“So,” he said. “Boys. Is Jessaline going to be sorry she saved my life?”
“Not at all,” said Locke.
“It’s a great corpse,” said Calo.
“Smells a bit,” said Galdo.
“Other than that,” said Calo, “it’s a fantastic corpse.”
“Hanged at noon,” said Locke. “Still fresh.”
“I’m very pleased. Very, very pleased. But I really must ask-why the hell have men and women been throwing money in my kettle for the past half hour, telling me they’re sorry for what happened in the Videnza?”
“It’s because they’re sorry for what happened in the Videnza,” said Galdo.
“It wasn’t a burning tavern, Benefactor’s own truth,” said Locke.
“What,” said Chains, speaking slowly as though to a misbehaving pet, “did you boys do with the corpse before you stashed it in the temple?”
“Made money.” Locke tossed the merchant’s donated purse into the kettle, where it hit with a heavy clang. “Twenty-three solons three, to be precise.”
“And a basket of oranges,” said Calo.
“Plus a packet of candles,” added Galdo, “two loaves of black pepper bread, a wax carton of small beer, and some glow-globes.”
Chains was silent for a moment, and then he actually peeked down into the kettle, pretending to readjust his blindfold by raising it just a bit at the bottom. Calo and Galdo began to confide the roughest outline of the scheme Locke had prepared and executed with their help, giggling as they did so.
“Bugger me bloody with a boathook,” Chains said when they finished. “I don’t recall telling you that your leash was slipped enough for fucking street theater, Locke.”
“We had to get our money back somehow,” said Locke. “Cost us fifteen silvers to get the body from the Palace of Patience. Now we’re up some, plus candles and bread and beer.”
“Oranges,” said Calo.
“Glow-globes,” said Galdo. “Don’t forget those; they’re pretty.”
“Crooked Warden,” said Chains. “Just this morning I was suffering from the delusion that I was handing out the educations here.”
They sat in companionable silence for a few moments after that, while the sun settled into its downward arc in the west and long shadows began to creep across the face of the city.
“Well, what the hell.” Chains rattled his manacles a few times to keep up his circulation. “I’ll take back what I gave you to spend. Of the extra, Calo, you and Galdo can have a silver apiece to do as you please. Locke, you can have the rest to put toward your…dues. It was fairly stolen.”
At that moment, a well-dressed man in a forest-green coat and a four-cornered hat walked up to the temple steps. He threw a handful of coins into the kettle; they sounded like mingled silver and copper as they clattered. The man tipped his hat to the three boys and said, “I’m from the Videnza. I want you to know that I’m furious about what happened.”
“One hundred years of health for you and your children,” said Locke, “and the blessings of the Lord of the Overlooked.”
CHAPTER FIVE. THE GRAY KING
1
“YOU SEEM TO be spending a great deal of our money very quickly, Lukas,” said Doña Sofia Salvara.
“Circumstance has blessed us, Doña Sofia.” Locke gave a smile that was a measure of great triumph by Fehrwight standards, a tight-lipped little thing that might have been a grimace of pain from anyone else. “Everything is proceeding with the most agreeable speed. Ships and men and cargo, and soon all we’ll need to do is pack your wardrobe for a short voyage!”
“Indeed, indeed.” Were those dark circles under her eyes? Was there the slightest hint of wariness in her attitude toward him? She certainly wasn’t at ease. Locke made a mental note to avoid pushing her too far, too fast. It was a delicate dance, playing straight lines and smiles with someone who knew he was a mummer but didn’t know that he knew she knew.
With the slightest sigh, Doña Sofia pressed her personal sigil down into the warm blue wax at the bottom of the parchment she was contemplating. She added a few flowing lines of ink above the seal, her signature in the curving Therin script that had become something of a fad among literate nobles in the past few years. “If you say you require another four thousand today, another four thousand it must be.”
“I am most sincerely grateful, my lady.”
“Well, you’ll certainly pay for it soon enough,” she said. “Many times over, if our hopes play out.” At that she smiled, with genuine good humor that crinkled the edges of her eyes, and held out the fresh promissory note.
Oh-ho, thought Locke. Much better. The more in control the mark thinks they are, the more easily they respond to real control. Another one of Father Chains’ old maxims, proven in Locke’s experience too many times to count.
“Please give my warmest regards to your husband when he returns from his business in the city, my lady,” said Locke, taking the wax-sealed parchment in hand. “Now, I fear, I must go see some men about…payments that will not appear on any official ledger.”
“Of course. I quite understand. Conté can show you out.”
The gruff, weathered man-at-arms was paler than usual, and it seemed to Locke that there was a slight but obvious hitch in his stride. Yes-the poor fellow was clearly favoring a certain badly bruised portion of his anatomy. Locke’s stomach turned in unconscious sympathy at his own memory of that night.
“I say, Conté,” he began politely, “are you feeling quite well? You seem…forgive me for saying so…troubled this past day or two.”
“I’m well for the most part, Master Fehrwight.” There was a slight hardening of the lines at the edges of the man’s mouth. “Perhaps a bit under the weather.”
“Nothing serious?”
“A minor ague, perhaps. They happen, this time of year.”
“Ah. One of the tricks of your climate. I’ve not yet felt such a thing, myself.”
“Well,” said Conté, with an absolute lack of expression on his face, “mind yourself then, Master Fehrwight. Camorr can be a very dangerous place in the most unlooked-for ways.”
Oh-ho-HO, Locke thought. So they’d let him in on the secret, as well. And the man had a proud streak at least as wide as Sofia’s, to drop even the slightest hint of a threat. Worth noting, that.
“I’m the very soul of caution, my dear Conté.” Locke tucked the promissory note within his black waistcoat and adjusted his cascading cravats as they approached the front door of the Salvara manor. “I keep my chambers very well illuminated, to ward off miasmas, and I wear copper rings after Falselight. Just the thing for your hot-and-cold fevers. I would wager that a few days at sea will put you right.”
“No doubt,” said Conté. “The voyage. I do look forward to the…voyage.”
“Then we are of one mind!” Locke waited for the don’s man to open the wide glass-and-iron door for him, and as he stepped out into the moist air of Falselight, he nodded stiffly but affably. “I shall pray for your health tomorrow, my good fellow.”
“Too kind, Master Fehrwight.” The ex-soldier had set one hand on the hilt of one of his knives, perhaps unconsciously. “I shall most assuredly offer prayers concerning yours.”
2
LOCKE BEGAN walking south at a leisurely pace, crossing from the Isla Durona to Twosilver Green as he and Calo had just a few nights previously. The Hangman’s Wind was stronger than usual, and as he walked through the park in the washed-out light of the city’s glowing Elderglass, the hiss and rustle of leaves was like the sighing of vast creatures hiding in the greenery all around him.