Thief (Brotherhood of the Throne Book 1) (21 page)

Her right hand tapped her knife hilt nervously as the sounds of servants finishing their chores drifted to her.

When the house had been quiet for over an hour it was time to go. She pushed the panel door open and stepped into the hallway. She wasn’t as prepared as she’d wanted to be - she only had the one exit, and it was a long way from where her mother’s knife lay - but she was out of time.

It took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust to the near dark of the house. She was in luck. The door to the kitchen was closed. She passed it and paused at the entrance of room at the end of the hall. This was the room she had to go through. She settled her back against the wall and searched the shadows for any signs of movement and checked to make sure the old steel hadn’t moved before she slid into the room. Carefully she maneuvered around the furniture until she reached the opposite door. It was open and Brenna peered into the hallway. She’d need to turn right, and then left.

She stepped lightly into the hallway. Just along, here, yes this should be it. She ducked into a narrow corridor and headed in the direction of her mother’s knife. Here. This was the room. The door was open and Brenna stepped in. Now that she was so close, the knife pulled at her. She moved slowly towards a large desk. That’s where the knife was. She knelt down and gently tried the bottom drawer.

To her surprise the drawer opened smoothly. She felt inside but didn’t uncover the knife. A false bottom, then. Brenna checked for the usual release mechanisms and finally heard a soft snick. She lifted the drawer bottom up and grabbed the knife. She shoved it over her shoulder and into her pack. Time to get out. She heard a noise and froze.

By the Brothers, in her haste to get her mother’s knife she’d forgotten to check for the guards. She ducked under the desk and
looked
for old steel. Two pieces were still outside on the grounds, but the one that was in the house had moved, was still moving. And it was headed her way. Had she made some noise and given herself away or was he doing his usual rounds?

Brenna kept as still as possible and concentrated on the sounds of the house. Footsteps became louder as they approached the room she was in and her sense of old steel confirmed that they carried a sword. The footsteps stopped outside the room and silently Brenna cursed. Except for the window, her only way out lay past an armed guard. A few minutes passed with no movement from the guard. If she hadn’t been able to sense his sword, she would have sworn he’d moved off by now.

Brenna’s muscles cramped painfully but she didn’t dare move. The guard had been standing outside the door for close to an hour. He didn’t know she was in here - he would have caught her by now if he’d known, wouldn’t he? It was just bad luck that he had chosen that spot to stand in.

There was only an hour before dawn and certain discovery - she’d have to go out through the window. It would be dangerous and noisy and she’d need the help of the gods to get over the wall, but it was a chance. Unless she could find a secret exit in the wall of the office.

With prayers to Jik for protection and Toru for knowledge, Brenna inched back towards the wall. She felt along the floor where it met the wall.
Please be here
. Most of the triggers at Feiren’s house were higher up but standing would expose her to the silent guard. Brenna’s hands feathered over the walls and she reached as high as her crouch allowed. There, that spot. Was that something? There was a soft click and she froze. The wall began to move out towards her. Light spilled out of the passage and she blinked. A cloaked figure held a lantern above her.

“Well, look here,” a man’s voice said. “I’ve caught myself a thief.”

Rough fingernails bit into the skin of her wrist and Brenna was dragged to her feet. She clamped her lips together and forced her body to relax. She wasn’t going to give this guard an excuse to hurt her. A second guard, her unknown watcher, appeared in the doorway to the office, a round ‘O’ of surprise on his face. He closed his mouth and shuttered his expression so fast Brenna wondered if she’d really seen that surprise.

“Aye, good catch, Barton,” the second guard said. “Looks like a thief to me, though you seem to have caught her before she could steal anything. I think the master will want to know about this first thing in the morning. Why don’t I lock her up? You can finish up with the scholar.”

Barton grunted his agreement and Brenna was handed off to the second guard. Her knife was quickly unbuckled from around her waist but they didn’t seem to notice her pack. She was marched through dimly lit rooms to a door that led down to the lower level of the house. She wasn’t surprised when she was finally pushed into a cell and the door closed. She heard the sound of a wooden bar being dropped into place on the door.

Her wrist bled where the first guard had grabbed her and she rubbed it. Enough light showed through the cracks around the door for her to see that it was a small room, no more than four feet square. Not enough room for a large man to lie flat, though Brenna would be able to stretch out if she lay corner to corner. Not that she planned on being here long enough to sleep. She needed to get out now.

She ran trembling fingers along the edges of the door, looking for something, anything, that might help. But the hinges were on the outside and they’d barred the door so there was no lock to pick. She pushed at the door fruitlessly before she sank to the cold stone floor. Think, she had to think. She couldn’t afford to give in to fear or despair - not even when they brought her before Duke Thorold, as they would, eventually. The thought of Thorold laughing at her helplessness, as he had laughed at her mother so many years ago made her so angry her fear burned away. She would
not
let him win.

Brenna pulled her pack off and dumped the contents on the floor. There, her lock picking tools. She grabbed a long thin piece of metal and knelt beside the door. She slipped the piece of metal between the door and the frame just below the bar. If she could just get one side of the bar off, she’d have a chance. But the metal tool was too short. She hunched over the pack contents again. Her mother’s knife, how could she have forgotten it? She unsheathed it and moved back to the door. As she did, the blade of the knife brushed her bleeding wrist and she felt a shock run up her arm. The knife glowed white hot and the single note that sounded in her head sent her to her knees.

Brenna shoved the blade under her vest and mentally
reached
for it. But when she touched it, the song had changed to a soft, calming hum. She clamped down and the light went out. Brenna pulled the knife out and studied it.

It was a simple, serviceable knife, smaller than she remembered. The double edged blade was slightly longer than Brenna’s hand with a plain straight cross piece and a small knob of a pommel. The handle was wrapped in well-used leather, darkened by all the hands that had gripped it over the years. Brenna remembered the way the knife had flashed in Wynne Trewen’s hands as she cut herbs or stripped willow bark from branches. She leaned over and sniffed at the leather somehow hoping to catch the scent of her mother, but she only smelled oiled leather.

Caught in the past, Brenna ran a finger over the blade. And then she had to clamp down on the knife when it flared again. A drop of something dark danced on the blade and then was absorbed into it. Curious, Brenna looked at her finger. There, a small knick from the blade. She touched the cut to the old steel and was surprised at the intensity as the blade once again flared to life. This time when she reached to control it her consciousness spiraled outward in an ever expanding circle, away from the cell in Thorold’s estate where her body knelt.

In wonder, Brenna saw pinpricks of light that she knew were old steel. There, a Brother with his family’s weapon, and over there, a discordant match between wielder and weapon. As her mind’s view expanded Brenna felt the pull of the coronet, and beside it, the mortar and pestle.

There was Kane. She knew that sword, knew its owner. If only she could reach him, tell him where she was.
Kane
she thought. But he couldn’t hear. Why would she think he could?

Subdued, she reeled herself back to the cell. The knife lay dark in her hands and she stared at it. Her mother’s knife. Full of magic she didn’t know how to use, and secrets. Secrets her mother had never known. She tucked the knife back into her pack. Her knife now.

She was still imprisoned by Thorold, but knowing she had the knife brought her comfort. And she knew how to use it as a weapon. Her training might be good enough for her to kill Thorold before he had her killed. Strangely calm, she traced her bleeding thumb on a stone block beside her and watched as the red dried to rusty brown.

Startled, Kane stopped mid stride. “Brenna?” He shook his head and continued down the hall towards his office. For a moment he’d thought he’d heard Brenna calling his name. That’s what happens when you get far too little sleep. He and Dasid had much to do before he resigned his captaincy.

Kane dreaded telling King Mattias that he was leaving, that he would not fulfill his oath. When he’d sworn that oath he’d understood the importance of it, had always believed he would live up to the promise. And he’d grown into it until it had wrapped around his soul and become part of his identity. Now he would have to strip that away, just as he was stripping away his rank. For more than ten years, ever since he’d been a fifteen year old recruit, the Kingsguard had been his life. But he’d made another promise, taken another oath, before he’d been welcomed into the Guard.
That
duty called him now. But he didn’t like what he had to do, didn’t want to have to choose. Breaking an oath. No man did that lightly, especially not those who lived by them. But he would not be bitter - he would accept his fate even though he felt diminished. And if, his choice made, Brenna never accepted her destiny, he would have failed that oath as well. He
had
to gain her trust.

Kane turned into his office and found Dasid waiting for him with Ormston. His stomach flipped. Now what? Ormston had been set to watch over Brenna with instructions to let him know the moment she was in danger. He closed the door.

“What’s happened to her?”  Kane asked. Ormston and Dasid exchange glances. “Come on, you wouldn’t be here if something wasn’t wrong.” And I wouldn’t have had that feeling on my way here.

“Well, sir, the lass has been taken by Thorold,” Ormston said. “I had word early this morning from our man inside the duke’s house.”

Kane felt cold at the thought of Brenna in Thorold’s hands.

“How did this happen? Does he know who she is?”

“We don’t think so, Captain,” Dasid said. “It seems our girl was inside the house when she was discovered. From our accounts this morning, the duke doesn’t even know she’s there.”

“In the house.” Kane’s sat down heavily. “How did she get in? No, don’t bother to answer that.” She’d found a secret way into the house. She’d been applying herself to the secrets of his uncle’s house with such enthusiasm he’d thought she was simply bored. It turned out she’d had a different plan altogether. He slumped lower in the chair.

“All right, Ormston. Thank you, you can go. Dasid will let you know if we need anything more from you.”

“What do you want to do?” Dasid asked once Ormston was gone

“What do I want to do? I
want
to stick to our original plan,” he said. He rubbed his temple with a shaky hand. “What I
have
to do is go in there and get her out. They won’t treat her as a simple thief for long. Once Duke Thorold sees who she is it will be close to impossible to get her back. We need to get her out right now.” Kane ran his hand through his hair in frustration - how could she have put herself at such risk?

The door rattled and woke Brenna. She patted her pack where her knife lay and mumbled the concealing spell. Thanks to the old gods the spell had worked so far. She stood up with her back against the wall. The door opened and the guard from this morning entered, followed by Thorold’s pet scholar, the one she’d seen at the library - Fridrick. She kept her head lowered and watched him through downcast eyes.

“Let’s see what you’ve caught here, Tobias,” Fridrick said to the guard. “You say she was not caught with anything on her? No stolen valuables or papers?” Tobias nodded. “How odd.” Fridrick continued to study her. “Girl, come closer, I want to look at you.”

Brenna took a small step forward and briefly raised her head. She had to co-operate at least a little.

“Hmm, brown hair, brown eyes. You have the look of Aruntun about you,” Fridrick said. “Could you be the thief who tried to steal the knife from the priest? It would mean that madman killed another girl by mistake.” 

Brenna kept her eyes fixed on the floor. Fridrick had figured that out much too easily. But he’d called Sabine Werrett’s death a mistake. Kane thought the church had been responsible for the death but if Fridrick knew, then Thorold was involved as well.

“There’s something familiar about you,” Fridrick said. “I can’t place it. Not to worry, my dear, I’m sure Duke Thorold will be able to figure it out. I’ll leave any questions for him. I wouldn’t want to spoil his fun. Tobias.” The guard opened the door for Fridrick. The guard glanced her way before he followed the scholar out.

Confused, Brenna took a step back. By the brothers, the guard had looked her straight in the eye and nodded. Just a tiny tilt to his head, but she hadn’t imagined it. She slid back down to a sitting position. Could he be part of the Brotherhood? Maybe Kane knew where she was and could get her out somehow? She had no desire to end up in Thorold’s control again. But if the guard was a Brother …