Take a Thief (15 page)

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.

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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 97

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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.

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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 ropedancers, 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 99

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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.

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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.

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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.