The Gentleman Bastard Series 3-Book Bundle: The Lies of Locke Lamora, Red Seas Under Red Skies, The Republic of Thieves (255 page)

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.

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.

According to the innkeeper, the doors were as impervious to human arts as most Eldren
legacies, but a team of scholars and workers had once erected a climbing scaffold
and tried to study them closely.

“Hundred and fifty years ago, maybe. Eight folk went up,” Josten had muttered after
looking around the bar. “Six came down. No bodies were ever found, and none of the
survivors could say what had happened. For the rest of their lives, they had dreams.
Bad
ones. They wouldn’t talk about those, either, except one woman. Confessed to a priest
of Sendovani before she died. Young, like all the rest. They say the magi and the
Konseil suppressed the hell out of whatever that priest wrote down. So it’s just as
well that Elderglass doesn’t need
maintenance, my friend, because nobody in Karthain has climbed the Skyvault Span since.”

“Bloody charming,” muttered Locke, staring up at the elegant dark silhouettes blotting
out stars and clouds. Gods, he was reciting horror stories to himself. Hardly suave
and collected behavior. He needed to calm down, and he hadn’t had the foresight to
bring a quarter-cask of strong wine.

Footsteps scuffed the stones behind him, and he whirled, neither suave nor collected.

Sabetha was alone. She wore a dark scarlet jacket over chocolate-brown skirts, and
her hair was tightly bound around her lacquered pins.

“You look as though you’ve been listening to the stories about this bridge,” she said.

“My, ah, tavern master,” said Locke. “When I got your note, I asked him if he knew
anything about the spot you picked.”

“Seems it’s not a popular corner of the district.” She smiled and moved closer. “I
thought we could do with a bit of privacy.”

“Haunted Eldren detritus does tend to secure that. Sly woman! I would have gone with
something like a private chamber at a fine dining establishment, but I suppose I’m
hopelessly conventional.” A carriage rattled past, onto the creaking deck of the bridge.
“What’s on your mind?”

“I appreciated your letter,” she said, gliding closer with that seemingly effortless
dancer’s step that made it look as though a wind had just nudged her along. “And I
don’t mean that as the usual oatmeal-tongued sort of polite acknowledgment; I
appreciated
what you said and how you said it. I’m beginning to think I might have been … hasty
in the way I treated you. When you first arrived in Karthain.”

“Well, ah, even if drugging me and putting me on a ship was something of a personal
misstep, I think we can agree it was a valid approach from a professional perspective.”

“I admire that equanimity.” She was within arm’s reach now, and her hands were around
his waist. He couldn’t have defended himself if he’d wanted to. “I’m not … uneasy
with you, you know. It’s not you, it’s …”

“I know,” said Locke. “Believe me, I understand. You don’t have to—”

She slipped her right hand up behind his neck and pulled him so close there wasn’t
room for a knife blade to pass between them. Next came the sort of kiss that banished
the world to distant background noise and seemed to last a month.

“Well,
that
you can do,” Locke whispered at last. “If you feel you have to. I’ll, ah, grudgingly
refrain from stopping you.”

“It’s nearly midnight,” said Sabetha, running her fingers through his hair. “Not much
left now but the casting and counting of the ballots. Were you planning on attending
the last big show at the Karthenium?”

“Can’t miss it,” said Locke. “Too many hands to hold. Yourself?”

“There are private galleries looking down on the grand hall. Once you’ve given all
your children suitable pats on their heads, why don’t you and Jean join me to watch
the returns? Ask any attendant for the Sable Chamber.”

“Sable Chamber. Right. And, ah, now you seem to be wearing that ‘there’s something
amusing I’m not telling Locke’ face.”

“As it happens, I did hear the most
fascinating
thing.” She took his hand and led him to the very edge of the embankment wall. “One
of my Konseil members privately complained that someone broke into his manor and,
if you can believe it, stole the reliquary shelves from his ancestral chapel.”

“Some people should learn to lock their doors at night.”

“I found myself pondering the purpose of such an unorthodox acquisition,” said Sabetha.
“I concluded that it must, in all probability, be an attempt to exercise some sort
of hold on a man for whom the theft of less personal trinkets would have no real meaning.”

“I’m disheartened to learn that your speculations took on such a cynical character.”

“Konseillors of Karthain shouldn’t have to worry about outside influence on the eve
of an election. Don’t you agree? I felt compelled to make inquiries and issue instructions
to the constabulary. Merely as a matter of routine civic duty, of course.”