The back room was a bit cramped but cozy. The fireplace was cold and dead, but the night was quite warm enough already. The battered old sofa and chairs had been dragged from their ordinary positions into a rough circle. Faro had claimed the entire couch for himself, legs propped up on one arm and head hanging off at the other, upside down. It was a testament to Faro that he could make even this awkward position look graceful, if not particularly dignified. He was a slender youth, with short dark hair and a face like a hatchet, dressed in well-tailored gray velvet.
Behind him, Johann Maurisk-whom, for reasons Raesinia had never quite understood, everyone addressed by his family name-paced beside the window. He was as thin as Faro, but where Faro was lithe and graceful, Maurisk had the sunken-eyed look of a desert hermit. He was constantly in motion, walking back and forth, toying with his shirt or rapping out an unconscious rhythm on the windowsill with long, bony fingers.
Cora stepped back, took a deep breath, and made a visible effort to get control of herself.
“It worked!” she said. “I mean, I knew it would work, if everything went the way you said it would, but now everything has, and I’m having a hard time believing it. Do you have any idea what’s going to happen when the markets open again on Monday?” She giggled. “The whole Exchange is going to be swimming in coffee beans! I know at least three firms that have been hoarding for months, waiting for bad news, and now I hear they’re clearing out the warehouses. You won’t be able to sell the stuff for two pennies a bushel!”
“I’m thinking of putting up nets below the Grand Span,” Faro said. “We could fish the jumping bankers out of the river and go through their pockets.”
Maurisk slapped the windowsill and turned to glare at Faro, who smiled back impishly. Maurisk appeared to completely lack a sense of humor, which left him ill at ease in Faro’s company.
“I take it the news has reached the market, then?” Raesinia said.
“This afternoon,” Cora said. “We saw De Borg himself strutting about like the top peacock, rubbing everyone’s faces in it.”
“And we did well?”
Cora gaped, made speechless by this colossal understatement. Faro, grinning upside down and head lolling like a corpse, said, “Quite well, apparently. I don’t pretend to understand the specifics of it, but I gather we’ve just about hit the jackpot.”
“It’s not that complicated,” Cora protested. “I bought De Borg’s paper at ten pence, on a ninety-five-point margin, and as of close today it was back to par. After fees and so on, that gives us a return of about a hundred and eighty to one.”
Truth be told, Raesinia didn’t follow the specifics, either, but she trusted Cora’s assessment. She’s a prodigy, after all. That last number made her sit up and take notice, though. Raesinia was no financier, but she could multiply, and a hundred and eighty to one meant that the little pool of money their circle had laboriously accumulated had been transformed overnight, as if by alchemy, into a substantial fortune.
“I’m not really recommending it,” Faro said, “just throwing the idea out, really, but you realize that we could just take the money and run. Go to Hamvelt and live like princes for the rest of our days.” He looked around the room, from Maurisk’s burning eyes to Raesinia’s guarded ones, and sighed. “Fair enough. I’m just saying.”
“It’s not about the money,” Raesinia said.
“Of course it’s not about the money,” Maurisk said. “I’ve always said money is only a distraction. We should be out there”-he stabbed a finger at the window-“raising the awareness of the common-”
Faro laughed and slid off the couch like a cat, landing in a crouch and rolling his shoulders before straightening up.
“I think awareness is not our problem,” he said. “Everyone is perfectly aware of what’s going on. They just don’t see anything they can do about it.”
“Then we need to tell them-” Maurisk began.
“In any case,” Raesinia said, raising her voice before the usual argument could get started, “we’re on our way.”
“We certainly are,” Faro said. “Though God knows to where.” He slapped his thighs. “This calls for a drink, I’d say. Let me go and get something.”
He went out, and Raesinia turned to Maurisk. “What about Ben and the doctor? Are we expecting them?”
“Not tonight,” he said, with a glower. “They’re in Newtown. Reconnaissance, Ben calls it, though he wouldn’t tell me what he’s expecting to find.”
Cora waggled her eyebrows and gave a lewd giggle, and Maurisk snorted. This was a joke; neither of the last two members of their cabal was likely to be found in any of the South Bank’s notorious brothels.
“Well, I’ve got news. I suppose we can fill them in later.” Raesinia paused as the door opened and Faro returned, with two bottles under each arm. “I’ve had word from my contact at the palace.”
“Oh?” Cora perked up. “Anything I can take to the Exchange?”
“I’m. . not sure. The king is going to name Count Mieran to the Ministry of Justice.”
There was a pause. Faro uncorked one of the bottles and started setting up mugs on a side table.
“This is the same Count Yonas or some such who has been smiting the heathens so heroically in Khandar?”
Raesinia nodded. “Count Janus bet Vhalnich Mieran.”
“And what do we know about him?” Maurisk said.
“Not much,” Raesinia admitted. “But there’s no love lost between him and Orlanko.”
“That’s got to be good for us, then,” Cora said. “The enemy of my enemy, and all that.”
“I don’t know,” Faro said. “I’ve found that most of the time the enemy of your enemy can be relied on to stick a dagger in your back while you’re busy with the first fellow.”
“We’ll see soon enough,” Maurisk said. “It’s Giforte who really matters. If Count Mieran puts someone new in as head of the Armsmen, it’ll tell us a bit about what he plans. If he promotes Giforte instead-”
“Then I’ll drink another toast,” Faro said. “Giforte is a crusty old fart with more breeding than brains. Not that there’s any shortage of such around His Majesty.”
“Long may he reign,” Cora said, and the others echoed her automatically.
“Here,” Faro said. “Better to do that with wine in hand.”
Maurisk glared at him while Faro distributed the mugs, then looked up at Raesinia.
“Was there anything else?” he said. Maurisk was a teetotaler, yet another point of contention between him and the hard-drinking Faro.
“Not at the moment,” Raesinia said, accepting a mug herself.
Maurisk’s habitual scowl deepened. “Then I will say good evening.”
He went for the door, dodging Faro’s attempt to offer him a mug, and let it bang closed behind him. Faro stared after him for a moment, giving his best impression of an abandoned puppy, then laughed and turned back to the others. “And I will say good riddance.” He took a long sip from his mug and swallowed thoughtfully. “Honestly, Raes, what possessed you to bring him into this?”
“He’s smart, and he believes in taking the country back from Orlanko,” Raesinia said. “And he takes it seriously.” She brought the mug to her lips.
The wine was actually rather good, Raesinia thought. In spite of its run-down appearance, the Blue Mask kept a good cellar. The unwashed floors and ratty furniture were a deliberate affectation, an act; situated as it was on prime real estate beside the University, the rent on the Mask was probably higher than many noble town houses.
An act. Raesinia stared into the depths of her mug, letting the conversation drift around her. Faro talked enough for three, anyway, pretending to flirt with Cora and laughing hugely at his own jokes.
It’s all an act. Raesinia Smith was an affectation, just like the Blue Mask. So, for that matter, was Raesinia Orboan, the delicate, empty-headed princess she played at Ohnlei whenever formal ceremonies demanded it. She might have been real, once, but she’d died four years ago, coughing her lungs out in a bed stinking of piss and vomit. What had risen from that bed was. . something else, an imposter.