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else.’ He cut sharply right off Moon Street and wove between the alleys into the traffic of the Godsway. The road here was every bit as busy as Weaver’s Row, but it was a different kind of busy. This was a steady, orderly procession of carts, rolling up and down the hill between Four Winds Square and the river docks. No, the Rich Docks, that’s what the priest had called them. Berren wondered why.

    At the top of the hill in the huge open space of Four Winds Square, the carts scattered. Master Sy ignored them. He marched straight across the middle towards the city courthouse on the other side, the place where the execution scaffolds had been. As Berren walked beneath where they’d stood, the hairs on the back of his neck prickled. He stopped to peer at the ground and look for traces of blood; but before he could find any, Master Sy was yelling at him to keep up and he had to run again.

    The thief-taker passed the courthouse. He went down a narrow street that ran alongside it and arrived at a much smaller square that opened out along the back. On the far side of this square, the smell of beer and a loud rumble of talk washed out of a low house wrapped in ivy. In the middle, a small fountain in the shape of an octopus bubbled and gurgled. Berren stared. He’d never seen anything like it.

    ‘Oh come on, lad. Have you never seen a fountain?’ Berren shook his head. He reached out to touch the water with his hand and then drank a few drops. It tasted clean. ‘Where does it come from?’

    Master Sy shook his head impatiently. He pointed up to the roof of the courthouse. ‘Rain. They catch the rain in great big buckets the size of houses.’ He pulled Berren gently away. ‘Come on. They use it to make beer, too. I’ll get you one. Proper beer, lad. Not like the rat-piss they sell in Shipwrights.’

    As they ducked under the ivy and in through the wide-open door of the drinking house, the conversation died away. People looked up and stared. They stared at him , Berren realised, not at Master Sy. Then their heads dropped, one by one, and the chatter resumed.

    ‘This is the Eight Pillars of Smoke, or the Eight as most of us call it,’ murmured Master Sy. ‘As I said, if you need looking after, go to Teacher Garrent. If you need some actual help, come here.’ He made a gesture at the barkeeper and wandered in among the low tables and the squat stools that surrounded them. The air, Berren thought, was unusually fresh and he could even feel a wind. Then he looked up and saw that the house had no roof. Just a criss-cross of beams thickly wrapped in ivy. The thief-taker picked his way to a far corner where three grim men sat together. Life had taught Berren a great deal about reading faces, but these three were impossible. They were blank. He didn’t like blank. Blank made his skin crawl. Whatever they were talking about, they stopped long before Berren could overhear anything. They looked up, waiting patiently as Master Sy approached them. They obviously knew him. Berren found himself nervously scanning for a clear path to the door, for a fast way out, but the floor was too cluttered, the tables and the stools too closely packed. From table to table, over the top. That was the only way to do it . . .

    The nearest of the men got up. He was taller and heavier than Master Sy, with thick curly black hair and a thick curly black beard. The man’s eyes narrowed. He bared his teeth and clenched his fists, and then he leapt at Master Sy, wrapped his arms around the thief-taker and crushed him. Berren jumped a yard backwards. He almost bolted.

    ‘Syannis! Where have you been?’

    The black-haired man had arms like posts, but if anything, Master Sy only looked slightly embarrassed.

    ‘Mardan.’ The thief-taker smiled weakly. The black-haired man let him go and glared down at Berren instead.

    ‘And who’s this tiger?’

    ‘This is my apprentice, Berren. Berren, this is Master Mardan. Another thief-taker. If you ever