Jilla Solves A Theft
Will the rogue be on the right side of the law this time?
When Jilla heard that the Duke of Sultharn was looking for her, the first thought that popped into her mind was to flee the whole kingdom of Zahengur. It was a reasonable enough thought, as she was known for stealing, seduction, and other rogue behavior.
She had enough experience in life to know that fleeing wasn’t always the smartest choice. There had been times in her life when she’d been summoned before a ruler and hired to undertake a job, honest or otherwise. Rulers paid well for her skills and her wits. While she preferred dishonest work, if honest work paid she’d take it. That was all the more true if the job also made the ruler an ally of hers.
What was also true was that she hadn’t yet broken the law in Zahengur. She hadn’t even started considering whether or not it would be worth her trouble to break any laws in the kingdom. The city of Sultharn was small but prosperous. Prosperity was good, but what was better and safer for her was if that prosperity caused a great deal of greed and cruelty. Rich men with such flaws were sometimes easy to rob, but almost always easy to get away with robbing. Their flaws made them unlikable. Men who were unlikable had trouble gaining sympathy when they suffered misfortune.
She decided therefore to take a chance. She strode up to the entrance gate of the manor, identified herself to the soldiers on guard duty, and waited.
A Captain arrived soon after. He brought her to the castle library. There he questioned her about her deeds, especially those in the domains she’d recently been through. He even asked to make certain that she was a woman, as she was in her usual disguise as a man.
“Does that request come with a dinner invitation?” she asked.
“Seeing as I’m married, no,” he replied.
She did as he asked all the same. Satisfied, but only in one way, he took her from the library to the throne room. Sitting on the throne was a fair-haired man with a good face and a strong body. His eyes seemed to twinkle when he talked.
“Your Grace,” Jilla said with a bow.
“I am indeed Duke Kanrid,” he replied. “So good of you to come when asked.”
“How did you know I was here?”
“His Majesty forces his Dukes to keep in contact with the local outlaws. He’s always looking for an arrest to make it appear that Zahengur is free of crime.”
Jilla put her hands on her hips, close to where her knives were sheathed. “I trust you didn’t summon me to make me a present to your King.”
“I have no affection for King Raddaff, Jilla. Few of the Dukes of this domain do. I daresay that if you can get to Lohzohn, you’ll find good pickings there. Deserving pickings at that. Make poor a few of the King’s friends, and perhaps he’ll be a better King.”
“Bold of you to say, Your Grace.”
“You’d hear talk like that in just about every manor in the kingdom. On the streets as well.” Kanrid smiled. “Besides, if I did make you a present to His Majesty, it would be so you could escape and humble him.”
“I see.”
“I’d heard you were just west of here. In normal times I wouldn’t care, unless you took to robbing men here in Sultharn. But ten days ago something strange happened, Jilla. I need your wits to solve a question no one has an answer to.”
“A question?”
“Yes. I’ll pay you a couple gold if you can provide an answer.”
“What sort of question?”
“A question about a theft.”
Jilla shook her head. “I don’t talk about others, Your Grace.”
“I’m fairly sure the thief is long dead.”
“Long dead?”
“Yes. Part of the question involves a theft that happened when my father was a young man. The other part is why the stolen object was returned.”
“Returned?”
“Indeed.” Kanrid let out a laugh. “I mean, I must ask, is it common for a thief to give back what was stolen?”
Jilla grinned. “It almost never happens.”
“Yet about ten days ago it happened here, Jilla. Which is why I’m hoping you’ll help figure out what happened then, and what might be happening now.”
Jilla pondered the offer for a moment or two. If the theft had indeed happened a generation ago, she’d hardly be likely to have met anyone in the city who was in the trade at that time. She wouldn’t betray anyone at work, and perhaps not even anyone who’d retired.
There was also the intriguing hint that the theft had occurred in this very manor. She had undertaken a theft or two against a manor or a castle. Doing so was among the deeds that made her both feared and admired. If there was something to be learned about getting into a place like this that might help her later, that was certainly good knowledge to acquire.
Most of all, though, was that Duke Kanrid had told her the stolen object was returned. Having that happen was indeed rare, almost as rare as a man being born with the ability to use magic. That meant the object in question was itself interesting. It might be worth stealing again, or it might only be worth knowing about. Either way it was more knowledge, and if Jilla had learned one thing in her life, it was that knowledge could be as valuable as gold.
“Tell me all you can, Your Grace,” she said, “and I’ll put my mind to the task. I don’t know that I can give you one answer, but I’ll make it the best I can come up with.”
Kanrid clapped his hands together. “Good!”
“Start at the beginning. What was stolen, and where was it stolen from?”
“The object that was stolen was a necklace known as the Queen’s Shield.”
Jilla frowned. “An object belonging to a Queen?”
“There is a tale to that. Allow me to get to the theft first.”
“Of course.”
“The necklace was stolen from the Duke’s bedchambers, not long after Father married Mother.”
“Just the necklace? No coins?”
“No coins, rings, or anything else was taken. Just the Queen’s Shield.”
“Those are your bedchambers now, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Was the door opened?”
“No. Father and Mother agreed that the door locked and the window latched.”
Jilla shook her head. “Other than coming through the floor or the ceiling, there ought not to be any other way to get into the room. May I inspect the room, Your Grace?”
“Indeed. Follow me.”
Kanrid rose from the throne. He led Jilla out of the room. She noticed that the Captain who had met with her followed them as they went down the corridor and up the stairs. They went down the upstairs hallway to the end. Kanrid opened the door at the end. Jilla nodded to him to enter first. She followed with the Captain behind her.
The chambers were like any other that any nobleman had in their residence. This room had two wardrobes, two chests of drawers, a writing table and chair, and a single bed. It was clean and well-decorated but nothing appeared especially new.
After glancing around she saw a door left of the main door, almost against left wall. “Does that open, Your Grace?”
“To the maidservant’s chambers.”
Jilla went to the door. She pulled but it didn’t move. “Locks from this side?”
“Yes. Though it’s supposed to be unlocked if the Lady is caring for a small child.”
“Was that happening at the time of the theft?”
The corners of Kanrid’s mouth went up. “No.”
“Very well.” Jilla went from there to the large double window opposite the door. She pulled out the chair from the writing table to get a close look at the window. After a couple of moments she noticed a difference between the latch on the right side and the one on the left. “That’s interesting.”
“What?”
“You’ll have to stand on this to see.” She moved the chair so it was under the left-side latch. “The window latch on the right is iron, same as the window frame. The latch on the left is made of steel.”
Kanrid climbed onto the chair and looked. “Why, you’re right. But it doesn’t look new.”
“No. I would guess it was broken years ago. Did your father have to replace it?”
Kanrid stepped down and frowned. “No.”
“Have you?”
“No.”
“Then how did your father or mother know to replace the latch?”
He let out a breath. “Jilla, they didn’t see or hear anything when the necklace was stolen.”
“Why not?”
“Father and Mother were not Duke and Duchess. I mean, they did see the chambers after the necklace was noticed as being gone, but weren’t in the manor at the time.”
“Were they away?” She gasped. “Not Duke and Duchess?”
“No. The ruler here at the time was my aunt, Duchess Kathra.”
“I see. How did you become Duke?”
“My aunt was a lonely old woman, Jilla, and not the least bit pleasant. You see, her husband, my uncle, and their sons died of sickness around the time the theft occurred.”
“I’m sorry.”
He waved his right hand. “Don’t be. She hounded my parents to an early grave. Father was her younger brother. I survived while her children didn’t. She refused to let any of us visit her. She refused to pay for a witch when my mother became ill. She gave not one copper to Father, and he had to work all his life. Yet upon her death I, as her eldest nephew, became Duke. My aunt made this a gloomy place. I’ve been trying to brighten it up since I took power.”
Jilla nodded to Kanrid. “Good for you, Your Grace. Good for you.”
“Thank you. That’s why noticing the latch is important. I think only Aunt Kathra would know when this was changed.” He pointed at the latch. “Did the thief break it?”
She shook her head. “Latches can’t be broken from the outside. If a thief were in this room, he or she might notice a broken latch, though.”
“But I presume if a thief could get in through the door, they wouldn’t need to go through the window as well.”
“To get out, possibly. All the same, if one can get in through the main door, or the servant’s door, one wouldn’t need to escape through the window.”
She took the time to look outside before putting the chair back. The manor, unlike most of the buildings in the city she’d seen, was made of stone. That meant it would be possible to find handholds to climb up and down. The window faced a garden and a considerable piece of open ground before ending at the manor’s stable. However, she recalled easily that there were buildings across the street from the manor. Another glance told her that the grass went some distance before reaching the forest that marked the edge of this side of the city.
She turned to Kanrid once the chair was back at the table. “I can tell you for a start, Your Grace, that while it would be possible for one in the trade to get up to this window, they’d have to do so on a moonless night. Even then a race from the trees to here would be a risk.”
“Why do you say so, if I may ask?”
“There are buildings up and down the street. Anyone who looks out a window or steps through a door might see a figure approaching the manor. An approach late at night would avoid that danger, but then there would be any soldiers patrolling the manor grounds.”
He nodded. “On such a night they’d have a lantern, or perhaps a torch.”
“It would have to be timed precisely first to get to the wall without being spotted, then up the wall and into these chambers without being heard. It would be possible if the latch was broken, but climbing a wall is slow going.”
He paused for a moment or two then nodded again. “I think I understand what you mean.” His eyes narrowed. “Then who stole the necklace?”
She pointed at the door to the servant’s chambers. “Did you aunt have a maidservant at the time of the theft?”
“She did. Clima was her name. She had a son, Adwal.”
“Are they still here?”
“No. A year or so after the theft Clima became sick. Aunt Kathra dismissed her.”
“Do you know the ages of the woman and her son at the time?”
“Adwal was about ten. I remember because it was one of the few times when I saw Mother truly angry. Clima was a friend of hers, and she thought Kathra dismissing her was beyond cruel. At the time Adwal was a few years older than me.”
“I see. Was the dismissal due to the theft?”
“No. Clima was never suspected of theft. Why would she steal it? She was being paid well at the time. If she was going to take it, it was after Kathra dismissed her.”
“Yes, quite so. You said this necklace, what did you call it?”
“The Queen’s Shield.”
“Yes, Your Grace, the Queen’s Shield, it was returned a month or so ago?”
“It was.”
“I’d like to see it.”
“Certainly.”
Kanrid led her and the Captain out of his chambers. They went down the hallway and down the stairs. This time they only went a few paces to a door. Kanrid unlocked the door. Once again Jilla followed him in with the Captain behind her.
The room was the treasury room for Kanrid’s domain. There were a few chests with coins in them to the right. To the left was a bookcase full of what she presumed were the tax records going back several generations. Opposite the door was another writing table and a chair. Kanrid tapped something to the right. The room lit up, which Jilla presumed was due to a spell.
Sitting on the table was a necklace made of gold. Kanrid went to the table and brought it to Jilla. She saw at once that it was no common chain, nor was it for wearing a single gem. It would have been worn at the collarbone, and had settings for five gems or stones. The only other ornamentation on it was a small crown made of gold hanging below the central of the five stone settings.
She held out her hand. “Allow me, Your Grace.”
He handed her the necklace. She brought it up close to her eyes. At once she took in a breath. “These gems have been replaced.”
“Have they?”
She held the necklace up to the magical light so he could see. “Four of the five gems are cloudy. Those are lower in quality than clear gems.”
“Why, you’re right.”
She pointed to the second from the left. “Look closely at that. See how the setting looks bent?”
“Yes?”
“The replacement gem was smaller than the original. The setting is bent to make the new stone fit.”
“How strange.”
She took it down from the light. “What’s truly strange is the one in the center. It’s not a gem but a blue stone. It’s not valuable at all.”
“How very strange.”
She looked at Kanrid. “What do you know of the past of this necklace?”
“It belonged to Queen Ilweg, the only woman to rule Zahengur. She had to fight to retain the throne. She had this made to celebrate an early victory.”
“It wasn’t passed to her heirs?”
“No. First her son then her daughter were killed. Poisoned, so the tales say, by rivals trying to get at her.”
“How did it end up here?”
“The necklace removed by the Duke of Sultharn upon the Queen’s death.”
“Removed from her body?”
“No, it was a gift, of sorts. King Rutvert didn’t want it. The tale says he tried to put it on his bride, but she fell ill. Once she took it off she was fine.”
“I see. So the King gave it your ancestor.”
“Something like that.”
“Was it always kept in this room?”
“Until Aunt Kathra became Duchess of Sultharn. She brought it out and wore it on occasion. That’s why it was in her chambers when it was taken.”
“Did it ever make her sick?”
“I don’t think so, no.”
Jilla stared at the necklace for a few moments. She knew several witches, and had even been close to a few in her travels. She’d learned a great deal about magic. She felt she knew more than most Dukes, and perhaps more than some Kings and Queens. That knowledge was bringing up spells in her mind. Spells that seemed to fit what Kanrid had told her, both about the necklace’s distant past and its recent past.
“I have a notion as to what this might have been, Your Grace,” she said.
“The necklace?”
“Yes. The name ‘Queen’s Shield’ suggests to me that it was enchanted with a protection spell. A few protection spells, even.”
“I think the old tales about the Queen suggested something like that, but no one knew for certain if it was true.”
“The only way you’d know if the tale was true would be if the Queen said so.”
“Said so?”
“Yes. An object, like this necklace, could be enchanted so that the spells only had an effect on the man or woman wearing the object.”
“Magic can do that?”
“Yes, but at a great cost.”
“To the witch?”
“To the witch, yes, but also to the magic of an area. If something like this were enchanted with a few protective spells, and the spells were maintained, there wouldn’t be much else that could use magic in the castle.” She pointed upward. “The magical light in this room, for instance, might not always work in the presence of this enchanted necklace.”
“But isn’t a spell like this light spell trivial?”
“Trivial, Your Grace, but hardly free. It uses some of the magic inherent in the land around us. It doesn’t use much, so the magic only diminishes a little. Turn the light off and by sunset the magic around here will be back to what it was.”
“I see.”
“Depending on just how powerful this necklace was when it was crafted, it might have taken up the magic around not just the castle, but parts of the city.”
“And a witch would make such a thing for a Queen?”
Jilla shook her head. “Not now. Witches now are reluctant to craft such things, because of how much magic they use up, and how long it takes for magic to recover itself. But in the past? If the witch was paid enough, and she thought the cause worthy, she might.”
“Then why do you think the tales are uncertain about this?”
She smiled to Kanrid. “The four gems, Your Grace, and the gold. This would have appeared to anyone looking at it as merely a fine necklace. It’s beauty would hide it’s power. Hidden in plain sight, you might say.”
“Remarkable. And the sickness?”
“It was made so that only the Queen who wore it could, well, wear it. If anyone else wore it it would make them ill. I imagine that Queen was going to have something like this crafted for her children, but they were killed before the crafting could be done.”
“But it didn’t make Aunt Kathra sick.”
“Spells must be renewed, My Lord, or they fade.”
Kanrid nodded. “Of course. I forgot. The lights in here and elsewhere in the manor have to be renewed every few years.”
“Just so. As this sat in here over the generations the magic quickly faded. It stopped being powerful and merely became pretty.”
“All that I can believe, Jilla. What about the theft?”
“Simple, Your Grace. The boy did it.”
“Boy? What, you mean Adwal?”
“The servant’s child, yes.”
“How?”
“There is an attic here, isn’t there?”
“Yes.”
“With access to the roof?”
Kanrid sighed. “Yes.”
“Then he had to have gotten onto the roof. Climbing out a window, crawling across to the window of your chambers, and getting in that way would be possible, but it wouldn’t be easy. I have experience with such things, and I’d take precautions before attempting it. A boy with no experience at being a thief might try doing a little of that, find it too hard, and give up.
“But if the boy wanted to get at this necklace, he’d find another way. A simpler way. Get up to the roof through the attic. Tie a rope to something and climb down to the window with the broken latch. Open it, take the necklace, climb up, take up the rope, and no one would be the wiser.”
“But why would Adwal steal it?”
“Perhaps a few days before your aunt was mean to his mother. Perhaps he just wanted to see if he could take the thing.” She grinned to Kanrid. “Don’t tell me, Your Grace, that you weren’t impulsive and irrational as a boy at times.”
He grinned back. “No.”
“The boy is the only reasonable suspect. I doubt his mother would go to so much trouble. I also doubt she’d have a good hiding place if she did take it.”
“A hiding place?” He sucked in a breath. “The attic? That’s where Adwal hid it?”
“That would be my guess. Let’s suppose a ring was stolen from your chambers. Your first thought would be that a thief took it. You’d have the local thieves searched and questioned. If none of them had it, what would you think?”
He nodded once more. “That the thief left the city.”
“If you didn’t think the thief was in your own household, you wouldn’t search the house. If the boy used the attic to get to the roof so he could climb down, why wouldn’t he hide his prize in the attic?”
“That does make sense. Do you think it was Adwal who returned it?”
“Did someone bring it here?”
“No. It was in a box marked to me. We had soldiers open it, to be sure it wasn’t dangerous.”
“So a messenger was hired to bring it here? Then I think it was Adwal. If not him, then someone in his family. His wife would be my second guess.”
“How can you be sure?”
“The necklace tells its own tale, Your Grace. Clearly it was removed from this manor. If we presume Adwal took it, then he’s the one who had this. You said his mother became sick and left the service of your aunt, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Then he had the gems removed, either to pay for her care, or just to keep the both of them alive.”
“A jeweler would do that?”
“Yes. You saw that the gems that are in the settings are poor quality. One doesn’t fit the setting. I doubt a Queen would have gems of poor quality put into something she’d wear all the time. I doubt your aunt would wear this if the gems weren’t high quality. All this suggests that the original gems were removed and replaced.”
“Removed, I can understand. Jewelers would pay gold for gems. But to replace them?”
“No honest jeweler would remove gems from a gold necklace and not replace them. They’d want to preserve the craftsmanship of the work. Even with poor-quality gems in this, the necklace still has some value as a piece of jewelry. They’d also want to make this appear like what it was for fear of getting into trouble. It’s a risk to remove valuable gems from what you might worry was a stolen necklace.”
“Make it appear to be as good as new, you mean?”
“Something like that. Someone comes into your shop and sees this with a gem out of place. You can say that you’re taking the gem out for the owner. They need coins, so they’ve sold you the gem. You say you’ll be putting one of lesser quality it its place. It’s still a fair necklace, just not as fine as it was.”
“And questions of ownership would go to the person who brought in the necklace, not the jeweler.”
“Indeed. Said person could say it was a family heirloom.”
“And be believed?”
“If they moved into a new city, why not?”
“I suppose so. What about a dishonest jeweler?”
Jilla let out a laugh. “A dishonest jeweler would have removed the gems and melted the necklace down for the gold.”
“I see. Why then do you think it was returned?”
“First, there were no more gems to remove. The blue stone was probably the focus of the spells cast onto the necklace. Without that enchantment the stone is worthless.” She nodded to herself. “With the gems gone, the necklace itself loses much of its value. There would only be a couple of gold coins to be made from this, and that’s only if you took it to a dishonest jeweler. If you’ve been trying to live an honest life while having gems removed from this, the last thing you’d want to do is be seen visiting a dishonest jeweler.”
“That would be suspicious.”
“Indeed. As a boy, Adwal probably didn’t know the full tale of this necklace. He may have thought it was a valuable heirloom of your family, Your Grace. So he sends it back. He’s gotten all the coins he could get out of it. He might no longer need the coins from it by now.”
“He sends it back, thinking I can pay to have better gems put into it.”
“Indeed. But he couldn’t add a letter telling you that. A letter would be an admission of his crime. Time has passed, but you just might be the sort of man to punish someone years later for such a crime.”
“Anyone who knows me knows I wouldn’t do that, Jilla.”
“But is Adwal still in this city?”
Kanrid let out a breath. “No. I don’t know where he’s living now.”
“Your gaining the title would be known around the kingdom. That’s all that Adwal knows about you. So the necklace gets returned quietly and mysteriously. With me to figure out what happened. This is my solution.”
“You can think of no other?” he asked her with a great deal of honesty in his voice.
She shook her head. “Anyone in the thieving trade would take the easiest approach, which would be to be let in. I said back in your chambers how hard it would be to come in through the window. It also wouldn’t be easy to sneak in through the front door or a window on the ground floor. To steal it from here would mean being invited in.”
She glanced around the treasury room. “If it were me, I’d be far more likely to steal coins or jewels in here than to go into someone’s bedchambers and attempt to steal valuables. Coins can be spent anywhere in this kingdom, or anywhere in the neighboring kingdoms. Gems and jewelry are worth a great deal, but only if you can find a buyer.” She hefted the necklace. “No one in the trade here would steal this and try to sell in here. They’d have to trade it to a group of thieves in another city or across the border. Which leads back to the question as to why steal this and nothing else?
“I can think of two reasons to take this. One is a member of the Queen’s family stealing it to get it back to the family. But if there was no family, or those members beyond the Queen and her children had no interest in this, then that reason is gone. The other is that the thief was only able to take this. He could only get his hands on this.”
“Meaning Adwal,” Kanrid said.
“Quite, Your Grace. The boy seems to have had means and opportunity. That it was taken means he had motive as well.”
“And returning it?”
“No one in the trade would do such a thing. They’d either sell this as a whole piece, or the gems would be removed, the gold melted down, and the rest discarded.”
“I suppose so.”
A small smile crept onto Jilla’s face. “Then there’s the tale you told of how it came into your family, and my speculation on its true past. Someone who knew that past would be inclined to take it to your King.” Her smile widened. “Or, if he or she didn’t like the King, to hand it over to a rival.”
Kanrid gasped. “The Queen’s Shield in the hands of a rival? That could be interesting.”
“It could. An important artifact of a Queen of Zahengur, appearing not in the hands of the sitting King, but in a rival’s hands. That could be a sign of something.”
“It could.”
“But that’s not what happened. It was returned to you. To your family. Almost as if the thief thought they’d taken an heirloom and, having no more use for it, but not wanting to destroy it, wanted the family to have it back.”
“But not as beautiful as it was.”
“No.”
“It can be restored, though.”
“If you want it restored.”
Kanrid grinned. “Restored and sitting in my chambers? To do what? It’s not as pretty as it was, so I hardly think any wife of mine would want to wear it.”
Jilla grinned at him. “You wish me to give it to someone?”
“I do, Jilla. I think this should be given to Duchess Egnus of Fulkval.”
“And who is she?”
“A clever and popular rival to King Raddaff. Tell Egnus what you think the Queen’s Shield was. Tell her how you think it disappeared from here, and why you think it came back. I’ll pay you for your time and effort. I’m sure when you speak to her, she’ll pay you for your effort.”
“And for anything else I might say?”
“That, dear Jilla, is for you and her to work out.” Kanrid’s stance stiffened. “I don’t wish to be a party to such discussions.”
“Not yet, anyway.”
He smirked and pointed to her.
She gave him her price and he agreed to it. He told he he’d be sending a letter to Duchess Egnus about Jilla’s errand, in case her bravery failed her on the way.
The next day Jilla left for Fulkval. She did indeed deliver the Queen’s Shield to Lady Egnus. Jilla also told her about what she’d done for and said to Duke Kanrid. The Duchess paid Jilla for her delivery, as well as for certain advice Jilla gave her.
It wasn’t until later that a rash of thefts that struck certain rich men in Lohzohn, the seat of Zahengur, was tied to incidents that led to the downfall of King Raddaff and the rise of Queen Egnus. For her part, Jilla would only admit to being a thief. Any other deeds tied to her time in Zahengur were bard’s tales, she’d insist, and probably not true tales at that.
Probably.
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