by Scott Lynch
“That right there,” she said, “would be one of the obstacles I mentioned.”
“What?”
“You really didn’t notice?”
“Notice what? What am I meant to realize?”
“Think about it,” she said. She crossed her arms again, this time with her shoulders hunched forward. A protective, unwelcoming gesture. “I’m serious. I’ll give you a moment. Think about it.”
“Think about what?”
“Years ago,” said Sabetha, “I was the oldest child in a small gang. I was sent away by my master to train in dancing and manners. When I returned, I found that a younger child had taken my place.”
“But—I hardly—”
“Calo and Galdo, who once treated me as a goddess on earth, had transferred their allegiance to the small newcomer. In time, he got himself a third ally, another boy.”
“That is purest— Why, Jean is devoted to you, as a friend.”
“But not as a particular friend,” she said. “Not as he is to you.”
“Is that your obstacle?” Locke felt as though a heavy object had just spun out of the darkness and cracked him on the head. “My friendship with Jean? Does it make you jealous?”
“You listen about as well as you observe,” said Sabetha. “Haven’t you ever noticed that suggestions from me are treated as suggestions, while suggestions from you are taken as a sacred warrant? Even if those suggestions are identical?”
“I think you’re being very unfair,” said Locke weakly.
“You saw it just now! I couldn’t dissuade the Sanzas from drinking arsenic on the strength of mere common sense, but they trip over themselves to take your directions. This is your gang, Locke—it has been since you arrived, and with Chains’ blessing. You’ve been shaped and groomed as garrista for when he’s gone. And as … well, as a priest. His replacement.”
“But I … I had no notion, or intention—”
“Of course not. You haven’t really questioned anything since your arrival. You’ve assumed a position of primacy, which is easy to take for granted … until you’re quietly shuffled out of it. After that, I find the matter never quite leaves one’s thoughts.”
“But—I have been worked and tested as sorely as you,” said Locke, fighting to keep his voice down. “As sorely as anyone! Do you remember how long it took me to pay this off?” He reached down the front of his tunic and pulled out his shark’s tooth, ensconced in its little leather bag. “Gods above, I could have a city house and a carriage for the money I poured into this damn thing. And I served as many apprenticeships as—”
“I’m not talking about your training, Locke, I know what Chains has done to us all. I’m talking about the way you accepted everything as you accept your own skin. Something natural and undeserving of reflection. Well, let me assure you that the only woman in a house of men has frequent cause for reflection.”
“This is a complete surprise to me,” said Locke.
“I know,” she said softly. “That’s a problem.”
She stared up at the sky, where one of the moons was emerging from behind a low haze of clouds, and Locke had no idea how to begin responding to her.
“A week to go,” she said at last. “A long, slow week of all the pleasures I named earlier. We’re going to be tired, sore, smelly, and bitten half to death by the time we reach Espara. I would … I want to talk to you again, Locke, but I can’t bring myself to make it a subject of hopeful anticipation night after night under these circumstances. Neither of us will be at our best.”
“And this merits our best,” he said grudgingly.
“I think it does. So can we keep it simple while we’re traveling? Eyes on the ground, asses in our seats, and all of these … matters tabled until a later date?”
“You think it’s fair to dump this in my lap and then request a conversational truce?”
“I don’t think it’s fair at all,” she said. “Just necessary.”
“Well, then. If nothing else, it seems I’ll have a lot of time to ruminate on an explanation for you—”
“An explanation? You think what I want out of you is some sort of defense? Surely you can see that I’ve explained you already. What comes next is—”
“Yes?”
“I won’t say. I think I need you to tell me.”
“All you have to do is—”
“No,” she said sharply. “I’ve told you everything you need to know to figure out what comes next. If my words really are like smoldering coals, Locke, then let these ones smolder. Sift them, and bring me an answer sometime after we reach Espara. Bring me a good answer.”
3
ESPARA, FORMERLY a seat of prestige only one step below Therim Pel itself, had descended from its imperial years the way some men and women descend into middle-aged lethargy, discarding the vigor and ambition of youth like a suit of clothes that can no longer be wriggled into.
Locke caught his first glimpse of the place just after noon on the tenth day, when the caravan turned the bend between two ruin-studded hills and entered the familiar, irregular green-and-brown whorls of a farming landscape. On the southern horizon lay the faint shapes of towers under curling gray smears of smoke.
“Espara,” said Anatoly Vireska. “Right where I left it. No more stops for rest, my young friends. Before the sun sets you’ll be in the city looking for your actor fellows.”
“Well done, caravan master,” said Locke, who had the reins while Jean was snoring gently under the tarp at the rear of the wagon. “Not what I’d call a scenic tour, but you’ve brought us through without a scratch.”
“When the crop of bandits is thin, it’s a restful little walk. Now it’s back to dodging carriages, breathing smoke, and paying rent for the beds you sleep in, eh?”
“Gods be praised,” said Locke.
“City creatures are the strangest of all,” said Vireska with a friendly shake of his head. He moved off to visit the rest of the wagons.
All the Gentlemen Bastards, more or less as footsore, ass-sore, unwashed, and drained of blood as Sabetha had predicted, had given up on walking this morning. Calo and Galdo leaned against each other, watching the landscape roll by at its strolling pace, while Sabetha was absorbed in the copy of The Republic of Thieves she’d picked up before they’d left Camorr.
“Is the play any good?” said Galdo.
“I think so,” said Sabetha, “except the final act has been torn out of this folio, and half the pages have stains blotting out some of the lines. I keep imagining that every scene ends with the characters hurling cups of coffee at one another.”
“Sounds like my kind of play,” said Calo.
“Are there any decent roles?” said Galdo.
“They’re all decent,” said Sabetha. “Better than decent. I think they’re very romantic. We should have names like this, like all the heroes in these plays, all the famous bandits and sorcerers and emperors.”
“Most people could give half a dry shit for having an emperor’s name,” said Galdo. “It’s the wealth and power they’d want.”
“What I mean,” said Sabetha, “is that we should have aliases like out of the old stories. Big, grand titles like the Ten Honest Turncoats, you know? Red Jessa, the Duke of Knaves. Amadine, the Queen of Shadows.”
“I think Verena Gallante’s a fine alias,” said Locke.
“No, I mean big and important, and uncommon. Not something you get called to your face. The sort of alias that people whisper when something unbelievable happens. ‘Oh, gods, this can only be the work of the Duke of Knaves!’ ”
“Heavens,” said Galdo in a deep, dramatic voice, “only one man living could have squeezed forth such a gleaming brown jewel—this is the work of Squatting Calo, the Midnight Shitter!”
“You two want for imagination,” said Sabetha.
“Not at all,” said Galdo. “The lower the enterprise, the hotter the fire of our invention burns.”
“Are you going a bit stir-crazy, Sabetha?” s
aid Locke, secretly pleased to hear the energy in her voice after so many days of brooding tedium.
“Maybe I am. I’ve been stuck in this wagon counting Sanza farts for a week; maybe I’m due a little flight of fancy. I mean, wouldn’t it be grand, to have a legend that grew while you were alive to enjoy it? To sit in a tavern and hear all the people around you speaking of what you’d done, with no notion that you were among them as flesh and blood?”
“I can sit in a tavern and be ignored anytime I please,” muttered Calo.
“I want to see the Kingdom of the Marrows someday,” said Sabetha. “Game my way from city to city … on the arms of nobles, emptying their pockets as I go, charming them witless. I’d be like a force of nature. They’d come up with some elegant title for their shared affliction. ‘It was her … it was … it was the Rose.’ ”
Sabetha rolled this off her tongue, obviously savoring it.
“The Rose of the Marrows, they’ll say. ‘The Rose of the Marrows has been my ruin!’ And they’ll tear their hair out explaining everything to their wives and bankers, while I ride on to the next city.”
“Are we all going to need stupid nicknames, then?” said Calo. “We could be … the Shrubs of the North.”
“The Weeds of Vintila,” said Galdo.
“And if you’re a rose,” said Calo, “Locke’s going to need something as well.”
“He can be a tulip,” said Galdo. “Delicate little tulip.”
“Nah, if she’s the rose, he can be her thorn.” Calo snapped his fingers. “The Thorn of Camorr! Now, that’s got some shine to it!”
“That’s the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever heard,” said Locke.
“We can do it as soon as we get home,” said Calo. “Disguise ourselves. Drop hints in bars. Tell stories here and there. Give us a month and everyone will be talking about the Thorn of Camorr. Even the ones that don’t know shit will just tell more lies, so they can sound like they’re clued in on the latest.”
“If you ever do anything like that,” said Locke, “I swear to all the gods, I will murder you.”
4
JUST AFTER the fourth hour of the afternoon, with the faintest warm drizzle sweating out of the graying sky, their wagon rolled through the mud beneath the stone arch of the Jalaan River Gate on the east side of Espara. Jean was back at the reins, and he bade their horses to halt for a squad of armed men in cloaks.
“What goes, Vireska?” said the evident leader, one of those graceful hulking types, the sort that gave every impression of being able to dance a minuet despite possession of a belly fit for carving into ham steaks. “We could set a water-clock by you. Dull trip, eh?”
“Just the way it ought to be,” said the caravan master as he shook hands with the watchman. The gratuity that instantly vanished into the heavy fellow’s pocket was generous; Vireska had discussed it back in Camorr and collected an equal portion from each wagon owner. “Now, when you’re poking through everything, watch-sergeant, just be especially delicate with the drugs and the hidden weapons, eh?”
“I promise not to keep you more than ten hours this time,” laughed the big Esparan. His men made an extremely cursory examination of the wagons, clearly more for the benefit of anyone watching than for the enforcement of the city’s customs laws.
“Welcome,” said one of the guards to Sabetha, who’d once again donned all her more modest clothing. “First time in Espara?”
“Actually, yes,” she said.
“Might we help you find anything?” said the big watch-sergeant, edging in next to his man.
“Oh, that would be so very kind of you,” she said, bubbling with girlish charm. Locke bit his tongue to stifle a snicker. “We’re looking for a man called Jasmer Moncraine. The Moncraine Company, the actors.”
“Why?” said the watch-sergeant. “You creditors?”
All the men behind him burst into laughter.
“Ah, no,” she said. “We’re players, from Camorr, come to join his troupe.”
“They got theaters in Camorr, miss?” said one of the guards. “I thought you was all more about, like, sharks bitin’ women in half.”
“I’d like to see that,” mumbled another watchman.
“There is an awful lot of that where we come from,” said Sabetha. “In fact, we spend more time touring than at home. Moncraine’s engaging us for the rest of the summer.”
“Well,” said the watch-sergeant, “in that case, best of luck. You can find some of the Moncraine Company at, uh, what’s that place with the olive tree torn out of its courtyard?”
“Gloriano’s Rooms,” said another guard.
“Right, right. Gloriano’s,” said the sergeant. “Look, you follow this lane straight down to the Temple of Venaportha, and just past it turn left, hear? Take that lane across the river, you’re in a place we call Solace Hill. Gloriano’s Rooms would be on your right. If you find gravestones on three sides, you’ve gone too far.”
“We’re obliged to you,” said Locke, while nursing a faint premonition that that might not, in the grand scheme of things, turn out to be entirely true.
They parted company with Vireska’s caravan and made their way into Espara, hewing to the watch-sergeant’s directions. It seemed to Locke that they all perked up considerably at finding themselves back in the familiar world of high stone walls, rain-dampened smoke, junk-strewn alleys, and people crammed elbow-to-elbow on the dry portions of the boulevards.
“Three cheers for a proper ale,” said Galdo wistfully. “In a proper tavern, that doesn’t have a fucking palisade built round it to keep out the bloody bog monster.”
“I think this is Solace Hill,” said Jean, as they entered a neighborhood that seemed to regress further from prosperity with every turn of the wagon wheels. The buildings grew lower, the windows became dirtier, and the lights grew fewer. “Look, that’s a graveyard, this Gloriano’s has to be close.”
They found it not a block down, the best-lit structure for some distance in any direction, though the illumination was perhaps unwise given the things it revealed about the condition of walls and roofs. A pair of city watchmen, looking soaked behind the misty glow of their lanterns, were standing in the turn to the inn-yard and impeding the passage of the Gentlemen Bastards’ wagon.
“Is there a problem, Constables?” called Jean.
“You don’t actually mean to turn in here?” said one of the men warily, as though he suspected himself the butt of a joke.
“I think we do,” said Jean.
“But this is the way to Gloriano’s inn-yard,” said the constable, even more warily.
“Pleased to hear it.”
“You delivering something?”
“Just ourselves,” said Jean.
“Gods above, you mean it,” said the constable. “I could tell you ain’t from here, even if I never heard your voice.” He and his companion stepped out of the way with exaggerated courtesy and walked on, shaking their heads.
Locke first heard the shouting as Jean brought them in under a sloping canvas awning that was more holes than fabric, next to a dark stable that contained only one horse. The animal looked at them as though in hope of rescue.
“What the hells is that noise?” said Sabetha.
It wasn’t any sort of row that Locke recognized. Fisticuffs, theft, murder, domestic quarrel—all of those things had familiar rhythms and notes, sounds he could have identified in a second. This was something stranger, and it seemed to be coming from just around the right-hand corner of the building.
“Jean, Sabetha, come quietly with me,” he said. “Sanzas, mind the horses. If they have any brains they might try to bolt.”
It didn’t occur to him until his boots hit the mud that he’d again done precisely what Sabetha had railed against: presumed leadership without hesitation. But damn it, this wasn’t a time for putting his life under a magnifying lens; it was a time for making sure they weren’t all about to be murdered.
“I shall break you, joint by jo
int,” bellowed a man with a deep, attention-seizing voice, “and drink your screams like a fine wine, and burn in brighter ecstasy with every … fading … whimper from your coward’s throat!”
“Holy shit,” said Locke. “No, wait. That’s … that’s from a play.”
“Catalinus, Last Prince of Amor Peth,” whispered Jean.
Side by side, Locke, Jean, and Sabetha moved carefully around the corner. They found themselves facing a courtyard, the interior of three double-storied wings of the inn, with a vast ugly hole in the middle where something had been torn out of the ground.
A man and a woman sat off to one side, out of the light, watching a third man, who stood on the edge of the muddy hole with a bottle in either hand. This man was a prodigious physical specimen, surpassing Father Chains in girth and breadth, with a rain-slick crown of white hair pasted down around his creased face. He wore a loose gray robe and nothing else.
“I shall grind your bones to powder,” he hollered, transfixing the three Gentlemen Bastards with his gleaming eyes. “And with that dust I’ll make cement for paving stones, and for a hundred years to come you’ll have no rest beneath the crush of strange wheels and the tramp of strange boots! Drunkards will make their unclean water upon you, and I shall laugh to think of it, Catalinus! I shall laugh until I die, and I shall die whole in body, wholly revenged upon thee!”
He flung forth his arms, perhaps intentionally, perhaps at random, and when he seemed to realize that he still held bottles in his hands he drank from them.
“Excuse me,” said Locke. Thunder rumbled overhead. The rain grew heavier. “We’re, ah, looking for the Moncraine Company.”
“Moncraine,” yelled the white-haired man, dropping one of his bottles and waving his arms to keep his balance at the edge of the hole. “Moncraine!”
“Are you Jasmer Moncraine?” said Jean.
“I, Jasmer Moncraine?” The man leapt down into the hole, which was about thigh-deep, raising a dark splash of water. He scrambled up the other side and came toward them, now thoroughly be-mucked from the waist down. “I am Sylvanus Olivios Andrassus, the greatest actor in a thousand miles, in a thousand years! Jasmer Moncraine wishes … on his best day … that he was worth a single drop … OF MY PISS!”