The Republic of Thieves (39 page)

“It’s what we do with bandits when there’s a spare noose about,” said Anatoly Vireska, who was walking beside them munching on a late breakfast of dried figs. Their wagon led the caravan. “There’s one every mile or two. If the noose is occupied, or it ain’t convenient, we just open their throats and shove ’em off the road.”

“Are there really that many bandits?” said Sabetha. She sat atop the wagon with her feet propped on the snoring form of Galdo, who’d kept the predawn watch. “Beg pardon. It’s just that there doesn’t seem to be anyone actually lurking about.” She sounded bored.

“Well, there’s good and bad times,” said the caravan master. “Summer like this we might see one once a month. Our friend here, we strung him up about that long ago. Been quiet since.

“But when a harvest goes bad, gods help us, they’re in the woods thick as bird shit. And after a war, it’s mercenaries and deserters raising hell. I double the guard. And I double my fees, heh.”

Locke wasn’t sure he agreed that there was nothing lurking. The countryside had the haunted quality he remembered from the months he’d once spent learning the rudiments of farm life. All those nights he’d lain awake listening to the alien sound of rustling leaves, yearning for the familiar clamor of carriage wheels, footsteps on stone, boats on water.

The old imperial road had been built well, but it was starting to crumble now in these remote places between the major powers. The empty garrison forts, silent as mausoleums, were vanishing behind misty groves of cypress and witchwood, and the little towns that had grown around them were reduced to moss-covered ruins and lines in the dirt.

Locke walked along beside the wagon on the side opposite Vireska, trying to keep his eyes on their surroundings and away from Sabetha. She’d discarded her rather matronly hood, and her hair fluttered in the warm breeze.

She hadn’t kept their “appointment” the second evening. In fact, she’d barely spoken to him at all, remaining absorbed in the plays she’d packed and deflecting all attempts at conversation as adroitly as she’d parried his baton strokes.

The caravan, six wagons total, trundled along in the rising morning heat. At noon they passed through a thicket like a dark tunnel. A temporarily empty noose swung from one of the high dark branches, a forlorn pendulum.

“You know, it was novel at first,” said Calo, “but I’m starting to think the place could use a more cheerful sort of distance marker.”

“Bandits would tear down proper signposts,” said Vireska, “but they’re all afraid to touch the nooses. They say that when you don’t hang someone over running water, the rope holds the unquiet soul. Awful bad luck to touch it unless you’re giving it a new victim.”

“Hmm,” said Calo. “If I was stuck out here jumping wagon trains in the middle of shit-sucking nowhere, I’d assume my luck was already as bad as it gets.”

THEY HALTED
for the night in the village of Tresanconne, a hamlet of about two hundred souls built on three marsh-moated hills, protected by stockades of sharpened logs. It was the only kind of settlement that could flourish out here, according to Vireska—too big for bandits to overrun, but too remote to make it worthwhile for parties of soldiers from Camorr to pay it a visit for “road upkeep taxes.”

No rural idyll, this. The villagers were sullen and suspicious, more appreciative of outside goods than the outsiders who brought them. Still, the rough hilltop lot they provided for caravans was preferable to any bed awaiting them out in the lightless damps of the wilderness.

Locke took his turn sweeping beneath the wagon while Jean saw to the horses. The Sanza twins, grudgingly accepting one another’s proximity, wandered off to survey the village. Sabetha remained atop the wagon, guarding their possessions. Locke needed just a few minutes to ensure that the space in which they would set their bedrolls was no embarrassment to civilization, and then it occurred to him that they were more or less alone.

“I, ah, I regret not having a chance to speak to you last night,” he said.

“Oh? Was it any real loss to either of us?”

“You had— Well, I don’t suppose you did promise. You’d said you’d consider it, at least.”

“That’s right, I didn’t promise.”

“Well … damn. You’re obviously in a mood.”

“Am I?” There was danger in her tone. “Am I really? Why should that be exceptional? A boy may be as disagreeable as he pleases, but when a girl refuses to crap sunshine on command the world mutters darkly about her
moods
.”

“I only meant it by way of, uh, well, nothing, really. It was just a conversational note. Look, it’s really damned … odd … having to look for ploys to speak with you, as though we were complete strangers!”

“If I’m in a mood,” said Sabetha after a moment of reflective silence,
“it’s because this journey is unfolding more or less as I had foreseen. Tedium, bumpy roads, and biting insects.”

“Ah,” said Locke. “Do I count as part of the tedium or one of the biting insects?”

“If I didn’t know any better,” she said softly, “I’d swear the horseshit-sweeper was attempting to be charming.”

“You might as well assume,” said Locke, not sure whether he was feeling bold or merely willing himself to feel bold, “that I’m always attempting to be charming where you’re concerned.”

“Now, that’s risky.” Sabetha rolled sideways and jumped down beside him. “That sort of directness compels a response, but what’s it to be? Do I encourage you in this sort of talk or do I stop you cold?”

She took a step forward, hands on hips, and despite himself Locke leaned backward, bracing against the wagon at the last second to avoid a fall that would have been, perhaps, the most graceless thing ever accomplished in the history of Therin civilization.

“I get a vote?” he said meekly.

“If it’s not to be encouragement, can you accept being stopped cold?” She raised one finger and touched his chin. It was neither invitation nor chastisement. “The Sanzas might be driving us all crazy at the moment, but I will say this on their behalf … when their advances were made and refused, they never brought the subject up again.”

“Calo and Galdo made a
pass
at you?”

“Certainly not at the same time,” she said. “Why so surprised? Surely you’ve noticed that you’re not the only hot-blooded young idiot with fully functional bits and pieces in our little gang.”

“Yes, but they—”

“They understand that my feelings for them lie somewhere between sisterly affection and saintly tolerance. And while I sometimes imagine that they would hump trees if they thought nobody was around to see it, they’ve respected my wishes absolutely. Could you handle disappointment so well?”

“If I’m to be disappointed,” said Locke, heart pounding, “I really wish you would cut the prelude and just disappoint me, already.”

“Oooh, there’s some fire at last.” Sabetha folded her arms beneath her breasts and edged closer to him. “Tell me, how do you even know for sure that I don’t fancy
girls
?”

“I—” Locke was lucky to spit the one syllable out before the power of coherent speech ran up a white flag and deserted him. Gods above …

“You never even thought about that, did you?” she said, her voice a sly whisper.

“Well, hells … is that … I mean to say, do you—”

“Fancy oysters or snails? What a damned awkward thing to be unsure of, for someone in your position. Oh … oh, for Perelandro’s sake, you look like you’re about to be executed.” She bent over and whispered in his right ear. “I happen to like snails
very well
, thank you.”

“Ahhh,” he said, feeling the earth grow solid beneath his feet again. “I’ve never … never been so pleased at such a comparison before.”

“It’s a champion among metaphors,” she said with the faintest smile. “So very apt.”

“And now that you’ve had your sport with me, do I join Calo and Galdo in their exclusive little club?”

“They’re still my friends.” She sounded genuinely hurt. “My oath-brothers. That’s nothing to scorn, especially for a … a would-be priest of your order.”

“Sabetha, I
do
fancy you. It scares the hell out of me to admit it, but I say it plainly, as you did the other night. Only I don’t say it casually. I have … I have admired you since the instant we met, do you understand, the very instant, that day we went out from Shades’ Hill to see the hangings. Do you remember?”

“Of course,” she whispered. “The strange little boy who wouldn’t leave Streets. What a sad trial you were. But what was there to
admire
, Locke? We were dusty, starving little creatures. You couldn’t have been six. What feelings were there to
have
?”

“I only know they were there. When I heard that you’d drowned I felt as though my heart had been stepped on.”

“I’m sorry for that. It was necessary.” She glanced away from him for a long moment before continuing. “I think you look upon our past in the light of your present feelings and imagine some glow that is … more
reflection
than substance.”

“Sabetha, I don’t remember my own father. And other than a
single
memory of … of sewing needles, my mother is as much a mystery. I don’t remember where I was born, or the Catchfire plague, or how I
survived it, or
anything
that I did before the Thiefmaker bought me from the city watch!”

“Locke—”

“Listen! It’s all gone! But the moments I’ve spent with you, whether you knew I was there or not—
they’re
still with me, smoldering like coals. I can touch them and feel the heat.”

“You’ve been reading too many of Jean’s romances. What basis for comparison have you ever had, Locke? You and I have been together all these years … why wouldn’t you evolve some sort of fixation? It’s only … perfectly natural … expected familiarity—”

“Who are you trying to convince?” On the attack now, he played her game, took a step forward. “That doesn’t sound like it’s meant for my benefit. You’re trying to talk
yourself
out of confiding in me! Why—”

His voice had grown louder with every word, and she startled him by slapping a hand over his mouth.

“You are turning something quite personal into a speech for the whole camp,” she said in her flawless Vadran.

“Sorry,” he whispered in the same language. “Look, this isn’t some damn fixation, Sabetha. If I could just—somehow let you see yourself through
my
eyes. I guarantee your feet would never touch the ground again.”

“There’s magic that might have some useful applications,” she said, wistfully, “if you were to pull that off. And if I were to … choose to be charmed just now.”

“Well, if not now, then—”

“I told you my feelings for you are complicated. Everything concerning you is
complicated
, and by that I don’t mean that I’m confused or muddle-headed or, or … frightened. I mean that there are actual, genuine circumstances
about
us and
around
us that make this difficult. There are obstacles, damn it.”

“Then tell me about them. Tell me anything I can do—”

“Are we speaking Vadran now?” said Calo, from his previously silent perch in Sabetha’s vacated place atop the wagon.

“Oh, Sanza, damn your eyes,” hissed Sabetha. “I just about jumped out of my bloody skin.”

“Now, that’s praise,” said Galdo, who rolled out from beneath the wagon. “You’re not easy to take unawares. You must have really had your head—”

“—shoved up your ass,” said Calo.

“Are you two back in your usual rhythm, then?” said Locke crossly.

“Nah,” said Galdo. “Just curious, is all.”

“How sharp is your Vadran?” said Locke.

“Mine Vadran is great sharp,” said Calo in that tongue, exaggeratedly mangling each word. “Perfect like without flaws, am the clever Sanza I being.”

“I think the two of us are a bit rusty, though,” said Galdo, “so if you could just repeat all the parts we missed—”

“Get used to gaps in your comprehension,” said Sabetha. “The rest of us certainly have.”

“Village not worth your attention?” said Locke with a sigh.

“Just the opposite,” said Galdo. “We thought we’d fetch a few pieces of silver. Some of these smelly hillside mudfuckers are playing cards at what passes for their tavern.”

“Shouldn’t take much of the old Camorr flash to dazzle ’em,” said Calo, making a small rock appear and disappear from the palm of his hand. “Could roll off in the morning owning half this bloody place.”

“I don’t think that’s wise,” said Sabetha.

“What are they gonna do,” said Galdo, “declare war? Look, if we come back in a few months and find out that a hundred swamp country yokels have knocked over the Five Towers, we’ll write a sincere apology.”

“And we only need a few coins anyway,” said Calo, throwing back the tarp over their supplies. “To buy in. After that, we’ll be taking donations, not giving ’em.”

“Hold on,” said Locke. “Since when are you two criminals?”

“Since …” Calo squinted and pretended to calculate. “Sometime between first leaving Mother and hitting the ground between her legs, I imagine.”

“Head first,” added Galdo.

“I know the
Sanzas
are as crooked as a snake in a clockwork snake-bending
machine,” said Locke, “but the
Asino
brothers are actors, not cardsharps.”

“You know how actors make a living between engagements?” said Calo. “Believe me, some of them are flash fucking cardsharps. I learned some of my best stuff from—”

“What I mean,” said Locke, “is that we should all just be actors, and
only
actors. I’ve been thinking about this. No games of opportunity on the way. No more picked pockets. We should draw a line between the people we are in Camorr and the people we are in Espara. When we go home, anyone thinking to follow us back to our real lives should find
nothing
. No hints, no trail.”

“Seems … sensible,” said Galdo.

“And it starts here,” said Locke. “It means we don’t do anything to make ourselves memorable. You really think your yokel friends will simply let you clean them out and send us on our merry way tomorrow morning? Someone’s going to get
cut
, Sanzas. Everyone in this village will be after your skins, and our guards won’t save you. They have to work this route week in and week out. They need these people.”