4
“EIGHTEENTH HAND,” said the dealer. “Initial wager will be ten solari.” Locke had to push aside the eleven little vials before him, with a visibly shaking hand, to slide his buy-in forward. Madam Durenna, steady as a dry-docked ship, was working on her fourth cigar of the night. Madam Corvaleur seemed to be wavering in her seat; was she perhaps more red-cheeked than usual? Locke tried not to stare too intently as she placed her initial wager; perhaps the waver came solely from his own impending inebriation. It was nearing midnight, and the smoke-laced air of the stuffy room scratched at Locke’s eyes and throat like wool.
The dealer, emotionless and alert as ever—he seemed to have more clockwork in him than the carousel did—flicked three cards to the tabletop before Locke. Locke ran his fingers under his coat lapel, then peeked at his cards and said “Ahhhh-ha,” with a tone of interested pleasure. They were an astonishing constellation of crap; his worst hand yet. Locke blinked and squinted, wondering if the alcohol was somehow masking a set of decent cards, but alas—when he concentrated again, they were still worthless.
The ladies had been forced to drink last, but unless Jean concealed a major miracle on the tabletop to Locke’s left, it was a good bet that another little vial would soon be rolling merrily across the table toward Locke’s wobbling hand.
Eighteen hands, thought Locke, to lose nine hundred and eighty solari thus far. His mind, well wet by the Sinspire’s liquor, wandered off on its own calculations. A year of fine new clothes for a man of high station. A small ship. A very large house. The complete lifetime earnings of an honest artisan, like a stonemason. Had he ever pretended to be a stonemason?
“First options,” said the dealer, snapping him back to the game.
“Card,” said Jean. The attendant slid one to him; Jean peeked at it, nodded, and slid another wooden chit toward the center of the table. “Bid up.”
“Hold fast,” said Madam Durenna. She moved two wooden chits forward from her substantial pile. “Partner reveal.” She showed two cards from her hand to Madam Corvaleur, who was unable to contain a smile.
“Card,” said Locke. The attendant passed him one, and he turned up an edge just far enough to see what it was. The two of Chalices, worth precisely one wet shit from a sick dog in this situation. He forced himself to smile. “Bid up,” he said, sliding two markers forward. “I’m feeling blessed.”
All eyes turned expectantly to Madam Corvaleur, who plucked a chocolate-dusted cherry from her dwindling supply, popped it into her mouth, and then rapidly sucked her fingers clean. “Oh-ho,” she said, staring down at her cards and drumming one set of sticky fingers gently on the table. “Oh…ho…oh…Mara, this is…the oddest…”
And then she slumped forward, settling her head onto her large pile of wooden markers on the tabletop. Her cards fluttered down, faceup, and she slapped at them, without coordination, trying to cover them up.
“Izmila,” said Madam Durenna, a note of urgency in her voice. “Izmila!” She reached over and shook her partner by her heavy shoulders.
“’Zmila,” Madam Corvaleur agreed in a sleepy, blubbering voice. Her mouth lolled open and she drooled remnants of chocolate and cherry onto her five-solari chits. “Mmmmmmilllaaaaaaaaa. Verrry…odd…oddest…”
“Play sits with Madam Corvaleur.” The dealer couldn’t keep his surprise out of his voice. “Madam Corvaleur must state a preference.”
“Izmila! Concentrate!” Madam Durenna spoke in an urgent whisper.
“There are…cards…,” mumbled Corvaleur. “Look out, Mara…. Soooo…many…cards. On table.”
She followed that up with, “Blemble…na…fla…gah.”
And then she was out cold.
“Final default,” said the dealer after a few seconds. With his crop, he swept all of Madam Durenna’s markers away from her, counting rapidly. Locke and Jean would take everything on the table. The looming threat of a thousand-solari loss had just become a gain of equal magnitude, and Locke sighed with relief.
The dealer considered the spectacle of Madam Corvaleur using her wooden markers as a pillow, and he coughed into his hand.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “the house will, ah, provide new chits of the appropriate value in place of…those still in use.”
“Of course,” said Jean, gently patting the little mountain of Durenna’s markers suddenly piled up before him. In the crowd behind them, Locke could hear noises of bewilderment, consternation, and surprise. A light ripple of applause was eventually coaxed into existence by some of the more generous observers, but it died quickly. They were faintly embarrassed, rather than exhilarated, to see a notable like Madam Corvaleur inebriated by a mere six drinks.
“Hmmmph,” said Madam Durenna, stubbing out her cigar in the gold pot and rising to her feet. She made a show of straightening her jacket—black brocaded velvet decorated with platinum buttons and cloth-of-silver, worth a good fraction of everything she’d bet that night. “Master Kosta, Master de Ferra…it appears we must admit to being outmatched.”
“But certainly not outplayed,” said Locke, summoning up a snake-charming smile along with the pulverized remnants of his wits. “You very nearly had us…um, sewn up.”
“And the whole world is wobbling around me,” said Jean, whose hands were as steady as a jeweler’s, and had been throughout the entire game.
“Gentlemen, I have appreciated your stimulating company,” said Madam Durenna in a tone of voice that indicated she hadn’t. “Another game later this week, perhaps? Surely you must allow us a chance at revenge, for honor’s sake.”
“Nothing would please us more,” said Jean, to which Locke nodded enthusiastically, making the contents of his skull ache. At that, Madam Durenna coldly held out her hand and consented for the two of them to kiss the air above it. When they had done so, as though making obeisance to a particularly irritable snake, four of Requin’s attendants appeared to help move the snoring Madam Corvaleur somewhere more decorous.
“Gods, it must be tedious, watching us try to drink one another under the table night after night,” said Jean. He flipped the dealer a five-solari chit; it was customary to leave a small gratuity for the attendant.
“I don’t believe so, sir. How would you like your change?”
“What change?” Jean smiled. “Keep the whole thing.”
The attendant betrayed human emotions for the second time that night; relatively well-off as he was, one little wooden chit was half his annual salary. He stifled a gasp when Locke threw him another dozen.
“Fortune is a lady who likes to be passed around,” said Locke. “Buy a house, maybe. I’m having a little trouble counting at the moment.”
“Sweet gods—many thanks, gentlemen!” The attendant took a quick glance around, and then spoke under his breath. “Those two ladies don’t lose very often, you know. In fact, this is the first time I can remember.”
“Victory has its price,” said Locke. “I suspect my head will be paying it when I wake up tomorrow.”
Madam Corvaleur was hauled carefully down the stairs, with Madam Durenna following to keep a close eye on the men carrying her card partner. The crowd dispersed; those observers who remained at their tables called for attendants, food, new decks of cards for games of their own.
Locke and Jean gathered their markers (fresh ones, sans slobber, were swiftly provided by the attendants to replace Madam Corvaleur’s) in the customary velvet-lined wooden boxes and made their way to the stairs.
“Congratulations, gentlemen,” said the attendant guarding the way up to the sixth floor. The tinkle of glass on glass and the murmur of conversation could be heard filtering down from above.
“Thank you,” said Locke. “I’m afraid that something in Madam Corvaleur gave way just a hand or two before I might have done the same.”
He and Jean slowly made their way down the stairs that curved all the way around the inside of the Sinspire’s exterior wall. They were dressed as men of credit and consequence in the current height of Verrari summer fashion. Locke (whose hair had been alchemically shifted to a sunny shade of blond) wore a caramel-brown coat with a cinched waist and flaring knee-length tails; his huge triple-layered cuffs were paneled in orange and black and decorated with gold buttons. He wore no waistcoat; just a sweat-soaked tunic of the finest silk, under a loose black neck-cloth. Jean was dressed similarly, though his coat was the grayish blue of a sea under clouds, and his belly was cinched up with a wide black sash, the same color as the short, curly hairs of his beard.
Down past floors of notables they went…past queens of Verrari commerce with their decorative young companions of both sexes on their arms like pets. Past men and women with purchased Lashani titles, staring across cards and wine decanters at lesser dons and do?as from Camorr; past Vadran shipmasters in tight black coats, with sea tans like masks over their sharp, pale features. Locke recognized at least two members of the Priori, the merchant council that theoretically ruled Tal Verrar. Deep pockets seemed to be the primary qualification for membership.
Dice fell and glasses clinked; celebrants laughed and coughed and cursed and sighed. Currents of smoke moved languidly in the warm air, carrying scents of perfume and wine, sweat and roast meats, and here and there the resiny hint of alchemical drugs.
Locke had seen genuine palaces and mansions before; the Sinspire, opulent as it was, was not so very much more handsome than the homes many of these people would be returning to when they finally ran out of night to play in. The real magic of the Sinspire was woven from its capricious exclusivity; deny something to enough people and sooner or later it will grow a mystique as thick as fog.
Nearly hidden at the rear of the first floor was a heavy wooden booth manned by several unusually large attendants. Luckily, there was no line. Locke set his box down on the countertop beneath the booth’s only window, a bit too forcefully.
“All to my account.”
“My pleasure, Master Kosta,” said the chief attendant as he took the box. Leocanto Kosta, merchant speculator of Talisham, was well known in this kingdom of wine fumes and wagers. The attendant swiftly changed Locke’s pile of wooden chits into a few marks on a ledger. In beating Durenna and Corvaleur, even minus his tip to the dealer, Locke’s cut of the winnings came to nearly five hundred solari.
“I understand that congratulations are in order to the both of you, Master de Ferra,” said the attendant as Locke stepped back to let Jean approach the counter with his own box. Jerome de Ferra, also of Talisham, was Leocanto’s boon companion. They were a pair of fictional peas in a pod.
Suddenly, Locke felt a hand fall onto his left shoulder. He turned warily and found himself facing a woman with curly dark hair, richly dressed in the same colors as the Sinspire attendants. One side of her face was sublimely beautiful—the other side was a leathery brown half-mask, wrinkled, as though it had been badly burned. When she smiled, the damaged side of her lips failed to move. It seemed to Locke as though a living woman was somehow struggling to emerge from within a rough clay sculpture.
Selendri, Requin’s majordomo.