The guardswoman seemed to consider this for a few seconds, then rose from her crouch and seized him by the back of his jacket. “You’re not sick,” she yelled. “You’re just making a gods-damned scene!”
“No, please,” cried Locke, praying that he was, in fact, witnessing a purchased performance and not a sudden change of heart. The guardswoman lifted him, tucked him under her left arm, and marched north. Some of the well-dressed onlookers chuckled, but they all moved out of the way as Locke’s improvised transportation carried him away from the scene of his near-humiliation.
He kicked and struggled to keep up his end of the presumed deception. Some of his squirming was only too real, as the woman’s baton handle kept jabbing him in the ribs, spoiling what was an otherwise surprisingly comfortable ride. At least he was being carried with his all-important buttons facing the guardswoman’s side.
Locke scanned his tilted field of vision and saw, to his delight, that the two red dresses in front of him had darted far to the left and were keeping their distance from him and his temporarily tame yellowjacket. Would Sabetha believe he’d really been seized against his will? Probably not, but now she’d have to sort out a new plan of attack with her accomplices, whoever they were.
His own plans were developing speedily as he pretended to fight back against his captor. Once he’d gotten well ahead of the girls, he could cut off their progress to the final choke point, Goldenreach Bridge. And while his ultimate position there would find him once again outnumbered three to one, at least he would have more time to play spot-the-real-Sabetha.
Kicking, snarling, and shaking his fists, Locke was carried at last down the opposite side of the bridge, onto the northern plaza. Here the real powers of Coin-Kisser’s Row were situated, houses like Meraggio’s and Bonaduretta’s, whose webs of coin and credit reached out across the continent.
“Don’t make me knock your teeth in,” his guardswoman growled down at him as a particularly large group of onlookers moved past. Locke could have applauded her theatrical sense; yellowjacket or not, the woman had good instincts. Now, all they had to do was find a decent spot to set him down, and he was as good as—
“Oh, Constable, Constable, pleasewait!” Locke heard the soft sound of running feet even before he heard Sabetha’s voice, and he squirmed madly, trying to spot her before she arrived. Too late—she was at the guardswoman’s other side, veil flipped back over her four-cornered hat. She was holding out a small dark pouch in her right hand. “You dropped this, Constable!”
“Dropped what?” The woman turned to face Sabetha, swinging Locke into position to look directly at her. Her cheeks were flushed red and, inexplicably, she was letting her open satchel just hang there. Locke stared open-mouthed at the four tidy little rolls of silk tucked therein—red, green, black, and blue.
“You must be mistaken, girl.”
“Not at all. I saw it myself. I’m surethis is yours.” Sabetha pressed the little pouch into the constable’s free hand, precisely as Locke had just moments earlier, and in so doing she moved closer and lowered her voice. “That’s four solons. Please, please let my little brother go.”
“What?” The constable sounded thoroughly mystified, but Locke noticed that she slipped the pouch into her coat with smooth reflexes. He was beginning to suspect that this yellowjacket had some prior experience with making offerings disappear.
“I’m sure he didn’t mean to cause a scene,” said Sabetha, letting a note of desperate worry break into her voice. “He’s not supposed to be out on his own. He’s not quite right in the head.”
“Hey,” said Locke, suddenly realizing that knowledge of the silk colors wouldn’t mean much if he let the situation spin further out of his control. What the hell was Sabetha doing? “Wait just a minute—”
“He’s a totalidiot,” Sabetha whispered, squeezing the constable’s free hand. “It’s just not safe for him to be out without an escort! He makes up stories, you see. Please … let me take him home.”
“I don’t … I just … now, look here—”
One or more wheels was clearly about to fly off the previously smooth-running engine of the guardswoman’s thought processes, and Locke cringed. Suddenly a wide, dark shape insinuated itself between Locke’s constable and the cinnamon-red figure of Sabetha, gently pushing the girl aside.
“Ahhhhhhhhh, Madam Constable, I am so utterly delighted to see that you’ve retrieved the two parcels I misplaced,” said Chains. “You are a jewel of efficiency, excellent woman, a gift from the heavens. I beg leave to shake your hand.”
For the third time in the span of a few minutes, a tiny parcel of coins slipped into the palm of the now utterly dumbstruck watchwoman. This exchange was faster and smoother by far than either of those effected by the children; Locke only saw it because he was being held in just the right position to catch a tiny glimpse of something dark nestled in Chains’ hand.
“Um … well, sir, I …”
Chains leaned over and whispered a few quick sentences in her ear. Even before he finished, the woman gently lowered Locke to the ground. Not knowing what else to do, he moved over to stand beside Sabetha, adopting a much-practiced facial expression meant to radiate absolute harmlessness.
“Ahhh,” said the constable. Chains’ new offering joined the previous two inside her coat.
“Indeed,” said Chains, beaming. “Blessings of the Twelve, and fair rains follow you, dear constable. These two will trouble you no further.”
Chains gave a cheery wave (which was just as cheerfully returned by the guardswoman), then turned and pushed Locke and Sabetha toward the east bank of the plaza, where stairs led down to a wide landing for the hiring of passenger boats.
“What happened to your little accomplices?” whispered Chains.
“Told them to get lost when I went after that yellowjacket,” said Sabetha.
“Good. Now, shut up and behave while I get us a boat. We’d best be anywhere but here.”
All of the nearby gondolas were departing or passing by, save for one bobbing at the quay, about to be boarded by a middle-aged man of business who was fishing in a coin purse. Chains stepped smoothly past him and gave the pole-man a peculiar sort of wave.
“I say,” said Chains, “sorry to be late. We’re in such a desperate hurry to reach a friend of a friend, and I just knew that this would be the right sort of boat.”
“The rightest sort of right, sir.” The pole-man was young and skinny, tanned brown as horse droppings, and he wore a sandy-colored beard down to the middle of his stained blue tunic. Charms of silver and ivory were woven into that beard, so many that the man actually chimed as he moved his head about. “Sir, I’m apologetic as hell, but this is the gentleman I’ve been waiting for.”
“Waiting for?” The man looked up from his coin-counting, startled. “But you only just pulled up!”
“Nonetheless, I got a previous engagement, and this is it. Now, I do beg pardon—”
“No, no, this is my boat!”
“It pains me to correct you,” said Chains, rendering his appropriation of the gondola final by ushering Sabetha into it. “Nonetheless, I must point out that the boat is actually the property of the young man with the pole.”
“Which it is, already and unfortunately, at this time engaged,” said that man.
“Why … you brazen, disrespectful little pack of dockside shits! I was here first! Don’t you dare take that boat, boy!”
Locke had been following Sabetha, and the middle-aged man reached down and grabbed him by the front of his jacket. Equally swiftly, Chains backhanded the man so hard that he immediately let go and stumbled back two paces, nearly falling into the canal.
“Touch either of my children again,” said Chains in a tone of voice unlike anything Locke had ever heard, “and I’ll break you into so many fucking pieces not a whore in the city will everbe able to figure out which wrinkled scrap to suck.”
“Dog,” yelled the man of business, holding a hand up to his bleeding lips. “Fucking scoundrel! I’ll have your name, sir, your name and a place where my man can find you. I’ll have you out for this, just you—”