“Just get me the place and I’ll do the work,” said Locke. “I’m going to repeat my stunt at the Enemy Tavern, smoke it up with harmless alchemy, only this time it’s going to last hours and it’s going to hit ’em at the worst possible time. I’ll decide when that is, but I need my fire-oil and powders stored nearby. This chandlery sounds perfect.”
“As you wish, of course.”
“And Nikoros,” said Locke, “this is the deepest, darkest sort of secret. Don’t write any notes or take any minutes on it. Keep this between you and me and the gods. Absolutely nobody else. Understood?”
“Perfectly, Master Lazari.”
“Good. Off on your other business, now, and send Dexa over to me as you go.”
“Master Lazari,” she said, waving her cigar at him. “You look busy. Can’t say I disapprove. What did you want to see me about?”
“What we’re going to discuss must remain absolutely confidential,” whispered Locke, leaning in so close he was immersed in tendrils of her smoke. “You know the Isas Mellia better than anyone. I need you to find me a shack, or a cellar, a bolt-hole of just about any sort, where I can store a certain quantity of …”
9
AN HOUR before midnight the rain flashed down like silver harp-strings against the darkness. A lean man and a burly man stood beneath a snuffed lantern at the edge of the Mara Karthani. They watched the manse of Perspicacity Lovaris and shivered under their oilcloaks.
“There she is,” said Locke.
A heavy dark shape, sensibly dressed like themselves, emerged from the tradesfolk entrance and walked away from them, north, in the direction of the city streets.
“And if this is a trap?” said Jean.
“I took a precaution.” Locke knelt to lift a light wooden crate onto his shoulders. Jean picked up another. “There should be a carriage running one green alchemical lamp about a block north of the manse. Two of our drivers and two of our guards watching for trouble. If we come running, they’ll snatch us up and get us home.”
“Good thought,” said Jean. “Assuming we can run. I hope this is the last risky stupidity we dive into before this mess is over. I’m not sure we can get much less cautious than this.”
“May the Crooked Warden bless us for keeping Him entertained,” said Locke. “Let’s go. What kind of house-breakers would we be if we didn’t keep our appointment?”
10
TWO MORE nights and the weather moderated. The sky took back its rain, and the soft brisk wind off the Amathel felt like the kiss of cool silk. Milky moonlight spilled down on the Vel Vespala as Jean Tannen approached the Sign of the Black Iris, calmly and openly.
The foyer guards, not in the market for fresh concussions, actually held the inner doors open for him. Then came Vordratha.
“One of us must be dreaming,” he said, halting Jean three paces into the lobby. “And I’m quite certain I’m awake, so I suggest you sleepwalk your silly ass back to someplace they don’t mind your smell.”
“I’m here as an ambassador,” said Jean. “Touching on a personal matter of Mistress Gallante’s. Of course, I don’t have an appointment, but she’ll want to see me anyway.”
“I’ll tell you what,” said Vordratha, “you’re free to kneel and kiss one of my boots, in which case I might possibly consider relaying your petition.”
“Friend Vordratha,” said Jean with a smile, “in your capacity as Verena’s majordomo and all-around mirthless damp prick, you deserve congratulations. In your capacity as any sort of meaningful opposition to my fists, you’re half a second of easy work.”
“You’re a crude bastard, Callas.”
“And you’re still favoring lamentably tight breeches.” Jean feigned a yawn. “I’ll take the same two hostages my colleague did. I invite you to ponder the difference in our sizes and proportional strength of grip.”
Vordratha showed Jean to the now-familiar private dining hall, warned him that the wait might be lengthy, and slammed the door behind him.
Time passed, and Jean paced quietly, alert for trouble. He estimated it was a quarter of an hour before the door opened again and Sabetha came in.
She was dressed mostly in black, black tunic and breeches under a heavy mantled black coat with silver buttons and chasings. Her hair was loose and wind-whipped, her white scarf hanging in folds around her neck, her boots covered in fresh mud.
Not for the first time, Jean felt a strange sense of displacement as his memories of Sabetha tangled with the woman before his eyes. It was like looking at a reverse ghost, a reality somehow less tangible than the recollections five years gone. He’d lived those five years so gradually, but to his eyes she’d received them all at once, and in studying the new lines time had sketched for her he felt the faint tug of his own passing years, like a weight in his heart. How much older did he look to her?
He took a deep breath, banishing the broody thought. While Jean was often bemused by the philosophical notions that made free with his heart and head, long hours of tutelage in arms had also given him the trick of shoving such notions aside, cubbyholing them for contemplation once he’d survived his immediate responsibilities.
Sabetha pressed herself back against the door, closing it, and folded her arms.
“If this continues,” she said, “Vordratha might become the first man in the history of the world to have himself made into a eunuch for reasons of self-defense.”
“In fairness,” said Jean, “I can’t imagine he’s ever found much use for the blighted things.”
“He’s a devoted father of seven.”
“You’re joking!”
“I was as surprised as you. Seems he’s equally dedicated to his children and his career as a professional asshole. Please don’t actually hurt him again.”
“My oath to the Crooked Warden,” said Jean. He pulled an envelope from within his coat. “Now, to why I came. This— Well, I don’t want to speak for him. But you ought to know it’s taken him a few nights to finish this. Much lost sleep and many false starts.”
“As it was in the beginning, I suppose.” She took the envelope with a hand that shook just enough for Jean to notice, then slipped it into her coat. “And … is that it, then?”
Had the question sounded tired, Jean would have taken it for a dismissal, but Sabetha sounded wistful, almost hurt. He cleared his throat.
“Diplomacy and curiosity don’t always mix,” he said. “We’re not strangers, Jean.”
Jean slipped off his optics and made a show of polishing them against a coat sleeve while he considered his words.
“All I can see,” he said at last, “is two people I care for being divided and ruled by the words of a stranger. This bullshit of Patience’s! I’m sorry. I didn’t come to lecture you. But surely you can—”
“You delivered his letter,” said Sabetha. “Now you’re inquiring into his business. Is Jean even here right now? Jean I could speak to, but Locke’s … legate to my court, that man’s business is dispensed with and the door is open.”
“Again, I’m sorry.” Jean realized that their physical situation had the look and feel of a standoff; so long as they both remained on their feet informality and relaxation would be difficult to kindle. He eased himself into a chair. “You know that I worry about him. I worry about the pair of you. And I regret that I haven’t, ah, exactly paid you a social call since our return. When you first invited us here, I was a little cold.”
“You were preoccupied.”
“That’s kind of you to suggest.”
“And then I dropped twenty hirelings on your head and packed you off to sea.” Sabetha sat down and crossed her legs. “It couldn’t have helped. I hope you don’t think I was pleased you broke your nose.”
“You provided us with a comfortable ship,” said Jean. “Leaving it in the middle of the night was our decision. I was annoyed at the time, but I know it was just business.”
“Maybe there’s been a little too much ‘just business.’ ” Sabetha fus
sed self-consciously with her gloves. “I kept your hatchets as a sort of assurance, and then as a sort of joke, and then I handed them to Locke like you were some kind of … hireling. I would not have desired to give that impression.”
“Gods, Sabetha, I’m not made of porcelain! Look, we’re not— We haven’t been bad friends, merely absent ones, long apart. And if there are more difficult possible circumstances for a reunion, I’ll eat my boots. Cold. With mustard.”
“Now who’s being kind?” she said. “I’ve missed you. Personally and professionally.”
“I’ve missed you,” said Jean. “Sharp edges and all. Life was always better with you around. Everyone around you catches your light. We’re doing it now, even across the city, working against you. I haven’t seen him like this … well, not for a long while. Sick with worry and totally exhilarated.”
“The conversation turns to our mutual friend again.”
“Yes. I mean— Look. Let me say this much, please.” Jean took a deep breath and pushed on before she could interrupt. “He and I had a dangerous misunderstanding in Tal Verrar. We both looked at the same thing, and we both made bad assumptions that led us in opposite directions. We got lucky, but bad assumptions … they’re a possibility to be aware of, you see?”
“Jean.” She spoke haltingly, each word crisp and fragile. “You must trust … do I seem at ease to you? Do I seem wholly myself? You must trust that I have reasons, urgent reasons for my behavior, and that they are as much to my grief as they are to his—”
“Stop.” Jean raised his hands placatingly. “Sabetha, however damned foolish I think you’re being, you do have a right to your own judgment. I don’t like the judgment, but I’ll respect the right, all the way to my grave. I’ve said my piece.”
“Thank you,” she said, and her smile warmed him like a fire. “It seems you and he have both grown more diplomatic since we parted.”
“We’ve made second careers out of finding excuses not to murder one another. It’s had a salutary effect on our manners.” Jean found his feet again and held out his hand. “Sister Bastard, I’d like to detain you longer and make my job that much easier, but I imagine we’re being watched. We can’t afford to try the patience of our employers.”
“Brother Bastard.” She took his hand and squeezed it. “I wish I didn’t have to agree. Thank you for talking to me.”
“I hope we get to do it again.”
“One day at a time,” she said, softly. “Until we find out what’s waiting at the end of all this. But hope is a good word. I hope you’re right. About everything.”
“Is there any message I can take back for you?”
“No,” she said. “Whatever there is to say, I’ll say it myself, in my own time.”
They embraced, and Jean swept her off her feet. She laughed, and he turned the sweep into a complete twirl that ended with her elegantly set down atop a table. He bowed.
“I return madam to the pedestal on which she usually resides.”
“You cheeky lump! And here I was almost feeling sorry about trouncing the bright red fuck out of you in the election.”
“Tsk. Whatever you are, you’re not the least bit sorry,” said Jean, waving as he let himself out. “As you said … we’re not strangers.”
11
THE ROOM, so warmly lit, so invitingly decorated, felt cold after the door closed behind Jean. Strange how the empty seats and unused tables suddenly contrived to give the place the air of a deserted temple. Sabetha had never felt so isolated here before.
She leapt off the table and landed softly on the toes of her boots, scarf and coat rustling. The envelope was out of her pocket before she knew it, hands moving faster than the thoughts that usually ruled them.
“Of course I’m not alone,” she said. “You’re here.”
The room was still. The bustle of Black Iris business could be heard only faintly through the floor.
“I am a grown woman having a conversation with an envelope,” she muttered several heartbeats later.
He was there like smoke, like a ghost in the room, like a scent in her clothing. It had been so long that she had forgotten the actual scent, only that she remembered carrying it. Remembered wanting it, then not wanting it, then wanting it again despite herself.
There were two Lockes, she thought, turning the envelope back and forth in her hands. Two real Lockes under all the faces he wore in the course of his games. One of them put such a sweet sharp ache in her heart she could scarcely believe that a younger, softer Sabetha had sealed the feeling away and managed to leave. That man broke all the patterns of law and custom and dared the world to damn him for it.
The other Locke … that man was bound tight to those patterns, their absolute prisoner. He would do thus because thus was the way it always had been in Camorr, or the way it had always been for a garrista, or for a priest, or a Right Person, or a Gentleman Bastard. The reasons were endless, and he would cling to them viciously, thoughtlessly, tangling everyone around him into the bargain.
Even his eyes seemed different, when he was that second man. And that was a problem.
If there were two, might there not be three? Patterns behind the patterns, secrets behind the secrets, new strings to dance on, and these ones leading all the way back to the Bondsmagi of Karthain. Another Locke, unknown even to himself. What would become of the Lockes she knew if that stranger inside them was real? If he woke up?
“Which one of you wrote this?” She sniffed gently at the envelope, and the scent of it told her nothing.
Everything about the room was suddenly wrong. She didn’t want to be here in this quiet citadel, this orderly heart of her temporary power. The business between her and Locke was thieves’ business; she needed a thief’s freedom to face it. And a thief’s most comfortable roof was the night sky.
She swept an alchemical globe into her coat pocket and shook her boots off, scattering flakes of drying mud on the floor. Barefoot, she padded to one of the room’s tall windows and cracked it open.
Sabetha had adjusted the lock mechanism herself and rehearsed the process of slipping out many times; she’d mentally mapped four distinct routes around and down from the roof of the Sign of the Black Iris. The stones beneath her feet were cool but not yet unbearably cold.
Up she went, night breeze stirring her hair, soft moonlight showing all her possible paths. The world of streets, alleys, horses, and lamps receded below her, and she grinned. She was fifteen again, ten again, hanging on ancient stones with nothing but skill between herself and the fall.
She was on the roof, quiet as a sparrow’s shadow, heart pounding not with exertion but with the thrill of her own easy competence and the anxious mystery of the envelope.
Her rooftop sentry, crouched in the shadow of a tall chimney, all but exploded out of his shoes when Sabetha’s hand fell lightly on his shoulder.
“Take a break,” she whispered, straining to keep the sound of her smile out of her voice. “Get some coffee and wait below for me to come fetch you.”
“A-as you say, Mistress Gallante.” To his credit, he was tolerably silent as he moved off. Not a patch on a proper Camorri skulker, but willing to make an effort.
Sabetha settled into his spot, pulled the alchemical light from her pocket, and once again turned the envelope over and over between her fingers.
“Get on with it,” she said, knowing it was empty theater for an audience of one. “Get on with it.”
Minutes passed. Silver cloud-shadows moved and blended across the dark rooftops. At last she found her hands taking the initiative from heart and mind again. The seal was cracked before she knew it, the letter slipped out. The handwriting was as familiar as her own. Her teeth were suddenly chattering.
“Dammit, woman, if you’re vulnerable to him it’s because you wanted to let yourself be vulnerable. Get on with it.”
Dear Sabetha, she read:
I have instructed J. to put this into your hands directly and so presume to write yo
ur name, selfishly. I want to say it out loud, over and over again, but even alone in this little room I am afraid of sounding like a lunatic, afraid that you would somehow be able to sense me making a damned idiot of myself. At least, having written it, I can stare at it as long as I like. It keeps snatching my attention away. How can any other word I write expect to compete? This is going to be a long night.
I suppose it’s true to the peculiar course of our courtship that so much of my courting takes the form of apologies. I like to think I have some talent for them; gods know I’ve had so many opportunities and reasons to practice.
Sabetha, I am sorry. I have put my recollection of everything said and done since I came to Karthain under a magnifying lens, and I realize now that when I returned after escaping from your arranged vacation, I said some things I had no right to say. I took offense at your deception. I confused the business with the personal, and piled self-righteousness high enough to scrape the ceiling. For that, and not for the first time, I am deeply ashamed. It was wrong of me to throw such a fit.
Sabetha sucked in cool air with an unseemly gasp, suddenly realizing she’d been holding her breath. What had she expected? It certainly wasn’t this.
Once, you will recall, I told you that I gave you my absolute trust as my oath-sister, my friend, and my lover. Absolute trust is something that can only be given without conditions or reservations, something that can only be rescinded if it was meaningless in the first place.
I do not rescind it. I cannot rescind it.
You tricked me fairly, using something I gave you freely. I am a fool for you not merely by instinct but also by choice. I apologize now, not to beg for sympathy, but because it is an obligation of simple truth and affection I owe you before I have the right to say anything further.
I have pondered so long and furiously on Patience’s claims about my past that I have become thoroughly sick of the question. Though I desperately pray for the ultimate vindication of J.’s skepticism, I must admit I have no explanation that strikes me as convincing. There are shadows in my past that my memory cannot illuminate, and if you find that disturbing, I beg you to believe that I don’t blame you. Patience’s story has given us both a hard shock, and how I ought to deal with it is still something of a mystery.