My senses hyperalert, I scuttled quickly to the closest window of the main house. Its shutters were closed tight. I heard a growl from their other side, low and menacing, a warning from the dog who had been sleeping inside. I backed away, then moved to the farther corner of the house and froze in my tracks. A guard sat there, trying to stay out of the rain beneath the overhang of the second story, his cloak wrapped tight around him, his chin on his chest—asleep or not, I could not tell.
I took no chances. Sliding along the wall almost like a snake, I was within arm’s reach before he realized I was there. With one hand I muffled his mouth and with the other I chopped the back of his neck. I felt him go limp. Then I sat him down again exactly as he had been, chin on chest, cloak secure around him.
I swung up onto the overhang and climbed to the second-floor window. It too was shuttered, but I gripped it by the slats in one hand as I hung there and forced it open with only a slight groaning, squeaking noise. Not enough to warn anyone, I hoped.
I pulled myself through the window and into the dark room. My eyes were fully adjusted to the dark and I swiftly saw that this was a bedchamber and that a woman lay asleep in the bed, tossing unhappily and muttering in her dreams. I tiptoed past her and went out into the corridor beyond her door.
It was a balcony, actually, that ran along all four sides of the house’s inner courtyard. Sleeping chambers and other rooms lined its entire length. The area below was lit by that one feeble lamp I had seen from outside. It was a large central atrium, with rooms opening onto it. Peering through the polished wood railing of the balcony, I could see two guards squatting by the door, miserable in the chilly rain. The dog that had growled at me was pacing nervously across the flooring beneath the balcony on the far side of the atrium, his claws clicking against the stones. He looked up at me, ears pricked, but apparently he had been trained not to climb the stairs. He was a ground-floor dog, and for that I was extremely grateful.
Now the question was, where did the dealer keep his money? I smiled to myself in the shadows. In his own room, I was willing to bet. But which room was his?
I stood there for long moments, studying the area. The balcony was lined with doors, all of them closed. They were all single doors, except for those at the far end of the balcony, opposite the side where the stairs were. Double doors. Handsomely carved, at that.
Staying in the shadows along the wall, I made my way swiftly and silently to those double doors. They were locked, of course. Very well. I retreated, testing each of the other doors as I went until I found one that opened for me. The room inside was unoccupied; it looked like a storage room, with shelves lining two of its walls. There was only a narrow slit of a window, but I pushed its shutter open and stuck my head out into the rain. The wall was smooth and straight; no handholds, no ledge or anything else to plant my feet upon. But there was the roof above.
I squeezed out through the narrow window, stood up precariously on its sill, and reached for the overhanging eave. The roofing tiles were slippery from the rain, but I managed to haul myself up onto the sloping roof. As quietly as I could, I edged across the tiles to the spot where the master bedroom must be. Leaning over the eaves I saw a double window. One of the shutters was even open a little. The master of the house liked fresh air. Good!
I swung down and went in through the window as silently as a shadow. And heard the growl of a guard dog.
I had no time to waste. The dog was standing before me, fangs bared. There was no time to try to soothe it; in another instant it would start to bark and rouse the entire house. Faster than it could react I seized it by the throat and yanked it up off its feet. It clawed at me and tried to snap at my face but I kept it at arm’s length as I squeezed the breath from its throat. It jerked convulsively, then went limp. I eased the pressure of my hands. I could feel a pulse beat in its neck, heard it sucking in air. I let the animal down gently, hoping it would remain unconscious long enough for me to find the dealer’s coins.
The embers of a dying fire glowed in the bedroom fireplace. The slave merchant lay asleep. I saw that his chamber had only a single door. There must be an anteroom out there, probably with guards on duty in it.
Looking around, I saw a massive cabinet standing in one corner of the bedchamber. Tall as the ceiling, deep enough for a man to walk into, two ornate doors locked tight. There was a writing desk next to it.
There must be a key to those doors, I reasoned, and it must be near to the owner’s hand. I tiptoed to the edge of his bed and saw that, sure enough, the key was on a chain around his neck. How to get it without waking him? Guile, a voice in my mind answered me. Guile, not force. Remember, you don’t want him to know that you’ve been here.
Then I smiled to myself. Properly used, force can be a form of guile.
I went to the glowing embers of his fire, took the tongs from beside the fireplace, and lifted out a smoldering chunk of wood. I could hear the dog beginning to stir, whining. I blew hard on the half-burned ember and it glowed brighter. Then I swiftly crossed the room and touched it to the drapes of the windows, the clothing piled atop a chest, the bedclothes themselves. They began to smoke and smolder.
I pegged the ember back into the fireplace in a red arc of sparks, then gave the sleeping old man a mighty shove that knocked him flat onto the floor on the other side of the bed. Before he could raise his head I dashed to the open window and ducked through it, hanging outside in the rain by my hands.
“Fire!” I heard him screech. “Fire!”
Lifting myself to eye level I saw him run through the smoke to his door and fling it open. I felt the draft that immediately blew through the room, setting the smoldering bedclothes into real flames.
“Fire, you idiots!” he screamed to the startled guards in his anteroom. “Get water! Quickly!”
He dashed to that big double-doored cabinet and fumbled the key from the chain around his neck. With shaking hands he unlocked the doors and pulled them open. I could see in the growing light of the flames that he had several chests in there, and dozens of smaller boxes sitting on shelves. There were also row upon row of scrolls: his business records, I guessed.
The dog bolted past him and out the door as the window curtains burst into flame. The heat singed the hairs on the backs of my hands and made me duck my head below the window sill.
When I looked up again the dealer had tucked several boxes under his scrawny arms and was trying to lock the doors once again. The flames were licking higher; the canopy over the bed came crashing down and he finally gave up and dashed from the room.
I had only a few moments to act. I hauled myself through the window once again and went straight to the cabinet. Yanking its doors wide I pawed through several of the smaller boxes inside. They were all filled with coins. I took two of them to the window and tossed them on the ground, then raced back to the fireplace. Grabbing the largest half-burned log there, I blew it alight and then used it as a torch to set the scrolls afire inside the cabinet.
Heavy steps were pounding up the stairway, running along the balcony. Voices were yelling, dogs barking, women shrieking. Over them all I heard the piercing high screech of the slave dealer cursing at his men and screaming that the whole house would be destroyed.
Seeing the cabinet nicely ablaze I dashed back to the window and jumped to the ground below. I scooped up the two boxes of coins, ran through the night and the rain to the wall, stopping only to glance back over my shoulder at my handiwork. Smoke was pouring from the windows now, with flames flickering through. With a bit of luck the whole house would burn down.