Interlude
Brat Masterpieces
1
THE SUMMER AFTER Jean came to the Gentlemen Bastards, Father Chains took him and Locke up to the temple roof one night after dinner. Chains smoked a paper-wrapped sheaf of Jeremite tobacco while the sunlight sank beneath the horizon and the caught fire of the city’s Elderglass rose glimmering in its place.
That night, he wanted to talk about the eventual necessity of cutting throats.
“I had this talk with Calo and Galdo and Sabetha last year,” he began. “You boys are investments, in time and treasure both.” He exhaled ragged crescents of pale smoke, failing as usual to conjure full rings. “Big investments. My life’s work, maybe. A pair of brat masterpieces. So I want you to remember that you can’t always smile your way around a fight. If someone pulls steel on you, I expect you to survive. Sometimes that means giving back in kind. Sometimes it means running like your ass is on fire. Always it means knowing which is the right choice—and that’s why we’ve got to talk about your inclinations.”
Chains fixed Locke with a stare while he took a long, deliberate drag on his sheaf—the final breath of a man treading in unpleasant water, preparing to go under the surface.
“You and I both know that you have multiple talents, Locke, genuine gifts for a great many things. So I have to give this to you straight. If it comes down to hard talk with a real foe, you’re nothing but a pair of pissed breeches and a bloodstain. You can kill, all right, that’s the gods’ own truth, but you’re just not made for stand-up, face-to-face bruising. And you know it, right?”
Locke’s red-cheeked silence was an answer in itself. Suddenly unable to look Father Chains in the eyes, he tried to pretend that his feet were fascinating objects that he’d never seen before.
“Locke, Locke, we can’t all be mad dogs with a blade in our hands, and it’s nothing to sob about, so let’s not see that lip of yours quivering like an old whore’s tits, right? You will learn steel, and you’ll learn rope, and you’ll learn the alley-piece. But you’ll learn them sneak-style. In the back, from the side, from above, in the dark.” Chains grabbed an imaginary opponent from behind, left hand round the throat, right hand thrusting at kidney-level with his half-smoked sheaf for a dagger. “All the twists, because fighting wisely will keep you from getting cut to mince.”
Chains pretended to wipe the blood from his ember-tipped “blade,” then took another drag. “That’s that. Put it in your hat and wear it to town, Locke. We need to face our shortcomings head-on. The old saying for a gang is ‘Lies go out, but the truth stays home.’” He forced twin streams of smoke from his nostrils, and cheered up visibly as the tails of gray vapor swirled around his head. “Now quit acting like there’s a fucking naked woman on your shoes, will you?”
Locke did grin at that, weakly, but he also looked up and nodded.
“Now, you,” Chains said, turning to regard Jean. “We all know you’ve got the sort of temper that cracks skulls when it’s off the leash. We’ve got a properly evil brain in Locke here, a fantastic liar. Calo and Galdo are silver at all trades and gold at none. Sabetha’s the born queen of all the charmers that ever lived. But what we don’t have yet is a plain old bruiser. I think it could be you, a stand-up brawler to keep your friends out of trouble. A real rabid-dog bastard with steel in your hand. Care to give it a go?”
Jean’s eyes were immediately drawn down to the fascinating spectacle of his own feet. “Um, well, if you think that would be good, I can try….”
“Jean, I’ve seen you angry.”
“I’ve felt you angry,” said Locke, grinning.
“And give me some credit for being five times your fucking age, Jean. You don’t smolder and you don’t make threats; you just go cold, and then you make things happen. Some folks are made for hard situations.” He drew smoke from his sheaf once again, and flicked white ashes to the stones beneath his feet. “I think you have the knack for smacking brains out of heads. That’s neither good nor bad in itself, but it’s something we can use.”
Jean seemed to think this over for a few moments, but Locke and Chains could both see the decision already made in his eyes. They had gone hard and hungry under his black tangle of hair, and his nod was just a formality.
“Good, good! Thought you’d like the idea, so I took the liberty of making arrangements.” He produced a black leather wallet from one of the pockets of his coat and handed it over to Jean. “Half past noon tomorrow, you’re expected at the House of Glass Roses.”
Locke and Jean both widened their eyes at the mention of Camorr’s best-known and most exclusive school of arms. Jean flipped the sigil-wallet open. Inside was a flat token, a stylized rose in frosted glass, fused directly onto the inner surface of the leather. With this, Jean could pass north over the Angevine and past the guardposts to the Alcegrante islands. It placed him under the direct protection of Don Tomsa Maranzalla, Master of the House of Glass Roses.
“That rose will get you over the river and up among the swells, but don’t fuck around once you’re up there. Do what you’re told; go straight there and come straight back. You go four times a week from now on. And for all our sakes, tame that mess on top of your head. Use fire and a poleaxe if you have to.” Chains took a final drag of evergreen-scented smoke from his rapidly disappearing sheaf, then flicked the butt up and over the roof wall. His last exhalation of the night sailed over the heads of the two boys, a wobbly but otherwise fully formed ring.
“Fuck me! An omen.” Chains reached after the drifting ring as though he could pluck it back for examination. “Either this scheme is fated to work out, or the gods are pleased with me for engineering your demise, Jean Tannen. I love a win-win proposition. Now don’t you two have work to do?”