The Lies of Locke Lamora (28 page)

“Right. If you say so.”

“Yes, I say so. Come back the day after tomorrow. We’ll scheme. We’ll slip this noose. Now go tend to your boys. And be
careful
.”

Locke stepped back out into the entrance hall, and Nazca pushed the doors shut behind him; he stared back at her as the space between the black doors narrowed, gradually sealing her off from view until they slammed shut with the click of tumbling locks. He could have sworn she winked just before the heavy black doors closed between them.

“…and this is the card you picked. The six of spires,” said Calo, holding up a card and displaying it for the entrance-hall guards.

“Fuck me,” said one of them, “that’s sorcery.”

“Nah, it’s just the old Sanza touch.” Calo reshuffled his deck one-handed and held it out toward Locke. “Care to give it a go, boss?”

“No thanks, Calo. Pack up, lads. Our business here is finished for the day, so let’s quit bothering the folks with the crossbows.” He punctuated this with hand gestures:
Major complications; discuss elsewhere.

“Damn, I’m hungry,” said Jean, picking up the cue. “Why don’t we get something at the Last Mistake and take it up to our rooms?”

“Yeah,” said Bug. “Beer and apricot tarts!”

“A combination so disgusting I feel oddly compelled to actually try it.” Jean swatted the smallest Gentleman Bastard on the back of his head, then led the way as the gang made for the slender wooden path that tied the Floating Grave to the rest of the world.

SAVE CAPA Barsavi (who imagined that Locke’s gang merely continued sitting the steps a few days of the week even with Chains in his grave), no Right People of Camorr knew that the Gentlemen Bastards still worked out of the House of Perelandro. Calo and Galdo and Bug let rooms at various points in and around the Snare, moving every few months. Locke and Jean had maintained the fiction of rooming together for several years. By a great stroke of luck (though whether it was good or ill had yet to be determined, really) Jean had managed to get them the rooms on the seventh floor of the Broken Tower.

The night was dark and full of rain, and none of the gang were particularly eager to make their way back onto the creaking exterior stairs that staggered down the north side of the tower. Hissing rain rattled the window shutters, and the wind made an eerie rising-and-falling sigh as it passed over the gaps and crevices in the old tower. The Gentlemen Bastards sat on floor cushions in the light of paper lanterns and nursed the last of their beer, the pale sweet sort that most Camorr natives preferred to the bitter Verrari dark. The air was stuffy, but at least tolerably dry.

Locke had given them the whole story over dinner.

“Well,” said Galdo, “this is the damnedest damn thing that ever dammed things up for us.”

“I say again,” said Jean, “that we should pull an early blow-off on the Don Salvara game and get ready to ride out a storm. This Gray King business is getting scary, and we can’t have our attention diverted if Locke’s going to be mixed up at the middle of things.”

“Where do we cut ourselves off?” asked Calo.

“We cut ourselves off now,” said Jean. “Now, or after we get one more note out of the don. No later.”

“Mmmm.” Locke stared down at the dregs in the bottom of his tin cup. “We’ve worked hard for this one. I’m confident we can run it for another five or ten thousand crowns, at least. Maybe not the twenty-five thousand we were hoping to squeeze out of Salvara, but enough to make ourselves proud. I got the crap kicked out of me, and Bug jumped off a building for this money, you know.”

“And got rolled two miles inside a bloody barrel!”

“Now, Bug,” said Galdo, “it’s not as though the nasty old barrel jumped you in an alley and forced you to crawl inside it. And I concur with Jean. I said it this afternoon, Locke. Even if you won’t seriously consider using them, can we at least make some arrangements to get you under cover in a hurry? Maybe even out of town?”

“I still can’t believe I’m hearing a Sanza counsel caution,” Locke said with a grin. “I thought we were richer and cleverer than everyone else.”

“You’ll hear it again and again when there’s a chance you’ll get your throat slit, Locke.” Calo picked up his brother’s argument. “I’ve changed my mind about the Gray King, that’s for damn sure. Maybe the lone lunatic
does
have it over the three thousand of us. You might be one of his targets. And if Barsavi wants you even tighter with his inner circle, it invites further trouble.”

“Can we set aside talk of slitting throats, just for a moment?” Locke rose and turned toward the shuttered seaward window. He pretended to stare out of it with his hands folded behind his back. “Who are we, after all? I admit I was almost ready to jump into the gods-damned bay when the capa sprang this on me. But I’ve had time to think, so get this straight—we’ve got the old fox dead to rights. We’ve got him in the
palms of our hands
. Honestly, boys. We’re so good at what we do that he’s asking the
Thorn
of fucking
Camorr
to
marry his daughter
. We’re so far in the clear it’s
comical
.”

“Nonetheless,” said Jean, “it’s a complication that could mess up our arrangements
forever
, not an accomplishment we can crow about.”

“Of course we can crow about it, Jean. I’m going to crow about it right now. Don’t you see? This is
nothing
we don’t do every day. It’s a plain old Gentlemen Bastards sort of job—only we’ll have Nazca working with me to pull it off as well. We can’t lose. I’m no more likely to marry her than I am to be named Duke Nicovante’s heir tomorrow morning.”

“Do you have a plan?” Jean’s eyes said he was curious but wary.

“Not even remotely. I don’t have the
first damned clue
what we’re going to do. But all my
best
plans start just like this.” Locke tipped the last of his beer down his throat and tossed the tin cup against the wall. “I’ve had my beer and I’ve had my apricot tarts, and I say the hell with them both, Gray King
and
Capa Barsavi. Nobody’s going to scare us out of our Don Salvara game, and nobody’s going to hitch me and Nazca against our will. We’ll do what we always do—wait for an opening, take it, and fucking well
win
.”

“Uh…well.” Jean sighed. “Will you at least let us take a few precautions? And will you watch yourself, coming and going?”

“Naturally, Jean, naturally. You grab us some places on likely ships; spend whatever you have to. I don’t care where they’re going as long as it’s not Jerem. We can lose ourselves anywhere for a few weeks and creep back when we please. Calo, Galdo, you get out to the Viscount’s Gate tomorrow. Leave some considerations for the boys in yellow so we can get out of the city at an awkward hour if we need to. Don’t be shy with the silver and gold.”

“What can I do?” asked Bug.

“You can watch our backs. Keep your eyes wide open. Skulk around the temple. Spot me anyone out of place, anyone who lingers too long. If anyone is trying to keep an eye on us, I
guarantee
we will go to ground and vanish like piss into the ocean. Until then, trust me. I promise to do most of my moving around as Lukas Fehrwight for the next few days; I can swap in some cheaper disguises, too.”

“Then I suppose that’s that,” Jean said quietly.

“Jean, I can be your
garrista
or I can just be the fellow who buys beer and tarts when everyone else mysteriously misplaces their purses.” Locke eyed the gathering with an exaggerated scowl. “I can’t be both; it’s one or the other.”

“I’m nervous,” said Jean, “because I don’t like having as little information as I fear we do. I share Nazca’s suspicions. The Gray King has something up his sleeves, something we don’t understand. Our game is very delicate and our situation is very…fluid.”

“I know. But I follow my gut, and my gut says that we meet this one head-on with smiles on our faces. Look,” said Locke, “the more we do this, the more I learn about what I think Chains was really training us for. And
this
is it. He wasn’t training us for a calm and orderly world where we could pick and choose when we needed to be clever. He was training us for a situation that was
fucked up on all sides
. Well, we’re in it, and I say we’re equal to it. I don’t need to be reminded that we’re up to our heads in dark water. I just want you boys to remember that we’re the gods-damned
sharks
.”

“Right on,” cried Bug. “I knew there was a reason I let you lead this gang!”

“Well, I can’t argue with the manifest wisdom of the boy that jumps off temple roofs. But I trust my points are noted,” said Jean.

“Very noted,” said Locke. “Received, recognized, and duly considered with the utmost gravity. Sealed, notarized, and firmly imprinted upon my rational essence.”

“Gods, you really are cheerful about this, aren’t you? You only play vocabulary games when you feel genuinely sunny about the world.” Jean sighed, but couldn’t keep the slightest hint of a smile from tugging at the corners of his lips.

“If you do end up in danger, Locke,” said Calo, “you must understand that we will ignore the orders of our
garrista
, and we’ll bludgeon our
friend
on the back of his thick skull and smuggle him out of Camorr in a box. I have just the bludgeon for the job.”

“And I have a box,” said Galdo. “Been hoping for an excuse to use it for years, really.”

“Also noted,” said Locke, “with thanks. But by the grace of the Crooked Warden, I choose to trust
us
. I choose to trust Chains’ judgment. I choose to keep doing what we do best. Tomorrow, I’ve got some work to do as Fehrwight, and then I’ll go see Nazca again the day after. The capa will be expecting it, and I’m sure she’ll have some ideas of her own by then.”

Locke thought once again of his last glimpse of her, that wink as the two great doors of dark wood slammed shut between them. Maintaining her father’s secrets was Nazca’s entire life. Did it mean something for her, to have one of her own that she could keep from him?

The Boy Who Cried for a Corpse

FATHER CHAINS gave Locke no respite from his education on the day after the visit to the Last Mistake. With his head still pounding from a brown-sugar rum headache, Locke began to learn about the priesthood of Perelandro and the priesthood of the Benefactor. There were hand signs and ritual intonations; methods of greeting and meanings behind robe decorations. On his fourth day in Chains’ care, Locke began to sit the steps as one of the “Initiates of Perelandro,” clad in white and trying to look suitably humble and pathetic.

As the weeks passed, the breadth of Chains’ instruction expanded. Locke did two hours of reading and scribing each day; his pen-scratchings grew smoother step by halting step until the Sanza brothers announced that he no longer wrote “like a dog with an arrow in its brain.” Locke was moved enough by their praise to dust their sleeping pallets with red pepper. The Sanzas were distraught when their attempted retaliation was foiled by the utter paranoia Locke still carried with him from his experiences in Shades’ Hill and the Catchfire plague; it was simply impossible to sneak up on him or catch him sleeping.

“The brothers have never before met their match in mischief,” said Chains as he and Locke sat the steps one particularly slow day. “Now they’re wary of you. When they start coming to you for
advice
, well…that’s when you’ll know that you have them tamed.”

Locke had smiled and said nothing; just that morning Calo had offered to give Locke extra help with his sums if the smallest Gentleman Bastard would
only
tell the twins how he kept spotting their little booby traps and rendering them harmless.

Locke revealed precious few of his survival tricks, but he did accept the help of both Sanzas in his study of arithmetic. His only reward for each accomplishment was a more complex problem from Chains. At the same time, he began his education in spoken Vadran; Chains would issue simple commands in the language, and once Locke was reasonably familiar with the tongue Chains often forbade the three boys to speak anything else for hours at a time. Even their dinner conversation was conducted in the harsh and illogical language of the north. To Locke, it often seemed impossible to say anything in Vadran that didn’t sound angry.

“You won’t hear this among the Right People, much, but you’ll hear it on the docks and among the merchants, that’s for damn sure,” said Chains. “And when you hear someone speaking it, don’t ever let on that you know it unless you absolutely have to. You’d be surprised how arrogant some of those northern types are when it comes to their speech. Just play dumb, and you never know what they might let slip.”

There was more instruction in the culinary arts; Chains had Locke slaving away at the cooking hearth every other night, with Calo and Galdo vigorously henpecking him in tandem. “This is
vicce alo apona
, the fifth Beautiful Art of Camorr,” said Chains. “Guild chefs learn all eight styles better than they learn the uses of their own cocks, but you’ll just get the basics for now. Mind you, our basics piss on everyone else’s best. Only Karthain and Emberlain come close; most Vadrans wouldn’t know fine cuisine from rat shit in lamp oil. Now, this is Pinch-of-Gold Pepper, and this is Jereshti olive oil, and just behind them I keep dried cinnamon-lemon rind….”

Locke stewed octopus and boiled potatoes; he sliced pears and apples and alchemical hybrid fruit that oozed honey-scented liquor. He spiced and seasoned and bit his tongue in furious concentration. He was frequently the architect of gruesome messes that were hauled out behind the temple and fed to the goat. But as he improved at everything else required of him, he improved steadily at the hearth; soon the Sanzas ceased to tease him and began to trust him as an assistant with their own delicate creations.

One night about half a year after his arrival at the House of Perelandro, Locke and the Sanzas collaborated on a stuffed platter of infant sharks; this was
vicce enta merre
, the first Beautiful Art, the cuisine of sea-creatures. Calo gutted the soft-skinned little sharks and stuffed them with red and yellow peppers, which had in turn been stuffed with sausage and blood-cheese by Locke. The tiny staring eyes of the creatures were replaced with black olives. Once the little teeth were plucked out, their mouths were stuffed with glazed carrots and rice, and their fins and tails were cut off to be boiled in soup. “Ahhh,” said Chains when the elaborate meal was settling in four appreciative gullets, “now that was genuinely excellent, boys. But while you’re cleaning up and scouring the dishes, I only want to hear you speaking Vadran….”