Authors: Scott Lynch
But …
“Crooked Warden,” Locke whispered, “why now? Why show me this
now
?”
Jean was waiting for him back in Tal Verrar, and they were already neckdeep in a game
that had taken a year to put together. Jean didn’t know anything about what really
went on at Salon Corbeau. He would be expecting Locke to return in short order with
a set of chairs, so the two of them could carry on with the plan they’d agreed to,
a plan that was already desperately delicate.
“Gods damn it,” said Locke. “Gods damn it all to hell.”
CAMORR, YEARS before. The wet, seeping mists enclosed Locke and Father Chains in curtains
of midnight gray as the old man led the boy back home from his first meeting with
Capa Vencarlo Barsavi. Locke, drunk and sweat-soaked, clung to the back of his Gentled
goat for dear life.
“… you don’t belong to Barsavi,” Chains said. “He’s good enough for what he is, a
good ally to have on your side, and a man that you must appear to obey at all times.
But he certainly doesn’t own you. In the end, neither do I.”
“So I don’t have to—”
“Obey the Secret Peace? Be a good little
pezon
? Only for pretend, Locke. Only to keep the wolves from the door. Unless your eyes
and ears have been stitched shut with rawhide these past two days, by now you must
have realized that I intend you and Calo and Galdo and Sabetha to be nothing less,”
Chains confided through a feral grin, “than a fucking ballista bolt right through
the heart of Vencarlo’s precious Secret Peace.”
“Uh …” Locke collected his thoughts for several moments. “Why?”
“Heh. It’s … complicated. It has to do with what I am, and what I hope you’ll someday
be. A priest in the sworn service of the Crooked Warden.”
“Is the Capa doing something wrong?”
“Well,” said Chains, “well, lad, now there’s a question. Is he doing right by the
Right People? Gods, yes—the Secret Peace tames the city watch, calms everyone down,
gets less of us hung.
“Still, every priesthood has what we call mandates: laws handed down by the gods themselves
to those who serve them. In most temples, these are complex, messy, annoying things.
In the priesthood of the Benefactor, things are easy. We only have two. The first
one is
thieves prosper
. Simple as that. We’re ordered to aid one another, hide one another, make peace whenever
possible, and see to it that our kind flourishes, by hook or by crook. Barsavi’s got
that mandate covered, never doubt that.
“But the second mandate,” said Chains, lowering his voice and glancing around into
the fog to make doubly sure that they were not overheard, “is this—
the rich remember
.”
“Remember what?”
“That they’re not invincible. That locks can be picked and treasures can be stolen.
Nara, Mistress of Ubiquitous Maladies, may Her hand be stayed, sends disease among
men so that men will never forget that they are not gods. We’re sort of like that,
for the rich and powerful. We’re the stone in their shoe, the thorn in their side,
a little bit of reciprocity this side of divine judgment. That’s our second mandate,
and it’s as important as the first.”
“And … the Secret Peace protects the nobles, and so you don’t like it?”
“It’s not that I don’t like it.” Chains mulled his next few words over before he let
them out. “Barsavi’s not a priest of the Thirteenth. He’s not sworn to the mandates
like I am; he’s got to be practical. And while I can accept that, I can’t just let
it go. It’s my divine duty to see that the blue bloods with their pretty titles get
a little bit of what life hands the rest of us as a matter of routine—a nice, sharp
jab in the ass every now and again.”
“And, Barsavi … doesn’t need to know about this?”
“Bleeding shits, no. As I see it, if Barsavi takes care of
thieves prosper
and I look after
the rich remember
, this’ll be one holy, holy city in the eyes of the Crooked Warden.”
“WHY DO they bear it? I know they get paid, but the defaults! Gods … er, Holy Marrows,
why do they come here and put up with it? Humiliated, beaten, stoned, befouled … to
what end?”
Locke paced agitatedly around the Baumondain family’s workshop, clenching and unclenching
his fists. It was the afternoon of his fourth day in Salon Corbeau.
“As you said, they get paid, Master Fehrwight.” Lauris Baumondain rested one hand
gently on the back of the half-finished chair Locke had
come in to see. With the other she stroked poor motionless Lively, tucked away inside
a pocket of her apron. “If you’re selected for a game, you get a copper centira. If
you’re given a default, you get a silver volani. There’s also a random drawing; one
person per war, one in eighty, gets a gold solari.”
“They must be desperate,” said Locke.
“Farms fail. Businesses fail. Tenant lands get repossessed. Plagues knock all the
money and health out of cities. When they’ve got nowhere else to come, they come here.
There’s a roof to sleep under, meals, hope of gold or silver. All you have to do is
go out there often enough and … amuse them.”
“It’s perverse. It’s infamous.”
“You have a soft heart, for what you’re spending on just four chairs, Master Fehrwight.”
Lauris looked down and wrung her hands together. “Forgive me. I spoke well out of
turn.”
“Speak as you will. I’m not a rich man, Lauris. I’m just my master’s servant. But
even he … We’re frugal people, damn it. Frugal and fair. We might be eccentric, but
we’re not cruel.”
“I’ve seen nobles from the Marrows at the Amusement War many times, Master Fehrwight.”
“
We’re
not nobles. We’re merchants … merchants of Emberlain. I can’t speak for our nobles,
and often don’t want to. Look, I’ve seen many cities. I know how people live. I’ve
seen gladiatorial fights, executions, misery and poverty and desperation. But I’ve
never seen
anything
like that—the faces of those spectators. The way they watched and cheered. Like jackals,
like crows, like something … something so very
wrong
.”
“There are no laws here but Lady Saljesca’s laws,” said Lauris. “Here they can behave
however they choose. At the Amusement War they can do
exactly
what they want to do to the poor folk and the simple folk. Things forbidden elsewhere.
All you’re seeing is what they look like when they stop pretending they give a damn
about anything. Where do you think Lively came from? I saw a noblewoman having kittens
Gentled so her sons could torture them with knives. Because they were
bored at tea
. So welcome to Salon Corbeau, Master Fehrwight. I’m sorry it’s not the paradise it
looks like from a distance. Does our work on the chairs meet with your approval?”
“Yes,” said Locke slowly. “Yes, I suppose it does.”
“If I were to presume to give you advice,” said Lauris, “I’d suggest that you stay
away from the Amusement War for the rest of your stay. Do what the rest of us here
do. Ignore it. Paint a great cloud of fog over it in your mind’s eye and pretend that
it’s not there.”
“As you say, Madam Baumondain.” Locke sighed. “I might just do so.”
BUT LOCKE could not stay away. Morning, afternoon, and evening, he found himself in
the public gallery, standing alone, eating and drinking nothing. He saw crowd after
crowd, war after war, humiliation after humiliation. The Demons made gruesome mistakes
on several occasions; beatings and stranglings got out of control. Those aspirants
who were accidentally roughed up beyond hope of recovery had their skulls crushed
on the spot, to the polite applause of the crowd. It would not do to be unmerciful.
“Crooked Warden,” Locke muttered to himself the first time it happened. “They don’t
even have a priest … not a single one.…”
He realized, dimly, what he was doing to himself. He felt the stirring within, as
though his conscience were a deep, still lake with a beast struggling to rise to its
surface. Each brutal humiliation, each painful default excitedly decreed by some spoiled
noble child while their parents laughed in appreciation, gave strength to that beast
as it beat itself against his better judgment, his cold calculation, his willingness
to
stick to the plan
.
He was trying to make himself angry enough to give in.
The Thorn of Camorr had been a mask he’d halfheartedly worn as a game. Now it was
almost a separate entity, a hungry thing, an increasingly insistent ghost prying at
his resolve to stand up for the mandate of his faith.
Let me out, it whispered. Let me out. The rich must remember. By the gods, I can make
damn sure they never forget.
“I hope you’ll pardon my intrusion if I observe that you don’t seem to be enjoying
yourself!”
Locke was snapped out of his brooding by the appearance of another man in the free
gallery. The stranger was tanned and fit-looking, perhaps five or six years older
than Locke, with brown curls down to his collar and a precisely trimmed goatee. His
long velvet coat was lined with cloth-of-silver, and he held a gold-topped cane behind
his back with both hands.
“But forgive me. Fernand Genrusa, peer of the Third, of Lashain.”
Peer of the third order—a baron—a purchased Lashani patent of nobility, just as Locke
and Jean had toyed with possibly acquiring. Locke bent slightly at the waist and inclined
his head. “Mordavi Fehrwight, m’lord. Of Emberlain.”
“A merchant, then? You must be doing well for yourself, Master Fehrwight, to take
your leisure here. So what’s behind your long face?”
“What makes you think I’m displeased?”
“You stand here alone, taking no refreshment, and you watch each new war with such
an expression on your face … as though someone were slipping hot coals into your breechclout.
I’ve seen you several times from my own gallery. Are you losing money? I might be
able to share some insights I’ve cultivated on how to best place wagers at the Amusement
War.”
“I have no wagers outstanding, m’lord. I am merely … unable to stop watching.”
“Curious. Yet it does not please you.”
“No.” Locke turned slightly toward Baron Genrusa and swallowed nervously. Etiquette
demanded that a lowborn like Mordavi Fehrwight, and a Vadran at that, should defer
even to a banknote baron like Genrusa and offer no unpleasant conversation, but Genrusa
seemed to be inviting explanation. Locke wondered how much he might get away with.
“Have you ever seen a carriage accident, m’lord, or a man run over by a team of horses?
Seen the blood and wreckage and been completely unable to take your eyes off the spectacle?”
“I can’t say that I have.”
“There I would beg to differ. You have a private gallery to see it three times a day
if you wish. M’lord.”
“Ahhhh. So you find the Amusement War, what, undecorous?”
“Cruel, m’lord Genrusa. Most uncommonly cruel.”
“Cruel? Compared to what? War? Times of plague? Have you ever seen Camorr, by chance?
Now there’s a basis for comparison that might have you thinking more soundly, Master
Fehrwight.”
“Even in Camorr,” said Locke, “I don’t believe anyone is allowed to beat old women
in broad daylight on a whim. Or tear their clothes off, stone them, rape them, slash
their hair off, splash them with alchemical caustics.… It’s like … like children tearing
off an insect’s wings. So they might watch and laugh.”
“Who forced them to come here, Fehrwight? Who put a sword to their backs and made
them march all the way to Salon Corbeau along those hot, empty roads? That pilgrimage
takes days from anywhere worthy of note.”
“What choice do they have, m’lord? They’re only here because they’re desperate. Because
they could not sustain themselves where they were. Farms fail, businesses fail … it’s
desperation, is all. They cannot simply decide not to eat.”
“Farms fail, businesses fail, ships sink, empires fall.” Genrusa brought his cane
out from behind his back and punctuated his statements by gesturing at Locke with
the gold head. “That’s life, under the gods, by the will
of the gods. Perhaps if they’d prayed harder, or saved more, or been less thoughtless
with what they had, they wouldn’t need to come crawling here for Saljesca’s charity.
Seems only fair that she should require most of them to earn it.”
“Charity?”
“They have a roof over their heads, food to eat, and the chance of money. Those that
earn the gold prizes seem to have no trouble taking their coin and leaving.”
“One in eighty wins a solari, m’lord. No doubt more money than they’ve ever seen at
once in their lives. And for the other seventy-nine that gold is just a promise, holding
them here day after day, week after week, default after default. And those that die
because the Demons get out of hand? What good is gold or the promise of gold to them?
Anywhere else, it would be plain murder.”
“It’s Aza Guilla that takes them from the arena floor, not you or I or anyone mortal,
Fehrwight.” Genrusa’s brows were furrowed and his cheeks were reddening. “And yes,
anywhere else, it might be plain murder. But this is Salon Corbeau, and they’re here
of their own free will. As are you and I. They could simply choose not to come—”
“And starve and die elsewhere.”
“Please. I have seen the world, Master Fehrwight. I might recommend it to you for
perspective. Certainly, some of them must be down on their luck. But I wager you’d
find that most of them are just hungry for gold, hoping for an easy break. Look out
at those on the arena floor now … quite a few young and healthy ones, aren’t there?”
“Who else might be expected to make the journey here on foot without extraordinary
luck, m’lord Genrusa?”
“I can see there’s no talking sense to sentiment, Master Fehrwight. I’d thought you
coin-kissers from Emberlain were a harder lot than this.”
“Hard perhaps, but not vulgar.”
“Now mind yourself, Master Fehrwight. I wanted a word because I was genuinely curious
about your disposition; I think I can see now what it stems from. A bit of advice:
Salon Corbeau might not be the healthiest place to harbor your sort of resentment.”