“Go to hell,” the Falconer spat.
“Oh, good. You’ve decided to do it the hard way.” Locke smiled again and tossed the now-cool dagger to Jean, who set it over the flame and began to heat it once again. “If you were any other man, I’d threaten your balls next. I’d make all sorts of cracks about eunuchs; but I think you could bear that. You’re not most men. I think the only thing I can take from you that would truly pain you to the depths of your soul would be your tongue.”
The Bondsmage stared at him, his lips quivering. “Please,” he croaked hoarsely, “have pity, for the gods’ sakes. Have pity. We had a contract. I was merely carrying it out.”
“When that contract became my friends,” said Locke, “you exceeded your mandate.”
“Please,” whispered the Falconer.
“No,” said Locke. “I will cut it out; I will cauterize it while you lay there writhing. I will make you a mute-I’m guessing you might eventually be able to conjure some magic without fingers, but without a tongue?”
“No! Please!”
“Then speak,” said Locke. “Tell me what I want to know.”
“Gods,” sobbed the Falconer, “gods forgive me. Ask. Ask your questions.”
“If I catch you in a lie,” said Locke, “it’s balls first, and then the tongue. Don’t presume on my patience. Why did Capa Raza want us dead?”
“Money,” whispered the Falconer. “That vault of yours; I spied it out while I was first making my observations of you. He’d intended just to use you as a distraction for Capa Barsavi; when we discovered how much money you’d already stolen, he wanted to have it-to pay for me. Almost another month of my services. To help him finish his tasks here in the city.”
“You murdered my fucking friends,” said Locke, “and you tried to murder Jean and myself, for the metal in our vault?”
“You seemed the type to hold a grudge,” coughed the Falconer. “Isn’t that funny? We figured we’d be better off with all of you safely dead.”
“You figured right,” said Locke. “Now Capa Raza, the Gray King, whoever the fuck he is.”
“Anatolius.”
“That’s his real name? Luciano Anatolius?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“Fuck you, Falconer, answer my questions. Anatolius. What was his business with Barsavi?”
“The Secret Peace,” said the Bondsmage.
“What about it?”
“The Secret Peace was not achieved without a great deal of bloodshed…and difficulty. There was one rather powerful merchant, with the resources to discover what Barsavi and the duke’s Spider had put together; not being of noble blood, he was rather upset at being excluded.”
“And so…Barsavi killed him?” said Locke.
“Yes. Avram Anatolius, a merchant of Fountain Bend. Barsavi murdered him and his wife, and his three younger children-Lavin, Ariana, and Maurin. But the three older children-they escaped with one of their master’s maids. She protected them, pretending they were her own. She took them to safety in Talisham.”
“Luciano,” said Locke. “Luciano, Cheryn, and Raiza.”
“Yes…the oldest son and the twin sisters. They have been rather consumed with the idea of vengeance, Master Lamora. You’re an amateur by comparison. They spent twenty-two years preparing for the events of the past two months; Cheryn and Raiza returned eight years ago, under an assumed name; they built their reputations as contrarequialla and became Barsavi’s most loyal servants.
“Luciano, on the other hand…Luciano went to sea, to train himself in the arts of command and to amass a fortune. A fortune with which to purchase the services of a Bondsmage.”
“Capa Raza was a freighter captain?”
“No,” said the Falconer. “A buccaneer. Not the ragged sort of idiot you find down on the Sea of Brass; he was quiet, efficient, professional. He struck rarely and he struck well; he took good cargo from the galleons of Emberlain. He sank the ships and left no one alive to speak his name.”
“Gods damn it,” said Jean. “Gods damn it; he’s the captain of the Satisfaction.”
“Yes, the so-called plague ship,” chuckled the Falconer. “Odd how easy it is to keep people away from your ship when you really want to, isn’t it?”
“He’s been sending his fortune out to it as ‘charitable provisions,’” said Jean. “It must be all the money he stole from us, and everything he took from Capa Barsavi.”
“Yes,” said the Bondsmage sadly. “Only now it belongs to my order, for services rendered.”
“We’ll just see about that. So what now? I saw your master Anatolius at Raven’s Reach a few hours ago; what the fuck does he think he’s doing next?”
“Hmmm.” The Bondsmage fell silent for several moments; Locke prodded him in the neck with Jean’s hatchet, and he smiled strangely. “Do you mean to kill him, Lamora?”
“Ila justicca vei cala,” said Locke.
“Your Throne Therin is passable,” said the Bondsmage, “but your pronunciation is excrement. ‘Justice is red,’ indeed. So you want him, more than anything? You want him screaming under your knife?”
“That’d do for a start.”
Unexpectedly, the Falconer threw back his head and began to laugh-a high-pitched noise, tinged with madness. His chest shook with mirth, and fresh tears ran from his eyes.
“What?” Locke prodded him again with the hatchet. “Quit being deliberately freakish and give me my fucking answer.”
“I’ll give you two,” said the Falconer, “and I’ll give you a choice. It’s guaranteed to cause you pain, either way. What hour of the evening is it?”
“What the hell does it matter to you?”
“I’ll tell you everything; please, just tell me what the hour is.”
“I’d wager it’s half past seven,” said Jean. The Bondsmage began chuckling once again. A smile grew on his haggard face, impossibly beatific for a man who’d just lost his fingers and thumbs.
“What the fuck is it? Spit out a real answer or you lose something else.”
“Anatolius,” said the Falconer, “will be at the Floating Grave. He’ll have a boat behind the galleon; he can reach it through one of Barsavi’s escape hatches. At Falselight, the Satisfaction will turn on her anchor chain and put out to sea; she’ll tack first to the east, sweeping past the south end of the Wooden Waste, where it opens to the ocean. His crew in the city has been sneaking out to the ship, one or two at a time, in the provision boat. Like rats leaving a sinking vessel. He’ll stay until the last; it’s his style. Last out of danger. They’ll pick him up south of the Waste.”
“His crew in the city,” said Locke. “You mean his ‘Gray King’s men,’ the ones who’ve been helping him all along?”
“Yes,” said the Bondsmage. “Time your entrance properly…and you should have him to yourself, or very close, before he sets off in the boat.”
“That doesn’t cause me pain,” said Locke. “That thought brings me pleasure.”
“But here’s the second point. The Satisfaction puts out to sea just as the greater part of Anatolius’ plan goes into effect.”
“Greater part?”
“Think, Lamora. You can’t truly be this dense; Barsavi slew Avram Anatolius, but who allowed it to happen? Who was complicit?”
“Vorchenza,” said Locke slowly. “Doña Vorchenza, the duke’s Spider.”
“Yes,” said the Falconer. “And behind her, the man who gave her the authority to make such decisions?”
“Duke Nicovante.”
“Oh yes,” whispered the sorcerer, genuinely warming to his subject. “Oh, yes. But not just him, either. Who stood to benefit from the Secret Peace? Who did the arrangement shield, at the expense of men like Avram Anatolius?”