Wut in hell is happenin' to me?
But the man darted out a hand, quick as a snake, and grabbed Skif's shoulder and shook it. That hand crushed muscle and bone and hurt —
“Now, to me you listen, boy, and engrave my words on your heart you will — ,” the man said, leaning forward until all Skif could see were his hawk-sharp, hawk-fierce eyes. “You playing are in deeper waters than you know, and believe me, to swim in them you cannot hope. Your nose out of this you keep, or likely someone is to fish you out of the Terilee, with a rock around your ankles tied, if find you at all they do.”
Skif shuddered convulsively, and an involuntary sob fought its way out of his throat. The man sat back on his heels again, satisfied.
“Jass will to worry about shortly, much more than the setting of fires have,” the man said darkly. “And he will answer for the many things he has responsible been for.”
“But — ”
“That is all you need to know,”; the man said forcefully, and the words froze in Skif's throat.
The sell-sword pulled out a knife, and for one horrible moment, Skif thought that he was dead.
But the man laid it on the floor, just out of reach, and stood up. “Too clever you are, by half,” he said, with a grim little smile. “Now, about my business I will be. The moment I leave, getting yourself loose you can be about. Manage you will, quite sure I am.”
He dropped the shield over the dark lantern, plunging the chapel into complete blackness. In the next moment, although Skif hadn't heard him move, the door opened, a tall, lean shadow slipped through it, and it closed again.
Skif lost no time in wriggling over the stone floor to the place where the man had left the knife. When he was right on top of it, he wriggled around until he could grab it. As soon as he got it into his hands, he sawed through the cord binding his wrists to his ankles. Not easy — but not impossible. The man had left him enough slack in his ropes to do just that.
Once that was cut, he managed to contort his body enough to get his arms back over to the front of himself and then sawed through the bindings at ankle and wrist. It was a good knife; sharp, and well cared for. If it didn't cut through the cords holding him as if they were butter, he wasn't forced to hack at them for candlemarks either.
But all the time his hands were working, his mind was, too.
Who — and what — was that man? How had he managed to get Skif to tell him everything he knew? Why did he want to know so much about Jass?
Why'd 'e lemmego? Why'd 'e warn me off?
Not that Skif had any intention of being warned off. Oo's 'e think 'e is, anyroad? Oo's 'e think 'e was talkin' to? If there was one thing that Skif was certain of, it was his own expertise in his own neighborhood. However clever this man thought he was, he wasn't living right next door to his target, now, was he? He hadn't even known that Jass was the one who'd set that fire — Skif had seen a flicker of surprise when his own traitorous mouth had blurted that information out. He might think himself clever, but he wasn't as good as all that.
But 'ow'd 'e make me talk? More to the point, could he do it again if he got Skif in his hands?
Best not to find out.
'E won' catch me a second time, Skif resolved fiercely, as he cut through the last of the cords on his wrists and shook his hands free.
He stood up, sticking the knife in his belt. No point in wasting a good blade, after all. His anger still roiled in his gut; by now Jass was far off, and his employer probably safe in his fancy home.
I’ll know 'is voice, though, if I ever hear it agin. Small consolation, but the best he had.
He slipped out the door of the chapel and closed it behind himself, not caring if he left this one unlocked or not. Around him the dead kept their silence, with nothing to show that there had ever been anyone here. Crickets sang, and honeysuckle sent a heavy perfume across the carefully manicured lawn. Jass had picked a good night for a clandestine meeting; the moon was no bigger than a fingernail paring.
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 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.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SKIF had every intention of beginning his campaign of sabotage that very night, but when he tried to get near the district where the homes of the great and powerful were, he found the Watch was unaccountably active. There were patrols on nearly every street, and they weren't sauntering along either. Something had them alerted, and after the third time of having to take cover to avoid being stopped and questioned, he gave it up as hopeless and headed back to his room with an ill grace.
He got some slight revenge, though; as he turned a corner, a party of well-dressed, and very drunk young men came bursting out of a tavern with a very angry innkeeper shouting curses right on their heels. They practically ran him over, but in the scuffle and ensuing confusion, he lifted not one, but three purses. Making impotent threats and shouting curses of his own at them (which had all the more force because of his personal frustrations), he turned on his heel and stalked off in an entirely different direction.