“It’s not so bad,” said Locke. “I’ve never done anything else, as long as I can remember. Thieving is an honest trade, when you look at it like we do. We can work really hard at it, sometimes.” Locke reached inside his tunic and brought out a soft cloth bag. “Here,” he said, handing it over to Jean.
“What…what’s this?”
“You said you needed optics.” Locke smiled. “There’s a lens-grinder over in the Videnza who’s older than the gods. He doesn’t watch his shop window like he ought to. I lifted some pairs for you.”
Jean shook the bag open and found himself looking down at three pairs of optics; there were two circular sets of lenses in gilt wire frames, and a square set with silver rims.
“I…thank you, Locke!” He held each pair up to his eyes and squinted through them in turn, frowning slightly. “I don’t…quite know…um, I’m not ungrateful, not at all, but none of these will work.” He pointed at his eyes and smiled sheepishly. “Lenses need to be made for the wearer’s problem. There’s some for people who can’t see long ways, and I think that’s what these pairs are for. But I’m what they call close-blind, not far-blind.”
“Oh. Damn.” Locke scratched the back of his neck and smiled sheepishly. “I don’t wear them; I didn’t know. I really am an idiot.”
“Not at all. I can keep the rims and do something with them, maybe. Rims break. I can just set proper lenses in them. They’ll be spares. Thank you again.”
The boys sat in silence for a short while after that, but this time it was a companionable silence. Jean leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. Locke stared up at the moons, straining to see the little blue and green specks Chains had once told him were the forests of the gods. Eventually, Jean cleared his throat.
“So you’re really good at…stealing things?”
“I have to be good at something. It’s not fighting and it’s not mathematics, I guess.”
“You, um…Father Chains told me about this thing you can do, if you pray to the Benefactor. He called it a death-offering. Do you know about that?”
“Oh,” said Locke, “I know all about it, truth of all thirteen gods, cross my heart and pray to die.”
“I’d like to do that. For my mother and my father. But I…I’ve never stolen anything. Can you maybe help me?”
“Teach you how to steal so you can do a proper offering?”
“Yes.” Jean sighed. “I guess if this is where the gods have put me I should bend to local custom.”
“Can you teach me how to use a numbers-box so I look less like a half-wit next time?”
“I think so,” said Jean.
“Then it’s settled!” Locke jumped back up to his feet and spread his hands wide. “Tomorrow, Calo and Galdo can plant their asses on the temple steps. You and I will go out and plunder!”
“That sounds dangerous,” said Jean.
“For anyone else, maybe. For Gentlemen Bastards, well, it’s just what we do.”
“We?”
“We.”
CHAPTER SIX. LIMITATIONS
1
THE RED HANDS led Locke up the long gangway to the Floating Grave just as the scarlet sun broke above the dark buildings of the Ashfall district. The whole Wooden Waste turned to blood in that light, and when Locke blinked to clear the brightness from his eyes, even the darkness flashed with red.
Locke struggled to keep his head clear; the combination of nervous excitement and fatigue always made him feel as though he was sliding along an inch or two above the ground, his feet not quite reaching all the way down. There were sentries on the quay, sentries at the doors, sentries in the foyer-more than there had been before. They were all grim-faced and silent as the Red Hands led Locke deeper into the capa’s floating fortress. The inner clockwork doors weren’t locked.
Capa Barsavi stood in the middle of his great audience chamber, facing away from Locke, his head bowed and his hands behind his back. Curtains had been drawn away from the high glass windows on the eastern side of the galleon’s hull. Red fingers of light fell on Barsavi, his sons, a large wooden cask, and a long object that lay covered on a portable wooden bier.
“Father,” said Anjais, “it’s Lamora.”
Capa Barsavi grunted and turned. He stared at Locke for a few seconds, his eyes glassy and dead. He waved his left hand. “Leave us,” he said. “Leave us now.”
Heads down, Anjais and Pachero hurried out of the room, dragging the Red Hands with them. A moment later the hall echoed with the sound of the doors slamming shut and the clockwork locks tumbling into position.
“Your Honor,” said Locke. “What’s going on?”
“The bastard. The bastard killed her, Locke.”
“What?”
“He killed Nazca. Last night. Left us…the body, just a few hours ago.”
Locke stared at Barsavi, dumbfounded, aware that his mouth was hanging open.
“But…but she was here, wasn’t she?”
“She left.” Barsavi was clenching and unclenching his fists. “She snuck off, near as we can tell, or she was taken. Second or third hour of the morning. She…she was returned at half past the fourth hour of the morning.”
“Returned? By whom?”
“Come. See.”
Vencarlo Barsavi drew back the cloth that covered the bier, and there lay Nazca-her skin waxy, her eyes closed, her hair damp. Two livid purple bruises marred the otherwise smooth skin on the left side of her neck. Locke felt his eyes stinging, and he found himself biting down hard on the first knuckle of his right index finger.
“See what the bastard has done,” Barsavi said softly. “She was the living memory of her mother. My only daughter. I would rather be dead than see this.” Tears began sliding down the old man’s cheeks. “She has been…washed.”
“Washed? What do you mean?”
“She was returned,” said the Capa, “in that.” He gestured to the cask, which stood upright a few feet to the side of the bier.
“In a barrel?”
“Look inside.”
Locke slid the barrel’s cover back and recoiled as the full stench of the barrel’s contents wafted out at him.
It was full of urine. Horse urine, dark and cloudy.
Locke whirled away from the cask and clapped both hands over his mouth, his stomach spasming.
“Not just killed,” said Barsavi, “but drowned. Drowned in horse piss.”
Locke growled, fighting tears. “I can’t believe this. I just can’t believe it. This doesn’t make any fucking sense.”
He moved back beside the bier and took another look at Nazca’s neck. The purple bruises were actually raised bumps; straight red scratches were visible just in front of them. Locke stared at them, thinking back to the feel of talons in his own skin. The injury on his forearm still burned.
“Your Honor,” he said slowly, “maybe she was…returned in that thing, but I’m pretty sure she didn’t drown in it.”
“What can you possibly mean?”
“The marks on her neck, the little scratches beside them?” Locke extemporized, keeping his voice level and his face neutral. What would sound plausible? “I’ve, ah, seen them before, several years ago in Talisham. I saw a man murdered by a scorpion hawk. Have you ever heard of such a thing?”
“Yes,” said the capa, “an unnatural hybrid, some sort of creature dreamed up by the sorcerers of Karthain. Is that…the marks on her neck? Can you be sure?”
“She was stung by a scorpion hawk,” Locke said. “The talon marks beside the wounds are clear. She would have been dead almost instantly.”
“So he merely…pickled her, afterward,” Barsavi whispered. “To increase the insult. To cut me more cruelly.”