The Gentleman Bastard Series (64 page)

“A promising lead,” said Doña Sofia, “is not quite the same as ‘definitely ours,’ unless I am very much mistaken.”

“You are not, Doña Sofia.” Locke sighed and attempted to look as though he were ashamed to bring up the issue once again. “There is some question … That is, the captain of the second vessel is being tempted by an offer to carry a special cargo to Balinel—a relatively long voyage but for a very decent price. He has, as yet, to commit to my offers.”

“And I suppose,” said Don Lorenzo as he took a seat beside his wife, “that a few thousand more crowns might need to be thrown at his feet to make him see reason?”

“I fear very much, my good Don Salvara, that shall be the case.”

“Hmmm. Well, we can speak of that in a moment. Here’s Conté; I should quite like to show off what my lady has newly accomplished.”

Conté carried three silver bowls on a brass platter; each bowl held half an orange, already sliced so the segments of flesh within the fruit could be drawn out with little two-pronged forks. Conté set a bowl, a fork, and a linen napkin down on the tree-shelf to Locke’s right. The Salvaras looked at him expectantly while their own orange halves were laid out.

Locke worked very hard to conceal any trepidation he might have felt; he took the bowl in one hand and fished out a wedge of orange flesh with the fork. When he set it on his tongue, he was surprised at the tingling warmth that spread throughout his mouth. The fruit was saturated with something alcoholic.

“Why, it’s been suffused with liquor,” he said, “something very pleasant. An orange brandy? A hint of lemon?”

“Not suffused, Lukas,” said Don Lorenzo with a boyish grin that had to be quite genuine. “These oranges have been served in their natural state. Sofia’s tree manufactures its own liquor and mingles it in the fruit.”

“Sacred Marrows,” said Locke. “What an intriguing hybrid! To the best of my knowledge, it has yet to be done with citrus.…”

“I only arrived at the correct formulation a few months ago,” said Sofia, “and some of the early growths were quite unfit for the table. But this one
seems to have gone over well. Another few generations of tests, and I shall be very confident of its marketability.”

“I’d like to call it the Sofia,” said Don Lorenzo. “The Sofia orange of Camorr—an alchemical wonder that will make the vintners of Tal Verrar cry for their mothers.”

“I, for my part, should like to call it something else,” said Sofia, playfully slapping her husband on his wrist.

“The Planting Masters,” said Locke, “will find you quite as wondrous as your oranges, my lady. It is as I said: perhaps there is more opportunity in our partnership than any of us have foreseen. The way you seem to make every green thing around you malleable … I daresay that the character of the House of bel Auster for the next century could be shaped more by your touch than by our old Emberlain traditions.”

“You flatter me, Master Fehrwight,” said the doña. “But let us not count our ships before they’re in harbor.”

“Indeed,” said Don Lorenzo. “And on that note, I shall return us to business. Lukas, I fear I have unfortunate news for you. Unfortunate, and somewhat embarrassing. I have had … several setbacks in recent days. One of my upriver debtors has reneged on a large bill; several of my other projections have proven to be overly optimistic. We are, in short, not as fluid at the moment as any of us might hope. Our ability to throw a few thousand more crowns into our mutual project is very much in doubt.”

“Oh,” said Locke. “That is … that is, as you say, unfortunate.”

He slid another orange slice into his mouth and sucked at the sweet liquor, using it as an artificial stimulus to tilt the corners of his lips upward, quite against his natural inclination.

2

ON THE waterfront of the Dregs, a priest of Aza Guilla glided from shadow to shadow, moving with a slow and patient grace that belied his size.

The mist tonight was thin, the damp heat of the summer night especially oppressive. Streams of sweat ran down Jean’s face behind the silver mesh of his Sorrowful Visage. Camorri lore held that the weeks before the Midsummer-mark and the Day of Changes were always the hottest of the year. Out on the water, the now-familiar yellow lamps glimmered; shouts and splashes could be heard as the men aboard the
Satisfaction
hauled out another boat full of “charitable provisions.”

Jean doubted he could learn anything more about the items going out on those boats unless he did something more obvious, like attacking one of the loading crews—and that would hardly do. So tonight he’d decided to focus his attention on a certain warehouse about a block in from the docks.

The Dregs weren’t quite as far gone as Ashfall, but the place was well on its way. Buildings were falling down or falling sideways in every direction; the entire area seemed to be sinking down into a sort of swamp of rotted wood and fallen brick. Every year the damp ate a little more of the mortar between the district’s stones, and legitimate business fled elsewhere, and more bodies turned up loosely concealed under piles of debris—or not concealed at all.

While prowling in his black robes, Jean had noticed gangs of Raza’s men coming and going from the warehouse for several nights in a row. The structure was abandoned but not yet uninhabitable, as its collapsed neighbors were. Jean had observed lights burning behind its windows almost until dawn, and parties of laborers coming and going with heavy bags over their shoulders, and even a horse-cart or two.

But not tonight. The warehouse had previously been a hive of activity, and tonight it was dark and silent. Tonight it seemed to invite his curiosity, and while Locke was off sipping tea with the quality, Jean aimed to pry into Capa Raza’s business.

There were ways to do this sort of thing, and they involved patience, vigilance, and a great deal of slow walking. He went around the warehouse block several times, avoiding all contact with anyone on the street, throwing himself into whatever deep darkness was at hand and keeping his silver mask tucked under his arm to hide the glare. Given enough shadow, even a man Jean’s size could be stealthy, and he was certainly light enough on his feet.

Circling and sweeping, circling and sweeping; he established to his satisfaction that none of the roofs of nearby buildings held concealed watchers, and that there were no street-eyes either.
Of course
, he thought to himself as he pressed his back up against the southern wall of the warehouse,
they could just be better than I am
.

“Aza Guilla, have a care,” he mumbled as he edged toward one of the warehouse doors. “If you don’t favor me tonight, I’ll never be able to return this fine robe and mask to your servants. Just a consideration, humbly submitted.”

There was no lock on the door; in fact, it hung slightly ajar. Jean
donned his silver mask again, then slipped his hatchets into his right hand and pushed them up the sleeve of his robe. He’d want them ready for use, but not quite visible, just in case he bumped into anyone who might still be awed by his vestments.

The door creaked slightly, and then he was into the warehouse, pressed up against the wall beside the door, watching and listening. The darkness was thick, crisscrossed by the overlying mesh of his mask. There was a strange smell in the air, above the expected smell of dirt and rotting wood—something like burnt metal.

He held his position, motionless, straining for several long minutes to catch any sound. There was nothing but the far-off creak and sigh of ships at anchor, and the sound of the Hangman’s Wind blowing out to sea. He reached beneath his robe with his left hand and drew out an alchemical light-globe, much like the one he’d carried beneath the Echo Hole. He gave it a series of rapid shakes, and it flared into incandescence.

By the pale white light of the globe he saw that the warehouse was one large open space. A pile of wrecked and rotted partitions against the far wall might have been an office at one time. The floor was hard-packed dirt, and here and there in corners or against walls were piles of debris, some under tarps.

Jean carefully adjusted the position of the globe, keeping it pressed close against his body so that it threw out light only in a forward arc. That would help to keep his activity unseen; he didn’t intend to spend more than a few minutes poking around in this place.

As he slowly paced toward the northern end of the warehouse, he became aware of another unusual odor, one that raised his hackles. Something had been dumped in this place and left to rot. Meat, perhaps … but the odor was sickly-sweet. Jean was afraid he knew what it was even before he found the bodies.

There were four of them, thrown under a heavy tarp in the northeastern corner of the building—three men and one woman. They were fairly muscular, dressed in undertunics and breeches, with heavy boots and leather gloves. This puzzled Jean until he peered at their arms and saw their tattoos. It was traditional, in Camorr, for journeymen artisans to mark their hands or arms with some symbol of their trade. Breathing through his mouth to avoid the stench, Jean shifted the bodies around until he could be sure of those symbols.

Someone had murdered a pair of glasswrights and a pair of goldsmiths. Three of the corpses had obvious stab wounds, and the fourth, the
woman … she had a pair of raised purple welts on one cheek of her waxy, bloodless face.

Jean sighed and let the tarp settle back down on top of the bodies. As he did, his eye caught the glimmer of reflected light from the floor. He knelt down and picked up a speck of glass, a sort of flattened drop. It looked as though it had hit the ground in a molten state and cooled there. A brief flick of the light-globe showed him dozens of these little glass specks in the dirt around the tarp.

“Aza Guilla,” Jean whispered, “I stole these robes, but don’t hold it against these people. If I’m the only death-prayer they get, please judge them lightly, for the sorrow of their passing and the indignity of their resting place. Crooked Warden, if you could back that up somehow, I’d greatly appreciate it.”

There was a creak as the doors on the northern wall of the building were pushed open. Jean started to leap backward, but thought better of it; his light was no doubt already seen, and it would be best to play the dignified priest of Aza Guilla. His hatchets remained up his right sleeve.

The last people he expected to walk through the north door of the warehouse were the Berangias sisters.

Cheryn and Raiza wore oilcloaks, but the hoods were thrown back and their shark’s-teeth bangles gleamed by the light of Jean’s globe. Each of the sisters held a light-globe as well. They shook them, and a powerful red glare rose up within the warehouse, as though each woman were cupping fire in the palms of her hands.

“Inquisitive priest,” said one of the sisters. “A good evening to you.”

“Not the sort of place,” said the other, “where your order usually prowls without invitation.”

“My order is concerned with death in every form, and in every place.” Jean gestured toward the tarp with his light-globe. “There has been a foul act committed here; I was saying a death prayer, which is what every soul is due before it passes into the long silence.”

“Oh, a foul act. Shall we leave him to his business, Cheryn?”

“No,” said Raiza, “for his business has been curiously concerned with ours these past few nights, hasn’t it?”

“You’re right, Sister. Once or twice a-prowling, that we might excuse. But this priest has been persistent.”

“Unusually persistent.” The Berangias sisters were coming toward him, slowly, smiling like cats advancing on a crippled mouse. “On our docks and now in our warehouse …”

“Do you dare suggest,” said Jean, his heart racing, “that you intend to interfere with an envoy of the Lady of the Long Silence? Of Aza Guilla, the Goddess of Death itself?”

“Interfering’s what we do professionally, I’m afraid,” said the sister on his right. “We left the place open just in case you might want to stick your head in.”

“Hoped you wouldn’t be able to resist.”

“And we know a thing or two about the Lady Most Kind ourselves.”

“Although our service to her is a bit more
direct
than yours.”

With that, red light gleamed on naked steel; each sister had drawn out a curved, arm-length blade—
thieves’ teeth
, just as Maranzalla had shown him so many years earlier. The Berangias twins continued their steady approach.

“Well,” said Jean, “if we’re already past the pleasantries, ladies, allow me to quit this masquerade.” Jean tossed his light-globe on the ground, reached up, pulled back his black hood, and slipped off his mask.

“Tannen!”
said the sister on his right. “Well, holy shit. So you didn’t go out through the Viscount’s Gate after all.” The Berangias sisters halted, staring at him. Then they began circling to his left, moving in graceful unison, giving themselves more space to take action.

“You have some cheek,” said the other, “impersonating a priest of Aza Guilla.”

“Beg pardon? You were going to
kill
a priest of Aza Guilla.”

“Yes, well, you seem to have saved us from that particular blasphemy, haven’t you?”

“This is
convenient
!” said the other sister. “I never dreamed it’d be this easy.”

“Oh, whatever it is,” said Jean, “I guarantee it won’t be easy.”

“Did you like our work, in your little glass cellar?” The sister on the left spoke now. “Your two friends, the Sanza twins. Twins done in by twins, same wounds to the throat, same pose on the floor. Seemed appropriate.”

“Appropriate?” Jean felt new anger building like pressure at the back of his skull. He ground his teeth together. “Mark my words, bitch. I’ve been wondering how I’d feel when this moment finally came, and I have to say, I think I’m going to feel
pretty fucking good
.”

The Berangias sisters shrugged off their cloaks with nearly identical motions. As the oilcoth fluttered to the floor, they threw down their light-globes and drew out their other blades. Two sisters; four knives. They stared intently at Jean in the mingled red-and-white light and crouched, as
they had a hundred times before crowds of screaming thousands at the Shifting Revel. As they had a hundred times before pleading victims in Capa Barsavi’s court.