, and the bodyguard staggered back.
Skif threw his last bowl, which hit the man nearest the Guildmaster in the side 
of the face. Alberich saw his opening, and took it, with an all-or-nothing lunge 
that carried him halfway across the room.
Skif let out a strangled cry of horror -- 
If any fighter Skif had ever seen before had tried that move, it would have 
ended differently. But this was Alberich, and he came in under the man's sword 
and inside his dagger, and the next thing Skif knew, the point of Alberich's 
sword was sticking out of the man's back, and the man was gazing down at 
Alberich with an utterly stupefied expression on his face.
Then he toppled over slowly -- 
But he took Alberich's sword with him.
And now the Guildmaster struck.
Because he had done nothing all this time, Skif had virtually forgotten he was 
there, and had assumed that he was harmless. Perhaps Alberich had done the same. 
It was a mistaken assumption on both their parts.
The Guildmaster moved like a ferret, so fast that he seemed to blur, and too 
fast for Alberich, exhausted as he was, to react. The Guildmaster didn't have a 
weapon.
He didn't need one.
Skif didn't, couldn't see how it happened. One moment, Alberich was still 
extended in his lunge; the next, the Guildmaster had him pinned somehow, 
trapped. The Guildmaster's back was to the wall, his arm was across Alberich's 
throat with Alberich's body protecting his. Both of Alberich's hands were free, 
and he clawed ineffectually at the arm across his throat. The Weaponsmaster's 
face was already turning an unhealthy shade of pale blue.
"Kash," the Guildmaster said, in a tight voice. "Get the brat."
But the last man was in no condition to grab anyone. "Can't," he coughed. "Leg's 
out."
Given the fact that his leg had been opened from thigh to knee, with Alberich's 
dagger still in the wound, he had a point. The Guildmaster's gaze snapped back 
onto Skif.
"Well," he said, in that condescending voice he'd used with Jass, "I wouldn't 
have expected the Heralds to use bait. It's not like them to put a child in 
danger."
Skif bristled. "Ain't a child," he said flatly.
"Oh? You're a little young to be a Herald," the man countered in a sarcastic 
tone. Then he punched Alberich's shoulder wound with his free hand, making him 
gasp, and putting a stop to Alberich's attempts to claw himself free. "Stop 
that. You're only making things more difficult for yourself."
"What has age to do with being a Herald?" Alberich rasped.
Skif said nothing, and the man's eyes narrowed as his arm tightened a little 
more on Alberich's throat. "Be still, or I will snap your foolish neck for you. 
A Trainee, then. But still --  that's quite out of character -- unless -- "
He stared at Skif then, with a calculating expression, and Skif sensed that he 
was thinking very hard, very hard indeed.
It was, after all, no secret that the latest Trainee was a thief. But what that 
would mean to this wealthy villain -- and whether he'd heard that -- 
Then the Guildmaster's eyes widened. "Well," he said, and his mouth quirked up 
at one corner. "Who would have thought it. The Heralds making common cause with 
a common thief. Oh, excuse me -- you're quite an uncommon thief. Old Bazie's boy, 
aren't you? Skif, is it?"
Skif went cold with shock and stared at the Guildmaster with his mouth dropping 
open. How'd he know -- how -- 
The Guildmaster smirked. "I make it my business to know what goes on in my 
properties, as any good landlord would," he said pointedly. "Besides, how do you 
think that cleverly hidden room got there? Who do you think arranged for the 
pump and the privy down there?"
"But you killed him!" Skif cried, as Alberich tried to move and turned a little 
bluer for his trouble.
"I had no intention of doing so," the Guildmaster pointed out, in reasonable 
tones. "That was Jass' fault. If he'd obeyed orders, everyone would have gotten 
out all right, even Bazie."
Since Skif had heard the truth of that with his own ears, there was no debating 
the question of whether Jass had gone far beyond what his orders had been. But -- 
How would Bazie have gotten out in time, even so? How? The boys couldn't have 
carried him -- 
The Guildmaster interrupted his thoughts. His expression had gone very bland 
again. He was planning something…
"You've been very clever, young man," he said, in a voice unctuous with 
flattery. "I don't see nearly enough cleverness in the people I hire -- well, Jass 
was a case in point. Now at the moment, we seem to be at a stalemate."
Alberich writhed in a futile attempt to get free. His captor laughed, and 
punched the shoulder wound again, and Alberich went white. "If I kill this 
Herald," he pointed out, "I lose my shield against whatever you might pick up 
and fling at me. You can't go anywhere, because Kash is between you and the 
door. Stalemate."
Skif nodded warily.
"On the other hand," he continued. "If you decided to switch allegiances, I 
could strangle this fool and we could all escape from here before the help he 
has almost certainly arranged for arrives."
Skif clenched his jaw. In another time and place --  "An' just what'm I supposed to 
get out of this?" he asked, playing for time to think.
Cymry was oddly silent in his mind. In fact -- in fact, he couldn't sense her at 
all. For the first time in weeks he was alone in his head.
"What do you get? Oh, Skif, Skif, haven't you learned anything about the way 
Life works?" the Guildmaster laughed. "Allow me to enlighten you. No matter what 
these fools have told you, the only law that counts is the Law of the Street. 
What you'll get is to be trained by me, in something far more profitable than 
the liftin' lay."
"Oh, aye -- " Skif began heatedly.
"No. You listen to me. This is what is real. These are the rules that the real 
world runs by." He stared into Skif's eyes, and Skif couldn't look away, 
couldn't stop listening to that voice, so sure of itself, so very, very 
rational. "Grab what you can, because if you don't, someone else will snatch it 
out from under you. Get all the dirt you can on anyone who might have power over 
you -- and believe me, everyone has a past, and things they'd rather not have 
bruited about. Be the cheater, not the cheated, because you'll be one or the 
other. There's no such thing as truth -- oh, believe me about this -- there are shades 
of meaning, and depths of self-interest, but there is no truth."
Skif made an inarticulate sound of protest, but it was weak, because this was 
all he'd seen at Exile's Gate, this was the way the world as he had always known 
it worked. Not the way it was taught in the Collegium. Not the way those 
sheltered, idealistic Heralds explained things -- 
"And there is no faith either," the Guildmaster continued, in his hard, bright 
voice. "Faith is for those who wish to be deceived for the sake of a comforting, 
but hollow promise. Think about it, boy -- think about it. It's shadow and air, all 
of it. Cakes in the Havens, and crumbs in the street. That is all that faith is 
about."
The priests -- oh, the priests -- how many of them actually helped anyone in Exile's 
Gate in the here and now? Behind their cloister walls and their gates, they 
never went hungry or cold -- they never suffered the least privations. Even the 
Brothers at the Priory never went hungry or cold…
Skif's heart contracted into an icy little knot. Alberich's eyes were closed; he 
seemed to be concentrating on getting what little air the Guildmaster allowed 
him.
"Throw your lot in with me. I won't deceive you with pretty fictions. You'll 
obey me because I am strong and smart and powerful. You'll learn from me to be 
the same. And maybe some day you'll be good enough to take what I've got away 
from me. Until then, we'll have a deal, and it will be because we know where we 
stand with each other, not because of some artificial conceit that we like each 
other." He laughed. "The smart man guards his own back, boy," the insidious 
voice went on. "The wise man knows there is no one that you can trust, you take 
and hold whatever you can and share it with no one, because no one will ever 
share what he has with you. Hate is for the strong; love is for the weak. No one 
has friends; friend is just a pretty name for a leech. Or a user. What do you 
think Bazie was? A user. He used you boys and lived off of your work, kept you 
as personal servants, and pretended to love you so you would be as faithful to 
him as a pack of whipped puppies."
And that was where the Guildmaster went too far.
Bazie, thought Skif, jarred free of the spell that insidiously logical voice had 
placed on him. Bazie had shared whatever he had, and had trusted to his boys to 
do the same. Bazie had taken him in, with no reason to, and every reason to turn 
him into the street, knowing that Londer would be looking for him to silence 
him.
And Beel -- Beel had protected him, Beel could have reported a hundred times over 
that Skif had fulfilled his education, but he didn't. And when Beel could have 
told his own father where Skif was, he'd kept his mouth shut.
And the Heralds -- 
Oh, the Heralds. Weak, were they? Foolish?
Skif felt warmth coming back into him, felt his heart uncurling, as he thought 
back along the past weeks and all of the little kindnesses, all unasked for, 
that he'd gotten. Kris and Coroc keeping the highborn Blues from tormenting him 
until Skif had established that he was more amusing if he wasn't taunted. Jeri 
helping him out with swordwork. The teachers taking extra time to explain things 
he simply had never seen before. Housekeeper Gaytha being so patient with his 
rough speech that sometimes he couldn't believe she'd spend all this time over 
one Trainee. The girls teasing and laughing with him in the sewing room. The 
simple way that he had been accepted by every Trainee, and with no other 
recommendation but that he'd been Chosen -- 
Cymry.
Cymry, who had rilled his heart -- who still was there, he sensed her again, now 
that he wasn't listening to the poison that bastard was pouring into his ears. 
Cymry, who cared enough for him to wait while he listened -- to make his own 
decisions, without any pressure from her.
No love, was there? Self-delusion, was it?
Then I'll be deluded.
Did the Guildmaster see his thoughts flicker across his face? Perhaps -- 
"Kash, now!"; he shouted. The wounded bodyguard lunged, arms outstretched to 
grab him -- 
But Skif was already moving before the bodyguard, clumsy with his wounds and 
pain, had gotten a single step. He jumped aside, his hands flicking to each side 
as he evaded those outstretched arms.
And between one breath and the next -- 
The bodyguard continued his lunge, and sprawled facedown on the floor, gurgling 
in agony, one of Skif's knives in his throat.
The Guildmaster made a strangled noise -- and so did Alberich.
The arm around Alberich's throat tightened as the Guildmaster slid down the 
wall.
Skif's other knife was lodged to the hilt in his eye.
But Skif's dodge had been deliberately aimed to take him to Alberich's side. The 
Guildmaster had been a stationary target. And at that range, he couldn't miss.
In the next heartbeat he had pried the dead arm away from the Weaponsmaster's 
throat, and Alberich was gasping in great, huge gulps of air, his color 
returning to normal.
Skif helped him to his feet. "You all right?" he asked awkwardly.
Alberich nodded. "Talk -- may be hard," he rasped.
Skif laughed giddily, feeling as if he had drunk two whole bottles of that 
fabulous wine all by himself. "Like that's gonna make the Trainees unhappy," he 
taunted. "You, not bein' able to lecture 'em!"
The wry expression on Alberich's face only made him laugh harder. "Come on," he 
said, draping his teacher's arm over his shoulders. "We better get you outside 
an' get back to where th' good Healers are afore your Kantor decides he's gonna 
put horseshoe marks on my bum."
They got as far as the door when Skif thought of something else. "I don' suppose 
you did arrange for help, did you?"
"Well," Alberich admitted, in a croak. "It comes now."
:Cymry?:
:Half the Collegium, my love.:
Skif just shook his head. "Figgers. Us Heralds, we just keep thinkin' we gotta 
do everything by ourselves, don't we? We can't do the smart thing an' get help 
fixed up beforehand. Even you. An' you should know better."
"Yes," Alberich agreed. "I should. We do."
We. It was a lovely word.
One that Skif was coming to enjoy a very great deal
* * * * * * * * * *
A Herald he didn't recognize brought Skif his knives, meticulously cleaned, as 
the Healer fussed over Alberich right there in the street, which was so full of 
torches and lanterns it might have been a festival. Well, a very grim sort of 
festival.
It actually looked more like something out of a fever dream; the street full of 
Heralds and Guards, more Guardsmen swarming in and out of the warehouse, a 
half-dozen Heralds and their Companions surrounding Alberich -- who flatly refused 
to lie down on a stretcher as the Healer wanted -- while the Weaponsmaster sat on 
an upturned barrel and the Healer stitched up his wounds. Four bodies were laid 
out on the street under sheets; one semiconscious bullyboy had been taken off 
for questioning as soon as he recovered. Not that anyone expected to get much 
out of him. It wasn't very likely that a mere bodyguard would know the details 
of his master's operations.
No one had sent Skif back to the Collegium, and he waited beside Alberich, 
between Kantor and Cymry, listening with all his might to the grim-voiced 
conversations around him. Most of the Heralds here he didn't know; that was all 
right, he didn't have to know who they were to understand that they were 
important. He did recognize Talamir, though, who seemed considerably less 
otherworldly at the moment and quite entirely focused on the here and now.
"This is going to have an interesting effect on the Council," he observed, his 
voice heavy with irony.
Alberich snorted. "Interesting? Boil up like a nest of ants, when stirred with 
sticks, it will! Sunlord! Guildmaster Vatean! Suspect him, even I did not!"
"Gartheser is going to have a fit of apoplexy," someone else observed. "Vatean 
was here was here at his behest in the first place."
Hadn't they noticed he was here? This was high political stuff he was listening 
to!
:They know,: Cymry told him. :But you're a Herald, even if you aren't in Whites 
yet. You proved yourself tonight. No one is ever going to withhold any thing 
from you that you really want or need to know.:
Well! Interesting…
"Gartheser will be a pool of stillness compared to Lady Cathal," Talamir 
observed, with a sigh. "He was a Guildmaster after all, and she speaks for the 
Guilds."
"Oh, Guildmaster, indeed," someone else said dismissively. "Becoming a Master in 
the Traders' Guild…" He left the sentence dangling, but everyone -- including 
Skif -- knew that the requirements for Mastery in the Traders' Guild mostly 
depended on entirely on how much profit you could make. Provided, of course, 
that you didn't cheat to make it. Or at least that you didn't get caught 
cheating.
"He was," Talamir pointed out delicately, and with a deliberate pause between 
the words, "quite… prosperous."
"And now, know we where the profits came from," Alberich said harshly. "It is 
thinking I am that Lady Cathal should be looking into profits, and whence from 
they come."
"And Lord Gartheser," said Talamir. "Since Gartheser wished so sincerely to 
recommend him to the Council."
"There is that," observed someone else, in a hard, cold voice. "And now we know 
where the leak of Guard movements along Evendim came from."
"It would appear so," Talamir replied thoughtfully, "Although… it is in my mind 
that Lord Orthallen was equally, though less blatantly, impressed with the late 
Guildmaster's talents…"
But a flurry of protests broke out over that remark; it seemed that the idea of 
Lord Orthallen having anything to do with all of this was completely out of the 
question.
Except that Skif saw Talamir and Alberich exchange a private look -- and perhaps 
more than that. Looks weren't all that could be exchanged when one was a Herald, 
and far more privately.
I wonder what all that's about.
And Lord Orthallen had "particularly" recommended Jass to Vatean…
Well, if he wanted to know -- 
No, he didn't. Not at all. He knew quite enough already. All of this was going 
right over his head, and anyway, there wasn't anything one undersized thief 
could do about it even if he did know.
Or -- if there was something one undersized thief could do about it, he had no 
doubt that Alberich would have a few words with him on the subject. And maybe a 
job.
So, perhaps his roof-walking days weren't over after all.
Better get myself another sneaky suit.
:I believe that Alberich already has that in mind,: said Cymry.
The little group continued to paw over the few facts they had until they were 
shopworn, and even Talamir, whose patience seemed endless, grew weary of it.
"Enough!" he said, silencing them all. "There is nothing more we can do until we 
know more. The boy and Alberich have told us all they know. Herald Ryvial and 
our picked Guardsmen-Investigators are on their way to Vatean's home even now, 
and if there is anything to be found there, rest assured, they will find it. 
Every known associate of Vatean will be under observation before sunrise, long 
before word of his death leaks out -- "
"Uncle Londer," Skif interrupted wearily. Now that the excitement was wearing 
off, he was beginning to feel every bruise, and was just a little sick.
"And the man Londer Galko will also be observed," Talamir continued smoothly. 
"Because he clearly knew a great deal about the child stealing although he is 
not connected with Vatean in anyway."
Now he looked at Skif, and put a hand on Skif's shoulder that felt not at all 
patronizing. Comradely, yes, patronizing, no. "Trainee Skif is weary to 
dropping, Herald Alberich is in pain, and we are fresh and have constructive 
work ahead of us. I suggest we send them back to their beds while we get about 
it, brothers."
There was a murmured chorus of assent as the Healer put the last of the stitches 
into Alberich's scalp wound, and the Heralds magically melted away, leaving Skif 
and Alberich alone in a calm center in the midst of the bustle.
"You won't travel in a stretcher as you should," the Healer said wearily, as if 
he had made and lost this same argument far too many times to bother again. "So 
the best I can do is order you to back to the Collegium and to rest."
"Teach from a stool I will, tomorrow at least," Alberich told him.
The Healer sighed, and packed up his satchel. "I suppose that's the most I can 
get out of you," he said, and looked at Kantor. "Do what you can with him, won't 
you?"
The Companion tossed his head in an emphatic nod, and Skif added, "Jeri an' 
Herald Visa can run th' sword work for a week -- an' Coroc an' Kris can do 
archery." Kantor nodded even more emphatically.
Alberich glared at him sourly, made as if to shrug, thought better of it, and 
sighed. "A conspiracy, it is," he grumbled.
"Damn right," Skif said boldly. And when Alberich got to his feet and made as if 
to mount, Kantor stamped his foot, and laid himself down so that Alberich could 
get into the saddle without mounting. When his Herald was in place, Kantor rose, 
and shook his head vigorously.
"You make me an old woman," Alberich complained, as Skif got stiffly into 
Cymry's saddle and the two of them headed up the street away from the scene of 
the activity, riding side by side.
"Naw," Skif denied, very much enjoying having the fearsome Weaponsmaster at a 
temporary disadvantage. "Just makin' you be sensible. Ye see -- " he continued, 
waxing eloquent, "there's th' difference between a Herald an' a thief. Ye don' 
have t' make a thief be sensible. All thieves are sensible. A thief that won't 
be sensible -- "
" -- a thief in gaol is, yes, please spare me," Alberich growled.
But it didn't sound like his heart was in it, and a moment later he glanced over 
at Skif. "That was one of your mentor --  Bazie -- that was one of the things he told 
you, yes?"
Skif nodded.
"And now, revenge you have had."
True. Jass was dead, Vatean was dead; the two men responsible for Bazie's 
horrible death were themselves dead. Skif's initial bargain with himself -- and 
with the Heralds -- to work with Alberich because they had a common cause was over.
"Regrets?" Alberich prompted.
Skif shook his head, then changed his mind. "Sort of. There weren't no justice."
"But it was your own hand that struck Vatean down," Alberich said, as if he were 
surprised.
It was Skif's turn to bestow a sour look. "Now, don' you go tryin' that sly word 
twistin' on me," he said. "I know what you're tryin' t'do, an' don' pretend you 
ain't. No. There weren't no justice. Th' bastid is dead, dead quick an' easy, he 
didn' have t'answer fer nothin', an' we ain't never gonna find out a half of 
what he was into. I got revenge, an' I don' like it. Revenge don' get you 
nothin'. There. You happy now?"
But Alberich surprised him. "No, little brother," he said gently. "I am not 
happy, because my brother is unhappy."
And there it was; the sour taste in Skif's mouth faded, and although the 
vengeance he thought he had wanted turned out to be nothing like what he really 
would have wanted if he'd had the choice, well -- 
I am not happy, because my brother is unhappy.
That -- that was worth everything he'd gone through to get here.
"Ah, I'll get over it," he sighed. "Hey, I get t' boss you around fer a week, 
eh, Kantor? That's worth somethin'."
Once again, Kantor nodded his head with vigor, and Alberich groaned feelingly.
"This -- " he complained, but with a suspicious twinkle in his eye, " -- is putting 
the henhouse in the fox's charge."
"Rrrrr!" Skif growled, showing his teeth. "Promise. Won't have too much 
chicken."
"And I suppose you will insist on going into Whites, now that a hero you are," 
Alberich continued, looking pained.
"Hah! You are outa your head; th' Healer was right," Skif countered. "What, me 
run afore I can walk? Not likely! 'Sides," he continued, contemplating all the 
potential fun he could have over the next four years in the Collegium, "I ain't 
fleeced a quarter of them highborn Blues yet, nor got all I can outa them 
Artificer Blues!"
Alberich regarded him with a jaundiced eye. "I foresee --  and Foresight is my 
Gift -- a great deal of trouble, with you at its center. And that no Trainee in the 
history of Valdemar will have more demerits against his name, before you go into 
Whites."
"Suits me," Skif replied saucily. "So long as I have fun doing it."
"Fun for you -- yes," Alberich sighed. "Fun for the rest of us, however, extracting 
you from the tangles you make -- "
"It'll be worth it!" Skif insisted, once again feeling that giddy elation 
bubbling up inside him, as he felt the warmth of acceptance encircle him and 
hold him at its heart.
And in spite of present pain and future concerns, Herald Alberich gave him a 
real, unalloyed smile. "Oh, there is no doubt it will be worth it," he said, and 
Skif had the sense that he meant more than just the subject of Skif's future 
mischief. He meant Skif's very existence as one of the Trainees now and Heralds 
to come, no matter who objected, or how strenuously, to the presence of a thief 
among them. He confirmed that with his next breath.
"Welcome, very welcome, to the Collegium, Skif. It seems we were always right to 
take a thief."