by Scott Lynch
“And that’s it?”
“Yes, except for one small thing.” Jean held up the silver mesh mask of a priest of Aza Guilla. “The aid and comfort of the Lady of the Long Silence.”
“How the hell did you arrange that?”
“Right after I dropped you off at the edge of the Cauldron,” said Jean, “I decided to row back to the Temple District and make myself useful.”
2
THE FIRE within the House of Perelandro had yet to finish burning when Jean Tannen threw himself down, half-dressed, at the service entrance to the House of Aza Guilla, two squares northeast of the temple the Gentlemen Bastards had called their home.
Elderglass and stone could not burn, of course, but the contents of the House of Perelandro were another matter. With the Elderglass reflecting and concentrating the heat of the flames, everything within the burrow would be scorched to white ash, and the rising heat would certainly do for the contents of the actual temple. A bucket brigade of yellowjackets milled around the upper temple, with little to do but wait for the heat and the hideous death-scented smoke to cease boiling out from the doors.
Jean banged a fist on the latched wooden door behind the Death Goddess’ temple and prayed for the Crooked Warden’s aid in maintaining the Verrari accent he had too rarely practiced in recent months. He knelt down, to make himself seem more pathetic.
After a few minutes, there was a click, and the door slid open a fraction of an inch. An initiate, in unadorned black robes and a simple silver mask, so familiar to Jean, stared down at him.
“My name is Tavrin Callas,” said Jean. “I require your aid.”
“Are you dying?” asked the initiate. “We can do little for those still in good health. If you require food and succor, I would suggest the House of Perelandro, although there seem to be … difficulties, this evening.”
“I’m not dying, and I do require food and succor. I am a bound servant of the Lady Most Kind, an initiate of the Fifth Inner Mystery.”
Jean had judged this lie carefully; the fourth rank of the order of Aza Guilla was full priesthood. The fifth would be a realistic level for someone assigned to courier important business from city to city. Any higher rank, and he would be forced to deal with senior priests and priestesses who should have heard of him.
“I was dispatched from Tal Verrar to Jeresh on the business of our order, but along the way my ship was taken by Jeremite raiders. They took my robes, my seals of office, my papers, and my Sorrowful Visage.”
“What?” The initiate, a girl, bent down to help Jean up. She was a quarter of his weight, and the effort was slightly comical. “They dared interfere with an envoy of the Lady?”
“The Jeremites do not keep the faith of the Twelve, little sister,” said Jean, who allowed himself to be dragged up to his knees. “They delight in tormenting the pious. I was chained to an oar for many long days. Last night, the galley that captured me weighed anchor in Camorr Bay; I was assigned to dumping chamber pots over the side while the officers went ashore to debauch themselves. I saw the fins of our Dark Brothers in the water; I prayed to the Lady and seized my opportunity.”
One thing the brothers and sisters of Aza Guilla rarely advertised to outsiders (especially in Camorr) was their belief that sharks were beloved of the Goddess of Death, and that their mysterious comings and goings and their sudden brutal attacks were a perfect encapsulation of the nature of the Lady Most Kind. Sharks were powerful omens to the silver-masked priesthood. The High Proctor of Revelation House had not been joking with his suggestion that Jean feel free to swim in the ocean after dark. Only the faithless, it was said, would be attacked in the waters beneath Revelation House.
“The Dark Brothers,” said the initiate with rising excitement. “And did they aid you in your escape?”
“You mustn’t think of it as aid,” said Jean, “for the Lady does not aid, she allows. And so it is with the Dark Brothers. I dove into the water and felt their presence around me; I felt them swimming beneath my feet, and I saw their fins cutting the surface of the water. My captors screamed that I was mad; when they saw the Brothers, they assumed that I was soon to be devoured, and they laughed. I laughed, too—when I crawled up onto the shore, unharmed.”
“Praise the Lady, Brother.”
“I do, I have, and I shall,” said Jean. “She has delivered me from our enemies; she has given me a second chance to fulfill my mission. I pray, take me to the steward of your temple. Let me meet with your Father or Mother Divine. I need only a Visage, and robes, and a room for several nights while I put my affairs in order.”
3
“WASN’T THAT the name you apprenticed under,” said Locke, “all those years ago?”
“It was indeed.”
“Well, won’t they send messages? Won’t they make inquiries and find out that Tavrin Callas was moved by divine curiosity to fling himself off a cliff?”
“Of course they will,” said Jean. “But it’ll take weeks to send one and get a reply … and I don’t mean to keep the disguise for quite that long. Besides, it’ll be a bit of fun for them. When they eventually discover Callas is supposed to be dead, they can proclaim all sorts of visions and miracles. A manifestation from beyond the shadelands, as it were.”
“A manifestation straight from the ass of a magnificent liar,” said Locke. “Well done, Jean.”
“I suppose I just know how to talk to death priests. We all have our little gifts.”
“I say,” interrupted Ibelius, “is this wise? This … flaunting of the robes of office of the priests of the Death Goddess herself? Tweaking the nose of … of the Lady Most Kind?” Ibelius touched his eyes with both hands, then his lips, and then entwined his fingers over his heart.
“If the Lady Most Kind wished to take offense,” said Jean, “she has had ample opportunity to crush me flatter than gold leaf for my presumptions.”
“Furthermore,” said Locke, “Jean and I are sworn into the divine service of the Benefactor, Father of Necessary Pretexts. Do you hold with the Crooked Warden, Master Ibelius?”
“It never hurts to have a care, in my experience. Perhaps I do not light hearth candles or give coin, but … I do not speak unkindly of the Benefactor.”
“Well,” said Locke, “our mentor once told us that the initiates of the Benefactor are strangely immune to consequences when they find they must pass as members of other priesthoods.”
“Made to feel strangely welcome, I’d say,” added Jean. “And, in the present circumstances, there are precious few practical disguises for a man of my size.”
“Ah. I do see your point, Jean.”
“It seems that the Death Goddess has been very busy of late,” said Locke, “with a great many people other than ourselves. I’m quite awake now, Jean, and very comfortable, Master Ibelius. No need to get up—I’m quite positive my pulse is right where I left it, safe inside my wrist. What else can you tell me, Jean?”
“The situation is tense and bloody, but I’d say Capa Raza’s carried it. Word’s out that all of us are dead, except myself, with that pretty price on my head. Supposedly, we refused to swear allegiance to Raza and tried to fight back on Barsavi’s behalf, and were justly slain in the process. All the other garristas are sworn; Raza didn’t wait three days before he hit. The most recalcitrant got their throats slit tonight; five or six of them. Happened a few hours ago.”
“Gods. Where do you hear this from?”
“Some from Ibelius, who can get around a bit provided he keeps his head down. Some from ministering. I happened to be in the Wooden Waste when a lot of people suddenly turned up needing death prayers.”
“The Right People are in Raza’s pockets, then.”
“I’d say so. They’re getting used to the situation. Everyone’s like to pull knives at the drop of a pin or the bite of a mosquito, but he’s got them coming round. He’s operating out of the Floating Grave, same as Barsavi did. He’s keeping most of his promises. It’s hard to argue with stability.�
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“And what about our … other concern?” Locke made the hand gesture for Thorn of Camorr. “Heard anything about that? Any, ah, cracks in the facade?”
“No,” whispered Jean. “Seems like Raza was content to kill us off as sneak thieves and leave us that way.”
Locke sighed in relief.
“But there’s other strangeness afoot,” said Jean. “Raza hauled in about half a dozen men and women last night, from different gangs and different districts. Publicly named them as agents of the Spider.”
“Really? You think they were, or is it another damn scheme of some sort?”
“I think it’s likely they were,” said Jean. “I got the names from Ibelius, and I had a good long ponder, and there’s just nothing linking them all. Nothing that signifies to me, anyway. So, Raza spared their lives, but exiled them. Said they had a day to put their affairs in order and leave Camorr for good.”
“Interesting. I wish I knew what it meant.”
“Maybe nothing, for once.”
“That would certainly be pleasant.”
“And the plague ship, Master Lamora!” Ibelius spoke up eagerly. “A singular vessel. Jean has neglected to speak of it so far.”
“Plague ship?”
“A black-hulled vessel from Emberlain; a sleek little piece of business. Beautiful as all hell, and you know I barely know which part of a ship goes in the water.” Jean scratched his stubble-shadowed chin before continuing. “It pulled into plague anchorage the very night that Capa Raza gave Capa Barsavi his own teeth lessons.”
“That’s a very interesting coincidence.”
“Isn’t it? The gods do love their omens. Supposedly, there’s twenty or thirty dead already. But here’s the very odd part. Capa Raza has assumed responsibility for the charitable provisioning.”
“What?”
“Yes. His men escort the proceedings down to the docks; he’s giving coin to the Order of Sendovani for bread and meat. They’re filling in for the Order of Perelandro since, well, you know.”
“Why the hell would his men escort food and water down to the docks?”
“I was curious about that myself,” said Jean. “So last night I tried to poke around a bit, in my official priestly capacity, you see. It’s not just food and water they’re sending out.”
4
THE SOFTEST rain was falling, little more than a warm wet kiss from the sky, on the night of Throne’s Day—the night following the ascension of Capa Raza. An unusually stocky priest of Aza Guilla, with his wet robes fluttering in the breeze, stood staring out at the plague ship moored in Camorr Bay. By the yellow glow of the ship’s lamps, it seemed that the priest’s mask glowed golden bronze.
A decrepit little boat was bobbing in the gentle water beside the very longest dock that jutted out from the Dregs; the boat, in turn, had a rope leading out to the plague ship. The Satisfaction, anchored out at the edge of bow-shot, was looking strangely skeletal with its sails tightly furled. A few shadowy men could be seen here and there on the ship’s deck.
On the dock, a small team of burly stevedores was unloading the contents of a donkey-cart into the little boat, under the watch of half a dozen cloaked men and women, obviously armed. No doubt the entire operation could be seen by looking-glass from any of the guard stations surrounding Old Harbor. While most of those stations were still manned (and would stay that way, as long as the plague ship remained), not one of them would much care what was sent out to the ship, provided nothing at all was sent back.
Jean, on the other hand, was very curious about Capa Raza’s sudden interest in the welfare of the poor seafarers from Emberlain.
“Look, best just turn right around and get your ass back … oh. Ah, beg pardon, Your Holiness.”
Jean took a moment to savor the obvious disquiet on the faces of the men and women who turned at his approach; they seemed like tough lads and lasses, proper bruisers, seasoned in giving and taking pain. Yet the sight of his Sorrowful Visage made them look as guilty as children caught hovering too close to the honey crock.
He didn’t recognize any of them; that meant they were almost certainly part of Raza’s private gang. He tried to size them up with a glance, looking for anything incongruous or unusual that might shed light on their point of origin, but there was very little. They wore a great deal of jewelry; earrings, mostly—seven or eight of them per ear in one young woman’s case. That was a fashion more nautical than criminal, but it still might not mean anything.
“I merely came to pray,” said Jean, “for the intercession of the Lady Most Kind with those unfortunates out there on the water. Pay me no heed, and do continue with your labors.”
Jean encouraged them by putting his back mostly to the gang of laborers; he stood staring out at the ship, listening very carefully to the sounds of the work going on beside him. There were grunts of lifting and the tread of footfalls; the creaking of weathered, water-eaten boards. The donkey-cart had looked to be full of little sacks, each about the size of a one-gallon wineskin. For the most part, the crew handled them gingerly, but after a few minutes—
“Gods damn it, Mazzik!” There was a strange clattering, clinking noise as one of the sacks hit the dock. The overseer of the labor gang immediately wrung his hands and looked over at Jean. “I, uh, begging your pardon, Your Holiness. We, uh, we swore … we promised we would, uh, see these supplies safely to the plague ship.”
Jean turned slowly and let the man have the full, drawn-out effect of his faceless regard. Then he nodded, ever so slightly. “It is a penitent thing you do. Your master is most charitable to undertake the work that would ordinarily fall to the Order of Perelandro.”
“Yeah, uh … that really was too bad. Quite the, uh, tragedy.”
“The Lady Most Kind tends the mortal garden as she will,” said Jean, “and plucks what blossoms she will. Don’t be angry with your man. It’s only natural, to be discomfited in the presence of something … so unusual.”
“Oh, the plague ship,” said the man. “Yeah, it, uh, gives us all the creeps.”
“I shall leave you to your work,” said Jean. “Call for us at the House of Aza Guilla if the men aboard that ship should chance to need us.”
“Uh … sure. Th-thank you, Your Holiness.”
As Jean walked slowly along the dock, back toward shore, the crew finished loading the small boat, which was then unlashed from its mooring.
“Haul away,” bellowed one of the men at the end of the dock.
Slowly, the rope tautened, and then as the little black silhouettes aboard the Satisfaction picked up the rhythm of their work, the boat began to draw across Old Harbor toward the frigate at good speed, leaving a wavering silver wake on the dark water.
Jean strolled north into the Dregs, using the dignified pace of a priest to give himself time to roll one question over and over in his mind.
What could a ship full of dead and dying men reasonably do with bags of coins?
5
“BAGS OF coins? You’re absolutely sure?”
“It was cold spending metal, Locke. You may recall we had a whole vault full of it, until recently. I’d say we both have a pretty keen ear for the sound of coins on coins.”
“Hmmm. So unless the duke’s started minting full crowns in bread since I fell ill, those provisions are as charitable as my gods-damned mood.”
“I’ll keep nosing about and see if I can turn anything else up.”
“Good, good. Now we need to haul me out of this bed and get me working on something.”
“Master Lamora,” cried Ibelius, “you are in no shape to be out of bed, and moving around under your own volition! It is your own volition that has brought you to this enervated state.”
“Master Ibelius, with all due respect, now that I am conscious, if I have to crawl about the city on my hands and my knees to do something useful against Capa Raza, I will. I start my war from here.”
He heaved himself up off the sleeping pallet and tried to stand;
once again, his head swam, his knees buckled, and he toppled to the ground.
“From there?” said Jean. “Looks damned uncomfortable.”
“Ibelius,” said Locke, “this is intolerable. I must be able to move about. I require my strength back.”
“My dear Master Lamora,” said Ibelius, reaching down to help pick Locke up. Jean took Locke’s other side, and the two of them soon had him back atop the sleeping pallet. “You are learning that what you require and what your frame may endure can be two very different things. If only I could have a solon for every patient who came to me speaking as you do! ‘Ibelius, I have smoked Jeremite powders for twenty years and now my throat bleeds, make me well!’ ‘Ibelius, I have been drunk and brawling all night, and now my eye has been cut out! Restore my vision, damn you.’ Why, let us not speak of solons, let us instead say a copper baron per such outburst … I could still retire to Lashain a gentleman!”
“I can do precious little harm to Capa Raza with my face planted in the dust of this hovel,” said Locke, his temper flaring once again.
“Then rest, sir; rest,” snapped Ibelius, his own color rising. “Have the grace not to lash your tongue at me for failing to carry the power of the gods about in my fingertips! Rest, and regain your strength. Tomorrow, when it is safe to move about, I shall bring you more food; a restored appetite will be a welcome sign. With food and rest, you may achieve an acceptable level of vigor in but a day or two. You cannot expect to skip lightly away from what you’ve endured. Have patience.”
Locke sighed. “Very well. I just … I ache to be about the business of keeping Capa Raza’s reign short.”
“And I yearn to have you about it as well, Master Lamora.” Ibelius removed his optics and polished them against his tunic. “If I thought you could slay him now, with little more strength in you than a half-drowned kitten, why, I’d put you in a basket and carry you to him myself. But that is not the case, and no poultice in my books of physik could make it so.”
