Monsters of Lake Gravendon

Thieves

Thieves

I wake up early and decide to look through the luggage before I leave, in case it contains something worth keeping. There are lots of papers, most with scribbles. Useless, since I can neither read nor write. There’s a fancy gilded dagger I can sell for a good price. There’s also a bunch of male underwear, five sizes too big. I’m about to discard the bag when my fingers touch something hard at its side. With a little effort, I find a hidden enclosure and open it. It contains vials of smelly potions wrapped up in pieces of clothes, some lock-picks, and four different signet-rings. Ooooops. These aren’t an ordinary merchant’s undergarments.

I hesitate for a heartbeat then I take the dagger, the lock-picks, and the rings, after all, what are the odds of him finding me in such a big city? I will sell these two towns over and everything will be fine.

The window of my room overlooks a secluded alleyway. I make sure no one’s looking then throw the bag as far as I can. Since I’m not in the mood to explain to the innkeeper why I’m leaving alone, I choose to exit through the window as well. I’m just about to turn the corner when I see four black-clad swordsmen barge into the tavern.

The innkeeper tells them which room is mine after very short persuasion and I don’t stick around to find out what they want, but run away as fast as I can. I run until I realize if they’ve found me they will certainly find the old beggar as well.

I could leave. I don’t owe him anything. He had the better end of the deal yesterday. I paid for everything with my hard-earned money. Anyway, he’s old, so he can obviously take care of himself, otherwise, he’d be dead already. … On the other hand… I really don’t want him to die now, and certainly not because of me. I change directions and keep on running, a little more carefully and with a lot more purpose.

The good news is, the grim swordsmen don’t find me. The bad news is, I’m late. When I arrive at the Chapel of Smiths two armed thugs are already dragging the old man away. I am well aware this is the situation where one might need a good plan and backup, but unfortunately, I’m not about to get any of those things, so I just follow the conspicuous trio. It is easy at first. A black uniform is ideal for hiding in the dark, but in the colorful swirl of the waking city it stands out. However, as we leave the marketplace and get to secluded alleyways I’m the one becoming more and more noticeable. Moreover, I start to suspect there will be guards as we get closer to our goal. When they stop to put a sack over the old man’s head I step out of the shadows and say politely but firmly that I want to speak with their boss and insist on getting a hood. I’m hoping if they bother to hide our destination they haven’t decided to kill us yet. We might even survive. At least the old man could. If I'm lucky and I didn't bring everything that was important to them in that bag I have something to bargain with.

They search me and take the dagger but leave the rings. They are obviously only looking for weapons for now. I get the coveted hood and we continue on our way. We zig-zag for a few minutes and get turned around a couple of times. I try to memorize the route. We walk sixty steps on a smooth dirt road then turn left and I feel the stench of urine which slowly gives way to the smell of rotten cabbages. After a right turn, we walk twenty steps on flagstones then turn right again to another dirt road. In the end, though, we turn so many times I can’t keep it in mind. I give up long before we stop. I hear the click of a lock, we step into musty smelling coolness and they take off the hood.

We find ourselves in a room exactly as bleak as I expected. Four gray walls, dirt floor, almost no furniture. I try not to think about how the lack of furniture must make it easier to clean up the blood.

There’s an armchair near one of the walls. A thirty-something guy, clad in the now-familiar black clothes, is sitting in it. There are two grim bodyguards on either side. Now would be a good time for a plan, which I still don’t have, so I just start talking and hope for the best.

“Thank you for meeting us at this early hour. I have good news. I’ve found your friend's bag. I'd love to show you where it is. The old man doesn’t know anything, so you might as well take him back to his favorite temple or wherever he wants to go.”

The boss raises an eyebrow. Just the one. So cool! I’ve always wanted to be able to do that. I even practiced it looking at my reflection in the pond for half an hour one summer. I expect the swordsman would not appreciate me asking how long he had practiced. I wisely keep my mouth shut, but the thought helps chase the dread back a tiny bit.

The old beggar looks at me in disbelief.

“This was your plan? Are you quite mad? You had a chance to get away and you chose to come back?”

“And now you might have a chance to get away. What is wrong with this plan?” The old man just gapes at me, speechless, which finally gives the boss the opportunity to speak.

“So you are the brain behind the operation,” he says to me. “Curious. Why did you take the bag?”

“I needed it for disguise,” I say matter-of-factly.

He raises that one eyebrow again, questioningly. I decide it would be best to tell the truth, that it was all an unfortunate misunderstanding. I tell them how I set out to find a grandfather and the garments. I don’t mention where I got the money from and what I did with the bag. Of course, he asks about the latter, glancing meaningfully at the dagger.

“I see you searched the bag. What did you do with it afterward?”

“Oh, yeah, I brought the dagger to prove I have the information” I answer improvising “but I’d like to save the details for later, after we part from the old man.”

Face darkening, the boss menacingly gets up off his chair, stalks around me in a slow circle, then looks down into my eyes. My heart stops a little bit.

“I think we”, he says encompassing his bodyguards and the other henchmen with a leisurely gesture “could convince you to tell us what we want to know.”

“Sure. No questions there. However, the old man really doesn’t know anything. You lose nothing by letting him go and it would be much better for everyone if I led you to the bag voluntarily. You wouldn’t have to clean my blood off the walls, for one thing. And you know I could lie during the beating,” I try to sound nonchalant “and I don’t know how many staving teenage girls you torture routinely but what if I die before I tell you what you want to know?”

“I can assure you, my men are very skillful,” he says menacingly, but afterward he generously adds “but honoring our treaty with the beggars’ guild, we can take your grandfather back to the temple.”

Having heard this, the old man finally finds his tongue and tries to help me out of the hole I’ve been systematically digging myself into for the past half hour.

“If I may suggest most respectfully, the girl might be more useful alive than dead in the long run as well, for she did manage to borrow your friend’s bag without being noticed and also got away from your esteemed colleagues. They might never have found her if she hadn't come back voluntarily.”

Our grim captor looks at the beggar icily.

“If I need your advice, I know where to find you.”

I swear his controlled rage is more frightening than it would be if he simply hit the old man. I’d never have imagined brown eyes could be this cold.

“Enough of this, let’s get the bag,” he says and starts for the door.

I don’t demand assurances they won’t kill the old man after I give them what they want. I wouldn’t get any. This is the best deal I can make. From now on I need to concentrate on my own predicament. I have to convince the boss what an obedient and useful member of his crew I’d be if only he’d let me live long enough. In order to do that I snatch the sack from the thug’s hand, courteously put it on my head, and wait patiently by the door.

We go a different way than we came from. I still can’t memorize the path, but we didn’t walk on brick road on the way here and we do now. After a few minutes we can take the hoods off and when we get near the main square, they let the old man go. We continue towards the tavern. I dictate a fast pace because if a dog or a kid took the bag I’m dead. The thugs have no problem keeping up.

From the back wall of the tavern, I go as the crow flies, or rather as the bag flies. We go over a fence and a wall and get into someone’s backyard. No one has a problem with trespassing either. I don’t know why I expected them to.

Thank all the gods, the bag is exactly where I threw it, right on top of the compost heap. I don’t even have to climb all the way onto the foul-smelling pile to get it. A couple of hens watch me with mild interest, but apart from that, the yard is blessedly empty. I clear the bag as best I can with a handful of straw and present it to the boss. He does not reach for it, just looks at me rather mockingly and says “Bring it” as if speaking to a dog.

Upon reaching the wall I encounter a tricky situation. I very briefly brood over why I stole such an impractical bag with these little handles, instead of a backpack. I can’t scale the wall one handed and the vials of stinky potions might break if I throw the bag over the fence. If they aren’t already broken.

The boss apparently finds my impasse entertaining up until the point when I open the hidden compartment and stuff the vials into my pockets. I don’t wait for his reaction, just throw the bag over the wall and start climbing. They follow immediately.

Since no one says anything I head back the way we came. On one random corner, the boss gives a hand-signal and the two thugs originally kidnapping the beggar peel off. One of them grins at me in a surprisingly friendly manner and throws the hood at me. I catch it one-handed and put it on with practiced ease. It feels like a formality at this point since they already have what they wanted and now they will either kill me or take me in.