The Lies of Locke Lamora

Chapter TWO

SECOND TOUCH AT THE TEETH SHOW

1

IDLER’S DAY, THE eleventh hour of the morning, at the Shifting Revel. The sun was once again the baleful white of a diamond in a fire, burning an arc across the empty sky and pouring down heat that could be felt against the skin. Locke stood beneath the silk awning atop Don Salvara’s pleasure barge, dressed in the clothes and mannerisms of Lukas Fehrwight, and stared out at the gathering Revel.

There was a troupe of rope dancers perched atop a platform boat to his left; four of them, standing in a diamond pattern about fifteen feet apart. Great lengths of brightly colored silk rope stretched amongst the dancers, around their arms and chests and necks. It seemed that each dancer was working four or five strands simultaneously. These strands formed an ever-shifting cat’s cradle between the dancers, and suspended in this web by clever hitches were all manner of small objects: swords, knives, overcoats, boots, glass statuettes, sparkling knickknacks. All these objects were slowly but gradually moving in various directions as the dancers twirled arms and shifted hips, slipping old knots loose and forming newer, tighter ones with impossibly smooth gestures.

It was a minor wonder on a busy river of wonders, not the least of which was Don and Doña Salvara’s barge. While many nobles hauled trees to and from their orchards on the water, Locke’s hosts were the first to go one step further. Their pleasure barge was a permanent floating orchard in miniature. Perhaps fifty paces long and twenty wide, it was a double-hulled wooden rectangle stuffed with soil to support a dozen oak and olive trees. Their trunks were a uniform night-black, and their rustling cascades of leaves were unnatural emerald, bright as lacquer—an outward testimony to the subtle science of alchemical botany.

Wide circular stairs crisscrossed with patches of leafy shade wound up several of these trees, leading to the don’s silk-topped observation box, comfortably perched within the branches to give the occupants an unobstructed forward view. On each side of this supremely ostentatious sliver of floating forest were twenty hired rowers, seated on outrigger-like structures that kept the top-heavy central portion of the yacht from plunging sideways.

The box could easily hold twenty; this morning it held only Locke and Jean, the don and the doña, and the ever-watchful Conté, currently tending a liquor cabinet so elaborate it might have been mistaken for an apothecary’s lab. Locke returned his gaze to the rope dancers, feeling a strange kinship with them. They weren’t the only ones with ample opportunity to screw up a delicate public act this morning.

“Master Fehrwight, your clothes!” Doña Sofia Salvara shared the forward rail of the observation box with him, her hands scant inches from his. “You would look so very fine in one of your Emberlain winters, but why must you suffer them in our summer? You shall sweat yourself as red as a rose! Might you not take something off?”

“I…my lady, I am, I assure you…most comfortable.” Thirteen gods, she was actually flirting with him. And the little smile that crept on and off her husband’s face told Locke that the Salvaras had planned this in advance. A little close feminine attention to fluster the awkward master merchant; perfectly staged and perfectly common. A game before the game, so to speak. “I find that whatever discomfort these clothes bring me in your…very interesting climate only serves to, to goad me. Into concentrating. Keeps me alert, you see. A better, ah, man of business.”

Jean, standing a few paces behind the two of them, bit his tongue. Throwing blondes at Locke Lamora was not unlike throwing lettuce at sharks, and the Doña Sofia was very blonde; one of those gorgeous Therin rarities with skin like burnt amber and hair the color of almond butter. Her eyes were deep and steady, her curves artfully not concealed by a dark orange summer dress with a cream-white underskirt barely showing at the hem. Well, it was just the Salvaras’ luck to run up against a thief with the most peculiar damned taste in women. Jean could admire the doña for them both; his limited role today (and his “injuries”) would give him little else to do.

“Our Master Fehrwight is made of unusually stern stuff, my dear.” Don Lorenzo lounged in a far corner of the forward rail, dressed in loose white silks and an orange vest matching his wife’s dress. His white neckerchiefs hung rakishly loose, and only the bottom clasp of his vest was fastened. “Yesterday he took the beating of a lifetime; today he wears enough wool for five men and dares the sun to do its worst. I must say, I’m more and more pleased with myself that I’ve kept you out of Jacobo’s grasp, Lukas.”

Locke acknowledged the smiling don with a slight bow and an agreeably awkward smile of his own.

“Do at least have something to drink, Master Fehrwight.” Doña Sofia’s hand briefly settled over Locke’s, long enough for him to feel the assorted calluses and chemical burns no manicure could conceal. She was a true alchemical botanist, then; this barge was her direct handiwork as well as her general design. A formidable talent—by implication, a calculating woman. Lorenzo was obviously the more impulsive one, and if he was wise he’d weigh his wife’s opinion before agreeing to any of Lukas Fehrwight’s proposals. Locke therefore favored her with a shy smile and an awkward cough. Let her think she was getting to him.

“A drink would be very pleasing,” he said. “But, ah, I fear that you shall have no reassurance for my condition, kind Doña Sofia. I have done much business in your city; I know how drinking is done here, when men and women speak of business.”

“‘Morning’s for sweat, and night’s for regret,’” Don Salvara said as he stepped from the rail and gestured to his servant. “Conté, I do believe Master Fehrwight has just requested nothing less than a ginger scald.”

Conté moved adroitly to fill this request, first selecting a tall crystal wine flute, into which he poured two fingers of purest Camorri ginger oil, the color of scorched cinnamon. To this he added a sizable splash of milky pear brandy, followed by a transparent heavy liquor called ajento, which was actually a cooking wine flavored with radishes. When this cocktail was mixed, Conté wrapped a wet towel around the fingers of his left hand and reached for a covered brazier smoldering to the side of the liquor cabinet. He withdrew a slender metal rod, glowing orange-red at the tip, and plunged it into the cocktail; there was an audible hiss and a small puff of spicy steam. Once the rod was stanched, Conté stirred the drink briskly and precisely three times, then presented it to Locke on a thin silver plate.

Locke had practiced this ritual many times over the years, but when the cold burn of the ginger scald hit his lips (limning every tiny crack with stinging heat, and outlining every crevice between teeth and gums in exquisite pain—even before it went to work on tongue and throat), he was never able to fully hold back the memories of Shades’ Hill and of the Thiefmaker’s admonishments; of a liquid fire that seemed to creep up his sinuses and burn behind his eyes until he wanted to tear them out. Expressing discomfort at his first sip of the drink was much easier than feigning interest in the doña.

“Incomparable.” He coughed, and then, with quick jerky motions, he loosened his black neck-cloths just the slightest bit; the Salvaras smirked charmingly together. “I’m reminded again why I have such success selling gentler liquors to you people.”

2

ONCE PER month, there was no trading done in the Shifting Market. Every fourth Idler’s Day, the merchants stayed clear of the great sheltered circle abutting the Angevine River; instead, they drifted or anchored nearby while half the city came out to see the Shifting Revel.

Camorr had never possessed a great stone or Elderglass amphitheater, and had fallen instead into the curious custom of rebuilding its spectator circle anew at each Revel. Huge multistoried observation barges were towed out and anchored firmly against the stone breakwaters surrounding the Shifting Market, like floating slices cut from the heart of great stadiums. Each barge was operated by a rival family or merchant combine and decked in unique livery; they competed fiercely with one another to fill their seats, and intervessel brawls between the habitual customers of particularly beloved barges were not unknown.

When properly aligned, these barges formed an arc about halfway around the circumference of the Shifting Market. A channel was left clear for boats entering and leaving the center of the calm water, and the rest of the periphery was reserved for the pleasure barges of the nobility. A good hundred or so could be counted on at any Revel, and half again as many for major festivals, such as this one; less than three weeks remained until the Midsummer-mark and the Day of Changes.

Even before the entertainments began the Shifting Revel was its own spectacle—a great tide of rich and poor, floating and on foot, jostling for position in a traditional contest much loved for its lack of rules. The yellowjackets were always out in force, but more to prevent hard words and fisticuffs from escalating than to prevent disturbances altogether. The Revel was a citywide debauch, a rowdy public service the duke was happy to underwrite from his treasury. There were few things like a good Revel to pull the fangs from any unrest before it had time to fester.

Feeling the fire of the approaching noon despite the silk awning over their heads, Locke and his hosts compounded their situation by drinking ginger scalds as they stared out across the rippling heat haze at thousands of Camorri packing the commoner barges. Conté had prepared identical drinks for his lord and lady (though with a touch less ginger oil, perhaps?), which “Graumann” had served them, as Camorri etiquette dictated in these situations. Locke’s glass was half-empty; the liquor was a ball of expanding warmth in his stomach and a vivid memory in his throat.

“Business,” he said at last. “You have both been…so kind to Grau and myself. I agreed to repay this kindness by revealing my business here in Camorr. So let us speak of it, if that would please you.”

“You have never had a more eager audience in your life, Master Fehrwight.” The don’s hired rowers were bringing them into the Shifting Revel proper, and closing on dozens of more traditional pleasure barges, some of them crammed with dozens or hundreds of guests. The don’s eyes were alive with greedy curiosity. “Tell on.”

“The Kingdom of the Seven Marrows is coming apart at the seams.” Locke sighed. “This is no secret.”

The don and the doña nonchalantly sipped their drinks, saying nothing.

“The Canton of Emberlain is peripheral to the major conflict. But the Graf von Emberlain and the Black Table are both working—in different, ah, directions—to place it in the way of substantial harm.”

“The Black Table?” asked the don.

“I beg pardon.” Locke took the tiniest sip of his drink and let new fire trickle under his tongue. “The Black Table is what we call the council of Emberlain’s most powerful merchants. My masters of the House of bel Auster are among them. In every respect save the military and the matter of taxes, they run the Canton of Emberlain. And they are tired of the Graf, and tired of the Trade Guilds in the other six cantons of the Marrows. Tired of limitations. Emberlain grows rich on new means of speculation and enterprise. The Black Table sees the old guilds as a weight around their neck.”

“Curious,” said the doña, “that you say ‘their’ and not ‘our.’ Is this significant?”

“To a point.” Another sip of the drink; a second of feigned nervousness. “The House of bel Auster agrees that the guilds have outlasted their usefulness; that the trade practices of centuries past should not be set in stone by guild law. We do not necessarily agree”—he sipped the drink yet again, and scratched the back of his head—“that, ah, the Graf von Emberlain should be deposed while he is out of the canton with most of his army, showing his flag on behalf of his cousins in Parlay and Somnay.”

“Holy Twelve!” Don Salvara shook his head as though to clear it of what he’d just heard. “They can’t be serious. Your state is…smaller than the Duchy of Camorr! Exposed to the sea on two sides. Impossible to defend.”

“And yet the preparations are under way. Emberlain’s banks and merchant houses do four times the yearly business of the next richest canton in the Marrows. The Black Table fixates upon this. Gold should certainly be considered potential power; the Black Table errs by imagining it to be direct power, in and of itself.” He finished his drink in one long, deliberate draught. “In two months, civil war will have broken out anyway. The succession is a mess. The Stradas and the Dvorims, the Razuls and the Strigs—they are all sharpening knives and parading men. Yet, as we speak, the merchants of Emberlain are moving to arrest the remaining nobility while the Graf is away. To claim the navy. To raise a levy of ‘free citizens.’ To hire mercenaries. In short, they will now attempt to secede from the Marrows. It is unavoidable.”

“And what, specifically, does this have to do with you coming here?” The doña’s knuckles were white around her wine flute; she grasped the full significance of Fehrwight’s story. A fight larger than anything seen in centuries—civil war mixed with possible economic disaster.

“It is the opinion of my masters, the House of bel Auster, that rats in the hold have little chance to take the wheel of a ship that is about to run aground. But those same rats may very easily abandon the ship.”

3

IN THE center of the Shifting Revel, a great many tall iron cages had been sunk into the water. Some of these served to support wooden slats on which performers, victims, fighters, and attendants could stand; a few particularly heavy cages restrained dark shapes that circled ominously under the translucent gray water. Platform boats were rowed around at a steady clip, showing off rope dancers, knife throwers, acrobats, jugglers, strongmen, and other curiosities; the excited shouts of barkers with long brass speaking trumpets echoed flatly off the water.

First up at any Revel were the Penance Bouts, where petty offenders from the Palace of Patience could volunteer for mismatch combat in exchange for reduced sentences or slightly improved living conditions. At present, a hugely muscled nichavezzo (“punishing hand”), one of the duke’s own household guard, was handing out the beatings. The soldier was armored in black leather, with a gleaming steel breastplate and a steel helmet crested with the freshly severed fin of a giant flying fish. Scales and spines scintillated as the soldier stepped back and forth under the bright sun, striking out seemingly at leisure with an iron-shod staff.

The nichavezzo stood on a platform that was small but rock-steady; a series of circular wooden flats surrounded him, separated by an arm’s-length span of water. These wobbly, unstable platforms were occupied by about two dozen slender, grimy prisoners, each armed with a small wooden cudgel. A concerted rush might have overwhelmed their armored tormentor, but this lot seemed to lack the temperament for cooperation. Approaching the nichavezzo singly or in little groups, they were being dropped, one after another, with skull-rattling blows. Little boats circled to fish out unconscious prisoners before they slipped under the water forever; the duke, in his mercy, did not allow Penance Bouts to be deliberately lethal.

“Mmmm.” Locke held his empty wine flute out for just a second; Conté plucked it out of his fingers with the grace of a swordsman disarming an opponent. When the don’s manservant stepped toward the liquor cabinet, Locke cleared his throat. “No need to refill that particular glass just yet, Conté. Too kind, too kind. But with your permission, my lord and lady Salvara, I should like to offer a pair of gifts. One as a matter of simple hospitality. The other as a…well, you’ll see. Graumann?”

Locke snapped his fingers, and Jean nodded. The heavyset man moved over to a wooden table just beside the liquor cabinet and picked up two heavy leather satchels, each of which had iron-reinforced corners and small iron locks sewn into their covers. Jean set these down where the Salvaras could easily see them, and then stepped back so Locke could unseal the satchels with a delicate key of carved ivory. From the first satchel, he withdrew a cask of pale aromatic wood, perhaps one foot in height and half that in diameter, which he then held out for Don Salvara’s examination. A plain black brand on the surface of the cask read:

Brandvin Austershalin 502

Don Lorenzo’s breath hissed in between his teeth; perhaps his nostrils even flared, though Locke kept the face of Lukas Fehrwight politely neutral. “Twelve gods, a 502. Lukas, if I seemed to be teasing you for your refusal to part with your goods, please accept my deepest—”

“You needn’t apologize, my lord.” Locke held up a hand and mimicked the don’s gesture for shooing words down out of the air. “For your bold intervention on my behalf, Don Salvara, and for your excellent hospitality this morning, fair doña, please accept this minor ornament for your cellars.”

“Minor!” The don took the cask and cradled it as though it were an infant not five minutes born. “I…I have a 506 and a pair of 504s. I don’t know of anyone in Camorr that has a 502, except probably the duke.”

“Well,” said Locke, “my masters have kept a few on hand, ever since the word got out that it was a particularly good blend. We use them to…break the ice, in matters of grave business importance.” In truth, that cask represented an investment of nearly eight hundred full crowns and a sea trip up the coast to Ashmere, where Locke and Jean had contrived to win it from an eccentric minor noble in a rigged card game. Most of the money had actually gone to evade or buy off the assassins the old man had later sent after his property; the 502 vintage had become almost too precious to drink.

“What a grand gesture, Master Fehrwight!” Doña Sofia slipped a hand through the crook of her husband’s elbow and gave him a possessive grin. “Lorenzo, love, you should try to rescue strangers from Emberlain more often. They’re so charming!”

Locke coughed and shuffled his feet. “Ahh, hardly, my lady. Now, Don Salvara—”

“Please, do call me Lorenzo.”

“Ah, Don Lorenzo, what I have to show you next relates rather directly to my reason for coming here.” From the second satchel, he drew out a similar cask, but this one was marked only with a stylized ‘A’ within a circle of vines.

“This,” said Locke, “is a sample drawn from last year’s distillation. The 559.”

Don Salvara dropped the cask of 502.

The doña, with girlish agility, shot out her right foot to hook the cask in midair and let it down to the deck with a slight thump rather than a splintering crash. Unbalanced, she did manage to drop her ginger scald; the glass vanished over the side and was soon twenty feet underwater. The Salvaras steadied one another, and the don picked his cask of 502 back up, his hands shaking.

“Lukas,” he said, “surely—surely you must be kidding.”

4

LOCKE DIDN’T find it particularly easy to eat lunch while watching a dozen swimming men being pulled apart by a Jereshti devilfish, but he decided that his master merchant of Emberlain had probably seen worse, in his many imaginary sea voyages, and he kept his true feelings far from his face.

Noon was well past; the Penance Bouts were over, and the Revel-masters had moved on to the Judicial Forfeitures. This was a polite way of saying that the men in the water were murderers, rapists, slavers, and arsonists selected to be colorfully executed for the amusement of the Revel crowds. Technically speaking, they were armed and would receive lesser sentences if they could somehow contrive to slay whatever beast they were matched against, but the beasts were always as nasty as their weapons were laughable, so mostly they were just executed.

The devilfish’s tentacles were twelve feet long—the same length as its undulating gray-and-black striped body. The creature was confined within a sixty-foot circle of cages and platforms, along with a number of screaming, flailing, water-treading men—most of whom had long since dropped their slender little daggers into the water. Nervous guards armed with crossbows and pikes patrolled the platform, shoving prisoners back into the water if they tried to scramble out. Occasionally, the devilfish would roll over in the churning red waters and Locke would catch a glimpse of one lidless black eye the size of a soup bowl—not unlike the bowl currently held in his hands.

“More, Master Fehrwight?” Conté hovered nearby with the silver tureen of chilled soup cradled in his hands; white-fleshed Iron Sea prawns floated in a heavy red tomato base seasoned with peppers and onions. Don and Doña Salvara were a peculiar sort of droll.

“No, Conté, most kind, but I’m well satisfied for the time being.” Locke set his soup bowl down beside the broached cask of “559” (actually a bottle of lowly fifty-crown 550 liberally mixed with the roughest overpriced rum Jean had been able to get his hands on) and took a sip of the amber liquor from his snifter. Even mixed with crap, the counterfeit was delicious. Graumann stood attentively behind Locke’s hosts, who were seated opposite Locke at the intimate little table of oiled silverwood. Doña Sofia toyed unself-consciously with a subtlety of gelled orange slices, paper-thin and arranged in whorls to form edible tulip blossoms. Don Lorenzo stared down at the snifter of brandy in his hands, his eyes still wide.

“It seems almost…sacrilegious!” Despite this sentiment, the don took a deep gulp of the stuff, satisfaction well evident in the lines of his face. In the distance behind him, something that might have been a severed torso flew up into the air and came back down with a splash; the crowd roared approval.

Austershalin brandy was famously aged for a minimum of seven years after distillation and blending; it was impossible for outsiders to get their hands on a cask any sooner than that. The House of bel Auster’s factors were forbidden even to speak of the batches that were not yet on sale; the location of the vintner’s aging-houses was a secret that was reportedly guarded by assassination when necessary. Don Lorenzo had been struck stupid when Locke had casually offered up a cask of 559; he had nearly thrown up when Locke had just as casually opened the seal and suggested they share it with lunch.

“It is.” Locke chuckled. “The brandy is the religion of my House. So many rules, so many rituals, so many penalties!” No longer smiling, he drew a quick finger across his throat. “It’s possible we’re the only people in history to have an unaged sample with a lunch of soup. I thought you might enjoy it.”

“I am!” The don swirled the liquor in his glass and stared at it, as though hypnotized by the soft caramel-colored translucence. “And I’m dead curious about what sort of scheme you’ve got up your sleeve, Lukas.”

“Well.” Locke swirled his own drink theatrically. “There have been three invasions of Emberlain in the past two hundred and fifty years. Let’s be frank; the succession rites of the Kingdom of the Marrows always involve armies and blood before they involve blessings and banquets. When the Grafs quarrel, the Austershalin mountains are our only landward barrier, and the site of heavy fighting. This fighting inevitably spills down the eastern slopes of the mountains. Right through the vineyards of the House of bel Auster. How could it be different this time? Thousands of men and horses coming over the passes. Trampling the vineyards. Sacking everything in sight. It might even be worse, now that we have fire-oil. Our vineyards could be ashes half a year from now.”

“You can’t exactly pack your vineyards up and take them with you if you…jump ship,” said Don Lorenzo.

“No.” Locke sighed. “It’s the Austershalin soils, in part, that make Austershalin brandy. If we lose those vineyards, it will be just as it was before—an interruption in growth and distillation. Ten, twenty, maybe even thirty years. Or more. And it gets worse. Our position is terrible. The Graf can’t let Emberlain’s ports and revenue go if the Marrows are coming to civil war. He and his allies will storm the place as fast as possible. They’ll likely put the Black Table to the sword, impound their goods and properties, nationalize their funds. The House of bel Auster won’t be spared.

“At the moment, the Black Table is acting quietly but firmly. Grau and I sailed five days ago, just twelve hours before we knew the port would be sealed off. No Emberlain-flagged ships are being allowed out; they’re all being docked and secured for ‘repairs’ or ‘quarantine.’ Nobles still loyal to the Graf are under house arrest by now, their guards disarmed. Our funds, in various lending houses of Emberlain, have been temporarily frozen. All the Black Table merchant houses have consented to do this to one another. It makes it impossible for any house to flee en masse, with its gold and its goods. Currently, Grau and I are operating on our local credit line, established at Meraggio’s years ago. My House…well, we simply didn’t keep our funds outside Emberlain. Just a bit here and there for emergencies.”

Locke watched the Salvaras very closely for their reaction; his news from Emberlain was as fresh and specific as possible, but the don might have sources of intelligence the Gentlemen Bastards hadn’t spotted in their weeks of surveillance and preparation. The parts about the Black Table and the impending civil war were solid, educated speculation; the part about a sudden port closure and house arrests was pure homespun bullshit. In Locke’s estimation, the real mess in Emberlain wouldn’t start for a few months. If the don was wise to this, the game might be blown. Conté might be trying to pin Locke to the table with his daggers in just a few seconds. And then Jean would pull out the hatchets he had concealed down the back of his vest, and everyone in the little group beneath the silk awning would get very, very uncomfortable.

But the Salvaras said nothing; they merely continued to stare at him with eyes that plainly invited him to go on. Emboldened, he continued: “This situation is unbearable. We will neither be hostages to a cause that we barely profess, nor victims for the Graf’s vengeance upon his inevitable return. We choose a…somewhat risky alternative. One that would require substantial aid from a noble of Camorr. You, Don Salvara, if it is within your means.”

The don and his wife had clasped hands under the table; he waved his hand at Locke excitedly.

“We can surrender our funds. By taking no steps to secure them, we buy ourselves more time to act. And we are quite confident that replacing those funds will merely be a matter of time and effort. We can even abandon”—Locke gritted his teeth—“we can even abandon our vineyards. We will completely burn them ourselves, leaving nothing to anyone else. After all, we enhance the soil ourselves, alchemically. And the secret of that enhancement is kept only in the hearts of our Planting Masters.”

“The Austershalin Process,” Sofia breathed, betrayed by her own rising excitement.

“Of course, you’ve heard of it. Well, there are only three Planting Masters at any given time. And the Process is complex enough to defy soil examination—even by someone with talents such as yours, my lady. Many of the compounds our alchemists use are inert, and intended only to confuse the matter. So that’s that.

“The one thing we cannot abandon is our stock of aging blends; the last six years, batched in their casks. And certain rare vintages and special experiments. We store the Austershalin in thirty-two gallon casks; there are nearly six thousand such casks in our possession. We have to get them out of Emberlain. We have to do it in the next few weeks, before the Black Table imposes harsher control measures and before the Graf begins laying siege to his canton. And now our ships are under guard, and all of our funds are untouchable.”

“You want…you want to get all of these casks out of Emberlain? All of them?” The don actually gulped.

“As many as possible,” said Locke.

“And for this you would involve us how?” Doña Sofia was fidgeting.

“Emberlain-flagged ships can no longer leave port, nor enter if they wish to escape again. But—a small flotilla of Camorr-flagged ships, with Camorri crews, financed by a Camorri noble…” Locke set his glass of brandy down and spread both his hands in the air.

“You wish me to provide…a naval expedition?”

“Two or three of your larger galleons should do it. We’re looking at a thousand tons of cargo—casks and brandy alike. Minimal crew, say fifty or sixty men a ship. We can take our pick of the docks and get sober, trustworthy captains. Six or seven days beating north, plus however long it takes to scratch the crews and ships together. I guess less than a week. Do you concur?”

“A week…yes, but…you’re asking me to finance all of this?”

“In exchange for a most handsome recompense, I assure you.”

“Provided everything goes well, yes, and we’ll come to the matter of recompense in a moment. But just the rapid acqusition of two galleons, good captains, and very reliable crews—”

“Plus,” said Locke, “something to stick in the hold for the trip north. Cheap grain, dried cheese, low-grade fresh fruit. Nothing special. But Emberlain will shortly be under siege; the Black Table will be happy to have a cache of extra supplies offloaded. Emberlain’s position is too tenuous to fail to respect the sovereign neutrality of Camorr; that’s what my masters are counting on to get the ships in and out. But added insurance cannot hurt.”

“Yes,” said Don Lorenzo, tugging on his lower lip. “Two galleons, crews, officers, cheap cargo. A small crew of mercenaries, ten or twelve a ship. There are always some hanging around the Viscount’s Gate this time of year. I’d want a hard corps of armed men on each ship to discourage…complications.”

Locke nodded.

“So, how exactly would we go about removing the casks from your aging-houses and transporting them to the docks?”

“A very simple ruse,” said Locke. “We maintain several breweries and storehouses for small beer; it’s a sideline, a sort of hobby for some of our Blending Masters. Our beer is stored in casks, and the location of these warehouses is public knowledge. Slowly, carefully, while Grau and I sailed south, my masters have been moving casks of Austershalin brandy to the beer warehouses and relabeling them. They will continue to do so while we prepare here, and until our ships appear in the harbor of Emberlain.”

“So you won’t be loading brandy in secret.” Doña Sofia clapped her hands together. “As far as anyone knows, you’ll be loading beer in the open!”

“Exactly, my lady. Even a large export of beer won’t be anywhere near as suspicious as a movement of the unaged brandy. It’ll be looked on as a commercial coup; we’ll be the first to dodge the interdict on Emberlain-flagged vessels. We’ll bring in a pile of supplies for the coming siege and a fine apparent profit for ourselves. Then, once we’ve got all the brandy loaded, we’ll put out to sea, bringing sixty or seventy bel Auster family and employees to form the nucleus of our new business operations in Camorr. Discovery after that will be immaterial.”

“All of this to be thrown together on short notice.” Don Lorenzo was deep in thought. “Fifteen thousand crowns, I’d say. Perhaps twenty.”

“I concur, my lord. Count on an additional five thousand or so, for bribes and other arrangements.” Locke shrugged. “Certain men are going to have to look the other way for us to do our job when we reach Emberlain, warehouse ruse or no.”

“Twenty-five thousand crowns, then. Damn.” Lorenzo downed the last of the brandy in his glass, set it down, and folded his hands together on the table before him. “You’re asking me for more than half of my fortune. I like you, Lukas, but now it’s time to discuss the other side of the proposal.”

“Of course.” Lukas stopped to offer the don another dash of the counterfeit “unaged”; the don began to wave him off, but his taste buds prevailed over his better judgment, and he held out his glass. Doña Sofia did so as well, and Jean hurried over to pass her glass between her and Locke. When he’d served the Salvaras, Locke poured a companionably large amount into his own snifter. “First, you have to understand what the House of bel Auster is and is not offering.

“You will never have the Austershalin Process. It will continue to be passed down, verbally, and strictly within the House. We can offer you no properties as collateral or in payment; we expect to forfeit them upon fleeing Emberlain. Resecuring the vineyards at a future date is our own problem.

“Any effort on your part to pry into the Austershalin Process, to suborn any bel Auster men or women, will be regarded as an absolute breach of trust.” Locke sipped brandy. “I have no idea what specific penalties we could levy to express our displeasure, but it would be fully expressed. I am instructed to be entirely clear on this point.”

“And so you are.” Doña Sofia placed one hand on her husband’s left shoulder. “But these limitations are not yet an offer.”

“Forgive me, gracious Doña Sofia, for speaking to you like this. But you must understand—this is the most important thing the House of bel Auster has ever contemplated. Grau and I hold the future of our combine in our rather vulnerable hands. At this moment, I can’t speak to you just as your luncheon guest Lukas Fehrwight. I am the House of bel Auster. You have to understand that some things are not on the table, not even by the most remote implication.”

The Salvaras nodded as one, Sofia just a bit more slowly than Lorenzo.

“Now. Consider the situation. War is coming to Emberlain. Our vineyards and our properties are as good as lost. And without those vineyards, there will be no Austershalin actually produced for only the Marrows know how long. Ten years? A generation? Even when we have the vineyards back, the soil will need years to recover. This is the way it has been, three times before. For many, many years to come, the only new Austershalin available is going to come from whatever portion of those six thousand casks we can move out of Emberlain, like thieves in the night. Imagine the demand. The price escalation.”

The don’s lips moved unconsciously as he calculated; Doña Sofia stared off into the distance, her brow furrowed. Austershalin brandy was the finest and most sought-after liquor known; even the alchemical wines of Tal Verrar, in a hundred bewitching varieties, were not as expensive. A single half-gallon bottle of the youngest available Austershalin was thirty full crowns at retail; the price went up sharply with age. With a surprise shortage, a fixed supply, and no new crop of Austershalin grapes in sight?

“F*ck damn,” said Conté, totally unable to help himself when the sums involved vanished over his mental horizon. “Beg pardon, Doña Sofia.”

“You should.” She drained her snifter in one quick unladylike gulp.

“Your calculations are off. This merits a triple f*ckdamn at least.”

“The House of bel Auster,” Locke continued, “wishes to establish a partnership with you, based in Camorr, to store and market Austershalin brandy during our…interregnum. In exchange for your assistance in transporting it from Emberlain in our moment of extreme need, we are prepared to offer you fifty percent of the proceeds from the sale of anything you transport for us. Again, consider the situation, and the price of Austershalin during a shortage. You could recoup your initial investment ten times over in the first year. Give us five years, or ten…”

“Yes.” Don Lorenzo fiddled with his optics. “But Lukas, somehow, sitting here discussing the possible destruction of your House and a move to a city half a thousand miles to the south, you don’t sound…entirely displeased.”

Locke used a particularly endearing wry smile he’d once practiced before a mirror-glass for weeks. “When my masters grasped the essence of their current situation, some of them suggested we should have engineered an artificial shortage years ago. As it is, we are determined that we can turn a painful setback into a glorious return. Those six thousand casks, sold at shortage prices over a number of years…We could return to Emberlain with a fortune that eclipses everything we’d be leaving behind. And as for your own situation…”

“We’re not talking about hundreds of thousands of crowns.” Doña Sofia returned from her thoughtful trance. “We’re talking about millions. Even split between us.”

“It would be foolish to presume too much, but yes—there is the possibility that the sums involved could reach such figures. My masters are also prepared to grant one final compensation, upon our successful return to Emberlain and the restoration of the Austershalin vineyards. We offer your family a permanent stake in all bel Auster operations thereafter; certainly nothing close to a controlling interest, but something respectable. A ten to fifteen percent share. You would be the first and, we hope, the only foreigners ever offered such an interest.”

There was a brief pause. “That’s…a very attractive offer,” Don Salvara said at last. “And to think all this was going to fall into Jacobo’s lap simply by default. By the gods, Lukas, if we ever cross paths with those thieves again, I’m going to thank them for arranging our introduction.”

“Well,” Locke chuckled, “I for my part can let bygones be bygones. Graumann might feel somewhat differently. And the fact remains that while I sense we may be shaking hands very soon, we still have to assemble our ships, sail north to Emberlain, and snatch up our prize. The situation is like a damaged cargo rope, unraveling down to a single thread.” He saluted the Salvaras with his brandy snifter. “It will snap.”

Out on the water, the devilfish was victorious, and the guards rewarded it for its service by filling it with poisoned crossbow bolts. Boat hooks and chains were used to haul the carcass out of the center of the Shifting Revel; there was just no putting a creature like that back into the box once it had served its purpose. The monster’s red blood mixed with that of its victims and slowly settled in a broad, dark cloud; even this had a deliberate part to play in what was to come next.

5

SCHOLARS OF the Therin Collegium, from their comfortable position well inland, could tell you that the wolf sharks of the Iron Sea are beautiful and fascinating creatures, their bodies more packed with muscle than any bull, their abrasive hide streaked with every color from old-copper green to stormcloud black. Anyone actually working the waterfront in Camorr and on the nearby coast could tell you that wolf sharks are big aggressive bastards that like to jump.

Carefully caged, starved, and maddened by blood, wolf sharks are the key to the customary highlight of the Shifting Revel. Other cities have gladiatorial games; other cities pit men against animals. But only in Camorr can you see a specially armed gladiator (a contrarequialla) battle a live, leaping shark, and in Camorr only women are allowed by tradition to be contrarequialla.

This is the Teeth Show.

6

LOCKE COULDN’T tell if the four women were truly beautiful, but they were undeniably striking. They were all dark-skinned Camorri with muscles like farm girls, imposing even at a distance, and they wore next to nothing—tight black cotton shifts across their chests, wrestler’s loincloths, and thin leather gloves. Their black hair was pulled back under the traditional red bandannas and threaded with brass and silver bangles that caught the sunlight in chains of white flashes. The purpose of these bangles was a matter of argument; some claimed that they confused the poor eyesight of the sharks, while just as many claimed that their glare helped the monsters better sight their prey.

Each contrarequialla carried two weapons; a short javelin in one hand and a special axe in the other. These axes had grips enclosed by full handguards, making them difficult to lose; they were double-headed, with the expected curved blade on one side and a long, sturdy pick-head on the other. A skilled fighter usually tried to slash a shark’s fins and tail to nothing before making a kill; few but the very best could kill with anything but the spike. Wolf shark skin could be like tree bark.

Locke stared at the grim women and felt his usual melancholy admiration. They were, to his eyes, as mad as they were courageous.

“I know that’s Cicilia de Ricura there, on the far left.” Don Lorenzo was pointing the women out for Lukas Fehrwight’s benefit, taking a break from more than an hour of rapid negotiations. “She’s decent. And beside her is Aganesse, who carries her javelin but never, ever uses it. The other two, well, they must be new. At least new to the Revel.”

“It’s so unfortunate,” said the Doña, “that the Berangias sisters aren’t out there today, Master Fehrwight. They’re the best.”

“Probably the best there ever has been.” Don Salvara squinted to cut some of the glare rising off the water and tried to estimate the size of the sharks, barely visible as shadows within their cages. “Or ever will be. But they haven’t been at the Revel for the past few months.”

Locke nodded and chewed on the inside of one of his cheeks. As Locke Lamora, garrista of the Gentlemen Bastards and respectable sneak thief, he knew the Berangias twins personally. He also knew exactly where they’d been for those past few months.

Out on the water, the first fighter was taking her position. Contrarequialla fought across a series of stepping-stone platforms, each about two feet wide and raised half a foot off the water. These platforms were set out in a square grid, four or five feet apart, leaving plenty of room for the opposition to swim between them. The women would have to hop between these platforms at a rapid pace to strike out at the sharks while dodging leaps in return; a slip into the water was usually the end of the contest.

Beyond the line of shark cages (opened by chain pulleys connected to a barge well beyond the periphery of any possible shark activity) there was a little boat, crewed by (extremely well-paid) volunteer rowers and carrying the three traditional observers of any Teeth Show. First, there was a priest of Iono in his sea-green robes fringed with silver. Beside him there was a black-robed, silver-masked priestess of Aza Guilla, Lady of the Long Silence, Goddess of Death. Lastly, there was a physiker, whose presence had always struck Locke as an extremely optimistic gesture.

“Camorr!” The young woman—apparently Cicilia de Ricura—raised her weapons into the air over her head. The heavy murmur of the crowd subsided, leaving only the noise of water lapping against boats and breakwaters. Fifteen thousand watchers held their collective breath. “I dedicate this death to Duke Nicovante, our lord and patron!” Such was the traditional phrasing of the contrarequialla’s salute; “this death” could conveniently refer to either participant in the battle.

With a great flourish of trumpets and the cheer of the crowd, the boatmen outside the circle of cages loosed the afternoon’s first shark. The ten-foot fish, already blood-mad, shot forth from imprisonment and began to circle the stepping platforms, its ominous gray fin slicing a rippling line in the water. Cicilia balanced on one foot and bent down to slap the water with the heel of the other, screaming oaths and challenges. The shark took the bait; in a few seconds it was in amongst the platforms, stocky body whipping back and forth like a toothy pendulum.

“This one doesn’t like to waste time!” Don Salvara actually wrung his hands together. “I bet it’s an early leaper.”

Barely had these words escaped his mouth than the shark rocketed up out of the water in a fountain of silver spray, hurling itself at the crouching fighter. The shark’s leap was not a high one; Cicilia avoided it by jumping right, to the next platform over. In midair she let her javelin go with a backhanded cast; the shaft sunk into the shark’s flank and quivered there for a split second before the streamlined mass of hungry muscle splashed back down into the water. Crowd reaction was mixed; the cast had displayed remarkable agility but minimal power. Cicilia’s shark was likely only further angered, and her javelin wasted.

“Oh, poor decision.” The doña clicked her tongue. “This girl needs to learn some patience. We’ll see if her new friend gives her the chance.”

Thrashing, spraying pink-foamed water, the shark maneuvered for another attack, chasing Cicilia’s shadow on the water. She hopped from platform to platform, axe reversed so the spike was facing outward.

“Master Fehrwight.” Don Lorenzo removed his optics and played with them while he watched the fight; apparently, they weren’t necessary for use at long distances. “I can accept your terms, but you have to appreciate that my portion of the initial risk is quite heavy, especially relative to my total available funds. My request, therefore, is that the split of revenues from our Austershalin sales be adjusted to fifty-five, forty-five, in my favor.”

Locke pretended to ponder while Cicilia pumped her arms and leaped for dear life, the eager gray fin slashing through the water just behind her feet. “I’m authorized to make such a concession on behalf of my masters. In return…I would fix your family’s ownership interest in the resecured Austershalin vineyards at five percent.”

“Done!” The don smiled. “I will fund two large galleons, crew and officers, necessary bribes and arrangements, and a cargo to take north with us. I’ll oversee one galleon; you the other. Mercenary crews of my choosing to be placed aboard each vessel for added security. Conté will travel with you; your Graumann can stay at my side. Any expenditures that bring our budget over twenty-five thousand Camorri crowns are to be made solely at my discretion.”

The shark leaped and missed again; Cicilia performed a brief one-armed handstand on her platform, waving her axe. The audience roared while the shark rolled over gracelessly in the water and came back for another pass.

“Agreed,” said Locke. “Signed identical copies of our contract to be kept by each of us; one additional copy in Therin to be kept with a mutually agreeable neutral solicitor, to be opened and examined by them within the month should one of us have…an accident while fetching the casks. One additional copy in Vadran to be signed and placed into the care of an agent known to me, for eventual delivery to my masters. I shall require a bonded scribe at the Tumblehome this evening, and a promissory note for five thousand crowns, to be drawn at Meraggio’s tomorrow so I can get to work immediately.”

“And that is all that remains?”

“Quite everything,” said Locke.

The don was silent for several seconds. “The hell with it; I agree. Let’s clasp hands and take our chances.”

Out on the water, Cicilia paused and hefted her axe, timing a blow as the shark approached her platform on her right, undulating, moving too slow for a high leap. Just as Cicilia shifted her weight to bring the spike down, the shark jackknifed in the water beside her, squeezing its body into a U shape, and drove itself straight downward. This maneuver flicked its tail into the air, catching the contrarequialla just under her knees. Screaming more in shock than in pain, Cicilia de Ricura fell backward into the water.

It was all over a few seconds after that; the shark came up biting and must have taken her by one or both legs. They turned over and over in the water a few times—Locke caught glimpses of the frantic woman’s form alternating with the dark rough hide of the shark; white then gray, white then gray. In moments the pink foam was dark red once more, and the two struggling shadows were sinking into the depths beneath the platforms. Half the crowd roared lusty approval; the rest bowed their heads in a respectful silence that would last just until the next young woman entered the ring of red water.

“Gods!” Doña Sofia stared at the spreading stain on the water; the surviving fighters stood with their heads lowered, and the priests were gesturing some sort of mutual blessing. “Unbelievable! Taken in so fast, by such a simple trick. Well, my father used to say that one moment of misjudgment at the Revel is worth ten at any other time.”

Locke bowed deeply to her, taking one hand and kissing it. “I doubt him not at all, Doña Sofia. Not at all.”

Smiling amiably, he bowed to her once more, then turned to shake hands with her husband.





INTERLUDE

Locke Stays for Dinner

1

“What?” Locke nearly jumped to his feet. “What are you talking about?”

“My boy,” said Chains, “my intermittently brilliant little boy, your world has such small horizons. You can see clearly enough to pull a fast one on someone, but you can’t see past the immediate consequences. Until you learn to think ahead of the repercussions, you are putting yourself and everyone around you in danger. You can’t help being young, but it’s past time that you stopped being stupid. So listen carefully.

“Your first mistake was that taking coin from the watch isn’t a beating offense. It’s a killing offense. Are we clear on that? Here in Camorr, the watch takes our coin, and never the other way around. This rule is set in stone and there are no exceptions, no matter what kind of thief you are. It’s death. It’s a throat-slashing, shark-feeding, off-to-meet-the-gods offense, clear?”

Locke nodded.

“So when you set Veslin up, you really set him up. But you compounded this mistake when you used a white iron coin. You know how much a full crown is worth, exactly?”

“Lots.”

“Ha. ‘Lots’ isn’t ‘exactly.’ You don’t speak Therin, or you don’t really know?”

“I guess I don’t really know.”

“Well, if everything’s butter and nobody’s been shaving the damn things, that little piece of shiny white iron was worth forty silver solons. You see? Two hundred and forty coppers. Your eyes are wide. That means you can think that big, that you understand?”

“Yes. Wow.”

“Yes, wow. Let me put it in perspective. A yellowjacket—one of our selfless and infinitely dutiful city watchmen—might make that much for two months of daily duty. And watchmen are decently paid, for common folk, and they sure as blessed shit do not get paid in white iron.”

“Oh.”

“So not only was Veslin taking money, he was taking too much money. A full crown! You can buy a death for much less, yours included.”

“Um…how much did you pay for my…” Locke tapped his chest, where the death-mark still hung beneath his shirt.

“I don’t mean to prick your rather substantial opinion of yourself, but I’m still not sure if it was two coppers wisely spent.” At the boy’s expression, Chains barked out a rich, genuine laugh, but then his voice grew serious once again. “Keep guessing, boy. But the point remains. You can get good, hard men to do serious work for less. You could buy five or six major pieces of business, if you know what I mean. So, when you stuck a white iron coin in Veslin’s things—”

“It was too much money for anything…simple?”

“Dead on. Far too much money for information or errands. Nobody in their right mind gives a f*cking graveyard urchin a full crown. Unless that urchin is being paid to do something big. Kill your old master, for example. Smoke out all of Shades’ Hill and everyone in it. So if the poor Thiefmaker was upset to discover that Veslin was on the take, you can imagine how he felt when he saw how much money was involved.”

Locke nodded furiously.

“Ahhhhh, so. Two mistakes. Your third mistake was involving Gregor. Was Gregor supposed to get hit with the ugly stick?”

“I didn’t like him, but no. I just wanted Veslin. Maybe I wanted Gregor to get a little, but not as much as Veslin.”

“Just so. You had a target, and you had a twist to play on that target, but you didn’t control the situation. So your game for Veslin spilled over and Gregor Foss got the knife, too.”

“That’s what I said, isn’t it? I already admitted it!”

“Angry now? My, yes, you would be…angry that you f*cked up. Angry that you’re not as clever as you think. Angry that the gods gave lots of other people the same sort of brain they gave Locke Lamora. Quite the pisser, isn’t it?”

Locke blew his little lamp out with one quick breath, then flung it in an arc, as high over the parapet as his slender arm could throw. The crash of its landing was lost in the murmur of the busy Camorri night. The boy crossed his arms defensively.

“Well, it certainly is nice to be free from the threat of that lamp, my boy.” Chains drew a last breath of smoke, then rubbed his dwindling sheaf of tobacco out against the roof stones. “Was it informing for the duke? Plotting to murder us?”

Locke said nothing, teeth clenched and lower lip protruding. Petulance, the natural nonverbal language of the very young. Chains snorted.

“I do believe everything you’ve told me, Locke, because I had a long talk with your former master before I took you off his hands. Like I said, he told me everything. He told me about your last and biggest mistake. The one that tipped him off and got you sent here. Can you guess what it might have been?”

Locke shook his head.

“Can’t, or won’t?”

“I really don’t know.” Locke looked down. “I hadn’t actually…thought about it.”

“You showed other kids in Streets the white iron coin, didn’t you? You had them help you look for it. You let some of them know what it might be used for. And you ordered them not to talk about it. But what did you, ah, back that order up with?”

Locke’s eyes widened; his pout returned, but his petulance evaporated. “They…they hated Veslin, too. They wanted to see him get it.”

“Of course. Maybe that was enough for one day. But what about later? After Veslin was dead, and Gregor was dead, and your master’d had a chance to cool down some, and reflect on the situation? What if he started asking questions about a certain Lamora boy? What if he took some of your little boon companions from Streets and asked them nicely if Locke Lamora had been up to anything…unusual? Even for him?”

“Oh.” The boy winced. “Oh!”

“Oh-ho-ho!” Chains reached out and slapped the boy on the shoulder. “Enlightenment! When it comes, it comes like a brick to the head, doesn’t it?”

“I guess.”

“So,” said Chains, “now you see where everything went wrong. How many boys and girls are in that little hill, Locke? A hundred? Hundred and twenty? More? How many do you really think your old master could handle, if they turned on him? One or two, no problem. But four? Eight? All of them?”

“We, um…I guess we never…thought about it.”

“Because he doesn’t rule his graveyard by logic, boy; he rules it by fear. Fear of him keeps the older sprats in line. Fear of them keeps little shits like you in line. Anything that undermines that fear is a threat to his position. Enter Locke Lamora waving the idiot flag and thinking himself so much cleverer than the rest of the world!”

“I really…I don’t…think I’m cleverer than the rest of the world.”

“You did until three minutes ago. Listen, I’m a garrista. It means I run a gang, even if it’s just a small one. Your old master is a garrista, too; the garrista of Shades’ Hill. And when you mess with a leader’s ability to rule his gang, out come the knives. How long do you think the Thiefmaker could control Shades’ Hill if word got around of how you played him so sweetly? How you jerked him around like a kitten on a chain? He would never have real control over his orphans ever again; they’d push and push until it finally came to blood.”

“And that’s why he got rid of me? But what about Streets? What about the ones that helped me get Veslin?”

“Good questions. Easily answered. Your old master takes orphans in off the streets and keeps them for a few years; usually he’s through with them by the time they’re twelve or thirteen. He teaches them the basics: how to sneak-thief and speak the cant and mix with the Right People, how to get along in a gang and how to dodge the noose. When he’s through with them, he sells them to the bigger gangs, the real gangs. You see? He takes orders. Maybe the Gray Faces need a second-story girl. Maybe the Arsenal Boys want a mean little bruiser. It’s a great advantage to the gangs; it brings them suitable new recruits that don’t need to have their hands held.”

“That I know. That’s why…he sold me to you.”

“Yes. Because you’re a very special case. You have profitable skills, even if your aim so far has been terrible. But your little friends in Streets? Did they have your gifts? They were just regular little coat-charmers, simple little teasers. They weren’t ripe. Nobody would give a penny for them, except slavers, and your old master has one sad old scrap of real conscience. He wouldn’t sell one of you to the crimpers for all the coin in Camorr.”

“So…what you’re saying is, he had to do something to all of us that knew about the coin. All of us that could…figure it out or tell about it. And I was the only one he could sell.”

“Correct. And as for the others, well…” Chains shrugged. “It’ll be quick. Two, three weeks from now, nobody’ll even remember their names. You know how it goes in the hill.”

“I got them killed?”

“Yes.” Chains didn’t soften his voice. “You really did. As surely as you tried to hurt Veslin, you killed Gregor and four or five of your little comrades into the bargain.”

“Shit.”

“Do you see now, what consequences really are? Why you have to move slowly, think ahead, control the situation? Why you need to settle down and wait for time to give you sense to match your talent for mischief? We have years to work together, Locke. Years for you and my other little hellions to practice quietly. And that has to be the rule, if you want to stay here. No games, no cons, no scams, no anything except when and where I tell you. When someone like you pushes the world, the world pushes back. Other people are likely to get hurt. Am I clear?”

Locke nodded.

“Now.” Chains snapped his shoulders back and rolled his head from side to side; there was a series of snaps and cracks from somewhere inside him. “Ahhh. Do you know what a death-offering is?”

“No.”

“It’s something we do, for the Benefactor. Not just those of us who are initiates of the Thirteenth. Something all of us crooks do for one another, all the Right People of Camorr. When we lose someone we care about, we get something valuable and we throw it away. For real, you understand. Into the sea, into a fire, something like that. We do this to help our friends on their way to what comes next. Clear so far?”

“Yeah, but my old master…”

“Oh, he does it, trust me. He’s a wretched miser and he always does it in private, but he does it for each and every one of you he loses. Figures he wouldn’t tell you about it. But here’s the thing—there’s a rule that has to be followed with the offering. It can’t be given willingly, you understand? It can’t be something you already have. It has to be something you go out and steal from someone else, special, without their permission or their, ah, complicity. Get me? It has to be genuine theft.”

“Uh, sure.”

Father Chains cracked his knuckles. “You’re going to make a death-offering for every single boy or girl you got killed, Locke. One for Veslin, one for Gregor. One for each of your little friends in Streets. I’m sure I’ll know the count in just a day or two.”

“But I…they weren’t…”

“Of course they were your friends, Locke. They were your very good friends. Because they’re going to teach you that when you kill someone, there are consequences. It is one thing to kill in a duel, to kill in self-defense, to kill for vengeance. It is another thing entirely to kill simply because you are careless. Those deaths are going to hang over your head until you’re so careful you make the saints of Perelandro weep. Your death-offering will be a thousand full crowns per head. All of it properly stolen by your own hand.”

“But I…what? A thousand crowns? Each? A thousand?”

“You can take that death-mark off your neck when you offer up the last coin of it, and not a moment sooner.”

“But that’s impossible! It’ll take…forever!”

“It’ll take years. But we’re thieves, not murderers, here in my temple. And the price of your life with me is that you must show respect for the dead. Those boys and girls are your victims, Locke. Get that through your head. This is something you owe them, before the gods. Something you must swear to by blood before you can stay. Are you willing to do so?”

Locke seemed to think for a few seconds. Then he shook his head as though to clear it, and nodded.

“Then hold out your left hand.”

As Locke did so, Chains produced a slender blackened-steel stiletto from within his robe and drew it across his own left palm; then, holding Locke’s outstretched hand firmly, he scratched a shallow, stinging cut between the boy’s thumb and index finger. They shook hands firmly, until their palms were thick with mingled blood.

“Then you’re a Gentleman Bastard, like the rest of us. I’m your garrista and you’re my pezon, my little soldier. I have your oath in blood to do what I’ve told you to do? To make the offerings for the souls of the people you’ve wronged?”

“I’ll do it,” Locke said.

“Good. That means you can stay for dinner. Let’s get down off this roof.”

2

BEHIND THE curtained door at the rear of the sanctuary there was a grimy hall leading to several grimy rooms; moisture and mold and poverty were on abundant display. There were cells with sleeping pallets, lit by oiled-paper lamps that gave off a light the color of cheap ale. Scrolls and bound books were scattered on the pallets; robes in questionable states of cleanliness hung from wall hooks.

“This is a necessary nonsense.” Chains gestured to and fro as he led Locke into the room closest to the curtained door, as though showing off a palace. “Occasionally, we play host to a tutor or a traveling priest of Perelandro’s order, and they have to see what they expect.”

Chains’ own sleeping pallet (for Locke saw that the wall-manacles in the other room could surely reach none of the other sleeping chambers back here) was set atop a block of solid stone, a sort of heavy shelf jutting from the wall. Chains reached under the stale blankets, turned something that made a metallic clacking noise, and lifted his bed up as though it were a coffin lid; the blankets turned out to be on some sort of wooden panel with hinges set into the stone. An inviting golden light spilled from within the stone block, along with the spicy smells of high-class Camorri cooking. Locke knew that aroma only from the way it drifted out of the Alcegrante district or down from certain inns and houses.

“In you go!” Chains gestured once again, and Locke peeked over the lip of the stone block. A sturdy wooden ladder led down a square shaft just slightly wider than Chains’ shoulders; it ended about twenty feet below, on a polished wood floor. “Don’t gawk, climb!”

Locke obeyed. The rungs of the ladder were wide and rough and very narrowly spaced; he had no trouble moving down it, and when he stepped off he was in a tall passage that might have been torn out of the duke’s own tower. The floor was indeed polished wood, long straight golden-brown boards that creaked pleasantly beneath his feet. The arched ceiling and the walls were entirely covered with a thick milky golden glass that shone faintly, like a rainy-season sun peeking out from behind heavy clouds. The illumination came from everywhere and nowhere; the wall scintillated. With a series of thumps and grunts and jingles (for Locke saw that he now carried the day’s donated coins in a small burlap sack) Chains came down and hopped to the floor beside him. He gave a quick tug to a rope tied to the ladder, and the false bed-pallet fell back down and locked itself above.

“There. Isn’t this much nicer?”

“Yeah.” Locke ran one hand down the flawless surface of one of the walls. The glass was noticeably cooler than the air. “It’s Elderglass, isn’t it?”

“Sure as hell isn’t plaster.” Chains shooed Locke along the passage to the left, where it turned a corner. “The whole temple cellar is surrounded by the stuff. Sealed in it. The temple above was actually built to settle into it, hundreds of years ago. There’s not a break in it, as far as I can tell, except for one or two little tunnels that lead out to other interesting places. It’s flood-tight, and never lets in a drop from below even when the water’s waist-deep in the streets. And it keeps out rats and roaches and suckle-spiders and all that crap, so long as we mind our comings and goings.”

The clatter of metal pans and the low giggle of the Sanza brothers reached them from around the corner just before they turned it, entering into a comfortably appointed kitchen with tall wooden cabinets and a long witchwood table, surrounded by high-backed chairs. Locke actually rubbed his eyes when he saw their black velvet cushions, and the varnished gold leaf that gilded their every surface.

Calo and Galdo were working at a brick cooking shelf, shuffling pans and banging knives over a huge white alchemical hearthslab. Locke had seen smaller blocks of this stone, which gave off a smokeless heat when water was splashed atop it, but this one must have weighed as much as Father Chains. As Locke watched, Calo (Galdo?) held a pan in the air and poured water from a glass pitcher onto the sizzling slab; the great uprush of steam carried a deep bouquet of sweet cooking smells, and Locke felt saliva spilling down the back of his mouth.

In the air over the witchwood table, a striking chandelier blazed; Locke would, in later years, come to recognize it as an armillary sphere, fashioned from glass with an axis of solid gold. At its heart shone an alchemical globe with the white-bronze light of the sun; surrounding this were the concentric glass rings that marked the orbits and processions of the world and all her celestial cousins, including the three moons; at the outermost edges were a hundred dangling stars that looked like spatters of molten glass somehow frozen at the very instant of their outward explosions. The light ran and glimmered and burned along every facet of the chandelier, yet there was something wrong about it. It was as if the Elderglass ceilings and walls were somehow drawing the light out of the alchemical sun; leavening it, weakening it, redistributing it along the full length and breadth of all the Elderglass in this uncanny cellar.

“Welcome to our real home, our little temple to the Benefactor.” Chains tossed his bag of coins down on the table. “Our patron has always sort of danced upon the notion that austerity and piety go hand in hand; down here, we show our appreciation for things by appreciating, if you get me. Boys! Look who survived his interview!”

“We never doubted,” said one twin.

“For even a second,” said the other.

“But now can we hear what he did to get himself kicked out of Shades’ Hill?” The question, spoken in near-perfect unison, had the ring of repeated ritual.

“When you’re older.” Chains raised his eyebrows at Locke and shook his head, ensuring the boy could see the gesture clearly. “Much older. Locke, I don’t expect that you know how to set a table?”

When Locke shook his head, Chains led him over to a tall cabinet just to the left of the cooking hearth. Inside were stacks of white porcelain plates; Chains held one up so Locke could see the hand-painted heraldic design (a mailed fist clutching an arrow and a grapevine) and the bright gold gilding on the rim.

“Borrowed,” said Chains, “on a rather permanent basis from Doña Isabella Manechezzo, the old dowager aunt of our own Duke Nicovante. She died childless and rarely gave parties, so it wasn’t as though she was using them all. You see how some of our acts that might seem purely cruel and larcenous to outsiders are actually sort of convenient, if you look at them in the right way? That’s the hand of the Benefactor at work, or so we like to think. It’s not as though we could tell the difference if he didn’t want us to.”

Chains handed the plate to Locke (who clutched at it with greatly exaggerated care and peered very closely at the gold rim) and ran his right hand lovingly over the surface of the witchwood table. “Now this, this used to be the property of Marius Cordo, a master merchant of Tal Verrar. He had it in the great cabin of a triple-decker galley. Huge! Eighty-six oars. I was a bit upset with him, so I lifted it, his chairs, his carpets and tapestries, and all of his clothes. Right off the ship. I left his money; I was making a point. I dumped everything but the table into the Sea of Brass.

“And that!” Chains lifted a finger in the direction of the celestial chandelier. “That was being shipped overland from Ashmere in a guarded wagon convoy for the old Don Leviana. Somehow, in transit, it transformed itself into a box of straw.” Chains took three more plates out of the cabinet and set them in Locke’s arms. “Damn, I was fairly good back when I actually worked for a living.”

“Urk,” said Locke, under the weight of the fine dinnerware.

“Oh, yeah.” Chains gestured to the chair at the head of the table. “Put one there for me. One for yourself on my left. Two for Calo and Galdo on my right. If you were my servant, what I’d tell you to lay out is a casual setting. Can you say that for me?”

“A casual setting.”

“Right. This is how the high and mighty eat when it’s just close blood and maybe a friend or two.” Chains let the set of his eyes and the tone of his voice suggest that he expected this lesson to be retained, and he began to introduce Locke to the intricacies of glasses, linen napkins, and silver eating utensils.

“What kind of knife is this?” Locke held a rounded buttering utensil up for Chains’ inspection. “It’s all wrong. You couldn’t kill anyone with this.”

“Well, not very easily, I’ll grant you that, my boy.” Chains guided Locke in the placement of the butter knife and assorted small dishes and bowls. “But when the quality get together to dine, it’s impolite to knock anybody off with anything but poison. That thing is for scooping butter, not slicing windpipes.”

“This is a lot of trouble to go to just to eat.”

“Well, in Shades’ Hill you may be able to eat cold bacon and dirt pies off one another’s asses for all your old master cares. But now you’re a Gentleman Bastard, emphasis on the Gentleman. You’re going to learn how to eat like this, and how to serve people who eat like this.”

“Why?”

“Because, Locke Lamora, someday you’re going to dine with barons and counts and dukes. You’re going to dine with merchants and admirals and generals and ladies of every sort! And when you do…” Chains put two fingers under Locke’s chin and tilted the boy’s head up so they were eye to eye. “When you do, those poor idiots won’t have any idea that they’re really dining with a thief.”

3

“NOW, ISN’T this lovely?”

Chains raised an empty glass and saluted his three young wards at the splendidly furnished table; steaming brass bowls and heavy crockware held the results of Calo and Galdo’s efforts at the cooking hearth. Locke, seated on an extra cushion to raise his elbows just above the tabletop, stared at the food and the furnishings with wide eyes. He was bewildered at how quickly he had escaped his old life and fallen into this new one with strangely pleasant crazy people.

Chains lifted a bottle of something he’d called alchemical wine; the stuff was viscous and dark, like quicksilver. When he pulled the loosened cork, the air was filled with the scent of juniper; for a brief moment it overwhelmed the spicy aroma of the main dishes. Chains poured a good measure of the stuff into the empty glass, and in the bright light it ran like molten silver. Chains raised the glass to a level with his eyes.

“A glass poured to air for the one who sits with us unseen; the patron and protector, the Crooked Warden, the Father of Necessary Pretexts.”

“Thanks for deep pockets poorly guarded,” said the Sanza brothers in unison, and Locke was caught off guard by the seriousness of their intonation.

“Thanks for watchmen asleep at their posts,” said Chains.

“Thanks for the city to nurture us and the night to hide us,” was the response.

“Thanks for friends to help spend the loot!” Chains brought the half-filled glass down and set it in the middle of the table. He took up another, smaller glass; into this he poured just a finger of the liquid silver. “A glass poured to air for an absent friend. We wish Sabetha well and pray for her safe return.”

“Maybe we could have her back a little less crazy, though,” said one of the Sanzas, whom Locke mentally labeled Calo for convenience.

“And humble.” Galdo nodded after he’d said this. “Humble would be really great.”

“The brothers Sanza wish Sabetha well.” Chains held the little glass of liquor rock-steady and eyed the twins. “And they pray for her safe return.”

“Yes! Wish her well!”

“Safe return, that would be really great.”

“Who’s Sabetha?” Locke spoke quietly, directing his inquiry to Chains.

“An ornament to our little gang. Our only young woman, currently away on…educational business.” Chains set her glass down beside the one poured to the Benefactor, and plucked up Locke’s glass in exchange. “Another special deal from your old master. Gifted, my boy, gifted like you are with a preternatural talent for the vexation of others.”

“That’s us he’s talking about,” said Calo.

“Pretty soon it’ll mean you, too.” Galdo smiled.

“Pipe down, twitlings.” Chains poured a splash of the quicksilver wine into Locke’s glass and handed it back to him. “One more toast and prayer. To Locke Lamora, our new brother. My new pezon. We wish him well. We welcome him warmly. And for him, we pray, wisdom.”

With graceful motions, he poured wine for Calo and Galdo, and then a nearly full glass for himself. Chains and the Sanzas raised their glasses; Locke quickly copied them. Silver sparkled under gold.

“Welcome to the Gentlemen Bastards!” Chains tapped his glass gently against Locke’s, producing a ringing sound that hung in the air before fading sweetly.

“You should’ve picked death!” said Galdo.

“He did offer you death as a choice, right?” Calo spoke as he and his brother tapped their own glasses together, then reached across the table in unison to touch Locke’s.

“Laugh it up, boys.” Soon all the knocking about with glasses was finished and Chains led the way with a quick sip of his wine. “Ahhh. Mark my words, if this poor little creature lives a year, you two will be his dancing monkeys. He’ll throw you grapes whenever he wants to see a trick. Go ahead and have a drink, Locke.”

Locke raised the glass; the silvery surface showed him a vivid but wobbly reflection of his own face and the brightly lit room around him; the wine’s bouquet was a haze of juniper and anise that tickled his nose. He put the tiny image of himself to his lips and drank. The slightly cool liquor seemed to go two ways at once as he swallowed. A line of tickling warmth ran straight down his throat while icy tendrils reached upward, sliding across the roof of his mouth and into his sinuses. His eyes bulged; he coughed and ran a hand over his suddenly numb lips.

“It’s mirror wine, from Tal Verrar. Good stuff. Now go ahead and eat something or it’ll pop your skull open.”

Calo and Galdo whisked damp cloths off serving platters and bowls, revealing the full extent of the meal for the first time. There were indeed sausages, neatly sliced and fried in oil with quartered pears. There were also split red peppers stuffed with almond paste and spinach; dumplings of thin bread folded over chicken, fried until the bread was as translucent as paper; and cold black beans in wine and mustard sauce. The Sanza brothers were suddenly scooping portions of this and that onto Locke’s plate too fast for him to track.

Working awkwardly with a two-pronged silver fork and one of the rounded knives he’d previously scorned, Locke began to shovel things into his mouth; the flavors seemed to burst gloriously, haphazardly. The chicken dumplings were spiced with ginger and ground orange peels. The wine sauce in the bean salad warmed his tongue; the sharp fumes of mustard burned his throat. He found himself gulping wine to put out each new fire as it arose.

To his surprise, the Sanza twins didn’t partake once they’d served him; they sat with their hands folded, watching Chains. When the older man seemed assured that Locke was eating, he turned to Calo.

“You’re a Vadran noble. Let’s say you’re a Liege-Graf from one of the less important Marrows. You’re at a dinner party in Tal Verrar; an equal number of men and women, with assigned seating. The party is just entering the dining hall; your assigned lady is beside you as you enter, conversing with you. What do you do?”

“At a Vadran dinner party, I would hold her chair out for her without invitation.” Calo didn’t smile. “But Verrari ladies will stand beside a chair to show they want it pulled out. It’s impolite to presume. So I’d let her make the first move.”

“Very good. Now.” Chains pointed to the second Sanza with one hand as he began adding food to his plate with the other. “What’s seventeen multiplied by nineteen?”

Galdo closed his eyes in concentration for a few seconds. “Um…three hundred and twenty three.”

“Correct. What’s the difference between a Vadran nautical league and a Therin nautical league?”

“Ah…the Vadran league is a hundred and…fifty yards longer.”

“Very good. That’s that, then. Go ahead and eat.”

As the Sanza brothers began to undecorously struggle for possession of certain serving dishes, Chains turned to Locke, whose plate was already half-empty. “After you’ve been here a few days, I’m going to start asking questions about what you’ve learned, too. If you want to eat you’ll be expected to learn.”

“What am I going to learn? Other than setting tables?”

“Everything!” Chains looked very pleased with himself. “Everything, my boy. How to fight, how to steal, how to lie with a straight face. How to cook meals like this! How to disguise yourself. How to speak like a noble, how to scribe like a priest, how to skulk like a half-wit.”

“Calo already knows that one,” said Galdo.

“Agh moo agh na mugh baaa,” said Calo around a mouthful of food.

“Remember what I said, when I told you we didn’t work like other thieves work? We’re a new sort of thief here, Locke. What we are is actors. False-facers. I sit here and pretend to be a priest of Perelandro; for years now people have been throwing money at me. How do you think I paid to furnish this little fairy-burrow, this food? I’m three and fifty; nobody my age can steal around rooftops and charm locks. I’m better paid for being blind than I ever was for being quick and clever. And now I’m too slow and too round to pass for anything really interesting.”

Chains finished off the contents of his glass and poured another.

“But you. You, and Calo and Galdo and Sabetha…you four will have every advantage I didn’t. Your education will be thorough and vigorous. I’ll refine my notions, my techniques. When I’m finished, the things you four will pull…well, they’ll make my little scam with this temple look simple and unambitious.”

“That sounds nice,” said Locke, who was feeling the wine. A warm haze of charitable contentment was descending over him and smothering the tension and worry that were so second-nature to a Shades’ Hill orphan. “What do we do first?”

“Well, tonight, if you’re not busy throwing up the first decent meal you’ve ever had, Calo and Galdo will draw you a bath. Once you’re less aromatic company, you can sleep in. Tomorrow, we’ll get you an acolyte’s robe and you can sit the steps with us, taking coins. Tomorrow night…” Chains scratched at his beard while he took a sip from his glass. “I take you to meet the big man. Capa Barsavi. He’s ever so curious to get a look at you.”