“Nah, it’s just the old Sanza touch.” Calo reshuffled his deck one-handed and held it out toward Locke. “Care to give it a go, boss?”
“No thanks, Calo. Pack up, lads. Our business here is finished for the day, so let’s quit bothering the folks with the crossbows.” He punctuated this with hand gestures: Major complications; discuss elsewhere.
“Damn, I’m hungry,” said Jean, picking up the cue. “Why don’t we get something at the Last Mistake and take it up to our rooms?”
“Yeah,” said Bug. “Beer and apricot tarts!”
“A combination so disgusting I feel oddly compelled to actually try it.” Jean swatted the smallest Gentleman Bastard on the back of his head, then led the way as the gang made for the slender wooden path that tied the Floating Grave to the rest of the world.
9
SAVE CAPA Barsavi (who imagined that Locke’s gang merely continued sitting the steps a few days of the week even with Chains in his grave), no Right People of Camorr knew that the Gentlemen Bastards still worked out of the House of Perelandro. Calo and Galdo and Bug let rooms at various points in and around the Snare, moving every few months. Locke and Jean had maintained the fiction of rooming together for several years. By a great stroke of luck (though whether it was good or ill had yet to be determined, really) Jean had managed to get them the rooms on the seventh floor of the Broken Tower.
The night was dark and full of rain, and none of the gang were particularly eager to make their way back onto the creaking exterior stairs that staggered down the north side of the tower. Hissing rain rattled the window shutters, and the wind made an eerie rising-and-falling sigh as it passed over the gaps and crevices in the old tower. The Gentlemen Bastards sat on floor cushions in the light of paper lanterns and nursed the last of their beer, the pale sweet sort that most Camorr natives preferred to the bitter Verrari dark. The air was stuffy, but at least tolerably dry.
Locke had given them the whole story over dinner.
“Well,” said Galdo, “this is the damnedest damn thing that ever dammed things up for us.”
“I say again,” said Jean, “that we should pull an early blow-off on the Don Salvara game and get ready to ride out a storm. This Gray King business is getting scary, and we can’t have our attention diverted if Locke’s going to be mixed up at the middle of things.”
“Where do we cut ourselves off?” asked Calo.
“We cut ourselves off now,” said Jean. “Now, or after we get one more note out of the don. No later.”
“Mmmm.” Locke stared down at the dregs in the bottom of his tin cup. “We’ve worked hard for this one. I’m confident we can run it for another five or ten thousand crowns, at least. Maybe not the twenty-five thousand we were hoping to squeeze out of Salvara, but enough to make ourselves proud. I got the crap kicked out of me, and Bug jumped off a building for this money, you know.”
“And got rolled two miles inside a bloody barrel!”
“Now, Bug,” said Galdo, “it’s not as though the nasty old barrel jumped you in an alley and forced you to crawl inside it. And I concur with Jean. I said it this afternoon, Locke. Even if you won’t seriously consider using them, can we at least make some arrangements to get you under cover in a hurry? Maybe even out of town?”
“I still can’t believe I’m hearing a Sanza counsel caution,” Locke said with a grin. “I thought we were richer and cleverer than everyone else.”
“You’ll hear it again and again when there’s a chance you’ll get your throat slit, Locke.” Calo picked up his brother’s argument. “I’ve changed my mind about the Gray King, that’s for damn sure. Maybe the lone lunatic does have it over the three thousand of us. You might be one of his targets. And if Barsavi wants you even tighter with his inner circle, it invites further trouble.”
“Can we set aside talk of slitting throats, just for a moment?” Locke rose and turned toward the shuttered seaward window. He pretended to stare out of it with his hands folded behind his back. “Who are we, after all? I admit I was almost ready to jump into the gods-damned bay when the capa sprang this on me. But I’ve had time to think, so get this straight-we’ve got the old fox dead to rights. We’ve got him in the palms of our hands. Honestly, boys. We’re so good at what we do that he’s asking the Thorn of fucking Camorr to marry his daughter. We’re so far in the clear it’s comical.”
“Nonetheless,” said Jean, “it’s a complication that could mess up our arrangements forever, not an accomplishment we can crow about.”
“Of course we can crow about it, Jean. I’m going to crow about it right now. Don’t you see? This is nothing we don’t do every day. It’s a plain old Gentlemen Bastards sort of job-only we’ll have Nazca working with me to pull it off as well. We can’t lose. I’m no more likely to marry her than I am to be named Duke Nicovante’s heir tomorrow morning.”
“Do you have a plan?” Jean’s eyes said he was curious but wary.
“Not even remotely. I don’t have the first damned clue what we’re going to do. But all my best plans start just like this.” Locke tipped the last of his beer down his throat and tossed the tin cup against the wall. “I’ve had my beer and I’ve had my apricot tarts, and I say the hell with them both, Gray King and Capa Barsavi. Nobody’s going to scare us out of our Don Salvara game, and nobody’s going to hitch me and Nazca against our will. We’ll do what we always do-wait for an opening, take it, and fucking well win.”
“Uh…well.” Jean sighed. “Will you at least let us take a few precautions? And will you watch yourself, coming and going?”
“Naturally, Jean, naturally. You grab us some places on likely ships; spend whatever you have to. I don’t care where they’re going as long as it’s not Jerem. We can lose ourselves anywhere for a few weeks and creep back when we please. Calo, Galdo, you get out to the Viscount’s Gate tomorrow. Leave some considerations for the boys in yellow so we can get out of the city at an awkward hour if we need to. Don’t be shy with the silver and gold.”
“What can I do?” asked Bug.
“You can watch our backs. Keep your eyes wide open. Skulk around the temple. Spot me anyone out of place, anyone who lingers too long. If anyone is trying to keep an eye on us, I guarantee we will go to ground and vanish like piss into the ocean. Until then, trust me. I promise to do most of my moving around as Lukas Fehrwight for the next few days; I can swap in some cheaper disguises, too.”
“Then I suppose that’s that,” Jean said quietly.
“Jean, I can be your garrista or I can just be the fellow who buys beer and tarts when everyone else mysteriously misplaces their purses.” Locke eyed the gathering with an exaggerated scowl. “I can’t be both; it’s one or the other.”
“I’m nervous,” said Jean, “because I don’t like having as little information as I fear we do. I share Nazca’s suspicions. The Gray King has something up his sleeves, something we don’t understand. Our game is very delicate and our situation is very…fluid.”
“I know. But I follow my gut, and my gut says that we meet this one head-on with smiles on our faces. Look,” said Locke, “the more we do this, the more I learn about what I think Chains was really training us for. And this is it. He wasn’t training us for a calm and orderly world where we could pick and choose when we needed to be clever. He was training us for a situation that was fucked up on all sides. Well, we’re in it, and I say we’re equal to it. I don’t need to be reminded that we’re up to our heads in dark water. I just want you boys to remember that we’re the gods-damned sharks.”