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Thick, white flakes splattered against the fogged-up windowpanes and piled up on the windowsill. Some people called this time of year "romantic." People who lived in Audale, huddled around huge fireplaces on thick rugs. People who could afford stuffing themselves with turkey. The common people who lived in the docks and the city's slums were lucky if they made it through the nights without frostbite on their fingers and toes.
Garrett remembered all too well the freezing nights he'd spent on the streets as a boy. There was nothing romantic about them. He´d been lucky he survived the first years. He knew enough who didn´t.
On the other hand, freezing to death was said to be a painless death. He wondered if death by freezing might not be preferable to his current situation. His gaze drifted to the locked door, only a few steps away, and then back to the monster crouching directly in front of him. It was screaming, louder than the Trickster's beasts, and it stank worse than any Burrick. It was grabbing at him, and saliva was running from its open mouth.
“Can you please pick her up off the floor? It´s to cold for her”, Jenivere called from the next room. Her voice was rough and hoarse.
“Your husband went out to get firewood.” By now, the snow probably piled up to one's calves. Had Garrett known he was going to be left alone with this monster, he would have accompanied Basso.
“Then you need to take her." The thief could hear Jenivere rustle with her blankets. "She doesn’t bite.”
“Huh.” The thief wasn’t convinced.
“She doesn’t have any teeth, Garrett.” Jenivere tried to get up but began to cough violently.
Carefully, he reached under the small creature’s arms and lifted it up. It stopped bellowing and looked at him uncertainly with tear-filled eyes. Its mouth remained open, and now the creature’s saliva was running down his hands. “Ugh.” Garrett held the little girl—at least, Basso had claimed it was a girl—at arm’s length.
“She likes you!” Basso shouted as he came stomping through the front door, his arms laden with firewood and his head covered in snow. He shook himself like a wet dog and quickly slammed the door shut behind him. Even so, icy air poured into the room. The tiny creature in Garrett’s hands thrashed and clenched its sausage-like fingers into fists. He carefully held the baby closer to the warming fireplace.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” Basso asked, taking the wriggling, drooling child from Garrett.
“Not really,” Garrett grumbled, wiping his hands on his trousers.
“You have no idea, thief. She’s my greatest treasure.”
The thief snorted.
“Someday, even you’ll understand that a treasure can be more than a chest full of gold and silver.”
Gold and silver would certainly be much more convenient for the former safecracker and his wife than the writhing bundle in Basso's arms, but the thief was careful not to voice this thought aloud. Instead, he said: “Don´t count on it.”
+++++++++++
A few days ago, Basso the Boxman had sent him a message, requesting a meeting at the “Burrick´s Head”. It had been quite some time since the former safecracker had contacted him, and Garrett was curious about the reason. Basso had once been an important contact and informant for the thief, and it had annoyed him when he´d announced his intention to leave his former life as a criminal behind.
You couldn´t just stop being a thief. Either you had it in you, or you didn't. At least, that was Garrett's opinion.
Therefore, Garrett felt a certain satisfaction when it turned out that Basso was indeed telling him about a "job"—an illegal one—that had been offered to him. Garrett laughed derisively. "Come on, Basso, do you really need my expertise for this job? The assignment is simple, even for you. Are you afraid you've gotten old and out of practice?"
To his surprise, Basso had buried his face in his hands and groaned loudly, “I don’t want this, Garrett. I swore to Jenivere I’d stop working as a thief. It’s just…”
“You miss it!”
Again, Basso shook his head. “No. No, it that´s not it. If I had a choice… but I don’t.” Basso ran his hands through his hair. “I’m not going to lie to you, Garrett. This winter is hard, damn hard. And honest jobs for a guy with my past are hard to come by.” Garrett shrugged, but he couldn’t deny it. He’d seen it himself: food was becoming scarce at the markets. Dry bread and withered apples were fetching exorbitant prices. Anything that wasn’t nailed down was being turned into firewood. There had been reports of the first deaths from exposure at the workhouses along the docks.
Whatever his cause of death might be- be it the crossbow of another thief or a public hangig on the marketsquare, the thief had decided he hadn´t made it to adulthood to starve. So he´d been prepared, stockpiling a sufficient supply of firewood and dried meat in the autumn months. He also had a nice little pile of coins under the wooden floorboards in his bedroom and all sorts of other glittering things tucked away in other cracks in his apartment. Even so, he too had begun to be sparing with the firewood.
He looked at Basso. His friend had grown thin and looked tired. "You're running out of money?"
"Garrett, next week I'll have to decide whether I'm going to eat or light the fireplace. I can't afford both anymore. It´s basically freezing or starving. But I... I don't do those kinds of jobs anymore..." Basso shook his head again.
Garrett sighed resignedly. "You want me to do the job for you?"
Basso grinned sheepishly. "I'll pay you back everything as soon as I can. And you'll get a commission from me, I promise. Besides, I know you; you're better than me."
Garrett snorted. "Indeed."
"If you break into that mansion, you can get more than just that damned jewelry box. I know you; you'd know how to take advantage of an opportunity like this."
The thief rubbed his unshaven chin and leaned back in his chair. He was playing games with Basso, just on principle. He'd already made up his mind. "All right, Basso, I'll do it. But you owe me one."
"Absolutely." Basso tried to pat the thief on the shoulder in a friendly manner, but Garrett ducked away from his hand.
“I’d also like to remind you that you still owe me for getting you out of Craigcleft and for saving your sweetheart.”
“I thought that was a favor you did for a friend?”
“I don’t do favors, Basso, you should know that.”
************
So Garrett had done the job, collected the money, and given it to Basso. He had also sold the countless trinkets he’d stolen during his break-in to Blackmarket Bertha and—after skimming off a reasonable sum for himself—bought salted meat, dried fruit, and flour at the market and sent it to Basso. Then he’d wondered if that, too, had been a favor, but he’d pushed the thought aside.
The safecracker was so grateful and touched that he’d invited the thief over to his home. Normally, Garrett would have refused. The more he interacted with Basso outside of his “work,” the more he’d get used to him. But people close to you could be lost again. One day, something might happen to that idiot. Maybe the guards would catch him and put him back in prison, or he'd be stabbed by a former "colleague." Maybe Jennivere's former employer would want revenge on her. And as much as Garrett hated to admit it, it would greave him if something happened to either of them.
But since he'd already given Basso the money for food and firewood, he might as well enjoy the benefits of Jenivere's cooking and a heated room to spent the evening. It would have taken hours to warm up his own dreary room again.
Besides, Basso had promised him a special surprise, and Garrett had always been curious.
****************
Now Garrett thought wistfully of the bottle of exquisite red wine waiting for him in his apartment. No matter how cold his rooms were, he could have drunken until he felt warm.
Basso's surprise turned out to be a small, rosy-cheeked baby who was either crying or babbling. Of course, he had known what Jenivere's round belly meant at their last meeting, but he had simply blocked it out.
Basso had opened the door with the child in his arms, and Garrett had to resist the urge to turn on his heel.
Instead of congratulating Basso, he had only managed to say, "Where's the mother?"
**
If he had thought Basso looked exhausted, the sight of Jenivere had quickly taught him better. She was so pale and her cheeks so sunken that she could have been a ghost. Her eyes were glazed, and she seemed to have a fever. Violent coughing fits repeatedly shook her now gaunt body. When Garrett entered, she had not gotten up from the bed in the next room, but had only quietly murmured a few words of greeting.
Basso fetched a blanket, set the child down on it, and trudged to the kitchen table to peel potatoes. Much to Garrett´s dismay, instead of Jenivere, the Boxman had started preparing supper. The evening got worse with every minute. As if on clue, the little girl began to cry again.
"I can take her, Darling," Jenivere called, but she started coughing again.
Basso looked over at his wife with a worried expression. "The fever has gone down, but she just can't get rid of that cough. I´m glad, I can take that money yout brought to the healer tomorrow."
Loudly, he joked, “Don’t worry about our girl. Maybe Garrett can sing her to sleep.”
If looks could kill, the Boxman would be finished.
The thief didn’t know any songs. Basso’s sister had once claimed he had a pleasant voice—how she came to that conclusion was beyond him—but he had never sung.
He didn’t know any bedtime stories either. Garrett had once broken into his neighbor’s apartment out of sheer curiosity. She had a book of stories for her child on the table, which Garrett had leafed through. None of the stories were suitable for children—except perhaps to frighten them to death. One of them, he later discovered, was about Gamall.
“Maybe we can distract her a little,” Basso suggested, looking clueless. He began shoveling food onto their plates. The only child Garrett had ever spoken to at length had already been dead for decades at that time. Therefore, he preferred not to use his interactions with Lauryl's spirit as a basis for dealing with Basso's baby.
Neither a dagger nor a club was a suitable toy, and the little girl would probably bend his lock picks with her sausage fingers. Garrett held out his leather glove instead and seemed to have piqued the child's interest. She grabbed it and, without hesitation, put it in her mouth. "I guess I won't get that back anytime soon." Garrett sighed resignedly, but Basso nodded contentedly.
"A nice present for her."
"And why would I want to give her a present?"
Basso grinned and placed a plate of steaming stew in front of the thief: "It's Christmas today, Garrett."