Red Seas Under Red Skies (21 page)

“I have some theories, yes.”

“And would you mind sharing them?” asked Locke.

“If I were given orders to that effect,” she said sweetly.

“Gods damn all Verrari, and give them more sores on their privates than hairs on their heads,” muttered Locke.

“I was born in Vel Virazzo,” said the woman.

“Do you have a name?” asked Jean.

“Lots. All of them lovely and none of them true,” she replied. “You two can call me Merrain.”

“Merrain. Ow.” Locke winced and massaged his left forearm with his right hand. Jean set a hand on his shoulder.

“Anything broken, Leo?

“Not much. Perhaps my dignity and my previous presumptions of divine benevolence.” Locke sighed. “We've seen people following us for the past few nights, Merrain. I suppose we must have seen you.”

“I doubt it. You gentlemen should collect your things and start walking. Same direction you were moving before. There'll be constables here soon enough, and the constables don't take orders from my employer.”

Locke retrieved his wet stilettos and wiped them on the trousers of the man he'd killed before returning them to his sleeves. Now that the anger of the fight had run cold, Locke felt his gorge rising at the sight of the corpse, and he scuttled away as fast as he could.

Jean gathered up his coat and slipped his hatchet into it. Soon enough the three of them were walking along, Merrain in the middle with her elbows linked in theirs.

“My employer,” she said after a few moments, “wished me to watch over you tonight, and when convenient show you down to a boat.”

“Wonderful,” said Locke. “Another private conversation.”

“I can't say. But if I were to conjecture, I'd guess that he's found a job for the pair of you.”

Jean spared a quick glance for the two bodies lying in the darkness far behind them, and he coughed into his clenched fist. “Splendid,” he growled. “This place has been so dull and uncomplicated so far.”

REMINISCENCE

The Amusement War

1

Six days north up the coast road from Tal Verrar, the demi-city of Salon Corbeau lies within an unusually verdant cleft in the black seaside rocks. More than a private estate, not quite a functional village, the demi-city clings to its peculiar life in the smoldering shadow of Mount Azar.

In the time of the Therin Throne Azar exploded to life, burying three living villages and ten thousand souls in a matter of minutes. These days it seems content merely to rumble and brood, sending twisting charcoal plumes out to sea, and flights of ravens wheel without concern beneath the tired old volcano's smoke. Here begin the hot, dusty plains called the Adra Morcala, inhabited by few and loved by none. They roll like a cracked dry sea all the way to the southern boundaries of Balinel, most westerly and desolate canton of the Kingdom of the Seven Marrows.

Locke Lamora rode into Salon Corbeau on the ninth day of Aurim, in the Seventy-eighth Year of Nara. A mild westerly winter. A fruitful year (and more) had passed since he and Jean had first set foot in Tal Verrar, and in the armored strongbox at the rear of Locke's rented carriage rattled a thousand gold solari, stolen at billiards from a certain Lord Landreval of Espara who was unusually sensitive to lemons.

The little harbor that served the demi-city was thick with small craft—yachts and pleasure-barges and coasting galleys with square silk sails. Farther out, upon the open sea a galleon and a sloop rode at anchor, each flying the pennant of Lashain under family crests and colors Locke didn't recognize. The breeze was slight and the sun was pale, more silver than gold behind the hazy exhalations of the mountain.

“Welcome to Salon Corbeau,” said a footman in livery of black and olive green, with a tall hat of pressed black felt. “How are you styled, and how must you be announced?”

A liveried woman placed a wooden block beneath the open door to Locke's carriage and he stepped out, bracing his hands in the small of his back and stretching with relief before hopping to the ground. He wore a drooping black moustache beneath black-rimmed optics and slick black hair; his heavy black coat was tight in the chest and shoulders but flared out from waist to knees, fluttering behind him like a cape. He had eschewed the more refined hose and shoes for gray pantaloons tucked into knee-high field boots, dull black beneath a faint layer of road dust.

“I am Mordavi Fehrwight, a merchant of Emberlain,” he said. “I doubt that I shall require announcement, as I have no title of any consequence.”

“Very good, Master Fehrwight,” said the footman smoothly. “The Lady Saljesca appreciates your visit to Salon Corbeau and earnestly wishes you good fortune in your affairs.”

Appreciates your visit
, noted Locke, rather than
would be most pleased to receive your audience
. Countess Vira Saljesca of Lashain was the absolute ruler of Salon Corbeau; the demi-city was built on one of her estates. Equally distant from Balinel, Tal Verrar, and Lashain, just out of convenient rulership by any of them, Salon Corbeau was more or less an autonomous resort state for the wealthy of the Brass Coast.

In addition to the constant arrival of carriages along the coast roads and pleasure-vessels from the sea, Salon Corbeau attracted one other noteworthy form of traffic, which Locke had meditated on in a melancholy fashion during his journey.

Ragged groups of peasants, urban poor and rural wretches alike, trudged wearily along the dusty roads to Lady Saljesca's domain. They came in intermittent but ceaseless streams, flowing to the strange private city beneath the dark heights of the mountain.

Locke imagined that he already knew exactly what they were coming for, but his next few days in Salon Corbeau would prove that understanding to be woefully incomplete.

2

LOCKE HAD
originally expected that a sea voyage to Lashain or even Issara might be necessary to secure the final pieces of his Sinspire scheme, but conversation with several wealthier Verrari had convinced him that Salon Corbeau might have exactly what he needed.

Picture a seaside valley carved from night-dark stone, perhaps three hundred yards in length and a hundred wide. Its little harbor lies on its western side, with a crescent beach of fine black sand. At its eastern end, an underground stream pours out of a fissure in the rocks, rushing down a stepped arrangement of stones. The headlands above this stream are commanded by Countess Saljesca's residence, a stone manor house above two layers of crenellated walls—a minor fortress.

The valley walls of Salon Corbeau are perhaps twenty yards in height, and for nearly their full length they are terraced with gardens. Thick ferns, twisting vines, blossoming orchids, and fruit and olive trees flourish there, a healthy curtain of brown and green in vivid relief against the black, with little water ducts meandering throughout to keep Saljesca's artificial paradise from growing thirsty.

In the very center of the valley is a circular stadium, and the gardens on both sides of this stone structure share the walls with several dozen sturdy buildings of polished stone and lacquered wood. A miniature city rests on stilts and platforms and terraces, charmingly enclosed by walkways and stairs at every level.

Locke strolled these walkways on the afternoon of his arrival, looking for his ultimate goal with a stately lack of haste—he expected to be here for many days, perhaps even weeks. Salon Corbeau, like the chance houses of Tal Verrar, drew the idle rich in large numbers. Locke walked among Verrari merchants and Lashani nobles, among scions of the western Marrows, past Nesse ladies-in-waiting (or perhaps more accurately, ladies-weighted-down, in more cloth-of-gold than Locke would have previously thought possible) and the landed families they served. Here and there he was sure he even spotted Camorri, olive-skinned and haughty, though thankfully none were important enough for him to recognize.

So many bodyguards, and so many bodies to guard! Rich bodies and faces; people who could afford proper alchemy and physik for their ailments. No weeping sores or sagging facial tumors, no crooked teeth lolling out of bleeding gums, no faces pinched by emaciation. The Sinspire crowd might be more exclusive, but these folk were even more refined, even more pampered. Hired musicians followed some of them, so that even little journeys of thirty or forty yards need not threaten a second of boredom. Rich men and women were hemorrhaging money all around Locke, to the strains of music. Even a man like Mordavi Fehrwight might spend less to eat for a month than some of them would throw away just to be noticed at breakfast each day.

He'd come to Salon Corbeau because of these folk; not to rob them, for once, but to make use of their privileged existence. Where the rich nested like bright-feathered birds, the providers of the luxuries and services they relied upon followed. Salon Corbeau had a permanent community of tailors, clothiers, instrument makers, glassbenders, alchemists, caterers, entertainers, and carpenters. A small community, to be sure, but one of the highest reputation, fit for aristocratic patronage and priced accordingly.

Almost in the middle of Salon Corbeau's south gallery, Locke found the shop he had come all this way to visit—a rather long, two-story stone building without windows along its walkway face. The wooden sign above the single door said:

M. BAUMONDAIN AND DAUGHTERS
HOUSEHOLD DEVICES AND FINE FURNITURE
BY APPOINTMENT

On the door of the Baumondain shop was a scrollwork decoration, the crest of the Saljesca family (as Locke had glimpsed on banners fluttering here and there, and on the cross-belts of Salon Corbeau's guards), implying Lady Vira's personal approval of the work that went on there. Meaningless to Locke, since he knew too little of Saljesca's taste to judge it…but the Baumondain reputation stretched all the way to Tal Verrar.

He would send a messenger first thing in the morning, as was appropriate, and request an appointment to discuss the matter of some peculiar chairs he needed built.

3

AT THE
second hour of the next afternoon a warm soft rain was falling; a weak and wispy thing that hung in the air more like damp gauze than falling water. Vague columns of mist swirled among the plants and atop the valley, and the walkways were for once clear of most of their well-heeled traffic. Gray clouds necklaced the tall black mountain to the northwest. Locke stood outside the door to the Baumondain shop with water dripping down the back of his neck and rapped sharply three times.

The door swung inward immediately; a wiry man of about fifty peered out at Locke through round optics. He wore a simple cotton tunic cinched up above his elbows, revealing guild tattoos in faded green and black on his lean forearms, and a long leather apron with at least six visible pockets on the front. Most of them held tools; one held a gray kitten, with only its little head visible.

“Master Fehrwight? Mordavi Fehrwight?”

“So pleased you could make the time for me,” began Locke. He spoke with a faint Vadran accent, just enough to suggest an origin in the far north. He'd decided to be lazy, and let this Fehrwight be as fluent in Therin as possible. Locke stretched out his right hand to shake. In his left he carried a black leather satchel with an iron lock upon its flap. “Master Baumondain, I presume?”

“None other. Come in directly, sir, out of the rain. Will you take coffee? Allow me to trade you a cup for your coat.”

“With pleasure.” The foyer of the Baumondain shop was a high, cozily paneled room lit with little golden lanterns in wall sconces. A counter with one swinging door ran across the rear of the room, and behind it Locke could see shelves piled high with samples of wood, cloth, wax, and oils in glass jars. The placed smelled of sanded wood, a sharp and pleasant tang. There was a little sitting area before the counter, where two superbly wrought chairs with black velvet cushions stood upon a floor tapestry.

Locke set his satchel at his feet, turned to allow Baumondain to help him shrug out of his damp black coat, picked up his satchel once again, and settled himself in the chair nearest to the door. The carpenter hung Locke's coat on a brass hook on the wall. “Just a moment, if you please,” he said, and went behind the counter. From his new vantage point, Locke could see that a canvas-covered door led from behind the counter to what he presumed must be the workshop. Baumondain pushed the canvas flap aside and yelled, “Lauris! The coffee!”

Some muffled reply that he evidently found satisfactory came back to him from the workshop, and he hurried around the counter to take his place in the chair across from Locke, crinkling his seamy face into a welcoming smile. A few moments later, the canvas flew aside once again and out from the workshop came a freckled girl of fifteen or sixteen years, chestnut-haired, slim in the manner of her father but more firmly muscled about the arms and shoulders. She carried a wooden tray before her set with cups and silver pots, and when she stepped through the door in the counter Locke saw the tray had legs like a very short table.

She placed the coffee service between Locke and her father, just to the side, and gave Locke a respectful nod.

“My oldest daughter, Lauris,” said Master Baumondain. “Lauris, this is Master Fehrwight, of the House of bel Sarethon, from Emberlain.”

“Charmed,” said Locke. Lauris was close enough for him to see that her hair was full of curly little wood shavings.

“Your servant, Master Fehrwight.” Lauris nodded again, prepared to withdraw, and then caught sight of the gray kitten sticking out of her father's apron pocket. “Father, you've forgotten Lively. Surely you didn't mean to have him sit in on the coffee?”

“Have I? Oh, dear, I see that I have.” Baumondain reached down and eased the kitten out of his apron. Locke was astonished to see how limply it hung in his hands, with its legs and tail drooping and its little head lolling; what self-respecting cat would sleep while plucked up and carried through the air? Then Locke saw the answer, as Lauris took Lively in her own hands and turned to go. The kitten's little eyes were wide open, and stark white.

“That creature was Gentled,” said Locke in a low voice when Lauris had returned to the workshop.

“I'm afraid so,” said the carpenter.

“I've never seen such a thing. What purpose does it serve, in a cat?”

“None, Master Fehrwight, none.” Baumondain's smile was gone, replaced by a wary and uncomfortable expression. “And it certainly wasn't my doing. My youngest daughter, Parnella, found him abandoned behind the Villa Verdante.” Baumondain referred to the huge luxury inn where the intermediate class of Salon Corbeau's visitors stayed, the wealthy who were not private guests of the Lady Saljesca. Locke himself was rooming there.

“Damned strange.”

“We call him Lively, as a sort of jest, though he does little. He must be coaxed to eat, and prodded to…to excrete, you see. Parnella thought it would be kinder to smash his skull, but Lauris would not hear of it and so I could not refuse. You must think me weak and doting.”

“Not at all,” said Locke, shaking his head. “The world is cruel enough without our compounding it; I approve. I meant that it was damned strange that anyone should do such a thing at all.”

“Master Fehrwight.” The carpenter licked his lips nervously. “You seem a humane man, and you must understand…our position here brings us a steady and lucrative business. My daughters will have quite an inheritance, when I turn this shop over to them. There are…there are things about Salon Corbeau, things that go on, that we artisans…do not pry into.
Must
not. If you take my meaning.”

“I do,” said Locke, eager to keep the man in a good humor. However, he made a mental note to perhaps poke around in pursuit of whatever was disturbing the carpenter. “I do indeed. So let us speak no more of the matter, and instead look to business.”

“Most kind,” said Baumondain, with obvious relief. “How do you take your coffee? I have honey and cream.”