Avos's piggy pale blue eyes narrowed. "Why didn't you seek me out right off if you wanted to make a deal like that?"
"Because we didn't actually want to," Thamalon said. "The Karns would have preferred to learn their enemy's identity without having to spare you the retribution you deserve, let alone compensate you. But my partner and I are realists. Our current situation being what it is, we'd much rather reach an accommodation with you than have you kill us."
Avos grinned. "But that's what I ought to do. It would send a message to everybody else who might want to come sniffing around my little fiefdom."
"It's not a message that will deter Lord Karn. He has plenty of other agents."
"Maybe so, cully, but we're not afraid of any of them. Lots of high-and-mighty merchant nobles have tried before to wipe out the Quippers, and we're still here."
"But I imagine life is pleasanter when you're spared the necessity of defending yourselves against such a siege."
"That's doesn't mean we'd turn traitor or informer to keep it from happening."
"Of course not," Thamalon said dryly. "I'm sure you're a steadfast band of brothers. Loyal as paladins in a romance, but only, and this is the key point, to one another. I suspect that any outsider who opts to trust you takes his chances. Am I right?"
"No, you're not right," the big man growled, "not always. But… I didn't altogether like the way this particular job went down. Oh, Uskevren and his lady dying, that was grand. That was fine as cakes and wine. But too many of the lads have been killed or hurt, lads I need to attend to my business, and nobody bothered to warn me what we were getting into. I don't appreciate that. So, Balan, swear by your god that Lord Karn will abide by any agreement you make, and then tell me how much gold you're offering." "No!" shouted one of the onlookers, a small man with a pointed black goatee, and lines of gold piping running up the legs of his breeches and the breast of his doublet. "You can't set these snoopers free. She killed some of our mates! That woman there!"
"Shut up, Donvan!" Avos roared, and the little man quailed. "If a female could kill them, we're better off without them."
Shamur could tell from his subordinates' expressions that some resented their leader's cold dismissal of the deaths of their comrades, but no one saw fit to voice another protest.
Her heart raced with exhilaration. Against all rational expectation, Thamalon had succeeded. His glib trader's tongue had won them their lives and even the information they had sought.
Or so it seemed until someone shouted, "Hold it!" She turned and saw a plump, unhealthy-looking man in a costly but hideous mauve and chartreuse doublet, the same would-be coxcomb who had stood with Master Moon and the shadow creature at the edge of the clearing, scurrying forward. Evidently he'd entered the brown-stone unnoticed a moment or two before.
"What do you want, Garris?" Avos asked, an edge of impatience in his voice.
"Look at them!" Garris cried. "Everybody look! Don't you recognize them? Avos, I know I said I watched them die, but somehow, these people are Lord and Lady Uskevren themselves!"
The room fell silent as everyone gawked at the nobles. Shamur looked at the armed men clustered all around her and decided it would be pointless to try to break for the door. Finally, Avos exclaimed, "Umberlee's kiss, it's true!"
His composure unruffled, Thamalon gave Garris a nod. "You have a keen eye, sir." He turned back toward the giant on the throne. "I see no reason why this revelation should spoil our negotiations. I'm still willing to pay for the name of the man who hired you, and now, of course, to ransom my wife and myself as well."
Avos laughed. "You've got brass, old man, I'll give you that. But I don't suppose you truly believe we'd ever turn you loose. You've always gone out of your way to persecute the Quippers, and now we're going to return the favor. Then later, after we've had our fun, I'll sell what's left of you to your secret enemy. You can find out who he is when you look him in the face, that is, if we let you keep your eyes. Grab them, mates!"
So be it, Shamur thought. Thamalon's gambit had failed, and now she must try the ploy she had conceived on the walk to the outlaws' lair. One of the toughs who were moving in to seize her was half a step in advance of the others. Rounding on him, her bruised limbs protesting, she shouted, "Bring a waste, cove!" Then she kicked him in the groin.
Someone tried to grab her from behind. "Shamur knows that cog," she growled.
She thrust her elbow back into his gut, stamped on his foot, and then, when his grip loosened, pivoted and smashed her forearm into his jaw. His front teeth broke, and he reeled backward.
She spun back around to face the rogues rushing up behind her. "Come on!" she screamed. "You capons! You cousins! Shamur will bash out your crashing-cheats! She'll curb out your glaziers and eat them like grapes!"
Since she knew she had no chance of fighting her way free, her resistance was in one sense a sham. But she had to buy herself sufficient time to let them hear her rant. For all she knew, they might have intended to stuff a gag in her mouth before commencing whatever torture they had in mind.
Now, plainly, they had heard her. They were hanging back and staring, some with more comprehension than others. "She speaks Cant," Donvan said.
Cant was the secret patois of the most professional of thieves, useful both for confounding eavesdroppers and as a means of mutual recognition. Shamur had mastered it in her youth, and still remembered most of it though she hadn't had occasion to use it since her displacement in time.
"You're damn right, copesmate," she said. "Of course, Shamur talks Cant. She pledged to Mask when she was only a rumpscuttle lass, before any of you flicks and ferrets were even born. She's practiced the figging law, nipping purses with a cuttle-bung. She's been a charm and a cony-catcher, a foin, a padder, and a prigger of prancers, a warp and a stall. Later, she married that gentry cove j there." She jerked her chin at Thamalon, currently standing battered and helpless in the grip of two of his captors. "But slipping on his fambling-cheat didn't change what Shamur was inside."
"You've led a colorful life," Avos drawled, "but so what? Did you think we'd spare you just because you were once a fellow rogue? Not likely!"
"I was more than a rogue," Shamur replied. "I was a Quipper."
The bravos and doxies babbled to one another. Avos said, "Nonsense."
"It was more than thirty years ago," she replied, "before your time or that of anyone in this hall." And since she was lying, thank the gods for that! "But I can still give the sign: Sharp eyes, sharp blade. Still tread, still tongue." In her mind, she blessed the lovesick, drunken Quipper who had once whispered the gang's secret protocols in her adolescent ear.
Some of the blackguards were visibly impressed by her recitation. Avos simply scowled and said, "I still don't believe you were ever one of us, but if you were, you're now a traitor for slaying some of your own brothers, and we have even better reason to hurt you."
"I slew them in self-defense," Shamur said, "as our rule permits. But we don't even need to debate that, and I'll tell you why. We say, once a Quipper, always a Quipper, do we not? Even death can't break the bond; the shades of our predecessors are waiting to welcome us into the chapter of the brotherhood they've established in Hell."
Avos grinned. "Then if you're telling the truth, you'll be seeing them soon."
"Not necessarily," Shamur replied, "because it is likewise our tradition that any of our members accused of wrongdoing has the right to demand a trial by combat against the chieftain of the gang, and go free if he prevails."