The Gentleman Bastard Series 3-Book Bundle: The Lies of Locke Lamora, Red Seas Under Red Skies, The Republic of Thieves (12 page)

It was a minor wonder on a busy river of wonders, not the least of which was Don and
Doña Salvara’s barge. While many nobles hauled trees to and from their orchards on
the water, Locke’s hosts were the first to go
one step further. Their pleasure barge was a permanent floating orchard in miniature.
Perhaps fifty paces long and twenty wide, it was a doublehulled wooden rectangle stuffed
with soil to support a dozen oak and olive trees. Their trunks were a uniform night-black,
and their rustling cascades of leaves were unnatural emerald, bright as lacquer—an
outward testimony to the subtle science of alchemical botany.

Wide circular stairs crisscrossed with patches of leafy shade wound up several of
these trees, leading to the don’s silk-topped observation box, comfortably perched
within the branches to give the occupants an unobstructed forward view. On each side
of this supremely ostentatious sliver of floating forest were twenty hired rowers,
seated on outrigger-like structures that kept the top-heavy central portion of the
yacht from plunging sideways.

The box could easily hold twenty; this morning it held only Locke and Jean, the don
and the doña, and the ever-watchful Conté, currently tending a liquor cabinet so elaborate
it might have been mistaken for an apothecary’s lab. Locke returned his gaze to the
rope dancers, feeling a strange kinship with them. They weren’t the only ones with
ample opportunity to screw up a delicate public act this morning.

“Master Fehrwight, your
clothes
!” Doña Sofia Salvara shared the forward rail of the observation box with him, her
hands scant inches from his. “You would look so very fine in one of your Emberlain
winters, but why must you suffer them in our summer? You shall sweat yourself as red
as a rose! Might you not take something off?”

“I … my lady, I am, I assure you … most comfortable.” Thirteen gods, she was actually
flirting
with him. And the little smile that crept on and off her husband’s face told Locke
that the Salvaras had planned this in advance. A little close feminine attention to
fluster the awkward master merchant; perfectly staged and perfectly common. A game
before the game, so to speak. “I find that whatever discomfort these clothes bring
me in your … very interesting climate only serves to, to goad me. Into concentrating.
Keeps me alert, you see. A better, ah, man of business.”

Jean, standing a few paces behind the two of them, bit his tongue. Throwing blondes
at Locke Lamora was not unlike throwing lettuce at sharks, and the Doña Sofia was
very
blonde; one of those gorgeous Therin rarities with skin like burnt amber and hair
the color of almond butter. Her eyes were deep and steady, her curves artfully not
concealed by a dark orange summer dress with a cream-white underskirt barely showing
at the hem. Well, it was just the Salvaras’ luck to run up against a thief with the
most peculiar damned taste in women. Jean could admire the doña for them both; his
limited role today (and his “injuries”) would give him little else to do.

“Our Master Fehrwight is made of unusually stern stuff, my dear.” Don Lorenzo lounged
in a far corner of the forward rail, dressed in loose white silks and an orange vest
matching his wife’s dress. His white neckerchiefs hung rakishly loose, and only the
bottom clasp of his vest was fastened. “Yesterday he took the beating of a lifetime;
today he wears enough wool for five men and dares the sun to do its worst. I must
say, I’m more and more pleased with myself that I’ve kept you out of Jacobo’s grasp,
Lukas.”

Locke acknowledged the smiling don with a slight bow and an agreeably awkward smile
of his own.

“Do at least have something to drink, Master Fehrwight.” Doña Sofia’s hand briefly
settled over Locke’s, long enough for him to feel the assorted calluses and chemical
burns no manicure could conceal. She was a
true
alchemical botanist, then; this barge was her direct handiwork as well as her general
design. A formidable talent—by implication, a calculating woman. Lorenzo was obviously
the more impulsive one, and if he was wise he’d weigh his wife’s opinion before agreeing
to any of Lukas Fehrwight’s proposals. Locke therefore favored her with a shy smile
and an awkward cough. Let her think she was getting to him.

“A drink would be very pleasing,” he said. “But, ah, I fear that you shall have no
reassurance for my condition, kind Doña Sofia. I have done much business in your city;
I know how drinking is done here, when men and women speak of business.”

“ ‘Morning’s for sweat, and night’s for regret,’ ” Don Salvara said as he stepped
from the rail and gestured to his servant. “Conté, I do believe Master Fehrwight has
just requested nothing less than a ginger scald.”

Conté moved adroitly to fill this request, first selecting a tall crystal wine flute,
into which he poured two fingers of purest Camorri ginger oil, the color of scorched
cinnamon. To this he added a sizable splash of milky pear brandy, followed by a transparent
heavy liquor called
ajento
, which was actually a cooking wine flavored with radishes. When this cocktail was
mixed, Conté wrapped a wet towel around the fingers of his left hand and reached for
a covered brazier smoldering to the side of the liquor cabinet. He withdrew a slender
metal rod, glowing orange-red at the tip, and plunged it into the cocktail; there
was an audible hiss and a small puff of spicy steam. Once the rod was stanched, Conté
stirred the drink briskly and precisely three times, then presented it to Locke on
a thin silver plate.

Locke had practiced this ritual many times over the years, but when the cold burn
of the ginger scald hit his lips (limning every tiny crack with stinging heat, and
outlining every crevice between teeth and gums in exquisite pain—even before it went
to work on tongue and throat), he was never able to fully hold back the memories of
Shades’ Hill and of the Thiefmaker’s admonishments; of a liquid fire that seemed to
creep up his sinuses and burn behind his eyes until he wanted to tear them out. Expressing
discomfort at his first sip of the drink was much easier than feigning interest in
the doña.

“Incomparable.” He coughed, and then, with quick jerky motions, he loosened his black
neck-cloths just the slightest bit; the Salvaras smirked charmingly together. “I’m
reminded again why I have such success selling gentler liquors to you people.”

ONCE PER month, there was no trading done in the Shifting Market. Every fourth Idler’s
Day, the merchants stayed clear of the great sheltered circle abutting the Angevine
River; instead, they drifted or anchored nearby while half the city came out to see
the Shifting Revel.

Camorr had never possessed a great stone or Elderglass amphitheater, and had fallen
instead into the curious custom of rebuilding its spectator circle anew at each Revel.
Huge multistoried observation barges were towed out and anchored firmly against the
stone breakwaters surrounding the Shifting Market, like floating slices cut from the
heart of great stadiums. Each barge was operated by a rival family or merchant combine
and decked in unique livery; they competed fiercely with one another to fill their
seats, and intervessel brawls between the habitual customers of particularly beloved
barges were not unknown.

When properly aligned, these barges formed an arc about halfway around the circumference
of the Shifting Market. A channel was left clear for boats entering and leaving the
center of the calm water, and the rest of the periphery was reserved for the pleasure
barges of the nobility. A good hundred or so could be counted on at any Revel, and
half again as many for major festivals, such as this one; less than three weeks remained
until the Midsummer-mark and the Day of Changes.

Even before the entertainments began the Shifting Revel was its own spectacle—a great
tide of rich and poor, floating and on foot, jostling for position in a traditional
contest much loved for its lack of rules. The
yellowjackets were always out in force, but more to prevent hard words and fisticuffs
from escalating than to prevent disturbances altogether. The Revel was a citywide
debauch, a rowdy public service the duke was happy to underwrite from his treasury.
There were few things like a good Revel to pull the fangs from any unrest before it
had time to fester.

Feeling the fire of the approaching noon despite the silk awning over their heads,
Locke and his hosts compounded their situation by drinking ginger scalds as they stared
out across the rippling heat haze at thousands of Camorri packing the commoner barges.
Conté had prepared identical drinks for his lord and lady (though with a touch less
ginger oil, perhaps?), which “Graumann” had served them, as Camorri etiquette dictated
in these situations. Locke’s glass was half-empty; the liquor was a ball of expanding
warmth in his stomach and a vivid memory in his throat.

“Business,” he said at last. “You have both been … so kind to Grau and myself. I agreed
to repay this kindness by revealing my business here in Camorr. So let us speak of
it, if that would please you.”

“You have never had a more eager audience in your life, Master Fehrwight.” The don’s
hired rowers were bringing them into the Shifting Revel proper, and closing on dozens
of more traditional pleasure barges, some of them crammed with dozens or hundreds
of guests. The don’s eyes were alive with greedy curiosity. “Tell on.”

“The Kingdom of the Seven Marrows is coming apart at the seams.” Locke sighed. “This
is no secret.”

The don and the doña nonchalantly sipped their drinks, saying nothing.

“The Canton of Emberlain is peripheral to the major conflict. But the Graf von Emberlain
and the Black Table are both working—in different, ah, directions—to place it in the
way of substantial harm.”

“The Black Table?” asked the don.

“I beg pardon.” Locke took the tiniest sip of his drink and let new fire trickle under
his tongue. “The Black Table is what we call the council of Emberlain’s most powerful
merchants. My masters of the House of bel Auster are among them. In every respect
save the military and the matter of taxes, they run the Canton of Emberlain. And they
are tired of the Graf, and tired of the Trade Guilds in the other six cantons of the
Marrows. Tired of limitations. Emberlain grows rich on new means of speculation and
enterprise. The Black Table sees the old guilds as a weight around their neck.”

“Curious,” said the doña, “that you say ‘their’ and not ‘our.’ Is this significant?”

“To a point.” Another sip of the drink; a second of feigned nervousness. “The House
of bel Auster agrees that the guilds have outlasted their usefulness; that the trade
practices of centuries past should not be set in stone by guild law. We do
not
necessarily agree”—he sipped the drink yet again, and scratched the back of his head—“that,
ah, the Graf von Emberlain should be deposed while he is out of the canton with most
of his army, showing his flag on behalf of his cousins in Parlay and Somnay.”

“Holy Twelve!” Don Salvara shook his head as though to clear it of what he’d just
heard. “They can’t be serious. Your state is … smaller than the Duchy of Camorr! Exposed
to the sea on two sides. Impossible to defend.”

“And yet the preparations are under way. Emberlain’s banks and merchant houses do
four times
the yearly business of the next richest canton in the Marrows. The Black Table fixates
upon this. Gold should certainly be considered potential power; the Black Table errs
by imagining it to be direct power, in and of itself.” He finished his drink in one
long, deliberate draught. “In two months, civil war will have broken out anyway. The
succession is a mess. The Stradas and the Dvorims, the Razuls and the Strigs—they
are all sharpening knives and parading men. Yet, as we speak, the merchants of Emberlain
are moving to arrest the remaining nobility while the Graf is away. To claim the navy.
To raise a levy of ‘free citizens.’ To hire mercenaries. In short, they will now attempt
to secede from the Marrows. It is unavoidable.”

“And what, specifically, does this have to do with you coming here?” The doña’s knuckles
were white around her wine flute; she grasped the full significance of Fehrwight’s
story. A fight larger than anything seen in centuries—civil war mixed with possible
economic disaster.

“It is the opinion of my masters, the House of bel Auster, that rats in the hold have
little chance to take the wheel of a ship that is about to run aground. But those
same rats may very easily
abandon the ship
.”

IN THE center of the Shifting Revel, a great many tall iron cages had been sunk into
the water. Some of these served to support wooden slats on which performers, victims,
fighters, and attendants could stand; a few
particularly heavy cages restrained dark shapes that circled ominously under the translucent
gray water. Platform boats were rowed around at a steady clip, showing off rope dancers,
knife throwers, acrobats, jugglers, strongmen, and other curiosities; the excited
shouts of barkers with long brass speaking trumpets echoed flatly off the water.

First up at any Revel were the Penance Bouts, where petty offenders from the Palace
of Patience could volunteer for mismatch combat in exchange for reduced sentences
or slightly improved living conditions. At present, a hugely muscled
nichavezzo
(“punishing hand”), one of the duke’s own household guard, was handing out the beatings.
The soldier was armored in black leather, with a gleaming steel breastplate and a
steel helmet crested with the freshly severed fin of a giant flying fish. Scales and
spines scintillated as the soldier stepped back and forth under the bright sun, striking
out seemingly at leisure with an iron-shod staff.

The
nichavezzo
stood on a platform that was small but rock-steady; a series of circular wooden flats
surrounded him, separated by an arm’s-length span of water. These wobbly, unstable
platforms were occupied by about two dozen slender, grimy prisoners, each armed with
a small wooden cudgel. A concerted rush might have overwhelmed their armored tormentor,
but this lot seemed to lack the temperament for cooperation. Approaching the
nichavezzo
singly or in little groups, they were being dropped, one after another, with skull-rattling
blows. Little boats circled to fish out unconscious prisoners before they slipped
under the water forever; the duke, in his mercy, did not allow Penance Bouts to be
deliberately lethal.