“Papa’s mad if he thinks he can just keep us all here, locked up in this fortress forever! He used to be at the Last Mistake half the nights of the week. He used to walk the docks, walk the Mara, walk the Narrows any time he pleased. He used to throw out coppers at the Procession of the Shades. The duke of Camorr can lock himself in his privy and rule legitimately; the capa of Camorr cannot. He needs to be seen.”
“And risk assassination by the Gray King?”
“Locke, I’ve been stuck inside this fucking wooden tub for two months, and I tell you-we’re no safer here than we would be bathing naked at the dirtiest fountain in the darkest courtyard in the Cauldron.” Nazca had folded her arms beneath her breasts so tightly that her leather cuirass creaked. “Who is this Gray King? Where is he? Who are his men? We don’t have a single idea-and yet this man reaches out and kills our people at leisure, however he sees fit. Something is wrong. He has resources we don’t understand.”
“He’s clever and he’s lucky. Neither of those things lasts forever; trust me.”
“Not just clever and lucky, Locke. I agree there are limits to both. So what does he have up his sleeves? What does he know? Or who? If we are not betrayed, then it must be that we are overmatched. And I am reasonably certain that we are not yet betrayed.”
“Not yet?”
“Don’t play stupid with me, Locke. Business could go on after a fashion with Papa and myself cooped up here. But if he won’t let Anjais and Pachero out to run the city, the whole regime will go to hell. The garristas might think it prudent for some of the Barsavis to stay here; they’ll think it cowardice for all of us to hide. And they won’t just talk behind our backs; they’ll actively court another capa. Maybe a pack of new capas. Or maybe the Gray King.”
“So, naturally, your brothers will never let him trap them here.”
“Depends on how mad and crazy the old man gets. But even if they stay free to roam, that’s only the lesser part of the problem solved. We are, again, overmatched. Three thousand knives at our command, and the ghost still has the twist on us.”
“What do you suspect? Sorcery?”
“I suspect everything. They say the Gray King can kill a man with just a touch. They say that blades won’t cut him. I suspect the gods themselves. And so my brothers think I’m crazy.
“When they look at the situation all they see is a regular war. They think we can just outlast it, lock the old man and the baby sister up and wait until we know where to hit back. But I don’t see that. I see a cat with his paw over a mouse’s tail. And if the cat’s claws haven’t come out yet, it’s not because of anything the mouse has done. Don’t you get it?”
“Nazca, I know you’re agitated. I’ll listen. I’m a stone. You can yell at me all you like. But what can I do for you? I’m just a thief, I’m your father’s littlest thief. If there’s a gang smaller than mine I’ll go play cards in a wolf shark’s mouth. I-”
“I need you to start helping me calm Papa down, Locke. I need him back to something resembling his normal self so I can get him to take my points seriously. That’s why I’m asking you to go in there and take pains to please him. Especially please him. Show him a loyal garrista who does whatever he’s told, the moment he’s told. When he starts to lay reasonable plans for the future again, I’ll know he’s coming back to a state of mind I can deal with.”
“Interesting,” said Locke. “And, uh, daunting.”
“Papa used to say someday I’d appreciate having a gracious man to order around. Believe me, Locke, I do. So…here we are.”
At the end of the short passage was another set of heavy wooden doors, nearly identical to the ones that led back to the reception hall. These doors, however, were barred and locked with an elaborate Verrari clockwork device attached to crossbars of polished iron. A dozen keyholes were visible in the lockbox at the center of the doors; Nazca withdrew two keys that hung on a chain around her neck and briefly put her body between Locke and the doors, so he couldn’t see the apertures she chose. There was a cascading series of clicks and the noise of machinery within the doors; one by one the hidden bolts unshot themselves and the gleaming crossbars slid open until the doors finally cracked open in the middle.
Another scream, loud and vivid without the closed door to muffle it, sounded from the room beyond.
“It’s worse than it sounds,” said Nazca.
“I know what Sage does for your father, Nazca.”
“Knowing’s one thing. Usually Sage just does one or two at a time. Papa’s got the bastard working wholesale today.”
6
“I’VE MADE it clear that I don’t enjoy this,” said Capa Barsavi, “so why do you force me to persist?”
The dark-haired young man was secured to a wooden rack. He hung upside down with metal shackles around his legs, with his arms tied downward at their maximum extension. The Capa’s heavy fist slammed into the prisoner’s side just beneath his armpit; the sound was like a hammer slapping meat. Droplets of sweat flew and the prisoner screamed, writhing against his restraints.
“Why do you insult me like this, Federico?” Another punch to the same spot, with the heavy old man’s first two knuckles cruelly extended. “Why won’t you even have the courtesy to give me a convincing lie?” Capa Barsavi lashed Federico’s throat with the flat of one hand; the prisoner gasped for breath, snorting wetly as blood and spit and sweat ran down into his nose.
The heart of the Floating Grave was something like an opulent ballroom with curving sides. Warm amber light came from glass globes suspended on silver chains. Stairs ran to overhead galleries, and from these galleries to the silk-canopied deck of the old hulk. A small raised platform against the far wall held the broad wooden chair from which Barsavi usually received visitors. The room was tastefully decorated in a restrained and regal fashion, and today it stank of fear and sweat and soiled breeches.
The frame that held Federico folded downward from the ceiling; an entire semicircle of the things could be pulled down at need, for Barsavi occasionally did this sort of business in a volume that rewarded the standardization of procedures. Six were now empty and spattered with blood; only two still held prisoners.
The capa looked up as Locke and Nazca entered; he nodded slightly and gestured for them to wait against the wall. Old Barsavi remained bullish, but he wore his years in plain view. He was rounder and softer now, his three braided gray beards backed by three wobbly chins. Dark circles cupped his eyes, and his cheeks were the unhealthy sort of red that came out of a bottle. Flushed with exertion, he had thrown off his overcoat and was working in his silk undertunic.
Standing nearby with folded arms were Anjais and Pachero Barsavi, Nazca’s older brothers. Anjais was like a miniature version of the Capa, minus thirty years and two beards, while Pachero was more of a kind with Nazca, tall and slender and curly-haired. Both of the brothers wore optics, for whatever eye trouble the old Madam Barsavi had borne had been passed to all three of her surviving children.
Leaning against the far wall were two women. They were not slender. Their bare, tanned arms were corded with muscle and crisscrossed with scars, and while they radiated an air of almost feral good health they were well past the girlishness of early youth. Cheryn and Raiza Berangias, identical twins, and the greatest contrarequialla the city of Camorr had ever known. Performing only as a pair, they had given the Shifting Revel almost a hundred performances against sharks, devilfish, death-lanterns, and other predators of the Iron Sea.