Chapter Five
The Gray King
1
“YOU SEEM TO be spending a great deal of our money very quickly, Lukas,” said Do?a Sofia Salvara.
“Circumstance has blessed us, Do?a Sofia.” Locke gave a smile that was a measure of great triumph by Fehrwight standards, a tight-lipped little thing that might have been a grimace of pain from anyone else. “Everything is proceeding with the most agreeable speed. Ships and men and cargo, and soon all we’ll need to do is pack your wardrobe for a short voyage!”
“Indeed, indeed.” Were those dark circles under her eyes? Was there the slightest hint of wariness in her attitude toward him? She certainly wasn’t at ease. Locke made a mental note to avoid pushing her too far, too fast. It was a delicate dance, playing straight lines and smiles with someone who knew he was a mummer but didn’t know that he knew she knew.
With the slightest sigh, Do?a Sofia pressed her personal sigil down into the warm blue wax at the bottom of the parchment she was contemplating. She added a few flowing lines of ink above the seal, her signature in the curving Therin script that had become something of a fad among literate nobles in the past few years. “If you say you require another four thousand today, another four thousand it must be.”
“I am most sincerely grateful, my lady.”
“Well, you’ll certainly pay for it soon enough,” she said. “Many times over, if our hopes play out.” At that she smiled, with genuine good humor that crinkled the edges of her eyes, and held out the fresh promissory note.
Oh-ho, thought Locke. Much better. The more in control the mark thinks they are, the more easily they respond to real control. Another one of Father Chains’ old maxims, proven in Locke’s experience too many times to count.
“Please give my warmest regards to your husband when he returns from his business in the city, my lady,” said Locke, taking the wax-sealed parchment in hand. “Now, I fear, I must go see some men about…payments that will not appear on any official ledger.”
“Of course. I quite understand. Conté can show you out.”
The gruff, weathered man-at-arms was paler than usual, and it seemed to Locke that there was a slight but obvious hitch in his stride. Yes—the poor fellow was clearly favoring a certain badly bruised portion of his anatomy. Locke’s stomach turned in unconscious sympathy at his own memory of that night.
“I say, Conté,” he began politely, “are you feeling quite well? You seem…forgive me for saying so…troubled this past day or two.”
“I’m well for the most part, Master Fehrwight.” There was a slight hardening of the lines at the edges of the man’s mouth. “Perhaps a bit under the weather.”
“Nothing serious?”
“A minor ague, perhaps. They happen, this time of year.”
“Ah. One of the tricks of your climate. I’ve not yet felt such a thing, myself.”
“Well,” said Conté, with an absolute lack of expression on his face, “mind yourself then, Master Fehrwight. Camorr can be a very dangerous place in the most unlooked-for ways.”
Oh-ho-HO, Locke thought. So they’d let him in on the secret, as well. And the man had a proud streak at least as wide as Sofia’s, to drop even the slightest hint of a threat. Worth noting, that.
“I’m the very soul of caution, my dear Conté.” Locke tucked the promissory note within his black waistcoat and adjusted his cascading cravats as they approached the front door of the Salvara manor. “I keep my chambers very well illuminated, to ward off miasmas, and I wear copper rings after Falselight. Just the thing for your hot-and-cold fevers. I would wager that a few days at sea will put you right.”
“No doubt,” said Conté. “The voyage. I do look forward to the…voyage.”
“Then we are of one mind!” Locke waited for the don’s man to open the wide glass-and-iron door for him, and as he stepped out into the moist air of Falselight, he nodded stiffly but affably. “I shall pray for your health tomorrow, my good fellow.”
“Too kind, Master Fehrwight.” The ex-soldier had set one hand on the hilt of one of his knives, perhaps unconsciously. “I shall most assuredly offer prayers concerning yours.”