There was a folded piece of parchment, sealed with wax, in his left inner pocket. He drew it out and stared at it.
“This wasn’t in my pocket when I came out the door, he said. “She … she stuck me with it while I was slipping her the two purses!”
Jean gave a low whistle as Locke popped the seal and flipped the parchment open in haste. He read the contents aloud:
Msrs. Lazari and Callas
Sirs—
I trust you will excuse the unorthodox means by which this letter finds its way into your hands. Karthani post-masters, enterprising as they are, rarely deliver directly to the interior pocket of a gentleman’s coat. I present my compliments, and desire that you should call upon me at the seventh hour of this evening, at the Sign of the Black Iris, in the Vel Vespala.
Your most affectionate servant—
“ Verena Gallante,” said Locke in a harsh whisper. His heart seemed to expand and fill his entire chest with its beating. “She wants to … she wants to see … oh, gods—”
He looked out the window, craning his neck furiously to see behind them, into the swirling silvery fog, where of course there was nothing meaningful to be found.
“What is it?” said Nikoros.
“That was no middle-aged stranger,” said Locke. “That was her.”
“Who?”
“The opposition,” said Locke, settling back into his seat, feeling dazed. “Our counterpart. The woman we spoke of.”
“Verena Gallante?”
“It seems that’s her present alias.”
“Oh my,” said Jean. “The initials on the silk purse … now that was cheeky.”
“Only if we weren’t too dense to notice it right away,” said Locke.
“I fail to see how ‘Verena Gallante’ yields ‘G.B’,” said Nikoros.
“A private matter,” said Locke. “I have … we have a history with this woman.”
“What must we do now?” said Nikoros.
“Now,” said Locke, “you can direct our driver to wherever this Master Ratfinder keeps his office, and after we’ve persuaded him to quit being a nuisance, you and Master Callas can go scrounge up the brutes we discussed yesterday.”
“And what about you?”
“I, well … ,” said Locke, running one hand over his stubble, “I’ll need to go find a barber.”
4
THEIR UNANNOUNCED appointment with Master Ratfinder Bilezzo took less time than their protracted encounter at the court offices. After the initial exchange of greetings and the sudden appearance of a pile of ducats on Bilezzo’s desk, it rapidly became clear to Locke and Jean that Bilezzo was a fatuous, contrary, self-satisfied fellow who was deeply amused at the chance to have a bit of harmless mischief with his far-ranging civic powers.
The two Gentlemen Bastards decided to correct his attitude in a traditional Camorri fashion. Locke doubled the amount of his proposed bribe while Jean picked Bilezzo up by his lapels, scraped the ceiling with his head, and cheerfully offered to nail his tongue to the back of a carriage and whip the horses around the city.
No middle-aged civil servant in a comfortable position could easily refuse such entreaties, and they parted with a mutually satisfactory arrangement. Bilezzo’s men would continue (for appearance’s sake) to carry out the pointless fumigation of Nikoros’ building, Locke would conjure piles of gold to ensure it didn’t happen again, or anywhere else of value to the Deep Roots party, and Jean would spare Bilezzo the unwanted carriage ride.
Nikoros came away from the meeting having learned several new words, as well as some novel hyphenations of familiar ones, and a fascinating twist to the art of negotiation that his education had previously neglected.
5
LOCKE RETURNED alone to Josten’s just before the second hour of the afternoon with the autumn air cool against his freshly shaved face, chewing on the last of the half-dozen sweet cakes he’d picked up for lunch.
The place was in a fine state of near-pandemonium, with locksmiths performing surgery on at least three visible doors, while the customary crowd of businessfolk bustled about eating, shouting, negotiating, or simply trying to maintain airs of importance. At the same time, the ordinary and legitimate business of the Deep Roots party went on. Locke and Jean had agreed that there was no need for them to oversee every last detail of the Committee’s business, lest they go mad while driving everyone around them mad into the bargain.
Unusual events and setbacks, however, were very much their business, and Locke hadn’t taken five steps past the front doors before a small pack of Nikoros’ messengers and assistants descended on him waving scraps of paper. Locke flipped through them as he walked through the crowd and made his way up toward the party’s private gallery.
Constables had detained several important party supporters for public drunkenness. A district organizer had dumped his life’s savings into a bag and fled the city just before dawn for reasons unknown. A candidate for the seat in the Isas Vadrasta was going to fight a duel tomorrow, and there was no quality replacement if he ended up full of holes. Locke sighed. Casualty reports, by all the gods, like some captain on a battlefield! Sabetha’s hand could be in any of it, or none of it. No doubt the lists of complications would only get longer as the weeks wore on.
“Here’s Master Lazari now,” said Jean as Locke ascended the final step to the private gallery. Jean and Nikoros were standing before a group of eight men. Most of them looked capable to Locke’s eye—city bruisers, obvious ex-constables, and a few with the deep tans and weather-worn faces of caravan guards. They all nodded or muttered greetings.
“We’ve got a lead on some women, too,” said Jean, whispering into Locke’s ear. “Bodyguards. Nikoros found them; he’ll bring them in tomorrow.”
“Good,” said Locke. He waved the slips of paper at Jean. “Seen these?”
“If those are the notes on today’s pains in the ass, yes. You got anything to tell our new friends?”
“We want you content,” said Locke, addressing the men. “We want you to feel that you’re being treated fairly. If you’re not, bring it to us. If anyone threatens you, or makes you an offer—you know the sort of thing I’m talking about—bring it to us. Quietly. I guaranteewe’ll come up with a better deal.”
There was no point in mentioning consequences or making threats; gods, no. Doing that in public was a sure sign of insecurity. Threats, when needed, would be a private affair. If these men had real quality they would appreciate not being treated like idiots.
“Go find Josten,” said Jean. “Have yourselves a bite. I’ll have shift assignments once you’ve eaten.”
As the men left the gallery, Jean turned to Locke. “Where’d you go to get your shave, back to Lashain?”
“I didn’t mean to be out so long. I, uh, just thought I’d have my driver take me around some of the Black Iris places Nikoros listed for us. See if there was anything interesting going on.”
“You were looking for her, weren’t you?”
“Uh … yes. Didn’t spot her on any street, though.” Locke ran a hand over his chin for the twentieth time. “How does it look?”
“What?”
“The shave.”
“Like a shave. Fine.”
“You sure?”
“For Perelandro’s sake. You got peach fuzz scraped off with a razor; you didn’t commission a bust of yourself in marble.”
Locke crumpled the notes he’d been handed and put them in a coat pocket. “Well, look, if you’ve got the new bruisers in hand and you’ve already heard the news, I’m, uh, going up to the room … to get ready.”
“You’ve got at least four hours before we have to leave.”
“Yeah, but if I don’t start my nervous pacing now, I’ll never have it all done in time.”
6
“HOW’S IT look?”
Almost precisely four hours later, Locke was standing before a full-length mirror in their suite, showing off a slight variation in the tying of his black neck-cloth.
“It looks like clothing,” said Jean, who’d been dressed for the better part of an hour and was now lounging in a high-backed chair, ominously juggling a hatchet in one hand.