Lesson in Thieves Cant

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Tuesday 27th May 2003

Smorgus Bord - Male Halfling Thief - Ian Luxton
A la Carte - Ogre Strength-Fighter - Darryl Sherwood
Polly Ester - Female Human Bard - Andrew Earl
Finn Finnegan - Male Halfling F/T - Jeff Clendon
Ulotta Puck-off - Female Shield Maiden Parry-Fighter - Edwin Muir
Arzie Vandit - Male Halfling Thief - Adrian McKinnon
DM - Steven Krijnen

On the way home from the Carnival (last week), marching triumphantly along
the road in a loose formation, me riding on the wagon with the ogre cage and
occupant A la Carte, we encounter a group of dishevelled guards.

"You are looking very dishevelled," I quip.
"Where's our mate Francios?" one asked.
"Who is he?"
"He paid you a silver, I saw him, then you ushered him into that tent."
"Yes, the 'Ogling Room'. To ogle the cleavage reader."
"Yeah. Now where is he?"
"He must have slipped out the back way."
"Yeah...right. I'm watching ... no, we're watching you and your group. You
aint leavin' town."

They let us pass and we headed towards Elaine's mansion. But encountered
another group. Better dressed guards this time. And Captain Alcatraz
(Captain of the Spine Militia) himself.

"Good evening, Captain" I said, and signed in Thieves' Cant to Smorgus Bord
(sitting next to me on the wagon) 'More bloody guards'. (Thieves Cant is a
sign-language form of communication known only to Thieves and their ilk.)

The Captain smiled gloatingly at me and signed back 'I know Cant too.' while
he spoke "a very pleasant evening I must say. How did your carnival go, fair
lady?"

"It went fine, O Captain." I said, and signed 'You know Cant? Oh. So all
your guards are tea-leaves?'

"This is good, indeed," he replied, and signed 'Most are.'

"Did you partake of the Cleavage Reader, Captain?" I said again and signed
'They work with you?'. I tried to put emphasis on the word 'with', but in
Thieves Cant emphasis is done via a complex word-count mechanism. You have
to count backwards, from the end of the sentence, starting with the number
zero, and then give a gesture for this number. I was tired and got it wrong
and signed a 'two' instead of a 'one'. So the word 'work' was emphasized.

He took offense.
"No, fair lady, I did not" he spoke and signed 'Are you insinuating that I
don't do a good job, lowly whore?'

"That is a pity. He is very good, aren't you Smorgus?" and signed 'No, but
your guards could well do with personality management. They would not let us
leave town. Do you know about this  Thief-Captain?'.
Placing dramatic pauses in Thieves Cant is also awkward. Here you need to
count spaces forward from the beginning of the sentence with the pause. And
also indicate the number of the sentence with the pause. Four-three in this
case. A common mistake is to not punctuate your sentences correctly.
Therefore you get the sentence-count wrong.

"To be sure. To be sure" lilted Smorgus and signed 'Fuck off - pig Sancho
Cyprus'.
He of course meant 'pig felcher', but Cant for 'felcher' and 'Sancho Cyprus'
is very similar. The former involves a 30 degree angle between the index
finger and the wrist, whereas the latter is but a 15 degree angle.
Many years ago, during a botanical Cant lecture in the Sancho City Thieves'
Guild, this very mistake (reversed) insulted some high-ranking thieves and
started many years of blood-letting.

"I bet he is" smiled the Captain grimly, and signed 'Yes, you and your *lot*
are not leaving town.' (I suspect he, too, got his emphasis on the wrong
word).

"He did a lot of training to be a cleavage reader" I said and signed 'Why
can't we leave?'

"You can't stop us leaving town, you fat piece of shit" spurted Smorgus and
signed 'I did indeed'. Smorgus had made another common mistake - reversing
spoken and Cant when doing two conversations at once.

"Just try it. The gates are closed and the walls high. You'll not leave
Spine" said the Captain, also no longer speaking in Cant. "Randy suspects
that you killed his men. He has thus decreed that you shall not leave town."

With this, we left the Captain and arrived back at Elaine's.

Finn Finnigan snuck off.

Elaine was not there, just her friend Vicky.

We hunkered down for the night. But expecting trouble from Randy's thief mob,
we set watches on all the windows of Elaine's mansion.

Sure enough, later that evening, there was a loud BANG, and an explosion by
the gates to Elaine's grounds.

Mike, her butler, said that the Guards and Wards surrounding her estate
had been broken.

Guards arrived asking us to surrender.
What is the charge? Murder.
Apparently a psionicist, one of Randy's, had died breaching the wards on the
gate. His body was flung hundreds of metres by the explosion.

How we laughed. None harder than A la Carte the ogre.

The guards tried a frontal attack. Eight of them arrived. We retreated and
left Vicki to do her stuff. She flattened them without even raising a sweat.

Guards and thieves had the place surrounded. A few we shot long range with
arrows. A la Carte and Ulotta also ventured out to take on a bunch. The ogre
bit off more than he could chew. We dragged his unconscious body back into
the house.

Then more guards arrived. And more. Shouts of: "Come out and surrender or we
will fire the place."
"We need to talk!"
"Parley!"

So myself and Captain Alcatraz met on neutral ground (our wagon sitting in
Elaine's front yard). He basically explained that half of the town guard now
belonged to Randy's mob, the other half loyal to him. He wanted rid of these
miscreants.

So we developed a Cunning Plan.

Knowing that Vicki was a good fighter. One - ie emphasis on 'good', we
arranged so that the Thief Guards would enter the house and the Loyal guards
would not. They would make a sham attack, but the Thief guards would bear
the brunt of the attack.

So we all retreated upstairs in the mansion and left poor Vicki downstairs.

The guards attacked. There was screaming and shouting and banging and
crashing. Then a loud crump. And all went quiet.

We bravely crept downstairs to meet a wall of ice. So we climbed at the
window.
The front door also had a wall of ice.

Somehow we got into the house. There was Vicki, wounded, sitting on the
steps, surrounded by the entire Spine militia all either beaten up or frozen
solid.

Vicki was an ice dragon, it seems, and she had killed the lot.