“And you’re willing to accept that?”
Valla shrugged in a most feline way.
Sal shook his head. “Well, I don’t.”
“And?” Valla asked, arching an eyebrow.
“I want you to tell me about the High Keep job,” Sal said.
“What about it? You were there, weren’t you?”
“I was there, and I know what I saw, I know what I heard and what I think. What I don’t know is what you think about it all, but I would like to learn.”
“The job was botched. Whole thing went south the moment those steel caps sprung their ambush.”
Sal nodded. “Strange, that.”
“Strange what?”
“That ambush.”
Valla sat up straighter, her eyes narrowing. “What do you mean?”
“I mean it was strange. How did they know we were coming? Also, if they did know we were coming, why spring the ambush before we were all within the Keep? Wait a few minutes, and they’d have had us all cornered like rats.”
Valla shrugged. “I’d not considered that, but you’re right, half of us were still outside the walls.”
Something occurred to Sal that he’d not thought to ask. “Val, who was still outside when the steel caps sprang?”
“Hard to say. We were all split up at that point, but from what I can recall—I was roof-side. Dellan, Vincenzo, and the big man were within. You,” Valla said nodding to Sal, “were in the courtyard, and Anton was on the bailey wall. Which leaves—”
“Bartley,” Sal said.
There was a moment of silence while they both seemed to digest the information.
Sal shook his head. “No.”
Valla lifted both eyebrows and tilted her head, her eyes wide and her lips pursed.
Sal shook his head again. “You don’t know him like I do.”
“And you’d stake your life on that claim?”
“I would,” Sal said without hesitation.
Valla shrugged. “If you say so. You know the Yahdrish better than I. Still, the fact stands, there was a rat in the crew. Someone talked to the City Watch.”
“Any word on the rat?”
“Nothing as of yet. The big man says he’s still working on an in with the steel caps. Regardless, someone told them we would be there. I have to wonder how much they knew. Did they know what we were after?”
“And just what was that, exactly?”
Valla looked at him skeptically, as though sensing a trap.
Sal shrugged, and nearly reached for the locket hanging about his neck. Just what did Valla know of the locket? “I mean that with all sincerity,” Sal said. “I know what we were after, sort of, but I couldn’t tell you why, nor to what end.”
Valla took a swig from her mug and wiped at her mouth with a sleeve, glaring at Sal all the while.
Sal didn’t like that look. It was the sort of look that told him he didn’t have long to live unless he changed the subject. But this was what Sal had come to find out. He needed to know what Valla knew. He needed to know what had gone wrong that night, and why.
“I mean it, Valla. We pulled a job on the High Keep. Lady’s sake, the bloody High Keep, and for what? A ring and a letter?”
Valla’s look softened, and she put two fingers to her lips. She seemed to be thinking, a good sign. It was when she acted before thinking that she was truly dangerous. “He didn’t tell you, did he?” Valla finally said.
“Who? Tell me what?”
“Anton,” she said.
Sal’s heart skipped a beat. Did she know? Had she known about the locket all along? Suddenly he saw everything in a whole new light. He’d thought he was the only one, but of course he wasn’t. Someone else knew. Someone else was looking for it. Had Anton told Valla about the locket?
Sal clenched the edge of the table. It was all he could do to keep from bolting. “What did Anton not tell me?”
The way Valla looked at him was so catlike Sal half expected her to meow when she opened her mouth. “The ring and the letter,” Valla said, before taking a long, slow drink from her mug. She was intentionally dragging out the moment. It was just like Valla to delay, if only to watch him squirm. “They both belong to the same man. ”
The ring and the letter, but no mention of the locket. Sal relaxed somewhat.
“They belong to the duke, yeah?” Sal said. He had assumed they must have belonged to the duke, but the hint of a smirk Valla showed made him think otherwise. “They didn’t belong to the duke?”
Valla flashed a coy smile.
“All right, out with it.”
“Andrej,” she said. “The ring and the letter, they belonged to Andrej.”
“Prince Andrej?” Sal asked.
“Do you know of another Andrej living in the High Keep?”
“But Andrej,” Sal said. “That makes no sense. Why Andrej?”
“Why not? The letter and the ring belonged to Andrej, and we set out to snatch the pair.”
“But why Andrej? I mean, why steal the letter and the ring? What good are they? Valla, what was in that letter?”
Valla shrugged easily. “Fuck if I know.”
“It just doesn’t make sense. I don’t see what good it would do to—unless,” Sal said as realization struck, “Luca means to blackmail the prince.”
“Ah, now there’s an interesting fucking angle, blackmail.”
“So Luca does mean to blackmail the prince?” Sal asked. “But why Andrej? He’s the duke’s youngest son. Why not the duke himself?”
Valla arched an eyebrow, and Sal took a moment to think it through.
“Two reasons, I suppose,” Sal said. “The duke would be a hard man to threaten, but his son, his youngest, weakest son, he might crack. The second: blackmail requires leverage of some sort, and it seems Luca found leverage on Andrej.”
Valla shook her head, smiling. “Why ask the questions if you only mean to answer them?”
Sal returned the smile. “Right, then, here’s the new sticking point. What does Luca mean to blackmail the prince for? ”
“Another good fucking question,” Valla said. “But you’re not asking right.”
“What do you mean?”
“Luca, he was only running the crew, he wasn’t backing the job. He was just the point man.”
“So, the backer,” Sal said. “Who was that?”
“How should I know? Luca runs the crew, not me.”
“And the High Keep job. It was all about blackmailing a prince?”
Valla shrugged. “Seems to me that’s the case.”
Sal shook his head skeptically. “And Anton—Lady’s sake, Pavalo for that matter—why were they done?”
“Word hasn’t come down so far as I’ve heard. But it’s like I said, seems to me they were done outside Commission sanction. Why not ask that uncle of yours? If anyone knows something, it would be Stefano.”
Sal sighed. “You don’t think Anton was, you know, the rat?”
“Anton?” Valla said. “Antonio Russo, a rat? I don’t see it. No, not Antonio.”
“And what of Luca?”
“What of him?” Valla asked.
“Tying up loose ends,” Sal said.
Valla fixed him with a level stare. “He wouldn’t be the first crew-point to do that on suspicion. I’d not put it past him, either. Not after Fabian.”
Sal nodded and stood.
“The fuck are you going?”
“I need to see a man about some wool. In the meantime, stay safe, Val. There’s something in the works that we don’t know about.”
Valla scoffed and took a swig from her mug.
19
The Letter
Interlude, Eight Years Earlier
F ive hundred krom. Just holding that much coin was a thrill. Sal had never seen a coin purse that size, much less been trusted to handle it himself. He tucked the purse inside his cloak, hoping not to attract attention. This was a big-time job, the sort of job Sal had waited months to get. It
was a chance to prove himself, to show he had what it took to do meaningful work.
But once the job was under way, the glow of prestige that surrounded it quickly vanished, flitting away like morning dew beneath the afternoon sun. Sal spent the entire walk imagining what it could be that he’d been sent to purchase. A jeweled sword, a mythical beast, an exotic woman perhaps, but no, he’d been sent to buy a scrap of tattered old parchment.
Tattered parchment for five hundred gold krom hardly seemed a good deal. The Dahuaneze man that met Sal on the loading round of Harbor Nine appeared to be thinking the same thing. The look he gave Sal was one of sheer skepticism when Sal handed over the coin purse in exchange for the scribblings .
“Kellenvadra,” he said in his heavily accented voice. “Kellenvadra.”
“Kellenvadra,” Sal said with a nod. Whatever that meant.
After the little Dahuaneze man had scuttled off, Sal scanned the parchment, but the writing was in some foreign script. He hoped, for his own sake, that he had not been duped, and that his uncle was interested in that scrap of parchment.
The rain had begun to fall just before Sal crossed South Bridge. Once in High Town, Sal slipped into a covered alley, the parchment tucked inside his cloak where it would stay dry and hopefully attract less attention.
The last thing he needed was to have some steel caps take their toll with his uncle’s new purchase.
Eventually he reached home. To his surprise, Greggings was nowhere to be seen when he entered. Still, he wiped the mud from his shoes as the manservant would have instructed. Sal crossed the lavender tile and made for the stairs.
The house was quiet, nearly silent. He could hear his footfalls echoing down the hall as he walked to his room. The quiet was odd, and Sal couldn’t figure the reason.
When he reached his room, he looked about. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, nothing out of place, and yet Sal couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.
And then he saw it: a letter at the foot of his bed. A red wax seal, unbroken, stamped with something serpent-like. He picked up the letter. The wax seal looked to have been stamped with a dragon.
“M-Master Salvatori,” said Greggings from behind him.
Sal turned slowly, the break in the man’s voice setting his hackles on the rise.
“Greggings,” Sal said. “What’s happened?”
“Come with me,” Greggings said, his eyes rimmed with red. “It’s your mother.”
20
Uncle Stefano
L illiana approached tentatively, looking all about before she took a step. From the rooftop, the gloves were only a blot on the ground, but Sal knew that indefinable shape to be a pair of indigo woolen gloves. He knew this because he had put them on the steps himself; he’d tied a red ribbon into a bow and slipped a hadrisk flower into the ribbon. Nicola had made the gloves. Sal had told her his vision and his sister had made it come to life.
Nicola had woven the gloves on a spider loom, dyed them with true indigo, and at Sal’s request had worked meadowsweet into the wool to give the gloves the smell of spring. The gloves were the third gift he’d left for Lilliana since Fitzen, when she had purchased the indigo scarf. The first of his gifts had been a woolen cap, admittedly not the most fashionable accouterment, but warm, made with materials of the highest quality and dyed with true indigo to match Lilliana’s scarf. The second was a pair of woolen stockings, dyed to match the scarf and hat. Sal had tied a red ribbon about the stockings and slipped into the bow a marsh lily, a purple variety that grew down by the riverside.
The indigo gloves that smelled of meadowsweet had been the climax to his crescendo of gifts, the final piece of his plan. With the gloves Sal had left a note, tucked behind the white petals of the hadrisk flower.
Leaving the note, Sal had felt the fool of a fool. Her acceptance of his gifts had been a true gamble, with longer odds than any sane man would bet on. The note was another matter entirely. If his gifts had not spoken his intentions loud enough, the note would be near impossible not to hear. Lilliana Bastian was the daughter to one of the wealthiest men in Dijvois. She was a maiden of marriageable age, desirable looks, and unfathomable promise.
She was entirely unobtainable.
However, in all the time Sal had watched Lilliana as he gathered information for Luca, there had been scant few suitors, and those who had tried had made attempts feebler than Sal’s own.
Lilliana reached down and picked up the gloves. She looked around, as though feeling she was being watched.
Sal ducked out of sight.
He smiled to himself at his knee-jerk reaction. He hadn’t needed to worry. No one ever looked up at the rooftops, apart from thieves looking for steel caps, and steel caps looking for thieves. When Sal resumed watching Lilliana, she was reading his note. His pulse began to quicken, his tongue sticky against his dry palate. He wished he were close enough to see the reaction on her face, to know whether she was pleasantly surprised or outright disgusted by the note. To know whether she would show up to meet him or not. To know whether he should bother waiting for her beside the limestone statue of the Lady White.
The anticipation plucked at his nerves. All he wanted was Lilliana’s answer, yes or no, but it was an answer he would needs wait to receive.
Tomorrow, the note said, evenfall.
For Sal, the best parts of the past weeks had been those short moments he’d spent watching her. She seemed to be the only thing that brought him joy. Despite that, or perhaps because of it, he’d begun to feel guilty about spying on Lilliana, even unclean for the thoughts he’d had about her. He tried to convince himself it was not his fault, and that he should not feel guilty about watching her; after all, it was his job.
Sal knew Luca would be displeased about the gifts he had left for Lilliana, even more so about the note, but he assured himself Luca would never learn of it. He was Luca’s scout. He was the eyes and ears of the operation. Luca only knew what Sal wanted him to know.
Or so he hoped.
Still, Luca wasn’t the one Sal needed to be concerned with. Luca might not learn of his contact with Lilliana, but Luca’s backer, whoever it was that had paid Luca to set up the operation, was a complete unknown, and was all the more dangerous for that. Sal would have no way of knowing when or if they’d found out about his contact with her. Might be the backer already knew.
Lilliana continued down the steps and was met in the driveway by her carriage. Damor Nev stepped from the coach, his bastard sword slung on his back. The bodyguard moved aside and held the door for his lady.
A smile crept over Sal’s face as he saw Lilliana pause and slip on the indigo gloves before she stepped into the coach. When Damor Nev closed the door and the carriage departed, Sal stood. He checked the street below for steel caps, lowered himself to the cobblestones, and made his way to the South Bridge. He was still feeling quite hopeful concerning his prospects with Lilliana as he crossed the Big Island, when he saw Odie, a head and a half taller than everyone on the street, walking in his direction.
The big man lumbered directly toward him, and for an instant Sal tensed. He remained where he was, feet planted on the cobblestones.
Odie smiled, an unsettling sight by any standard. It reminded Sal of an oversized child.
“Oy, Salvatori,” Odie said, hailing Sal with one massive hand. “Got a message from Luca.”
“Let me guess,” Sal said with a smirk. “The Crown?”
Odie nodded, and just like that moved on.
“Hey, Big Man. ”
Odie turned back.
“Whatever happened to the tattooed freak? I thought he was playing messenger boy for Luca.”
“I ain’t seen Dellan since Fitzen,” said the big man. “Seems the Vordin’s been busy with some job.”
“You working this next job for Luca as well?” Sal asked.
Odie nodded, and began to move away once more.
At times Odie seemed cold natured, but there was something Sal co
uld appreciate about a man of few words.
“Odie,” Sal said, nodding toward the big man’s hand. “The tracer.”
Odie looked at his hand as though only then realizing he was carrying the folded square of linen. He nodded, opened his hand, and let go of the square of cloth as black ash drifted away with the breeze.
Sal turned around and headed back the way he’d come, only this time he followed the Kingsway up High Hill until he reached the Crown.
Each time Sal met Luca at the Crown, he noticed more and more just how out of place the man was. Luca was like a long-jaw swimming in a school of herring. Placed just outside the walls of the High Keep, the Crown was the sort of posh establishment frequented by newlywed gentry and lords of state seeking a night on the town.
But Luca had been a dock thug, and a dock thug he remained. After all, he couldn’t merely wash the scars from his face, nor the tattoos from his skin.
Sal imagined the Crown had lost business since Luca had decided to make its back table his place of meeting. There were times when Luca had Sal meet him at the safe house, but that was rare, as the safe house was short of women in tight bodices serving roast capon and suckling pork with jugs of mulled wine and thimble glasses of sweet hippocras.
As usual, Luca was seated at his table in the back. There was no meal before him, merely a bottle of wine, a candle, a paring knife he used to trim his nails, and a look on his face that revealed he was in a sour disposition.
When Sal sat, Luca cleared his nail trimmings off the table. He did not let them fall to the floor, though. Rather, he swept them into a small swatch of his linen napkin, folded the cloth twice and set it afire on the lit candle. The flame glowed in Luca’s eyes as he dropped the linen swatch to the tabletop and watched it burn.
Sal sat upright and did his best to keep his breathing steady. Luca’s paranoid precaution had startled him more than he wanted to admit.
“Wine?” Luca asked.
Sal accepted the offer. It was a sour vintage, appropriate for a man in a sour mood.
The Hand That Takes Page 19