The first bridge they crossed had a disconcerting amount of sway and bounce—just a few inches of give, to be sure, but any bounce at all was of immediate interest to someone high over water in a carriage.
“Never fear,” said Nikoros, noticing the matching expressions on Locke and Jean’s faces. “You’ll be used to this in no time. It’s Elderglass! Nothing we do could so much as fray a cable.”
Jean stared at the other huge bridges spanning the Karvanu. They looked like the work of mad giant spiders, or harps designed for hands the size of palaces. He also noticed, for the first time, a strangely tuneful humming and creaking that he assumed was the music of the cables.
“Welcome to the Isas Salvierro,” said Nikoros when the carriage halted a few minutes later, blessedly back on unyielding stone. “A business district, one of the pumping hearts of the city. My office is just north of here.”
The small group bustled out of the carriage and into Morenna Clothiers, where they found a wide shop floor surrounded by a raised second-floor gallery. Seconddaughter Morenna locked the door behind them.
“These aren’t our usual hours,” she said. “You’re an emergency case.”
There was a strong smell of coffee wafting throughout the shop, and Jean’s mouth watered. The walls of the lower room were layered with bolts of cloth in a hundred different colors and textures, while several wooden racks of coats and jackets had been brought out into the middle of the floor.
“Allow me to introduce Firstdaughter Morenna,” said Seconddaughter, pointing to a taller, heavier blonde woman on the upper level, who was pulling a gleaming metallic thread from a rattling clockwork spindle. “And of course our darling Thirddaughter.”
The youngest of the tailoring sisters was as petite as Seconddaughter, though her hair was a shade darker and she alone of the three wore optics. She was absorbed in trimming some unknown velvet bundle with a pair of blackened-iron shears, and she gave the merest nod in greeting.
“Thimbles on, girls, it’s time for battle,” said Seconddaughter.
“My,” said Firstdaughter, who stepped away from her machine and descended to the first floor. “Shipwreck, was it? You gentlemen look like you’ve been in the wars. Is Lashain having some sort of difficulty?”
“Lashain is its old charming self, madam,” said Locke. “Our misfortune was personal.”
“You’ve come to the right place. We adore a challenge. And we adorn the challenged! Second, have you taken their measurements?”
“Everything I could in decency.” Seconddaughter snatched up a slate, and with a squeaky piece of chalk scribed two columns of numbers on it. She threw the slate to Firstdaughter. “Save for breeches inseams. Could you be a dear?”
Firstdaughter conjured a measuring line in her free hand and advanced on Locke and Jean without hesitation. “Now, gentlemen, our male apprentice is out sick, so you’ll need to bear my scrutiny a moment. Take heart, there’s many a wife that won’t give her husband this sort of attention for love or money.” Chuckling, she took rapid and mostly professional measurements from crotch to ankles on both men, then added some squiggles to the bottom of the slate.
“I assume that we’re replacing an entire wardrobe?” said Thirddaughter, setting her velvet down.
“Yes,” said Locke. “These fine dishrags represent the sum of our current wardrobe.”
“You’ve the sound of an easterner,” said Thirddaughter. “Will you want the style to which you’re accustomed, or something more—”
“Local,” said Jean. “Absolutely local. Fit us out like natives.”
“It will take several days,” said Seconddaughter, holding a swatch of something brown up to Jean’s neck and frowning, “to deliver all the bespoke work, you understand, and that’s with us chugging along like water-engines. But while we’re arranging that, we can set you up with something respectable enough.”
“We don’t do boots, though,” said Firstdaughter, stripping Jean’s jacket and sending his hatchets clattering to the floor. “Oh, dear. Will you be wanting somewhere to tuck those?”
“Absolutely,” said Jean.
“We’ve got a thousand ways,” said First. She picked up the Wicked Sisters and set them respectfully on a table. “But as I was saying, Nikoros, we haven’t turned cobblers in the last few hours. Have you kept that in mind?”
“Of course,” said Nikoros. “This is but the first stop. I’ll have them set up like royalty before lunch.”
The next half hour was a furious storm of fittings, removals, tests, measurements, remeasurements, suggestions, counter-suggestions, and sisterly arguments as Locke and Jean were gradually peeled out of their slops and reskinned as fair approximations of gentlemen. The creamy silk shirts were a little too big, the vests and breeches taken in or let out with some haste. Locke’s long coat hung loose and Jean’s was tight across the chest. Still, it was a drastic improvement, at least from the ankles up. Now they could set foot in a countinghouse without provoking the guards into raising weapons.
Once the immediate transmutation was accomplished, the three women took notes for a more expansive wardrobe—evening coats, morning jackets, formal and informal waistcoats, breeches in half a dozen styles, velvet doublets, fitted silk shirts, and all the trimmings.
“Now, you said you’d be doing more, ah, entertaining, as it were,” said Thirddaughter to Locke. “So I gather you’ll need a slightly wider selection of coats than your friend Master Callas.”
“Entirely correct,” said Jean, rolling his arms around and enjoying his restoration to a state of elegance, tight coat or no. “Besides, I’m the careful one. I can make do with less. Give my friend a bit more of your attention.”
“As you will,” said Thirddaughter, gently but firmly grabbing Jean by his left cuff. A long dangling thread had caught her attention; she had her shears out with a graceful twirl and snipped it in the blink of an eye. “There. Squared away. I believe, then, we’ll start with seven coats for Master Lazari, and give you four.”
“We’ll send them to your inn as we finish them,” said Firstdaughter, tallying figures on a new slate. These figures had nothing to do with Locke and Jean’s measurements. She passed the slate to Nikoros, and when he nodded curtly her pleasure was readily apparent.
“Lovely,” said Locke. “Except we don’t know where we’re staying just yet.”
“The Deep Roots party does,” said Nikoros with a half-bow. “You’re in our bosom now, sirs. You’ll want for nothing. Now, might I beg you to come along, just a few steps up the lane? Those bare feet will never do for lunch or dinner.”
4
THE NEXT two hours of the morning were spent, as Nikoros had prophesied, scuttling up and down the streets of the Isas Salvierro in pursuit of boots, shoes, jewelry, and every last detail that would help Locke and Jean pass as men of real account. Several of the shops involved had not yet opened for regular business, but the force of Nikoros’ connections and pocketbook unlocked every door.
As their list of immediate needs grew shorter, Jean noticed that Locke was spending more and more time eyeballing the alleys, windows, and rooftops around them.
Behavior very obvious, he signaled.
Threat gods-damned serious, was the reply.
And despite himself, despite personal experience that one of the least intelligent things to do, when you fear being spied upon, is to crane your head in all directions and advertise your suspicion, Jean did just that. As the carriage rattled toward Tivoli’s countinghouse, he stole fretful glances out his window.
Sabetha. Gods below, he couldn’t imagine a more troublesome foe. Not only had he and Locke set foot in a city where their presence was expected, she knew precisely how they worked. That was true in reverse, to some extent, but all the same he felt like they were just leaving the starting mark in a race that had been going on without them for some time.