Den of Thieves by David Chandler Read Free Book Online Page A

silence. “Croy, I warned you, when last we met, that I would not suffer you to return here. Yet you broke the letter of your banishment. I hope you have a very good reason.”
    â€œI do,” the knight said, bowing his head. “I came for love.”
    The crowd erupted in noise. Some jeered, some expressed the utter disbelief that Malden felt on hearing this. Others, many of them, cried out in sympathy. Tarness shook his head and sat down on his throne. “Enough of this nonsense. Proceed.”
    â€œWait! Let me speak in my defense, I beseech you!” the knight shouted. “When you hear my tale, I am sure—”
    Tarness made a gesture with one hand and the hangman struck Croy across the face. The Burgrave looked away in disgust and said, “Gag him so I don’t have to listen to this. And then proceed.”
    Even Malden had to admit he found that a trifle unfair. The man was about to die—he ought to be allowed to prattle on if he liked. He gave in to his instinct to join the chorus of boos and hissing that welled up from the crowd.
    Still, he had not come to see the knight’s final distress, but only to do a little hard labor and reap a harvest of coin. He looked away from the scene on the gibbet and moved through the boisterous crowd, now looking for a final victim before he retired for the day. It would be easy to take a purse at the moment the hanged man dropped. At that moment every eye in the square would be turned to the same place. Few easy marks presented themselves, however, and suddenly Malden was in danger of being trampled. Some among the crowd had begun to shout for the prisoner’s release, raising their fists in the air. They drew closer to the gallows, as if they might storm it and save the man themselves. The bailiff waved for the watch. The town’s policing force, dressed alike in cloaks patterned with embroidered eyes, rushed into the throng and pushed back with their quarterstaffs until the crowd gave some way.
    Knowing it would be folly to try to take another purse right under the noses of the city watch, Malden shrank back, away from the gallows, and stumbled backward directly into what felt like a wall of jangling iron.
    He whirled about, a curse on his lips, but this he forestalled as he saw whom he’d tripped over. A man much broader and taller than himself who loitered at the back of the crowd, aloof from it as if immune to its bloodlust. He wore a hauberk of chain mail covered by a jerkin of black leather. His head was covered in a wild tangle of brown hair that didn’t end until it wrapped around his chin in a full and glorious beard. The man peered down at him as if from a considerable height. A jagged scar crossed the bridge of his nose, nearly bisecting his face.
    â€œSteady on there, boy,” the big man said. “Are you hurt? Ah, but now I see you are. I’m a blasted pillock for not seeing you there.”
    Malden licked his lips. He’d been ready to call the man far worse than that until he saw the massive sword strapped to his back. So instead he kept his mouth shut, because he had a brain in his head. He never argued with a man wearing a sword. He held his peace for another reason as well. Under his sling, his long thin fingers had touched a fat purse on the swordsman’s belt. By the way it hung low and heavy, it must contain something more precious than copper.
    Up on the viewing platform the dwarf Murdlin was trying desperately to get the Burgrave’s attention. Malden was barely aware that anyone else in the square existed. He was too busy running his fingertip across the milled edge of a coin inside the swordsman’s purse. It must be silver, he thought, just based on how it felt.
    It was folly to steal from a man so heavily armed, recklessness of a sort Malden never permitted himself. Yet the oaf had bruised him. Malden feigned unsteadiness and let the swordsman grasp his left arm. With his right