Authors: Scott Lynch
“Now that we have some security,” said Jean, immediately taking the weight of confidence
and authority that Locke had let slip, “it’s time we started reaching out and handing
our friends some difficulties
of their own. Think on it for us, would you? Weaknesses we can exploit, fast and easy
ones.”
“My pleasure,” said Nikoros. “You know, two days in, this has already been more interesting
than anything that happened last time. I’ll wait up for you, shall I? I’d love to
find out what sort of woman our, ah, opposition is.”
“So would we,” said Jean.
THE CARRIAGE
ride through the wet curtains of evening fog was no help for Locke’s nerves, but
as the minutes passed he mastered himself well enough, he thought, to be able to handle
simple sentences and walking.
The Vel Vespala, the Evening Terrace, was one of Karthain’s more fashionable quarters,
its plazas dotted with taverns, chance houses, coffee bars, and bordellos. All of
these places were so many blurry amber and aquamarine lights in the mist as Locke
and Jean’s carriage pulled up before the Sign of the Black Iris, the place Nikoros
and his friends referred to as the Enemy Tavern.
“Well, then,” said Locke. “So here we—”
“I’m not taking a quarter of an hour to get out of the carriage,” said Jean. “It’s
out the door on your feet or out the window on your head. Think fast.”
Locke managed the former.
The Sign of the Black Iris was a comfortably appointed place, not as large as Josten’s
Comprehensive but perhaps slightly more luxurious, the wood paneling a touch richer,
the marble of the exterior facings a trifle shinier. No doubt the rivalry between
the two inns kept the pockets of many Karthani craftsfolk admirably lined.
Locke’s nervous distraction abated as his old street instincts kicked to life. The
porter at the door was nothing special, but the two men at the rear of the darkened
foyer were interesting. They were not at ease in their fine clothes, and what a coincidence
that two lean fellows with such scars and crooked noses should be passing the time
together! Muscle for sure. Sabetha, too, had set alley hounds to guard her lair.
“Ahh, sirs.” Another sort of creature entirely entered the foyer to
greet them. This man was silver-haired, thin as a scabbard, with a drooping black
flower pinned to the right lapel of his coat. “Firstson Vordratha. I’m Mistress Gallante’s
confidential secretary. You gentlemen do move at a relaxed pace. She’s been expecting
the two of you for
some time
now, yes, some time indeed.”
“I would point out,” said Jean, gesturing to a mechanical clock on the foyer wall,
“that it’s not yet five minutes to seven.”
“Of course. I made no reflection upon the accuracy of the clock, mmmm?” The lines
at the edges of Vordratha’s mouth moved up a fraction of an inch. So he was that sort
of fellow, supercilious and needling, unable to resist amusing himself with lame little
digs. Locke’s concentration came into even sharper focus as the urge rose to slam
Vordratha’s head against the door. “Come now, she wishes to see you directly. In private.”
Locke and Jean followed him up to a hallway on the second floor. They brushed past
a surprising number of men and women for a direct route to a private audience … ah,
but of course, they were all studying Locke and Jean while feigning indifference.
Stealing a glimpse of faces and builds and manners in case the two of them ever attempted
another visit without an invitation. It was flattering, really.
At the end of the hall, Vordratha held a door open. The space beyond was dim, lit
by the golden glow of small lamps on a number of tables. A private dining space, with
high windows looking out into the evening fog.
A woman stood alone at the far end of the room, her long hair unbound, a cascade of
dark copper falling to the middle of her back. She turned slowly, and before Locke
knew what was happening he and Jean were through the door, the door fell closed with
a click, and Sabetha was coming toward them down the shadowed passage between the
rows of lamplight.
SHE WORE
a velvet jacket the color of blood, a shade darker than her hair. Her outfit had
the dash of a riding habit, narrowing to emphasize her slender waist, and beneath
the long dark skirt she wore
seasoned leather boots. A scarf, white as dove’s feathers, was wrapped tightly around
her neck. Other than a single lapel iris matching that of Vordratha, she had no ornaments
but contrast—the harmony of skin, scarf, hair, and coat. She’d made an artist’s palette
of herself, emphasizing a beauty that had bloomed in the five years they’d been apart.
Locke stepped out in front of Jean and removed his leather gloves with shaking hands.
Five years of dreaming and planning for this moment deserted him in an instant, leaving
him with nothing but a halfwit’s hypnotized stare and the air in his throat.
“H-hello,” he said.
“Hello, Locke.”
“Yes. Sabetha. Hello. Uh.”
“Meant to say something grander and wittier, didn’t you?”
“Well …” The sound of her voice, her ordinary voice, unaffected, undisguised, unaccented,
was like a glass of brandy gulped on an empty stomach. “Whatever it was it seems to
have business elsewhere.”
“It’ll come back to you when you least expect it.” She smiled. “Write it down then
and have it sent to me. I’ll give it a favorable hearing.”
They were just a few feet apart now, and in her face he could see time’s peculiar
alchemy—every line was where it ought to be, but all the softness and reediness of
the girl was gone. Her figure and features were fuller. Her eyes had changed, moving
from a lively hazel to a truer, darker brown, a shade that was faintly reflected in
her hair.
“Take my hands,” she said, and gently redirected his fingers when he tried to entwine
them with hers. Palm against palm they stood while she returned his stare; her touch
was soft and dry. For a moment of pure anticipation Locke thought she might pull him
into an embrace, but she maintained the respectable distance between them. “You’re
too gods-damned thin,” she said, losing some of her dominating composure.
“I’ve been ill.”
“They told me you were poisoned.”
“Who’s they?”
“You
know
,” she said. “And you’ve been out of the sun. Your Vadran is showing.”
“We both seem to have gone back to our roots.”
“Ah, the hair?”
“No, the backs of your
knees
. Of course the hair.”
“It’s strange. I’ve been every shade of black, brown, and blonde these past few years,
so I can disguise myself best now by going back to what’s natural. Does it please
you?”
“You know it distracts the hell out of me.” Locke felt himself blushing. “Puts me
at the most severe disadvantage.”
“I know,” she said, again allowing a touch of a smile. “Perhaps I wanted us on familiar
ground for the evening.”
She released his hands, gave a playful half-bow, and moved around him.
“Hello, Jean,” she said. “You’ve lost at the belly and gained at the shoulders, I
think.”
“Hello, Sabetha.” He extended his left hand. “You’ve gained a great deal and lost
nothing I can see.”
“Dear heart.” She met his hand with her own, and her eyebrows rose when he took her
by the forearm and shook politely. “What’s this? Five years apart and suddenly I’m
just a business associate?”
Locke bit the inside of his lip as she put her arms around Jean and set her head against
the lapels of his jacket. After the tiniest pause, Jean returned the embrace, his
own arms easily folding around her and overlapping in the middle of her back.
“I’ll just need a moment to make sure everything’s still in my pockets,” he said as
they parted. She laughed.
“What, you don’t think I’m serious?” Jean examined his jacket carefully. He didn’t
bother grinning to lighten the moment.
“Ahh,” Sabetha said, stepping away from both of them and folding her hands in front
of her. “So how long did it take you to figure it out?”
“About a minute,” said Locke.
“Not bad.”
“A minute too long. The initials on that purse were cheeky as hell. But that getup
was excellent.”
“You liked it? Good. It wasn’t easy, taking a few inches off my regular height.”
“One of the hardest things in false-facing,” said Locke with a nod. “You were showing
off.”
“No more than you, before we were done. Still feigning illness in public.”
“It worked,” said Locke. “After a fashion. But you’d seen it before; surely that’s
why you weren’t caught too off guard.”
“That,” she said, “and you two should remember I can still read most of your hand
signals.”
Locke exchanged a glance with Jean; the fact that he hadn’t been alone in neglecting
this point was little comfort.
“You get that one for free,” she said.
“So why’d you do it?” said Locke.
“I wanted to see you both,” she said, glancing away. “I found that I was impatient.
But I wasn’t ready for … for this, just yet.”
“We might have been a little late for this appointment if they’d thrown us in a hole,”
said Jean.
“Tsk,” she said. “You’re insulting us all. As if you couldn’t have clever-dicked your
way clear of those imbeciles before lunch. After all, your friend Josten still has
his ardent spirits license. Clearly you two haven’t forgotten how to stay on your
toes.”
“That was cute,” said Locke.
“As was your riposte. It’s a wonder to me, how many people are so willing to believe
the best of the laws that they live under.”
“They haven’t had our advantages. Anyway, you shouldn’t have sent a fat, good-natured
fellow for that sort of work,” said Locke. “You should have arranged to put the warrant
in the hands of some shriveled tent-peg like your Vordratha.”
“Isn’t he a treasure? Such a smirking dry bitch of a man. He can’t have spent more
than a minute with you, and you’d crawl over broken glass to kick him in the precious
bits, I’d wager.”
“Point me to the glass,” muttered Jean.
“Perhaps … once he’s given me a good six weeks of work.” She tossed her hair back
and matched gazes with Jean. “Jean, may I ask you to … allow Locke and myself a few
moments alone? I told Vordratha to have a chair set up just outside the door.”
“I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that.”
“Don’t sit in it, then.”
Jean’s only response was to clear his throat.
“May I beg to point out,” said Sabetha, “that the last reasonable
chance you had to be cautious was when you stepped out of your carriage? I could have
twenty armed people crouched in the next room. If I did, why would I bother to ask
for privacy?”
“Well,” said Jean with a sigh. “I suppose I can feign civility with the best of them.”
He was gone in a moment. The door clicked shut behind him, leaving Locke and Sabetha
alone with four feet of darkened floor between them.
“Have I offended him?” said Sabetha.
“No.”
“He seemed pleased to see me for a moment, and now he’s sour.”
“Jean had … Jean met someone. And lost her, in the worst way. So don’t think … it’s
just that he can’t be terribly at ease, concerning the matters that lie between me
and you.”
“What matters could you be referring to?”
“Please
don’t
do that.”
“Do what?”
“Invite me to name my troubles as though they were somehow unknown to you.”
“The device you’re mistaking me for is called a
mirror
, Locke. I don’t reflect your feelings as well as you seem to imagine, so I’m afraid
you may have to name them for everyone’s benefit.”
“Five years, Sabetha! Five
years
!”
“I can count! And so what? I’m not leaping into your arms? I’m not tearing your clothes
off under one of these tables? You may have noticed that I passed those five years
without crawling back to Camorr in search of you. Nor did I find
you
exactly dogging my heels!”
“I meant … I meant to—”
“You
meant
,” she said. “There’s a worthless coin, Locke. The past isn’t something we can negotiate.
I might not have come back for you, but you certainly didn’t strike out after me.”
“There were difficulties.”
“Oh,” she said, “so
you’re
the man whose life develops complications! I’ve so longed to meet you; the rest of
us here in this world have it much too easy, I’m afraid.”
“Calo and Galdo are dead,” said Locke.
Sabetha leaned back against the nearest table, folded her arms, and
stared out the windows for some time. “I had my suspicions,” she said at last.
“When Jean and I came alone to Karthain?”
“I passed through Camorr about a year ago,” she said. “I thought it best not to announce
myself. It’s like it was in the old days, before Barsavi. Thirty capas and no Secret
Peace. I heard some confusing things … You’d been cast out by Barsavi’s usurper, and
no one had seen you since the mess.”
“The hammer came down on everyone,” said Locke. “Capa Raza used us, then betrayed
us. We were all meant to die, but they only got the Sanzas. The Sanzas, and a younger
friend.… We had a new apprentice. You’d have liked him.”
“Well,” she said, “whoever he was, you certainly did him a grand turn as a
garrista
, didn’t you?”
“I’d have died, Sabetha, I’d have
died
if it would have saved them! I didn’t have a fucking chance. And some help you were,
wherever the hell you’d gone off to—”
“How could I stay?” she said. “How could I help you pretend to keep house? You wanted
everything the same—same glass burrow, same temple, same schemes, and now I learn
that you even started taking apprentices. Boys, of course.”
“Of all the damned unfair—”
“Roots are for vegetables, Locke, not criminals. Chains had enough blind spots of
his own, thank you very much. The last thing I ever could have done was prance along
hand in hand to your pale imitation!