Knights of the Crown

Chapter 1

The thief crouched on the branch that reached toward the high wall of the estate. The night and the leaves concealed him for the most part, and the garb of his trade (or art, as he sometimes thought it) finished the work.

It was a summer night in Istar, so he wore shirt and trousers of light linen, dyed a soft, lustrous black and made to fit snugly, to avoid snagging on thorns or giving handholds to an enemy. His feet were shod with moccasins in the style of the Qualinesti elves’ rangers, silent, supple, and also black.

He wore sailors’ gloves, with strips of sharkskin woven into the palms for a better grip and light chain mail under the leather and sharkskin. He had no subtle sense of touch with these gloves, but for now he wanted his hands protected, not sensitive.

Where his shirt revealed his sinewy neck and throat, a dull glimmer of metal also revealed more light mail. A Knight of Solamnia or a seasoned officer in Istar’s army would have admired that mail-then wondered where its wearer had obtained it.

The wearer was alive and free today because he did not linger to answer such questions, even when he could not keep them from being asked in the first place.

Around his waist the thief wore a heavy belt of black leather, hung with various pouches that swayed ponderously and bulged suspiciously. They were rather an odd assortment, some bought in Pursemaker’s Square, some acquired during the course of the wearer’s “night work,” and some made with his own hands from properly bought-and-paid-for materials to hold special tools that not one of his craft could be trusted to see.

There were more than a few of the last, for the man had been a thief for nearly fifteen years.

On his head he wore a metal cap, forged to protect the back of his head and covered with black padding both within and without to prevent chafing and soften blows. It left his ears and the whole of his face, cheeks, and throat bare-except for a carefully applied coat of blackening.

Some of the thief’s comrades preferred all-encompassing combinations of hood and mask. Pirvan thought those interfered with an honest thief’s hearing, might slip out of position to block his eyes, and were generally as much hazard as help.

Even among those who blackened their faces, there were differing opinions about the best material. Some favored ashes of burned Glorious Beans, others elk’s-milk leaf mixed with dried bilberries, the whole burned while a Red Robe wizard cast certain minor spells over it. The thief felt that the first wore off too quickly, and that the second lasted forever-and took even longer to pay for. (Not all who lived by theft, he thought, were those who actually worked at night. There were more than a few who lived by selling to night workers that which they did not need at prices they could not truly afford.)

The crouching thief preferred a simple mixture of milk-washed hearth ashes and bear’s grease, applied generously. It had taken him some years to find a mixture that would keep anyone from gripping his face but would not shine in the moonlight, which could impartially betray thief or victim-and it did not matter which of the two bright moons cast the light. Virtuous Solinari and neutral Lunitari had at various times both helped and hindered the thief.

But he would have no more gone bare-faced to a night’s work than he would have gone full-armed. The only weapon that shared space on his belt with the purses was a stout-bladed dagger, with an even stouter pommel. That pommel had much to do with the dagger’s seldom having shed blood, as much as did Pirvan’s distaste for violence. With the dagger reversed and the pommel applied smartly to an opponent’s wrist, knee, or skull, it was a rare man who continued fight or pursuit, if he did not fall down senseless to wake later, in need of healing but not of burying or mourning.

The thief was more than a trifle proud of the fact that, though he had in his time profited enough from his night work to afford a manor (had he so chosen), no one mourned kin or swore vengeance for a life he had taken. There were those who had sworn to avenge the theft of every sort of possession, from strongboxes of golden coins to vials of alleged Qualinesti love potions. They were rare, however, folk who would avenge their goods, and less dangerous than those who sought blood.

Or so experience had taught the man who called himself Pirvan the Thief. (As with most of the brothers and sisters of the night work, he used no family name, to protect both himself and any kin.) Tonight experience would teach a different lesson, and set him on a long road away from night work. Pirvan the Thief was about to become a hero, because he could not resist the challenge of stealing the dowry jewels of Lady Eskaia of House Encuintras.

Pirvan was crouching by the wall around the Encuintras estate in a year when Istar ruled or at least reigned over all the human regions of Ansalon and more than a few lands held by other races. Its rule was neither as just as it had once been, nor as grasping as it later became. There were those among Istar’s subjects who thought times had been better when they had ruled themselves, but in any year few went beyond muttering into their ale in the company of discreet friends.

Those mutterers, the rulers of Istar (merchants, priests, and soldiers, with occasional reluctant advice from the Towers of High Sorcery) largely left in peace. If one did not molest the various instruments of Istar’s rule, one seldom suffered their attention.

It goes almost without saying that Istar’s rule brought wealth to the city. Indeed, never had Krynn seen so much wealth gathered in one place. The blood of fighters in the arena flowed over gilded armor, and there was at least bread and wine, clean water, and healing for all but the poorest.

This wealth changed hands by many means, from the most lawful (purchase or tax collection) down to the work of the common cutpurses and smash-and-snatch artists. Pirvan was a thief of the highest sort, who stole more than he needed to keep food in his belly only because he enjoyed the challenge of besting someone’s defenses.

Even Pirvan’s kind of thievery was not a recognized profession, with a guild of its own. Both the laws of Istar and the demonstrated will of the gods limited the lawfulness of thieves. But there were those among the ranks of the wise thieves who sat in judgment on their comrades when they behaved too much like cutpurses, killing, hurting without need, stealing too much or from those whom the loss would injure, or engaging in other outrages.

Pirvan’s hands had been clean these past fifteen years, and he was proud of the fact. But a man who practices both honor and theft walks a tightrope over the Abyss, and at various times good, neutral, and evil gods may give that rope a tweak, if only to see what may happen.

The idle curiosity of the gods had been the downfall of many men living less dangerously than Pirvan the Thief.

* * * * *

A light glimmered in the distance, roughly from the direction of the main house. The glow had to wriggle past too many leaf-heavy branches to tell Pirvan more. It was spring in Istar, a warm spring after a wet and mild winter, and growing things flourished exceedingly.

It was late enough in the day that Istar had fallen into slumber, and few with lawful business were abroad. The exceptions were the patrons of certain taverns and the workers at the markets and docks, unloading the night’s cargoes and making them ready for the day.

Those were all a long way from the estate. Nothing except the breeze and night birds broke the silence. Pirvan lowered himself onto a branch as cautiously as a cat stalking one of those birds, to keep it from creaking. He lay motionlessly until the light went out, without any noises coming to join it.

As far as he could tell, the Encuintras estate had joined the rest of Istar in slumber.

He studied the wall. It was three times his height and half his height broad. The top flourished no fewer than three rows of silvered iron spikes, one jutting outward, one jutting inward, and one revolving in a slot in the middle.

Those spikes were encouraging. People who built such stout physical defenses seldom went to the additional expense of magical ones-at least in Istar, where a thief who wielded potent spells was apt to have the mages, the priests, and the sharp steel of his comrades pursuing him to the death.

Pirvan had enough magical talent that he might have earned a modest living in one of the lesser traveling shows, doing minor conjury, juggling with the aid of a levitation spell, and so on. A modest illusion caster, he had firm command of only one considerable spell, and no hope of penetrating or defending himself against serious magical defenses.

However, the physical defenses he’d seen so far were formidable enough. His mail might protect him if he drove hard against any of the spikes; better not put it to such drastic proof. Besides, his agility was his greatest pride-though “a man most often ends in the arena for what he’s proudest of” was an old saying in Istar’s back streets.

Pirvan opened one purse, pulled out a long rope of tightly wound silken cord, and checked the loop at one end. He shifted position, lowered the rope until the loop had free play, then began to swing it.

Back and forth the loop danced like a pendulum, until Pirvan judged it was moving fast enough. Then he flicked both hands, and the loop soared up to drop over one of the spikes pointing inward. A brisk tug told Pirvan that it would hold.

He pulled up most of the slack, then tied it around his waist, leaving only enough for free movement. He swung around the branch until he was hanging from it like a squirrel, found good braces for his feet, and flung himself into the air.

He flipped over as he kicked off, and landed feet first on the outer row of spikes. They bent, groaning under the impact. For a moment Pirvan feared they would bounce him on to one of the other sets of spikes, back into the branches, or off the wall entirely.

With another groan the spikes straightened themselves, but so slowly that Pirvan was able to step off them and onto the top of the wall in good order. He knelt and thrust several thin bronze nails firmly into the slot holding the nearest set of revolving spikes. With a few taps of a small padded hammer, he drove the nails in, until a spear’s length of the revolving spikes was locked in place for the night.

Then he crossed the wall, stepping carefully and crouching low. Shards of glass and pottery were embedded edge-upward in the top of the wall, making him wish he had a layer of mail in his shoes. He was also glad he hadn’t put much weight on the rope so far.

Against the background of the tree and the night he should be hard to see from almost any angle. But if he was careless, as surely as Huma slew dragons, a pair of servants would find for an exchange of affection the one place that let them see him.

Perhaps they would have their attention elsewhere-and perhaps not. Pirvan remained crouching in silence until anyone who had seen him could have given the alarm five times over. He thought briefly of clever traps, decided that that was taking too much counsel from his fears, and swung himself on his hands over the inner row of spikes.

A moment later he’d slid down to the ground, tweaked the loop’s slipknot to free the rope, and gone to cover behind the nearest clump of bushes. They had the slightly sour odor of young rattlebeans, but a more pleasant scent and a few thorns told Pirvan that wood roses were twining around the rattlebean branches on their way up the inside of the wall.

Pirvan plucked a half-open rosebud and thrust it under the collar of his shirt. Then he crouched still lower and peered out from under the bush at the rest of the path to the house.

It was not a long way, perhaps fifty paces, and much of that offered cover enough for three minotaurs and a newly hatched dragonet. The nobles of House Encuintras clearly had gone right on flaunting their age-old skill at making splendid gardens, even now, when they no longer had to arrange so much as a bouquet with their own hands.

Some of the great merchant families modeled their estates on the manors, fortified or not, of the great landed lords. It was as if they wanted to suggest to the world that their ancestors had ruled broad expanses of land and armies of loyal peasants from the days of Vinas Solamnus, if not earlier.

Any self-respecting thief became something of an expert on any house that might offer worthwhile takings, and Pirvan had more curiosity than most. He knew how few of the great merchants had great-grandfathers they could present in public-and how House Encuintras was one with ancestors it could flaunt before all the world.

Indeed, the blood of Istar’s old protectors ran in Lady Eskaia’s veins. Yet everything between Pirvan and the house would hardly have made a decent kitchen garden on some estates. The house itself was large, but much of it unashamedly new, with no architectural fripperies to make it look ancient, and generally seemed no more than a merchant’s townhouse levitated to the middle of a well-wrought garden.

House Encuintras had probably been no more honest than most merchants, in the days when it had scrabbled for every coin. Now that those days were past, it could afford only-and even practiced-some honesty.

Pirvan liked this among the powerful. It made it more of a pleasure to match wits with them.

For the moment, he needed less keenness of wits than fleetness of foot. He studied the grounds, calling eyes, ears, and even nose to his aid. No guard animals appeared, neither dogs, leopards, nor griffons (not that this close to the city he expected to find even the youngest and tamest of griffons).

No human guards, either, though someone had to be watching from somewhere. It was against nature for treasure to go unguarded.

Pirvan took a moment to jerk the slipknot on the loop of his rope. It hissed down into the bushes; he untangled it and rewound it about his waist. To leave one’s rope ready might save a few seconds escaping, if one was lucky enough to escape the way one entered. More often, someone saw the rope, drew the appropriate conclusions, and raised the alarm at some inevitably inconvenient moment.

With the rope secured, Pirvan began his tortuous path toward the house. He had some surety about human and animal guards and magical defenses; less about mantraps and other mechanical devices. He darted from cover to cover, once using a fountain, another time a bench, but always crossing open ground as quickly as he could-which was faster than most men.

Each time he reached open ground, he faced a delicate decision, the kind he’d trained to make for half his life. Stay in the shadows, which might hide a mantrap, or cross open ground, where moonlight could reveal both traps and him? It helped that not only was he fleeter of foot than most men, but he could also see farther to either side.

His moccasins were smeared with an herbal oil that made it hard for any animal hunting by scent to track him. Every few paces he also dropped a small biscuit, baked from deergrass flour and both tempting and soporific to dogs and leopards.

Nothing lurked anywhere, nothing sprang out at him, and he reached the house without working up more sweat than the warm night had already raised under his clothing. He knew of thieves who did their night work, in spring and summer at least, in no more than a loinguard and tool belt, but that seemed an invitation to being assaulted and even repelled by common thorns.

Pirvan chose to maintain his dignity in the profession he practiced, if he could not turn to another.

From the rough plan of the house he’d obtained through devious means (including, but not limited to, indiscreet servants), he knew that the main strongroom was in the cellar, as usual. Another strongroom was off the kitchen, in the charge of the cook and holding the ceremonial tableware-doubtless valuable, but also heavy to remove and easily recognizable. (Those who melted down gold and silver articles were not above taking one bribe from a thief to hide his tracks, and another from the local watch to describe his face.)

There were also lesser strongrooms on the two family floors, and no doubt something on the upper floors for the servants who made enough (honestly or otherwise) to have possessions thieves would covet. Pirvan would not contemplate preying there; a ladies’ maid might have scrimped for ten years to buy a moonstone ring.

Nor would he have time or tools to defeat the kitchen or cellar locks. For that sort of work, only the thieves willing to invest in unlawfully potent magic or hideously expensive tool kits could escape without corrupting a servant. Pirvan had numerous objections to this course of action, not least of which was that you put your future in the hands of someone who, if bribed once, might be bribed a second time. One could not corrupt others without corrupting oneself (not wise for one whose work constantly threatened to push him over into evil.)

So it had to be the two family floors. What was the best way in? All the way up to the roof would give him the best chances to spy out the ground without being seen or (if lucky) heard by wakeful spit boys in the dormitories. However, the roof was a long way up, and its edge (at least on this side) was free of protrusions on which to catch a rope. The wall was almost equally free of climbing vines, close-crowding trees, trellises, or other conveniences for the thief in a hurry.

However, that was only one of at least seven and probably more walls. The house had originally been built as a simple square. It had soon thereafter sprouted protrusions on at least three sides, designed more to increase usable space than for beauty of design or keeping out intruders.

Pirvan began his circuit of the house.

On the third side he came to that amorous couple whom he had feared. They were making enough noise that he was in no danger of stumbling over them, as he would have needed to do to attract their attention. If their enthusiasm had not already wakened the whole house, Pirvan thought, those within could hardly be alert or watchful.

The fourth side offered a two-story wing, with a balcony atop it. The balcony railing would have been easy to hook, but Pirvan preferred loops to hooks (the debate over their respective merits was loud and long among those thieves whose night work required either). Fortunately the balcony’s uprights also ended in complex brass ornaments, with delicate lacing around solid cores, elven work, probably, or at least elven influenced-but stout enough to support Grimsoar One-Eye climbing a warship’s anchor chain.

Pirvan briefly wished that he had Grimsoar One-Eye either ready on the balcony to haul him up or at least waiting outside to cover their retreat. Dividing the fruits of tonight’s work would be no great matter with Grimsoar. Their methods for night work differed as greatly as their bodies-Grimsoar would make two of Pirvan-and they had not worked together for more than a year. Yet this had not made any great difference to their friendship.

Another brief wish: Would he ever find work where friends would be present in body instead of just his thoughts?

“He who wishes for stars will fall into ditches,” was a motto the thieves had adopted for their own, even if they had not invented it.

Pirvan cleared his mind of all but attention to his work and unwound the rope from his waist.

* * * * *

Reaching the balcony was the work of moments, and retrieving his rope the work of only a few more. He studied the grounds as he coiled the rope; the amorous pair was still at their night work. The woman seemed to have her eyes cast upward, but whether she saw anything farther than her partner’s forelock was open to doubt.

Pirvan had expected that the balcony would lead him to a corridor straight to the stairways. Instead, looking in through the metal lattices of the shutters showed him fine brocade curtains, and a gap in the curtains showed him a bedroom. A lady’s, he judged-and therefore not honorable prey, only a proper passageway to such.

For a short while, Pirvan had to wonder if he would ever reach the passageway. If the shutters weren’t dwarf work, they were something not much less robust. Cutting the metal without waking half of Istar would have taxed a dragon’s strength and ingenuity; it blunted several of Pirvan’s tools. It was only after this that he discovered the cunning lock, working from both outside and inside but virtually invisible from the outside. He had unblunted tools enough to make short work of that, and by the favor of Reorx the hinges did not squeal when he opened the shutters.

Inside was definitely the bedchamber of a wealthy young woman, doubtless a daughter of the house, perhaps even Eskaia herself. A night lamp let Pirvan see new masonry and fresh plaster where the walls were not covered thickly with paint or tapestry. Clearly there had been some alterations made to the family quarters since he had finished assembling his map.

Staying half behind curtains, half in shadow, Pirvan studied the room. The great canopied bed stood a dagger’s length off the floor and appeared to be occupied-at least the dark curls spread out over the pillow were no doll’s. Pirvan listened, heard soft but even breathing, and steadied his own breath until it was inaudible.

The room displayed wealth without flaunting it, and Pirvan’s opinion of the room’s occupant rose. Unfortunately, everything in the room was, as prey, even worse than dishonorable. It was like the ceremonial dinnerware, either too distinctive to dispose of safely or too stout to remove at all.

The table by the wall, for example-rose marble legs, a black marble top, a screen of silver and ebony set with aquamarine, and in the screen a silvered mirror and dozens of little gilded niches holding crystal pots with gold or even jeweled lids. Exquisite work, all of it, doubtless the lady’s grooming table, equally doubtless worth a good-sized farm-and so heavy that it would need two minotaurs willing to sweat to lift it!

Pirvan noted in his mind to collect one or two of the cosmetic pots if he needed to make a quick escape this way with nothing else to show for his night’s work. Then he sidled toward the door-at the exact moment that a key rattled in the lock.

Pirvan’s quickness knew few limits when his life or freedom were in danger. The night lamp was beyond the reach of his hand, but not beyond the reach of his dagger’s heavy pommel. It flickered out like a serpent’s tongue, crushing the flame out of the wick. Acrid smoke fought with and was finally subdued by the scent of roses and delicate perfume.

The door opened moments after Pirvan had found the best if least dignified concealment in the room-under the bed. He had time to hope that the newcomer was not a lover who was about to agitate the bed in conjunction with its occupant. At least one thief Pirvan knew had been seriously hurt under such circumstances, then captured because the bed’s occupants were not too besotted to notice the moans coming from under the bed!

He also had time for relief, that the newcomer was a woman. She was as tall as he and possibly as strong, judging from the solid wrists and the wide shoulders. The face was heart-shaped, however, the wide eyes an appealing green, and the hair (cut as if intended to fit under a helmet) shining and fair.

The woman wore sandals of gold-stamped leather, a robe of fine linen that clung to a figure well worth clinging to, and a broad, plain leather belt that held a purse and a dagger. Pirvan had no time to speculate what this curious combination might signify, when the woman turned and came straight for the bed.

Pirvan could not make himself invisible, but he did the next best thing. He cast the Spell of Seeing the Expected, making himself look like one of the spare quilts sprinkled with herbs and thrust under the bed in a silken bag. He was sure he only roughly matched the shape and probably did not match the color at all, but the woman was unlikely to look under the bed with a lamp in her hand, and the spell would conceal him against anything short of that.

The woman did not look under the bed. Instead she knelt beside it and reached both hands beneath without looking. If she had looked, Pirvan’s luck might have been up, because her left hand passed within a finger’s length of his nose. Even in the shadows and through the faint blurring of the spell, Pirvan saw that the hand was strong and shapely, with short, clean nails, weapon calluses on palms and fingers, a fresh, ridged scar across the back, and a shallower, older scar on the wrist.

Both hands gripped something in the deeper shadows just above Pirvan’s head and withdrew. He heard the clink of a lock or catch, something falling, something else (heavier and wooden, he thought) also falling, and another clink. He saw the hands returning, this time clearly holding something thin, dark, and rectangular. They seemed to lay it down in thin air, then withdrew again.

Pirvan waited long after the hands withdrew, and even a good while after the hands’ owner withdrew. Apart from relighting the night lamp, the warrior-lady did not linger, and Pirvan now remembered tales that one of Lady Eskaia’s chief maids, being a retired mercenary, also served as her bodyguard.

Why retired? Pirvan asked the shadows. She’s younger than I am, or I’m a gully dwarf.

Pirvan reached cautiously into the shadows until his fingers met something in the right place. A cautious tap said “wood.” A cautious grasp brought down a wooden strongbox, as plain as any journeyman carpenter had ever made for himself, to hold the day’s earnings.

Indeed, it lacked even the simplest of locks. Clearly this was something protected by secrecy rather than strength. Pirvan flipped the latch, trusting to his gloves to guard him against any spring-thrust poisoned needles.

Instead his grip slipped, and the box upended, spilling a dozen small, irregular silk packages to the floor. They were about the size of large lumps of charcoal, but from the sound they made, were a good deal heavier. They also felt heavier in Pirvan’s hands, and when he opened one, he understood why.

After opening the rest, he understood much more. He held in his hand a fortune in gemstones, enough to buy this estate or dower Lady Eskaia for marriage to a prince. Rubies, moonstones, serpent’s-crowns, and more-none set, but all cut and faceted by the hand of a master. Possibly of use in magic, but one would have to deal with a mage to sell them for that. Without that dishonorable and dangerous course, they were still of use in giving one Pirvan the Thief an easy life for some time.

If Lady Eskaia and her house could spare that much. The jewels being concealed this way suggested that they were a secret between the lady and her martial maid. This suggested that they would not raise a great uproar about their disappearance.

The jewelers also would not raise an uproar. But they might ask hard questions about more than-oh, six such bags. Since each bag contained seven or eight jewels each worth a month’s easy living, Pirvan decided against taking more than six. Indeed, three might be enough-but since he had never encountered such a light and valuable fruit of a night’s work, why not make it four?

Four bags of jewels were in a pouch carefully left empty for just such a purpose when Pirvan crawled out from under the bed and began retracing his steps.