The Gentleman Bastard Series (232 page)

“Find another job,” said Locke. “This is us being very, very cordial. Next time we catch spies lurking in this neighborhood, we cripple them. This isn’t Karthain right now, it’s the sovereign state of Fuck Off and Go Home.”

“But—”

“Take a good look at that alley,” said Locke. “Imagine what those cold, hard stones will feel like when we throw you off this roof. You
come round here again, you’d best have wings. Now, your comrades are tied up in their usual spots. Fetch them and run hard.”

“Couldn’t we discuss—”

“Get the dogshit out of your ears, you witless corpse-fart,” growled Jean. “Do you want to do as you’re told, or do you want to kiss that pavement?”

It turned out he wanted to do as he was told.

11

“HAVE YOU ever thought about how badly Chains fucked us all up?”

“Gods above!” Locke narrowly avoided choking on his beer. “How tipsy are you?”

“Not at all.” Sabetha held her own glass rock-steady for several moments to support the assertion.

“I understand your frustration with the way some things played out,” said Locke. “You
know
I listened to you.”

“I do.”

“And you know I think you had some points. But Chains was a generous man. A generous and caring man, whatever his faults.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about. He wanted a family, very desperately. You’ve realized that?”

“Of course. I never thought of it as a defect.”

“I often think he wanted a family more than he wanted a gang.”

“Again—”

“A conscience is a deadweight in our profession.” She stared into the amber depths of her half-full glass. “Make no mistake, he shackled each of us with one. Even Calo and Galdo, rest their souls. For all that they did most of their thinking with their cocks and the rest with their balls, even they wound up with essentially kindly dispositions. Chains got us all in the end, good and hard.”

Their second dinner, the night following the alchemical “disaster” at the Sign of the Black Iris, was held aboard the
Merry Drifter
, a flat-topped dining barge complete with gardens and lacquered privacy screens. The barge had floated gently through the heart of Karthain, beneath the strange music of the Elderglass bridges, before finally laying
anchor in the Amathel just off the Ponta Corbessa. As the sky had darkened and the alchemical globes flicked to life, little boats had ferried other diners to and from shore, but Locke and Sabetha had held their choice table at the barge’s stern all the while.

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this from someone who came out of Shades’ Hill,” said Locke. “Is that what you would have preferred? Getting beaten and starved? Maybe buggered here and there when it suited him?”

“Of course not—”

“Sabetha, you know how much I respect you, but if you can’t see what a gods-damned
paradise
we lucked into when Chains picked us, you need to set that beer down this instant.”

“I don’t regret the comforts or the education. He was a faultless provider. Except in one respect … he trained a gentle streak into us and let us pretend it would never cost us.”

“You think we should have been more cruel? Ready to turn on each other like sharks in blood, like every other gods-damned gang around us? I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but that wasn’t weakness he bred into us. It was
loyalty
. And loyalty’s a hell of a weapon.”

“You have the luxury of thinking so.”

“Oh, not this again. The Jean situation, right? Straight and simple, gorgeous, don’t you
dare
sit there and hit me with self-righteous envy for a friendship I kept and you walked away from.”

She set her beer down and stared coldly at him. Then, just as Locke’s heart started to sink in expectation of another one of their habitual misunderstandings, the chill thawed, and she attempted a smile. She whistled, mimicking the sound of an arrow in flight, and clutched at an imaginary shaft just above her heart.

“I’m sorry,” they both said, in Sanza-esque unison, and chuckled.

“You’re dwelling on something,” said Locke, reaching across the table to rest his free hand on hers. “Let it go. Just be here. Just be Sabetha, having dinner, floating on the Amathel. Let the world end at the sides of this barge.”

“I
am
dwelling on something.”

“Well, don’t take such a poisonous view of our upbringing. Come on. We lie for a living; it’s not healthy for us to lie to ourselves.”

“What do we do BUT lie to ourselves, Locke? Aren’t we supposed
to be rich? Aren’t we supposed to be in command of our lives, free to go when and where we please, with all the honest simpletons of the world throwing coins at our feet? Here we are, halfway around the world, working for the gods-damned Bondsmagi just to stay alive.”

“You know, Jean’s slapped me out of a lot of moods like the one you’re in right now.” Locke took a long pull on his beer. “You’re taking the world awfully personally. Didn’t Chains ever tell you about the Golden Theological Principle?”

“The what?”

“The single congruent aspect of every known religion. The one shared, universal assumption about the human condition.”

“What is it?”

“He said that life boils down to standing in line to get shit dropped on your head. Everyone’s got a place in the queue, you can’t get out of it, and just when you start to congratulate yourself on surviving your dose of shit, you discover that the line is actually circular.”

“I’m just old enough to find that distressingly accurate.”

“You see? It’s universal,” said Locke. “Of course, I’m a stark staring hypocrite for telling you not to take it personally. It’s easy to prescribe remedies for our own weaknesses when they’re comfortably ensconced in other people. What’s got you dwelling on the past?”

“I don’t like dancing on strings, any strings, even my own. I’ve been … examining some, I suppose. Trying to follow them all the way back to where they began.”

“Ah.” Locke shuffled his glass around idly. “You’re trying to reconcile your contradictory thoughts about yours truly. And you’re wondering what sort of decision you’d be making without our shared history—”

“Gods
damn
it!” Sabetha punctuated this exclamation by throwing a wadded-up silk napkin at him. “Don’t do that. It makes me feel as though my thoughts are written on my forehead.”

“Come now. Fair’s fair. You read
me
like a scroll.”

“I tried to get you out of the way—”

“Half-assed,” said Locke. “Very half-assed. Admit it. You made it difficult, but some part of you
wanted
to see Jean and me get off that ship and come riding back into town.”

“I don’t know. I wanted to see you, but then I wanted you gone,”
said Sabetha. “I tried to say no to dinner. I couldn’t. I don’t … I don’t want anyone to be a
habit
for me, Locke. If I love someone, I want it to be my choice.… I want it to be the right choice.”

“I never felt as though I had a choice. From the first hours I knew you. Remember when I told you, for the first time? You nearly threw me off the roof—”

“I thought you deserved it. You know, it’s an opinion I return to from time to time, whether or not a roof is available.”

“You’re a difficult woman, Sabetha. But then, difficult women are the only ones worth falling in love with.”

“How would
you
know? It’s not like you’ve ever been after anyone else—”

“That part’s easy. I started with the most difficult woman possible, so there was never any need to look any further.”

“You’re trying to be charming.” She squeezed his hand once, then pulled away. “I choose not to be entirely charmed, Locke Lamora.”

“Not entirely?”

“Not entirely. Not yet.”

“Well.” Locke sighed. The evening might not be ending as he’d dared to hope, but that was no reason to be less than good company. “I suppose I still have two ambitions to mind as long as I’m in Karthain. Dessert?”

“How about a ride back to shore?”

“I’ve been curious about what might happen when you suggested that. Will you be leaving by catapult? Giant kite?”

“One showy exit was amusing; two would be gauche. We can’t let these westerners think Camorri are entirely without a sense of restraint.”

Their ride back to shore was a flat-bottomed boat with velvet cushions, tended by an admirably mum old fellow rowing at the stern. Locke and Sabetha rode side by side in companionable silence, through waters that gleamed white and blue from the lanterns of the dining barge. The air was full of pale, fluttering streaks, pulsing like fireflies, adding their soft touches of light to the canvas of the water.

“Firelight Sovereigns,” whispered Sabetha. “Karthani night butterflies. It’s said they hatch at dusk and die with the dawn.”

“You and I are natives of the dark, too,” said Locke. “I’m glad some of us last a bit longer.”

Two carriages waited above the quayside.

“His and hers, I presume?” said Locke.

“To bear us back to ribbons and duties and dumping carts of burning alchemy on doorsteps.” She led him to the first carriage and held the door open. “The driver has Jean’s hatchets. Safe and sound, to be handed over on arrival.”

“Thanks. So … three nights hence?” He took her hand as he placed one foot on the step, and bit the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning too broadly when she didn’t draw away. “Come on. You know you want to say yes.”

“Three nights. I’ll send a carriage. However, I’m charging
you
with finding a place this time. You’ve roamed the city enough to have some ideas, I think.”

“Oh, I’m full of ideas.” He bowed and kissed the back of her hand, then climbed into the carriage. “Can I offer you one last thing?”

“You can offer.” She pushed the door shut and looked in at him through the barred window.

“Quit being so hard on yourself. We are what we are; we love what we love. We don’t need to justify it to anyone … not even to ourselves. I seem to remember telling you that before.”

“Thank you.” She did something to the lock on the carriage door. “We
are
what we are. Now, listen, my driver will let you out when you’re back home. Don’t bother messing with the door; I had the lock mechanism sealed on the inside.”

“Wha … wait a damned minute, what are you—”

“Have a smooth ride,” she said, waving. “And I want you to know that the bit with the snakes was pretty cute. In fact, I took pains to see that they weren’t harmed, because I was certain you’d want such adorable little creatures returned to you.”

She thumped the side of the carriage twice. A panel in the cabin ceiling above Locke slid open, and as the carriage clattered across the cobbles, the rain of snakes began.

12

“PAINT ME a picture,” said Locke, standing in the Deep Roots private gallery two days later. Since his return from dinner with a carriage
full of less-than-deadly but agitated serpents, he’d been consumed by the paper chase, poring over maps and allocating funds, checking and double-checking lists, with no chance to engage in more hands-on weasel work.

“Nikoros just went down to fetch the latest reports,” said Jean, blowing smoke from an aromatic Syresti-leaf cigar that would have cost a common laborer a day’s wages. “But our Konseil members here have been chatting their teeth out in all the better parts of town.”

“Successfully, too, I should think.” Damned Superstition Dexa took a sip from her brandy snifter and gestured at the map of Karthain with her own cigar. Asceticism was a virtue the Deep Roots party held in slight regard. “We’ve squeezed a lot of promises out of Plaza Gandolo and the Palanta District. Fence-sitters, mostly. And some old friends we’ve brought back into the fold.”

“
Bought
back is more like it,” said Firstson Epitalus. “Bloody ingrates.”

“What are you handing out to steady their resolve?” said Locke.

“Oh, hints about tax easements,” said Dexa. “Everyone loves the thought of keeping a little more of their own money.”

“The Black Iris people can drop the same hints,” said Locke. “I don’t mean to tell you your business, but fuck me, if something as boring as tax easements is enough to hook votes, those people won’t care which party delivers the goods. We need some impractical reasons to motivate them. Emotional reasons. That means rumormongering. I want to rub dirt on whoever’s standing for the Black Iris in those districts. Something disgusting. In fact, we’ll completely avoid mud-flinging in a few other spots to make these stand out all the more. What’s guaranteed to repulse the good voters of Karthain?”

“Rather depends on how much vulgarity you’re willing to countenance, dear boy.” Dexa drew in a long breath of smoke while she pondered. “Thirdson Jovindus, that’s their lad for the Palanta District. He’s got what you might call an open-door policy for the contents of his breeches, but he’s also just dashing enough to carry it off.”

“Seconddaughter Viracois stands for them in Plaza Gandolo,” said Epitalus. “She’s clean as fresh plaster.”

“Hmmm.” Locke tapped his knuckles against the map table. “Clean just means we can paint whatever we like on her. But let’s not
do it directly. Master Callas and I will arrange a crew. Scary people on a tight leash. They’ll visit some of our fence-sitters in Plaza Gandolo, and they’ll make threats. Vote for Viracois and the Black Iris or bad things happen to your nice homes, your pretty gardens, your expensive carriages.…”

“Well, I don’t mean to tell you
your
business, Master Lazari,” said Epitalus, “but shouldn’t we be frightening voters into our own corner?”

“I don’t want them frightened. I want them
annoyed
. Come now, Epitalus, how would you feel if a pack of half-copper hoods barged into your foyer and tried to put a scare into you? Swells aren’t used to being pushed around. They’ll resent it like hell. They’ll mutter about it to all their friends, and they’ll be at the head of the line to vote against the Black Iris out of spite.”

“My, my,” said Epitalus. “There may be something in that. And what about Jovindus?”