The Gentleman Bastard Series (16 page)

“In you go!” Chains gestured once again, and Locke peeked over the lip of the stone block. A sturdy wooden ladder led down a square shaft just slightly wider than Chains’ shoulders; it ended about twenty feet below, on a polished wood floor. “Don’t gawk, climb!”

Locke obeyed. The rungs of the ladder were wide and rough and very narrowly spaced; he had no trouble moving down it, and when he stepped off he was in a tall passage that might have been torn out of the duke’s own tower. The floor was indeed polished wood, long straight golden-brown boards that creaked pleasantly beneath his feet. The arched ceiling and the walls were entirely covered with a thick milky golden glass that shone faintly, like a rainy-season sun peeking out from behind heavy clouds. The illumination came from everywhere and nowhere; the wall scintillated. With a series of thumps and grunts and jingles (for Locke saw that he now carried the day’s donated coins in a small burlap sack) Chains came down and hopped to the floor beside him. He gave a quick tug to a rope tied to the ladder, and the false bed-pallet fell back down and locked itself above.

“There. Isn’t this much nicer?”

“Yeah.” Locke ran one hand down the flawless surface of one of the walls. The glass was noticeably cooler than the air. “It’s Elderglass, isn’t it?”

“Sure as hell isn’t plaster.” Chains shooed Locke along the passage to the left, where it turned a corner. “The whole temple cellar is surrounded by the stuff. Sealed in it. The temple above was actually built to settle into it, hundreds of years ago. There’s not a break in it, as far as I can tell, except for one or two little tunnels that lead out to other interesting places. It’s flood-tight, and never lets in a drop from below even when the water’s waist-deep in the streets. And it keeps out rats and roaches and suckle-spiders and all that crap, so long as we mind our comings and goings.”

The clatter of metal pans and the low giggle of the Sanza brothers reached them from around the corner just before they turned it, entering into a comfortably appointed kitchen with tall wooden cabinets and a long witchwood table, surrounded by high-backed chairs. Locke actually rubbed his eyes when he saw their black velvet cushions, and the varnished gold leaf that gilded their every surface.

Calo and Galdo were working at a brick cooking shelf, shuffling pans and banging knives over a huge white alchemical hearthslab. Locke had seen smaller blocks of this stone, which gave off a smokeless heat when water was splashed atop it, but this one must have weighed as much as Father Chains. As Locke watched, Calo (Galdo?) held a pan in the air and poured water from a glass pitcher onto the sizzling slab; the great uprush of steam carried a deep bouquet of sweet cooking smells, and Locke felt saliva spilling down the back of his mouth.

In the air over the witchwood table, a striking chandelier blazed; Locke would, in later years, come to recognize it as an armillary sphere, fashioned from glass with an axis of solid gold. At its heart shone an alchemical globe with the white-bronze light of the sun; surrounding this were the concentric glass rings that marked the orbits and processions of the world and all her celestial cousins, including the three moons; at the outermost edges were a hundred dangling stars that looked like spatters of molten glass somehow frozen at the very instant of their outward explosions. The light ran and glimmered and burned along every facet of the chandelier, yet there was something
wrong
about it. It was as if the Elderglass ceilings and walls were somehow drawing the light
out
of the alchemical sun; leavening it, weakening it, redistributing it along the full length and breadth of all the Elderglass in this uncanny cellar.

“Welcome to our real home, our little temple to the Benefactor.” Chains tossed his bag of coins down on the table. “Our patron has always
sort of danced upon the notion that austerity and piety go hand in hand; down here, we show our appreciation for things by
appreciating
, if you get me. Boys! Look who survived his interview!”

“We never doubted,” said one twin.

“For even a second,” said the other.

“But now can we hear what he did to get himself kicked out of Shades’ Hill?” The question, spoken in near-perfect unison, had the ring of repeated ritual.

“When you’re older.” Chains raised his eyebrows at Locke and shook his head, ensuring the boy could see the gesture clearly. “
Much
older. Locke, I don’t expect that you know how to set a table?”

When Locke shook his head, Chains led him over to a tall cabinet just to the left of the cooking hearth. Inside were stacks of white porcelain plates; Chains held one up so Locke could see the hand-painted heraldic design (a mailed fist clutching an arrow and a grapevine) and the bright gold gilding on the rim.

“Borrowed,” said Chains, “on a rather permanent basis from Doña Isabella Manechezzo, the old dowager aunt of our own Duke Nicovante. She died childless and rarely gave parties, so it wasn’t as though she was
using
them all. You see how some of our acts that might seem purely cruel and larcenous to outsiders are actually sort of
convenient
, if you look at them in the right way? That’s the hand of the Benefactor at work, or so we like to think. It’s not as though we could tell the difference if he didn’t want us to.”

Chains handed the plate to Locke (who clutched at it with greatly exaggerated care and peered very closely at the gold rim) and ran his right hand lovingly over the surface of the witchwood table. “Now this, this used to be the property of Marius Cordo, a master merchant of Tal Verrar. He had it in the great cabin of a triple-decker galley. Huge! Eighty-six oars. I was a bit upset with him, so I lifted it, his chairs, his carpets and tapestries, and all of his clothes. Right off the ship. I left his money; I was making a point. I dumped everything but the table into the Sea of Brass.

“And that!” Chains lifted a finger in the direction of the celestial chandelier. “That was being shipped overland from Ashmere in a guarded wagon convoy for the old Don Leviana. Somehow, in transit, it transformed itself into a box of straw.” Chains took three more plates out of the cabinet and set them in Locke’s arms. “Damn, I was fairly good back when I actually worked for a living.”

“Urk,” said Locke, under the weight of the fine dinnerware.

“Oh, yeah.” Chains gestured to the chair at the head of the table. “Put one there for me. One for yourself on my left. Two for Calo and Galdo on my right. If you were my servant, what I’d tell you to lay out is a
casual setting
. Can you say that for me?”

“A casual setting.”

“Right. This is how the high and mighty eat when it’s just close blood and maybe a friend or two.” Chains let the set of his eyes and the tone of his voice suggest that he expected this lesson to be retained, and he began to introduce Locke to the intricacies of glasses, linen napkins, and silver eating utensils.

“What kind of knife is this?” Locke held a rounded buttering utensil up for Chains’ inspection. “It’s all wrong. You couldn’t kill
anyone
with this.”

“Well, not very easily, I’ll grant you that, my boy.” Chains guided Locke in the placement of the butter knife and assorted small dishes and bowls. “But when the quality get together to dine, it’s impolite to knock anybody off with anything but poison.
That
thing is for scooping butter, not slicing windpipes.”

“This is a
lot
of trouble to go to just to eat.”

“Well, in Shades’ Hill you may be able to eat cold bacon and dirt pies off one another’s asses for all your old master cares. But now you’re a Gentleman Bastard, emphasis on the
Gentleman
. You’re going to learn how to eat like this, and how to serve people who eat like this.”

“Why?”

“Because, Locke Lamora, someday you’re going to dine with barons and counts and dukes. You’re going to dine with merchants and admirals and generals and ladies of every sort! And when you do …” Chains put two fingers under Locke’s chin and tilted the boy’s head up so they were eye to eye. “When you do, those poor idiots won’t have any idea that they’re really dining with a thief.”

3

“NOW, ISN’T this lovely?”

Chains raised an empty glass and saluted his three young wards at the splendidly furnished table; steaming brass bowls and heavy crockware held the results of Calo and Galdo’s efforts at the cooking hearth. Locke, seated on an extra cushion to raise his elbows just above the tabletop,
stared at the food and the furnishings with wide eyes. He was bewildered at how quickly he had escaped his old life and fallen into this new one with strangely pleasant crazy people.

Chains lifted a bottle of something he’d called
alchemical wine
; the stuff was viscous and dark, like quicksilver. When he pulled the loosened cork, the air was filled with the scent of juniper; for a brief moment it overwhelmed the spicy aroma of the main dishes. Chains poured a good measure of the stuff into the empty glass, and in the bright light it ran like molten silver. Chains raised the glass to a level with his eyes.

“A glass poured to air for the one who sits with us unseen; the patron and protector, the Crooked Warden, the Father of Necessary Pretexts.”

“Thanks for deep pockets poorly guarded,” said the Sanza brothers in unison, and Locke was caught off guard by the seriousness of their intonation.

“Thanks for watchmen asleep at their posts,” said Chains.

“Thanks for the city to nurture us and the night to hide us,” was the response.

“Thanks for friends to help spend the loot!” Chains brought the half-filled glass down and set it in the middle of the table. He took up another, smaller glass; into this he poured just a finger of the liquid silver. “A glass poured to air for an absent friend. We wish Sabetha well and pray for her safe return.”

“Maybe we could have her back a little less crazy, though,” said one of the Sanzas, whom Locke mentally labeled Calo for convenience.

“And humble.” Galdo nodded after he’d said this. “Humble would be really great.”

“The brothers Sanza wish Sabetha well.” Chains held the little glass of liquor rock-steady and eyed the twins. “And they pray for her safe return.”

“Yes! Wish her well!”

“Safe return, that would be really great.”

“Who’s Sabetha?” Locke spoke quietly, directing his inquiry to Chains.

“An ornament to our little gang. Our only young woman, currently away on … educational business.” Chains set her glass down beside the one poured to the Benefactor, and plucked up Locke’s glass in exchange. “Another special deal from your old master. Gifted, my boy, gifted like you are with a preternatural talent for the vexation of others.”

“That’s us he’s talking about,” said Calo.

“Pretty soon it’ll mean you, too.” Galdo smiled.

“Pipe down, twitlings.” Chains poured a splash of the quicksilver wine
into Locke’s glass and handed it back to him. “One more toast and prayer. To Locke Lamora, our new brother. My new
pezon
. We wish him well. We welcome him warmly. And for him, we pray,
wisdom
.”

With graceful motions, he poured wine for Calo and Galdo, and then a nearly full glass for himself. Chains and the Sanzas raised their glasses; Locke quickly copied them. Silver sparkled under gold.

“Welcome to the Gentlemen Bastards!” Chains tapped his glass gently against Locke’s, producing a ringing sound that hung in the air before fading sweetly.

“You should’ve picked death!” said Galdo.

“He did offer you death as a choice, right?” Calo spoke as he and his brother tapped their own glasses together, then reached across the table in unison to touch Locke’s.

“Laugh it up, boys.” Soon all the knocking about with glasses was finished and Chains led the way with a quick sip of his wine. “Ahhh. Mark my words, if this poor little creature lives a year, you two will be his
dancing monkeys
. He’ll throw you grapes whenever he wants to see a trick. Go ahead and have a drink, Locke.”

Locke raised the glass; the silvery surface showed him a vivid but wobbly reflection of his own face and the brightly lit room around him; the wine’s bouquet was a haze of juniper and anise that tickled his nose. He put the tiny image of himself to his lips and drank. The slightly cool liquor seemed to go two ways at once as he swallowed. A line of tickling warmth ran straight down his throat while icy tendrils reached upward, sliding across the roof of his mouth and into his sinuses. His eyes bulged; he coughed and ran a hand over his suddenly numb lips.

“It’s mirror wine, from Tal Verrar. Good stuff. Now go ahead and eat something or it’ll pop your skull open.”

Calo and Galdo whisked damp cloths off serving platters and bowls, revealing the full extent of the meal for the first time. There were indeed sausages, neatly sliced and fried in oil with quartered pears. There were also split red peppers stuffed with almond paste and spinach; dumplings of thin bread folded over chicken, fried until the bread was as translucent as paper; and cold black beans in wine and mustard sauce. The Sanza brothers were suddenly scooping portions of this and that onto Locke’s plate too fast for him to track.

Working awkwardly with a two-pronged silver fork and one of the rounded knives he’d previously scorned, Locke began to shovel things into his mouth; the flavors seemed to burst gloriously, haphazardly. The
chicken dumplings were spiced with ginger and ground orange peels. The wine sauce in the bean salad warmed his tongue; the sharp fumes of mustard burned his throat. He found himself gulping wine to put out each new fire as it arose.

To his surprise, the Sanza twins didn’t partake once they’d served him; they sat with their hands folded, watching Chains. When the older man seemed assured that Locke was eating, he turned to Calo.

“You’re a Vadran noble. Let’s say you’re a Liege-Graf from one of the less important Marrows. You’re at a dinner party in Tal Verrar; an equal number of men and women, with assigned seating. The party is just entering the dining hall; your assigned lady is beside you as you enter, conversing with you. What do you do?”