by Scott Lynch
A stylized spider over the Royal Seal of the Serene Duchy; none of the Gentlemen Bastards had ever seen one, but Locke was confident that few of the lesser nobility had, either. The rough description of the dreaded sigil was whispered by the Right People of Camorr, and from that description a best-guess forgery had been put together.
“Durant the Gimp says that the Spider’s just bullshit,” said Bug as he handed over the wallet. All three older Gentlemen Bastards in the room looked at him sharply.
“If you put Durant’s brains in a thimble full of water,” said Jean, “they’d look like a ship lost in the middle of the sea.”
“The Midnighters are real, Bug.” Locke patted his hair gingerly and found that his hands came away clean. “If you’re ever found breaching the Peace, you’d better pray the capa gets to you before they do. Barsavi’s the soul of mercy compared to the man that runs the Palace of Patience.”
“I know the Midnighters are real,” said Bug. “I just said, there’s some that say the Spider is bullshit.”
“Oh, he exists. Jean, pick out a moustache for me. Something that goes with this hair.” Locke ran a finger over the smooth skin around his lips, shaved just after dinner. “There’s a man behind the Midnighters. Jean and I have spent years trying to figure out which of the duke’s court it must be, but all the leads go nowhere in the end.”
“Even Galdo and I are stumped,” added Calo. “So you know we’re dealing with a devil of singular subtlety.”
“How can you be sure, though?”
“Let me put it like this, Bug.” Locke paused while Jean held up a false moustache; Locke shook his head and Jean went back to digging in the Masque Box. “When Capa Barsavi does for someone, we hear about it, right? We have connections, and the word gets passed. The capa wants people to know his reasons—it avoids future trouble, makes an example.”
“And when the duke does for someone himself,” said Calo, “there’s always signs. Yellowjackets, Nightglass soldiers, writs, trials, proclamations.”
“But when the Spider puts the finger on someone …” Locke gave a brief nod of approval to the second moustache Jean held up for consideration. “When it’s the Spider, the poor bastard in question falls right off the face of the world. And Capa Barsavi doesn’t say a thing. Do you understand? He pretends that nothing has happened. So when you grasp that Barsavi doesn’t fear the duke … looks down on him quite a bit, actually … well, it follows that there’s someone out there who does make him wet his breeches.”
“Oh. You mean other than the Gray King?”
Calo snorted. “This Gray King mess will be over in a few months, Bug. One lone madman against three thousand knives, all answering to Barsavi—the Gray King is a walking corpse. The Spider isn’t so easily gotten rid of.”
“Which,” said Locke, “is exactly why we’re hoping to see Don Salvara jump six feet in the air when he finds us waiting in his study. Because the blue-bloods are no more comfortable with surprise visits from Midnighters than we are.”
“I hate to interrupt,” said Jean, “but did you shave this time? Ah. Good.” With a small stick, he applied a glistening smear of transparent paste to Locke’s upper lip; Locke wrinkled his nose in disgust. With a few quick finger motions Jean placed the false moustache and pressed it home; in a second or two it was set there as firmly as if it had grown naturally.
“This gum is made from the inner hide of a wolf shark,” Jean explained for Bug’s sake, “and last time we used it, we forgot to pick up some of the dissolving spirit—”
“And I had to get rid of the moustache in a hurry,” said Locke.
“And damned if he didn’t scream when Jean did the honors,” said Calo.
“Like a Sanza brother in an empty whorehouse!” Locke made a rude gesture at Calo; Calo mimed aiming and loosing a crossbow at him in return.
“Scar, moustache, hair; are we done here?” Jean packed the last of the disguise implements away in the Masque Box.
“That should do it, yes.” Locke stared at his reflection in the large mirror for a moment, and when he spoke next his voice had altered; subtly deeper, slightly rougher. His intonation was the bored humorlessness of a watch-sergeant dressing down a petty offender for the thousandth time in his career. “Let’s go tell a man he’s got himself a problem with some thieves.”
5
“SO,” SAID Don Lorenzo Salvara, “you wish me to continue deliberately granting promissory notes to a man that you describe as the most capable thief in Camorr.”
“Respectfully, m’lord Salvara, that’s what you would have done anyway, even without our intervention.”
When Locke spoke, there was no hint of Lukas Fehrwight in his voice or in his mannerisms; there was no trace of the Vadran merchant’s restrained energy or stuffy dignity. This new fiction had the fictional backing of the duke’s incontrovertible writ; he was the sort of man who could and would tease a don while invading the sanctity of that don’s home. Such audacity could never be faked—Locke had to feel it, summon it from somewhere inside, cloak himself in arrogance as though it were an old familiar garment. Locke Lamora became a shadow in his own mind—he was a Midnighter, an officer in the duke’s silent constabulary. Locke’s complicated lies were this new man’s simple truth.
“The sums discussed could … easily total half my available holdings.”
“Then give our friend Fehrwight half your fortune, m’lord. Choke the Thorn on exactly what he desires. Promissory notes will tie him down, keep him moving back and forth between countinghouses.”
“Countinghouses that will throw my very real money after this phantom, you mean.”
“Yes. In the service of the duke, no less. Take heart, m’lord Salvara. His Grace is entirely capable of compensating you for any loss you incur while aiding us in the capture of this man. In my opinion, though, the Thorn will have time to neither spend it nor move it very far, so your stolen money should be recovered before that even becomes necessary. You must also consider the aspects of the situation that are not strictly financial.”
“Meaning?”
“His Grace’s gratitude for your assistance in bringing this matter to our desired outcome,” said Locke, “balanced against his certain displeasure if any reluctance on your part should alert our thief to the net drawing tight around him.”
“Ah.” Don Salvara picked his optics up and resettled them on his nose. “With that I can hardly argue.”
“I will not be able to speak to you in public. No uniformed member of the Camorr watch will approach you for any reason related to this affair. If I speak to you at all, it must be at night, in secret.”
“Am I to tell Conté to keep refreshments at hand for men coming in through the windows? Shall I tell the Doña Sofia to send any Midnighters to my study if they should pop out of her wardrobe closet?”
“I give you my word any future appearances will be less alarming, my lord. My instructions were to impress upon you the seriousness of the situation and the full extent of our ability to … bypass obstacles. I assure you, I have no personal desire to antagonize you any further. Resecuring your fortune will be the capstone to many months of hard work on my part.”
“And the Doña Sofia? Has your master dictated a part for her in this … counter-charade?”
“Your wife is a most extraordinary woman. By all means, inform her of our involvement. Tell her the truth about Lukas Fehrwight. Enlist her very capable aid in our endeavor. However,” Locke said, grinning malignantly, “I do believe that I shall regretfully leave you the task of explaining this to her on your own, my lord.”
6
ON THE landward side of Camorr, armed men pace the old stone walls of the city, ever vigilant for signs of bandits or hostile armies in the field. On the seaward side, watchtowers and war galleys serve the same purpose.
At the guard stations on the periphery of the Alcegrante district, the city watch stands ready to protect the city’s lesser nobility from the annoyance of having
to see or smell any of their actual subjects against their wishes.
Locke and Calo crossed the Angevine just before midnight on the broad glass bridge called the Eldren Arch. This ornately carved span connected the western Alcegrante with the lush semipublic gardens of Twosilver Green—another spot where the insufficiently well-heeled were discouraged from lingering, often with whips and batons.
Tall cylinders of ruby-colored glass shed alchemical light onto the wispy threads of mist that curled and wavered below the knees of their horses; the center of the bridge was fifty feet above the water, and the usual night fog reached no higher. The red lamps swayed gently within their black iron frames as the muggy Hangman’s Breeze spun them, and the two Gentlemen Bastards rode down into the Alcegrante with that eerie light surrounding them like a bloody aura.
“Hold there! State your name and business!”
At the point where the bridge met the Angevine’s north shore there was a low wooden shack with oil-paper windows, through which a pale white glow emanated. A single figure stood beside it, his yellow tabard turned to orange in the light of the bridge lamps. The speaker’s words might have been bold, but his voice was young and a little uncertain.
Locke smiled; the Alcegrante guard shacks always held two yellowjackets, but at this one the more senior had clearly sent his less-hardened partner out into the fog to do the actual work. So much the better—Locke pulled his precious sigil-wallet out of his black cloak as his horse cantered down beside the guard station.
“My name is immaterial.” Locke flipped the wallet open to allow the round-faced young city watchman a glimpse of the sigil by the light of his guard station. “My business is that of His Grace, Duke Nicovante.”
“I … I see, sir.”
“I never came this way. We did not speak. Be sure that your fellow watchman understands this as well.”
The yellowjacket bowed and took a quick step backward, as though afraid to stay too close. Locke smiled. Black-cloaked riders on black horses, looming out of darkness and mist … It was easy to laugh at such conceits in full daylight. But night had a way of lending weight to phantasms.
If Coin-Kisser’s Row was where Camorr’s money was put to use, the Alcegrante district was where it was put to rest. It was four connected islands, each a sort of tiered hill sloping up to the base of the plateau that held the Five Towers; old money and new money mingled crazy-quilt fashion here in mazes of manor houses and private gardens. Here the merchants and money-changers and ship-brokers looked down comfortably on the rest of the city; here the lesser nobility looked up covetously at the towers of the Five Families who ruled all.
Carriages clattered past from time to time, their black lacquered wooden cabins trailing bobbing lanterns and banners proclaiming the arms of whoever traveled within. Some of these were guarded by teams of armed outriders in slashed doublets and polished breastplates—this year’s fashion for rented thugs. A few teams of horses wore harnesses spotted with miniature alchemical lights; these appeared at a distance looking like chains of fireflies bobbing in the mist.
Don Salvara’s manor was a four-story pillared rectangle, several centuries old and sagging a bit under the weight of its years, for it had been built entirely by human hands. It was a sort of island unto itself at the heart of the Isla Durona, westernmost neighborhood of the Alcegrante; surrounded on all sides by a twelve-foot stone wall and enclosed by thick gardens. It shared no party walls with neighboring manors. Amber lights burned behind the barred windows on the third floor.
Locke and Calo quietly dismounted in the alley adjacent to the manor’s northern wall. Several long nights of careful reconnaissance by Locke and Bug had revealed the easiest routes over the alley wall and up the side of the Salvara manor. Dressed as they were, hidden by mist and darkness, they would be effectively invisible as soon as they could hop the outer wall and get off the street.
A moment of fortunate stillness fell upon them as Calo tied the horses to a weathered wooden post beside the garden wall; not a soul was in sight. Calo stroked his horse’s thin mane.
“Hoist a glass or two in memory of us if we don’t come back, love.”
Locke put his back against the base of the wall and cupped his hands. Calo set a foot in this makeshift stirrup and leapt upward, propelled by the mingled strength of his legs and Locke’s arms. When he’d hoisted himself quietly and carefully atop the wall, he reached back down with both arms to hoist Locke up. The Sanza twin was as wiry as Locke was slender, and the operation went smoothly. In seconds they were both down in the wet, fragrant darkness of the garden, crouched motionless, listening.
The doors on the ground floor were all protected from within by intricate clockwork failsafes and steel bars—they simply could not be picked. But the rooftop … well, those who weren’t yet important enough to live with the constant threat of assassination often placed an inordinate degree of faith in high walls.
The two thieves went up the north face of the manor house, slowly and carefully, wedging hands and feet firmly into chinks in the warm, slick stone. The first and second floors were dark and quiet; the light on the third floor was on the opposite side of the building. Hearts hammering with excitement, they hauled themselves up until they were just beneath the parapet of the roof, where they paused for a long interval, straining to catch at any sound from within the manor that would hint at discovery.
The moons were stuffed away behind gauzy gray clouds; on their left the city was an arc of blurred jewel-lights shining through mist, and above them the impossible heights of the Five Towers stood like black shadows before the sky. The threads of light that burned on their parapets and in their windows enhanced rather than reduced their aura of menace. Staring up at them from near the ground was a sure recipe for vertigo.
Locke was the first over the parapet. Peering intently by the faint light falling from above, he planted his feet on a white-tiled pathway in the center of the roof and kept them there. He was surrounded on either side by the dark shapes of bushes, blossoms, small trees, and vines—the roof was rich with the scent of vegetation and night soil. The street-level garden was a mundane affair, if well tended; this was the Doña Sofia’s private botanical preserve.
Most alchemical botanists, in Locke’s experience, were enthusiasts of bizarre poisons. He made sure his hood and cloak were cinched tight around him, and pulled his black neck-cloth up over his lower face.
Soft-stepping along the white path, Locke and Calo threaded their way through Sofia’s garden, more carefully than if they had been walking between streams of lamp oil with their cloaks on fire. At the garden’s center was a roof hatch with a simple tumbler lock; Calo listened carefully at this door for two minutes with his favorite picks poised in his hands. Charming the lock took less than ten seconds.
The fourth floor: Doña Sofia’s workshop, a place where the two intruders wanted even less to stumble or linger than they had in her garden. Quiet as guilty husbands coming home from a late night of drinking, they stole through the dark rooms of laboratory apparatus and potted plants, scampering for the narrow stone stairs that led downward to a side passage on the third floor.
The operations of the Salvara household were well known to the Gentlemen Bastards; the don and doña kept their private chambers on the third floor, across the hall from the don’s study. The second floor was the solar, a reception and dining hall that went mostly disused when the couple had no friends over to entertain. The first floor held the kitchen, several parlors, and the servants’ quarters. In addition to Conté, the Salvaras kept a pair of middle-aged housekeepers, a cook, and a young boy who served as a messenger and scullion. All of them would be asleep on the first floor; none of them posed even a fraction of the threat that Conté did.
This was the part of the scheme that couldn’t be planned with any precision—they had to locate the old soldier and deal with him before they could have their intended conversation with Don Salvara.
Footsteps echoed from somewhere
else on the floor; Locke, in the lead, crouched low and peeked around the left-hand corner. It turned out he was looking down the long passage that divided the third floor in half lengthwise; Don Salvara had left the door to his study open and was vanishing into the bedchamber. That door he closed firmly behind him—and a moment later the sound of a metal lock echoed down the hall.
“Serendipity,” whispered Locke. “I suspect he’ll be busy for quite some time in there. Light’s still on in his study, so we know he’s coming back out.… Let’s get the hard part over with.”
Locke and Calo slipped down the hallway, sweating now, but barely letting their heavy cloaks flutter as they moved. The long passage was tastefully decorated with hanging tapestries and shallow wall sconces in which tiny glow-glasses shed no more light than that of smoldering coals. Behind the heavy doors to the Salvaras’ chambers, someone laughed.
The stairwell at the far end of the passage was wide and circular; steps of white marble inset with mosaic-tile maps of Camorr spiralled down into the solar. Here Calo grabbed Locke by one sleeve, put a finger to his lips, and jerked his head downward.
“Listen,” he murmured.
Clang, clang … footsteps … clang, clang.
This sequence of noises was repeated several times, growing slightly louder each time. Locke grinned at Calo. Someone was pacing the solar, methodically checking the locks and the iron bars guarding each window. At this time of the night, there was only one man in the house who’d be doing such a thing.
Calo knelt beside the balustrade, just to the left of the top of the staircase. Anyone coming up the spiral stairs would have to pass directly beneath this position. He reached inside his cloak and took out a folded leather sack and a length of narrow-gauge rope woven from black silk; he then began to thread the silk line through and around the sack in some arcane fashion that Locke couldn’t follow. Locke knelt just behind Calo and kept one eye on the long passage they’d come down—a reappearance of the don was hardly likely yet, but the Benefactor was said to make colorful examples of incautious thieves.
