5
IT WAS a short, neat hanging; the duke’s Masters of the Ropes were nothing if not well practiced at their trade. It wasn’t the first execution Locke had ever seen, nor would it be the last. He and the Sanza brothers even had a chance to make all the proper reverential gestures when one of the condemned begged for Perelandro’s blessings at the last minute.
Traffic across the Black Bridge was halted for executions; a small crowd of guards, spectators, and priests milled about afterward as the requisite hour passed. The corpses twisted in the breeze beneath them, ropes creaking; Locke and the Sanzas stood off to the side respectfully with their little cart.
Eventually, yellowjackets began to haul the bodies up one by one under the watchful eyes of several priests of Aza Guilla. The corpses were carefully set down in an open dray pulled by two black horses draped in the black and silver of the Death Goddess’ order. The last corpse to be drawn up was that of a wiry man with a long beard and a shaved head; his left hand ended in a puckered red stump. Four yellowjackets carried this body over to the cart where the boys waited; a priestess of Aza Guilla accompanied them. Locke felt a chill run up and down his spine when that inscrutable silver-mesh mask tilted down toward him.
“Little brothers of Perelandro,” said the priestess, “what intercession would you plead for on behalf of this man?” Her voice was that of a very young woman, perhaps no more than fifteen or sixteen. If anything, that only enhanced her eeriness in Locke’s eyes, and he found his throat suddenly dry.
“We plead for whatever will be given,” said Calo.
“The will of the Twelve is not ours to presume,” continued Galdo.
The priestess inclined her head very slightly. “I’m told this man’s widow requested an interment in the House of Perelandro before burial.”
“Apparently she thought he might need it, begging pardon,” said Calo.
“It’s not without precedent. But it is far more usual for the aggrieved to seek our intercession with the Lady.”
“Our master,” managed Locke, “made, ah, a solemn promise to the poor woman that we would give our care. Surely, we, we mean no ill toward you or the Lady Most Fair if we must keep our word.”
“Of course. I did not mean to suggest that you had done anything wrong; the Lady will weigh him in the end, whatever is said and done before the vessel is entombed.” She gestured, and the yellowjackets set the corpse down on the cart. One of them unfurled a cheap cotton shroud and swung it over Antrim’s body, leaving only the top of his head uncovered.
“Blessings of the Lady of the Long Silence to you and your master.”
“Blessings of the Lord of the Overlooked,” said Locke as he and the Sanzas bowed in unison from the waist; a braided silver cord around the priestess’ neck marked her as more than a simple initiate like themselves. “To you and your brothers and sisters.”
The Sanza brothers each took one pole at the front of the cart, and Locke took up the rear, to push and to keep the load balanced. He was instantly sorry that he’d taken this spot; the hanging had filled the man’s breeches with his own shit, and the smell was rising. Gritting his teeth, he called out, “To the House of Perelandro, with all dignity.”
Plodding slowly, the Sanzas pulled the cart down the western side of the Black Bridge, and then turned north to head for the wide, low bridge that led to the Shifting Market’s eastern district. It was a slightly roundabout way home, but not at all suspicious—at least until the three white-robed boys were well away from anyone who’d seen them leave the hanging. Moving with a bit more haste (and enjoying the added deference the dead man was bringing them—save only for Locke, who was still effectively downwind of the poor fellow’s last futile act in life), they turned left and headed for the bridges to the Fauria.
Once there, they pressed south and crossed into the Videnza district; a relatively clean and spacious island well patrolled by yellowjackets. At the heart of the Videnza was a market square of merchant-artisans; recognized names who disdained the churning chaos of the Shifting Market. They operated from the first floors of their fine old sagging houses, which were always freshly mortared and whitewashed over their post-and-timber frames. The district’s tiled roofs, by tradition, were glazed in brightly irregular colors; blue and purple and red and green, they teased the eyes and gleamed like glass under the glare of the sun.
At the northern entrance to this square, Calo darted away from the cart and vanished into the crowd; Locke came up from the rear (muttering prayers of gratitude) to take his place. So arrayed, they hauled their odd cargo toward the shop of Ambrosine Strollo, first lady of Camorr’s chandlers, furnisher to the duke himself.
“If there’s a niggardly speck of genuine fellowship in Camorr,” Chains had once said, “one little place where Perelandro’s name isn’t spoken with a sort of sorry contempt, it’s the Videnza. Merchants are a miserly lot, and craftsfolk are pressed with care. However, those that turn a very pretty profit plying their chosen trade are likely to be somewhat happy. They get the best of all worlds, for common folk. Assuming our lot doesn’t fuck with them.”
Locke was impressed with the response he and Galdo received as they drew the cart up in front of Madam Strollo’s four-story home. Here, the merchants and customers alike bowed their heads as the corpse passed; many of them even made the wordless gesture of benediction in the name of the Twelve, touching first their eyes with both hands, and then their lips, and finally their hearts.
“My dears,” said Madam Strollo, “what an honor, and what an unusual errand you must be on.” She was a slender woman getting well on in years, a sort of cosmic opposite to the clerk Locke had dealt with that morning. Strollo exuded attentive deference; she behaved as though the two little red-faced initiates, sweating heavily under their robes, were full priests of a more powerful order. If she could smell the mess in Antrim’s breeches, she refrained from saying so.
She sat at the street-side window of her shop, under a heavy wooden awning that folded down at night to seal the place tight against mischief. The window was perhaps ten feet wide and half as high, and Madam Strollo was surrounded by candles, stacked layer upon layer, tier upon tier, like the houses and towers of a fantastical wax city. Alchemical globes had largely replaced the cheap taper as the light source of choice for nobility and lowbility alike; the few remaining master chandlers fought back by mingling ever-more-lovely scents in their creations. Additionally, there was the ceremonial need of Camorr’s temples and believers—a need that cold glass light was generally considered inadequate to meet.
“We’re interring this man,” said Locke, “for three days and nights before his burial. My master needs new candles for the ceremony.”
“Old Chains, you mean? Poor dear man. Let’s see…you’ll want lavender for cleanliness, and autumn bloodflower for the blessing, and sulfur roses for the Lady Most Fair?”
“Please,” said Locke, pulling out a humble leather purse that jingled with silver. “And some votives without scent. Half a dozen of all four kinds.”
Madam Strollo carefully selected the candles and wrapped them in waxed burlap. (“A gift of the house,” she muttered when Locke began to open his mouth, “and perhaps I put a few more than half a dozen of each in the packet.”) Locke tried to argue with her for form’s sake, but the old woman grew conveniently deaf for a few crucial seconds as she finished wrapping her goods.
Locke paid three solons out of his purse (taking care to let her see that there were a dozen more nestled therein), and wished Madam Strollo a full hundred years of health for herself and her children in the name of the Lord of the Overlooked as he backed away. He set the package of candles on the cart, tucking it just under the blanket beside Antrim’s glassy, staring eyes.
No sooner had he turned around to resume his place next to Galdo when a taller boy dressed in ragged, dirty clothes walked right into him, sending him tumbling onto his back.
“Oh!” said the boy, who happened to be Calo Sanza. “A thousand pardons! I’m so clumsy; here, let me help you up….”
He grabbed Locke’s outstretched hand and yanked the smaller boy back to his feet. “Twelve gods! An initiate. Forgive me, forgive me. I simply did not see you standing there.” Clucking with concern, he brushed dirt from Locke’s white robe. “Are you well?”
“I am, I am.”
“Forgive my clumsiness; I meant no insult.”
“None is taken. Thank you for helping me back up.”
With that, Calo gave a mock bow and ran off into the crowd; in just a few seconds he was lost to sight. Locke made a show of dusting himself off while he slowly counted to thirty inside his head. At thirty-one, he sat down suddenly beside the cart, put his hooded head in his hands, and began to sniffle. Just a few seconds later he was sobbing loudly. Responding to the cue, Galdo came over and knelt beside him, placing one hand on his shoulder.
“Boys,” said Ambrosine Strollo. “Boys! What’s the matter? Are you hurt? Did that oaf jar something?”
Galdo made a show of muttering into Locke’s ear; Locke muttered back, and Galdo fell backward onto his own posterior. He reached up and tugged at his hood in an excellent imitation of frustration, and his eyes were wide. “No, Madam Strollo,” he said, “it’s worse than that.”
“Worse? What do you mean? What’s the trouble?”
“The silver,” Locke burbled, looking up to let her see the tears pouring down his cheeks and the artful curl of his lips. “He took my purse. Picked my p-pocket.”
“It was payment,” said Galdo, “from this man’s widow. Not just for the candles, but for his interment, our blessings, and his funeral. We were to bring it back to Father Chains along with the—”
“—with the b-body,” Locke burst out. “I’ve failed him!”
“Twelve,” the old lady muttered. “That incredible little bastard!” Leaning out over the counter of her shop window, she hollered in a voice of surprising strength: “Thief! Stop, Thief!” As Locke buried his head in his hands once again, she turned her head upward and shouted, “Lucrezia!”
“Yes, gran’mama!” came a voice from an open window. “What’s this about a thief?”
“Rouse your brothers, child. Get them down here now and tell them to bring their sticks!” She turned to regard Locke and Galdo. “Don’t cry, my dear boys. Don’t cry. We’ll make this right somehow.”
“What’s this about a thief?” A lanky sergeant of the watch ran up, truncheon out, mustard-yellow coat flapping behind him and two other yellowjackets at his heels.
“A fine constable you are, Vidrik, to let those little coat-charmer bastards from the Cauldron sneak in and rob customers right in front of my shop!”
“What? Here? Them?” The watch-sergeant took in the distraught boys, the furious old woman, and the covered corpse; his eyebrows attempted to leap straight up off his forehead. “Ah, that…I say, that man is dead….”
“Of course he’s dead, thimblebrains; these boys are taking him to the House of Perelandro for blessings and a funeral! That little cutpurse just stole the bag with his widow’s payment for it all!”