There she worked, engrossed, heedless of the passage of time as her narrow fingers flicked from compartment to compartment. She pulled out some piles of parchment and set them aside, half considered others and pushed them back in, muttering remembrances and conjecture under her breath. She snapped out of her fugue only when the solarium door clicked open once more.
The man who entered was tall and broad-shouldered; he had an angular Vadran face and ice-blond hair pulled back in a ribbon-bound tail. He wore a ribbed leather doublet over slashed black sleeves, with black breeches and tall black boots. The little silver pins at his collar gave him the rank of captain in the Nightglass Company; the blackjackets, the Duke’s Own. A rapier with straight quillons hung at his right hip.
“Stephen,” said Doña Vorchenza without preamble, “have any of your boys or girls paid a recent visit to Don and Doña Salvara, on the Isla Durona?”
“The Salvaras? No, certainly not, m’lady.”
“You’re sure? Absolutely sure?” Parchments in hand, eyebrows arched, she stalked down the steps, barely keeping her balance. “I need certain truth from you right now as badly as I ever have.”
“I know the Salvaras, m’lady. I met them both at last year’s Day of Changes feast; I rode up to the Sky Garden in the same cage with them.”
“And you haven’t sent any of the Midnighters to pay them a visit?”
“Twelve gods, no. Not one.”
“Then someone is abusing our good name, Stephen. And I think we may finally have the Thorn of Camorr.”
Reynart stared at her, then grinned. “You’re joking. You’re not? Pinch me, I must be dreaming. What’s the situation?”
“First things first; I know you think fastest when we nurse that damned sweet tooth of yours. Peek inside the dumbwaiter; I’m going to have a seat.”
“Oh my,” said Reynart, peering into the chain-hoist shaft that held the dumbwaiter. “It looks as though someone’s already made a merry work of this poor spice cake. I’ll put it out of its misery. There’s wine and glasses, too-looks like one of your sweet whites.”
“Gods bless Gilles; I’d forgotten to ask him for that, I was in such haste to get to my files. Be a dear dutiful subordinate and pour us a glass.”
“Dear dutiful subordinate, indeed. For the cake, I’d polish your slippers as well.”
“I’ll hold that promise in reserve for the next time you vex me, Stephen. Oh, fill the glass, I’m not thirteen years old. Now, take your seat and listen to this. If everything signifies, as I believe it shall, the bastard has just been delivered to us right in the middle of one of his schemes.”
“How so?”
“I’ll answer a question with a question, Stephen.” She took a deep draught of her white wine and settled back into her chair. “Tell me, how much do you know of the body of lore surrounding Austershalin brandy?”
3
“POSING AS one of us,” Reynart mused after she’d finished her tale. “The sheer fucking cheek. But are you sure it’s the Thorn?”
“If it isn’t, then we could only presume that we now have another equally skilled and audacious thief picking the pockets of my peers. And I think that’s presuming a bit much. Even for a city crammed as full of ghosts as this one.”
“Mightn’t it be the Gray King? He’s the right sort of slippery, by all reports.”
“Mmmm. No, the Gray King’s been murdering Barsavi’s men. The Thorn’s mode of operation is plain trickery; not a drop of real blood shed yet, as near as I can tell. And I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”
Reynart set aside his empty cake plate and took a sip from his glass of wine. “So if we can trust Doña Salvara’s story, we’re looking at a gang of at least four men. The Thorn himself-let’s call him Lukas Fehrwight, for the sake of argument. His servant Graumann. And the two men who broke into the Salvara estate.”
“That’s a beginning, Stephen. But I’d say the gang is more probably five or six.”
“How do you figure?”
“I believe the false Midnighter was telling the truth when he told Don Salvara that the attack near the Temple of Fortunate Waters was staged; it would have to be, for a scheme this complex. So we have two more accomplices-the masked attackers.”
“Assuming they weren’t just hired for the task.”
“I doubt it. Consider the total paucity of information we’ve had previous to this: not one report, one boast, one slender whisper from anyone, anywhere. Not a speck of information pointing to anyone who even claimed to work with the Thorn of Camorr. Yet on any given day, thieves will boast loudly for hours about who among them can piss the farthest. This silence is unnatural.”
“Well,” said Reynart, “if you just slit a hireling’s throat when he’s done his job, you don’t have to pay him, either.”
“But we’re still dealing with the Thorn, and I hold that such an act would be outside his pattern of operations.”
“So his gang runs a closed shop… That would make sense. But it still might not be six. The two in the alley could also be the two who entered the estate dressed as Midnighters.”
“Oh, my dear Stephen. An interesting conjecture. Let us say four minimum, six maximum as our first guess, or we’ll be here all night drawing diagrams for one another. I suspect anything larger would be difficult to hide as well as they have.”
“So be it, then.” Reynart thought for a moment. “I can give you fifteen or sixteen swords right this very hour; some of my lads are mumming it up tonight down in the Snare and the Cauldron, since we got those reports of Nazca Barsavi’s funeral. I can’t pull them on short notice. But give me until the dark of the morning and I can have everyone else kitted up and ready for a scrap. We’ve got the Nightglass to back us; no need to even bring the yellowjackets in on it. We know they’re probably compromised anyway.”
“That would be well, Stephen, if I wanted them snatched up right now. But I don’t. I think we have a few days, at least, to draw the web tight around this man. Sofia said they’d discussed an initial outlay of about twenty-five thousand crowns; I suspect the Thorn will wait around to collect the other seven or eight he’s due.”
“At least let me hold a squad ready, then. I’ll keep them at the Palace of Patience; tuck them in amongst the yellowjackets. They can be ready to dash off with five minutes’ notice.”
“Very prudent; do so. Now, as for how we move on the Thorn himself-send someone down to Meraggio’s tomorrow, the subtlest you have. See if Fehrwight holds an account there, and when it was begun.”
“Calviro. I’ll send Maraliza Calviro.”
“An excellent choice. As far as I’m concerned, anyone else this Fehrwight has introduced the Salvaras to is suspect. Have her check up on the lawscribe she said her husband met just after the staged attack behind the temple.”
“Eccari, wasn’t it? Evante Eccari?”
“Yes. And then I want you to check out the Temple of Fortunate Waters.”
“Me? M’lady, you of all people know I don’t keep the faith; I just inherited the looks.”
“But you can fake the faith, and it’s the looks I need. They’ll keep you from being too suspicious. Case the place; look for anyone out of sorts. Look for gangs or goings-on. It’s remotely possible someone at the temple was in on the staged attack. Even if that’s not so, we need to eliminate it as a possibility.”