Hee-ay, hee-ay: the cry of the water-seller in the broad and the narrow places; shass-shass-shass, the warning signal to clear a road for noble blood, be it one or many together. Iiii, iii-sass, iii-sass, the wailing of a merchant who protested his certain ruin—with overtones of castration—should he lower the price any further. To Idisio's sensitive ears, the cacophony resembled a melodic pattern that steered him, unerringly, to the best possible target.
At the height of his madness, the previous king had issued a decree forbidding residents of Bright Bay to speak anything but the common northern tongue. Two months later he had died of less than natural causes. Whether that absurd law had been the final wring on a mad asp-jackal's tail would never be known; rumor said the new ruler, now six months on the throne, still worked day and night to untangle the mess left behind by his predecessor.
Idisio listened for more than words, in whatever language, as he worked his way through the cobbled, paved, and sand-gravel streets of Bright Bay. The most important sounds of the city had nothing to do with speech. The clink of a full purse at the side of a foolishly confident merchant meant meals for the next few nights. The solid crunch of guard boots nearby meant seek cover: although the worst had quickly been culled under the new regime, changes in permitted behavior were slow to filter to the street level. But hisses and whistles were more important than any of those. They served as coded warnings from the other thieves scattered throughout the city.
A strident whistle from a rooftop lookout could save Idisio's life: while there was no true organization of thieves in Bright Bay, no one thief could ever hope to keep track of all the powerful people that moved through this sprawling city. The open warning, given by those who knew to those who didn't, was a traditional obligation that only the most foolish newcomers to the trade ignored.
Idisio was no newcomer. He'd grown up on these streets and survived the recently-ended madness that had temporarily given Bright Bay the nickname "Blood Bay." Those thief-calls had saved his life many times, and he'd passed on as many warnings; but many thieves, along with nobles, commoners, and priests, had fallen during the last weeks of Mad Ninnic's reign. While the worst of the madness had passed, the streets would never be safe for Idisio unless he found a more respectable—and legal—trade.
He considered that as likely as an asp-jackau meowing.
As he slid between fat and thin, clean and unwashed, his breath clogged with the hot smell of a crowded southern city on a summer day. A light touch on a thick wallet bound at a man's side prompted a certainty: gold. Not the half-rounds he normally counted himself lucky to get, but uncut disks of gold, more than one, many more. Idisio always knew, just from a touch, if the purse was worth taking; other thieves, seeing him withdraw from a mark empty-handed, had learned to steer clear themselves.
Idisio decided that any man foolish enough to carry gold in an outside purse deserved to lose it all. He reached, fingertip-knives busy, and had three of the four strings cut before another breath had passed.
Too late, he heard the warning: tee-tee-tee-awrk! tee-tee-tee-awrk! The sound of a sea-bird, loud and insistent. One of the roof lookouts was sending an urgent, if belated, “stay-clear,” and with the intuition that had kept him alive so far, Idisio knew he was the one being warned.
He started to slide away into the crowd, but found his wrist gripped in the mark's hand, a larger and harder one than his own. He followed the line of the arm up. Dark, hawk-hard eyes glared at him from a narrow face containing a sharply hewn nose, bronze skin, and thin lips—reason enough for the tardy warning.
Old blood was in that face; desert blood, noble blood—definitely someone to stay well and truly away from. Idisio had never before been so stupid as to grab a purse without checking the appearance of the mark for danger signs first; but it only took one mistake, and this had been it.
"My lord," Idisio said, caught without escape. He reached for an excuse, an apology, anything that would loosen that deadly dangerous grip and give him just a moment to run like he'd never run in his life.
The grip tightened, grinding the bones of Idisio's wrist together; the very real prospect of death right here and now ran cold down his back. The slender finger-blades fell from his hand, landing on the paving stones with a distant clink.
Something about the noble's touch sparked his erratic intuition: He won't kill me. The surety faded, though, when he looked up into the man's dark stare.
"Who sent you after me?" the noble demanded.
Idisio ran through a rapid list of names in his head, searching for one that might get the grip on his wrist released in a moment of fear. In the face of that desert-hot glare, he could only say, "Nobody, my lord." He wouldn't put his worst enemy in the path of that stare. And he didn't have any names that might rattle this man.
"Liar," the noble said, pulling Idisio a step closer, thin lips stretching back. "Who?"
"What's going on here?"
For the first time in his life, Idisio blessed the arrival of the white-robed guards. There were four in this patrol, all carrying the thick staves of their office. At their side, an asp-jackau, tall and narrow, raised its thin snout and sniffed at the air, head tilted to allow one pale blue eye to study him. Asp-jackaus only went out with King's Guards. Idisio let out a gasping breath of relief. Even a southern noble had to respect them. But the man holding Idisio either didn't know that or didn't care.
"Just a pick-thief," he said briefly.
"We'll handle it." A guard's hand landed on Idisio's shoulder from behind, closing into a hard grip that pinched a tender spot; Idisio hissed and flinched. The fingers dug in deeper, and Idisio squirmed, praying he wasn't dealing with an unculled "Ninnic's Guard".
The noble didn't loosen his hold, either. "I claim justice-right."
"But—"
"I'm summoned to the king. Argue my right with the king. Argue the time with the tide that goes by. Let us pass!"
Idisio wondered if he were about to piss himself. He'd never done that before, but this mistake could cost his life. Claiming justice-right marked the man as a full desert lord. They didn't consider themselves subject to any kingdom laws. Many of them offered no courtesy beyond "my lord" to the king himself. Desert lords, when angry, tended to take their price in blood . . . and slowly. Idisio might be better off with a potentially sadistic guard after all.
But his odd intuition insisted: He won't kill me. This is a good thing happening.
Idisio wondered if he were losing his mind.
