Chapter Text
If the failed intruder was trying to flee stealthily, he wasn't doing a very good job. His footsteps were quick enough, but they were noisy and heavy, simple to track as they echoed through the narrow tunnels leading away from the tavern cellar. And, of course, it didn't help that the dullard hadn't extinguished his torch. Its fallen embers led Sam right to their source, a retreating yellow-orange glow around the corner, ten paces ahead.
Even if the would-be spy had been quiet as a mouse, Sam had the advantage. He knew this network of passageways like the wrinkles in his palm, had known them ever since his mame had taken his hand as a child and guided him through the escape routes, originating from the tavern and the shul. Sam could've tracked this pest with his eyes closed.
The intruder and his torchlight stopped moving abruptly. He was muttering to himself now, and it sounded like he was rustling through his pack or his pockets – checking for something? Sam pressed himself against the wall, held his breath, and peered around the corner.
Unimpressive on the whole. The vagabond was a few paces down the hall and turned away, but even without seeing his face, Sam felt confident in his assessment. Bent like a snapped branch, wearing tattered rags head to toe, grunting and fumbling at his belt to withdraw the dagger stuck in its sheath. Whoever hired him must've been hard up.
He flailed with one hand aloft clutching his torch, the other on the dagger hilt. In the struggle, the man wriggled around and his hood slipped off his head, and Sam's contempt fled him like a candle blown out, replaced by pity. The poor mamzer had a dent in his forehead the size of a groschen, deep as a knuckle.
Maybe he wasn't a spy sent to sniff out Liechtenstein after all. Maybe he was a commoner who had gotten very, very lost, who had just so happened to stumble upon the secret entrance to The King Solomon's cellar and gotten too curious for his own good. That, or he was a spy, hired precisely on account of his nature, as someone easy to disregard. Either way, Sam could escort him out of the tunnels without a fuss – while gently encouraging him never to come back.
Changing tack, Sam shrank slightly and rounded the corner, moving slowly, his hands half-raised in a sign of goodwill. He kept his hunting knife sheathed.
"Stop," Sam said. "I'm not going to hurt–"
"Get away!" The vagabond finally freed his dagger, tossed the torch to the ground, and pointed his weapon at Sam, clutching its hilt with both hands. The still-lit torch lay flickering at his feet, and Sam tensed. The walkways were inlaid with wood planks. A fire down here would be disastrous.
"Y-you're one o' them Jews," the vagabond managed. He pointed his dagger at Sam's yellow collar. Sam nodded, eyeing the fire.
"Pick up your torch," he said. "Neither of us will leave here if we go up in flames."
The vagabond screwed up his face. "Wha?" Then, a glimmer of realization. He bent to pick it up without breaking eye contact, then stood again, still pointing his dagger at Sam, though a bit more weakly now. The firelight caught in his grey-blue eyes, and Sam recognized the fearful pallor beneath the thin veneer of his threat.
"Are you lost?" Sam asked gently.
Instantly, the vagabond's veneer fell away, giving in to frustration.
"Damn right, 'm lost!" he groaned. "I just wanted to find what I stowed away down here, 'cept without my map, I can't find fuck-all. This place is a goddamn maze."
He gesticulated with his dagger, glanced around the tunnels and shrugged, his guard dropping with every passing second. Sam could dive forward and knock him out now, drag him back to Liechtenstein and figure out what to do with him. But something prickled at his mind.
"You hid something here, in the tunnels?"
"Yeah, ain't you listenin'?"
"What was it?"
The vagabond bristled, then said, "Stuff. Important stuff. I wanted it safe where no one could find it, 'cept now I can't even find it my damn self."
Something valuable, then. "When was this?"
"When was what?"
Sam pressed his lips together and breathed through his nose. "When did you hide it?"
"I dunno, a month ago? What's it to ya?"
A whole month, yet in all that time, neither Sam nor his people had uncovered anything unusual in the tunnels. Whatever this man's treasure was, it was remarkably well-hidden. And he'd been snooping down here before, yet not one of Sam's people had noticed. Perhaps Sam had underestimated him.
"What is your name?" he asked.
The vagabond squinted at him. "Goatskin."
Sam straightened his back. "Sholem. My name is Samuel. That was my door you tried to unlock earlier – oh, no harm done. The past is past, and I am nothing if not forgiving. I can help you out of here, if you put away your dagger."
With his brow furrowed, Goatskin took in his surroundings, glanced over his shoulder, then looked back to Sam. He chewed on his lip for a moment before returning his dagger to its sheath, still partly hunched over.
"Why you helpin' me?" he said.
Sam gave him a conceding nod. "Because I believe we can help each other. What would you say to the promise of an honest wage?"
Goatskin cracked a smile, showing a gap where his two front teeth should've been. "I'd say I never been too good at bein' honest."
Sam grinned. "A straightforward wage, then. I'm looking for someone who can be discreet, and you seem like the sort who can blend into the background." He looked at Goatskin pointedly and added, "As long as you're not running away."
"Yeah, yeah, sure. Now, what kinda glint we talkin'?" Whatever recalcitrance Goatskin had, it apparently vanished with the promise of money.
"Fifty groschen upfront, one hundred whenever you bring me the information I need." Definitely enough to compete with whoever else might be employing him, if that were indeed the case.
Goatskin's eyes went wide, glittering. He took a step forward, but stopped short. "Wait. Now 'old on. I don't wanna get mixed up in no debt."
Sam raised his brow. "You would not be in debt. You would be getting paid for services rendered."
"Yeah, but, y'know…" He trailed off, eyes catching on Sam's collar.
Sam knew. He waited for Goatskin to finish his thought anyway. When he didn't, Sam continued. "It's not my groschen, regardless. I'm in the service of a rich and powerful lord. He pays me to pay people like you."
That caught his attention. "What lord?"
Sam grinned again. "I would not be a very good spy if I told you who I was spying for, would I?"
Goatskin blinked, his mouth quirked to the side, and looked at his feet as he considered. From this angle, his face so close to the torchlight, the dent in his forehead was full of shadows, black as an open mouth. Sam wondered if he could actually fit a groschen within it – then banished the thought, feeling grim at his moment of unkindness.
The vagabond looked back up at him and smiled wide. The shadow of his missing teeth mirrored the shadows pooling in the dent.
"I'm in. Tell me what I oughta do."
Sam nodded. "First, let us leave this place. Turn around, and I will follow and tell you where to go." Goatskin might've been a dullard, but Sam was not so foolish as to turn his back on a man with a dagger.