Authors: Scott Lynch
“So, naturally, your brothers will never let him trap them here.”
“Depends on how mad and crazy the old man gets. But even if they stay free to roam,
that’s only the lesser part of the problem solved. We are, again, overmatched. Three
thousand knives at our command, and the ghost still has the twist on us.”
“What do you suspect? Sorcery?”
“I suspect everything. They say the Gray King can kill a man with just a touch. They
say that blades won’t cut him. I suspect the gods themselves. And so my brothers think
I’m crazy.
“When they look at the situation all they see is a regular war. They think we can
just outlast it, lock the old man and the baby sister up and wait until we know where
to hit back. But
I
don’t see that. I see a cat with his paw over a mouse’s tail. And if the cat’s claws
haven’t come out yet,
it’s not because of anything the mouse has done
. Don’t you get it?”
“Nazca, I know you’re agitated. I’ll listen. I’m a stone. You can yell at me all you
like. But what can I do for you? I’m just a thief, I’m your father’s
littlest
thief. If there’s a gang smaller than mine I’ll go play cards in a wolf shark’s mouth.
I—”
“I need you to start helping me calm Papa down, Locke. I need him back to something
resembling his normal self so I can get him to take my
points seriously. That’s why I’m asking you to go in there and take pains to please
him.
Especially
please him. Show him a loyal
garrista
who does whatever he’s told, the moment he’s told. When he starts to lay reasonable
plans for the future again, I’ll know he’s coming back to a state of mind I can deal
with.”
“Interesting,” said Locke. “And, uh, daunting.”
“Papa used to say someday I’d appreciate having a gracious man to order around. Believe
me, Locke, I do. So … here we are.”
At the end of the short passage was another set of heavy wooden doors, nearly identical
to the ones that led back to the reception hall. These doors, however, were barred
and locked with an elaborate Verrari clockwork device attached to crossbars of polished
iron. A dozen keyholes were visible in the lockbox at the center of the doors; Nazca
withdrew two keys that hung on a chain around her neck and briefly put her body between
Locke and the doors, so he couldn’t see the apertures she chose. There was a cascading
series of clicks and the noise of machinery within the doors; one by one the hidden
bolts unshot themselves and the gleaming crossbars slid open until the doors finally
cracked open in the middle.
Another scream, loud and vivid without the closed door to muffle it, sounded from
the room beyond.
“It’s worse than it sounds,” said Nazca.
“I know what Sage does for your father, Nazca.”
“Knowing’s one thing. Usually Sage just does one or two at a time. Papa’s got the
bastard working wholesale today.”
“I’VE MADE it clear that I don’t enjoy this,” said Capa Barsavi, “so why do you force
me to
persist
?”
The dark-haired young man was secured to a wooden rack. He hung upside down with metal
shackles around his legs, with his arms tied downward at their maximum extension.
The Capa’s heavy fist slammed into the prisoner’s side just beneath his armpit; the
sound was like a hammer slapping meat. Droplets of sweat flew and the prisoner screamed,
writhing against his restraints.
“Why do you
insult
me like this, Federico?”Another punch to the same spot, with the heavy old man’s
first two knuckles cruelly extended. “Why won’t you even have the
courtesy
to give me a convincing lie?” Capa Barsavi lashed Federico’s throat with the flat
of one hand; the prisoner
gasped for breath, snorting wetly as blood and spit and sweat ran down into his nose.
The heart of the Floating Grave was something like an opulent ballroom with curving
sides. Warm amber light came from glass globes suspended on silver chains. Stairs
ran to overhead galleries, and from these galleries to the silk-canopied deck of the
old hulk. A small raised platform against the far wall held the broad wooden chair
from which Barsavi usually received visitors. The room was tastefully decorated in
a restrained and regal fashion, and today it stank of fear and sweat and soiled breeches.
The frame that held Federico folded downward from the ceiling; an entire semicircle
of the things could be pulled down at need, for Barsavi occasionally did this sort
of business in a volume that rewarded the standardization of procedures. Six were
now empty and spattered with blood; only two still held prisoners.
The capa looked up as Locke and Nazca entered; he nodded slightly and gestured for
them to wait against the wall. Old Barsavi remained bullish, but he wore his years
in plain view. He was rounder and softer now, his three braided gray beards backed
by three wobbly chins. Dark circles cupped his eyes, and his cheeks were the unhealthy
sort of red that came out of a bottle. Flushed with exertion, he had thrown off his
overcoat and was working in his silk undertunic.
Standing nearby with folded arms were Anjais and Pachero Barsavi, Nazca’s older brothers.
Anjais was like a miniature version of the Capa, minus thirty years and two beards,
while Pachero was more of a kind with Nazca, tall and slender and curly-haired. Both
of the brothers wore optics, for whatever eye trouble the old Madam Barsavi had borne
had been passed to all three of her surviving children.
Leaning against the far wall were two women. They were not slender. Their bare, tanned
arms were corded with muscle and crisscrossed with scars, and while they radiated
an air of almost feral good health they were well past the girlishness of early youth.
Cheryn and Raiza Berangias, identical twins, and the greatest
contrarequialla
the city of Camorr had ever known. Performing only as a pair, they had given the
Shifting Revel almost a hundred performances against sharks, devilfish, death-lanterns,
and other predators of the Iron Sea.
For nearly five years, they had been Capa Barsavi’s personal bodyguards and executioners.
Their long, wild manes of smoke-black hair were tied back under nets of silver that
jangled with sharks’ teeth. One tooth, it
was said, for every man or woman the Berangias twins had killed in Barsavi’s service.
Last but certainly not least alarming in this exclusive gathering was Sage Kindness,
a round-headed man of moderate height and middle years. His short-cropped hair was
the butter yellow of certain Therin families from the westerly cities of Karthain
and Lashain; his eyes always seemed to be wet with emotion, though his expression
never changed. He was perhaps the most even-tempered man in Camorr—he could pull fingernails
with the mellow disinterest of a man polishing boots. Capa Barsavi was a very capable
torturer, but when he found himself stymied the Sage never disappointed him.
“He doesn’t know anything!” The last prisoner, as yet untouched, hollered at the top
of his voice as Barsavi slapped Federico around some more. “Capa, Your Honor, please,
none of us know anything! Gods! None of us remember!”
Barsavi stalked across the wooden floor and shut the second prisoner up by giving
his windpipe a long, cruel squeeze. “Were the questions addressed to you? Are you
eager to get involved in the proceedings? You were quiet enough when I sent your other
six friends down into the water. Why do you cry for this one?”
“Please,” the man sobbed, sucking in air as Barsavi lightened his grip just enough
to permit speech, “please, there’s no point. You must believe us, Capa Barsavi, please.
We’d have told you anything you wanted if only we knew. We don’t remember! We just
don’t—”
The Capa silenced him with a vicious cuff across the face. For a moment, the only
sound in the room was the frightened sobbing and gasping of the two prisoners.
“I must believe you? I must do
nothing
, Julien. You give me bullshit, and tell me it’s steamed beef? So many of you, and
you can’t even come up with a decent story. A serious attempt to lie would still piss
me off, but I could
understand
it. Instead you cry that you
don’t remember
. You, the eight most powerful men in the Full Crowns, after Tesso himself. His chosen.
His friends, his bodyguards, his loyal
pezon
. And you cry like babies to me about how you don’t remember where any of you were
last night, when Tesso just happened to
die
.”
“But that’s just how it is, Capa Barsavi, please, it’s—”
“I ask you again, were you drinking last night?”
“No, not at all!”
“Were you smoking anything? All of you, together?”
“No, nothing like that. Certainly not … not together.”
“Gaze, then? A little something from Jerem’s pervert alchemists? A little bliss from
a powder?”
“Tesso never permitted—”
“Well then.” Barsavi drove a fist into Julien’s solar plexus, almost casually. While
the man gasped in pain, Barsavi turned away and held up his arms with theatrical joviality.
“Since we’ve eliminated every
possible earthly explanation
for such dereliction of duty, short of sorcery or divine intervention … Oh, forgive
me. You weren’t enchanted by the gods themselves, were you? They’re hard to miss.”
Julien writhed against his bonds, red-faced, shaking his head. “Please …”
“No gods, then. Didn’t think so. I was saying … well, I was saying that your little
game is boring the hell out of me. Kindness.”
The round-headed man lowered his chin to his chest and stood with his palms out, facing
upward, as though he were about to receive a gift.
“I want something creative. If Federico won’t talk, let’s give Julien one last chance
to find his tongue.”
Federico began screaming before Barsavi had even finished speaking—the high, sobbing
wail of the conscious damned. Locke found himself clenching his teeth to keep himself
from shaking. So many meetings with slaughter as a backdrop … The gods could be perverse.
Sage Kindness moved to a small table to the side of the room, on which there was a
pile of small glasses and a heavy cloth sack with a drawstring. Kindness threw several
glasses into the sack and began banging it against the table; the sound of breaking,
jangling glass wasn’t audible beneath Federico’s wild hollering, but Locke could imagine
it easily enough. After a few moments, Kindness seemed satisfied, and walked slowly
over to Federico.
“Don’t, don’t, no, don’t don’t
please no no …
”
With one hand holding the desperate young man’s head still, Kindness rapidly drew
the bag up over the top of his head, over his face, all the way to Federico’s neck,
where he cinched the drawstring tight. The bag muffled Federico’s screams, which had
become high and wordless again. Kindness then began to knead the bag, gently at first,
almost tenderly; the torturer’s long fingers pushed the jagged contents of the sack
up and around Federico’s face. Red stains began to appear on the surface of the bag;
Kindness manipulated the contents of the sack like a sculptor giving form
to his clay. Federico’s throat mercifully gave out just then, and for the next few
moments the man choked out nothing more than a few hoarse moans. Locke prayed silently
that he had already fled beyond pain to the temporary refuge of madness.
Kindness increased the vigor with which he massaged the cloth. He pressed now where
Federico’s eyes would be, and on the nose, and the mouth, and the chin. The bag grew
wetter and redder until at last Federico’s twitching stopped altogether. When Kindness
took his hands off the bag they looked as though he’d been pulping tomatoes. Smiling
sadly, he let his red hands drip red trails on the wood, and he walked over to Julien,
staring intently, saying nothing.
“Surely,” said Capa Barsavi, “if I’ve convinced you of
anything
by this point, it must be the depth of my resolve. Will you not speak?”
“Please, Capa Barsavi,” whispered Julien, “there’s no need for this. I have nothing
I can tell you. Ask me anything, anything at all. What happened last night is a blank.
I don’t remember. I would tell you, please, gods, please believe me, I would tell
you anything. We are loyal
pezon
, the most loyal you have!”
“I sincerely hope not.” Barsavi seemed to come to a decision; he gestured to the Berangias
sisters and pointed at Julien. The dark-haired ladies worked quickly and silently,
undoing the knots that held him to the wooden frame while leaving the ones that bound
him from ankles to neck. They cradled the shivering man effortlessly, one at his shoulders
and one at his feet.
“Loyal? Please. We are grown men, Julien. Refusing to tell me the truth of what happened
last night is not a loyal act. You’ve let me down, so I give like for like.” On the
far left side of the great hall a man-sized wooden floor panel had been slid aside;
barely a yard down was the dark surface of the water beneath the Grave. The floor
around the opening was wet with blood. “I shall let
you
down.”
Julien screamed one last time as the Berangias sisters heaved him into the opening,
headfirst; he hit the water with a splash and didn’t come back up. It was the capa’s
habit to keep something nasty down beneath the Grave at all times, constrained there
by heavy nets of wire-reinforced rope that surrounded the underside of the galleon
like a sieve.
“Kindness, you are dismissed. Boys, when I call you back you can get some people in
here to clean up, but for now go wait on deck. Raiza, Cheryn—please go with them.”
Moving slowly, Capa Barsavi walked to his plain, comfortable old chair
and settled into it. He was breathing heavily and quivering all the more for his effort
not to show it. A brass wine goblet with the capacity of a large soup tureen was set
out on the little table beside his chair; the capa took a deep draught and seemed
to brood over the fumes for a few moments, his eyes closed. At last he came back to
life and beckoned for Locke and Nazca to step forward.