A Thief in the Night Read Free

in the bed.
    â€œWe’re tumbled!” he cried, and rushed forward with the knife.
    Malden flicked his wrist and a dart went into the knifeman’s chest, just above his heart. As the candle holder turned to look, Malden pitched his second dart and caught him in the neck.
    The one who had stumbled on the chamber pot managed to get back to his feet just as Malden readied his third dart. The thief began to cry out in fear just as Malden made his cast. The dart hit him in the tongue and he went silent.
    The three thieves turned to look at each other, knowing the jig was up. One by one their faces fell. And then they slumped to the floorboards with a treble thump.
    When he was sure they were all down, Malden stepped out of the bed and went to look in their sacks, to see what shiny presents they’d brought him.

Chapter Two
    I t was not more than an hour later when Malden heard the master of the house come home. He had been out at a gaming hall until closing time, as he was prone to do every night. Malden had done his research on the man, following him for the last three nights all the way from the Royal Ditch back to his home. Typically the man lost more than he won, and he would be followed all the way home by his long-suffering wife, who begged him every night to give up his expensive hobby. The man never said a word, merely took his drubbing as his due. The two of them would be accompanied by a bodyguard and a linkboy who lit his way through the dark streets. Malden closed his eyes and listened as the householder paid off the linkboy and then set his bodyguard to stand watch in the main room of the ground floor. The wife moved straightaway to her chamber, as she did every night, perhaps exhausted by the long journey through the night streets, perhaps simply desiring to get away from her wastrel mate. Malden heard her splash her face with water from the basin, then call for her handmaid, who would not be coming.
    The master of the house climbed the stairs ponderously, pausing now and again as if he were so drunk he could not walk a straight line. He came immediately to his strongroom, which served him both as office and sanctum. Before he opened the door, he called for his own servant, a valet, who was also conspicuously absent.
    â€œBy the Bloodgod’s eight elbows,” the merchant swore, stumbling inside his strongroom. “Someone strike a light, anyway. Who’s here? I can hear you breathing in there. I promise you, Holger, if this is your idea of a jape at my expense—”
    The light from the open door spilled across a glittering treasure, gathered and neatly sorted on the rich carpet of the strongroom. Silver plate and cutlery had been stacked beside bags of coin and fine porcelain. Good clothing, the lady of the house’s jewelry, and even the more expensive sort of cooking spices had been laid out there. The master of the house inhaled deeply to see all his worldly goods of value arrayed so.
    Malden struck flint and lighted a taper on the table before him, the table that normally served as the merchant’s desk. “Close the door,” he said.
    The merchant’s name was Doral Knackerson. He was not the wealthiest man in the Free City, but he was far from the poorest either. He owned three tanneries down in the Smoke. Malden had walked by those workshops often enough to know the particular gruesome stench of rendered animal carcasses. Strange, he did not detect even a whiff of that unforgettable smell on Doral’s person. It was as if the merchant were unwilling to visit his own property.
    The man was middle-aged, with silver wisps of hair around his temples and none up top. He dressed well, but in the specific shabby-looking finery that rich men wore when they went abroad into the less reputable parts of town. He had a stack of coins in his hands—it seemed for once he’d left the gaming table richer than he’d arrived. The silver spilled from his fingers and