In the North Corner and Fountain Bend, well-to-do young couples made for Twosilver Green, where it was thought to be good luck to make love on the eve of the Midsummer-mark. It was said that any union consummated there before Falselight would bring the couple whatever they most desired in a child. This was a pleasant bonus, if true, but for the time being most of the men and women hidden away among the crushed-stone paths and rustling walls of greenery desired only one another.
On the waters of Old Harbor, the frigate Satisfaction floated at anchor, yellow flags flying atop its masts, yellow lanterns shining even by day. A dozen figures moved on its deck, surreptitiously going about the business of preparing the ship for night action. Crossbows were racked at the masts, and canvas tarps flung over them. Antiboarding nets were hauled out below the rails on the ship’s upper deck and set there for rapid rigging, out of sight. Buckets of sand were set out to smother flames; if the shore engines let fly, some of them would surely hurl alchemical fire, against which water would be worse than useless.
In the darkened holds beneath the ship’s upper deck, another three dozen men and women ate a large meal, to have their stomachs full when the time for action came. There wasn’t an invalid among them; not so much as an ague fever.
At the foot of Raven’s Reach, home and palace of Duke Nicovante of Camorr, a hundred carriages were parked in a spiraling fashion around the tower’s base. Four hundred liveried drivers and guards milled about, enjoying refreshments brought to them by scampering men and women in the duke’s colors. They would be there waiting all night for the descent of their lords and ladies. The Day of Changes was the only day of the year when nearly every peer of Camorr-every lesser noble from the Alcegrante islands and every last member of the Five Families in their glass towers-would be crammed together in one place, to drink and feast and scheme and intrigue and offer compliments and insults while the duke gazed down on them with his rheumy eyes. Each year the coming generation of Camorr’s rulers watched the old guard gray a bit more before their eyes; each year their bows and curtsies grew slightly more exaggerated. Each year the whispers behind their hands grew more poisonous. Nicovante had, perhaps, ruled too long.
There were six chain elevators serving Raven’s Reach; they rose and fell, rose and fell. With each new cage that creaked open at the top of the tower, a new flurry of people in colored coats and elaborate dresses was disgorged onto the embarkation terrace to mingle with the chattering flood of nobles and flatterers, power brokers and pretenders, merchants and idlers and drunkards and courtly predators. The sun beat down on this gathering with all of its power; the lords and ladies of Camorr seemed to be standing on a lake of molten silver, at the top of a pillar of white fire.
The air rippled with waves of heat as the iron cage holding Locke Lamora and the Salvaras swung, clattering, into the locking mechanisms at the edge of the duke’s terrace.
3
“HOLY MARROWS,” said Locke, “but I have never seen the like. I have never been this high in the air; by the Hands Beneath the Waters, I have never been this high in society! My lord and lady Salvara, pardon me if I cling to you both like a drowning man.”
“Sofia and I have been coming here since we were children,” said Lorenzo. “Every year, on this day. It’s only overwhelming the first ten or eleven times you see it, believe me.”
“I shall have to take you at your word, my lord.”
Attendants in black and silver livery, with rows of polished silver buttons gleaming in the sunlight, held the cage door open for them as Locke followed the Salvaras onto the embarkation terrace. A squad of blackjackets marched past, in full ceremonial dress, with rapiers carried over their shoulders in silver-chased scabbards. The soldiers wore tall black fur hats with medallions bearing the crest of the Duchy of Camorr just above their eyes. Locke winced to think at how those must have felt, marching back and forth beneath the sun’s merciless consideration for hours on end. His own clothes were working up a healthy sweat, but he and his hosts had the option of moving inside the tower at will.
“Don Lorenzo and Doña Sofia? My lord and lady Salvara?”
The man who approached them from the edge of the crowd was very tall and wide-shouldered; he stood a full head above most of the Camorri present, and his angular features and singularly fair hair were the mark of the oldest, purest sort of Vadran blood. This man had roots in the far northeast, in Astrath or Vintila, the heartlands of the Kingdom of the Seven Marrows. Curiously, he was dressed in Nightglass Company black, with a captain’s silver collar pips, and his voice was pure upper-class Camorr without the hint of any other accent.
“Why, yes,” said Don Lorenzo.
“Your servant, my lord and lady. My name is Stephen Reynart; Doña Vorchenza, I believe, should have mentioned me to you.”
“Oh, of course!” Doña Sofia held out her hand; Reynart bent at the waist with his right foot forward, took her hand, and kissed the air just above it. “So pleased to make your acquaintance at last, Captain Reynart. And how is dear Doña Vorchenza this afternoon?”
“She is knitting, my lady,” said Reynart, with a smirk that told of some private joke. “She has commandeered one of the duke’s sitting rooms for herself; you know how she feels about large, noisy gatherings.”
“I must, of course, find her,” said Sofia. “I should love to see her.”
“I’m sure the feeling will be mutual, my lady. But may I presume? Is this Master Fehrwight, the merchant of Emberlain I was told you would be bringing?” Reynart bowed again, just the neck this time, and in heavily accented Vadran he said, “May the Marrows run sweet and the seas run calm, Master Fehrwight.”
“May the Hands Beneath the Waves carry you to good fortune,” Locke replied in his own much smoother Vadran, genuinely surprised. He switched back to Therin for the sake of politeness. “One of my countrymen, Captain Reynart? In the service of the duke of Camorr? How fascinating!”
“I am most definitely of the Vadran blood,” said Reynart, “but my parents died when I was an infant, on a trading mission to this city. I was adopted and raised by Doña Vorchenza, the countess of Amberglass-the bright golden tower over there. She had no children of her own. Although I cannot inherit her title and her properties, I have been allowed to serve in the duke’s Nightglass Company.”
“Astonishing! I must say, you look exceedingly formidable-the image of the kings of the Marrows themselves. I’d wager the duke is only too pleased to have you in his service.”
“I hope with all my heart for that to be true, Master Fehrwight. But come; I’m holding you up. I beg pardon, my lord and lady Salvara; I am hardly a worthy topic of conversation. Let me show you into the tower, by your leave.”
“By all means,” said Sofia. She leaned close to Locke’s ear and whispered, “Doña Vorchenza is a dear old thing, something like a grandmother to all of us Alcegrante ladies. She is the arbiter of all our gossip, you might say. She is not well-she is more and more distant with every passing month-but she is still very close to us. I hope you will have the chance to make her acquaintance.”
“I shall look forward to it, my lady Salvara.”
Reynart ushered them into the tower of Raven ’s Reach itself, and the sight that met Locke’s eyes drew an unwilling gasp from his mouth.