Chapter Eight
The Funeral Cask
1
IT BEGAN LIKE this—with the slow, steady beat of mourning drums and the slow cadence of marchers moving north from the Floating Grave, red torches smoldering in their hands, a double line of bloodred light stretched out beneath the low dark clouds.
At its heart was Vencarlo Barsavi, Capa of Camorr, with a son at either hand. Before him was a covered casket draped in black silk and cloth of gold, carried at either side by six pallbearers—one for each of the twelve Therin gods—dressed in black cloaks and black masks. At Barsavi’s back was a huge wooden cask on a cart pulled by another six men, with a black-shrouded priestess of the Nameless Thirteenth close behind.
The drums echoed against stone walls; against stone streets and bridges and canals; the torches cast reflections of fire in every window and shred of Elderglass they passed. Folk looked on in apprehension, if they looked on at all; some bolted their doors and drew shutters over their windows as the funeral procession passed. This is how things are done in Camorr, for the rich and the powerful; the slow mournful march to the Hill of Whispers, the interment, the ceremony, and then the wild, tearful celebration afterward. A toast on behalf of the departed; a bittersweet revel for those not yet taken for judgment by Aza Guilla, Lady of the Long Silence. The funeral cask is what fuels this tradition.
The lines of marchers left the Wooden Waste just after the tenth hour of the evening and marched into the Cauldron, where no urchin or drunkard dared to get in their way, where gangs of cutthroats and Gaze addicts stood in silent attention as their master and his court walked past.
Through Coalsmoke they marched, and then north into the Quiet, as silvery mist rose warm and clinging from the canals around them. Not a single yellowjacket crossed their path; not one constable even caught sight of the procession—arrangements had been made to keep them busy elsewhere that night. The east belonged to Barsavi and his long lines of torches, and the farther north he went the more honest families bolted their doors and doused their lights and prayed that the business of the marchers lay far away from them.
Had there been many staring eyes, they might have noticed that the procession had already failed to turn toward the Hill of Whispers; that it had instead gone north and snaked toward the western tip of the Rustwater district, where the great abandoned structure called the Echo Hole loomed in the darkness and the fog.
A curious observer might have wondered at the sheer size of the procession—more than a hundred men and women—and at their accoutrements. Only the pallbearers were dressed for a funeral. The torchbearers were dressed for war, in armor of boiled leather with blackened studs, in collars and helmets and bracers and gloves, with knives and clubs and axes and bucklers at their belts. They were the cream of Barsavi’s gangs, the hardest of the Right People—cold-eyed men and women with murders to their names. They were from all of his districts and all of his gangs—the Red Hands and the Rum Hounds, the Gray Faces and the Arsenal Boys, the Canal Jumpers and the Black Twists, the Catchfire Barons and a dozen others.
The most interesting thing about the procession, however, was something no casual observer could know.
The fact was, Nazca Barsavi’s body still lay in her old chambers in the Floating Grave, sealed away under silk sheets, alchemically impregnated to keep the rot of death from setting in too quickly. Locke Lamora and a dozen other priests of the Nameless Thirteenth, the Crooked Warden, had said prayers for her the previous night and placed her within a circle of sacred candles, there to lie until her father finished his business this evening, which had nothing to do with the Hill of Whispers. The coffin that was draped in funeral silks was empty.
2
“I AM the Gray King,” said Locke Lamora. “I am the Gray King, gods damn his eyes, I am the Gray King.”
“A little lower,” said Jean Tannen, struggling with one of the gray cuffs of Locke’s coat, “and a little scratchier. Give it a hint of Tal Verrar. You said he had an accent.”
“I am the Gray King,” said Locke, “and I’ll be smiling out the other side of my head when the Gentlemen Bastards are through with me.”
“Oh, that’s good,” said Calo, who was streaking Locke’s hair with a foul-scented alchemical paste that was steadily turning it charcoal gray. “I like that one. Just different enough to be noticed.”
Locke stood stock-still as a tailor’s mannequin, surrounded by Calo, Galdo, and Jean, who worked on him with clothes, cosmetics, and threaded needles. Bug leaned up against one wall of their little enclosure, keeping his eyes and ears alert for interlopers.
The Gentlemen Bastards were hidden away in an abandoned storefront in the fog-choked Rustwater district, just a few blocks north of the Echo Hole. Rustwater was a dead island, ill-favored and barely inhabited. A city that had thrown off its old prejudices about the structures of the Eldren still held Rustwater in an unequivocal dread. It was said that the black shapes that moved in the Rustwater lagoon were nothing as pleasant as mere man-eating sharks but something worse, something older. Whatever the truth of those rumors, it was a conveniently deserted place for Barsavi and the Gray King to play out their strange affair. Locke privately suspected that he’d been taken somewhere in this neighborhood on the night the Gray King had first interrupted his life.
They were working every trick of their masquerade art to fashion Locke into the Gray King. Already his hair was gray, his clothes were gray, he was dressed in heavy padded boots that added two inches to his height, and he had a drooping gray moustache firmly affixed above his lips.
“It looks good,” said Bug, an approving note in his voice.
“Damn showy, but Bug’s right,” said Jean. “Now that I’ve got this stupid coat cinched in to your proper size, you do look rather striking.”
“Pity this isn’t one of our games,” said Galdo. “I’d be enjoying myself. Lean forward for some wrinkles, Locke.”
Working very carefully, Galdo painted Locke’s face with a warm, waxy substance that pinched his skin as it went on; in seconds it dried and tightened, and in just a few moments Locke had a complete network of crow’s-feet, laugh-lines, and forehead wrinkles. He looked to be in his midforties, at the very least. The disguise would have done very well in the bright light of day; at night, it would be impenetrable.
“Virtuoso,” said Jean, “relatively speaking, for such short notice and the conditions we have in which to put it all together.”
Locke flipped his hood up and pulled on his gray leather gloves. “I am the Gray King,” he said, his voice low, mimicking the odd accent of the real Gray King.
“I bloody well believe it,” said Bug.
“Well, let’s get on with everything, then.” Locke moved his jaw up and down, feeling the false wrinkle-skin stretch back and forth as he did so. “Galdo, hand me my stilettos, would you? I think I’ll want one in my boot and one in my sleeve.”
Lamora, came a cold whisper, the Falconer’s voice. Locke tensed, then realized that the noise hadn’t come from the air.
“What is it?” asked Jean.
“It’s the Falconer,” said Locke. “He’s…he’s doing that damn thing…”
Barsavi will soon be at hand. You and your friends must be in place, ere long.
“We have an impatient Bondsmage,” said Locke. “Quickly now. Bug, you know the game, and you know where to put yourself?”
“I’ve got it down cold,” said Bug, grinning. “Don’t even have a temple roof to jump off this time, so don’t worry about anything.”
“Jean, you’re comfortable with your place?”
“Not really, but there’s none better.” Jean cracked his knuckles. “I’ll be in sight of Bug, down beneath the floor. If the whole thing goes to shit, you just remember to throw yourself down the damn waterfall. I’ll cover your back, the sharp and bloody way.”
“Calo, Galdo.” Locke whirled to face the twins, who had hurriedly packed away all the tools and substances used to dress Locke up for the evening. “Are we good to move at the temple?”
“It’ll be smoother than a Guilded Lily’s backside if we do,” said Galdo. “A sweet fat fortune wrapped up in sacks, two carts with horses, provisions for a nice long trip on the road.”
“And there’s men at the Viscount’s Gate who’ll slip us out so fast it’ll be like we’d never even set foot in Camorr in the first place,” added Calo.
“Good. Well. Shit.” Locke rubbed his gloved hands together. “I guess that’s that. I’m all out of rhetorical flourishes, so let’s just go get the bastards and pray for a straight deal.”
Bug stepped forward and cleared his throat.
“I’m only doing this,” he said, “because I really love hiding in haunted Eldren buildings on dark and creepy nights.”
“You’re a liar,” said Jean, slowly. “I’m only doing this because I’ve always wanted to see Bug get eaten by an Eldren ghost.”
“Liar,” said Calo. “I’m only doing this because I fucking love hauling half a ton of bloody coins up out of a vault and packing them away on a cart.”
“Liar!” Galdo chuckled. “I’m only doing this because while you’re all busy elsewhere, I’m going to go pawn all the furniture in the burrow at No-Hope Harza’s.”
“You’re all liars,” said Locke as their eyes turned expectantly to him.
“We’re only doing this because nobody else in Camorr is good enough to pull this off, and nobody else is dumb enough to get stuck doing it in the first place.”
“Bastard!” They shouted in unison, forgetting their surroundings for a bare moment.
I can hear you shouting, came the ghostly voice of the Falconer. Have you all gone completely mad?
Locke sighed.
“Uncle doesn’t like us keeping him up all night with our carrying on,” he said. “Let’s get to it, and by the grace of the Crooked Warden, we’ll all see each other back at the temple when this mess is over.”