Authors: Scott Lynch
“Have I? Oh, dear, I see that I have.” Baumondain reached down and eased the kitten
out of his apron. Locke was astonished to see how limply it hung in his hands, with
its legs and tail drooping and its little head lolling; what self-respecting cat would
sleep while plucked up and carried through the air? Then Locke saw the answer, as
Lauris took Lively in her own hands and turned to go. The kitten’s little eyes were
wide open, and stark white.
“That creature was Gentled,” said Locke in a low voice when Lauris had returned to
the workshop.
“I’m afraid so,” said the carpenter.
“I’ve never seen such a thing. What purpose does it serve, in a cat?”
“None, Master Fehrwight, none.” Baumondain’s smile was gone, replaced by a wary and
uncomfortable expression. “And it certainly wasn’t my doing. My youngest daughter,
Parnella, found him abandoned behind the Villa Verdante.” Baumondain referred to the
huge luxury inn where the intermediate class of Salon Corbeau’s visitors stayed, the
wealthy who were not private guests of the Lady Saljesca. Locke himself was rooming
there.
“Damned strange.”
“We call him Lively, as a sort of jest, though he does little. He must be coaxed to
eat, and prodded to … to excrete, you see. Parnella thought it would be kinder to
smash his skull, but Lauris would not hear of it and so I could not refuse. You must
think me weak and doting.”
“Not at all,” said Locke, shaking his head. “The world is cruel enough without our
compounding it; I approve. I meant that it was damned strange that anyone should do
such a thing at all.”
“Master Fehrwight.” The carpenter licked his lips nervously. “You seem a humane man,
and you must understand … our position here brings us a steady and lucrative business.
My daughters will have quite an inheritance, when I turn this shop over to them. There
are … there are things about
Salon Corbeau, things that go on, that we artisans … do not pry into.
Must
not. If you take my meaning.”
“I do,” said Locke, eager to keep the man in a good humor. However, he made a mental
note to perhaps poke around in pursuit of whatever was disturbing the carpenter. “I
do indeed. So let us speak no more of the matter, and instead look to business.”
“Most kind,” said Baumondain, with obvious relief. “How do you take your coffee? I
have honey and cream.”
“Honey, please.”
Baumondain poured steaming coffee from the silver pot into a thick glass cup, and
spooned in honey until Locke nodded. Locke sipped at his cup while Baumondain bombarded
his own with enough cream to turn it leather brown. It was quality brew, rich and
very hot.
“My compliments,” Locke mumbled over a slightly scalded tongue.
“It’s from Issara. Lady Saljesca’s household has an endless thirst for the stuff,”
said the carpenter. “The rest of us buy pecks and pinches from her sellers when they
come around. Now, your messenger said that you wished to discuss a commission that
was, in her words, very
particular
.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Locke. “Particular, to a design and an end that may strike you
as eccentric. I assure you I am in grave earnest.”
Locke set down his coffee and lifted his satchel into his lap, then pulled a small
key from his waistcoat pocket to open the lock. He reached inside and drew out a few
pieces of folded parchment.
“You must be familiar,” Locke continued, “with the style of the last few years of
the Therin Throne? The very last few, just before Talathri died in battle against
the Bondsmagi?” He passed over one of his sheets of parchment, which Baumondain removed
his optics to examine.
“Oh, yes,” the carpenter said slowly. “The Talathri Baroque, also called the Last
Flowering. Yes, I’ve done pieces in this fashion before.… Lauris has as well. You
have an interest in this style?”
“I require a suite of chairs,” said Locke. “Four of them, leather-backed, lacquered
shear-crescent with real gold insets.”
“Shear-crescent is a somewhat delicate wood, fit only for occasional use. For more
regular sitting I’m sure you’d want witchwood.”
“My master,” said Locke, “has very exact tastes, however peculiar. He insisted upon
shear-crescent, several times, to ensure that his wishes were clear.”
“Well, if you wished them carved from marzipan, I suppose I should have to do it … with
the clear understanding, of course, that I did warn you against hard use.”
“Naturally. I assure you, Master Baumondain, you won’t be held liable for anything
that happens to these chairs after they leave your workshop.”
“Oh, I would never do less than vouch for our work, but I cannot make a soft wood
hard, Master Fehrwight. Well, then, I do have some books with excellent illustrations
of this style. Your artist has done well to start with, but I’d like to give you more
variety to choose from.…”
“By all means,” said Locke, and he sipped his coffee contentedly as the carpenter
rose and returned to the workshop door. “Lauris,” Baumondain cried, “my three volumes
of Velonetta.… Yes, those.”
He returned a moment later cradling three heavy, leather-bound tomes that smelled
of age and some spicy alchemical preservative. “Velonetta,” he said as he settled
the books on his lap. “You are familiar with her? No? She was the foremost scholar
of the Last Flowering. There are only six sets of her work in all the world, as far
as I know. Most of these pages are on sculpture, painting, music, alchemy … but there
are fine passages on furniture, gems worth mining. If you please …”
They spent half an hour poring over the sketches Locke had provided and the pages
Baumondain wished to show him. Together, they hammered out an agreeable compromise
on the design of the chairs that “Master Fehrwight” would receive. Baumondain fetched
a stylus of his own and scrawled notes in an illegible chicken scratch. Locke had
never before considered how many details might go into something as straightforward
as a chair; by the time they had finished their discussion of legs, bracings, cushion
filling, leathers, scrollwork, and joinery, Locke’s brain was in full revolt.
“Excellent, Master Baumondain, excellent,” is nonetheless what he said. “The very
thing, in shear-crescent, lacquered black, with gold leaf to gild the incised decorations
and the rivets. They must look as though they had been plucked from Emperor Talathri’s
court just yesterday, new and unburnt.”
“Ah,” said the carpenter, “a delicate subject arises, then. Without meaning to give
the slightest offense, I must make it clear that these will never pass for originals.
They will be exact reconstructions of the style, perfect facsimiles, of a quality
to match
any
furnishings in the world—but an expert could tell. They are few, and far between,
but such a one would never confuse a brilliant reconstruction for even a modest original.
They have had centuries to weather; these will be plainly new.”
“I take your meaning, Master Baumondain. Never fear; I am ordering these for eccentric
purposes, not for deceptive ones. These chairs will never be alleged to be originals,
on my word. And the man who will receive them
is
such an expert, in fact.”
“Very good, then, very good. Is there anything else?”
“Yes,” said Locke, who had withheld two sketch-covered sheets of parchment and passed
them over. “Now that we’ve settled on a design for the suite of chairs, this—or something
very much like it, subject to your more expert adjustments—
must
be included in the plans.”
As Baumondain absorbed the implications of the sketches, his eyebrows rose steadily,
until it seemed that they were being drawn up to the fullest possible extent of his
forehead’s suppleness, and must be flung back down to the floor like crossbow bolts
when they reached their zenith.
“This is a prodigious curiosity,” he said at last. “A very strange thing to incorporate.… I’m
not at all sure—”
“It is essential,” said Locke. “That, or something very much like it, within the bounds
of your own discretion. It is absolutely necessary. My master simply will not place
an order for the chairs unless these features are built into them. Cost is no object.”
“It’s possible,” said the carpenter after a few seconds of further contemplation.
“Possible, with some adjustments to these designs. I believe I see your intention,
but I can improve upon this scheme … must, if the chairs are to function as chairs.
May I ask why this is necessary?”
“My master is a dear old fellow, but as you must have gathered, quite eccentric, and
morbidly afraid of fire. He fears to be trapped in his study or his library tower
by flames. Surely you can see how these mechanisms might help set his mind at ease?”
“I suppose I can,” muttered Baumondain, his puzzled reluctance turning to interest
in a professional challenge as he spoke.
After that, it was merely a matter of haggling, however politely, over finer and finer
details, until Locke was finally able to coax a suggested price out of Baumondain.
“What coin would you wish to settle in, Master Fehrwight?”
“I presumed solari would be convenient.”
“Shall we say … six solari per chair?” Baumondain spoke with feigned nonchalance;
that was a cheeky initial offer, even for luxury craftsmanship. Locke would be expected
to haggle it down. Instead, he smiled and nodded.
“If six per chair is what you require, then six you will have.”
“Oh,” said Baumondain, almost too surprised to be pleased. “Oh. Well then! I should
be only too happy to accept your note.”
“While that would be fine in ordinary circumstances, let’s do something more convenient
for both of us.” Locke reached inside the satchel and drew out a coin purse, from
which he counted twenty-four gold solari onto
the little coffee table while Baumondain watched with growing excitement. “There you
are, in advance. I prefer to carry hard coinage when I come to Salon Corbeau. This
little city needs a moneylender.”
“Well, thank you, Master Fehrwight, thank you! I didn’t expect … well, let me get
a work order and some papers for you to take with you, and we’ll be set.”
“Now, let me ask—do you have all the materials you need for my master’s order?”
“Oh yes! I know that off the top of my head.”
“Warehoused here, at your shop?”
“Yes indeed, Master Fehrwight.”
“About how long might I expect the construction to take?”
“Hmmm … given my other duties, and your requirements … six weeks, possibly seven.
Will you be returning for them yourself, or will we need to arrange shipping?”
“In that, too, I was hoping for something a little more convenient.”
“Ah, well … you having been so very civil, I’m sure I could shift my schedule. Five
weeks, perhaps?”
“Master Baumondain, if you and your daughters were to work on my master’s order more
or less exclusively, starting this afternoon, at your best possible speed … how long
then would you say it might take?”
“Oh, Master Fehrwight, Master Fehrwight, you must understand, I have other orders
pending, for clients of some standing.
Significant
people, if you take my meaning.”
Locke set four more gold coins atop the coffee table.
“Master Fehrwight, be reasonable! These are just chairs! I will bend every effort
to finishing your order as fast as possible, but I cannot simply displace my existing
clients or their pieces—”
Locke set four more coins down, next to the previous pile.
“Master Fehrwight, please, we would give you our exclusive efforts for far less, if
only
we didn’t already have clients to satisfy! How could I possibly explain this to them?”
Locke set six more coins directly in the middle of the two stacks of four, building
a little tower. “What is that now, Baumondain? Forty solari, when you were so pleased
to get just twenty-four?”
“Sir, please, my sole consideration is that clients who placed their orders before
your master’s must, in all courtesy, have precedence.”
Locke sighed, and dumped ten more solari onto the coffee table, upsetting his little
tower and emptying the purse. “You can have a shortage of materials. Some essential
wood or oil or leather. You need to send away for
it; six days to Tal Verrar and six days back. Surely it’s happened before. Surely
you can explain.”
“Oh, but the aggravation; they’ll be so annoyed.…”
Locke drew a second coin purse from his satchel and held it poised like a dagger in
the air before him. “Refund some of their money. Here, have more of mine.” He shook
out even more coins, haphazardly. The
clink-clink-clink
of metal falling upon metal echoed in the foyer.
“Master Fehrwight,” said the carpenter, “who
are
you?”
“A man who’s dead serious about chairs.” Locke dropped the half-full purse atop the
pile of gold next to the coffeepot. “One hundred solari, even. Put off your other
appointments, set aside your other jobs, make your excuses and your refunds. How long
would it take?”
“Perhaps a week,” said Baumondain, in a defeated whisper.
“Then you agree? Until my four chairs are finished, this is the Fehrwight Furniture
Shop? I have more gold in the Villa Verdante’s strongbox. You will have to kill me
to stop forcing it upon you if you say no. So do we have a deal?”
“Gods help us both, yes!”
“Then shake on it. You get carving, and I’ll start wasting time back at my inn. Send
messengers if you need me to inspect anything. I’ll stay until you’re finished.”
“AS YOU can see, my hands are empty, and it is unthinkable that anything should be
concealed within the sleeves of such a finely tailored tunic.”
Locke stood before the full-length mirror in his suite at the Villa Verdante, wearing
nothing but his breeches and a light tunic of fine silk. The cuffs of the tunic were
drawn away from his wrists, and he stared intently at his own reflection.