Thieves at Heart Read online

CHAPTER 4

  CRUEL AS A CHILD

  The bell in the church tower rang loudly, making Tavera jump and then giggle nervously, looking around to see if anyone had seen her. No one seemed to notice, though the sound did change the direction some people were walking in. It was the end of the second watch, when many people went home for midday meal, so some of the shops and stalls usually closed. Derk had told her to meet him outside the Three Brothers after third watch for evening meal and a bit of talk. He’d had a meeting with Hock all day at the Weaver Dance Hall and she had walked by it five times now in the hopes that he would exit the big wooden building with the shutters over the doors. The last time she had walked by a man with brown hair and green eyes had shooed her away and told her not to come back. She couldn’t go back after that, knowing she had been recognized.

  The streets of Tyestown had fun things to see anyway. It was bigger than Portsmouth even, maybe bigger than Eastwick and Southwick together, but not as scary. It was cleaner and the Baron had even planted gardens and trees throughout the town, little quiet spaces for the townsfolk to sit and work and play. Even the blocklords seemed fancier in this town. Derk had pointed them out. They dressed nicer and hid their weapons better than the ones in the ’Wicks, though one of them had a very large dog on a very strong leash. Tavera had been afraid of the big black beast but Derk had approached the small company, pulling a piece of sausage pie out of his pack and asking if he could feed it to him. The man with the face full of freckles had laughed uproariously and said to go ahead, the big dog rolling onto its back and looking rather foolish with its fat pink tongue falling out of its mouth. It had fat black teats and the man with the freckles had a black-and-white puppy pop its head out of his shirt, whimpering for milk. Tavera had pet both the dog and the puppy before they went on their way.

  “Don’t beware the dog, beware the owner, Tavi,” he had told her as they went on their way. “If I had it in for that man I’d be dead right now. A man like that can’t afford to have poorly trained dogs. One stupid child and he’d be in the clacks.” That had been two days ago, a day after they had arrived in Tyestown. The pair had arrived several days ahead of Hock and tried to make the most of it, walking the town together and separately, learning who the guards were and where they went at the end of their shifts, trying to pick up on the patterns weaving the tapestry that was Tyestown.

  Weaving was the biggest industry here and they had passed through fields dotted with beasts of various coat qualities and colors. The villages around Tyestown dealt with animals and grew the precious plants and animals used to make the dyes which gave their fibers the rich colors coveted by others in the Valley. One of the towns was supposedly a swamp where a certain kind of snake hunted and dwelt, its venom giving the richest purple dye, which the barons coveted for their own garments.

  Tavera was trying to decide what her favorite color was as she walked down the street where merchants had swatches of fabric outside. Thin summer reed linens, thick sheepbush spun for winter garments and even animal skins dyed colors they weren’t supposed to be. She saw what was obviously a rabbit skin dyed a funny shade of gray and green hanging from the top of a stall and Tavera wondered if it would look nice with her cloak. But the greenish hue would make it stand out more. White was nice but got dirty quickly. The gray was very pretty and looked so soft, Tavera felt her hands twitch, wanting to touch it.

  How many rabbits would it take to line the inside of a cloak? Probably more than she could afford. More than she could take. She didn’t know how to catch rabbits either. The rabbit furs hung outside her reach, twisting in the slight breeze. Tavera pursed her lips together as she considered what it would take to steal the contents of an entire stall of hides and she squeezed her forearm, feeling the hard little band of muscle there.

  Her ear twitched under her hair and she turned around, still squeezing her arm. Down the street came a group of children, talking and whooping. Two of them carried wooden boxes with holes in them, something moving inside. Tavera took one last glance at the rabbit skin she coveted and followed after them, keeping to the side as they walked. One of the boys was swinging a stick around while a little girl played with a doll. It wasn’t a fancy doll, just rags, but it had a big handful of black wool for its hair and a silly face painted on.

  Some of the children were eating and Tavera decided that they weren’t from Tyestown. They were dressed too nicely and it wasn’t a holiday. They were probably visiting the city for a special purpose, several families traveling together for safety and the children had been brought along for a treat. Their clothes were nice, but village nice. If their parents sold everything in their cart the children would probably all receive a treat and maybe a new article of clothing for the next holiday or season, maybe a new pair of soft gloves or boots if it was time. Five children made up the band. Probably cousins and a set of siblings. The little girl had to be related to someone or no one would have let her come along. Tavera was probably of an age with the two middle ones. The biggest one offered the other half of his pocket pie to the little girl with the doll and she took it happily, offering a bit to her toy before she took a bite out of it herself.

  They settled in one of the grassy squares. The two biggest children were carrying the crates, a boy and a girl. They settled on the grass and opened the doors. From one of the boxes hopped a fat, speckled rabbit, gray and brown. Its nose wiggled. The other rabbit had to be coaxed out by the boy, a light gray bunny with tufted ears. The boy pulled something out of his pocket and the bunny hopped shyly toward his hand, wiggling its nose and then burying its face in his palm, making him laugh. The little girl reached forward to pet the bunny but fell forward awkwardly as it hopped beyond her reach before she could pet it.

  Derk had given her money for midday meal, asking her to please pay for her food in Tyestown, at least until after the meeting. The money had been stitched into the hem of her sleeve and she bit at the string with her teeth, pulling out the two blue coins that were more than enough for anything she would want to eat. She wanted to approach the children but she hesitated. Tavera didn’t get along with other children very well and the big one did have a stick. What if they made fun of her? What if they pulled her ear? Or called her names? She recalled that she had tried to punch a grown man for making fun of her pa, scratching at him with her sharp little nails. Would she defend herself the way she had defended Derk’s name? She knew how to hit. And a scrap between children probably wouldn’t call the guard’s attention, just the parents.

  The bunnies were too cute. Tavera frowned, wondering why she was already thinking about fighting these children. She had the money in her hands, ready to buy one of the rabbits from them, and she felt her face become hot with embarrassment, her hands both wanting to touch the soft fur of the animals and push through the children. She dropped the coins into her boot, wiggling her foot till they both lay firmly under her heel and she took a deep breath, taking a rather forced step toward the children.

  One of the middle children looked up first, smiling at her happily. Tavera could hear them talking, the cadence and accents telling her they were from the country as she thought. The fat rabbit hopped forward and Tavera giggled, putting her hands in front of her mouth. The biggest girl looked to her and smiled, her front teeth making her look a bit like a rabbit herself.

  “Hello,” the big girl said, friendly enough. She really was a big girl, wearing the wide belt around her middle that women wore, her small breasts already pushing past the soft leather. Her brown hair was plaited into two long braids, each one fastened at the end with carved bone fasteners. The boy had reddish-brown hair and a ruddy face, his cheeks making his face teeter somewhere between childhood and adolescence. Tavera wanted to pull at her own hair and wished it was longer. It grew in slow but thick and she wondered if she would ever be able to have fat braids like the big girl.

  “Whas your name?” the middle girl asked, scratching the fat bunny on its head. Her hair was a bit curlier tha
n the older girl’s, and she looked to be of an age with Tavera, though Tavi was taller. The middle boy had dark curls and light eyes while the one with the doll had the same reddish-brown hair of the older boy, curls piled around her head.

  “Kera,” Tavera said, kneeling down beside them. “Can I pet your bunny, please?” She held her hand out as she did and the other children moved so she could reach the fat one, her fingers sinking into the fur, giving away how small the rabbit actually was under there. “I like your rabbit,” she said.

  “Iss name is Burly,” The oldest girl said, smiling. The rabbit was so incredibly soft it made Tavera draw in her breath. She wanted to sleep in a pile of rabbits, though she knew they could kick hard with their back legs. “I just got me rabby today,” the girl said, looking very pleased with the giant gray bulk of hair with ears. “Ee should bring a gripper of lunars, don’t yeh think?”

  Tavera just nodded, petting the rabbit. All she knew about rabbits was they tasted good and were soft. How hard could it be to keep a rabbit? These children did it. “D’you live close?” Tavera asked. The big boy nodded. His stick was right by his hand and the middle boy took it up, skipping over to a little ledge made with stones and balancing there, carefully putting one foot in front of the other. Tavera could have walked it in her sleep, she thought.

  “A ways away, down byern the Lady’s Necklace, in Bluegrass. Yeh heard of it?”

  Tavera shook her head slowly, watching the boy try to balance on the ledge, almost falling to the hard-packed ground but catching himself before he spilled. “Uh…yeah. That’s south of here, right?”

  “And where yeh from, city girl?” the one that had been balancing asked, spinning on the front of his foot. All of the country folk chuckled except for the littlest, too busy playing with her doll to notice what the big kids were doing.

  Tavera almost spat at him but she didn’t. The rabbit hopped gently away, sniffing the other rabbit with a bit of interest. “I’m from Portsmouth.” She left it at that.

  “What’re yeh doing here in Tyestown, then? That’s a ways to come. You into fiber too?” The big boy picked up his rabbit and held it in his arms, the muscled, tanned arms of a boy who worked out in the fields. Probably herding rabbits. His rabbit seemed to want to dig inside of his shirt, its front paws scratching at his chest.

  “No,” she said carefully, looking to the two girls who hadn’t said anything yet. The middle one who had said hello was feeding hay to the fat rabbit, the little one making the doll walk across the grass. “My pa’s a singer and he’s trying to get work at the dance hall. Everyone knows the dance halls in Tyestown are some of the finest in the Valley.” She said it in such a way that if they hadn’t known it they would feel stupid. “Anyways, what are you? All cousins?”

  “Garin there’s me cousin, Bee there’s me sister,” the big boy said, pointing to the balancing boy and then the girl with the doll in turn. “Merika and Kela are cousins. We got to come along to sell the shearings, since we didn’t come to town proper for Baron’s Day.” He put his rabbit back in the case, closing it carefully. “Meri and I’s birthdays was two phases ago. We’s old enough to join the rest of the adults with the raising and breeding, finally, so she got Burly and I got Twitch.” He almost blushed, though there was a bit of pride in his face, behind his red cheeks. Tavera pet the fat rabbit again and decided that he liked Merika. They’d probably grow up seeing each other every day, raising rabbits, and take vows and have their own babies who would grow up to talk strange and wear nice clothes just to go to the city.

  “Yeh, Ferix is big enoof to be interested in the breedin’,” Garin said, smiling slyly at Tavera. He twirled the stick in his hand and Tavera stood up, walking over to him. He spun it in his palm and Tavera’s hand shot out, snatching the stick from him.

  “Shut up,” the big boy said; the girls he was sitting with giggled behind their hands. Tavera didn’t care what the big boy wanted or was interested in. He could bed his rabbit for all she cared. She hopped up on the ledge with the stick and held the stick across her shoulders and behind her neck, draping her arms over it as she walked across.

  “How much was them rabbits anyway?” she asked. A rabbit could be kept in a little hutch and they ate hay. Hay was easy to get. A live rabbit probably cost less than a dead one. You had to pay for the butcher and the tanner and all that when you got a skin. Maybe a young rabbit that had already been weaned. She could feed it until it got bigger and kill it when it was big enough to suit her needs. It couldn’t be too hard to raise one or kill one. It could sleep with her in the meantime, keeping her warm at night.

  “We traded a whole year’s worth of shearings for these two rabbys,” said Merika, the big girl with the rabbit teeth. “These two’ll make lots of wool. The first shearings will go into a babe’s blanket.” She smiled at the little girl with her doll and then at Tavera, her eyes sparkling with hope as her rabbit hopped a few more steps, sniffing at Twitch’s box.

  A whole year’s worth of shearings? Whatever that was, it sounded like a lot and Tavera and Derk didn’t have a year’s worth of anything with them in Tyestown. Tavera turned on her heel and walked down the ledge again, her mouth pulled in several directions as she thought. “How many rabbits do you have?”

  “Just these,” Ferix said, putting his hand on his rabbit’s box, sitting up straight. “Just to start. But soon enough, we’ll have grips of them. They grow fast, too. But iss worth it, all the hard work, raising ’em up, keeping ’em safe from wild dogs and burrowbears.”

  Tavera dropped one hand from the stick, letting it swing around so that she held it like a sword. Garin reached for it and she snatched it away from him, the stick whistling through the air. She wondered how many rabbits they had. Green fields dotted with small balls of hair floated into her mind, people walking around them with clubs or maybe spears, spreading hay on the ground in the winter…what would she be doing when Ferix and Merika got back to their village? She looked over and saw that Ferix was looking at the girl Meri, who blushed behind her freckles, playing with one of her braids. As much as having rabbit fur to line her clothes made her hands twitch, she didn’t feel like getting a crop of rabbits and living in a hut while the fuzzy animals hopped around, their noses twitching, their tails wiggling. They were cute and soft but it seemed very…boring. Plus, what would Derk say? He didn’t seem the kind of man to live in a hut surrounded by animals. Maybe it made other people’s hearts beat but not her own.

  “And what d’you do in the city, eh?” Garin asked, grabbing for the stick again. Tavera let him have it and she walked a few steps away from him, trying to find something else to balance on.

  “I go with my pa,” she said and shrugged, feeling the two coins move under her foot as she placed one in front of the other, imagining a line in her head to follow. “But sometimes if we find a band, I dance and people pay to watch.”

  “You don’t,” Garin said, cocking his head to the side. The temple bell went off in the distance, signaling that midday prayers were over and slowly more people filled the streets, those who hadn’t been to temple back from their meals. Tavera laughed, thinking how this was one of the few things she had told them that was the truth and Garin had called her false.

  “I do,” she said. She spun on her heel and then leaned forward so that her body was parallel to the ground. She put one hand on the ground and shifted her weight, sending her legs over her head and then down to the ground, a one-handed somersault that had Kela and Bee clapping their hands.

  “That’s just a turnover, I can do that,” Garin insisted, putting the stick down before he put his left hand on the ground. He moved forward a bit, obviously reconsidering before he put his right hand down instead, trying to vault himself forward but landing clumsily on his side instead. Tavera moved out of the way of his wreckage and laughed, not putting her hands over her mouth when she did. The other girls laughed and Ferix just rolled his eyes at Garin.

  “Garin, don’t ruin yer good brit
ches, yer pa will whup you when we get back to the inn.”

  “They’re fine, Fex, and asides, that wasn’t dancing. What kind of dancing d’you do?”

  “Any kind I please, and not no barn dancing neither. You probably hop about like rabbits!” Tavera laughed.

  “Don’t mind Garin, he prolly just likes you,” Ferix said, his voice cracking slightly though he was obviously trying to sound wise. Meri put her hand over her mouth and laughed, Kela following suit. Tavera looked over to the boy who was blushing and making a face at the older boy, his hands balled into red-and-white fists.

  “I don’t like this stupid wellie-girl,” Garin said loudly and to prove it, he turned to Tavera and pushed her. Before she could be moved she put her hands on his face and pushed back at him, his head snapping back and his push failing to shift her. Tavera ducked and the other children got up and started moving toward them, Garin’s face red where her fingers had raked his skin. He moved to strike her. Tavera beat him to it and threw her fist across his chin, not bothering to follow it up with another blow.

  The other children were upon them and she ducked and skirted away from them, dodging the big girl’s grasp as she reached for Tavi. Some of the adults were looking now, a priestess walking toward the group and tripping over one of the rabbit boxes, almost falling onto the fat rabbit. She could hear Garin screaming down the street, her arms pumping at her sides as Tavi ran down an alley, into another alley, past a fortune teller and two dogs that were fighting over what was hopefully a cow bone.

  No one was yelling anymore except her own thoughts, her heart still stomping in her chest as she slowed down. Her breath came steady but ragged and she sat down on the ground after making sure it wasn’t too dirty, biting her lip and trying to calm down. Once her heart stopped thumping her stomach decided to growl, clawing at her insides, and she realized she still hadn’t had a midday meal. Tavera looked around to be sure no one was looking and fished one of her coins out of her boot, holding it tight in her palm as she followed her nose back toward the food carts, not able to keep herself from peeking around the corner for familiar faces.

  Her stomach urged her on and she walked quickly to a cart that was selling coal-cooked meat. She scanned the food square quickly and found another cart selling flat, fluffy bread, and she paid for two pieces of bread with half a coin, taking it over for the other man to deposit a strip of juicy, charred meat onto, chunks of green onion dropped on top. She handed him the other half of the coin and ducked back into the alley, cramming the food into her mouth. The green onions were slippery and crunchy, still slightly raw so her tongue tingled after her food was gone.

  One of the men from the next watch walked past the entrance to the alley and Tavera stood up, brushing her dress free of crumbs, deciding to see if she could figure out where he lived. She knew he usually watched the northern road leading to the lake and when he headed that way she should leave to try and find Derk. She could kill time and maybe find out something useful.

  People were still walking about, getting last-minute food items for the evening meal, the farmer carts having more people around them than the food carts. The man she followed bought a handful of greens, a big bone with chunks of red meat still clinging to it and a small bag of grains, already roasted. A few more errands were run: a trip to the temple, a pass by the side window of a bar for a quick cup of thinny and a talk with the woman who ran the window. Tavera realized she was thirsty and thought about getting something to drink herself but the man went on and he hadn’t noticed her yet so she put one foot in front of the other and continued.

  Down another alley, past a row of stores specializing in goat wool, then a street with vendors selling threads and yarns of various thicknesses and colors for different types of clothing. They went around the edge of town where the animals for auction were held, their characteristics written out in pictures for those perusing to see. Some of the animals looked sad and Tavera couldn’t help but feel pity for the beasts but she took a deep breath, thinking better them than her. She kept on, careful not to follow too closely lest the man feel her presence.

  He turned down a residential street, little houses packed close together, with clothes hanging from windows. The guard stopped in front of one of the doors and pushed it open, and out of the doorway tumbled a large black-and-white dog, its ears and tongue flapping rather stupidly about its head, its tail smacking the man in the leg with loud thumps. The guard laughed and stood up, patting his own chest, and the dog responded by standing up on its hind legs, licking the man’s face enthusiastically. From the door popped a little boy, his freckled face breaking into a smile as the guard ushered them all indoors, closing the door behind them with a thud.

  Tavera frowned. The boy’s face and the dog looked familiar. All the freckles. The dog’s face and happy demeanor. They both reminded her of the blocklord they had run into, the one who had the dog Derk had fed. What was a guard doing with someone possibly related to a blocklord? Tavera shrugged and walked by the house, careful not to step in anything that had been tossed out in the night. When she walked by the door she could hear the dog barking inside and the man shushing it, the clatter of bony toenails on the floor. She’d originally planned to watch the guard until she had to meet with Derk but thought better of it. The guard was probably home till the beginning of his shift.

  She spent the rest of the watch roaming around, balancing on any ledge that she came across, hopping off of them and running to find the next one. She was balancing on her eighteenth ledge when she felt eyes on her and saw Garin staring at her from across the square, his arms crossed over his chest. Adults were part of the group now and he looked like he had been cuffed recently. Tavera just leaned forward and did a handstand, walking a few steps on her palms before she let the weight of her legs fall back toward the earth.

  As her feet arched she felt the coin loosen and then fall out of her boot, bouncing off her hip and into her skirts as she planted her feet on the ground, the metallic clink singing merrily as it bounced along the ground. Tavera chased after the coin, seeing something out of the corner of her eye. As her hand closed around the coin, Garin stepped on her foot and pulled at her hair. Tavera screamed and took the coin in her other hand once he took his foot off. A low growl rose in her throat as she got her balance and stood up. She pushed him so hard he fell back onto his backside with a bounce, the adults now looking to see where the scream had come from.

  “You hem-chawing Forester!” Garin shouted at her from the ground, and Tavera sucked in her breath as she clutched her coin to her chest, feeling all the eyes now on her. Her skin grew hot. She felt a thousand ugly things boil in her stomach and threaten to explode from her mouth. Instead she just turned and ran, fighting back her tears and her anger, not caring who saw if she was running now. She knew she was fast, just a blur of blue and brown and black cutting its way through the streets, light on her feet. She found the steps up into the rooms they were staying in, showing the keeper the token they had been given for their room before he let her up the stairs.

  Tavera still had a few moments before she had to meet with Derk and she didn’t want to show up a bedraggled mess or wearing the clothes those stupid villagers had seen her in. She put the chair up against the door before she opened her pack, pulling her tunic and top skirt off, laying them across the bed as she looked over the rest of her clothes. Her nose sniffed at her winter leggings, finding them clean, and she jumped out of her boots, sending them flying across the room. Leggings, a different-colored tunic, a belt, boots. Tavera pulled a cap out and set it on her head before she shoved everything else back in her pack, looking at the cloak that hung on the peg by the door. It was too hot to wear it right now but it would cool down after sunset and Derk would chide her if she said she was cold. She yanked it down, noting its lack of rabbit fur around the face and put it on before she left the room. The room guard did a double take as she walked by but said nothing as she sauntered down the steps.

  De
rk was already waiting at a table at the bar and the look on his face made her slow her steps, lowering her head as she came closer. The lines on his forehead were deep and his eyes could have been said to be smoldering if they were any color but that bright blue. If fire could be blue and angry, that was what Derk’s eyes looked like. He was already drinking from a rather large mug, no food before him, and he set his eyes on Tavi, not seeming to notice her at first. He looked at her again and his eyes went up and down, from boots to brow. “What’s all this?” he asked when she was close enough to not have to shout for her to hear. “You look like a boy.”

  “But I’m a girl,” Tavera said, slumping into the chair diagonal from him. The hat even covered her ears and she wouldn’t have to worry about sitting properly, which Derk insisted on. Derk just snorted and took a sip of his beer, pushing it toward her before he eyed her again, his mouth seeming to disappear from his face as he pressed his lips together.

  “Did you have a nice time on the town?” he asked. He said it as if he meant to say it like he cared but he just sounded annoyed. Tavera shrugged, laying her chin on the tabletop. She wrapped her hand around the mug and looked up at Derk, her thin brows furrowing on her small face.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Your meetings go bad?”

  Derk ran his hands through his hair, pulling at it as he blew out his cheeks. “Not bad, just…you remember that man I told you about? Hock?” He waited for her to nod before he continued but before he could he looked up, a forced smile poking the corners of his mouth and making his eyes bigger. He waved his hand over his head and Tavera turned in her chair to see who he was waving at.

  The man he was waving at couldn’t be a thief. This man was too fat. He was having trouble getting through the rows and aisles of chairs. He had a great brown mustache sitting over his lip and framing the sides of his mouth. His large frame bumped into chairs and patrons as he made his way to the table and he sat down next to Tavera, the little girl unable to keep from staring at him as he settled in. Hock drummed his fat fingers on the tabletop and looked to Derk first, then Tavera, raising a brow at her. “And who’s this lad? Are you starting to collect children, Derk? Start a bench school for little takers?”

  “This is her, Hock, this is Kiff,” Derk said. Tavera could hear the hint of exasperation in his voice and saw him cover his mouth with his hand in a further attempt to hide his annoyance. It either worked on the big man or the big man didn’t care what Derk felt at the moment. Hock chuckled and looked to Tavera. She couldn’t help but lean back in her chair away from him, his presence pushing against her. “She’s just dressed as a boy for some reason.” Derk shrugged and collected his mug back from Tavera, taking another gulp before he gestured toward her with the mug. “Well, here she is.”

  “A pair of plow-all-days, a pitcher of the bitter and a bowl of yesterday’s ,” Hock shouted at the man behind the counter, making Tavera jump in her seat. He looked to Tavera and smiled genuinely at her. “Would you like something sweet, little Kiff?”

  Tavera looked to Derk with big eyes and he nodded slightly. She scratched her cheek with her shoulder and nodded to Hock, feeling a bit shy next to the big man with the loud voice. A man was playing the two-pipes in the corner while a girl sang, both of them not nearly loud enough to drown the man out as he shouted again: “And a bowl of bleeding hearts for my little friend!” He smiled at Tavera once more, pulling a deck of cards out from his shirt and shuffling them with his fat fingers. “Play a game of Woo with me, boy? For old time’s sake?” He started to deal before Derk could even nod.

  Tavera sat there in her chair, watching as Derk picked up his cards. He didn’t bother arranging them, as always, while Hock moved his cards around a bit, trying to get the combinations set up. Hock already had a mate in his hand but not the right combinations to win. The cards were worn but painted by a skilled hand, probably a deck the fat man had bought somewhere. She watched as Derk picked up a card and placed it to the far left in his hand, throwing down a number. His blue eyes didn’t scan Hock but Tavera, trying to pick up what she knew about the fat man’s hand. She narrowed her eyes as if she were concentrating to let him know Hock had a mate already and Derk pressed his lips together as he stared at his cards, considering his approach.

  “So, you like being with this boy here?” Hock asked, picking up an animal card and throwing down a stone card. He didn’t look at her when he asked but she still just nodded, knowing he’d see out of the corner of his eye. “And what do you like about being with him?”

  “Well…he keeps me safe. And he teaches me. How to tell how much someone has. Where they’re hiding it. The best way to turn one thing into another thing. How to plan and wait. And how to fight.” She thought back to the fight earlier with the village boy and how it had turned out. Tavera had fought him back and run. That was what she was supposed to do. Get away. She had accomplished that, though a part of her worried one of the adults in the group would come into the bar and recognize her. The costume change might help her avoid detection, and if they were looking for an adult similar in appearance to her no one looked less like her than Derk.

  “And what does he get out of it, little one?” he asked, watching as Derk picked up the card Hock had thrown down, exchanging it for the fire card he had in his hand. Derk’s eyes shot over to Tavera and for a second she thought she saw alarm there. Tavera felt confused. What did Derk get out of what? Out of Tavera being his daughter? She frowned, taking the mug and pulling a sip off of it, swishing it in her mouth, the beer fizzing and tickling.

  “I guess he gets help. I’m a good helper. I’m small and I fit into places he can’t.” Was this the kind of answer he was looking for? Tavera’s mouth dropped as she tried to give a good answer. “And two crows see more than one, right?”

  “True, two crows see more than one. So, you’re a good helper. But are you a good taker?” He looked over at her now and he didn’t look as kind as he had before. Tavera was starting to dislike him. A man set a dish with two roasted rabbits, a pitcher of ale and a bowl of chopped bloodroot and barley salad on the table, setting a bowl of heartberries in their juice before her. She didn’t bother asking but ripped into one of the rabbits, thinking of the two she had seen earlier today. This one wasn’t soft at all. Just crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside. If she saw Garin again, maybe she’d bite him.

  “I’m a good taker,” she said, mouth half full of meat. “I took stuff before I met my pa and not just food. And I’m a good watcher, too. Derk says I barely needed teaching on that.”

  “Oh, and what have you watched as of late? You seen anything of interest?” Hock threw down a rain card and picked up another flower; Tavera could see the man’s displeasure with his cards. Derk looked to her but she kept her face still, dipping a bit of meat into the berry juice, painting it pink.

  “I saw that one of them town guards is helping the blocklord with all the freckles,” she said quietly. “The one with the big black dog. He’s got some boy of his living in one of the small houses by the animal blocks. I saw it today while you all were having your meetings.” Tavera didn’t care if she sounded a bit insolent. She didn’t like the way Hock was talking about her pa. She wanted to ask him what was the last thing he stole but it would probably upset Derk. Tavi hadn’t seen Derk like this before. As angry as she was, she still didn’t want to ruin anything Derk had going with this man, who seemed to be important.

  “So, you get training and he gets a lookout. That’s good. For now.” He put down a card and picked up a good one, a leaf card, before he reached over Tavera and lifted a haunch of the rabbit off the plate, ripping into it with his teeth. Derk hadn’t eaten anything but was trying to stare at his cards, looking to Tavi for a clue. She wiped her nose with her hand, though she shouldn’t have. Derk put down another leaf card, picking up a card from the pool and taking a gulp of beer. Hock smiled.

  “Though the bit about the dog and the boy, that’s good to know. You’re not bad to
have around. Of course, him having you around and us keeping you for ourselves, those are two different things. D’you understand that?” He looked to Tavera, his brown eyes serious in his pale face. His hair showed a bit of gray as he looked at her, the lantern light illuminating the age in his face. Hock looked her over and laughed, setting his cards down on the table. He picked up the leaf card and put it on top of his pile, picking one he didn’t want and setting it out, flipping all his cards over for Derk to see, grinning. “That was a quick game now, wasn’t it?”

  Derk gave her a look that was half a glare and half a smirk, throwing his cards on the table while Hock laughed. “She knows when to pick sides now, at least!” Hock almost shouted, laughing again before he took another huge bite out of his food. “Going for the big win, were yah?”

  “As always,” Derk chuckled, collecting the cards up and putting them in a pile. Hock finished the bit of rabbit with a loud slurping sound and set the mangled bones on the plate, wiping his hands on a piece of cloth that had been dropped there as well.

  “Well, I’ve met the girl and had my say. Where’re you headed to next?” Hock asked, collecting his cards in his large hands. Tavera ate one of her berries, wondering what Derk would say.

  Derk just shrugged. “Probably north, not sure yet. I’ve been a bit busy with other things to really put an ear in,” he said. He looked at Tavera, not with blame but she knew it was because of her. She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to feel so she just ate more.

  “Well keep an ear in, Derk. We’ll be calling on you soon. And maybe we’ll call upon your little girl-boy here.” Hock heaved himself out of the chair, putting his cards in his belt before smiling at Derk, a real smile. “Always a pleasure, Derk. Behave yourself.”

  Derk just nodded and kept his eyes on the table, Hock nodding a goodbye to Tavera before he ambled away, shouting a farewell to the barkeep. Tavera took a spoonful of the barley and bloodroot in her hand, pushing it into her mouth and licking her fingers as she chewed. “What’d he mean, behave?”

  “It’s something all fathers say to their children,” Derk said, shaking his head at her. He leaned over and cleaned her mouth with the cloth, rolling his eyes at her messiness.

  “You don’t say it to me,” she said after she swallowed. She reached to pour another mug of ale but Derk’s arm was longer and he did it for her, pushing the mug away from him.

  “I do, though not like that,” he said. Derk set his arms on the table and stared across the food, not touching any of it. “What did you think of Hock?”

  Tavera took another swallow and burped into her hand before she shrugged. “Fat. Kind of nice. Kind of mean. I…don’t think he likes me.” That wasn’t it, not totally. Hock was important to Derk, she knew that. He had taught Derk about being a thief, initiated him into the Cup all those turns ago and he had come to see what she could do. He’d smiled at her and bought her berries. And he’d appreciated her helping him with the card game, she knew that. Had she done something wrong? Were her chances at getting into the Cup and making Derk proud ruined?

  “It’s not that he doesn’t like you, it’s not that at all,” Derk assured her. “He just…you’re young. There’s only so much you can do and understand. He’s more upset with me,” he said finally, and it sounded like an admission. “When Hock took me on, it was different. I was older, already a bit known.”

  “Does anybody want me to be around?” Tavera asked, suddenly feeling angry. Her hands were clenched into fists and she didn’t feel like crying. She wanted to hit something. Hock maybe, or Old Gam or Derk, depending on how he answered. Derk sat back in his chair, startled by her question.

  “Of course, Kiff. I don’t throw girls in sacks once a phase to build muscle, girl.”

  “I’m not a girl or a boy and I’m not…just your crow, or a watcher or nothing like that,” she said. “I’m…I’m Tavera.” She was frowning now and her heart was pumping harder than when she had run from the village boy, though all she had been doing was talking quietly. She wondered why she felt so hot all of a sudden.

  “I know, Tavi, I know,” he said quietly, real names usually reserved for behind closed doors. He got up from his chair and sat beside her, hugging her shoulders. When he did she noticed she had been shaking and when he offered the mug of beer to her she took it, gulping from it noisily. “You still want to stick by me? Even when others think it’s a bad idea? I’m sure some family here would be happy to have another daughter, especially a smart one, though you’ll have to change your britches.”

  Tavera smacked him, wrinkling her nose at him and laughing. He had asked the question but when she looked at him she knew what he wanted her to say. She thought about the people in the town and the villagers and their lives and shook her head. Tavera’s ear perked up as the flute player and the singer started up again, several patrons walking over to the small dance floor they had set up. “Pa, what was you like as a little boy?”

  Derk puffed out his cheeks and blew out his breath, seeming to search for an answer he could give. “Well blond, for one.” Tavera sighed with exasperation and tried to smack him again but he grabbed her hand before she could, pushing it away. “Like most children, I guess. And much like myself today. I looked for adventure and disobeyed my pa. Liked to climb trees, hide from people. Liked girls a lot.” He smiled down at her before he pushed her hat back, kissing her on the forehead. Derk stood up from his seat and held his hand out toward her. “Now, the hour of eating has passed, my good sir. May I have a dance or am I going to have to take it from you?”

  Tavera laughed and stood on her chair, taking Derk’s hand and jumping off the chair. They both walked to the small dance floor, Derk taking her hands in his and leading her in a lively four-step. Tavera rolled her eyes as the singer began to sing. The song was about rabbits. Tavera danced anyway, stepping and hopping to the beat and laughing uproariously when Derk grabbed her by the hands and spun her around till the room turned into one big, happy blur.