Authors: Scott Lynch
“Oh, he exists. Jean, pick out a moustache for me. Something that goes with this hair.”
Locke ran a finger over the smooth skin around his lips, shaved just after dinner.
“There’s a man behind the Midnighters. Jean and I have spent years trying to figure
out which of the duke’s court it must be, but all the leads go nowhere in the end.”
“Even Galdo and I are stumped,” added Calo. “So you know we’re dealing with a devil
of singular subtlety.”
“How can you be sure, though?”
“Let me put it like this, Bug.” Locke paused while Jean held up a false moustache;
Locke shook his head and Jean went back to digging in the Masque Box. “When Capa Barsavi
does for someone, we hear about it, right? We have connections, and the word gets
passed. The capa
wants
people to know his reasons—it avoids future trouble, makes an example.”
“And when the duke does for someone himself,” said Calo, “there’s always signs. Yellowjackets,
Nightglass soldiers, writs, trials, proclamations.”
“But when the Spider puts the finger on someone …” Locke gave a brief nod of approval
to the second moustache Jean held up for consideration. “When it’s the Spider, the
poor bastard in question falls right off the face of the world. And Capa Barsavi doesn’t
say a thing. Do you understand? He pretends that
nothing has happened
. So when you grasp that Barsavi
doesn’t
fear the duke … looks down on him quite a bit, actually … well, it follows that there’s
someone out there who
does
make him wet his breeches.”
“Oh. You mean other than the Gray King?”
Calo snorted. “This Gray King mess will be over in a few months, Bug. One lone madman
against three thousand knives, all answering to Barsavi—the Gray King is a walking
corpse. The Spider isn’t so easily gotten rid of.”
“Which,” said Locke, “is exactly why we’re hoping to see Don Salvara jump six feet
in the air when he finds us waiting in his study. Because the blue-bloods are no more
comfortable with surprise visits from Midnighters than we are.”
“I hate to interrupt,” said Jean, “but did you shave this time? Ah. Good.” With a
small stick, he applied a glistening smear of transparent paste to Locke’s upper lip;
Locke wrinkled his nose in disgust. With a few quick finger motions Jean placed the
false moustache and pressed it home; in a second or two it was set there as firmly
as if it had grown naturally.
“This gum is made from the inner hide of a wolf shark,” Jean explained for Bug’s sake,
“and last time we used it, we forgot to pick up some of the dissolving spirit—”
“And I had to get rid of the moustache in a hurry,” said Locke.
“And damned if he didn’t scream when Jean did the honors,” said Calo.
“Like a Sanza brother in an empty whorehouse!” Locke made a rude gesture at Calo;
Calo mimed aiming and loosing a crossbow at him in return.
“Scar, moustache, hair; are we done here?” Jean packed the last of the disguise implements
away in the Masque Box.
“That should do it, yes.” Locke stared at his reflection in the large mirror for a
moment, and when he spoke next his voice had altered; subtly deeper, slightly rougher.
His intonation was the bored humorlessness of a watch-sergeant dressing down a petty
offender for the thousandth time in his career. “Let’s go tell a man he’s got himself
a problem with some thieves.”
“SO,” SAID Don Lorenzo Salvara, “you wish me to continue deliberately granting promissory
notes to a man that you describe as the most capable thief in Camorr.”
“Respectfully, m’lord Salvara, that’s what you would have done anyway, even without
our intervention.”
When Locke spoke, there was no hint of Lukas Fehrwight in his voice or in his mannerisms;
there was no trace of the Vadran merchant’s restrained energy or stuffy dignity. This
new fiction had the fictional backing of the duke’s incontrovertible writ; he was
the sort of man who could and would tease a don while invading the sanctity of that
don’s home. Such audacity could never be faked—Locke had to
feel
it, summon it from somewhere inside, cloak himself in arrogance as though it were
an old familiar garment. Locke Lamora became a shadow in his own mind—he was a Midnighter,
an officer in the duke’s silent constabulary. Locke’s complicated lies were this new
man’s simple truth.
“The sums discussed could … easily total half my available holdings.”
“Then give our friend Fehrwight half your fortune, m’lord. Choke the Thorn on exactly
what he desires. Promissory notes will tie him down, keep him moving back and forth
between countinghouses.”
“Countinghouses that will throw my very real money after this phantom, you mean.”
“Yes. In the service of the duke, no less. Take heart, m’lord Salvara. His Grace is
entirely capable of compensating you for any loss you incur while
aiding us in the capture of this man. In my opinion, though, the Thorn will have time
to neither spend it nor move it very far, so your stolen money should be recovered
before that even becomes necessary. You must also consider the aspects of the situation
that are not strictly financial.”
“Meaning?”
“His Grace’s gratitude for your assistance in bringing this matter to our desired
outcome,” said Locke, “balanced against his certain displeasure if any
reluctance
on your part should alert our thief to the net drawing tight around him.”
“Ah.” Don Salvara picked his optics up and resettled them on his nose. “With that
I can hardly argue.”
“I will not be able to speak to you in public. No uniformed member of the Camorr watch
will approach you for any reason related to this affair. If I speak to you at all,
it must be at night, in secret.”
“Am I to tell Conté to keep refreshments at hand for men coming in through the windows?
Shall I tell the Doña Sofia to send any Midnighters to my study if they should pop
out of her wardrobe closet?”
“I give you my word any future appearances will be less alarming, my lord. My instructions
were to impress upon you the seriousness of the situation and the full extent of our
ability to … bypass obstacles. I assure you, I have no personal desire to antagonize
you any further. Resecuring your fortune will be the capstone to many months of hard
work on my part.”
“And the Doña Sofia? Has your master dictated a part for her in this … counter-charade?”
“Your wife is a most extraordinary woman. By all means, inform her of our involvement.
Tell her the truth about Lukas Fehrwight. Enlist her very capable aid in our endeavor.
However,” Locke said, grinning malignantly, “I do believe that I shall regretfully
leave you the task of explaining this to her on your own, my lord.”
ON THE landward side of Camorr, armed men pace the old stone walls of the city, ever
vigilant for signs of bandits or hostile armies in the field. On the seaward side,
watchtowers and war galleys serve the same purpose.
At the guard stations on the periphery of the Alcegrante district, the city watch
stands ready to protect the city’s lesser nobility from the annoyance
of having to see or smell any of their actual subjects against their wishes.
Locke and Calo crossed the Angevine just before midnight on the broad glass bridge
called the Eldren Arch. This ornately carved span connected the western Alcegrante
with the lush semipublic gardens of Twosilver Green—another spot where the insufficiently
well-heeled were discouraged from lingering, often with whips and batons.
Tall cylinders of ruby-colored glass shed alchemical light onto the wispy threads
of mist that curled and wavered below the knees of their horses; the center of the
bridge was fifty feet above the water, and the usual night fog reached no higher.
The red lamps swayed gently within their black iron frames as the muggy Hangman’s
Breeze spun them, and the two Gentlemen Bastards rode down into the Alcegrante with
that eerie light surrounding them like a bloody aura.
“Hold there! State your name and business!”
At the point where the bridge met the Angevine’s north shore there was a low wooden
shack with oil-paper windows, through which a pale white glow emanated. A single figure
stood beside it, his yellow tabard turned to orange in the light of the bridge lamps.
The speaker’s words might have been bold, but his voice was young and a little uncertain.
Locke smiled; the Alcegrante guard shacks always held two yellowjackets, but at this
one the more senior had clearly sent his less-hardened partner out into the fog to
do the actual work. So much the better—Locke pulled his precious sigil-wallet out
of his black cloak as his horse cantered down beside the guard station.
“My name is immaterial.” Locke flipped the wallet open to allow the round-faced young
city watchman a glimpse of the sigil by the light of his guard station. “My business
is that of His Grace, Duke Nicovante.”
“I … I see, sir.”
“I never came this way. We did not speak. Be sure that your fellow watchman understands
this as well.”
The yellowjacket bowed and took a quick step backward, as though afraid to stay too
close. Locke smiled. Black-cloaked riders on black horses, looming out of darkness
and mist … It was easy to laugh at such conceits in full daylight. But night had a
way of lending weight to phantasms.
If Coin-Kisser’s Row was where Camorr’s money was put to use, the Alcegrante district
was where it was put to rest. It was four connected
islands, each a sort of tiered hill sloping up to the base of the plateau that held
the Five Towers; old money and new money mingled crazy-quilt fashion here in mazes
of manor houses and private gardens. Here the merchants and money-changers and ship-brokers
looked down comfortably on the rest of the city; here the lesser nobility looked up
covetously at the towers of the Five Families who ruled all.
Carriages clattered past from time to time, their black lacquered wooden cabins trailing
bobbing lanterns and banners proclaiming the arms of whoever traveled within. Some
of these were guarded by teams of armed outriders in slashed doublets and polished
breastplates—this year’s fashion for rented thugs. A few teams of horses wore harnesses
spotted with miniature alchemical lights; these appeared at a distance looking like
chains of fireflies bobbing in the mist.
Don Salvara’s manor was a four-story pillared rectangle, several centuries old and
sagging a bit under the weight of its years, for it had been built entirely by human
hands. It was a sort of island unto itself at the heart of the Isla Durona, westernmost
neighborhood of the Alcegrante; surrounded on all sides by a twelve-foot stone wall
and enclosed by thick gardens. It shared no party walls with neighboring manors. Amber
lights burned behind the barred windows on the third floor.
Locke and Calo quietly dismounted in the alley adjacent to the manor’s northern wall.
Several long nights of careful reconnaissance by Locke and Bug had revealed the easiest
routes over the alley wall and up the side of the Salvara manor. Dressed as they were,
hidden by mist and darkness, they would be effectively invisible as soon as they could
hop the outer wall and get off the street.
A moment of fortunate stillness fell upon them as Calo tied the horses to a weathered
wooden post beside the garden wall; not a soul was in sight. Calo stroked his horse’s
thin mane.
“Hoist a glass or two in memory of us if we don’t come back, love.”
Locke put his back against the base of the wall and cupped his hands. Calo set a foot
in this makeshift stirrup and leapt upward, propelled by the mingled strength of his
legs and Locke’s arms. When he’d hoisted himself quietly and carefully atop the wall,
he reached back down with both arms to hoist Locke up. The Sanza twin was as wiry
as Locke was slender, and the operation went smoothly. In seconds they were both down
in the wet, fragrant darkness of the garden, crouched motionless, listening.
The doors on the ground floor were all protected from within by intricate clockwork
failsafes and steel bars—they simply could not be picked.
But the rooftop … well, those who weren’t yet important enough to live with the constant
threat of assassination often placed an inordinate degree of faith in high walls.
The two thieves went up the north face of the manor house, slowly and carefully, wedging
hands and feet firmly into chinks in the warm, slick stone. The first and second floors
were dark and quiet; the light on the third floor was on the opposite side of the
building. Hearts hammering with excitement, they hauled themselves up until they were
just beneath the parapet of the roof, where they paused for a long interval, straining
to catch at any sound from within the manor that would hint at discovery.
The moons were stuffed away behind gauzy gray clouds; on their left the city was an
arc of blurred jewel-lights shining through mist, and above them the impossible heights
of the Five Towers stood like black shadows before the sky. The threads of light that
burned on their parapets and in their windows enhanced rather than reduced their aura
of menace. Staring up at them from near the ground was a sure recipe for vertigo.
Locke was the first over the parapet. Peering intently by the faint light falling
from above, he planted his feet on a white-tiled pathway in the center of the roof
and kept them there. He was surrounded on either side by the dark shapes of bushes,
blossoms, small trees, and vines—the roof was rich with the scent of vegetation and
night soil. The street-level garden was a mundane affair, if well tended;
this
was the Doña Sofia’s private botanical preserve.
Most alchemical botanists, in Locke’s experience, were enthusiasts of bizarre poisons.
He made sure his hood and cloak were cinched tight around him, and pulled his black
neck-cloth up over his lower face.
Soft-stepping along the white path, Locke and Calo threaded their way through Sofia’s
garden, more carefully than if they had been walking between streams of lamp oil with
their cloaks on fire. At the garden’s center was a roof hatch with a simple tumbler
lock; Calo listened carefully at this door for two minutes with his favorite picks
poised in his hands. Charming the lock took less than ten seconds.