Authors: Scott Lynch
“Go on.”
“The other benefit would be mutual. I want a job. I’m tired of running from city to
city chasing after work. I want to settle in Tal Verrar, find a home, maybe a woman.
After I help you deal with my current employer, I want to work for you, here.”
“As an entertainer, perhaps?”
“You need a floor boss, Requin. Tell me truly, are you as complacent about your security
as you were before I came up your stairs? I know how to cheat every single game that
can
be cheated here, and if I weren’t sharper than your attendants I’d already be dead.
Who better to keep your guests playing fairly?”
“Your request is … logical. Your willingness to shrug off your employer isn’t. Don’t
you fear their retribution?”
“Not if I can help you put us both beyond it. Identification is the problem. Once
identified, any man or woman in the world can be dealt with. You have every gang in
Tal Verrar under your thumb, and you have the ear
of the Priori. Surely you could make the arrangements if we could come up with names.”
“And your partner, Master de Ferra?”
“We’ve worked well together,” said Locke. “But we quarreled, not long ago, over an
intensely personal matter. He believes his insult is forgiven; I assure you it is
anything but. I want to be quits with him when our current employer is dealt with.
I want him to know before he dies that I’ve had the best of him. If possible, I’d
like to kill him myself. That and the job are my only requests.”
“Mmm. What do you think of all this, Selendri?”
“Some mysteries are better off with their throats slit,” she whispered.
“You might fear that I’m trying to displace you,” said Locke. “I assure you, when
I said floor boss I meant floor boss. I don’t want your job.”
“And you could never
have
it, Master Kosta, even if you did want it.” Requin ran his fingers down Selendri’s
right forearm and squeezed her undamaged hand. “I admire your boldness only to a point.”
“Forgive me, both of you. I had no intention of presuming too much. Selendri, for
what it’s worth, I agree with you. In your position, getting rid of me might seem
like wisdom. Mysteries
are
dangerous to people in our profession. I am no longer pleased with the mystery of
my employment. I want a more predictable life. What I ask and what I offer are straightforward.”
“And in return,” said Requin, “I receive possible insight into an alleged threat against
a vault I have enhanced by my own design to be impenetrable.”
“A few minutes ago, you expressed the same confidence concerning your attendants and
their ability to spot cardsharps.”
“Have you penetrated my vault security as thoroughly as you say you’ve danced around
my attendants, Master Kosta? Have you penetrated it at all?”
“All I need is time,” said Locke. “Give it to me and a way will make itself plain,
sooner or later. I’m not giving up because it’s too hard; I’m giving up because it
pleases me. But don’t just take my word on my sincerity; look into the activities
of Jerome and myself. Make inquiries about everything we’ve been doing in your city
for the past two years. We have made some progress that might open your eyes.”
“I shall,” said Requin. “And in the meantime, what am I to do with you?”
“Nothing extraordinary,” said Locke. “Make your inquiries. Keep your eyes on Jerome
and myself. Continue to let us play at your spire—I promise
to play more fairly, at least for the coming few days. Allow me to think on my plans
and gather whatever information I can about my anonymous employer.”
“Let you walk out of here, unscathed? Why not hold you somewhere secure, while I exercise
my curiosity about your background?”
“If you take me seriously enough to consider any part of my offer,” said Locke, “then
you must take the possible threat of my employer seriously as well. Any tip-off to
them that I’ve been compromised, and Jerome and I might be cast loose. So much for
your opportunity.”
“So much for your usefulness, you mean. I am to take a great deal on faith, from a
man offering to betray and kill his business partner.”
“You hold my purse, as surely as your desk held my hand. All the coin I have in Tal
Verrar, I keep here with your Sinspire. You may look for my name at any countinghouse
in the city, and you will not find it. I give you that leverage over me, willingly.”
“A man with a grudge, a genuine grudge, might piss on all the white iron in the world
for one chance at his real target, Master Kosta. I have been that target too many
times to forget this.”
“I am
not
crass,” said Locke, taking back one of his decks of cards from Requin’s desktop.
He shuffled it a few times without looking at it. “Jerome insulted me without good
cause. Pay me well and treat me well, and I will never give you any reason for displeasure.”
Locke whisked the top card off his desk, flipped it, and set it down faceup beside
the remnants of Requin’s dinner. It was the Master of Spires.
“I deliberately choose to throw in with you, if you’ll have me. Place a bet, Master
Requin. The odds are favorable.”
Requin pulled his optics out of his coat pocket and slipped them back on. He seemed
to brood over the card; nothing was said by anyone for some time. Locke sipped quietly
from his glass of wine, which had turned pale blue and now tasted of juniper.
“Why,” said Requin at last, “all other considerations aside, should I allow you to
violate the cardinal rule of my spire on your own initiative and suffer nothing in
exchange?”
“Only because I imagine that cheaters are ordinarily discovered by your attendants
while other guests are watching,” said Locke, attempting to sound as sincere and contrite
as possible. “Nobody knows about my confession, outside this office. Selendri didn’t
even tell your attendants why they were hauling me up here.”
Requin sighed, then drew a gold solari from within his scarlet coat and set it down
atop Locke’s Master of Spires.
“I shall hold fast with a small wager for now,” said Requin. “Do anything unusual
or alarming, and you will not survive long enough to reconsider. At the slightest
hint that anything you’ve told me has been a lie, I will have molten glass poured
down your throat.”
“Uh … that seems fair.”
“How much money do you currently have on the ledger here?”
“Just over three thousand solari.”
“Two thousand of that is no longer yours. It will remain on the ledger so Master de
Ferra doesn’t get suspicious, but I’m going to issue instructions that it is not to
be released to you. Consider it a reminder that my rules are not to be broken on anyone’s
recognition but my own.”
“Ouch. I suppose I should be grateful. I mean, I am. Thank you.”
“You walk on eggshells with me, Master Kosta. Step delicately.”
“Then I may go? And I may think of myself as in your service?”
“You may go. And you may consider yourself on my
sufferance
. We will speak again when I know more about your recent past. Selendri will accompany
you back down to the first floor. Get out of my sight.”
With an air of faint disappointment, Selendri folded the brass fingers of her artificial
hand up, until it was whole once again and the blades were hidden. She gestured toward
the stairs with that hand, and with the look in her good eye she told him precisely
how much patience she had to spare for him if Requin’s should start to wane.
JEAN TANNEN sat reading in a private booth at the Gilded Cloister, a club on the second
tier of the Savrola, just a few blocks down from the Villa Candessa. The Cloister
was a labyrinth of dark wood enclosures, well padded with leather and quilting, for
the benefit of diners wishing an unusual degree of solitude. The waitstaff, in their
leather aprons and drooping red caps, were forbidden to speak, answering all customer
requests with either a nod or a shake of the head.
Jean’s dinner, smoked rock eel in caramel brandy sauce, lay chopped into fragments
and scattered like debris from a battle. He was making his way slowly through dessert,
a cluster of marzipan dragonflies with crystallized sugar wings that glimmered by
the steady glow of the booth’s candles. He was absorbed in a leather-bound copy of
Lucarno’s
Tragedy of the Ten Honest Turncoats
, and he didn’t notice Locke until the smaller man was already seated across from
him in the booth.
“Leocanto! You gave me a start.”
“Jerome.” They both spoke in a near whisper. “You really were nervous, weren’t you?
Nose buried in a book to keep you from going mad. Some things never change.”
“I wasn’t nervous. I was merely reasonably concerned.”
“You needn’t have been.”
“Is it done, then? Am I successfully betrayed?”
“Quite betrayed. Absolutely sold out. A dead man walking.”
“Wonderful! And his attitude?”
“Guarded. Ideal, I’d say. Had he been too enthusiastic, I would be worried. And had
he not been enthusiastic at all, well …” Locke mimicked shoving a knife into his chest
and wiggling it several times. “Is this smoked eel?”
“Help yourself. It’s stuffed with apricots and soft yellow onions. Not entirely to
my taste.”
Locke took up Jean’s fork and helped himself to a few bites of the eel; he was more
partial to the stuffing than Jean had been. “We’re going to lose two-thirds of my
account, it seems,” he said after making some progress on the dish. “A tax on cheating
to remind me not to presume too much on Requin’s patience.”
“Well, it’s not as though we expected to get out of the city with the money in those
accounts. Might’ve been nice to have it for a few more weeks, at least.”
“True. But I think the alternative would have been desktop surgery, whether I needed
a hand amputated or not. What’re you reading?”
Jean showed him the title and Locke feigned choking. “Lucarno? Why is it always Lucarno?
You drag him everywhere we go, his damn romances. Your brains will go soft with that
mush. You’ll end up more fit for tending flower gardens than for running confidence
games.”
“Well,” said Jean, “I shall be sure to criticize your reading habits, Master Kosta,
should I ever see you develop any.”
“I’ve read quite a bit!”
“History and biography, mostly what Chains prescribed for you.”
“What could possibly be wrong with those subjects?”
“As for history, we are living in its ruins. And as for biographies, we are living
with the consequences of all the decisions ever made in them. I tend not to read them
for pleasure. It’s not unlike carefully scrutinizing the map when one has already
reached the destination.”
“But romances aren’t real, and surely never were. Doesn’t that take away some of the
savor?”
“What an interesting choice of words. ‘Not real, and never were.’ Could
there be any more appropriate literature for men of our profession? Why are you always
so averse to fiction, when we’ve made it our meal ticket?”
“I live in the real world,” said Locke, “and my methods are of the real world. They
are, just as you say, a profession. A practicality, not some romantic whim.”
Jean set the book down before him and tapped its cover. “This is where we’re headed,
Thorn
—or at least you are. Look for us in history books and you’ll find us in the margins.
Look for us in legends, and you might just find us celebrated.”
“Exaggerated, you mean. Lied about. Trumped up, or stamped down. The truth of anything
we do will die with us and nobody else will ever have a bloody clue.”
“Better that than obscurity! I recall you once had quite a taste for drama. For plays,
if nothing else.”
“Yes.” Locke folded his hands on the table and lowered his voice even further. “And
you know what happened to it.”
“Forgive me,” said Jean with a sigh. “I should have known better than to bring up
that particular redheaded subject once again.”
A waiter appeared at the entrance to the little booth, looking attentively at Locke.
“Oh, no,” said Locke, and set Jean’s fork back on the eel plate. “Nothing for me,
I’m afraid. I’m just here waiting for my friend to finish his little candy wasps.”
“Dragonflies.” Jean popped the last one into his mouth, swallowed it nearly whole,
and tucked his book away within his coat. “Give over the bill, and I’ll settle up
with you.”
The waiter nodded, cleared away the used dishes, and left a scrap of paper pinned
to a small wooden tablet.
“Well,” said Locke as Jean counted copper coins from his purse, “We’ve no responsibilities
for the rest of the evening. Requin is no doubt setting eyes on us as we speak. I
think a night or two of light relaxation would be in order, to avoid upsetting him.”
“Great,” said Jean. “Why don’t we wander around a bit, and maybe catch a boat over
to the Emerald Galleries? They’ve got coffeehouses there, and music. Would it be in
character for Leo and Jerome to get a bit tipsy and chase tavern dancers?”
“Jerome can murder as much ale as he likes, and bother tavern dancers until the sun
chases us home to bed. Leo will sit and watch the festivities.”
“Maybe play spot-the-shadow with Requin’s people?”
“Maybe. Damn, I wish we had Bug to lurk on a few rooftops for us. We could use a pair
of top-eyes; there’s not a trustworthy one in this damn city.”
“I wish we still had Bug, period,” said Jean with a sigh.
They made their way to the foyer of the club, chatting quietly of imaginary business
between Masters Kosta and de Ferra, batting little improvisations back and forth for
the sake of any prying ears. It was just after midnight when they stepped out into
the familiar quiet order and high walls of the Savrola. The place was artificially
clean—no knackers here, no blood in the alleys, no piss in the gutters. The gray brick
streets were well lit by silvery lanterns in swaying iron frames; the whole district
seemed framed in bright moonlight, though the sky tonight was occluded by a high ceiling
of dark clouds.