The Gentleman Bastard Series Books 1-3

by Scott Lynch

  “You will keep the possibility in mind?” Locke persisted.

  “Yes. I shall.” Barsavi placed a hand on Locke’s shoulder. “You must forgive me, my boy. For what has happened.”

  “There’s nothing to forgive, Your Honor.” When the capa changes the subject, thought Locke, the subject is finished. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “It is my war. It’s me the Gray King truly wishes to cut.”

  “You offered me a great deal, sir.” Locke licked his lips, which had suddenly gone dry. “I’d very much like to help you kill the bastard.”

  “So we shall. At the ninth hour of the evening, on Duke’s Day, we begin to gather. Anjais will come to fetch you and Tannen at the Last Mistake.”

  “What of the Sanzas? They’re good with knives.”

  “And with cards, or so I hear. I like them well enough, Locke, but they’re fiddlers. Amusers. I’m taking serious folk for serious business.”

  “As you say.”

  “Now.” Barsavi took a silk handkerchief from his vest pocket and slowly mopped his brow and cheeks with it. “Leave me, please. Come back tomorrow night, as a priest. I’ll have all my other priests of the Benefactor. We’ll give her … a proper ritual.”

  Despite himself, Locke was flattered. The capa had known that all of Father Chains’ boys were initiates of the Benefactor, and Locke a full priest, but he’d never before asked for Locke’s blessing in any official sense.

  “Of course,” he said quietly.

  He withdrew then, leaving the capa standing in the bloody morning light, leaving him all alone at the heart of his fortress, for the second time, with nothing but a corpse for company.

  2

  “GENTLEMEN,” SAID Locke, huffing and puffing as he closed the door to the seventh-floor rooms behind him. “We have done our bit for appearances this week; let’s all work out of the temple until further notice.”

  Jean was sitting in a chair facing the door, hatchets resting on his thigh, with his battered old volume of The Korish Romances in his hands. Bug was snoring on a sleeping pallet, sprawled in one of those utterly careless positions that give instant arthritis to all save the very young and foolish. The Sanzas were sitting against the far wall, playing a desultory hand of cards; they looked up as Locke entered.

  “We are released from one complication,” said Locke, “and flung headlong into another. And this bitch has teeth.”

  “What news?” said Jean.

  “The worst sort.” Locke dropped into a chair, threw back his head, and closed his eyes. “Nazca’s dead.”

  “What?” Calo leapt to his feet; Galdo wasn’t far behind. “How did that happen?”

  “The Gray King happened. It must have been the ‘other business’ he referred to when I was his guest. He sent the body back to her father in a vat of horse piss.”

  “Gods,” said Jean. “I’m so sorry, Locke.”

  “And now,” continued Locke, “you and I are expected to accompany the Capa when he avenges her, at the ‘clandestine meeting’ three nights hence. Which will be at the Echo Hole, by the way. And the capa’s idea of ‘clandestine’ is a hundred knives charging in to cut the Gray King to bloody pieces.”

  “Cut you to bloody pieces, you mean,” said Galdo.

  “I’m well aware of who’s supposed to be strutting around wearing the Gray King’s clothes, thanks very much. I’m just debating whether or not I should hang an archery butt around my neck. Oh, and wondering if I can learn to split myself in two before Duke’s Day.”

  “This entire situation is insane.” Jean slammed his book shut in disgust.

  “It was insane before; now it’s become malicious.”

  “Why would the Gray King kill Nazca?”

  “To get the capa’s attention.” Locke sighed. “Either to frighten him, which it certainly hasn’t accomplished, or to piss him off beyond all mortal measure, which it has.”

  “There will never be peace, now. The capa will kill the Gray King or get himself killed trying.” Calo paced furiously. “Surely the Gray King must realize this. He hasn’t facilitated negotiations; he’s made them impossible. Forever.”

  “The thought had crossed my mind,” said Locke, “that the Gray King may not be telling us everything concerning this scheme of his.”

  “Out the Viscount’s Gate, then,” said Galdo. “We can spend the afternoon securing transportation and goods. We can pack up our fortune; vanish onto the road. Fuck, if we can’t find somewhere to build another life with forty-odd thousand crowns at our fingertips, we don’t deserve to live. We could buy titles in Lashain; make Bug a count and set ourselves up as his household.”

  “Or make ourselves counts,” said Calo, “and set Bug up as our household. Run him back and forth. It’d be good for his moral education.”

  “We can’t,” said Locke. “We have to presume the Gray King can follow us wherever we go, or, perhaps more accurately, that his Bondsmage can. So long as the Falconer serves him, we can’t run. At least not as a first option.”

  “What about as a second?” asked Jean.

  “If it comes to that … we might as well try. We can get things ready, and if we absolutely must run for the road, well, we’ll put ourselves in harness and pull with the horses if we have to.”

  “Which leaves only the conundrum,” said Jean, “of which commitment to slip you out of, the night of this meeting at the Echo Hole.”

  “No conundrum,” said Locke. “The Gray King has it over us; Barsavi we know we can fool. So I’ll play the Gray King and figure out some way to ease us out of our commitment to the capa without getting executed for it.”

  “That would be a good trick,” said Jean.

  “But what if it’s not necessary?” Calo pointed at his brother. “One of us can play the Gray King, and you and Jean can stand beside Barsavi as required.”

  “Yes,” said Galdo, “an excellent idea.”

  “No,” said Locke. “For one thing, I’m a better false-facer than either of you, and you know it. You two are just slightly too conspicuous. It can’t be risked. For another, while I’m playing the Gray King, you two will be forgotten by everyone. You’ll be free to move around as you like. I’d rather have you waiting with transportation at one of our meeting spots, in case things go sour and we do need to flee.”

  “And what about Bug?”

  “Bug,” said Bug, “has been faking snoring for the past few minutes. And I know the Echo Hole; I used to hide there sometimes when I was with the Shades’ Hill gang. I’ll be down there under the floor, beside the waterfall, watching for trouble.”

  “Bug,” said Locke, “you’ll—”

  “If you don’t like it, you’ll have to lock me in a box to stop me. You need a spotter, and the Gray King didn’t say you couldn’t have friends lurking. That’s what I do. I lurk. None of you can do it like I can, because you’re all bigger and slower and creakier and—”

  “Gods,” said Locke. “My days as a garrista are numbered; Duke Bug is dictating the terms of his service. Very well, Your Grace. I’ll give you a role that will keep you close at hand—but you lurk where I tell you to lurk, right?”

  “Bloody right!”

  “Then it’s settled,” said Locke. “And if no one else has a pressing need for me to imitate the great and powerful, or a friend of mine they’d like to murder, I could use some sleep.”

  “It’s too gods-damned bad about Nazca,” said Galdo. “The son of a bitch.”

  “Yes,” said Locke. “In fact, I’m going to speak to him about it this very evening. Him or his pet sorcerer, whichever thinks to come.”

  “The candle,” said Jean.

  “Yeah. After you and I finish our business, and after Falselight. You can wait down in the Last Mistake. I’ll sit up here, light it, and wait for them to show.” Locke grinned. “Let those fuckers enjoy the walk up our stairs.”

  3

  THE DAY turned out clear and pleasant, the evening as fresh as they ever came in Ca
morr. Locke sat in the seventh-floor rooms with the windows open and the mesh screens down as the purple sky lit up with rising streamers of ghostly light.

  The Falconer’s candle smoldered on the table beside the remains of Locke’s small dinner and a half-empty bottle of wine. The other half of that bottle was warming Locke’s stomach as he sat, facing the door, massaging the fresh dressing Jean had insisted on wrapping his arm with before taking up his post in the Last Mistake.

  “Crooked Warden,” said Locke to thin air, “if I’m pissing you off for some reason, you don’t need to go to such elaborate lengths to chastise me. And if I’m not pissing you off, well, I pray that you still find me amusing.” He flexed the fingers of his injured arm, wincing, then took up his wineglass and the bottle one more time.

  “A glass poured to air for an absent friend,” he said as he filled it with dark red wine—a Nacozza retsina that had actually come from Don Salvara’s upriver vineyards. A gift to Lukas Fehrwight as he stepped off the don’s pleasure barge so many days earlier … or not so many days earlier. It felt like a lifetime.

  “We miss Nazca Barsavi already, and we wish her well. She was a fair garrista and she tried to help her pezon out of an untenable situation for them both. She deserved better. Piss on me all you like, but do what you can for her. I beg this as your servant.”

  “If you wish to measure a man’s true penitence,” said the Falconer, “observe him when he believes himself to be dining alone.”

  The front door was just closing behind the Bondsmage; Locke had not seen or heard it open. For that matter, it had been bolted. The Falconer was without his bird, and dressed in the same wide-skirted gray coat with silver-buttoned scarlet cuffs Locke had seen the night before. A gray velvet cap was tilted back atop his head, adorned with a single feather under a silver pin, easily identified as having come from Vestris.

  “I for one have never been a very penitent man,” he continued. “Nor have I ever been overly fond of stairs.”

  “My heart is overcome with sorrow for your hardship,” said Locke. “Where’s your hawk?”

  “Circling.”

  Locke was suddenly acutely aware of the open windows, such a comfort just a moment earlier. The mesh wouldn’t keep Vestris out if the hawk decided to be unruly.

  “I’d hoped that your master might come along with you.”

  “My client,” said the Bondsmage, “is otherwise occupied. I speak for him, and I will bear your words to him. Assuming you have any worth hearing.”

  “I always have words,” said Locke. “Words like ‘complete lunatic.’ And ‘fucking idiot.’ Did it ever occur to you or your client that the one certain way to ensure that a Camorri would never negotiate with you with any good faith would be to kill someone of his blood?”

  “Heavens,” said the Falconer. “This is ill news indeed. And here the Gray King was so certain Barsavi would interpret his daughter’s murder as a friendly gesture.” The sorcerer’s eyebrows rose. “I say, did you want to tell him yourself, or shall I rush off right now with your revelation?”

  “Very funny, you half-copper cocksucker. While I agreed under duress to prance around dressed as your master, you must admit that sending the capa’s only daughter back to him in a vat of piss does complicate my fucking job.”

  “A pity,” said the Bondsmage, “but the task remains, as does the duress.”

  “Barsavi wants me by his side at this meeting, Falconer. He made the request this morning. Maybe I might have slipped out of it before, but now? Nazca’s murder has put me in a hell of a squeeze.”

  “You’re the Thorn of Camorr. I would be, personally, very disappointed if you couldn’t find a way past this difficulty. Barsavi’s summons is a request; my client’s is a requirement.”

  “Your client isn’t telling me everything he should.”

  “You may safely presume that he knows his own business better than you do.” The Falconer began to idly wind a slender thread back and forth between the fingers of his right hand; it had an odd silver sheen.

  “Gods dammit,” Locke hissed, “maybe I don’t care what happens to the capa, but Nazca was my friend. Duress I can accept; gleeful malice I cannot. You fuckers didn’t need to do what you did to her!”

  The Falconer splayed his fingers and the thread gleamed, woven into a sort of cat’s cradle. He began to move his fingers slowly, tightening some threads and loosening others, as deftly as the Sanzas moved coins across the backs of their hands.

  “I cannot tell you,” said the sorcerer, “what a weight it is upon my conscience to learn that we might lose your gracious acceptance.”

  Then the Falconer hissed a word, a single syllable in a language Locke didn’t understand. The very sound was harsh and unnerving; it echoed in the room as though heard from a distance.

  The wood shutters behind Locke slammed closed, and he jumped out of his chair.

  One by one, the other windows banged shut and their little clasps clicked, moved by an unseen hand. The Falconer shifted his fingers yet again; light gleamed on the web within his hands, and Locke gasped—his knees suddenly ached as though they’d been kicked from the sides, sharply.

  “This is the second time,” said the Bondsmage, “that you have been flippant with me. I fail to find it amusing. So I will reinforce my client’s instructions, and I shall take my time doing so.”

  Locke gritted his teeth; tears sprang unbidden to his eyes as the pain in his legs intensified, throbbed, spread. It now felt as though a cold flame were playing against his knee sockets from the inside. Unable to support his own weight, he tottered forward. One hand clutched helplessly at his legs while the other tried to hold him up against the table. He glared at the Bondsmage and tried to speak, but found that the muscles of his neck began spasming as he did.

  “You are property, Lamora. You belong to the Gray King. He cares not that Nazca Barsavi was your friend; it was her ill fortune to be born to the father the gods gave her.”

  The spasming spread down Locke’s spine, across his arms, and down his legs, where it met the freezing, gnawing pain already at work there in a hideous fusion. He fell onto his back, gasping, his face a rictus mask, his hands curved in the air above his head like claws.

  “You look like an insect thrown into a fire. And this is the merest exercise of my art. The things I could do to you if I were to stitch your true name into cloth or scribe it on parchment … ‘Lamora’ is obviously not your given name; it’s Throne Therin for ‘shadow.’ But your first name, now that … that would be just enough to master you, if I wished to make use of it.”

  The Falconer’s fingers flew back and forth, blurring in Locke’s vision, shifting and stretching those silver threads, and the tempo of Locke’s torment rose in direct proportion to the motion of that gleaming design. His heels were slapping against the floor; his teeth were rattling in his jaw; it seemed to him that someone was trying to cut the bones out of his thighs with icicles. Again and again he tried to suck in enough air to scream, but his lungs would not move. His throat was packed with thorns, and the world was growing black and red at the edges.…

  Release itself was a shock. He lay on the ground, bonelessly, still feeling the ghosts of pain throbbing across his body. Warm tears slid down his cheeks.

  “You’re not a particularly intelligent man, Lamora. An intelligent man would never deliberately waste my time. An intelligent man would grasp the nuances of the situation without the need for … repetition.”

  Another motion of blurred silver in the corner of Locke’s vision, and new pain erupted in his chest, like a blossom of fire surrounding his heart. He could feel it there, burning the very core of his being. It seemed to him that he could actually smell the crisping flesh within his lungs, and feel the air in his throat warming until it was as hot as that of a bread oven. Locke groaned, writhed, threw his head back, and finally screamed.

  “I need you,” said the Falconer, “but I will have you meek and grateful for my forbearance. Your f
riends are another matter. Shall I do this to Bug, while you watch? Shall I do it to the Sanzas?”

  “No … please, no,” Locke cried out, curled in agony, his hands clutching at his left breast. He found himself tearing at his tunic, like an animal mad with pain. “Not them!”

  “Why not? They are immaterial to my client. They are expendable.”

  The burning pain abated, once again shocking Locke with its absence. He huddled on his side, breathing raggedly, unable to believe that heat so fierce could vanish so swiftly.

  “One more sharp word,” said the Bondsmage, “one more flippant remark, one more demand, one more scrap of anything less than total abjection, and they will pay the price for your pride.” He lifted the glass of retsina from the table and sipped at it. He then snapped the fingers of his other hand and the liquid in the glass vanished in an instant, boiled away without a speck of flame. “Are we now free from misunderstanding?”

  “Yes,” said Locke, “perfectly. Yes. Please don’t harm them. I’ll do whatever I must.”

  “Of course you will. Now, I’ve brought the components of the costume you’ll be wearing at the Echo Hole. You’ll find them just outside your door. They’re appropriately theatrical. I won’t presume to tell you how to make ready with your mummery; be in position across from the Echo Hole at half past ten on the night of the meeting. I shall guide you from there, and direct you in what to say.”

  “Barsavi,” Locke coughed out. “Barsavi … will mean to kill me.”

  “Do you doubt that I could continue punishing you here, at my leisure, until you were mad with pain?”

  “No … no.”

  “Then do not doubt that I can protect you from whatever nonsense the capa might wish to employ.”

  “How do you … how do you mean … to direct me?”

  I do not need the air, came the voice of the Bondsmage, echoing in Locke’s head with shocking force, to carry forth my instructions. When you require prompting in your meeting with Barsavi, I shall supply it. When you must make a demand or accept a demand, I shall let you know how to proceed. Is this clear?