It was a fortune. It was a bondage—until he paid it, he would be Cutbill’s slave, working for nothing but the payment of that blood price. It might take him a year to earn as much, even if he redoubled his efforts, even if he picked only the richest plums—plums, he was certain, that were already on Cutbill’s list of protection.

One hundred and one! Royals! Coins so valuable the average journeyman in an honest guild might earn but one for a year’s work. All of the plate and cutlery he’d taken from Guthrun Whiteclay, if sold to a very forgiving and generous fence, would earn him but two royals, perhaps three.

One hundred and one!

He reached his lodgings barely cognizant of the path he’d taken. He had a room above a waxchandler’s shop, not much at all, but it was clean. He had a mattress full of straw which he went to as soon as he arrived. The plates and silver he had stashed underneath, below a loose floorboard. He was not surprised to find them gone. One of Cutbill’s thieves must have broken in here to get them back. In their place was a bottle of cheap wine. A strip of paper was wound around its neck. When he unfolded the note he read:

Welcome to the guild.

It was signed, of course, with a crude drawing of a heart transfixed by a key.

Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

He drank the whole bottle and got rather drunk and lay in his bed with the world whirling around him, alternately cursing and blessing Cutbill’s name. The guildmaster of thieves had held him to ransom—a ransom so large as to be absurd. Only a fool would take the offer, only an idiot would think he could make a hundred and one gold royals before he was stooped and old.

And yet . . . and yet . . . he kept coming back to what Cutbill had said. Freedom. Not a slave, but a prisoner. But he could break those shackles. Free himself, if he had the cash. Money meant everything in Ness, just as it meant everything the world around. A man with money was his own—he could buy fine clothes, buy a house of his own, buy, in short, respect. The good honest folk spat at him in the street now. With enough money they would tip their hats when he walked past. No, when he rode past, in a fine carriage, with a liveried servant driving the horses . . .

It was unimaginable. Impossible. And yes, alone, he could never do it. He could never be more than a petty thief, a second story man, fated to an ignominious death. But with Cutbill, with the power of the guild of thieves behind him . . .

His whole life could change. It could mean something, just like his mother had always wanted. Just like she’d dreamed of. Despaired of, on her deathbed.