Authors: Scott Lynch
“You have the unfortunate distinction,” said Zodesti, “of being poisoned by a substance
beyond my experience. Given the fact that I have a Master’s Ring in alchemy from the
Therin Collegium—”
“Gods damn your jewelry,” said Jean. “Can you
do
anything?”
“In the early stages of the poisoning, who could have said? But now …” Zodesti shrugged.
“You maggot!” Jean grabbed Zodesti by his lapels, whirled, and slammed him against
the wall beside Locke’s bed. “You arrogant little fraud! You’re the best this city
has? DO SOMETHING!”
“I can’t,” said Zodesti with a new firmness in his voice. “Think whatever you like,
do whatever you like. He is beyond my powers of intervention. I daresay that puts
him beyond anyone’s.”
“Let him go,” said Locke.
“There must be something—”
“Let him go!” Locke retched, spat up more blood, and broke into a coughing fit. Jean
released Zodesti, and the physiker slid away, glaring.
“Shortly after the poison was administered,” said the physiker, “I could have tried
a purgative. Or filled his stomach with milk and parchment pulp. Or bled him to thin
out the venom. But this thing has been with him for too long now.
“Even with known poisons,” he continued, returning his instruments to his bag, “there
comes a point where the harm to organs or humors cannot be reversed. Antidotes don’t
restore dead flesh. And with this, an unknown poison? His blood is pouring out of
him. I can’t just put it back.”
“Gods damn it,” whispered Jean.
“The question is no longer
if
but
when
,” said Zodesti. “Look, you ugly bastard, despite the way you brought me into this
mess, I’ve given him my full and fair attention.”
“I see.” Jean slowly walked over to the linen table, took up a clay cup, and filled
it with water from the jug. “Do you have anything with you that can bring about a
strong sleep? In case his pain should worsen?”
“Of course.” Zodesti removed a small paper pouch from his bag. “Have him take this
in water or wine and he won’t be able to keep his eyes open.”
“Now wait just a damn minute,” said Locke.
“Give it here,” said Jean. He took the packet, poured its contents into the water,
and shook the cup several times. “How long will it last?”
“Hours.”
“Good.” Jean passed the cup to Zodesti and gestured at it with a dagger. “Drink up.”
“What?”
“I don’t want you running off to the first constable you can find as soon as I dump
you on the street.”
“Don’t think I would be so foolish as to try and run from you—”
“Don’t think I give a damn. Drink the whole thing or I’ll break your arms.”
Zodesti quickly gulped the contents of the cup. “How I’m going to laugh when they
catch you, you son of a bitch.” He tossed the cup down carelessly on Locke’s bed and
sat with his back against the wall. “All the justices of Lashain are my patients.
Your friend’s too sick to run. If he’s still alive when they catch you, they’ll draw
and quarter him just to give you something to watch while you wait for your own exe …
execution.…”
A few seconds later his head rolled forward and he began snoring.
“Think he’s pretending?” said Locke.
Jean shoved the tip of his dagger into the calf of Zodesti’s outstretched right leg.
The physiker didn’t stir.
“I hate to say that I told you so,” said Locke, settling back against his cushions
and folding his hands in front of him. “Wait, no I don’t. I could use a bottle of
wine, and don’t add any water this—”
“I’ll get Malcor,” said Jean. “I’ll have him stay the night. Constant attention.”
“Damn it, Jean, wake up.” Locke coughed and pounded on his chest. “What a reversal
this is, eh? I wanted to die in Vel Virazzo and you pulled me back to my senses. Now
I really am dying and you’re bereft of yours.”
“There’s—”
“No more physikers, Jean. No more alchemists, no more dog-leeches. No more rocks to
pry up looking for miracles.”
“How can you just lie there like a fish washed up on shore, with no fight at all?”
“I suppose I could flop around a bit, if you thought it would help.”
“The Gray King sliced you like a veal cutlet and you came back from that, twice as
aggravating as ever.”
“Sword cuts. If they don’t turn green, you can expect to heal. It’s the nature of
things. With black alchemy, who the hell knows?”
“I’ll give you wine, but I want you to take it with two parts water, like Malcor said.
And I want you to eat tonight, everything you can. Keep your strength up—”
“I’ll eat, but only to give the wine some ballast. There’s no other point to it, Jean.
There’s no cure forthcoming.”
“If you can’t be cured, you’ll have to endure. Outlast it, until it breaks like a
fever.”
“The poison’s more likely to last than I am.” Locke coughed and dabbed at his mouth
with one of his sheets. “Jean, you’ve called down some trouble by stealing this little
weasel out of his house. Surely you can see that.”
“I was very careful.”
“You know better! He’ll remember your face, and Lashain’s not so very big. Look, take
the money that’s left. Take it and get out of town tonight. You can slip into a dozen
trades at will, you speak four languages, you’ll be wealthy again in—”
“Incomprehensible babble.” Jean sat on the edge of the bed and gently pushed Locke’s
sweat-slick hair out of his eyes. “I don’t understand a word you’re saying.”
“Jean, I know you. You’ll kill half a city block when your blood’s up, but you’ll
never
slit the throat of a sleeping man who’s done us no real harm. That means constables
will kick our doors down sooner or later. Please don’t be here when they do.”
“You brought this upon yourself when you cheated that antidote into my glass. The
consequences are yours to—”
“Like hell. You would have robbed me of that choice, too! Gods, all this maneuvering
for moral advantage! You’d think we were married.” Locke coughed and arched his back.
“The gods must truly have it in for you, to make you my nurse,” he said quietly. “Not
once but twice, now.”
“Hell, they made me your nurse when I was ten years old. You can knock down kingdoms
on a whim. What you need is someone to make sure you don’t get hit by a carriage when
you cross the street.”
“That’s all over now, though. And it might have been kinder for you if I had been
hit by a carriage—”
“You see this?” Jean took the tightly bound lock of dark, curly hair out of his coat
pocket and held it up. “You see this, you bloody bastard? You know where it came from.
I’m done losing. Do you fucking hear me? I am
done
losing. Spare me your precious self-pity, because this isn’t a stage and I didn’t
pay two coppers to cry my eyes out over anyone’s death speech. You don’t fucking get
one, understand? I don’t care if you cough up buckets of blood. Buckets I can carry.
I don’t care if you howl like a dog for months. You’re going to eat and drink and
keep fighting.”
“Well,” said Locke after a few moments had passed in silence. He smiled wryly. “If
you are going to be an intractable son of a bitch, why don’t you uncork that wine
so we can start with the part about drinking?”
JEAN LEFT
Zodesti in an alley about three blocks west of the Villa Suvela, taking care to conceal
him well and cover his bag with trash. He wouldn’t be at all pleased when he awoke,
but at least he’d be alive.
Locke’s condition changed little that night; he slept in fits and starts, sipped wine,
grudgingly chewed cold beef and soft bread, and continued bleeding. Jean fell asleep
sitting up and managed to spill ale over a useless treatise on poisons. Most of their
nights had been like this, recently.
The rain kept up well into the next night, enfolding the city in murk. Just before
the unseen sundown Jean went out to fetch fresh supplies. There was a merchants’ inn
not ten minutes from the Villa Suvela that was used to dealing in necessities at odd
hours.
When Jean came back, the front door was completely unmarked. He had no reason to suspect
that anything was amiss, until he glanced down in the entry and saw the great mess
of water that had recently been brought across the threshold.
Movement on both sides—too many attackers, too prepared. A basket of food and wine
was no weapon at all. Jean went down under a press of bodies. With desperate strength
he smashed a nose, kicked a foot, tried to claw out the space he needed to pull and
use his hatchets—
“Enough,” said a commanding voice. Jean looked up. The door to the inner apartment
was open, and there were men standing over Locke’s bed.
“No!” Jean yelled, ceasing his fight. Four men seized him and dragged him into the
inner room, where he counted at least five more visible opponents. One of them grabbed
a towel from the linens table and held it up to his bleeding nose.
“I’m sorry,” said Locke, hoarsely. “They came right after you left—”
“Quiet.” The speaker was a rugged man about Locke and Jean’s age, with a brawler’s
scarred jaw and a nose that looked like it had been used to break a hard fall. His
hair was scraped down to stubble, and he wore quality fighting leathers under a long
black coat. Had Jean been thinking straight, he would have realized that the consequences
of Zodesti’s abduction might come back to them from directions other than the Lashani
constabulary. “How’s your head, Leone?”
“Broge my fuggin node,” said the man holding a towel to his face.
“Builds character.” The man in the black coat picked up a chair, set it down in front
of Jean, then kicked him in the stomach, good and fast, barely giving him time to
flinch before the pain hit. Jean groaned, and the four men holding him bore down on
him with all of their weight, lest he try anything stupid.
“Wait,” coughed Locke. “Please—”
“If I have to say ‘quiet’ again,” said the black-coated man, “I’ll cut your fucking
tongue out and pin it to the wall. Now shut up.” He sat down in the chair and smiled.
“My name is Cortessa.”
“Whispers,” said Jean. This was much worse than the constabulary. Whispers Cortessa
was a top power in the Lashani underworld.
“So they call me. I presume you’re Andolini.”
That was the name Jean had given when renting their rooms, and he nodded.
“If it’s real I’m the king of the Seven Marrows,” said Cortessa. “But nobody cares.
Can you tell me why I’m here?”
“You ran out of sheep to fuck and went looking for some action?”
“Gods, I love Camorri. Constitutionally incapable of doing things the easy way.” Cortessa
slapped Jean hard enough to make his eyes water. “Try again. Why am I here?”
“You heard,” Jean gasped, “that we’d finally discovered the cure for being born with
a face like a stray dog’s ass.”
“No. If that were true you would have used it.” Cortessa’s next blow was no slap,
but a backhanded bruise-maker. Jean blinked as the room swam around him.
“Now, I would
love
to sit here and paint the floor with your blood. Leone would probably love it even
more. But I think I can save us all a lot of time.” Cortessa beckoned, and one of
the men standing over
Locke’s bed lifted a club. “What does your friend lose first? A knee? A few toes?
I can be creative.”
“
No
. Please.” Jean would have bent his head to Cortessa’s feet if he hadn’t been restrained.
“I’m the one you want. I won’t waste any more of your time. Please.”
“You’re the one I want, suddenly? Why would I want you?”
“Something about a physiker, I’d guess.”
“There we are. That wasn’t so hard after all.” Cortessa cracked his knuckles. “What
did you think might happen when someone like Zodesti came home from the shit you pulled
yesterday?”
“Certainly would have been nice if he’d never said anything at all.”
“Don’t be simple. Now, I know you’re a friend of the friends. I hear things. When
you first came to Lashain you knew your business. Kept the peace, made your gifts,
behaved
. You clearly understand how things work in our world. So do you think Zodesti ran
up and down the streets, screaming that he’d been stolen away like a child? Or do
you think he sent a few private messages to people who know people?”
“Shit,” said Jean.
“Yeah. So, I got the job and I thought to myself … wasn’t there a big man looking
for alchemists and dog-leeches just last week? What might they have to say about him?
Oh? A bad poisoning? A man bleeding to death in bed at the Villa Suvela?” Cortessa
spread his arms and smiled beatifically. “Some problems just solve themselves.”
“How can I make amends?” said Jean.
“You can’t.” Cortessa stood up, laughing.
“Please don’t do anything to my friend. He had nothing to do with the physiker. Do
whatever you like with me. I’ll cooperate. Just—”
“My, you’ve gone from hard to soft, big man. You’ll cooperate? Of course you’ll fucking
cooperate, you’ve got four of my men sitting on you.”
“There’s money,” said Jean. “Money, or I could work for you—”
“You’ve got nothing I want,” said Cortessa. “And that’s your problem. But I have a
serious problem of my own.”
“Oh?”
“Ordinarily, this is the part where we’d make soup out of your balls and watch you
drink it. Ordinarily. But we have what you might call a
conflict of interest
. On the one hand, you’re an outlander and you touched a Lashani with all the right
friends. That says we fucking kill you.
“On the other hand, it’s plain you are or were some sort of connected man in Camorr.
Big Barsavi might not be with us anymore, gods rest his crooked soul, but nobody in
their right mind wants to fuck with the capas. You could be somebody’s cousin. Who
knows? A year or two from now, maybe someone comes looking for you. Asks around town.
Whoops! Someone tells them to look on the bottom of the lake. And who gets sent back
to Camorr in a box to pay the debt? Yours truly. That says we
don’t
fucking kill you.”