The Republic of Thieves

  10

  GLORIANO’S INN-ROOM wobbled around Gennaro Boulidazi as though mounted on an impossibly huge gimbal, and the lights and colors of the room had begun to run together like watercolors painted in the rain. The dull pressure in his skull meant he’d gone well past the horizon of smart indulgence, but how was that possible? Gloriano’s swill had snuck up on him. The thought gave him more vague amusement than alarm. Very little ever alarmed him.

  Verena, now, she was at least causing him consternation. The alluring bitch! Plainly she wanted him, but if not for the fact that she was so bloody young he would have sworn she was deliberately leading him on for frustration’s sake. She had to be skittish, of course. Still a virgin. Well, he could fix that. Gods, could he fix that.

  The very thought made images of his desire swim in his head, mingling with the already muddled scene around him. Seventeen at the oldest, body tight and firm as a dancer’s, with the blood of a Camorri family that went all the way back to the old empire. She was his to shape in every way. With his parents in their graves he was his own matchmaker, his own judge and counsel. If he couldn’t or wouldn’t seize a prize as sweet as Verena he ought to cut his balls off and let the house of Boulidazi fall! So she couldn’t go onstage in Camorr? Piss on Camorr. In Espara she could do as she pleased, at least until she started bearing children.

  “M’lord.” It was one of his men, hatchet-faced Brego, whispering in his ear, too respectful or scared to touch him. “Can I fetch a carriage for you?”

  “ ’M fine,” muttered the baron, scanning the room dazedly. “Th’ gods fucking love me. Preva loves me! Just look at what she’s sent me.”

  Boulidazi concentrated, fighting back against the warm haze that was slowly gathering between his senses and the world around him. Drunk actors everywhere—his company. And there was the mouthy seamstress, the nightskin with the papers and the answer for everything. Oh, but she was tasty despite the airs she put on, no virgin and certainly no girl. Hair like curling black silk and breasts like heavy purses under that fraying bodice. Gods, yes, she’d know what to do once her legs were spread. A man could sink right in and feel at home.

  That thought stirred him to arousal, a sudden exquisite pressure. He stumbled and had to push off a random inebriate to steady himself. The poor fellow toppled to the floor, dismissed from Boulidazi’s mind even before he landed.

  The seamstress! He needed to spend himself a bit, drain the urge just enough to restore his self-control for a couple of days. Jenora would suit that use … would probably be flattered. Boulidazi watched her closely, noted her furtive whispers to the tubby Camorri, Jovanno. For some reason she’d taken the boy to her bed. Did she have any idea who Lucaza and Verena really were? Was she trying, in her own pathetic fashion, to sleep her way to better circumstances, fucking Lucaza’s man? Now, that was damned amusing.

  Jenora left the inn-room just a moment later, her intended arrangements for the night obviously communicated to the boy. Jovanno, however, was dicing with Alondo and those twins. So he’d be busy for a few minutes at least. Polite Jovanno, sociable Jovanno—the boy would keep their company until the round was done. Well, tonight that would cost him first pass at some quim.

  Verena would never have to know. Jenora, like all of her associates, was empty-pursed and painfully aware of it. It was the easiest thing in the world to keep a penniless woman shut up.

  “I need some privacy. Jus’ a few minutes,” Boulidazi muttered to Brego. Then, summoning the dregs of his concentration, he put one unsteady foot in front of the other and moved toward the stairs Jenora had taken.

  11

  EACH KISS was longer and fiercer than the last.

  Locke’s hands shook with the hot anxiety of impatience and inexperience. There were so many things to figure out so quickly between short, desperate breaths. It was one thing to throw a girl around in dreams, where the mind can discard the inconveniences of physical reality, but real girls have weight and mass and demands that dream girls lack. First passion is a complicated dance.

  Strangely, it helped that Sabetha seemed just as impatient. She held him at bay a moment while she all but tore the ribbon out of her hair, spilling it across her shoulders. She was flushed, sweaty, as awkwardly excited as he was, and through that she’d shed the imposing grace that usually made Locke feel so small and stumbling around her. Neither of them could be graceful at such close quarters, and Locke found that an immense relief.

  The heat grew in the tiny enclosure as they wound their arms and legs together, and the shock of actually being there with her gave way at last to the explosion of pent-up longing. Their tongues met, hesitantly at first, and they shared a nervous, muffled laugh. Then they explored the new sensation together, more and more boldly. Their hands, too, seemed to come unshackled from inhibition and roamed freely.

  Order and planning were forgotten. Locke found himself having done things without any realization that he’d even started them. Their clothes were shed with reckless speed, as though torn off by ghosts. It was almost like being in a fight—the same fearful exhilaration, the same sense of time disjointed into bright, hot, all-consuming flashes. His hands on her breasts … her lips against the taut muscles of his stomach … their final scramble to arrange themselves for something that neither of them understood.

  Toward that something they fought, and fought was an apt description. However passionate they were, however deep and pure the pleasure of their connection, there was something hesitant and incomplete about their lovemaking. They were like two pieces of an unfinished craftwork, not yet trimmed and polished to slide together properly. At last, they eased apart, exhausted but not content. It was obvious to Locke that Sabetha was straining to conceal disappointment, or discomfort, or even both.

  Is that it? The thought came unbidden from whatever corner of his mind was responsible for unhelpful pessimism. Was that all? That was the act that turned the whole world on its ear, that made men and women crazy, that bedeviled his dreams, that made hounds of the Sanza twins?

  “Look,” he muttered when he’d caught his breath. He pushed himself up on his elbows. “I, um, I’m sorry—”

  Sabetha pulled him back down and held him tight, her breasts against his back. She spread her hands possessively across his chest and kissed his neck, an act that instantly disconnected him from whatever willpower he’d managed to summon.

  “What are you apologizing for?” she whispered. “You think that’s it? You think we never get to try again?”

  “Well, I just thought you’d—”

  “What, banish you like a passing fancy?” Her kiss became a playful bite, and Locke yelped. “Preva help me, I’m sweet for an idiot.”

  “Did we … did I hurt you, just now?”

  “I wouldn’t say hurt, exactly.” She tightened her embrace reassuringly for an instant. “It was … strange. But it wasn’t bad.”

  There was a muffled thump from one of the nearby rooms, followed by some sort of passionate outburst that quickly subsided.

  “That could be us when we’ve rested a bit,” she said. “Believe me, I have every intention of practicing until we get this right.”

  They lay there for a while, muttering sweet inanities, letting the minutes unroll in delectable languor. Sabetha’s hands had just begun roaming again, testing Locke’s returning ardor, when the room’s secret door slid open barely an inch. Someone moved against the dim light of the hall, and Locke’s heart pounded.

  “Get dressed,” hissed Calo.

  “What the hell,” said Sabetha. “This isn’t funny!”

  “Damn right it’s not. It’s bad.”

  “What can possibly—?”

  “Don’t ask questions. If you trust me and want to live, get your bloody clothes on. We need you both, this instant.”

  Locke’s relief at not seeing Boulidazi outside the little chamber was instantly squelched by the cold dead gravity of Calo’s voice. A serious Sanza was one hell of an ill omen. Locke foun
d his clothes with the most extreme haste, and still Sabetha beat him out into the hall.

  12

  NO ONE else was in the hall as they emerged, though the noise of revelry continued unabated from the direction of the common room. Calo, visibly on edge, led them the short distance to Jenora’s chamber door. Locke’s sense of dread grew as Calo knocked softly in a three-two-one pattern.

  It was Galdo who answered, ushered them in, and slammed the door shut behind them. The scene within the room made Locke’s knees feel as though they’d dissolved, and he found himself grabbing Sabetha to stay upright.

  Jenora was huddled in a corner beside an overturned cot, wide-eyed and shuddering, her tunic torn open at the neck. Jean crouched next to her, hands on her shoulders.

  Gennaro Boulidazi lay crumpled against the opposite wall, his imposing frame strangely deflated, his face pale. A pair of seamstress’ shears, their plain handles roughened and stained by Jenora’s long hours of work, was deeply embedded in a spreading red stain on the baron’s right breast.

  As Locke stared in horror, Boulidazi moaned softly, shuffled his legs, and coughed more blood onto his tunic. Dull and helpless as the baron seemed, mortal as his wound had to be, for the moment he was still very much alive.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE FIVE-YEAR GAME: REASONABLE DOUBT

  1

  “WHAT LOCKE IS,” said Sabetha, “is the man about to cook my dinner.”

  “Surely you both saw further than that,” said Patience.

  “It’s no affair of yours.” Sabetha slipped out of Locke’s arms, dangerously tense, her air of cautious respect banished. “Locke might answer to you, but I don’t. Best think on how my principals might respond if you use your magic to keep me from dragging you out of this house.”

  “Take care when throwing rules at a rule-maker, my dear,” said Patience. “Provoke me outside the bounds of the five-year game and I’m free to respond as I will. And you are quite outside the bounds of the game this evening, aren’t you? Because if you’re not, you’d be perilously close to the one thing you both agreed—”

  “Shove your collusion somewhere dark and painful,” said Locke, setting his hands on Sabetha’s shoulders. “You know we weren’t talking business when you appeared. Only a snoop could have such flawless dramatic timing. Why the hell are you here?”

  “A matter of conscience.”

  “Really?” said Locke. “Yours? You keep alluding to its existence. Somehow I’m not convinced.”

  “This interruption is entirely your own fault!” The archedama stabbed a finger in Locke’s direction. “I gave you the clearest, fairest possible warning! I told you to set aside your personal business. To get to work, not to wooing. And what have you done?”

  “What have we both done?” said Sabetha. She folded her arms, but Locke could still feel that simmering tension, as familiar to him as her voice or her scent. He tightened his grip, doubting that she had his experience with physically attacking magi. She didn’t relax, but she gave his hand a brief, reassuring squeeze. “Enlighten us, Archedama. And I do mean us.”

  “This reckless pursuit of your old romance,” said Patience. “Set it aside. Go back to your appointed tasks. Don’t make me carry out this obligation, Sabetha. Locke is my responsibility now, and there are things about him that you don’t understand. Things you don’t need to understand, if you would only stop here.”

  “Stop what? My life?”

  “I see I’m wasting breath. Remember that I made the offer, for what it’s worth.” Patience gestured casually, and the balcony doors slid shut behind her. “Locke, you see, is unique. But I’m not merely affirming his egotism. If you would continue pursuing him you have the right to know his true nature.”

  “He’s no stranger to me,” said Sabetha.

  “He’s a stranger to everyone.” Patience fixed her disconcertingly dark eyes on Locke. “Himself most of all.”

  “Enough cryptic bullshit,” Locke growled. “Get to the meat of whatever—”

  “Twenty-three years ago,” Patience interrupted him sharply, “the Black Whisper fell on Camorr. Hundreds died, but the quarantine and the canals saved the city. Once the plague burned itself out, you walked out of old Catchfire, recognized by no one. Home unknown, age unknown, parents and friends unknown.”

  “Yes, I do bloody well remember that,” said Locke.

  “Take it as evidence. Reflect on it.”

  “Here’s something you can reflect on, you—”

  “I know why you have no real memories of the time before the plague.” Again Patience parried his words with her peremptory tone. “I know why you have no recollection of your father. In fact, I know why you make up stories about how you took the name Lamora. You tell some it came from a sausage vendor. You tell others it was a kindly old sailor.”

  “You … you told me it was a sailor,” said Sabetha.

  “Look,” said Locke, a serpentine chill creeping up and down his spine, “look, I’ll explain, I just … Patience, how the hell can you possibly know that?”

  “Not one instance of the surname Lamora has ever been recorded in a Camorri census. Not in any century since the imperial collapse. You’ll find that we had good cause to check. You brought the name with you out of Catchfire, wholly formed in your mind, though you never knew where from. I do.”

  She moved toward them with that uncanny smooth glide facilitated by her elegant robe. “I know that you have only one true and immutable memory glowing dimly in that darkness before the Catchfire plague. A memory of your mother. A memory of her trade.”

  “Seamstress,” muttered Locke.

  “Yes,” said Patience, gesturing toward herself. “I have, after all, told you what my gray name was. The one I chose for myself, long before I was elevated to archedama—”

  “Seamstress,” said Locke, “oh, no. Oh, fuck no. Fuck, no! You can’t be serious!”

  2

  SHE COMPOUNDED his dreadful sense of shock by laughing.

  “I’m serious as cold steel,” she said with a faintly catlike grin. “You’ve made quite an amusing leap to the wrong conclusion, however. I assure you that the Falconer is my one and only child.”

  “Gods,” said Locke, gasping with relief. “So what the hell are you on about?”

  “I said your memory was immutable and true. But it’s nothing to do with your mother’s trade. In fact, it’s nothing to do with your mother at all. It’s me you remember.”

  “And how in all the hells is that even possible?”

  “There was once an extraordinarily gifted mage of my order, the youngest archedon in centuries. He earned his fifth ring when he was half my present age, and took on the office of Providence. He was my mentor, my very true friend. He was also blessed in love. His wife was Karthani, a stunning woman with a kind of beauty very rare among the Therin people. They were enchanted with one another. She died … far too young.

  “It was an accident,” continued Patience, hesitantly, as though it pained her to produce each word. “A balcony collapse. I’ve told you that our arts have limitless capacity to cause harm, and scarcely any power to undo it. We can transmute; we can cleanse. Your poisoning was an alien condition that we could separate from your body. But against shattered bones and spilled blood, we’re helpless. We are ordinary. Ordinary as you.”

  She glared at Locke with something like real anger.

  “Yes,” she said, more slowly. “Ordinary as you are right now. The tragedy caused a terrible change in my friend. He made a grievous error of judgment.

  “He became obsessed with fetching his wife back. Harsh experience teaches us that we cannot master death. Still, he fell into the trap of grief and self-regard. He convinced himself that such mastery was simply a matter of will and knowledge. Will that none had ever before mustered. Knowledge that none had ever revealed. He began to experiment with the most forbidden folly in all our arts—interference with the spirit after death. Transition of the spirit into new flesh.
Do you know what a horror he would have conjured even if he’d been successful?”

  “The gods would never allow such a thing,” whispered Locke, not sure he believed it but certain he wanted to. The image of Bug’s dead black sin-graven eyes flashed in his memory.

  “For once I agree with you,” said Patience wryly. “But the gods are cruel. They don’t so much forbid this ambition as punish it. Life recoils from necromancy, like the inflammation of flesh from a venomous sting. The working of it produces malaise, sickness. It can’t be hidden. Eventually he was discovered, but the confrontation was badly handled. He managed to escape.”

  Patience pushed her hood back. Sabetha seemed as rooted in place as Locke was, spellbound by the tale, barely breathing.

  “Before his elevation to archedon, he’d used a gray name from Throne Therin. He called himself Pel Acanthus, White Amaranth. The unwithering flower of legend. It was only natural that after his madness and betrayal, we called him—”

  “No,” whispered Locke. The strength went out of his legs. Sabetha wasn’t fast enough to catch him before his knees hit the floor.

  “… Lamor Acanthus,” said Patience. “Black Amaranth. I see the name means something to you.”

  “You can’t possibly know that name,” said Locke, his voice barely a croak. Even to his ears the denial sounded pathetic and childish. “You can’t.”

  “I can,” said Patience, not gently. “Pel Acanthus was my friend, Lamor Acanthus my shame. Those names mean a great deal to me. They mean even more to you because they’re who you are.”

  “What are you doing to him?” said Sabetha. Locke clung to her, shaking. His chest felt as though it was being squeezed in iron bands.

  “Ending the mysteries,” said Patience, softening her tone. “Providing the answers. This man was once Lamor Acanthus of Karthain, once Archedon Providence of my order. Once a mage even more powerful than myself.”