Scholar's Plot (23 page)

Then the tapster brought us a new deck … and another pair of players.

“Do you folk mind playing six?”

Most Moon’s Bane players prefer six. It’s the same number of points in a round, but with six cards in the trick you go through the deck faster, so over time more money changes hands. But looking at the couple who followed the tapster, I considered objecting — I’ve never seen a more obvious Pig and Squirrel.

The con is named after an old fable, where the pig chases off a boy who’s gathering nuts, and the squirrel picks them up and then splits them with the pig when the boy is gone. It’s only supposed to be used if a cheat gets caught, to recover as much of the stake as you can before you make a getaway — which not only assured me that these two intended to cheat, but that if worse came to worst they were likely to get away with it.

The man towered over the tapster, who was about my height, glowering in a way that made it clear ‘terrifying’ was his default expression.

“We’ll play for silver,” he decreed.

“But brother,” the small woman beside him murmured. “Maybe these people would fear to play so—”

He spun on her with startling speed, and she flinched visibly as he barked, “Silver!”

Kathy was frowning at the pair, her expression shuffling between anger at the bully and sympathy for his target.

“We’d agreed to play for brass,” she said, with a pleasant firmness she’d probably learned in court.

“But we don’t mind upping the stakes,” I said quickly. “Unless these gentlemen object.”

It was a good thing we were prepared to play high. The purses Kathy had provided to stake the game would cover silver points, as long as our luck wasn’t too dismal — outside of court or a nobleman’s party, no one played for gold.

Stint and his partner had come to gamble, and they cheerfully agreed to the raise in stakes.

“You.” The big man gave his sister a shove. “Sit there.”

She ducked her head and seated herself between Kathy and Stint, and Kathy’s outrage deepened. Me, I’d have put money on her being the brains behind the team, and him being a first rate actor — though he was good enough that he might be the brains. They were both brilliant actors.

As he growled at her for losing a vital trick in the first round, and she tearfully protested that she didn’t have any higher horns, they almost distracted even me from the fact that they were signaling each other like crazy.

Mind you, they were pretty deft at it. I spotted their signals, but only because I knew what I was looking for.

Kathy, who’d missed all the cues, gave me a “why don’t you stand up for the poor thing” look, and I rubbed one eyebrow in the most obvious signal I could manage.

Her brows came together in puzzlement, then rose sharply, and her eyes darted from the woman to her brother and back again.

I decided never to partner her in a game that required bluffing, and scraped one side of the knave of leaves against the edge of the table. That’s harder to do, without calling attention to yourself, than you might think, but part of the secret is not to try to mark all your cards — or even any, in the first few hands. The bickering between Pig and Squirrel let me do it faster than I normally could, and still left me with time to observe the marks we’d come for.

They weren’t flashy about it, but the fact that they’d brought enough money to play for silver points told me they were good.

As hand followed hand, I saw that whenever Pig rubbed his belly, he was strong in rounds. Horns was a touch to his nose. Squirrel nervously nibbled her fingernails, only sometimes she bit the second finger, sometimes the third, sometimes the first. When her fist clenched, she had nothing in that suit.

Now that she was looking Kathy caught the signals fairly quickly, so we were able to hold our own against the cheaters. It was a lot harder to keep our coin out of Stint and Carmichael’s hands … because, as I slowly realized, they were both counting cards.

Most people track the fall of royals and moons in the suits they have. Better players can track all the royals. But Stint, and particularly Carmichael, were counting a lot deeper than that, and they seemed to be tracking all four suits as well.

Despite all their cheating, the piles of coin in front of Pig and Squirrel slowly shrank and the piles in front of Stint and Carmichael stayed about the same. But we were cheating better, and as several hours passed, the piles in front of Kathy and me began to grow.

I had all the royals marked in the first forty minutes, but that only gave us an advantage when it was my turn to deal — one hand in six. Since I wasn’t nearly practiced enough to pull the cards I wanted out of the deck as I dealt, it only let me know who held what high cards. It was enough that we were winning, but at this rate we’d be here all night. And while we’d take all of Squirrel and Pig’s money, Stint and Carmichael were holding their own.

The death of one plan should hatch another, and I was never going to win enough of Stint’s money to 
matter. On the other hand, I might be able to earn his gratitude … and maybe a few answers with it? It might not work, but it was better than nothing, which was what we had now.

I gave up a couple of tricks I should have taken, throwing several pots into Stint’s hands. We all agreed, amiably, that the luck seemed to be turning — except for Pig, who growled. Squirrel begged him not to let it upset him. Kathy assumed a sympathetic expression, but her misty eyes were sharp and bright.

When Stint rose, complaining about how fast tea went though you, I said that ale did the same and followed him out. The privy was in the yard behind the tavern, and while I’ve seen and smelled better, I’ve also seen worse. I waited till he’d come out, buttoning up the front of his britches, before I spoke.

“I think our friends are signaling.”

“What, the bully and that poor little mouse? She’s so fearful, she’d… Hm. But they’re losing.”

I shrugged. “What can I tell you? He pats his stomach, he has all the rounds in the deck, practically. If it’s horns he rubs his nose. When she plays with her necklace, she’s long on leaves.”

Then I went into the privy, leaving him to do what he willed with this. When I came back into the warm, beery fug of the tavern, Stint was speaking to the tapster. And the fresh pot of tea that followed him back to our table could have accounted for it.

But it didn’t surprise me that the tapster, and the two maids who passed through the room serving the other tables, were now paying more attention to our game.

Master Stint should be kindly inclined toward someone who’d exposed a cheat. Maybe even kindly enough to answer a few questions, though if he played like this all the time, it was no wonder his landlady said he won more than lost. If he needed money he could pick it up at the card table. He had no need to accept any bribe, or sabotage—

“Hey!” The tapster darted out from behind the bar. “I’ve seen that signal three times now, Master, and I want you to show your hand. If it’s long on daggers, then you’re cheating. The game will stop, and you and your partner’s stakes will be … divided…”

His steps slowed in time with his words, for as he spoke Pig had risen to his considerable height.

Belatedly, I remembered what triggered the Pig and Squirrel con and how it ran. As Kathy would say, Oh. Dear.

“Who called me a cheat?” Pig rumbled, in a voice that turned heads all over the room. “Who told you I’m cheating?”

It would have taken a stupider man than the tapster to refuse. He pointed to Stint, who promptly pointed to me. Where was I supposed to point? At Carmichael, who was sixty if he was a day? At Kathy?

I sprang to my feet, leaping to put the table between us. Pig solved that problem by putting one hand 
under the edge and flipping it like a tin plate. It probably weighed fifty pounds. It fell with a loud crack, followed by the rattle of falling coins, but I was too busy running for my life to watch Squirrel at work.

I dodged first between two tables where diners and card players sat almost back against back, hoping he wouldn’t fit between them. But the startled men saw him coming and leapt from their chairs to get out of his way.

Next I dove under one of the long rectangular dining tables, hoping he’d have to go around it while I made for the door. He knocked it down and stepped over it. The plates that had been on the table crashed, and the people who’d been eating shouted protests.

I dodged left, hoping Kathy had fled and that Michael would be free to play his part. But Pig was faster than he looked and cut me off, backing me up till there was only one, large round table between me and the corner of the room where the wall met the bar.

Then a chair swung up from the floor and crashed into the man’s back. It didn’t break — rough taverns make a point of buying sturdy furniture, for just these occasions — but it bounced off his shoulders with a meaty thump.

It wasn’t till he turned to face his attacker that I saw Kathy, still holding the chair and looking surprised that he hadn’t fallen down yet.

Why hadn’t she run? Michael wasn’t the only Sevenson who was crazy.

Pig reached out and grabbed a chair leg, pulling it aside. Kathy swung with it, like a terrier hanging onto a rag, till she crashed into a table and had to let go.

I could have run then, but that would leave her at Pig’s mercy and his back was toward me. I folded my hands into a big double fist, rushed forward, and brought them down on the back of his thick neck. It felt like hitting a bull’s neck, and I’d struck hard enough that I stepped back yelping, and shaking sore hands.

Pig didn’t fall under my blow either, but he staggered a step and dropped the chair before turning back 
to me with a roar of rage. The diversion allowed me to leap aside, as well as back, and put the round table between us.

Designed to seat eight to ten players, it was big enough that even this man’s arms wouldn’t reach across it, and heavy enough he couldn’t toss it aside.

He started around it to the right, and I went right too. He changed direction, and I went left. I hoped Kathy would have the sense to run. I wondered what Michael, and the tapster whose place we were wrecking, were doing, but I didn’t dare take my gaze off Pig.

“Your partner’s probably out by now,” I said. “You could just let this go.”

Understanding flickered in his eyes, but the doughy face never changed. A very good actor. Which wasn’t all that reassuring, since beating the crap out of me would only add realism to his performance.

“Why did you say we cheated? I don’t cheat!” he bellowed.

“Yes, you do.” And I could cheat too. I started drifting toward the left, not too obviously, swerving back every few steps, but generally left.

And as I’d followed his movements earlier, he now followed mine.

“You and your partner were signaling cards all night. You’d tell her what suits you were long in by touching your stomach, or your nose, or ear, and she’d tell you how strong she was in that suit by which fingernail she bit.”

“If we were cheating so good, why were you winning?”

There was a sincerity underlying that question that made me realize this wasn’t all an act… But I’d now moved far enough around the table that his back was to the corner and my back was toward the room.

I spun and ran for the door. Most of the tavern’s customers had fled, but I met crazy Mistress Katherine coming toward me. Somewhere she’d found a stout walking stick, which would probably have broken the man’s skull and killed him. I grabbed her arm and pulled her along, removing the stick from her hands and tossing it behind us, though I didn’t take time to aim.

Michael gave us a wide grin as we passed him, his eyes bright with excitement. I had wished he’d come to my rescue, but now I was glad he’d stayed at his post. Kathy’s court petticoats and high heels were going to be a hindrance to running.

We dashed out of the tavern and into the street, turned at random, and started toward the university. We’d gone no more than a few yards when I heard the crash of the giant’s fall.

Still running, I looked back in time to see Michael leap over Pig, who was already getting to his hands and knees. He grinned at me once more, and as the fallen man shouted, “You’re with them!” Michael turned and raced off in the opposite direction.

Kathy and I had gained some distance and the night was dark. I whirled her into a shadowy doorway, pressing her warm body tight against mine, just before 
Pig emerged into the street. He looked toward us and saw nothing. He looked the other way and saw Michael, running toward the river. He chased after the prey he could see.

Lady Katherine clung to me, so close I could feel her gasping and shaking … with laughter.

“You’re even crazier than your brother,” I murmured. “And I didn’t think that was
possible
.”

“I’m sorry, it’s just … ’twas so funny. You should have seen your face when Stint pointed at you.”

She had the sense to laugh softly, so I almost forgave her.

“I’m glad you find the thought of me about to be pulverized so amusing, but it’s not a laughing matter. He knows we played him. As soon as Michael loses him, Pig will come looking for us. And Squirrel’s still around here somewhere. If she sees where we go, she’ll tell him. We need to go to ground for an hour or so.”