5
“YOU BASTARD,” Jean roared, leaping to his feet.
“Gentleman Bastard.”
“You miserable fucking son of a bitch!” Jean was a blur as he moved, and Locke flinched backward in alarm. Jean snatched up the table and flung it into the sea, scattering the remnants of their dinner across the boat’s deck. “How could you? How could you do that to me?”
“I can’t watch you die,” said Locke flatly. “I can’t. You couldn’t ask me to—”
“So you didn’t even give me a choice!”
“You were going to fucking force-feed it to me!” Locke stood up, brushing crumbs and chicken-bone fragments from his tunic. “I knew you’d try something like that. Do you blame me for doing it first?”
“Now I get to watch you die, is that it? Her, and now you? And this is a favor?”
Jean collapsed onto the deck, buried his face in his hands, and began to sob. Locke knelt beside him and wrapped his arms around his shoulders.
“It is a favor,” said Locke. “A favor to me. You save my life all the time because you’re an idiot and you don’t know any better. Let me…let me do it for you, just once. Because you actually deserve it.”
“I don’t understand any of this,” Jean whispered. “You son of a fucking bitch, how can you do this? I want to hug you. And I want to tear your gods-damned head off. Both at once.”
“Ah,” said Locke. “Near as I can tell, that’s the definition of ‘family’ right there.”
“But you’ll die,” whispered Jean.
“It was always going to happen,” said Locke. “It was always going to happen, and the only reason it didn’t happen before now…is…you, actually.”
“I hate this,” said Jean.
“I do too. But it’s done. I suppose I have to feel okay about it.”
I feel calm, he thought. I guess I can say that. I feel calm.
“What do we do now?”
“Same as we planned,” said Locke. “Somewhere, anywhere, laziest possible speed. Up the coast, just roaming. No one after us. No one in the way, no one to rob. We’ve never really done this sort of thing before.” Locke grinned. “Hell, I honestly don’t know if we’ll be any good at it.”
“And what if you—”
“When I do I do,” said Locke. “Forgive me.”
“Yes,” said Jean. “And no. Never.”
“I understand, I think,” said Locke. “Get up and give me a hand with the anchor, would you?”
“What do you have in mind?”
“This coast is so gods-damned old,” said Locke. “Falling apart. Seen it, seen everywhere like it. Let’s see if we can’t get this thing pointed somewhere else.”
He stood up, keeping one of his hands on Jean’s shoulder.
“Somewhere new.”
AFTERWORD
Nautical enthusiasts, of both the armchair and the hands-on persuasion, are bound to have noticed that a great deal of folding, spindling, and mutilating has taken place within Red Seas Under Red Skies where the jargon of the sea is concerned.
In some instances I can claim the honorable excuses: that I have abstracted for the sake of reader comprehension or adjusted for the cultural and technological peculiarities of Locke’s world. Others can only be explained by that most traditional affliction of authors—that I have screwed up somewhere and have no idea what I’m talking about. Things always work out best for the both of us, dear reader, when you can’t tell the difference. Toward that end, my fingers are crossed.
This, then, concludes the second volume of the Gentleman Bastard sequence.
Scott Lynch
New Richmond, Wisconsin January 26, 2007
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Once more to the amazing Jenny, for being so many things over the years—girlfriend, best friend, first reader, constructive critic, and, at long last, wife.
To Anne Groell, Gillian Redfearn, and Simon Spanton, not only for being generally and specifically brilliant, but for not murdering me.
To Jo Fletcher, again with the not murdering me. Cheers!
To everyone at Orion Books who made my first (one can only hope) trip to England a joy, and tolerated me despite my wretched state of illness; especially to Jon Weir, faithful whip-cracker and guide.
To all the UK booksellers who bent over backward promoting and talking up The Lies of Locke Lamora when it was just a newborn baby book, not yet walking on its own two feet, so many thanks.
To Desiree, Jeff, and Cleo.
To Deanna Hoak, Lisa Rogers, Josh Pasternak, John Joseph Adams, Elizabeth Bear, Sarah Monette, Jason McCray, Joe Abercrombie, Tom Lloyd, Jay Lake, GRRM, and so many others.
To Loki, Valkyrie, Peepit, Artemis, and Thor, the best contingent of small household mammals ever assembled.