by Scott Lynch
“Oh,” said the man, who possessed the true Karthani accent, which was something like the speech of a Lashani after a few strong drinks. “Of course.”
“Now,” said Jean quietly, turning to Locke, “who are we?”
“A pair of rats about to stick their noses into a big fucking trap.”
“Characters, you git. Lazari and Callas. We should settle the particulars before we start talking to people.”
“Ah, right.” Locke scratched his chin. “We’ve got no time to practice Karthani accents, so to hell with hiding that we’re from out of town.”
“Less work suits me,” said Jean.
“Good. Then we need to decide who’s the iron fist and who’s the velvet glove.”
“Sounds like something you should be hiring a couple of strumpets to help you with.”
“I’d hit you if I thought it would do any good, Jean. You know what I mean.”
“Right. Let’s be obvious. Me brute, you weasel.”
“Agreed. You brute, me charming mastermind. But there’s no sense in setting things too taut before we even know who we’re dealing with. Be a brute that plays nice until provoked.”
“So we’re not actually playing characters at all, then?”
“Well, hell.” Locke cracked his knuckles and shrugged. “It’s one less detail for us to muck up. Anyway, Patience said these people would eat out of our hands. Let’s put that to the test.”
“Now, then,” said Jean, turning back to the heavyset young man. “Start talking again.”
“I’m delighted to see you alive and well, gentlemen!” The stranger came closer, and Jean noted his round, ruddy features, the look of a man eager to please and be pleased. And yet his eyes, behind slender optics, were shrewd and measuring. His hair had failed to retain any sort of hold on the areas forward of his ears, but he had a thick and well-tended plait that hung, black as a raven’s wing, to the small of his back. “When we heard about the wreck, we were distraught. The Amathel is lately so mild, it’s hard to credit—”
“Wreck,” said Locke. “Ah, yes, the wreck! Yes. The terrible, convenient wreck. What else could compel us to be here without decent clothing or purses? Well, I’m afraid everything happened in such a terrible rush, but I’m told that we survived.”
“Ha! Splendid. Fear nothing, gentlemen, I’m here to mend your situation in every particular. My name is Nikoros.”
“Sebastian Lazari.” Locke extended his hand. Nikoros shook it with a look of surprise on his face.
“Tavrin Callas,” said Jean. Nikoros’ grip was dry and firm.
“Well, I say, thank you, gentlemen, thank you! What an unexpected mark of confidence. I take it very kindly.”
“Mark of confidence?” said Locke. “Forgive us, Nikoros. We’re new to Karthain. I’m not sure we understand what we’ve done.”
“Oh,” said Nikoros. “Damned stupid of me. I apologize. It’s just that … well, you’ll probably think us such a pack of credulous ninnies, but I assure you … it’s tradition. Here in Karthain we’re close, extremely close, with our given names. On account of, you know, the Presence.”
It was easy enough for Jean to hear the capital “P” as Nikoros pronounced the word.
“You mean,” he said, “the Bonds—”
“Yes, the magi of the Isas Scholastica. When we speak of ‘the Presence,’ well—we’re just being polite. We’re quite used to them, really. They’re not the objects of, ah, curiosity they might be elsewhere. In fact, I can assure you they look almost like ordinary people. You’d be amazed!”
“I don’t doubt it,” said Locke. “Well, this is useful stuff. I take it we should withhold our given names when we’re introduced to Karthani?”
“Well, yes. It’s the hoariest old superstition, but it’s been our custom since the fall of the old Throne. Most of us use birth-order titles or nicknames. I’m called Nikoros Via Lupa, since my office is on the Avenue of the Wolves. But plain Nikoros suits as well.”
“We’re obliged to you,” said Jean. “Now, what is it that you do, exactly?”
“I’m a trade insurer. Ships and caravans. But, ah, more relevantly, I’m on the Deep Roots party standing committee. I’m sort of a shepherd for party business.”
“You have real authority over party affairs?”
“Oh, quite. Funds and operations, with some latitude. But, ah, when it comes to that, gentlemen, my most important duty is to carry out your instructions. Once I’ve helped you settle in, of course.”
“And you understand the nature of our employment,” said Locke. “The real nature of it, that is.”
“Oh, oh, quite.” Nikoros tapped the side of his nose with a finger several times and smiled. “Those of us at the top understand that half the fight is, well, unconventional. We’re all for it! After all, the Black Iris are out to do the same to us. We think they might even bring in specialists like yourselves.”
“Be assured they have,” said Locke. “How long have you been involved with all this?”
“Party business, you mean? Oh, ten years or so. It’s the biggest thing going, socially. More fun than billiards. I worked with our, ah, specialist last election. We pulled off nine seats, and nearly won! We have such hopes, this time around.”
“Well,” said Jean, “the sooner we’re settled in, the sooner we can nourish those hopes.”
“Right! To the carriage. We’ll get you two wrapped up in something more suitable.” He beckoned, and a slender blonde woman in a black velvet jacket met them halfway as they moved toward the carriage. “Allow me to present Seconddaughter Morenna, Morenna Clothiers.”
“Your servant.” She curtsied, and a brass-weighted measuring line appeared in her hands as swiftly as an assassin’s knife. “It seems you have a sartorial emergency.”
“Yes,” said Locke. “Circumstance has flung us down and danced upon us.”
“Clothes first,” said Nikoros as he hustled Locke and Jean into the enclosed carriage box, “then we’ll see to your funds.” Morenna came last. Nikoros drew the door shut and pounded on the underside of the carriage roof. As it rattled off, Morenna seized the collar of Locke’s slop jacket and pulled him firmly to a hunched-over standing position.
“I beg your deepest pardon,” she muttered, plying her measuring line around his neck and shoulders. “We usually keep a fellow on hand at the shop to take the measurements of our gentlemen customers, but he’s taken ill. I assure you that I make these intrusions as impersonally as a physiker.”
“It would never occur to me to be offended,” said Locke in a dazed voice.
“Marvelous. If you’ll excuse me, sir, we’ll just need to have your jacket off.” She somehow managed to fold, wrench, and twirl Locke within the confined space, removing his jacket at last and causing a small rain of twice-baked ship’s biscuits to patter around the carriage interior. “Oh my, I had no idea—”
“Not your fault,” said Locke with an embarrassed cough. “I, uh, like to feed birds.”
Under his arms, around his chest, along the outside of his legs—Morenna took measurements from Locke with the speed of a fencer scoring touches. Soon it was Jean’s turn.
“Same thing, sir,” she muttered while she fussed with his coat.
“There’s no need—If you’ll give me a moment—” said Jean, but it was too late.
“Heavens,” said Morenna as she pulled his hatchets out of their makeshift hiding place at the small of his back. “These have seen some use.”
“I’ve had to settle the occasional misunderstanding.”
“Do you prefer to carry them tucked away like this under a coat or jacket?”
“There’s nowhere better.”
“Then I can show you several rigs that could be stitched into your coats. We’ve got leather harness, cloth straps, metal rings, all reliable and discreet. Tuck a whole arsenal into your breeches and waistcoats, if you like.”
“You’re my new favorite tailor,” said Jean, contentedly submittin
g to the darting play of the measuring line while the carriage rolled along.
3
THEIR JOURNEY took about ten minutes, while the sun rose and painted the walls and alleys around them with warm light. Jean took advantage of his window seat to form several impressions of Karthain along the way.
The first was that it was a city of tiered heights. As they moved inward from the waterfront, past the ship-filled lagoon, he saw that the more northerly sections of the city rose, hills and terraces alike, to a sort of plateau that must have been several hundred feet above the Ponta Corbessa. Nothing so extreme as Tal Verrar’s precipitous drops, but it did seem as though the gods or the Eldren had tilted the city about forty-five degrees toward the water after originally laying it out.
Furthermore, it seemed to be an unusually well-tended place. Perhaps Nikoros had chosen a route that would best flatter his city? Whatever the case, Jean couldn’t fail to note the swept streets, the clean white stone of the newer houses, the neatly trimmed trees, the smooth bubbling of every fountain and waterfall, or the decorative enamel mosaics on the cable cars sliding between the taller buildings.
Most striking was the character of the city’s Elderglass. Its bridges over the wide Karvanu (which poured down five separate white-foaming falls before it reached the heart of the city) were not solid arches, but rather suspension bridges made of thousands of panels of milky black Elderglass, connected by countless finger-thick lengths of glass cable to supporting towers like spindly caricatures of human temple spires.
The first bridge they crossed had a disconcerting amount of sway and bounce—just a few inches of give, to be sure, but any bounce at all was of immediate interest to someone high over water in a carriage.
“Never fear,” said Nikoros, noticing the matching expressions on Locke’s and Jean’s faces. “You’ll be used to this in no time. It’s Elderglass! Nothing we do could so much as fray a cable.”
Jean stared at the other huge bridges spanning the Karvanu. They looked like the work of mad giant spiders, or harps designed for hands the size of palaces. He also noticed, for the first time, a strangely tuneful humming and creaking that he assumed was the music of the cables.
“Welcome to the Isas Salvierro,” said Nikoros when the carriage halted a few minutes later, blessedly back on unyielding stone. “A business district, one of the pumping hearts of the city. My office is just north of here.”
The small group bustled out of the carriage and into Morenna Clothiers, where they found a wide shop floor surrounded by a raised second-floor gallery. Seconddaughter Morenna locked the door behind them.
“These aren’t our usual hours,” she said. “You’re an emergency case.”
There was a strong smell of coffee wafting throughout the shop, and Jean’s mouth watered. The walls of the lower room were layered with bolts of cloth in a hundred different colors and textures, while several wooden racks of coats and jackets had been brought out into the middle of the floor.
“Allow me to introduce Firstdaughter Morenna,” said Seconddaughter, pointing to a taller, heavier blonde woman on the upper level, who was pulling a gleaming metallic thread from a rattling clockwork spindle. “And of course our darling Thirddaughter.”
The youngest of the tailoring sisters was as petite as Seconddaughter, though her hair was a shade darker and she alone of the three wore optics. She was absorbed in trimming some unknown velvet bundle with a pair of blackened-iron shears, and she gave the merest nod in greeting.
“Thimbles on, girls, it’s time for battle,” said Seconddaughter.
“My,” said Firstdaughter, who stepped away from her machine and descended to the first floor. “Shipwreck, was it? You gentlemen look like you’ve been in the wars. Is Lashain having some sort of difficulty?”
“Lashain is its old charming self, madam,” said Locke. “Our misfortune was personal.”
“You’ve come to the right place. We adore a challenge. And we adorn the challenged! Second, have you taken their measurements?”
“Everything I could in decency.” Seconddaughter snatched up a slate, and with a squeaky piece of chalk scribed two columns of numbers on it. She threw the slate to Firstdaughter. “Save for breeches inseams. Could you be a dear?”
Firstdaughter conjured a measuring line in her free hand and advanced on Locke and Jean without hesitation. “Now, gentlemen, our male apprentice is out sick, so you’ll need to bear my scrutiny a moment. Take heart, there’s many a wife that won’t give her husband this sort of attention for love or money.” Chuckling, she took rapid and mostly professional measurements from crotch to ankles on both men, then added some squiggles to the bottom of the slate.
“I assume that we’re replacing an entire wardrobe?” said Thirddaughter, setting her velvet down.
“Yes,” said Locke. “These fine dishrags represent the sum of our current wardrobe.”
“You’ve the sound of an easterner,” said Thirddaughter. “Will you want the style to which you’re accustomed, or something more—”
“Local,” said Jean. “Absolutely local. Fit us out like natives.”
“It will take several days,” said Seconddaughter, holding a swatch of something brown up to Jean’s neck and frowning, “to deliver all the bespoke work, you understand, and that’s with us chugging along like water-engines. But while we’re arranging that, we can set you up with something respectable enough.”
“We don’t do boots, though,” said Firstdaughter, stripping Jean’s jacket and sending his hatchets clattering to the floor. “Oh, dear. Will you be wanting somewhere to tuck those?”
“Absolutely,” said Jean.
“We’ve got a thousand ways,” said First. She picked up the Wicked Sisters and set them respectfully on a table. “But as I was saying, Nikoros, we haven’t turned cobblers in the last few hours. Have you kept that in mind?”
“Of course,” said Nikoros. “This is but the first stop. I’ll have them set up like royalty before lunch.”
The next half hour was a furious storm of fittings, removals, tests, measurements, remeasurements, suggestions, countersuggestions, and sisterly arguments as Locke and Jean were gradually peeled out of their slops and reskinned as fair approximations of gentlemen. The creamy silk shirts were a little too big, the vests and breeches taken in or let out with some haste. Locke’s long coat hung loose and Jean’s was tight across the chest. Still, it was a drastic improvement, at least from the ankles up. Now they could set foot in a countinghouse without provoking the guards into raising weapons.
Once the immediate transmutation was accomplished, the three women took notes for a more expansive wardrobe—evening coats, morning jackets, formal and informal waistcoats, breeches in half a dozen styles, velvet doublets, fitted silk shirts, and all the trimmings.
“Now, you said you’d be doing more, ah, entertaining, as it were,” said Thirddaughter to Locke. “So I gather you’ll need a slightly wider selection of coats than your friend Master Callas.”
“Entirely correct,” said Jean, rolling his arms around and enjoying his restoration to a state of elegance, tight coat or no. “Besides, I’m the careful one. I can make do with less. Give my friend a bit more of your attention.”
“As you will,” said Thirddaughter, gently but firmly grabbing Jean by his left cuff. A long dangling thread had caught her attention; she had her shears out with a graceful twirl and snipped it in the blink of an eye. “There. Squared away. I believe, then, we’ll start with seven coats for Master Lazari, and give you four.”
“We’ll send them to your inn as we finish them,” said Firstdaughter, tallying figures on a new slate. These figures had nothing to do with Locke’s and Jean’s measurements. She passed the slate to Nikoros, and when he nodded curtly her pleasure was readily apparent.
“Lovely,” said Locke. “Except we don’t know where we’re staying just yet.”
“The Deep Roots party does,” said Nikoros with a half-bow. “You’re in our bosom now, sirs.
You’ll want for nothing. Now, might I beg you to come along, just a few steps up the lane? Those bare feet will never do for lunch or dinner.”
4
THE NEXT two hours of the morning were spent, as Nikoros had prophesied, scuttling up and down the streets of the Isas Salvierro in pursuit of boots, shoes, jewelry, and every last detail that would help Locke and Jean pass as men of real account. Several of the shops involved had not yet opened for regular business, but the force of Nikoros’ connections and pocketbook unlocked every door.
As their list of immediate needs grew shorter, Jean noticed that Locke was spending more and more time eyeballing the alleys, windows, and rooftops around them.
Behavior very obvious, he signaled.
Threat gods-damned serious, was the reply.
And despite himself, despite personal experience that one of the least intelligent things to do, when you fear being spied upon, is to crane your head in all directions and advertise your suspicion, Jean did just that. As the carriage rattled toward Tivoli’s countinghouse, he stole fretful glances out his window.
Sabetha. Gods below, he couldn’t imagine a more troublesome foe. Not only had he and Locke set foot in a city where their presence was expected, she knew precisely how they worked. That was true in reverse, to some extent, but all the same he felt like they were just leaving the starting mark in a race that had been going on without them for some time.
“Think she’ll hit us early?” said Jean.
“She’s hitting us as we speak,” muttered Locke. “We just don’t know where yet.”
“Gentlemen,” said Nikoros, who was working to keep the pile of parcels on the seat next to him from toppling onto the compartment floor at every turn, “what’s troubling you?”
“Our opposition,” said Locke. “The Black Iris people. Is there a woman that you know of, a new woman, only recently arrived?”
“The redheaded woman, you mean?” said Nikoros. “Is she important?”
“She—” Locke seemed to think better of whatever he was about to say. “She’s our problem. Don’t tell anyone we asked, but keep your ears open.”