The Lies of Locke Lamora

Chapter FIVE

THE GRAY KING

1

“YOU SEEM TO be spending a great deal of our money very quickly, Lukas,” said Doña Sofia Salvara.

“Circumstance has blessed us, Doña Sofia.” Locke gave a smile that was a measure of great triumph by Fehrwight standards, a tight-lipped little thing that might have been a grimace of pain from anyone else. “Everything is proceeding with the most agreeable speed. Ships and men and cargo, and soon all we’ll need to do is pack your wardrobe for a short voyage!”

“Indeed, indeed.” Were those dark circles under her eyes? Was there the slightest hint of wariness in her attitude toward him? She certainly wasn’t at ease. Locke made a mental note to avoid pushing her too far, too fast. It was a delicate dance, playing straight lines and smiles with someone who knew he was a mummer but didn’t know that he knew she knew.

With the slightest sigh, Doña Sofia pressed her personal sigil down into the warm blue wax at the bottom of the parchment she was contemplating. She added a few flowing lines of ink above the seal, her signature in the curving Therin script that had become something of a fad among literate nobles in the past few years. “If you say you require another four thousand today, another four thousand it must be.”

“I am most sincerely grateful, my lady.”

“Well, you’ll certainly pay for it soon enough,” she said. “Many times over, if our hopes play out.” At that she smiled, with genuine good humor that crinkled the edges of her eyes, and held out the fresh promissory note.

Oh-ho, thought Locke. Much better. The more in control the mark thinks they are, the more easily they respond to real control. Another one of Father Chains’ old maxims, proven in Locke’s experience too many times to count.

“Please give my warmest regards to your husband when he returns from his business in the city, my lady,” said Locke, taking the wax-sealed parchment in hand. “Now, I fear, I must go see some men about…payments that will not appear on any official ledger.”

“Of course. I quite understand. Conté can show you out.”

The gruff, weathered man-at-arms was paler than usual, and it seemed to Locke that there was a slight but obvious hitch in his stride. Yes—the poor fellow was clearly favoring a certain badly bruised portion of his anatomy. Locke’s stomach turned in unconscious sympathy at his own memory of that night.

“I say, Conté,” he began politely, “are you feeling quite well? You seem…forgive me for saying so…troubled this past day or two.”

“I’m well for the most part, Master Fehrwight.” There was a slight hardening of the lines at the edges of the man’s mouth. “Perhaps a bit under the weather.”

“Nothing serious?”

“A minor ague, perhaps. They happen, this time of year.”

“Ah. One of the tricks of your climate. I’ve not yet felt such a thing, myself.”

“Well,” said Conté, with an absolute lack of expression on his face, “mind yourself then, Master Fehrwight. Camorr can be a very dangerous place in the most unlooked-for ways.”

Oh-ho-HO, Locke thought. So they’d let him in on the secret, as well. And the man had a proud streak at least as wide as Sofia’s, to drop even the slightest hint of a threat. Worth noting, that.

“I’m the very soul of caution, my dear Conté.” Locke tucked the promissory note within his black waistcoat and adjusted his cascading cravats as they approached the front door of the Salvara manor. “I keep my chambers very well illuminated, to ward off miasmas, and I wear copper rings after Falselight. Just the thing for your hot-and-cold fevers. I would wager that a few days at sea will put you right.”

“No doubt,” said Conté. “The voyage. I do look forward to the…voyage.”

“Then we are of one mind!” Locke waited for the don’s man to open the wide glass-and-iron door for him, and as he stepped out into the moist air of Falselight, he nodded stiffly but affably. “I shall pray for your health tomorrow, my good fellow.”

“Too kind, Master Fehrwight.” The ex-soldier had set one hand on the hilt of one of his knives, perhaps unconsciously. “I shall most assuredly offer prayers concerning yours.”

2

LOCKE BEGAN walking south at a leisurely pace, crossing from the Isla Durona to Twosilver Green as he and Calo had just a few nights previously. The Hangman’s Wind was stronger than usual, and as he walked through the park in the washed-out light of the city’s glowing Elderglass, the hiss and rustle of leaves was like the sighing of vast creatures hiding in the greenery all around him.

Just under seventeen thousand crowns in half a week; the Don Salvara game was well ahead of their original plans, which had called for a two-week span between first touch and final blow-off. Locke was certain he could get one more touch out of the don in perfect safety, push the total up over twenty-two or maybe twenty-three thousand, and then pull a vanish. Go to ground, take it easy for a few weeks, stay alert and let the Gray King mess sort itself out.

And then, as a bonus miracle, somehow convince Capa Barsavi to disengage him from Nazca, and do so without twisting the old man’s breeches. Locke sighed.

When Falselight died and true night fell, the glow never seemed to simply fade so much as recede, as though it were being drawn back within the glass, a loan reclaimed by a jealous creditor. Shadows widened and blackened until finally the whole park was swallowed by them from below. Emerald lanterns flickered to life here and there in the trees, their light soft and eerie and strangely relaxing. They offered just enough illumination to see the crushed stone paths that wound their way through the walls of trees and hedges. Locke felt as though the spring of tension within him was unwinding itself ever so slightly; he listened to the muted crunch of his own footsteps on gravel, and for a few moments he was surprised to find himself possessed by something perilously close to contentment.

He was alive, he was rich, he had made the decision not to skulk and cringe from the troubles that gnawed at his Gentlemen Bastards. And for one brief moment, in the middle of eighty-eight thousand people and all the heaving, stinking, ever-flowing noise and commerce and machinery of their city, he was alone with the gently swaying trees of Twosilver Green.

Alone.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and the old cold fear, the constant companion of anyone raised on the streets, was suddenly alive within him. It was a summer night in Twosilver Green, the safest open park in the city, patrolled at any given time by two or three squads of yellowjackets with their night-lanterns waving on poles. Filled, sometimes to the point of comedy, with the strolling sons and daughters of the wealthy classes, holding hands and swatting insects and seeking the privacy of nooks and shadows.

Locke gazed quickly up and down the curving paths around him; he was truly alone. There was no sound in the park but for the sighing of the leaves and the buzzing of the insects; no voices or footsteps that he could hear. He twisted his right forearm, and a thin stiletto of blackened steel fell from his coat sleeve into his palm, pommel-down. He carried it straight against his arm, rendering it invisible from any distance, and hurried toward the southern gate of the park.

A mist was rising, seeping up as though the grass were pouring gray vapors into the night; Locke shivered despite the warm, heavy air. A mist was perfectly natural, wasn’t it? The whole city was blanketed in the stuff two nights out of three; a man could lose track of the end of his own nose in it sometimes. But why—

The southern gate of the park. He was standing before the southern gate of the park, staring out across an empty cobbled lane, at a mist-shrouded bridge. That bridge was the Eldren Arch, its red lanterns soft and ominous in the fog.

The Eldren Arch leading north to the Isla Durona.

He’d gotten turned around. How was that possible? His heart was beating so fast, and then—Doña Sofia. That cunning, cunning bitch. She’d done something to him…slipped him some alchemical mischief on the parchment. The ink? The wax? Was it a poison, drawing some cloud around his senses before it did its work? Was it some other drug, intended to make him ill? Petty, perfectly deniable revenge to sate her for the time being? He fumbled for the parchment, missing his inner coat pocket, aware that he was moving a bit too slowly and clumsily for the confusion to be entirely in his imagination.

There were men moving under the trees.

One to his left, another to his right…The Eldren Arch was gone; he was back at the heart of the curving paths, staring out into a darkness cut only by the emerald light of the lanterns. He gasped, crouched, brought up the stiletto, head swimming. The men were cloaked; they were on either side; there was the sound of footsteps on gravel, not his own. The dark shape of crossbows, the backlit shapes of the men…His head whirled.

“Master Thorn,” said a man’s voice, muffled and distant, “we require an hour of your attention.”

“Crooked Warden.” Locke gasped, and then even the faint colors of the trees seemed to drain from his vision, and the whole night went black.

3

WHEN HE came to, he was already sitting up. It was a curious sensation. He’d awoken before from blackness brought on by injuries and by drugs, but this was different. It was as though someone had simply set the mechanisms of his consciousness moving again, like a scholar opening the spigot on a Verrari water-clock.

He was in the common room of a tavern, seated on a chair at a table by himself. He could see the bar, and the hearth, and the other tables, but the place was dank and empty, smelling of mold and dust. A flickering orange light came from behind him—an oil lantern. The windows were greasy and misted over, turning the light back upon itself; he couldn’t see anything of the outside through them.

“There’s a crossbow at your back,” said a voice just a few feet behind him, a pleasantly cultured man’s voice, definitely Camorri but somewhat off in a few of the pronunciations. A native who’d spent time elsewhere? The voice was entirely unknown to him. “Master Thorn.”

Icicles seemed to grow in Locke’s spine. He racked his brains furiously for recall of those last few seconds in the park…. Hadn’t one of the men there called him that, as well? He gulped. “Why do you call me that? My name is Lukas Fehrwight. I’m a citizen of Emberlain working for the House of bel Auster.”

“I could believe that, Master Thorn. Your accent is convincing, and your willingness to suffer that black wool is nothing short of heroic. Don Lorenzo and Doña Sofia certainly believed in Lukas Fehrwight, until you yourself disabused them of the notion.”

It isn’t Barsavi, Locke thought desperately. It couldn’t be Barsavi…. Barsavi would be conducting this conversation himself, if he knew. He would be conducting it at the heart of the Floating Grave, with every Gentleman Bastard tied to a post and every knife in Sage Kindness’ bag sharpened and gleaming.

“My name is Lukas Fehrwight,” Locke insisted. “I don’t understand what you want or what I’m doing here. Have you done anything to Graumann? Is he safe?”

“Jean Tannen is perfectly safe,” said the man. “As you well know. How I would have loved to see it up close, when you strolled into Don Salvara’s office with that silly sigil-wallet under your black cloak. Destroying his confidence in Lukas Fehrwight just as a father gently tells his children there’s really no such thing as the Blessed Bringer! You’re an artist, Master Thorn.”

“I have already told you, my name is Lukas, Lukas Fehrwight, and—”

“If you tell me that your name is Lukas Fehrwight one more time, I’m going to put a bolt through the back of your upper left arm. I wouldn’t mean to kill you, just to complicate your life. A nice big hole, maybe a broken bone. Ruin that fine suit of yours, perhaps get blood all over that lovely parchment. Wouldn’t the clerks at Meraggio’s love to hear an explanation for that? Promissory notes are so much more attention-getting when they’re covered in gore.”

Locke said nothing for quite a long while.

“Now that won’t do either, Locke. Surely you must have realized I can’t be one of Barsavi’s men.”

Thirteen, Locke thought. Where the hell did I make a mistake? If the man was speaking truthfully, if he didn’t work for Capa Barsavi, there was only one other possibility. The real Spider. The real Midnighters. Had Locke’s use of the pretend sigil-wallet been reported? Had that counterfeiter in Talisham decided to try for a bit of extra profit by dropping a word with the duke’s secret constables? It seemed the likeliest explanation.

“Turn around. Slowly.”

Locke stood up and did so, and bit his tongue to avoid crying out in surprise.

The man seated at the table before him could have been anywhere between thirty and fifty; he was lean and rangy and gray at the temples. The mark of Camorr was upon his face; he bore the sun-darkened olive skin, the high temples and cheekbones, the sharp nose.

He wore a gray leather doublet over a gray silk tunic; his cloak and mantle were gray, as was the hood that was swept back behind his head. His hands, folded neatly before him, were covered with thin gray swordsman’s gloves, kid leather that was weathered and creased with use. The man had hunter’s eyes, cold and steady and measuring. The orange light of the lantern was reflected in their dark pupils. For a second it seemed to Locke that he was seeing not a reflection but a revelation; that the dark fire burned behind the man’s eyes. Locke shivered despite himself…. All that gray…

“You,” he whispered, dropping the accent of Lukas Fehrwight.

“None other,” said the Gray King. “I disdain these clothes as something of a theatrical touch, but it’s a necessary one. Of all the men in Camorr, surely you understand these things, Master Thorn.”

“I have no idea why you keep calling me that,” said Locke, shifting his footing as unobtrusively as he could, feeling the comforting weight of his second stiletto in the other sleeve of his coat. “And I don’t see this crossbow you mentioned.”

“I said it was at your back.” The Gray King gestured at the far wall with a thin, bemused smile. Warily, Locke turned his head—

There was a man standing against the wall of the tavern, standing right in the spot Locke had been staring at until the previous moment. A cloaked and hooded man, broad-shouldered, leaning lazily against the wall with a loaded alley-piece in the crook of his arm, the quarrel pointed casually at Locke’s chest.

“I…” Locke turned back, but the Gray King was no longer seated at the table. He was standing a dozen feet away, to Locke’s left, behind the disused bar. The lantern on the table hadn’t moved, and Locke could see that the man was grinning. “This isn’t possible.”

“Of course it is, Master Thorn. Think it through. The number of possibilities is actually vanishingly small.”

The Gray King waved his left hand in an arc, as though wiping a window; Locke glanced back at the wall and saw that the crossbowman had disappeared once again.

“Well, f*ck me,” said Locke. “You’re a Bondsmage.”

“No,” said the Gray King, “I’m a man without that advantage, no different than yourself. But I employ a Bondsmage.” He pointed to the table where he’d previously been sitting.

There, without any sudden movement or jump in Locke’s perception, sat a slender man surely not yet out of his twenties. His chin and cheeks were peach-fuzzed, and his hairline was already in rapid retreat to the back of his head. His eyes were alight with amusement, and Locke immediately saw in him the sort of casual presumption of authority that most congenital bluebloods wore like a second skin.

He was dressed in an extremely well-tailored gray coat with flaring red silk cuffs; the bare skin of his left wrist bore three tattooed black lines. On his right hand was a heavy leather gauntlet, and perched atop this, staring at Locke as though he were nothing more than a field mouse with delusions of grandeur, was the fiercest hunting hawk Locke had ever seen. The bird of prey stared directly at him, its eyes pinpoints of black within gold on either side of a curved beak that looked dagger-sharp. Its brown-and-gray wings were folded back sleekly, and its talons—what was wrong with its talons? Its rear claws were huge, distended, oddly lengthened.

“My associate, the Falconer,” said the Gray King. “A Bondsmage of Karthain. My Bondsmage. The key to a great many things. And now that we’ve been introduced, let us speak of what I expect you to do for me.”

4

“THEY ARE not to be f*cked with,” Chains had told him once, many years before.

“Why not?” Locke was twelve or thirteen at the time, about as cocksure as he’d ever be in life, which was saying something.

“I see you’ve been neglecting your history again. I’ll assign you more reading shortly.” Chains sighed. “The Bondsmagi of Karthain are the only sorcerers on the continent, because they permit no one else to study their art. Outsiders they find must join them or be slain.”

“And none resist? Nobody fights back or hides from them?”

“Of course they do, here and there. But what can two or five or ten sorcerers in hiding do against four hundred with a city-state at their command? What the Bondsmagi do to outsiders and renegades…They make Capa Barsavi look like a priest of Perelandro. They are utterly jealous, utterly ruthless, and utterly without competition. They have achieved their desired monopoly. No one will shelter sorcerers against the will of the Bondsmagi, no one. Not even the King of the Seven Marrows.”

“Curious,” said Locke, “that they would still call themselves Bondsmagi, then.”

“It’s false modesty. I think it amuses them. They set such ridiculous prices for their services, it’s less like mercenary work to them and more like a cruel joke at the expense of their clients.”

“Ridiculous prices?”

“A novice would cost you five hundred crowns a day. A more experienced spellbinder might cost you a thousand. They mark their rank with tattoos around their wrists. The more black circles you see, the more polite you become.”

“A thousand crowns a day?”

“You see now why they’re not everywhere, on retainer to every court and noble and pissant warlord with a treasury to waste. Even in times of war and other extreme crises, they can be secured for a very limited duration. When you do cross paths with one, you can be sure that the client is paying them for serious, active work.”

“Where did they come from?”

“Karthain.”

“Ha-ha. I mean their guild. Their monopoly.”

“That’s easy. One night a powerful sorcerer knocks on the door of a less-powerful sorcerer. ‘I’m starting an exclusive guild,’ he says. ‘Join me now or I’ll blast you out of your f*cking boots right where you stand.’ So naturally the second mage says…”

“‘You know, I’ve always wanted to join a guild!’”

“Right. Those two go bother a third sorcerer. ‘Join the guild,’ they say, ‘or fight both of us, two on one, right here and right now.’ Repeat as necessary, until three or four hundred guild members are knocking on the door of the last independent mage around, and everyone who said no is dead.”

“They must have weaknesses,” said Locke.

“Of course they’ve got weaknesses, boy. They’re mortal men and women, same as us. They eat, they shit, they age, they die. But they’re like gods-damned hornets; mess with one and the rest show up to punch you full of holes. Thirteen help anyone who kills a Bondsmage, purposely or otherwise.”

“Why?”

“It’s the oldest rule of their guild, a rule without exceptions: kill a Bondsmage, and the whole guild drops whatever it’s doing to come after you. They seek you out by any means they need to use. They kill your friends, your family, your associates. They burn your home. They destroy everything you’ve ever built. Before they finally let you die, they make sure you know that your line has been wiped from the earth, root and branch.”

“So nobody is allowed to oppose them at all?”

“Oh, you can oppose them, all right. You can try to fight back, for what it’s worth when one of them is against you. But if you go as far as killing one, well, it’s just not worth it. Suicide would be preferable; at least then they won’t kill everyone you ever loved or befriended.”

“Wow.”

“Yes.” Chains shook his head. “Sorcery’s impressive enough, but it’s their f*cking attitude that makes them such a pain. And that’s why, when you find yourself face to face with one, you bow and scrape and mind your ‘sirs’ and ‘madams.’”

5

“NICE BIRD, a*shole,” said Locke.

The Bondsmage stared coldly at him, nonplussed.

“So you must be the reason nobody can find your boss. The reason none of the Full Crowns could remember what they were doing when Tall Tesso got nailed to a wall.”

The falcon screeched, and Locke flinched backward; the creature’s anger was extremely expressive. It was more than the cry of an agitated animal; it was somehow personal. Locke raised his eyebrows.

“My familiar mislikes your tone of voice,” said the Falconer. “I for one have always found her judgment to be impeccable. I would mind your tongue.”

“Your boss expects me to do something for him,” said Locke, “which means I have to remain functional. Which means the manner in which I address his f*cking Karthani lackeys is immaterial. Some of the garristas you killed were friends of mine. I’m looking at an arranged f*cking marriage because of you! So eat hemp and shit rope, Bondsmage.”

The falcon exploded, screeching, from its perch on its master’s hand. Locke raised his left arm in front of his face and the bird slammed against it, talons clutching with edges that sliced through the fabric of Locke’s coat sleeve. The bird fastened itself on Locke’s arm, excruciatingly, and beat its wings to steady itself. Locke hollered and raised his right hand to punch the bird.

“Do that,” said the Falconer, “and die. Look closely at my familiar’s talons.”

Biting the insides of his cheeks against the pain, Locke did just that. The creature’s rear talons weren’t talons at all, but more like smooth curved hooks that narrowed to needle points at their tips. There were strange pulsating sacs on the legs just above them, and even to Locke’s limited knowledge of hunting birds this seemed very wrong.

“Vestris,” said the Gray King, “is a scorpion hawk. A hybrid, facilitated by alchemy and sorcery. One of many that the Bondsmagi amuse themselves with. She carries not just talons, but a sting. If she were to cease being tolerant of you, you might make it ten steps before you fell dead in your tracks.”

Blood began to drip from Locke’s arm; he groaned. The bird snapped at him with its beak, clearly enjoying itself.

“Now,” said the Gray King, “are we not all grown men and birds here? Functional is such a relative state of affairs, Locke. I would hate to have to give you another demonstration of just how relative.”

“I apologize,” said Locke between gritted teeth. “Vestris is a fine and persuasive little bird.”

The Falconer said nothing, but Vestris released her grip on Locke’s left arm, unleashing new spikes of pain. Locke clutched his bloodied wool sleeve, massaging the wounds within it. Vestris fluttered back to her perch on her master’s glove and resumed staring at Locke.

“Isn’t it just as I said, Falconer?” The Gray King beamed at Locke. “Our Thorn knows how to recover his equilibrium. Two minutes ago, he was too scared to think. Now he’s already insulting us and no doubt scheming for a way out of this situation.”

“I don’t understand,” said Locke, “why you keep calling me Thorn.”

“Of course you do,” said the Gray King. “I’m only going to go over this once, Locke. I know about your little burrow beneath the House of Perelandro. Your vault. Your fortune. I know you don’t spend any of your nights sneak-thieving, as you claim to all the other Right People. I know you breach the Secret Peace to spring elaborate confidence schemes on nobles who don’t know any better, and I know you’re good at it. I know you didn’t start these ridiculous rumors about the Thorn of Camorr, but you and I both know they refer to your exploits, indirectly. Lastly, I understand that Capa Barsavi would do some very interesting things to you and all of your Gentlemen Bastards if the things I know were to be confided to him.”

“Oh, please,” said Locke, “you’re not exactly in any position to whisper politely in his ear and be taken seriously.”

“I’m not the one who would be whispering in his ear,” said the Gray King, smiling, “if you failed at the task I have for you. I have others close to him to speak for me. I trust I have made myself very clear.”

Locke glared for a few seconds, then sat down with a sigh, turning his chair around and leaning his injured arm against the back. “I see your point. And in exchange?”

“In exchange, for the task I require, I would promise you that Capa Barsavi won’t hear about your very cleverly arranged double life, nor that of your closest companions.”

“So,” said Locke slowly, “that’s how it is.”

“My Bondsmage excepted, I’m a thrifty man, Locke.” The Gray King stepped out from behind the bar and folded his arms. “You get paid in life, not coin.”

“What’s the task?”

“A straightforward beguilement,” said the Gray King. “I want you to become me.”

“I, ah, I don’t understand.”

“The time has come for me to quit this game of shadows. Barsavi and I need to speak face-to-face. I will very shortly arrange a clandestine conference with the capa, one that will bring him forth from the Floating Grave.”

“Fat chance.”

“In this you must trust me. I’m the architect of his current troubles; I assure you, I know what can bring him out from that soggy fortress of his. But it won’t be me that he’ll speak to. It will be you. The Thorn of Camorr. The greatest mummer this city has ever produced. You, cast in the role of me. Just for one night. A virtuoso performance.”

“A command performance. Why?”

“I will be required elsewhere at that time. The conference is one part of a wider concern.”

“I am personally known to Capa Barsavi and his entire family.”

“You have already convinced the Salvaras that you were two different men. In the same day, no less. I’ll coach you in what I wish you to say and provide you with a suitable wardrobe. Between your skills and my current anonymity, no one will ever be aware that you are even involved, or that you are not the real Gray King.”

“An amusing plan. It has balls, and that appeals to me. But you do realize that I’m going to look like quite the ass,” said Locke, “when the capa opens our conversation with a dozen crossbow bolts to my chest.”

“Hardly an issue. You’ll be quite well protected against routine foolishness on the capa’s part. I’ll be sending the Falconer with you.”

Locke flicked his gaze back to the Bondsmage, who smiled with obvious mock magnanimity.

“Do you really think,” continued the Gray King, “that I would have let you keep that other stiletto in your coat sleeve if any weapon in your hands could touch me? Try to cut me. I’ll let you borrow a crossbow or two, if you like. A quarrel will do no better. The same protection will be yours when you meet with the capa.”

“Then it’s true,” said Locke. “Those stories aren’t just stories. Your pet mage gives you more than just the ability to make my brain lock up like I’ve been drinking all night.”

“Yes. And it was my men who started spreading those stories, for one purpose—I wanted Barsavi’s gangs to so dread my presence that they wouldn’t dare to get close to you when the time came for you to speak to him. After all, I have the power to kill men with a touch.” The Gray King smiled. “And when you’re me, so will you.”

Locke frowned. That smile, that face…There was something damned familiar about the Gray King. Nothing immediately obvious, just a nagging sensation that Locke had been in his presence before. He cleared his throat. “That’s very thoughtful of you. And what happens when I’ve finished this task for you?”

“A parting of the ways,” said the Gray King. “You to your business, and me to my own.”

“I find that somewhat difficult to believe.”

“You’ll leave your meeting with Barsavi alive, Locke. Fear not for what happens after that; I assure you it won’t be as bad as you think. If I merely wanted to assassinate him, can you deny that I could have done it long ago?”

“You’ve killed seven of his garristas. You’ve kept him locked away on the Floating Grave for months. ‘Not as bad as I think’? He killed eight of his own Full Crowns after Tesso died. He won’t accept less than blood from you.”

“Barsavi has kept himself locked away on the Floating Grave, Locke. And as I said, you must trust me to deal with that end of the situation. The capa will acquiesce to what I have to offer him. We’ll settle the question of Camorr once and for all, to everyone’s satisfaction.”

“I grant that you’re dangerous,” said Locke, “but you must be mad.”

“Suit whatever meaning you wish to my actions, Locke, provided that you perform as required.”

“It would appear,” Locke said sourly, “that I have no choice.”

“This is no accident. Are we agreed? You’ll perform this task for me?”

“With instruction in what you wish me to say to Capa Barsavi?”

“Yes.”

“There will be one other condition.”

“Really?”

“If I’m going to do this for you,” said Locke, “I need to have a way to speak to you, or at least get a message to you, at my own will. Something may come up which can’t wait for you to prance around appearing out of nowhere.”

“It’s unlikely,” said the Gray King.

“It’s a necessity. Do you want me to be successful in this task or not?”

“Very well.” The Gray King nodded. “Falconer.”

The Falconer rose from his seat; Vestris never took her eyes from Locke’s. The hawk’s master reached inside his coat with his free hand and withdrew a candle—a tiny cylinder of white wax with an odd smear of crimson swirling through it. “Light this,” said the Bondsmage, “in a place of solitude. You must be absolutely alone. Speak my name, and I will hear and come, soon enough.”

“Thank you.” Locke took the candle with his right hand and slipped it into his own coat. “Falconer. Easy to remember, that.”

Vestris opened her beak, but made no noise. It snapped shut, and the bird blinked. A yawn? Her version of a chuckle at Locke’s expense?

“I’ll be keeping an eye on you,” said the Bondsmage. “Just as Vestris feels what I feel, I see what she sees.”

“That explains quite a bit,” said Locke.

“If we are agreed,” said the Gray King, “our business here is finished. I have something else to do, and it must be done tonight. Thank you, Master Thorn, for seeing reason.”

“Said the man with the crossbow to the man with the money purse.” Locke stood up and slipped his left hand into a coat pocket; the forearm was still throbbing with pain. “So when is this meeting supposed to take place?”

“Three nights hence,” said the Gray King. “No interruption at all for your Don Salvara game, I trust?”

“I don’t think you really care, but no.”

“All for the better, then. Let us return you to your own affairs.”

“You’re not going to—”

But it was too late; the Falconer had already begun to gesture with his free hand and move his lips, forming words but not quite vocalizing them. The room spun; the orange lantern light became a fading streak of color against the darkness of the room, and then there was only darkness.

6

WHEN LOCKE’S senses returned he found himself standing on the bridge between the Snare and Coin-Kisser’s Row; not a moment had passed by his own personal reckoning, but when he looked up he saw that the clouds were gone, the stars had whirled in the dark sky, and the moons were low in the west.

“Son of a bitch,” he hissed. “It’s been hours! Jean’s got to be having fits.”

He thought quickly; Calo and Galdo had planned to spend the evening making their rounds in the Snare, with Bug in tow. They would probably have ended up at the Last Mistake, dicing and drinking and trying not to get thrown out for cardsharping. Jean had intended to spend the night feigning occupancy in the Broken Tower rooms, at least until Locke returned. That would be the closest place to begin hunting for them. Just then, Locke remembered that he was still dressed as Lukas Fehrwight. He slapped his forehead.

He pulled his coat and cravats off, yanked the false optics from the bridge of his nose, and stuffed them in a vest pocket. He gingerly felt the cuts on his left arm; they were deep and still painful, but the blood had crusted on them, so at least he wasn’t dripping all over the place. Gods damn the Gray King, thought Locke, and gods grant I get the chance to balance this night out in the ledger.

He ruffled his hair, unbuttoned his vest, untucked his shirt, and reached down to fold and conceal the ridiculous ribbon tongues of his shoes. His cravats and his decorative belts went into the coat, which Locke then folded up and tied by the sleeves. In the darkness, it bore an excellent resemblance to a plain old cloth sack. With the outward flourishes of Lukas Fehrwight broken down, he could at least pass without notice for a reasonably short period of time. Satisfied, he turned and began to walk quickly down the south side of the bridge, toward the still-lively lights and noises of the Snare.

Jean Tannen actually appeared from an alley and took him by the arm as he turned onto the street on the north side of the Broken Tower, where the main entrance to the Last Mistake opened onto the cobbles. “Locke! Where the hell have you been all night? Are you well?”

“Jean, gods, am I ever glad to see you! I’m far from well, as are you. Where are the others?”

“When you didn’t return,” Jean said, speaking in a low voice close to Locke’s ear, “I found them in the Last Mistake and sent them up to our rooms, with Bug. I’ve been pacing the alleys down here, trying to keep out of sight. I didn’t want us all getting scattered across the city by night. I…we feared…”

“I was taken, Jean. But then I was let go. Let’s get up to the rooms. We have a new problem, fresh from the oven and hot as hell.”

7

THEY LET the windows in their rooms stay open this time, with thin sheets of translucent mesh drawn down to keep out biting insects. The sky was turning gray, with lines of red visible just beneath the eastern windowsills, when Locke finished relating the events of the night. His listeners had shadows beneath their bleary eyes, but none showed any indication of sleepiness just then.

“At least we know now,” Locke finished, “that he won’t be trying to kill me like he did the other garristas.”

“Not until three nights hence, anyway,” said Galdo.

“Bastard simply can’t be trusted,” said Bug.

“But for the time being,” said Locke, “he must be obeyed.”

Locke had changed into spare clothes; he now looked much more suitably low-class. Jean had insisted on washing his arm with reinforced wine, heated to near boiling on an alchemical hearthstone. Locke now had a compress of brandy-soaked cloth pressed to it, and he bathed it in the light of a small white glow-globe. It was common knowledge among the physikers of Camorr that light drove back malodorous air and helped prevent lingering infections.

“Must he?” Calo scratched a stubbly chin. “How far do you figure we can get if we run like hell?”

“From the Gray King, who knows?” Locke sighed. “From the Bondsmage, not far enough, ever.”

“So we just sit back,” said Jean, “and let him pull your strings, like a marionette onstage.”

“I was rather taken,” said Locke, “with the whole idea of him not telling Capa Barsavi about our confidence games, yes.”

“This whole thing is mad,” said Galdo. “You said you saw three rings on this Falconer’s wrist?”

“The one that didn’t have the damn scorpion hawk, yeah.”

“Three rings,” Jean muttered. “It is mad. To keep one of those people in service…. It must be two months now since the first stories of the Gray King appeared. Since the first garrista got it…. Who was it, again?”

“Gil the Cutter, from the Rum Hounds,” said Calo.

“The coin involved has to be…ludicrous. I doubt the duke could keep a Bondsmage of rank on for this long. So who the f*ck is this Gray King, and how is he paying for this?”

“Immaterial,” said Locke. “Three nights hence, or two and a half now that the sun’s coming up, there’ll be two Gray Kings, and I’ll be one of them.”

“Thirteen,” said Jean. He put his head in his hands and rubbed his eyes with his palms.

“So that’s the bad news. Capa Barsavi wants me to marry his daughter and now the Gray King wants me to impersonate him at a secret meeting with Capa Barsavi.” Locke grinned. “The good news is I didn’t get any blood on that new promissory note for four thousand crowns.”

“I’ll kill him,” said Bug. “Get me poisoned quarrels and an alley-piece and I’ll drill him in the eyes.”

“Bug,” said Locke, “that makes leaping off a temple roof sound reasonable by comparison.”

“But who would ever expect it?” Bug, sitting beneath one of the room’s eastern windows, turned his head to stare out it for a few moments, as he had been intermittently doing all night. “Look, everyone knows that one of you four could kill them. But nobody would expect me! Total surprise. One shot in the face, no more Gray King!”

“Assuming the Falconer allowed your crossbow bolts to hit his client,” said Locke, “he would probably cook us where we stood right after that. Also, I very much doubt that f*cking bird is going to be fluttering around this tower where we can see it.”

“You never know,” said Bug. “I think I saw it before, when we made first touch on Don Salvara.”

“I’m pretty sure I did, too.” Calo was knuckle-walking a solon on his left hand, without looking at it. “While I was strangling you, Locke. Something flew overhead. Damn big and fast for a wren or a sparrow.”

“So,” said Jean, “he really has been watching us and he really knows all there is to know about us. Knuckling under might be wiser for the time being, but we’ve got to have some contingencies we can cook up.”

“Should we call off the Don Salvara game now?” asked Bug, meekly.

“Hmmm? No.” Locke shook his head vigorously. “There’s absolutely no reason, for the time being.”

“How,” said Galdo, “do you figure that?”

“The reason we discussed shortening the game was to keep our heads down and try to avoid getting killed by the Gray King. Now we can be pretty damn sure that won’t happen, at least not for three days. So the Salvara game stays in play.”

“For three days, yes. Until the Gray King has no further use for you.” Jean spat. “Next step in whatever the plans are: ‘Thanks for your cooperation, here’s a complimentary knife in the back for all of you.’”

“It’s a possibility,” said Locke. “So what we do is this: Jean, you scuttle around today after you’ve had some sleep. Cancel those arrangements for sea travel. If we need to run, waiting for a ship to put out will take too long. Likewise, drop more gold at the Viscount’s Gate. If we go out, we go out by land, and I want that gate swinging wider and faster than a whorehouse door.

“Calo, Galdo, you find us a wagon. Stash it behind the temple; set it up with tarps and rope for fast packing. Get us food and drink for the road. Simple stuff, sturdy stuff. Spare cloaks. Plain clothing. You know what to do. If any Right People spot you at work, maybe drop a hint that we’re after a fat score in the next few days. Barsavi would like that, if it gets back to him.

“Bug, tomorrow you and I are going to go through the vault. We’ll bring up every coin in there, and we’re going to pack them in canvas sacks, for easy transport. If we have to run, I want to be able to throw the whole mess on the back of our wagon in just a few minutes.”

“Makes sense,” said Bug.

“So, Sanzas, you stick together,” said Locke. “Bug, you’re with me. Nobody goes it alone, for any length of time, except Jean. You’re the least likely to get troubled, if the Gray King’s got anything less than an army hidden in the city.”

“Oh, you know me.” Jean reached behind his neck, down behind the loose leather vest he wore over his simple cotton tunic. He withdrew a pair of matching hatchets, each a foot and a half in length, with leather-wrapped handles and straight black blades that narrowed like scalpels. These were balanced with balls of blackened steel, each as wide around as a silver solon. The Wicked Sisters—Jean’s weapons of choice. “I never travel alone. It’s always the three of us.”

“Right, then.” Locke yawned. “If we need any other bright ideas, we can conjure them when we wake up. Let’s set something heavy against the door, shut the windows, and start snoring.”

The Gentlemen Bastards had just stumbled to their feet to begin putting this sensible plan into action when Jean held up one hand for silence. The stairs outside the door on the north wall of the chamber were creaking under the weight of many feet. A moment later, someone was banging on the door itself.

“Lamora,” came a loud male voice, “open up! Capa’s business!”

Jean slipped his hatchets into one hand and put that hand behind his back, then stood against the north wall, a few feet to the right of the door. Calo and Galdo reached under their shirts for their daggers, Galdo pushing Bug back behind him as they did so. Locke stood in the center of the room, remembering that his stilettos were still wrapped up in his Fehrwight coat.

“What’s the price of a loaf,” he shouted, “at the Shifting Market?”

“One copper flat, but the loaves ain’t dry,” came the response. Locke untensed just a bit—that was this week’s proper greeting and countersign, and if they’d been coming to haul him off for anything bloody, well, they’d have simply kicked in the door. Signaling with his hands for everyone to stay calm, he drew out the bolt and slid the front door open just wide enough to peek out.

There were four men on the platform outside his door, seventy feet in the air above the Last Mistake. The sky was the color of murky canal water behind them, with just a few twinkling stars vanishing slowly here and there. They were hard-looking men, standing ready and easy like trained fighters, wearing leather tunics, leather collars, and red cloth bandannas under black leather caps. Red Hands—the gang Barsavi turned to when he needed muscle work and he needed it fast.

“Begging your pardon, brother.” The apparent leader of the Red Hands put one arm up against the door. “Big man wants to see Locke Lamora right this very moment, and he don’t care what state he’s in, and he won’t let us take no for an answer.”





INTERLUDE

Jean Tannen

1

In the year that followed Locke grew, but not as much as he would have liked. Although it was difficult to guess his true age with any hope of accuracy, it was obvious that he was more than a little runty for it.

“You missed a few meals, in your very early years,” Chains told him. “You’ve done much better since you came here, to be sure, but I suspect you’ll always be a bit on the…medium side.”

“Always?”

“Don’t be too upset.” Chains put his hands on his own round belly and chuckled. “A little man can slip out of a pinch that a greater man might find inescapable.”

There was further schooling. More sums, more history, more maps, more languages. Once Locke and the Sanzas had a firm grasp of conversational Vadran, Chains began having them instructed in the art of accents. A few hours each week were spent in the company of an old Vadran sail-mender who would chide them for their “fumble-mouthed mangling” of the northern tongue while he drove his long, wicked needles through yard upon yard of folded canvas. They would chat about any subject on the old man’s mind, and he would fastidiously correct every consonant that was too short and every vowel that was too long. He would also get steadily more red-faced and belligerent as each session went on, for Chains paid him in wine for his services.

There were trials—some trivial and some quite harsh. Chains tested his boys constantly, almost ruthlessly, but when he was finished with each new conundrum he always took them to the temple roof to explain what he’d wanted, what the hardships signified. His openness after the fact made his games easier to bear, and they had the added effect of uniting Locke, Calo, and Galdo against the world around them. The more Chains tightened the screws, the closer the boys grew, the more smoothly they worked together, the less they had to say out loud to set a plan in motion.

The coming of Jean Tannen changed all that.

It was the month of Saris in the Seventy-seventh Year of Iono, the end of an unusually dry and cool autumn. Storms had lashed the Iron Sea but spared Camorr, by some trick of the winds or the gods, and the nights were finer than any in Locke’s living memory. He was sitting the steps with Father Chains, flexing his fingers, eagerly awaiting the rise of Falselight, when he spotted the Thiefmaker walking across the square toward the House of Perelandro.

Two years had removed some of the dread Locke had once felt toward his former master, but there was no denying that the skinny old fellow retained a certain grotesque magnetism. The Thiefmaker’s spindly fingers spread as he bowed from the waist, and his eyes lit up when they seized on Locke.

“My dear, bedeviling little boy, what a pleasure it is to see you leading a productive life in the Order of Perelandro.”

“He owes his success to your early discipline, of course.” Chains’ smile spread beneath his blindfold. “It’s what helped to make him the resolute and morally upright youth he is today.”

“Upright?” The Thiefmaker squinted at Locke, feigning concentration. “I’d be hard-pressed to say he’s grown an inch. But no matter. I’ve brought you the boy we discussed, the one from the North Corner. Step forward, Jean. You can’t hide behind me any more than you could hide under a copper coin.”

There was indeed a boy standing behind the Thiefmaker; when the old man shooed him out into plain view, Locke saw that he was about his own age, perhaps ten, and in every other respect his opposite. The new boy was fat, red-faced, shaped like a dirty pear with a greasy mop of black hair atop his head. His eyes were wide and shocked; he clenched and unclenched his soft hands nervously.

“Ahhh,” said Chains, “ahhh. I can’t see him, but then, the qualities the Lord of the Overlooked desires in his servants cannot be seen by any man. Are you penitent, my boy? Are you sincere? Are you as upright as those our charitable celestial master has already taken into his fold?”

He gave Locke a pat on the back, manacles and chains rattling. Locke, for his part, stared at the newcomer and said nothing.

“I hope so, sir,” said Jean, in a voice that was soft and haunted.

“Well,” said the Thiefmaker, “hope is what we all build lives for ourselves upon, is it not? The good Father Chains is your master now, boy. I leave you to his care.”

“Not mine, but that of the higher Power I serve,” said Chains. “Oh, before you leave, I just happened to find this purse sitting on my temple steps earlier today.” He held out a fat little leather bag, stuffed with coins, and waved it in the Thiefmaker’s general direction. “Is it yours, by chance?”

“Why, so it is! So it is!” The Thiefmaker plucked the purse from Chains’ hands and made it vanish into the pockets of his weather-eaten coat. “What a fortunate coincidence that is.” He bowed once more, turned, and began to walk back in the direction of Shades’ Hill, whistling tunelessly.

Chains arose, rubbed his legs, and clapped his hands. “Let us call an end to our public duties for the day. Jean, this is Locke Lamora, one of my initiates. Please help him carry this kettle in to the sanctuary. Careful, it’s heavy.”

The thin boy and the fat boy heaved the kettle up the steps and into the damp sanctuary; the Eyeless Priest groped along his chains, gathering the slack and dragging it with him until he was safely inside. Locke worked the wall mechanism to slide the temple doors shut, and Chains settled himself down in the middle of the sanctuary floor.

“The kindly gentleman,” said Chains, “who delivered you into my care said that you could speak, read, and write in three languages.”

“Yes, sir,” said Jean, gazing around him in trepidation. “Therin, Vadran, and Issavrai.”

“Very good. And you can do complex sums? Ledger-balancing?”

“Yes.”

“Excellent. Then you can help me count the day’s takings. But first, come over here and give me your hand. That’s it. Let us see if you have any of the gifts necessary to become an initiate of this temple, Jean Tannen.”

“What…what must I do?”

“Simply place your hands on my blindfold…. No, stand easy. Close your eyes. Concentrate. Let whatever virtuous thoughts you have within you bubble to the surface….”

2

“I DON’T like him,” said Locke. “I don’t like him at all.”

He and Chains were preparing the breakfast meal early the next morning; Locke was simmering up a soup from sliced onions and irregular little brown cubes of reduced beef stock, while Chains was attempting to crack the wax seal on a honey crock. His bare fingers and nails having failed, he was hacking at it with a stiletto and muttering to himself.

“Don’t like him at all? That’s rather silly,” said Chains, his voice distant, “since he’s not yet been here a single day.”

“He’s fat. He’s soft. He’s not one of us.”

“He most certainly is. We showed him the temple and the burrow; he took oath as my pezon. I’ll go see the capa with him in just a day or two.”

“I don’t mean one of us, Gentlemen Bastards, I mean one of us, us. He’s not a thief. He’s a soft fat—”

“Merchant. Son of merchant parents is what he is. But he’s a thief now.”

“He didn’t steal things! He didn’t charm or tease! He said he was in the hill for a few days before he got brought here. So he’s not one of us.”

“Locke.” Chains turned from the business of the honey crock and stared down at him, frowning. “Jean Tannen is a thief because I’m going to train him as a thief. You do recall that’s what I train here; thieves of a very particular sort. This hasn’t slipped your mind?”

“But he’s—”

“He’s better-learned than any of you. Scribes in a clean, smooth hand. Understands business, ledgers, money-shifts, and a great many other things. Your former master knew I’d want him right away.”

“He’s fat.”

“So am I. And you’re ugly. Calo and Galdo have noses like siege engines. Sabetha had spots breaking out last we saw her. Did you have a point?”

“He kept us up all night. He was crying, and he wouldn’t shut up.”

“I’m sorry,” said a soft voice from behind them. Locke and Chains turned (the latter much more slowly than the former); Jean Tannen was standing by the door to the sleeping quarters, red-eyed. “I didn’t mean to. I couldn’t help it.”

“Ha!” Chains turned back to his stiletto and his honey crock. “Looks as though boys who live in glass burrows shouldn’t speak so loudly of those in the next room.”

“Well, don’t do it again, Jean,” said Locke, hopping down from the wooden step he still used to reach the top of the cooking hearth. He crossed to one of the spice cabinets and began shuffling jars, looking for something. “Shut up and let us sleep. Calo and Galdo and I don’t blubber.”

“I’m sorry,” said Jean, sounding close to tears again. “I’m sorry, it’s just…my mother. My father. I…I’m an orphan.”

“So what?” Locke took down a little glass bottle of pickled radishes, sealed with a stone stopper like an alchemical potion. “I’m an orphan. We’re all orphans here. Whining won’t make your family live again.”

Locke turned and took two steps back toward the cooking hearth, so he didn’t see Jean cross the space between them. He did feel Jean’s arm wrap around his neck from behind; it might have been soft but it was damned heavy, for a ten-year-old. Locke lost his grip on the pickled radishes; Jean picked him off the ground by main force, whirled, and heaved him.

Locke’s feet left the ground at the same time the radish jar shattered against it; a confused second later the back of Locke’s head bounced off the heavy witchwood dining table and he fell to the ground, landing painfully on his rather bony posterior.

“You shut up!” There was nothing subdued about Jean now; he was screaming, red-faced, with tears pouring out of his eyes. “You shut your filthy mouth! You never talk about my family!”

Locke put up his hands and tried to stand up; one of Jean’s fists grew in his field of vision until it seemed to blot out half the world. The blow folded him over like a bread-pretzel. When he recovered something resembling his senses he was hugging a table leg; the room was dancing a minuet around him.

“Wrrblg,” he said, his mouth full of blood and pain.

“Now, Jean,” said Chains, pulling the heavyset boy away from Locke. “I think your message is rather thoroughly delivered.”

“Ugh. That really hurt,” said Locke.

“It’s only fair.” Chains released Jean, who balled his fists and stood glaring at Locke, shuddering. “You really deserved it.”

“Huh…wha?”

“Sure we’re all orphans here. My parents were long dead before you were even born. Your parents are years gone. Same for Calo and Galdo and Sabetha. But Jean,” said Chains, “lost his only five nights ago.”

“Oh.” Locke sat up, groaning. “I didn’t…I didn’t know.”

“Well, then.” Chains finally succeeded in prying open the honey crock; the wax seal split with an audible crack. “When you don’t know everything you could know, it’s a fine time to shut your f*cking noisemaker and be polite.”

“It was a fire.” Jean took a few deep breaths, still staring at Locke. “They burned to death. The whole shop. Everything gone.” He turned and walked back to the sleeping quarters, head down, rubbing at his eyes.

Chains turned his back on Locke and began stirring the honey, breaking up the little patches of crystallization.

There was an echoing clang from the fall of the secret door that led down from the temple above; a moment later Calo and Galdo appeared in the kitchen, each twin dressed in his white initiate’s robe, each one balancing a long, soft loaf of bread atop his head.

“We have returned,” said Calo.

“With bread!”

“Which is obvious!”

“No, you’re obvious!”

The twins stopped short when they saw Locke pulling himself up by the edge of the table, lips swollen, blood trickling from the corners of his mouth.

“What did we miss?” asked Galdo.

“Boys,” said Chains, “I might have forgotten to tell you something when I introduced you to Jean and showed him around last night. Your old master from Shades’ Hill warned me that while Jean is mostly soft-spoken, the boy has one hell of a colorful temper.”

Shaking his head, Chains stepped over to Locke and helped him stand upright. “When the world stops spinning,” he said, “don’t forget that you’ve got broken glass and radishes to clean up, too.”

3

LOCKE AND Jean maintained a healthy distance from one another at the dinner table that night, saying nothing. Calo and Galdo exchanged exasperated looks approximately several hundred times per minute, but made no attempts at conversation themselves. Preparations for the meal were conducted in near silence, with Chains apparently happy to oblige his sullen crew.

Once Locke and Jean had seated themselves at the table, Chains set a carved ivory box down before each of them. The boxes were about a foot long and a foot wide, with hinged covers. Locke immediately recognized them as Determiner’s Boxes, delicate Verrari devices that used clockwork, sliding tiles, and rotating wooden knobs to enable a trained user to rapidly conduct certain mathematical operations. He’d been taught the basics of the device, but it had been months since he’d last used one.

“Locke and Jean,” said Father Chains, “if you would be so kind. I have nine hundred and ninety-five Camorri solons, and I am taking ship for Tal Verrar. I should very much like to have them converted to solari when I arrive, the solari currently being worth, ah, four-fifths of one Camorri full crown. How many solari will the changers owe me before their fee is deducted?”

Jean immediately flipped open the lid on his box and set to work, fiddling knobs, flicking tiles, and sliding little wooden rods back and forth. Locke, flustered, followed suit. His own nervous fiddlings with the machine were nowhere near fast enough, for Jean shortly announced, “Thirty-one full solari, with about nine hundredths of one left over.” He stuck out the tip of his tongue and calculated for a few more seconds. “Four silver volani and two coppers.”

“Marvelous,” said Chains. “Jean, you can eat this evening. Locke, I’m afraid you’re out of luck. Thank you for trying, nonetheless. You may spend dinner in your quarters, if you wish.”

“What?” Locke felt the blood rushing to his cheeks. “But that’s not how it worked before! You always gave us individual problems! And I haven’t used this box for—”

“Would you like another problem, then?”

“Yes!”

“Very well. Jean, would you indulge us by doing it as well? Now…a Jereshti galleon sails the Iron Sea, and her captain is quite the penitent fellow. Every hour on the hour he has a sailor throw a loaf of ships’ biscuit into the sea as an offering to Iono. Each loaf weighs fourteen ounces; the captain is a remarkably neat fellow as well. The captain keeps his biscuit in casks, a quarter-ton apiece. He sails for one week even. How many casks does he open? And how much biscuit does the Lord of the Grasping Waters get?”

Again the boys worked their boxes, and again Jean looked up while Locke, little beads of sweat clearly visible on his little forehead, was still working. “He only opens one cask,” Jean said, “and he uses one hundred and forty-seven pounds of biscuit.”

Father Chains clapped softly. “Very good, Jean. You’ll still be eating with us tonight. As for you, Locke, well…I shall call you when the clearing-up needs to be done.”

“This is ridiculous,” Locke huffed. “He works the box better than I do! You set this up for me to lose.”

“Ridiculous, is it? You’ve been putting on airs recently, my dear boy. You’ve reached that certain age where many boys seem to just sort of fold up their better judgment and set it aside for a few years. Hell, Sabetha’s done it, too. Part of the reason I sent her off to where she is at the moment. Anyhow, it seems to me that your nose is tilting a little high in the air for someone with a death-mark around his throat.”

Locke’s blush deepened. Jean snuck a furtive glance at him; Calo and Galdo, who already knew about the shark’s tooth, stared fixedly at their empty plates and glasses.

“The world is full of conundrums that will tax your skills. Do you presume that you will always get to choose the ones that best suit your strengths? If I wanted to send a boy to impersonate a money-changer’s apprentice, who do you think I’d give the job to, if I had to choose between yourself and Jean? It’s no choice at all.”

“I…suppose.”

“You suppose too much. You deride your new brother because his figure aspires to the noble girth of my own.” Chains rubbed his stomach and grinned mirthlessly. “Didn’t it ever occur to you that he fits in some places even better than you do, because of it? Jean looks like a merchant’s son, like a well-fed noble, like a plump little scholar. His appearance could be as much an asset to him as yours is to you.”

“I guess….”

“And if you needed any further demonstration that he can do things you cannot, well, why don’t I instruct him to wallop the shit out of you one more time?”

Locke attempted to spontaneously shrink down inside his tunic and vanish into thin air; failing, he hung his head.

“I’m sorry,” said Jean. “I hope I didn’t hurt you badly.”

“You don’t need to be sorry,” Locke mumbled. “I suppose I really did deserve it.”

“The threat of an empty stomach soon rekindles wisdom.” Chains smirked. “Hardships are arbitrary, Locke. You never know which particular quality in yourself or a fellow is going to get you past them. For example, raise your hands if your surname happens to be Sanza.”

Calo and Galdo did so, a bit hesitantly.

“Anyone with the surname Sanza,” said Chains, “may join our new brother Jean Tannen in dining this evening.”

“I love being used as an example!” said Galdo.

“Anyone with the surname Lamora,” said Chains, “may eat, but first he will serve forth all the courses, and attend on Jean Tannen.”

So Locke scuttled about, embarrassment and relief mingled on his face. The meal was roasted capon stuffed with garlic and onions, with grapes and figs scalded in a hot wine sauce on the side. Father Chains poured all of his usual prayer toasts, dedicating the last to “Jean Tannen, who lost one family but came to another soon enough.”

At that Jean’s eyes watered, and the boy lost whatever good cheer the food had brought to him. Noticing this, Calo and Galdo took action to salvage his mood.

“That was really good, what you did with the box,” said Calo.

“None of us can work it that fast,” said Galdo.

“And we’re good with sums!”

“Or at least,” said Galdo, “we thought we were, until we met you.”

“It was nothing,” said Jean. “I can be even faster. I am…I meant to say…”

He looked nervously at Father Chains before continuing.

“I need optics. Reading optics, for things up close. I can’t see right without them. I, um, I could work a box even faster if I had them. But…I lost mine. One of the boys in Shades’ Hill…”

“You shall have new ones,” said Chains. “Tomorrow or the next day. Don’t wear them in public; it might contravene our air of poverty. But you can certainly wear them in here.”

“You couldn’t even see straight,” asked Locke, “when you beat me?”

“I could see a little bit,” said Jean. “It’s all sort of blurry. That’s why I was leaning back so far.”

“A mathematical terror,” mused Father Chains, “and a capable little brawler. What an interesting combination the Benefactor has given the Gentlemen Bastards in young Master Tannen. And he is a Gentleman Bastard, isn’t he, Locke?”

“Yes,” said Locke. “I suppose he is.”

4

THE NEXT night was clear and dry; all the moons were up, shining like sovereigns in the blackness with the stars for their court. Jean Tannen sat beneath one parapet wall on the temple roof, a book held out before him at arm’s length. Two oil lamps in glass boxes sat beside him, outlining him in warm yellow light.

“I don’t mean to bother you,” said Locke, and Jean looked up, startled.

“Gods! You’re quiet.”

“Not all the time.” Locke stepped to within a few feet of the larger boy.

“I can be very loud, when I’m being stupid.”

“I…um…”

“Can I sit?”

Jean nodded, and Locke plopped down beside him. He folded his legs and wrapped his arms around his knees.

“I am sorry,” said Locke. “I guess I really can be a shit sometimes.”

“I’m sorry, too. I didn’t mean…When I hit you, it just…I’m not myself. When I’m angry.”

“You did right. I didn’t know, about your mother and your father. I’m sorry. I should…I shouldn’t have presumed. I’ve had a long time…to get used to it, you know.”

The two boys said nothing for a few moments after that; Jean closed his book and stared up at the sky.

“You know, I might not even be one after all,” Locke said. “A real orphan, I mean.”

“How so?”

“Well, my…my mother’s dead. I saw that. I know that. But my father…he, um. He went away when I was very little. I don’t remember him; never knew him.”

“I’m sorry,” said Jean.

“We’re both sorry a lot, aren’t we? I think he might have been a sailor or something. Maybe a mercenary, you know? Mother never wanted to talk about him. I don’t know. I could be wrong.”

“My father was a good man,” said Jean. “He was…They both had a shop in North Corner. They shipped leathers and silks and some gems. All over the Iron Sea, some trips inland. I helped them. Not shipping, of course, but record-keeping. Counting. And I took care of the cats. We had nine. Mama used to say…she used to say that I was her only child who didn’t go about…on all fours.”

He sniffled a bit and wiped his eyes. “I seem to have used up all my tears,” he said. “I don’t know what to feel about all this anymore. My parents taught me to be honest, that the laws and the gods abhor thieving. But now I find out thieving has its very own god. And I can either starve on the street or be comfortable here.”

“It’s not so bad,” said Locke. “I’ve never done anything else, as long as I can remember. Thieving is an honest trade, when you look at it like we do. We can work really hard at it, sometimes.” Locke reached inside his tunic and brought out a soft cloth bag. “Here,” he said, handing it over to Jean.

“What…what’s this?”

“You said you needed optics.” Locke smiled. “There’s a lens-grinder over in the Videnza who’s older than the gods. He doesn’t watch his shop window like he ought to. I lifted some pairs for you.”

Jean shook the bag open and found himself looking down at three pairs of optics; there were two circular sets of lenses in gilt wire frames, and a square set with silver rims.

“I…thank you, Locke!” He held each pair up to his eyes and squinted through them in turn, frowning slightly. “I don’t…quite know…um, I’m not ungrateful, not at all, but none of these will work.” He pointed at his eyes and smiled sheepishly. “Lenses need to be made for the wearer’s problem. There’s some for people who can’t see long ways, and I think that’s what these pairs are for. But I’m what they call close-blind, not far-blind.”

“Oh. Damn.” Locke scratched the back of his neck and smiled sheepishly. “I don’t wear them; I didn’t know. I really am an idiot.”

“Not at all. I can keep the rims and do something with them, maybe. Rims break. I can just set proper lenses in them. They’ll be spares. Thank you again.”

The boys sat in silence for a short while after that, but this time it was a companionable silence. Jean leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. Locke stared up at the moons, straining to see the little blue and green specks Chains had once told him were the forests of the gods. Eventually, Jean cleared his throat.

“So you’re really good at…stealing things?”

“I have to be good at something. It’s not fighting and it’s not mathematics, I guess.”

“You, um…Father Chains told me about this thing you can do, if you pray to the Benefactor. He called it a death-offering. Do you know about that?”

“Oh,” said Locke, “I know all about it, truth of all thirteen gods, cross my heart and pray to die.”

“I’d like to do that. For my mother and my father. But I…I’ve never stolen anything. Can you maybe help me?”

“Teach you how to steal so you can do a proper offering?”

“Yes.” Jean sighed. “I guess if this is where the gods have put me I should bend to local custom.”

“Can you teach me how to use a numbers-box so I look less like a half-wit next time?”

“I think so,” said Jean.

“Then it’s settled!” Locke jumped back up to his feet and spread his hands wide. “Tomorrow, Calo and Galdo can plant their asses on the temple steps. You and I will go out and plunder!”

“That sounds dangerous,” said Jean.

“For anyone else, maybe. For Gentlemen Bastards, well, it’s just what we do.”

“We?”

“We.”