“That fucker.” Jean’s hands balled into fists. “I could do so much to him, without killing him. I very much hope I get to try.”
“Save it for the Gray King,” muttered Locke. “My thoughts are that if we survive what’s coming on Duke’s Day night, he won’t be able to keep the Falconer on retainer forever. When the Bondsmage leaves…”
“We talk to the Gray King again. With knives.”
“Too right. We follow him if we have to. We’ve been needing something to do with all of our money. Here’s something. Whenever that bastard can’t pay his mage anymore, we’ll show him just how much we like being knocked around like handballs. Even if we have to follow him down the Iron Sea and around the Cape of Nessek and all the way to Balinel on the Sea of Brass.”
“Now there’s a plan. And what are you going to do tonight?”
“Tonight?” Locke grunted. “I’m going to take Calo’s advice. I’m going to stroll over to the Guilded Lilies and get my brains wenched out. They can put them back in in the morning when they’re through with me; I understand there’s an extra fee involved, but I’ll pay it.”
“I must be going mad,” said Jean. “It’s been four years, and all this time you’ve been-”
“I’m frustrated and I need a break. And she’s a thousand miles away and I guess I’m human after all, gods damn it. Don’t wait up.”
“I’ll walk with you,” said Jean. “It’s not wise to be out alone on a night like this. The city’s in a mood, now that word of Nazca’s got around.”
“Not wise?” Locke laughed. “I’m the safest man in Camorr, Jean. I know for a fact I’m the only one that absolutely nobody out there wants to kill yet. Not until they finish pulling my strings.”
5
“THIS ISN’T working,” he said, less than two hours later. “I’m sorry, it’s…not your fault.”
The room was warm and dark and exceedingly pleasant, ventilated by the soft swish of a wooden fan flapping back and forth in a concealed shaft. Waterwheels churned outside the ornate House of the Guilded Lilies at the northern tip of the Snare, driving belts and chains to operate many mechanisms of comfort.
Locke lay on a wide bed with soft feather mattresses covered in silk sheets and overhung with a silk canopy. He sprawled naked in the soft red light of a misted alchemical globe, little stronger than scarlet moonlight, and admired the soft curves of the woman who was running her hands along the insides of his thighs. She smelled like mulled apple wine and cinnamon musk, and her curves were indeed admirable. Yet he was nothing resembling aroused.
“Felice, please,” he said. “This was a bad idea.”
“You’re tense,” whispered Felice. “You’ve obviously got something on your mind, and that cut on your arm-it can’t be helping at all. Let me try a few things more. I’m always up for a…professional challenge.”
“I can’t imagine anything would help.”
“Hmmm.” Locke could hear the pout in her voice, though her face was little more than soft slashes of shadow in the red half-light. “There’s wines, you know. Alchemical ones, from Tal Verrar. Aphrodisiacs. Not cheap, but they do work.” She rubbed his stomach, toying with the slender line of hair that ran down its center. “They can work miracles.”
“I don’t need wine,” he said distantly, grabbing her hand and moving it away from his skin. “Gods, I don’t know what I need.”
“Allow me to make a suggestion, then.” She moved herself up on the bed until she was crouched beside his chest, on her knees. With one confident motion (for there was real muscle under those curves) she flipped him over onto his stomach and began kneading the muscles of his neck and back, alternating gentle caresses and firm pressure.
“Suggestion…ow…accepted…”
“Locke,” Felice said, losing the breathy, anything-to-please-you bedroom voice that was one of the cherished illusions of her trade, “you do know that the attendants in the waiting chambers tell us exactly what each client requests when they give us assignments?”
“So I’ve heard.”
“Well, I know you specifically asked for a redhead.”
“Which…ow, lower please…which means?”
“There’s only two of us in the Lilies,” she said, “and we get that request every now and again. But the thing is, some men want any redhead in general, and some men want one redhead in particular.”
“Oh…”
“Those that want a redhead in general have their fun and go their way. But you…you want one redhead in particular. And I’m not her.”
“I’m sorry. I said it’s not your fault.”
“I know. That’s ever so gracious of you.”
“And I’m happy paying anyways.”
“And that’s also sweet.” She chuckled. “But you’d be taking it up with the room full of armed men if you didn’t, not just worrying about hurting my poor feelings.”
“You know,” Locke said, “I think I prefer you like this to all that ‘how may I please you master’ bullshit earlier.”
“Well, some men like a straightforward whore. Some don’t want to hear anything but how wonderful they are.” She worked at his neck muscles with the bases of her palms. “It’s all business. But like I said, you seem to be pining for someone. And now that you’ve remembered yourself, I won’t do.”
“Sorry.”
“No need to keep apologizing to me. You’re the one whose lady-love ran halfway across the continent.”
“Gods.” Locke groaned. “Find me a single person in Camorr who doesn’t know, and I’ll give you a hundred crowns, I swear.”
“It’s just something I heard from one of the Sanzas.”
“One of the Sanzas? Which one?”
“Couldn’t say. They’re so hard to tell apart in the dark.”
“I’m going to cut their gods-damned tongues out.”
“Oh, tsk.” She ruffled his hair. “Please don’t. Us girls have a use for those, at least.”
“Hmmmph.”
“You poor, sweet idiot. You do have it bad for her. Well, what can I say, Locke? You’re fucked.” Felice laughed softly. “Just not by me.”
INTERLUDE
Brat Masterpieces
1
The summer after Jean came to the Gentlemen Bastards, Father Chains took him and Locke up to the temple roof one night after dinner. Chains smoked a paper-wrapped sheaf of Jeremite tobacco while the sunlight sank beneath the horizon and the caught fire of the city’s Elderglass rose glimmering in its place.
That night, he wanted to talk about the eventual necessity of cutting throats.
“I had this talk with Calo and Galdo and Sabetha last year,” he began. “You boys are investments, in time and treasure both.” He exhaled ragged crescents of pale smoke, failing as usual to conjure full rings. “Big investments. My life’s work, maybe. A pair of brat masterpieces. So I want you to remember that you can’t always smile your way around a fight. If someone pulls steel on you, I expect you to survive. Sometimes that means giving back in kind. Sometimes it means running like your ass is on fire. Always it means knowing which is the right choice-and that’s why we’ve got to talk about your inclinations.”
Chains fixed Locke with a stare while he took a long, deliberate drag on his sheaf-the final breath of a man treading in unpleasant water, preparing to go under the surface.
“You and I both know that you have multiple talents, Locke, genuine gifts for a great many things. So I have to give this to you straight. If it comes down to hard talk with a real foe, you’re nothing but a pair of pissed breeches and a bloodstain. You can kill, all right, that’s the gods’ own truth, but you’re just not made for stand-up, face-to-face bruising. And you know it, right?”