The Gentleman Bastard Series (39 page)

“Felice, please,” he said. “This was a bad idea.”

“You’re tense,” whispered Felice. “You’ve obviously got something on your mind, and that cut on your arm—it can’t be helping at all. Let me try a few things more. I’m always up for a … professional challenge.”

“I can’t imagine anything would help.”

“Hmmm.” Locke could hear the pout in her voice, though her face was little more than soft slashes of shadow in the red half-light. “There’s wines, you know. Alchemical ones, from Tal Verrar. Aphrodisiacs. Not cheap, but they do work.” She rubbed his stomach, toying with the slender line of hair that ran down its center. “They can work
miracles
.”

“I don’t need wine,” he said distantly, grabbing her hand and moving it away from his skin. “Gods, I don’t know what I need.”

“Allow me to make a suggestion, then.” She moved herself up on the bed until she was crouched beside his chest, on her knees. With one confident
motion (for there was real muscle under those curves) she flipped him over onto his stomach and began kneading the muscles of his neck and back, alternating gentle caresses and firm pressure.

“Suggestion … ow … accepted …

“Locke,” Felice said, losing the breathy, anything-to-please-you bedroom voice that was one of the cherished illusions of her trade, “you do know that the attendants in the waiting chambers tell us
exactly
what each client requests when they give us assignments?”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Well, I know you specifically asked for a redhead.”

“Which … ow, lower please … which means?”

“There’s only two of us in the Lilies,” she said, “and we get that request every now and again. But the thing is, some men want any redhead in
general
, and some men want one redhead in
particular
.”

“Oh …”

“Those that want a redhead in general have their fun and go their way. But you … you want one redhead in
particular
. And I’m not her.”

“I’m sorry. I said it’s not your fault.”

“I know. That’s
ever
so gracious of you.”

“And I’m happy paying anyways.”

“And that’s
also
sweet.” She chuckled. “But you’d be taking it up with the room full of armed men if you didn’t, not just worrying about hurting my poor feelings.”

“You know,” Locke said, “I think I prefer you like this to all that ‘how may I please you master’ bullshit earlier.”

“Well, some men
like
a straightforward whore. Some don’t want to hear anything but how wonderful they are.” She worked at his neck muscles with the bases of her palms. “It’s all business. But like I said, you seem to be pining for someone. And now that you’ve remembered yourself, I won’t do.”

“Sorry.”

“No need to keep apologizing to me. You’re the one whose lady-love ran halfway across the continent.”

“Gods.” Locke groaned. “Find me a single person in Camorr who doesn’t know, and I’ll give you a hundred crowns, I swear.”

“It’s just something I heard from one of the Sanzas.”

“One of the Sanzas? Which one?”

“Couldn’t say. They’re so hard to tell apart in the dark.”

“I’m going to cut their gods-damned tongues out.”

“Oh, tsk.” She ruffled his hair. “Please don’t. Us girls have a use for those, at least.”

“Hmmmph.”

“You poor, sweet idiot. You
do
have it bad for her. Well, what can I say, Locke? You’re fucked.” Felice laughed softly. “Just not by me.”

INTERLUDE

Brat Masterpieces

1

The summer after Jean came to the Gentlemen Bastards, Father Chains took him and Locke up to the temple roof one night after dinner. Chains smoked a paper-wrapped sheaf of Jeremite tobacco while the sunlight sank beneath the horizon and the caught fire of the city’s Elderglass rose glimmering in its place.

That night, he wanted to talk about the eventual necessity of cutting throats.

“I had this talk with Calo and Galdo and Sabetha last year,” he began. “You boys are investments, in time and treasure both.” He exhaled ragged crescents of pale smoke, failing as usual to conjure full rings. “Big investments. My life’s work, maybe. A pair of brat masterpieces. So I want you to remember that you can’t always smile your way around a fight. If someone pulls steel on you, I expect you to survive. Sometimes that means giving back in kind. Sometimes it means running like your ass is on fire.
Always
it means knowing which is the right choice—and that’s why we’ve got to talk about your inclinations.”

Chains fixed Locke with a stare while he took a long, deliberate drag on his sheaf—the final breath of a man treading in unpleasant water, preparing to go under the surface.

“You and I both know that you have multiple talents, Locke, genuine
gifts for a great many things. So I have to give this to you straight. If it comes down to hard talk with a real foe, you’re nothing but a pair of pissed breeches and a bloodstain. You can kill, all right, that’s the gods’ own truth, but you’re just not made for stand-up, face-to-face bruising. And you
know
it, right?”

Locke’s red-cheeked silence was an answer in itself. Suddenly unable to look Father Chains in the eyes, he tried to pretend that his feet were fascinating objects that he’d never seen before.

“Locke, Locke, we can’t all be mad dogs with a blade in our hands, and it’s nothing to sob about, so let’s not see that lip of yours quivering like an old whore’s tits, right? You
will
learn steel, and you’ll learn rope, and you’ll learn the alley-piece. But you’ll learn them sneak-style. In the back, from the side, from above, in the dark.” Chains grabbed an imaginary opponent from behind, left hand round the throat, right hand thrusting at kidney-level with his half-smoked sheaf for a dagger. “All the twists, because fighting wisely
will
keep you from getting cut to mince.”

Chains pretended to wipe the blood from his ember-tipped “blade,” then took another drag. “That’s that. Put it in your hat and wear it to town, Locke. We need to face our shortcomings head-on. The old saying for a gang is ‘Lies go out, but the truth stays home.’ ” He forced twin streams of smoke from his nostrils, and cheered up visibly as the tails of gray vapor swirled around his head. “Now quit acting like there’s a fucking naked woman on your shoes, will you?”

Locke did grin at that, weakly, but he also looked up and nodded.

“Now, you,” Chains said, turning to regard Jean. “We all know you’ve got the sort of temper that cracks skulls when it’s off the leash. We’ve got a properly evil brain in Locke here, a fantastic liar. Calo and Galdo are silver at all trades and gold at none. Sabetha’s the born queen of all the charmers that ever lived. But what we
don’t
have yet is a plain old bruiser. I think it could be you, a stand-up brawler to keep your friends out of trouble. A real rabid-dog bastard with steel in your hand. Care to give it a go?”

Jean’s eyes were immediately drawn down to the fascinating spectacle of his own feet. “Um, well, if you think that would be good, I can try.…”

“Jean, I’ve seen you angry.”

“I’ve
felt
you angry,” said Locke, grinning.

“And give me some credit for being five times your fucking age, Jean. You don’t smolder and you don’t make threats; you just go cold, and then you make things
happen
. Some folks are made for hard situations.” He drew smoke from his sheaf once again, and flicked white ashes to the
stones beneath his feet. “I think you have the knack for smacking brains out of heads. That’s neither good nor bad in itself, but it’s something we can use.”

Jean seemed to think this over for a few moments, but Locke and Chains could both see the decision already made in his eyes. They had gone hard and hungry under his black tangle of hair, and his nod was just a formality.

“Good, good! Thought you’d like the idea, so I took the liberty of making arrangements.” He produced a black leather wallet from one of the pockets of his coat and handed it over to Jean. “Half past noon tomorrow, you’re expected at the House of Glass Roses.”

Locke and Jean both widened their eyes at the mention of Camorr’s best-known and most exclusive school of arms. Jean flipped the sigil-wallet open. Inside was a flat token, a stylized rose in frosted glass, fused directly onto the inner surface of the leather. With this, Jean could pass north over the Angevine and past the guardposts to the Alcegrante islands. It placed him under the direct protection of Don Tomsa Maranzalla, Master of the House of Glass Roses.

“That rose will get you over the river and up among the swells, but don’t fuck around once you’re up there. Do what you’re told; go straight there and come straight back. You go four times a week from now on. And for
all
our sakes, tame that mess on top of your head. Use fire and a poleaxe if you have to.” Chains took a final drag of evergreen-scented smoke from his rapidly disappearing sheaf, then flicked the butt up and over the roof wall. His last exhalation of the night sailed over the heads of the two boys, a wobbly but otherwise fully formed ring.

“Fuck me! An omen.” Chains reached after the drifting ring as though he could pluck it back for examination. “Either this scheme is fated to work out, or the gods are pleased with me for engineering your demise, Jean Tannen. I love a win-win proposition. Now don’t you two have work to do?”

2

IN THE House of Glass Roses, there was a hungry garden.

The place was Camorr in microcosm; a thing of the Eldren, left behind for men to puzzle over—a dangerous treasure discarded like a toy. The Elderglass that mortared its stones rendered it proof against all human arts, much like the Five Towers and a dozen other structures scattered over
the islands of the city. The men and women who lived in these places were squatters in glory, and the House of Glass Roses was the most glorious, dangerous place on the Alcegrante slopes. That Don Maranzalla held it was a sign of his high and lasting favor with the duke.

Just before the midpoint of the noon hour the next day, Jean Tannen stood at the door of Don Maranzalla’s tower: five cylindrical stories of gray stone and silver glass, a hulking fastness that made the lovely villas around it look like an architect’s scale models. Great waves of white heat beat down from the cloudless sky, and the air was heavy with the slightly beery breath of a city river boiling under long hours of sun. A frosted glass window was set into the stone beside the tower’s huge lacquered oaken doors, behind which the vague outline of a face could be discerned. Jean’s approach had been noted.

He’d gone north over the Angevine on a glass catbridge no wider than his hips, clinging to the guide ropes with sweaty hands for all six hundred feet of the crossing. There were no large bridges to the south bank of the Isla Zantara, second most easterly of the Alcegrante isles. Ferry rides were a copper half-baron. For those too poor to ride, that left the ecstatic terror of the catbridges. Jean had never been aloft on one before, and the sight of more experienced men and women ignoring the ropes as they crossed at speed had turned his bowels to ice water. The feel of hard pavement beneath his shoes had been a blessed relief when it came again.

The sweat-soaked yellowjackets on duty at the Isla Zantara gatehouse had let Jean pass far more quickly than he’d thought possible, and he’d seen the mirth drain from their ruddy faces the moment they recognized the sigil he carried. Their directions after that had been terse; was it pity that tinged their voices, or fear?

“We’ll look for you, boy,” one of them suddenly called after him as he started up the clean white stones of the street, “if you come back down the hill again!”

Mingled pity
and
fear, then. Had Jean really been enthusiastic for this adventure as recently as the night before?

The creak and rattle of counterweights heralded the appearance of a dark crack between the twin doors before him. A second later, the portals swung wide with slow majesty, muscled outward by a pair of men in bloodred waistcoats and sashes, and Jean saw that each door was half a foot of solid wood backed with iron bands. A wave of scents washed out over him: humid stone and old sweat, roasting meat and cinnamon incense. Smells of prosperity and security, of life within walls.

Jean held his wallet up to the men who’d opened the door, and one of them waved a hand impatiently. “You’re expected. Enter as a guest of Don Maranzalla and respect his house as you would your own.”

Against the left-hand wall of the opulent foyer, a pair of curlicue staircases in black iron wound upward; Jean followed the man around and up one set of narrow steps, self-consciously trying to keep his sweating and gasping under control. The tower doors were pulled shut beneath them with an echoing slam.

They wound their way up past three floors of glittering glass and ancient stone, decorated with thick red carpets and innumerable stained tapestries that Jean recognized as battle flags. Don Maranzalla had served as the duke’s personal swordmaster and the commander of his blackjackets for a quarter of a century. These bloody scraps of cloth were all that remained of countless companies of men fate had thrown against Nicovante and Maranzalla in fights that were now legend: the Iron Sea Wars, the Mad Count’s Rebellion, the Thousand-Day War against Tal Verrar.

At last, the winding stair brought them up into a small dim room, barely larger than a closet, lit by the gentle red glow of a paper lantern. The man placed one hand on a brass knob and turned to look down at Jean.

“This is the Garden Without Fragrance,” he said. “Step with care, and touch nothing as you love life.” Then he pushed the door to the roof open, letting in a sight so bright and astounding that Jean rocked backward on his heels.

The House of Glass Roses was more than twice as wide as it was tall, so the roof must have been at least one hundred feet in diameter, walled in on all sides. For a frightful moment, Jean thought he stood before a blazing, hundred-hued alchemical fire. All the stories and rumors had done nothing to prepare him for the sight of this place beneath the full light of a white summer sun; it seemed as though liquid diamond pulsed through a million delicate veins and scintillated on a million facets and edges. Here was an entire rose garden, wall after wall of perfect petals and stems and thorns, silent and scentless and alive with reflected fire—for it was all carved from Elderglass, a hundred thousand blossoms perfect down to the tiniest thorn. Dazzled, Jean stumbled forward and stretched out a hand to steady himself. When he forced his eyes closed the darkness was alive with afterimages like flashes of heat lightning.