“I’ve made a small fortune this day, barkeep! Ale or wine for all of these good patrons gathered round the bar, and for yourself too!”

The stolid proprietor of the Four Pots nodded and touched his forelock in thanks and respect. “Thanks, Trader Markham. Right happy to hear you’ve done well… as are the fine souls here who will be glad to drink to your health and prosperity-right, lads?”

“Aye!” came a chorus from the seven or eight others in the immediate area. “To your health and fortune, trader!” they added, quaffing the drinks that the tavernkeeper hastened to deliver to them.

Markham beamed, swigged a good portion of his dark beer, and casually looked around the place. He noticed two men sitting at a back table idly playing a game of plaques. The fat trader ambled over to the pair and watched the play for a minute. “May I join the game?” he asked amiably.

“Why not, friend?” one of the men said, barely glancing up from his study of the tableau on the stained wood. “We can use some fresh coin.”

“Barman! A round for me and these two here. They’ll soon be making me richer still, and I’ll want them happily oiled before that.”

Nobody in the place paid any attention to the three gamers thereafter. Markham was well known as a drab-pincher. Although his largess tonight must mean he had indeed managed to cheat some unfortunate customer out of much silver, he’d never spend that much on drink nor lose it in a game of chance. The plaques game would involve nothing more than brass and bronze coins, perhaps a copper in a big pot. Watching such a contest was about as exciting as viewing the wet rings on the table as they were slowly absorbed by the wood and dried away by the air. For all the other patrons were concerned, Mark-ham and the other two didn’t exist after the first flurry of excitement.

“Two zees on that one!” The fat trader said this loud enough for anyone nearby to hear. Then, under his breath, he added, “The lad has promise if we can train him. Can you manage to get him out?”

“And another!” Clyde cried out in the same loud tone as he tossed three bronze coins onto the table in answer to Markham’s bet. “In time, I am sure of it,” he said softly.

Quietly, Markham said, “Do so, and you’ve earned a lucky.” Then, loudly, looking at Tapper, “And what about you, friend?”

“I’ll match the three zees, never fear!” Tapper replied, then whispered, “What’s the boy to be trained as, a thief?”

“Can’t be done,” Clyde said in a hushed voice. “He has to be sponsored, and that’d attract attention.” He revealed his plaques then, and the three talked loudly about it, for he had won the hand. Between plays, however, the undertone of conversation progressed. Clyde was to get the boy apprenticed to the Beggars’ Union. That was the best prospect any of them could come up with.

“Enough!” Markham rose with a sour look “You two have managed to reduce my profits to nothing in the space of an hour. I’m for home and bed, a poorer and sadder man.”

“Bah,” Tapper said, looking at the coins in front of him. “You lost but a copper or two in total.”

“I’m an honest trader, not some rich noble. Besides, I swear I’m down twice that sum,” the fat man said as he stumped from the tavern. Several of the customers laughed at his display, but Markham didn’t mind. All had occurred as he’d hoped. Tapper and Clyde thought that they had determined the course of apprentice beggar for the boy. All the while, however, Markham had steered them to it-as instructed by the man he took orders from, the learned sage…

…No. He mustn’t even think of that name. In any event, it was out of his hands now. Sharp Clyde would manage things from here on. If he succeeded, then another would take over. Who that was, even Markham didn’t know. It was enough that his part had gone smoothly and as planned.

Tapper and Clyde spent a little more time and money at the Four Pots so as not to arouse suspicion. The place was frequented mostly by laborers and the common workers from the brewery nearby, but there was no harm in avoiding unnecessary risks. One could never be certain who was a spy, an informant, or the like.

“I cursed my assignment to the workhouse,” Clyde said quietly to Tapper. “Now it seems lucky indeed that I pissed off the captain and got the Old Citadel assignment as punishment.”

“Not much there in the way of income for a thief, though,” Tapper observed.

Clyde grinned. “I thought so at first, but there are plenty of coins to be picked up-bribes for adjusting the work schedule, bribes from the better-off inmates for special treatment, and good money for selling off prisoners.”

“Selling prisoners?”

“Sure. Change identities with some corpse due for discharge soon, or a falsified death sometimes. Then the former prisoner can be sold into indenture. Of course,” Clyde added thoughtfully, “it’s more profitable to have a long-termer buy freedom that way, but not many with that much money need to use such means to escape.”

The nondescript locksmith looked at his associate with new admiration. “So you’ll sell the kid as an indentured servant, take Markham’s coin too, and be paid as a guard in the bargain!”

“None of which will make me a wealthy man. Tapper,” the thief said as he nodded agreement. “I still need to get out and about in order to make ends meet.” He referred to his trade, naturally.

Tapper, older and less interested in carousing, managed quite well on his fees for services from the Balance to augment the income from his trade and kickbacks from thieves. He understood what Clyde remarked on, though. High living In Old City cost plenty. If it was done in New Town, it was even more expensive. “It’s hard to keep a full purse,” Tapper agreed.

“True, friend, in more ways than one… when I’m about,” Clyde said with a wink.

Laughing together, the two then departed the tavern. Tapper headed toward the secret thieves’ portal that would enable him to return to his place in the Foreign Quarter, and Clyde turned north to go back to the prison where he was barracked.

Next morning Clyde made a point of finding out where the boy was. Gord was the kid’s name, and he was a skinny, weak-looking little urchin. His group was a mixed lot of weaklings, children, and the aged. They were quartered together In a common cell and taken out six days of the week to work off their crimes against the city and its honest citizens. Their assignments were fairly light ones, considering they were being punished. Toil was the lot of the poor anyway, and what the gang of criminals had to do each day was no more strenuous than what many free persons had to manage. Of course, they did get the dirtiest and most dangerous work, but that could be expected as well.

Clyde found out that Gord had been on the workhouse roll for only five days. “They certainly are keeping close tabs on this one, and acting fast,” he murmured to himself, thinking that he had good cause to ask for more than a hundred zees for getting the lad out. He’d demand two luckies for the accomplishment, twice the sum promised, and expected he’d get it, too.

It was just after sunup, so Clyde headed for the prisoners’ section of the massive old fortress. He wanted to get another first-hand look at the boy as he was marched off to work. Tomorrow was a day of rest for the prisoners, an opportunity for Clyde to pull the lad out of the cell and get him away. No really careful body count was kept, so it would be easy to forge a document saying that the child prisoner known as Gord of the Slum Quarter of Old City had died accidentally while serving his term of imprisonment.

Clyde was in for a surprise.

He arrived in time to see that the lad had taken things into his own hands, so to speak, by using what meager means he could devise to make himself appear stricken with some sort of contagious plague. The trick was one that any good thief or accomplished beggar would see through immediately, just as Clyde did. However, the stupid clods who were the regular guards at the prison were completely fooled.