"The question has occurred to me, too," Chalmers admitted. "Perhaps they believe themselves to be invisible."
Shea remembered the incantation for invisibility. "But the guards won't open the gates for invisible men!"
"I do not think it will be the guards who open them," Chalmers returned. "After all, invisible men can still strike blows."
Shea remembered the Wells novel, and shuddered; after the random, senseless slayings he'd seen for no more than a few pieces of minted metal, he didn't doubt that the robbers would not hesitate to kill their way out every night. "Maybe they're just going to loiter around until the gates open at daybreak," he said hopefully. "They can mutter the spell over and over, after all." But the look of skepticism Chalmers gave him was all the comment the notion deserved.
Chankoor fooled them both. He simply walked up to the gate and knocked in what sounded like Morse code—three quick knocks, then two slow. For a moment, everything seemed frozen; Shea even held his breath. Then, slowly, the gate opened. "Magic?" he whispered.
"No," Chalmers said with disgust. "Bribed porters."
Shea stared, then felt a surge of self-anger at his own gullibility. He risked a glance about—and stared. He found himself gazing at the man with the horsehair over his nose! He couldn't see the horsehair in this dim light, of course—it was only a stray moonbeam that had showed it to him in the first place—but he certainly recognized the face. It was Rajah Randhir, and his eyes flared with anger at this betrayal by his own gate guards.
Din pricked Chalmers' neck again; he flinched and said, "I think we had better undertake our own transportation, before these fellows lose patience and leave us by the wayside."
"With our throats slit," Shea muttered. He started walking beside Chalmers, following the stocky moonlighted figure before them.
Out they went, in the midst of a host of thieves and killers. They only walked for about ten minutes before they came to a knot of men milling about in the roadway, talking and laughing, with more joining them from footpaths beside the way every minute. Shea stared. Could the thieves really be so bold, and so busy, that they had worn their own paths? If they were, how could there be anything left in the city worth stealing?
They certainly weren't worried about the sentries at the gate hearing them. The voices were loud, the laughter louder, and here and there a snatch of song. Their guides led them to the center of the mob, which parted to let them through at a muttered, urgent demand from their captors. Looking about for any possible escape routes, Shea happened to catch the rajah's eye. Randhir gave a start of recognition, then gave him a furious glare that as much as promised instant death if Shea dared breathe a word about his not being a genuine thief—but Shea knew how he felt; he wasn't at his most relaxed, himself, surrounded by a pack of outlaws who would probably slip a knife between his ribs as easily as they would hiss him to silence. He tried to look reassuring before the thieves behind him hustled him along.
The crowd stopped parting at a man who was taller than the rest, and strikingly handsome, if you liked lots of beard and moustache. He had muscles, anyway, and his style of dress certainly let it show. After all, a loincloth and turban don't hide all that much.
"Captain Charya," said Chankoor, "we have here two strangers who stumbled upon us as we were leaving the shop of the goldsmith."
He didn't have to be so literal, Shea thought.
"Strangers indeed!" Charya said in a deep, amused voice. "I have never seen stranger!"
"Stranger strangers?" Shea murmured, but Chalmers kicked him in the shin, and he pinched his lips shut.
"They claim to be thieves from a foreign land," Chankoor explained.
"Are you truly?" Charya the captain eyed them keenly, as though he could spot a lie by sight—and maybe he could, if he was good enough at reading posture and attitude. "A high-toper, or a lully-prigger?"
"Uh-h-h-h . . ." The terms caught Shea flat-footed. When in doubt, stall, he thought, and improvised. "Just another cove in the lorst, Captain."
"Ah! A petty thief!" Charya nodded, satisfied. "How if I told you to mind old Oliver?"
He might have been speaking Hindi, but the spell that gave Shea the ability to understand it, was doing a great job of translating it into English idioms. "Why, I'd keep an eye on the moon, to make sure I was done stealing and gone before it rose—but your coves don't seem to worry about that."
"Why should we care?" Charya's grin gleamed in the moonlight. "There's not a soldier in the city is not afraid of us—any, even the rajah himself!"
At the moment, Shea thought, that just might have been true. "If you have the town sewed up that tight, more power to you." After all, that was just a statement of fact. "But look sharp, Captain, or the lamb-skin man will have the pull of us, and as sure as eggs are eggs, we shall be scragged as soon as lagged."
"Then keep your red rag quiet," grumbled the thief beside him.
"Why should I be the only one?" Shea shot back.
Charya laughed. "Why indeed! All the Watch together would not dare accost us within the city—and outside of it, even less! Still, though, my lads are anxious to wet their whistles, so let us be off to the flash ken, where the morts are waiting. Come, join us!"
He turned away, beckoning, and what could Shea do but follow?
Chalmers paced beside him, muttering, "What manner of foreign language was that?"
"Thieves' jargon," Shea explained.
"And where did you learn it?"
"I've been doing some volunteer counseling," Shea explained, "unpaid—down at the county jail."
"Surely those terms were not American!"
"No, one of the thieves was English," Shea explained. "Besides, some of the language came over with the colonists and hasn't changed since. For example, if a pickpocket says a man carries his wallet on his left prat, that means his left hip pocket."
"Hence the term 'pratfall,' " Chalmers said thoughtfully. "Yes, I see."
Someone jostled Shea from the other side. Turning to protest, he found himself staring at an overly flattened nose with a horizontal groove across the tip. He shifted his focus up to the glaring eyes of the incognito rajah. "Do not whisper a word of our earlier meeting," he hissed, "or I shall see you scragged indeed."
Shea swallowed heavily, imagining the feel of a hempen noose tightening around his neck. "Don't worry, Your Ma . . ." In the nick of time, he remembered that he wasn't supposed to know Randhir's real identity. ". . . your magic secret is safe with us. After all, if you wanted to drop us, all you'd have to do is tell them about our meeting yourself."
"You know I cannot do that without compromising myself!"
"Yes," Shea said, "exactly." He stared into the rajah's eyes until comprehension registered, and the royal lips parted in a grin. "Ah, a point well taken! We have both used the same ruse to keep our heads on our necks, have we not? Nonetheless, be sure you say nothing of me, or I shall bring down their wrath upon you!"
"It's a deal," Shea promised. "You don't betray us, and we won't betray you."
"Well enough." The rajah nodded, satisfied. "See that you keep to it." He drifted away from them.
"What was that all about?" Chalmers asked.
"Just a little mutual-silence pact," Shea told him. "Details later."
Chalmers took the hint, remembering the number of ears available to hear them, and changed the subject. He pointed to a large rodent that scuttled out of sight into a hole in the ground as they approached. "Reassuring sight, somehow."
Shea took his point—it was nice, sometimes, to remember who the real rats were—but Charya saw too, and exclaimed with satisfaction, "Ah! You recognize the rat-hole as a good omen! You must indeed be thieves!" He clapped Shea on the back, sending him staggering, and strode along, singing a merry tune.