by Scott Lynch
There she worked, engrossed, heedless of the passage of time as her narrow fingers flicked from compartment to compartment. She pulled out some piles of parchment and set them aside, half considered others and pushed them back in, muttering remembrances and conjecture under her breath. She snapped out of her fugue only when the solarium door clicked open once more.
The man who entered was tall and broad-shouldered; he had an angular Vadran face and ice-blond hair pulled back in a ribbon-bound tail. He wore a ribbed leather doublet over slashed black sleeves, with black breeches and tall black boots. The little silver pins at his collar gave him the rank of captain in the Nightglass Company; the blackjackets, the Duke’s Own. A rapier with straight quillons hung at his right hip.
“Stephen,” said Doña Vorchenza without preamble, “have any of your boys or girls paid a recent visit to Don and Doña Salvara, on the Isla Durona?”
“The Salvaras? No, certainly not, m’lady.”
“You’re sure? Absolutely sure?” Parchments in hand, eyebrows arched, she stalked down the steps, barely keeping her balance. “I need certain truth from you right now as badly as I ever have.”
“I know the Salvaras, m’lady. I met them both at last year’s Day of Changes feast; I rode up to the Sky Garden in the same cage with them.”
“And you haven’t sent any of the Midnighters to pay them a visit?”
“Twelve gods, no. Not one.”
“Then someone is abusing our good name, Stephen. And I think we may finally have the Thorn of Camorr.”
Reynart stared at her, then grinned. “You’re joking. You’re not? Pinch me, I must be dreaming. What’s the situation?”
“First things first; I know you think fastest when we nurse that damned sweet tooth of yours. Peek inside the dumbwaiter; I’m going to have a seat.”
“Oh my,” said Reynart, peering into the chain-hoist shaft that held the dumbwaiter. “It looks as though someone’s already made a merry work of this poor spice cake. I’ll put it out of its misery. There’s wine and glasses, too—looks like one of your sweet whites.”
“Gods bless Gilles; I’d forgotten to ask him for that, I was in such haste to get to my files. Be a dear dutiful subordinate and pour us a glass.”
“Dear dutiful subordinate, indeed. For the cake, I’d polish your slippers as well.”
“I’ll hold that promise in reserve for the next time you vex me, Stephen. Oh, fill the glass, I’m not thirteen years old. Now, take your seat and listen to this. If everything signifies, as I believe it shall, the bastard has just been delivered to us right in the middle of one of his schemes.”
“How so?”
“I’ll answer a question with a question, Stephen.” She took a deep draught of her white wine and settled back into her chair. “Tell me, how much do you know of the body of lore surrounding Austershalin brandy?”
3
“POSING AS one of us,” Reynart mused after she’d finished her tale. “The sheer fucking cheek. But are you sure it’s the Thorn?”
“If it isn’t, then we could only presume that we now have another equally skilled and audacious thief picking the pockets of my peers. And I think that’s presuming a bit much. Even for a city crammed as full of ghosts as this one.”
“Mightn’t it be the Gray King? He’s the right sort of slippery, by all reports.”
“Mmmm. No, the Gray King’s been murdering Barsavi’s men. The Thorn’s mode of operation is plain trickery; not a drop of real blood shed yet, as near as I can tell. And I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”
Reynart set aside his empty cake plate and took a sip from his glass of wine. “So if we can trust Doña Salvara’s story, we’re looking at a gang of at least four men. The Thorn himself—let’s call him Lukas Fehrwight, for the sake of argument. His servant Graumann. And the two men who broke into the Salvara estate.”
“That’s a beginning, Stephen. But I’d say the gang is more probably five or six.”
“How do you figure?”
“I believe the false Midnighter was telling the truth when he told Don Salvara that the attack near the Temple of Fortunate Waters was staged; it would have to be, for a scheme this complex. So we have two more accomplices—the masked attackers.”
“Assuming they weren’t just hired for the task.”
“I doubt it. Consider the total paucity of information we’ve had previous to this: not one report, one boast, one slender whisper from anyone, anywhere. Not a speck of information pointing to anyone who even claimed to work with the Thorn of Camorr. Yet on any given day, thieves will boast loudly for hours about who among them can piss the farthest. This silence is unnatural.”
“Well,” said Reynart, “if you just slit a hireling’s throat when he’s done his job, you don’t have to pay him, either.”
“But we’re still dealing with the Thorn, and I hold that such an act would be outside his pattern of operations.”
“So his gang runs a closed shop.… That would make sense. But it still might not be six. The two in the alley could also be the two who entered the estate dressed as Midnighters.”
“Oh, my dear Stephen. An interesting conjecture. Let us say four minimum, six maximum as our first guess, or we’ll be here all night drawing diagrams for one another. I suspect anything larger would be difficult to hide as well as they have.”
“So be it, then.” Reynart thought for a moment. “I can give you fifteen or sixteen swords right this very hour; some of my lads are mumming it up tonight down in the Snare and the Cauldron, since we got those reports of Nazca Barsavi’s funeral. I can’t pull them on short notice. But give me until the dark of the morning and I can have everyone else kitted up and ready for a scrap. We’ve got the Nightglass to back us; no need to even bring the yellowjackets in on it. We know they’re probably compromised anyway.”
“That would be well, Stephen, if I wanted them snatched up right now. But I don’t. I think we have a few days, at least, to draw the web tight around this man. Sofia said they’d discussed an initial outlay of about twenty-five thousand crowns; I suspect the Thorn will wait around to collect the other seven or eight he’s due.”
“At least let me hold a squad ready, then. I’ll keep them at the Palace of Patience; tuck them in amongst the yellowjackets. They can be ready to dash off with five minutes’ notice.”
“Very prudent; do so. Now, as for how we move on the Thorn himself—send someone down to Meraggio’s tomorrow, the subtlest you have. See if Fehrwight holds an account there, and when it was begun.”
“Calviro. I’ll send Maraliza Calviro.”
“An excellent choice. As far as I’m concerned, anyone else this Fehrwight has introduced the Salvaras to is suspect. Have her check up on the lawscribe she said her husband met just after the staged attack behind the temple.”
“Eccari, wasn’t it? Evante Eccari?”
“Yes. And then I want you to check out the Temple of Fortunate Waters.”
“Me? M’lady, you of all people know I don’t keep the faith; I just inherited the looks.”
“But you can fake the faith, and it’s the looks I need. They’ll keep you from being too suspicious. Case the place; look for anyone out of sorts. Look for gangs or goings-on. It’s remotely possible someone at the temple was in on the staged attack. Even if that’s not so, we need to eliminate it as a possibility.”
“It’s as good as done, then. And what about their inn?”
“The Tumblehome, yes. Send one person and one person only. I have a pair of old informants on the staff; one of them thinks he’s reporting to the yellowjackets, and one thinks she’s working for the capa. I’ll pass the names along. For now, I just want to find out if they’re still there, at the Bowsprit Suite. If they are, you can place a few of your men there dressed as staff. Observation only, for the time being.”
“Very well.” Reynart rose from his chair and brushed crumbs from his breeches. “And the noose? Assuming you get your wish, where and when wo
uld you like to draw it tight?”
“Going after the Thorn has always been like trying to grab fish with bare hands,” she replied. “I’ll want him sewn up somewhere, someplace where escape will be impossible, cut off from his friends, and entirely surrounded by ours.”
“By ours? How …? Oh. Oh. Raven’s Reach!”
“Yes. Very good, Stephen. The Day of Changes, just a week and a half from now. The duke’s midsummer feast. Five hundred feet in the air, surrounded by the peers of Camorr and a hundred guards. I’ll instruct Doña Sofia to invite this Lukas Fehrwight to dine with the duke, as a guest of the Salvaras.”
“Assuming he doesn’t suspect a trap …”
“I think it’s just the sort of gesture he’d appreciate. I think our mysterious friend’s audacity is going to be what finally arranges our direct introduction. I shall have Sofia feign financial distress; she can tell Fehrwight that the last few thousand crowns won’t be forthcoming until after the festival. A double-baited hook, his greed hand in hand with his vanity. I daresay he’ll relish the temptation.”
“Shall I pull everyone in for it?”
“Of course.” Doña Vorchenza sipped her wine and smiled slowly. “I want a Midnighter to take his coat; I want Midnighters serving him before the meal. If he uses a chamber pot, I want a Midnighter to close it for him afterward. We’ll take him atop Raven’s Reach; then we’ll watch the ground to see who runs, and where they run to.”
“Anything else?”
“No. Get to it, Stephen. Come back and let me have your report in a few hours. I’ll still be up.… I’m expecting messages from the Floating Grave once Barsavi’s funeral procession gets back. In the meantime, I’ll send old Nicovante a note about what we suspect.”
“Your servant, m’lady.” Reynart bowed briefly and then departed the solarium, his strides long and rapid.
Before the heavy door had even slammed shut, Doña Vorchenza was up and moving toward a small scrivener’s desk tucked into an alcove to the left of the door. There she withdrew a half-sheet of parchment, scribbled a few hasty lines, folded it, and closed the fold with a small dollop of blue wax from a paper tube. The stuff was alchemical, hardening after a few moments of exposure to air. She preferred to allow no sources of open flame into this room, with its many decades of carefully collected and indexed records.
Within the desk was a signet ring that Doña Vorchenza never wore outside her solarium; on that ring was a sigil that appeared nowhere on the crest of the Vorchenza family. She pressed the ring into the stiffening blue wax and then withdrew it with a slight popping noise.
When she passed it down the dumbwaiter, one of her night attendants would immediately run to the northeastern cage platform of her tower and have himself cranked over to Raven’s Reach via cable car. There, he would place the message directly into the old duke’s hands, even if Nicovante had retired to his bedchamber.
Such was the custom with every note that was sealed in blue with nothing but the stylized sigil of a spider for its credentials.
INTERLUDE
The Schoolmaster of Roses
“No, this is my heart. Strike. Strike. Now here. Strike.”
Cold gray water poured down on the House of Glass Roses; Camorr’s winter rain, pooled an inch deep beneath the feet of Jean Tannen and Don Maranzalla. Water ran in rivulets and threads down the face of every rose in the garden; it ran in small rivers into Jean Tannen’s eyes as he struck out with his rapier again and again at the stuffed leather target the Don held on the end of a stick, little larger than a big man’s fist.
“Strike, here. And here. No, too low. That’s the liver. Kill me now, not a minute from now. I might have another thrust left in me. Up! Up at the heart, under the ribs. Better.”
Gray-white light exploded within the swirling clouds overhead, rippling like fire glimpsed through smoke. The thunder came a moment later, booming and reverberating, the sound of the gods throwing a tantrum. Jean could barely imagine what it must be like atop the Five Towers, now just a series of hazy gray columns lost in the sky behind Don Maranzalla’s right shoulder.
“Enough, Jean, enough. You’re passing fair with a pigsticker; I want you to be familiar with it at need. But it’s time to see what else you have a flair for.” Don Maranzalla, who was wrapped up inside a much-abused brown oilcloak, splashed through the water to a large wooden box. “You won’t be able to haul a long blade around, in your circles. Fetch me the woundman.”
Jean hurried through the twisting glass maze, toward the small room that led back down into the tower. He respected the roses still—only a fool would not—but he was quite used to their presence now. They no longer seemed to loom and flash at him like hungry things; they were just an obstacle to keep one’s fingers away from.
The woundman, stashed in the little dry room at the top of the staircase, was a padded leather dummy in the shape of a man’s head, torso, and arms, standing upon an iron pole. Bearing this awkwardly over his right shoulder, Jean stepped back out in the driving rain and returned to the center of the Garden Without Fragrance. The woundman scraped the glass walls several times, but the roses had no taste for empty leather flesh.
Don Maranzalla had opened the wooden chest and was rummaging around in it; Jean set the woundman up in the center of the courtyard. The metal rod slid into a hole bored down through the stone and locked there with a twist, briefly pushing up a little fountain of water.
“Here’s something ugly,” said the don, swinging a four-foot length of chain wrapped in very fine leather—likely kid. “It’s called a bailiff’s lash; wrapped up so it doesn’t rattle. If you look close, it’s got little hooks at either end, so you can hitch it around your waist like a belt. Easy to conceal under heavier clothes … though you might eventually need one a bit longer, to fit around yourself.” The don stepped forward confidently and let one end of the padded chain whip toward the woundman’s head; it rebounded off the leather with a loud, wet whack.
Jean amused himself for a few minutes by laying into the woundman while Don Maranzalla watched. Mumbling to himself, the don then took the padded chain away and offered Jean a pair of matched blades. They were about a foot long, one-sided, with broad and curving cutting edges. The hilts were attached to heavy handguards, which were studded with small brass spikes.
“Nasty little bitches, these things. Generally known as thieves’ teeth. No subtlety to them; you can stab, hack, or just plain punch. Those little brass nubs can scrape a man’s face off, and those guards’ll stop most anything short of a charging bull. Have at it.”
Jean’s showing with the blades was even better than his outing with the lash; Maranzalla clapped approvingly. “That’s right, up through the stomach, under the ribs. Put a foot of steel there and tickle a man’s heart with it, and you’ve just won the argument, son.”
As he took the matched blades back from Jean, he chuckled. “How’s that for teeth lessons, eh, boy? Eh?”
Jean stared at him, puzzled.
“Haven’t you ever heard that one before? Your Capa Barsavi, he’s not from Camorr, originally. Taught at the Therin Collegium. So, when he drags someone in for a talking-to, that’s ‘etiquette lessons.’ And when he ties them up and makes them talk, that’s ‘singing lessons.’ And when he cuts their throats and throws them in the bay for the sharks …”
“Oh,” said Jean, “I guess that’d be teeth lessons. I get it.”
“Right. I didn’t make that one up, mind you. That’s your kind. I’d lay odds the big man knows about it, but nobody says anything like that to his face. That’s how it always is, be it cutthroats or soldiers. So … next lovely toy …”
Maranzalla handed Jean a pair of wooden-handled hatchets; these had curved metal blades on one side and round counterweights on the other.
“No fancy name for these skull-crackers. I wager you’ve seen a hatchet before. Your choice to use the blade or the ball; it’s possible to avoid killing a man with the ball, but if you hit hard enough it
’s just as bad as the blade, so judge carefully when you’re not attacking a woundman.”
Almost immediately, Jean realized that he liked the feel of the hatchets in his hands. They were long enough to be more than a pocket weapon, like the gimp steel or the blackjacks most Right People carried as a matter of habit, yet they were small enough to move swiftly and use in tight spaces, and it seemed to him they could hide themselves rather neatly under a coat or vest.
He crouched; the knife-fighter’s crouch seemed natural with these things in his hands. Springing forward, he chopped at the woundman from both sides at once, embedding the hatchet blades in the dummy’s ribs. With an overhand slash to the woundman’s right arm, he made the whole thing shudder. He followed that cut with a backhanded stroke against the head, using a ball rather than a blade. For several minutes, he chopped and slashed at the woundman, his arms pistoning, a smile growing on his face.
“Hmmm. Not bad,” said Don Maranzalla. “Not bad at all for a total novice, I’ll grant you that. You seem very comfortable with them.”
On a whim, Jean turned and ran to one side of the courtyard, putting fifteen feet between himself and the woundman. The driving rain thrust fingers of gray down between him and the target, so he concentrated very hard—and then he lined up and threw, whipping one hatchet through the air with the full twisting force of his arm, hips, and upper body. The hatchet sank home, blade flat-on, in the woundman’s head, where it held fast in the layers of leather without so much as a quiver.
“Oh, my,” said Don Maranzalla. Lightning roiled the heavens yet again, and thunder echoed across the rooftop. “My, yes. Now there’s a foundation we can build upon.”
