by Scott Lynch
There were trials-some trivial and some quite harsh. Chains tested his boys constantly, almost ruthlessly, but when he was finished with each new conundrum he always took them to the temple roof to explain what he’d wanted, what the hardships signified. His openness after the fact made his games easier to bear, and they had the added effect of uniting Locke, Calo, and Galdo against the world around them. The more Chains tightened the screws, the closer the boys grew, the more smoothly they worked together, the less they had to say out loud to set a plan in motion.
The coming of Jean Tannen changed all that.
It was the month of Saris in the Seventy-seventh Year of Iono, the end of an unusually dry and cool autumn. Storms had lashed the Iron Sea but spared Camorr, by some trick of the winds or the gods, and the nights were finer than any in Locke’s living memory. He was sitting the steps with Father Chains, flexing his fingers, eagerly awaiting the rise of Falselight, when he spotted the Thiefmaker walking across the square toward the House of Perelandro.
Two years had removed some of the dread Locke had once felt toward his former master, but there was no denying that the skinny old fellow retained a certain grotesque magnetism. The Thiefmaker’s spindly fingers spread as he bowed from the waist, and his eyes lit up when they seized on Locke.
“My dear, bedeviling little boy, what a pleasure it is to see you leading a productive life in the Order of Perelandro.”
“He owes his success to your early discipline, of course.” Chains’ smile spread beneath his blindfold. “It’s what helped to make him the resolute and morally upright youth he is today.”
“Upright?” The Thiefmaker squinted at Locke, feigning concentration. “I’d be hard-pressed to say he’s grown an inch. But no matter. I’ve brought you the boy we discussed, the one from the North Corner. Step forward, Jean. You can’t hide behind me any more than you could hide under a copper coin.”
There was indeed a boy standing behind the Thiefmaker; when the old man shooed him out into plain view, Locke saw that he was about his own age, perhaps ten, and in every other respect his opposite. The new boy was fat, red-faced, shaped like a dirty pear with a greasy mop of black hair atop his head. His eyes were wide and shocked; he clenched and unclenched his soft hands nervously.
“Ahhh,” said Chains, “ahhh. I can’t see him, but then, the qualities the Lord of the Overlooked desires in his servants cannot be seen by any man. Are you penitent, my boy? Are you sincere? Are you as upright as those our charitable celestial master has already taken into his fold?”
He gave Locke a pat on the back, manacles and chains rattling. Locke, for his part, stared at the newcomer and said nothing.
“I hope so, sir,” said Jean, in a voice that was soft and haunted.
“Well,” said the Thiefmaker, “hope is what we all build lives for ourselves upon, is it not? The good Father Chains is your master now, boy. I leave you to his care.”
“Not mine, but that of the higher Power I serve,” said Chains. “Oh, before you leave, I just happened to find this purse sitting on my temple steps earlier today.” He held out a fat little leather bag, stuffed with coins, and waved it in the Thiefmaker’s general direction. “Is it yours, by chance?”
“Why, so it is! So it is!” The Thiefmaker plucked the purse from Chains’ hands and made it vanish into the pockets of his weather-eaten coat. “What a fortunate coincidence that is.” He bowed once more, turned, and began to walk back in the direction of Shades’ Hill, whistling tunelessly.
Chains arose, rubbed his legs, and clapped his hands. “Let us call an end to our public duties for the day. Jean, this is Locke Lamora, one of my initiates. Please help him carry this kettle in to the sanctuary. Careful, it’s heavy.”
The thin boy and the fat boy heaved the kettle up the steps and into the damp sanctuary; the Eyeless Priest groped along his chains, gathering the slack and dragging it with him until he was safely inside. Locke worked the wall mechanism to slide the temple doors shut, and Chains settled himself down in the middle of the sanctuary floor.
“The kindly gentleman,” said Chains, “who delivered you into my care said that you could speak, read, and write in three languages.”
“Yes, sir,” said Jean, gazing around him in trepidation. “Therin, Vadran, and Issavrai.”
“Very good. And you can do complex sums? Ledger-balancing?”
“Yes.”
“Excellent. Then you can help me count the day’s takings. But first, come over here and give me your hand. That’s it. Let us see if you have any of the gifts necessary to become an initiate of this temple, Jean Tannen.”
“What…what must I do?”
“Simply place your hands on my blindfold… No, stand easy. Close your eyes. Concentrate. Let whatever virtuous thoughts you have within you bubble to the surface…”
2
“I DON’T like him,” said Locke. “I don’t like him at all.”
He and Chains were preparing the breakfast meal early the next morning; Locke was simmering up a soup from sliced onions and irregular little brown cubes of reduced beef stock, while Chains was attempting to crack the wax seal on a honey crock. His bare fingers and nails having failed, he was hacking at it with a stiletto and muttering to himself.
“Don’t like him at all? That’s rather silly,” said Chains, his voice distant, “since he’s not yet been here a single day.”
“He’s fat. He’s soft. He’s not one of us.”
“He most certainly is. We showed him the temple and the burrow; he took oath as my pezon. I’ll go see the capa with him in just a day or two.”
“I don’t mean one of us, Gentlemen Bastards, I mean one of us, us. He’s not a thief. He’s a soft fat-”
“Merchant. Son of merchant parents is what he is. But he’s a thief now.”
“He didn’t steal things! He didn’t charm or tease! He said he was in the hill for a few days before he got brought here. So he’s not one of us.”
“Locke.” Chains turned from the business of the honey crock and stared down at him, frowning. “Jean Tannen is a thief because I’m going to train him as a thief. You do recall that’s what I train here; thieves of a very particular sort. This hasn’t slipped your mind?”
“But he’s-”
“He’s better-learned than any of you. Scribes in a clean, smooth hand. Understands business, ledgers, money-shifts, and a great many other things. Your former master knew I’d want him right away.”
“He’s fat.”
“So am I. And you’re ugly. Calo and Galdo have noses like siege engines. Sabetha had spots breaking out last we saw her. Did you have a point?”
“He kept us up all night. He was crying, and he wouldn’t shut up.”
“I’m sorry,” said a soft voice from behind them. Locke and Chains turned (the latter much more slowly than the former); Jean Tannen was standing by the door to the sleeping quarters, red-eyed. “I didn’t mean to. I couldn’t help it.”
“Ha!” Chains turned back to his stiletto and his honey crock. “Looks as though boys who live in glass burrows shouldn’t speak so loudly of those in the next room.”
“Well, don’t do it again, Jean,” said Locke, hopping down from the wooden step he still used to reach the top of the cooking hearth. He crossed to one of the spice cabinets and began shuffling jars, looking for something. “Shut up and let us sleep. Calo and Galdo and I don’t blubber.”
“I’m sorry,” said Jean, sounding close to tears again. “I’m sorry, it’s just…my mother. My father. I…I’m an orphan.”
“So what?” Locke took down a little glass bottle of pickled radishes, sealed with a stone stopper like an alchemical potion. “I’m an orphan. We’re all orphans here. Whining won’t make your family live again.”
Locke turned and took two steps back toward the cooking hearth, so he didn’t see Jean cross the space between them. He did feel Jean’s arm wrap around his neck from behind; it might have been soft but it was damned heavy, for a ten-year-old. Locke lo
st his grip on the pickled radishes; Jean picked him off the ground by main force, whirled, and heaved him.
Locke’s feet left the ground at the same time the radish jar shattered against it; a confused second later the back of Locke’s head bounced off the heavy witchwood dining table and he fell to the ground, landing painfully on his rather bony posterior.
“You shut up!” There was nothing subdued about Jean now; he was screaming, red-faced, with tears pouring out of his eyes. “You shut your filthy mouth! You never talk about my family!”
Locke put up his hands and tried to stand up; one of Jean’s fists grew in his field of vision until it seemed to blot out half the world. The blow folded him over like a bread-pretzel. When he recovered something resembling his senses he was hugging a table leg; the room was dancing a minuet around him.
“Wrrblg,” he said, his mouth full of blood and pain.
“Now, Jean,” said Chains, pulling the heavyset boy away from Locke. “I think your message is rather thoroughly delivered.”
“Ugh. That really hurt,” said Locke.
“It’s only fair.” Chains released Jean, who balled his fists and stood glaring at Locke, shuddering. “You really deserved it.”
“Huh…wha?”
“Sure we’re all orphans here. My parents were long dead before you were even born. Your parents are years gone. Same for Calo and Galdo and Sabetha. But Jean,” said Chains, “lost his only five nights ago.”
“Oh.” Locke sat up, groaning. “I didn’t…I didn’t know.”
“Well, then.” Chains finally succeeded in prying open the honey crock; the wax seal split with an audible crack. “When you don’t know everything you could know, it’s a fine time to shut your fucking noisemaker and be polite.”
“It was a fire.” Jean took a few deep breaths, still staring at Locke. “They burned to death. The whole shop. Everything gone.” He turned and walked back to the sleeping quarters, head down, rubbing at his eyes.
Chains turned his back on Locke and began stirring the honey, breaking up the little patches of crystallization.
There was an echoing clang from the fall of the secret door that led down from the temple above; a moment later Calo and Galdo appeared in the kitchen, each twin dressed in his white initiate’s robe, each one balancing a long, soft loaf of bread atop his head.
“We have returned,” said Calo.
“With bread!”
“Which is obvious!”
“No, you’re obvious!”
The twins stopped short when they saw Locke pulling himself up by the edge of the table, lips swollen, blood trickling from the corners of his mouth.
“What did we miss?” asked Galdo.
“Boys,” said Chains, “I might have forgotten to tell you something when I introduced you to Jean and showed him around last night. Your old master from Shades’ Hill warned me that while Jean is mostly soft-spoken, the boy has one hell of a colorful temper.”
Shaking his head, Chains stepped over to Locke and helped him stand upright. “When the world stops spinning,” he said, “don’t forget that you’ve got broken glass and radishes to clean up, too.”
3
LOCKE AND Jean maintained a healthy distance from one another at the dinner table that night, saying nothing. Calo and Galdo exchanged exasperated looks approximately several hundred times per minute, but made no attempts at conversation themselves. Preparations for the meal were conducted in near silence, with Chains apparently happy to oblige his sullen crew.
Once Locke and Jean had seated themselves at the table, Chains set a carved ivory box down before each of them. The boxes were about a foot long and a foot wide, with hinged covers. Locke immediately recognized them as Determiner’s Boxes, delicate Verrari devices that used clockwork, sliding tiles, and rotating wooden knobs to enable a trained user to rapidly conduct certain mathematical operations. He’d been taught the basics of the device, but it had been months since he’d last used one.
“Locke and Jean,” said Father Chains, “if you would be so kind. I have nine hundred and ninety-five Camorri solons, and I am taking ship for Tal Verrar. I should very much like to have them converted to solari when I arrive, the solari currently being worth, ah, four-fifths of one Camorri full crown. How many solari will the changers owe me before their fee is deducted?”
Jean immediately flipped open the lid on his box and set to work, fiddling knobs, flicking tiles, and sliding little wooden rods back and forth. Locke, flustered, followed suit. His own nervous fiddlings with the machine were nowhere near fast enough, for Jean shortly announced, “Thirty-one full solari, with about nine hundredths of one left over.” He stuck out the tip of his tongue and calculated for a few more seconds. “Four silver volani and two coppers.”
“Marvelous,” said Chains. “Jean, you can eat this evening. Locke, I’m afraid you’re out of luck. Thank you for trying, nonetheless. You may spend dinner in your quarters, if you wish.”
“What?” Locke felt the blood rushing to his cheeks. “But that’s not how it worked before! You always gave us individual problems! And I haven’t used this box for-”
“Would you like another problem, then?”
“Yes!”
“Very well. Jean, would you indulge us by doing it as well? Now…a Jereshti galleon sails the Iron Sea, and her captain is quite the penitent fellow. Every hour on the hour he has a sailor throw a loaf of ships’ biscuit into the sea as an offering to Iono. Each loaf weighs fourteen ounces; the captain is a remarkably neat fellow as well. The captain keeps his biscuit in casks, a quarter-ton apiece. He sails for one week even. How many casks does he open? And how much biscuit does the Lord of the Grasping Waters get?”
Again the boys worked their boxes, and again Jean looked up while Locke, little beads of sweat clearly visible on his little forehead, was still working. “He only opens one cask,” Jean said, “and he uses one hundred and forty-seven pounds of biscuit.”
Father Chains clapped softly. “Very good, Jean. You’ll still be eating with us tonight. As for you, Locke, well…I shall call you when the clearing-up needs to be done.”
“This is ridiculous,” Locke huffed. “He works the box better than I do! You set this up for me to lose.”
“Ridiculous, is it? You’ve been putting on airs recently, my dear boy. You’ve reached that certain age where many boys seem to just sort of fold up their better judgment and set it aside for a few years. Hell, Sabetha’s done it, too. Part of the reason I sent her off to where she is at the moment. Anyhow, it seems to me that your nose is tilting a little high in the air for someone with a death-mark around his throat.”
Locke’s blush deepened. Jean snuck a furtive glance at him; Calo and Galdo, who already knew about the shark’s tooth, stared fixedly at their empty plates and glasses.
“The world is full of conundrums that will tax your skills. Do you presume that you will always get to choose the ones that best suit your strengths? If I wanted to send a boy to impersonate a money-changer’s apprentice, who do you think I’d give the job to, if I had to choose between yourself and Jean? It’s no choice at all.”
“I…suppose.”
“You suppose too much. You deride your new brother because his figure aspires to the noble girth of my own.” Chains rubbed his stomach and grinned mirthlessly. “Didn’t it ever occur to you that he fits in some places even better than you do, because of it? Jean looks like a merchant’s son, like a well-fed noble, like a plump little scholar. His appearance could be as much an asset to him as yours is to you.”
“I guess…”
“And if you needed any further demonstration that he can do things you cannot, well, why don’t I instruct him to wallop the shit out of you one more time?”
Locke attempted to spontaneously shrink down inside his tunic and vanish into thin air; failing, he hung his head.
“I’m sorry,” said Jean. “I hope I didn’t hurt you badly.”
“You don’t need to be sorry,�
� Locke mumbled. “I suppose I really did deserve it.”
“The threat of an empty stomach soon rekindles wisdom.” Chains smirked. “Hardships are arbitrary, Locke. You never know which particular quality in yourself or a fellow is going to get you past them. For example, raise your hands if your surname happens to be Sanza.”
Calo and Galdo did so, a bit hesitantly.
“Anyone with the surname Sanza,” said Chains, “may join our new brother Jean Tannen in dining this evening.”
“I love being used as an example!” said Galdo.
“Anyone with the surname Lamora,” said Chains, “may eat, but first he will serve forth all the courses, and attend on Jean Tannen.”
So Locke scuttled about, embarrassment and relief mingled on his face. The meal was roasted capon stuffed with garlic and onions, with grapes and figs scalded in a hot wine sauce on the side. Father Chains poured all of his usual prayer toasts, dedicating the last to “Jean Tannen, who lost one family but came to another soon enough.”
At that Jean’s eyes watered, and the boy lost whatever good cheer the food had brought to him. Noticing this, Calo and Galdo took action to salvage his mood.
“That was really good, what you did with the box,” said Calo.
“None of us can work it that fast,” said Galdo.
“And we’re good with sums!”
“Or at least,” said Galdo, “we thought we were, until we met you.”
“It was nothing,” said Jean. “I can be even faster. I am…I meant to say…”
He looked nervously at Father Chains before continuing.
“I need optics. Reading optics, for things up close. I can’t see right without them. I, um, I could work a box even faster if I had them. But…I lost mine. One of the boys in Shades’ Hill…”
“You shall have new ones,” said Chains. “Tomorrow or the next day. Don’t wear them in public; it might contravene our air of poverty. But you can certainly wear them in here.”
“You couldn’t even see straight,” asked Locke, “when you beat me?”