The Republic of Thieves (7 page)

“The scholar will require several hours,” said Jean, passing a folded slip of parchment to the driver. “Wait at this address until we meet you again.”

The address on the parchment was a coffeehouse in Lashain’s mercantile district, a half-mile distant. The driver frowned.

“Is this well with you, sir? You’ll miss dinner—”

“It’s fine, Michel,” said Zodesti with a hint of exasperation. “Just follow directions.”

“Of course, sir.”

Once the carriage had clattered down the street, Jean pulled Zodesti into the alley and said, “You may live through this yet. Get dressed as we discussed.”

The pile of clothing included a battered hat and a rain-stained cloak, both belonging to Loran, who was a fair match in size for his master. Zodesti threw the cloak on, and Jean pulled a strip of slashed drapery from his pocket.

“What the hell is this, now?” said Zodesti.

“Did you really imagine I’d go to all this trouble and let you see where I’m taking you? I thought you’d prefer blindfolded to unconscious.”

Zodesti stood still as Jean blindfolded him, pulled up the cloak’s hood, and pushed the hat down on top of it. It was a good effect. From more than a few feet away, the blindfold would be concealed by the hat or lost in the shadows of the hood.

From Zodesti’s medical bag, Jean withdrew a bottle of wine. He pulled the cork (Jean had found the bottle in Zodesti’s study, half empty), splashed some on the physiker, poured the rest on the ground, and pressed the empty bottle into Zodesti’s right hand. From the smell that wafted up around them, Jean guessed he’d just wasted a very valuable
kameleona
.

“Now,” said Jean, “you’re my drunk friend, being escorted to safety. Keep your head down.” Jean pressed Zodesti’s bag into the physiker’s left hand. “I’ve got my arms around you to keep you from stumbling, and my knife closer than you’d like.”

“You’ll boil alive for this, you son of a bitch.”

“Let’s keep my mother out of this. Mind your feet.”

It took about ten minutes for them to stumble to the rooming house together. There were no complications. The few people out in the rain had better things to pay attention to than a pair of drunks, it seemed.

Once safely inside their suite, Jean locked the front doors, shoved Zodesti into a chair, and said, “Now we’re well away from anyone else. If you try to escape, or raise your voice, or call attention to yourself in
any
way, I’ll hurt you. Badly.”

“Stop threatening me and show me your damned patient.”

“In a moment.” Jean opened the doors to the inner apartment, saw that Locke was awake, and quickly gestured in their private sign language:

Don’t use any names
.

“What am I,” muttered Locke, “an idiot? I knew he wasn’t coming back here of his own free will.”

“How—”

“You wore your fighting boots and left your dress shoes by the wardrobe. And all of your weapons are missing.”

“Ah.” Jean tore off Zodesti’s blindfold and disguise. “Make yourself comfortable and get to work.”

The physiker hefted his satchel and, sparing a hateful glance for Jean, moved to Locke’s bedside. He stared at Locke for a few moments, then pulled a wooden chair over and sat down.

“I smell wine,” said Locke. “
Kameleona
, I think. I don’t suppose you’ve brought any with you?”

“Only what your friend bathed me with,” said Zodesti. He snapped his fingers a few times in front of Locke’s eyes, then took his pulse from both wrists. “My, you are in a sad state. You believe you’ve been poisoned?”

“No,” said Locke with a cough. “I fell down some fucking stairs.

What’s it look like?”

“Can’t you ever be polite to any of your physikers?” said Jean.

“
You’re
the one who bloody well kidnapped him.”

“Since I appear to have no choice,” said Zodesti, “I’m going to give you a thorough examination. This may cause some discomfort, but don’t complain. I won’t be listening.”

Zodesti’s first examination took a quarter of an hour. Ignoring Locke’s grumbling, he poked and prodded at his joints and limbs, working from the top of his arms to his feet.

“You’re losing sensation in your extremities,” said Zodesti at last.

“How the hell can you tell?”

“I just stuck a lancet into each of your large toes.”

“You poked holes in my feet?”

“I’m adding teardrops to a river, given the blood you’re losing elsewhere.” Zodesti fumbled in his bag, removed a silk case, and from this extracted a pair of optics with oversized lenses. Wearing them, he pulled Locke’s lips back and examined his gums and teeth.

“Ahm naht a fckhng horth,” said Locke.

“Quiet.” Zodesti held the clean portion of one of Locke’s discarded bandages to his gums for several seconds, pulled it away, and frowned at it.

“Your gums are seeping blood. And I see your fingernails are trim,” said Zodesti.

“What of it?”

“Were they trimmed on a Penance Day?”

“How the hell should I remember?”

“Trimming the nails on any day but a Penance Day weakens the blood. Tell me, when you were first taken with your symptoms, did you think to swallow an amethyst?”

“Why would I have had one close at hand?”

“Your pig-ignorance of basic medicine is your own misfortune. You sound like an easterner, though, so I can’t say I’m surprised.”

The rest of the physiker’s work took an hour, with Zodesti performing increasingly esoteric tests and Jean hovering behind him, alert for any sign of treachery. Finally, Zodesti sighed and rose to his feet, wiping his bloody hands on Locke’s sheets.

“You have the unfortunate distinction,” said Zodesti, “of being poisoned by a substance beyond my experience. Given the fact that I have a Master’s Ring in alchemy from the Therin Collegium—”

“Gods damn your jewelry,” said Jean. “Can you
do
anything?”

“In the early stages of the poisoning, who could have said? But now …” Zodesti shrugged.

“You maggot!” Jean grabbed Zodesti by his lapels, whirled, and slammed him against the wall beside Locke’s bed. “You arrogant little fraud! You’re the best this city has? DO SOMETHING!”

“I can’t,” said Zodesti with a new firmness in his voice. “Think whatever you like, do whatever you like. He is beyond my powers of intervention. I daresay that puts him beyond anyone’s.”

“Let him go,” said Locke.

“There must be something—”

“Let him go!” Locke retched, spat up more blood, and broke into a coughing fit. Jean released Zodesti, and the physiker slid away, glaring.

“Shortly after the poison was administered,” said the physiker, “I could have tried a purgative. Or filled his stomach with milk and parchment pulp. Or bled him to thin out the venom. But this thing has been with him for too long now.

“Even with known poisons,” he continued, returning his instruments to his bag, “there comes a point where the harm to organs or humors cannot be reversed. Antidotes don’t restore dead flesh. And with this, an unknown poison? His blood is pouring out of him. I can’t just put it back.”

“Gods damn it,” whispered Jean.

“The question is no longer
if
but
when
,” said Zodesti. “Look, you ugly bastard, despite the way you brought me into this mess, I’ve given him my full and fair attention.”

“I see.” Jean slowly walked over to the linen table, took up a clay cup, and filled it with water from the jug. “Do you have anything with you that can bring about a strong sleep? In case his pain should worsen?”

“Of course.” Zodesti removed a small paper pouch from his bag. “Have him take this in water or wine and he won’t be able to keep his eyes open.”

“Now wait just a damn minute,” said Locke.

“Give it here,” said Jean. He took the packet, poured its contents into the water, and shook the cup several times. “How long will it last?”

“Hours.”

“Good.” Jean passed the cup to Zodesti and gestured at it with a dagger. “Drink up.”

“What?”

“I don’t want you running off to the first constable you can find as soon as I dump you on the street.”

“Don’t think I would be so foolish as to try and run from you—”

“Don’t think I give a damn. Drink the whole thing or I’ll break your arms.”

Zodesti quickly gulped the contents of the cup. “How I’m going to laugh when they catch you, you son of a bitch.” He tossed the cup down carelessly on Locke’s bed and sat with his back against the wall. “All the justices of Lashain are my patients. Your friend’s too sick to run. If he’s still alive when they catch you, they’ll draw and quarter him just to give you something to watch while you wait for your own exe … execution.…”

A few seconds later his head rolled forward and he began snoring.

“Think he’s pretending?” said Locke.

Jean shoved the tip of his dagger into the calf of Zodesti’s outstretched right leg. The physiker didn’t stir.

“I hate to say that I told you so,” said Locke, settling back against his cushions and folding his hands in front of him. “Wait, no I don’t. I could use a bottle of wine, and don’t add any water this—”

“I’ll get Malcor,” said Jean. “I’ll have him stay the night. Constant attention.”

“Damn it, Jean, wake up.” Locke coughed and pounded on his chest. “What a reversal this is, eh? I wanted to die in Vel Virazzo and you pulled me back to my senses. Now I really am dying and you’re bereft of yours.”

“There’s—”

“No more physikers, Jean. No more alchemists, no more dog-leeches. No more rocks to pry up looking for miracles.”

“How can you just lie there like a fish washed up on shore, with no fight at all?”

“I suppose I could flop around a bit, if you thought it would help.”

“The Gray King sliced you like a veal cutlet and you came back from that, twice as aggravating as ever.”

“Sword cuts. If they don’t turn green, you can expect to heal. It’s the nature of things. With black alchemy, who the hell knows?”

“I’ll give you wine, but I want you to take it with two parts water, like Malcor said. And I want you to eat tonight, everything you can. Keep your strength up—”

“I’ll eat, but only to give the wine some ballast. There’s no other point to it, Jean. There’s no cure forthcoming.”

“If you can’t be cured, you’ll have to endure. Outlast it, until it breaks like a fever.”

“The poison’s more likely to last than I am.” Locke coughed and dabbed at his mouth with one of his sheets. “Jean, you’ve called down some trouble by stealing this little weasel out of his house. Surely you can see that.”

“I was very careful.”

“You know better! He’ll remember your face, and Lashain’s not so very big. Look, take the money that’s left. Take it and get out of town tonight. You can slip into a dozen trades at will, you speak four languages, you’ll be wealthy again in—”

“Incomprehensible babble.” Jean sat on the edge of the bed and gently pushed Locke’s sweat-slick hair out of his eyes. “I don’t understand a word you’re saying.”

“Jean, I know you. You’ll kill half a city block when your blood’s up, but you’ll
never
slit the throat of a sleeping man who’s done us no real harm. That means constables will kick our doors down sooner or later. Please don’t be here when they do.”

“You brought this upon yourself when you cheated that antidote into my glass. The consequences are yours to—”

“Like hell. You would have robbed me of that choice, too! Gods, all this maneuvering for moral advantage! You’d think we were married.” Locke coughed and arched his back. “The gods must truly have it in for you, to make you my nurse,” he said quietly. “Not once but twice, now.”

“Hell, they made me your nurse when I was ten years old. You can knock down kingdoms on a whim. What you need is someone to make sure you don’t get hit by a carriage when you cross the street.”

“That’s all over now, though. And it might have been kinder for you if I had been hit by a carriage—”

“You see this?” Jean took the tightly bound lock of dark, curly hair out of his coat pocket and held it up. “You see this, you bloody bastard? You know where it came from. I’m done losing. Do you fucking hear me? I am
done
losing. Spare me your precious self-pity, because this isn’t a stage and I didn’t pay two coppers to cry my eyes out over anyone’s death speech. You don’t fucking get one, understand? I don’t care if you cough up buckets of blood. Buckets I can carry. I don’t care if you howl like a dog for months. You’re going to eat and drink and keep fighting.”

“Well,” said Locke after a few moments had passed in silence. He smiled wryly. “If you are going to be an intractable son of a bitch, why don’t you uncork that wine so we can start with the part about drinking?”

JEAN LEFT
Zodesti in an alley about three blocks west of the Villa Suvela, taking care to conceal him well and cover his bag with trash. He wouldn’t be at all pleased when he awoke, but at least he’d be alive.

Locke’s condition changed little that night; he slept in fits and starts, sipped wine, grudgingly chewed cold beef and soft bread, and continued bleeding. Jean fell asleep sitting up and managed to spill ale over a useless treatise on poisons. Most of their nights had been like this, recently.

The rain kept up well into the next night, enfolding the city in murk. Just before the unseen sundown Jean went out to fetch fresh supplies. There was a merchants’ inn not ten minutes from the Villa Suvela that was used to dealing in necessities at odd hours.

When Jean came back, the front door was completely unmarked. He had no reason to suspect that anything was amiss, until he glanced down in the entry and saw the great mess of water that had recently been brought across the threshold.

Movement on both sides—too many attackers, too prepared. A basket of food and wine was no weapon at all. Jean went down under a press of bodies. With desperate strength he smashed a nose, kicked a foot, tried to claw out the space he needed to pull and use his hatchets—

“Enough,” said a commanding voice. Jean looked up. The door to the inner apartment was open, and there were men standing over Locke’s bed.