Red Seas Under Red Skies: The Gentleman Bastard Sequence, Book Two (Gentleman Bastards 2)

The dealer, emotionless and alert as ever - he seemed to have more clockwork in him than the carousel did - flicked three cards to the tabletop before Locke. Locke ran his fingers under his coat lapel, then peeked at his cards and said, ‘Ahhhh-ha,’ with a tone of interested pleasure. They were an astonishing constellation of crap; his worst hand yet. Locke blinked and squinted, wondering if the alcohol was somehow masking a set of decent cards, but alas - when he concentrated again, they were still worthless.

The ladies had been forced to drink last, but unless Jean concealed a major miracle on the tabletop to Locke’s left, it was a good bet that another little vial would soon be rolling merrily across the table toward Locke’s wobbling hand.

Eighteen hands, thought Locke, to lose nine hundred and eighty solari thus far. His mind, well lubricated by the Sinspire’s liquor, wandered off on its own calculations. A year’s worth of fine new clothes for a man of high station. A small ship. A very large house. The complete lifetime earnings of an honest artisan, like a stonemason. Had he ever pretended to be a stonemason?

‘First options,’ said the dealer, snapping him back to the game.

‘Card,’ said Jean. The attendant slid one to him; Jean peeked at it, nodded and slid another wooden chit toward the centre of the table. ‘Bid up.’

‘Hold fast,’ said Madam Durenna. She moved two wooden chits forward from her substantial pile. ‘Partner reveal.’ She showed two cards from her hand to Madam Corvaleur, who was unable to contain a smile.

‘Card,’ said Locke. The attendant passed him one, and he turned up an edge just far enough to see what it was. The two of Chalices, worth precisely one wet shit from a sick dog in this situation. He forced himself to smile. ‘Bid up,’ he said, sliding two markers forward. ‘I’m feeling blessed.’

All eyes turned expectantly to Madam Corvaleur, who plucked a chocolate-dusted cherry from her dwindling supply, popped it into her mouth and then rapidly sucked her fingers clean. ‘Oh-ho,’ she said, staring down at her cards and drumming one set of sticky fingers gently on the table. ‘Oh . . . ho . . . oh . . . Mara, this is . . . the oddest . . .’

And then she slumped forward, settling her head onto her large pile of wooden markers on the tabletop. Her cards fluttered down, face-up, and she slapped at them, without coordination, trying to cover them up.

‘Izmila,’ said Madam Durenna, a note of urgency in her voice. ‘Izmila!’ She reached over and shook her partner by her heavy shoulders.

‘’Zmila,’ Madam Corvaleur agreed in a sleepy, blubbering voice. Her mouth lolled open and she drooled remnants of chocolate and cherry onto her five-solari chits. ‘Mmmmmmilllaaaaaaaaa. Verrry . . . odd . . . oddest . . .’

‘Play sits with Madam Corvaleur.’ The dealer couldn’t keep his surprise out of his voice. ‘Madam Corvaleur must state a preference.’

‘Izmila! Concentrate!’ Madam Durenna spoke in an urgent whisper.

‘There are . . . cards . . .’ mumbled Corvaleur. ‘Look out, Mara . . . soooo . . . many . . . cards. On table.’

She followed that up with, ‘Blemble . . . na . . . fla . . . gah.’

And then she was out cold.

‘Final default,’ said the dealer after a few seconds. With his crop, he swept all of Madam Durenna’s markers away from her, counting rapidly. Locke and Jean would take everything on the table. The looming threat of a thousand-solari loss had just become a gain of equal magnitude, and Locke sighed with relief.

The dealer considered the spectacle of Madam Corvaleur using her wooden markers as a pillow, and he coughed into his hand.

‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘the house will, ah, provide new chits of the appropriate value in place of . . . those still in use.’

‘Of course,’ said Jean, gently patting the little mountain of Durenna’s markers suddenly piled up before him. In the crowd behind them, Locke could hear noises of bewilderment, consternation and surprise. A light ripple of applause was eventually coaxed into existence by some of the more generous observers, but it died quickly. They were faintly embarrassed, rather than exhilarated, to see a notable like Madam Corvaleur inebriated by a mere six drinks.

‘Hmmmph,’ said Madam Durenna, stubbing out her cigar in the gold pot and rising to her feet. She made a show of straightening her jacket - black brocaded velvet decorated with platinum buttons and cloth-of-silver, worth a good fraction of everything she’d bet that night. ‘Master Kosta, Master de Ferra . . . it appears we must admit to being outmatched.’

‘But certainly not outplayed,’ said Locke, summoning up a snake-charming smile along with the pulverized remnants of his wits. ‘You very nearly had us . . . um, sewn up.’

‘And the whole world is wobbling around me,’ said Jean, whose hands were as steady as a jeweller’s, and had been throughout the entire game.

‘Gentlemen, I have appreciated your stimulating company,’ said Madam Durenna in a tone of voice that indicated she hadn’t. ‘Another game later this week, perhaps? Surely you must allow us a chance at revenge, for honour’s sake.’

‘Nothing would please us more,’ said Jean, to which Locke nodded enthusiastically, making the contents of his skull ache. At that, Madam Durenna coldly held out her hand and consented for the two of them to kiss the air above it. When they had done so, as though making obeisance to a particularly irritable snake, four of Requin’s attendants appeared to help move the snoring Madam Corvaleur somewhere more decorous.

‘Gods, it must be tedious, watching us try to drink one another under the table night after night,’ said Jean. He flipped the dealer a five-solari chit; it was customary to leave a small gratuity for the attendant.

‘I don’t believe so, sir. How would you like your change?’

‘What change?’ Jean smiled. ‘Keep the whole thing.’

The attendant betrayed human emotions for the second time that night; relatively well-off as he was, one little wooden chit was half again his annual salary. He stifled a gasp when Locke threw him another dozen.

‘Fortune is a lady who likes to be passed around,’ said Locke. ‘Buy a house, maybe. I’m having a little trouble counting at the moment.’

‘Sweet gods - many thanks, gentlemen!’ The attendant took a quick glance around and then spoke under his breath. ‘Those two ladies don’t lose very often, you know. In fact, this is the first time I can remember.’

‘Victory has its price,’ said Locke. ‘I suspect my head will be paying it when I wake up tomorrow.’

Madam Corvaleur was hauled carefully down the stairs, with Madam Durenna following to keep a close eye on the men carrying her card-partner. The crowd dispersed; those observers who remained at their tables called for attendants, food, new decks of cards for games of their own.

Locke and Jean gathered their markers (fresh ones, sans slobber, were swiftly provided by the attendant to replace Madam Corvaleur’s) in the customary velvet-lined wooden boxes and made their way to the stairs.

‘Congratulations, gentlemen,’ said the attendant guarding the way up to the sixth floor. The tinkle of glass on glass and the murmur of conversation could be heard filtering down from above.

‘Thank you,’ said Locke. ‘I’m afraid that something in Madam Corvaleur gave way just a hand or two before I might have done the same.’

He and Jean slowly made their way down the stairs that curved all the way around the inside of the Sinspire’s exterior wall. They were dressed as men of credit and consequence in the current height of Verrari summer fashion. Locke (whose hair had been alchemically shifted to a sunny shade of blond) wore a caramel-brown coat with a cinched waist and flaring knee-length tails; his huge triple-layered cuffs were panelled in orange and black and decorated with gold buttons. He wore no waistcoat, just a sweat-soaked tunic of the finest silk under a loose black neck-cloth. Jean was dressed similarly, though his coat was the greyish-blue of a sea under clouds, and his belly was cinched up with a wide black sash, the same colour as the short, curly hairs of his beard.

Down past floors of notables they went . . . past queens of Verrari commerce with their decorative young companions of both sexes on their arms like pets. Past men and women with purchased Lashani titles, staring across cards and wine decanters at lesser dons and dona˜s from Camorr; past Vadran shipmasters in tight black coats, with sea-tans like masks over their sharp, pale features. Locke recognized at least two members of the Priori, the collection of merchant councils that theoretically ruled Tal Verrar. Deep pockets appeared to be the primary qualification for membership.

Dice fell and glasses clinked; celebrants laughed and coughed and cursed and sighed. Currents of smoke moved languidly in the warm air, carrying scents of perfume and wine, sweat and roast meats, and here and there the resiny hint of alchemical drugs.

Locke had seen genuine palaces and mansions before; the Sinspire, opulent as it was, was not so very much more handsome than the homes many of these people would be returning to when they finally ran out of night to play in. The real magic of the Sinspire was woven from its capricious exclusivity; deny something to enough people and sooner or later it will grow a mystique as thick as fog.

Nearly hidden at the rear of the first floor was a heavy wooden booth manned by several unusually large attendants. Luckily, there was no line. Locke set his box down on the counter-top beneath the booth’s only window, a bit too forcefully.

‘All to my account.’

‘My pleasure, Master Kosta,’ said the chief attendant as he took the box. Leocanto Kosta, merchant-speculator of Talisham, was well known in this kingdom of wine fumes and wagers. The attendant swiftly changed Locke’s pile of wooden chits into a few marks on a ledger. In beating Durenna and Corvaleur, even minus his tip to the dealer, Locke’s cut of the winnings came to nearly five hundred solari.

‘I understand that congratulations are in order to both of you, Master de Ferra,’ said the attendant as Locke stepped back to let Jean approach the counter with his own box. Jerome de Ferra, also of Talisham, was Leocanto’s boon companion. They were a pair of fictional peas in a pod.

Suddenly, Locke felt a hand fall onto his left shoulder. He turned warily and found himself facing a woman with curly dark hair, richly dressed in the same colours as the Sinspire attendants. One side of her face was sublimely beautiful; the other side was a leathery brown half-mask, wrinkled as though it had been badly burned. When she smiled, the damaged side of her lips failed to move. It looked to Locke as though a living woman was somehow struggling to emerge from within a rough clay sculpture.

Selendri, Requin’s major-domo.

The hand that she had placed on his shoulder (her left, on the burned side) wasn’t real. It was a solid brass simulacrum, and it gleamed dully in the lantern light as she withdrew it.

‘The house congratulates you,’ she said in her eerie, lisping voice, ‘for good manners as well as considerable fortitude, and wishes you and Master de Ferra to know that you would both be welcome on the sixth floor, should you choose to exercise the privilege.’

Locke’s smile was quite genuine. ‘Many thanks, on behalf of myself and my partner,’ he said with tipsy glibness. ‘The kind regard of the house is, of course, extremely flattering.’

She nodded non-committally, then slipped away into the crowd as quickly as she’d come. Eyebrows went up appreciatively here and there - few of Requin’s guests, to Locke’s knowledge, were appraised of their increasing social status by Selendri herself.

‘We’re a commodity in demand, my dear Jerome,’ he said as they made their way through the crowd toward the front doors.

‘For the time being,’ said Jean.

‘Master de Ferra.’ The head doorman beamed as they approached. ‘And Master Kosta. May I call for a carriage?’

‘No need, thanks,’ said Locke. ‘I’ll fall over sideways if I don’t flush my head with some night air. We’ll walk.’

‘Very good then, sir.’

With military precision, four attendants held the doors open for Locke and Jean to pass. The two thieves stepped carefully down a wide set of stone steps covered with a red velvet carpet. That carpet, as the whole city knew, was thrown out and replaced each night. As a result, in Tal Verrar alone could one find armies of beggars routinely sleeping on piles of red velvet scraps.

The view was breathtaking; to their right, the whole crescent sweep of the island was visible beyond the silhouettes of other chance-houses. There was relative darkness in the north, in contrast to the aura-like glow of the Golden Steps. Beyond the city, to the south, west and north, the Sea of Brass gleamed phosphorescent silver, lit by three moons in a cloudless sky. Here and there the sails of distant ships reached up from the quicksilver tableau, ghostly pale.

Locke could gaze downward to his left and see across the staggered rooftops of the island’s five lower tiers, a vertigo-inducing view despite the solidity of the stones beneath his feet. All around him was the murmur of human pleasure and the clatter of horse-drawn carriages on cobbles; there were at least a dozen moving or waiting along the straight avenue atop the sixth tier. Above, the Sinspire reared up into the opalescent darkness, its alchemical lanterns bright, like a candle meant to draw the attentions of the gods.

‘And now, my dear professional pessimist,’ said Locke as they stepped away from the Sinspire and acquired relative privacy, ‘my worry-merchant, my tireless font of doubt and derision . . . what do you have to say to that?’

‘Oh, very little, to be sure, Master Kosta. It’s so hard to think, overawed as I am with the sublime genius of your plan.’

‘That bears some vague resemblance to sarcasm.’

‘Gods forfend,’ said Jean. ‘You wound me! Your inexpressible criminal virtues have triumphed again, as inevitably as the tides come and go. I cast myself at your feet and beg for absolution. Yours is the genius that nourishes the heart of the world.’

‘And now you’re—’

‘If only there was a leper handy,’ interrupted Jean, ‘so you could lay your hands on him and magically heal him—’

‘Oh, you’re just farting out of your mouth because you’re jealous.’

‘It’s possible,’ said Jean. ‘Actually, we are substantially enriched, not caught, not dead, more famous and welcome on the next floor up. I must admit that I was wrong to call it a silly scheme.’

‘Really? Huh.’ Locke reached under his coat lapel as he spoke. ‘Because I have to admit, it was a silly scheme. Damned irresponsible. One drink more and I would have been finished. I’m actually pretty bloody surprised we pulled it off.’

He fumbled beneath his lapel for a second or two, then withdrew a little pad of wool about as wide and long as his thumb. A puff of dust was shaken from the wool when Locke slipped it into one of his outer pockets, and he wiped his hands vigorously on his sleeves as they walked along.

‘“Nearly lost” is just another way to say “finally won”,’ said Jean.

‘Nonetheless, the liquor almost did me in. Next time I’m that optimistic about my own capacity, correct me with a hatchet to the skull.’

‘I’ll be glad to correct you with two.’

It was Madam Izmila Corvaleur who’d made the scheme possible. Madam Corvaleur, who’d first crossed paths with ‘Leocanto Kosta’ at a gaming table a few weeks earlier, who had the reliable habit of eating with her fingers to annoy her opponents while she played cards.

Carousel Hazard really couldn’t be cheated by any traditional means. None of Requin’s attendants would stack a deck, not once in a hundred years, not even in exchange for a dukedom. Nor could any player alter the carousel, select one vial in favour of another or serve a vial to anyone else. With all the usual means of introducing a foreign substance to another player guarded against, the only remaining possibility was for a player to do herself in by slowly, willingly taking in something subtle and unorthodox. Something delivered by a means beyond the ken of even a healthy paranoia.

Like a narcotic powder, dusted on the playing cards in minute quantities by Locke and Jean, then gradually passed around the table to a woman continually licking her fingers as she played.

Bela paranella was a colourless, tasteless alchemical powder also known as ‘the night friend’. It was popular with rich people of a nervous disposition, who took it to ease themselves into deep, restful slumber. When mixed with alcohol, bela paranella was rapidly effective in tiny quantities; the two substances were as complementary as fire and dry parchment. It would have been widely used for criminal purposes if not for the fact that it sold for twenty times its own weight in white iron.

‘Gods, that woman had the constitution of a war-galley,’ said Locke. ‘She must have started ingesting some of the powder by the third or fourth hand . . . probably could’ve killed a pair of wild boars in heat with less.’

‘At least we got what we wanted,’ said Jean, removing his own powder reservoir from his coat. He considered it for a moment, shrugged and slipped it into a pocket.

‘We did indeed . . . and I saw him!’ said Locke. ‘Requin. He was on the stairs, watching us for most of the hands in the middle game. We must have aroused a personal interest.’ The exciting ramifications of this helped clear some of the haze from Locke’s thoughts. ‘Why else send Selendri herself to pat our backs?’

‘Well, assume you’re correct. So what now? Do you want to push on with it, like you mentioned, or do you want to take it slow? Maybe gamble around on the fifth and sixth floors for a few more weeks?’

‘A few more weeks? To hell with that. We’ve been kicking around this gods-damned city for two years now; if we’ve finally cracked Requin’s shell, I say we bloody well go for it.’

‘You’re going to suggest tomorrow night, aren’t you?’

‘His curiosity’s piqued. Let’s strike while the blade is fresh from the forge.’

‘I suspect that drink has made you impulsive.’

‘Drink makes me see funny; the gods made me impulsive.’

‘You there,’ came a voice from the street in front of them. ‘Hold it!’

Locke tensed. ‘I beg your pardon?’

A young, harried-looking Verrari man with long black hair was holding his hands out, palms facing toward Locke and Jean. A small, well-dressed crowd had gathered beside him, at the edge of a trim lawn that Locke recognized as the duelling green.

‘Hold it, sirs, I beg of you,’ said the young man. ‘I’m afraid it’s an affair, and there may be a bolt flying past. Might I beg of you to wait but a moment?’

‘Oh. Oh.’ Locke and Jean relaxed simultaneously. If someone was duelling with crossbows, it was common courtesy as well as good sense to wait beside the duelling ground until the shots were taken. That way, neither participant would be distracted by movement in the background, or accidentally bury a bolt in a passer-by.

The duelling green was about forty yards long and half as wide, lit by a soft white lantern hanging in a black iron frame at each of its four corners. Two duellists stood in the centre of the green with their seconds, each man casting four pale-grey shadows in a crisscross pattern. Locke had little personal inclination to watch, but he reminded himself that he was supposed to be Leocanto Kosta, a man of worldly indifference to strangers punching holes in one another. He and Jean squeezed into the crowd of spectators as unobtrusively as possible; a similar crowd had formed on the other side of the green.

One of the duellists was a very young man, dressed in fine, loose gentleman’s clothing of a fashionable cut; he wore optics, and his hair hung to his shoulders in well-tended ringlets.

His red-jacketed opponent was a great deal older, a bit hunched over and weathered. He looked active and determined enough to pose a threat, however. Each man held a lightweight crossbow - what Camorri thieves would call an alley-piece.

‘Gentlemen,’ said the younger duellist’s second. ‘Please. Can there be no accommodation?’

‘If the Lashani gentleman will withdraw his imprecation,’ added the younger duellist, his voice high and nervous, ‘I would be eminently satisfied, with the merest recognition—’

‘No, there cannot,’ said the man standing beside the older duellist. ‘His Lordship is not in the habit of tendering apologies for mere statements of obvious fact.’

‘. . . with the merest recognition,’ continued the young duellist, desperately, ‘that the incident was an unfortunate misunderstanding, and that it need not—’

‘Were he to condescend to speak to you again,’ said the older duellist’s second, ‘his Lordship would no doubt also note that you wail like a bitch, and would enquire as to whether you’re equally capable of biting like one.’

The younger duellist stood speechless for a few seconds, then gestured rudely toward the older men with his free hand.

‘I am forced,’ said his second, ‘I am, ah, forced . . . to allow that there may be no accommodation. Let the gentlemen stand . . . back to back.’

The two opponents walked toward one another - the older man marched with vigour while the younger still stepped hesitantly - and turned their backs to one another.

‘You shall have ten paces,’ said the younger man’s second, with bitter resignation. ‘Wait then, and on my signal you may turn and loose.’

Slowly he counted out the steps; slowly the two opponents walked away from one another. The younger man was shaking very badly indeed. Locke felt a ball of unaccustomed tension growing in his own stomach. Since when had he become such a damned soft-hearted fellow? Just because he preferred not to watch didn’t mean he should be afraid to do so . . . yet the feeling in his stomach paid no heed to the thoughts in his head.

‘. . . nine . . . ten. Stand fast,’ said the young duellist’s second. ‘Stand fast . . . Turn and loose!’

The younger man whirled first, his face a mask of terror; he threw out his right hand and let fly. A sharp twang sounded across the green. His opponent didn’t even jerk back as the bolt hissed through the air beside his head, missing by at least the width of a hand.

The red-jacketed old man completed his own turn more slowly, his eyes bright and his mouth set into a scowl. His younger opponent stared at him for several seconds, as though trying to will his bolt to come flying back like a trained bird. He shuddered, lowered his crossbow and then threw it down to the grass. With his hands on his hips, he stood waiting, breathing in deep and noisy gulps.

His opponent regarded him briefly, then snorted. ‘Be fucked,’ he said, and he raised his crossbow in both hands. His shot was perfect; there was a wet crack and the younger duellist toppled with a feathered bolt dead in the centre of his chest. He fell onto his back, clawing at his coat and tunic, spitting up dark blood. Half a dozen spectators rushed toward him, while one young woman in a silver evening gown fell to her knees and screamed.

‘We’ll get back just in time for dinner,’ said the older duellist to nobody in particular. He tossed his own crossbow carelessly to the ground behind him and stomped off toward one of the nearby chance-houses, with his second at his side.

‘Sweet fucking Perelandro,’ said Locke, forgetting Leocanto Kosta for a moment and thinking out loud. ‘What a way to manage things.’

‘You don’t approve, sir?’ A lovely young woman in a black silk dress regarded Locke with disconcertingly penetrating eyes. She couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen.

‘I understand that some differences of opinion need to be settled with steel,’ said Jean, butting in, appearing to recognize that Locke was still a bit too tipsy for his own good. ‘But standing before a crossbow bolt seems foolish. Blades strike me as a more honest test of skill.’

‘Rapiers are tedious; all that back and forth, and rarely a killing strike right away,’ said the young woman. ‘Bolts are fast, clean and merciful. You can hack at someone all night with a rapier and fail to kill them.’

‘I am quite compelled to agree with you,’ muttered Locke.

The woman raised an eyebrow but said nothing; a moment later she was gone, vanished into the dispersing crowd.

The contented murmur of the night - the laughter and chatter of the small clusters of men and women making time beneath the stars - had died briefly while the duel took place, but now it rose up once again. The woman in the silver dress beat her fists against the grass, sobbing, while the crowd around the fallen duellist seemed to sag in unison. The bolt’s work was clearly done.

‘Fast, clean and merciful,’ said Locke softly. ‘Idiots.’

Jean sighed. ‘Neither of us has any right to offer that sort of observation, since “gods-damned idiots” is likely to be inscribed on our grave-markers.’

‘I’ve had reasons for doing what I’ve done, and so have you.’

‘I’m sure those duellists felt the same way.’

‘Let’s get the hell out of here,’ said Locke. ‘Let’s walk off the fumes in my head and get back to the inn. Gods, I feel old and sour. I see things like this and I wonder if I was that bloody stupid when I was that boy’s age.’

‘You were worse,’ said Jean. ‘Until quite recently. Probably still are.’