by Scott Lynch
For the first time, he learned what a powerful thrill it was to go about in public in an effective disguise.
The sun was creeping upward toward noon; the crowds were thick and the city was alive with the echoes and murmurs of its masses. Locke padded intently to the southwest corner of the Temple District, where a glass catbridge arched across the canal to the island of the Old Citadel.
Catbridges were another legacy of the Eldren who’d ruled before the coming of men: narrow glass arches no wider than an ordinary man’s hips, arranged in pairs over most of Camorr’s canals and at several places along the Angevine River. Although they looked smooth, their glimmering surfaces were as rough as shark’s-hide leather; for those with a reasonable measure of agility and confidence, they provided the only convenient means of crossing water at many points. Traffic was always one-directional over each catbridge; ducal decree clearly stated that anyone going the wrong direction could be shoved off by those with the right-of-way.
As he scuttled across this bridge, pondering furiously, Locke recalled some of the history lessons Chains had drilled into him. The Old Citadel district had once been the home of the dukes of Camorr, centuries earlier, when all the city-states claimed by the Therin people had knelt to a single throne in the imperial city of Therim Pel. That line of Camorri nobility, in superstitious dread of the perfectly good glass towers left behind by the Eldren, had erected a massive stone palace in the heart of southern Camorr.
When one of Nicovante’s great-great-predecessors (on finer points of city lore such as this, Locke’s undeniably prodigious knowledge dissolved in a haze of total indifference) took up residence in the silver glass tower called Raven’s Reach, the old family fortress had become the Palace of Patience; the heart of Camorr’s municipal justice, such as it was. The yellowjackets and their officers were headquartered there, as were the duke’s magistrates—twelve men and women who presided over their cases in scarlet robes and velvet masks, their true identities never to be revealed to the general public. Each was named for one of the months of the year—Justice Parthis, Justice Festal, Justice Aurim, and so forth—though each one passed judgment year-round.
And there were dungeons, and there were the gallows on the Black Bridge that led to the Palace gates, and there were other things. While the Secret Peace had greatly reduced the number of people who took the short, sharp drop off the Black Bridge (and didn’t Duke Nicovante love to publicly pin that on his own magnanimity), the duke’s servants had devised other punishments that were spectacular in their cruel cleverness, if technically nonlethal.
The Palace was a great square heap of pitted black and gray stone, ten stories high; the huge bricks that formed its walls had been arranged into simple mosaics that had now weathered to a ghostly state. The rows of high arched windows that decorated every other level of the tower were stained glass, with black and red designs predominating. At night a light would burn ominously behind each one, dim red eyes in the darkness, staring out in all directions. Those windows were never dark; the intended message was clear.
There were four open-topped circular towers jutting out from each corner of the Palace, seemingly hanging in air from the sixth or seventh level up. On the sides of these hung black iron crow cages, in which prisoners singled out for special mistreatment would be aired out for a few hours or even a few days, with their feet dangling. Yet even these were seats in paradise compared to the spider cages, a spectacle that became visible to Locke (between the backs and shoulders of adults) as he stepped off the catbridge and into the crowds of the Old Citadel.
From the southeastern tower of the Palace of Patience there dangled a half dozen cages on long steel chains, swaying gently in the wind like little spiders on cords of silk. Two of these were moving, one slowly headed up and the other rapidly descending. Prisoners condemned to the spider cages were not to be allowed a moment’s peace, so other prisoners condemned to hard labor would toil at the huge capstans atop the tower, working in shifts around the clock until a subject in a cage was deemed to be sufficiently unhinged and contrite. Lurching and creaking and open to the elements on all sides, the cages would go up and down ceaselessly. At night, one could frequently hear the occupants pleading and screaming, even from a district or two away.
The Old Citadel wasn’t a very cosmopolitan district. Outside the Palace of Patience there were canal docks and stables reserved for the yellowjackets, offices for the duke’s tax collectors and scribes and other functionaries, and seedy little coffeehouses where freelance solicitors and lawscribes would try to drum up work from the families and friends of those being held in the Palace. A few pawnshops and other businesses clung tenaciously to the northern part of the island, but for the most part they were crowded out by the grimmer business of the duke’s government.
The district’s other major landmark was the Black Bridge that spanned the wide canal between Old Citadel and the Mara Camorrazza: a tall arch of black human-set stone adorned with red lamps that were fixed up with ceremonial black shrouds that could be lowered with a few tugs on a rope. The hangings were conducted from a wooden platform that jutted off the bridge’s south side. Supposedly, the unquiet shades of the condemned would be carried out to sea if they died over running water. Some thought that they would then be incarnated in the bodies of sharks, which explained why Camorr Bay had such a problem with the creatures, and the idea was not entirely scoffed at. As far as most Camorri were concerned, turnabout was fair play.
Locke stared at the Black Bridge for a good long while, exercising that capacity for conniving that Chains had so forcefully repressed for many long months. He was far too young for much self-analysis, but the process of scheming gave him real pleasure, like a little ball of tingling warmth in the pit of his stomach. He had no name for what he was doing, but in the collision of his whirling thoughts a plan began to form, and the more he thought on it the more pleased he became with himself. It was a fine thing that his white hood concealed his face from most passersby, lest anyone should see an initiate of Perelandro staring fixedly at a gallows and grinning wildly.
3
“I NEED the names of any men who are going to hang in the next week or two,” said Locke, as he and Chains sat the temple steps the next day.
“If you were enterprising,” said Chains, “and you most certainly are, you could get them yourself, and leave your poor fat old master in peace.”
“I would, but I need someone else to do it. It won’t work if I’m seen around the Palace of Patience before the hangings.”
“What won’t work?”
“The plan.”
“Oh-ho! Nervy little Shades’ Hill purse-clutcher, thinking you can keep me in the dark. What plan?”
“The plan to steal a corpse.”
“Ahem. Anything else you’d like to tell me about it?”
“It’s brilliant.”
A passerby tossed something into the kettle. Locke bowed and Chains waved his hands in the man’s general direction, his restraints clattering, and yelled, “Fifty years of health to you and your children, and the blessings of the Lord of the Overlooked!”
“It would’ve been a hundred years,” muttered Chains when the man had passed, “but that sounded like a clipped half-copper. Now, your brilliant plan. I know you’ve had audacious plans, but I’m not entirely sure you’ve had a brilliant one yet.”
“This is the one, then. Honest. But I need those names.”
“If it’s so, it’s so.” Chains leaned backward and stretched, grunting in satisfaction as his back creaked and popped. “I’ll get them for you tonight.”
“And I’ll need some money.”
“Ah. Well, I expected that. Take what you need from the vault and mark it on the ledger. Screw around with it, though …”
“I know. Lead ingots; screaming; death.”
“Something like that. You’re a little on the small side, but I suppose Jessaline might learn a thing or two from your corpse anyway.”
; 4
PENANCE DAY was the traditional day for hangings in Camorr. Each week a sullen handful of prisoners would be trotted out from the Palace of Patience, priests and guards surrounding them. Noon was the hour of the drop.
At the eighth hour of the morning, when the functionaries in the courtyard of the Palace threw open their wooden shutters and settled in for a long day of saying “fuck off in the name of the duke” to all comers, three robed initiates of Perelandro wheeled a narrow wooden pull-cart into the courtyard. The smallest of the three made his way over to the first available clerk; his thin little face barely topped the forward edge of the clerk’s booth.
“Well, this is odd,” said the clerk, a woman of late middle years, shaped something like a bag of potatoes but perhaps not quite as warm or sympathetic. “Help you with something?”
“There’s a man being hanged,” said Locke. “Noon today.”
“You don’t say. Here I thought it was a state secret.”
“His name’s Antrim. Antrim One-Hand, they call him. He’s got—”
“One hand. Yes, he drops today. Fire-setting, theft, dealing with slavers. Charming man.”
“I was going to say that he had a wife,” said Locke. “She has business. About him.”
“Look, the time for appeals is past. Saris, Festal, and Tathris sealed the death warrant. Antrim One-Hand belongs to Morgante now, and then to Aza Guilla. Not even one of the Beggar God’s cute little sprats can help him at this point.”
“I know,” said Locke. “I don’t want him spared. His wife doesn’t care if he gets hanged. I’m here about the body.”
“Really?” Genuine curiosity flickered in the clerk’s eyes for the first time. “Now that is odd. What about the body?”
“His wife knows he deserves to get hanged, but she wants him to get a fairer chance. You know, with the Lady of the Long Silence. So she’s paid for us to take the body and put it in our temple. So we can burn candles and pray for intercession in Perelandro’s name for three days and nights. We’ll bury him after that.”
“Well now,” said the clerk. “The corpses usually get cut down after an hour and tossed into holes on the Beggar’s Barrow. More than they deserve, but it’s tidy. We don’t usually just go handing them out to anyone who wants one.”
“I know. My master cannot see, or leave our temple, or else he’d be here to explain himself. But we’re all he has. I’m supposed to say that he knows this is making trouble for you.” Locke’s little hand appeared over the edge of the booth, and when it withdrew a small leather purse was sitting on the clerk’s counting-board.
“That’s very considerate of him. We all know how devoted old Father Chains is.” The clerk swept the purse behind her counter and gave it a shake; it jingled, and she grunted. “Still a bit of a problem, though.”
“My master would be grateful for any help you could give us.” Another purse appeared on the counter, and the clerk actually broke a smile.
“It’s within the realm of possibility,” she said. “Not quite certain yet, of course.”
Locke conjured a third purse, and the clerk nodded. “I’ll speak to the Masters of the Ropes, little one.”
“We even brought our own cart,” said Locke. “We don’t want to be any trouble.”
“I’m sure you won’t be.” Her demeanor softened for just a moment. “I didn’t mean ill by what I said about the Beggar God, boy.”
“I didn’t take it ill, madam. After all, it’s what we do.” He favored her with what he thought was his most endearing little grin. “Did you not give me what I asked for because I begged, simply out of the goodness of your own heart, with no coin involved?”
“Why, of course I did.” She actually winked at him.
“Twenty years of health to you and your children,” Locke said, bowing and briefly disappearing beneath the lip of her counter. “And the blessings of the Lord of the Overlooked.”
5
IT WAS a short, neat hanging; the duke’s Masters of the Ropes were nothing if not well practiced at their trade. It wasn’t the first execution Locke had ever seen, nor would it be the last. He and the Sanza brothers even had a chance to make all the proper reverential gestures when one of the condemned begged for Perelandro’s blessings at the last minute.
Traffic across the Black Bridge was halted for executions; a small crowd of guards, spectators, and priests milled about afterward as the requisite hour passed. The corpses twisted in the breeze beneath them, ropes creaking; Locke and the Sanzas stood off to the side respectfully with their little cart.
Eventually, yellowjackets began to haul the bodies up one by one under the watchful eyes of several priests of Aza Guilla. The corpses were carefully set down in an open dray pulled by two black horses draped in the black and silver of the Death Goddess’ order. The last corpse to be drawn up was that of a wiry man with a long beard and a shaved head; his left hand ended in a puckered red stump. Four yellowjackets carried this body over to the cart where the boys waited; a priestess of Aza Guilla accompanied them. Locke felt a chill run up and down his spine when that inscrutable silver-mesh mask tilted down toward him.
“Little brothers of Perelandro,” said the priestess, “what intercession would you plead for on behalf of this man?” Her voice was that of a very young woman, perhaps no more than fifteen or sixteen. If anything, that only enhanced her eeriness in Locke’s eyes, and he found his throat suddenly dry.
“We plead for whatever will be given,” said Calo.
“The will of the Twelve is not ours to presume,” continued Galdo.
The priestess inclined her head very slightly. “I’m told this man’s widow requested an interment in the House of Perelandro before burial.”
“Apparently she thought he might need it, begging pardon,” said Calo.
“It’s not without precedent. But it is far more usual for the aggrieved to seek our intercession with the Lady.”
“Our master,” managed Locke, “made, ah, a solemn promise to the poor woman that we would give our care. Surely, we, we mean no ill toward you or the Lady Most Fair if we must keep our word.”
“Of course. I did not mean to suggest that you had done anything wrong; the Lady will weigh him in the end, whatever is said and done before the vessel is entombed.” She gestured, and the yellowjackets set the corpse down on the cart. One of them unfurled a cheap cotton shroud and swung it over Antrim’s body, leaving only the top of his head uncovered. “Blessings of the Lady of the Long Silence to you and your master.”
“Blessings of the Lord of the Overlooked,” said Locke as he and the Sanzas bowed in unison from the waist; a braided silver cord around the priestess’ neck marked her as more than a simple initiate like themselves. “To you and your brothers and sisters.”
The Sanza brothers each took one pole at the front of the cart, and Locke took up the rear, to push and to keep the load balanced. He was instantly sorry that he’d taken this spot; the hanging had filled the man’s breeches with his own shit, and the smell was rising. Gritting his teeth, he called out, “To the House of Perelandro, with all dignity.”
Plodding slowly, the Sanzas pulled the cart down the western side of the Black Bridge, and then turned north to head for the wide, low bridge that led to the Shifting Market’s eastern district. It was a slightly roundabout way home, but not at all suspicious—at least until the three white-robed boys were well away from anyone who’d seen them leave the hanging. Moving with a bit more haste (and enjoying the added deference the dead man was bringing them—save only for Locke, who was still effectively downwind of the poor fellow’s last futile act in life), they turned left and headed for the bridges to the Fauria.
Once there, they pressed south and crossed into the Videnza district; a relatively clean and spacious island well patrolled by yellowjackets. At the heart of the Videnza was a market square of merchant-artisans; recognized names who disdained the churning chaos of the Shifting Market. They operated from the first floors of
their fine old sagging houses, which were always freshly mortared and whitewashed over their post-and-timber frames. The district’s tiled roofs, by tradition, were glazed in brightly irregular colors; blue and purple and red and green, they teased the eyes and gleamed like glass under the glare of the sun.
At the northern entrance to this square, Calo darted away from the cart and vanished into the crowd; Locke came up from the rear (muttering prayers of gratitude) to take his place. So arrayed, they hauled their odd cargo toward the shop of Ambrosine Strollo, first lady of Camorr’s chandlers, furnisher to the duke himself.
“If there’s a niggardly speck of genuine fellowship in Camorr,” Chains had once said, “one little place where Perelandro’s name isn’t spoken with a sort of sorry contempt, it’s the Videnza. Merchants are a miserly lot, and craftsfolk are pressed with care. However, those that turn a very pretty profit plying their chosen trade are likely to be somewhat happy. They get the best of all worlds, for common folk. Assuming our lot doesn’t fuck with them.”
Locke was impressed with the response he and Galdo received as they drew the cart up in front of Madam Strollo’s four-story home. Here, the merchants and customers alike bowed their heads as the corpse passed; many of them even made the wordless gesture of benediction in the name of the Twelve, touching first their eyes with both hands, and then their lips, and finally their hearts.
“My dears,” said Madam Strollo, “what an honor, and what an unusual errand you must be on.” She was a slender woman getting well on in years, a sort of cosmic opposite to the clerk Locke had dealt with that morning. Strollo exuded attentive deference; she behaved as though the two little red-faced initiates, sweating heavily under their robes, were full priests of a more powerful order. If she could smell the mess in Antrim’s breeches, she refrained from saying so.