A Solitary Journey (44 page)

I
killed someone.’ A Ahmud Ki’s right eyebrow twitched as he studied the dishevelled woman wrapped in an old torn coat. ‘Who?’

‘A rat hunter.’

‘Why?’

‘Because he was going to kill Whisper.’ He looked past Meg. ‘Where is she?’

‘I don’t know,’ she replied, tears trickling through the dust smeared across her cheeks. ‘Did anyone see you?’

She nodded. ‘The old caretaker at the slave sheds.’

A Ahmud Ki shook his head. ‘You’d better get cleaned up,’ he suggested. ‘We can’t stay here if someone’s looking for you.’

‘But where do we go now?’

He reached forward to place a comforting hand on her shoulder and the energy sparked. ‘You leave that to me. I’ve been busy today. I wasn’t expecting to leave tonight, but I’m sure it can be arranged. You get cleaned up and gather what you can. Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be back in a little while.’ He leaned in to kiss her forehead and again the energy flowed. ‘I won’t
be long,’ he said. ‘I’ll come to your room.’ He grabbed a dark blue cloak and left his stay-house room in a hurry.

Back in her room, Meg touched her forehead where he had kissed her and smiled at the memory of his gentle demonstration of affection. She ran water from the spout and pulled off the tattered coat she found hanging on a line after leaving the Slave Market shed. It was so old and threadbare that she figured no one would miss it and she desperately needed to cover her blood-stained shirt before she could get back to the stay-house. She stripped and inspected her body to discover that the neck bite and claw gouges on her chest and legs were already healed, the unexpected sleep in the woodpile providing time for her amber magic to work. She was disappointed that Whisper had gone her secret ways again after the incident. The city was an unknown except for the rat hunters and Meg was worried for her long-time tiny companion.

The water was refreshingly soothing as she bathed and her head cleared. A Ahmud Ki was planning to help her to escape, but what exactly did he have in mind? Where could they hide in this strange place now that she had killed a man? ‘I swore this would never happen,’ she muttered, staring at her reflection in the mirror above the wash bowl. ‘Why must it happen?’ She dried quickly, chose grey trousers from her meagre wardrobe and started dressing.

Knocking interrupted her. She grabbed a fresh green tunic and as she slipped it on she asked, ‘Who is it?’

‘Peacekeepers, lady,’ a voice replied. ‘Can we speak to you?’

Fear flashed through Meg’s veins. ‘Is this about my papers,’ she asked, tying the cords at the top of her tunic.

‘Among other things,’ the voice replied.

‘I’m just putting on my clothes,’ she said as she crossed to the window and quietly opened it before unlocking the shutters. The narrow alley a storey below was empty and dark.
How do I get down there?
she wondered.

‘If you don’t open now, lady, we have permission to break in,’ the voice announced authoritatively.

How?
she wondered. Something thumped against her door, so she focussed on the window frame and as the door cracked a blue haze filled the window. The door cracked again and swung open as she dived through the window and the haze vanished. Six bewildered Andrak Peacekeepers stepped into an empty room.

Meg listened at A Ahmud Ki’s door before she gently eased it open to peer into the corridor where three men in dark green jackets with light green stripes and cream trousers, wearing green peaked hats, each carrying what looked like a short thundermaker on a belt over the shoulder were pacing the floor. She closed the door, her heart beating furiously.
Do they know I’m here with A Ahmud Ki? What if they come in here next? What if they set up guard outside my room? How do I get out of here?
Someone in the corridor shouted so she held her breath and listened.

‘Papers!’ She heard the sound of paper unfolding, and a cough. ‘You know this woman?’

‘I came to Andrak with her.’ Meg’s pulse quickened. What would she do to save him now?

‘And this is her room?’

‘Was,’ A Ahmud Ki replied.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I heard her come in a while ago. She knocked on my door and she was covered in blood, so I asked her what was going on. She said she’d killed someone and she begged me to lend her some money so she could sail
back to Shess. I told her I didn’t have any and she attacked me, so I locked myself in my room and waited until I couldn’t hear her. When I came out her door was locked, so I got out of here. I came back when the girl downstairs told me you were up here to arrest her. She’s crazy.’

‘She was in here when we knocked. Now she’s gone.’

‘How is that possible?’

‘Looks like she jumped from the window. She must have been pretty quick. No sign of her in the alley.’

‘From the window? Are you sure?’

‘Look for yourself.’

She pressed against the door but she couldn’t hear more than mumbles from her room. Then A Ahmud Ki’s voice became louder as he returned to the corridor. ‘I just travelled with her from Shess to escape the war. I didn’t know she was mad enough to kill someone.’

‘You should be more careful about the company you choose.’

‘She was a cousin, but I’ll keep that in mind.’

‘We may need to talk to you again. Don’t leave the city.’

‘I’ll be right here.’

Boots shuffled at the door, the handle turned and Meg crept back, terrified that the Peacekeepers were following A Ahmud Ki into his room, but when the door opened A Ahmud Ki appeared alone. He winked and turned back to face the corridor. ‘If I can help in any way, let me know. What’s your name?’

‘Captain Tarca. I’ll be in touch.’

‘Thank you, Captain Tarca, and good luck.’ A Ahmud Ki closed the door and leaned against it to listen before he straightened and approached Meg, his finger pressed to his lips. ‘There are men on guard out there. How did you get out of the room?’

‘Portal,’ she whispered.

A Ahmud Ki grinned. ‘Clever. You’ll need to do it again to get us out of here now.’

‘Into the alley?’

‘No. They’re searching down there. Take us where you were today.’

Meg’s eyes widened. ‘The Slave Markets? They’ll be guarding them.’

‘You can recall it clearly, can’t you?’ he persisted.

‘Yes. But then what?’

‘I’ve arranged for us to go to the capital city. Get us to the Slave Markets and I’ll take you to a new friend. They won’t be expecting you to go back there. They’ll be searching elsewhere. Trust me. Make the portal.’ A Ahmud Ki collected a bag and stuffed clothes into it while Meg quickly constructed a portal in the window frame, her memory focussed on the small office in the Slave Markets shed. When she was finished A Ahmud Ki grinned and said, ‘After you.’

The dragoneer closed the door as they left his house and stepped into the field. ‘You’re lucky the wind currents are going north tonight,’ he said, leading A Ahmud Ki and Meg towards a dark mass on the grass in the dull moonlight. ‘I haven’t flown at night over this much distance before,’ he told them as they reached the inert shape which stood three times their height, ‘but your money talks to me of adventure and I’ve always wanted to be in an adventure.’

‘How long will this take?’ Meg asked, trying to listen to all of the dragoneer’s information while she was secretly fretting for Whisper who hadn’t reappeared since the attack in the Slave Markets shed.

‘If the wind stays as it is, maybe a full day,’ he told her. ‘If it gets stronger, then quicker, and if we have to use the pedals and windwheels it might take twice as long. It’s still faster than going on the carriages for
three days.’ He climbed into a basket under the flaccid material and lit a burner. ‘It will take a little while to fill her up, so if you need to go to the toilet I’d do it now. Once we’re up in the dragon egg there’s nowhere to piss except over the side.’ He laughed. ‘Easy for us men, but you might find it precarious,’ he said, winking at Meg.

She heeded his advice and wandered away from the men to relieve herself. After, she watched the burner spurting flame upward and the shadowy dragon egg rise steadily from its limp state into the fat tomato shape that she’d seen when they arrived in Port River. The dragon egg journey was costing them a thousand notes, payable on arrival in Lightsword, an amount she thought exorbitant, but she understood it was the only way they could leave the city undetected and she was impressed with A Ahmud Ki’s ingenuity. What she wanted, though, was Whisper.
Where are you?
she projected into the night.
We’re leaving.

‘Meg!’ A Ahmud Ki’s shadow walked towards her. ‘Luca says it’s ready.’

‘I won’t leave without Whisper,’ she replied.

A Ahmud Ki stopped in front of her. ‘I know what you feel, but you can’t stay here. They’re hunting for you. They’ll be hunting for both of us by morning. We have to go. Whisper knows how to look after herself. She found her way onto the ship when you thought you’d lost her.’

‘But this is different. She doesn’t know this place and we’re travelling in a way no one travels where we come from. She won’t find me.’

‘The breeze is picking up!’ Luca the dragoneer yelled.

‘Please, Meg,’ A Ahmud Ki gently urged. Reluctantly, she took his proffered hand, ignored the now-familiar tingle, and walked with him towards the glowing orange dragon egg.

As they climbed into the basket Luca ordered, ‘Unhitch the four ropes,’ and he loosed another burst of flame from the burner which now hung above them, suspended by the dragon egg’s floating fabric.

Meg reached for a rope, but as she started to untie it she spotted a black shape scampering up its length towards her. An instant later Whisper was in her arms and Meg hugged the little animal against her chest, cautiously looking over her shoulder to check that the dragoneer hadn’t seen the new passenger, but the basket tilted alarmingly. Meg clutched the side with one hand to avoid toppling out while holding Whisper with the other.

‘Untie the ropes together or we’ll tip!’ Luca warned.

A Ahmud Ki pushed past Meg and loosened the ropes beside her. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

‘Look,’ she prompted.

Seeing the rat in the crook of her arm against her chest he grinned, and asked, ‘Was I right?’

‘
He
mustn’t know,’ she said, nodding towards Luca who was firing up the burner again.

‘Then hide her,’ A Ahmud Ki advised and moved towards Luca to distract the dragoneer while Meg tucked the rat inside her tunic.

The rising sensation overwhelmed Meg’s senses as the light in the dragoneer’s cottage window began to sink. Then the surrounding building lights and the lights along the city’s streets appeared and also started sinking, filling Meg with awe. The cold night air stung her skin and her eyes watered, but she gazed at the glittering city of lights steadily drifting away beneath her, amazed at the flickering gas lights lining the main streets just as the old man in the Slave Markets had described. The lights made the night city beautiful.

‘If you get cold, come closer to the burner,’ Luca invited. ‘The higher we go, the colder it will get. That’s the city lights. So what do you think?’

‘It’s amazing,’ Meg murmured in response, mesmerised by the rare view, the faint wisps of a half-forgotten dream stirring. The warmth of Whisper’s body against her breasts comforted her.

‘Who made these dragon eggs?’ A Ahmud Ki asked.

‘We don’t really know, but there’s a general agreement that the first real dragon egg was designed and flown by a Northern Andrak inventor named Ekkar in three-thousand-nine-hundred-and-thirteen,’ Luca explained. ‘The Ranu claim they were building dragon eggs for years before that and Ekkar stole the idea from them, but no one can prove it.’

‘What’s this use of numbers?’ Meg asked.

‘You mean the years?’

‘What do they mean?’

‘It’s how old the nation is,’ he replied. ‘This is the year four-thousand-and-five. That means Andrak as a nation started more than four thousand years ago. It might be older, but the historians argue that the foundations of the nation were put in place by the early barbarian warlords about a thousand years before the era of mythology and the time of the Bretan kings. There’s not much evidence, of course—people couldn’t write until the early period of the Bretans and what they wrote most often were fantasy stories, legends and ballads. The oral tradition was strong, but it was all about supernatural things like magic and dragons and heroes.’

‘Like A Ahmud Ki,’ Meg said.

Luca laughed. ‘You speak our language oddly at times. It shows that you’re foreigners. I don’t mean to be rude, but it’s pronounced Amuchki. Where did you hear about him?’

Meg glanced at A Ahmud Ki’s face lit by the burner’s glow. ‘The shipmaster—sorry, you call them captains—told us about him.’

‘I don’t know much about that old stuff,’ Luca apologised. ‘I only know about Amuchki because they teach children about him schools.’

‘Schools?’ A Ahmud Ki interrupted.

‘You don’t have schools in Shess?’

‘After coming here it doesn’t seem we have much of anything,’ Meg said, and she gazed down at the receding city lights as Luca described schools. They had come to a very strange land, one filled with magic that the Jarudhan Seers could never imagine.
Did the Seers learn about thundermakers from travellers who’d been to Andrak?
she wondered.
Will they lay claim to other Andrak things as Jarudha’s magic?
With Luca and A Ahmud Ki’s voices resonating in the cold air, the dragon egg’s soft orange glow overhead surrounded by a tapestry of sparkling stars, the half-moon washing the night world below in silver light, the receding jewels of the city’s lights and Whisper’s sleeping warmth against her, Meg was immersed in flying above a new world, carried by the cool breeze towards a place where her children might be waiting for her. She was exhilarated and happy.

L
ightsword was vaster than any city she imagined possible. From the altitude of the dragon egg it spread across the landscape in a mosaic of red roofs and white buildings, with roads running to all directions of the compass, and a sparkling river snaking through the city seemed to flow from a plateau covered with stone ruins at the city’s centre. From several quarters, smoke formed a brown haze like the one that hung above Port River, reminding her that this world was not like Western Shess at all because of the impact of invention, as Marlin had always said. Beyond the city margins was a green-and-golden tapestry of fertile plains, all ordered into squares and rectangles with little farmhouses on their edges or at the centres, and to the east, west and north the city plains were bordered by snow-capped mountains. The blue sky, the soft breeze and the natural colours told her this was the season of Akim in Central Andrak. In Western Shess it would be Doyanah, the land beginning to die in preparation for the brief cold spell of Shahk, but here the seasons were either strange or upside down.

Their dragon egg was not alone in the midmorning sky. Four more floated on the gentle breeze, each
vibrantly coloured, one striped like a rainbow. ‘We’re lucky the wind was kind to us,’ Luca said, fossicking in a small bag. ‘Spring breezes are sometimes playful and tease us.’ He extracted three carrots and handed one each to Meg and A Ahmud Ki before he bit into the third. ‘I was feeling peckish. We’ll have a good feed when we land.’ A Ahmud Ki eyed the offering warily, but Meg, who remembered seeing and eating the orange vegetable on Queen Sunset’s table, bit into the crisp, sweet flesh and chewed. She broke off a small titbit, turned away from Luca who was busy surveying the scenery, and slipped it inside her tunic to a ravenous Whisper.

‘How many people live down there?’ A Ahmud Ki asked.

‘Not rightly sure,’ Luca replied. ‘Last count done by the government put it at more than three million.’

‘Three million people live in one city?’

‘Seems like a lot,’ said Luca nonchalantly, ‘until you find out that the Ranu capital has ten million people living in it.’

‘Yul Ithyrandyr?’

Luca looked at A Ahmud Ki through blue eyes. ‘That’s right. Have you been there?’

A Ahmud Ki blinked, glanced at Meg who was looking at him over her shoulder, and said, ‘A long time ago.’

‘It must have been,’ said Luca. ‘We’ve been at war on and off with the Ranu for almost twenty years.’

‘War? Why?’

‘Politics,’ said Luca disdainfully. ‘I was just a kid when it broke out. My father went. And my uncles. My younger brother, Dale, is somewhere on the front line now. It never seems to start or stop any more, almost like neither side wants to end it—just border skirmishes and occasional big battles.’

‘And you never went?’ Meg asked.

‘Me?’ Luca replied, and chuckled. ‘I don’t like the idea of putting on a uniform and marching in lines and shooting someone because a politician says it’s good to do it. I’m looking for adventure—that’s why I took you two on—not some dumb process where it doesn’t matter whether I get shot or shoot someone in the big scheme of things. I’m more of a romantic. I like the idea of saving the world or doing some heroic act against impossible odds. Do you think I’m crazy?’

A Ahmud Ki raised an eyebrow. Meg smiled. ‘Does anyone live in the castle?’ A Ahmud Ki asked, studying the plateau.

Luca snorted and shook his head, his black curls wobbling. ‘It’s been abandoned almost seven hundred years. Most of it is ruins, but they keep part of it open for tourists.’

‘Tourists?’ asked A Ahmud Ki. ‘Is that a religious sect?’

Luca laughed and slapped A Ahmud Ki’s shoulder affectionately. ‘Ho, now
that
is funny!’ he blurted and clutched his stomach, leaving A Ahmud Ki staring with annoyed bewilderment and Meg watching in fascination. ‘Tourists!’ Luca repeated, as if the word itself was humorous, but when he caught his breath and realised his passengers weren’t getting the joke, he asked, ‘You do have tourists where you come from, don’t you?’

A Ahmud Ki shrugged and Meg shook her head. Luca’s eyes widened. ‘Well, now, that
is
weird,’ he murmured. ‘Tourists are people who travel around paying money to look at things. We get hundreds every year. I make my living out of taking them up in my dragon egg.’

‘They
pay
money to look around?’ A Ahmud Ki queried, as if the idea was senseless.

‘Good money,’ Luca confirmed. ‘We’ll put down in that parkland near the river. Landing’s a bit more risky than going up and I’ll need you both to get ready to tie up the dragon egg when we touch down. Then we can go get the money you promised,’ and he grinned as he gave the burner a softer blast of flame.

The green park beside the river was full of curious people who gathered around the dragon egg, pointing and smiling. The women were dressed in colourful full-flowing dresses and broad hats with feathers and flowers decorating the brims and their hair coiled intricately, and their children were fresh-faced and dressed neatly in little replica uniforms, and there were small, dainty dogs on leashes. The men wore unusual clothes—coats, trousers and shirts—some dark, some colourful, and some wore uniforms similar to the type worn by the Peacemakers in Port River. The uniforms sent a ripple of fear through Meg. Had news of the death of the dog handler and her escape beaten them to the capital?

‘Stand well back, everyone!’ Luca yelled as he threw ropes out of the basket. ‘I need both of you to slide over the side and tie the ropes down to the landing pegs,’ he said to A Ahmud Ki and Meg as he pointed to a square of sturdy pegs. A Ahmud Ki climbed out of the basket quickly, but Meg, with Whisper to keep secure, moved less assuredly and only secured one rope while A Ahmud Ki tied three. ‘All right, let’s move away,’ Luca said as he disembarked from the basket while the orange dragon egg fabric began to sag towards the ground, its hot air rapidly cooling. Luca led his passengers through the admiring crowd onto a paved walkway beside the river under the trees. Every plant was manicured and healthy.

‘Who owns this land?’ Meg asked.

‘Government,’ Luca replied.

‘They mow and trim everything?’

Luca laughed. ‘They employ poor people. Government wages are the lowest there is.’

‘Where are you taking us?’ A Ahmud Ki asked, searching unsuccessfully for any familiar landmark.

Luca stopped. ‘To a money-house, of course. Payment—remember?’ He shrugged. ‘Then I suggest you two go shopping for clothes and clean up. You’ll get arrested and slipped into a poorhouse looking like you do.’

‘Poorhouse?’ Meg asked.

Luca pulled a face, and smiled. ‘Of course. I keep forgetting you don’t come from here. Government has poor-houses to keep the beggars off the streets. Everyone has to be gainfully employed in Central Andrak. You’ve either got a job, joined the army or are in a poor-house. Regulations.’ He turned and ushered Meg and A Ahmud Ki forward. ‘Come on. I’m hungry for a good meal and a better drink.’

Meg held up her new multi-green shirt to admire it, holding it against herself as she gazed into the full-length mirror, before she slipped it on and buttoned it, checking the length and contrast against her new black trousers. Having bathed in the cubicle where the water came from an overhead spout, she felt refreshed and her hair was clean and curly, and it was good to be dressed in clean new clothes that fitted after so long on the run in dirty, torn and borrowed things. ‘So?’ she asked Whisper, who was perched beside the wash bowl. ‘How do I look?’ She scratched the rat’s ears. ‘I can’t take you with me. You have to wait here. There’s food on the table for you.’

She had already left Whisper in the hired room of the stay-house earlier when Luca took them shopping for
clothes, an experience that was strange and frustrating. On Luca’s advice, while he took A Ahmud Ki to a men’s shop she went into a women’s clothing shop to buy a shirt and pants only to discover that it catered mainly for dresses and strange contraptions the Andrak women apparently wore to tighten their waists and hold their breasts tight and high. Two young women were keen to assist her in choosing her clothes, which she found pleasant until they kept insisting that she buy the garments designed to squeeze and suffocate her. ‘You have a beautiful figure, miss,’ one girl told her again and again, while the other kept holding up the white breast restraints and the blue waist tighteners, saying, ‘Men won’t be able to resist you with those beautiful breasts,’ and ‘The fashion is a narrow waist—not that yours isn’t slim, but this corset will flatter you.’ She tried the contraptions to appease the insistent girls, but in the end she discarded them, wondering what drove Andrak women to torture themselves for the sake of getting a man’s attention. If anything, the attention of men was the last thing she sought, remembering the primal stares so many men gave her when she met them or walked past. She bought the shirt—the girls called it a blouse—and crossed the busy street to join Luca and A Ahmud Ki. She bought the trousers she wanted in the men’s clothing shop, surprising the young man who sold them to her by correcting him when he said, ‘Your husband will cut a fine figure in these, missus,’ by replying, ‘My husband is dead and these are for me,’ and she scooped up the bag in which they were placed and followed A Ahmud Ki and Luca from the store.

Everything in the city was big. The shop buildings were all at least three or four storeys with shops in the ground floor and a variety of workshops and living places in the upper storeys. The cobbled streets were crowded with pedestrians and wagons and horses as if
everyone was out shopping at the same time—the kind of crowd Meg imagined filled the marketplaces in Port of Joy, although she’d never experienced one when she was the Queen’s guest. There were so many shops with so many goods, some Meg had never heard of. ‘What does that do?’ she asked as she stood at one shop window staring at a round face with numbers and handles that seemed to move on their own.

‘It’s a timemarker,’ Luca explained. ‘It measures time. You can put it on the wall of your house and know what time of day it is.’

‘What magic makes it move?’

Luca chuckled. ‘It has springs and cogs inside. You wind up the spring and as it unwinds it moves the cogs and they move the hands on the timemarker’s face.’

The concept made no sense to her. On the dragon ship she had seen cogs moving, but it took a crew of sailors to turn them. No one was moving the invisible cogs in the timemarker.

Luca had guided them initially to the money-house from the dragon egg landing where they cashed the moneylender’s note and paid Luca, and then he took them to a stay-house. ‘I like this place. It’s called Mother’s. Very organised and great breakfasts.’ Then he took them clothes shopping, and when they were dressed he led them to a drinking-house.

Meg was comfortable in her new clothes, although she was conscious of everyone staring because she was the only woman on the streets not wearing some form of dress. They also looked at A Ahmud Ki who was strikingly clad in a strange outfit of the Andrak fashion—a powder blue shirt with a dark blue tie, a grey coat and black trousers. With his silver hair cut short and his trimmed black beard he looked more handsome than ever—and exotic in his features.
We are definitely outsiders,
she mused as they weaved through the crowds.

‘I come here whenever I’m in Lightsword,’ Luca informed them as they approached an older building, but A Ahmud Ki suddenly stopped to stare at the rustic wooden exterior that was in sharp contrast to the surrounding stone as if he’d seen a ghost. Luca asked, ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I know this place,’ A Ahmud Ki replied slowly.

‘The Inn of Dragons?’ Luca inquired and said, ‘It is very famous, especially with the tourists. I thought you hadn’t been here before.’

‘Not recently,’ A Ahmud Ki said, ignoring Meg’s warning glare.

‘It’s a replica of an ancient inn from the late Bretan period, rebuilt using old drawings and information. It’s very quaint and they brew a very good beer,’ Luca told them. ‘You see pictures of it everywhere.’

‘Fascinating,’ murmured A Ahmud Ki as he glanced again at Meg. ‘I’m keen to go inside.’

‘I’ll wait,’ Meg said.

‘Why?’ Luca asked. ‘Aren’t you interested in looking inside?’

‘But—’ She hesitated and finally said, ‘I thought women weren’t allowed in these places.’

Luca’s eyebrow rose. ‘Is that a custom in your country?’

‘Yes,’ Meg replied.

Luca grinned. ‘Not here. Women have no restrictions. They used to in my grandfather’s time, but legislation changed all that. Women and men have equal standing in Andrak now. Come in. I’ll buy the first drink.’

The interior was dark with a low ceiling supported by thick wooden beams. The outside daylight only leaked through the old leadlight windows so lanterns flickered along the walls. ‘I like the authenticity,’ said Luca. ‘It
has a cosy atmosphere with a touch of mystery.’ A Ahmud Ki recognised very little of the interior. The reconstructed inn had a hearth like the original, and a bar, but everything else was too clean, too organised. The inn he remembered sat above the Maze, the infamous route of tunnels used by the Andrakian Thieves’ Guild—a dark, brooding place—and its patrons were ruthless people who would rob you or slit your throat as soon as talk to you.

Luca ordered drinks and the three sat at a table while he regaled them with information about the city, answering questions from A Ahmud Ki: questions like, ‘How do we get to the castle ruins from here?’ and ‘Are the ruins open at night?’ and ‘Is there a Thieves’ Guild?’

Luca’s jaw dropped at the last question. ‘A
what?’
he asked and he looked around nervously, a sign to A Ahmud Ki’s keen eyes that Luca’s answer was likely to be a lie.

‘A Thieves’ Guild,’ A Ahmud Ki repeated.

‘Not as such,’ Luca said, lowering his voice and leaning across the table towards A Ahmud Ki. ‘I’m not saying anything in this, but there are always rumours that the boss gangs have been doing things.’

‘What’s a boss gang?’ A Ahmud Ki asked.