The Republic of Thieves (75 page)

Jean squeezed his shoulder. Jenora, carefully avoiding even brushing against the baron’s corpse, reached past Locke and drew a battered alchemical globe out of a pile of cloth scraps. She shook it to kindle a dim light, then handed it to him. In a moment she and Jean were gone.

“Thank you,” whispered Sabetha. The sympathy and admiration in her eyes were too much for Locke to bear. He turned away and scowled at Boulidazi’s corpse, then found himself unable to resist as Sabetha drew him back for a brief, tight embrace. She touched her lips to his for the length of a heartbeat.

“I’ve got notes to write,” she said, “but you haven’t escaped. This is just a postponement. We’ll have another chance.
Another
another chance.”

He wanted to say something clever and reassuring, but he felt distinctly wrung dry of wit, and managed only a forlorn wave before she slid the door quietly shut. Locke bolted it with a sigh.

Finding Jenora’s supply of rose dust and pomanders took only a few moments, as most of the costumes and junk in the room had been
organized for easy packing. Locke gagged and stifled a sneeze as he shook a few puffs of sweet-scented alchemical powder onto the baron’s body.

“Pleased with yourself now, shitbag?” Locke whispered. His anger grew, and with a snarl he kicked Boulidazi’s corpse, raising another faint puff of rose dust. “Even dead you’re still fucking with my intimate affairs!”

Locke put his back to a wall and slowly sank down, feeling the strength ebb from his legs along with his fury. What a place to spend a night! A dozen
phantasma
masks stared down at him from the walls. A dozen imaginary dead forming a court for one very real corpse.

Locke closed his eyes and tried to blot the image of the death-masks from his mind. Under the cloying odor of roses, he could still make out the faintest scent of Sabetha, clinging to his lips, hair, and skin.

Groaning, he settled in for the worst night of so-called rest he’d had in years.

“
WHAT IN
all the shit-heaped hells have you yanked us out of bed for, Camorri?”

Jasmer Moncraine looked rather trampled at the tenth hour of the following morning. Sylvanus was only a certain percentage of a human being, Donker seemed to be silently praying for death, and Bert and Chantal were using one another as buttresses. Only Alondo, of all the night’s ardent revelers, seemed to be mostly intact.

The company was gathered in Mistress Gloriano’s largest room. The Gentlemen Bastards had spent the better part of an hour chasing wastrels, prostitutes, parasites, and curiosity-seekers out of the inn. The company’s bit players had been given stern instructions to gather at the Pearl itself. With a barred door and a nearly empty building, their privacy for the next few minutes was as certain as it could be.

“Our lord and patron has done something we need to discuss,” said Sabetha. She and the other Camorri, along with Jenora, formed a wall between everyone else and the room’s table. On that table rested a shrouded and scented object.

“What’s he done, commanded us to pour rose dust down our tunics? Gods’ privates, that’s some reek,” said Moncraine.

“What we have to show you,” said Jenora, her voice quavering, “is the most important thing in the world.”

“On your honor,” said Locke, “on your promises to one another, on your souls, you
must
swear not to scream or shout. I’m deadly serious. Your lives are at stake.”

“Save the drama for the stage, and for after noon,” yawned Chantal. “What’s this about?”

Locke swallowed the dry air of his suddenly spitless mouth and nodded. The human wall in front of the shrouded corpse broke up; Jean and the Sanzas pushed through the company and took up a new guard position at the door. When they were in place, Locke uncovered the baron’s body in one smooth motion.

There was dead, ghastly silence, an all-devouring vacuum of dread. Moncraine’s face did things that Locke would have sworn were beyond the powers of even a veteran actor.

Donker stumbled into a far corner of the room, braced himself against the wall, and threw up.

“What have you done?” whispered Moncraine. “My gods, gods of my mother, you’ve fucking killed us. You fucking little Camorri murderers—”

“It was an accident,” said Jenora, wringing her hands together so hard that Locke could hear her knuckles cracking.

“An
accident
? What, what, he … stabbed himself in the gods-damned heart?”

“He was drunk,” said Sabetha. “He tried to rape Jenora, and she defended herself.”

“You
defended
yourself?” Moncraine peered slack-jawed at Jenora, as though she’d just then appeared out of thin air. “You witless cunt, you’ve done for us all. You should have enjoyed it as best you could and let him stumble on his way!”

Sabetha glared, Chantal blinked as though she’d been slapped, and Jenora took an angry step forward. Curiously enough, the fist that slammed into Moncraine’s jaw half a second later belonged to Sylvanus.

“You forget yourself,” the old man barked. “You who might have
killed the useless boor weeks ago, if you’d had anything but empty air in your hands! You faithless fucking peacock!”

Sylvanus moved past Jasmer, who was holding a hand to his jaw and staring wide-eyed at the old man. Sylvanus gathered spit with a phlegmy rumbling noise, then spat a pinkish gob on the dead baron’s breast.

“So it’s our death lying here before us,” he said. “So what? There’s few advantages to being a friend of Sylvanus Olivios Andrassus, but at least there’s this. If you say you had to do it, Jenora, I believe you. If you killed the miserable shit to keep your honor, I’m proud of you for it.”

Jenora seized the old man in a hug. Sylvanus sighed reflectively and patted her on the back.

“Jenora,” said Moncraine. “I’m … I’m sorry. Andrassus is right. I did forget myself. Gods know I’ve got no business talking about restraint in the face of … provocation. But now we’ve got to scatter. We’ve got two or three hours, at best. There’s hundreds of people expecting us to be at the Pearl by midafternoon.”

“I can’t run,” gasped Donker, rising from his misery and wiping his mouth on a tunic sleeve. “I can’t leave Espara! This is madness! I’m not even … let’s explain ourselves, let’s say it was all an accident, they’ll understand!”

Locke took a deep, steadying breath. Donker was the one he’d been afraid of; with him it all came down to how much he truly cherished his cousin.

“They won’t understand a damned thing,” growled Bert. “They’ve got a heap of foreigners, players, and nightskins to punish at will.”

“Djunkhar, Bert’s right. They don’t have to
care
if anyone’s innocent,” said Locke. “So nobody’s running or confessing. We have a plan, and you’re all going to swear an oath by it if you want to be free and alive at the end of the day.”

“Not me. I’m leaving,” said Jasmer. “Dressed as a priest, dressed as a horse, dressed as the fucking
countess
if I must. There’s ways out of the city that aren’t past guarded gates, and unless your plan involves a Bondsmage, I’m for them—”

“Then we’ll have two corpses to lie about instead of one,” said Sabetha.

Calo and Galdo reached into their tunic sleeves, taking care to be as obvious as possible.

“You puppies do love to give the fucking orders,” said Moncraine. “This is madness and fantasy! We don’t play
games
with this corpse. We run from it as fast as we still can!”

“You bloody coward, Jasmer,” said Jenora. “Give them a chance! Who pried you out of gaol?”

“The gods,” said Jasmer. “They’re all perverts and I seem to be their present amusement.”

“Enough! This is
singua solus
now,” said Locke. “It means ‘one fate.’ Does everyone understand?”

Moncraine only glared. Chantal, Bert, and Sylvanus nodded. Donker shook his head, and Alondo spoke: “I, uh, have to confess I don’t.”

“It works like this,” said Locke. “Everyone here is now party to murder and treason. Congratulations! There’s no backing gently out of it. So we go straight on through this business with our heads held high, or we hang. We swear ourselves to the plan, we tell the exact same lies, and we take the truth to our graves.”

“And if anyone reneges,” said Sylvanus, slowly and grimly, “should anyone think to confess after all, and trade the rest of us for some advantage, we swear to vengeance. The rest of us vow to get them, whatever it takes.”

“Mercy of the Twelve,” sobbed Donker, “I just wanted to have some fun onstage, just once.”

“Fun must be paid for, Cousin.” Alondo took him by the shoulders and steadied him. “It seems the price has gone up for us. Let’s show the gods we’ve got some nerve, eh?”

“How can you be so calm?”

“I’m not. I’m too scared to piss straight,” said Alondo. “But if the Camorri have a plan it’s far more than I’ve got, and I’ll cling to it.”

“The plan is simple,” said Sabetha, “though it’ll take some nerve. The first thing you need to realize is that we’re still doing the play tonight.”

Their reactions were as Locke expected: panic, shouting, blasphemy, and threats, more panic.

“THIRTEEN GODS,” shouted Calo, silencing the tumult. “There’s one way out and no way back. If we don’t go onstage like nothing’s wrong, we can’t escape. You’re in our hands now, and we’re your only chance!”

“We piss excellence and shit happy endings,” said Galdo. “Trust us and live. Listen to Lucaza again.”

Locke spoke quickly now, succinctly, and was viciously dismissive to questions and complaints. He outlined the plan in every detail, just as they’d conjured it the night before, with a few twists he’d thought up during his long vigil. When he was finished, everyone except Sylvanus looked as though they’d aged five years.

“This is even worse than before!” said Donker.

“Unfortunately, you can see that you’re indispensable,” said Locke. “You might have signed on to get killed onstage, but you’ll get killed for real if you don’t play along.”

“What … what the hell do we do with the body?” said Chantal.

“We burn it,” said Sabetha. “Make it look like an accident. We have a plan, for after the play. We roast him just enough to hide the real cause of death, but not enough to prevent identification.”

“And the money?” said Jasmer, his voice dry and tense. “We won’t get a second show with a dead patron. Even if we’re absolved from paying damages to all the vendors, we’re in the hole. Deep.”

“That’s my last bit of good news,” said Locke. “We have copies of the baron’s signatures, plus his signet ring. We collect all the money from the first show; then we come back here. We have you, Jasmer, sign a false receipt from the baron for everything he’s owed, just as if he’d taken it first, as was his right. Verena will forge his signature. Then
he
dies in a fire, the money goes quietly into
our
pockets, and we act like we have no idea what the hell Boulidazi did with it before he died.”

“We collect the money?” said Moncraine.

“Of course,” said Locke. “We figured Jenora could take charge of it—”

“We
can’t
collect the money,” said Moncraine. “It’s one of the things Boulidazi and I were arguing about last night before he got too drunk to think! He’s got someone coming in on his orders to handle all the coin!”

“What?” said Locke and Sabetha in unison.

“Just what I said, you fucking know-it-all infants. Boulidazi might be coffin meat, but he’s got a hireling already assigned to collect the money for him. None of us here will be allowed to touch a copper of it!”

“
YOU
’
RE AS WELCOME
as a scorpion in a nursery,” said Vordratha, meeting Locke with a glare and a wall of well-dressed toughs at his back. As was becoming routine, Locke had been halted before making it halfway across the entry hall of the Sign of the Black Iris.

“I need to see her,” panted Locke. His flight across the city had not been dignified or subtle; he’d stolen a horse to make it possible, and bluecoats were probably scouring the Vel Verda as he spoke.

“Why, you’re the very last person in Karthain who’d be allowed to do so.” Vordratha’s smirk split his lean face like a sword wound. “Her orders were explicit and vehement.”

“Look, I know our last encounter was—”

“Unpleasant.” Vordratha gestured. Before Locke could turn to run, the Black Iris guards had him pinioned.

“Remember, Master Vordratha, that you’d as good as confessed your intentions to have us beaten and left in an alley,” said Locke. “So if our conversational options were narrowed you’ve only yourself to blame!”

“The mistress of the house specifically desires not to see you.” Vordratha
leaned in close; his breath was like a hint of old spilled wine. “And while I am charged not to harm you, I’d argue that I’m not responsible for anything that happens between your leaving my custody and hitting the pavement.”

Vordratha’s guards pushed Locke outside and heaved him in an impressive arc that terminated in a bone-jarring impact with the cobblestones. His feelings warred bitterly over his next move, pride and desire against prudence and street-reflexes, the latter winning out only when he realized how perilously close he was to carriage traffic and how many witnesses were on hand to see him get crushed by it. Groaning, he crawled back to the curb.

His stolen horse was gone, and the Black Iris stable boys leered at him knowingly. It was a long, painful walk to a neighborhood where a coach would deign to pick him up.

“… 
AND THAT
’
S
the whole gods-damned mess,” said Locke, his fingers knotted around a glass that had once contained a throat-scorching quantity of brandy. “I found a ride, came straight back, and here we are.”

It was past midnight. Locke had returned, sequestered Jean in their suite, and with the help of large plates of food and a bottle of Josten’s most expensive distilled spirits he’d unrolled the whole tale.

“Do you really need me to tell you that the bitch was lying?” said Jean.