The speed and certainty of Pinch's resolve left the pair dazed. "Get going,"

he had to repeat before they actually stirred. "And, Sprite, mind your wandering fingers for now. I don't want you caught before the hanging."The halfling's expression moved from dazed to disappointed. "All those purses, and I can't touch them. It was the only good to come out of this whole hanging," he muttered as he slid from his chair and made for the door. Corrick rose, eyes filled with dark misgivings, and followed the halfl ing. He rubbed the filthy wool of his jerkin, getting the blood back into the arm Pinch had squeezed.

"What about me, dearie?" Maeve asked. "What you got for me?"

The master thief cast a look toward the door before speaking, making sure his accomplices were on their way. When it was closed fast, Pinch turned back to the woman beside him. "Now, Maeve-good Maeve-you said it was queer how poor Therin was bagged."

"I said it weren't right, Pinch, that's what I said."

Pinch poured her a drink from the skin Wilmarq had ordered. "And it was, Maeve. It was unnatural the way they came to your place. You spoke true; it weren't right. The whole thing's no better than a forger's will, I think." He pushed the mug in front of the doxy. "Tell me, Maeve, you know how long it takes a man to hang?"

The towering three-story stone edifice known as the High Prison was one of Elturel's lesser known oddities. No other city of her size could boast such a magnificent structure for the incarceration of the criminal cla.s.ses. Elturel's Lord Dhelt, in a fit of enlightenment, had the place built "for the reformation of those G.o.dless wretches held within." There, prisoners once kept in the dank cellars of the High Hall and the n.o.bles' palaces could be treated as humanely as they deserved. That was the intent anyway.

Pinch didn't care what the high rider's stated purpose was. The High Prison was just another part of his life, like the thin drizzle blowing in from the River Chionthar. The thief pulled up his cloak to keep the mist from forming cold beads on the back of his neck while he waited outside the prison. Finally the latches rattled and the gate yawned open with a creaking moan. The hinges on the old wooden door always needed oiling, perhaps so their harsh rasp would inspire a little more terror in those about to enter. It would be sensible to think that a thief, especially a thief who'd spent time behind the prison's walls, would feel a shiver of dread as he stood on that portal. If Pinch was uncomfortable, he showed not a sign of it.

"Good morn, Dowzabell," the thief greeted the turnkey who opened the door. "How is your trade these days?"

"Not so good as when you paid me for a room in the Master's Side,"

Dowzabell groused. He was a stooped-shouldered ox of a man and blind in one eye to boot. He'd been jailed himself fifteen years ago for his bad debts.

Now he was the turnkey and all but ran the prison, collecting "fees" from the prisoners to keep them from the worst cells the place had to offer. His profits were usually good. "I suppose you're here to see Therin off, Master Pinch?"

"A kind word for his last day," the thief said as he stepped inside, pressing a coin into the turnkey's open hand. "Here's a flag for you. Now lead on."

Dowzabell didn't move until he'd inspected Pinch's silver, holding it up to his one good eye to make sure it wasn't the work of some false coiner. Finally he stuffed it into his breeches and shuffled through the anterooms and down the hall.

The way did not take them to the rooms of the Master's Side, where aprisoner could have a suite that included a bath and servants, or to the Knight's Side, which was barely less well appointed. Therin, who'd never been close with his money, couldn't afford either, though he had at least enough to pay for one of the better cells on the Common Side.

They finally stopped at a row of wooden doors lining a hall strewn with matted straw. In a far alcove stood a small dusty altar. A robed priest sitting at a battered table next to it looked up with interest as they entered, then continued his prayers for the condemned. The words were a soft drone, said without much conviction, and the priest kept peering Pinch's way. After a few tendays of unrelenting boredom, any diversion came as a welcome break.

Pinch waited while the trustee fumbled for the key that unlocked one of the cell doors. "Visitor, Therin. Make sure you're dressed," he shouted through the thick wooden door. Jiggling the pa.s.skey in the lock, the trustee kept talking.

"Therin's not living as well as you did, sir, when you stayed here. I mean, the Commons is a far cry from the Master's Side. I thought he was your friend."

Dowzabell's comment was stated with some puzzlement.

The great tumblers in the lock clanked as the key turned. "No point wasting money on a hanged man," Pinch coolly answered. As he spoke, the trustee drew the bolt back and pushed the door open. The odor was thick with the smell of the cesspits, so much so that Pinch covered his face with a sweet- scented handkerchief.

Therin sat on the hard bed at the back of his cell. The only light in the chamber came from a small, barred window high on the wall. Thick gloom cloaked the prisoner, half-hiding his big, farmhand's body. With his broad shoulders and gangly arms, Therin hardly looked the thief, but Pinch had found his size more than useful for keeping the others of his gang in line.

"Master Pinch!" Therin breathed in surprise as the graying thief entered the small, untidy cell. The prisoner sprang up and brushed the mattress clean.

Little black specks hopped out of the ticking at the sweep of his hand. "Please sit, sir!"

Pinch ignored the offer and pressed three gold coins into Dowzabell's hand.

"Go join the priest for a round of prayers. I want to be alone with him.

Understand?" The trustee looked at the money in his fat hand, then silently closed the door. Pinch could hear the bolts and locks rattling into place.

"Lad," Pinch started, at no loss for words, even to a doomed man, "I'm-"

"Have the magistrates found some cause for my plea? Have they stayed the execution?" Therin blurted, asking with the overeagerness of a man who knows his chances are already lost.

"No. You're to be dropped on the gallows this afternoon, Therin," Pinch stated baldly through the lace he pressed over his nose.

"Did you try challenging the writ?" the other asked helplessly.

"It's all done for. You saw it. The writ was proper." The master thief lowered his napkin to see if he'd acclimated to the stench yet. With the first breath his nostrils curled, and he had to fight back a wave of repugnance; it pa.s.sed quickly. Stuffing the kerchief away he looked deep into Therin's pleading eyes.

Pinch disliked the man's desperation.

"Listen well, Therin. You were nabbed with the garbage in your hands.

There wasn't a witness to be had who could stand by you for that. You're going to hang."

Therin sagged onto his cot, head clasped in his hands. He moaned to thefloor, "I could still give somebody up. They might pardon me for-"

"Stow that noise if you want to live!" Pinch snapped. He seized the condemned man by the chin and pulled his face up till their eyes met. "You've done us rightly till now and you'll not turn stag. Keep your silence and you might not hang-understand?"

Therin's eyes grew wide with hope and amazement. "You've bought me free of here?" An eager hand clutched at Pinch's velvet sleeve.

"Something like," Pinch lied. "You've stood us true till now, and I've not forgotten it." Pinch knelt beside the other so their voices could be hushed.

"I've got a plan."

With those words, Therin shoulders eased with relief. He knew that when his master plotted, nothing was impossible. "What's my part in it?"

"Too little and maybe too much," Pinch said mysteriously. "When they cart you through the streets, give them a couple of good sermons on your sins. I'll need the time."

"Look upon me, citizens, and learn! Dishonestly I have lived my life and this is my reward!" Therin solemnly p.r.o.nounced as he rose to his feet in a pose of mock piety. "How's that?"

"Good enough," Pinch allowed. "Just remember, no matter what happens after that, or how bad it may seem, don't lose your nerve."

Therin sat back to huddle by his chief. "I won't. I been true up to now, ain't I?".

"Well and true, well and true." With his bad leg protesting at kneeling so long, Pinch had to surrender to the fleas and sit beside his companion. His eyes were distant as he mulled over a puzzle no one else could see. "Tell me, Therin," he finally broached, "tell me again how you got taken."

The prisoner snorted at the curious request. "I don't know why. You've heard it before."

Pinch said nothing, but waited for Therin to get on with it. When the condemned man finally realized Pinch was serious, he struggled to remember. His brow knitting from the effort to recall the facts, he began: "I'd just done a bit of the lifting over on Stillcreek Lane, the Firdul job we'd plotted. I was the lift. Corrick was the marker. I'd snagged some pretty pieces of plate from the silversmith, so I went over to Maeve's to show her the garbage. Just about as soon as I get there, the constables raise the hue and cry. Before I can make for the broker, the h.e.l.lriders come bursting in."

"Where was Corrick?"

"We was to meet at Gurin's to split the purchase and do some boozing."

The farmhand-turned-thief waited for more questions, but his chief suddenly seemed to lose interest in the tale.

"Like Maeve said, it weren't right," Pinch finally murmured as he set the kerchief back to his nose.

"You thinking somebody gave me up? Corrick?"

"Maybe, just maybe."

"What're you going to do to him?" Therin asked eagerly, a dead man looking for revenge.

"Right now, nothing. I've got him stealing a cart and team." Pinch smiled at the irony of it. "That much he'll do."

Their musings were interrupted by the rattling of the lock. "Your time's over, Master Pinch," echoed Dowzabell's voice from the other side of the door. "Thepatrico's here to take your man's prayers."

"To your plans, Pinch," Therin offered in empty toast.

"Bar your talk, Dowzabell's coming."

The door swung open and the trustee entered. Behind him followed the thin, robed priest, a chapbook of prayers clutched in his pious hands. "He's yours, Patrico, though I wouldn't expect much repentance from him." The priest shot Dowzabell a sour look before the door closed between them.

Dowzabell led Pinch back to the gate in silence, but along the way the trustee seemed unusually watchful for eavesdroppers. The thief knew the old turnkey's ways. The man had eyes and ears everywhere, and a mind for profit. It was clear he had something to sell, if Pinch would meet his price.

When Dowzabell turned back from unbarring the gate, he found a gold n.o.ble sitting on the bench by the entrance.

Though his greedy eyes widened a little, the trustee pocketed the coin as if it were a copper penny. He motioned Pinch toward a quiet alcove.

"What I know's worth more," the turnkey promised as they huddled in the shadows. "In advance." Dowzabell held out his hand.

"I'll judge," was Pinch's cool reply as he fingered another coin under the trustee's nose.

Dowzabell scowled. "Your man was turned."

"Not even worth the coin I gave you. I knew."

"But you don't know who. Wilmarq was drunk and bragging about it in a tavern a few nights ago. I heard it from his men."

"So who'd they say it was this time, Sprite or Corrick?" Pinch lied glibly.

Dowzabell's jaw sagged like a limp sail. "Corrick," the trustee mumbled.

With a contemptuous laugh, the thief stuffed the second coin down the man's shirt. "You were always too greedy, Dowzabell. Someday it'll catch up with you."

The trustee closed the gate as Pinch strode into the growing rain, his mind already turning on the interlocking wheels of plots within schemes.

The streets to Shiarra's Market were never hard to follow, but today a blind foreigner could have found the square. A hanging was as good as a holiday in Elturel. The better part of the city turned out for the event, so many folk that the tide of traffic flowed only one way. While pa.s.sing through the rain-slicked streets, Pinch was offered "The True and Tragic Life of Therin Jack-a-Knaves as Confirmed by this Gentleman," by three different pamphleteers, all for only a few coins. Judging from the covers thrust under his nose, each work was different from the others. They were, if not completely false, highly exaggerated, for in each Therin was the master of a whole gang. Pinch wondered just what lies would be written about him the day he was finally scragged on the leafless tree.

By the time he reached the square, it was already packed with eager onlookers. Most of the town's apprentices had contrived to escape their masters and come for the hanging. Their masters were probably here, too, blissfully believing their apprentices were minding their shops. An enterprising bard had got himself onto a roof that overlooked the square and was serenading his captive audience while a shill worked the crowd for money.

Pinch resisted the urge to palm a coin out of the hat when the boy came by, but he took careful note of the musician overhead. The bard would havemoney later tonight and just might be worth tracking down.

Reluctantly the upright man stowed thoughts of other business and worked his way round to Dragoneye Lane. He was on edge. The plan was at stake. If Corrick or Sprite failed him now, everything would come to naught. Pinch was less worried about Corrick's part in things. He guessed the old cutpurse would play at being loyal just to avoid discovery. Sprite's was another matter, and the rogue could only hope the halfling kept his fingers out of other people's pockets.

The whinnies of a nervous team and the shadow of a wagon told Pinch that at least one of the thieves had come through. He wormed through the crowd and into the alley where Corrick and his wagon waited.

They were all there-Sprite, Corrick, and Brown Maeve. She was soothing the horses, which had been made skittish by the crowd. Pinch slapped her on the rump as he squeezed past. "Keep watch," he ordered before turning to the others. Corrick sat on the seat, reins ready, while Sprite hung over the cart's rail, munching an apple he'd no doubt lifted from a peddler's basket. Sprite never paid for anything that wasn't locked down. "All's done?" Pinch demanded.

Corrick gave a peg-toothed smile and waved to the cart and team. "Best I could get, Pinch," he bragged. The team was actually nothing to brag about- a scrawny pair, spotty with mange, their necks callused with years in the collar. At least the wagon was sound. The back was covered with a patched canvas awning where they could hide. Somewhere, Pinch guessed, there was a rag-and-bone man trying to find his wagon.

"Well, Sprite? The sewers-how close can we get?"

The halfling threw aside his apple core and climbed onto the wagon's seat.

He pointed over the heads of the crowd to a shop across the square. "Better'n I thought. See the weaver's? In line with that, maybe a stone toss from the triple tree." At this distance, the weaver's and the gallows were no more than a hand's breadth apart.

"Can you guide us once we're in the tunnels?"

"Marked it out this morning, Pinch."

Pinch suppressed the urge to congratulate himself. The job wasn't done yet. "Well done, boy." The master signaled his accomplices to join him, and join him quick they did. "Maeve, you two, listen wise, 'cause here's the plan.

"We're body collecting. Maeve's already spread it through the crowd that a group of wizards are wanting the body for dissecting." The wizardress mock- curtsied slightly at mention of the part she'd played so far. "That should suit the crowd out there fine. Saves them the fear of anyone resurrecting Therin after he's dead."

Sprite scowled-he'd always been picky about grave-robbing and the like- but Pinch added, "That's just so we can get the wagon close. Then, just before the drop, Maeve'll use her spells to whisk Therin out of the twined hemp. When that happens, Corrick will whip the team into the crowd. We'll all make for Sprite's bolt-hole and be out of here before they know what's happened."

"That's your plan?" Sprite asked incredulously. "I think old Corrick here was right-we should have been huggering this out in another town."

"Well, we're 'ere and there's no point 'uggering now, Sprite," Corrick croaked. "I say we give Pinch 'is due. Don't 'is plans always work?""There's no time to waste," Pinch barked. "In the cart, all of you." With easy grace, he swung into the back, then helped the less-agile Maeve alongside.

Sprite tumbled in beside them and pulled up a span of canvas to roughly cover them. From the shadowed interior, the three had a narrow view of the still-vacant scaffold.

A roar went up from the crowd as a crier mounted the gallows platform, the writ of execution rolled under his arm. The official swung his bell in a futile attempt to get silence.

"Go, Corrick."

The ancient gave a flick of the reins, and the horses got the cart moving with a rough lurch. The pa.s.sengers bounced in the back as the wheels rolled down the cobbled street.

A wild cheer, part savage, part joyous, rose from the crowd as the cart entered the square. The roar died down as quick when the mob realized the covered wagon was not the executioner's cart. With a vigorous application of the whip on the horses and the crowd, Corrick was able to force their pa.s.sage through the pressed throng.

While the bald Corrick was absorbed in driving the team, Pinch leaned forward for a whispered word in the halfling's slightly fuzzy ear. "Sprite, listen close. I need five hundred in n.o.bles. Can you fig it for me quick?"

The small cutpurse's eyes widened at the mere mention of the amount.

"Five hundred-now?"

"Or Therin swings. It's the only way."

"Send Therin to the denizens!" Sprite swore under his breath; but Pinch was counting on the halfling's love of the challenge, not his love of Therin.

"Five hundred?" Sprite asked again as he scanned the crowd, taking the measure of the gulls. The congregation was teeming with them-fat masters enjoying their mistresses, overworked vendors unmindful of their wallets, drunken craftsmen, even a gentleman with his entourage. "Me and Purse- Nipper can do it," the halfling noted boastfully, palming a small knife from the sheath strapped to his wrist.