"That is true enough," Magnus said. "We filled the vault before, we can do so again — but only if we survive this war. As for numbers, it will be more important as to how and where we use such men. Our goal is not to launch a coup, remember, just to defeat the Guild or force them to terms. We only need employ mercenaries when we risk running into the Vos guard."
"I'll arrange it," Wendric said. "I have a few contacts I can tap for this."
"It will take time," Lucius said, recalling just how large the Anclas Territories were, and how long the journey to Turnitia could take. That was assuming a company could be persuaded to employment quickly.
"There is something else we can do," Magnus said. "Loredo is acting like a warlord, gathering as much strength in arms to his cause as he can muster. Somewhere along the line, he has forgotten how to be a thief. That will be to our advantage."
"What do you mean?" Nate asked.
"A thief never confronts an enemy head on," Magnus explained. "Instead, he studies his mark, picks the weak points, bypasses the defences and traps. Only if absolutely necessary does he strike, and then only from the shadows."
"We avoid open battle?" Elaine asked. "Seems obvious."
"It is," Magnus said. "But to do so effectively, we need information. We all know this. Information is what drives a thieves guild, it's what ensures the flow of gold into the vault. We need access to better information — we need to know exactly what the Guild is up to at all times, what their ties to the Vos guard are, and what is happening within the Citadel itself."
"Ah, I see where you are going with this, Magnus," Wendric said. "But you cannot know whether they have not been bought already. They could already be working for the Guild."
Lucius was confused and, from Nate's expression, he was not the only one.
"Who are you talking about?" he asked.
"He wants to bring the Beggars Guild on side with us," Wendric said.
"The beggars?" Nate said derisively.
"Nate, the beggars are eyes of this city," Magnus said. "They are ignored by everyone, and yet they can be found in every corner of Turnitia. From the docks to the Five Markets, you will find them huddled, lost, abandoned and forgotten. But it is exactly those qualities that allow them to get close to others, to see and hear everything that goes on in the city. How many times have you left a house you have just robbed, and ignored the beggar across the street outside, happily thinking you have escaped notice? I promise you, nearly every one of your operations is known to the beggar's guild."
"They actually have a guild?" Lucius asked.
"Oh, there is quite some etiquette involved in begging," Magnus said. "And, like any industry, like us, efforts have to be organised if the maximum profit for all is to be realised. You've worked with our pickpocket teams, Lucius. You know how we strategize their efforts. The beggars are no different, with each assigned a rotating territory that ensures no one area is flooded with them, and no purses are drained too heavily or too quickly. And they can actually be quite vicious towards independents who break the system."
"Do they have a guildhouse?" Elaine asked.
"The streets are their guildhouse. However, I think I know where to find their master."
"You're not thinking of going yourself?" Wendric asked, suddenly alarmed.
"You'd be making yourself too easy a target," Elaine joined in. "The Guild will be waiting for something like this, one mistake that would reveal you and allow them to decapitate us."
Magnus held up his hands. "My friends, I will not be swayed in this. We need the beggars with us, and we need them now. If one of you were to go, the negotiations might take too long. If I can locate their guildmaster, and I have a good idea where to start looking, I might be able to make the right promises and forge an alliance on the spot."
"It is far too dangerous," Wendric said.
"Too many of our members have already paid too high a price," Magnus said in reply. "If I do not share the same risks, I am not fit to be guildmaster in the first place. Anyway, I'll have Taene and Narsell with me, and I doubt there are any assassins capable of making their way past these two. If that should prove insufficient, however, I will also have Lucius at my side."
Lucius looked up in surprise. "Of course," he heard himself say. "I would be honoured."
Wendric had the last words of the meeting.
"Be watchful instead."
CHAPTER 15
Lucius had never felt more alive than he did at this moment. Magnus walked within a pace behind him, while Taene and Narsell brought up the rear, flanking the guildmaster. He felt his heart pounding, heard every sound in the crowded street, smelled every scent. Danger lurked in every passerby, in every alley they passed, within every window that opened as they walked underneath, or so he felt. After the Council had broken up, Elaine had approached him, making him swear to protect Magnus from harm whatever the odds. It was a promise he intended to keep.
Lucius' eyes flicked constantly, sweeping over every member of the crowd that thronged the street. The middle-aged woman manhandling several long Pontaine-style loaves and two children; was she disguised to appear older, her bread concealing a weapon as she moved closer? The kids, were they lookouts, gauging the guildmaster's defences in preparation for an ambush at the next junction? Were those Vos guards intentionally flanking them? Was that a shadow on the roofline, an assassin lining up a shot with a crossbow?
More than once, he had felt Magnus' hand on his shoulder, accompanied with an admonishment to relax or, at least calm down a degree. Magnus had taken precautions, wearing a cloak and wide-brimmed hat to disguise his appearance. To anyone casually walking past the tight, protective group, he might well have been no more than a wealthy trader or official with an exaggerated sense of self-worth. Even so, the mail shirt he wore under his cloak and leather tunic was an added insurance.
They had started their search in the Five Markets which, in Lucius' opinion, was close to madness. The ever-shifting crowds and sheer number of potential threats seemed overwhelming, and he noticed that even Taene and Narsell seemed nervous, their eyes in a permanent suspicious squint, heads turning to face every new sound. Looming over them were the walls of the Citadel, and Lucius could all too easily imagine some guard perched on the ramparts, sighting Magnus and feeling lucky with a crossbow.
Magnus, however, insisted that this is where they start, and he made a rough kind of sense. The Five Markets were among the busiest places in the city, and it was a natural congregation point for beggars. They were, thus, the power centre of the beggars and their presumed guild, though Lucius still had doubts about the homeless being able to organise themselves to any great degree.
Insisting on approaching any beggar directly himself, Magnus was met with suspicion at first, and sometimes a subdued hostility. They all feared the beggars had already been bought by the Guild. However, Magnus was lucky enough to be recognised by one — a foul-smelling woman in the later years of her life — who had a disturbing habit of scratching at her nether regions while holding a hand out for coin. Her directions, which Magnus paid handsomely for, led them to Ring Street and a grain house that lay between the two southern markets.
Crates and empty sacks were piled outside and these had been appropriated by nearly a dozen beggars, all looking dishevelled, miserable, and without purpose. A memory triggered in Lucius' mind, and he recalled seeing beggars gather here before. In the past, he had presumed they were the failures of the city's lowest citizens, those whose begging had been less than successful, and were now just waiting around to die. However, if what the old woman had told Magnus was to be believed, Lucius was in fact looking at the power base of the Beggars Guild.