3
“MASTER FEHRWRIGHT! So pleased to finally make your acquaintance. And yours as well, Master—”
“Callas,” said Locke. “Tavrin Callas. Forgive my friend; he’s had a trying day. I’ll conduct our business.”
“Of course,” said the master of Vel Virazzo’s private yacht harbor. Here the pleasure barges and day-sailing vessels of Vel Virazzo’s notable families—who could be counted on two hands without using all the available fingers—were kept under constant guard.
The harbormaster led them to the end of one of his docks, where a sleek one-masted sailing vessel rocked gently on the swells. Forty feet long, lacquered teak and witchwood, trimmed with brass and silver. Her rigging was the finest new demi-silk, and her furled sails were the white of clean beach sand.
“Everything prepared according to your letters, Master Fehrwight,” said the harbormaster. “I apologize for the fact that it required four days rather than three—”
“No matter,” said Locke. He passed over a leather satchel containing solari he’d counted out in the carriage. “Balance of payment, in full, and the promised three-day bonus, for your work party. I’ve no reason to be stingy.”
“You are entirely too kind,” said the harbormaster, bowing as he accepted the heavy purse. Nearly eight hundred solari gone already.
“And the provisions?” asked Locke.
“Complete as specified,” said the harbormaster. “Rations and water for a week. The wines, the oilcloaks and other emergency gear—all there, and checked by myself.”
“Our dinner?”
“Coming,” said the harbormaster. “Coming. I expected a runner several minutes ago. Wait—here’s the boy now.”
Locke glanced back toward their carriage. A small boy had just appeared from behind it, jogging with a covered basket larger than his chest cradled in his arms. Locke smiled.
“Our dinner concludes our business,” he said as the boy approached and handed the basket up to Jean.
“Very good, Mater Fehrwight. Tell me, will you be putting out—”
“Immediately,” said Locke. “We have…a great many things to leave behind.”
“Will you require assistance?”
“We had expected a third,” said Locke quietly. “But the two of us will suffice.” He stared at their new boat, at the once-alien arrangement of sails, rigging, mast, tiller. “We’re always sufficient.”
It took them less than five minutes to load the boat with their baggage from the carriage; they had little to speak of. A few spare clothes, work tunics and breeches, weapons, and their little kit of thieves’ conveniences.
The sun was settling into the west as Jean began to untie them from the dock. Locke hopped down onto the stern deck, a room-sized space surrounded by raised gunwales, and as his last act before their departure he opened the burlap sack and released the contents onto the boat.
The black kitten looked up at him, stretched, and began to rub himself against Locke’s right boot, purring loudly.
“Welcome to your new home, kid. All that you survey is yours,” said Locke. “But this doesn’t mean I’m getting attached to you.”
4
THEY ANCHORED a hundred yards out from the last of Vel Virazzo’s lantern towers, and beneath their ruby light they had the dinner that Locke had promised.
They sat on the stern deck, legs folded, with a small table between them. They each pretended to be absorbed in their bread and chicken, in their shark fins and vinegar, in their grapes and black olives. Regal attempted to make war on their meal several times, and only accepted an honorable peace after Locke bribed him with a chicken wing nearly the size of his body.
They went through a bottle of wine, a nondescript Camorri white, the sort of thing that smooths a meal along without becoming its centerpiece. Locke tossed the empty bottle overboard and they started another, more slowly.
“It’s time,” Jean said at last, when the sun had moved so low in the west that it seemed to be sinking into the starboard gunwale. It was a red moment, all the world from sea to sky the color of a darkening rose petal, of a drop of blood not yet dry. The sea was calm and the air was still; they were without interruptions, without responsibilities, without a plan or an appointment anywhere in the world.
Locke sighed, removed a glass vial of clear liquid from his inner coat pocket, and set it on the table.
“We discussed splitting it,” he said.
“We did,” said Jean. “But that’s not what we’re doing.”
“Oh?”
“You’re going to drink it.” Jean set both of his hands on the table, palm down. “All of it.”
“No,” said Locke.
“You don’t have a choice,” said Jean.
“Who the hell do you think you are?”
“We can’t take the chance of splitting it,” said Jean, his voice reasonable and controlled in just the fashion that told Locke he was ready for instant action. “Better that one of us be cured for certain, than for both of us to linger on and…die like that.”
“I’ll take my chances with lingering on,” said Locke.
“I won’t,” said Jean. “Please drink it, Locke.”
“Or what?”
“Or you know what,” said Jean. “You can’t overpower me. The reverse is definitely not true.”
“So you’ll—”
“Awake or unconscious,” said Jean, “it’s yours. I don’t care. Drink the fucking antidote, for the Crooked Warden’s sake.”
“I can’t,” said Locke.
“Then you force me to—”
“You don’t understand,” said Locke. “I didn’t say ‘won’t.’ I ‘can’t’.”
“What—”
“That’s just water in a vial I picked up in town.” Locke reached once more into his pocket, withdrew an empty glass vial, and slowly set it down beside the fake. “I have to say, knowing me the way you do, I’m surprised you agreed to let me pour your wine.”