"Well and true, well and true." With his bad leg protesting at kneeling so long, Pinch had to surrender to the fleas and sit beside his companion. His eyes were distant as he mulled over a puzzle no one else could see. "Tell me, Therin," he finally broached, "tell me again how you got taken."
The prisoner snorted at the curious request. "I don't know why. You've heard it before."
Pinch said nothing, but waited for Therin to get on with it. When the condemned man finally realized Pinch was serious, he struggled to remember. His brow knitting from the effort to recall the facts, he began:
"I'd just done a bit of the lifting over on Stillcreek Lane, the Firdul job we'd plotted. I was the lift. Corrick was the marker. I'd snagged some pretty pieces of plate from the silversmith, so I went over to Maeve's to show her the garbage. Just about as soon as I get there, the constables raise the hue and cry. Before I can make for the broker, the Hellriders come bursting in."
"Where was Corrick?"
"We was to meet at Gurin's to split the purchase and do some boozing."
The farmhand-turned-thief waited for more questions, but his chief suddenly seemed to lose interest in the tale.
"Like Maeve said, it weren't right," Pinch finally murmured as he set the kerchief back to his nose.
"You thinking somebody gave me up? Corrick?"
"Maybe, just maybe."
"What're you going to do to him?" Therin asked eagerly, a dead man looking for revenge.
"Right now, nothing. I've got him stealing a cart and team." Pinch smiled at the irony of it. "That much he'll do."
Their musings were interrupted by the rattling of the lock. "Your time's over, Master Pinch," echoed Dowzabell's voice from the other side of the door. 'The patrico's here to take your man's prayers."
'To your plans, Pinch," Therin offered in empty toast.
"Bar your talk, Dowzabell's coming."
The door swung open and the trustee entered. Behind him followed the thin, robed priest, a chapbook of prayers clutched in his pious hands. "He's yours, Patrico, though I wouldn't expect much repentance from him." The priest shot Dowzabell a sour look before the door closed between them.
Dowzabell led Pinch back to the gate in silence, but along the way the trustee seemed unusually watchful for eavesdroppers. The thief knew the old turnkey's ways. The man had eyes and ears everywhere, and a mind for profit. It was clear he had something to sell, if Pinch would meet his price.
When Dowzabell turned back from unbarring the gate, he found a gold noble sitting on the bench by the entrance.
Though his greedy eyes widened a little, the trustee pocketed the coin as if it were a copper penny. He motioned Pinch toward a quiet alcove.
"What I know's worth more," the turnkey promised as they huddled in the shadows. "In advance." Dowzabell held out his hand.
"I'll judge," was Pinch's cool reply as he fingered another coin under the trustee's nose.
Dowzabell scowled. "Your man was turned."
"Not even worth the coin I gave you. I knew."
"But you don't know who. Wilmarq was drunk and bragging about it in a tavern a few nights ago. I heard it from his men."
"So who'd they say it was this time, Sprite or Corrick?" Pinch lied glibly.
Dowzabell's jaw sagged like a limp sail. "Corrick," the trustee mumbled.
With a contemptuous laugh, the thief stuffed the second coin down the man's shirt. "You were always too greedy, Dowzabell. Someday it'll catch up with you."
The trustee closed the gate as Pinch strode into the growing rain, his mind already turning on the interlocking wheels of plots within schemes.
The streets to Shiarra's Market were never hard to follow, but today a blind foreigner could have found the square. A hanging was as good as a holiday in Elturel. The better part of the city turned out for the event, so many folk that the tide of traffic flowed only one way. While passing through the rain-slicked streets, Pinch was offered "The True and Tragic Life of Therin Jack-a-Knaves as Confirmed by this Gentleman," by three different pamphleteers, all for only a few coins. Judging from the covers thrust under his nose, each work was different from the others. They were, if not completely false, highly exaggerated, for in each Therin was the master of a whole gang. Pinch wondered just what lies would be written about him the day he was finally scragged on the leafless tree.
By the time he reached the square, it was already packed with eager onlookers. Most of the town's apprentices had contrived to escape their masters and come for the hanging. Their masters were probably here, too, blissfully believing their apprentices were minding their shops. An enterprising bard had got himself onto a roof that overlooked the square and was serenading his captive audience while a shill worked the crowd for money. Pinch resisted the urge to palm a coin out of the hat when the boy came by, but he took careful note of the musician overhead. The bard would have money later tonight and just might be worth tracking down.
Reluctantly the upright man stowed thoughts of other business and worked his way round to Dragoneye Lane. He was on edge. The plan was at stake. If Corrick or Sprite failed him now, everything would come to naught. Pinch was less worried about Corrick's part in things. He guessed the old cutpurse would play at being loyal just to avoid discovery. Sprite's was another matter, and the rogue could only hope the halfling kept his fingers out of other people's pockets.
The whinnies of a nervous team and the shadow of a wagon told Pinch that at least one of the thieves had come through. He wormed through the crowd and into the alley where Corrick and his wagon waited.
They were all there-Sprite, Corrick, and Brown Maeve. She was soothing the horses, which had been made skittish by the crowd. Pinch slapped her on the rump as he squeezed past. "Keep watch," he ordered before turning to the others. Corrick sat on the seat, reins ready, while Sprite hung over the cart's rail, munching an apple he'd no doubt lifted from a peddler's basket. Sprite never paid for anything that wasn't locked down. "All's done?" Pinch demanded.
Corrick gave a peg-toothed smile and waved to the cart and team. "Best I could get, Pinch," he bragged. The team was actually nothing to brag about-a scrawny pair, spotty with mange, their necks callused with years in the collar. At least the wagon was sound. The back was covered with a patched canvas awning where they could hide. Somewhere, Pinch guessed, there was a rag-and-bone man trying to find his wagon.
"Well, Sprite? The sewers-how close can we get?"
The halfling threw aside his apple core and climbed onto the wagon's seat. He pointed over the heads of the crowd to a shop across the square. "Better'n I thought. See the weaver's? In line with that, maybe a stone toss from the triple tree." At this distance, the weaver's and the gallows were no more than a hand's breadth apart.
"Can you guide us once we're in the tunnels?"
"Marked it out this morning, Pinch."
Pinch suppressed the urge to congratulate himself. The job wasn't done yet. "Well done, boy." The master signaled his accomplices to join him, and join him quick they did. "Maeve, you two, listen wise, 'cause here's the plan.
"We're body collecting. Maeve's already spread it through the crowd that a group of wizards are wanting the body for dissecting." The wizardress mock-curtsied slightly at mention of the part she'd played so far. "That should suit the crowd out there fine. Saves them the fear of anyone resurrecting Therm after he's dead."
Sprite scowled-he'd always been picky about grave-robbing and the like-but Pinch added, "That's just so we can get the wagon close. Then, just before the drop, Maeve'll use her spells to whisk Therm out of the twined hemp. When that happens, Corrick will whip the team into the crowd. We'll all make for Sprite's bolt-hole and be out of here before they know what's happened."