Authors: Scott Lynch
He felt like jumping up and down. He felt like throwing up.
Suddenly he resented the presence of Tam and No-Teeth, resented the implication of
the word “minder,” and yearned to be doing something, anything, to impress this girl.
His cheeks burned at the thought of how the bump on his forehead must look, and at
being teamed up with two useless, sobbing clods.
“This is Beth,” said the Thiefmaker. “She’s got your keeping today, lads. Take what
she says as though it came from me. Steady hands, level heads. No slacking and no
gods-damned capers. Last thing we need is you getting
ambitious
.” It was impossible to miss the icy glance the Thiefmaker spared for Locke as he
uttered this last part.
“Thank you very much, sir,” said Beth with nothing resembling actual gratitude. She
pushed Tam and No-Teeth toward one of the vault exits. “You two, wait at the entrance.
I need to have a private word with your friend here.”
Locke was startled. A word with him? Had she guessed that he knew his way around clutching
and teasing, that he was nothing like the other two? Beth glanced around, then put
her hands on his shoulders and knelt. Some nervous animal in Locke’s guts turned somersaults
as her gaze came level with his. The old compunction about refusing eye contact was
not merely set aside, but vaporized from his mind.
Two things happened then.
First, he fell in love—though it would be years before he realized what the feeling
was called and how thoroughly it was going to complicate his life.
Second,
she
spoke directly to him for the first time, and he would remember her words with a
clarity that would jar his heart long after the other incidents of that time had faded
to a haze of half-truths in his memory:
“You’re the Lamora boy, right?”
He nodded eagerly.
“Well, look here, you little shit. I’ve heard all about you, so just shut your mouth
and keep those reckless hands in your pockets. I swear to
all the gods, if you give me one hint of trouble, I will heave you off a bridge and
it will
look
like a bloody accident.”
IT WAS
an unwelcome thing, to suddenly feel half an inch tall.
Locke dazedly followed Beth, Tam, and No-Teeth out of the darkness of the Shades’
Hill vaults and into the late-morning sunshine. His eyes stung, and the daylight was
only part of it. What had he done (and who had told her about it?) to earn the scorn
of the one person he now wanted to impress more than any other in the world?
Pondering, his thoughts wandered uneasily to his surroundings. Out here in the ever-changing
open there was so much to see, so much to hear. His survival instincts gradually took
hold. The back of his mind was all for Beth, but he forced his eyes to the present
situation.
Camorr today was bright and busy, making the most of its reprieve from the hard gray
rains of spring. Windows were thrown open. The more prosperous crowds had molted,
shedding their oilcloaks and cowls in favor of summery dress. The poor stayed wrapped
in the same reek-soaked dross they wore in all seasons. Like the Shades’ Hill crowd,
they had to keep their clothes on their backs or risk losing them to rag-pickers.
As the four orphans crossed the canal bridge from Shades’ Hill to the Narrows (it
was a source of mingled pride and incredulity to Locke that the Thiefmaker was so
convinced that one little scheme of his could have burnt this
whole
neighborhood down), Locke saw at least three boats of corpse-fishers using hooks
to pluck bloated bodies from under wharves and dock pilings. Those would sometimes
go ignored for days in cool, foul weather.
Beth led the three boys through the Narrows, dodging up stone stairs and across rickety
wooden foot-bridges, avoiding the most cramped and twisted alleys where drunks, stray
dogs, and less obvious dangers were sure to lurk. Tam and Locke stayed right behind
her, but No-Teeth was constantly veering off or slowing down. By the time they left
the Narrows and crossed to the overgrown garden passages of the Mara Camorrazza, the
city’s ancient strolling park, Beth was dragging No-Teeth by his collar.
“Damn your pimple of a brain,” she said. “Keep to my heels and quit making trouble!”
“Not making trouble,” muttered No-Teeth.
“You want to cock this up and go hungry tonight? You want to give some brute like
Veslin an excuse to pry out any teeth he hasn’t got to yet?”
“Nooooooo.” No-Teeth stretched the word out with a bored yawn, looked around as though
noticing the world for the first time, then jerked free of Beth’s grip. “I want to
wear your hat,” he said, pointing at her leather cap.
Locke swallowed nervously. He’d seen No-Teeth pitch these sudden, unreasonable fits
before. There was something not quite right in the boy’s head. He frequently suffered
for calling attention to himself inside the Hill, where distinctiveness without strength
meant pain.
“You can’t,” said Beth. “Mind yourself.”
“I want to. I want to!” No-Teeth actually stomped the ground and balled his fists.
“I promise I’ll behave. Give me your hat!”
“You’ll behave because I say so!”
No-Teeth’s response was to lunge and snatch the leather cap off Beth’s head. He yanked
it so hard that her kerchief came as well, and an untidy spray of reddish-brown curls
tumbled to her shoulders. Locke’s jaw fell.
There was something so indefinably lovely, so
right
, about seeing that hair free in the sunlight that he momentarily forgot that his
enchantment was expressly one-way, and that this was anything but convenient for their
task. As Locke stared he noticed that only the lower portion of her hair was actually
brown. Above the ears it was rusty red. She’d had it colored once, and it had grown
out since.
Beth was even faster than No-Teeth once her shock wore off, and before he could do
anything with her cap it was back in her hands. She slapped him viciously across the
face with it.
“Ow!”
Not placated, she hit him again, and he cringed backward. Locke recovered his wits
and assumed the vacant expression used inside the Hill by the uninvolved when someone
nearby was getting thrashed.
“Stop! Stop!” No-Teeth sobbed.
“If you
ever
touch this cap again,” Beth whispered, shaking him by
his collar, “I swear to Aza Guilla who numbers the dead that I will deliver you straight
to her. You
stupid
little ass!”
“I promise! I promise!”
She released him with a scowl, and with a few deft movements made her red curls vanish
again beneath the tightly drawn kerchief. When the leather cap came down to seal them
in, Locke felt a pang of disappointment.
“You’re lucky nobody else saw,” said Beth, shoving No-Teeth forward. “Gods love you,
you little slug, you’re just lucky nobody else saw. Quick, now. At my heel, you two.”
Locke and Tam followed her without a word, as close as nervous ducklings fixed on
a mother’s tail feathers.
Locke shook with excitement. He’d been horrified at the incompetence of his assigned
partners, but now he wondered if their problems could do anything but make him look
better in Beth’s eyes. Oh yes. Let them whine, let them throw fits, let them go home
with nothing in their hands. Hell, let them tip off the city watch and get chased
through the streets to the sounds of whistles and baying dogs. She’d have to prefer
anything to that, including him.
THEY EMERGED
at last from the Mara Camorrazza into a whirl of noise and confusion.
It was indeed unseasonably fine hanging weather, and the normally dreary neighborhood
around the Old Citadel, the duke’s seat of justice, bustled like a carnival. Common
folk were thick on the cobblestones, while here and there the carriages of the wealthy
rattled through the mess with hired guards trotting alongside, passing out threats
and shoves as they went. In some ways, Locke already knew, the world outside the Hill
was much like the world within.
The four orphans formed a human chain to thread their way through the tumult. Locke
held fast to Tam, who clung in turn to Beth. She was so unwilling to lose sight of
No-Teeth that she thrust him before them all like a battering ram. From his perspective
Locke glimpsed few adult faces; the world became an endless procession of belts, bellies,
coattails, and carriage wheels. They made their way west
by equal parts luck and perseverance, toward the Via Justica, the canal that had been
used for hangings for half a thousand years.
At the edge of the canal embankment a low stone wall prevented a direct plunge to
the water seven or eight feet below. This barrier was crumbling but still solid enough
for children to sit upon. Beth never once loosened her grip on No-Teeth as she helped
Locke and Tam up out of the press of the crowd. Locke scrambled to sit next to Beth,
but it was Tam that squeezed up against her, leaving Locke no means to move him without
causing a scene. He tried to conceal his annoyance by adopting a purposeful expression
and looking around.
From here, at least, Locke had a better view of the affair. There were crowds on both
sides of the canal and vendors hawking bread, sausages, ale, and souvenirs from boats.
They used baskets attached to poles to collect their coins and deliver goods to those
standing above.
Locke could make out groups of small shapes dodging through the forest of coats and
legs—fellow Shades’ Hill orphans at work. He could also see the dark yellow jackets
of the city watch, moving through the crowd in squads with shields slung over their
backs. Disaster was possible if these opposing elements met and mixed like bad alchemy,
but as yet there were no shouts, no watch-whistles, no signs of anything amiss.
Traffic had been stopped over the Black Bridge. The lamps that dotted the looming
stone arch were covered with black shrouds, and a small crowd of priests, prisoners,
guards, and ducal officials stood behind the execution platform that jutted from the
bridge’s side. Two boats of yellowjackets had anchored in the canal on either side
of the bridge to keep the water beneath the dropping prisoners clear.
“Don’t we has to do our business?” said No-Teeth. “Don’t we has to get a purse, or
a ring, or something—”
Beth, who’d taken her hands off him for all of half a minute, now seized him again
and whispered harshly, “Keep your mouth shut about that while we’re in the crowd.
Mouth shut! We’re going to sit here and be mindful. We’ll work after the hanging.”
Tam shuddered and looked more miserable than ever. Locke sighed, confused and impatient.
It was sad that some of their Shades’ Hill fellows had to hang, but then it was sad
they’d been caught by the yellowjackets in the first place. People died everywhere
in Camorr, in
alleys and canals and public houses, in fires, in plagues that scythed down whole
neighborhoods. Tam was an orphan too; hadn’t he realized all this? Dying seemed nearly
as ordinary to Locke as eating supper or making water, and he was unable to make himself
feel bad that it was happening to anyone he’d barely known.
As for that, it looked to be happening soon. A steady drumbeat rose from the bridge,
echoing off water and stone, and gradually the excited murmur of the crowds dropped
off. Not even divine services could make Camorri so respectfully attentive as a public
neck-snapping.
“Loyal citizens of Camorr! Now comes noon, this seventeenth instant, this month of
Tirastim in our seventy-seventh Year of Sendovani.” These words were shouted from
atop the Black Bridge by a huge-bellied herald in sable plumage. “These felons have
been found guilty of capital crimes against the law and customs of Camorr. By the
authority of his grace, Duke Nicovante, and by the seals of his honorable magistrates
of the Red Chamber, they are here brought to receive justice.”
There was movement beside him on the bridge. Seven prisoners were hauled forward,
each by a pair of scarlet-hooded constables. Locke saw that Tam was anxiously biting
his knuckles. Beth’s arm appeared around Tam’s shoulder, and Locke ground his teeth
together. He was doing his job, behaving, refusing to make a spectacle of himself,
and
Tam
was the one that received Beth’s tenderness?
“You get used to it, Tam,” Beth said softly. “Honor them, now. Brace up.”
On the bridge platform the Masters of the Ropes tightened nooses around the necks
of the condemned. The hanging ropes were about as long as each prisoner was tall,
and lashed to ringbolts just behind each prisoner’s feet. There were no clever mechanisms
in the hanging platform, no fancy tricks. This wasn’t Tal Verrar. Here in the east,
prisoners were simply heaved over the edge.
“Jerevin Tavasti,” shouted the herald, consulting a parchment. “Arson, conspiracy
to receive stolen goods, assault upon a duke’s officer! Malina Contada, counterfeiting
and attendant misuse of His Grace the Duke’s name and image. Caio Vespasi, burglary,
malicious
mummery, arson, and horse theft! Lorio Vespasi, conspiracy to receive stolen goods.”
So much for the adults; the herald moved on to the three children. Tam sobbed, and
Beth whispered, “Shhhh, now.” Locke noted that Beth was coldly calm, and he tried
to imitate her air of disinterest. Eyes just so, chin up, mouth just shy of a frown.
Surely, if she glanced at him during the ceremony, she’d notice and approve.…
“Mariabella, no surname,” yelled the herald. “Theft and wanton disobedience! Zilda,
no surname. Theft and wanton disobedience!”
The Masters were tying extra weights to the legs of this last trio of prisoners, since
their own slight bodies might not provide for a swift enough conclusion at the ends
of their plunges.
“Lars, no surname. Theft and wanton disobedience.”
“Zilda was kind to me,” whispered Tam, his voice breaking.
“The gods know it,” said Beth. “Hush now.”
“For crimes of the body you shall suffer death of the body,” continued the herald.
“You will be suspended above running water and hanged there by the necks until dead,
your unquiet spirits to be carried forth upon the water to the Iron Sea, where they
may do no further harm to any soul or habitation of the duke’s domain. May the gods
receive your souls mercifully, in good time.” The herald lowered his scroll and faced
the prisoners. “In the duke’s name I give you justice.”