by Scott Lynch
“Benjavier,” said Meraggio, “Benjavier, I simply cannot believe it. After all I did for you—after I took you in and cleared up that mess with your old ship’s captain … I haven’t the words!”
“I’m sorry, Master Meraggio,” said the waiter, whose cheeks were wetter than the sloped roof of a house in a storm. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it.…”
“Didn’t mean anything by it? Is it true, what this man has been telling me?”
“Oh yes, gods forgive me, Master Meraggio, it’s true! It’s all true, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry … please believe me—”
“Be silent, gods damn your eyes!”
Meraggio stood, jaw agape, like a man who’d just been slapped. He looked around him as though seeing the receiving room for the first time, as though the liveried guards were alien beings. He seemed ready to stagger and fall backward; instead he whirled on Locke with his fists clenched.
“Tell me everything you know,” he growled. “By the gods, everyone involved in this affair is going to learn the length of my reach, I swear it.”
“First things first. You must live out the afternoon. You have private apartments above the fourth-floor gallery, right?”
“Of course.”
“Let us go there immediately,” said Locke. “Have this poor bastard thrown into a storeroom; surely you have one that would suffice. You can deal with him when this affair is over. For the now, time is not our friend.”
Benjavier burst into loud sobs once again, and Meraggio nodded, looking disgusted. “Put Benjavier in dry storage and bolt the door. You two, stand watch. And you—”
The service-door guard had been peeking his head around the corner again. He flushed red.
“Let another unauthorized person, so much as a small child, in through that door this afternoon, and I’ll have your balls cut out and hot coals put in their place. Is that clear?”
“P-perfectly clear, M-master Meraggio, sir.”
Meraggio turned and swept out of the room, and this time it was Locke at his heels, hurrying to keep up.
6
GIANCANA MERAGGIO’S fortified private apartments were of a kind with the man’s clothing: richly furnished in the most subtle fashion. The man clearly preferred to let materials and craftsmanship serve as his primary ornaments.
The steel-reinforced door clicked shut behind them, and the Verrari lockbox rattled as its teeth slid home within the wood. Meraggio and Locke were alone. The elegant miniature water-clock on Meraggio’s lacquered desk was just filling the bowl that marked the first hour of the afternoon.
“Now,” said Locke, “Master Meraggio, you cannot be out on the floor again until our assassin is sewn up. It is not safe; we expected the attack to come between the first and fourth hour of the afternoon.”
“That will cause problems,” said Meraggio. “I have business to look after; my absence on the floor will be noticed.”
“Not necessarily,” said Locke. “Has it not occurred to you that we are of a very similar build? And that one man, in the shadows of one of the upper-level galleries, might look very much like another?”
“You … you propose to masquerade as me?”
“In the letters we intercepted,” said Locke, “we received one piece of information that is very much to our advantage. The assassin did not receive a detailed description of your appearance. Rather, he was instructed to put his bolt into the only man in the countinghouse wearing a rather large orchid at the breast of his coat. If I were to be dressed as you, in your customary place in the gallery, with an orchid pinned to my coat—well, that bolt would be coming at me, rather than you.”
“I find it hard to believe that you’re saintly enough to be willing to put yourself in my place, if this assassin is as deadly as you say.”
“Master Meraggio,” said Locke, “begging your pardon, but I plainly haven’t made myself clear. If I don’t do this on your behalf, my master will kill me anyway. Furthermore, I am perhaps more adept at ducking the embrace of the Lady of the Long Silence than you might imagine. Lastly, the reward I have been promised for bringing this affair to a satisfactory close … Well, if you were in my shoes, you’d be willing to face a bolt as well.”
“What would you have me do, in the meantime?”
“Take your ease in these apartments,” said Locke. “Keep the doors tightly shut. Amuse yourself for a few hours; I suspect we won’t have long to wait.”
“And what happens when the assassin lets fly his bolt?”
“I am ashamed to have to admit,” said Locke, “that my master has at least a half dozen other men out on the floor of your countinghouse today—please don’t be upset. Some of your clients are not clients; they’re the sharpest, roughest lads Capa Raza has, old hands at fast, quiet work. When our assassin takes his shot, they’ll move on him. Between them and your own guards, he’ll never know what hit him.”
“And if you aren’t as fast as you think you are? And that bolt hits home?”
“Then I’ll be dead, and you’ll still be alive, and my master will be satisfied,” said Locke. “We swear oaths in my line of work as well, Master Meraggio. I serve Raza even unto death. So what’s it going to be?”
7
LOCKE LAMORA stepped out of Meraggio’s apartments at half past one dressed in the most excellent coat, vest, and breeches he had ever worn. They were the dark blue of the sky just before Falselight, and he thought the color suited him remarkably well. The white silk tunic was as cool as autumn river-water against his skin; it was fresh from Meraggio’s closet, as were the hose, shoes, cravats, and gloves. His hair was slicked back with rose oil; a little bottle of the stuff rested in his pocket, along with a purse of gold tyrins he’d lifted from Meraggio’s wardrobe drawers. Meraggio’s orchid was pinned at his right breast, still crisply fragrant; it smelled pleasantly like raspberries.
Meraggio’s finnickers had been appraised of the masquerade, along with a select few of his guards. They nodded at Locke as he strolled out into the fourth-floor members’ gallery, sliding Meraggio’s optics over his eyes. That was a mistake; the world went blurry. Locke cursed his own absentmindedness as he slipped them back into his coat—his old Fehrwight optics had been clear fakes, but of course Meraggio’s actually functioned for Meraggio’s eyes. A point to remember.
Casually, as though it were all part of his plan, Locke stepped onto the black iron stairs and headed downward. From a distance, he certainly resembled Meraggio well enough to cause no comment; when he reached the floor of the public gallery, he strolled through rapidly enough to gather only a few odd looks in his wake. He plucked the orchid from his breast and shoved it into a pocket as he entered the kitchen.
At the entrance to the dry-storage room, he waved to the two guards and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Master Meraggio wants you two watching the back door. Give Laval a hand. Nobody comes in, just as he said. On pain of, ah, hot coals. You heard the old man. I need a word with Benjavier.”
The guards looked at one another and nodded; Locke’s presumed authority over them now seemed to be so cemented that he supposed he could have strolled back here in ladies’ smallclothes and gotten the same response. Meraggio had probably used a few special agents in the past to whip his operations into shape; no doubt Locke was now riding on the coattails of their reputations.
Benjavier looked up as Locke entered the storage room and slid the door shut behind him. Sheer bewilderment registered on his face; he was so surprised when Locke threw a coin purse at him that the little leather bag struck him in the eye. Benjavier cried out and fell back against the wall, both hands over his face.
“Shit,” said Locke. “Beg pardon; you were meant to catch that.”
“What do you want now?”
“I came to apologize. I don’t have time to explain; I’m sorry I dragged you into this, but I have my reasons, and I have needs that must be met.”
“Sorry you dragged me into this?” Benjavier’s voice broke; he s
niffed once and spat at Locke. “What the fuck are you talking about? What’s going on? What does Master Meraggio think I did?”
“I don’t have time to sing you a tale. I put six crowns in that bag; some of it’s in tyrins, so you can break it down easier. Your life won’t be worth shit if you stay in Camorr; get out through the landward gates. Get my old clothes from the Welcoming Shade; here’s the key.”
This time Benjavier caught what was thrown at him.
“Now,” said Locke. “No more gods-damned questions. I’m going to grab you by the ear and haul you out into the alley; you make like you’re scared shitless. When we’re around the corner and out of sight, I’m going to let you go. If you have any love for life, you fucking run to the Welcoming Shade, get dressed, and get the hell out of the city. Make for Talisham or Ashmere; you’ve got more than a year’s pay there in that purse. You should be able to do something with it.”
“I don’t—”
“We go now,” said Locke, “or I leave you here to die. Understanding is a luxury; you don’t get to have it. Sorry.”
A moment later, Locke was hauling the waiter into the receiving room by the earlobe; this particular come-along was a painful hold well known to any guard or watchman in the city. Benjavier did a very acceptable job of wailing and sobbing and pleading for his life; the three guards at the service door looked on without sympathy as Locke hauled the waiter past them.
“Back in a few minutes,” said Locke. “Master Meraggio wants me to have a few more words with this poor bastard in private.”
“Oh, gods,” cried Benjavier, “don’t let him take me away! He’s going to hurt me … please!”
The guards chuckled at that, although the one who’d originally taken Locke’s solon didn’t seem quite as mirthful as the other two. Locke dragged Benjavier down the alley and around the corner; the moment they were cut off from the sight of the three guards, Locke pushed him away. “Go,” he said. “Run like hell. I give them maybe twenty minutes before they all figure out what a pack of asses they’ve been, and then you’ll have hard men after you in squads. Go!”
Benjavier stared at him, then shook his head and stumbled off toward the Welcoming Shade. Locke toyed with one of the ends of his false moustache as he watched the waiter go, and then he turned around and lost himself in the crowds. The sun was pouring down light and heat with its usual intensity, and Locke was sweating hard inside his fine new clothes, but for a few moments he let a satisfied smirk creep onto his face.
He strolled north toward Twosilver Green; there was a gentlemen’s trifles shop very near to the southern gate of the park, and there were other black alchemists in various districts who didn’t know him by sight. A bit of adhesive dissolver to get rid of the moustache, and something to restore his hair to its natural shade … With those things in hand, he’d be Lukas Fehrwight once again, fit to visit the Salvaras and relieve them of a few thousand more crowns.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THREE INVITATIONS
1
“OH, LUKAS!” DOÑA Sofia’s smile lit up her face when she met him at the door to the Salvara manor. Yellow light spilled out past him into the night; it was just past the eleventh hour of the evening. Locke had hidden himself away for most of the day following the affair at Meraggio’s, and had dispatched a note by courier to let the don and the doña know that Fehrwight would pay them a late visit. “It’s been days! We received Graumann’s note, but we were beginning to worry for our affairs—and for you, of course. Are you well?”
“My lady Salvara, it is a pleasure to see you once again. Yes, yes—I am very well, thank you for inquiring. I have met with some disreputable characters over the past week, but all will be for the best; one ship is secured, with cargo, and we may begin our voyage as early as next week in it. Another is very nearly in our grasp.”
“Well, don’t stand there like a courier on the stair; do come in. Conté! We would have refreshment. I know, fetch out some of my oranges, the new ones. We’ll be in the close chamber.”
“Of course, m’lady.” Conté stared at Locke with narrowed eyes and a grudging half-smile. “Master Fehrwight. I do hope the night finds you in good health.”
“Quite good, Conté.”
“How splendid. I shall return very shortly.”
Almost all Camorri manors had two sitting rooms near their entrance hall; one was referred to as the “duty chamber,” where meetings with strangers and other formal affairs would be held. It would be kept coldly, immaculately, and expensively furnished; even the carpets would be clean enough to eat off of. The “close chamber,” in contrast, was for intimate and trusted acquaintances and was traditionally furnished for sheer comfort, in a manner that reflected the personality of the lord and lady of the manor.
Doña Sofia led him to the Salvaras’ close chamber, which held four deeply padded leather armchairs with tall backs like caricatures of thrones. Where most sitting rooms would have had little tables beside each chair, this one had four potted trees, each just slightly taller than the chair it stood beside. The trees smelled of cardamon, a scent that suffused the room.
Locke looked closely at the trees; they were not saplings, as he had first thought. They were miniatures, somehow. They had leaves barely larger than his thumbnail; their trunks were no thicker than a man’s forearms, and their branches narrowed to the width of fingers. Within the twisting confines of its branches, each tree supported a small wooden shelf and a hanging alchemical lantern. Sofia tapped these to bring them to life, filling the room with amber light and green-tinted shadows. The patterns cast by the leaves onto the walls were at once fantastical and relaxing. Locke ran a finger through the soft, thin leaves of the nearest tree.
“Your handiwork is incredible, Doña Sofia,” he said. “Even for someone well acquainted with the work of our Planting Masters … We care mostly for function, for yields. You possess flair in abundance.”
“Thank you, Lukas. Do be seated. Alchemically reducing the frame of larger botanicals is an old art, but one I happen to particularly enjoy, as a sort of hobby. And, as you can see, these are functional pieces as well. But these are hardly the greatest wonders in the room—I see you’ve taken up our Camorri fashions!”
“This? Well, one of your clothiers seemed to believe he was taking pity on me; he offered such a bargain I could not in good conscience refuse. This is by far the longest I’ve ever been in Camorr; I decided I might as well attempt to blend in.”
“How splendid!”
“Yes, it is,” said Don Salvara, who strolled in fastening the buttons of his own coat cuffs. “Much better than your black Vadran prisoner’s outfits. Don’t get me wrong—they’re quite the thing for a northern clime, but down here they look like they’re trying to strangle the wearer. Now, Lukas, what’s the status of all the money we’ve been spending?”
“One galleon is definitely ours,” said Locke. “I have a crew and a suitable cargo; I’ll supervise the loading myself over the next few days. It will be ready to depart next week. And I have a promising lead on a second to accompany it, ready within the same time frame.”
“A promising lead,” said Doña Sofia, “is not quite the same as ‘definitely ours,’ unless I am very much mistaken.”
“You are not, Doña Sofia.” Locke sighed and attempted to look as though he were ashamed to bring up the issue once again. “There is some question … That is, the captain of the second vessel is being tempted by an offer to carry a special cargo to Balinel—a relatively long voyage but for a very decent price. He has, as yet, to commit to my offers.”
“And I suppose,” said Don Lorenzo as he took a seat beside his wife, “that a few thousand more crowns might need to be thrown at his feet to make him see reason?”
“I fear very much, my good Don Salvara, that shall be the case.”
“Hmmm. Well, we can speak of that in a moment. Here’s Conté; I should quite like to show off what my lady has newly accomplished.”
Conté
carried three silver bowls on a brass platter; each bowl held half an orange, already sliced so the segments of flesh within the fruit could be drawn out with little two-pronged forks. Conté set a bowl, a fork, and a linen napkin down on the tree-shelf to Locke’s right. The Salvaras looked at him expectantly while their own orange halves were laid out.
Locke worked very hard to conceal any trepidation he might have felt; he took the bowl in one hand and fished out a wedge of orange flesh with the fork. When he set it on his tongue, he was surprised at the tingling warmth that spread throughout his mouth. The fruit was saturated with something alcoholic.
“Why, it’s been suffused with liquor,” he said, “something very pleasant. An orange brandy? A hint of lemon?”
“Not suffused, Lukas,” said Don Lorenzo with a boyish grin that had to be quite genuine. “These oranges have been served in their natural state. Sofia’s tree manufactures its own liquor and mingles it in the fruit.”
“Sacred Marrows,” said Locke. “What an intriguing hybrid! To the best of my knowledge, it has yet to be done with citrus.…”
“I only arrived at the correct formulation a few months ago,” said Sofia, “and some of the early growths were quite unfit for the table. But this one seems to have gone over well. Another few generations of tests, and I shall be very confident of its marketability.”
“I’d like to call it the Sofia,” said Don Lorenzo. “The Sofia orange of Camorr—an alchemical wonder that will make the vintners of Tal Verrar cry for their mothers.”
“I, for my part, should like to call it something else,” said Sofia, playfully slapping her husband on his wrist.
“The Planting Masters,” said Locke, “will find you quite as wondrous as your oranges, my lady. It is as I said: perhaps there is more opportunity in our partnership than any of us have foreseen. The way you seem to make every green thing around you malleable … I daresay that the character of the House of bel Auster for the next century could be shaped more by your touch than by our old Emberlain traditions.”