Текст книги "The Republic of Thieves"

Автор книги: Scott Lynch

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Текущая страница: 30 (всего у книги 44 страниц)

“I don’t know,” she said quietly, staring out into the night. “They’ve delivered all the tools they said they would. They seem happy with my work, and I think their promises of consequences are certainly sincere. But their secrecy, their misdirection, it’s just so habitual .…”

“You’re reallynot used to feeling like a piece on a game board,” said Locke.

“No,” she said, and then she brought her brief moment of wistfulness to an end by sticking her tongue out at him. “I haven’t had all the opportunities you have to get acclimated to the sensation.”

“Oh ho! Serpent in a dress. Well, if only I wasn’t too much the gentleman to flay your spirit with a witty and cutting retort, madam, you’d be … thoroughly … um, wittily retorted at this very instant.”

“If you were any sort of actual gentleman you’d be no fun to have dinner with.”

“You admit you’re having fun?”

“I admit it’s much as I feared.” She looked down at the table for a moment before continuing. “Your presence is … steadily less of a chore and more of a comfort.”

“Well,” said Locke, chuckling, “aren’t I always delighted to be not quite the burden you were expecting!”

“Dessert?”

“Would you forgive me if I begged off?” Locke patted his stomach, which had mercifully reached the sheer physical limit of its gluttony. “I’m stuffed like a grain bag.”

“Good. You’re still too bloody thin.”

The waiter cleared their dishes and left a slate with a folded note pinned to it. Sabetha picked it up and glanced at it idly.

“What’s that?”

“Itemized bill,” she said. “They actually bring it to the table here. It’s all the rage. Lets those that can read show it off in public.”

“Strange,” said Locke. “But that’s the west for you. So what now, Mistress Gallante? A walk, a carriage ride, maybe an—”

“Now we rest on our laurels.” She rose from the table and stretched, revealing how precisely her gown and jacket were fitted to her curves. “Look, it’s not that I haven’t appreciated the break, but some things … just have to go slow.”

“Slow,” said Locke, knowing he was failing miserably to conceal his disappointment. “Of course.”

“Slow,” she repeated. “We’ve got five years and more of sharp edges to file down. I might be willing to work at it, but I don’t think I can do it in one night.”

“I see.”

“Oh, don’t give me that drowning-puppy look.” She touched his waist and gave him a kiss on the cheek that was not quite passionate but a shade longer than merely polite. “Let’s do this again. Three nights hence. I’ll pick some other interesting place.”

“Three nights hence,” said Locke, still feeling the warm press of her lips against his skin. “Three nights. All right. Just try and stop me.”

“I can’t. I seem to have promised to fight clean.” She drew a pair of leather gloves from her jacket and pulled them on.

“Can I at least walk you to your carriage?”

“Mmmmm … don’t think so,” she said mischievously. “I try to live by a cardinal rule of our shared profession, namely, ‘always leave a sucker wanting more.’ ”

She reached under the table and pulled out a coil of demi-silk rope previously hidden there. Locke watched, puzzled, as she conjured a slender metal pick in her other hand and applied it to the mechanism of the waiter’s door. It opened in seconds.

“Hey, wait a minute—”

“It was in case you tried anything tricky. Whether I would have used it to escape or hang you can remain an open question.”

“Are you serious?”

“I wouldn’t say that,” she said with a grin. “But I’m definitely sincere. Thanks for the flower. I left you a little something in exchange.”

Then she was gone. The rope was anchored to a point on the cage beneath the table; Sabetha kicked it out the door and rappelled into the night, without a harness, sliding down on the friction of boots and gloves with her gown billowing like the petals of a wind-whipped flower.

“Gods damn,” whispered Locke as he watched her land safely and vanish far below. After a moment her last words finally squeezed past the film of wine clinging to his brain, and he frantically patted himself down. A piece of paper was in his left jacket pocket. A note? A love letter?

He unfolded it in haste, and discovered the bill for dinner.

9

“MOVE! MOVE! For your life, move!”

Doormen scattered from a snorting pair of barely controlled horses dragging a rickety dray tended by a single wild-eyed driver. The back of the vehicle was loaded with sacks and barrels, one of which had bled an expanding trail of gray smoke all the way down the street. With a lurching crash, the dray broke a wheel against the curb and toppled, spilling its contents in a pile before the front doors of the Sign of the Black Iris.

“It’s alchemy!” The driver, a slender, white-bearded fellow in a voluminous rat-chewed coat, leapt to the ground as smoke billowed past him. Sparks leapt and flickered amidst the spilled cargo, and he unyoked his frantic animals. “Heaps of alchemy! Fetch water and sand, or run for your gods-damned lives!”

Patrons, servants, and guards poured out of the inn to investigate the commotion, only to reel back in dismay as smoke boiled past them into the building. Crackling noises rose ominously within the haze, and fires of eerie colors burst to life. The driver of the crashed dray led his horses across the street, where he found several boys in Black Iris livery watching the unfolding disaster.

“Here,” he shouted, thrusting the reins into one boy’s hands. “Watch my animals! I’ll be right back!”

The bearded man scuttled across the street and into the billowing murk. Green smoke, red smoke, and mustard-yellow smoke uncoiled from the spreading fire, tendrils wafting like sinister serpents of the air. The new hazes bore nauseating odors of garlic, brimstone, and mortified flesh. The entire street side of the Sign of the Black Iris was subsumed in a picturesque alchemical nightmare.

More or less hidden in the rising smoke, through which the masked afternoon sun shone dimly bronze, the driver darted down an alley beside the inn. He threw his coat and hat behind a pile of empty crates, then yanked away his baggy trousers and boots to reveal black hose and polished shoes. The beard was the last to go. Freshly peeled like a human fruit, smooth-cheeked and well-dressed, Locke Lamora strolled casually out the end of the smoky alley and into the court behind the inn.

“Master Lazari. Good– oof-afternoon!”

Sabetha rolled off the lowest eave on the Sign of the Black Iris’ rear side, landed hard, recovered gracefully, and offered a half-curtsey from about ten feet away. Three of her security folk followed her, landed awkwardly, and spread out in an arc around Locke. The window they’d spilled out of remained open, its shutters swaying in the soft breeze.

“Oh, hello, Mistress Gallante,” said Locke cheerfully. “Having problems with your inn?”

“Nothing that can’t be corrected with a little assistance, I’m sure.”

“I do wish I could help,” said Locke. “I just happened to be nearby. Ahhhh! I remember now! You’re having some sort of big Black Iris party meeting today, aren’t you? My condolences! The smoke, the flames … I can only imagine the consternation.”

“I’m sure you’ve imagined it in detail.” Sabetha moved close enough to lower her voice. “Bearded peasant goes in one end of an alley, clean-shaven gentleman comes out the other? Really?”

“It’s a classic!”

“It’s got cobwebs on it. Might have fooled someone who hadn’t seen you do it before. Now, do you want to come with me gracefully or on the shoulders of my friends?”

“I remind you, darling, my person is inviolate.”

“Don’t call me that when we’ve got our working faces on. And nobody’s person is getting violated. But you can’t think I’m going to let you stroll away while a cart full of alchemical crap burns on my doorstep.”

“Of course I can. It’s all perfectly harmless,” said Locke. “Oh, it might smell awful, and some of it reacts badly with water, and there’s just no telling what’s what until you experiment, but give it a few hours, then air your inn out for a day or two. There won’t be any lingering issues.”

“All the same, I think you should sit in a little room and be bored until I’ve got the mess under control.”

“Now, now,” said Locke, “you must credit me with the foresight to have a backup plan in case you decided to take it like this.”

“And of course, you must expect me to have one of my own in case you wanted to play hard to get,” she said.

“Oh, absolutely.”

“Well.” She ran a finger lightly up and down one of the lapels of his jacket. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

“YOU! HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!”

The shout echoed down the courtyard as a trio of surcoated constables appeared out of the drifting smoke. The leader, a man with a wheat-colored beard and the aesthetic qualities of a lard slab, touched Locke on the shoulder with a wooden baton.

“As a constable of Karthain, sir, I must formally detain you,” he said.

“How dreadful.” Locke feigned a yawn. “What’s the charge?”

“You resemble a suspect wanted for questioning in a confidential matter. You’ll have to come with us.”

“Alas.” Locke allowed the constables to gather loosely around him, and doffed an imaginary hat to Sabetha as he backed away with them. “Verena, I wish I could continue our conversation, but it seems the deficiencies of my character have become a matter of official concern. Best of luck dealing with your little … conflagration.”

Just before the smoke cloud swallowed him again, Locke rapidly gestured in code: Looking forward to tomorrow night.

Her response wasa gesture, though not one originating in the private signals of the Gentlemen Bastards. Still, Locke felt reassured by the fact that she smiled as she delivered it.

The street before the Sign of the Black Iris was a reeking mess. Well-dressed men and women with black flowers pinned to their jackets sought escape, while well-meaning people with buckets of water tripped over one another and tumbled around like billiard balls. The alchemical fires burned merrily on, a partial rainbow of sorcerous lights within the miasma. Locke’s ‘captors’ walked with him for about a block before detouring into an empty, windowless court.

“ Beautifullytimed, Sergeant,” said Locke, producing three leather purses of equal size. “Worthy of applause.”

“We take pride in the conduct of our civic duty,” said the bearded man. He and his cohorts accepted the purses with wide grins; each had earned three months’ wages for the few minutes spent loitering nearby in case of Locke’s need. It was downright pleasant, thought Locke, to be treading the old familiar realms of avarice after dealing with the eerie malleability of the “adjusted” Deep Roots people.

“Now, none of that stuff is reallydangerous, right?” said the sergeant, one bushy eyebrow raised.

“Harmless as baby spit,” said Locke. “As long as nobody’s dim enough to shove their hand into a fire.”

Satisfied, the constables took their leave. Locke had only a few minutes to wait before Jean came strolling down the avenue from the direction of the smoke, several empty sacks flung over his shoulder.

“How’d it go up top?” said Locke as the two of them fell into step together.

“Perfection and then some,” said Jean. “They were all so distracted, bothering to sneak might have been a waste of time. That’s thirty-seven snakes down the cold chimneys.”

“Magnificently childish, though I say it myself.” Locke scratched at his chin to remove a few stubborn flecks of beard adhesive. “Hopefully that’ll keep them uneasy for a few days.”

“And if she responds with more of the same?”

“I arranged to have city work gangs do some unnecessary mucking with the cobblestones around Josten’s for the next few days. No carriages can get closer than twenty yards. Our friends will grumble, but that should keep loads of mischief at a distance.”

As they walked, Locke noticed for the first time that banners had started to appear, hanging from balconies and windows. Here and there were a few brave greens, but in this neighborhood the majority were black. Citizen interest was climbing; half the allotted six weeks was nearly gone. Annoying pranks were a fine gambit, but now it was time to begin truly curbing some of Sabetha’s capabilities.

“Those spies keeping watch on our place … ,” said Locke. “Fancy a little hospitality visit once the sun goes down?”

10

THEIR SECOND night of upper-story work went as smoothly as the first. They swept the block surrounding Josten’s Comprehensive just after midnight, creeping silently through rooftop gardens and over well-tended slate roofs, using chimneys and parapets for cover.

Not everyone they crossed paths with was in Sabetha’s pay. A drunk woman, huddled in the corner of her terrace, was sobbing over a small painting and didn’t notice them slip past. Two lithe young men wrapped in one another’s arms a few gardens over were similarly absorbed. Locke crept past their cast-off clothes, close enough to sift them for purses, but pangs of sympathy stilled the impulse. Doing mischief to happy lovers might invite a cruel justice to trample his own hopes.

Their first legitimate target was taken unawares, and his possessions made his job plain. He wore a mottled gray-brown cloak ideal for blending into city shadows, carried a spyglass, and the remains of a cold meal were spread beside his hiding place. In an instant, Jean flung him down on his stomach and crouched atop him, wrenching the poor fellow’s arms behind his back. Locke knelt at the man’s head, bemused at how familiar he and Jean were becoming with the old Threatening Voice / Silent Brawn act.

“You try to cry out,” whispered Locke, “and we’ll rip your arms off. Shove one down your throat and one up your ass so you’ll look like meat on a spit. How many of you are watching Josten’s?”

“I don’t know,” hissed the man.

Locke gave him a shove on the back of the head, bouncing his face off the roof tiles. Hard, but not too hard.

“It’s not worth it,” said Locke. “Your employer doesn’t expect life-or-death loyalty, surely. But we willhurt you to send a message.”

“There’s one more,” spat their captive. “One that I know of. Maybe more. Look out past this parapet. Four rows down, roof of the apothecary shop. He’s there somewhere. I swear that’s all I can tell you.”

“Good enough,” said Locke. He pulled his dagger and slashed the man’s cloak into strips. When Sabetha’s agent was gagged and thoroughly trussed, Locke gave him a pat on the back. “Now, don’t fret. Once we’ve finished clearing out all your friends, we’ll tip one of them off and you’ll be collected. Shouldn’t be more than a few hours. Don’t do anything stupid.”

The second agent was crouched atop the apothecary shop as indicated, but he was a touch more alert and met them with a drawn cosh. What followed was a proper scrum, with Locke clinging to the man’s legs while Jean attempted to wrestle and disarm him, hampered by the need to avoid killing him. Such was the fellow’s fighting spirit that they ultimately had to pummel him unconscious before they could have a word.

As they neared the end of their circuit around the neighborhood, perhaps ten minutes later, they found a third and likely final observer, fortunately no more on guard than the first.

“All your friends are dealt with,” said Jean cheerfully as he dangled the man over the back-alley side of the building by his jacket collar. “Trussed up like festival chickens.”

“Great gods, mate, it’s nothing personal,” sobbed the man as he stared into the shadows four stories below. “We’re just doing our bloody job!”

“Find another job,” said Locke. “This is us being very, very cordial. Next time we catch spies lurking in this neighborhood, we cripple them. This isn’t Karthain right now, it’s the sovereign state of Fuck Off and Go Home.”

“But—”

“Take a good look at that alley,” said Locke. “Imagine what those cold, hard stones will feel like when we throw you off this roof. You come round here again, you’d best have wings. Now, your comrades are tied up in their usual spots. Fetch them and run hard.”

“Couldn’t we discuss—”

“Get the dogshit out of your ears, you witless corpse-fart,” growled Jean. “Do you want to do as you’re told, or do you want to kiss that pavement?”

It turned out he wanted to do as he was told.

11

“HAVE YOU ever thought about how badly Chains fucked us all up?”

“Gods above!’ Locke narrowly avoided choking on his beer. “How tipsy are you?”

“Not at all.” Sabetha held her own glass rock-steady for several moments to support the assertion.

“I understand your frustration with the way some things played out,” said Locke. “You knowI listened to you.”

“I do.”

“And you know I think you had some points. But Chains was a generous man. A generous and caring man, whatever his faults.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about. He wanted a family, very desperately. You’ve realized that?”

“Of course. I never thought of it as a defect.”

“I often think he wanted a family more than he wanted a gang.”

“Again—”

“A conscience is a dead weight in our profession.” She stared into the amber depths of her half-full glass. “Make no mistake, he shackled each of us with one. Even Calo and Galdo, rest their souls. For all that they did most of their thinking with their cocks and the rest with their balls, even they wound up with essentially kindly dispositions. Chains got us all in the end, good and hard.”

Their second dinner, the night following the alchemical “disaster” at the Sign of the Black Iris, was held aboard the Merry Drifter, a flat-topped dining barge complete with gardens and lacquered privacy screens. The barge had floated gently through the heart of Karthain, beneath the strange music of the Elderglass bridges, before finally laying anchor in the Amathel just off the Ponta Corbessa. As the sky had darkened and the alchemical globes flicked to life, little boats had ferried other diners to and from shore, but Locke and Sabetha had held their choice table at the barge’s stern all the while.

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this from someone who came out of Shades’ Hill,” said Locke. “Is that what you would have preferred? Getting beaten and starved? Maybe buggered here and there when it suited him?”

“Of course not—”

“Sabetha, you know how much I respect you, but if you can’t see what a gods-damned paradisewe lucked into when Chains picked us, you need to set that beer down this instant.”

“I don’t regret the comforts or the education. He was a faultless provider. Except in one respect … he trained a gentle streak into us and let us pretend it would never cost us.”

“You think we should have been more cruel? Ready to turn on each other like sharks in blood, like every other gods-damned gang around us? I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but that wasn’t weakness he bred into us. It was loyalty. And loyalty’s a hell of a weapon.”

“You have the luxury of thinking so.”

“Oh, not this again. The Jean situation, right? Straight and simple, gorgeous, don’t you daresit there and hit me with self-righteous envy for a friendship I kept and you walked away from.”

She set her beer down and stared coldly at him. Then, just as Locke’s heart started to sink in expectation of another one of their habitual misunderstandings, the chill thawed, and she attempted a smile. She whistled, mimicking the sound of an arrow in flight, and clutched at an imaginary shaft just above her heart.

“I’m sorry,” they both said, in Sanza-esque unison, and chuckled.

“You’re dwelling on something,” said Locke, reaching across the table to rest his free hand on hers. “Let it go. Just be here. Just be Sabetha, having dinner, floating on the Amathel. Let the world end at the sides of this barge.”

“I amdwelling on something.”

“Well, don’t take such a poisonous view of our upbringing. Come on. We lie for a living; it’s not healthy for us to lie to ourselves.”

“What do we do BUT lie to ourselves, Locke? Aren’t we supposed to be rich? Aren’t we supposed to be in command of our lives, free to go when and where we please, with all the honest simpletons of the world throwing coins at our feet? Here we are, halfway around the world, working for the gods-damned Bondsmagi just to stay alive.”

“You know, Jean’s slapped me out of a lot of moods like the one you’re in right now.” Locke took a long pull on his beer. “You’re taking the world awfully personally. Didn’t Chains ever tell you about the Golden Theological Principle?”

“The what?”

“The single congruent aspect of every known religion. The one shared, universal assumption about the human condition.”

“What is it?”

“He said that life boils down to standing in line to get shit dropped on your head. Everyone’s got a place in the queue, you can’t get out of it, and just when you start to congratulate yourself on surviving your dose of shit, you discover that the line is actually circular.”

“I’m just old enough to find that distressingly accurate.”

“You see? It’s universal,” said Locke. “Of course, I’m a stark staring hypocrite for telling you not to take it personally. It’s easy to prescribe remedies for our own weaknesses when they’re comfortably ensconced in other people. What’s got you dwelling on the past?”

“I don’t like dancing on strings, any strings, even my own. I’ve been … examining some, I suppose. Trying to follow them all the way back to where they began.”

“Ah.” Locke shuffled his glass around idly. “You’re trying to reconcile your contradictory thoughts about yours truly. And you’re wondering what sort of decision you’d be making without our shared history—”

“Gods damnit!” Sabetha punctuated this exclamation by throwing a wadded-up silk napkin at him. “Don’t do that. It makes me feel as though my thoughts are written on my forehead.”

“Come now. Fair’s fair. You read melike a scroll.”

“I tried to get you out of the way—”

“Half-assed,” said Locke. “Very half-assed. Admit it. You made it difficult, but some part of you wantedto see Jean and I get off that ship and come riding back into town.”

“I don’t know. I wanted to see you, but then I wanted you gone,” said Sabetha. “I tried to say no to dinner. I couldn’t. I don’t … I don’t want anyone to be a habitfor me, Locke. If I love someone, I want it to be my choice .… I want it to be the right choice.”

“I never felt as though I had a choice. From the first hours I knew you. Remember when I told you, for the first time? You nearly threw me off the roof—”

“I thought you deserved it. You know, it’s an opinion I return to from time to time, whether or not a roof is available.”

“You’re a difficult woman, Sabetha. But then, difficult women are the only ones worth falling in love with.”

“How would youknow? It’s not like you’ve ever been after anyone else—”

“That part’s easy. I started with the most difficult woman possible, so there was never any need to look any further.”

“You’re trying to be charming.” She squeezed his hand once, then pulled away. “I choose not to be entirely charmed, Locke Lamora.”

“Not entirely?”

“Not entirely. Not yet.”

“Well.” Locke sighed. The evening might not be ending as he’d dared to hope, but that was no reason to be less than good company. “I suppose I still have two ambitions to mind as long as I’m in Karthain. Dessert?”

“How about a ride back to shore?”

“I’ve been curious about what might happen when you suggested that. Will you be leaving by catapult? Giant kite?”

“One showy exit was amusing; two would be gauche. We can’t let these westerners think Camorri are entirely without a sense of restraint.”

Their ride back to shore was a flat-bottomed boat with velvet cushions, tended by an admirably mum old fellow rowing at the stern. Locke and Sabetha rode side by side in companionable silence, through waters that gleamed white and blue from the lanterns of the dining barge. The air was full of pale, fluttering streaks, pulsing like fireflies, adding their soft touches of light to the canvas of the water.

“Firelight Sovereigns,” whispered Sabetha. “Karthani night butterflies. It’s said they hatch at dusk and die with the dawn.”

“You and I are natives of the dark, too,” said Locke. “I’m glad some of us last a bit longer.”

Two carriages waited above the quayside.

“His and hers, I presume?” said Locke.

“To bear us back to ribbons and duties and dumping carts of burning alchemy on doorsteps.” She led him to the first carriage and held the door open. “The driver has Jean’s hatchets. Safe and sound, to be handed over on arrival.”

“Thanks. So … three nights hence?” He took her hand as he placed one foot on the step, and bit the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning too broadly when she didn’t draw away. “Come on. You know you want to say yes.”

“Three nights. I’ll send a carriage. However, I’m charging youwith finding a place this time. You’ve roamed the city enough to have some ideas, I think.”

“Oh, I’m full of ideas.” He bowed and kissed the back of her hand, then climbed into the carriage. “Can I offer you one last thing?”

“You can offer.” She pushed the door shut and looked in at him through the barred window.

“Quit being so hard on yourself. We are what we are; we love what we love. We don’t need to justify it to anyone … not even to ourselves. I seem to remember telling you that before.”

“Thank you.” She did something to the lock on the carriage door. “We arewhat we are. Now, listen, my driver will let you out when you’re back home. Don’t bother messing with the door; I had the lock mechanism sealed on the inside.”

“Wha … wait a damned minute, what are you—”

“Have a smooth ride,” she said, waving. “And I want you to know that the bit with the snakes was pretty cute. In fact, I took pains to see that they weren’t harmed, because I was certain you’d want such adorable little creatures returned to you.”

She thumped the side of the carriage twice. A panel in the cabin ceiling above Locke slid open, and as the carriage clattered across the cobbles, the rain of snakes began.

12

“PAINT ME a picture,” said Locke, standing in the Deep Roots private gallery two days later. Since his return from dinner with a carriage full of less-than-deadly but agitated serpents, he’d been consumed by the paper chase, poring over maps and allocating funds, checking and double-checking lists, with no chance to engage in more hands-on weasel work.

“Nikoros just went down to fetch the latest reports,” said Jean, blowing smoke from an aromatic Syresti-leaf cigar that would have cost a common laborer a day’s wages. “But our Konseil members here have been chatting their teeth out in all the better parts of town.”

“Successfully, too, I should think.” Damned Superstition Dexa took a sip from her brandy snifter and gestured at the map of Karthain with her own cigar. Asceticism was a virtue the Deep Roots party held in slight regard. “We’ve squeezed a lot of promises out of Plaza Gandolo and the Palanta District. Fence-sitters, mostly. And some old friends we’ve brought back into the fold.”

“ Boughtback is more like it,” said Firstson Epitalus. “Bloody ingrates.”

“What are you handing out to steady their resolve?” said Locke.

“Oh, hints about tax easements,” said Dexa. “Everyone loves the thought of keeping a little more of their own money.”

“The Black Iris people can drop the same hints,” said Locke. “I don’t mean to tell you your business, but fuck me, if something as boring as tax easements is enough to hook votes, those people won’t care which party delivers the goods. We need some impractical reasons to motivate them. Emotional reasons. That means rumormongering. I want to rub dirt on whoever’s standing for the Black Iris in those districts. Something disgusting. In fact, we’ll completely avoid mud-flinging in a few other spots to make these stand out all the more. What’s guaranteed to repulse the good voters of Karthain?”

“Rather depends on how much vulgarity you’re willing to countenance, dear boy.” Dexa drew in a long breath of smoke while she pondered. “Thirdson Jovindus, that’s their lad for the Palanta District. He’s got what you might call an open-door policy for the contents of his breeches, but he’s also just dashing enough to carry it off.”

“Seconddaughter Viracois stands for them in Plaza Gandolo,” said Epitalus. “She’s clean as fresh plaster.”

“Hmmm.” Locke tapped his knuckles against the map table. “Clean just means we can paint whatever we like on her. But let’s not do it directly. Master Callas and I will arrange a crew. Scary people on a tight leash. They’ll visit some of our fence-sitters in Plaza Gandolo, and they’ll make threats. Vote for Viracois and the Black Iris or bad things happen to your nice homes, your pretty gardens, your expensive carriages .…”

“Well, I don’t mean to tell you yourbusiness, Master Lazari,” said Epitalus, “but shouldn’t we be frightening voters into our own corner?”

“I don’t want them frightened. I want them annoyed. Come now, Epitalus, how would you feel if a pack of half-copper hoods barged into your foyer and tried to put a scare into you? Swells aren’t used to being pushed around. They’ll resent it like hell. They’ll mutter about it to all their friends, and they’ll be at the head of the line to vote against the Black Iris out of spite.”

“My, my,” said Epitalus. “There may be something in that. And what about Jovindus?”

“I’ll come up with something suitable for him, too. Let the pot simmer a while.” Locke tapped the side of his head. “Where’s Nikoros?”

“Coming, sirs, coming!” Long black plait bobbing behind him, Nikoros jogged up the gallery stairs and passed a set of papers to Jean. “Fresh as the weather, all the reports you asked for, and something, ah, unfortunate—”

“Unfortunate?” Jean flipped through the papers until he found one that caught his eye. The furrows in his forehead deepened as he read, and when finished he drew Locke aside.

“What is it?”

“The official constabulary report on the arrest of Fifthson Lucidus of the Isas Merreau,” said Jean.

“ What?”

“It says that acting on a tip from the Lashani legate, a party of constables paid Lucidus a visit and discovered a team of stolen Lashani carriage horses in his private stable, identifiable by their brands—”

“Cockless sons of Jeremite shit-jugglers!” Locke seized the report and scanned it. “That sneaky bitch. That beautiful, sneaky bitch. She just can’t let us feel good about ourselves, not even for a few days. Oh, look, out of concern for the diplomatic aspect of the situation, they’re holding Lucidus in solitary confinement until after the election!”