“Think she’ll hit us early?” said Jean.
“She’s hitting us as we speak,” muttered Locke. “We just don’t know where yet.”
“Gentlemen,” said Nikoros, who was working to keep the pile of parcels on the seat next to him from toppling onto the compartment floor at every turn, “what’s troubling you?”
“Our opposition,” said Locke. “The Black Iris people. Is there a woman that you know of, a new woman, only recently arrived?”
“The redheaded woman, you mean?” said Nikoros. “Is she important?”
“She—” Locke seemed to think better of whatever he was about to say. “She’s our problem. Don’t tell anyone we asked, but keep your ears open.”
“We haven’t identified her yet,” said Nikoros. “She’s not Karthani.”
“No.” said Locke. “She’s not. Do you have any idea where she is?”
“I could show you a few coffeehouses and taverns run by Black Iris members. Not to mention the Sign of the Black Iris itself. They got their name from that place. If I had to guess, I’d look for her there.”
“I’ll want a list of all those places,” said Locke. “Get me the name of every business, every inn, every hole in the wall connected with the Iris people. Write them down. I’ll have paper sent out to you while we’re in Tivoli’s.”
“I fancy I can give you something useful off the top of my head. Do you want something more complete, later? I have membership lists, property lists …”
“I’ll want it all,” said Locke. “Make copies. Do you have a scribe you trust, really trust?”
“I have a bonded scrivener I’ve used forever,” said Nikoros. “He votes Deep Roots.”
“Have the poor bastard cancel his life for a day or two,” said Locke. “Pay him whatever he asks. I assume you can tug on the party’s purse strings at will?”
“Well, yes—”
“Good, because that teat is about to be milked. Have your scribe copy everything important. Everything. Anything election-related goes to us. Anything personal goes to your countinghouse vault.”
“But, why—”
“For the next month and a half, I expect you to behave as though your office is in danger of burning down at any moment.”
“But surely they wouldn’t …”
“Nothing is off the table. Nothing! Got it?”
“If you insist.”
“Maybe we’ll have a meeting with the opposition sooner or later,” said Locke. “Set some rules. Until then, a bad accident is a near-certainty. I know if I could get at someone like you on the Black Iris side, turn their papers into ash, I’d be sorely tempted.”
“I can give you names—”
“Write them down,” said Locke. “Write them all down. You’re going to be tasting ink with your lunch, I’m afraid.”
5
TIVOLI’S COUNTINGHOUSE was a classic of its type, a perfect cross between inviting extravagance and blatant intimidation.
Locke admired the building. The narrow windows, like fortress embrasures, were girded with iron bars, and the shelves beneath the windows were cement blocks studded with broken glass. The exterior walls (all four of them, for the three-story building stood alone on a hard-packed dirt courtyard) were painted with well-executed frescoes of fat, infinitely content Gandolo blessing account books, scales, and stacks of coin. The alchemical resin used to protect these images from the weather gave the walls a faint gleam, and Locke knew from personal experience it also made them devilishly hard to climb.
The interior smelled of mellow incense. Golden lanterns hung in niches, casting a warm, inviting light except where pillars and drapes contrived to create equally inviting pools of shadow. To either side behind the main doors, guards sat on stools in gated alcoves, and a quick glance up confirmed that there was a tastefully concealed portcullis ready to be dropped, if not by the guards or bankers then by hidden watchers behind the walls.
There was no chance of robbing such a place on a whim, nor with anything less than a dozen armed and ready types, and even that was more likely to earn a bloodbath than a fortune. The shrine-like inviolability of houses like this was actually as necessary to those in the criminal line as it was to any honest citizen. There was no point in stealing well or wisely if the loot couldn’t be stashed somewhere safe.
“I see Nikoros in the carriage outside,” said a woman who emerged from behind a painted screen. She was about forty, dark-skinned, with chestnut hair bound beneath a black silk skullcap. Her right eye was clouded, and she wore a pair of optics from which the corresponding lens had been removed. “You must be the political gentlemen.”
“Callas and Lazari,” said Jean.
“Singular Tivoli, gentlemen. Your servant.”
“Singular?” said Locke.
“More elegant than ‘Only Tivoli,’ I find, and far more sociable than ‘Solitary Tivoli.’ You have some documents?”
Locke handed over the papers they’d been given by Patience. Tivoli barely glanced at them before she nodded.
“Private credit for three thousand each,” she said. “Scratched these up myself a few days ago. Do you want to draw any of it?”
“Yes,” said Jean. “Can you give us fifty apiece?”
That was adequate pocket money, thought Locke. Half a pound of Karthani ducats each. He turned the sum into Camorri crowns in his head, and idly reflected on what it could get him: a small company of mercenaries for several months, half-a-dozen outstanding horses, twice as many adequate ones, plain food and lodging for years … not that he’d have any reason to buy such far-fetched things. Yet it would certainly procure an excellent dinner. His stomach rumbled at the thought.
“Might I offer you gentlemen some refreshment while the matter is tended to?” Tivoli glanced at Locke. Were her ears that sharp? “Dark ale? Wine? Pastries?”
“Yes,” said Locke, resenting his weakness but unable to master it. “Yes, anything solid, that would be ne … nice.” Gods above, he’d almost said “ necessary.”
“Also,” said Jean, “could we trouble you to have paper, ink, and quills sent out to our carriage? Nikoros has some scribbling to do.”
Tivoli settled Locke and Jean in one of the alcoves, on chairs that would have been at home in the suite of false furniture they’d given to Requin. An attendant brought a tray of flaky brown pastries in the western style, filled with cheese and minced mushrooms. They were the richest thing Locke had eaten in weeks. Jean and Tivoli took small cups of dark ale, and watched in joint bemusement as Locke removed the pastries from existence, rank by rank.
“I’m sorry,” he said around a mouthful of food. “I’ve been ill. My stomach might as well have been locked up on another continent.” He knew he was being less than polite, but the alternative was to gnaw on more ship’s biscuit, which he had transferred to an inner pocket of his new coat.
“Think nothing of it,” said Tivoli. “Manners that would keep you starving are no manners worth respecting. Shall I call for more?”
Locke nodded, and in moments the surviving pastries received reinforcements. These were followed by an attendant carrying a wooden board with a neatly gridded surface, on which low stacks of gold and silver coins had been set out. Jean divided this money into two new leather purses while Locke continued eating.
“Now,” said Tivoli, “I trust there’s little more to say about your personal funds. The other matter we need to touch upon is a certain sum left in my care with strict instructions that it remain unrecorded. Before we discuss its handling, I must ask that you make absolutely no reference to my name in connection with this sum, at any time, save in the utmost privacy between yourselves. Certainly never in writing.”
“I assure you, madam, that in all matters of discretion not involving food, we make etiquette tutors look like slobbering barbarians,” said Jean.
“Excellent,” she said, rising from her chair. “Then let me acquaint you with the hundred thousand ducats I’m not holding on your behalf.”
6
THE UNRECORDED sum lay in a windowless cell off an underground hallway guarded by clockwork doors that must have weighed half a ton apiece. A stack of iron-bound chests was set against an interior wall, and Tivoli pushed one open to reveal gleaming contents.