Authors: Scott Lynch
“And if you should need anything else from us,” said Nikoros, handing one of the guards
a small white card, “I’m Nikoros Via Lupa, Isas Salvierro. These men are my guests.”
“Very good, sir,” said the first guard, pocketing Nikoros’ card. “Sorry for the trouble.
I hope the gentleman recovers.”
“Time and fresh lake air,” said Jean, swinging Locke up and supporting him under his
right arm.
“Time’s the one thing he doesn’t have,” yelled the woman as the guards dragged her
toward the court offices. “And you two know it!
You know it!
Be seeing you, gentlemen!”
Once all three men were safely ensconced in their carriage and it was clattering away
down the street, Locke returned to life and burst out laughing. “Thank you, Nikoros,”
he said, wiping flecks of spittle from his chin. “That last note of respectability
at the end was just what the scene needed to bring everything back down to earth.”
“I bloody well rejoice to hear it,” said Nikoros, “but what the hell just happened?”
“That woman slipped a purse into my coat when she stumbled into me. Obviously she
meant to get me snared for pickpocketing,” said Locke. “I checked to see if anything
was missing, but like a dolt I didn’t think to feel around for unexpected gifts. She
nearly had me.”
“Who was she?”
“No idea,” said Locke. “She works for our counterpart, obviously. And she’s a jewel.…
Anyone who can live to that age charming coats for a living knows their business.
We’ll see her again.”
“She’ll be in a cold dark cell.”
“Oh, she’ll slip those idiots in about five minutes,” said Jean. “There’ll be arrangements.
Trust us.”
“I’m ashamed to admit that I actually thought for a moment that you, uh, were genuinely
ill, Lazari,” said Nikoros.
“We didn’t have any time to warn you. Pitching a fit’s a crude bit of theater, but
it’s surprising how often it works.”
“How did you guess she’d lifted that guard’s purse?”
“I didn’t guess,” said Locke with an indulgent chuckle. “I borrowed it when I stumbled
against him.”
“Then he passed it on to our lady friend, along with her own purse, when he stumbled
against her,” said Jean.
“Gods above,” said Nikoros.
“And
don’t
think she didn’t realize it,” added Jean. “But there’s only so many ways you can
arrange to bump tits with strangers before it starts to look fishy.”
“Ain’t we clever?” said Locke, idly examining his own pockets again. “And I’m pretty
sure I still have … everything.
Holy hells!
”
There was a folded piece of parchment, sealed with wax, in his left inner pocket.
He drew it out and stared at it.
“This wasn’t in my pocket when I came out the door,” he said. “She … she stuck me
with it while I was slipping her the two purses!”
Jean gave a low whistle as Locke popped the seal and flipped the parchment open in
haste. He read the contents aloud:
Messrs. Lazari and Callas
Sirs—
I trust you will excuse the unorthodox means by which this letter finds its way into
your hands. Karthani post-masters, enterprising as they are, rarely deliver directly
to the interior pocket of a gentleman’s coat. I present my compliments, and desire
that you should call upon me at the seventh hour of this evening, at the Sign of the
Black Iris, in the Vel Vespala.
Your most affectionate servant—
“
Verena Gallante
,” said Locke in a harsh whisper. His heart seemed to expand and fill his entire chest
with its beating. “She wants to … she wants to see … oh, gods—”
He looked out the window, craning his neck furiously to see behind them, into the
swirling silvery fog, where of course there was nothing meaningful to be found.
“What is it?” said Nikoros.
“That was no middle-aged stranger,” said Locke. “That was
her
.”
“Who?”
“The opposition,” said Locke, settling back into his seat, feeling dazed. “Our counterpart.
The woman we spoke of.”
“Verena Gallante?”
“It seems that’s her present alias.”
“Oh my,” said Jean. “The initials on the silk purse … now, that was cheeky.”
“Only if we weren’t too dense to notice it right away,” said Locke.
“I fail to see how ‘Verena Gallante’ yields ‘G.B.’,” said Nikoros.
“A private matter,” said Locke. “I have … we have a history with this woman.”
“What must we do now?” said Nikoros.
“Now,” said Locke, “you can direct our driver to wherever this Master Ratfinder keeps
his office, and after we’ve persuaded him to quit being a nuisance, you and Master
Callas can go scrounge up the brutes we discussed yesterday.”
“And what about you?”
“I, well …” said Locke, running one hand over his stubble, “I’ll need to go find a
barber.”
THEIR UNANNOUNCED
appointment with Master Ratfinder Bilezzo took less time than their protracted encounter
at the court offices. After the initial exchange of greetings and the sudden appearance
of a pile of ducats on Bilezzo’s desk, it rapidly became clear to Locke and Jean that
Bilezzo was a fatuous, contrary, self-satisfied fellow who was deeply amused at the
chance to have a bit of harmless mischief with his far-ranging civic powers.
The two Gentlemen Bastards decided to correct his attitude in a traditional Camorri
fashion. Locke doubled the amount of his proposed bribe while Jean picked Bilezzo
up by his lapels, scraped the ceiling with his head, and cheerfully offered to nail
his tongue to the back of a carriage and whip the horses around the city.
No middle-aged civil servant in a comfortable position could easily refuse such entreaties,
and they parted with a mutually satisfactory arrangement. Bilezzo’s men would continue
(for appearance’s sake) to carry out the pointless fumigation of Nikoros’ building,
Locke would conjure piles of gold to ensure it didn’t happen there again, or anywhere
else of value to the Deep Roots party, and Jean would spare Bilezzo the unwanted carriage
ride.
Nikoros came away from the meeting having learned several new words, as well as some
novel hyphenations of familiar ones, and a fascinating
twist to the art of negotiation that his education had previously neglected.
LOCKE RETURNED
alone to Josten’s just before the second hour of the afternoon with the autumn air
cool against his freshly shaved face, chewing on the last of the half-dozen sweet
cakes he’d picked up for lunch.
The place was in a fine state of near-pandemonium, with locksmiths performing surgery
on at least three visible doors, while the customary crowd of businessfolk bustled
about eating, shouting, negotiating, or simply trying to maintain airs of importance.
At the same time, the ordinary and legitimate business of the Deep Roots party went
on. Locke and Jean had agreed that there was no need for them to oversee every last
detail of the Committee’s business, lest they go mad while driving everyone around
them mad into the bargain.
Unusual events and setbacks, however, were very much their business, and Locke hadn’t
taken five steps past the front doors before a small pack of Nikoros’ messengers and
assistants descended on him waving scraps of paper. Locke flipped through them as
he walked through the crowd and made his way up toward the party’s private gallery.
Constables had detained several important party supporters for public drunkenness.
A district organizer had dumped his life’s savings into a bag and fled the city just
before dawn for reasons unknown. A candidate for the seat in the Isas Vadrasta was
going to fight a duel tomorrow, and there was no quality replacement if he ended up
full of holes. Locke sighed. Casualty reports, by all the gods, like some captain
on a battlefield! Sabetha’s hand could be in any of it, or none of it. No doubt the
lists of complications would only get longer as the weeks wore on.
“Here’s Master Lazari now,” said Jean as Locke ascended the final step to the private
gallery. Jean and Nikoros were standing before a group of eight men. Most of them
looked capable to Locke’s eye—city bruisers, obvious ex-constables, and a few with
the deep tans and
weather-worn faces of caravan guards. They all nodded or muttered greetings.
“We’ve got a lead on some women, too,” said Jean, whispering into Locke’s ear. “Bodyguards.
Nikoros found them; he’ll bring them in tomorrow.”
“Good,” said Locke. He waved the slips of paper at Jean. “Seen these?”
“If those are the notes on today’s pains in the ass, yes. You got anything to tell
our new friends?”
“We want you content,” said Locke, addressing the men. “We want you to feel that you’re
being treated fairly. If you’re not, bring it to us. If anyone threatens you, or makes
you an offer—you know the sort of thing I’m talking about—bring it to us. Quietly.
I
guarantee
we’ll come up with a better deal.”
There was no point in mentioning consequences or making threats; gods, no. Doing that
in public was a sure sign of insecurity. Threats, when needed, would be a private
affair. If these men had real quality they would appreciate not being treated like
idiots.
“Go find Josten,” said Jean. “Have yourselves a bite. I’ll have shift assignments
once you’ve eaten.”
As the men left the gallery, Jean turned to Locke. “Where’d you go to get your shave,
back to Lashain?”
“I didn’t mean to be out so long. I, uh, just thought I’d have my driver take me around
some of the Black Iris places Nikoros listed for us. See if there was anything interesting
going on.”
“You were looking for her, weren’t you?”
“Uh … yes. Didn’t spot her on any street, though.” Locke ran a hand over his chin
for the twentieth time. “How does it look?”
“What?”
“The shave.”
“Like a shave. Fine.”
“You sure?”
“For Perelandro’s sake. You got peach fuzz scraped off with a razor; you didn’t commission
a bust of yourself in marble.”
Locke crumpled the notes he’d been handed and put them in a coat pocket. “Well, look,
if you’ve got the new bruisers in hand and you’ve already heard the news, I’m, uh,
going up to the room … to get ready.”
“You’ve got at least four hours before we have to leave.”
“Yeah, but if I don’t start my nervous pacing now, I’ll never have it all done in
time.”
“
HOW
’
S IT
look?”
Almost precisely four hours later, Locke was standing before a full-length mirror
in their suite, showing off a slight variation in the tying of his black neck-cloth.
“It looks like clothing,” said Jean, who’d been dressed for the better part of an
hour and was now lounging in a high-backed chair, ominously juggling a hatchet in
one hand.
“Too prissy? Too eastern?”
“You do realize you’ve pushed that damn thing around at least a dozen times now?”
“Just doesn’t seem right.”
“You do realize that you didn’t even
own
any of these outfits until yesterday? Why are you fretting about the deeper meaning
of clothes that are newer than some of the crap digesting in that meager gut of yours?”
“Because,” said Locke, “I can’t help myself, and I know I can’t help myself, and it
doesn’t
help
, you get it?”
“I do get it,” said Jean softly. “All too well. But I can’t be of service by patting
you on the back for being nervous. You’ve got to stick your chin out and call yourself
ready sometime.”
“Nervous,” said Locke. “I wish I was nervous! Nervous is when armed people try to
kill me. This is something else. Gods, it’s been five years. She could … I just …
I don’t even …” He closed his eyes and leaned against the mirror’s frame.
“You might as well practice finishing your sentences,” said Jean. “I hear that women
find it irresistible.”
“Five years,” said Locke. He looked up, and the haunted expression in the mirror seemed
like a self-accusation. “I’m going to have to tell her about Calo and Galdo.”
“She may already know.”
“I doubt it,” said Locke. “She was playing with us this morning. I
just don’t think … that she would have done so. I wouldn’t have, in her place.”
“Five years apart, and you imagine that the two of you match moods so closely? Did
you even do that when you were together?”
“Well—”
“You and I are
lucky to be alive
to even see her,” said Jean. “Remember that. As for what happened while she was gone,
it was as much her decision to leave as it was ours to stay.”
“I know,” said Locke. “In my head. The message hasn’t reached my gut just yet. There
seems to be a tiny man in there attacking me with feathers. Now … jewelry. I should—”
“Gods above,” said Jean, rising from his chair. “Do you think she’s going to fling
herself out a window if your shoes have too many buckles?”
“Her fashion sense might have grown more extreme since we last met.”
“Quit making such a yammering twit out of yourself. Find your way to the door.”
Step by step out of the room, into the main hall, past the bar and the tables full
of Nikoros’ people with their lists and plans and dull assignments. Gods, he was really
on his way! His knees seemed to be made of wet cotton; his pulse was like the sound
of the ocean in his ears.
New solicitors watched from the Deep Roots gallery; new bruisers studied him from
the front doors; new chains gleamed around the necks of all the waiters. So many cordons
of security drawn tight against every possibility, and here he and Jean were planning
a social call to the heart of Sabetha’s power.
Out loud he would have been careful to say, ‘the opposition’ or ‘his counterpart,’
but in the privacy of his own thoughts there was no hiding from her.
Nikoros met them and saw them to the door. “You were right about the guards and solicitors,”
he whispered. “I do feel better!”
“Uh … good, good,” said Locke, ashamed at his own distraction.