Hammers of Ulric, page 7
I wondered if I would ever do the same for my own.
CATCH AS CATCH CAN
The invisible boy had been in the city for a whole year now, and he was celebrating that triumph. He still had no job, nor any prospect of one, and his meagre supply of ready cash was reaching its limits again. But by nightfall he would have a good meal and a few glasses of beer inside him, never the less.
He had been called Wheezer, back when there were people who spoke to him or knew him, back before the city. Now he was nobody. But he was happy.
The smell of the city had burned at his nostrils and throat for a while when he had first arrived, and the stench had made him feel ill, but gradually he had come to ignore it. He was especially happy because he hadn’t sneezed or wheezed once during the entire time he had lived in the city.
Back in the old good country air, he had suffered all year round from a nose that ran constantly. Through the spring and summer, he never stopped sneezing and his eyes never stopped streaming. And during harvest, he wheezed. That was how he’d come by his name. He was Wheezer.
Now he saw the funny side of all those years spent breathing good, pure country air. Bless the city’s filthy, smoggy atmosphere, where, summer or winter, he felt better and better! His old nickname was now a kind of private joke. If he ever found anyone to ask him his name of course. It had been a year and no one had spoken to him. No one noticed him. No one even seemed to see him.
The weather was cold, wet, dark and miserable. Never mind winter, the change to spring was by far the worst part of the year.
Kruza sneezed heavily into a beautiful linen handkerchief that he had, only minutes before, lifted out of the pocket of some local gentleman. He wouldn’t be able to sell it now, but he needed a good nose-wipe at this time of the year, and with all his other work the loss of the fence’s price of one handkerchief was a trifle.
Kruza didn’t feel much like work. He begrudged going out in this awful slanting drizzle, and the wind was the kind that went through you instead of round you. But it was his day tomorrow and he still had the small matter of his quota to fill. He would have finished days ago if it hadn’t been for the fact that he’d found a new and very accommodating fence, and had decided to sell one or two of his better items on the outside. Just so long as the master didn’t get wind of it.
‘Wind, damnable wind,’ Kruza muttered to himself as he passed out of the Altquartier and made his way down the steps to the Great Park. Even on a day like today there would be people trading there, which meant there would be other people with full purses. And aside from sitting in a nice little tavern somewhere drinking a long glass of ale, or better yet a hot toddy, the market gave the best shelter of anywhere in Middenheim. The stalls’ awnings almost touched in places, shielding the people as well as the produce from the worst of the wind and rain.
Kruza mooched around for a while, strolling between the stalls, taking his time to pick out a likely victim. A little care spent choosing his mark now cut down on the number of targets he needed, and in the long run would give him more time in that tavern later in the day.
Wheezer followed the old cut-purse into the market in the big park. He loved the market. Mostly he stole what he needed, and of course that included money, but he took great delight in robbing the market stalls to fill his larder and make the derelict hovel he called home as pleasant as possible.
During his first year in the city, he had successfully filched enough cooking utensils, bed linens and other household items to furnish a warm and friendly nest, albeit one he enjoyed entirely alone. He’d stolen his entire wardrobe, and he’d even managed to pinch a series of small mirrors, including one in a gilt frame. He loved the mirrors and stood or hung them indiscriminately around the single room he lived in.
Today though, Wheezer needed cash. He had to eat and while his own larder (the outside sill of his single high window at this time of year) was all but full, he was celebrating his first anniversary in the city tonight and had decided to eat in style at one of the better taverns. He might even find himself a girl, he thought, and that would certainly mean hard cash.
Wheezer had his mark in sight. He usually chose the older cut-purses, although he knew, to his cost, of one or two who were still as quick of eye and fleet of foot as he was. This old coot with his one patched eye looked safe enough, though. Wheezer kept close to the old thief, feeling no need to slink or skulk about. He watched as the old man made his move.
Wheezer stood by as the old man lifted a tiny gold sundial from the pocket of an equally aged butler out doing the daily provisioning.
No good, thought Wheezer. Who needs another timepiece? Next time.
He followed the man on a little further, up a short cobbled slope, and round the side of a tiny handcart selling illicit liquor. Wheezer pocketed a bottle as he sidled past, just for good measure. After all, he was supposed to be celebrating today.
The old cut-purse’s next target was a fat, bossy middle-aged woman. She had stopped to reprimand the man with her, surely her scolded and erstwhile cuckolded husband. Wheezer was mesmerised for a moment, the woman might well be as big as a barge and well past the prime of her life, but she was also very feminine.
Yes, a wench tonight, I think, Wheezer said to himself as he passed the woman and the cut-purse, doffing his cap to one or other of them, or perhaps to both. Neither one of them saw him, and he didn’t expect them to. Putting his cap back on his head at an angle, Wheezer watched the old cut-purse snatch the little bag of money from the fat woman’s waist. It was done in a moment, without anyone noticing, and the purse looked satisfyingly heavy to Wheezer. He loitered for a moment at a stall, picking up a couple of bars of rough soap and casually pocketing them while the owner’s back was turned, before following the old thief onward.
Kruza stood by a stall, fingering a woman’s silk shawl, when he saw Strauss. The old cut-purse had been the best in his time, and had earned himself the right to work solo in Middenheim. After twenty years of toiling for the likes of his Low King, not to mention training three generations of cut-purses, including Kruza, Strauss was in his retirement. He visited the market once a fortnight or so, just to keep his hand in, and always liked the dullest days and the oldest marks.
Kruza was not surprised to see him today and greeted him with as much cheer as he could muster, given the cold and his reddening nose.
‘Well met, master,’ he called as the near-blind old thief drew level with him.
‘Is that you, Kruza, my boy?’ the man returned, beaming his toothless grin from ear to ear. ‘How goes it with you?’
‘It’s too cold and too damp and I have a quota to meet,’ answered Kruza, trying to make it all sound like a joke and failing.
‘You young pups of today,’ Strauss remonstrated, ‘never happy in your work. Still giving the master his pound of flesh then, are we? Only another fifteen years and a couple of hundred recruits and perhaps he’ll let you off his hook.’ He laughed.
‘Only if he or I live that long,’ Kruza said.
Wheezer watched as the old man, with his pocket full of another woman’s money, stopped to speak with the tall, broad-shouldered fellow, who was apparently examining women’s clothing. An odd occupation for such a strong, confident-looking man.
Now’s your chance, Wheezer, old son, he thought to himself. He cleared his mind and moved in a little closer.
What is the old man blathering on about, he wondered as he slid two long, slender fingers into the side pocket of the old coat that hung from the blind old man’s shoulders. He was walking away slowly and very calmly when he heard the words ‘Stop! Thief!’ begin to ring out – and then stop short very suddenly.
Kruza, astonished at the brazen outrage, wanted to cry out to stop the young chancer robbing his old friend. But since the purse had originally belonged to someone else, he realised it would do no good, and the words ‘Stop! Thief!’ came out strangled and barely loud enough to be heard by the old man standing next to him.
‘I’ll get him!’ he said firmly, but very quietly to Strauss, and walked away purposefully toward the young man in the cap. He wondered why he couldn’t remember what the boy looked like, except for the vaguest impression of a teenage kid with fair hair. Kruza prided himself that he never forgot a face, not the face of a mark, not the face of a fellow cut-purse and especially not the face of an enemy. There was something odd about this one. He realised at once that he would have to stay close to the boy; if he let him out of his sight, he would not know him again.
Wheezer left the park by the north-east gate and worked his way up the winding steps and slopes towards the north part of the Altquartier. He had made his home in a derelict building in the far north of the quarter where life was rough, but not so bad as it was further south in the heart of the district. He had stumbled upon the place, back then little more than tile-patched rafters open to the sky with rotting attic boards, late one night only a few days after he had arrived in the city. It had been cold and wet then, as it was now, and he had needed to find shelter fast.
It had taken Wheezer only a matter of days in the city to get the lay of the land, even though some of Middenheim’s native citizens knew only the streets and byways of their own local quarters despite a lifetime of city dwelling. It had taken him a little longer to find a permanent place to sleep, but not too long.
Wheezer’s room was the only occupied part of the ramshackle old building and was towards the top, on the third floor. His one window looked down into a narrow courtyard and the windowless backs of other buildings, so no one overlooked him. The front of the building was barred and boarded, but there was a cellar window at the side that served as a convenient front door where Wheezer could not be seen entering. The room was as solitary and isolated as he was himself, but it suited him well, and he had no desire to spread himself out among the other rooms that must exist in the building, but which Wheezer had never explored.
There was honour among thieves, even in Middenheim, and so if it took Kruza all afternoon to track down the brazen knave who had robbed venerable Strauss he would do it.
Discreetly Kruza followed the cocky young cut-purse out of the Great Park and watched him as he climbed in through the cellar window of the tall, narrow, crumbling building. Two minutes later, as the clatter of shod feet on old wooden stairs died away, Kruza slid his body, shoulder first, through the cellar window and looked around to get his bearings. In no time, he had found new scuff marks on the dusty floor and followed the ragged footprints up three flights of rickety, creaking stairs. He took his time, moving silently, as he didn’t want to warn the young thug of his arrival.
Five minutes later, Kruza was leaning nonchalantly in the doorframe of a cluttered, low-lit room, watching the scrawny kid take off his cap and coat, utterly oblivious to the fact Kruza was there. Kruza gently ran his thumb down the length of his short-sword, reassuring himself of its cutting edge.
He looked on as the small, slender boy took soap and liquor from where he had secreted them in his pockets along with the heavy purse that Strauss had lifted. Then Kruza began to take in the room properly for the first time. It was extraordinary. The floor was thick with rugs and carpets, and there was a low couch covered in a colourful array of fabrics and cushions. Clean clothes and spare shoes were neatly arranged in one corner, half shielded from the room by an elegant, foreign-looking screen of pale wood. There was a deep bowl and ornate pitcher of eastern design gracing a low oval table and a large sheet of thick coarse material hung on a hook nearby. Then there were the mirrors. Kruza didn’t believe he had ever encountered so many mirrors in one room, nor so much opulence in the room of a petty scoundrel. Yet despite the mirrors, the young thief was obviously used to being alone, since he had still not noticed his intruder.
Kruza had planned to surprise him. He had wanted the young thief to turn and catch him standing in the doorway, preferably running his thumb along the blade of his short-sword. But the boy just hadn’t noticed him, though Kruza had held the relaxed menacing pose and repeated the gesture several times. Kruza began to feel rather silly repeating the theatrical threat.
Eventually, bored with looking into the remarkable room, Kruza was beginning to want to take a seat on that inviting couch. Then the tickle started and he knew that introductions were imminent. He had no choice in the matter, so he raised his short-sword in an aggressive stance. The sneeze came in a torrent of wet snot and doubled Kruza over with its force, his sword hand still pointing the gleaming weapon at the thief’s back.
The young man, standing in the middle of the room with his back to the door, clutched his chest suddenly and fell to his knees.
Kruza thought for a moment that he’d killed his foe without even waving his sword, and cautiously entered the room to assess the situation. The lad was white, dark circles of fright ringing his wide grey eyes. Kruza realised that the thief was little more than a child and he almost felt sorry for him. Kruza didn’t want to kill him like this; he didn’t want the lad to die without knowing what he’d done. He tucked his sword in the back of his belt for easy access and knelt on one knee beside Wheezer, pulling him up.
‘Don’t faint on me, you little runt,’ Kruza said. ‘I don’t plan to have to carry you over to that couch. I’d sooner kill you right here.’
‘You already scared me half to death,’ replied the pale-faced, quivering youth.
‘It was just a sneeze,’ Kruza said. ‘Be thankful. At least it saved you from a full frontal short-sword attack.’
Wheezer flopped down on the couch. Kruza stood over him, his hands on his hips, leaning in so that he was looking down directly into Wheezer’s face.
‘Now listen to me,’ he began, putting one hand squarely on the pommel of his sword, ready to draw it at any moment. ‘What do you mean by stealing from old Strauss? There’s honour amongst thieves in this city! Has your boss never told you the rules?’
‘Strauss? Boss? I have no idea what you’re talking about!’
‘Strauss,’ Kruza explained impatiently, ‘is the name of the man you robbed this afternoon in the market.’
‘But he was a thief,’ Wheezer said, matter of fact. His voice had an unusual inflection, almost as if he was not used to talking. ‘You can’t steal from a thief, when what you’re taking doesn’t belong to him.’
‘What about the stall holders on the market? You stole from them.’
‘Hardly,’ Wheezer said, ‘When one man has more soap or liquor than he can use or sell, that’s not stealing either. I never take from an empty stall or a busy one.’
Kruza looked down at him quizzically. ‘Did your boss teach you nothing?’
‘What boss?’ Wheezer asked innocently.
‘Ulric take me! You know,’ Kruza was becoming impatient. ‘The man you work for. The man you sell merchandise to.’
‘I don’t have a boss,’ Wheezer answered.
‘Then who do you sell your stolen goods to? Who’s your fence?’
Wheezer shook his head, as if the street thief was suddenly speaking Bretonnian. ‘Do you want a drink?’ he asked suddenly.
‘I– what?’
‘A drink. I’m celebrating today. And you know, you’re the first visitor I’ve had here, so it’s only right.’
Kruza blinked. Had he missed something? The kid was… strange.
‘Look, who do you sell your merchandise to?’ he repeated, slowly and carefully.
‘No one,’ Wheezer said, beginning to catch on. ‘I don’t sell anything. I just take what I need or sometimes what I want. Why would I want to sell anything to anyone?’
Kruza didn’t know whether to pity or laugh at this lost, lonely boy with such strange, innocent ways. There seemed to be nothing immoral about him, nothing memorable about him, almost nothing real about him at all. He did what he did and that was an end of it.
But then how, wondered Kruza, had he become so good at the stealth-craft, without a teacher. The kid must have the gift. The kid must be a natural. Kruza smiled suddenly. A thought had occurred to him.
‘Perhaps I will have a drink with you after all,’ he said at last, taking his hand off his sword hilt and sitting down again.
‘Good, because as I said: I’m celebrating!’ Wheezer announced, selecting two rather elegant, if mismatched, goblets and the bottle of pear brandy he had liberated that afternoon.
Wheezer was so excited to finally have an audience that he talked non-stop for a very long time. But Kruza didn’t mind. He needed to put the lad at ease. Besides, the liquor was warming and the room was extremely comfortable. Wheezer got up, still talking, and lit a fire in the small grate just before dark. It burned gently, bringing warmth and light to the room, making it seem even more exotic than it had when Kruza had first beheld it.
‘I arrived here a year ago to the day,’ Wheezer was saying, ‘come to collect my inheritance, or rather to be recognised by my illustrious parent.
‘I turned twenty and left the forest for the city, my real home. You see, my mother lived here when I was born. She was the most beautiful artiste of her era, treading the boards of all the great theatres in all the great cities. She came to Middenheim once a year to perform, and it was on her last visit here that she met and fell in love with my father. He was young, of course, and impetuous and fell for my mother at first sight! Back then, who wouldn’t have? Now, his great and noble family weren’t too impressed with him, and had the gall to try and buy my mother off with cheap trinkets and idle promises, not to mention a great deal of money.
‘Naturally, she declined and stayed in the city to have me, so that my father would have to recognise me. Great plan, but of course things never work out the way we expect and she died. A horrible death really. She died three days after I was born. She bled to death.
