The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble's Braids Read Online Free PDF Page A

the other statuettes. I didn’t think he was going anywhere, though. Not without the toad. Not if he was willing to kill for it.
    Maybe Kluge thought I was holding out, maybe not. His face was unreadable. He presented an air of weary competence, an honest man doing his best in a job that didn’t pay enough. He was going to do a kindness to someone caught on the periphery of something ugly.
    Right.
    I had no doubt he’d toss me straight into Havelock prison if he thought it would get him farther along. A dirty little street knifing had turned into the death of a noble, albeit a disgraced one, and people with enough clout to bury Kluge in an unmarked grave—literally—were going to be second guessing his every move soon enough. He was going to cast me back, just to see where I might lead him. I was going to have to look over my shoulder every damn where I went.
    When he finally waved me away with the admonishment to make sure I was available for further questioning, he’d managed to give me sweaty palms. He got up and walked me to the door, hand politely at my back. When he stuck out a hand to shake, I took it.
    As soon as his hand touched mine, the little hairs on the back of my neck stood up and a chill ran down my spine. I walked outside, pretending I hadn’t noticed a thing. I swore silently.
    The son of a bitch had just used magic on me. Odds were he didn’t need to detail men to tail me. He’d know exactly where I was, wherever I went. I hoped that was all he’d done. I tried not to think about all the nasty little things it was possible to do with just a handshake.
    Corbin’s body had been removed while I was inside, and the blood mostly washed away. The smell still lingered, though, and Bone set up a half-hearted howl. I collected my knives from Jarvis, who no doubt was hoping I’d forget them. Fat chance of that. They were perfectly weighted for me, and had cost me dear.
    The damned dog didn’t stop his howling until we were blocks away. I dragged him along by his collar. I was going to have to get some rope. He was giving me another headache. “Kerf’s withered testicles,” I spat, shocking a sweet faced granny passing by.
    Heirus the Elamner was going to have to wait. Hells, I couldn’t even risk going back home until I’d done something about Kluge’s leave-taking present. It had become necessary to get some magic of my own.
    I set off for the charnel grounds. It was time to see Holgren.

 
     
    Chapter Five
     
     
    Holgren Angrado lived way the hells and gone on the other side of the River Ose, on the edge of the charnel grounds. And of course I had to walk it. No hack was going to pick me up while I was dragging eighty pounds of scarred, slobbering dog along. It was a two hour walk from Silk Street up to Daughter’s Bridge, on what had to be the hottest day of the year. By the time we got there the rest of the morning had fled, and my temper was vile. At least Bone had stopped howling.
    Lucernans are much like anyone else, except when it comes to death. I was born in Bellarius, myself, so I don’t really understand their odd fixation with forms and observances and their peculiar ideas about the afterlife, but it seems to work for them.
    There is only one true graveyard in Lucernis: the City of the Dead. It’s a huge necropolis that butts up against the south bank of the Ose. Its gargantuan hexagonal wall is ten man-heights of alabaster stretching on and on. People visit, send letters to the dearly departed, have midsummer feasts there. Like any city, it has its rich districts and its poor. And like any city, if you don’t pay your rent, you get the boot. Thus, the charnel grounds.
    Those whose families would not or could not pay the annual mortuary tax were disinterred, and their bodies dumped with a distinct lack of ceremony in the city’s charnel grounds. Which, I understand, is a bit like being taken from a civilized limbo and being cast into one of the less pleasant pits in the eleven