Authors: Scott Lynch
“Liar!” they chorused in unison.
“I only steal because this wicked world won’t let me work an honest trade!” Calo cried,
hoisting his own glass.
“Liar!”
“I only steal because I have to support my poor lazy twin brother, whose indolence
broke our mother’s heart!” Galdo elbowed Calo as he made this announcement.
“Liar!”
“I only steal,” said Jean, “because I’ve temporarily fallen in with bad company.”
“Liar!”
At last the ritual came to Bug; the boy raised his glass a bit shakily and yelled,
“I only steal because it’s heaps of fucking fun!”
“BASTARD!”
With a general clamor of whooping and hollering the five thieves banged glasses together;
light glittered on crystal and shone through the misty green depths of Verrari mint
wine. The four men drained their glasses in one go and slammed them back down on the
tabletop. Bug, already a bit cross-eyed, handled his somewhat more delicately.
“Gentlemen, I hold in my hands the first fruits of all our long weeks of study and
suffering.” Locke held up a rolled parchment embossed with ribbons and a blue wax
seal—the color of the lesser nobility of Camorr. “A letter of credit for five thousand
full crowns, to be drawn tomorrow against Don Salvara’s funds at Meraggio’s. And,
I daresay, the first score our youngest member has ever helped us to bring in.”
“Barrel boy!” the Sanza brothers hollered in unison; a moment later a
small almond-crusted bread roll arced from between their seats, hit Bug right between
the eyes, and plopped down onto his empty plate. Bug tore it in half and responded
in kind, aiming well despite his wobbliness. Locke continued speaking as Calo scowled
and rubbed crumbs out of his eyes.
“Second touch this afternoon was easy. But we wouldn’t have gotten so far, so fast,
if not for Bug’s quick action yesterday. What a stupid, reckless, idiotic, ridiculous
damn thing to do! I haven’t the words to express my admiration.” Locke had managed
to work a bit of wine-bottle legerdemain while speaking; the empty glasses were suddenly
full. “To Bug! The new bane of the Camorr city watch!”
When the cheering and the guzzling from this toast had subsided and Bug had been smacked
upon the back often enough to turn the contents of his skull sideways, Locke produced
a single large glass, set it in the middle of the table, and filled it slowly.
“Just one thing more before we can eat.” He held the glass up as the others fell silent.
“A glass poured to air for an absent friend. We miss old Chains terribly and we wish
his soul peace. May the Crooked Warden ever stand watch and bless his crooked servant.
He was a good and penitent man, in the manner of our kind.”
Gently, Locke set the glass in the center of the table and covered it with a small
black cloth. “He would have been very proud of you, Bug.”
“I do hope so.” The boy stared at the covered glass in the middle of the opulent glassware
and gilded cookery. “I wish I could have met him.”
“You would have been a restful project for his old age.” Jean kissed the back of his
own left hand, the benedictory gesture of the Nameless Thirteenth’s priesthood. “A
very welcome respite from what he endured raising the four of us!”
“Jean’s being generous. He and I were saints. It’s the Sanza brothers that kept the
poor old bastard up late praying six nights out of seven.” Locke reached out toward
one cloth-covered platter. “Let’s eat.”
“Praying that you and Jean would grow up quick and handsome like the two of us, you
mean!” Galdo’s hand darted out and caught Locke’s at the wrist. “Aren’t you forgetting
something?”
“Am I?”
Calo, Galdo, and Jean met this question with a coordinated stare. Bug looked sheepish
and gazed up at the chandelier.
“Gods damn it.” Locke slid out of his gold-gilded chair and went to a side cupboard;
when he returned to the table he had a tiny sampling-glass in his hand, little more
than a thimble for liquor. Into this he let slip the
smallest dash of mint wine. He didn’t hold this glass up, but pushed it into the center
of the table beside the glass under the black cloth.
“A glass poured in air for an absent
someone
. I don’t know where she is at the moment, and I pray you all choke, save Bug, thanks
very fucking much.”
“Hardly a graceful blessing, especially for a priest.” Calo kissed the back of his
own left hand and waved it over the tiny glass. “She was one of us even before you
were,
garrista
.”
“You know what I
do
pray?” Locke set his hands on the edge of the table; his knuckles rapidly turned
white. “That maybe someday one of
you
finds out what love is when it travels farther up than the buttons of your trousers.”
“It takes two to break a heart.” Galdo gently placed his left hand over Locke’s right.
“I don’t recall her fucking things up without your able assistance.”
“And I daresay,” said Calo, “that it would be a tremendous relief to us all if you
would just have the courtesy to go out and get yourself wenched. Long and hard. Gods,
do three at once! It’s not as though we don’t have the funds.”
“I’ll have you know my patience for this topic was exhausted long before—” Locke’s
voice was rising to a shout when Jean grabbed him firmly by his left biceps; Jean’s
fist wrapped easily all the way around Locke’s arm.
“She was our good friend, Locke. Was and still is. You owe her something a bit more
godly than that.”
Jean reached out for the wine bottle, then filled the little glass to its brim. He
raised it into the light and took his other hand off Locke’s arm. “A glass poured
to air for an absent friend. We wish Sabetha well. For ourselves, we pray brotherhood.”
Locke stared at him for a second that seemed like minutes, then let out a long sigh.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin the occasion. That was a poor toast and I … repent
it. I should have thought better of my responsibilities.”
“I’m sorry, too.” Galdo grinned sheepishly. “We don’t blame you for the way you feel.
We know she was … she was …
her
.”
“Well, I’m not sorry about the wenching bit.” Calo shrugged in mock apology. “I’m
fucking serious, man. Dip your wick. Drop your anchor. Go see a lady about a sheath
for a dagger. You’ll feel better.”
“Isn’t it obvious that I’m just
ecstatic
right now? I don’t need to feel
better
, because you and I still have work to do this evening! For the love of the
Crooked Warden, can we please just
kill this subject and throw its gods-damned corpse in the bay
?”
“Sorry,” Calo said after a few seconds and a well-aimed glare from Jean. “Sorry. Look,
you know we mean well. We’re both sorry if we push. But she’s in Parlay and we’re
in Camorr, and it’s obvious you—”
Calo would have said something else, but an almond roll bounced off the bridge of
his nose and he flinched in surprise. Another roll hit Galdo in the forehead; one
arced into Jean’s lap, and Locke managed to throw up a hand in time to swat down the
one intended for him.
“Honestly!” Bug clutched still more rolls in his outstretched hands, and he pointed
them like loaded crossbows. “Is this what I get to look forward to when I grow up?
I thought we were celebrating being richer and cleverer than everyone else!”
Locke looked at the boy for just a moment, then reached out and took the full sampling-glass
from Jean, a smile breaking out as he did so. “Bug’s right. Let’s cut the shit and
have dinner.” He raised the glass as high as he could toward the light of the chandelier.
“To us—richer and cleverer than everyone else!”
“Richer and cleverer than everyone else!”
came the echoing chorus.
“We toast absent friends who helped to bring us to where we are now. We do miss them.”
Locke set the little glass to his lips and took a minuscule sip before he set it back
down.
“And we love them still,” he added quietly.
“THE THORN of Camorr … is a particularly ridiculous rumor that floats around the dining
parlor when some of the more excitable dons don’t water their wine quite thoroughly
enough.”
“The Thorn of Camorr,” said the scarred man pleasantly, “walked off your pleasure
barge earlier this evening with a signed note for five thousand of your white iron
crowns.”
“Who? Lukas Fehrwight?”
“None other.”
“Lukas Fehrwight is a
Vadran
. My mother was Vadran; I know the tongue! Lukas is Old Emberlain all the way through.
He covers himself in wool and flinches back six feet any time a woman blinks at him!”
Don Lorenzo pulled his optics off in irritation and set them on his desk. “The man
would bet the lives of his own children against the price he could get
for barrels of herring guts on any given morning. I’ve dealt with his kind too many
times to count. That man is no Camorri, and he is
no mythical thief
!”
“My lord. You are four and twenty, yes?”
“For the time being. Is that quite relevant?”
“You have no doubt known many merchants in the years since your mother and father
passed away, may they have the peace of the Long Silence. Many merchants, and many
of them Vadrans, correct?”
“Quite correct.”
“And if a man, a very clever man, wished you to think him a merchant … Well, what
would he dress up and present himself as? A fisherman? A mercenary archer?”
“I don’t grasp your meaning.”
“I mean, m’lord Salvara, that your own expectations have been used against you. You
have a keen sense for men of business, surely. You’ve grown your family fortune several
times over in your brief time handling it. Therefore, a man who wished to snare you
in some scheme could do nothing wiser than to act the consummate man of business.
To deliberately manifest all of your expectations. To show you exactly what you expected
and desired to see.”
“It seems to me that if I accept your argument,” the don said slowly, “then the self-evident
truth of any legitimate thing could be taken as grounds for its falseness. I say Lukas
Fehrwight is a merchant of Emberlain because he shows the signs of being so; you say
those same signs are what prove him counterfeit. I need more sensible evidence than
this.”
“Let me digress, then, m’lord, and ask another question.” The scarred man drew his
hands within the black folds of his cloak and stared down at the young nobleman. “If
you were a thief who preyed
exclusively
on the nobility of our Serene Duchy of Camorr, how would you hide your actions?”
“Exclusively? Your Thorn of Camorr again. There can’t be any such thief. There are
arrangements … the Secret Peace. Other thieves would take care of the matter as soon
as any man dared breach the Peace.”
“And if our thief could evade capture? If our thief could conceal his identity from
his fellows?”
“If. If. They say the Thorn of Camorr steals from the rich”—Don Salvara placed a hand
on his own chest—“and gives every last copper to the poor. But have you heard of any
bags of gold being dumped in the street in Catchfire lately? Any charcoal-burners
or knackers suddenly
walking around in silk waistcoats and embroidered boots? Please. The Thorn is a commoner’s
ale-tale. Master swordsman, romancer of ladies, a ghost who walks through walls. Ridiculous.”
“Your doors are locked and all your windows are barred, yet here we are in your study,
m’lord.”
“Granted. But you’re men of flesh and blood.”
“So it’s said. We’re getting off the subject. Our thief, m’lord, would trust
you and your peers
to keep his activities concealed
for
him. Hypothetically speaking, if Lukas Fehrwight
were
the Thorn of Camorr, and you
knew
that he had strolled off with a small fortune from your coffers, what would you do?
Would you rouse the watch? Cry for aid openly in the court of His Grace? Speak of
the matter in front of Don Paleri Jacobo?”
“I … I … that’s an interesting point. I wonder—”
“Would you want the entire city to know that you’d been taken in? That you’d been
tricked? Would men of business ever trust your judgment again? Would your reputation
ever
truly
recover?”
“I suppose it would be a very … difficult thing.”
The scarred man’s right hand reappeared, gloveless and pale against the darkness of
the cloak, one finger pointing outward. “Her ladyship the Doña Rosalina de Marre lost
ten thousand crowns four years ago, in exchange for titles to upriver orchards that
don’t exist.” A second finger curled outward. “Don and Doña Feluccia lost twice as
much two years ago. They thought they were financing a coup in Talisham that would
have made the city a family estate.”
“Last year,” the scarred man said as a third finger unfolded, “Don Javarriz paid fifteen
thousand full crowns to a soothsayer who claimed to be able to restore the old man’s
firstborn son to life.” The man’s little finger snapped out, and he waved his extended
hand at Don Lorenzo. “Now, we have the Don and Doña Salvara involved in a secret business
deal that is both tempting and convenient. Tell me, have you ever heard of the troubles
of the lords and ladies I have named?”
“No.”
“Doña de Marre visits your wife in her garden twice weekly. They discuss alchemical
botany together. You’ve played cards with the sons of Don Javarriz many times. And
yet this is all a surprise to you?”
“Yes, quite, I assure you!”
“It was a surprise to His Grace, as well. My master has spent four years attempting
to follow the slender threads of evidence connecting these crimes, m’lord. A fortune
the size of your own vanished into thin air, and
it took ducal orders to pry open the lips of the wronged parties. Because their pride
compelled
their silence.”
Don Lorenzo stared at the surface of his desk for a long moment.
“Fehrwight has a suite at the Tumblehome. He has a manservant, superior clothes, hundred-crown
optics. He has … proprietary secrets of the House of bel Auster.” Don Salvara looked
up at the scarred man as though presenting a difficult problem to a demanding tutor.
“Things that no thief could have!”