The Republic of Thieves (65 page)

“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.”

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.

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.

Locke uncapped two leather-covered decanters. He poured their colorless contents into the outer channel of the chambered bucket, then juggled the empty decanters hand-to-hand a few times and bowed.

A patina of frost appeared on the outer surface of the bucket, steadily thickening into a wall of crisp white ice. Puffs of pale vapor rose from the bucket’s outer channel, and a jagged crackling noise could be heard. Locke silently counted out fifteen seconds, pulled on a leather glove, and carefully tilted the bucket toward Sabetha. The wine bottle, cloudy with frost, was now immersed in slush.

“Behold! I have chilled the wine. I am the true master of the elements. Bondsmagi across the city are handing in their resignations.”

Sabetha rendered applause by tapping one finger inaudibly against the opposite palm. Locke grinned, withdrew the bottle from its semisolid surroundings, uncorked it, and poured two glasses.

“I give you our first toast of the evening.” Locke picked up his glass and touched it gently to hers. “To crime, confusion, and all arts insidious. To the most enchanting practitioner they’ve ever had.”

“That’s awkward, asking me to drink to my own honor.”

“I’m sure a self-regard as robust as your own can easily bear the strain.”

They drank; the sweet orange-and-ginger wine was cold as a northern autumn. Locke poured them each a second glass.

“My turn,” said Sabetha. “To strange little boys and impatient little girls. May their real mistakes … be gentle and far between.”

“Am I wide of the mark, or are you in a better mood than you were three nights ago?” said Locke as he finished his second drink.

“It was quite a mood, wasn’t it?”

“Did you figure anything out?”

“Only that I wasn’t going to find any real answers in one night of brooding. Besides, packing you off in some sort of richly deserved trap always cheers me up.”

“You might see those snakes again, madam, if you keep up that unseemly gloating. Now, I believe I promised you dinner.”

Off to one side of the balcony was a long oak table and a smoldering brazier. Locke threw more chips of aromatic wood into the brazier and gave them a stir. Pleasantly approaching the edge of muddled as the wine mounted from his mostly empty stomach, he examined the piles of ingredients and utensils he’d set out earlier. There was a tap on his shoulder.

“Now, this is
not
how it’s done,” said Sabetha. She’d removed her black velvet jacket, revealing a white silk undertunic and a loosely knotted scarf just slightly darker than her hair.

“I haven’t even started cooking yet!”

“Where we come from we didn’t cook for one another, remember? We cooked together.”

“Well—”

“Let’s see what sort of mess you’ve got here.” She bumped him gently aside with her hip. Together they sorted out the components of the meal he’d planned—fennel fronds, onions, sliced blood oranges, pale white olives, almonds and hazel nuts, a chicken he’d plucked and dressed, and enough assorted oils to sauté anything smaller than a horse.

“How strange,” she said, “but it looks as though you’ve assembled some of my favorite things.”

“My life is haunted by wild coincidences,” said Locke.

“I suppose I should admire your constancy in one respect, Locke Lamora. All these years and you’re still beside yourself to tumble a redheaded girl.”

“Oh?” His grin faded, along with some of his wine-induced buoyancy.

He reached out and touched a loose strand of her burnished copper hair. “You know, if you take offense at the notion, you have a
hell
of a strange way of showing it.”

“ ‘Confusion and all arts insidious,’ ” she said, glancing away.

“Did you really restore that color just to keep me off balance? Make me easier to play games with?”

“No,” she said. “Not entirely.”

“Not entirely.” Locke stared at her, trying to force the muscles of his face, usually so loyal and pliable, to twitch into some semblance of a smile. “You know, I hate the way one of us can say something.… We’re enjoying ourselves for the gods know how long, but one wrong word and suddenly it’s like we’re not even in the same room.”

“ ‘We’ is a tactful way of saying ‘me,’ isn’t it?”

“Only this time,” said Locke, “Sabetha, listen to me. You know what I’m after. My cards are on the table and always have been. Am I fixated?
Yes
. Absolutely. Am I sorry about that?
No
. I’m standing here with my intentions plain as the rising sun, waiting for you to convince
yourself
, one way or the other. And I’ll wait for that. I’ll wait until I’m old and bent and need help spelling my own name. But you know, if I had the luxury of any self-respect at
all
where you’re concerned, I’d be insulted by the idea that I must think convincing you to spread your legs is the big endgame.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know. I do know you want more than that, and for all your faults you give more—”

“Bloody right. I mean, who knows, maybe we could sleep together
twice
.” He drew himself up, thrust out his chest, and stuck out his tongue. “Limitless ambitions, woman!
Limitless!
”