‘Let’s get down to business here, Jalkan,’ the fat man suggested. ‘I’ll need to know quite a bit about one of these church palaces before I risk one of the children.’

‘I know just the place, Rabell,’ Jalkan said, rubbing his hands together.

‘How are things going, Rabell?’Jalkan asked the fat man a few days later.

‘Better than I’d expected,’ Rabell replied. ‘That house you pointed out to me was almost a gold mine. I turned that one over to Grol and Baby-Girl. She had to make eight trips from the kitchen to the window to haul out all the loot. That set of dishes and the silverware brought in a lot of money.’

‘I’ve been looking into a few other houses,’ Jalkan said. ‘There are a couple of them that we might want to consider. Let’s settle accounts, and then we can talk about them.’

2

‘I think I must have offended my Oran,’ Jalkan complained to the elderly servant in Adnari Radan’s palace. ‘He claims that we need exact measurements of every church building in all of Kaldacin for church records, but I think he’s lying through his teeth. This is the most tedious chore I’ve ever had laid on me since I first entered the church, and I’ll be old and grey before I get even halfway through it.’

‘We live but to serve,’ the servant said piously.

‘Of course we do,’ Jalkan agreed sardonically. ‘Is this the Adnari’s study?’ he asked, pointing at an ornate door. ‘I wouldn’t want to disturb him.’

‘He’s over in the convenium right now.’

‘This won’t take more than a few minutes,’ Jalkan said. ‘I’m sure you have other matters to attend to. I won’t disturb anything, and I’ll close the door when I leave.’

‘I do have some chores to take care of, Hiera Jalkan,’ the old man said. ‘Are you sure you won’t need me?’

‘I’ve been doing this for weeks now, my friend,’ Jalkan replied. ‘A few more times and I should be able to do it in my sleep.’

The old man smiled and went off down the hall. Jalkan went into Adnari Radan’s study and looked around. This one seemed to be filled with all sorts of valuable items. Jalkan quickly began to scribble notes describing some of the more valuable objects. It appeared that Adnari Radan had some very expensive tastes. He had to get this place on Rabell’s list.

He was whistling as he returned home and bounded up the stairs to his second-floor cell.

Then he stopped suddenly. There were three iron-faced men in the distinctive uniforms of the church Regulators, the internal police of the Amarite church, waiting.

He turned to run back down the stairs, but the Regulators were too quick for him. They seized him and slammed him up against the wall. ‘You’re under arrest, Hiera Jalkan,’ one of them announced in an almost bored tone of voice.

‘But I haven’t done anything!’ Jalkan protested.

Almost casually, one of the Regulators drove his fist into Jalkan’s belly, knocking the wind out of him. Then, while he was gasping for breath, the Regulators slapped him into chains.

‘You’re in custody now, Hiera Jalkan,’ another Regulator declared. ‘You will come with us, and if you give us any trouble, the three of us will beat you to within an inch of your life.’

‘What are the charges?’ Jalkan demanded.

‘That’s none of our concern,’ the Regulator replied. ‘We were told by Adnari Estarg to bring you in, and that’s exactly what we’re doing.’

Jalkan began to tremble violently. Adnari Estarg was the most powerful man in the Amarite church, and he had a fearsome reputation. Church law forbade the death penalty for priests and even for novices, but it was widely known in Kaldacin that Adnari Estarg could come up with forms of punishment that made the death penalty seem almost preferable.

The Regulators dragged their violently trembling prisoner through the streets of Kaldacin to the splendid palace adjoining the huge, ornate convenium that marked the center of the Amarite faith. Then they took him up an ornate marble staircase to a splendidly furnished study on the second floor of the palace. They pushed him down onto his knees before the throne of a portly man garbed in the crimson robe of an Adnari of the church.

‘The prisoner Jalkan, your Grace,’ the Regulator who’d done most of the talking announced.

‘Excellent,’ the chubby churchman said, rubbing his hands together. ‘That’ll be all gentlemen. I’ll deal with this miscreant myself.’

‘As you wish, your Grace,’ the Regulator said with a slight bow, and then the three of them left the study, closing the door behind them.

‘Shameful, Hiera Jalkan,’ Adnari Estarg said. ‘Shameful, shameful, shameful. What am I going to do with you, you naughty boy?’

The Adnari’s tone actually sounded almost amused. ‘You do realize that you’ve profaned a sacred convenium by turning it into a den of thieves, don’t you?’

‘It’s been long abandoned, your Grace,’ Jalkan protested.

‘That doesn’t mean that the sanctification’s been revoked, Jalkan,’ the Adnari insisted.

‘It wasn’t originally my idea, your Grace. The old convenium had been long deserted, and the leader of a group of thieves just moved in and set up shop without anybody’s permission.’

‘Why didn’t you report that to your Oran?’

‘Well—’ Jalkan desperately groped for some sort of explanation that wouldn’t get him deeper in trouble.

‘I’m waiting, Jalkan.’

‘I lost my head, your Grace,’ Jalkan confessed. ‘The thieves are making heaps of money, and—’ Jalkan faltered.

‘And you seized the chance to take most of it away from them, didn’t you?’

‘Only a quarter, your Grace,’ Jalkan protested. ‘I thought at first that I could get more, but Rabell wouldn’t stand for it.’

‘Rabell?’

‘The fat man who hires the thieves. They steal and he sells what they’ve stolen. The really clever part of the business is the use of children.’

Adnari Estarg’s head came up sharply. ‘Children?’ he exclaimed. ‘What part could children play in this?’

‘They’re the ones who do the actual stealing, your Grace. As I understand it, the thieves have been using children for years and years. People with valuables in their houses usually have barred windows, but the children Rabell hires are so small that they can slip right between the bars and get inside with almost no trouble at all. Rabell tells me that when he was a child, he was the best thief in all of Kaldacin.’