Dishonour Among Thieves. Paul Durham

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      Quinn looked at his blackened hands and sighed in agreement. All of his fingers were swollen, bandaged, or both.

      “Enough chatter then. Let’s be on our way to the inn,” Bramble declared, casting a wary eye around them. “Before the villagers begin to wonder what’s so interesting in here.”

      “I’m coming too,” Quinn said eagerly.

      “We’ll split up and meet at Mutineer’s Alley. I’ll go first – I’m most likely to draw attention coming out of this place. You three wait a few moments then head out after me. Just try to look like nosy little scamps. Can you manage that?”

      Bramble looked them over. They just blinked back at him.

      “Perfect,” he said.

      Bramble pulled his hood over his head, climbed through an empty window frame, then paused and looked back at them. “Step lively and stay inconspicuous,” he warned, before disappearing.

      Rye, Folly and Quinn waited for several minutes, then pulled their hoods tight and ventured out on to Market Street.

      The Constable was still reading from his list. “James Whitlow. Guilty of fouling the Earl’s private privy at the Silvermas Eve Feast. Fine of ten silver shims and one hour on the Shame Pole.”

      “We missed you at Silvermas,” Quinn whispered as they moved quickly down the cobblestones.

      “Yes, we should talk about that,” Rye said with a frown. “Next year, let’s save our coins and buy our own candy—”

      Rye stopped abruptly. The Constable’s words had caught her ear from the pillory.

      “And now for the most egregious offenders,” he said, running his finger down the length of the scroll. “Abigail O’Chanter,” he read. “Guilty of trafficking in stolen goods, harbouring known criminals, and conspiracy to commit treason. Punishment is seizure and destruction of the guilty’s property and imprisonment in the dungeons of Longchance Keep for not less than …”

      Rye’s head instantly flushed with a rage so great she couldn’t hear the rest of his words. Someone whispered to her to ignore it, to keep on moving. She thought it might be Quinn. They were in front of the fishmonger’s stall. Rye thrust her bare hand into the trough of ice and pulled out a stiff, frozen mackerel by its tail. She couldn’t feel the cold.

      Rye marched towards the pillory. Someone else grabbed at her arm. It might have been Folly. The Constable had moved on to the next name on the list.

      “Harriet Wilson. Guilty of—”

      Rye flung the fish. It knocked the parchment scroll from the Constable’s grasp and bounced off his leather vest before landing at his feet. He considered his empty hand with surprise then glowered out at the crowd. The soldiers and the squire looked her way as well. The Constable’s dog growled and strained at its leash.

      Suddenly Rye was aware of her surroundings again, and found herself back-pedalling away from the Shame Pole. She bumped hard into two bodies. It was Quinn and Folly, who had caught up with her a moment too late.

      “Tell me you didn’t just hit the Constable with a fish,” Quinn said as he carefully eased his helmet over his head.

      Rye looked at the shimmering scales stuck to her palm. “I didn’t just hit the Constable with a fish,” she replied.

      The squire spotted Rye and pointed. The three soldiers leaped down from the pillory.

      “Scatter!” Rye yelled, and the three friends did just that. Growing up together on Drowning’s winding streets, they’d practised this many times before.

      Rye darted down one end of Market Street while Folly and Quinn tore off in different directions. Rye pushed past a merchant and nearly ran headlong into a cow’s rump before glancing back over her shoulder. She saw Folly’s head of white-blonde hair sprinting safely down a narrow lane. But she was shocked to see that all three soldiers had taken off in pursuit of Quinn. That wasn’t how it was supposed to work. The soldiers should have split up to chase each of them. There wasn’t a man in Drowning the children couldn’t out-manoeuvre individually but, once outnumbered, things could get tricky. She saw Quinn’s wobbly helmet disappear down the alley near the remains of the Willow’s Wares. The soldiers had left him with no other option.

      “Pigshanks,” Rye cursed. She knew the alley dead-ended at the canal. With three soldiers behind him, Quinn would be trapped. She changed course and ran back for him.

      Rye turned the corner at full speed and skidded to a stop. She found just what she had feared. The three soldiers stood menacingly in the middle of the alleyway. Quinn had pulled up at the far end, where its cobbles met the foul-smelling canal that drained swill from the village to the river. The shallow water was filled with more pigs than Rye could count, their heads rooted up to their ears in the run-off. Each looked heavier than a full-grown man. Quinn glanced from the soldiers to the pigs and back again, weighing an impossible decision.

      Rye looked around the alleyway. A young piglet snuffled about, having wandered off from the rest of the animals. It sniffed something interesting on her boots. She reached down and scooped him up in her arms. He oinked and squirmed but didn’t seem overly alarmed.

      “Sorry, little fella,” Rye whispered in the piglet’s ear, then gave him the gentlest pinch on the tail.

      The piglet squealed as if jabbed by a butcher’s blade and lurched to free itself from her grasp. The sows pulled their snouts from the murky water and grunted in reply. A soldier looked back at Rye and the little pig.

      “Quinn! Get out of the way!” she called, and set the piglet down. It ran back towards its mother on the opposite side of Quinn and the soldiers.

      Quinn knew exactly what was about to happen – village children were taught early never to get between a sow and her young. He darted to the side of the alley out of the pigs’ path, pressing himself against a building. The soldiers weren’t as quick, and found an army of wet, angry hogs bearing down on them with their tusks.

      Rye and Quinn didn’t stop to catch their breath until they’d made it to where Bramble was waiting at Dread Captain’s Way. Shortstraw had climbed out from his hiding spot in Bramble’s cloak and now perched on his shoulder, his furry arms crossed impatiently.

      Folly arrived just behind them. “There you are,” she said, gasping for breath.

      Quinn struggled to remove his helmet.

      “What happened back there?” Bramble demanded. He grabbed Quinn’s helmet and yanked it off with a pop. Quinn rubbed the red welt it had left across his forehead.

      “Rye hit the Constable with a fish,” Folly said.

      Bramble looked at Rye in disbelief and shook his head. “Perhaps we need to discuss the meaning of inconspicuous.”

      They followed him to an obscure flight of carved stone steps tucked under a crumbling archway. It was called Mutineer’s Alley. No guards or gate blocked their path, but everyone in Drowning knew where those steps led. And it was no place for the unwelcome.

      Rye glanced over her shoulder as they started down. No soldiers followed, but someone was standing in the shadows of the СКАЧАТЬ