purses carefully as they walked. Merchants also had their eyes out for pickpockets, for a stolen purse was a lost customer. The upside was that there was less competition for the more obvious and lucrative marks.

Cas placed a bolt of cloth carefully back in its place as one such person caught her eye. When she worked as a maid, her mistress had taught her how to judge a person at first glance. His clothes told her that he was moderately wealthy and from the Eastern Continent. The way he carried himself told her that he was accustomed to places with better security than the Grand Bazaar. Or perhaps he was accustomed to being escorted by bodyguards who were not present today. Perhaps a noble who wanted to experience the Grand Bazaar as a commoner.

Staying to the edge of the aisle, she began to shadow him. There was no rush. He was taking in the sights and sounds as he made his way towards the grand stairs that led to the tailors’ workshops on the upper level. The merchants noted this as well and barely gave the man a second glance. Cas hid a smile. He was the perfect mark. She stalked him like a shadow, taking care to avoid his lines of sight. Her mistress hated seeing the help and had trained her maids to move like ghosts, teaching them to stay out of her field of vision as they worked. The penalty for being seen had been severe, but Cas had a talent for it and had only been punished for it once in three years of service.

Her good humour vanished when she noticed a man walking towards her mark from the opposite direction. He was a diminutive man who walked with an arrogant strut. He kept her mark in the periphery of his vision, but there was no mistaking what he was after. Cas swallowed a curse and made her decision quickly. She changed course and veered towards a nearby shop where she pretended to examine a bolt of linen sitting on a shelf outside.

In the corner of her eye, she saw the man bump into her mark. It took less than a second for the man to deftly cut the purse from her mark’s belt and slip it into his pocket. Cas was impressed. He was more skilled than the average pickpocket, but she needed money today and backed herself to outdo him.

“Excuse me, mate,” His voice and accent were rough. Perhaps this one was from the slums that lay beyond the city’s east wall.

“You should be more careful, my friend,” the mark replied good naturedly before continuing on his merry way.

Cas took a deep breath and walked across the aisle. As she did, she moved her shawl aside ever so slightly to reveal the red velvet purse hanging from her belt. She saw the man stop in his tracks when he saw it and willed his avarice to overcome his common sense.

It worked, and he abruptly changed his course to intercept her. She pretended not to notice him as she walked down the centre of the aisle, being sure to stay out of the shopkeepers’ view. The last thing she wanted now was for a good Samaritan to unwittingly get in her way.

As the man drew nearer, she made a mental note of the pocket he had hidden the stolen purse in before turning her head, as though noticing something attractive in a nearby shop window. As she felt the man brush past and the weight lift from her belt, she deftly slipped her hand into his pocket and fished the purse out.

She turned her head ever so slightly and suppressed a smile as she saw the man walk briskly towards the closest exit. Cas wondered what his reaction would be when he discovered the velvet purse that she had lifted from a noblewoman a month ago was filled with glass marbles. As much as she wanted to see it for herself, she knew better and made her way through the crowd and walked with confidence towards the gilded double doors at the end of the aisle. Standing around it were half a dozen armed men wearing the purple cloaks of the city guard who scarcely spared her a second look as she passed through the doors. Their attention was focused on the people coming out of the Central Atrium rather than those going in.

Situated at the centre of the Grand Bazaar, the Central Atrium was home to the city’s most reputable goldsmiths and jewellers. Each was housed in their own building under the huge domed roof, both for security and for their clientele’s privacy. Few pickpockets plied their trade here, due in part to the private armed guards at the entrance to each store, and also because most transactions here were so large that they had to be done using promissory notes. Some attempted to cash in notes obtained through ill-gotten means, but those were sophisticated gangs that were far beyond the means of the average pickpocket.

She felt the leers of some of the guards as she walked down the sparsely trafficked gilded aisles. All she could do was pull her shawl closer around her head. Unlike the purple cloaks, these guards were hired by the individual shops for security, and many were little more than thugs. However, a lecherous stare and the odd comment to their partner was as far as they would take it. Competition to guard one of these shops was fierce. They were paid very well to maintain a sense of decorum and none wanted to risk losing their job over a catcall.

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All the same, Cas quickened her pace towards the Grand Bazaar’s main entrance. Leaving by the main entrance was risky. It never paid for someone in her line of work to come under the scrutiny of the guards, especially when she was carrying stolen goods herself, but it was worth the risk today. The main exit was the last one the man she had stolen from would expect a fellow pickpocket to use, and she didn’t fancy a confrontation.

She took a deep breath as she joined one of the lines of people waiting to leave and felt a shaft of envy when she saw the woman in front of her. She wore a pale blue dress and a dainty hat that had the badge of an eagle in flight on it. She was a maid for one of the city’s fourteen Great Houses and was living the life Cas once did. A life she could never get back. A girl began training to become a maid in a noble house at the age of eight and no house of repute would hire a maid as old as Cas without references. Being fired for theft, even if was through no fault of her own meant that only the lowest and most abusive households would employ her.

Up ahead, the main entrance was guarded by purple cloaks and auxiliaries seconded to the City Guard as a public service by the various nobles living in the city. Instead of purple cloaks, the latter wore gold sashes across their chest. The role of the guards at the entrance wasn’t to search everyone. Most of the patrons here were of noble birth if not outright aristocrats. All the guards wanted to do was slow the flow of traffic so that they could take a good look at each person. If they felt something off about anyone, they could take them aside for a rigorous search and questioning.

As her turn approached, Cas forced herself to look the purple cloak in the eye and flashed him a smile that had a measured nervousness to it. Just enough to make her look like the commoner when encountering a person of authority, but not enough to make it look like she had something to hide. Their eyes met and Cas swallowed a curse.

“You there,” he said, pointing at her. “Come here.”

“Yes, My Lord?” Cas replied. Her voice broke as she spoke, and a devilish grin crossed the man’s face. At once, she knew what this was going to be about and suppressed a sigh.

“I know this one, Fineus,” a voice said as the purple cloak was about to take Cas aside. “I can take over from here.”

The purple cloak’s face turned crimson as he whirled around to face the interloper. “I saw her first…”

The words died in his throat when he saw a man wearing a gold sash across his tunic and a longsword at his hip. The colour drained from his face, and he bowed his head quickly.

“As you command, My Lord,” the purple cloak said.

“Kalen,” Cas said flatly, suppressing a sigh as the newcomer took her aside. “Isn’t this work beneath a man of your stature?”

“Sandra, you look as radiant as ever,” Kalen beamed. He was a tall, muscular young man sporting a mop of dark hair. “And assisting the valiant members of the City Watch in keeping the peace is beneath no one in The Eternal City.”

A cloud crossed Cas’ face. “I thought I told you never to call me that again.”

Cas immediately regretted the venom in her voice when she saw the hurt on the young man’s face. “That’s what my mistress used to call me…”

“It’s a shame, it’s a pretty name,” Kalen sighed. “So, what brings you to the bazaar on this fine day?”

“Just window shopping,” she replied. “It’s the most a girl of modest means such as myself can do.”

Cas regretted the words almost as soon as she had said them when Kalen’s eyes lit up. It looked like he was about to make a grand, cringe inducing announcement when someone shouted. “Thief, stop him!”

“Duty calls. We’ll catch up another time,” he said before running in the direction of the cries.

Cas breathed a sigh of relief and walked past the distracted guards and into the beautiful autumn day outside. The sun shone down from a cloudless sky as Cas made her way down the steps and onto Founder’s Square, the huge stone plaza that fronted the Grand Bazaar. The purse she’d stolen felt wonderfully heavy in her pocket, but she resisted the urge to touch it. That would just invite trouble, and the money was badly needed. She wouldn’t rest easy until she put it in the right hands.

She wove her way through the crowds of people going about their day and shook her head at the clumsy efforts of pickpockets plying their trade as she passed under the shadow of the fifty foot tall statue of Constance the Fifth, the city’s first master. Times were getting harder. Some pickpocketed because they were good at it, and it had the potential to be lucrative. Others did it because they were desperate. She was seeing more of the latter these days. Times were getting harder.

The city’s leaders said the war brewing to the east was nothing to worry about but even common folk such as she could tell that they were hiding the truth. The price of things as basic as grain were rising by the day, and it was hard to ignore the slum outside the city’s walls that grew bigger with each passing day.

Cas caught a glimpse of a scuffle that had broken out nearby. A pickpocket had been caught red handed. It didn’t feel like so long ago when she was learning the ropes on this very square. She remembered the bitter disappointment she’d felt when she discovered that most of the people of the Eternal City only carried their day’s expenses with them when they were going about their business. She had quickly learned that most of those carrying bulging purses were on their way to the bazaar. However, she wasn’t about to intervene. There was no honour amongst thieves. She had learned that the hard way.

As she broke out of the main crowd and turned onto a busy tree lined avenue, her senses told her something was amiss. She made an abrupt turn and caught a glimpse of a familiar face. It was the man she had stolen from earlier. It was no coincidence that he was here. He was following her. She smirked to herself. So, he wasn’t as inept as she first thought but he was just a thug like all the others. All she’d have to do to get him off her back was to bloody his nose a little.