The Republic of Thieves (76 page)

“I know she was lying,” said Locke. “There have to be lies mixed in somewhere. It’s the parts that might be true that concern me.”

“Why not assume it was ALL lies?” Jean ran his fingers rapidly over his temples, attempting to massage away the dull pain still radiating from his plastered nose. “Bow-to-stern bullshit! Gods damn it, this is what you and I do to people. We talk them into corners where they can’t tell truth from nonsense.”

“She knows my name. My actual name. The one I—”

“Yes,” said Jean. “And I know who told her.”

“But I only ever—”

“That’s right.” Disgust burned like bile at the back of Jean’s throat,
and he tapped his own chest with both hands. “They said they opened me like a book in Tal Verrar and took everything they wanted. Therefore,
I
must have given them that name. Think! The rest of Patience’s story was most likely built around it.”

“That leaves the question of the third name.”

“The one Patience claims is deeper than the one you gave me? Is it even there?”

Locke rubbed his shadow-cupped eyes. “I don’t … I don’t know. It’s not a name at all. Just a feeling, maybe.”

“About what I expected,” said Jean. “Do you
really
remember ever having that feeling, before tonight? It strikes me as a ready-made bluff. I have all manner of strange unsorted feelings in my heart and head; we
all
must. She didn’t give you half a particle of telling evidence! All she did was plant a doubt that you could gnaw on forever, if you let yourself.”

“If I let myself.” Locke tossed his glass aside. “All my life I’ve wondered where the hell I came from. Now I’ve got possibilities like an arrow to the gut, and I absolutely do
not
have time to fuss over them.”

“Possibilities,” sighed Jean. “In faith, now, even if they were true answers, would you really want this particular bunch? I realize it’s easy for me to say … knowing when and where I was born—”

“I know where I’m from,” said Locke. “I’m from Camorr. I’m from Camorr! Even if everything she said was true, that’s all I give a barrel of dry rat shit about. That and Sabetha.” Locke stood, the lines of his face grimly set. “That, and Sabetha, and beating the hell out of her in this idiotic election. Now—”

Someone knocked at the door, loudly and urgently.

LOCKE WATCHED
as Jean unbolted it with customary caution. There stood Nikoros, unshaven, his eyes like fried eggs and hair looking as though it had been caught in the spokes of a wagon wheel. He held a piece of parchment in a shaking hand.

“This just came in,” he muttered. “Specifically for Master Lazari, from a Black Iris courier at the AHHHHHHH—”

This exclamation erupted out of him as Locke darted forward and
seized the letter. He snapped it open, noting the quick familiar strokes of Sabetha’s script:

“Ah, damn everything,” Locke muttered, crumpling the parchment and stuffing it into a jacket pocket. “Gods damn everything.” He
collapsed back into his chair, brows knit, and let his gaze wander aimlessly over the wall. The most awkward sort of silence settled over the room, until Jean cleared his throat.

“Well, ah, Nikoros. You look like you’ve been thrashed by devils,” he said. “What’s going on?”

“Business, sir, business. So much of it. And I … I … forgive me, I’m going without … the substance we’ve discussed.”

“You’re weaning yourself from that wretched dust.” Jean clapped Nikoros by the shoulders, a gesture that made the smaller man wobble like aspic. “Good! You were murdering yourself, you know.”

“The way my head feels, I half wish I’d succeeded,” said Nikoros.

Locke’s curiosity drew him back to the present, and he studied Nikoros. The Karthani was on the come-down from black alchemy for sure; Locke had seen it a hundred times. The misery would shake Nikoros for days like a cat playing with a toy. It might be wise to cut the poor fellow’s duties … or even to chain him to a wall.

Hells
, Locke thought,
if I get any more twisted out of my own skin they might have to shackle me next to him
.

“Lazari,” said Jean, “now, if that letter’s what I think it is … Is it, shall we say, a finality? Or just an interruption?”

“It’s a knife to the guts,” said Locke. “But I suppose … well, I suppose I can view it as more an interruption.”

“Good,” said Jean. “Good!”

“I suppose,” muttered Locke. Then, feeling an old familiar heat stirring in his breast: “Yes, I really do suppose! By the gods, I need noise and mischief. I need fuss and fuckery until I can’t see straight! Nikoros! What have you been doing all night?”

“Uh, well, I just came back from surveying the big mess,” said Nikoros. “Big and getting worse. Not just for us, I mean. For the whole city.”

“I’m losing my ability to tell one mess from another around here,” said Locke.

“Oh! I mean at the north gate, sirs, and the Court of Dust. All the refugees out of the north.”

“Oh. OH! Gods, the bloody war,” said Locke. “I’d half forgotten. What kind of refugees?”

“At this point, the sort with money, mostly. The ones that fled before
the fighting gets anywhere near. And their guards, servants, and the like. All stacking up at inns until they can plead for residence—”

“Refugees with money, you say,” interrupted Jean. “Looking for new homes. Which is to say,
potential voters in need of immediate assistance
.”

“Hells yes,” shouted Locke. “Horses, Nikoros! Three of them, now! Have a scribe and a solicitor follow us. We scoop up anyone who can pay for enfranchisement; then we find them permanent accommodations in districts where we most need the votes!”

“And they’ll be Deep Roots for life,” said Jean with a grin. “Or at least the next couple of weeks, which is all we give a damn about.”

“I, uh … I will come, sirs, I just …” Nikoros gulped and wrung his hands together. “I need a few minutes of privacy, first, if I might. I’ll, uh, meet you downstairs.”

THE NIGHT
was cool. They rode through pale wisps of fog coiling off cobblestones like unquiet spirits, past black banners and green banners fluttering limply from balconies, through stately quiet until they reached the Court of Dust. There they found the mess Nikoros had promised.

Bluecoats were out in force, and Locke saw at once how nervous they were, how unaccustomed they must be to real surprises. Wagons were lined up haphazardly, horses snorting and flicking their tails while teamsters and stable attendants haggled. Lamps were lit in every inn and tavern bordering the court; knots of conversation and argument stood out everywhere in the uneasy crowds.

“Where the hells are we meant to go, then?” shouted a long-coated carriage hand at a tired-looking hostler. His Therin was fair, but his accent was obvious. “All these taverns are full up, now you tell me this bloody Josten’s place is closed off for your damn—”

“Your pardon, my good man,” said Locke, reining in beside the fracas. “If you have persons of quality seeking accommodations, I can be of immediate assistance.”

“Really? Who the devils might you be, then?”

“Lazari is my name.
Doctor
Sebastian Lazari.” Locke flashed a grin,
then shifted to his excellent Vadran. “Your masters or mistresses have all my sympathies for the circumstances of their displacement, but they’ll soon find they’re not without friends here in Karthain.”

“Oh, bless the waters deep and shallow,” answered the carriage hand in the same tongue. “I serve the honorable Irina Varosz of Stovak. We’ve been five days on the road since—”

“You’re all but home,” said Locke. “Josten’s is the place for you. Josten’s Comprehensive. I can arrange chambers; pay no heed to what you’ve been told. My man Nikoros will handle the details.”

Nikoros, barely in control of his skittish horse, approached at the snap of Locke’s fingers.

“I’m, uh, not entirely sure where I’m meant to put them,” he whispered.

“Use the chambers I’ve kept empty for security reasons,” said Locke. “We can find other places for them after a few days. Rack your brains for anyone in the party who’s got empty rooms on their hands. Hell, there’s one manor up in Vel Verda that springs to mind immediately. Might as well get some joy out of the damn place.”

Jean was already off plying his own friendly Vadran to other guards, other footmen, other curious and well-dressed strangers with road dust on their cloaks. For perhaps twenty minutes he and Locke worked together smoothly, directing minor cousins of nobility and merchants of assorted quality to Nikoros and thence to Josten’s and the bosom of the Deep Roots party.

There was a fresh stir at the southern edge of the Court of Dust. Massed hooves rang on the cobbles as some two dozen men and women in black livery rode in, led by Vordratha and a few of the bravos Locke had seen hanging around the Sign of the Black Iris.

“That’s a pain in the precious bits,” muttered Locke to Nikoros. “I was hoping for a little more time alone to make new friends. Who told these assholes to get out of bed?”

“Oh, uh, I’m sure it was only a, uh, matter of time,” coughed Nikoros.

“You’re probably right.” Locke cracked his knuckles. “Well, now we play suitors in earnest. Here come that scribe and solicitor I wanted, at least. You ride like hell back to Josten’s and help him stack our friends from the north like books on shelves!”

IT WAS
past the ninth hour of the morning when Jean’s nagging sense of duty pulled him back to the waking world, feeling like dough just barely baked long enough to resemble bread. He made his toilet indifferently, merely taming and oiling his hair before donning a fresh Morenna Sisters ensemble. Optics in place, nose plaster adjusted, he used his suite’s little mirror to affirm that his powerful need for coffee was plainly visible. Alas. They’d done good work the night before, and their reward for that work would be yet more work today.

Jean pushed the door to the main suite open and found Locke perched over a writing desk, looking even more ragged than Jean felt.

“I would inquire if you’d slept,” said Jean, “but I’ve learned to recognize silly questions before I ask them.”

Locke was surrounded by the detritus of personal and party business: stacks of papers in Nikoros’ handwriting, small avalanches of notes and receipts spilling from leather folios, several plates of half-eaten and now desiccated biscuits, a collection of burnt-out tapers and dimly phosphorescent alchemical globes. Crumpled sheets of parchment littered the floor. Locke peered at Jean like some sort of subterranean creature roused from contemplation of secret treasures by a mortal intruder.

“I don’t much feel like sleep,” he muttered. “You can go ahead and have mine if you like.”

“If only it worked that way,” said Jean, moving to loose one of the window-shades. “Gods, you’ve got these things plugged up tight enough to keep out water, let alone an autumn morning.”

“
Please
don’t touch that!” Locke shook his quill, and Jean noted that it was distinctly shorter than it had been when he’d trundled off to bed. “Open that window and I’ll burst into flame.”

“What’s got you so exercised?” Jean left the curtains alone and settled into a chair. “Anything to do with the new friends we swept up last night?”

“No.” Locke did favor him with a satisfied grin. “The count, by the way, is seventy-two eligible adults. I’ve got the solicitors lined up to discuss terms with them. Nice and simple. We’ll take them to the relevant offices in groups, hand over a little sweetener money with the
fees, and get them registered. They’ll be seventy-two lawful voters by nightfall, and then we’ll decide which districts to settle them in.”

“How many fresh faces did the Black Iris snatch up?”

“Half what we got.” More teeth appeared within Locke’s grin. “I’ve left a reception committee at the Court of Dust to keep the party rolling, and I sent out a little expedition to survey the road. The opposition will still get some, of course, but I think we can safely say that the majority of Vadran expatriate votes will be for the Deep Roots.”

“Splendid,” said Jean. “Now, what’s the business that’s been wearing that quill down?”

“Oh, it’s, you know.” Locke gestured at the arc of crumpled parchment sheets on the floor. “It’s a letter. My letter. To, uh, her. My response. It has a few, uh, sentiments and delicacies yet to be straightened out. I suppose by ‘few’ I mean ‘all of them.’ Say, can I ask you to undertake an embassy to the Sign of the Black Iris when it’s finished?”