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Thom glanced sharply at him, a look Roger met with a bland expression. “Jonathan’s had word from some Udayan hedgewitch,” he said reluctantly. “Sir Raoul found Alanna there. It’s possible they’ll sail to Port Caynn sometime next week.”
“You must be pleased,” Roger murmured. “Didn’t I hear somewhere she is prone to sea-sickness?”
“Very.” Thom grinned. “To think I’d forgotten that.”
“Does gossip say if she found whatever it was that took her to the Roof of the World?”
For the thousandth time Thom wondered how Roger really felt about the woman who had killed him. “If his Majesty knows, he’s keeping quiet about it. We’ll find out for ourselves, soon enough. Are you looking forward to her coming home?”
Picking up a crystal, Roger shrugged. “I plan to stay out of her way. Shall I start on the Dragon-breaker scrolls next?”
“Do as you like,” Thom snapped. “I’m not your jailer or your keeper.”
Roger smiled, turning on his charm. “I owe you a great debt, dear boy. If not for you, I’d be caught still between here and the Realms of the Dead. If I can repay you, I will.”
“They’ll never trust you,” Thom said, red with shame. “They watch everything you do for a sign you’ve regained your Gift.”
Roger stood. “Believe me, Thom—if my magic returns, you will be the very first to know.”
The Inn of the Dancing Dove was quiet. It was an hour before sunset, and the city’s rogues still prowled the streets. George looked around the empty common room, aware—not for the first time—that he no longer enjoyed being master here.
In part it was his war with Claw. It had begun when George visited Port Caynn, to put down a revolt and then to have a love affair with Alanna. Four months ago Claw had moved to become King of Thieves in George’s absence. He had used blackmail to force many to follow him, and then he’d tried to poison George. George had come to the city to save his throne, and Alanna had returned to her Bazhir. George had known then that he’d probably lost her.
When George was younger, things were different. A would-be king challenged the old one to a fight before witnesses. The winner took the throne-like chair at the Dancing Dove and a tenth of the profit on each major transaction and theft. He gave the choicest jobs and judged quarrels. He was king of the Tortallan underworld and received far more obedience than his people would ever give the King in the palace.
Claw would not fight. Claw swore loyalty to George while his men attacked George nightly. Many rogues changed their allegiance on a day-today basis, depending on who appeared to be the winner. Only George’s oldest friends kept faith with him.
The only interest George now had in the Rogue was the effort to bring Claw down. And he hoped finding out who Claw really was would help. Myles had put a man to investigating Claw’s secret past. The history the one-eyed rogue had given George on his arrival in Corus was as false as his name. In other thieves this hardly mattered, but Claw spoke and acted at times like a noble.
“Majesty!” A street boy George didn’t know rushed in. “Majesty, come quick! Claw’s took by Provost-men!” George followed the boy through the rear entrance, still deep in thought. When he emerged, a man struck him from behind, knocking him into the mud of the kitchen yard. George cleared two knives from their sheaths at his waist. This is how you pay, he thought grimly as he slashed and struck. You forget to be watchful and the Black God taps your shoulder...
He slashed again; someone screamed. The man on his back fell off. George lunged to his feet, his knives sweeping in a silver arc. Of the gang surrounding him, he took one in the throat and the next low. A fourth jumped from the kitchen roof onto his shoulders. George rammed backward into a wall to stun his assailant
A swordsman attacked. A line of pain streaked from George’s shoulder to his thigh. Gritting his teeth, George threw one of his knives, hitting the swordsman in the chest.
The kitchen yard boiled with enemies. Where were his own people? He found another of his many concealed knives and faced a man with a hand-axe. This one bellowed and charged, but four arrows cut his voice off. He never completed his attack. Black arrows rained as rearing Bazhir warhorses cut off all chances for escape. Within a second the only sound in the kitchen yard was that of the horses.
“You’re lucky I was coming to visit,” Myles said as he rode up. Dismounting, he caught George as the thief staggered. “You need a healer!”
George shook his head, as much to clear it as to say “no.” “Solom,” he muttered. Myles helped him into the Dancing Dove’s kitchen. Just inside the door they found old Solom and two serving girls, dead.
George was still recuperating in Myles’s house two days later when a servant interrupted the knight at his lunch to say Dalil al Marganit awaited him in the library. Myles put down his knife and scrubbed at his face rapidly with a napkin. Al Marganit was the man he’d put to work seeking Claw’s true identity. He’d used the little Sirajit agent before and could count on him to find out almost anything.
When Myles entered the library, the agent rose and bowed. He gestured to the bowl of fruit and the Tyran wine the servants had already brought him, saying, “I am treated like a noble in this house.”
Myles sat behind his desk with a smile. “You deserve that treatment, Dalil. Sit down, please. What have you learned for me?”
The little man took a notebook from inside his tunic and leafed through blotted pages. Nearsighted, he had to bring the pages so close to his eyes that they tickled his nose. He sneezed. “Regarding the matter of the thief Claw. Hm! Yes! Arrested by my Lord Provost’s men two years ago. Charge of suspected robbery, released for lack of evidence. Our Provost is scrupulous in such matters, unlike many in his place, as your lordship knows. Arrested five months ago in the Dock Riots, escaped. He’s now sought by Provost’s men. They do not look as hard as they might; one assumes he has paid large bribes.
“I traced the subject Claw to Vedis in Galla, where he claims to originate. He is unknown in the cities Vedis, Nenet, and Jyotis in Galla, all having large communities of thieves. Going by my lord’s guess that Claw’s accent is that of the Lake Region in Tortall and that Claw was born of nobles either legitimately
or illegitimately, I journeyed to the Lake Region with a good drawing of the subject Claw. Here is an accounting of my expenses.” He gave Myles a sheet of notepaper, which the knight barely glanced at.
Al Marganit closed the notebook and looked at Myles. “Claw is Ralon of Malven...”
Myles turned white. Another of Alanna’s enemies! No one had seen or heard from him in years. While he’d thought Claw might be illegitimate and trained by his noble-born parent’s teachers, he’d never considered the possibility that Claw was a true-born son of a noble family, hiding in the Court of the Rogue! He realized the agent was looking at him, worried. Forcing a smile, he said, “It’s all right. Go on.”
The little man shrugged and continued. Obviously Sir Myles wasn’t going to tell him why he looked as if he’d just stepped on a grave. “He is the third son of Viljo, Count of Malven, and his lady Gaylyah. He was disinherited after the attempted rape of the second daughter of the bailiff, Anala, a village in Eldorne hold. Eldorne is the neighbor of Malven.” A connection between Claw and Delia? Myles wondered. He scribbled a note to himself as Dalil continued. “The girl’s maid threw acid in his face, thereby leaving the purple scars of which you spoke, and causing him to lose an eye. If I may refresh my lord’s memory, Ralon of Malven left court at the age of fourteen, after months of feuding with the page Alan of Trebond. Or, if I may be so bold, in the matter of Alanna of Trebond and Olau.”
Myles gave an absent smile. “Though blessed few of us knew it, then. Ralon of Malven! How could I have forgotten?”
“He is well disguised, my lord. He came, as bad men will, to make his name among rogues. He battles the present King of Thieves for his throne, but he will not call for an open fight as the custom decrees. Instead, he fights with treachery. Unlike the legitimate Rogue, Ralon as Claw will hire to do murder or to ruin a good name. He will betray those who follow him.” The little man shook his head. “A noble gone bad, my lord. There’s no stopping him, not at all. He will say that he is owed something, and he has come to collect.”
