Honor Among Thieves (3 page)

Fox steered Vishni toward the queue awaiting the
Mule.She shaded her eyes with one small hand and fixed a doubtful
gaze on the mountain summit and the carriages swaying in the high
wind.

“I don’t like this.”

A short huff of laughter escaped him. “Fear of
heights, Vishni? Completely understandable. It’s not as if you
could
fly
. . .”

“No one flies far in a cage.” They edged closer to
the left gate. “And only a fool willingly steps into one.”

“Stop fussing. We’re not riding the Mule.”

He tipped his head toward the other gate. Her gaze
followed the gesture. Her eyes widened at the sight of the
black-bearded official who stood with one booted foot on a cart’s
wheel spoke, scowling down at a bill of lading.

“Is that—”

“The hero of ‘How Gompson Wed the Gorgon?’ The man
whose bride you locked in a root cellar because switching brides
made for a better story? That’s him.”

“
Hero?”
Vishni sniffed. “Gompson knew full
well the girl under the veil wasn’t the girl whose dowry he’d
already spent. He just thought it was a
different
different
girl.”

“Thanks to your illusions.”

“So? Every story requires a twist or two,” she said
as they shuffled a step closer to the gate. “Everyone assumes true
love will win the day. A good storyteller subverts expectations. If
you ask me, it’s more satisfying to see a trickster paid in his own
coin.”

Fox nodded as he scanned the bustling scene.

“I could create a diversion,” Vishni said.

His gaze snapped back to her. “Yes, because that
worked out so well last time.”

She pouted and folded her arms. “It’s not my fault
Delgar got himself captured.”

Actually, it was, but Fox saw no profit in pointing
this out. More to the point, a diversion of another sort demanded
his full attention.

A pair of barefoot urchins clambered up the
mountain’s steep rocky face, sure-footed as mountain goats. They
climbed to a jutting outcrop of rocks that came within a few feet
of the Mule’s lower rope. One of the boys shuffled carefully to the
edge of the rock.

Someone noticed and raised a hand to point. A murmur
ran through the crowd, and people fell back from the gate to get a
better look.

A Mule carriage swept downward toward the boy’s
perch. It would clear the rock with little room to spare.

The woman behind Fox gasped like a blacksmith’s
bellows.

“Too low,” she moaned. “Flatten him, it will, like a
cartwheel over a toad.”

Other people were coming to the same conclusions.
From somewhere in the crowd, a woman screamed at the boy to get
down. Two of the guards tried to climb up after him, only to be
shouted down by their captain.

“Get ready,” Fox murmured.

When the carriage was a few feet away from him, the
lad leaped and caught the rope. He whooped and kicked as he rode it
down, the carriage following at a safe and steady distance
behind.

The boy let go of the rope and dropped onto the thick
straw thatching of a small shop that stood under the Mule’s ropes
and just outside the walls. He rolled down, landed on his feet, and
bounced off into a run.

For several moments, chaos reigned.

A stout woman rushed out of the shop in a cloud of
dust and straw, yelling at the boy as she brushed thatching from
her shoulders and hair. Three dogs darted after the boy, who
vaulted over a flatbed cart loaded with wooden chicken crates. One
of the crates tumbled to the street and broke apart. A dozen or so
panicked hens scattered. Two cart ponies shied and reared, tipping
over the cart and its cargo of apples.

The crowd was evenly divided between those who
hurriedly distanced themselves from the disturbance and those who
rushed forward to take advantage of it. Children scrambled for
apples. A few boys started an impromptu battle, pelting each other
and anyone within range with bruised fruit. One of the dogs gave up
pursuit of the urchin in favor of chasing chickens. The merchant
snatched up his hen and held it high overhead while the dog leaped
and snapped at its prey.

Fox and Vishni slipped through the gate, unnoticed,
and fell in behind a group of grumbling artisans.

They ducked into a narrow walkway between two stone
workshops. Fox stooped and slid a pair of silver pennies into a
crevice. The boys who’d staged the disturbance could collect their
pay at their leisure.

“Not bad,” Vishni said. “But just imagine how much
more interesting that could have been with an illusion or two.”

“No illusions,” he said firmly.

The girl propped her hands on her narrow hips. “Then
why, exactly, am I here?”

Fox’s stern expression wavered. “We might need you to
cast an illusion. But only as a last resort.”

She rolled her eyes and started down the walk. Fox
caught her arm.

“I’ll meet you at the waulking bowl.”

Vishni’s nose wrinkled in distaste. “Trying to get
rid of me?”

“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “I’m going to the
herbalist to get a restorative for Delgar. He might not need it,
but if he does, it will save us the trouble of carrying him
out.”

“I’ll meet you at the waulking bowl,” Vishni said
flatly. She spun on her heel and took off the way they’d come.

Fox smirked and continued down the walk. To Vishni,
“herbalist” was another way of saying “green witch.” Her kind had
reason to avoid humans who meddled with plants and potions.He
stopped on the way to buy a pair of ducks, dressed and plucked and
ready for the pot. The herbalist lived on what her garden provided.
It seldom occurred to her to eat anything else, and as far as Fox
knew, he was the only one who bothered to remind her.

The door to the herbalist’s shop stood open, but Fox
had another, safer way in. He slipped into the shadows beside the
cooper’s shop, where stood a courtyard paved with large, flat
stones.

He slid a barrel aside as quietly as possible to
reveal a stone twice the width of his shoulders. He removed two
small, rounded rocks wedged under either edge of the stone and
stepped onto one side. The rock spun on a hidden central hinge and
dropped him into a low tunnel.

After securing the stone door from below, he crept
through the tunnel. A short incline led to a door fashioned of thin
wood covered by an even thinner layer of stone. He cracked it open
and checked the room for occupants. Moving quickly, he pushed
through and swung the door back into place. The façade blended
seamlessly with the thicker stone of the workshop wall.

Delgar, it must be said, did very good work.

Fox rose to his feet as the herbalist entered the
room, humming tunelessly.

Once, perhaps, she had been beautiful. The passage of
forty hard years had left deep tracks on her face. Her eyes had
faded to the same pale gray as her kirtle and shift, and she was as
thin and pale as any tunnel-dwelling beggar. She would be as
colorless as rainwater, except for a thick braid of rich dark
auburn draped over one shoulder.

The woman caught sight of him. Her eyes glazed with
terror and the pottery in her hands clattered to the floor.

Too late, Fox remembered his disguise. Chagrin swept
through him like a winter blast. This woman had more reason than
most to fear gatherers.

He ripped off the blue bandana, revealing hair as red
as hers.

No flicker of recognition lit her eyes.

Fox cleared his throat. “I’ve come for a
restorative.”

Her face cleared. “For whom?”

He held out his palm. In it lay a tiny gray pebble,
barely larger than a grain of sand.

Most people wouldn’t understand the significance. But
then, most people believed that dwarves were long extinct.

The woman closed her eyes and listened for the music
Fox had never been able to hear. After a moment she nodded and led
the way into her back garden.

A hundred familiar scents swept over Fox. He brushed
his fingers over the lacy fronds of a fennel stalk as if greeting
an old friend.

The herbalist moved among the terraced beds, picking
a sprig here, a blossom there. When her apron was well laden, she
returned to the shop and set to work.

He watched as she ground herbs and mixed them with
oils and decoctions from a dozen tiny bottles. Her hands moved with
the deft skill of long practice.

Muscles have memories
.

It was a phrase his friend Avidan used often, and one
of the few things the alchemist said that made sense to Fox. It
certainly described the way the herbalist worked.

From time to time, she cocked her head as if
listening. According to Avidan, that was precisely what was
happening.

There is no silence, Avidan claimed, only sounds one
cannot hear. If he was to be believed, every metal, every liquid,
even every scent had a sound, as precise as a well-tuned harp
string. Avidan said that everything, living and inanimate, vibrated
at its own unique pitch. Hearing these sounds and blending them in
new harmonies was not magic—at least not as most people understood
magic—but art assisted by keenly honed senses.

Of course, Avidan was as crazy as three caged
squirrels.

Fox banished the young alchemist from his thoughts
and watched as the herbalist poured the medicine into a vial,
stoppered it firmly. She set it aside. Without even a moment’s
hesitation she reached for another mortar and pestle and began to
grind dried feverfew and mint.

She’d already forgotten it, Fox realized. He picked
up the vial and took the ducks from his bag. He offered them with a
slight bow.

Her face lit up with pleasure, which quickly dimmed.
“I can’t afford those.”

Fox held up the vial. “A fair trade.”

Panic flared in her eyes. Fox gave himself a swift
mental kick. In some part of her mind, she remembered what happened
to green witches.

“I found this bottle in your yard,” he lied
smoothly.

She looked relieved. “Oh, that’s all right, there.
But I should pay you for taking it away. Such things are
dangerous.”

“I know.”

“Don’t hold onto it long.”

“I won’t,” he said, mimicking the singsong tone of a
child told not to muddy his new boots.

The woman smiled at that. She reached out and
straightened the collar of his tunic, a maternal gesture as natural
as breathing.

For a moment hope burned bright in Fox’s heart. He
searched the herbalist’s face but found no spark of light.

Muscles have memories.

Fox dropped his gaze, unable to meet that empty
stare. His attention fixed for a moment on a small, familiar
object—an old silver locket, tarnished with age and neglect. The
chain was gone, but she’d tied it to her belt with a bit of ribbon.
The locket gaped open. Fox squinted and noticed that the clasp was
missing.

“Your locket is broken,” he said. “Do you want me to
have it repaired for you?”

To his astonishment, she untied the ribbon from her
belt and handed the locket to him.

Just like that.

The possession she most treasured, the only thing
she’d carried away from the ruin of her home and life. The thing so
precious and personal that she’d never once permitted Fox to handle
it, much less look inside.

Fox thrust it into his pocket. “Someone’s at the
door,” he said gruffly.

She nodded and wandered off, though no knock or call
beckoned. Fox slipped through his hidden door and slumped to the
ground.

Not everyone can be saved. Some wounds go too deep
for healing.

Avidan had repeated those words more times than Fox
could count. One of these days, he’d likely come around to the
alchemist’s way of thinking on this matter.

But not today. Not when there was still a chance for
Delgar.

Fox pushed himself to his feet and set a course for
Rhendish Manor.

“What kept you so long?” Vishni demanded.

Fox held up the herbalist’s vial. The girl took an
involuntary step back.

Her caution was probably unnecessary, but fairies had
strange and sometimes dangerous reactions to an odd list of things.
Iron, of course, but several plants and fruits could have odd
effects. In times past, certain green witches knew the secret of
herbs that could ward against the fey, bind them to a promise,
render them helpless through fits of giggles, or simply make them
sneeze. Fairies believed, with some justification, that elves had
taught witches these things.

Elves belonged in this world. Fairies did not. None
of the fair folk forgot this for a moment.

Vishni flicked one hand toward the waulking bowl as
if she could ward off the stench.

“You couldn’t have picked a better place to
meet?”

The waulking bowl was actually a barrel, broad as a
cottage and nearly as tall as Fox. It provided a place for servants
to empty night water, which, in sufficient quantity, could strip
the grease from sheep fleeces. As useful as the waulking bowl might
be, Fox could see why it had been located downwind of the workshops
and cottages.

What interested Fox, however, was a second, taller
barrel.He took a bundle of carefully carved sticks from his pack
and fitted them together until he had a long-handled spoon. Fox
scampered up the ladder secured to one side of the barrel and
twitched off the canvas covering. A cloud of flies arose, along
with a barnyard stench.

Inside was a mound of dung, surrounded by a mulch of
rotting potato leaves. A neat pile of buckets stood on the ground
nearby. Judging from the smell, they were used to carry the
lant—stale cow urine—that was poured on the pile three or four
times each moon cycle.

Vishni’s face brightened. “Saltpeter! We’re making
gunpowder! How wonderful! You didn’t tell me there would be
explosions.”