The Gentleman Bastard Series (105 page)

The crowd broke into wild applause at that; the man on the arena floor was pushed up to the wall by the chief Demon. “Start licking, scum!”

His first efforts were halfhearted. Another Demon produced a whip that ended in seven knotted cords and lashed the man across the shoulders, knocking him into the wall hard enough to bloody his nose. “Earn your fucking pay, worm,” screamed the Demon, whipping him once again. “Haven’t you ever had a lady tell you to get down and use your tongue before?”

The man ran his tongue desperately up and down the wall, gagging every few seconds, which would bring another crack of the Demon’s whip. The man was a bleeding, retching nervous wreck by the time he was finally hauled from the arena floor.

So it went, all morning long.

“Gods, why do they bear it? Why do they take this?” Locke stood in the free gallery, alone, staring out at the wealthy and powerful, at their guards and servants, and at the thinning ranks of the living pieces in the game beneath them. He brooded, sweating in his heavy black garments.

Here were the richest and freest people in the Therin world, those with positions and money but no political duties to constrict them, gathered together to do what law and custom forbade beyond Saljesca’s private fiefdom—to humiliate and brutalize their lessers however they saw fit, for their own gleeful amusement. The arena and the Amusement War itself were obviously just frames. Means to an end.

There was no order to it, no justice. Gladiators and prisoners fighting before a crowd were there for a reason, risking their lives for glory or paying the price for having been caught. Men and women hung from a gibbets because the Crooked Warden had only so much help to give to the foolish, the slow, and the unlucky. But this was wanton.

Locke felt his anger growing like a chancre in his guts.

They had no idea who he was or what he was really capable of. No idea what the
Thorn of Camorr
could do to them, unleashed on Salon Corbeau,
with Jean to aid him! Given months to plan and observe, the Gentlemen Bastards could take the place
apart
, find ways to cheat the Amusement War, surely—rob the participants, rob the Lady Saljesca, embarrass and humiliate the bastards, blacken the demi-city’s reputation so thoroughly that nobody would ever want to visit again.

But …

“Crooked Warden,” Locke whispered, “why now? Why show me this
now
?”

Jean was waiting for him back in Tal Verrar, and they were already neckdeep in a game that had taken a year to put together. Jean didn’t know anything about what really went on at Salon Corbeau. He would be expecting Locke to return in short order with a set of chairs, so the two of them could carry on with the plan they’d agreed to, a plan that was already desperately delicate.

“Gods damn it,” said Locke. “Gods damn it all to hell.”

5

CAMORR, YEARS before. The wet, seeping mists enclosed Locke and Father Chains in curtains of midnight gray as the old man led the boy back home from his first meeting with Capa Vencarlo Barsavi. Locke, drunk and sweat-soaked, clung to the back of his Gentled goat for dear life.

“… you don’t belong to Barsavi,” Chains said. “He’s good enough for what he is, a good ally to have on your side, and a man that you must appear to obey at all times. But he certainly doesn’t own you. In the end, neither do I.”

“So I don’t have to—”

“Obey the Secret Peace? Be a good little
pezon
? Only for pretend, Locke. Only to keep the wolves from the door. Unless your eyes and ears have been stitched shut with rawhide these past two days, by now you must have realized that I intend you and Calo and Galdo and Sabetha to be nothing less,” Chains confided through a feral grin, “than a fucking ballista bolt right through the heart of Vencarlo’s precious Secret Peace.”

“Uh …” Locke collected his thoughts for several moments. “Why?”

“Heh. It’s … complicated. It has to do with what I am, and what I hope you’ll someday be. A priest in the sworn service of the Crooked Warden.”

“Is the Capa doing something wrong?”

“Well,” said Chains, “well, lad, now there’s a question. Is he doing right by the Right People? Gods, yes—the Secret Peace tames the city watch, calms everyone down, gets less of us hung.

“Still, every priesthood has what we call mandates: laws handed down by the gods themselves to those who serve them. In most temples, these are complex, messy, annoying things. In the priesthood of the Benefactor, things are easy. We only have two. The first one is
thieves prosper
. Simple as that. We’re ordered to aid one another, hide one another, make peace whenever possible, and see to it that our kind flourishes, by hook or by crook. Barsavi’s got that mandate covered, never doubt that.

“But the second mandate,” said Chains, lowering his voice and glancing around into the fog to make doubly sure that they were not overheard, “is this—
the rich remember
.”

“Remember what?”

“That they’re not invincible. That locks can be picked and treasures can be stolen. Nara, Mistress of Ubiquitous Maladies, may Her hand be stayed, sends disease among men so that men will never forget that they are not gods. We’re sort of like that, for the rich and powerful. We’re the stone in their shoe, the thorn in their side, a little bit of reciprocity this side of divine judgment. That’s our second mandate, and it’s as important as the first.”

“And … the Secret Peace protects the nobles, and so you don’t like it?”

“It’s not that I don’t like it.” Chains mulled his next few words over before he let them out. “Barsavi’s not a priest of the Thirteenth. He’s not sworn to the mandates like I am; he’s got to be practical. And while I can accept that, I can’t just let it go. It’s my divine duty to see that the blue bloods with their pretty titles get a little bit of what life hands the rest of us as a matter of routine—a nice, sharp jab in the ass every now and again.”

“And, Barsavi … doesn’t need to know about this?”

“Bleeding shits, no. As I see it, if Barsavi takes care of
thieves prosper
and I look after
the rich remember
, this’ll be one holy, holy city in the eyes of the Crooked Warden.”

6

“WHY DO they bear it? I know they get paid, but the defaults! Gods … er, Holy Marrows, why do they come here and put up with it? Humiliated, beaten, stoned, befouled … to what end?”

Locke paced agitatedly around the Baumondain family’s workshop, clenching and unclenching his fists. It was the afternoon of his fourth day in Salon Corbeau.

“As you said, they get paid, Master Fehrwight.” Lauris Baumondain rested one hand gently on the back of the half-finished chair Locke had
come in to see. With the other she stroked poor motionless Lively, tucked away inside a pocket of her apron. “If you’re selected for a game, you get a copper centira. If you’re given a default, you get a silver volani. There’s also a random drawing; one person per war, one in eighty, gets a gold solari.”

“They must be desperate,” said Locke.

“Farms fail. Businesses fail. Tenant lands get repossessed. Plagues knock all the money and health out of cities. When they’ve got nowhere else to come, they come here. There’s a roof to sleep under, meals, hope of gold or silver. All you have to do is go out there often enough and … amuse them.”

“It’s perverse. It’s infamous.”

“You have a soft heart, for what you’re spending on just four chairs, Master Fehrwight.” Lauris looked down and wrung her hands together. “Forgive me. I spoke well out of turn.”

“Speak as you will. I’m not a rich man, Lauris. I’m just my master’s servant. But even he … We’re frugal people, damn it. Frugal and fair. We might be eccentric, but we’re not cruel.”

“I’ve seen nobles from the Marrows at the Amusement War many times, Master Fehrwight.”

“
We’re
not nobles. We’re merchants … merchants of Emberlain. I can’t speak for our nobles, and often don’t want to. Look, I’ve seen many cities. I know how people live. I’ve seen gladiatorial fights, executions, misery and poverty and desperation. But I’ve never seen
anything
like that—the faces of those spectators. The way they watched and cheered. Like jackals, like crows, like something … something so very
wrong
.”

“There are no laws here but Lady Saljesca’s laws,” said Lauris. “Here they can behave however they choose. At the Amusement War they can do
exactly
what they want to do to the poor folk and the simple folk. Things forbidden elsewhere. All you’re seeing is what they look like when they stop pretending they give a damn about anything. Where do you think Lively came from? I saw a noblewoman having kittens Gentled so her sons could torture them with knives. Because they were
bored at tea
. So welcome to Salon Corbeau, Master Fehrwight. I’m sorry it’s not the paradise it looks like from a distance. Does our work on the chairs meet with your approval?”

“Yes,” said Locke slowly. “Yes, I suppose it does.”

“If I were to presume to give you advice,” said Lauris, “I’d suggest that you stay away from the Amusement War for the rest of your stay. Do what the rest of us here do. Ignore it. Paint a great cloud of fog over it in your mind’s eye and pretend that it’s not there.”

“As you say, Madam Baumondain.” Locke sighed. “I might just do so.”

7

BUT LOCKE could not stay away. Morning, afternoon, and evening, he found himself in the public gallery, standing alone, eating and drinking nothing. He saw crowd after crowd, war after war, humiliation after humiliation. The Demons made gruesome mistakes on several occasions; beatings and stranglings got out of control. Those aspirants who were accidentally roughed up beyond hope of recovery had their skulls crushed on the spot, to the polite applause of the crowd. It would not do to be unmerciful.

“Crooked Warden,” Locke muttered to himself the first time it happened. “They don’t even have a priest … not a single one.…”

He realized, dimly, what he was doing to himself. He felt the stirring within, as though his conscience were a deep, still lake with a beast struggling to rise to its surface. Each brutal humiliation, each painful default excitedly decreed by some spoiled noble child while their parents laughed in appreciation, gave strength to that beast as it beat itself against his better judgment, his cold calculation, his willingness to
stick to the plan
.

He was trying to make himself angry enough to give in.

The Thorn of Camorr had been a mask he’d halfheartedly worn as a game. Now it was almost a separate entity, a hungry thing, an increasingly insistent ghost prying at his resolve to stand up for the mandate of his faith.

Let me out, it whispered. Let me out. The rich must remember. By the gods, I can make damn sure they never forget.

“I hope you’ll pardon my intrusion if I observe that you don’t seem to be enjoying yourself!”

Locke was snapped out of his brooding by the appearance of another man in the free gallery. The stranger was tanned and fit-looking, perhaps five or six years older than Locke, with brown curls down to his collar and a precisely trimmed goatee. His long velvet coat was lined with cloth-of-silver, and he held a gold-topped cane behind his back with both hands.

“But forgive me. Fernand Genrusa, peer of the Third, of Lashain.”

Peer of the third order—a baron—a purchased Lashani patent of nobility, just as Locke and Jean had toyed with possibly acquiring. Locke bent slightly at the waist and inclined his head. “Mordavi Fehrwight, m’lord. Of Emberlain.”

“A merchant, then? You must be doing well for yourself, Master Fehrwight, to take your leisure here. So what’s behind your long face?”

“What makes you think I’m displeased?”

“You stand here alone, taking no refreshment, and you watch each new war with such an expression on your face … as though someone were slipping hot coals into your breechclout. I’ve seen you several times from my own gallery. Are you losing money? I might be able to share some insights I’ve cultivated on how to best place wagers at the Amusement War.”

“I have no wagers outstanding, m’lord. I am merely … unable to stop watching.”

“Curious. Yet it does not please you.”

“No.” Locke turned slightly toward Baron Genrusa and swallowed nervously. Etiquette demanded that a lowborn like Mordavi Fehrwight, and a Vadran at that, should defer even to a banknote baron like Genrusa and offer no unpleasant conversation, but Genrusa seemed to be inviting explanation. Locke wondered how much he might get away with. “Have you ever seen a carriage accident, m’lord, or a man run over by a team of horses? Seen the blood and wreckage and been completely unable to take your eyes off the spectacle?”

“I can’t say that I have.”

“There I would beg to differ. You have a private gallery to see it three times a day if you wish. M’lord.”

“Ahhhh. So you find the Amusement War, what, undecorous?”

“Cruel, m’lord Genrusa. Most uncommonly cruel.”

“Cruel? Compared to what? War? Times of plague? Have you ever seen Camorr, by chance? Now there’s a basis for comparison that might have you thinking more soundly, Master Fehrwight.”

“Even in Camorr,” said Locke, “I don’t believe anyone is allowed to beat old women in broad daylight on a whim. Or tear their clothes off, stone them, rape them, slash their hair off, splash them with alchemical caustics.… It’s like … like children tearing off an insect’s wings. So they might watch and laugh.”

“Who forced them to come here, Fehrwight? Who put a sword to their backs and made them march all the way to Salon Corbeau along those hot, empty roads? That pilgrimage takes days from anywhere worthy of note.”

“What choice do they have, m’lord? They’re only here because they’re desperate. Because they could not sustain themselves where they were. Farms fail, businesses fail … it’s desperation, is all. They cannot simply decide not to eat.”

“Farms fail, businesses fail, ships sink, empires fall.” Genrusa brought his cane out from behind his back and punctuated his statements by gesturing at Locke with the gold head. “That’s life, under the gods, by the will
of the gods. Perhaps if they’d prayed harder, or saved more, or been less thoughtless with what they had, they wouldn’t need to come crawling here for Saljesca’s charity. Seems only fair that she should require most of them to earn it.”