The thieves were on the ground floor. Most like, they heard nothing as Malden landed, as soft as a pigeon settling on the roof. He lowered himself over the edge and placed his feet carefully on the open windowsill, then slid inside, as easy as that.

He took a moment to glance around him and study his new surroundings. He was in a bedroom, perhaps the chamber of the master of the house. The bed had a brocade canopy hung above it to keep insects from pestering its occupants. The floor was strewn with rushes scented with a faint perfume. Against one wall stood a pair of wooden chairs and a washbasin. Underneath the bed Malden found a dry chamber pot.

Malden could hear the thieves moving about on the ground floor. How smart were they, he wondered? He needed to make a judgment. If they were at all clever, they would leave the same way they came. Leave as little sign of forced entry as they could. If they were fools they would exit by the kitchen door on the ground floor. An easier method of escape, perhaps, but it would put them in full view of the windows of four other houses—and thus, potentially, any number of eyewitnesses.

No, Malden thought. This bunch wouldn't be that stupid. Cutbill—the master of the guild of thieves in Ness, and Malden's master—kept his eye open always for real talent in the criminal professions. Cutbill had singled these men out, of all the freelance thieves in the City, as Malden's next assignment. And Cutbill never sent Malden on such a mission if he didn't have good reason.

So they would leave through the upstairs window. Which meant Malden had to wait a little longer. He swept his cloak back to uncover the bodkin in its sheath at his hip. Then he reached into a long wooden case he kept strapped to his thigh and drew out three slender darts. He was very, very careful not to touch their tips.

“Make haste, make haste,” one of the thieves hissed from the stairs. Another grumbled out some profanity. There was the old familiar clink of metal objects bouncing in a sack. And then the first of them stepped into the bedroom, eyes peeled, watching the shadows just in case.

He did not think to look down, and so he stepped right into the chamber pot, which Malden had placed before the doorway.

“Son of a whore,” the thief howled, as he tripped forward into the room and went sprawling past Malden where he lay on the bed. The other two rushed into the room after their fellow. One held the candle high, while the other had a wicked long knife in his hand. All three of them held bulging sacks.