Locke, climbing shakily to his feet, and Jean both did so; a slender knife with a curved blade glistened there by the faint light of the moons and the few dockside lamps.
“I was assigned to watch over you two,” the woman said as she stepped up beside Locke, beaming contentedly.
“Fine fucking job,” said Jean, rubbing his ribs with his left hand.
“You seemed to be doing well enough until the end.” She looked down at the little knife and nodded. “Look, this knife has an extra groove right alongside the cutting edge. That usually means something nasty on the blade. She was buying time to slip it out and stick you with it.”
“I know what a groove along the blade means,” mumbled Jean petulantly. “Do you know who the hell these two work for?”
“I have some theories, yes.”
“And would you mind sharing them?” asked Locke.
“If I were given orders to that effect,” she said sweetly.
“Gods damn all Verrari, and give them more sores on their privates than hairs on their heads,” muttered Locke.
“I was born in Vel Virazzo,” said the woman.
“Do you have a name?” asked Jean.
“Lots. All of them lovely and none of them true,” she replied. “You two can call me Merrain.”
“Merrain. Ow.” Locke winced and massaged his left forearm with his right hand. Jean set a hand on his shoulder.
“Anything broken, Leo?
“Not much. Perhaps my dignity and my previous presumptions of divine benevolence.” Locke sighed. “We’ve seen people following us for the past few nights, Merrain. I suppose we must have seen you.”
“I doubt it. You gentlemen should collect your things and start walking. Same direction you were moving before. There’ll be constables here soon enough, and the constables don’t take orders from my employer.”
Locke retrieved his wet stilettos and wiped them on the trousers of the man he’d killed before returning them to his sleeves. Now that the anger of the fight had run cold, Locke felt his gorge rising at the sight of the corpse, and he scuttled away as fast as he could.
Jean gathered up his coat and slipped his hatchet into it. Soon enough the three of them were walking along, Merrain in the middle with her elbows linked in theirs.
“My employer,” she said after a few moments, “wished me to watch over you tonight, and when convenient show you down to a boat.”
“Wonderful,” said Locke. “Another private conversation.”
“I can’t say. But if I were to conjecture, I’d guess that he’s found a job for the pair of you.”
Jean spared a quick glance for the two bodies lying in the darkness far behind them, and he coughed into his clenched fist. “Splendid,” he growled. “This place has been so dull and uncomplicated so far.”
REMINISCENCE
The Amusement War
1
Six days north up the coast road from Tal Verrar, the demi-city of Salon Corbeau lies within an unusually verdant cleft in the black seaside rocks. More than a private estate, not quite a functional village, the demi-city clings to its peculiar life in the smoldering shadow of Mount Azar.
In the time of the Therin Throne Azar exploded to life, burying three living villages and ten thousand souls in a matter of minutes. These days it seems content merely to rumble and brood, sending twisting charcoal plumes out to sea, and flights of ravens wheel without concern beneath the tired old volcano’s smoke. Here begin the hot, dusty plains called the Adra Morcala, inhabited by few and loved by none. They roll like a cracked dry sea all the way to the southern boundaries of Balinel, most westerly and desolate canton of the Kingdom of the Seven Marrows.
Locke Lamora rode into Salon Corbeau on the ninth day of Aurim, in the Seventy-eighth Year of Nara. A mild westerly winter. A fruitful year (and more) had passed since he and Jean had first set foot in Tal Verrar, and in the armored strongbox at the rear of Locke’s rented carriage rattled a thousand gold solari, stolen at billiards from a certain Lord Landreval of Espara who was unusually sensitive to lemons.
The little harbor that served the demi-city was thick with small craft—yachts and pleasure-barges and coasting galleys with square silk sails. Farther out, upon the open sea a galleon and a sloop rode at anchor, each flying the pennant of Lashain under family crests and colors Locke didn’t recognize. The breeze was slight and the sun was pale, more silver than gold behind the hazy exhalations of the mountain.
“Welcome to Salon Corbeau,” said a footman in livery of black and olive green, with a tall hat of pressed black felt. “How are you styled, and how must you be announced?”
A liveried woman placed a wooden block beneath the open door to Locke’s carriage and he stepped out, bracing his hands in the small of his back and stretching with relief before hopping to the ground. He wore a drooping black moustache beneath black-rimmed optics and slick black hair; his heavy black coat was tight in the chest and shoulders but flared out from waist to knees, fluttering behind him like a cape. He had eschewed the more refined hose and shoes for gray pantaloons tucked into knee-high field boots, dull black beneath a faint layer of road dust.
“I am Mordavi Fehrwight, a merchant of Emberlain,” he said. “I doubt that I shall require announcement, as I have no title of any consequence.”
“Very good, Master Fehrwight,” said the footman smoothly. “The Lady Saljesca appreciates your visit to Salon Corbeau and earnestly wishes you good fortune in your affairs.”
Appreciates your visit, noted Locke, rather than would be most pleased to receive your audience. Countess Vira Saljesca of Lashain was the absolute ruler of Salon Corbeau; the demi-city was built on one of her estates. Equally distant from Balinel, Tal Verrar, and Lashain, just out of convenient rulership by any of them, Salon Corbeau was more or less an autonomous resort state for the wealthy of the Brass Coast.
In addition to the constant arrival of carriages along the coast roads and pleasure-vessels from the sea, Salon Corbeau attracted one other noteworthy form of traffic, which Locke had meditated on in a melancholy fashion during his journey.
Ragged groups of peasants, urban poor and rural wretches alike, trudged wearily along the dusty roads to Lady Saljesca’s domain. They came in intermittent but ceaseless streams, flowing to the strange private city beneath the dark heights of the mountain.
Locke imagined that he already knew exactly what they were coming for, but his next few days in Salon Corbeau would prove that understanding to be woefully incomplete.