5
IN HER solarium atop Amberglass tower, Do?a Vorchenza spent the midnight hour in her favorite chair, peering at the evening’s notes. There were reports of the ongoing strife from the Gray King’s ascension to Barsavi’s seat; more thieves found lying in abandoned buildings with their throats slashed. Vorchenza shook her head; this mess was really the last thing she needed with the affair of the Thorn finally coming to a head. Raza had identified and exiled half a dozen of her spies among the gangs; that in itself was deeply troubling. None of them had been aware of one another, as agents. So either all of her agents were clumsier than she’d suspected, or Raza was fantastically observant. Or there was a breach in her trust at some level above the spies on the street.
Damnation. And why had the man exiled them, rather than slaying them outright? Was he trying to avoid antagonizing her? He’d certainly not succeeded. It was time to send him a very clear message of her own—to summon this Capa Raza to a meeting with Stephen, with forty or fifty blackjackets to emphasize her points.
The elaborate locks to her solarium door clicked, and the door slid open. She hadn’t been expecting Stephen to return this evening; what a fortunate coincidence. She could give him her thoughts on the Raza situation….
The man that entered her solarium wasn’t Stephen Reynart.
He was a rugged man, lean-cheeked and dark-eyed; his black hair was slashed with gray at his temples, and he strolled into her most private chamber as though he belonged there. He wore a gray coat, gray breeches, gray hose, and gray shoes; his gloves and vest were gray, and only the silk neck-cloths tied casually above his chest had color; they were bloodred.
Do?a Vorchenza’s heart hammered; she put a hand to her chest and stared in disbelief. Not only had the intruder managed to open the door, and done so without taking a crossbow bolt in the back, but there was another man behind him—a younger man, bright-eyed and balding, dressed in a similar gray fashion, with only the bright scarlet cuffs of his coat to set him apart.
“Who the hell are you?” she bellowed, and for a moment that age-weakened voice rose to something like its old power. She rose from her seat, fists clenched. “How did you get up here?”
“We are your servants, my lady Vorchenza; your servants come to pay you our proper respects at last. You must forgive us our previous discourtesy; things have been so busy of late in my little kingdom.”
“You speak as though I should know you, sir. I asked your name.”
“I have several,” said the older man, “but now I am called Capa Raza. This is my associate, who styles himself the Falconer. And as for how we came to your truly lovely solarium…”
He gestured to the Falconer, who held up his left hand, palm spread toward Do?a Vorchenza. The coat sleeve fell away, revealing three thick black lines tattooed at his wrist.
“Gods,” Vorchenza whispered. “A Bondsmage.”
“Indeed,” said Capa Raza, “for which, forgive me, but his arts seemed the only way to ensure that your servants would haul us up here, and the only way to ensure we could enter your sanctum without disturbing you beforehand.”
“I am disturbed now,” she spat. “What is your meaning here?”
“It is past time,” said Raza, “for my associate and I to have a conversation with the duke’s Spider.”
“What are you speaking of? This is my tower; other than my servants, there is no one else here.”
“True,” said Capa Raza, “so there is no need to maintain your little fiction before us, my lady.”
“You,” said Do?a Vorchenza coldly and levelly, “are greatly mistaken.”
“Those files behind you, what are they? Recipes? Those notes beside your chair—does Stephen Reynart give you regular reports on the cuts and colors of this year’s new dresses, fresh off the docks? Come, my lady. I have very unusual means of gathering information, and I am no dullard. I would construe any further dissembling on your part as a deliberate insult.”
“I regard your uninvited presence here,” said Do?a Vorchenza after a moment of consideration, “as nothing less.”
“I have displeased you,” said Raza, “and for that I apologize. But have you any means to back that displeasure with force? Your servants sleep peacefully; your Reynart and all of your Midnighters are elsewhere, prying into my affairs. You are alone with us, Do?a Vorchenza, so why not speak civilly? I have come to be civil, and to speak in earnest.”
She stared coldly at him for several moments, and then waved a hand at one of the solarium’s armchairs. “Have a seat, Master Revenge. I fear there’s no comfortable chair for your associate.”
“It will be well,” said the Falconer. “I’m very fond of writing desks.” He settled himself behind the little desk near the door, while Raza crossed the room and sat down opposite Do?a Vorchenza.
“Hmmm. Revenge, indeed. And have you had it?”
“I have,” said Capa Raza cheerfully. “I find it’s everything it’s been made out to be.”
“You bore Capa Barsavi some grudge?”
“Ha! Some grudge, yes. It could be said that’s why I had his sons murdered while he watched, and then fed him to the sharks he so loved.”
“Old business between the two of you?”
“I have dreamed of Vencarlo Barsavi’s ruin for twenty years,” said Raza. “And now I’ve brought it about, and I’ve replaced him. I’m sorry if this affair has been…an inconvenience for you. But that is all that I am sorry for.”
“Barsavi was not a kind man,” said Vorchenza. “He was a ruthless criminal. But he was perceptive; he understood many things the lesser capas did not. The arrangement I made with him bore fruit on both sides.”
“And it would be a shame to lose it,” said Raza. “I admire the Secret Peace very much, Do?a Vorchenza. My admiration for it is quite distinct from my loathing for Barsavi. I should like to see the arrangement continued in full. I gave orders to that effect, on the very night I took Barsavi’s place.”
“So my agents tell me,” said Do?a Vorchenza. “But I must confess I had hoped to hear it in your own words before now.”
“My delay was unavoidable,” said Raza. “But there we are; I have terrible manners, to which I readily admit. Allow me to make it up to you.”
“How so?”
“I should greatly enjoy a chance to attend the duke’s Day of Changes feast; I am capable of dressing and acting rather well. I could be introduced as a gentleman of independent means—I assure you, no one in Raven’s Reach would recognize me. I gazed up at these towers as a boy in Camorr. I should like to pay my proper respects to the peers of Camorr just once. I would not come without gifts; I have something rather lavish in mind.”
“That,” said Do?a Vorchenza slowly, “may be too much to ask. Our worlds, Capa Raza, are not meant to meet; I do not come to your thieves’ revels.”
“Yet your agents do,” he said cheerfully.
“No longer. Tell me, why did you order them exiled? The penalty for turncoating among your people is death. So why didn’t they merit a knife across the throat?”
“Would you really prefer them dead, Do?a Vorchenza?”
“Hardly. But I am curious about your motives.”
“I, for my part, thought they were transparent. I need to have a measure of security; I simply cannot leave your agents lying about underfoot, as Barsavi did. Of course, I didn’t want to antagonize you more than necessary, so I presumed letting them live would be a friendly gesture.”
“Hmmm.”
“Do?a Vorchenza,” said Raza, “I have every confidence that you will begin the work of inserting new agents into the ranks of my people almost immediately. I welcome it; may the most subtle planner win. But we have set aside the main point of this conversation.”
“Capa Raza,” said the do?a, “you do not seem to be a man who needs sentiments wrapped in delicacy to salve his feelings, so let me be plain. It is one thing entirely for the two of us to have a working relationship, to preserve the Secret Peace for the good of all Camorr. I am even content to meet with you here, if I must, assuming you are properly invited and escorted. But I simply cannot bring a man of your station into the duke’s presence.”
“That is disappointing,” said Capa Raza. “Yet he can have Giancana Meraggio as a guest, can he not? A man who utilized my predecessor’s services on many occasions? And many other captains of shipping and finance who profited from arrangements with Barsavi’s gangs? The Secret Peace enriches every peer of Camorr; I am, in effect, their servant. My forbearance keeps money in their pockets. Am I truly so base a creature that I cannot stand by the refreshment tables a while and merely enjoy the sights of the affair? Wander the Sky Garden and satisfy my curiosity?”
“Capa Raza,” said Do?a Vorchenza, “you are plucking at strings of conscience that will yield no sound; I am not the duke’s Spider because I have a soft heart. I mean you no insult, truly, but let me frame it in these terms; you have been Capa now for barely one week. I have only begun to form my opinion of you. You remain a stranger, sir; if you rule a year from now, and you maintain stability among the Right People, and preserve the Secret Peace, well then—perhaps some consideration could be given to what you propose.”
“And that is how it must be?”
“That is how it must be—for now.”
“Alas,” said Capa Raza. “This refusal pains me more than you could know; I have gifts that I simply cannot wait until next year to reveal to all the peers of this fair city. I must, with all apologies, refuse your refusal.”
“What on earth do you mean?”
“Falconer…”
The Bondsmage stood up at Do?a Vorchenza’s writing desk; he’d taken a quill in his hands and set one of her sheets of parchment out before him. “Do?a Vorchenza,” he said as he wrote in a bold, looping script; “Angiavesta Vorchenza, is it not? What a lovely name…what a very lovely, very true name…”
In his left hand the silver thread wove back and forth; his fingers flew, and on the page a strange silver-blue glow began to arise; ANGIAVESTA VORCHENZA was outlined in that fire, and across the room the Do?a moaned and clutched her head.