Текст книги "The Republic of Thieves"

Автор книги: Scott Lynch

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II

CROSS-PURPOSES

When the rose’s flash to the sunset

Reels to the rack and the twist,

And the rose is a red bygone,

When the face I love is going

And the gate to the end shall clang,

And it’s no use to beckon or say, “So long”—

Maybe I’ll tell you then

some other time.

—Carl Sandburgfrom

“The Great Hunt”

INTERLUDE

STRIKING SPARKS

1

IT WAS COOL and dark in the Elderglass burrow of the Gentlemen Bastards, and far quieter than usual, when Locke awoke with the certain knowledge that someone was staring at him. He caught his breath for an instant, then mimicked the deep, slow breathing of sleep. He squinted and scanned the gray darkness of the room, wondering where everyone was.

Down the hall from the kitchen there were four rooms, or, more appropriately, four cells. They had dark curtains for doors. One belonged to Chains, another to Sabetha, the third to the Sanzas, and the fourth to Locke and Jean. Jean should have been on his cot against the opposite wall, just past their little shelf of books and scrolls, but there was no sound from that direction.

Locke listened, straining to hear over the thudding of his pulse. There was a whisper of bare skin against the floor, and a flutter of cloth. He sat up, left hand outstretched, only to find another warm set of fingers entwined around his, and a palm in the middle of his chest pushing him back down.

“Shhhh,” said Sabetha, sliding onto the cot.

“Wha … where is everyone?”

“Gone for the moment,” she whispered into his ear. Her breath was warm against his cheek. “We don’t have much time, but we do have some.”

She took his hands and guided them to the smooth, taut muscles of her stomach. Then she slid them upwards until he was cupping her breasts—she’d come into the room without a tunic.

One thing the bodies of sixteen-year-old boys (and that was more or less what Locke was) don’t do is respond mildly to provocation. In an instant he was achingly hard against the thin fabric of his breeches, and he exhaled in mingled shock and delight. Sabetha brushed aside his blanket and slid her left hand down between his legs. Locke arched his back and uttered a noise that was far from dignified. Luckily, Sabetha giggled, seeming to find it endearing.

“Mmmm,” she whispered. “I do feel appreciated.” She pressed down firmly but gently and began to squeeze him to the rhythm of their breathing, which was growing steadily louder. At the same time, she slid his other hand down from her breast, down her stomach, down to her legs. She was wearing a linen breechclout, the sort that could be undone with just a tug in the right place. She pressed his hand between her thighs, against the intriguing heat just behind the fabric. He caressed her there, and for a few incredible moments they were completely caught up in this half-sharing, half-duel, their responses to one another becoming less controlled with every ragged breath, and it was delicious suspense to wonder who would snap first.

“You’re driving me mad,” he whispered. The heat from her skin was so intense he imagined he could see it as a ghost-image in the dark. She leaned forward, and her breath tickled his cheeks again; he drew in the scents of her hair and sweat and perfume and laughed with pleasure.

“Why are we still wearing clothes?” she said, and they rolled apart to amend the situation, fumbling, struggling, giggling. Only now the soft heat of her skin was fading, and the gray shadows of the room loomed more deeply around them, and then Locke was kicking out, spasming in a full-body reflex as she slipped from his grasp like a breath of wind.

That cruelest of landlords, cold morning reality, finished evicting the warm fantasy that had briefly taken up residence in his skull. Muttering and swearing, Locke fought against his tangled blanket, felt his cot tipping away from the wall, and failed in every particular to brace himself for his meeting with the floor. There are three distinct points of impact no romantically excited teenage boy ever hopes to slam against a hard surface. Locke managed to land on all three.

His outflung right hand failed to do anything useful, but it did snatch the opaque cover from his cot-side alchemical globe, bathing the cell in soft golden light for him to gasp and writhe by. A carelessly stacked pile of books toppled loudly to the floor, then took several similar piles with it in a fratricidal cascade.

“Gods below,” muttered Jean, rolling away from the light. Jean was definitely in his proper place, and their cell was once again the cluttered mess of daily life rather than the dark private stage of Locke’s dream.

“Arrrrrrrrrrrgh,” said Locke. It didn’t help much, so he tried again. “Arrrrrrrrrrr—”

“You know,” said Jean, yawning irritably, “you should burn some offerings in thanks for the fact that you don’t actually talk in your sleep.”

“ …rrrrrrgh. What the hell do you mean?”

“Sabetha’s got really sharp ears.”

“Nnngh.”

“I mean, it’s pretty gods-damned obvious you’re not dreaming about calligraphy over there.”

There was a loud knock on the wall just outside their cell, and then the curtain was swept aside to reveal Calo Sanza, long hair hanging in his eyes, working his way into a pair of breeches.

“Good morning, sunshines! What’s with all the noise?”

“Someone took a tumble,” muttered Jean.

“What’s so hard about sleeping on a cot like a normal person, ya fuckin’ spastic dog?”

“Kiss my ass, Sanza,” Locke gasped.

“Heyyyyyyyyy EVERYBODY!” Calo pounded on the wall as he shouted. “I know we’ve got half an hour yet to sleep, but Locke thinks we should all be up right now! Find your happy faces, Gentlefucker Bastards, it’s a bright new day and we get to start it EARLY!”

“Calo, what the hell is wrong with you?” hollered Sabetha, somewhere down the hall.

Locke put his forehead against the floor and moaned. It was the height of the endless steaming summer of the seventy-eighth Year of Preva, Lady of the Red Madness, and everything was absolutely screwed up to hell.

2

SABETHA DARTED in, parried Locke’s attempt at a guard, and smacked the outside of his left knee with her chestnut wood baton.

“Ow,” he said, hopping up and down while the sting faded. Locke wiped his forehead, lined up again in the duelist’s stance, and touched the tip of his baton to Sabetha’s. They were using the sanctuary of the Temple of Perelandro as a practice room, under Jean’s watchful eye.

“High diamond, low square,” said Jean. “Go!”

This was more an exercise in speed and precision than actual fighting technique. They slammed their batons together in the patterns demanded by Jean, and after the final contact they were free to swipe at one another, scoring touches against arms or legs.

Clack! Clack! Clack!The sound of their batons echoed across the stone-walled chamber.

Clack! Clack! Clack!

Clack! Clack! Thump!

“Yeow,” said Locke, shaking his left wrist, where a fresh red welt was rising.

“You’re faster than this, Locke.” Sabetha returned to her starting position. “Something distracting you this morning?”

Sabetha wore a loose white tunic and black silk knee-breeches that left nothing about her lithely-muscled legs to the imagination. Her cheeks were flushed, her hair pulled tightly back with linen cord. If she’d heard anything specific about the disturbance he’d kicked off to start the day, at least she wasn’t saying much.

“More than one something?” she said. “Any of them attached to me?”

So much for the lukewarm comfort of uncertainty.

“You know I’mattached to you,” said Locke, trying to sound cheerful as they touched batons again.

“Or might like to be, hmmm?”

“Middle square,” yelled Jean, “middle square, middle diamond! Go!”

They wove their pattern of strikes and counter-strikes, rattling their batons off one another until the end of the sequence, when Sabetha flicked Locke’s weapon down and smacked a painful crease into his right bicep. Sabetha’s only commentary on this victory was to idly twirl her baton while Locke rubbed at his arm.

“Hold it,” said Jean. “We’ll try a new exercise. Locke, stand there with your hands at your sides. Sabetha, you just hit him until you get tired. Be sure to concentrate on his head so he won’t feel anything.”

“Very funny.” Locke lined up again. “I’m ready for another.”

He was nothing of the sort. At the end of the next pattern, Sabetha slapped him on the right bicep again. And again, following the pattern after that, with precision that was obviously deliberate.

“You know, most days you can at least manage to hit back,” she said. “Want to give it up as a bad job?”

“Of course not,” said Locke, trying to be subtle about wiping the nascent tears from the corners of his eyes. “Barely getting started.”

“Have it your way.” She lined up again, and Locke couldn’t miss the coldness of her poise. Ah, gods. When Sabetha felt she was being trifled with, she had a way of radiating the same calm, chilly regard that Locke imagined might pass from executioner to condemned victim. He knew all too well what it meant to be the object of that regard.

“High diamond,” said Jean warily, apprehending the change in Sabetha’s mood. “Middle square, low cross. Go.”

They flew through the patterns with furious speed, Sabetha setting the pace and Locke straining to match her. The instant the last stroke of the formal exercise was made, Locke flew into a guard position that would have deflected any blow aimed at his much-abused right bicep. Sabetha, however, was actually aiming for a point just above his heart, and the hotly stinging slap nearly knocked him over.

“Gods above,” said Jean, stepping between them. “You know the rules, Sabetha. No cuts at anything but arms or legs.”

“Are there rules in a tavern brawl or an alley fight?”

“This isn’t a damned alley fight. It’s just an exercise for building vigor!”

“Doesn’t seem to be working for one of us.”

“What’s gotten into you?”

“What’s gotten into you, Jean? Are you going to stand in front of him for the rest of his life?”

“Hey, hey,” said Locke, stepping around Jean and attempting to hide a considerable amount of pain behind a disingenuous smile. “All’s well, Jean.”

“All’s not well,” said Jean. “Someone is taking this far too seriously.”

“Stand aside, Jean,” said Sabetha. “If he wants to stick his hand in a fire, he can learn to pull it out himself.”

“ Heis right here, thank you very much, and heis fine,” said Locke. “It’s fine, Jean. Let’s have another pattern.”

“Sabetha needs to calm down.”

“Aren’t I calm?” said Sabetha. “Locke can have quarter any time he asks for it himself.”

“I don’t choose to yield just yet,” said Locke, with what he hoped was a charming, devil-may-care sort of grin. Sabetha’s countenance only darkened in response. “However, if you’re concerned about me, you can back off to any degree you prefer.”

“Oh, no.” Sabetha was anything but calm. “No, no, no. I don’t withdraw. Youyield! Deliberately. Or we keep going until you can’t stand up.”

“That might take a while,” said Locke. “Let’s see if you have the patience—”

“Damn it, when will you learn that refusing to admit you’ve lost isn’t the same as winning?”

“Sort of depends on how long one keeps refusing, doesn’t it?”

Sabetha scowled, an expression that cut Locke more deeply than any baton-lash. Staring fixedly at him, she took her baton in both hands, snapped it over her knee, and bounced the pieces off the floor.

“Forgive me, gentlemen,” she said. “I seem to be unable to conform to the intended spirit of this exercise.”

She turned and left. When she’d vanished into the rear hall of the temple, Locke let out a dejected sigh.

“Gods,” he said. “What the hell is going on between us? What happened, just now?”

“She has a cruel streak, that one,” said Jean.

“No more than any of us!” said Locke, more hotly than he might have intended. “Well, we’ve got some … philosophical differences, to be sure.”

“She’s a perfectionist.” Jean picked up the broken halves of Sabetha’s baton. “And you’re a real idiot from time to time.”

“What did I do, besides fail to be a master baton duelist?” Locke massaged some of the tender reminders Sabetha had left him of her superior technique. “I didn’t train with Don Maranzalla.”

“Neither did she.”

“Well, come on, how does that make me an idiot?”

“You’re no Sanza,” said Jean, “but you can certainly be one sharp stab in the ass. Look, you’d have stood here and let her slap you into paste just for the sake of being in the same room with her. I know it. You know it. Sheknows it.”

“Well, uh—”

“It’s not endearing, Locke. You don’t court a girl by inviting her to abuse you from sunrise to sunset.”

“Really? That sounds an awful lot like courtship in every story I’ve ever read—”

“I mean literally abused, as in getting pounded into bird shit with a wooden stick. It’s not charming or impressive. It just makes you look silly.”

“Well, she doesn’t like it when I beat her at anything. She’s certainly not going to respect me if I give up! So just what the hell canI do?”

“No idea. Maybe I see some things clearer than you because I’m not bloody infatuated, but what to actually do with the pair of you, gods know.”

“You’re a deep well of reassurance.”

“On the bright side,” said Jean, “I’m sure you’re higher in her esteem right now than the Sanzas.”

“Sweet gods, that’s sickly praise.” Locke leaned against a wall and stretched. “Speaking of Sanzas, did you see Chains’ face when we woke him up this morning?”

“I wish I hadn’t. He’s going to break those two over his knee like Sabetha’s stick.”

“Where do you think he stomped off to?”

“No idea. I’ve never seen him leave angry before the sun was even up.”

“What in all the hells is going on with us?” said Locke. “This whole summer has been one long exercise in getting everything wrong.”

“Chains muttered to me a few nights ago,” said Jean, fiddling with the broken baton. “Something about awkward years. Said he might have to do something about us being all pent up together.”

“Hope that doesn’t mean more apprenticeships. I’m really not in the mood to go learn another temple’s rituals and then pretend to kill myself.”

“No idea what it means, but—”

“Hey, you two!” Galdo Sanza appeared out of the rear corridor, the spitting image of Calo, save for the fact that his skull was shaven clean of every last speck of hair. “Tubby and the training dummy! Chains is back, wants us in the kitchen with a quickness. And what’d you do to Sabetha this time?”

“I exist,” said Locke. “Some days that’s enough.”

“You should make some friends at the Guilded Lilies, mate,” said Galdo. “Why fall on your face trying to tame a horse when you can have a dozen that are already saddled?”

“So now you like to fuck horses,” said Jean. “Bravo, baldy.”

“Laugh all you will, we’re in demand over there,” said Galdo. “Favorite guests. Command performances.”

“I’m sure you’re popular,” said Jean with a yawn. “Who doesn’t like getting paid for fast, easy work?”

“I’ll say a prayer for you next time I’m having it with two at once,” said Galdo. “Maybe the gods will hear me and let your stones drop. But, seriously, Chains came in the river entrance, and I think we’re all about to die.”

“Well, hurrah,” said Locke. “When the weather’s like this, who honestly wants to live?”

3

THE FATHER Chains waiting in the glass burrow’s kitchen wasn’t wearing any of his usual guises or props. No canes or staves to lean on, no robes, no look of sly benevolence on that craggy, bearded face. He was dressed to be out and about in the city, heavily sweated with exertion, and all the furrows in his forehead seemed to meet in an ominous valley above his fierce dark eyes. Locke was unsettled; he’d rarely seen Chains glower like that at an enemy or a stranger, let alone at his apprentices.

Locke noticed that everyone else was keeping a certain instinctive distance from Chains. Sabetha sat on a counter, well away from anyone, arms folded. The Sanzas sat near one another more out of old habit than present warmth. Their appearances were divergent; Calo with his long, oiled, well-tended tresses and Galdo scraped smooth as a prize-fighter. The twins shared no jokes, no gestures, no small talk.

“I suppose it’s only fair to begin,” said Chains, “by apologizing for having failed you all.”

“Um,” said Locke, stepping forward, “how have you failed us, exactly?”

“My mentorship. My responsibility to not allow our happy home to turn into a seething pit of mutual aggravation … which it has.” Chains coughed, as though he’d irritated his throat merely by bringing such words out. “I thought I might ease up on the regimen of previous summers. Fewer lessons, fewer errands, fewer tests. I hoped that without constraints, you might blossom. Instead you’ve rooted yourselves deep without flowering.”

“Hold on,” said Calo, “it hasn’t been such an unwelcome break, has it? And we’ve been training. Jean’s seen to it that we’ve kept up with battering one another about.”

“That’s hardly your principal form of exercise these days,” said Chains. “I’ve heard things from the Lilies. You two spend more time in bed than invalids. Certainly more than you spend planning or practicing our work.”

“So we haven’t run a game on anyone for a few weeks,” said Calo. “Is the fuckin’ Eldren-fire falling? Who gives a damn if we take some ease? What should we be doing, sir, learning more Vadran? More dances? A seventeenth way to hold knives and forks?”

“You snot-nosed grand duke of insolence,” said Chains, growing louder with each word, “you ignorant, wet-eared, copper-chasing shit-barge puppy! Do you have any idea what you’ve been given? What you’ve worked for? What you are?”

“What I am is tired of being yelled at—”

“Ten years under my roof,” said Chains, looming over Calo like an ambulatory mountain, suffused with moral indignation, “ten years under my protection, eating at my table, nurtured by my hand and coin. Have I beaten you, buggered you, put you out in the rain?”

“No,” said Calo, cringing. “No, of course not—”

“Then you can stand one gods-damned rebuke without flapping your jaw.”

“Of course,” said Calo, most meekly. “Sorry.”

“You’re educated thieves,” said Chains. “No matter how you might think it profits you to feign otherwise, you are not ordinary. You can pass for servants, farmers, merchants, nobles; you have the poise and manners for any station. If I hadn’t let you grow so callow, you might realize what an unprecedented personal freedom you all possess.”

Locke reflexively opened his mouth to deliver some smooth assuagement, but the merest half-second flick of Chains’ glare was more than enough to keep him mute.

“What do you think this is all for?” said Chains. “What do you suppose it’s all been in aid of? So you can laze around and work the occasional petty theft? Drink and whore and dice with the other Right People until you get called out or hung? Have you seenwhat happens to our kind? How many of your bright-eyed little chums will live to see twenty-five? If they scrape thirty they’re gods-damned elders. You think they have money tucked away? Villas in the country? Thieves may prosper night by night, but there’s nothing for them when the lean times come, do you understand?”

“But there’s garristas,” said Galdo, “and the Capa, and a lot of older types at the Floating Grave—”

“Indeed,” said Chains. “Capas and garristasdon’t go hungry, because they can take scraps from the mouths of their brothers and sisters. And how do you suppose you get to grow old in the Capa’s service? You guard his doors with an alley-piece, like a constable on the beat. You watch your friends hang, and die in the gutters, and get called up for teeth lessons because they said the wrong thing in their cups or held back a few silvers one fucking time. You put your head down and shut up, forever. That’s what earns you some gray hair.

“No justice,” he continued sourly. “No true fellowship. Vows in darkness, that’s all, valid until the first time someone goes hungry or needs a few coins. Why do you think I’ve raised you to wink at the Secret Peace? We’re like a sick dog that gnaws its own entrails, the Right People are. But you’vegot a chance to live in real trust and fellowship, to be thieves as the gods intended, scourging the swells and living true to yourselves. I’ll be damned before I’ll let you forget what a gift you’ve been given in one another.”

No smart remark ever made could stand before the gale of this sort of chastisement. Locke noted that he wasn’t the only one with a sudden overwhelming compulsion to stare at the floor.

“And so, I need to apologize for my own failure.” Chains drew a folded letter from his coat. “For allowing us to reach this pretty state of affairs, falling out with one another and forgetting ourselves. It’s a bad time for all of you. You’re confused bundles of nerves and passion, cooped up down here where you can do maximum damage to your mutual regard. You’ve certainly been disagreeable company for me. I’ve decided I need a vacation.”

“Well then,” said Jean, “where will you be going?”

“Going? Drinking, I suppose. Perhaps I’ll go see old Maranzalla. And I’ve a mind to hunt down some chamber music. But forgive me if I’ve been unclear. I require a vacation from all of you, but I’m not leaving Camorr. You five will be making a journey to Espara. I’ve arranged work there to keep you busy for several months.”

“Espara?” said Locke.

“Yes. Isn’t it exciting?” The room was quiet. “I thought that might be your response. Look, I tucked a pin into my jacket for this very moment.”

Chains drew a silver pin from one of his lapels and tossed it into the air. It hit the floor with the faintest chiming clatter.

“One of those expressions I’ve always wanted to put to the test,” said Chains. “But seriously, you’re out. All of you. Evicted. There’s a wagon caravan leaving from the Cenza Gate on Duke’s Day. You’ve got two days to make yourselves part of it. After that, it’s a week and a half to Espara.”

“But,” said Calo, “what if we don’t want to go to bloody Espara?”

“Then leave, and don’t come back to this temple,” said Chains. “Forfeit everything. In fact, leave Camorr. I won’t want to see you again, anywhere.”

“What’s in Espara that’s so important?” said Sabetha.

“Your partnership. It’s past time it was put to a real test, far beyond my reach. Take all your years of training and make something of them. False-face together, rely upon one another, and come back alive. Prove that we haven’t been wasting our time down here. Prove it to me … and prove it to yourselves.”

Chains held up the folded letter.

“You’re going to Espara to enjoy a career on the stage.”

4

“AFTER MY soldiering ended,” continued Chains, “and before I came back to Camorr, I indulged in several vices, not the least of which was acting. I fell in with a troupe in Espara run by the single unluckiest thick-skulled son of a bitch that ever crawled out of a womb. Jasmer Moncraine. I saved his life by design and he saved mine by accident. We’ve kept in touch across the years.”

“Oh gods,” said Sabetha, “you’re sending us in payment of a debt!”

“No, no. Jasmer and I are square. The favor is mutual. I need the five of you occupied elsewhere. Jasmer has desperate need of players, and an equally desperate need to avoid paying them.”

“So it isquestionable circumstances, then.”

“Oh, never doubt. I get the impression from his letters that he’s one mistake away from being chained up for debt. I’d appreciate you preventing that. He wants to do Lucarno’s Republic of Thieves. Your story will be that you’re a band of up-and-coming thespians from Camorr; I sent a letter ahead of you telling him how to play the angles right. The rest is entirely up to you.”

“Do you have a copy of the letter for us?” said Locke.

“Nah.”

“Well, then, what should we do about—”

Chains tossed a jingling bag at Locke’s head. Locke barely managed to pluck it out of the air before it struck his nose.

“Oh, look, a bag of money. That’s all the help you’ll be getting from me, my boy.”

“But … aliases, travel arrangements—”

“Your problem, not mine.”

“We don’t know anything about the stage!”

“You know about costumes, makeup, elocution, and deportment. Everything else, you can learn once you get there.”

“But—”

“Look,” said Chains. “I don’t want to spend the rest of the day interrupting your questions, so I’m going to temporarily forget how to make words come out of my mouth. I’ll be nursing a chilled bottle of Vadran white over at the Tumblehome until further notice. Remember the caravan. Two days. You can be part of it, or you can leave the Gentlemen Bastards. Your time is henceforth your own.”

He left the kitchen in a state of extreme self-satisfaction. A few moments later, Locke heard the creak and slam of the burrow’s concealed river-side exit. Locke and his cohorts traded a sincere set of bewildered looks.

“Well, this is a fist-fuck and a flaming oil bath,” said Calo.

“Is there anyone here,” said Locke quietly, “who’d rather leave the gang than go to Espara?”

“There’d better notbe,” said Galdo.

“The billiard ball’s right for once,” said Calo. “It’s not as though I’m enthusiastic about this, but anyone who wants to leave can do it headfirst off the temple roof.”

“Good,” said Locke. “Then we need to talk. Get some ink and parchment.”

“Count the money,” said Sabetha.

“I’ll fetch some wine,” said Jean. “Strong wine.”

5

THEY WERE far from comfortable together. The Sanzas sat on opposite sides of the table, and Sabetha leaned against a chair pushed away from everyone else. Yet they all seemed to grasp the urgency of their situation; over the course of two bottles of Verrari lemon wine they hashed out mostly civil arguments and scratched up lists of supplies and responsibilities.

“Right, then,” said Locke when his glass was empty and his note-pages full. “Sabetha will try to scare up any portions of The Republic of Thievesfrom the shops and scribes, so we can all have a look at it on the road.”

“I’ve got some other Lucarno plays I’ll pack,” said Jean. “And some Mercallor Mentezzo dross I’m not so fond of, but we should all study them and pick up some lines.”

“Jean and I will find a wagon and get us in with a caravan master,” said Locke. He passed one of his lists over to Galdo. “The Sanzas will pack the common goods and supplies.”

“We need aliases,” said Sabetha. “We can smooth out our stories on the way, but we should have our game names ready to use.”

“Who do you want to be, then?” said Jean.

“Hmmmm. Call me … Verena. Verena Gallante.”

“Lucaza,” said Locke. “I’ll be Lucaza … de Barra.”

“Must you?” said Sabetha.

“Must I what?”

“You always have to choose an alias that starts with ‘L,’ and Jean nearly always goes for a ‘J.’ ”

“Keeps things simple,” said Jean. “And now, just because you’ve said that, I’ll be … Jovanno. Hell, Locke and I can be first cousins. I’ll be Jovanno de Barra.”

“False names are fun,” said Calo. “Call me Beefwit Smallcock.”

“These are aliases, not biographical sketches,” said Galdo.

“Fine then,” said Calo. “Lend me a hand. There’s a masculine form of Sabetha, isn’t there?”

“Sabazzo,” said Galdo, snapping his fingers.

“Yeah, Sabazzo. I’ll be Sabazzo.”

“Like hellyou will,” said Sabetha.

“Hey, I know,” said Galdo. “I’ll be Jean. You can call yourself Locke.”

“You two will crap splinters for a month after I make you eat this table,” said Jean.

“Well, if you put it like that,” said Calo. “Why don’t we use our middle names? I’ll be Giacomo, and you can be Castellano.”

“Might work,” said Galdo grudgingly. “Need a last name.”

“ Asino!” said Calo. “It’s Throne Therin for ‘donkey.’ ”

“Gods lend me strength,” said Sabetha.

6

“MASTER DE Barra,” said Anatoly Vireska two nights later, looking up with a smile that put every gap in his teeth on display, like archery ports in a crumbling fortress wall. The rangy, middle-aged Vadran caravan master gave the Gentlemen Bastards’ wagon a friendly thump as Jean brought their team of four horses to a halt. “And company. You picked a good time to show up.”

“I’ve seen this place when it’s busy.” Locke glanced backward at the Millfalls District and the Street of Seven Wheels, which lay under the strange particolored haze of fading Falselight. Traffic on the cobbled road itself was sparse, since few business travelers came or went from the Cenza Gate as darkness was falling. “Figured we might get a jump on the chaos.”

“Just so. Pull up anywhere in the commons beneath the wall. Now, if you want more than half-assed shelter, there’s the Andrazi stable down the lane to the right, and the Umbolo stable just yonder, the one with all the mules. Andrazi tips me a few coppers a week to point people her way, but I wouldn’t take the money if I didn’t think her place was the better bargain, hey?”

“Duly noted,” said Jean.

“Want me to send a boy around to help with your horses? I could have my outfitter check your packing, too.”

“I’m sure we’re fine, thanks,” said Locke.

“Glad to hear it. Just so we’re clear, though, my guards don’t stand to duty until we line up all our ducklings tomorrow morning. As long as we’re behind walls, your security is your own business. Given that you’re bedding down twenty yards from a watch barracks, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.”

“Nor shall we.” Jean waved farewell, and convinced the horses to take them into the shadow of Camorr’s walls. Rickety overhanging panels topped about a hundred yards worth of barren common space in the lee of the wall, where those unwilling or unable to pay for service at the commercial stables could pull in. Sabetha, Calo, and Galdo piled out of the back of the open-topped wagon as it rolled to a stop.

“One quarter of a mile down, a mere two hundred to go,” said Locke. The humid air was heavy with the smells of old hay, animal sweat, and droppings. Other travelers were lighting lanterns, laying out bedrolls, and starting cooking fires; there were at least a dozen wagon parties stopped beside the wall. Locke wondered idly how many of them were bound for Espara as part of Vireska’s caravan.

“Let’s get you fixed up for the night, boys.” Jean hopped down from the wagon and gave a reassuring pat to the flank of the nearest cart-horse. Jean had spent several months in the role of a teamster’s apprentice two years earlier, and had assumed responsibility for driving and tending their animals without complaint. The team represented a significant portion of the money Chains had given them, but could be resold in Espara to flesh out their temporarily thinned finances.