3
LOCKE AND Jean maintained a healthy distance from one another at the dinner table that night, saying nothing. Calo and Galdo exchanged exasperated looks approximately several hundred times per minute, but made no attempts at conversation themselves. Preparations for the meal were conducted in near silence, with Chains apparently happy to oblige his sullen crew.
Once Locke and Jean had seated themselves at the table, Chains set a carved ivory box down before each of them. The boxes were about a foot long and a foot wide, with hinged covers. Locke immediately recognized them as Determiner’s Boxes, delicate Verrari devices that used clockwork, sliding tiles, and rotating wooden knobs to enable a trained user to rapidly conduct certain mathematical operations. He’d been taught the basics of the device, but it had been months since he’d last used one.
“Locke and Jean,” said Father Chains, “if you would be so kind. I have nine hundred and ninety-five Camorri solons, and I am taking ship for Tal Verrar. I should very much like to have them converted to solari when I arrive, the solari currently being worth, ah, four-fifths of one Camorri full crown. How many solari will the changers owe me before their fee is deducted?”
Jean immediately flipped open the lid on his box and set to work, fiddling knobs, flicking tiles, and sliding little wooden rods back and forth. Locke, flustered, followed suit. His own nervous fiddlings with the machine were nowhere near fast enough, for Jean shortly announced, “Thirty-one full solari, with about nine hundredths of one left over.” He stuck out the tip of his tongue and calculated for a few more seconds. “Four silver volani and two coppers.”
“Marvelous,” said Chains. “Jean, you can eat this evening. Locke, I’m afraid you’re out of luck. Thank you for trying, nonetheless. You may spend dinner in your quarters, if you wish.”
“What?” Locke felt the blood rushing to his cheeks. “But that’s not how it worked before! You always gave us individual problems! And I haven’t used this box for—”
“Would you like another problem, then?”
“Yes!”
“Very well. Jean, would you indulge us by doing it as well? Now…a Jereshti galleon sails the Iron Sea, and her captain is quite the penitent fellow. Every hour on the hour he has a sailor throw a loaf of ships’ biscuit into the sea as an offering to Iono. Each loaf weighs fourteen ounces; the captain is a remarkably neat fellow as well. The captain keeps his biscuit in casks, a quarter-ton apiece. He sails for one week even. How many casks does he open? And how much biscuit does the Lord of the Grasping Waters get?”
Again the boys worked their boxes, and again Jean looked up while Locke, little beads of sweat clearly visible on his little forehead, was still working. “He only opens one cask,” Jean said, “and he uses one hundred and forty-seven pounds of biscuit.”
Father Chains clapped softly. “Very good, Jean. You’ll still be eating with us tonight. As for you, Locke, well…I shall call you when the clearing-up needs to be done.”
“This is ridiculous,” Locke huffed. “He works the box better than I do! You set this up for me to lose.”
“Ridiculous, is it? You’ve been putting on airs recently, my dear boy. You’ve reached that certain age where many boys seem to just sort of fold up their better judgment and set it aside for a few years. Hell, Sabetha’s done it, too. Part of the reason I sent her off to where she is at the moment. Anyhow, it seems to me that your nose is tilting a little high in the air for someone with a death-mark around his throat.”
Locke’s blush deepened. Jean snuck a furtive glance at him; Calo and Galdo, who already knew about the shark’s tooth, stared fixedly at their empty plates and glasses.
“The world is full of conundrums that will tax your skills. Do you presume that you will always get to choose the ones that best suit your strengths? If I wanted to send a boy to impersonate a money-changer’s apprentice, who do you think I’d give the job to, if I had to choose between yourself and Jean? It’s no choice at all.”
“I…suppose.”
“You suppose too much. You deride your new brother because his figure aspires to the noble girth of my own.” Chains rubbed his stomach and grinned mirthlessly. “Didn’t it ever occur to you that he fits in some places even better than you do, because of it? Jean looks like a merchant’s son, like a well-fed noble, like a plump little scholar. His appearance could be as much an asset to him as yours is to you.”
“I guess….”
“And if you needed any further demonstration that he can do things you cannot, well, why don’t I instruct him to wallop the shit out of you one more time?”
Locke attempted to spontaneously shrink down inside his tunic and vanish into thin air; failing, he hung his head.
“I’m sorry,” said Jean. “I hope I didn’t hurt you badly.”
“You don’t need to be sorry,” Locke mumbled. “I suppose I really did deserve it.”
“The threat of an empty stomach soon rekindles wisdom.” Chains smirked. “Hardships are arbitrary, Locke. You never know which particular quality in yourself or a fellow is going to get you past them. For example, raise your hands if your surname happens to be Sanza.”
Calo and Galdo did so, a bit hesitantly.
“Anyone with the surname Sanza,” said Chains, “may join our new brother Jean Tannen in dining this evening.”
“I love being used as an example!” said Galdo.
“Anyone with the surname Lamora,” said Chains, “may eat, but first he will serve forth all the courses, and attend on Jean Tannen.”
So Locke scuttled about, embarrassment and relief mingled on his face. The meal was roasted capon stuffed with garlic and onions, with grapes and figs scalded in a hot wine sauce on the side. Father Chains poured all of his usual prayer toasts, dedicating the last to “Jean Tannen, who lost one family but came to another soon enough.”
At that Jean’s eyes watered, and the boy lost whatever good cheer the food had brought to him. Noticing this, Calo and Galdo took action to salvage his mood.
“That was really good, what you did with the box,” said Calo.
“None of us can work it that fast,” said Galdo.
“And we’re good with sums!”
“Or at least,” said Galdo, “we thought we were, until we met you.”
“It was nothing,” said Jean. “I can be even faster. I am…I meant to say…”
He looked nervously at Father Chains before continuing.
“I need optics. Reading optics, for things up close. I can’t see right without them. I, um, I could work a box even faster if I had them. But…I lost mine. One of the boys in Shades’ Hill…”
“You shall have new ones,” said Chains. “Tomorrow or the next day. Don’t wear them in public; it might contravene our air of poverty. But you can certainly wear them in here.”
“You couldn’t even see straight,” asked Locke, “when you beat me?”
“I could see a little bit,” said Jean. “It’s all sort of blurry. That’s why I was leaning back so far.”
“A mathematical terror,” mused Father Chains, “and a capable little brawler. What an interesting combination the Benefactor has given the Gentlemen Bastards in young Master Tannen. And he is a Gentleman Bastard, isn’t he, Locke?”
“Yes,” said Locke. “I suppose he is.”