The Republic of Thieves #2

9

“IT WILL be a better turnout than I expected,” said Jasmer, hunched over a cracked mug of brandy and rainwater.

“What a generous allowance.” Baron Boulidazi sat across from Moncraine at a back corner table in Mistress Gloriano’s common room. “It’s better than you ever had any right to expect, you damned fool.”

“Very probably, my lord.”

Locke leaned against the wall nearby, listening while trying hard to look like he wasn’t. He nursed a half-full cup of apple wine. It was the eve of the Count’s Day performance, and by tradition the company had drunk four toasts in a row—Boulidazi first, Moncraine second, the company third, and a last cup for Morgante the City Father, a prayer for orderly streets and crowds. Fortunately, Chains had taught Locke the fine art of making half-sips look like vast friendly gulps, and without violating the spirit of the toasts he’d managed to shield his wits from their substance.

“Probably? I’ve stretched myself for you again, Moncraine,” said the baron, his usual easy bravado discarded. He hadn’t restrained himself while toasting, and his voice was tight with concern. “I can’t just ask my friends to put in an appearance like hired clappers, for the gods’ sake. Eleven gentlemen of standing with entourages. At a first performance, no less. You know they’d usually wait to hear if it’s worth the bother. So it had damn well better be.”

“You know its quality. You’ve been on us like a bloody leech all through rehearsal.”

“I don’t just need it to be good,” said Boulidazi. “I want it smooth. Flawless. No incidents, no foul-ups, no miscues.”

“You can’t escape miscues,” said Moncraine. “If the piece is good they just flow right past; nobody gives a—”

“I give a damn.” Boulidazi was genuinely in his cups, Locke saw. “This is my bloody company now, as much as it is yours, and my reputation hanging in the wind. Fail me and you’ll regret the day you first saw the sun.”

“With every will to please my gracious lord,” said Moncraine acidly, “if it was as easy as simply commanding someone to get it right, there wouldn’t be any bad plays. Or paintings, or songs, or—”

“F*ck up and I’ll have your legs broken,” said Boulidazi. “How’s that for motivation?”

“I was already quite adequately motivated,” said Jasmer, rising to his feet. “I believe I’ll withdraw, my lord, as your heady company quite overwhelms my peasant sensibilities.”

Jasmer moved off into the crowd to mingle with Sylvanus and Chantal. The new bit players and the inn’s usual crowd of wastrels and parasites were making a joyous noise unto the wine and ale jugs. Mistress Gloriano fueled the carousing with fresh liquor like a blacksmith shoveling coal into a smelting furnace.

“Andrassus, you goat,” yelled Jasmer, “how’s tonight’s wine?”

“Undistinguished,” burped Sylvanus. “If it hasn’t improved by the seventh or eighth cup I might have to resort to sterner forms of self-abuse.”

Baron Boulidazi rose unsteadily, glowering, ignoring Locke. By chance Sabetha had just come up behind him as she wound her outwardly cheerful path through the tumult, hostess-like. The cup in her hands was as artfully decorative as Locke’s.

“Verena,” said the baron in a low voice, “surely you’ve done your duty to the company this evening. Let me grant you some of the comforts you’re used to, to rest yourself before the show. A proper hot bath, a fine bed, ice wines, perhaps even—”

“Oh, Gennaro,” she whispered, delicately removing his hand from where it had come to rest on her upper arm, then twining her fingers through his. “You’ve been so thoughtful. Surely you know it’s bad luck to celebrate like that before a performance, hmmm? I’ll be only too happy to accept your offer after we’ve taken our last bows.”

It was just about the best possible deflection under the circumstances, thought Locke, but it was also alarming. She’d committed herself now to being alone with him, no later than the day after next, when their second show was finished. After weeks of flirtation and half-promises, Boulidazi could only respond badly to further excuses.

“Oh, let it be so,” said the baron. “Let me take you away from these damned people and live as we should, even for a day or two. It’s your company that’s kept me down here incognito, not any love of correcting Moncraine. And when this is finished, I want you … that is, I want you to think on what you want next. Imagine the role you desire. I’ll have Moncraine stage it for you, anything you like—”

“You do know just what to say to a lady,” said Sabetha, laying a finger over his lips and very effectively shutting him up. “I’ll reflect on your offer. On all your offers, Gennaro. I think our desires for the future may be understood to be in close agreement.”

“Are you sure,” said Boulidazi, plainly dealing with the sudden rush of blood to somewhere less conversationally useful than his brain, “absolutely sure, that tonight you wouldn’t—”

“I wouldn’t,” she said, sweetly but firmly. “We’ve two long days ahead of us and so much time to spend as we wish afterward. Let’s not put the cart before the horse. Or should that be stallion, hmmmm?”

“Right,” he said. “Right. As you … as you wish, always. And yet—”

Locke forced himself to cease listening as Boulidazi burbled a fresh stream of love-struck inanities. The baron’s predictable refusal to accept Sabetha’s polite-speak invitation to piss off for the evening meant that she’d be tending him until she was too tired to do anything but collapse, sour and exhausted, sometime after midnight. Every halting step Locke had taken with Sabetha, every precious moment of understanding they’d clawed out of one another was again being wasted. Locke stared fixedly at his drink, wondering if it was time to quit playacting and throw back a few.

“Ahoy there, Lucaza,” said Calo, swooping out of nowhere to seize Locke by the arms. He spoke rather loudly: “We’re short a thrower for a game of F*ck-the-Next-Fellow.”

“But I don’t want to throw dice—”

“Nonsense,” said Calo, pulling him away from Sabetha and Boulidazi. “You’re just standing here mooning when you could be losing coins like a proper lad. Come, you’re rolling with us.”

“But … but—”

His sputtering achieved nothing. Calo relieved him of his wine and drank it in two gulps. He then dragged Locke on a zigzag path through the crowd, down a side passage and up the narrow stairs near Sabetha and Jenora’s room.

“What the hell are you—”

“Biggest favor of your life, half-wit,” said Calo. The long-haired Sanza kicked the wall, and to Locke’s surprise that section of wood paneling slid backward with a click. “Trust me. In the box.”

Calo’s shove sent Locke sprawling into the confines of a hidden room, perhaps four feet high and seven feet long. A layer of blankets softened his landing, and the space was lit by the pale red glow of a tiny alchemical lamp set atop a stack of small wine casks. The secret panel slid shut behind him.

Befuddled, Locke glanced around, taking in the very few interesting features of the tiny space. “F*cking Sanzas,” he muttered.

“I should think not,” said Sabetha an instant later as the panel snapped open again. She closed it as quickly as possible behind her and flopped down on the blankets with a relieved sigh.

“Oh gods,” said Locke, “this was all your—”

“The twins told me about this place. Seems Mistress Gloriano’s done some smuggling in her time. Calo accidentally opened it when he tripped against the wall one night.”

“What are we going to do about that damned baron?”

“Nothing,” said Sabetha. “He doesn’t exist.”

“My throat disagrees.”

She grabbed him by the tunic, and there was nothing playful or hesitant in the way she planted her lips on his neck.

“Your throat’s my concern,” she whispered. “And there’s nothing outside this room. Not now, not for as long as we’re in here.”

“Your absence will be as obvious to Boulidazi as if someone had stolen his breeches,” said Locke.

“Ordinarily. That’s why I made sure I handed him his last drink while we were toasting.”

“You didn’t!”

“I did.” Her smirk struck Locke as extremely becoming. “Something mild, to muddle his thoughts. Soon enough he won’t want to do anything except go to bed, and for once the miserable ass and I share a notion.”

“But if he—”

“I already told you he doesn’t exist.” She took his head in her hands and spread her fingers through his hair. “I’m tired of everyone else getting what they want except us. Coming and going as they please, sleeping where they please, while you and I live from interruption to interruption.” She brushed the faintest hint of a kiss against his lips, and then a longer one, and by the time she started on the third Locke was in serious danger of forgetting his own name.

“So you really did choose to be charmed at last, hmm?” he managed to whisper.

“No.” She jabbed him in the chest, playfully but firmly. “I’m not here because you finessed me, dunce. You were right, on the roof that night. We want what we want. We don’t need to justify it. And when we can take it, we should. I want you. And I am taking you.”

Her next kiss told him that she meant to be finished with talking for some time.