Authors: Scott Lynch
Life in the care of Father Chains offered Locke more comfort than Shades’ Hill ever
had. He had plenty to eat, new clothes, and a cot of his own to sleep on. Nothing
more dangerous than the attempted pranks of the Sanza twins menaced him each night.
Yet strangely enough Locke would never have called this new life easier than the one
he’d left.
Within days of his arrival he’d been trained as an “initiate of Perelandro,” and the
lessons only grew more intense from there. Chains was nothing like the Thiefmaker—he
didn’t allow Calo and Galdo to actually terrorize Locke, and he didn’t punish failure
by pulling out a butcher’s cleaver. But Chains could be disappointed. Oh, yes. On
the steps of the temple he could marshal his mysterious powers to sway passersby,
to plead logically or sermonize furiously until they parted with hard-earned coins,
and in his tutelage he focused those same powers on Locke until it seemed that Chains’
disappointment was a rebuke worse than a beating.
It was a strange new set of affairs, to be sure. Locke feared what Chains might do
if provoked (the leather pouch Locke was forced to wear around his neck, with the
shark’s tooth inside, was an inescapable reminder), but he didn’t actually fear Chains
himself. The big bearded man seemed so genuinely pleased when Locke got his lessons
right, seemed to give off waves of approval that warmed like sunlight. With his two
extremes of mood, sharp disappointment and bright satisfaction, Chains drove all of
his boys on through their constant tests.
There were the obvious matters of Locke’s daily training—he learned to cook, to dress,
to keep himself reasonably clean. He learned more about the order of Perelandro and
his fictional place within it. He learned about the meanings of flags on carriages
and coats of arms on guards’ tabards, about the history of the Temple District, about
its landmarks.
Most difficult of all, at first, he learned to read and write. Two hours a day were
spent at this, before and after sitting the steps. He began with fragmentary knowledge
of the thirty letters of the Therin
alphabet, and he could do simple sums when he had counters in front of him, like coins.
But Chains had him reciting and scribing his letters until they danced in his dreams,
and from there he moved to puzzling out small words, then bigger ones, then full sentences.
Chains began leaving written instructions for him each morning, and Locke wasn’t allowed
to break his fast until he’d deciphered them. Around the time short paragraphs ceased
to be his match in a battle of wits, Locke found himself up against arithmetic with
slates and chalk. Arriving at the answers in his head was no longer sufficient.
“Twenty-six less twelve,” said Chains one night in early autumn. It was an unusually
pleasant time in Camorr, with warm days and mild nights that neither drenched nor
scalded the city. Chains was absorbed in a game of Catch-the-Duke against Galdo, alternately
moving his pieces and giving mathematical problems to Locke. The three of them sat
at the kitchen table, beneath the golden light of Chains’ fabulous alchemical chandelier,
while Calo sat on a nearby counter plucking at a sad little instrument called a road-man’s
harp.
“Um …” Locke scribbled on his slate, being careful to show his work properly. “Fourteen.”
“Well done,” said Chains. “Add twenty-one and thirteen.”
“Now go forth,” said Galdo, pushing one of his pieces along the squares of the game
board. “Go forth and die for King Galdo.”
“Sooner rather than later,” said Chains, countering the move immediately.
“Since you two are at war,” said Calo, “how do you like this?”
He began to pluck a tune on his simplified harp, and in a soft, high voice he sang:
“From fair old Camorr to far Godsgate Hill,
Three thousand bold men marched to war.
A full hundred score are lying there still,
In red soil they claimed for Camorr.”
Galdo cleared his throat as he fiddled with his pieces on the board, and when his
twin continued he joined in. Barely a heartbeat passed before the Sanzas found their
eerie, note-perfect harmony:
“From fair old Camorr to far Godsgate Hill,
Went a duke who would not be a slave.
His Grace in his grave is lying there still,
In red soil he claimed for the brave.
“From fair old Camorr to far Godsgate Hill,
Is a hundred hard leagues overland.
But our host slain of old is lying there still,
In soil made red by their stand!”
“Commendable playing,” muttered Chains, “wasted on a nothing of a song shat out by
soft-handed fops to justify an old man’s folly.”
“Everyone sings it in the taverns,” said Calo.
“They’re supposed to. It’s artless doggerel meant to dress up the stink of a pointless
slaughter. But I was briefly a part of those three thousand men, and nearly everyone
I knew in those days is
lying there still
. Kindly sing something more cheerful.”
Calo bit the inside of his cheek, retuned his harp, and then began again:
“Said the reeve to the maid who was fresh to the farm
‘Let me show you the beasts of the yard!’
Here’s a cow that gives milk, and a pig that’s for ham
Here’s a cur and a goat and a lamb;
Here’s a horse tall and proud, and a well-trained old hawk,
But the thing you should see is this excellent cock!”
“Where could you possibly have learned that?” shouted Chains. Calo broke up in a fit
of giggles, but Galdo picked up the song with a deadpan expression on his face:
“Oh, some cocks rise early and some cocks stand tall,
But the cock now in question works hardest of all!
And they say hard’s a virtue, in a cock’s line of work
So what say you, lovely, will you give it a—”
There was the unmistakable echoing slam of the burrow’s secret entrance, in the Elderglass-lined
tunnel beside the kitchen, being thrown shut by someone who didn’t care that they
were overheard. Chains rolled to his feet. Calo and Galdo ran behind him, putting
themselves in easy reach of the kitchen’s knives. Locke stood up on his chair, arithmetic
slate held up like a shield.
The instant he saw who it was coming around the corner, the slate slipped from his
fingers and clattered against the floor.
“My dear,” cried Chains, “you’ve come back to us early!”
She was, if anything, taller even than Locke remembered, and her hair was well-dyed
a uniform shade of light brown. But it
was
her. It was undeniably Beth.
“
YOU CAN
’
T
be here,” said Locke. “You’re dead!”
“I certainly can be here. I live here.” Beth dropped the brown leather bag she was
carrying and unbound her hair, letting it fall to her shoulders. “Who might you be?”
“I … um … you don’t know?”
“Should I?”
Locke’s astonishment merged with a sour disappointment. While the gears of his mind
turned furiously to conjure a reply, she studied him. Her eyes widened.
“Oh, gods. The Lamora boy, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Chains.
“Bought him as well, have you?”
“I’ve paid more for some of my lunches, but yes, I’ve taken him from your old master.”
Chains ruffled Beth’s hair with fatherly affection, and she kissed the back of his
hand.
“But you were dead,” insisted Locke. “They said you’d drowned!”
“Yeah,” she said, mildly.
“But why?”
“Our Sabetha has a complicated past,” said Chains. “When I took her out of Shades’
Hill, I arranged a bit of theater to cover the trail.”
Beth. Sabetha. They’d mentioned
Sabetha
at least a dozen times since he’d come to live here. Locke suddenly felt like an
idiot for not
connecting the two names before … but then, he’d thought she was dead, hadn’t he?
Beneath his astonishment, his embarrassment, his frustration, a warmth was rising
in the pit of his stomach. Beth was alive … and she lived
here
!
“Well, where have … where did you go?” Locke asked.
“For training,” said Sabetha.
“And how was it?” asked Chains.
“Mistress Sibella said that I wasn’t as vulgar and clumsy as most of the Camorri she
teaches.”
“So you … are, um—” said Locke.
“High praise, coming from that gilded prune,” said Chains, ignoring Locke. “Let’s
see if she was on the mark. Galdo, take Sabetha’s side for a four-step.
Complar entant
.”
“Must I?”
“Good question. Must I continue feeding you?”
Galdo hurried out from behind Chains and gave Sabetha a bow so exaggerated his nose
nearly brushed the floor. “Enchanted, demoiselle. May I beg the pleasure of a dance?
My patron won’t feed me anymore if I don’t pretend to enjoy this crap.”
“What a bold little monkey you are,” said the girl. The two of them moved into the
widest clear area of the room, between the table and the counters.
“Calo,” said Chains, “if you would.”
“Yes, yes, I have it.” Calo fiddled with his harp for a moment before he began to
pluck out a fast, rhythmic tune, more complex than the ditties he’d been playing before.
Galdo and Sabetha moved in unison, slowly at first but gaining confidence and speed
as the tune went on. Locke watched, baffled but fascinated, as they danced in a manner
that was more controlled than anything he’d ever seen in a tavern or a back alley.
The key to the dance seemed to be that they would strike the ground with their heels
forcefully, four taps between each major movement of the arms. They joined hands,
twirled, unjoined, switched places, and all the while kept up a near-perfect rhythm
with their feet.
“It’s popular with the swells,” said Chains, and Locke realized he was speaking for
his benefit. “All the dancers form a circle, and the dancing master calls out partners.
The chosen couple dances in the
main, in the center of everything, and if they screw it up, well … penalties. Teasing.
Romantic frustration, I would imagine.”
Locke was only half-listening, his eyes and thoughts lost in the dance. In Galdo he
recognized the nervous quickness of a fellow orphan, the grace born of need that separated
the living in Shades’ Hill from the likes of No-Teeth. Yet Sabetha had that and something
more; not just speed but fluidity. Her knees and elbows seemed to vanish as she danced,
and to Locke’s eyes she became all curves, whirls, effortless circles. Her cheeks
turned red with exertion, and the golden glow of the chandelier lightened her brown
hair until Locke, hypnotized, could almost imagine it red as well.…
Chains clapped three times, ending the dance if not Locke’s spell. If Sabetha knew
she was being stared at, she was either too polite or too disdainful to stare back.
“I can see that’s a fountain of gold I didn’t shit out in vain,” said Chains. “Well
done, girl. Even having Galdo for a partner didn’t seem to hold you back.”
“Does it ever?” Sabetha smiled, still acting as though Locke wasn’t in the room, and
drifted back toward the table where Galdo and Chains had been playing their game.
She glanced over the board for a few seconds, then said, “You’re doomed, Sanza.”
“In a donkey’s dick I am!”
“Actually, I’ve got him in three moves,” said Chains, settling back down into his
chair with a smile. “But I was going to spin it out for a while longer.”
While Galdo fretted over his position on the board, he and Calo and Sabetha fell into
an animated conversation with Chains on subjects of which Locke was ignorant—dances,
noble customs, people he’d never heard of, cities that were only names to him. Chains
grew more and more boisterous until, after a few minutes, he gestured to Calo.
“Fetch us down something sweet,” he said. “We’ll have a toast to Sabetha’s return.”
“Lashani Black Sherry? I’ve always wanted to try it.” Calo opened a cabinet and carefully
withdrew a greenish glass bottle that was full of something ink-dark. “Gods, it looks
so disgusting!”
“Spoken like the midwife who delivered the pair of you,” said Chains. “Bring glasses
for all of us, and for the toasting.”
The four children gathered around the table while Chains arranged the glasses and
opened the bottle. Locke strategically placed the Sanzas between himself and Sabetha,
giving him a better angle to continue staring at her. Chains then filled a glass to
the brim with the sherry, which rippled black and gold in the chandelier light.
“This glass for the patron and protector, the Crooked Warden, our Father of Necessary
Pretexts.” Chains carefully pushed the glass aside from the others. “Tonight he gives
us the return of our friend, his servant Sabetha.” Chains raised his left hand to
his lips and blew into his palm. “My words. My breath. These things bind my promise.
A hundred gold pieces, duly stolen from honest men and women, to be cast into the
sea in the dark of the Orphan’s Moon. We are grateful for Sabetha’s safety.”
The Orphan’s Moon, Locke knew, came once a year, in late winter, when the world’s
largest two moons were in their dark phases together. At the Midsummer-mark, commoners
who knew their dates of birth legally turned a year older. The Orphan’s Moon meant
the same thing for those, like him, whose precise ages were mysteries.
Now Chains filled glasses and passed them out. Locke was surprised to see that while
the other children received quarter-glasses of the alarmingly dark sherry, his own
was mostly full. Chains grinned at him and raised his glass.
“Deep pockets poorly guarded,” he said.
“Watchmen asleep at their posts,” said Sabetha.
“The city to nurture us and the night to hide us,” said Calo.
“Friends to help spend the loot!” As soon as Galdo finished the toast Locke had already
heard many times since coming to the Gentlemen Bastards, five glasses went up to five
sets of lips. Locke kept both hands on his for fear of spilling it.
The black sherry hit Locke’s throat with a blast of sweet flavors—cream, honey, raspberries,
and many others he had no hope of naming. Warm prickly vapors seemed to slide up into
his nose and waft behind his eyes, until it felt like he was being tickled from inside
his own skull by dozens of feathers at once. Knowing how ill-mannered it
would be to make a mess of a solemn toast, he bent every ounce of his will to gulping
the full glass down.