The Republic of Thieves #2

INTERLUDE


AN INCONVENIENT PATRON

1

“JOVANNO,” SAID LOCKE. “Did you—”

“It was me,” said Jenora, hoarsely. “He tried … he tried …”

“He tried to tear her gods-damned clothes off,” said Jean, putting his arms around Jenora. “He was on the ground before I got here.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt him, but … he’s drunk,” said Jenora. “He put his hands on my neck. He was choking me .…”

Locke crouched warily over Boulidazi and slid the baron’s knife from its sheath. The heaving, bleeding man made no effort to stop him. Locke had seen bloody lung-cuts before, from duels at Capa Barsavi’s court. This was near-certain death, but it wouldn’t be quick. Boulidazi could have the strength to do them real harm for some time yet. So why wasn’t he fighting back now? His gaze was distant, his pupils unnaturally wide. Blood bubbled around the makeshift weapon still jutting from his chest, and this seemed to be causing him startled bemusement, not mortal panic.

“He’s not just drunk,” said Locke. “It must be whatever you gave him.”

“Shit,” said Sabetha, slumping against the door. “This is all my fault.”

“The hell are you talking about?” said Jean.

“Boulidazi’s drink,” said Calo. “We put something in it. To keep him away from … Verena and Lucaza.”

“Shit,” repeated Sabetha, and the look on her face was too much for Locke to bear.

“Here now,” he said, “half this gods-damned company has been drunk for weeks. The twins have been out of their minds on anything that comes in a bottle or a cask. When did they ever try to rape anyone?” Locke jabbed a finger at Boulidazi. “This is his f*cking fault, nobody else’s!”

“He’s right,” said Calo, setting a hand on Jenora’s wrist. “You did a Camorri thing. You did the right thing.”

“The right thing?” Jenora brushed Calo off and took Jean’s hands. “I’ve hung myself. I’ve spilled noble blood.”

“It’s not murder yet,” said Galdo.

“It doesn’t matter if he lives or dies,” said Jenora. “They’ll kill me for this. They’ll kill as many of us as they can, but me for sure.”

“It was clear self-defense,” growled Jean. “We’ll get a dozen witnesses. We’ll get the whole damn company; we’ll rehearse the story perfectly—”

“And they’ll kill her,” said Sabetha. “She’s right. It won’t matter if we have a hundred witnesses, Jovanno. She’s a nightskin commoner and we’re foreign players, and now we’re all party to wiping out the last heir of an Esparan noble house. If we get caught they’ll grind us into paste and plow us into the fields.”

“As my brother pointed out,” said Galdo, “we don’t have a corpse yet.”

“Yes we do,” said Locke quietly. His hands moved with a decisive steadiness that surprised his head. He removed Boulidazi’s dirty waist sash and gagged the baron with it. The wounded man struggled for air, but still didn’t seem to grasp what was happening to him.

“Gods, what are you doing?” said Jenora.

“What’s required,” said Locke, coldly exhilarated as his oldest reflexes, his Camorri instincts, shoved aside his muddled feelings of forbearance and pity. “If he breathes a word of this to anyone we’re doomed.”

“Oh, gods,” whispered Jenora.

“I’ll be happy to do it,” said Jean.

“No,” said Locke. He’d demanded this necessity; Chains would expect him to not pass the burden. His hands trembled as he unbuckled the baron’s thin leather belt and wound it around his hands. Then the thought of Jean, Sabetha, and the Sanzas dangling from an Esparan gibbet flashed into his mind, and his hands were as steady as temple stones. He slipped the belt over Boulidazi’s neck.

“Wait!” said Sabetha. She knelt in front of Boulidazi, who must now look tragically ridiculous, Locke realized, with the shears buried in his chest, his own sash gagging him, and a slender teenager applying a belt to his windpipe. “You can’t crimp his neck.”

“Watch me,” said Locke through gritted teeth.

“A man can be stabbed for a lot of reasons,” said Sabetha. “But if he’s pricked and strangled, it won’t look accidental.”

Her movements were tender as she grasped the shears. Her eyes were pitiless as the night ocean.

“Just hold him for me,” she whispered.

Locke unwound his hands from the belt and grabbed Boulidazi by his thick upper arms. Sabetha gave Jenora’s shears a hard shove, upward and inward. Boulidazi groaned and jerked in Locke’s arms, but without real force. Even at the moment of his death, he was locked away from the reality of it.

Boulidazi slumped, his legs jerking more and more feebly until at last he was still. Sabetha settled back on her knees, exhaled unsteadily, and held out her blood-slick right hand as though unsure how to clean it. Locke loosened the baron’s sash and passed it to her, then eased Boulidazi’s dead weight to the ground. If they could handle him carefully, Locke thought they could keep most of the blood within him, or at least upon him.

Jenora put her face against one of Jean’s arms.

“Now we can make this look like anything,” said Sabetha. “Argument, crime of passion, anything. We put him somewhere plausible and build a fable. All we’ve got to do is figure out what. And, ah, do it in the next couple of—”

Someone pounded on the door to the room.

Locke fought to keep control of himself; at the first noise it had felt like his skin was attempting to leap off his body. A quick glance around the room showed that nobody else had a firm grip on their nerves, either.

“M’lord Boulidazi?” The muffled voice belonged to Brego, the baron’s bodyguard and errand-hound. “M’lord, are you in there? Is all well?”

Locke stared at the door, which Sabetha had moved away from in order to finish off Boulidazi. Calo and Galdo were the closest to it, but even they were three or four paces away. The door was not bolted; if Brego decided to open it, even a crack, he’d be looking directly at Boulidazi’s corpse.

2

SABETHA MOVED like an arrow leaving a bowstring, and the very first thing she did was tear her tunic off.

Locke’s jaw hadn’t finished dropping before Sabetha was at the door, landing ghost-light on her bare feet.

“Oh, Brego,” she said, panting. “Oh, just a moment!”

She gestured at Boulidazi’s corpse. Calo and Galdo sprang forward to help Locke, and in seconds they managed to push the baron’s body under the bed. Jean slid a blanket partly over the room’s alchemical lamp, dimming it. A moment later Calo, Galdo, and Locke squeezed up against the wall just behind Sabetha, out of the visual arc of the door, provided it wasn’t opened all the way.

Sabetha tousled her hair with one precise head-toss, then cracked the door open to give Brego an unexpectedly fine view of a preoccupied young woman. Her tunic was pressed to her chest with one hand to cover an artful minimum of bosom.

“Why Brego,” she said, mimicking perfect breathlessness, “you dutiful fellow, you!”

“Why, Mistress Verena, I … my lord, is he—”

“He’s busy, Brego.” She giggled. “He’s very busy and will be that way for some time. You can wait downstairs, I think. He’s in the best possible hands.”

She didn’t give him time to say anything else, but with a lascivious little wave she slid the door shut and bolted it.

A few agonizing seconds passed, and then Locke could hear Brego’s boot-steps as he moved away down the corridor. Sabetha threw her tunic back on, sank down against the door, and sighed with relief.

“We’re all gonna have gray f*ckin’ hair by the time the sun comes up,” said Galdo. He and Calo had both been holding daggers at the ready; now they hid the slender bits of blackened steel again. The air in the room suddenly seemed dense with the smells of blood and nervous sweat.

“Can we get the hell out of here now?” said Jenora.

“Where do you want to go?” said Jean.

“Camorr!” she whispered. “For the gods’ sakes, I know you can do … something! I know you’re not really just actors.”

“Calm down, Jenora.” Locke stared at one of Boulidazi’s boots, sticking out incongruously from beneath the bed. “You’re not exactly inconspicuous. How would people not notice you sneaking off hours before we’re supposed to deliver the play? How could we keep you hidden on the road?”

“A ship, then.”

“If you run,” said Sabetha, “you’ll tear a hole in whatever story we invent to explain what’s happened. And you’ll leave your aunt to take all the trouble! If we can’t make the tale neat and obvious, the countess’ people will be right back to rounding up scapegoats.”

“Even if you manage to make it neat and obvious,” said Jenora, “we’re all crushed. We’re liable, remember? To the ditch-tenders, the confectioners, the alemongers, the cushion-renters. Without the play, we’ll be so far in default to all of ’em we might as well go turn ourselves in at the Weeping Tower now.”

“What about acts of the gods?” said Calo. “Surely you wouldn’t be liable if a hurricane blew in. Or the Old Pearl collapsed.”

“Of course not,” said Jenora. “But whatever powers you have, I doubt they extend that far.”

“Not that far, no,” said Calo. “But the stage is made of wood.”

“A fire! Nice one!” said Galdo. “The two of us could handle it. In, out, like shadows. Wouldn’t take two hours.”

“The stage timbers are alchemically petrified,” said Jenora. “They won’t just catch fire. You’d need a dozen cartloads of wood, like engineering a bloody siege.”

“So we can’t destroy the Pearl,” said Sabetha.

“And we can’t run,” said Jean. “It’d invite all kinds of trouble, and it’s not likely any of us would make it home.”

“And if we stay but don’t do the play, we all get thrown into chains for debt,” said Locke. “Debt at the very least.”

“So there’s only one sensible course of action,” said Sabetha.

“Grow wings?” said Calo.

“We have to pretend everything’s normal.” Sabetha counted off items using her fingers as she spoke. “We have to get Brego out of the damned building so we can have some room to move. We have to do the play—”

“You’re cracked!” said Jenora.

“ … and once we’ve done it, then we let the world in on the fact that Boulidazi’s dead, in circumstances that don’t incriminate anyone we care about.”

“What are we going to do with the son-of-a-bitch’s corpse?” Galdo kicked the nearest boot for emphasis. “You know what it’ll smell like if we treat it as a keepsake until tomorrow night.”

“And it’s gonna be ass-ugly,” said Calo. “Any dullard will see the wound’s not fresh.”

“That’s where fire comes in,” said Locke. “We can burn him! Cook him until nobody can tell whether he died an hour or a week ago.”

“How can we control it?” said Jean. “If we burn him beyond recognition …”

“No worries.” Locke held up the knife he’d taken from Boulidazi, the same one the baron had set against his cheek. Its blade was all business, but the hilt was set with black garnets and a delicate white iron cloisonné. “This and all his other baubles will make his identity very plain.”

“Where are we hiding it … I mean, him?” said Jenora.

“No, you mean it,” said Jean, smiling grimly.

“For the smell … I suppose I have pomanders and some rose dust we can douse the body with.” Jenora was still far from settled, but her resolve seemed to be strengthening. “That should help it keep. For a day, at least.”

“Good thought,” said Calo. “As for where, I suppose it’s too easy just to keep him shoved under this bed?”

“Out of the gods-damned question!”

“We could have Sylvanus sit on it all night,” said Locke. “He wouldn’t notice a damn thing until he’d sobered up again. Alas, everyone else would. Let’s hide him with the props and costumes.”

“Let’s hide him as a prop,” said Sabetha. “We’ve got a play full of corpses. Cover him in something suitable, throw a mask on him, and as far as anyone knows, he’s just scenery! That way we can keep him with us—”

“ … and not have to worry about anyone finding him while we’re away at the Pearl!” said Locke. “Yeah. That leaves one last problem .… He’s got a pile of gentlemen and retainers expecting to share his company at the play.”

“Hate to add turds to the shit-feast,” said Calo, “but that’s not the last problem. What do we tell the rest of the troupe about this?”

“Why do we tell the rest of the troupe about this?” said Jenora.

“I’m not best pleased to say it, but we’ve got to bring them in,” said Sabetha. “They’ll be everywhere, in and amongst the props and costumes. If we don’t have their cooperation, we’re sunk.”

“How do we make them cooperate?” said Jean.

“Make them complicit,” said Sabetha. “Make sure they understand it’s their necks in the noose as well, because it is.”

“Singua solus,” said Galdo.

“Just the thing.” Sabetha put one ear against the door and listened carefully for a moment. “Singua solus.”

“What’s that?” said Jenora.

“It’s an old Camorri tradition for when a bunch of people are planning something stupid,” said Locke. “Actually, we have a lot of traditions for that. You’ll find out.”

“Giacomo, Castellano,” said Sabetha, “how drunk are you?”

“Nowhere near drunk enough,” said Calo.

“We’ve been in here long enough,” said Sabetha, “so you two get down to the common room and round up all the company members. Slap their drinks out of their hands if you have to. Get them off to bed. We need them as right and rested as possible when we spring this surprise on them.”

“Take drinks away from Jasmer and Sylvanus,” sighed Galdo. “Right. And while we’re at it, we’ll run off to Karthain and learn sorcery from the—”

“Get,” said Sabetha. “I’ll peek outside first in case Brego’s still lurking.”

It was another ominous sign of the depths of the waters they were swimming in that neither of the Sanzas had any further quips or complaints. Sabetha eased the door open, scanned the hallway, and nodded. The twins slipped out in a flash.

“Jenora,” said Sabetha, “in the company’s papers, do you have anything signed by Boulidazi? Anything he scrawled on?”

“Why, yes … yes.” She pointed at a leather portfolio in a far corner. “All the papers assigning his shares in the company, and some notes of instruction. He is … was literate. He liked to make a show of it.”

“I know.” Sabetha snatched up the portfolio and tossed it onto the bed next to Jean and Jenora. “Sift through it and get those papers for me. I don’t have much time to practice, but I should be able to scribble something close to his hand. He’s supposed to be drunk anyway. And … exhausted.”

“It seems the dead can speak,” said Locke, embarrassed he hadn’t thought of forging notes from the baron himself.

“Well enough to get rid of Brego,” said Sabetha. “And modify the baron’s instructions to his household so they don’t expect him until long after the play tomorrow night. Now, Jenora—are your pomanders with the other props?”

“Yes.”

“Thank the gods for small favors. All we have to do, then, is move him once and get him perfumed, and we should be safe enough until we assemble the company tomorrow.”

Locke nodded. It was three doors down to the room where the good props were being kept. Assuming Jean helped, they could heave even a sack of muscle like Boulidazi that far in seconds. But what a crucial few seconds! Locke took up a tattered blanket from the bed to use as a shroud.

Jean seemed to follow his thoughts. He hugged Jenora, and whispered something in her ear.

“No,” she said. “No, I’ll not be made a child on account of that … that f*cking pig. Let me help you.” With Jean’s aid, she stumbled shakily to her feet and made an effort to straighten her torn tunic.

A few moments later they made the move. Jenora led the way, with Locke and Jean hauling the shrouded corpse, and Sabetha covering the rear, light-footed and wide-eyed. The sounds of shouting and carousing echoed from the common room. Jean bore Boulidazi’s weight with ease, but Locke was straining and red-faced by the time Jenora swung the prop-room door open for them.

Another instant and it was done. Locke tore the blanket from the corpse and wadded it up before it could soak up too much blood. Boulidazi lay there with the strange limpness of the freshly dead, like a sand-filled mannequin with a dumbstruck expression on its face.

“One of us has to stay,” said Locke, reluctantly. “This is too dangerous to leave lying around unguarded. One of us has to bar the door and spend the night.”

“Look,” said Jean, “I would, but—”

“I understand.” Locke stifled a groan as he realized there was only one candidate for the job he proposed. “You should be with Jenora. Get out of here, both of you.”

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 f*cking 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.