Authors: Scott Lynch
“And if you aren’t as fast as you think you are? And that bolt hits home?”
“Then I’ll be dead, and you’ll still be alive, and my master will be
satisfied,” said Locke. “We swear oaths in my line of work as well, Master Meraggio.
I serve Raza even unto death. So what’s it going to be?”
LOCKE LAMORA stepped out of Meraggio’s apartments at half past one dressed in the
most excellent coat, vest, and breeches he had ever worn. They were the dark blue
of the sky just before Falselight, and he thought the color suited him remarkably
well. The white silk tunic was as cool as autumn river-water against his skin; it
was fresh from Meraggio’s closet, as were the hose, shoes, cravats, and gloves. His
hair was slicked back with rose oil; a little bottle of the stuff rested in his pocket,
along with a purse of gold tyrins he’d lifted from Meraggio’s wardrobe drawers. Meraggio’s
orchid was pinned at his right breast, still crisply fragrant; it smelled pleasantly
like raspberries.
Meraggio’s finnickers had been appraised of the masquerade, along with a select few
of his guards. They nodded at Locke as he strolled out into the fourth-floor members’
gallery, sliding Meraggio’s optics over his eyes. That was a mistake; the world went
blurry. Locke cursed his own absentmindedness as he slipped them back into his coat—his
old Fehrwight optics had been clear fakes, but of course Meraggio’s actually functioned
for Meraggio’s eyes. A point to remember.
Casually, as though it were all part of his plan, Locke stepped onto the black iron
stairs and headed downward. From a distance, he certainly resembled Meraggio well
enough to cause no comment; when he reached the floor of the public gallery, he strolled
through rapidly enough to gather only a few odd looks in his wake. He plucked the
orchid from his breast and shoved it into a pocket as he entered the kitchen.
At the entrance to the dry-storage room, he waved to the two guards and jerked a thumb
over his shoulder. “Master Meraggio wants you two watching the back door. Give Laval
a hand. Nobody comes in, just as he said. On pain of, ah, hot coals. You heard the
old man. I need a word with Benjavier.”
The guards looked at one another and nodded; Locke’s presumed authority over them
now seemed to be so cemented that he supposed he could have strolled back here in
ladies’ smallclothes and gotten the same response. Meraggio had probably used a few
special agents in the past to whip his operations into shape; no doubt Locke was now
riding on the coattails of their reputations.
Benjavier looked up as Locke entered the storage room and slid the door shut behind
him. Sheer bewilderment registered on his face; he was so surprised when Locke threw
a coin purse at him that the little leather bag struck him in the eye. Benjavier cried
out and fell back against the wall, both hands over his face.
“Shit,” said Locke. “Beg pardon; you were meant to catch that.”
“What do you want now?”
“I came to apologize. I don’t have time to explain; I’m sorry I dragged you into this,
but I have my reasons, and I have needs that must be met.”
“Sorry you dragged me into this?” Benjavier’s voice broke; he sniffed once and spat
at Locke. “What the
fuck
are you talking about? What’s going on? What
does
Master Meraggio think I did?”
“I don’t have time to sing you a tale. I put six crowns in that bag; some of it’s
in tyrins, so you can break it down easier. Your life won’t be worth shit if you stay
in Camorr; get out through the landward gates. Get my old clothes from the Welcoming
Shade; here’s the key.”
This time Benjavier caught what was thrown at him.
“Now,” said Locke. “No more gods-damned questions. I’m going to grab you by the ear
and haul you out into the alley; you make like you’re scared shitless. When we’re
around the corner and out of sight, I’m going to let you go. If you have any love
for life, you fucking run to the Welcoming Shade, get dressed, and get the hell out
of the city. Make for Talisham or Ashmere; you’ve got more than a year’s pay there
in that purse. You should be able to do something with it.”
“I don’t—”
“We go now,” said Locke, “or I leave you here to die. Understanding is a luxury; you
don’t get to have it. Sorry.”
A moment later, Locke was hauling the waiter into the receiving room by the earlobe;
this particular come-along was a painful hold well known to any guard or watchman
in the city. Benjavier did a very acceptable job of wailing and sobbing and pleading
for his life; the three guards at the service door looked on without sympathy as Locke
hauled the waiter past them.
“Back in a few minutes,” said Locke. “Master Meraggio wants me to have a few more
words with this poor bastard in private.”
“Oh, gods,” cried Benjavier, “don’t let him take me away! He’s going to hurt me … please!”
The guards chuckled at that, although the one who’d originally taken Locke’s solon
didn’t seem quite as mirthful as the other two. Locke dragged Benjavier down the alley
and around the corner; the moment
they were cut off from the sight of the three guards, Locke pushed him away. “Go,”
he said. “Run like hell. I give them maybe twenty minutes before they all figure out
what a pack of asses they’ve been, and then you’ll have hard men after you in squads.
Go!”
Benjavier stared at him, then shook his head and stumbled off toward the Welcoming
Shade. Locke toyed with one of the ends of his false moustache as he watched the waiter
go, and then he turned around and lost himself in the crowds. The sun was pouring
down light and heat with its usual intensity, and Locke was sweating hard inside his
fine new clothes, but for a few moments he let a satisfied smirk creep onto his face.
He strolled north toward Twosilver Green; there was a gentlemen’s trifles shop very
near to the southern gate of the park, and there were other black alchemists in various
districts who didn’t know him by sight. A bit of adhesive dissolver to get rid of
the moustache, and something to restore his hair to its natural shade … With those
things in hand, he’d be Lukas Fehrwight once again, fit to visit the Salvaras and
relieve them of a few thousand more crowns.
“OH, LUKAS!” DOÑA Sofia’s smile lit up her face when she met him at the door to the
Salvara manor. Yellow light spilled out past him into the night; it was just past
the eleventh hour of the evening. Locke had hidden himself away for most of the day
following the affair at Meraggio’s, and had dispatched a note by courier to let the
don and the doña know that Fehrwight would pay them a late visit. “It’s been days!
We received Graumann’s note, but we were beginning to worry for our affairs—and for
you, of course. Are you well?”
“My lady Salvara, it is a
pleasure
to see you once again. Yes, yes—I am very well, thank you for inquiring. I have met
with some
disreputable
characters over the past week, but all will be for the best; one ship is secured,
with cargo, and we may begin our voyage as early as next week in it. Another is very
nearly in our grasp.”
“Well, don’t stand there like a courier on the stair; do come in. Conté! We would
have refreshment. I know, fetch out some of my oranges, the new ones. We’ll be in
the close chamber.”
“Of course, m’lady.” Conté stared at Locke with narrowed eyes and a grudging half-smile.
“Master Fehrwight. I do hope the night finds you in good health.”
“Quite good, Conté.”
“How splendid. I shall return very shortly.”
Almost all Camorri manors had two sitting rooms near their entrance hall; one was
referred to as the “duty chamber,” where meetings with strangers and other formal
affairs would be held. It would be kept coldly, immaculately, and expensively furnished;
even the carpets would be clean enough to eat off of. The “close chamber,” in contrast,
was for intimate and trusted acquaintances and was traditionally furnished for sheer
comfort, in a manner that reflected the personality of the lord and lady of the manor.
Doña Sofia led him to the Salvaras’ close chamber, which held four deeply padded leather
armchairs with tall backs like caricatures of thrones. Where most sitting rooms would
have had little tables beside each chair, this one had four potted trees, each just
slightly taller than the chair it stood beside. The trees smelled of cardamon, a scent
that suffused the room.
Locke looked closely at the trees; they were not saplings, as he had first thought.
They were
miniatures
, somehow. They had leaves barely larger than his thumbnail; their trunks were no
thicker than a man’s forearms, and their branches narrowed to the width of fingers.
Within the twisting confines of its branches, each tree supported a small wooden shelf
and a hanging alchemical lantern. Sofia tapped these to bring them to life, filling
the room with amber light and green-tinted shadows. The patterns cast by the leaves
onto the walls were at once fantastical and relaxing. Locke ran a finger through the
soft, thin leaves of the nearest tree.
“Your handiwork is incredible, Doña Sofia,” he said. “Even for someone well acquainted
with the work of our Planting Masters … We care mostly for function, for yields. You
possess
flair
in abundance.”
“Thank you, Lukas. Do be seated. Alchemically reducing the frame of larger botanicals
is an old art, but one I happen to particularly enjoy, as a sort of hobby. And, as
you can see, these are functional pieces as well. But these are hardly the greatest
wonders in the room—I see you’ve taken up our Camorri fashions!”
“This? Well, one of your clothiers seemed to believe he was taking pity on me; he
offered such a bargain I could not in good conscience refuse. This is by far the longest
I’ve ever been in Camorr; I decided I might as well attempt to blend in.”
“How splendid!”
“Yes, it is,” said Don Salvara, who strolled in fastening the buttons of his own coat
cuffs. “Much better than your black Vadran prisoner’s outfits.
Don’t get me wrong—they’re quite the thing for a northern clime, but down here they
look like they’re trying to strangle the wearer. Now, Lukas, what’s the status of
all the money we’ve been spending?”
“One galleon is definitely ours,” said Locke. “I have a crew and a suitable cargo;
I’ll supervise the loading myself over the next few days. It will be ready to depart
next week. And I have a promising lead on a second to accompany it, ready within the
same time frame.”
“A promising lead,” said Doña Sofia, “is not quite the same as ‘definitely ours,’
unless I am very much mistaken.”
“You are not, Doña Sofia.” Locke sighed and attempted to look as though he were ashamed
to bring up the issue once again. “There is some question … That is, the captain of
the second vessel is being tempted by an offer to carry a special cargo to Balinel—a
relatively long voyage but for a very decent price. He has, as yet, to commit to my
offers.”
“And I suppose,” said Don Lorenzo as he took a seat beside his wife, “that a few thousand
more crowns might need to be thrown at his feet to make him see reason?”
“I fear very much, my good Don Salvara, that shall be the case.”
“Hmmm. Well, we can speak of that in a moment. Here’s Conté; I should quite like to
show off what my lady has newly accomplished.”
Conté carried three silver bowls on a brass platter; each bowl held half an orange,
already sliced so the segments of flesh within the fruit could be drawn out with little
two-pronged forks. Conté set a bowl, a fork, and a linen napkin down on the tree-shelf
to Locke’s right. The Salvaras looked at him expectantly while their own orange halves
were laid out.
Locke worked very hard to conceal any trepidation he might have felt; he took the
bowl in one hand and fished out a wedge of orange flesh with the fork. When he set
it on his tongue, he was surprised at the tingling warmth that spread throughout his
mouth. The fruit was saturated with something alcoholic.
“Why, it’s been suffused with liquor,” he said, “something very pleasant. An orange
brandy? A hint of lemon?”
“Not suffused, Lukas,” said Don Lorenzo with a boyish grin that had to be quite genuine.
“These oranges have been served in their natural state. Sofia’s tree manufactures
its own liquor and mingles it in the fruit.”
“Sacred Marrows,” said Locke. “What an intriguing hybrid! To the best of my knowledge,
it has yet to be done with citrus.…”
“I only arrived at the correct formulation a few months ago,” said Sofia, “and some
of the early growths were quite unfit for the table. But this one
seems to have gone over well. Another few generations of tests, and I shall be very
confident of its marketability.”
“I’d like to call it the Sofia,” said Don Lorenzo. “The Sofia orange of Camorr—an
alchemical wonder that will make the vintners of Tal Verrar cry for their mothers.”
“I, for my part, should like to call it something else,” said Sofia, playfully slapping
her husband on his wrist.
“The Planting Masters,” said Locke, “will find you quite as wondrous as your oranges,
my lady. It is as I said: perhaps there is more opportunity in our partnership than
any of us have foreseen. The way you seem to make every green thing around you malleable … I
daresay that the character of the House of bel Auster for the next century could be
shaped more by your touch than by our old Emberlain traditions.”
“You flatter me, Master Fehrwight,” said the doña. “But let us not count our ships
before they’re in harbor.”
“Indeed,” said Don Lorenzo. “And on that note, I shall return us to business. Lukas,
I fear I have unfortunate news for you. Unfortunate, and somewhat embarrassing. I
have had … several setbacks in recent days. One of my upriver debtors has reneged
on a large bill; several of my other projections have proven to be overly optimistic.
We are, in short, not as fluid at the moment as any of us might hope. Our ability
to throw a few thousand more crowns into our mutual project is very much in doubt.”