The Gentleman Bastard Series (233 page)

“I’ll come up with something suitable for him, too. Let the pot simmer awhile.” Locke tapped the side of his head. “Where’s Nikoros?”

“Coming, sirs, coming!” Long black plait bobbing behind him, Nikoros jogged up the gallery stairs and passed a set of papers to Jean. “Fresh as the weather, all the reports you asked for, and something, ah, unfortunate—”

“Unfortunate?” Jean flipped through the papers until he found one that caught his eye. The furrows in his forehead deepened as he read, and when he finished he drew Locke aside.

“What is it?”

“The official constabulary report on the arrest of Fifthson Lucidus of the Isas Merreau,” said Jean.

“
What?
”

“It says that acting on a tip from the Lashani legate, a party of constables paid Lucidus a visit and discovered a team of stolen Lashani carriage horses in his private stable, identifiable by their brands—”

“Cockless sons of Jeremite shit-jugglers!” Locke seized the report and scanned it. “That sneaky bitch. That beautiful, sneaky bitch. She just can’t let us feel good about ourselves, not even for a few days. Oh, look, out of concern for the diplomatic aspect of the situation, they’re holding Lucidus in solitary confinement until after the election!”

“Indeed.”

“Some of the Black Iris chicks must have complained to their mother hen about the big bad debt collector. So much for that scheme.”

“We should come back hard and fast.”

“Agreed.” Locke closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. “Keep pushing everyone on that list of vulnerabilities. Send courtesans and handsome lads after all the Black Iris people with wandering eyes. Make sure the gamblers get invitations to high-stakes games. Scatter temptations all around the ones with nasty habits. Pluck the weaknesses of the flesh like harp strings, all of ’em, from every direction.”

“I suppose there’s money in the bank itching to be spent,” sighed Jean.

“That’s right. We’ll spend it down to the dust under the last scrap of copper. Then we’ll sweep up the dust and see what we can get for it.”

“Um, one thing more, sirs,” said Nikoros. “Josten tells me that we’ve got watchers on the surrounding rooftops again.”

“Leave that with me,” said Jean. “We gave fair warning. This time I’ll make some work for the physikers.”

13

COOL GRAY veils of drizzle and fog draped the neighborhood when Jean went out, an hour after midnight, to pay a call on the new neighbors. He moved up to the rooftops as slowly and cautiously as possible, using routes he’d noted on the previous excursion. In this weather there were no drunks or lovers to stumble over, and he was confident that he crept along as silently as he ever had in his life.

His first target was obvious—so obvious that Jean watched for nearly a quarter of an hour, straining his senses to spot the ambush or the trap that had to be there. The watcher sat (sat!) in a collapsible wood-and-leather chair beside a parapet, wrapped in a cloak and blanket. If not for the fact that the seated figure moved from time to time, Jean would have sworn it had to be a decoy.

The tiniest speck of light lit the shadows beside the chair, revealing a spread of gear and comforts, including bottles of wine, a silk parasol, and several different spyglasses. It had to be a joke, or a trap … and
yet there was simply nobody else around. He took the opening. It was child’s play to sneak up behind the seated watcher and clap a hand over their mouth.

“Scream and I’ll break your arms,” hissed Jean. The watcher gave a start, but it was plain in an instant that this small-framed and weak body was incapable of serious resistance. Puzzled, Jean scrabbled for the light source, which turned out to be a dark-lantern with the aperture drawn to its narrowest setting. Jean eased it open another few clicks and held it up to his captive.

Gods, it was an old woman. A very old woman, seventy or more, and it wasn’t one of Sabetha’s makeup jobs, either. This woman was genuinely light and frail, her face a valley of lines, one eye gray as the overcast sky. The other one, however, fixed on him with mischievous vitality.

“Oh, hello, dear,” she whispered as he withdrew his hand. “I won’t be screaming, I promise. You gave me a start, though she warned me you’d be up sooner or later.”

“She?”

“My employer, dear.”

“So you admit that you’re—”

“A spy. Oh yes.” The old woman chuckled. A dry and not entirely healthy sound. “A spyfully spying spy. Settled up here all cozy to see what I can see. Which isn’t much, more’s the pity. That’s why I’ve got all the lovely spyglasses. Now, what are you going to do with me, dear? Are you going to beat the hell out of me?”

“Wha …
no!
”

“Pick me up and throw me off the roof? Tie me up and leave me here for a few hours? Kick my teeth out?”

“Gods, woman, of course not!”

“Oh, that’s exactly what she told me,” beamed the old woman. “She said you weren’t the sort of fellow who’d raise his hand to a helpless old woman. Which, let’s be honest, is what time has made of me.”

Jean lowered his head against the cold stone of the parapet and groaned.

“Oh, come now, son, it’s not a thing to be ashamed of, having scruples.”

“Are all of her new spies as … um …”

“Old as myself? Oh, there’s no harm in saying it. Yes, dear, you’re hemmed in by old women. All of us wrapped up in our blankets, clutching our parasols. We’ve got apartments to use, and people to fetch us things, but we’re doing the watching from now on. Unless you beat us up.”

“Come now,” said Jean. “You know I won’t.”

“Yes, I do.”

“I don’t suppose I could ask you very politely to get down off this roof and go away?”

“Oh, gods no. Apologies, dear, but the money I’m seeing for this … well, I don’t think I can live long enough for money to ever be a problem again.”

“I could make you a better deal.”

“Oh no. No, gods bless you for offering, but no. You’ve got your scruples, and I’ve got mine.”

“I could pick you up and carry you down to the street!”

“Of course you could. And then I’d kick and scream and fuss, and you’d have to deal with that somehow. And when you were done, I’d creep back up here as fast as my joints could take me, and since you won’t just punch my lights out, we’d have to do it all over again.” She punctuated these words by tapping him gently on the chest with a very slender finger. “All over again. And again. And again.”

“Well, shit.” Jean slumped against the parapet, feeling soundly embarrassed. “Don’t, uh, come crawling to us for help if you catch an ague up here or something.”

“Never fret, dear. I can assure you that we’re very well looked after. Just like your inn.”

14

AT THE very moment Jean Tannen was discovering old women on rooftops, Nikoros Via Lupa was knocking at a lamp-lit door in a misty alley behind the Avenue of the Night Singers on the Isas Vorhala. He had a warm, nervous itch in his throat—an itch he had run out of the means to assuage.

The apothecary shop of the Brothers Farager provided the alley door as a discreet courtesy for those in need at odd hours. This included
customers in pursuit of substances not sanctioned by the laws of Karthain.

The burly guard behind the door, wrapped in a heavy black coat, was new to Nikoros; the fellow that had always met him before had been older and thinner. The man let him in regardless, gesturing up the narrow steps with a grunt and leaving Nikoros to find his own way to the rear office. There Thirdson Farager sat slumped behind a counter, threads of some floral smoke wrapped around him like a ghostly shawl, idly mixing powders on a measuring board.

“Nikoros,” said the alchemist, glumly. “Thought I might see you, sooner rather than later. What’s your taste?”

“You know why I’m here,” said Nikoros. Thirdson Farager had always been the sole provider of Nikoros’ dust … had led him to the stuff in the first place, in fact.

“Muse-of-Fire,” grunted Farager, setting aside the glass rod he’d been using in his work. “Need some more lightning for those clouds in your head, eh?”

“Same as always.” Nikoros licked his lips and tried to ignore the hollow, dry sensation inside his skull. He’d meant to put off another purchase for a few days, meant to obey Lazari and Callas … but the urge had grown. An initially aimless walk had drawn him here, inevitably as water running downhill.

“Akkadris,” said Farager. “Well, if that’s what you want, let’s see your coin.”

Nikoros tossed a bag of silver on the counter. No sooner had it landed than something slapped him painfully in his left side. Wincing, he turned and found that the burly door guard had crept up to the office after him, lacquered wooden baton in hand. The man’s bulky black coat now hung open, revealing the light constabulary blue of the jacket beneath.

“This is disappointing, Via Lupa. You ought to know a thing or two about the laws concerning black alchemy,” said the constable with a grin. “That’s ten years in a penance barge sitting there on the counter. Confiscation of your goods. Forfeiture of licenses and citizenship. Exile, too, if you live through your ten.”

“But surely,” said Nikoros, fear clawing at his innards, “there must be some, ah, mistake—”

“Yeah, and you’re the one that made it.”

“I’m sorry,” muttered Farager, looking away. “They got onto me last week. I had no choice. I’d be on a barge already if I hadn’t agreed to help them.”

“Oh, gods, please,” whispered Nikoros.

“It was a smart arrangement,” said a woman, appearing from the door behind Farager. She wore a dark hooded cloak, the sort of thing Nikoros might have scoffed at as theatrical, anytime before the Karthani constabulary had threatened to bring his life to an end. “Thirdson Farager made one that got him off the hook. You might be able to do the same.”

The woman pushed her hood back, revealing long, dark red hair. Her eyes glittered as she began to explain to Nikoros what would be required of him.

15

KARTHAIN WAS the most cultivated and manicured city Locke had ever seen, and the Vel Verda, the Green Terrace, was perhaps its most cultivated and manicured district. The manors and promenades of the Vel Verda were walled in by thick strands of poplar, olive, witchwood, pale oak, and merinshade trees, and beyond it all loomed the crumbling shadow of the city’s old walls. In any other Therin city these would have been lit, manned, and obsessively repaired, but the Karthani hadn’t kept theirs up for more than three centuries.

“This is a private manor, not a restaurant,” said Sabetha as Locke led her up a winding black iron staircase. “If you’ve got some sort of half-witted ambush in mind, Master Lamora, I must warn you that I’ll be severely disappointed.…”

“It’s vacant. One of my Deep Roots ladies holds it from a dead cousin. She’s been lax about selling it off since she doesn’t exactly need the money, but she was happy to let me borrow it for a night.”

“Will I be getting a pile of snakes dropped on my head?”

“Ha. No, and thank you for
that
, by the way. I was ever so worried about those little fellows while they were away from me. No, Mistress of Doubts, I’ve brought you here to this secluded corner of the city for the nefarious purpose of cooking your dinner myself.”

They came to the second floor of the dark, undecorated manor house, and Locke slid a wooden door in the north wall open with a dramatic flourish. Thus revealed was a tiled balcony with a marble balustrade, overlooking the dark tops of countless trees swaying softly in the autumn breeze. Lanterns in semi-opaque paper hoods filled the area with mellow golden light.

“Ooh,” said Sabetha. She allowed Locke to pull out one of the chairs at the tiny round witchwood table in the center of the balcony for her. “Now, this is more promising.”

“I didn’t just choose the setting,” said Locke. “Tonight I’m chef, sommelier, and alchemist, in one very convenient package, and of course available at a staggeringly insignificant cost if it suits the lady—”

“I’m not sure I brought any coins small enough to pay an appropriate price for you.”

“I practice selective deafness to hurtful remarks, young woman. Though I should ask, are we under observation by one of your packs of
old
women?”

“No, not here. Much as I could have used a chaperone, they’re busy where they are.”

“They’re damned lucky it was Jean that stumbled over them. I don’t have his qualms about punching old biddies in the teeth.”

“Well, then, why haven’t you vanquished them yourself?”

“Some forms of behavior,” sighed Locke, “simply cannot be made to look reasonable.”

“You don’t say! You might have drugged them, of course.”

“Oh, yes,” said Locke. “Throwing alchemy at old women with gods know what sorts of constitutional complaints. If I can’t murder them on purpose I’d hardly let it happen by accident.”

“That thought had crossed my mind,” said Sabetha, grinning.

“Now how’s your candidate for Plaza Gandolo?” said Locke. “What’s her name again … Seconddaughter Viracois? Got taken in by the constables on a pretty serious charge, I heard. Receiving stolen goods? Stolen goods from the houses of
Deep Roots supporters
? That’s pretty shocking.”

“And pretty asinine,” said Sabetha, feigning a deep yawn. “Her solicitors will have the matter cleared up in just a day or two.”

“Well, no doubt you’re right not to worry. After all, you’ve got quite a slate of replacement candidates if she should be tied up in the courts. As thrilling a collection of ciphers and nonentities as ever stirred the voters to indifference.”

“Now, Locke,” she said softly, “you and I going on like this before the final results are tallied is like peeking at festival presents before they’re opened. This isn’t the game I came to play tonight.”

“Delighted to hear it! Watch, then, and be amazed as I perform the most menial portion of an amazing alchemical process and claim all the credit for myself.”

On the table stood a silver bucket-within-a-bucket, constructed so that there was an open gap of about a finger’s width between the inner and outer walls. In the center bucket, a bottle of pale orange wine stood in water.