“Yes. Up here in this garden, it won’t matter who your parents were; I’ll make you work until you sweat blood and plead for mercy. I’ll thrash on you until you’re inventing new gods to pray to. The only thing this garden respects is concentration. Can you concentrate, every moment you’re up here? Can you distill your attention, drive it down to the narrowest focus, live absolutely in the now, and shut out all other concerns?”
“I…I shall have to try, my lord. I already walked through the gardens once. I can do it again.”
“You will do it again. You’ll do it a thousand times. You’ll run through my roses. You’ll sleep among them. And you’ll learn to concentrate. I warn you, though, some men could not.” The don arose and swept a hand in a semicircle before him. “You can find what they left behind, here and there. In the glass.”
Jean swallowed nervously and nodded.
“Now, you tried to apologize before for coming early. Truth is, you didn’t. I let my previous lesson run long because I tend to indulge those wretched little shits when they want to cut each other up a bit. In future, come at the stroke of one, to make sure they’re long gone. They cannot be allowed to see me teaching you.”
Once, Jean had been the son of substantial wealth, and he had worn clothes as fine as any just seen on this rooftop. What he felt now was the old sting of his loss, he told himself, and not mere shame for anything as stupid as his hair or his clothes or even his hanging belly. This thought was just self-importantly noble enough to keep his eyes dry and his face composed.
“I understand, my lord. I…don’t wish to embarrass you again.”
“Embarrass me? Jean, you misunderstand.” Maranzalla kicked idly at the toy rapier, and it clattered across the tiles of the rooftop. “Those prancing little pants-wetters come here to learn the colorful and gentlemanly art of fencing, with its many sporting limitations and its proscriptions against dishonorable engagements.
“You, on the other hand,” he said as he turned to give Jean a firm but friendly poke in the center of his forehead, “you are going to learn how to kill men with a sword.”
CHAPTER SEVEN. OUT THE WINDOW
1
LOCKE OUTLINED HIS plan over a long, nervous lunch.
The Gentlemen Bastards sat at the dining table in their glass burrow, just after noon on Duke’s Day. Outside the sun was pouring down its usual afternoon punishment, but in the burrow it was cool, perhaps unnaturally so, even for an underground cellar. Chains had often speculated that the Elderglass did tricks with more than just light.
They had laid on a feast more befitting a festival than a midday meeting. There was stewed mutton with onions and ginger, stuffed eels in spiced wine sauce, and green-apple tarts baked by Jean (with a liberal dose of Austershalin brandy poured over the fruit). “I’ll bet even the duke’s own cook would have his balls skinned if he did this,” he’d said. “Makes each tart worth two or three crowns, by my reckoning.”
“What’ll they be worth,” said Bug, “once they’re eaten, and they come out the other end?”
“You’re welcome to take measurements,” said Calo. “Grab a scale.”
“And a scoop,” added Galdo.
The Sanzas spent the meal picking at a seasoned omelette topped with minced sheep’s kidneys-usually a favorite with the whole table. But today, though they all agreed it was their best effort in weeks-topping even the celebration of their first success in the Salvara game-the savor seemed to have evaporated. Only Bug ate with real vigor, and his attention was largely concentrated on Jean’s plate of tarts.
“Look at me,” he said with his mouth half-full. “I’m worth more with every bite!”
Quiet half-smiles met his clowning, and nothing more; the boy “harrumphed” in annoyance and banged his fists on the table. “Well, if none of you want to eat,” he said, “why don’t we get on with planning how we’re going to dodge the axe tonight?”
“Indeed,” said Jean.
“Too right,” added Calo.
“Yes,” said Galdo, “what’s the game and how do we play it?”
“Well.” Locke pushed his plate away, crumpled his cloth napkin, and threw it into the center of the table. “For starters, we need to use the damn Broken Tower rooms again. It seems the stairs aren’t through with us just yet.”
Jean nodded. “What will we do with the place?”
“That’s where you and I will be when Anjais comes looking to collect us, at the ninth hour. And that’s where we’ll stay, after he’s thoroughly convinced that we have a very honest reason for not going with him.”
“What reason would that be?” asked Calo.
“A very colorful one,” said Locke. “I need you and Galdo to pay a quick visit to Jessaline d’Aubart this afternoon. I need help from a black alchemist for this. Here’s what you tell her…”
2
THE ILLICIT apothecary shop of Jessaline d’Aubart and her daughter Janellaine was located above a scribe’s collective in the respectable Fountain Bend neighborhood. Calo and Galdo stepped onto the scribing floor at just past the second hour of the afternoon. Here, a dozen men and women were hunched over wide wooden boards, working quills and salt and charcoal sticks and drying sponges back and forth like automatons. A clever arrangement of mirrors and skylights let the natural light of day in to illuminate their work. There were few tradesfolk in Camorr more penny-conscious than journeymen scriveners.
At the rear of the first floor was a winding staircase, guarded by a tough-looking young woman who feigned boredom while fingering weapons beneath her brocaded brown coat. The Sanza twins established their bona fides with a combination of hand gestures and copper barons that made their way into the young woman’s coat pockets. She tugged on a bell-rope beside the stairs, then waved them up.
On the second floor there was a reception room, windowless, walls and floor alike paneled with a golden hardwood that retained a faint aroma of pine lacquer. A tall counter divided the room precisely in half; there were no chairs on the customer side, and nothing at all on display on the merchant’s side: just a single locked door.
Jessaline stood behind the counter-a striking woman in her midfifties, with a tumbling cascade of charcoal-colored hair and dark, wary eyes nestled in laugh-lines. Janellaine, half her age, stood to her mother’s right with a crossbow pointed just over Calo and Galdo’s heads. It was an indoor murder-piece, lightweight and low power, which almost certainly meant some hideous poison on the quarrel. Neither Sanza was particularly bothered; this was business as usual for a black alchemist.
“Madam d’Aubart and Miss d’Aubart,” said Calo, bowing from the waist, “your servants.”
“Not to mention,” said Galdo, “still very much available.”
“Master Sanza and Master Sanza,” said the elder d’Aubart, “pleased to see you.”
“Although we are,” said Janellaine, “still very much disinclined.”
“Perhaps you’d care to buy something, though?” Jessaline folded her hands on the counter and raised one eyebrow.
“As it happens, a friend of ours needs something special.” Calo fished a coin purse from under his waistcoat and held it in plain view without opening it.
“Special?”
“Or perhaps not so much special as specific. He’s got to get sick. Very sick.”
“Far be it from me to drive away business, my dears,” said the elder d’Aubart, “but three or four bottles of rum would do the trick at a fraction of the price for anything I could give you.”
“Ah, not that sort of sick,” said Galdo. “He’s got to be in a bad way, like to knocking on the Death Goddess’ bedchamber and asking if he can come in. And then he’s got to be able to recover his strength after playing ill for a while. A sort of mummer’s sick, if you will.”