The Blacktongue Thief

3 Tick-Turd

“Goblin silver, eh?” said the oldish woman scowling through a lens at Stinkleathers’s ring, not that she needed a lens to know it had been worked under a goblin’s hammer; goblin silver gave light back green, and some thought its weird beauty put gold to shame. And by some, I mean me. The light of her candle-lamps showed off my open-hand tattoo to great effect as well. “And yer on the bad side of the Takers. Ye want work?”

She didn’t really want to hire me for anything. She wanted to know how hungry I was. She didn’t get her shop full of high-end stolen goods by hiring people she didn’t know.

“I’m already working, but thank you.”

“Think nothin’ of it.”

Turns out that’s exactly what I thought.

“Who’s working ye, then? Ye with Cobb?”

“Ten shillings,” I said, “and I’ll be grateful for any owlets.”

She laughed, showing the brown nubs that passed for teeth.

“Owlets I got, but yer nae getting ten. More like six for this.”

“We both know it’s worth fifteen to you, and you’ll sell it for a queening and a gold whore. My game is I ask for one shilling more every time you offer less than I say. Now I want eleven. If you prefer to give me twelve, offer me seven.”

“Why, ye little tick-turd,” she said.

“I don’t charge for you calling me things, I like being called things. But if you want this beautiful bit of silver greening, I need eleven, preferably—”

“Owlets, yae, I know, ye little—”

“If you call me a tick-turd again, it’s twelve. I only love laziness in myself.”

She shut her nub-box, then squinted at me.

A snoring came down at us through the roof-boards.

Her eyes unsquinted.

“Yes, I know, he was going to follow me out and give me rough hugs in the alley if you said so. I did a little sleep spell while you goggled my ring. A cantrip. Small magic. Thief magic. Wouldn’t have worked on a strong-minded fellow, but that one’s overfond of his beer and stretching his shirts a bit, judging by his snore. Fat men have a singular snore.”

As if to illustrate, the snore hitched, paused, then sawed down louder.

“I’ll give ye nine just to get ye and yer eastie talk out of here the faster, ye Galtish tick-turd.”

“You’ll give me thirteen because you threw low and then repeated yourself.”

She moved like she meant to toss me out herself, but then settled back in place.

“Ten, and that’s robbery enough.”

“Fourteen. And if you hesitate again, I might start thinking how the shop on Featherbow Street there under the bell tower might like to have a look at this. Spider sign over that one—Cobb’s, yeah? Rival of yours? Used to be a lover when you could both see what you peed with? Just that little bit of sour warmth in your voice when you mentioned him earlier. The fact you haven’t kicked me out yet tells me you’ll pay fifteen like I said, but if you’re quick and smart, I’ll take fourteen because I’m sentimental and you remind me of the smelly old woman who took my virginity.”

She pressed her mouth shut by sheer tonnage of will, counted out fourteen shillings, none of them owlets, and shoved them at me, pocketing the ring. I pursed up my money, wondering if she was really going to let me go without a last rejoinder.

She wasn’t.

She hissed the next bit like an Urrimad basket-snake.

“I can see ye think yer clever, and praps y’are, but by my lights, yer nothin’ but a dirty, blacktongue thief and will ne’er be more.”

I smiled an oily smile, half bowed, and stepped out backward, just dodging a strand of drool probing its way down from a murder-hole in the ceiling.

I heard something break against the door after I shut it.

I truly love the thrill of commerce.

Now I was off to the Takers Guild to see how much of their carefully rationed goodwill I might buy back.