The Gentleman Bastard Series 3-Book Bundle: The Lies of Locke Lamora, Red Seas Under Red Skies, The Republic of Thieves (257 page)

Brego and a pair of servants came to retrieve Boulidazi’s horses and colors. Once
they’d gone, Jean took up a post at the back door. He would keep a close watch on
the wagon and its sensitive contents, darting in to help Jenora only with a few crucial
or complicated operations.

“We’re on at the second hour sharp,” said Moncraine. “There’s a Verrari clock behind
the countess’ box. When it chimes two, the flag dips. I salute the countess; then
it’s out with the louts to tame the groundlings. And gods, will they need taming.”

Locke could hear the murmurs, the catcalls, the shouts and jeers of the Esparans filling
the earth-floored penny pit beyond the stage, as well as musicians trying to strain
coins out of the crowd.

Second hour of the afternoon
, thought Locke. That left about twenty minutes for dressing and thinking. The former
was so much easier. His Aurin costume was brown hose, a simple white tunic, and a
brown vest. He wound red cloth in a band just above his ears; this would keep the
sweat out of his eyes and suggest a crown even when he wasn’t wearing one. For the
early scenes at the court of Salerius II, Locke would wear a red cloak over his other
gear, a smaller version of the cloak that would be worn by Sylvanus at all times.

Sabetha approached, and Locke’s throat tightened. Amadine’s colors were those of the
night, so Sabetha wore black hose and a fitted gray doublet with a plunging neckline.
Her hair was coiffed, courtesy of Jenora and Chantal’s expertise, threaded around
silver pins and bound back with a blue cloth matching Locke’s red. Her doublet gleamed
with paste gems and silvery threads, and she wore two sheathed daggers at her hip.

“Luck and poise,” she whispered as she embraced him just long enough to brush a kiss
against his neck.

“You outshine the sun,” he said.

“That’s damned inconvenient, for a thief.” She squeezed his hands and winked.

Calo and Galdo approached.

“We were hoping for a moment,” said Galdo.

“Over by the door with Tubby,” said Calo. “We thought a little prayer might not be
out of order.”

Locke felt the sudden unwelcome tension of responsibility. This wasn’t something they
were asking of him as a comrade, but across the barrier even the laissez-faire priests
of the Nameless Thirteenth were bound to feel from time to time. There was no refusing
this. The others deserved any comfort Locke could give them.

The five Camorri gathered in a circle at the back door, hands and heads together.

“Crooked Warden,” whispered Locke, “our, uh, our protector … our father … sent us
here with a task. Don’t let us shame ourselves. Don’t let us shame him, now that we’re
so close to pulling it all off.
Don’t let us fail these people trusting us to keep them out of the noose. Thieves
prosper.”

“Thieves prosper,” the others whispered.

Chantal came to summon them for Moncraine’s final instructions. There was no more
time for prayer or planning.

THE GREEN
flag of Espara came halfway down the pole, then went back up. Locke, watching through
a scrollwork grille, signaled to Jasmer, who squared his shoulders and walked out
into the noise and the midafternoon blaze of light.

The penny pit was full, and newcomers were still shoving their way in from the gate.
Attendance at plays was an inexact affair, and Nerissa Malloria and her boys would
be taking coins until nearly the end of the show.

The elevated galleries were surprisingly full of swells and gentlefolk, along with
their small armies of body servants, fan-wavers, dressers, and bodyguards. Countess
Antonia’s banner-draped box was empty, but Baroness Ezrintaim and her entourage filled
the box to its left. Baron Boulidazi’s promised friends and associates filled a lengthy
arc of the luxury balconies, and had apparently brought more friends and associates
of their own.

Jasmer walked to the center of the stage and was joined by a man and a woman who came
up from the crowd. The woman wore the robes of the order of Morgante and carried an
iron ceremonial staff. The man wore the robes of Callo Androno and bore a blessed
writing quill. The gods responsible for public order and lore; these were the divinities
publicly invoked before a play in any Therin city. The crowd quickly grew silent under
their gaze.

“We thank the gods for their gift of this beautiful afternoon,” thundered Jasmer.
“The Moncraine-Boulidazi Company dedicates this spectacle to Antonia, Countess Espara.
Long may she live and reign!”

Silence held while the priests made their gestures, then returned to the crowd. Moncraine
turned and began walking back to the attiring chambers, and the crowd burst once more
into babble and shouting.

Calo and Galdo went smoothly onto the stage, sweeping past Moncraine
on either side of him. Locke shook with anxiety. Gods above, there were no more second
chances.

“Look at these scrawny gilded peacocks!” yelled a groundling, a man whose voice carried
almost as well as Jasmer’s had. The penny pit roared with laughter, and Locke banged
his head against the grille.

“Hey, look who it is!” shouted Galdo. “Don’t you recognize him, Brother?”

“Faith, how could I not? We were up half the night teaching new tricks to his wife!”

“Ah! Peacocks!” roared the heckler over the laughter of the folk around him. He seized
the arm of a tall, bearded man beside him and raised it high. “Ask anyone here, it’s
no
wife
I keep at home!”

“Now, this explains much,” cried Galdo. “The fellow is so meekly endowed we
mistook
him for a woman!”

Locke tensed. In Camorr men were coy about laying with other men, and also likely
to throw punches for less. It seemed Esparans were more sanguine in both respects,
though, for the heckler and his lover laughed as loud as anyone.

“I heard the strangest rumor,” yelled Calo, “that a play was to be performed this
afternoon!”

“What? Where?” said Galdo.

“Right where we’re standing! A play that features lush young women and beautiful young
men! I don’t know, Brother … do you suppose these people have any interest in seeing
such a thing?”

The groundlings roared and applauded.

“It’s got love and blood and history!” shouted Galdo. “It’s got comely actors with
fine voices! Oh, it’s got Jasmer Moncraine, too.”

Laughter rippled across the crowd. Sylvanus, peering out his own grille nearby, chortled.

“Come with us now,” shouted the twins in unison. Then they threaded their words together,
pausing and resuming by unfathomable signals, trading passages and sentences so that
there were two speakers and one speaker at the same time:

“Move eight hundred years in a single breath! Give us your hearts and fancies to mold
like clay, and we shall make you witnesses to murder! We shall make you attestants
to true love! We shall make you privy to the secrets of emperors!

“You see us wrong, who see with your eyes, and hear nothing true, though straining
your ears! What thieves of wonder are these poor senses …”

While they declaimed, bit players in red cloaks marched silently onto the stage, wooden
spears held at cross-guard. Two carried out the low bench that would serve as Sylvanus’
throne.

“Defy the limitations of our poor pretending,” said the twins at last, “and with us
jointly devise and receive the tale of Aurin, son and inheritor of old Salerius! And
if it be true that sorrow is wisdom’s seed, learn now why never a wiser man was emperor
made!”

Calo and Galdo bowed to the crowd, and withdrew with grins on their faces, chased
by loud applause.

Eight hundred people watching, give or take.

Now they expected to see a prince.

Locke fought down the cold shudder that had taken root somewhere between his spine
and his lungs, and wrapped himself in his red cloak. He was seized by that sharp awareness
that only came when he was walking into immediate peril, and imagined that he could
feel every creak of the boards beneath his boots, every drop of sweat as it rolled
down his skin.

Jenora placed Locke’s crown of bent wire and paste gems over his red head-cloth. Sylvanus,
Jasmer, and Alondo were already in position, watching him. Locke took his place beside
Alondo, and together they walked out into the white glare of day and the maw of the
crowd.

IT WAS
almost like fighting practice, brief explosions of sweat and adrenaline followed
by moments of recovery and reflection before darting into the fray again.

At first Locke felt the regard of the crowd as a hot prickling in every nerve, something
at war with every self-preservation instinct he’d ever developed skulking about Camorr.
Gradually he realized that at any given instant half the audience was as likely to
be looking at another actor, or at some detail of the stage, or at their friends or
their beer, as they were to be staring at him. This knowledge wasn’t quite the same
as a comforting shadow to hide in, but it was enough to let him claw his way back
to a state of self-control.

“You’re doing well enough,” said Alondo, slapping him on the back as they gulped lightly-wined
water between scenes.

“I started weak,” said Locke. “I feel I’ve got the thread now.”

“Well, that’s the secret. Finish strong and they’ll forgive anything that came before
as the mysteries of acting. Mark how Sylvanus seems more deft with every bottle he
pours into himself? Let confidence be our wine.”

“
You
don’t need bracing.”

“Now, there you have me wrong, Lucaza. Pretend to ease long enough and it looks the
same as ease. Feels nothing like it, though, let me assure you. My digestion will
be tied in knots before I’m five and twenty.”

“At least you’re convinced you’ll live to five and twenty!”

“Ah, now, what did I just tell you about feigning outward ease? Come, that’s Valedon
being hauled off to his death. We’re on again.”

So the plot unwound, implacable as clockwork. Aurin and Ferrin were dispatched on
their clandestine errand to infiltrate the thieves of Therim Pel, Aurin was struck
dumb by his first glimpse of Amadine, and Ferrin confided his premonitions of trouble
to the audience, some of whom laughed and shouted drunken advice at him.

A bit player in white robe and mask drifted into the shadows of the stage pillars,
representing Valedon, first in the chorus of
phantasma
. Aurin and Ferrin set out to win the confidence of the thieves by brazenly robbing
Bertrand the Crowd, who all but vanished into the role of an elderly noble. Alondo
demanded Bert’s purse in the over-considerate language of the court, and while the
audience tittered, Bert barked, “Who speaks these words like polished stones? Who
lays his threats on silk like fragile things? You are drunks, you are gadabout boys,
playing at banditry! Turn sharp and find your mothers, boys, or I’ll have you over
my knee to make bright cherries of your arses!”

“Heed words or steel, ’tis all the same, you have your choice but we must have your
purse!” said Locke, drawing his dagger. Alondo did likewise, playing up Ferrin’s discomfort.
The blades were dull, but
polished to a gleam, and the crowd sighed appreciatively. Bert struggled, then recoiled
and unfolded a bright red cloth from his arm.

“Oh, there’s a touch, bastards,” growled Bertrand, tossing a purse to the stage and
going down on his knees. “There’s gentle blood you’ve spilled!”

“All by mischance!” cried Locke, waving his dagger at Bert’s face. “How like you now
these ‘fragile things,’ old man? Faith, he cares nothing for our conversation, Cousin.
He finds our remarks too cutting!”

“I have the purse,” said Alondo, glancing around frantically. “We must away. Away
or be taken!”

“And taken you shall be,” shouted Bert as Locke and Alondo scampered comically back
to the attiring chambers. “Taken in chains to a sorrowful place!”

The pace of events quickened. Aurin and Ferrin were enfolded into the confidence of
Amadine’s thieves, and Aurin began to make his first direct overtures to Amadine.
Penthra, ever suspicious on Amadine’s behalf, followed the two men and learned their
true identity when they reported their progress to Calamaxes the sorcerer.

Locke watched from behind his grille as Sabetha and Chantal quarreled about the fate
of Aurin. He admired the force of Chantal’s argument that he should be taken hostage
or quietly slain; she and Sabetha played sharply and strongly off one another, driving
the murmur and horseplay of the crowd down whenever they ruled a scene together.

Next came the confrontation between Aurin and Amadine in which the emperor’s son broke
and confessed his feelings. Behind them, Alondo and Chantal leaned like statues against
the stage pillars, backs to one another, each staring into the crowd with dour expressions.

“You rule my heart entire! Look down at your hands, see you hold it already!” said
Locke, on one knee. “Keep it for a treasure or use it to sheathe a blade! What you
require from me, so take, with all my soul I give it freely, even that soul itself!”

“You are an emperor’s son!”

“I am not free to choose so much as the pin upon my cloak,” said Locke. “I am dressed
and tutored and guarded, and the way to the
throne is straight with never a turning. Well, now I turn, Amadine. I am more free
in your realm than in my father’s, thus, I defy my father. I defy his sentence upon
you. Oh, say that you will have me. Since first I beheld you, you have been my empress
waking and dreaming.”

Next came the kissing, which Locke threw himself into with a heart pounding so loudly
he was sure the audience would mistake it for a drum and expect more music to follow.
Sabetha matched him, and in front of eight hundred strangers they shared the delicious
secret that they were not stage-kissing at all. They took much longer than Jasmer’s
blocking had called for. The audience hooted and roared approval.