“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 bloodstains. 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.