The safe cache was a cotton sack she wore inside her tunic, low enough that her breasts hid the lump. It already had two wallets and a silver necklace in it. She kept her eyes on the pavement near Nimal’s boots. She never looked at the mark. To her, they were only ever blurs at the edge of her vision. Little Coop’s feet appeared close to Nimal’s, and she shifted toward them. The critical moment came. Nimal grunted and a woman’s voice made a wordless sound of affront at the same moment Little Coop brushed by Sammish, passing something into her hand which she slipped into the little sack under her tunic through a slit at the seam. Three steps on, her hands were free and empty, the victim and her crew behind her. Cane’s yelp was just part of the show, an extra distraction that added to the confusion. Even if the bluecloaks asked the victim what had happened, it would all be so addled and unsure that the story they heard would be more invention than truth.
This one was smart, though. Sammish wasn’t more than a dozen steps away before the woman shouted for the guard. Of all the crew, she was the most at risk because she was the one carrying all that they’d stolen. Despite that, her heart didn’t race. She looked over her shoulder with mild interest. The woman was Hansch, but broad across the shoulders. Her face was dark and her hands were in fists at her side, the very image of outrage. Nimal caught Sammish’s eye and gestured that the pull was done, and to leave. Sammish made herself feel a mild curiosity—I wonder what all that’s about—and then lose interest and turn away.
It was her secret. She had learned young how to trick herself. For the moment, and for several minutes more as she walked toward the low wall that kept city and river apart, she could genuinely believe that she was innocent, and that the commotion, whatever it was, had nothing to do with her. She could perform belief so deeply that she could even fool herself. There were only a few places in her life where her little talent failed her. She couldn’t convince herself not to be afraid of the water snakes that lived in the canals or to stop craving the wheat beer they sold outside the university.
And Alys.
Alys was back in Longhill now, not across the river in her self-imposed exile in the cell of Oldgate. She always made a show of being pleased to see Sammish when they met. If she counted the minutes and hours they spent together, it likely wouldn’t have been all that different from what they’d done before Darro died. It was only that Sammish felt herself being left behind, and it ached.
She had imagined that the search for Darro’s killers would bring Alys closer to her. She’d imagined other things after that, and all of them seemed equally absurd and pathetic in cold daylight. As she walked along the street near the southern wall of the city, she let herself go over her fantasies again, but with a distance: examining them rather than surrendering to them, probing them like she was picking at a scab. She passed along the waterfront, looking out over the boats being made ready for the winter freeze. She paused, feeling the cold against her face and watching the men hauling at the dark, wet ropes, prying the wood and pitch that was their livelihood up out of the Khahon before the river squeezed them to splinters and ate them. Everyone knew water was hungry.
The sun was behind Palace Hill by the time she got back to Longhill and the Pit. The long walk had given her enough time to go from feeling sorry for herself to being angry to a kind of exhausted peace. The heat of the tavern’s air was almost a shock as she stepped into it. It wasn’t the fire, though a small one was muttering to itself in the grate. The Pit was thick with bodies, and the barn heat was enough to make the place almost uncomfortable. She slipped her hand through the slit in her tunic and kept it on her safe cache. More than once, someone had thought it was a clever idea to wait here and steal someone else’s day’s work. She wove her way back to the little table where Nimal and Cane were already waiting.
“Where’s Coop?” she asked as she sat on the little stool that waited for her. It was too short, and the legs weren’t even.
“He’ll be here by the time we’ve counted out,” Nimal said, and while it was likely true, Sammish bristled a little at his overbearing manner. Rules were you waited until everyone was there to make the split, but it wasn’t her job to watch Little Coop’s back. If he objected, he could talk to Nimal directly. She pulled three wallets, the silver necklace, and the leather pouch that the last, outraged woman had lost out on the table, and opened them one at a time while Nimal and Cane watched her hands. Palming a coin or two during the split was another pull, and while Sammish didn’t do it, she didn’t resent anyone being on the alert for it.
It was a decent haul. Bronze and silver coins for the most part, but also the necklace. One of the wallets had a little carved blackwood horse that probably wasn’t worth anything, but it was nicely made. Sammish leaned back, and Cane made the division. Four piles that were as close as he could judge worth the same. Little Coop arrived while he was doing it. If he was upset that they’d started without him, he didn’t show it.
With the four piles made, she and Little Coop and Nimal would each choose theirs, and Cane would get the fourth. Or that was how it was meant to go. After Little Coop took his, though, Nimal pushed one of the three remaining to Cane.
“Take it, and give us the table, yeah?”
They all hesitated, but then Cane shrugged, scooped up the pile he’d been given, and took Little Coop with him as he left. They vanished into the press of bodies like stones dropped in water. The sound of the crowd, conversations rising over each other to be heard, made a roar that would keep anything the two of them said from being overheard. Nimal leaned forward, careful not to put his hands near the coins.
“Had a proposition for you,” he said. “May have something you want.”
“You do,” Sammish said, and nodded to the two piles still between them. “It’s right there.”
“Weeks back, you were asking about Orrel. Would it be worth your cut to find him?”
Sammish felt herself go quiet. This was why he’d told the others to leave. If she’d given up her part before, they might have wanted a three-way split. The question was, what did she want? Any money Orrel had from the pull on coronation day was more than likely already spent.
The only other thing he had was information about Darro. Whether Alys’s brother had found him. And if he had, what had happened.
Sammish looked down at the coins. It was her room and her food. A fresh pair of boots. She wanted a beer and a roasted chicken and a warmer blanket. And a job at the brewer’s taking wagers behind the iron grate. Alys wouldn’t know if Sammish chose herself for once. She’d worked for it.
She put out her hand to grab up her share of the take, but what she did instead was pluck out a silver and two bronze. Something like shame or exhaustion sat on her chest, heavy as a cat, as she tucked the coins in her belt and left the rest for him.
Nimal smiled at her. One of his teeth was blue-dark and rotting. “Fair enough,” he said.
Alys held the iron key with her fingertips, rolling it to feel the roughness of the metal. Her boots were soundless against the stones, and a cold wind from the east smelled like coming snow. Newmarket was closing around her as she walked. The stalls and tables that lined the streets were empty now, the food and cloth and leather hauled back behind locked doors for the night. The canopies that weren’t yet furled were being taken in. It made the street feel wider than it was, like she was a great lady with her way cleared before her.