Jean rolled several times to his right-a wise decision. When he stumbled up to his feet, clutching at his right side, he saw the surviving sister dragging herself toward him, one blade still held tightly in her right hand.
“You’re bleeding hard, Tannen. You won’t live out the night, you fucking bastard.”
“That’s Gentleman Bastard,” he said. “And there’s a chance I won’t. But you know what? Calo and Galdo Sanza are laughing at you, bitch.”
He wound up with his left arm and let his remaining hatchet fly, a true throw this time, with all the strength and hatred he could put behind it. The blade struck home right between the Berangias sister’s eyes. With the most incredible expression of surprise on her face she fell forward and sprawled like a rag doll.
Jean wasted no time in reflection. He gathered his hatchets and threw on one of the sisters’ oilcloaks, putting up the hood. His head was swimming; he recognized all the signs of blood loss, which he’d had the misfortune to experience before. Leaving the bodies of the Berangias sisters in the light of the fallen glow-globes, he stumbled back out into the night. He would avoid the Cauldron, where some sort of trouble was sure to lurk, and make a straight run across the north of the Wooden Waste. If he could just make it to the Ashfall hovel, Ibelius would be there, and Ibelius would have some trick up his sleeves.
If the dog-leech attempted to use a poultice on him, however, Jean was likely to break his fingers.
5
IN HER solarium atop Amberglass tower, Doña Vorchenza spent the midnight hour in her favorite chair, peering at the evening’s notes. There were reports of the ongoing strife from the Gray King’s ascension to Barsavi’s seat; more thieves found lying in abandoned buildings with their throats slashed. Vorchenza shook her head; this mess was really the last thing she needed with the affair of the Thorn finally coming to a head. Raza had identified and exiled half a dozen of her spies among the gangs; that in itself was deeply troubling. None of them had been aware of one another, as agents. So either all of her agents were clumsier than she’d suspected, or Raza was fantastically observant. Or there was a breach in her trust at some level above the spies on the street.
Damnation. And why had the man exiled them, rather than slaying them outright? Was he trying to avoid antagonizing her? He’d certainly not succeeded. It was time to send him a very clear message of her own-to summon this Capa Raza to a meeting with Stephen, with forty or fifty blackjackets to emphasize her points.
The elaborate locks to her solarium door clicked, and the door slid open. She hadn’t been expecting Stephen to return this evening; what a fortunate coincidence. She could give him her thoughts on the Raza situation…
The man that entered her solarium wasn’t Stephen Reynart.
He was a rugged man, lean-cheeked and dark-eyed; his black hair was slashed with gray at his temples, and he strolled into her most private chamber as though he belonged there. He wore a gray coat, gray breeches, gray hose, and gray shoes; his gloves and vest were gray, and only the silk neck-cloths tied casually above his chest had color; they were bloodred.
Doña Vorchenza’s heart hammered; she put a hand to her chest and stared in disbelief. Not only had the intruder managed to open the door, and done so without taking a crossbow bolt in the back, but there was another man behind him-a younger man, bright-eyed and balding, dressed in a similar gray fashion, with only the bright scarlet cuffs of his coat to set him apart.
“Who the hell are you?” she bellowed, and for a moment that age-weakened voice rose to something like its old power. She rose from her seat, fists clenched. “How did you get up here?”
“We are your servants, my lady Vorchenza; your servants come to pay you our proper respects at last. You must forgive us our previous discourtesy; things have been so busy of late in my little kingdom.”
“You speak as though I should know you, sir. I asked your name.”
“I have several,” said the older man, “but now I am called Capa Raza. This is my associate, who styles himself the Falconer. And as for how we came to your truly lovely solarium…”
He gestured to the Falconer, who held up his left hand, palm spread toward Doña Vorchenza. The coat sleeve fell away, revealing three thick black lines tattooed at his wrist.
“Gods,” Vorchenza whispered. “A Bondsmage.”
“Indeed,” said Capa Raza, “for which, forgive me, but his arts seemed the only way to ensure that your servants would haul us up here, and the only way to ensure we could enter your sanctum without disturbing you beforehand.”
“I am disturbed now,” she spat. “What is your meaning here?”
“It is past time,” said Raza, “for my associate and I to have a conversation with the duke’s Spider.”
“What are you speaking of? This is my tower; other than my servants, there is no one else here.”
“True,” said Capa Raza, “so there is no need to maintain your little fiction before us, my lady.”
“You,” said Doña Vorchenza coldly and levelly, “are greatly mistaken.”
“Those files behind you, what are they? Recipes? Those notes beside your chair-does Stephen Reynart give you regular reports on the cuts and colors of this year’s new dresses, fresh off the docks? Come, my lady. I have very unusual means of gathering information, and I am no dullard. I would construe any further dissembling on your part as a deliberate insult.”
“I regard your uninvited presence here,” said Doña Vorchenza after a moment of consideration, “as nothing less.”
“I have displeased you,” said Raza, “and for that I apologize. But have you any means to back that displeasure with force? Your servants sleep peacefully; your Reynart and all of your Midnighters are elsewhere, prying into my affairs. You are alone with us, Doña Vorchenza, so why not speak civilly? I have come to be civil, and to speak in earnest.”
She stared coldly at him for several moments, and then waved a hand at one of the solarium’s armchairs. “Have a seat, Master Revenge. I fear there’s no comfortable chair for your associate.”
“It will be well,” said the Falconer. “I’m very fond of writing desks.” He settled himself behind the little desk near the door, while Raza crossed the room and sat down opposite Doña Vorchenza.
“Hmmm. Revenge, indeed. And have you had it?”
“I have,” said Capa Raza cheerfully. “I find it’s everything it’s been made out to be.”
“You bore Capa Barsavi some grudge?”
“Ha! Some grudge, yes. It could be said that’s why I had his sons murdered while he watched, and then fed him to the sharks he so loved.”
“Old business between the two of you?”
“I have dreamed of Vencarlo Barsavi’s ruin for twenty years,” said Raza. “And now I’ve brought it about, and I’ve replaced him. I’m sorry if this affair has been…an inconvenience for you. But that is all that I am sorry for.”
“Barsavi was not a kind man,” said Vorchenza. “He was a ruthless criminal. But he was perceptive; he understood many things the lesser capas did not. The arrangement I made with him bore fruit on both sides.”
“And it would be a shame to lose it,” said Raza. “I admire the Secret Peace very much, Doña Vorchenza. My admiration for it is quite distinct from my loathing for Barsavi. I should like to see the arrangement continued in full. I gave orders to that effect, on the very night I took Barsavi’s place.”
“So my agents tell me,” said Doña Vorchenza. “But I must confess I had hoped to hear it in your own words before now.”