The Gentleman Bastard Series (167 page)

“Has everything gone more smoothly for you ladies and gentlemen since last night?” asked Requin.

“Fighting’s ended in the Sword Marina,” said Jacantha Tiga, youngest of the Inner Seven. “The navy is on the leash.”

“The Mon Magisteria is ours,” said Lyonis Cordo, standing in for his father. “All of Stragos’ captains are in custody, except for two captains of intelligence—”

“We can’t have another fucking Ravelle incident,” said a middle-aged Priori.

“I’ve got people working on that issue myself,” said Requin. “They won’t go to ground within the city, I can promise that much.”

“The ambassadors from Talisham, Espara, and the Kingdom of the Seven Marrows have publicly expressed confidence in the leadership of the council,” said Tiga.

“I know,” said Requin, smiling. “I forgave them some rather substantial debts last night, and suggested that they might make themselves useful to the new regime. Now, what about the Eyes?”

“About half of them are alive and in custody,” said Cordo. “The rest are dead, with just a few thought to be trying to stir up resistance.”

“They won’t get far,” said Tiga. “Loyalty to the old archonate won’t buy food or beer. I expect they’ll turn up dead here and there once they annoy the regulars too much.”

“We’ll have the rest quietly gotten rid of over the next few days,” said Cordo.

“Now, I wonder,” said Requin, “if that’s really so very wise. The Eyes of the Archon represent a significant pool of highly trained and committed people. Surely there’s got to be a better use for them than filling graves.”

“They were loyal to Stragos alone—”

“Or perhaps to Tal Verrar, were you to ask them.” Requin placed a hand over his heart. “My patriotic duty compels me to point this out.”

Cordo snorted. “They were his shock troops, his bodyguards, his torturers. They’re useless to us, if not actively seditious.”

“Perhaps, for all of his vaunted military understanding, our dear departed archon employed the Eyes inefficiently,” said Requin. “Perhaps the business with the faceless masks was too much. They might have been better off in plainclothes, as an enhancement to his intelligence apparatus, rather than terrorizing people as his enforcers.”

“Maybe for
his
sake,” said Tiga. “Had he done so, that intelligence apparatus might have foiled our move against him yesterday. It was a close thing.”

“Still,” said Cordo, “hard to keep a kingdom when you no longer have a king.”

“Yes,” said Tiga, “we’re all so very impressed, Cordo. Subtly mention your involvement in passing as often as you like, please.”

“At least I—”

“And more difficult
still
to keep a kingdom,” interrupted Requin, “when you discard perfectly good tools left behind by the king.”

“Forgive us our density,” said Saravelle Fioran, a woman nearly as old as Marius Cordo, “but what precisely are you driving at, Requin?”

“Merely that the Eyes, properly vetted and retrained, could be a significant asset to Tal Verrar, if used not as shock troops but as … a secret constabulary?”

“Says the man in charge of the very people such a force would be charged with hunting down,” scoffed Cordo.

“Younger Cordo,” said Requin, “those are also the ‘very people’ whose interference with your family business is kept to an acceptable minimum through my involvement. They are the very people who were instrumental in delivering our victory yesterday—carrying your messages, filling the streets to detain army reinforcements, distracting Stragos’ most loyal officers while some of you were allowed to approach this affair with the air of amateurs dabbling at lawn bowling.”

“Not I—,” said Cordo.

“No, not you. You did fight. But I flaunt my hypocrisy with a smile on my face, Lyonis. Don’t you dare pretend, here in our highest privacy, that your disdain somehow absolves you for your involvement with the likes of me. You don’t want to imagine a city with crime
unregulated
by the likes of me! As for the Eyes, I am not asking, I am telling. Those few who were true fanatics for Stragos can conveniently trip and land on swords, yes. The rest are too useful to throw away.”

“On what grounds,” said Tiga, “do you presume to lecture—”

“On the grounds that six of the seven people sitting here have seen fit to store goods and funds at the Sinspire vault. Items that, let us be frank, need not ever reappear in the event that I begin to feel anxious about our relationship.

“I have an investment in this city, the same as you. I would not take kindly to having a foreign power interrupt my affairs. To give Stragos his due, I cannot imagine that the army and navy in your hands will inspire a great deal of awe in our enemies, given what happened last time the Priori governed during a war. Therefore I see fit to hedge all of our bets.”

“Surely we could discuss this in just a few days,” said Lyonis.

“I think not. Inconveniences like our surviving Eyes have a habit of disappearing before arguments can broaden, don’t they? It’s a busy time. Messages might be lost, or misconstrued, and I’m sure there’d be a perfectly plausible reason for whatever happened.”

“So what do you want?” asked Fioran.

“If you’re going to take the Mon Magisteria as an administrative center for our shiny new government, I would imagine that a suite of offices would be a good start. Something nice and prestigious, before all the nice ones are gone. Plus I’ll expect a rudimentary operating budget by the end of the week; I’ll set down the rough finnicking myself. Salaries for the next year. Speaking of which, I will expect at least three or four positions within the hierarchy of this new organization to be placed entirely at my discretion. Salaries in the range of ten to fifteen solari per annum.”

“So you can pass out sinecures to some of your jumped-up thieves,” said Lyonis.

“So I can aid them in their transition to life as respectable citizens and defenders of Tal Verrar, yes,” said Requin.

“Will this be your
own
transition to life as a respectable citizen?” asked Tiga.

“Here I thought I already was,” said Requin. “Gods, no. I have no desire to turn away from the responsibilities I currently enjoy. But it just so happens
that I have an ideal candidate in mind to head our new organization. Someone who shares my qualms about the manner in which Stragos employed his Eyes, and should be taken all the more seriously for the fact that she used to
be
one.”

Selendri couldn’t help smiling as the Priori turned in their seats to stare at her.

“Now, Requin, hold on,” said Cordo.

“I see no need,” said Requin. “I don’t believe your six fellows are actually going to deny me this very minor and very patriotic request, are they?”

Cordo looked around, and Selendri knew what he was seeing on the faces of the other Priori; if he formally tried to stop this, he would be alone, and he would weaken not only his father’s borrowed position but his own future prospects.

“I think her starting compensation should be something handsome, rather handsome,” said Requin cheerfully. “And of course she’ll require use of official carriages and barges. An official residence; Stragos had dozens of houses and manors at his disposal. Oh, and I think her office at the Mon Magisteria should be the nicest and most prestigious of all. Don’t you?”

They kissed one another for a very long time, alone in the office once the Priori had left in various states of bemusement, worry, and aggravation. As he usually did, Requin removed his gloves to run the brown, pocked skin of his hands over her, over the matching scar tissue on her left-hand side as well as the healthy flesh on her right.

“There you are, my dear,” he said. “I know you’ve been chafing here for some time, running up and down these tower steps, fetching and bowing for drunkards of quality.”

“I’m still sorry for my failure to—”

“Our failure was entirely shared,” said Requin. “In fact, I fell for Kosta and de Ferra’s line of bullshit harder than you did—you retained your suspicion the whole way. Left to your own devices, you would have thrown them out the window early on and avoided the entire mess at the end, I’m sure.”

She smiled.

“And those smirking Priori assume I’m inflicting one last grand sinecure on them where you’re concerned.” Requin ran his fingers through her hair. “Gods, are they in for a surprise. I can’t wait to see you in action. You’ll build something that will make my little coteries of
felantozzi
look tawdry.”

Selendri stared around at the wreckage of the office. Requin laughed. “I
suppose,” he said, “that I have to admire the audacious little shits. To spend two years planning such a thing, and then the business with the chairs … and with my seal! My, Lyonis was throwing a fit.…”

“I’d have thought you’d be furious,” said Selendri.

“Furious? I suppose I am. I was rather fond of that suite of chairs.”

“I know how long you worked to acquire those paintings—”

“Ah, the paintings, yes.” Requin grinned mischievously. “Well, as for that … the walls have been left somewhat underdecorated. How would you like to go down to the vault with me to start fetching out the real ones?”

“What do you mean, the real ones?”

EPILOGUE

RED SEAS UNDER RED SKIES

1

“What the hell do you mean, ‘reproductions’?”

Locke sat in a comfortable, high-backed wooden chair in the study of Acastus Krell, Fine Diversions dealer of Vel Virazzo. He wrapped both hands around his slender glass of lukewarm tea to avoid spilling it.

“Surely you can’t be unfamiliar with the term, Master Fehrwight,” said Krell. The old man would have been sticklike if not for the grace of his movements; he paced his study like a dancer in a stage production, manipulated his magnifying lenses like a duelist striking a pose. He wore a loose brocaded gown of twilight-blue silk, and as he looked up now the hairless gleam of his head emphasized the eerily penetrating nature of his stare. This study was Krell’s lair, the center of his existence. It lent him an air of authority.

“I am,” said Locke, “in the matter of furniture, but as for paintings—”

“It’s a rarer thing, to be sure, but there can be no doubt. I have never actually seen the original versions of these ten paintings, gentlemen, but there are
critical
incongruities in the pigments, brushstrokes, and general weathering of their surfaces. They are not genuine art objects of the Talathri Baroque.”

Jean absorbed this morosely, hands folded before him, saying nothing and ignoring his tea. Locke tasted bile in the back of his throat.

“Explain,” he said, struggling to keep his temper in check.

Krell sighed, his own aggravation clearly tempered by sympathy for their situation. “Look,” he said, carefully holding up one of the paintings
they’d stolen, an image of Therin Throne nobles seated at a gladiatorial game, receiving the tribute of a mortally wounded fighter. “Whoever painted this is a master artisan, a fantastically patient and skillful individual. It would have required hundreds of hours per painting, and the work must have been done with full access to the originals. Obviously, the … gentleman from which you procured these objects had qualms about exposing the originals to danger. I’d wager my house and all of its gardens that they’re in his vault.”

“But the … incongruities. How can you know?”

“The master artists patronized by the last court of the Therin Throne had a secret means to distinguish their works from those produced by artists serving lesser patrons. A fact not known outside the emperor’s court until years after it fell. In their paintings, Talathri’s chosen masters and their associates would deliberately create a very slight visual flaw in one corner of the work, by using brushstrokes whose size and direction jarred with those immediately surrounding them. The imperfection that proclaims perfection, as it were. Like the beauty mark some Vadrans favor for their ladies.”

“And you can tell this at a glance?”

“I can tell well enough when I find no hint of it anywhere, on any of these ten works.”

“Damnation,” said Locke.

“It suggests to me,” said Krell, “that the artist who created these—or their employer—so genuinely admired the original works that they refused to counterfeit their hidden marks of distinction.”

“Well, that’s very heartwarming.”

“I can tell you require further proof, Master Fehrwight, and fortunately what remains is even clearer. First, the brightness of these pigments is impossible, given the state of alchemy four hundred years ago. The vibrancy of these hues bespeaks a contemporary origin. Lastly, and most damningly, there is no veneer of age upon these works. No fine cracks in the pigment, no discoloration from mold or sunlight, no intrusion of smoke into the overlying lacquers. The flesh of these works, as it were, is as distinct from the genuine article as my face would be from that of a ten-year-old boy.” Krell smiled sadly. “I have aged to a fine old state. These have not.”

“So what does this mean, for our arrangement?”

“I am aware,” said Krell, settling into the chair behind his desk and setting the painting down, “that you must have undergone extraordinary hardship in securing even these facsimiles from the … gentleman in Tal Verrar. You have my thanks, and my admiration.”

Jean snorted and stared at the wall.

“Your thanks,” said Locke, “and your admiration, however well meant—”

“Are not legal tender,” said Krell. “I’m not a simpleton, Master Fehrwight. For these ten paintings, I can still offer you two thousand solari.”

“Two?” Locke clutched the armrests of his chair and leaned forward. “The sum we originally discussed was
thirty thousand
, Master Krell!”

“And for originals,” said Krell, “I would have gladly paid that original sum; for genuine artifacts of the Last Flowering, I would have had buyers in distant locations completely unconcerned with the … potential displeasure of the gentleman in Tal Verrar.”

“Two,” muttered Locke. “Gods, we left more than that sitting at the Sinspire. Two thousand solari for two years is what you’re offering us.”