“Indeed it does,” the dwarf agreed. “But it might also sing profit. Trouble and profit go oft together.”

“You are greedy,” the gnome said.

“I am not,” the dwarf said. “But if gold falls into my hand, I will not let it slide through my fingers.”

“If it is not your gold—”

“All the better.” The dwarf grinned. “Is it not obvious that the Girdish do not need that necklace? It came to them by thievery, after all—contaminating their paladin-candidate that a thief gave it to her. We serve her reputation by taking it away, that reminder of her impurity.”

“We cannot keep it!” the gnome said. “It is not ours; we neither made it nor bought it!”

Arvid had heard enough. Checking the hang of his sword, he rose and without hurry moved to their table. “Excuse me.” He put his hand flat on the table between them. The dwarf should recognize the small tattoo on his thumb web. “Arvid Semminson, of Tsaia. It would be impolite to conceal from rockbrethren my fluent command of their speech, and perhaps by so doing discover that of their plans they would prefer not to have revealed.” He smiled, showing very human teeth; rockfolk noticed such things. They would smell the metal of his sword and dagger and the hidden blades he wore here and there about his person as well. Good steel. Excellent steel. They would know the ore from which it had been forged.

“You are that thief who brought her out alive,” the gnome said, recovering first.

“I am no thief,” Arvid said, without heat and still in their tongue. “It is true I am in the Thieves’ Guild, and of some consequence there—”

“It is said you saved her life.”

“No. The gods saved her life; I but saw her carried to safety.”

“You killed the accuser.”

“That I did, but killing is not thievery.”

“Of breath it is,” murmured the gnome, but the dwarf shook his head.

“To kill one bent on murder is not murder,” he said. He smiled up at Arvid. “Would you drink with us?”

“I would sit with you, but not drink; I have had what I can hold, and still do what needs doing this night.”

Arvid felt the tension rise; the two nodded, however, and he pulled the chair from his own table to theirs. “You heard us speak of a necklace,” the gnome said. “You have knowledge of it?”

“Little,” Arvid said. “That lair was full of things, large and small, valuable and worthless. I found it; I gave it to her.”

“Her. The paladin?”

“Yes; she was but a mercenary then.”

“Why? Were you besotted?”

“It was a whim,” Arvid said. He leaned back in his chair. “Clear to see she’d been born poor, and a mercenary doesn’t make much. Yet she came with treasure, and no word from her mouth to explain it. Not the treasure that comes from looting burning citadels in the south. The money changer in Brewersbridge wouldn’t talk, and I had my task there anyway, no time to put hot wires to his fingers. But from one of his servants, who liked mulled wine, I heard enough to know the treasure was old and varied, from deep in some cave, mayhap. Yet she was such a simple girl, happy with a full belly of the plainest food, comfortable with woodsmen and smiths and the like more than with the worthies of the town. Made friends with the innkeeper’s daughter. I thought I’d see what a pretty necklace given as a gift would do for her. Would she change?”