The Gentleman Bastard Series Books 1-3

by Scott Lynch

  I suppose it’s true to the peculiar course of our courtship that so much of my courting takes the form of apologies. I like to think I have some talent for them; gods know I’ve had so many opportunities and reasons to practice.

  Sabetha, I am sorry. I have put my recollection of everything said and done since I came to Karthain under a magnifying lens, and I realize now that when I returned after escaping from your arranged vacation, I said some things I had no right to say. I took offense at your deception. I confused the business with the personal, and piled self-righteousness high enough to scrape the ceiling. For that, and not for the first time, I am deeply ashamed. It was wrong of me to throw such a fit.

  Sabetha sucked in cool air with an unseemly gasp, suddenly realizing she’d been holding her breath. What had she expected? It certainly wasn’t this.

  Once, you will recall, I told you that I gave you my absolute trust as my oath-sister, my friend, and my lover. Absolute trust is something that can only be given without conditions or reservations, something that can only be rescinded if it was meaningless in the first place.

  I do not rescind it. I cannot rescind it.

  You tricked me fairly, using something I gave you freely. I am a fool for you not merely by instinct but also by choice. I apologize now, not to beg for sympathy, but because it is an obligation of simple truth and affection I owe you before I have the right to say anything further.

  I have pondered so long and furiously on Patience’s claims about my past that I have become thoroughly sick of the question. Though I desperately pray for the ultimate vindication of J.’s skepticism, I must admit I have no explanation that strikes me as convincing. There are shadows in my past that my memory cannot illuminate, and if you find that disturbing, I beg you to believe that I don’t blame you. Patience’s story has given us both a hard shock, and how I ought to deal with it is still something of a mystery.

  How you deal with it, I must and will leave to you, not out of despair or resignation but in deference to my conscience, that broken clock which I believe is now chiming one of its occasional right hours. I will not question your reasons. It is enough for you to tell me that you wish to keep this distance between us, and it will always be enough. Know that a single word will bring me running, but unless and until it pleases you to give it, I will expect nothing, force nothing, and contrive nothing contrary to your wishes.

  I desire you as deeply as I ever have, but I understand that the fervor of a desire is irrelevant to its justice. I want your heart on merit, in mutual trust, or not at all, because I cannot bear to see you made uneasy by me. I have failed and disappointed you often enough before. Not for all the world would I do so again, and I leave it to you to tell me how to proceed, if and when you can, if and when you will.

  Willingly and faithfully yours,

  Locke Lamora

  She turned the letter over, feeling ridiculous, looking for some other note or sentiment or mark. That was all there was; no pleading, no excuses, no demands or suggestions. Everything was now left to her, and that more than anything brought a tight cold pressure to her chest and left her shaking.

  Failed her? She supposed that was true, if a touch ungenerous. The natural process of growing up was to stumble from failure to failure, and all the Gentlemen Bastards had been prodigies of survival, not sensitivity. But disappoint her? The trouble with the skinny, bright-eyed bastard was that he kept refusing to do so.

  This letter was the work of the better Locke, the learning and giving Locke, the man who listened to her. Listened to her … What a banal sentiment it seemed in itself, but she’d been a woman of the world long enough to learn its rarity and desirability. It was amusing to use men like Catch-the-Duke pieces, but dupes listened with an ear for the main chance, for their own desires to be repeated back to them. After her years in the Marrows and this sojourn among the “adjusted,” by the gods, Locke’s company was more addictive than ever—a man who was proud and unpredictable and framed himself to her desires out of love and friendship, rather than her own subterfuge.

  The corners of her vision misted. She rubbed the nascent tears away with her fingers, not gently, and sniffed haughtily. Gods damn this whole stupid mess! Her heart was opened again like an old wound, but what was coming next? What did the Bondsmagi mean to happen to that man she loved?

  Was she being selfish in holding him at a distance, or was she being sensible, shielding herself against the worst that might be coming, and soon?

  “Crooked Warden,” she whispered, “if your sister Preva has any meaningful revelations that she’s not using at the moment, would you let her know that I’m willing to be moved?”

  Sabetha sighed. Be moved, certainly, but not move. Let the night be hers for a few more minutes. Let the business of the Black Iris click on like clockwork. Let the magi sit on their own thumbs and spin. She read Locke’s letter again, then stared out at the city, thoughts churning.

  The rooftop tapestry of moonlight and shadows and softly curling chimney smoke comforted her, but it had no answers to give.

  12

  TWO NIGHTS later, Locke and Jean sat together in the Deep Roots gallery at Josten’s, dining on birds-a-bed (large morsels of several kinds of fowl on flaked pastry mattresses stuffed with spiced rice and leeks, then given “covers” of onion and sour cream sauce). To wash this down they had flagons of sharp ale and piles of the usual notes and reports, which they discussed between bites.

  Less than a week remained, and the situation was spiraling appealingly out of control. Offices were being vandalized on both sides, party functionaries harassed or arrested by bluecoats on laughable pretexts, speakers and pamphleteers having shouting matches in the streets. Locke had dispatched a team of black-clad functionaries to hand out commemorative Black Iris treacle tarts in several marketplaces. The alchemical laxative mixed into the treacle was slow-acting but ultimately quite forceful, and many of the recipients had publicly expressed their lack of appreciation for the largesse of the Black Iris.

  Despite this, the odds commonly given remained eleven to eight in the Black Iris’ favor. However much Locke would have liked to shift this as far as possible with childish prankery, there was, realistically, nobody left in the city yet willing to accept baked sweets from a stranger.

  “Oh, sirs, sirs!” Nikoros appeared, still looking like a man fresh from a sleepless week on the road. “I have … I am so sorry to intrude on your dinner, but I have some unfortunate news.”

  “First time for everything,” said Locke lightly. “Go on, then, shock us.”

  “It’s the, ah, the chandlery, Master Lazari. The one that you asked me to secure … in the Vel Vespala, and the one where you and Master Callas packed away all the, ah, you know, alchemical items. Two hours ago, stevedores in Black Iris livery entered the place and cleaned it out. They hauled everything away on drays to a location I haven’t yet discovered.”

  Locke’s fork hung in the air halfway to his lips. He stared at Nikoros for a second, then shared a brief, significant gaze with Jean. “Ah, damn,” he said at last, and took his bite of chicken. “Mmmm. Damn. That’s a fairly expensive loss. And a fine trick yanked right out of my sleeve.”

  “My most sincere apologies, Master Lazari.”

  “Bah. It’s none of your doing,” said Locke, wondering just what had made thoroughly subservient eager-puppy Nikoros, of all people, turn coat. Something to do with Akkadris withdrawal? Some failure of Bondsmagi sorcery? Poor old Falconer, tongueless and fingerless and comatose, was something of an argument against their infallibility.

  “Still,” Locke continued, “the opposition seems to have a damnable grasp of where we’re hiding our good toys these days. I want you to secure us a boat.”

  “Ah, a boat, Master Lazari?”

  “Yes. Something respectable. A barge, maybe a small pleasure yacht if a party member has one available.”

  “Very, uh, likely. May I ask to what end?”

  “We took something from o
ne of the Black Iris Konseil members,” said Jean. “Family heirlooms of significant … sentimental value. We’ll return them after he’s done us a favor.”

  “And we need the items in question to be absolutely secure until after election night,” said Locke. “I’m not sure I can trust our current bolt-holes, so let’s try putting them on the water, in something that can move.”

  “I’ll get on it immediately,” said Nikoros.

  “Good man,” said Locke, forking another bite of chicken. “Minimal crew, trusted sorts. They won’t need to know what the boat is carrying. Master Callas and I will load the items ourselves.”

  Nikoros hurried away.

  “I wasn’t expecting it to be him,” whispered Jean.

  “Nor me,” said Locke. “And I’m dead curious to find out how she did it. But at least we know. And now we pin our hopes on the boat.”

  “To the boat,” said Jean. They raised their ale flagons and drained them.

  13

  THE NIGHT before the election, Locke leaned on a wall high atop the northernmost embankment of the Plaza Gandolo, looking out across the softly rippling water of the river and the lantern-lights running across it like a hundred splashes of color on a drunken artist’s canvas.

  To his left loomed the Skyvault Span, swaying and singing suspension bridge, its four anchor towers uniquely crowned with balconies and sealed doors. Those doors were invisible from Locke’s position hundreds of feet below, but he’d listened to Josten describe them not an hour before.

  According to the innkeeper, the doors were as impervious to human arts as most Eldren legacies, but a team of scholars and workers had once erected a climbing scaffold and tried to study them closely.

  “Hundred and fifty years ago, maybe. Eight folk went up,” Josten had muttered after looking around the bar. “Six came down. No bodies were ever found, and none of the survivors could say what had happened. For the rest of their lives, they had dreams. Bad ones. They wouldn’t talk about those, either, except one woman. Confessed to a priest of Sendovani before she died. Young, like all the rest. They say the magi and the Konseil suppressed the hell out of whatever that priest wrote down. So it’s just as well that Elderglass doesn’t need maintenance, my friend, because nobody in Karthain has climbed the Skyvault Span since.”

  “Bloody charming,” muttered Locke, staring up at the elegant dark silhouettes blotting out stars and clouds. Gods, he was reciting horror stories to himself. Hardly suave and collected behavior. He needed to calm down, and he hadn’t had the foresight to bring a quarter-cask of strong wine.

  Footsteps scuffed the stones behind him, and he whirled, neither suave nor collected.

  Sabetha was alone. She wore a dark scarlet jacket over chocolate-brown skirts, and her hair was tightly bound around her lacquered pins.

  “You look as though you’ve been listening to the stories about this bridge,” she said.

  “My, ah, tavern master,” said Locke. “When I got your note, I asked him if he knew anything about the spot you picked.”

  “Seems it’s not a popular corner of the district.” She smiled and moved closer. “I thought we could do with a bit of privacy.”

  “Haunted Eldren detritus does tend to secure that. Sly woman! I would have gone with something like a private chamber at a fine dining establishment, but I suppose I’m hopelessly conventional.” A carriage rattled past, onto the creaking deck of the bridge. “What’s on your mind?”

  “I appreciated your letter,” she said, gliding closer with that seemingly effortless dancer’s step that made it look as though a wind had just nudged her along. “And I don’t mean that as the usual oatmeal-tongued sort of polite acknowledgment; I appreciated what you said and how you said it. I’m beginning to think I might have been … hasty in the way I treated you. When you first arrived in Karthain.”

  “Well, ah, even if drugging me and putting me on a ship was something of a personal misstep, I think we can agree it was a valid approach from a professional perspective.”

  “I admire that equanimity.” She was within arm’s reach now, and her hands were around his waist. He couldn’t have defended himself if he’d wanted to. “I’m not … uneasy with you, you know. It’s not you, it’s …”

  “I know,” said Locke. “Believe me, I understand. You don’t have to—”

  She slipped her right hand up behind his neck and pulled him so close there wasn’t room for a knife blade to pass between them. Next came the sort of kiss that banished the world to distant background noise and seemed to last a month.

  “Well, that you can do,” Locke whispered at last. “If you feel you have to. I’ll, ah, grudgingly refrain from stopping you.”

  “It’s nearly midnight,” said Sabetha, running her fingers through his hair. “Not much left now but the casting and counting of the ballots. Were you planning on attending the last big show at the Karthenium?”

  “Can’t miss it,” said Locke. “Too many hands to hold. Yourself?”

  “There are private galleries looking down on the grand hall. Once you’ve given all your children suitable pats on their heads, why don’t you and Jean join me to watch the returns? Ask any attendant for the Sable Chamber.”

  “Sable Chamber. Right. And, ah, now you seem to be wearing that ‘there’s something amusing I’m not telling Locke’ face.”

  “As it happens, I did hear the most fascinating thing.” She took his hand and led him to the very edge of the embankment wall. “One of my Konseil members privately complained that someone broke into his manor and, if you can believe it, stole the reliquary shelves from his ancestral chapel.”

  “Some people should learn to lock their doors at night.”

  “I found myself pondering the purpose of such an unorthodox acquisition,” said Sabetha. “I concluded that it must, in all probability, be an attempt to exercise some sort of hold on a man for whom the theft of less personal trinkets would have no real meaning.”

  “I’m disheartened to learn that your speculations took on such a cynical character.”

  “Konseillors of Karthain shouldn’t have to worry about outside influence on the eve of an election. Don’t you agree? I felt compelled to make inquiries and issue instructions to the constabulary. Merely as a matter of routine civic duty, of course.”

  “Everyone knows your deep attachment to the civic health of Karthain goes back quite a few minutes,” said Locke.

  “There it is! Nearly on time.” Sabetha pointed down to the water, where a canopied pleasure barge emerged from under the Skyvault Span. A long black constabulary launch was lashed alongside the barge, and bluecoats with lanterns and truncheons were swarming it. “That’s the Plain Delight. Belongs to a friend of one of your Deep Roots Konseillors, I believe. I also believe that the reliquary shelves in its hold will be back in the hands of their proper owner before the sun comes up. Any particular comments?”

  “I can neither confirm nor deny that you’re a sneaky, sneaky bitch,” said Locke.

  “You’re my favorite audience.” Sabetha leaned in and kissed him again, then broke off with a grin. “Sable Chamber, tomorrow evening. I can’t wait to see you. And I’ll have a discreet escape route prepared, since I think a lot of irate Deep Roots supporters are going to be looking for you once the ballots are counted.”

  INTERLUDE

  DEATH-MASKS

  1

  THE NEXT SOUND in the room was that of Donker attempting to fling himself at the door, only to be caught and pulled back by the combined efforts of Alondo and the Sanza twins.

  “Gods damn it, you brick-skulled hostler,” Jasmer growled. “If the rest of us have to suffer through this farce, then so do you!”

  “What’s the name of this hireling of Boulidazi’s?” said Locke.

  “Nerissa Malloria,” said Jasmer. “Used to be a lieutenant in the countess’ guard. Now she’s sort of a mercenary. Hard as witchwood and cold as Aza Guilla’s cunt-plumbing.”

  “Where’s she me
ant to take the money after the play?” said Locke.

  “The hell should I know, boy?” Jasmer ran his hands slowly over his rough stubble. “His lordship might’ve been screwing me, but it wasn’t the sort of affair where we had pillow talk afterward, know what I mean?”

  “I’d bet my life he’d have told her to bring the money to his countinghouse,” said Jenora. “It’s at the Court of Cranes, not far from his manor.”

  “No retrieving it from there,” said Sabetha. “I’ll have to work up another note in Boulidazi’s hand and send her somewhere more private.”

  “She will still expect to deliver the money to him,” yelled Moncraine. “And she’ll expect a signed receipt, and she will rather expect him to have a PULSE when he signs it!”

  “Well, she’s not working for the countess now,” said Sabetha. “She’s not an agent of the law. She’s Boulidazi’s by hire, and she’ll bend to his eccentricities. All we need to do is contrive some that will make her leave the money and go away satisfied.”

  “Well, Amadine, Queen of the Shadows, what do you suggest?” Jasmer waved his hands in elaborately mystical gestures. “Magic? Pity I’m only a sorcerer onstage!”

  “Enough!” shouted Locke. “The sand is running into the bottom of our glass, and no fooling. Leave the details of the money switch to us, Jasmer. This company needs to move to the Pearl in good order, and all of you need to act as though the play is the only care you have in the world. Stout hearts and brave faces! Out!”

  The Moncraine-Boulidazi Company shuffled from the room in mingled states of shock, hangover, and grim resolve. The Sanza twins followed; it had been Sabetha’s suggestion that after the meeting they lurk conspicuously, leaving as few opportunities as possible for anyone to slip away.