Текст книги "The Republic of Thieves"

Автор книги: Scott Lynch

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Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 44 страниц)

INTERLUDE

BASTARDS ABROAD

1

THEY WERE FORTY miles beyond the border of greater Camorr, on the third morning of their journey, when they passed the first corpse swaying beneath the arching branch of a roadside tree.

“Oh, look,” said Calo, who sat beside Jean at the front of the wagon. “All the comforts of home.”

“It’s what we do with bandits when there’s a spare noose about,” said Anatoly Vireska, who was walking beside them munching on a late breakfast of dried figs. Their wagon led the caravan. “There’s one every mile or two. If the noose is occupied, or it ain’t convenient, we just open their throats and shove ’em off the road.”

“Are there really that many bandits?” said Sabetha. She sat atop the wagon with her feet propped on the snoring form of Galdo, who’d kept the predawn watch. “Beg pardon. It’s just that there doesn’t seem to be anyone actually lurking about.” She sounded bored.

“Well, there’s good and bad times,” said the caravan master. “Summer like this we might see one once a month. Our friend here, we strung him up about that long ago. Been quiet since.

“But when a harvest goes bad, gods help us, they’re in the woods thick as bird shit. And after a war, it’s mercenaries and deserters raising hell. I double the guard. And I double my fees, heh.”

Locke wasn’t sure he agreed that there was nothing lurking. The countryside had the haunted quality he remembered from the months he’d once spent learning the rudiments of farm life. All those nights he’d lain awake listening to the alien sound of rustling leaves, yearning for the familiar clamor of carriage wheels, footsteps on stone, boats on water.

The old imperial road had been built well, but it was starting to crumble now in these remote places between the major powers. The empty garrison forts, silent as mausoleums, were vanishing behind misty groves of cypress and witchwood, and the little towns that had grown around them were reduced to moss-covered ruins and lines in the dirt.

Locke walked along beside the wagon on the side opposite Vireska, trying to keep his eyes on their surroundings and away from Sabetha. She’d discarded her rather matronly hood, and her hair fluttered in the warm breeze.

She hadn’t kept their “appointment” the second evening. In fact, she’d barely spoken to him at all, remaining absorbed in the plays she’d packed and deflecting all attempts at conversation as adroitly as she’d parried his baton strokes.

The caravan, six wagons total, trundled along in the rising morning heat. At noon they passed through a thicket like a dark tunnel. A temporarily empty noose swung from one of the high dark branches, a forlorn pendulum.

“You know, it was novel at first,” said Calo, “but I’m starting to think the place could use a more cheerful sort of distance marker.”

“Bandits would tear down proper signposts,” said Vireska, “but they’re all afraid to touch the nooses. They say that when you don’t hang someone over running water, the rope holds the unquiet soul. Awful bad luck to touch it unless you’re giving it a new victim.”

“Hmm,” said Calo. “If I was stuck out here jumping wagon trains in the middle of shit-sucking nowhere, I’d assume my luck was already as bad as it gets.”

2

THEY HALTED for the night in the village of Tresanconne, a hamlet of about two hundred souls built on three marsh-moated hills, protected by stockades of sharpened logs. It was the only kind of settlement that could flourish out here, according to Vireska—too big for bandits to overrun, but too remote to make it worthwhile for parties of soldiers from Camorr to pay it a visit for “road upkeep taxes.”

No rural idyll, this. The villagers were sullen and suspicious, more appreciative of outside goods than the outsiders who brought them. Still, the rough hilltop lot they provided for caravans was preferable to any bed awaiting them out in the lightless damps of the wilderness.

Locke took his turn sweeping beneath the wagon while Jean saw to the horses. The Sanza twins, grudgingly accepting one another’s proximity, wandered off to survey the village. Sabetha remained atop the wagon, guarding their possessions. Locke needed just a few minutes to ensure that the space in which they would set their bedrolls was no embarrassment to civilization, and then it occurred to him that they were more or less alone.

“I, ah, I regret not having a chance to speak to you last night,” he said.

“Oh? Was it any real loss to either of us?”

“You had– Well, I don’t suppose you did promise. You’d said you’d consider it, at least.”

“That’s right, I didn’t promise.”

“Well … damn. You’re obviously in a mood.”

“Am I?” There was danger in her tone. “Am I really? Why should that be exceptional? A boy may be as disagreeable as he pleases, but when a girl refuses to crap sunshine on command the world mutters darkly about her moods.”

“I only meant it by way of, uh, well, nothing, really. It was just a conversational note. Look, it’s really damned … odd … having to look for ploys to speak with you, as though we were complete strangers!”

“If I’m in a mood,” said Sabetha after a moment of reflective silence, “it’s because this journey is unfolding more or less as I had foreseen. Tedium, bumpy roads, and biting insects.”

“Ah,” said Locke. “Do I count as part of the tedium or one of the biting insects?”

“If I didn’t know any better,” she said softly, “I’d swear the horseshit-sweeper was attempting to be charming.”

“You might as well assume,” said Locke, not sure whether he was feeling bold or merely willing himself to feel bold, “that I’m always attempting to be charming where you’re concerned.”

“Now that’s risky.” Sabetha rolled sideways and jumped down beside him. “That sort of directness compels a response, but what’s it to be? Do I encourage you in this sort of talk or do I stop you cold?”

She took a step forward, hands on hips, and despite himself Locke leaned backward, bracing against the wagon at the last second to avoid a fall that would have been, perhaps, the most graceless thing ever accomplished in the history of Therin civilization.

“I get a vote?” he said meekly.

“If it’s not to be encouragement, can you accept being stopped cold?” She raised one finger and touched his chin. It was neither invitation nor chastisement. “The Sanzas might be driving us all crazy at the moment, but I will say this on their behalf … when their advances were made and refused, they never brought the subject up again.”

“Calo and Galdo made a passat you?”

“Certainly not at the same time,” she said. “Why so surprised? Surely you’ve noticed that you’re not the only hot-blooded young idiot with fully functional bits and pieces in our little gang.”

“Yes, but they—”

“They understand that my feelings for them lie somewhere between sisterly affection and saintly tolerance. And while I sometimes imagine that they would hump trees if they thought nobody was around to see it, they’ve respected my wishes absolutely. Could you handle disappointment so well?”

“If I’m to be disappointed,” said Locke, heart pounding, “I really wish you would cut the prelude and just disappoint me, already.”

“Oooh, there’s some fire at last.” Sabetha folded her arms beneath her breasts and edged closer to him. “Tell me, how do you even know for sure that I don’t fancy girls?”

“I—” Locke was lucky to spit the one syllable out before the power of coherent speech ran up a white flag and deserted him. Gods above …

“You never even thought about that, did you?” she said, her voice a sly whisper.

“Well, hells … is that … I mean to say, do you—”

“Fancy oysters or snails? What a damned awkward thing to be unsure of, for someone in your position. Oh … oh, for Perelandro’s sake, you look like you’re about to be executed.” She bent over and whispered in his right ear. “I happen to like snails very well, thank you.”

“Ahhh,” he said, feeling the earth grow solid beneath his feet again. “I’ve never … never been so pleased at such a comparison before.”

“It’s a champion among metaphors,” she said with the faintest smile. “So very apt.”

“And now that you’ve had your sport with me, do I join Calo and Galdo in their exclusive little club?”

“They’re still my friends.” She sounded genuinely hurt. “My oath-brothers. That’s nothing to scorn, especially for a … a would-be priest of your order.”

“Sabetha, I dofancy you. It scares the hell out of me to admit it, but I say it plainly, as you did the other night. Only I don’t say it casually. I have … I have admired you since the instant we met, do you understand, the very instant, that day we went out from Shades’ Hill to see the hangings. Do you remember?”

“Of course,” she whispered. “The strange little boy who wouldn’t leave Streets. What a sad trial you were. But what was there to admire, Locke? We were dusty, starving little creatures. You couldn’t have been six. What feelings were there to have?”

“I only know they were there. When I heard that you’d drowned I felt as though my heart had been stepped on.”

“I’m sorry for that. It was necessary.” She glanced away from him for a long moment before continuing. “I think you look upon our past in the light of your present feelings and imagine some glow that is … more reflectionthan substance.”

“Sabetha, I don’t remember my own father. And other than a singlememory of … of sewing needles, my mother is as much a mystery. I don’t remember where I was born, or the Catchfire plague, or how I survived it, or anythingthat I did before the Thiefmaker bought me from the city watch!”

“Locke—”

“Listen! It’s all gone! But the moments I’ve spent with you, whether you knew I was there or not– they’restill with me, smoldering like coals. I can touch them and feel the heat.”

“You’ve been reading too many of Jean’s romances. What basis for comparison have you ever had, Locke? You and I have been together all these years … why wouldn’t you evolve some sort of fixation? It’s only … perfectly natural … expected familiarity—”

“Who are you trying to convince?” On the attack now, he played her game, took a step forward. “That doesn’t sound like it’s meant for my benefit. You’re trying to talk yourselfout of confiding in me! Why—”

His voice had grown louder with every word, and she startled him by slapping a hand over his mouth.

“You are turning something quite personal into a speech for the whole camp,” she said in her flawless Vadran.

“Sorry,” he whispered in the same language. “Look, this isn’t some damn fixation, Sabetha. If I could just—somehow let you see yourself through myeyes. I guarantee your feet would never touch the ground again.”

“There’s magic that might have some useful applications,” she said, wistfully, “if you were to pull that off. And if I were to … choose to be charmed just now.”

“Well, if not now, then—”

“I told you my feelings for you are complicated. Everything concerning you is complicated, and by that I don’t mean that I’m confused or muddle-headed or, or … frightened. I mean that there are actual, genuine circumstances aboutus and aroundus that make this difficult. There are obstacles, damn it.”

“Then tell me about them. Tell me anything I can do—”

“Are we speaking Vadran now?” said Calo, from his previously silent perch in Sabetha’s vacated place atop the wagon.

“Oh, Sanza, damn your eyes,” hissed Sabetha. “I just about jumped out of my bloody skin.”

“Now that’s praise,” said Galdo, who rolled out from beneath the wagon. “You’re not easy to take unawares. You must have really had your head—”

“—shoved up your ass,” said Calo.

“Are you two back in your usual rhythm, then?” said Locke crossly.

“Nah,” said Galdo. “Just curious, is all.”

“How sharp is your Vadran?” said Locke.

“Mine Vadran is great sharp,” said Calo in that tongue, exaggeratedly mangling each word. “Perfect like without flaws, am the clever Sanza I being.”

“I think the two of us are bit rusty, though,” said Galdo, “so if you could just repeat all the parts we missed—”

“Get used to gaps in your comprehension,” said Sabetha. “The rest of us certainly have.”

“Village not worth your attention?” said Locke with a sigh.

“Just the opposite,” said Galdo. “We thought we’d fetch a few pieces of silver. Some of these smelly hillside mudfuckers are playing cards at what passes for their tavern.”

“Shouldn’t take much of the old Camorr flash to dazzle ’em,” said Calo, making a small rock appear and disappear from the palm of his hand. “Could roll off in the morning owning half this bloody place.”

“I don’t think that’s wise,” said Sabetha.

“What are they gonna do,” said Galdo, “declare war? Look, if we come back in a few months and find out that a hundred swamp country yokels have knocked over the Five Towers, we’ll write a sincere apology.”

“And we only need a few coins anyway,” said Calo, throwing back the tarp over their supplies. “To buy in. After that, we’ll be taking donations, not giving ’em.”

“Hold on,” said Locke. “Since when are you two criminals?”

“Since …” Calo squinted and pretended to calculate. “Sometime between first leaving Mother and hitting the ground between her legs, I imagine.”

“Head first,” added Galdo.

“I know the Sanzasare as crooked as a snake in a clockwork snake-bending machine,” said Locke, “but the Asinobrothers are actors, not cardsharps.”

“You know how actors make a living between engagements?” said Calo. “Believe me, some of them are flash-fucking cardsharps. I learned some of my best stuff from—”

“What I mean,” said Locke, “is that we should all just be actors, and onlyactors. I’ve been thinking about this. No games of opportunity on the way. No more picked pockets. We should draw a line between the people we are in Camorr and the people we are in Espara. When we go home, anyone thinking to follow us back to our real lives should find nothing. No hints, no trail.”

“Seems … sensible,” said Galdo.

“And it starts here,” said Locke. “It means we don’t do anything to make ourselves memorable. You really think your yokel friends will simply let you clean them out and send us on our merry way tomorrow morning? Someone’s going to get cut, Sanzas. Everyone in this village will be after your skins, and our guards won’t save you. They have to work this route week in and week out. They need these people.”

“He’s right,” said Calo. “I knew it was a dumb fuckin’ plan, you bald degenerate.”

“It was youridea, you greedy turd-polisher!”

“Well, at any rate,” said Calo to Locke. “We ain’t following through on it.”

“Then why not start boiling dinner? Or better yet, if you really want to drop a coin in the village, see if you can hunt down some meat that doesn’t come in the form of a brick.”

The Sanzas received this suggestion with enthusiasm, and vanished once again down the winding track to what passed for Tresanconne’s high street. Locke and Sabetha faced one another in their absence, and Locke detected a sudden coolness in her demeanor.

“That right there,” she said, “would be one of the obstacles I mentioned.”

“What?”

“You really didn’t notice?”

“Notice what? What am I meant to realize?”

“Think about it,” she said. She crossed her arms again, this time with her shoulders hunched forward. A protective, unwelcoming gesture. “I’m serious. I’ll give you a moment. Think about it.”

“Think about what?”

“Years ago,” said Sabetha, “I was the oldest child in a small gang. I was sent away by my master to train in dancing and manners. When I returned, I found that a younger child had taken my place.”

“But—I hardly—”

“Calo and Galdo, who once treated me as a goddess on earth, had transferred their allegiance to the small newcomer. In time, he got himself a third ally, another boy.”

“That is purest– Why, Jean is devoted to you, as a friend.”

“But not as a particularfriend,” she said. “Not as he is to you.”

“Is that your obstacle?” Locke felt as though a heavy object had just spun out of the darkness and cracked him on the head. “My friendship with Jean? Does it make you jealous?”

“You listen about as well as you observe,” said Sabetha. “Haven’t you ever noticed that suggestions from me are treated as suggestions, while suggestions from you are taken as a sacred warrant? Even if those suggestions are identical?”

“I think you’re being very unfair,” said Locke weakly.

“You saw it just now! I couldn’t dissuade the Sanzas from drinking arsenic on the strength of mere common sense, but they trip over themselves to take your directions. This is yourgang, Locke—it has been since you arrived, and with Chains’ blessing. You’ve been shaped and groomed as garristafor when he’s gone. And as … well, as a priest. His replacement.”

“But I … I had no notion, or intention—”

“Of course not. You haven’t really questioned anythingsince your arrival. You’ve assumed a position of primacy, which is easy to take for granted … until you’re quietly shuffled out of it. After that, I find the matter never quite leaves one’s thoughts.”

“But—I have been worked and tested as sorely as you,” said Locke, fighting to keep his voice down. “As sorely as anyone! Do you remember how long it took me to pay thisoff?” He reached down the front of his tunic and pulled out his shark’s tooth, ensconced in its little leather bag. “Gods above, I could have a city house and a carriage for the money I poured into this damn thing. And I served as many apprenticeships as—”

“I’m not talking about your training, Locke, I know what Chains has done to us all. I’m talking about the way you accepted everything as you accept your own skin. Something natural and undeserving of reflection. Well, let me assure you that the only woman in a house of men has frequent cause for reflection.”

“This is a complete surprise to me,” said Locke.

“I know,” she said softly. “That’s a problem.”

She stared up at the sky, where one of the moons was emerging from behind a low haze of clouds, and Locke had no idea how to begin responding to her.

“A week to go,” she said at last. “A long, slow week of all the pleasures I named earlier. We’re going to be tired, sore, smelly, and bitten half to death by the time we reach Espara. I would … I want to talk to you again, Locke, but I can’t bring myself to make it a subject of hopeful anticipation night after night under these circumstances. Neither of us will be at our best.”

“And this merits our best,” he said grudgingly.

“I think it does. So can we keep it simple while we’re traveling? Eyes on the ground, asses in our seats, and all of these … matters tabled until a later date?”

“You think it’s fair to dump this in my lap and then request a conversational truce?”

“I don’t think it’s fair at all,” she said. “Just necessary.”

“Well, then. If nothing else, it seems I’ll have a lot of time to ruminate on an explanation for you—”

“An explanation? You think what I want out of you is some sort of defense? Surely you can see that I’ve explained you already. What comes next is—”

“Yes?”

“I won’t say. I think I need youto tell me.”

“All you have to do is—”

“No,” she said sharply. “I’ve told you everything you need to know to figure out what comes next. If my words really are like smoldering coals, Locke, then let these ones smolder. Sift them, and bring me an answer sometime after we reach Espara. Bring me a goodanswer.”

3

ESPARA, FORMERLY a seat of prestige only one step below Therim Pel itself, had descended from its imperial years the way some men and women descend into middle-aged lethargy, discarding the vigor and ambition of youth like a suit of clothes that can no longer be wriggled into.

Locke caught his first glimpse of the place just after noon on the tenth day, when the caravan turned the bend between two ruin-studded hills and entered the familiar, irregular green-and-brown whorls of a farming landscape. On the southern horizon lay the faint shapes of towers under curling gray smears of smoke.

“Espara,” said Anatoly Vireska. “Right where I left it. No more stops for rest, my young friends. Before the sun sets you’ll be in the city looking for your actor fellows.”

“Well done, caravan master,” said Locke, who had the reins while Jean was snoring gently under the tarp at the rear of the wagon. “Not what I’d call a scenic tour, but you’ve brought us through without a scratch.”

“When the crop of bandits is thin, it’s a restful little walk. Now it’s back to dodging carriages, breathing smoke, and paying rent for the beds you sleep in, eh?”

“Gods be praised,” said Locke.

“City creatures are the strangest of all,” said Vireska with a friendly shake of his head. He moved off to visit the rest of the wagons.

All the Gentlemen Bastards, more or less as footsore, ass-sore, unwashed, and drained of blood as Sabetha had predicted, had given up on walking this morning. Calo and Galdo leaned against each other, watching the landscape roll by at its strolling pace, while Sabetha was absorbed in the copy of The Republic of Thievesshe’d picked up before they’d left Camorr.

“Is the play any good?” said Galdo.

“I think so,” said Sabetha, “except the final act has been torn out of this folio, and half the pages have stains blotting out some of the lines. I keep imagining that every scene ends with the characters hurling cups of coffee at one another.”

“Sounds like my kind of play,” said Calo.

“Are there any decent roles?” said Galdo.

“They’re all decent,” said Sabetha. “Better than decent. I think they’re very romantic. We should have names like this, like all the heroes in these plays, all the famous bandits and sorcerers and emperors.”

“Most people could give half a dry shit for having an emperor’s name,” said Galdo. “It’s the wealth and power they’d want.”

“What I mean,” said Sabetha, “is that we should have aliases like out of the old stories. Big, grand titles like the Ten Honest Turncoats, you know? Red Jessa, the Duke of Knaves. Amadine, the Queen of Shadows.”

“I think Verena Gallante’s a fine alias,” said Locke.

“No, I mean bigand important, and uncommon. Not something you get called to your face. The sort of alias that people whisper when something unbelievable happens. ‘Oh, gods, this can only be the work of the Duke of Knaves!’ ”

“Heavens,” said Galdo in a deep, dramatic voice, “only one man living could have squeezed forth such a gleaming brown jewel—this is the work of Squatting Calo, the Midnight Shitter!”

“You two want for imagination,” said Sabetha.

“Not at all,” said Galdo. “The lower the enterprise, the hotter the fire of our invention burns.”

“Are you going a bit stir-crazy, Sabetha?” said Locke, secretly pleased to hear the energy in her voice after so many days of brooding tedium.

“Maybe I am. I’ve been stuck in this wagon counting Sanza farts for a week; maybe I’m due a little flight of fancy. I mean, wouldn’t it be grand, to have a legend that grew while you were alive to enjoy it? To sit in a tavern and hear all the people around you speaking of what you’d done, with no notion that you were among them as flesh and blood?”

“I can sit in a tavern and be ignored any time I please,” muttered Calo.

“I want to see the Kingdom of the Marrows someday,” said Sabetha. “Game my way from city to city … on the arms of nobles, emptying their pockets as I go, charming them witless. I’d be like a force of nature. They’d come up with some elegant title for their shared affliction. “It was her … it was … it was the Rose.”

Sabetha rolled this off her tongue, obviously savoring it.

“The Rose of the Marrows,they’ll say. ‘The Rose of the Marrows has been my ruin!’ And they’ll tear their hair out explaining everything to their wives and bankers, while I ride on to the next city.”

“Are we all going to need stupid nicknames, then?” said Calo. “We could be … the Shrubs of the North.”

“The Weeds of Vintila,” said Galdo.

“And if you’re a rose,” said Calo, “Locke’s going to need something as well.”

“He can be a tulip,” said Galdo. “Delicate little tulip.”

“Nah, if she’s the rose, he can be her thorn.” Calo snapped his fingers. “The Thorn of Camorr! Now that’s got some shine to it!”

“That’d the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever heard,” said Locke.

“We can do it as soon as we get home,” said Calo. “Disguise ourselves. Drop hints in bars. Tell stories here and there. Give us a month and everyone will be talking about the Thorn of Camorr. Even the ones that don’t know shit will just tell more lies, so they can sound like they’re clued in on the latest.”

“If you ever do anything like that,” said Locke, “I swear to all the gods, I will murder you.”

4

JUST AFTER the fourth hour of the afternoon, with the faintest warm drizzle sweating out of the graying sky, their wagon rolled through the mud beneath the stone arch of the Jalaan River Gate on the east side of Espara. Jean was back at the reins, and he bade their horses to halt for a squad of armed men in cloaks.

“What goes, Vireska?” said the evident leader, one of those graceful hulking types, the sort that gave every impression of being able to dance a minuet despite possession of a belly fit for carving into ham steaks. “We could set a water-clock by you. Dull trip, eh?”

“Just the way it ought to be,” said the caravan master as he shook hands with the watchman. The gratuity that instantly vanished into the heavy fellow’s pocket was generous; Vireska had discussed it back in Camorr and collected an equal portion from each wagon owner. “Now, when you’re poking through everything, watch-sergeant, just be especially delicate with the drugs and the hidden weapons, eh?”

“I promise not to keep you more than ten hours this time,” laughed the big Esparan. His men made an extremely cursory examination of the wagons, clearly more for the benefit of anyone watching than for the enforcement of the city’s customs laws.

“Welcome,” said one of the guards to Sabetha, who’d once again donned all her more modest clothing. “First time in Espara?”

“Actually, yes,” she said.

“Might we help you find anything?” said the big watch-sergeant, edging in next to his man.

“Oh, that would be so verykind of you,” she said, bubbling with girlish charm. Locke bit his tongue to stifle a snicker. “We’re looking for a man called Jasmer Moncraine. The Moncraine Company, the actors.”

“Why?” said the watch-sergeant. “You creditors?”

All the men behind him burst into laughter.

“Ah, no,” she said. “We’re players, from Camorr, come to join his troupe.”

“They got theaters in Camorr, miss?” said one of the guards. “I thought you was all more about, like, sharks bitin’ women in half.”

“I’d like to see that,” mumbled another watchman.

“There isan awful lot of that where we come from,” said Sabetha. “In fact, we spend more time touring than at home. Moncraine’s engaging us for the rest of the summer.”

“Well,” said the watch-sergeant, “In that case, best of luck. You can find some of the Moncraine Company at, uh, what’s that place with the olive tree torn out of its courtyard?”

“Gloriano’s Rooms,” said another guard.

“Right, right. Gloriano’s,” said the sergeant. “Look, you follow this lane straight down to the Temple of Venaportha, and just past it turn left, hear? Take that lane across the river, you’re in a place we call Solace Hill. Gloriano’s Rooms would be on your right. If you find gravestones on three sides, you’ve gone too far.”

“We’re obliged to you,” said Locke, while nursing a faint premonition that that might not, in the grand scheme of things, turn out to be entirely true.

They parted company with Vireska’s caravan and made their way into Espara, hewing to the watch-sergeant’s directions. It seemed to Locke that they all perked up considerably at finding themselves back in the familiar world of high stone walls, rain-dampened smoke, junk-strewn alleys, and people crammed elbow-to-elbow on the dry portions of the boulevards.

“Three cheers for a proper ale,” said Galdo wistfully. “In a proper tavern, that doesn’t have a fucking palisade built round it to keep out the bloody bog monster.”

“I think this is Solace Hill,” said Jean, as they entered a neighborhood that seemed to regress further from prosperity with every turn of the wagon wheels. The buildings grew lower, the windows became dirtier, and the lights grew fewer. “Look, that’s a graveyard, this Gloriano’s has to be close.”

They found it not a block down, the best-lit structure for some distance in any direction, though the illumination was perhaps unwise given the things it revealed about the condition of walls and roofs. A pair of city watchmen, looking soaked behind the misty glow of their lanterns, were standing in the turn to the inn-yard and impeding the passage of the Gentlemen Bastards’ wagon.

“Is there a problem, Constables?” called Jean.

“You don’t actually mean to turn in here?” said one of the men warily, as though he suspected himself the butt of a joke.

“I think we do,” said Jean.

“But this is the way to Gloriano’s inn-yard,” said the constable, even more warily.

“Pleased to hear it.”

“You delivering something?”

“Just ourselves,” said Jean.

“Gods above, you mean it,” said the constable. “I could tell you ain’t from here, even if I never heard your voice.” He and his companion stepped out of the way with exaggerated courtesy and walked on, shaking their heads.

Locke first heard the shouting as Jean brought them in under a sloping canvas awning that was more holes than fabric, next to a dark stable that contained only one horse. The animal looked at them as though in hope of rescue.

“What the hells is that noise?” said Sabetha.

It wasn’t any sort of row that Locke recognized. Fisticuffs, theft, murder, domestic quarrel—all of those things had familiar rhythms and notes, sounds he could have identified in a second. This was something stranger, and it seemed to be coming from just around the right-hand corner of the building.

“Jean, Sabetha, come quietly with me,” he said. “Sanzas, mind the horses. If they have any brains they might try to bolt.”

It didn’t occur to him until his boots hit the mud that he’d again done precisely what Sabetha had railed against: presumed leadership without hesitation. But damn it, this wasn’t a time for putting his life under a magnifying lens; it was a time for making sure they weren’t all about to be murdered.