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

Jean was pacing, worriedly, when Locke burst back in about four hours later, just past the third hour of the morning. He set a huge wicker basket down on the table, threw off his cloak, grabbed the bucket Jean had used to douse him and noisily threw up in it.

‘My apologies,’ he muttered when he had finished. He was flushed and breathing heavily, as wet as he’d been when he’d left, but now with warm sweat. ‘The wine has not entirely left my head . . . and my wind has all but deserted me.’

Jean passed him the decanter and Locke slurped from it as shamelessly as a horse at a trough. Jean helped him into the chair. Locke said nothing for a few seconds, then suddenly seemed to notice Jean’s hand on his shoulder, and he recoiled. ‘Here . . . we are . . . then,’ he gasped. ‘See what happens when you provoke me? I think we’re going to have to flee the city.’

‘What the—What have you done?’

Locke tore the lid from his basket; it was the sort commonly used by merchants to haul small loads of goods to and from a street market. A prodigious assortment of odds and ends lay inside, and Locke began to list them off as he pulled them out and showed them to Jean.

‘What’s this? Why, it’s a pile of purses . . . one-two-three-four of them, all plucked from sober gentlemen in open streets. Here’s a knife, two bottles of wine, a pewter ale mug - dented a bit, but still good metal. A brooch, three gold pins, two earrings - earrings, Master Tannen, plucked from ears, and I’d like to see you try that. Here’s a little bolt of nice silk, a box of sweetmeats, two loaves of bread - the crusty kind with all the spices baked in that you like so much. And now, specially for the edification of a certain pessimistic, peace-breaking son of a bitch who shall remain nameless . . .’

Locke held up a glittering necklace, a braided band of gold and silver supporting a heavy gold pendant, studded with sapphires in the stylized pattern of a floral blossom. The little phalanx of stones flashed like blue fire even by the light of the room’s single soft lantern.

‘That’s a sweet piece,’ said Jean, briefly forgetting to be aggravated. ‘You didn’t snatch that off a street.’

‘No,’ said Locke, before taking another deep draught of the warm water in the decanter. ‘I got it from the neck of the governor’s mistress.’

‘You can’t be serious.’

‘In the governor’s manor.’

‘Of all the—’

‘In the governor’s bed.’

‘Damned lunatic!’

‘With the governor sleeping next to her.’

The night quiet was broken by the high, distant trill of a whistle, the traditional swarming-noise of city watches everywhere. Several other whistles joined in a few moments later.

‘It is possible,’ said Locke with a sheepish grin, ‘that I have been slightly too bold.’

Jean sat down on the bed and ran both of his hands through his hair. ‘Locke, I’ve spent the past few weeks making a name for Tavrin Callas as the biggest, brightest thing to come along in this city’s sad little pack of Right People for ages! When the watch starts asking questions, someone’s going to point me out . . . and someone’s going to mention all the time I spend here, and the time I spend with you . . . and if we try to fence a piece of metal like that in a place this small—’

‘As I said, I think we’re going to have to flee the city.’

‘Flee the city?’ Jean jumped up and pointed an accusatory finger at Locke. ‘You’ve screwed up weeks of work! I’ve been training the Coves - signals, tricks, teasing, fighting, the whole bit! I was going to . . . I was going to start teaching them how to cook!’

‘Oooh, this is serious. I take it the marriage proposal wouldn’t have been far behind?’

‘Dammit, this is serious! I’ve been building something! I’ve been out working while you’ve been sobbing and sulking and pissing your time away in here.’

‘You’re the one who lit a fire under me because he wanted to see me dance. Now I’ve danced, and I believe I’ve made my point. Will you be apologizing?’

‘Apologizing? You’re the one who’s been an insufferable little shit! Letting you live is apology enough! All my work—’

‘Capa of Vel Virazzo? Is that how you saw yourself, Jean? Another Barsavi?’

‘Another anything,’ said Jean. ‘There’s worse things to be - Capa Lamora, for example, Lord of One Smelly Room. I won’t be a bloody knockabout, Locke. I am an honest working thief and I’ll do what I have to, to keep a table set and a roof over our heads!’

‘So let’s go somewhere and get back to something really lucrative,’ said Locke. ‘You want honest crooked work? Fine. Let’s go and hook a big fish just like we used to in Camorr. You wanted to see me steal, let’s go out and steal!’

‘But Tavrin Callas—’

‘Has died before,’ said Locke. ‘Seeker into Aza Guilla’s mysteries, right? Let him seek again.’

‘Dammit.’ Jean stepped over to the window and took a peek out; whistling was still coming from several directions. ‘It might take a few days to arrange a berth on a ship, and we won’t get out by land with what you’ve stolen - they’ll be checking everyone at the gates, probably for a week or two to come.’

‘Jean,’ said Locke, ‘now you’re disappointing me. Gates? Ships? Please. This is us we’re talking about. We could smuggle a live cow past every constable in this city, at high noon. Without clothes.’

‘Locke? Locke Lamora?’ Jean rubbed his eyes with exaggerated motions. ‘Why, where have you been all these weeks? Here I thought I’d been rooming with a miserable self-absorbed arsehole who—’

‘Right,’ said Locke. ‘Fine. Ha. Yeah, maybe I deserved that kick in the face. But I’m serious, getting us out is as easy as a bit of cooking. Get down to the innkeeper. Wake him up and throw some more silver at him - there’s plenty in those purses. I’m a mad Camorri don, right? Tell him I’ve got a mad whim. Get me some more dirty cloth, some apples, a hearthstone and a black iron pot full of water.’

‘Apples?’ Jean scratched his beard. ‘Apples? You mean . . . the apple-mash trick?’

‘Just so,’ said Locke. ‘Get me that stuff, and I’ll get boiling, and we can be out of here by dawn.’

‘Huh.’ Jean opened the door, slipped out into the hall and turned once before leaving for good. ‘I take some of it back,’ he said. ‘You might still be a lying, cheating, low-down, greedy, grasping, conniving, pocket-picking son of a bitch.’

‘Thanks,’ said Locke.