Skif made his way to the spot where the wall was overhung by an ancient goldenoak—he hadn’t come in by a gate, and he didn’t intend to leave by one either. All the while his mind kept gnawing angrily on the puzzle of the sell-sword. Bastid. Oo’s ‘e t’ be so high i’ th’ nose? Man sells anythin’ ’e’s got t’ whosever gots the coin! Hadn’t he already proved that by buying information from Jass? An’ wut’s ‘e gonna do, anyroad? Where’s ’e get off, tellin’ me Jass’s gonna go down fer the fire? Why shud ’e care?

Unless—he had a wealthy patron himself. Maybe someone who had lost money when the fire gutted Skif’s building?

Or maybe Jass’ own employer was playing a double game—covering his bets and his own back, hiring someone to “find out who set the fire” so that if Jass got caught, the rich man could prove that he had gone far out of his way to try and catch the arsonist. Then no matter what Jass said, who would believe him?

The thought didn’t stop Skif in his tracks, but it only roiled his gut further. The bastards! They were all alike, those highborns and rich men and their hirelings! They didn’t care who paid, so long as their pockets were well-lined!

Skif swarmed up the tree by feel, edged along the branch that hung over the opposite side, and dropped down quietly to the ground, his heart on fire with anger.

Revenge. That’s what he wanted. And he knew the best way to get it, too. If he didn’t have a specific target, he could certainly make all of them suffer, at least a little. Just wait until they all came back from their fancy country estates! Wait until they returned—and came back, not just to things gone missing, but to cisterns and sewers plugged up, wells and chimneys blocked, linens spoiled, moths in the woolens, mice in the pantry and rats in the cellar! He’d cut sash cords, block windows so they wouldn’t close right, drill holes in rooftops and in water pipes. It would be a long job, but he had all summer, and when he got through with them, the highborn of Valdemar would be dead certain that they’d been cursed by an entire tribe of malevolent spirits.

No time like right now, neither, he thought, with smoldering satisfaction as he fingered the sharp edge of his new knife.

So what if he didn’t have a specific target. They were all alike anyway. So he’d make it his business to make them all pay, if it took him the rest of his life.

Chapter 11

11