The Gentleman Bastard Series (37 page)

“She was stung by a scorpion hawk,” Locke said. “The talon marks beside the wounds are clear. She would have been dead almost instantly.”

“So he merely … 
pickled
her, afterward,” Barsavi whispered. “To increase the insult. To cut me more cruelly.”

“I’m sorry,” said Locke. “I know it … it can’t be much comfort.”

“If you’re right, it was a much quicker death.” Barsavi pulled the cloth back up over her head, running his fingers through her hair one last time before he covered her completely. “If that is the only comfort I can pray that my little girl received, I will pray for it. That gray bastard will receive no such comfort when his time comes. I swear it.”

“Why would he do this?” Locke ran both of his hands through his hair, wide-eyed with agitation. “It doesn’t make any sense. Why her, why now?”

“He can tell you himself,” said Barsavi.

“What? I don’t understand.”

Capa Barsavi reached into his vest and drew out a folded piece of parchment. He passed it over to Locke, who opened the fold and saw that a note was scribed there in a clean, even hand:

BARSAVI

FOR THE NECESSITY OF WHAT WAS DONE, WE APOLOGIZE, THOUGH IT WAS DONE TO FACILITATE YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF OUR POWER, AND THEREFORE YOUR COOPERATION.
WE EARNESTLY DESIRE A MEETING WITH YOURSELF, MAN TO MAN IN ALL COURTESY, TO SETTLE ONCE AND FOR ALL BETWEEN US THIS MATTER OF CAMORR. WE SHALL BE IN ATTENDANCE AT THE ECHO HOLE, AT THE ELEVENTH HOUR OF THE EVENING, ON THE DUKE’S DAY THREE NIGHTS HENCE. WE SHALL BE ALONE AND UNARMED, THOUGH YOU FOR YOUR PART MAY BRING AS MANY COUNSELORS AS YOU WISH, AND YOU MAY ARM THEM AS YOU WISH. MAN TO MAN, WE MAY DISCUSS OUR SITUATION—AND WITH THE KIND FAVOR OF THE GODS, PERHAPS ABJURE THE NEED FOR YOU TO LOSE ANY MORE OF YOUR LOYAL SUBJECTS, OR ANY MORE OF YOUR OWN FLESH AND BLOOD.

“I don’t believe it,” said Locke. “Meet in good faith, after this?”

“He cannot be Camorri,” said Barsavi. “I have become Camorri, in my years here. I am more of this place than many who were born here. But this man?” Barsavi shook his head vigorously. “He cannot understand what an infamy he has done to ‘get my attention’; what an insult my sons and I must bear if I negotiate with him. He wastes his time with his letter—and look, the royal ‘we.’ What an affectation!”

“Your Honor … what if he
does
understand what he’s done?”

“The possibility is very remote, Locke.” The capa chuckled sadly. “Or else he would not have done it.”

“Not if you presume that the meeting at the Echo Hole is an ambush. That he wants to get you off the Floating Grave and into a place where he has prepared some real harm for you.”

“Your prudence again.” Barsavi smiled without humor. “The thought has occurred to me, Locke. But if he wanted me dead, why not strike from surprise months ago, before he started killing my
garristas
? No, I believe he genuinely thinks that if he frightens me enough, I will negotiate in good faith. I am indeed going to the Echo Hole. We shall have our meeting. And for my counselors, I will bring my sons, my Berangias sisters, and a hundred of my best and my cruelest. And I will bring you and your friend Jean.”

Locke’s heart beat against the inside of his chest like a trapped bird. He wanted to scream.

“Of course,” he said. “Of course! Jean and I will do anything you ask. I’m grateful for the opportunity.”

“Good. Because the only negotiation we’ll be doing is with bolt, blade, and fist. I’ve got a surprise for that gray piece of shit, if he thinks to dictate terms to
me
over the body of my only daughter!”

Locke ground his teeth together.
I know what can bring him out from that soggy fortress of his
, the Gray King had said.

“Capa Barsavi,” said Locke, “have you considered … well, the things they say about the Gray King? He can kill men with a touch, he can walk through walls; he can’t be harmed by blades or by arrows.…”

“Stories told in wine. He does as I did, when I first took this city; he hides himself well and he chooses his targets wisely.” The capa sighed. “I admit that he is good at it, perhaps as good as I was. But he’s not a ghost.”

“There is another possibility,” said Locke, licking his lips. How much of what was said here might reach the Gray King’s ears? He’d unraveled the secrets of the Gentlemen Bastards thoroughly enough.
To hell with him
. “The possibility of a … Bondsmage.”

“Aiding the Gray King?”

“Yes.”

“He’s been vexing my city for months, Locke. It might explain some things, yes, but the price … Even I could not pay a Bondsmage for that length of time.”

“Scorpion hawks,” said Locke, “aren’t just created by the Bondsmagi. As far as I know, only Bondsmagi
themselves
keep them. Could an ordinary … falconer train a bird that could kill him with one accidental sting?”
Bullshit well
, he thought.
Bullshit very well
. “The Gray King wouldn’t need to have kept one this whole time. What if the Bondsmage is newly arrived? What if the Bondsmage has only been hired for the next few days, the critical point of whatever the Gray King’s scheme is? The rumors about the Gray King’s powers … could have been spread to prepare for all of this.”

“Fantastical,” said Barsavi, “and yet it would explain much.”

“It would explain why the Gray King is willing to meet you alone and unarmed. With a Bondsmage to shield him, he could appear both yet be neither.”

“Then my response is unchanged.” Barsavi squeezed one fist inside the other. “If one Bondsmage can best a hundred knives—including you and I, my sons, my Berangias sisters, your friend Jean and his hatchets—then the Gray King has chosen his weapons better than I. But for my part, I do
not
imagine that he has.”

“You will keep the possibility in mind?” Locke persisted.

“Yes. I shall.” Barsavi placed a hand on Locke’s shoulder. “You must forgive me, my boy. For what has happened.”

“There’s nothing to forgive, Your Honor.”
When the capa changes the subject
, thought Locke,
the subject is finished
. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“It is my war. It’s me the Gray King truly wishes to cut.”

“You offered me a great deal, sir.” Locke licked his lips, which had suddenly gone dry. “I’d very much like to help you kill the bastard.”

“So we shall. At the ninth hour of the evening, on Duke’s Day, we begin to gather. Anjais will come to fetch you and Tannen at the Last Mistake.”

“What of the Sanzas? They’re good with knives.”

“And with cards, or so I hear. I like them well enough, Locke, but they’re fiddlers. Amusers. I’m taking serious folk for serious business.”

“As you say.”

“Now.” Barsavi took a silk handkerchief from his vest pocket and slowly mopped his brow and cheeks with it. “Leave me, please. Come back tomorrow night, as a priest. I’ll have all my other priests of the Benefactor. We’ll give her … a proper ritual.”

Despite himself, Locke was flattered. The capa had known that all of Father Chains’ boys were initiates of the Benefactor, and Locke a full priest, but he’d never before asked for Locke’s blessing in any official sense.

“Of course,” he said quietly.

He withdrew then, leaving the capa standing in the bloody morning light, leaving him all alone at the heart of his fortress, for the second time, with nothing but a corpse for company.

2

“GENTLEMEN,” SAID Locke, huffing and puffing as he closed the door to the seventh-floor rooms behind him. “We have done our bit for appearances this week; let’s all work out of the temple until further notice.”

Jean was sitting in a chair facing the door, hatchets resting on his thigh, with his battered old volume of
The Korish Romances
in his hands. Bug was snoring on a sleeping pallet, sprawled in one of those utterly careless positions that give instant arthritis to all save the very young and foolish. The Sanzas were sitting against the far wall, playing a desultory hand of cards; they looked up as Locke entered.

“We are released from one complication,” said Locke, “and flung headlong into another. And this bitch has teeth.”

“What news?” said Jean.

“The worst sort.” Locke dropped into a chair, threw back his head, and closed his eyes. “Nazca’s dead.”

“What?” Calo leapt to his feet; Galdo wasn’t far behind. “How did that happen?”

“The Gray King happened. It must have been the ‘other business’ he referred to when I was his guest. He sent the body back to her father in a vat of horse piss.”

“Gods,” said Jean. “I’m so sorry, Locke.”

“And now,” continued Locke, “you and I are expected to accompany the Capa when he avenges her, at the ‘clandestine meeting’ three nights hence. Which will be at the Echo Hole, by the way. And the capa’s idea of ‘clandestine’ is a hundred knives charging in to cut the Gray King to bloody pieces.”

“Cut
you
to bloody pieces, you mean,” said Galdo.

“I’m well aware of who’s supposed to be strutting around wearing the Gray King’s clothes, thanks very much. I’m just debating whether or not I should hang an archery butt around my neck. Oh, and wondering if I can learn to split myself in two before Duke’s Day.”

“This entire situation is insane.” Jean slammed his book shut in disgust.

“It was insane before; now it’s become malicious.”

“Why would the Gray King kill Nazca?”

“To get the capa’s attention.” Locke sighed. “Either to frighten him, which it certainly hasn’t accomplished, or to piss him off beyond all mortal measure, which it has.”

“There will never be peace, now. The capa will kill the Gray King or get himself killed trying.” Calo paced furiously. “Surely the Gray King must realize this. He hasn’t facilitated negotiations; he’s made them impossible. Forever.”

“The thought had crossed my mind,” said Locke, “that the Gray King may not be telling us everything concerning this scheme of his.”

“Out the Viscount’s Gate, then,” said Galdo. “We can spend the afternoon securing transportation and goods. We can pack up our fortune; vanish onto the road. Fuck, if we can’t find somewhere to build another life with forty-odd thousand crowns at our fingertips, we don’t deserve to live. We could buy titles in Lashain; make Bug a count and set ourselves up as his household.”

“Or make ourselves counts,” said Calo, “and set Bug up as our household. Run him back and forth. It’d be good for his moral education.”

“We can’t,” said Locke. “We have to presume the Gray King can follow us wherever we go, or, perhaps more accurately, that his Bondsmage can. So long as the Falconer serves him, we can’t run. At least not as a first option.”

“What about as a second?” asked Jean.

“If it comes to that … we might as well try. We can get things ready, and if we absolutely must run for the road, well, we’ll put ourselves in harness and pull with the horses if we have to.”

“Which leaves only the conundrum,” said Jean, “of which commitment to slip you out of, the night of this meeting at the Echo Hole.”

“No conundrum,” said Locke. “The Gray King has it over us; Barsavi we
know
we can fool. So I’ll play the Gray King and figure out some way to ease us out of our commitment to the capa without getting executed for it.”

“That would be a good trick,” said Jean.

“But what if it’s not necessary?” Calo pointed at his brother. “One of
us
can play the Gray King, and you and Jean can stand beside Barsavi as required.”

“Yes,” said Galdo, “an excellent idea.”

“No,” said Locke. “For one thing, I’m a better false-facer than either of you, and you know it. You two are just slightly too conspicuous. It can’t be risked. For another, while I’m playing the Gray King, you two will be forgotten by everyone. You’ll be free to move around as you like. I’d rather have you waiting with transportation at one of our meeting spots, in case things go sour and we do need to flee.”

“And what about Bug?”

“Bug,” said Bug, “has been faking snoring for the past few minutes. And I know the Echo Hole; I used to hide there sometimes when I was with the Shades’ Hill gang. I’ll be down there under the floor, beside the waterfall, watching for trouble.”

“Bug,” said Locke, “you’ll—”

“If you don’t like it, you’ll have to lock me in a box to stop me. You need a spotter, and the Gray King didn’t say you couldn’t have friends lurking. That’s what I do. I
lurk
. None of you can do it like I can, because you’re all bigger and slower and creakier and—”

“Gods,” said Locke. “My days as a
garrista
are numbered; Duke Bug is dictating the terms of his service. Very well, Your Grace. I’ll give you a role that will keep you close at hand—but you lurk where I
tell
you to lurk, right?”

“Bloody right!”

“Then it’s settled,” said Locke. “And if no one else has a pressing need for me to imitate the great and powerful, or a friend of mine they’d like to murder, I could use some sleep.”

“It’s too gods-damned bad about Nazca,” said Galdo. “The son of a
bitch
.”

“Yes,” said Locke. “In fact, I’m going to speak to him about it this very evening. Him or his pet sorcerer, whichever thinks to come.”

“The candle,” said Jean.

“Yeah. After you and I finish our business, and after Falselight. You can wait down in the Last Mistake. I’ll sit up here, light it, and wait for them to show.” Locke grinned. “Let
those
fuckers enjoy the walk up our stairs.”

3

THE DAY turned out clear and pleasant, the evening as fresh as they ever came in Camorr. Locke sat in the seventh-floor rooms with the windows open and the mesh screens down as the purple sky lit up with rising streamers of ghostly light.

The Falconer’s candle smoldered on the table beside the remains of Locke’s small dinner and a half-empty bottle of wine. The other half of that bottle was warming Locke’s stomach as he sat, facing the door, massaging the fresh dressing Jean had insisted on wrapping his arm with before taking up his post in the Last Mistake.