The Marshal shook his head. “Impossible. The buildings here are on bedrock.”

“Rockfolk,” Arvid murmured.

Silence. Then, “Oh,” said the Marshal. “You mean they could—”

“Tunnel through it? Certainly.”

“But how would they know where to tunnel?”

“It is said that the rockfolk can perceive the jewels they desire through a league of solid rock—that is how they find them. I do not know if that is entirely true, or what sense they use, but we had a dwarf in the Guild at one time who proved uncannily accurate in a test of that ability. We drilled a hole to the center of each of three blocks of stone, and put a single jewel in one, then asked him to name the stone holding the jewel. He did so. The safest place for your treasure, Marshal Perin, is aboveground, in a room large enough for multiple guards, all of them known to you.”

“Which excludes you,” Marshal Perin said, “since you are not known to me.”

“If the others are your fellow Girdsmen, they will not let me steal.”

“I will ask,” Marshal Perin said. “But I do not know if they will follow your advice or wishes. Will you wait here or come with me?”

“I will wait,” Arvid said, for that, he thought, would ease the Marshal’s mind a bit. “Leave the door open, if you will, for the breeze.” The first cool breath of air had come through the window into the stuffy little room. Marshal Perin nodded and left. Arvid took his pack off the peg and removed from it those items he might need in the night, then hung it again. He checked his blades, one by one, and when satisfied lay down on the narrow bed and waited. It was not long before someone paused at the door and looked in: a bright-eyed youngster in the gray tunic and trousers of a student.

“Are you a visitor?” the boy asked, then flushed as if he’d realized it was a stupid question.

“Yes,” Arvid said. “But I’m not supposed to talk to students.”

“Why not?” Now the boy leaned on the door frame. “Have you done something bad?”

Arvid made a show of thinking about that. “Not lately,” he said finally. “Have you?”

“Not really bad. I did say a bad word when I hit myself with a hauk—see, here’s the bruise—” He pushed up his sleeve to show a bruise on his upper arm. “—and I didn’t think Marshal Gerrit would know it was a bad word because it’s dwarvfish—my brother taught it to me—but he did.”

“What was it?” Arvid asked.

“Char-chardnik,” the boy said. “All the words ending in -nik are dwarvfish, Olin said.”

Arvid struggled with laughter and choked it back. “Sorry, Olin’s wrong. Do you even know what chardnik means?”

“Horse droppings?”

“Er … no. It’s not a dwarvish word; lots of words that aren’t dwarvish end in -nik, and it means something your father would whip you for saying.”