“And if our thief could evade capture? If our thief could conceal his identity from his fellows?”
“If. If. They say the Thorn of Camorr steals from the rich”-Don Salvara placed a hand on his own chest-“and gives every last copper to the poor. But have you heard of any bags of gold being dumped in the street in Catchfire lately? Any charcoal-burners or knackers suddenly walking around in silk waistcoats and embroidered boots? Please. The Thorn is a commoner’s ale-tale. Master swordsman, romancer of ladies, a ghost who walks through walls. Ridiculous.”
“Your doors are locked and all your windows are barred, yet here we are in your study, m’lord.”
“Granted. But you’re men of flesh and blood.”
“So it’s said. We’re getting off the subject. Our thief, m’lord, would trust you and your peers to keep his activities concealed for him. Hypothetically speaking, if Lukas Fehrwight were the Thorn of Camorr, and you knew that he had strolled off with a small fortune from your coffers, what would you do? Would you rouse the watch? Cry for aid openly in the court of His Grace? Speak of the matter in front of Don Paleri Jacobo?”
“I…I…that’s an interesting point. I wonder-”
“Would you want the entire city to know that you’d been taken in? That you’d been tricked? Would men of business ever trust your judgment again? Would your reputation ever truly recover?”
“I suppose it would be a very…difficult thing.”
The scarred man’s right hand reappeared, gloveless and pale against the darkness of the cloak, one finger pointing outward. “Her ladyship the Doña Rosalina de Marre lost ten thousand crowns four years ago, in exchange for titles to upriver orchards that don’t exist.” A second finger curled outward. “Don and Doña Feluccia lost twice as much two years ago. They thought they were financing a coup in Talisham that would have made the city a family estate.”
“Last year,” the scarred man said as a third finger unfolded, “Don Javarriz paid fifteen thousand full crowns to a soothsayer who claimed to be able to restore the old man’s firstborn son to life.” The man’s little finger snapped out, and he waved his extended hand at Don Lorenzo. “Now, we have the Don and Doña Salvara involved in a secret business deal that is both tempting and convenient. Tell me, have you ever heard of the troubles of the lords and ladies I have named?”
“No.”
“Doña de Marre visits your wife in her garden twice weekly. They discuss alchemical botany together. You’ve played cards with the sons of Don Javarriz many times. And yet this is all a surprise to you?”
“Yes, quite, I assure you!”
“It was a surprise to His Grace, as well. My master has spent four years attempting to follow the slender threads of evidence connecting these crimes, m’lord. A fortune the size of your own vanished into thin air, and it took ducal orders to pry open the lips of the wronged parties. Because their pride compelled their silence.”
Don Lorenzo stared at the surface of his desk for a long moment.
“Fehrwight has a suite at the Tumblehome. He has a manservant, superior clothes, hundred-crown optics. He has…proprietary secrets of the House of bel Auster.” Don Salvara looked up at the scarred man as though presenting a difficult problem to a demanding tutor. “Things that no thief could have!”
“Would fine clothes be beyond the means of a man with more than forty thousand stolen crowns at his command? And his cask of unaged brandy-how would you or I or any other man outside the House of bel Auster know what it should look like? Or what it should taste like? It’s a simple fraud.”
“He was recognized on the street by a solicitor, one of the Razona lawscribes who sticks to the walls at Meraggio’s!”
“Of course he was, because he began building the identity of Lukas Fehrwight long ago, probably before he ever met Doña de Marre. He has a very real account at Meraggio’s, opened with real money five years ago. He has every outward flourish that a man in his position should bear, but Lukas Fehrwight is a ghost. A lie. A stage role performed for a very select private audience. I have tracked him for months.”
“We are sensible people, Sofia and I. Surely…surely we would have seen something out of place.”
“Out of place? The entire affair has been out of place! M’lord Salvara, I implore you, hear me carefully. You are a financier of fine liquors. You say a prayer to your mother’s shade each week at a Vadran temple. What a fascinating coincidence that you should chance upon a needy Vadran who happens to be a dealer in the same field, eh?”
“Where else but the Temple of Fortunate Waters would a Vadran pray while visiting Camorr?”
“Nowhere, of course. But look at the coincidences piling heavily upon one another. A Vadran liquor merchant, in need of rescue, and he just so happens to be on his way to visit Don Jacobo? Your blood enemy? A man that everyone knows you would crush by any means the duke hadn’t forbidden you?”
“Were you…observing us when I first met him?”
“Yes, very carefully. We saw you and your man approach that alley to rescue a man you thought to be in danger. We-”
“Thought? He was being strangled!”
“Was he? The men in those masks were his accomplices, m’lord. The fight was staged. It was a means to introduce you to the imaginary merchant and his imaginary opportunity. Everything you value was used to bait the trap! Your sympathies for Vadrans, your sense of duty, your courage, your interest in fine liquors, your desire to best Don Jacobo. And can it be a coincidence that Fehrwight’s scheme must be secret? That it runs on an extremely short and demanding schedule? That it just happens to feed your every known ambition?”
The don stared at the far wall of his study, tapping his fingers against his desk at a gradually increasing tempo. “This is quite a shock,” he said at last, in a small voice without any fight left in it.
“Forgive me for that, my Lord Salvara. The truth is unfortunate. Of course the Thorn of Camorr isn’t ten feet tall. Of course he can’t walk through walls. But he is a very real thief; he is posing as a Vadran named Lukas Fehrwight, and he does have five thousand crowns of your money, with an eye for twenty thousand more.”
“I must send men to Meraggio’s, so he can’t exchange my note in the morning,” said Don Lorenzo.
“Respectfully, my lord, you must do nothing of the sort. My instructions are clear. We don’t just want the Thorn, we want his accomplices. His contacts. His sources of information. His entire network of thieves and spies. We have him in the open, now, and we can follow him as he goes about his business. One hint that his game is unmasked, and he will bolt. The opportunity we have may never present itself again. His Grace Duke Nicovante is quite adamant that everyone involved in these crimes must be identified and taken. Toward that end, your absolute cooperation is requested and required, in the duke’s name.”
“What am I to do, then?”
“Continue to act as though you are entirely taken in by Fehrwight’s story. Let him exchange the note. Let him taste some success. And when he returns to you asking for more money…”
“Yes?”
“Why, give it to him, my lord. Give him everything he asks.”
4
ONCE THE dinner dishes were cleared away, and a tipsy Bug was given the task of setting them a-sparkle with warm water and white sand (“Excellent for your moral education!” Jean had cried as he’d heaped up the porcelain and crystal), Locke and Calo withdrew to the burrow’s wardrobe to begin preparations for the third and most critical touch of the Don Salvara game.
The Elderglass cellar beneath the House of Perelandro was divided into three areas; one of them was the kitchen, another was split into sleeping quarters with wooden partitions, and the third was referred to as the Wardrobe.
Long clothes-racks stretched across every wall of the Wardrobe, holding hundreds of pieces of costuming organized by origin, by season, by cut, by size, and by social class. There were sackcloth robes, laborer’s tunics, and butcher’s aprons with dried bloodsta
ins. There were cloaks of winter weight and summer weight, cheaply woven and finely tailored, unadorned or decorated with everything up to precious metal trim and peacock feathers. There were robes and accessories for most of the Therin priestly orders-Perelandro, Morgante, Nara, Sendovani, Iono, and so forth. There were silk blouses and cunningly armored doublets, gloves and ties and cravats, enough canes and walking sticks to outfit a mercenary company of hobbled old men.
Chains had started this collection more than twenty years before, and his students had added to it with the wealth gained from years of schemes. Very little worn by the Gentlemen Bastards went to waste; even the foulest-smelling sweat-soaked summer garments were washed and dusted with alchemical pomanders and hung carefully. They could always be fouled up again, if needed.
A man-height looking glass dominated the heart of the Wardrobe; another, much smaller glass hung from a sort of pulley system on the ceiling, so that it could be moved around and positioned as necessary. Locke stood before the larger mirror dressed in matching doublet and breeches of midnight velvet; his hose was the scarlet of blood in sunset waters, and his simple Camorri tie was a near match.
“Is this bloody melodrama really such a good idea?” Calo was dressed quite similarly, though his hose and his accents were gray; he pulled his tunic sleeves back above his elbows and fastened them there with black pearl clips.
“It’s a fine idea,” Locke said, adjusting his tie. “We’re Midnighters. We’re full of ourselves. What sort of self-respecting spy would break into a manor house in darkest night wearing green, or orange, or white?”
“The sort that walked up and knocked at the door would.”
“I appreciate that, but I still don’t want to change the plan. Don Salvara’s had a busy day. He’ll be wide open for a nice shock at the end of it. Can’t shock him quite the same in lavender and carmine.”
“Well, certainly not in the way you’re thinking, no.”
“This doublet’s damned uncomfortable in the back,” Locke muttered. “Jean! Jeeeeaaaaaaan!”
“What is it?” came an echoing return shout a long moment later.
“Why, I just love to say your name. Get in here!”
Jean ambled into the Wardrobe a moment later, a glass of brandy in one hand and a battered book in the other.
“I thought Graumann had the night off for this bit,” he said.
“He does.” Locke gestured impatiently at the back of his doublet. “I need the services of Camorr’s ugliest seamstress.”
“Galdo’s helping Bug wash up.”
“Grab your needles, glass-eyes.”
Jean’s eyebrows drew down above his reading optics, but he set down his book and his glass and opened a small wooden chest set against one of the Wardrobe walls.
“What’re you reading?” Calo had added a tiny silver and amethyst clip to the center of his tie and was examining himself in the small glass, approvingly.
“Kimlarthen,” Jean replied, working black thread through a white bone needle and trying not to prick his fingers.
“The Korish romances?” Locke snorted. “Sentimental crap. Never knew you had a taste for fairy stories.”
“They happen to be culturally significant records of the Therin Throne centuries,” Jean said as he stepped behind Locke, seam ripper in one hand and threaded needle in the other. “Plus at least three knights get their heads torn completely off by the Beast of Vuazzo.”
“Illustrated manuscript, by chance?”
“Not the good parts, no.” Jean fiddled with the back of the doublet as delicately as he had ever charmed a lock or a victim’s coat pocket.
“Oh, just let it out. I don’t care how it looks; it’ll be hidden in the back of my cloak anyway. We can pretty it up later.”
“We?” Jean snorted as he loosened the doublet with a few strategic rips and slashes. “Me, more like. You mend clothes like dogs write poetry.”
“And I readily admit it. Oh, gods, much better. Now there’s room to hide the sigil-wallet and a few surprises, just in case.”
“It feels odd to be letting something out for you, rather than taking it in.” Jean arranged his tools as he’d found them in the sewing chest and closed it back up. “Do mind your training; we wouldn’t want you gaining half a pound.”
“Well, most of me is brain-weight.” Locke folded his own tunic sleeves back and pinned them up as Calo had.
“You’re one-third bad intentions, one-third pure avarice, and one-eighth sawdust. What’s left, I’ll credit, must be brains.”
“Well, since you’re here, and you’re such an expert on my poor self, why don’t you pull out the Masque Box and help me with my face?”
Jean paused for a sip from his brandy glass before pulling out a tall, battered wooden box inset with many dozens of small drawers. “What do we want to do first, your hair? You’re going black, right?”
“As pitch. I should only have to be this fellow two or three times.”
Jean twirled a white cloth around the shoulders of Locke’s doublet and fastened it in front with a tiny bone clasp. He then opened a poultice jar and smeared his fingers with the contents, a firm dark gel that smelled richly of citrus. “Hmm. Looks like charcoal and smells like oranges. I’ll never fathom Jessaline’s sense of humor.”
Locke smiled as Jean began to knead the stuff into his brown hair. “Even a black apothecary needs to stay amused somehow. Remember that beef-scented knockout candle she gave us, to deal with Don Feluccia’s damn guard dog?”
“Very droll, that.” Calo frowned as he made further minute adjustments to his own finery. “Stray cats running from every corner of Camorr at the scent. Dropping in their tracks until the street was full of little bodies. Wind shifting all over the place, and all of us running around trying to stay ahead of the smoke…”
“Not our finest moment,” said Jean. His job was already nearly finished; the stuff seemed to sink into Locke’s hair, imparting a natural-looking shade of deep Camorri black, with only the slightest sheen. But many men in Camorr used slick substances to hold or perfume their hair; this would hardly be noteworthy.
Jean wiped his fingers on Locke’s white neck-towel, then dipped a scrap of cloth into another poultice jar containing a pearly gel. This stuff, when applied to his fingers, cleared the residue of hair dye away as though the black gel were evaporating into thin air. Jean dabbed the cloth at Locke’s temples and neck, erasing the faint smudges and drips left over from the coloring process.
“Scar?” Jean asked when he was finished.
“Please.” Locke ran his little finger across the line of his right cheekbone. “Slash right across there if you would.”
Jean withdrew a slender wooden tube with a chalky white tip from the Masque Box and drew a short line on Locke’s face with it, just as Locke had indicated. Locke flinched as the stuff sizzled for a second or two; in the blink of an eye the white line hardened into a raised, pale arc of pseudo-skin, perfectly mimicking a scar.
Bug appeared through the Wardrobe door at that instant, his cheeks a bit ruddier than usual. In one hand he held a black leather folding wallet, slightly larger than that which a gentleman would ordinarily carry. “Kitchen’s clean. Galdo said you’d forget this if I didn’t bring it in and throw it at you.”
“Please don’t take him literally.” Locke held out a hand for the wallet while Jean removed the white cloth from his shoulders, satisfied that the hair dye was dry. “Break that thing and I’ll roll you to Emberlain in a barrel. Personally.”
The sigil inside the wallet, the intricate confection of gold and crystal and frosted glass, was by far the most expensive prop of the whole game; even the 502 cask of Austershalin had been cheaper. The sigil had been crafted in Talisham, four days’ ride down the coast to the south; no Camorri counterfeiter, regardless of skill, could be trusted to be quiet or comfortable about mimicking the badge of the duke’s own secret police.
A stylized spider over the Royal Seal of the Serene Duchy;
none of the Gentlemen Bastards had ever seen one, but Locke was confident that few of the lesser nobility had, either. The rough description of the dreaded sigil was whispered by the Right People of Camorr, and from that description a best-guess forgery had been put together.
“Durant the Gimp says that the Spider’s just bullshit,” said Bug as he handed over the wallet. All three older Gentlemen Bastards in the room looked at him sharply.
“If you put Durant’s brains in a thimble full of water,” said Jean, “they’d look like a ship lost in the middle of the sea.”
“The Midnighters are real, Bug.” Locke patted his hair gingerly and found that his hands came away clean. “If you’re ever found breaching the Peace, you’d better pray the capa gets to you before they do. Barsavi’s the soul of mercy compared to the man that runs the Palace of Patience.”
“I know the Midnighters are real,” said Bug. “I just said, there’s some that say the Spider is bullshit.”
“Oh, he exists. Jean, pick out a moustache for me. Something that goes with this hair.” Locke ran a finger over the smooth skin around his lips, shaved just after dinner. “There’s a man behind the Midnighters. Jean and I have spent years trying to figure out which of the duke’s court it must be, but all the leads go nowhere in the end.”
“Even Galdo and I are stumped,” added Calo. “So you know we’re dealing with a devil of singular subtlety.”
“How can you be sure, though?”
“Let me put it like this, Bug.” Locke paused while Jean held up a false moustache; Locke shook his head and Jean went back to digging in the Masque Box. “When Capa Barsavi does for someone, we hear about it, right? We have connections, and the word gets passed. The capa wants people to know his reasons-it avoids future trouble, makes an example.”
“And when the duke does for someone himself,” said Calo, “there’s always signs. Yellowjackets, Nightglass soldiers, writs, trials, proclamations.”