Authors: Scott Lynch
“And I admire you,” he said, praying that he could blurt everything out before she
interrupted him. This desperate eloquence was like an out-of-control carriage, and
if it smashed to a halt it might not move again. “I admire everything about you. Even
your temper, and your moods, and the way you take gods-damned offense when I
breathe
wrong around you. I’d rather be confused about you than stone-fucking-certain about
anyone else, got it? I admire the way you’re good at everything you do, even when
it makes me feel small enough to drown myself in this wine cup.”
“Locke—”
“I’m not done.” He held up the cup he’d used to illustrate his previous point and
gulped its contents straightaway. “The last thing. The most important thing … it’s
this. I’m sorry.”
She was staring at him with an expression that made him feel like his legs were no
longer touching the balcony stones beneath them.
“Sabetha, I’m sorry. You told me that you wanted something important from me, and
that it wasn’t a defense or a justification … so it has to be this. If I’ve pushed
you aside, if I’ve taken you for granted, if I’ve been a bad friend and screwed up
anything that you felt was rightfully yours, I apologize. I have no excuses, and I
wish I could tell you how ashamed I am that you had to point that out to me.”
“Gods damn you, Locke,” she whispered. The corners of her eyes glistened.
“Twice now? Look, uh, if I said the wrong thing—”
“No,” she said, wiping at her eyes, trying but failing to do so nonchalantly. “No,
the trouble is you said the right thing.”
“Oh,” he said. His heart seemed to wobble back and forth in his chest like an improperly
balanced alchemist’s scale. “You know, even for a girl, that’s confusing.”
“Don’t you get it? It’s easy to deal with you when you’re being an idiot. It’s easy
to push you aside when you’re blind to anything outside your own skull. But when you
actually pay attention, and you actually make yourself … act like an adult, I can’t,
I just can’t seem to make myself want to keep doing it.” She grabbed her wine cup
at last, gulped most of it, and laughed, almost harshly. “I’m scared, Locke.”
“No you’re not,” he said vehemently. “Nothing scares you. You may be a lot of other
things, but you’re never scared.”
“Our world is this big.” She held the thumb and forefinger of her left hand up barely
an inch apart. “Just like Chains says. We live in a hole, for the gods’ sake. We sleep
fifteen feet apart. We’ve known each other more than half our lives. What have we
ever seen of other men or women? I don’t want … I don’t want something like this to
happen because it can’t be helped. I don’t want to be loved because it’s
inevitable
.”
“Not everything that’s inevitable is bad.”
“I should want someone taller,” she said. “I should want someone better-looking, and
less stubborn, and more … I don’t know. But I don’t. You are awkward and frustrating
and peculiar, and I
like
it. I like the way you look at me. I like the way you sit and stare and ponder and
worry yourself over everything. Nobody else stumbles around quite the way you do,
Locke. Nobody else can … keep juggling flaming torches while the stage burns down
around them like you do. I adore it. And that … that frightens me.”
“Why should it?” Locke reached out, and his heart threatened to start breaking ribs
when she slipped his hand into hers. “Why aren’t you entitled to your feelings? Why
can’t you like whoever you want to like? Why can’t you
love—
”
“I wish I knew.” Suddenly they were on their knees facing one another, hands clasped,
and Sabetha’s face was a map of mingled sorrow and relief. “I wish I was like you.”
“No you don’t,” he said. “You’re beautiful. And you’re better at just about everything
than I am.”
“I know that, stupid,” she said with a widening smile. “But what
you
know is how to tell the whole world to fuck off.
You
would piss in Aza Guilla’s eye even if it got you a million years in hell, and after
a million years you’d do it
again
. That’s why Calo and Galdo and Jean love you. That’s why … that’s why I … well, that’s
what I wish I knew how to do.”
“Sabetha,” said Locke. “
Not
everything that’s inevitable is regrettable
. It’s inevitable that we breathe air, you know? I like shark meat better than squid.
You like citrus wine better than red. Isn’t
that
inevitable? Why the hell does it matter? We like what we like, we want what we want,
and nobody needs to give us permission to feel that way!”
“See how easy it is for you to say that?”
“Sabetha, let me tell you something. You called it silly, but I
do
remember the first glimpses I ever had of you, when we both lived in Shades’ Hill.
I remember how you lost your hat, and I remember how your red was coming out at the
roots. It struck me witless, understand? I didn’t even know why, but I was
delighted
.”
“What?”
“I have been fixated on you for as long as I’ve had memories. I’ve never chased another
girl, I’ve never even gone with the Sanzas … you know, to see the Guilded Lilies.
I dream about you, and only you, and I’ve always dreamt about you as you really are …
you know, red. Not the disguise—”
“What?”
“Did I say something wrong?”
“You’ve seen the real color of my hair once.” She pulled her hands out of his. “Once,
when you were the next thing to a gods-damned baby, and you can’t get over it, and
that’s supposed to flatter me?”
“Hold on, please—”
“ ‘As I really am?’ I’ve kept my hair dyed brown for ten years! THAT’S how I really
am! Gods, I am so stupid … . You’re not fixated on me … you want to fuck a red-haired
girl, just like every leering pervert this side of Jerem!”
“Absolutely not! I mean—”
“You know why I’ve been dodging slavers all my life? You know
why
Chains trusted me with a poisoned dagger when Calo and Galdo were barely allowed
to carry orphan’s twists? You ever hear the things they say about Therin redheads
that haven’t had their petals plucked?”
“Wait, wait, wait, honest, I didn’t—”
“I am so, so
stupid
!” She shoved him backward, and he crushed his empty wine cup, painfully, by sitting
on it.
“I should have known. I just should have known. You admire me? You respect me? Like
hell. I can’t believe I was going to … I just— Get
out
. Get the hell out of here.”
“Wait, please.” Locke tried to wipe away the haze suddenly stinging his eyes. “I didn’t
mean—”
“Your meaning was quite plain.
Go away!
”
She threw her own empty cup at him, missing, but speeding his stumbling escape into
the little passage down to the second floor. As he tried to roll awkwardly back to
his feet, a pair of strong hands grabbed him from behind and hauled him up.
“Jean,” he muttered. “Thanks, but I—”
The same hands grabbed him, spun him around, and pressed him hard against the passage
wall. Locke found himself eye to eye with the new patron of the Moncraine-Boulidazi
Company.
“Lord Boulidazi,” Locke sputtered. “Gennaro!”
The well-built Esparan held Locke in place with one iron forearm, and reached beneath
his plain, dusty clothing with the other hand. He pulled out ten inches of steel,
gleaming in the light from the open balcony door, the sort of knife crafted for arguments
rather than display cases. In an instant the tip was against Locke’s left cheek.
“
Cousin
,” spat Boulidazi. “I thought I’d dress down and come see how my investment was faring.
The idiots in the taproom said you might be up here. That’s a
fascinating
conversation you’ve been having, Cousin, but it leaves me feeling like there’s a
few things you haven’t exactly been telling me.”
The knife-tip pressed deeper into Locke’s skin, and he groaned.
“Like everything,” said Boulidazi. “Why don’t we start with
everything
?”
“
SOMEONE
’
S GONNA RECOGNIZE
us,” said Locke.
“We look like hell,” said Jean, practicing understatement at the master level. “Just
two more travelers covered in dust and shit.”
“Volantyne must have returned by now. Sabetha’s got to have people watching the gates.”
Locke tapped the side of his head. “You and I would.”
“That’s a generous appraisal of our foresight.”
It had been a hard four days back to Karthain. They’d looted the wagon and shoved
it into a ravine on the second day, needing every scrap of speed they could coax out
of their unyoked team. Lashain’s constables were no threat, but the previous occupant
of the wagon could always hire mercenaries. There was no law on the long, ancient
road between city-states; a column of dust rising rapidly in the sky behind them would
probably have meant someone was going to die.
Now the city, finally in sight, had taunted them for half a day with the prospect
of relative safety. They’d come up the coast road from the east, through hills and
terraced farming villages, their bodies thoroughly
punished by the seedy emergency saddles they’d filched from the wagon.
“Maybe you’re right, though,” said Jean. “If we’ve got no chance of hiding ourselves,
we’ve got to rely on speed. We get one move, maybe, before she can respond.”
“Let’s go straight for her,” said Locke. His scowl shook little puffs of dust out
of the creases of his road-grimed face.
“To do what?”
“Finish a conversation.”
“You in a hurry to get back to sea? I can handle a couple of her people at a time.
She’s got more than a couple.”
“Taken care of,” said Locke. “I know a fellow who’ll be eager to help us past the
guards.”
“You do?”
“Didn’t you notice that Vordratha favors tight breeches?”
“What the hell’s that got to do with anything?”
“Every little detail matters,” said Locke. “Just wait. It’ll be a fun surprise.”
“Well, shit,” said Jean. “It’s not like I’ve done anything especially smart in months.
Why start now?”
THEY SLIPPED
into traffic and the usual milling semi-confusion of customs inspectors, guards,
teamsters, travelers, and horse manure. The Court of Dust, despite the general cleanliness
of Karthain, could have been peeled up beneath its paving stones and set down in place
of its counterpart in nearly any Therin city without arousing much notice.
Locke scanned the crowds as he and Jean were poked and prodded by bored constables.
Sabetha’s spotters would most likely be working in teams, one person on watch while
the other was always plausibly absorbed in some trivial business. After counting five
possible pairs of watchers, Locke shook his head. What was the point?
Locke felt something else unusual going on, though. A buzz of activity around the
court, beyond mundane business. He’d spent too many hours picking pockets in crowds
like this not to sense that something was awry.
Jean was alert, too. “What’s the excitement?” he asked of a passing constable.
“It’s the Marrows. You ain’t heard?” The woman gestured toward a crowd forming around
a battered statue of a Therin Throne noblewoman. “Crier’s just about to start up again.”
Locke saw that a young woman, a finger’s width over four feet tall, had climbed the
statue pedestal. She wore the blue coat of Karthain, and standing below her was a
man in the regalia worn by Herald Vidalos, tipstaff and all.
“KIND ATTENTION, citizens and friends of Karthain,” bellowed the woman. Locke was
impressed; there had to be more leather lining her lungs than his saddle. “Hear this
report of the FACTS as provided and authorized by the KONSEIL! Mendacity will NOT
be tolerated! Rumormongers will be subject to INCARCERATION on the PENANCE BARGES!
“Vencezla Valgasha, king of the Seven Marrows, is DEAD! He is KNOWN to have died in
the city of Vintila, SIX DAYS AGO. He died WITHOUT ISSUE and without lawful heir!
A war of secession is now under way!
“The Canton of EMBERLAIN, easternmost of the Seven Marrows, has EXILED its ruling
graf and declared itself to be a SOVEREIGN REPUBLIC! The Konseil of Karthain DECLINES
to formally recognize Emberlain at this time, and strongly advises citizens of Karthain
to AVOID all travel in the north until the situation stabilizes!”
“Holy hells,” said Locke. “Sabetha was right! The Marrows finally busted up. Gods,
what a mess that’s going to be.”
“We won’t be able to pull the Austershalin brandy scam again,” said Jean. “Not for
a good long while.”
“There’ll be other opportunities,” said Locke wistfully. “If it’s war, desperate people
are going to be moving a lot of valuable things. But come on, we’ve got to move ourselves.”
They spurred their tired mounts down a broad avenue to the west, over a shaking and
sighing glass bridge, through the Court of the Divines with its incense haze, and
onto the Evening Terrace. It seemed surreal to be back on clean streets, among lush
gardens and bubbling fountains, as though Karthain were more of a recurring dream
than a real place.
Outside the Sign of the Black Iris, they aroused immediate interest. At least two
watchers, unmistakably real, flashed hand signs to dark shapes on roofs. A fleet-footed
child darted into the alley beside Sabetha’s headquarters. Locke led their bedraggled
horses to a curbside spot more commonly used for carriages, and when he hopped down
a cloud of road dust floated off his boots. He wobbled and nearly pitched over before
seizing control of himself. His legs felt like prickly jelly. His horse, less than
endeared to him, flicked its ears and snapped its teeth.
“These animals are the personal property of Verena Gallante,” Locke said to the anxious-looking
footman. “She wants them well looked after.”
“But sir, if you please—”