The Thief (15 page)

There was a pause while each of us considered the Attolians’ means of extracting reliable information.

The magus changed the subject, and I swiveled my head to look at him when he said, “Attolia’s soldiers have been to the temple in the dystopia.” He nodded. I’m not sure if he meant to affirm the truth of what he’d said or if he was pleased to have elicited a sign of life from me at last. “The temple was completely destroyed. The Aracthus had broken through the roof and washed away most of the walls. There were still signs that there had been some sort of man-made construction at the site, but that was all.”

“When?”

“I can’t be sure, but no more than a day or two after we left.”

I remembered how close the water of the Aracthus had sounded as it washed over the roof of the gods’
hall. I thought of it pouring down into the room and the maze below, washing out the doors and walls. I thought of the gods in their beautiful robes and Hephestia on her throne, gone. I turned my head back toward the ceiling of the cell and blinked water out of my eyes. The magus sensed my distress and lifted himself across the floor to console me.

“Gen, it was an old temple. The collapse of the main door was probably the first sign of the damage caused when the Aracthus forced its way through a new entrance somewhere. In the next few days the power of the water destroyed the temple entirely. It would have happened sooner or later. All the things man has made are eventually destroyed.” He stopped a tear as it rolled down toward my ear. “I wish, though, that I had gone in with you,” he said. “I’ll always wonder what you saw.” He waited a moment, hoping that I might say something.

“Won’t tell me or can’t?” he asked.

“Can’t,” I admitted. “Not that I would anyway.” I goaded him.

He laughed, then checked my forehead again for fever.

A guard brought more food. The magus and Sophos ate. The square of yellow sunlight on the wall opposite the window had dimmed when we heard more footsteps in the corridor and knew that the queen must have arrived at the castle and sent for the magus.

“I’ll do what I can for you, Gen,” the magus promised as he stood up. They took Sophos as well, and I was left alone in the cell, wondering what the magus thought he could possibly do for me.

The cell was pitch-dark when he returned. The guards carried lanterns, and I closed my eyes against their glare, assuming that they would be gone soon. When someone nudged me with his boot, I groaned a little, partly because it hurt, partly because I was offended that they were bothering me. Another fiercer nudge dug into my ribs, and I opened my eyes. Standing over me, between the magus and the captain of the guard, was the queen of Attolia.

She smiled at my surprise. Standing in the light, surrounded by the dark beyond the reach of the lanterns, she seemed lit by the aura of the gods. Her hair was black and held away from her face by an imitation of the woven gold band of Hephestia. Her robe was draped like a peplos, made from embroidered red velvet. She was as tall as the magus, and she was more beautiful than any woman I have ever seen. Everything about her brought to mind the old religion, and I knew that the resemblance was deliberate, intended to remind her subjects that as Hephestia ruled uncontested among the gods, this woman ruled Attolia. Too bad that I had seen the Great Goddess and knew how far the Attolian queen fell short of her mark.

She spoke, and her voice was quiet and lovely. “The magus of Sounis informs me that you are a thief of unsurpassed skills.” She smiled gently.

“I am,” I answered, truthfully.

“He suggests, however, that your loyalty to your own country is not strong.”

I winced. “I have no particular loyalty to the king of Sounis, Your Majesty.”

“How fortunate for you. I don’t believe he holds you in high regard.”

“No, Your Majesty. He probably doesn’t.”

She smiled again. Her perfect teeth showed. “Then there’s nothing to prevent you from remaining in Attolia to be
my
thief.” I looked over at the magus. This was the favor he had done me: convinced the queen that I was too valuable to throw away.

“Uh,” I said, “there is one thing, Your Majesty.”

The queen’s eyebrows rose in delicate arches of astonishment. “What would that be?”

I had to think of something quickly. Discretion prevented me from saying that I thought she was a fiend from the underworld and that mountain lions couldn’t force me to enter her service. As I searched for something safer to say, I remembered the magus’s comment on the banks of the Aracthus. “I have a sweetheart,” I said with complete conviction. “Your Majesty, I’ve promised to return to her.”

The queen was amused. The magus was consternated.
He couldn’t guess why I would throw away a chance to save myself. There were certainly no love affairs written up in my record at the king’s prison. I was sure because I had written the record myself. It had been an easy way to turn a lot of boasting into a solid reputation, and it hadn’t been difficult to slip it in among the real records. Anyone who can steal the king’s seal ring can manage the locks on his record room.

“You are promised to someone?” said the queen, in disbelief.

“I am, Your Majesty,” I said firmly.

“And you will not break your promise?” She shook her head sadly.

“I couldn’t, Your Majesty.”

“Surely I am a better mistress to serve?”

“You are more beautiful, Your Majesty.” The queen smiled again before I finished. “But she is more kind.”

So much for discretion. The smile disappeared. You could have heard a pin drop onto the stone floor as her alabaster cheeks flushed red. No one could ever accuse the queen of Attolia of being kind.

She smiled again at me, a different, thinner smile, and inclined her head in acceptance of a point scored. I smiled back, pleased with myself in a bitter way, until she turned to the captain of her guard.

“Take him upstairs and fetch a doctor,” she ordered. “We will give him an opportunity to change his mind.” Her red peplos swept across the back of my hand as she
turned to leave, and I winced. The velvet was soft, but the embroidery scratched.

In a room several floors above the dungeon, I lay in bed while my fever climbed. I raved, and in a distant way I knew that I was raving. Moira came to sit by my bed. She assured me that I wasn’t dying. I told her that I wished I were. Then Eugenides came out of the dark, and Moira was gone. Eugenides was patient at first. He reminded me that lives are things to be stolen sometimes, just like any possession. He asked me if I would prefer to be dead myself. I said I would, and he asked what then would have become of my plans for fame and my name carved in stone. And would I then leave my companions to die as well?

I didn’t like to think of the magus as a companion. But if he wasn’t, why had I risked my life once for him already? I sighed. And then there was Sophos to worry over as well. I said that if only I could have died when the soldier pulled the sword out, I wouldn’t be bothered by my conscience. The god beside me was silent, and the silence stretched out from my bedside through the castle and, it seemed, throughout the world as I remembered that Lyopidus had burned and died while Eugenides had not.

After countless empty heartbeats, Eugenides spoke again from a distance. “His wife died in the winter. His
three children live with their aunt in Eia.”

When I dared to lower my arm, he was gone. I slept again, and when I woke, I was more clearheaded. Leaving Sophos and the magus to certain death wouldn’t do anything for my conscience, even if I died myself soon after. And there was fame and fortune to consider. I dragged myself out of bed and started to look around the room.

The bolts in the door of the cell turned over and the door swung open. The lamps in the hallway weren’t burning, and neither the magus nor Sophos could see who stood in the doorway.

“It’s me,” I hissed, before they could make a noise that might carry to the guardroom. I heard them moving toward my voice and backed away so that they wouldn’t bump into me. Once they were in the passage, I asked Sophos if he still had his overshirt on.

“Why?”

“I want you to give it to me.”

“Why?”

“Because all I’m wearing is bandages. They took my clothes.” Sophos pulled the shirt off and held it out in my direction, nearly poking me in the eye.

“Do you want my shoes, too?” he offered.

“No, I’m better off barefoot.”

“Gen,” said the magus, “you shouldn’t do this.”

“Get dressed?”

“You know what I mean.” At least he had the sense to whisper. “I thank you for opening the door, but the best thing you can do now is forget all about us. Climb back up where you came from and pretend you never left your bed.”

“And how will you get yourselves the rest of the way out of here? Through the front door?”

“We’ll manage.”

I snorted very quietly. “You will not.”

“If we’re caught, we can claim that we bribed a guard.”

I dismissed him with a wave of my hand, which he couldn’t see. “We should get moving,” I said, making herding motions with my good hand, which he also couldn’t see.

“Gen, it’s only been two days. Three since we were arrested. You can’t manage.”

“I think,” I said stiffly, “that I am more of an asset than a liability.”

“Gen, that’s not what I meant.” He put out one hand in the dark to touch my shoulder, but I shifted away. “Gen, we can’t ask you to risk yourself again.”

“This is a change from your earlier position,” I pointed out.

“I was wrong before.”

“You’re wrong now, too.”

“Gen, the queen of Attolia doesn’t bear you any ill will.”

I thought about her parting smile. “I think she does,” I said.

“All she wants from you is a promise of your service.”

“Well, she isn’t going to get it.” I’d heard too many stories about the things that happened to people who worked for her. “Can we stop discussing this just now?” I started to move away as I spoke, and they followed me in the darkness. With my feet bare, I stepped gingerly, and it was easy to remember to favor my bad shoulder.

“How did you get the keys? Where are the guards?” Sophos wouldn’t stop talking as we moved through the pitch-dark. “And why are all the lanterns out?”

I sighed. “I didn’t get the keys. They took my clothes and probably burnt them. They left my lock openers and the other things from my pockets on a table in my room.” I’d left the magus’s cloak pin and Ambiades’s comb behind. I’d brought the penknife in case I needed it again. We came to a corner, and I felt my way around it, then reached back to take Sophos by the hand.

“Be quiet,” I whispered, “and try not to pull on me.” I was a little unsteady on my feet and afraid that he would pull me right over if he stumbled.

“What about the guards,” he persisted, “and the lanterns?”

The guards, I told him, were at the end of the corridor guarding a deck of cards, and the lanterns were out because I blew them out. “This way,” I hissed, “when they hear us chatting like happy sparrows in our nest,
they won’t immediately be able to find us.”

“But where are we going?”

“Would you shut up?”

My left hand, the bad one, brushed along the wall until it bumped against a door handle. The pain stopped me in my tracks, and I squeezed Sophos’s hand hard to prevent him from bumping me. “Hold on,” I whispered. They stood quietly while I worked the lock on the door. Fortunately I had a key that fit closely enough and could turn it with one hand. “Watch the door,” I said as I pulled it open. It rumbled, but the hinges didn’t squeak. “Don’t bang your head,” I warned the magus.

We walked down a tunnel only as wide as the door. The walls arched into the ceiling just a few inches over my head. There was a stone door at the end that had a simple crossbar fastening on the inside. Once through it, we were outside the castle on a narrow footing of stone that ran under its walls. In the silence we could hear waves lapping against the stone under our feet, and in the river there were ghosts of reflections from torches set in sconces along the sentry walk above our heads.

“What is this?” Sophos asked.

“It’s the Seperchia,” said the magus. “Remember this stronghold sits in the middle of the river and defends the bridge to either side.”

“I meant, what is this?” Sophos said, and stamped
his foot on the stone under him.

“This is a ledge that runs around the entire castle,” I explained, “so that they can maintain the foundation. We’re going to follow it to the bridge into town. Keep your voices down. There are guards.”

“Why is there a door?”

I left it to the magus to answer.

“They dispose of bodies by throwing them in the river.”

“Oh.”

“Sometimes the guards will sell a body back to the family if they wait here in a boat,” he said.

Sophos finally kept his mouth shut as we crabbed our way around the castle. There was no moon. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face, so I kept it on the castle wall and checked with my forward foot to make sure there was always ground underneath me. The magus put himself between me and Sophos, and he was careful not to bump. We crept around one corner, and then another. There were no torches burning on the bridge, and if there were guards watching, they were posted on the towers, not on the bridge itself. The three of us snuck across.

Getting through town proved to be trickier than leaving the castle. Without the moon we had to pick our way carefully, and I had a difficult time leading the way I wanted to go. The fires in the houses had been banked hours ago, and there was no glow through the
windows to help us. Dogs barked as we passed, but no watch came to check on them. The road from the castle led away from the river. We left it, hoping to cut back to the water, and got lost in narrow streets. Twice I almost walked headlong into the invisible walls of houses before we finally came to another road that ran along the riverbank and passed a bridge.

“We stay on this side,” I said, and the magus didn’t argue. We moved very slowly past dark houses. I was happier without moonlight because I didn’t have to worry about hiding, and going slowly, I had time as I took each step to favor my shoulder.