There really needs to be a better word for “shocked”. Maybe there is, and I just don't know it.

“What?” I cried. I didn't feel as stupid saying that particular word this time, because Cyrus said the same thing at exactly the same moment.

We sat there, shocked, jaws on the floor in stunned horror as Theo casually got up and poured himself another drink. A big one. His second.

He sat back down in his chair a few moments later, face trying hard to be expressionless.

“Gods, Theo! I'm so sorry! Your sword! I . . . I just don't-”

“Yeah,” he said, nodding blearily, looking at me through rheumy eyes. “I know.”

“Lord Haundsing, I know not what to say,” whispered Cyrus.

“Dad died holding that sword, you know? It wasn't the same as his father, not exactly. Grandfather died wielding it during a duel, back before I'd been born, and Dad saw the end coming from a ways out . . . asked for it to be near his bed. I remember-” his voice broke, and he looked slightly upwards for a long, unsteady moment.

“Theodore,” I said seriously, “would you like to . . . gods, I don't know. Yell maybe? Break something?”

He exhaled heavily through his nose before fixing me with an unhappy grin.

“Way ahead of you on both counts,” he sniffed, giving me a bit of a rueful chuckle. “You should see my study. Your things are a lot nicer than mine, so I thought I'd get all that out of the way before I came.” His expression darkened, and his eyes suddenly burned with a savage intensity. “But I want whoever did this, Vincent. No matter what else happens, the instant we find out who's behind it, and if we have any way of verifying it, I want to know who. That sword hasn't touched anything but its mounted case or my hands in over twenty years, but the instant I know who stole her from me and have her back in my hands . . . that sword's going to be touching someone a great deal. I swear to you, the things I'll do to whoever's responsible will make their ancestors weep from the heavens.”

Theo doesn't make idle threats. I nodded slowly before turning to Cyrus.

“As of now, finding whoever's doing this and getting Theo's sword back becomes our main concern. We keep what we've got for security, we trust it to do its job without spending all of our time making changes or adjustments . . . we've been spending too much time on that already. We've been standing around, plugging holes in the dike, and we're going to run out of fingers soon. Better to get a little wet and fix the actual problem, permanently.”

“Vince, you can't do that,” Theo said morosely, giving his head a shake. “You had two burglary attempts on the same night, for crying out loud! That's insane! You can't-”

“Theo, shut up,” I said patiently. “This isn't your choice to make, and what's more it's practically no choice at all. I know how much that sword means to you, which means that retrieving it has become our first priority.”

“Vince-” he began, blearily.

“Theo, this is not up for debate. Do not bring it up again. If you do, I'll . . .” I paused uncertainly for a brief moment, “well, I'll tell you to shut up again. Louder. Maybe even call you an idiot for a change. Am I understood?”

He nodded, the sadness in his eyes mixing with a kind of forlorn gratitude. “Thank you, Vincent. I'd never ask for you to do something like this, but I thank you. You can't possibly know how much I appreciate it.”

“That last bit came dangerously close to bringing it up again, but I'll let it pass this once. Besides, wasn't it you who said that fighting offensively is sometimes a better defense than fighting defensively, and vice-versa?”

“That's why I try to avoid sharing swordsman axioms with you, Vince.” He smiled, the first genuine one I'd seen since he arrived. “It always seems like you're able to use them against me in very unswordsmanlike ways.”

“What can I say - it's a gift. So,” I said, sitting back in my seat slightly, “let's do this. To start, let's look at this thing from the very beginning, with no assumptions. Someone is antagonizing the other Lords, setting me up. Why?”

“There's the obvious reason we'd first come up with,” Cyrus pointed out, settling back in his chair as well. “Someone wishes for your reputation to become damaged.”

“The more time that passes, the less sense that idea seems to make. Cyrus, what is my reputation like at the moment, with all of these thefts I'm being accused of?”

He grunted. “Well, I concede that's a pretty good point. Over two dozen thefts that we know of, all being mistakenly attributed to you, and not so much as a toothpick stolen from Tucat Keep. So, I guess that theory is kind of shot.”

“Unless whoever's doing this hasn't thought it all the way through, of course. Mind you, these thefts don't seem amateurish, and would probably take a heck of a lot of preparation. I can't see someone putting all this effort into something and not realizing that their fundamental understanding of what it'll accomplish is flawed. So, maybe it's the opposite?”

“What, someone is doing this because they're trying to help you? Unlikely, for much the same reason.”

“Right,” I said, nodding, “because they'd have to be a little clueless to think that there wouldn't be repercussions for these acts. Plus, in these situations the objects are usually returned publicly to their owners in some sort of clever 'Oh look, I'm smarter than you are' kind of way. Given how precious some of these things are, giving them back is something that any intelligent person would want to do right away. If a guy is smart enough to pull these off, he's smart enough to know something like that. If he was trying to help me, he would have given me access to these trophies by now, wouldn't he?”

“Or she,” said Cyrus.

I blinked, and threw Cyrus an odd look.

“You said 'he', and I'm just pointing out that we should probably not assume anything if we're looking at this with fresh eyes.”

“Very true. Thank you, Cyrus,” I nodded. I saw Theo nodding as well, a decidedly uncertain look on his face. What would he do if we found out it was a Lady, not a Lord, who was behind these thefts? Theo had some very traditional notions of gallantry and proper gentlemanly behavior, and I was pretty sure they prohibited him from doing things such as disemboweling Ladies in a manner that made their ancestors weep. Well, we'd cross that footbridge when we came to it.

“So, that's two theories that we can conclude are fairly unlikely,” said Cyrus, “based on the buildup of the various pressures being brought to bear. One or two thefts, maybe it's someone trying to help you, but with the quantity we're talking about here, not so much. What are some other, more likely theories then?”

“It could be like Redforne,” Theo said. “Someone's trying to kill Vincent.”

“Yet again,” I sighed. “Yeah, that thought had kind of occurred to me as well . . . maybe the plan is to get enough other Lords pissed off at me that they do something about it. Possibly work together, kind of like we saw last night. Maybe not precisely to kill me, of course.”

“Or what if they very specifically wanted to kill you?” asked Theo. “Like, in each case?”

“What do you mean?”

“Vince, they took my sword!” Theo said, suddenly exasperated. “I know utter morons who'd be afraid to pull off something like that, because even they know that I'd hunt them down and kill them without a second thought. With people believing that the two of us hate each other, if I'm being led to believe that you did it, then each theft could very well be about setting you up to get killed by a Lord like myself. Gruesomely. And if any of the items you're reputed to have stolen are even a fraction as important to their respective Lords as that sword is to me, I'd say odds are very good that more than a couple wish you dead as we speak, regardless of the means.”

Using other Lords as cat's paws for assassination had been done often enough in the past, I had to admit. I nodded.

“Not bad. Rattle enough cages and create righteous indignation, and eventually either one Lord will attempt to kill me, or they'll all conspire to. And of course, once it happens there won't exactly be a hue and cry about it, because enough people will think that I deserve it by then. I suppose what this also tells us is whoever set this up doesn't know that we're actually friends, although that doesn't help us too much, since the list of people who do know that is quite short. Us three, as a matter of fact. Oh, and the Prince,” I amended.

“Prince Tenarreau knows?” Cyrus seemed surprised at that.

“Cyrus, it is my belief that Tenarreau knows just about everything there is to know in this town. If I walked up to him and promised him a hundred gold if he could correctly guess the number of times I'd blown my nose that day, I'd check my pockets to make sure I had enough money first.”

“Heh,” Cyrus chuckled. “Okay, so I guess we've eliminated ourselves and the Prince as possible suspects. Not much new there, really.”

“No, not really. Hey, Theo?”

“Mmmph?”

“Has anyone approached you lately, or talked about me to you? Anything unusual?”

“Well,” he said, scratching his beard and looking upwards, “there's definitely been more intense discussion about you, and on several occasions I've had to remind myself not to get all wound up by the things they were saying, but nothing specifically directed at me, no.” He gave me a look. “Are you thinking maybe it's someone I might know?”

“Or who knows you, perhaps. Although, there's a certain cluelessness to this whole thing if killing me is what they're after. Why not steal from you first, after all? Our 'hatred' for one another is fairly well known, what with our playacting in the streets and all. Why should they seek to steal from you now, after dozens of other sensitive thefts?”

“Got me.” Theo gave a sigh of frustration, “Vince, we're doing it again. We can talk this out over and over again, run through the list of names, cross out some and put circles around others. This gets us nowhere – we've already done this sort of thing for over a month, and we're no closer to knowing who's behind these thefts. We've got to actually do something!”

“I agree, Milord,” said Cyrus, leaning forward amid the groaning protests of his leather chair. “Speculation and keeping track of information is one thing, but we seem to have nothing solid to work with. That's been our biggest problem this whole time. We can't even verify some of the reported thefts, and you yourself pointed out that the culprit might even claim something of theirs had been stolen in order to 'blend in' with the other assorted victims.”

“So what do you propose?” I asked.

“We do something, as Lord Haundsing suggested - switch to the offensive, as you've said. We've been on the defensive for too long, what with the perpetual burgling happening around here . . . and if we're not going to spend all our time planning ways to thwart them, then we can probably use our time to do something else, possibly somewhere else.”

“A trap.” I nodded thoughtfully, a gesture that Cyrus returned.

“Indeed, Milord. It's safe to say that all of your neighbors are presently either angry at you because of something they think you've stolen, or worried that they'll be next. So, what of those Lords who actually are next? This doesn't end with Lord Haundsing, surely. There's a next target – we could try to determine who that might be.”

“Agreed. Though the details regarding why this is happening are unclear, I think we can presume it'll still be going on. As a matter of fact, if our reports are remotely reliable it looks as though these thefts are occurring with greater frequency. Theo's was last night, and the one before it was . . .”

“Two nights ago, Milord.” Cyrus consulted one of his stray pieces of paper, one with a slight greenish cast. (I'd always wondered how he was able to keep his information straight – if his memory required him to consult dozens of small bits of paper, how the deuce did he manage to hang on to the memory of which scrap of paper contained what information?) “Lord Feriwine, to the North.”

“Double-crap,” I said, exhaling explosively. “I think we need to also consider the possibility that this is actually several people working in concert. The quickest I've ever been able to move on a completely new target was two days, back during the Redforne thing, and the highest number of break-ins I've ever managed in a single month was four. Even then it was a bit dicey, keeping everything straight. Two thefts in two nights? And when was the one before that, Cyrus?”

“We'd originally thought it was that one last week, Milord, but Lady Coral would appear to have been robbed exactly four days ago, according to some new information.”

“Three thefts in four days. That's not human,” I said.

“I don't care if it's human, Vincent,” Theo said blandly, taking another long sip of his drink, “it just has to be able to bleed. So, here's a question of my own then. Has any Lord reported being robbed twice?”

Cyrus began flipping through his pages.

“One, actually,” he said, eventually. “Lord Roundtree, although it would appear that the first robbery is unrelated to the second. He and Oxwick had been duking it out prior to all of this starting, and Lady Oxwick has already hosted a dinner party in order to return the object she'd stolen from Roundtree. You were invited to that dinner party yourself, I recall, and declined.”

“Right,” I said, nodding. “I do remember, vaguely. Interesting though, that was the only one?”

“From what I've heard, yes.”

“Okay. Might not mean anything of course, but with over two dozen thefts in the bag maybe the fact that no Lord or Lady has been hit more than once is as good a place to start as any. Come up with a list of any neighbors of mine who have not yet been robbed, just the ones who border me on the South end of my territory. North is where it all seemed to start from, but Theo's theft suggests that the trouble has moved closer to home.”

“We lie in wait, you mean?” asked Theo.

I nodded. “We don't have much else to go on right now, so we'll run with the 'one theft per Lord' idea for the time being. Tonight, Theo and I keep an eye open for this mystery thief. Of course, we won't be able to cover every place that might get hit, what with it being just the two of us.”

“Three of us,” Cyrus corrected.

“Actually Cyrus, I'll need you working on this from a different angle entirely. This is a desperate sort of stab in the dark, and you yourself said that we don't have enough information to go on. I want all the details we can get – the name of every Lord or Lady who's been robbed from in the past few months, what order the robberies occurred in, and what days they happened on. I want a map covering this table, and paper tents marking the spots where all of these things happened. Once we have that, we'll perhaps have a more clear understanding of what's going on, maybe acquire some clues regarding where to lie in wait.”

Cyrus groaned.

“Ah, Cyrus,” Theo chuckled, “you get all the fun stuff.”

“It will be done, Milord,” Cyrus said with a grimace. “I'll visit Greybridge Keep this afternoon to take care of some details and then come back here to work on it. I hope you have a great many vimroot candles I can burn to keep me awake.”

“Candles I've got,” I said, smiling winningly at him. “In fact, I've probably got enough that you'd be able to stay awake for the rest of the year, if you like.”

“I hope Cynthia remembers what I look like,” he said forlornly.

“Just think of it as karma for calling your Lord an idiot,” I grinned. “So, the two most recent victims, Coral and Feriwine, are both nearby Theo's property. Which neighboring Lords nearest Haundsing Keep have not yet been robbed?”

“Well,” he put most of his papers down and picked up the large and important looking document that had been resting on his lap, “there appear to be five. Knottail, Marcsun, Hoctalleau, Tudor, and Blackstaag.”

“Okay. So Theo, if memory serves both Knottail and Hoctalleau neighbor your territory as well as mine.”

“Correct,” he said, nodding. “I'm on tolerably good terms with both.”

“Your choice, I suppose.”

“My choice? What, do I just flip a roc-la stone?”

“Which of the two would you say hates me the most?”

Theo paused to ponder for a moment, then grunted to himself. “Knottail, probably.”

“Well, if you're on good terms with him, that seems like a good place to start. If it's well known he hates me, he may be a likely next target, given our working theory at the moment. Pay him a visit, get invited to dinner or some such thing. Maybe mention your sword being stolen, see his reaction to that. Any new information would be helpful at this point.”

“True. He'd probably let me stay there a bit, keep an eye open for anything odd. He seems to be impressed by duelists in general, so I shouldn't have a hard time convincing him.” His eyes narrowed at me. “What about you? Is there anyone on that list who you're on good terms with?”

“None, sadly,” I said with a shake of my head. “I'm fairly certain that showing up at any of their doors would result in the sound of knives being sharpened on the other side. No, I'm afraid I don't get to invite myself to anyone's dinner table, unfortunately. I'll be doing a bit of rooftop skulking, see if I can't catch a glimpse of whoever's responsible.”

“Well, it sounds like you're about as lucky as your man Cyrus, neh?” Theo chuckled.

Cyrus smirked.

“Actually, I'm probably the only one in the room who can hop around from roof to roof without sounding like a crash of rhinos stampeding through town,” I sniffed. “So, the only real question is, where do I skulk exactly? You've got Knottail, which leaves Hoctalleau, Tudor, and Blackstaag.”

“What about Lord Marcsun?” Cyrus asked.

“He can go hang. If he gets robbed from and thinks it was me, I won't be too terribly upset. Also, given how badly I humiliated him the last time the two of us went at it, he'll want to think long and hard before starting anything a second time, so I'm not that worried. Plus, if I was wandering around the rooftops of Marcsun's keep, I'd just be tempted to steal something while I was there. Not bright, but I wouldn't be able to help myself. The guy's an ass, and he's been getting snarky at me lately. Okay, so . . . of the three remaining Lords, which one hates me the most?”

“Blackstaag,” said Theo and Cyrus simultaneously.

“Really?” I crinkled my nose at both of them. “I would have thought it was Tudor.”

“Blackstaag's family is from Garmuth originally, Vince,” said Theo, his voice suggesting that the simple statement should be enough to convince me. “He has no sense of humor, and takes things far too seriously. Every time you've done something funny or amusing that gets talked about at court, he's usually the first one to call your actions asinine. I suspect he doesn't even know what a joke is – I've never seen him laugh, or even crack a smile.”

“Hmmm, I didn't know that. Well, I suppose that's the best choice then. Actually, he's right next door to Tudor - their territories border each other, right?”

“They do,” Cyrus confirmed.

“Well that's settled then. I can probably keep watch on one while I'm at another, switch spots from time to time. We just have to hope that the next target is one of the Lords we've identified, and we spot the culprit. If it happens tonight, of course. I'm not certain if we should realistically expect anything to get stolen this soon – two nights in a row is bad enough, but three just seems ridiculous. Still, we might end up catching someone in the middle of casing one of these places, getting a feel for their security, you never know.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Theo said.

“Well it's something, anyways. Let's all meet back here early in the evening to discuss the details of what we're going to do, or bring up any new ideas we've thought of. We've each got things to do between then and now, I'm sure.” I sighed, feeling my shoulders droop slightly. “I know I've got something unpleasant to take care of right away.”

“Milord?” Cyrus asked, looking puzzled.

“Well, in light of recent facts,” I said, glancing up at the ceiling and grimacing slightly, “I believe at bare minimum, I have to go and apologize to someone for being a Baal-be-damned idiot.”