He took one last careful look at the snuffers guarding the various doorways. They looked bored and sleepy. None of them were alert or on the lookout. Then he moved, slipping around the fringes of the lamplight, careful to stay in the shadows, closer and closer until he reached the darkness of the alley. No one stopped him. No one shouted after him. He heard Master Sy talking to a snuffer somewhere and then he slipped down the alley. It was short, just leading to another door that was almost lost in the night. He looked up at the coat of arms above him — a dark triangle on a pale field. In the starlight, he couldn’t see the eagle but he didn’t need to. These weren’t simply the arms of the city Overlord, they were the arms of the Emperor himself! He fingered the golden token around his neck and smiled. Would the prince who’d given it to him approve? Probably not, but he wasn’t entirely sure.
His fingers felt around the edges of the door until they found the lock. As quickly as he could, he went through the keys until he found the one that fitted. Then he opened the door and slipped inside, tip-toeing quickly, room to room, checking to be sure he was alone. There were two large downstairs rooms at the front, four small ones on the first floor, four more on the second. They were all empty. A single passage led into the back of the house, pitch black stone walls lined with strong heavy doors. Each one carried a coat of arms. Berren traced them with his fingers. He could picture them — the symbols of the city merchant houses. The doors were all locked. He wondered whether to try some more of the keys, then thought better of it.
A moment later, Master Sy was at the door. He was limping again.
‘Well done!’ he said. Berren swelled with pride. ‘Good work.’
‘I looked. There’s no one else here. Didn’t see much though. Just lots of paper.’
‘With writing on. Yes. I hope after tonight you’ll see why I wanted you to learn letters.’ The thief-taker was whispering even though the house was empty. He quietly closed the door behind him. Berren was trembling with excitement.
‘What now, master? Are we here to take something?’
‘Secrets, that’s what we’re after. One of those snuffers couldn’t wait to run off as soon as he saw me. He’ll go to the Two Cranes. How long to get there, do you reckon, at a run?’
‘Five minutes, maybe?’
‘And then he’s going to look for the Headsman, but we already know the Headsman isn’t there, so that’ll slow him down a bit. Say another couple of minutes and then another five for the Headsman’s snuffers to get here.’ The thief-taker stretched and massaged his knee. ‘Might as well take a quick look at whatever there is for us to see while we’re waiting.’ He strode into the first of the downstairs rooms, the biggest in the house, with a large table and a dozen chairs laid around it.
‘We’re going to wait for them?’ Berren gulped.
‘Don’t know how else we’re going to find out which strongbox is the right one, and even if we did find it on our own, I doubt we’ve got the keys to that.’ Master Sy picked up a piece of paper and a quill. ‘Here, make yourself useful. I want you to search for something.’ He wrote some letters down and gave Berren the paper. ‘If you see anything with this name, you bring it to me.’ Berren looked at the paper and screwed up his eyes in concentration. Radek of Kalda. ‘And make a mess. When the harbour-masters come in tomorrow, I want them to know that someone was here, even if they don’t know who it was.’
‘But they’ll know that from the guards!’
The thief-taker smiled nastily. ‘Yes, lad. They will.’
They moved from room to room. Master Sy tore open drawers and scattered papers across the floor. Berren followed. After a few minutes, the thief-taker stopped.
‘Give me the keys,’ he snapped. Berren tossed them to him. He paused, listening out but there was nothing to hear. ‘Go upstairs. Hide. Stay there and stay out of sight. I’ll be down the back. And listen: you hear anyone come in, you don’t move a muscle, lad. You leave the rest to me.’ Master Sy vanished into the darkness. Berren heard the keys jingle for a few seconds after he was gone, then nothing. He crept up the stairs and set about searching for a good place to hide, but in the dark, everywhere seemed as good as everywhere else. Idly, he picked up a few papers that lay on a desk. They came in different types, he realised, after he’d tried to read a few. Some of them even had the Emperor’s seal on the bottom! There were lists of which ships were in the harbour. For each ship, there were lists of what cargo the ship had brought and what cargo it was taking away. He had to go to a window and hold the papers up to the moonlight to even read them at all. It was hard work and it took so much of his attention that he almost didn’t hear the door at the front of the house open.
‘We should get the watch,’ murmured a voice from downstairs. Berren froze. Gods! That was quick! He crept to a corner by the windows where he could hide in a little alcove behind an old heavy desk.
‘Oh no. If he’s here, I don’t want the watch being around.’
Berren crouched down and huddled back as deep into the shadows as he could go.
‘Just him, right? Him and maybe his boy.’
‘Right bloody mess he’s made, that’s for sure.’
‘Never mind that,’ snapped a new voice. Berren stifled a gasp. Was that the man with the cane and the grating laugh? Could that be right? There couldn’t be many voices like that in Deephaven, not in the whole world! But they’d seen him leaving the Two Cranes! He wasn’t supposed to be here! ‘I don’t give a fox’s beard about all this crap. He’s been here and if we’re lucky then he’s still here and you can do what I pay you for.’ There was some shuffling and then the creak of footfalls on the stairs. ‘You! Go on! Check upstairs! You! You come with me. I want to see if he’s found the strongbox.’
Strongbox? Berren’s ears pricked up.
The door to the room where Berren was hiding eased silently open. Berren crouched down, pressing himself even further back into the shadows. The man with the cane had snuffers with him and all Berren had was his stupid wooden waster. His heart beat faster, climbing up his throat. He could run, that’s what he could do. He could run for the door and away like the wind. His legs tensed …
The thief-taker slipped into the room and eased the door shut behind him. Berren caught a glimpse of him in the frail light that filtered in through the windows. The feet on the stairs reached the top. In silence, Master Sy crept behind the door. He opened his coat and drew the stubby sword he carried.
‘Who’s here?’ called the snuffer at the top of the stairs. ‘I know there’s someone here. I can smell you. Show yourself or it’ll be the worse for you.’
Master Sy took a tiny step closer to the door.
‘The watch is on its way. Show yourself now!’ The voice dropped. ‘Look, I don’t care what it is between you and them foreigners. We can come to some arrangement. I’ll say you were already gone. But, by Khrozus, if you don’t show yourselves right now, I’m going to kill you.’
Berren’s heart jumped. He’d seen these snuffers and knew how they were armed, with long curved cavalry swords left over from the civil war or with short straight blades like Master Sy. The ones he’d seen with the Headsman had worn padded jackets, maybe even lined with mail …
He looked towards the door but Master Sy hadn’t moved. He was still standing motionless, his sword held at the ready.
‘No one down here,’ shouted a voice from downstairs. Berren heard a second pair of boots climbing the stairs. ‘Someone’s been in the room but they didn’t find the box. I say he’s already been and gone.’
‘Well someone’s up here,’ said the first snuffer. He must have been right outside the door. ‘I can feel it.’