The Gentleman Bastard Series (106 page)

“Charity?”

“They have a roof over their heads, food to eat, and the chance of money. Those that earn the gold prizes seem to have no trouble taking their coin and leaving.”

“One in eighty wins a solari, m’lord. No doubt more money than they’ve ever seen at once in their lives. And for the other seventy-nine that gold is just a promise, holding them here day after day, week after week, default after default. And those that die because the Demons get out of hand? What good is gold or the promise of gold to them? Anywhere else, it would be plain murder.”

“It’s Aza Guilla that takes them from the arena floor, not you or I or anyone mortal, Fehrwight.” Genrusa’s brows were furrowed and his cheeks were reddening. “And yes, anywhere else, it might be plain murder. But this is Salon Corbeau, and they’re here of their own free will. As are you and I. They could simply choose not to come—”

“And starve and die elsewhere.”

“Please. I have seen the world, Master Fehrwight. I might recommend it to you for perspective. Certainly, some of them must be down on their luck. But I wager you’d find that most of them are just hungry for gold, hoping for an easy break. Look out at those on the arena floor now … quite a few young and healthy ones, aren’t there?”

“Who else might be expected to make the journey here on foot without extraordinary luck, m’lord Genrusa?”

“I can see there’s no talking sense to sentiment, Master Fehrwight. I’d thought you coin-kissers from Emberlain were a harder lot than this.”

“Hard perhaps, but not vulgar.”

“Now mind yourself, Master Fehrwight. I wanted a word because I was genuinely curious about your disposition; I think I can see now what it stems from. A bit of advice: Salon Corbeau might not be the healthiest place to harbor your sort of resentment.”

“My business here will be … shortly concluded.”

“All for the better, then. But perhaps your business at the Amusement War might be curtailed even sooner. I’m not the only one who’s taken an interest in you. Lady Saljesca’s guards are … sensitive about discontent.
Above
the arena floor as well as on it.”

I could leave you penniless and sobbing, whispered the voice in Locke’s head. I could have you pawning your piss-buckets to keep your creditors from slitting your throat.

“Forgive me, my lord. I will take what you say most seriously,” muttered Locke. “I doubt … that I shall trouble anyone here again.”

8

ON THE morning of Locke’s ninth day in Salon Corbeau, the Baumondains were finished with his chairs.

“They look magnificent,” said Locke, running his fingers lightly over the lacquered wood and padded leather. “Very fine, as fine as I had reason to hope. And the … additional features?”

“Built to your specifications, Master Fehrwight.
Exactly
to your specifications.” Lauris stood beside her father in the Baumondain workshop while ten-year-old Parnella was struggling to brew tea over an alchemical hearthstone, at a corner table covered in unidentifiable tools and half-empty jars of woodworking oils. Locke made a mental note to smell any tea offered to him very carefully before drinking.

“You have outdone yourselves, all of you.”

“We were, ah, financially inspired, Master Fehrwight,” said the elder Baumondain.

“I like building weird things,” Parnella added from the corner.

“Heh. Yes, I suppose these would qualify.” Locke stared at his suite of four matching chairs and sighed in mingled relief and aggravation. “Well, then. If you’d be so kind as to ready them for transport, I shall hire two carriages and take my leave this afternoon.”

“In that much of a hurry to leave?”

“I hope you’ll forgive me if I say that every unnecessary moment I spend in this place weighs on me. Salon Corbeau and I do not agree.” Locke removed a leather purse from his coat pocket and tossed it to Master Baumondain. “An additional twenty solari. For your silence, and for these chairs to never have existed. Is this clear?”

“I … well, I’m sure we can accommodate your request.… I must say, your generosity is—”

“A subject that needs no further discussion. Humor me, now. I’ll be gone soon enough.”

So that’s all, said the voice in Locke’s head. Stick to the plan. Leave this all behind, and do nothing, and return to Tal Verrar with my tail between my legs.

While he and Jean enriched themselves at Requin’s expense and cheated their way up the luxurious floors of the Sinspire, on the stone floor of Lady Saljesca’s arena the defaults would go on, and the faces of the spectators would be the same, day after day. Children tearing the wings from insects to laugh at how they flailed and bled … and stepping on one every now and again.

“Thieves prosper,” muttered Locke under his breath. He tightened his neck-cloths and prepared to go summon his carriages, feeling sick to his stomach.

CHAPTER FIVE

ON A CLOCKWORK RIVER

1

THE GLASS-FRONTED TRANSPORT BOX erupted out of the Mon Magisteria’s waterfall once again and slid home with a lurch just inside the palace. Water hissed through iron pipes, the high gates behind the box slammed shut, and the attendants pushed the front doors open for Locke, Jean, and Merrain.

A dozen Eyes of the Archon were waiting for them in the entrance hall. They fell in wordlessly on either side of Locke and Jean as Merrain led them forward.

Though not to the same office as before, it seemed. Locke glanced around from time to time as they passed through dimly lit halls and up twisting staircases. The Mon Magisteria was truly more fortress than palace; the walls outside the grand hall were devoid of decoration, and the air smelled mainly of humidity, sweat, leather, and weapon oils. Water rumbled through unseen channels behind the walls. Occasionally they would troop past servants, who would stand with their backs to the wall and their heads bowed toward their feet until the Eyes were past.

Merrain led them to an iron-reinforced door in a nondescript corridor several floors up from the entrance. Faint silver moonlight could be seen rippling through an arched window at the far end of the hall.… Locke squinted and realized that a stream of water from the palace’s circling aqueducts was falling down the glass.

Merrain pounded on the door three times. When it opened with a click, allowing a crack of soft yellow light into the hall, she dismissed the Eyes
with a wave of her hand. As they marched away down the corridor, she pushed the door open slightly and pointed toward it with her other hand.

“At last. I might have hoped to see you sooner. You must have been away from your usual haunts when Merrain found you.” Stragos looked up from where he sat, on one of only two chairs in the small, bare room, and shuffled the papers he’d been examining. His bald attendant sat on the other with several files in hand, saying nothing.

“They were having a bit of trouble on the inner docks of the Great Gallery,” said Merrain as she closed the door behind Locke and Jean. “A pair of fairly motivated assassins.”

“Really?” Stragos seemed genuinely annoyed. “What business might that be in relation to?”

“I only wish we knew,” said Locke. “Our chance for an interrogation took a crossbow bolt in the chest when Merrain showed up.”

“The woman was about to stick one of these two with a poisoned knife, Protector. I thought you’d prefer to have them both intact for the time being.”

“Hmmm. A pair of assassins. Were you at the Sinspire tonight?”

“Yes,” said Jean.

“Well, it wouldn’t be Requin, then. He’d simply have taken you while you were there. So it’s some other business. Something you should have told me about before, Kosta?”

“Oh, begging your pardon, Archon. I thought that between your little friends the Bondsmagi and all the spies you must have slinking about at our backsides, you’d know more than you do.”

“This is serious, Kosta. I aim to make use of you; it doesn’t suit my needs to have someone else’s vendetta on my hands. You don’t know who might have sent them?”

“Truthfully, we have no bloody clue.”

“You left the bodies of these assassins on the docks?”

“The constables have them by now, surely,” said Merrain.

“They’ll throw the bodies in the Midden Deep, but first they’ll inter them at the death-house for a day or two,” said Stragos. “I want someone down there to have a look at them. Note their descriptions, plus any tattoos or other markings that might be meaningful.”

“Of course,” said Merrain.

“Tell the officer of the watch to see to that now. You’ll know where to find me when you’re finished.”

“Your will … Archon.” Merrain looked as though she might say something else, then turned, opened the door, and hurried out.

“You called me Kosta,” said Locke when the door had slammed closed once again. “She doesn’t know our real names, does she? Curious. Don’t you trust your people, Stragos? Seems like it’d be easy enough to get your hooks into them the same way you got them into us.”

“I’ll wager,” said Jean, “that you never take up your master’s offer of a friendly drink when you’re off duty, eh, baldy?” Stragos’ attendant scowled but still said nothing.

“By all means,” said Stragos lightly, “taunt my personal alchemist, the very man responsible for me ‘getting my hooks into you,’ not to mention the preparation of your antidotes.”

The bald man smiled thinly. Locke and Jean cleared their throats and shuffled their feet in unison, a habit they’d synchronized as boys.

“You seem a reasonable fellow,” said Locke. “And I for one have always found a hairless brow to be a noble thing, sensible in every climate.…”

“Shut up, Lamora. Do we have the people we need, then?” Stragos passed his papers over to his attendant.

“Yes, Archon. Forty-four of them, all told. I’ll see that they’re moved by tomorrow evening.”

“Good. Leave us the vials and you may go.”

The man nodded and gathered his papers. He handed two small glass vials over to the archon, then left without another word, sliding the door respectfully closed behind him.

“Well, you two.” Stragos sighed. “You seem to attract attention, don’t you? You’re certain you’ve
no
idea who else might be trying to kill you? Some old score to settle from Camorr?”

“There are so
many
old scores to settle,” said Locke.

“There would be, wouldn’t there? Well, my people will continue to protect you as best they can. You two, however, will have to be more … circumspect.”

“That sentiment is not exactly unprecedented,” said Locke.

“Confine your movements to the Golden Steps and the Savrola until further notice. I’ll have extra people placed on the inner docks; use those when you must travel.”

“Gods damn it, we can
not
operate like that! For a few days, perhaps, but not for the rest of our stay in Tal Verrar, however long it might be.”

“In that, you’re more right than you know, Locke. But if someone else is after you, I can’t let it interfere with my needs. Curtail your movements or I’ll have them curtailed for you.”

“You said there’d be no further complication of our game with Requin!”

“No, I said that the
poison
wouldn’t further complicate your game with Requin.”

“You seem pretty confident of our good behavior for a man who’s all alone with us in a little stone room,” said Jean, taking a step forward. “Your alchemist’s not coming back, is he? Nor Merrain?”

“Should I be worried? You’ve absolutely nothing to gain by harming me.”

“Except immense personal satisfaction,” said Locke. “You
presume
that we’re in our right minds. You
presume
that we give a shit about your precious poison, and that we wouldn’t tear you limb from limb on general principle and take the consequences afterward.”

“Must we do this?” Stragos remained seated, one leg crossed over the other, a mildly bored expression on his face. “It occurred to me that the two of you might be stubborn enough to nurse a bit of mutiny in your hearts. So listen carefully—if you leave this room without me, the Eyes in the hall outside will kill you on sight. And if you otherwise harm me in any way, I repeat my earlier promise. I’ll revisit the same harm on one of you, tenfold, while the other is forced to watch.”

“You,” said Locke, “are a goat-faced wad of slipskinner’s shit.”

“Anything’s possible,” said Stragos. “But if you’re thoroughly in my power, pray tell me, what does that make you?”

“Downright embarrassed,” muttered Locke.

“Very likely. Can you, both of you, set aside this childish need to avenge your self-regard and accept the mission I have for you? Will you hear the plan and keep civil tongues?”

“Yes.” Locke closed his eyes and sighed. “I suppose we truly have no choice. Jean?”

“I wish I didn’t have to agree.”

“Just so long as you do.” Stragos stood up, opened the door to the corridor, and beckoned for Locke and Jean to follow. “My Eyes will see you along to my gardens. I have something I want to show the two of you … while we speak more privately about your mission.”

“What exactly do you intend to do with us?” asked Jean.

“Simply put, I have a navy riding at anchor in the Sword Marina, accomplishing little. Inasmuch as I still depend on the Priori to help pay and provision it, I can’t send it out in force without a proper excuse.” Stragos smiled. “So I’m going to send
you two
out onto the sea to find that excuse for me.”

“Out to
sea
?” said Locke. “Are you out of your fu—”

“Take them to my garden,” said Stragos, spinning on his heel.

2

IT WAS less a garden than a forest, stretching for what must have been hundreds of yards on the northern side of the Mon Magisteria. Hedges entwined with softly glowing Silver Creeper vines marked the paths between the swaying blackness of the trees; by some natural alchemy the vines shed enough artificial moonlight for the two thieves and their guards to step easily along the gravel paths. The moons themselves were out, but had now fallen behind the looming fifteen-story darkness of the palace itself and could not be seen from Locke and Jean’s position.