Read Liars and Thieves (A Company of Liars short story) for Free Online Page B

mean? Have you turned king’s approver for a pardon? Our lives for your freedom, that it?’
    Dye shot him a venomous look. ‘How long have you known me, Pecker? Do you really think I’m a snake? If they catch you, they’ll catch me and we’ll dangle side by side from the gallows.’
    ‘Then what does she mean –
betrayed
?’
    Dye’s gaze flicked to Holy Jack, and just as swiftly back again. But not swiftly enough, for Pecker had caught the glance.
    ‘Have you been swiving him, you whore? Have you?’
    Pecker kicked the runes savagely aside. He bounded over the rubble towards the bothy. Jack scrambled to his feet. Pecker raised his fist, but Jack’s knife was already in his hand.
    ‘Share everything,’ Holy Jack growled. ‘That’s the bargain we made. Dye’s willing, so why should you care?’
    Dye ran up and pulled on Pecker’s arm, but he smashed her aside, knocking her to the ground, and pulled his own knife. The two men circled each other, tossing their daggers from hand to hand.
    Dye stared wildly round at us. ‘Stop them. They’ll kill each other.’
    I glanced down at Narigorm. It may have been just the flicker of the shadows cast by firelight, but I was sure she was grinning.
    Dye finally persuaded her two lovers to call a grudging truce and all three of the outlaws retreated to their own bothies in sullen silence. We bedded down as best we could among the ruins of the old building, trying to squeeze under the bits of makeshift roofs or up into corners, anything that would keep the rain from falling on our faces. It was cold and the ground was hard, but I’ve tramped the roads for so many years I could sleep in a bear pit, and even the ache in my shoulder couldn’t keep me awake after the day we’d endured.
    By the time I woke the next morning, a heavy grey light already filled the forest, but I might not have woken even then had it not been for the shriek of rage which brought us all staggering out from our holes to see Pecker stomping round and howling incoherently. It took a few moments to make out what he was saying.
    ‘Stone’s gone.’ He shook the woollen cloth in his fist at us. ‘Some thieving bastard’s stolen it.’
    ‘Are you blind?’ Jofre said. ‘The stone’s still in the cloth.’
    ‘This isn’t the salamander stone. Some arse-wipe’s swapped it. Thought I wouldn’t notice.’
    Pecker peeled back the cloth, thrusting it under our noses. The stone inside was roughly the size of the one I’d seen the night before, but paler and much more angular.
    Pecker grabbed Jofre by the front of his jerkin, his eyes narrowing.
    ‘How did you know there was a stone in the cloth, boy? Did you put it there when you stole mine?’
    Rodrigo seized Pecker’s wrist and forced him to let the lad go. Rodrigo held his pupil by the shoulders and searched his face.
    ‘
Ragazzo
, on your honour you will tell me, did you take the stone?’
    Jofre glared at Rodrigo and for a moment I feared he would stubbornly refuse to answer. But finally he shook his head.
    ‘I didn’t touch his wretched stone, I swear.’
    ‘What’s that supposed to prove?’ Pecker demanded. ‘You’re his master, you probably told him to do it. Fecking foreigners. Thieves, the whole lot of you!’
    Rodrigo took a furious step towards Pecker and might well have punched him had Dye not pushed her way between them.
    ‘Pecker  . . . Pecker! It’s Holy Jack, he’s gone.’
    Pecker ran towards the little bothy and peered inside, then crawled in on his hands and knees, as if to satisfy himself that Jack wasn’t hiding somewhere.
    Dye stood watching, her hands on her hips.
    ‘Jack never gets out of his pit this early. Says it’s not worth stirring till there’s fresh meat to be hunted on the road, and nobody comes this way much afore noon in winter. He must have taken off last night, ’cause I’ve been up since afore cockcrow and I never saw him go.’
    ‘So,
Signora
,’ Rodrigo said, ‘it seems the thief is