Trent ch 4

Chapter Four

The rhythmic sound of hammer striking metal rang through the forge. The hard rain drops plopping on the roof muffled the monotonous clanging slightly, but if you stood right by the walls you could hear it clearly.
Trent was busy at the forge, making new swords for her shop. There hadn’t been any special orders lately, but since she enjoyed making swords most of all, she would always make one when there was free time. This one would be rather plain looking, but one of her strongest. Using one of her spells for metal strengthening and a special way of heating the metal, Trent would make sure this sword would never break, or chip, or lose its edge. She was still deciding what to do about the cross-guard—if she should fashion an ornamental one out of iron, gold, or silver, or if she should just make a plain guard. Perhaps just a plain one—to emphasize the plain appearance. But she would definitely have to make an inscription, with runes, Yaman, or Scanran. No. Maybe that would be too much.
“Oi! Miss Trent!” a young, uncouth voice hissed outside Trent’s windows. “I needs to speak to ya.”
Trent’s thoughts and her hammer abruptly stopped in mid-swing. “Who’s there?” She looked up from her work and scanned the room quickly with her eyes. There! At the near window. There was a tiny bit of movement. With this heavy rain and it being this late already, too late for people to be calling, it only meant one thing.
Thieves.
She put down hammer, tongs, and sword blade, and walked softly towards the back window. She pushed it open, ignoring the cold wind and wet that sprayed onto her face and leather apron and that chilled her bare limbs after the forge blaze’s heat, to see who was calling.
She thrust the window open so swiftly that she startled the boy outside. He jumped at least a foot—he was so skinny, it was no wonder he could jump so high, light as he was—at least a foot back out into the pouring rain. He gulped. “It’s me, Miss. Rat,” he said as he stepped quickly back under the roof’s cover from the rain.
“What do you want Rat? I’ve a sword I need to finish before it’s ruined, and I can’t have your kind around here too long or I’ll start losin’ customers,” she said gruffly.
“It’s real impor’ent. Honest, Miss.”
Trent studied him with a scrutinizing eye. Rat was around ten or twelve years old, with red hair, at least when it wasn’t as muddy as it is now. His clothes were also muddy, and torn; there was blood trickling down one of his knees, from his nose, and his eye was blackened as well. From at least a day ago, she guessed. Something must be amiss. Normally, when Rat was surprised—and that wasn’t often—he would scowl, then grumble as he trotted forward to his former stance. But he hadn’t this time. He seemed, humble. Begging almost. But she still had to be wary of him. Not only was Rat one of the best pick-pockets of the entire Rogue, he was also the best Player and could act like a professional.
“The last time you said that, Rat,” she finally, “it was a cat that you had found and didn’t know how to get rid of. And then I had to take it into my shop, bathe it—”
“It’s the King, Miss. He’s sick.”
That stopped Trent in mid-word. “How long?”
“Three days. No change a’ tall, and our own mages can’t find what’s wrong.”
Trent stood there for about a minute, thinking, while Rat shifted nervously from foot to foot in the pouring rain.
She knew he was telling the truth, but it wasn’t the whole truth. Trent could tell easily whenever people were lying to her, no matter how well they could act, or how long she had known them. But if he is battered this much, and it’s been three days, something must be wrong in the Rogue as well. The Rogue’s mages were very good healers, able to cure the common cold easily, as well as dealing with pestilence often enough to keep plagues from starting in the sewers. But if they couldn’t find any natural reason for the Rogue King’s sickness, there was only one thing left: poison.
The Rogue’s mages were almost as good as the palace healers, actually. And so it wouldn’t take them three days, even if it was a poison they’d never encountered before. They must have fought whether or not to ask for help, after finding they couldn’t cure it themselves. It looks like Rat’s side lost, but he came anyway.
Finally she answered him: “Wait.”
“Ivan!” she called, poking her head into the store where he was closing up. “I have to go out. There’s a rat problem again.”
Ivan looked up from the fireplace he had just smothered. He heard her emphasis on ‘rat’ and nodded without a blinking, immediately understanding where she needed to go, and that she’d be gone for a while. “I’ll take care of things here for a while. Until you come back, Lass. Send someone if you need anything, and I’ll send whatever it is you need back with him. I don’t want to know where they live, but I’ll help if you’re helping.”
“Thanks, Ivan.” She turned to go back into the workshop and up the stairs when she remembered her promise to her uncles. “Ivan. Will you explain to Neal and Merric if I’m not back by lunch tomorrow?”
“Of course, Lass. I’ll take care of it.”
She nodded briefly, then ran up the stairs.

After fifteen minutes of winding their way through the busy rainy streets, Trent finally pulled Rat up short by the collar.
“Rat. I already know the way into the Court of Thieves. All this is doing is costing your king precious time to live. So I suggest we stop going in circles and go to the court. Now.”
Rat gulped and nodded. He turned back to the city and looked around at the lampposts. “The quickest entrance is over here,” he said, and walked into the nearest tavern.
It was a clean and orderly sort of inn—not the kind you would expect to find the King of the Rogue hiding in. But this is where Trent had come before—on accident, actually—on her way home from the market one time when the weather had turned bad. The rain had turned to hail, and wasn’t going to stop anytime soon, so Trent got a room for the night. Everything was going fine until one of the normal customers tried to get friendly with her while attempting to steal her money purse.
She retaliated, of course, slicing him across the chest with one of her many hidden daggers, then pressed the blade to his neck. The only problem was the man’s unexpected armsmen. Unfortunately, the man she was threatening was the King of Thieves.
Lucky for Trent, he took the whole fiasco as a joke! He introduced himself, and his men that had been holding swords to her throat, and invited her to sup with him. He even offered to pay for her rent as well! She refused of course, but when she got home the next day she found all the money she had paid for room and food in neat stacks on her dresser.
Since that day the King of the Rogue and Trent became fast friends. She would never help him in his crimes and he knew that. And as long as his schemes didn’t affect her, she felt no reason to alert the authorities.