The Republic of Thieves (80 page)
Read The Republic of Thieves Online
Authors: Scott Lynch
The room was still. The bustle of Black Iris business could be heard only faintly through the floor.
“I am a grown woman having a conversation with an envelope,” she muttered several heartbeats later.
He was there like smoke, like a ghost in the room, like a scent in her clothing. It had been so long that she had forgotten the actual scent, only that she remembered carrying it. Remembered wanting it, then not wanting it, then wanting it again despite herself.
There were two Lockes, she thought, turning the envelope back and forth in her hands. Two real Lockes under all the faces he wore in the course of his games. One of them put such a sweet sharp ache in her heart she could scarcely believe that a younger, softer Sabetha had sealed the feeling away and managed to leave. That man broke all the patterns of law and custom and dared the world to damn him for it.
The other Locke … that man was bound tight to those patterns, their absolute prisoner. He would do
thus
because
thus
was the way it always had been in Camorr, or the way it had always been for a
garrista
, or for a priest, or a Right Person, or a Gentleman Bastard. The reasons were endless, and he would cling to them viciously, thoughtlessly, tangling everyone around him into the bargain.
Even his eyes seemed different, when he was that second man. And that was a problem.
If there were two, might there not be three? Patterns behind the patterns, secrets behind the secrets, new strings to dance on, and these ones leading all the way back to the Bondsmagi of Karthain. Another Locke, unknown even to himself. What would become of the Lockes she knew if that stranger inside them was real? If he woke up?
“Which one of you wrote this?” She sniffed gently at the envelope, and the scent of it told her nothing.
Everything about the room was suddenly wrong. She didn’t want to be here in this quiet citadel, this orderly heart of her temporary power. The business between her and Locke was thieves’ business; she needed a thief’s freedom to face it. And a thief’s most comfortable roof was the night sky.
She swept an alchemical globe into her coat pocket and shook her boots off, scattering flakes of drying mud on the floor. Barefoot, she padded to one of the room’s tall windows and cracked it open.
Sabetha had adjusted the lock mechanism herself and rehearsed the process of slipping out many times; she’d mentally mapped four distinct routes around and down from the roof of the Sign of the Black Iris. The stones beneath her feet were cool but not yet unbearably cold.
Up she went, night breeze stirring her hair, soft moonlight showing all her possible paths. The world of streets, alleys, horses, and lamps receded below her, and she grinned. She was fifteen again,
ten
again, hanging on ancient stones with nothing but skill between herself and the fall.
She was on the roof, quiet as a sparrow’s shadow, heart pounding not with exertion but with the thrill of her own easy competence and the anxious mystery of the envelope.
Her rooftop sentry, crouched in the shadow of a tall chimney, all
but exploded out of his shoes when Sabetha’s hand fell lightly on his shoulder.
“Take a break,” she whispered, straining to keep the sound of her smile out of her voice. “Get some coffee and wait below for me to come fetch you.”
“A-as you say, Mistress Gallante.” To his credit, he was tolerably silent as he moved off. Not a patch on a proper Camorri skulker, but willing to make an effort.
Sabetha settled into his spot, pulled the alchemical light from her pocket, and once again turned the envelope over and over between her fingers.
“Get on with it,” she said, knowing it was empty theater for an audience of one. “Get on with it.”
Minutes passed. Silver cloud-shadows moved and blended across the dark rooftops. At last she found her hands taking the initiative from heart and mind again. The seal was cracked before she knew it, the letter slipped out. The handwriting was as familiar as her own. Her teeth were suddenly chattering.
“Dammit, woman, if you’re vulnerable to him it’s because you wanted to let yourself be vulnerable. Get on with it.”
Dear Sabetha, she read:
I have instructed J. to put this into your hands directly and so presume to write your name, selfishly. I want to say it out loud, over and over again, but even alone in this little room I am afraid of sounding like a lunatic, afraid that you would somehow be able to sense me making a damned idiot of myself. At least, having written it, I can stare at it as long as I like. It keeps snatching my attention away. How can any other word I write expect to compete? This is going to be a long night.
I suppose it’s true to the peculiar course of our courtship that so much of my courting takes the form of apologies. I like to think I have some talent for them; gods know I’ve had so many opportunities and reasons to practice.
Sabetha, I am sorry. I have put my recollection of everything said and done since I came to Karthain under a magnifying
lens, and I realize now that when I returned after escaping from your arranged vacation, I said some things I had no right to say. I took offense at your deception. I confused the business with the personal, and piled self-righteousness high enough to scrape the ceiling. For that, and not for the first time, I am deeply ashamed. It was wrong of me to throw such a fit.
Sabetha sucked in cool air with an unseemly gasp, suddenly realizing she’d been holding her breath. What had she expected? It certainly wasn’t this.
Once, you will recall, I told you that I gave you my absolute trust as my oath-sister, my friend, and my lover. Absolute trust is something that can only be given without conditions or reservations, something that can only be rescinded if it was meaningless in the first place.
I do not rescind it. I cannot rescind it.
You tricked me fairly, using something I gave you freely. I am a fool for you not merely by instinct but also by choice. I apologize now, not to beg for sympathy, but because it is an obligation of simple truth and affection I owe you before I have the right to say anything further.
I have pondered so long and furiously on Patience’s claims about my past that I have become thoroughly sick of the question. Though I desperately pray for the ultimate vindication of J.’s skepticism, I must admit I have no explanation that strikes me as convincing. There are shadows in my past that my memory cannot illuminate, and if you find that disturbing, I beg you to believe that I don’t blame you. Patience’s story has given us both a hard shock, and how I ought to deal with it is still something of a mystery.
How you deal with it, I must and will leave to you, not out of despair or resignation but in deference to my conscience, that broken clock which I believe is now chiming one of its occasional right hours. I will not question your reasons. It is enough for you to tell me that you wish to keep this distance between us, and it will always be enough. Know that a single
word will bring me running, but unless and until it pleases you to give it, I will expect nothing, force nothing, and contrive nothing contrary to your wishes.
I desire you as deeply as I ever have, but I understand that the fervor of a desire is irrelevant to its justice. I want your heart on merit, in mutual trust, or not at all, because I cannot bear to see you made uneasy by me. I have failed and disappointed you often enough before. Not for all the world would I do so again, and I leave it to you to tell me how to proceed, if and when you can, if and when you will.
Willingly and faithfully yours,
Locke Lamora
She turned the letter over, feeling ridiculous, looking for some other note or sentiment or mark. That was all there was; no pleading, no excuses, no demands or suggestions. Everything was now left to her, and that more than anything brought a tight cold pressure to her chest and left her shaking.
Failed her? She supposed that was true, if a touch ungenerous. The natural process of growing up was to stumble from failure to failure, and all the Gentlemen Bastards had been prodigies of survival, not sensitivity. But disappoint her? The trouble with the skinny, bright-eyed bastard was that he kept refusing to do so.
This letter was the work of the better Locke, the learning and giving Locke, the man who
listened
to her. Listened to her … What a banal sentiment it seemed in itself, but she’d been a woman of the world long enough to learn its rarity and desirability. It was amusing to use men like Catch-the-Duke pieces, but dupes listened with an ear for the main chance, for their own desires to be repeated back to them. After her years in the Marrows and this sojourn among the “adjusted,” by the gods, Locke’s company was more addictive than ever—a man who was proud and unpredictable and framed himself to her desires out of love and friendship, rather than her own subterfuge.
The corners of her vision misted. She rubbed the nascent tears
away with her fingers, not gently, and sniffed haughtily. Gods damn this whole stupid mess! Her heart was opened again like an old wound, but what was coming next? What did the Bondsmagi mean to
happen
to that man she loved?
Was she being selfish in holding him at a distance, or was she being sensible, shielding herself against the worst that might be coming, and soon?
“Crooked Warden,” she whispered, “if your sister Preva has any meaningful revelations that she’s not using at the moment, would you let her know that I’m willing to be moved?”
Sabetha sighed. Be moved, certainly, but not
move
. Let the night be hers for a few more minutes. Let the business of the Black Iris click on like clockwork. Let the magi sit on their own thumbs and spin. She read Locke’s letter again, then stared out at the city, thoughts churning.
The rooftop tapestry of moonlight and shadows and softly curling chimney smoke comforted her, but it had no answers to give.
TWO NIGHTS
later, Locke and Jean sat together in the Deep Roots gallery at Josten’s, dining on birds-a-bed (large morsels of several kinds of fowl on flaked pastry mattresses stuffed with spiced rice and leeks, then given “covers” of onion and sour cream sauce). To wash this down they had flagons of sharp ale and piles of the usual notes and reports, which they discussed between bites.
Less than a week remained, and the situation was spiraling appealingly out of control. Offices were being vandalized on both sides, party functionaries harassed or arrested by bluecoats on laughable pretexts, speakers and pamphleteers having shouting matches in the streets. Locke had dispatched a team of black-clad functionaries to hand out commemorative Black Iris treacle tarts in several marketplaces. The alchemical laxative mixed into the treacle was slow-acting but ultimately quite forceful, and many of the recipients had publicly expressed their lack of appreciation for the largesse of the Black Iris.
Despite this, the odds commonly given remained eleven to eight in the Black Iris’ favor. However much Locke would have liked to shift this
as far as possible with childish prankery, there was, realistically, nobody left in the city yet willing to accept baked sweets from a stranger.
“Oh, sirs, sirs!” Nikoros appeared, still looking like a man fresh from a sleepless week on the road. “I have … I am so sorry to intrude on your dinner, but I have some unfortunate news.”
“First time for everything,” said Locke lightly. “Go on, then, shock us.”
“It’s the, ah, the chandlery, Master Lazari. The one that you asked me to secure … in the Vel Vespala, and the one where you and Master Callas packed away all the, ah, you know, alchemical items. Two hours ago, stevedores in Black Iris livery entered the place and cleaned it out. They hauled everything away on drays to a location I haven’t yet discovered.”
Locke’s fork hung in the air halfway to his lips. He stared at Nikoros for a second, then shared a brief, significant gaze with Jean. “Ah, damn,” he said at last, and took his bite of chicken. “Mmmm. Damn. That’s a fairly expensive loss. And a fine trick yanked right out of my sleeve.”
“My most sincere apologies, Master Lazari.”
“Bah. It’s none of your doing,” said Locke, wondering just what had made thoroughly subservient eager-puppy Nikoros, of all people, turn coat. Something to do with Akkadris withdrawal? Some failure of Bondsmagi sorcery? Poor old Falconer, tongueless and fingerless and comatose, was something of an argument against their infallibility.
“Still,” Locke continued, “the opposition seems to have a damnable grasp of where we’re hiding our good toys these days. I want you to secure us a boat.”
“Ah, a boat, Master Lazari?”
“Yes. Something respectable. A barge, maybe a small pleasure yacht if a party member has one available.”
“Very, uh, likely. May I ask to what end?”
“We took something from one of the Black Iris Konseil members,” said Jean. “Family heirlooms of significant … sentimental value. We’ll return them after he’s done us a favor.”
“And we need the items in question to be absolutely secure until after election night,” said Locke. “I’m not sure I can trust our current
bolt-holes, so let’s try putting them on the water, in something that can move.”
“I’ll get on it immediately,” said Nikoros.
“Good man,” said Locke, forking another bite of chicken. “Minimal crew, trusted sorts. They won’t need to know what the boat is carrying. Master Callas and I will load the items ourselves.”
Nikoros hurried away.
“I wasn’t expecting it to be him,” whispered Jean.
“Nor me,” said Locke. “And I’m dead curious to find out how she did it. But at least we know. And now we pin our hopes on the boat.”
“To the boat,” said Jean. They raised their ale flagons and drained them.
THE NIGHT
before the election, Locke leaned on a wall high atop the northernmost embankment of the Plaza Gandolo, looking out across the softly rippling water of the river and the lantern-lights running across it like a hundred splashes of color on a drunken artist’s canvas.
To his left loomed the Skyvault Span, swaying and singing suspension bridge, its four anchor towers uniquely crowned with balconies and sealed doors. Those doors were invisible from Locke’s position hundreds of feet below, but he’d listened to Josten describe them not an hour before.
