Thief's War: A Knight and Rogue Novel Read Free Page B

ready to hand proved I’d been using them recently, and that if I’d cheated, of course I’d have re-set them. It was a farce.”
    His soup was getting cold, but even his wife didn’t press him to eat.
    “So that’s what these new stocks are for,” I murmured. “To punish those who owe no debt in blood or coin.”
    “How does your grandson come into this?” Fisk asked.
    “When I was arrested, and sentenced almost in the same breath, Willy came running out. And you were the one supposed to keep him in the house,” Ruffo told his wife. “He said he’d make my debt good. That the train could take him to the city if they’d let me go.”
    “It could have worked.” Mistress Ruffo looked almost as distressed as her husband. “I was trying to pull him back, but…but not that hard. The trains want labor even more than they want food. A lot of people settle with them that way. I thought that after the planting we could go to the city and find him, buy him out of whatever contract he might have signed.”
    “How could you think I’d sell our grandson, to get out of—”
    “But it didn’t work,” Fisk interrupted. “They took your grandson and then arrested you anyway, right?”
    “How did you know?” Mistress Ruffo asked. “They put Willy in chains on the cart. When they made the arrest he started screaming that he’d been cheated. That if they took him, they had to let his grandpa go. But how could you know that?”
    “Because ’tis what such bullies would do,” I said. “To increase their power over you and your neighbors.”
    “Because ’tis what such bullies would do,” I said. “To increase their power over you and your neighbors.”
    Fisk closed his eyes, like a man facing some terrible accident he can’t prevent. “I see it coming. It’s not as if I can’t see it coming.”
    “See what?” Mistress Ruffo looked around, alarmed.
    “Don’t worry, Mistress. He’s just grousing from habit, because he knows we’re going to get your grandson back for you.”
    Even Master Ruffo straightened his stiff neck to stare.
    “You’re…what? But why? You’ve done enough for me this night. Why are you doing this?”
    “Because I’m a knight errant,” I told him, “in search of adventure and good deeds. Fisk is my squire.”
    Most laugh when I tell them this, for it has been over two centuries since knights errant have roamed the Realm. Indeed, in these modern times I’m probably the only one alive so mad as to take it for my life’s work.
    But the Ruffos didn’t laugh.
    Fisk sighed, but he didn’t deny it, and a flame of hope wiped the bitter despair from their faces.
    “You mean that?” Master Ruffo demanded. “If it wasn’t for what you’ve already done, I’d know you were having us on, but… Do you truly mean that?”
    “He does,” said Fisk glumly. “Every word of it.”
    The Ruffos were still staring in bewilderment, and time was passing.
    “First, we must find some place to leave you, safely out of Judicar Makey’s reach,” I said. “Have you kin or friends in another fief?”
    “No need for that.” Mistress Ruffo’s voice was rough with gratitude. “Our friends here will hide us till the Mayor comes back. He went to complain to Baron Benrick about how much of our stock the food trains have been taking, and when he returns… Well, Makey better have gotten a big bribe, because he’ll not be a judicar much longer. Not in Casfell.”
    “Are you sure?”
    They both nodded.
    “Then Fisk and I had better return to the inn. Tomorrow we’ll set out after the train that took your grandson, and add ourselves to it.”
    “As laborers?” Fisk asked. “What do you intend to do with the horses? Not to mention the dog. And won’t that bring us closer to Tallowsport?”
    The name of Jack Bannister hung unspoken between us, as it so often had when our erratic path took us a step or two closer to the city where Jack and his murderous employer laired. But even Fisk