Authors: Scott Lynch
WHEN LOCKE’S senses returned he found himself standing on the bridge between the Snare
and Coin-Kisser’s Row; not a moment had passed by his own personal reckoning, but
when he looked up he saw that the clouds were gone, the stars had whirled in the dark
sky, and the moons were low in the west.
“Son of a
bitch
,” he hissed. “It’s been hours! Jean’s got to be having fits.”
He thought quickly; Calo and Galdo had planned to spend the evening making their rounds
in the Snare, with Bug in tow. They would probably have ended up at the Last Mistake,
dicing and drinking and trying not to get thrown out for cardsharping. Jean had intended
to spend the night feigning occupancy in the Broken Tower rooms, at least until Locke
returned. That would be the closest place to begin hunting for them. Just then, Locke
remembered that he was still dressed as Lukas Fehrwight. He slapped his forehead.
He pulled his coat and cravats off, yanked the false optics from the bridge of his
nose, and stuffed them in a vest pocket. He gingerly felt the cuts on his left arm;
they were deep and still painful, but the blood had crusted on them, so at least he
wasn’t dripping all over the place.
Gods damn the Gray King
, thought Locke,
and gods grant I get the chance to balance this night out in the ledger
.
He ruffled his hair, unbuttoned his vest, untucked his shirt, and reached down to
fold and conceal the ridiculous ribbon tongues of his shoes. His cravats and his decorative
belts went into the coat, which Locke then folded up and tied by the sleeves. In the
darkness, it bore an excellent resemblance to a plain old cloth sack. With the outward
flourishes of Lukas Fehrwight broken down, he could at least pass without notice for
a reasonably short period of time. Satisfied, he turned and began to walk quickly
down the south side of the bridge, toward the still-lively lights and noises of the
Snare.
Jean Tannen actually appeared from an alley and took him by the arm as he turned onto
the street on the north side of the Broken Tower, where the main entrance to the Last
Mistake opened onto the cobbles. “Locke! Where the hell have you
been
all night? Are you well?”
“Jean, gods, am I ever glad to see you! I’m far from well, as are you. Where are the
others?”
“When you didn’t return,” Jean said, speaking in a low voice close to Locke’s ear,
“I found them in the Last Mistake and sent them up to our
rooms, with Bug. I’ve been pacing the alleys down here, trying to keep out of sight.
I didn’t want us all getting scattered across the city by night. I … we feared …”
“I was taken, Jean. But then I was let go. Let’s get up to the rooms. We have a new
problem, fresh from the oven and hot as hell.”
THEY LET the windows in their rooms stay open this time, with thin sheets of translucent
mesh drawn down to keep out biting insects. The sky was turning gray, with lines of
red visible just beneath the eastern windowsills, when Locke finished relating the
events of the night. His listeners had shadows beneath their bleary eyes, but none
showed any indication of sleepiness just then.
“At least we know now,” Locke finished, “that he won’t be trying to kill me like he
did the other
garristas
.”
“Not until three nights hence, anyway,” said Galdo.
“Bastard simply can’t be trusted,” said Bug.
“But for the time being,” said Locke, “he must be
obeyed
.”
Locke had changed into spare clothes; he now looked much more suitably low-class.
Jean had insisted on washing his arm with reinforced wine, heated to near boiling
on an alchemical hearthstone. Locke now had a compress of brandy-soaked cloth pressed
to it, and he bathed it in the light of a small white glow-globe. It was common knowledge
among the physikers of Camorr that light drove back malodorous air and helped prevent
lingering infections.
“Must he?” Calo scratched a stubbly chin. “How far do you figure we can get if we
run like hell?”
“From the Gray King, who knows?” Locke sighed. “From the Bondsmage, not far enough,
ever.”
“So we just sit back,” said Jean, “and let him pull your strings, like a marionette
onstage.”
“I was rather taken,” said Locke, “with the whole idea of him not telling Capa Barsavi
about our confidence games, yes.”
“This whole thing is mad,” said Galdo. “You said you saw three rings on this Falconer’s
wrist?”
“The one that didn’t have the damn scorpion hawk, yeah.”
“Three rings,” Jean muttered. “It
is
mad. To keep one of those people in
Service.… It must be two months now since the first stories of the Gray King appeared.
Since the first
garrista
got it.… Who was it, again?”
“Gil the Cutter, from the Rum Hounds,” said Calo.
“The coin involved has to be … ludicrous. I doubt the
duke
could keep a Bondsmage of rank on for this long. So who the fuck is this Gray King,
and how is he
paying
for this?”
“Immaterial,” said Locke. “Three nights hence, or two and a half now that the sun’s
coming up, there’ll be two Gray Kings, and I’ll be one of them.”
“Thirteen,” said Jean. He put his head in his hands and rubbed his eyes with his palms.
“So that’s the bad news. Capa Barsavi wants me to marry his daughter and now the Gray
King wants me to impersonate him at a secret meeting with Capa Barsavi.” Locke grinned.
“The good news is I didn’t get any blood on that new promissory note for four thousand
crowns.”
“I’ll kill him,” said Bug. “Get me poisoned quarrels and an alley-piece and I’ll drill
him in the eyes.”
“Bug,” said Locke, “that makes leaping off a temple roof sound reasonable by comparison.”
“But who would ever expect it?” Bug, sitting beneath one of the room’s eastern windows,
turned his head to stare out it for a few moments, as he had been intermittently doing
all night. “Look, everyone knows that one of
you
four could kill them. But nobody would
expect
me! Total surprise. One shot in the face, no more Gray King!”
“Assuming the Falconer allowed your crossbow bolts to hit his client,” said Locke,
“he would probably cook us where we stood right after that. Also, I very much doubt
that fucking bird is going to be fluttering around this tower where we can see it.”
“You never know,” said Bug. “I think I saw it before, when we made first touch on
Don Salvara.”
“I’m pretty sure I did, too.” Calo was knuckle-walking a solon on his left hand, without
looking at it. “While I was strangling you, Locke. Something flew overhead. Damn big
and fast for a wren or a sparrow.”
“So,” said Jean, “he really has been watching us and he really knows all there is
to know about us. Knuckling under might be wiser for the time being, but we’ve got
to have
some
contingencies we can cook up.”
“Should we call off the Don Salvara game
now
?” asked Bug, meekly.
“Hmmm? No.” Locke shook his head vigorously. “There’s absolutely no reason, for the
time being.”
“How,” said Galdo, “do you figure that?”
“The reason we discussed shortening the game was to keep our heads down and try to
avoid getting killed by the Gray King. Now we can be pretty
damn
sure that won’t happen, at least not for three days. So the Salvara game stays in
play.”
“For three days, yes. Until the Gray King has no further use for you.” Jean spat.
“Next step in whatever the plans are: ‘Thanks for your cooperation, here’s a complimentary
knife in the back for
all
of you.’ ”
“It’s a possibility,” said Locke. “So what we do is this: Jean, you scuttle around
today after you’ve had some sleep. Cancel those arrangements for sea travel. If we
need to run, waiting for a ship to put out will take too long. Likewise, drop more
gold at the Viscount’s Gate. If we go out, we go out by land, and I want that gate
swinging wider and faster than a whorehouse door.
“Calo, Galdo, you find us a wagon. Stash it behind the temple; set it up with tarps
and rope for fast packing. Get us food and drink for the road. Simple stuff, sturdy
stuff. Spare cloaks. Plain clothing. You know what to do. If any Right People spot
you at work, maybe drop a hint that we’re after a fat score in the next few days.
Barsavi would like that, if it gets back to him.
“Bug, tomorrow you and I are going to go through the vault. We’ll bring up every coin
in there, and we’re going to pack them in canvas sacks, for easy transport. If we
have to run, I want to be able to throw the whole mess on the back of our wagon in
just a few minutes.”
“Makes sense,” said Bug.
“So, Sanzas, you stick together,” said Locke. “Bug, you’re with me. Nobody goes it
alone, for any length of time, except Jean. You’re the least likely to get troubled,
if the Gray King’s got anything less than an army hidden in the city.”
“Oh, you know me.” Jean reached behind his neck, down behind the loose leather vest
he wore over his simple cotton tunic. He withdrew a pair of matching hatchets, each
a foot and a half in length, with leather-wrapped handles and straight black blades
that narrowed like scalpels. These were balanced with balls of blackened steel, each
as wide around as a silver solon. The Wicked Sisters—Jean’s weapons of choice. “I
never travel alone. It’s always the three of us.”
“Right, then.” Locke yawned. “If we need any other bright ideas, we can conjure them
when we wake up. Let’s set something heavy against the door, shut the windows, and
start snoring.”
The Gentlemen Bastards had just stumbled to their feet to begin putting this sensible
plan into action when Jean held up one hand for silence. The stairs outside the door
on the north wall of the chamber were creaking under the weight of many feet. A moment
later, someone was banging on the door itself.
“Lamora,” came a loud male voice, “open up! Capa’s business!”
Jean slipped his hatchets into one hand and put that hand behind his back, then stood
against the north wall, a few feet to the right of the door. Calo and Galdo reached
under their shirts for their daggers, Galdo pushing Bug back behind him as they did
so. Locke stood in the center of the room, remembering that his stilettos were still
wrapped up in his Fehrwight coat.
“What’s the price of a loaf,” he shouted, “at the Shifting Market?”
“One copper flat, but the loaves ain’t dry,” came the response. Locke untensed just
a bit—that was this week’s proper greeting and countersign, and if they’d been coming
to haul him off for anything bloody, well, they’d have simply kicked in the door.
Signaling with his hands for everyone to stay calm, he drew out the bolt and slid
the front door open just wide enough to peek out.
There were four men on the platform outside his door, seventy feet in the air above
the Last Mistake. The sky was the color of murky canal water behind them, with just
a few twinkling stars vanishing slowly here and there. They were hard-looking men,
standing ready and easy like trained fighters, wearing leather tunics, leather collars,
and red cloth bandannas under black leather caps. Red Hands—the gang Barsavi turned
to when he needed muscle work and he needed it fast.
“Begging your pardon, brother.” The apparent leader of the Red Hands put one arm up
against the door. “Big man wants to see Locke Lamora right this very moment, and he
don’t care what state he’s in, and he won’t let us take no for an answer.”
In the year that followed Locke grew, but not as much as he would have liked. Although
it was difficult to guess his true age with any hope of accuracy, it was obvious that
he was more than a little runty for it.
“You missed a few meals, in your very early years,” Chains told him. “You’ve done
much better since you came here, to be sure, but I suspect you’ll always be a bit
on the … medium side.”
“Always?”
“Don’t be too upset.” Chains put his hands on his own round belly and chuckled. “A
little man can slip out of a pinch that a greater man might find inescapable.”
There was further schooling. More sums, more history, more maps, more languages. Once
Locke and the Sanzas had a firm grasp of conversational Vadran, Chains began having
them instructed in the art of accents. A few hours each week were spent in the company
of an old Vadran sail-mender who would chide them for their “fumble-mouthed mangling”
of the northern tongue while he drove his long, wicked needles through yard upon yard
of folded canvas. They would chat about any subject on the old man’s mind, and he
would fastidiously correct every consonant that was too short and every vowel that
was too long. He would also get steadily
more red-faced and belligerent as each session went on, for Chains paid him in wine
for his services.
There were trials—some trivial and some quite harsh. Chains tested his boys constantly,
almost ruthlessly, but when he was finished with each new conundrum he always took
them to the temple roof to explain what he’d wanted, what the hardships signified.
His openness after the fact made his games easier to bear, and they had the added
effect of uniting Locke, Calo, and Galdo against the world around them. The more Chains
tightened the screws, the closer the boys grew, the more smoothly they worked together,
the less they had to say out loud to set a plan in motion.
The coming of Jean Tannen changed all that.
It was the month of Saris in the Seventy-seventh Year of Iono, the end of an unusually
dry and cool autumn. Storms had lashed the Iron Sea but spared Camorr, by some trick
of the winds or the gods, and the nights were finer than any in Locke’s living memory.
He was sitting the steps with Father Chains, flexing his fingers, eagerly awaiting
the rise of Falselight, when he spotted the Thiefmaker walking across the square toward
the House of Perelandro.