“I see.”
The tall man stared at Carthus. To the jeweler it seemed as if those hard eyes were boring into his soul. “You have exactly five days to submit your tender, Carthus. Let me warn you of two things. Firstly, if there is any indication of collaboration between any of you jewelers, you will earn the Enclave’s extreme displeasure. Secondly, if anybody finds out about the spell fatigue, then we will not waste time in finding out which of you jewelers opened his mouth too wide and not too well. The High Council of the Ponti Jewelers’ Guild will be replaced with another council, and your businesses will be annexed by the city—perhaps to be offered as prizes in the next Autumn Games. Do I make my meaning plain?”
Carthus’s voice was gravel in his throat. “Yes.”
“Go then. Your tender in five days, remember. Send another in.”
Carthus left the room as if in a dream, croaked “He wants you now,” to the nearest High Council member in the anteroom, and was relieved to find himself outside in the sunlight and the fresh air. Far above him the jeweled heights of the Ponti Bridge stood, as they had stood, glinting and twinkling and shining down on the town, for the last two thousand years.
He squinted: Was it his imagination, or were the jewels less bright, the structure less permanent, the whole glorious bridge subtly less magnificent than before? Was the air of permanence that hung about the bridge beginning to fade away?
Carthus began to calculate the value of the bridge in terms of jewel weight and volume. He wondered how Aathia would treat him if he presented her with the rose diamond from the summit; and the High Council would not view him as a nouveau riche upstart, not him, not if he was the man who bought the Ponti Bridge.
Oh, they would all treat him better. There was no doubt of that.
One by one, the man who called himself Glew Croll saw the jewel merchants. Each reacted in his or her own way—shock or laughter, sorrow or gloom—at the news of the spell fatigue in the binding of the Ponti Bridge. And, beneath the sneers or the dismay, each of them began to judge profits and balance sheets, mentally judge and guess possible tenders, activate spies in rival jewelers’ houses.
Carthus himself told no one anything, not even his beloved, unattainable Aathia. He locked himself in his study and wrote tenders, tore them up, wrote tenders once again. The rest of the jewelers were similarly occupied.
The fire had burned out in the Rogues’ Club, leaving only a few red embers in a bed of gray ash, and dawn was painting the sky silver. Gloathis, Redcap, and I had listened to the man called Stoat all night. It was at this point in his narrative that he leaned back on his cushion, and he grinned.
“So there you have it, friends,” he said. “A perfect scam. Eh?”
I glanced at Gloathis and Redcap, and was relieved to see that they looked as blank as I felt.
“I’m sorry,” said Redcap. “I just don’t see…”
“You don’t see, eh? And what about you, Gloathis? Do you see? Or are your eyes covered with mud?”
Gloathis looked serious. She said, “Well…you obviously convinced them all that you were a representative of the Ruling Enclave—and having them all meet in the anteroom was an inspired idea. But I fail to see the profit in this for you. You’ve said that you need a million, but none of them is going to pay anything to you. They are waiting for a public announcement that will never come, and then the chance to pay their money into the public treasury….”
“You think like a mug,” said Stoat. He looked at me and raised an eyebrow. I shook my head. “And you call yourself rogues.”
Redcap looked exasperated. “I just don’t see the profit in it! You’ve spent your thirty gold coins on renting the offices and sending the messages. You’ve told them you’re working for the Enclave, and they will pay everything to the Enclave….”
It was hearing Redcap spell it out that did it. I saw it all, and I understood, and as I understood I could feel the laughter welling up inside me. I tried to keep it inside, and the effort almost choked me. “Oh, priceless, priceless,” was all I could say for some moments. My friends stared at me, irritated. Stoat said nothing, but he waited.
I got up, leaned in to Stoat, and whispered in his ear. He nodded once, and I began to chortle once again.
“At least one of you has some potential,” said Stoat. Then he stood up. He drew his robes around him and swept off down the torch-lined corridors of the Lost Carnadine Rogues’ Club, vanishing into the shadows. I stared after him as he left. The other two were looking at me.
“I don’t understand,” said Redcap.
“What did he do?” begged Gloathis.
“Call yourself rogues?” I asked. “I worked it out for myself. Why can’t you two simply…Oh, very well. After the jewelers left his office he let them stew for a few days, letting the tension build and build. Then, secretly, he arranged to see each of the jewelers at different times and in different places—probably lowlife taverns.
“And in each tavern he would greet the jeweler and point out the one thing that he—or they—had overlooked. The tenders would be submitted to the Enclave through my friend. He could arrange for the jeweler he was talking to—Carthus, say—to put in the winning tender.
“For of course, he was open to bribery.”
Gloathis slapped her forehead. “I’m such an oaf! I should have seen it! He could easily have raked in a million gold coins’ worth of bribes from that lot. And once the last jeweler paid him, he’d vanish. The jewelers couldn’t complain—if the Enclave thought they’d tried to bribe someone they thought to be an Enclave official, they’d be lucky to keep their right arms, let alone their lives and businesses. What a perfect con.”
And there was silence in the Hall of the Lost Carnadine Rogues’ Club. We were lost in contemplation of the brilliance of the man who sold the Ponti Bridge.
October in the Chair
OCTOBER WAS IN THE chair, so it was chilly that evening, and the leaves were red and orange and tumbled from the trees that circled the grove. The twelve of them sat around a campfire roasting huge sausages on sticks, which spat and crackled as the fat dripped onto the burning applewood, and drinking fresh apple cider, tangy and tart in their mouths.
April took a dainty bite from her sausage, which burst open as she bit into it, spilling hot juice down her chin. “Beshrew and suck ordure on it,” she said.
Squat March, sitting next to her, laughed, low and dirty, and then pulled out a huge, filthy handkerchief. “Here you go,” he said.
April wiped her chin. “Thanks,” she said. “The cursed bag of innards burned me. I’ll have a blister there tomorrow.”
September yawned. “You are such a hypochondriac,” he said, across the fire. “And such language.” He had a pencil-thin mustache and was balding in the front, which made his forehead seem high and wise.
“Lay off her,” said May. Her dark hair was cropped short against her skull, and she wore sensible boots. She smoked a small brown cigarillo that smelled heavily of cloves. “She’s sensitive.”
“Oh puhlease,” said September. “Spare me.”
October, conscious of his position in the chair, sipped his apple cider, cleared his throat, and said, “Okay. Who wants to begin?” The chair he sat in was carved from one large block of oakwood, inlaid with ash, with cedar, and with cherrywood. The other eleven sat on tree stumps equally spaced about the small bonfire. The tree stumps had been worn smooth and comfortable by years of use.