By now the commotion at the gate had been settled. Various members of the guard had returned from the fracas, with much muttering and cursing that fell away abruptly as soon as they entered the main house on their way to their rooms, telling Torvald that the master was indeed home and probably asleep. Which was something of a problem, given just how paranoid the bastard was and the likely hiding place of his trove was somewhere in his damned bedroom. Well, the world presented its challenges, and without challenges life was worthless and pointless and, most crucially, devoid of interest.

He moved to the door leading to the hallway, pausing to wrap a cloth about his face, leaving only his eyes free. The cat watched intently. Lifting the latch he tugged the door open and peered out into the corridor. Left, the outer, back wall not three paces away. Right, the aisle reaching all the way through the house. Doors and a central landing for the staircase. And a guard, seated facing that landing. Black hair, red, bulbous nose, protruding lower lip, and enough muscles slabbed on to a gigantic frame to fill out two or three Torvald Noms. The fool was knitting, his mouth moving and brow knotting as he counted stitches.

And there was the horrid cat, padding straight for him.

Torvald quietly closed the door.

He should have strangled the thing.

From the corridor he heard a grunting curse, then boots thumping down the stairs.

Opening the door once more he looked out. The guard was gone, the knitting lying on the floor with one strand leading off down the stairs.

Hah! Brilliant cat! Why, if he met it again he’d kiss it-but nowhere near where it licked itself because there were limits, after all, and anywhere a cat could lick itself was nowhere he’d kiss.

Torvald quickly closed the door behind him and tiptoed up the corridor. A cautious glance down the wide, central staircase. Wherever the cat had run off with the ball of wool, it was out of sight, and so too the guard. He faced the ornate double doors directly behind the vacated wooden chair.

Locked? Yes.

He drew his dagger and slid the thin blade between the doors.

Ornate decoration was often accompanied by neglect of the necessary mechanisms, and this lock followed the rule, as he felt the latch lift away. Hoots sounded downstairs. He tugged open the door and quickly slipped inside, crouching once more. A front room, an office of sorts, with a single lantern on a short wick casting faint light across the desk and its strewn heap of papyrus sheets. A second door, smaller, narrow, behind the desk’s high-backed plush chair.

Torvald Nom tiptoed towards it.

Pausing at the desk to douse the lantern, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, crouching yet lower to squint at the crack beneath the bedroom door, pleased to find no thread of light. Drawing up against the panelled wood with its gold-leaf insets now dull in the gloom. No lock this time. Hinges feeling well oiled. He slowly worked the door open.

Inside, quietly shutting the door behind him.

Soft breathing from the huge four-poster bed. Then a sigh. ‘Sweet sliverfishy, is that you?’

A woman’s husky, whispering voice, and now stirring sounds from the bed.

‘The night stalker this time? Ooh, that one’s fun-I’ll keep my eyes closed and whimper lots when you threaten me to stay quiet. Hurry, I’m lying here, petrified. Someone’s in my room!’

Torvald Nom hesitated, truly torn between necessity and… well, necessity.

He untied his rope belt. And, in a hissing voice, demanded, ‘First, the treasure. Where is it, woman?’

She gasped. ‘That’s a good voice! A new one! The treasure, ah! You know where it is, you horrible creature! Right here between my legs!’

Torvald rolled his eyes. ‘Not that one. The other one.’

‘If I don’t tell you?’

‘Then I will have my way with you.’

‘Oh! Isay nothing! Please!’

Damn, he sure messed that one up. There was no way she’d not know he wasn’t who he was pretending to be, even when that someone was pretending to be someone else. How to solve this?

‘Get on your stomach. Now, on your hands and knees. Yes, like that.’

‘You’re worse than an animal!’

Torvald paused at the foot of the bed. Worse than an animal? What did that mean? Shaking his head, he climbed on to the bed. Well, here goes nothing.

A short time later: ‘Sliverfishy! The new elixir? Gods, it’s spectacular! Why, I can’t call you sliverfishy any more, can I? More like… a salmon! Charging upstream! Oh!’

‘The treasure, or I’ll use this knife.’ And he pressed the cold blade of the dagger against the outside of her right thigh.

She gasped again. ‘Under the bed! Don’t hurt me! Keep pushing, damn you! Harder! This one’s going to make a baby-I know it! This time, a baby!’

Well, he did his part anyway, feeding his coins into the temple’s cup and all that, and may her prayers guide her true into motherhood’s blissful heaven. She collapsed on to the bed, groaning, while he backed off, knelt on the cold wooden floor and reached under the bed, knuckles skinning against a large, low longbox. Groping, he found one handle unci dragged it out.

She moaned. ‘Oh, don’t start counting again, darling. Please. You ruin everything when you do that!’

‘Not counting, woman. Stealing. Stay where you are. Eyes closed. Don’t move.’

‘It just sounds silly now, you know that.’

‘Shut up, or I’ll do you again.’

‘Ah! What was that elixir again?’

He prised open the lock with the tip of the dagger. Inside, conveniently stored in burlap sacks tagged with precise amounts, a fortune of gems, jewels and high councils. He quickly collected the loot.

‘You are counting!’

‘I warned you.’ He climbed back on to the bed. Looked down and saw that promises weren’t quite enough. Gods below, if you only were. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I need more elixir. In the office. Don’t move.’

‘I won’t. I promise.’

He hurried out, crept across the outer room and paused at the doors to the corridor to press his ear against the panel.

Softly, the slither-click of bamboo knitting needles.

Torvald slid the dagger into its scabbard, reversed grip, opened the door, looked down at the top of the guard’s hairy head, and swung hard. The pommel crunched. The man sagged in his chair, then folded into a heap at the foot of the chair.

The cat was waiting by the library door.

Uncle One, Uncle Two, Father None. Aunt One, Aunt Two, Mother None.

Present and on duty, Uncle One, Aunt One and Cousins One, Two, Three. Cousin One edging closer, almost close enough for another hard, sharp jab with an elbow as One made to collect another onion from the heap on the table. But he knew One’s games, had a year’s list of bruises to prove it, and so, just as accidentally, he took a half-step away, keeping on his face a beaming smile as Aunt One cooed her delight at this sudden bounty, and Uncle One sat opposite, ready to deliver his wink as soon as he glanced over-which he wouldn’t do yet because timing, as Uncle Two always told him, was everything. Besides, he needed to be aware of Cousin One especially now that the first plan had been thwarted.

One, whose name was Snell, would have to work harder in his head, work that cunning which seemed to come from nowhere and wasn’t part of the dull stupidity that, was One’s actual brain, so maybe it was demons after all, clattering and chittering all their cruel ideas. Snell wouldn’t let this rest, he knew. No, he’d remember and start planning. And the hurt would be all the worse for that.

But right now he didn’t care, not about Cousin One, not about anything that might come later tonight or tomorrow. He’d brought food home, after all, an armload of food, delivering his treasure to joyous cries of relief.

And the man whose name he’d been given, the man long dead who was neither Uncle One nor Uncle Two but had been Uncle Three and not, of course, Father One, well, that man would be proud that the boy with his name was doing what was needed to keep the family together.