A/N: Oops, thought I'd already posted this chapter. Well, you get two chapters at once now!
Imperial City, Cyrodil, Heartfire 3E 432
"Lettie, Lettie. Wake up!" Florrie was knelt by her bedroll and was shaking her. The newfound excitement hadn't robbed her of much sleep, but it still felt just plain wrong to be woken up just after midnight.
"D'you want me to do that spell to make you feel more awake?" Florrie suggested. He hadn't meant it as a threat, but it got Lettie up as quick as if he had. You see, a few months back, Florrie had paid 15 gold for a spell of fortify fatigue. The only place in the city where you could buy spells so cheap was 'Edgar's Discount Spells'. Most mages avoided this shop like the plague, and the spell that Florrie now knew was a good indication why.
Fortify fatigue spells were useful, but only if they let you down slowly. Otherwise you could be running with all the energy in the world one minute and asleep in the gutter the second. Lettie and several other Florrie had eagerly tried to help wake up had found this out the hard way.
Marc and Florrie had sorted all of their lock-picks into neat bundles of ten; this made it all the easier to keep track of them. Odds were, tonight there would be no need for them, not with alteration expert Dovyn with them, but as all good thieves know, you have to keep all your escape options open.
When the three of them arrived at the Market District, Dovyn was already there. Like the inverse of a performer, he was doing a very good job of not drawing attention to himself. A couple of legionnaires were wandering about, but at this time of night most just guarded the gates, assuming that if any trouble cropped up they'd probably hear it.
The old Dunmer and her two Breton brothers spoke in hushed voices for a few seconds, using words as though they cost money. Then all three set off, with Lettie following.
Round the slowly curving street that ran through the middle of the district. Towards the gate to the arena. Then left, into one of the two covered squares, onto which most of the shops opened. The Red Diamond was at the far end of the square. Lettie couldn't help but feel nervous of the guard at the gate close by, and found herself torn between mentioning it and trusting Dovyn and her suddenly professional brothers. In the end, she decided not to mention it.
Dovyn nodded to Florrie, who cast his detect life spell. For a moment you could see the purple light playing around his eyes, then he gave Dovyn a nod back; Hamlof was definitely not in the immediate vicinity. Dovyn then crouched down, and placed his thumbs either side of the keyhole. Lettie expected to see another light, or to at least hear the click of the lock, so was surprised to see Dovyn stand up and open the door without either of those things. They all slipped in quickly, Dovyn shutting the heavy door with hardly a sound.
Lettie had been in here a couple of times. The merchandise glittered and shone from the display cabinets: jewellery, of course, but also complicatedly tailored outfits, smooth suede garments, gold and silver threaded tunics and more. No wonder they were in velvet-lined glass cabinets as opposed to just shelves. These clothes weren't meant to simply be worn, they were meant to be displayed.
For a moment Lettie had forgotten what her job was; to get Hamlof's key from his room. Dovyn was already climbing the stairs to open to door to Hamlof's private quarters. She followed him, copying how he, without seeming to think about it, avoided the middle of the wooden steps to avoid creaks.
After Dovyn had opened the door, he wasted no time in getting back to her brothers downstairs. She was alone. Good, she told herself, I don't need Dovyn to look after me. She still had to stop herself from gasping as she stepped through the door; there was Hamlof, asleep, and there only a few feet away were a chest of drawers. They were too small for clothes, and besides he already had his wardrobe. She knew that was the first place to look. She knew it'd be silly to start with the crates in the far corner – who'd keep a key in a crate?
Still, she could always start with the table. I mean, he could have just left the key lying on the table after his supper. Yes, that'd be alright.
Out of habit, Lettie pocketed the food still on the table – some cheese, some bread and some potatoes. Then she noticed something odd – three tiny white bottles. They looked like salt shakers, but on closer inspection she could see no holes, just a tiny stopper in the neck of each one. She pulled one of the stoppers out and had a look inside. A sickly sweet aroma wafted from the bottle. There seemed to be some kind of thick, syrupy potion in there, pink in colour. Contrary to everything she'd been told, Lettie found the urge to taste it.
She quashed the notion and pocketed all three bottles. Another overly careful search of the table proved what she'd known all along: the key wasn't there. Now she knew she'd have to search the chest of drawers.
She could feel her heart thumping in her chest as she crept, on hands and knees, towards the drawers. They were parallel to the end of the bed, so no matter how she positioned herself she could never keep her eye on both the snoring mound in the bed and the drawers she was meant to be searching. With infuriatingly clumsy fingers, she pulled the first drawer open. It creaked ever so slightly as it opened.
Nothing. A few quills and nothing else.
She left it open to avoid making more noise, and moved onto the second. It opened smoother than the first, but still scraped in a paranoia inducing fashion.
Just parchment and ink.
Crouching lower, she clasped the handle of the bottom right drawer. These drawers were more dust coated than the top two, a sure sign that they were hardly used. The nerve-wracking sound that was emitted as she opened confirmed this. Trying to control her shallow breathing, she looking inside.
Nothing.
Only one drawer left to look in. She winced as it whined at her intrusion, and for a moment fear got the better of her and she glanced round madly to see if Hamlof still slept. Her anxieties subsiding, she felt inside.
Nothing.
She sagged with disappointment. Where to look now?
Just then, she was aware of a sound from across the room, the way she had gone in. For a moment she felt sure that she had been caught, even in the knowledge that no one could have gotten into the shop and up the stairs without her hearing it. But it was only Marc.
He beckoned to her to come outside the room, and shutting the door behind them whispered urgently: "Have you got it?"
Her eyes on the floor, Lettie shook her head. She glanced up briefly to see her brother's expression, then quickly looked down again and shoved her hands into her pockets.
And found the three little bottles. She pulled on Marc's sleeve and he was turning away to go and speak to the others.
"I found these." She held them up. Clearly thinking that he was just humouring her, Marc took one and took a look inside. He took a sniff at it, then his eyes grew wide.
"Mara-mother-mild." he swore softly, "This is skooma." Not it was Lettie's turn to gape. Thank god she hadn't drunk it then; less because of the horror stories she'd been told about it, after all she didn't believe most of them, but because of the amount of gold you could supposedly get for a bottle of it. Addictive substances generally had that effect.
A smile had spread across her brother's face. "Eh, who'd'a thought it? Who knows, maybe Hamlof could be blackmailed for this..."
He remembered the work at hand, and turning to Lettie with what she hoped was newfound trust, added: "We still need his key. Have you looked everywhere?" Lettie was about to nod, and then a horrible thought occurred to her.
"What is it?" he asked when he saw her expression.
"I didn't look...actually on him. By the bed, or in his hand." She paused for thought. "I mean, he weren't wearing much, nothin' with pockets."
Marc didn't say anything to help her make up her mind, so she made it up on her own.
"I'll check there."
Marc nodded, then as if sensing her apprehension – although she suspected it was pretty obvious already – said: "I'll keep watch for you."
The two entered Hamlof's quarters again. Trusting in his ability to remain unheard, Lettie let Marc shut the door behind them. Unsure whether to crawl for the sake of her own nerves or not to for the sake of a better chance of getting away should Hamlof wake up, she crept towards the sleeping figure.
Like most Nords, Hamlof was a formidable hunk of muscle and bone, and Lettie was painfully aware of the fact that although he might now be asleep, his great chest rising and falling like a bellows, the potential danger of those huge fists coming into contact with her face, her stomach, her kneecaps, was still there, waiting.
She swallowed as quietly as possible, and then stopped, wondering where to look. She knew that every second's time spent thinking was a second too many, the second in which he might awake. Why hadn't she thought more before approaching the bed?
She glanced round; Marc was still there by the door, silently waiting, expectant. What had she said to him out on the stairs? By the bed...there was no bedside table on which to put it, and besides to leave it just on a surface was almost as silly an idea as leaving it on the dinner table had been. She got down on her knees and tried to look beneath the bed to see if it could have fallen there. But despite the shadows, it was still clear that no key was there.
In his hand? There was one of them on the covers; she could see no sign of metal protruding from his fingers. The other was concealed by the cloth. Oh so carefully, holding her breath as if it could somehow stop him feeling the movement, Lettie pulled back the blanket to reveal his other hand, lying palm up. No key in sight.
She wracked her brains, trying to think of where she might hide a key, or to be more accurate where a shop keeper with a poor imagination would hide one. Some place where you'd feel certain you'd tell if it was being stolen. Then she was struck by a memory of Othrelos bragging about his initiation test for the guild, about how he'd had to steal some bloke's diary. He said it had been hidden...under his pillow.
Lettie glanced at the pillow. If Hamlof felt it...but what else had Othrelos said? "Damn silly place to put it – folk move in their sleep all the time and they don't wake up every time. Ha!"
It was worth a try.
She slid one hand under one edge of the pillow, trying to keep her hand as flat as possible, and having to fight the urge to pull at the mattress with her finger tips. Her heart was pounding so furiously in her ears that she felt sure Hamlof would hear it!
Further...further... there, the cold clink of metal against her fingers! Hooking two fingers around the key, she withdrew her hand. Hanging from her finger tips was the key.
Lettie was pulled from her moment of triumph by the most horrific sound in the world to her: a groan, a snort, a sign that Hamlof was waking up! Lettie had to clamp a hand over her mouth to stop herself from screaming. What now? What now? To run would cause more noise, what could she do?
That moment in which she waited to see if Hamlof would rise or go back to sleep felt like an age, filled with terror and the sound of her own thumping heart. But to her immense relief, no more sound emitted from the sleeping man, and she was finally able to breathe out and turn to show her brother what she had found...
Only to be greeted by the sight of Marc, stood there silent as ever, but this time only two feet away, and towering over the bed holding a great leather cudgel high above his head. Almost as soon as she had spotted him there, waiting, he lowered the weapon and a smile returned to his face, but for a moment there had been such a look of reckless madness that Lettie was almost as terrified of her brother before her as she was of the sleeping man behind her.
And then they were out of the door and downstairs without a word, Marc waving the key in silent triumph, back to normal again. Dovyn and Florrie had already cleaned out the other cabinets and the basement into their large sack, and Florrie was stood by the door with the purple glow of life detection about his eyes, watching for guards.
She stood beside him while Dovyn and Marc opened up and emptied the last two cabinets. It was a little eerie knowing that Florrie could see things they couldn't see, at least for the moment. She found herself shaking his trouser leg, like something Taelondir would do. His gazed snapped down at the interruption.
"What?" he said semi-urgently, "Something wrong?"
Lettie realised she had nothing to say to him. Maybe she should tell him about Marc. But the moment had been so quick, she wasn't altogether sure she hadn't imagined it. So instead of saying that, or nothing, she said simply: "Are there any guards?"
Florrie smiled then said reassuringly: "Nope, at least not in the square. I'll bet that guy up at the arena gate is still there, but we can go round the other way."
"Oh," she said distantly, "ok." Florrie smiled again, then reached down to pat her on the arm. Lettie squirmed at what she saw as a grossly patronising gesture, and Florrie shrugged and went back to staring at the door.