Authors: Scott Lynch
Drums rolled. One of the Masters of the Ropes drew a sword, in case any of the prisoners
fought their handlers. Locke had seen a hanging before, and he knew the condemned
only got one chance at whatever dignity was left to them.
Today the drops ran smooth. The drumroll crashed to silence. Each pair of hooded yellowjackets
stepped forward and shoved their prisoner off the edge of the hanging platform.
Tam flinched away, as Locke had thought he might, but even he was unprepared for No-Teeth’s
reaction when the seven ropes jerked taut with snapping noises that might have been
hemp, or necks, or both.
“Ahhhhhhh! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
Each scream was longer and louder than the last. Beth clamped a hand over No-Teeth’s
mouth and struggled with him. Over the water, four large bodies and three smaller
ones swung like pendulums in arcs that quickly grew smaller and smaller.
Locke’s heart pounded. Everyone nearby had to be staring at them. He heard chuckling
and disapproving comments. The more attention they drew to themselves, the harder
it would be to go about their real business.
“Shhh,” said Beth, straining to keep No-Teeth under control. “Quiet, damn you. Quiet!”
“What’s the matter, girl?”
Locke was dismayed to see that a pair of yellowjackets had parted the crowd just behind
them. Gods, that was worse than anything! What if they were prowling for Shades’ Hill
orphans? What if they asked hard questions? He curbed an impulse to leap for the water
below and froze in place, eyes wide.
Beth kept an arm locked over No-Teeth’s face yet managed to somehow squirm around
and bow her head to the constables.
“My little brother,” she gasped out, “he’s never seen a hanging before. We don’t mean
to cause a fuss. I’ve shut him up.”
No-Teeth ceased his struggles, but he began to sob. The yellowjacket who’d spoken,
a middle-aged man with a face full of scars, looked down at him with distaste.
“You four come here alone?”
“Mother sent us,” said Beth. “Wanted the boys to see a hanging. See the rewards of
idleness and bad company.”
“A right-thinking woman. Nothing like a good hanging to scare the mischief out of
a sprat.” The man frowned. “Why ain’t she here with you?”
“Oh, she loves a hanging, does Mother,” said Beth. Then, lowering her voice to a whisper:
“But, um, she’s got the flux. Bad. All day she’s been sitting on her—”
“Ah. Well, then.” The yellowjacket coughed. “Gods send her good health. You’d best
not bring
this
one back to a Penance Day ceremony for a while.”
“I agree, sir.” Beth bowed again. “Mother’ll scratch his hide for this.”
“On your way, then, girl. Don’t need no more of a scene.”
“Of course, sir.”
The constables moved away into the crowd, which was itself coming back to life. Beth
slid off the stone wall, rather gracelessly, because No-Teeth and Tam came with her.
The former was still held tightly, and the latter refused to let go of her other arm.
He hadn’t cried out like No-Teeth, but Locke saw that his eyes brimmed with tears
and he was even more pale-looking than before. Locke ran his tongue around the inside
of his mouth, which had gone dry under the scrutiny of the yellowjackets.
“Come now,” said Beth. “Away from here. We’ve seen all there is to see.”
ANOTHER PASSAGE
through the forest of coats, legs, and bellies. Locke, feeling excitement rise again,
gently clung to the back of Beth’s tunic to avoid losing her, and he was both pleased
and disappointed when she didn’t react at all. Beth led them back into the green shadows
of the Mara Camorrazza, where quiet solitude reigned not forty yards from a crowd
of hundreds, and once they were safely ensconced in a concealed nook she pushed Tam
and No-Teeth to the ground.
“What if another bunch from the Hill saw that? Gods!”
“Sorry,” moaned No-Teeth. “But they … but they … they got kill—”
“People die when they get hanged. It’s why they hang them!” Beth wrung the front of
her tunic with both hands, then took a deep breath. “Recover yourselves. Now. Each
of you must lift a purse, or something, before we go back.”
No-Teeth broke into a new fit of sobs, rolled over on his side, and chewed his knuckles.
Tam, sounding more weary than Locke would have imagined possible, said, “I can’t,
Beth. I’m sorry. I’ll get caught. I just can’t.”
“You’ll go without supper tonight.”
“Fine,” said Tam. “Take me back, please.”
“Damn it.” Beth rubbed her eyes. “I need to bring you back with something to show
for it or I’ll be in just as much trouble as you, understand?”
“You’re in Windows,” muttered Tam. “You got no worries.”
“If only,” said Beth. “You two need to pull yourselves together—”
“I can’t, I can’t, I can’t!”
Locke sensed a glorious opportunity. Beth had saved them from trouble on the embankment,
and here was an ideal moment for him to do the same. Smiling at the thought of her
reaction, he stood as tall as he could manage and cleared his throat.
“Tam, don’t be a louse,” said Beth, completely ignoring Locke. “You
will
clutch something, or work a tease so someone else can clutch. I’ll not give you another
choice—”
“Excuse me,” said Locke, hesitantly.
“What do you want?”
“They can each have one of mine,” said Locke.
“What?” Beth turned to him. “What are you talking about?”
From under his tunic, Locke produced two leather purses and a fine silk handkerchief,
only mildly stained.
“Three pieces,” he said. “Three of us. Just say we all clutched one and we can go
home now.”
“Where in all the
hells
did you—”
“In the crowd,” said Locke. “You had No-Teeth … you were paying so much attention
to him, you must not have seen.”
“I didn’t tell you to lift anything yet!”
“Well, you didn’t tell me not to.”
“But that’s—”
“I can’t put them back,” said Locke, far more petulantly than he’d intended.
“Don’t snap at me! Oh, for the gods’ sake, don’t sulk,” said Beth. She knelt and put
her hands on Locke’s shoulders, and at her touch and close regard he found himself
suddenly trembling uncontrollably. “What is it? What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” said Locke. “Nothing.”
“Gods, what a strange little boy you are.” She glanced again at Tam and No-Teeth.
“A pack of disasters, the three of you. Two that won’t work. One that works without
orders. I suppose we’ve got no choice.”
Beth took the purses and the handkerchief from Locke. Her fingers brushed his, and
he trembled. Beth’s eyes narrowed.
“Hit your head earlier?”
“Yes.”
“Who pushed you?”
“I just fell.”
“Of
course
you did.”
“Honest!”
“Seems to be troubling you. Or maybe you’re ill. You’re shaking.”
“I’m … I’m fine.”
“Have it your way.” Beth closed her eyes and massaged them with her fingertips. “I
guess you’ve saved me a hell of a lot of trouble. Do you want me to … look, is there
someone bothering you that you want to stop?”
Locke was startled. An older child,
this
older child, of all people, and a member of Windows, was offering him protection?
Could she do that? Could she put Veslin and Gregor in their place?
No. Locke forced his eyes away from Beth’s utterly fascinating face to bring himself
back down to earth. There would always be other Veslins, other Gregors. And what if
they resented him all the more for her interference? She was Windows; he was Streets.
Their days and nights were reversed. He’d never seen her before today; what sort of
protection could he possibly get from her? He would keep playing dead. Avoid calling
attention to himself. Rule one, and rule two. As always.
“I just fell,” he said. “I’m fine.”
“Well,” she replied, a little coldly. “As you wish.”
Locke opened and closed his mouth a few times, trying desperately to imagine something
he might say to charm this alien creature. Too late. She turned away and heaved Tam
and No-Teeth to their feet.
“I don’t believe it,” she said, “but you two idiots owe your supper to the arsonist
of the Narrows here. Do you understand just how much hell we’ll all catch if you ever
breathe a word of this to anyone?”
“I do,” said Tam.
“I’d be very put out to catch any at all,” Beth continued. “Any at all! You hear me,
No-Teeth?”
The poor wretch nodded, then sucked his knuckles again.
“Back to the Hill, then.” Beth tugged at her kerchief and adjusted her cap. “I’ll
keep the things and pass them to the master myself. Not a word about this. To
anyone
.”
She kept her now-customary grip on No-Teeth all the way back to the graveyard. Tam
dogged her heels, looking exhausted but relieved. Locke followed at the rear, scheming
to the fullest extent of his totally inadequate experience. What had he said or done
wrong? What had he misjudged? Why wasn’t she delighted with him for saving her so
much trouble?
She said nothing to him for the rest of the trip home. Then, before he could find
an excuse to speak to her again once there, she was gone, vanished into the tunnels
that led to the private domain of the Windows crew, where he could not follow.
He sulked that night, eating little of the supper his nimble fingers had earned, fuming
not at Beth but at himself for somehow driving her away.
DAYS PASSED
, longer days than any Locke had ever known, now that he had something to preoccupy
him beyond the brief excitement of daily crimes and the constant chores of survival.
Beth would not leave his thoughts. He dreamed of her, and how the hair spilling out
from beneath her cap had caught the light filtering down through the interlaced greenery
of the Mara Camorrazza. Strangely, in his dreams, that hair was purely red from edge
to root, untouched by dye or disguise. The price for these visions was that he would
wake to cold, hard disappointment and lie there in the dark, wrestling with mysterious
emotions that had never troubled him before.
He would have to see her again. Somehow.
At first he nurtured a hope that his relegation to a crew of troublemakers might be
permanent, that Beth might be their minder on an ongoing basis. Unfortunately, the
Thiefmaker seemed to have no such plans. Locke slowly realized that if he was ever
going to get another chance to impress her, he’d have to stick his neck out.
It was hard to break the routines he’d established for himself, to say nothing of
those expected of someone in his lowly position. Yet he began to wander more often
throughout the vaults and tunnels of his home, anxious for a glimpse of Beth, exposing
himself to abuse and
ridicule from bored older children. He played dead. He didn’t react. Rule one and
rule two. It almost felt good, earning bruises for a genuine purpose.
The lesser orphans of Streets (that is, nearly all of them) slept en masse on the
floor of crèche-like side vaults, several dozen to a room. When his dreams woke him
at night Locke would now try to stay awake, to strain his ears to hear past the murmuring
and rustling of those around him, to detect the coming and going of the Windows crew
on their secretive errands.
Before he’d always slept securely in the heart of his snoring fellows, or against
a nice comforting wall. Now he risked positions at the outer edge of the huddled mass,
where he could catch glimpses of people in the tunnels. Every shadow that passed and
every step he heard might be hers, after all.
His successes were few. He saw her at evening meals several times, but she never spoke
to him. Indeed, if she noticed him at all, she did a superb job of not showing it.
And for Locke to try and speak to her on his own initiative, with her surrounded by
her Windows friends, and they by the older bullies from Streets … no presumption could
have been more fatal. So he did his feeble best to skulk and spy on her, relishing
the fluttering of his stomach whenever he caught so much as a half-second glimpse.
Those glimpses and those sensations paid for many days of frustrated longing.
More days, more weeks passed in the hazy forever now of childhood time. Those bright
brief moments he’d spent in Beth’s presence, actually speaking to her and being spoken
to, were polished and re-polished in Locke’s memory until his very life might have
begun on that day.
At some point that spring, Tam died. Locke heard the mutterings. The boy was caught
trying to lift a purse, and his would-be victim smashed his skull with a walking stick.
This sort of thing wasn’t uncommon. If the man had witnesses to the attempted theft
he’d probably lose a finger on his weaker hand. If nobody backed his story, he’d hang.
Camorr was civilized, after all; there were acceptable and unacceptable times for
killing children.
No-Teeth went soon after that, crushed under a wagon wheel in broad daylight. Locke
wondered if it wasn’t all for the best. He and
Tam had been miserable in the Hill, and maybe the gods could find something better
to do with them. It wasn’t Locke’s concern anyway. He had his own obsession to pursue.
A few days after No-Teeth got it, Locke came home from a long, wet afternoon of work
in the North Corner district, casing and robbing vendor stalls at the well-to-do markets
there. He shook the rain from his makeshift cloak, which was the same awful-smelling
scrap of leather that served him as a blanket each night. Then he went to meet the
crowd of oldsters, led by Veslin and Gregor, who shook down the smaller children each
day as they came in with their takings.
Usually they spent most of their energy taunting and threatening Locke’s fellows,
but today they were talking excitedly about something else. Locke caught snatches
of the conversation as he waited his turn to be abused.
“… right unhappy he is about it … one of the big earners.”