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

Jean’s dinner, smoked rock eel in caramel-brandy sauce, lay chopped into fragments and scattered like debris from a battle. He was making his way slowly through dessert, a cluster of marzipan dragonflies with crystallized sugar wings that glimmered in the steady glow of the booth’s candles. He was absorbed in a leatherbound copy of Lucarno’s Tragedy of the Ten Honest Turncoats, and he didn’t notice Locke until the smaller man was already seated across from him in the booth.

‘Leocanto! You gave me a start.’

‘Jerome.’ They both spoke in a near-whisper. ‘You really were nervous, weren’t you? Nose buried in a book to keep you from going mad. Some things never change.’

‘I wasn’t nervous. I was merely reasonably concerned.’

‘You needn’t have been.’

‘Is it done, then? Am I successfully betrayed?’

‘Quite betrayed. Absolutely sold out. A dead man walking.’

‘Wonderful! And his attitude?’

‘Guarded. Ideal, I’d say. Had he been too enthusiastic, I would be worried. And had he not been enthusiastic at all, well . . .’ Locke mimicked shoving a knife into his chest and wiggling it several times. ‘Is this smoked eel?’

‘Help yourself. It’s stuffed with apricots and soft yellow onions. Not entirely to my taste.’

Locke took up Jean’s fork and helped himself to a few bites of the eel; he was more partial to the stuffing than Jean had been. ‘We’re going to lose two-thirds of my account, it seems,’ he said after making some progress on the dish. ‘A tax on cheating to remind me not to presume too much on Requin’s patience.’

‘Well, it’s not as though we expected to get out of the city with the money in those accounts. Might’ve been nice to have it for a few more weeks, at least.’

‘True. But I think the alternative would have been desktop surgery, whether I needed a hand amputated or not. What’re you reading?’

Jean showed him the title and Locke feigned choking. ‘Why is it always Lucarno? You drag him everywhere we go, his damn romances. Your brains will go soft with all that mush. You’ll end up more fit for tending flower-gardens than for running confidence games.’

‘Well,’ said Jean, ‘I shall be sure to criticize your reading habits, Master Kosta, should I ever see you develop any.’

‘I’ve read quite a bit!’

‘History and biography, mostly what Chains prescribed for you.’

‘What could possibly be wrong with those subjects?’

‘As for history, we are living in its ruins. And as for biographies, we are living with the consequences of all the decisions ever made in them. I tend not to read them for pleasure. It’s not unlike carefully scrutinizing the map when one has already reached the destination.’

‘But romances aren’t real, and surely never were. Doesn’t that take away some of the savour?’

‘What an interesting choice of words. “Not real, and never were.” Could there be any more appropriate literature for men of our profession? Why are you always so averse to fiction, when we’ve made it our meal-ticket?’

‘I live in the real world,’ said Locke, ‘and my methods are of the real world. They are, just as you say, a profession. A practicality, not some romantic whim.’

Jean set the book down before him and tapped its cover. ‘This is where you and I are headed, Thorn - or at least you are. Look for us in history books and you’ll find us in the margins. Look for us in legends and you might just find us celebrated.’

‘Exaggerated, you mean. Lied about. Trumped up, or stamped down. The truth of anything we do will die with us and nobody else will ever have a bloody clue.’

‘Better that than obscurity! I recall you once had quite a taste for drama. For plays, if nothing else.’

‘Yes.’ Locke folded his hands on the table and lowered his voice even further. ‘And you know what happened to it.’

‘Forgive me,’ said Jean with a sigh. ‘I should have known better than to bring up that particular red-headed subject once again.’

A waiter appeared at the entrance to the little booth, looking attentively at Locke.

‘Oh, no,’ said Locke, and set Jean’s fork back on the eel plate. ‘Nothing for me, I’m afraid. I’m just here waiting for my friend to finish his little candied wasps.’

‘Dragonflies.’ Jean popped the last one into his mouth, swallowed it nearly whole and tucked his book away within his coat. ‘Give over the bill and I’ll settle up with you.’

The waiter nodded, cleared away the used dishes and left a scrap of paper pinned to a small wooden tablet.

‘Well,’ said Locke as Jean counted copper coins from his purse, ‘we’ve no responsibilities for the rest of the evening. Requin is no doubt setting eyes on us as we speak. I think a night or two of light relaxation would be in order, to avoid upsetting him.’

‘Great,’ said Jean. ‘Why don’t we wander around a bit, and maybe catch a boat over to the Emerald Galleries? They’ve got coffee houses there, and music. Would it be in character for Leo and Jerome to get a bit tipsy and chase tavern dancers?’

‘Jerome can murder as much ale as he likes and bother tavern dancers until the sun chases us home to bed. Leo will sit and watch the festivities.’

‘Maybe play spot-the-shadow with Requin’s people?’

‘Maybe. Damn, I wish we had Bug to lurk on a few rooftops for us. We could use a pair of top-eyes; there’s not a trustworthy one in this damn city.’

‘I wish we still had Bug, full stop,’ said Jean with a sigh.

They made their way to the foyer of the club, chatting quietly of imaginary business between Masters Kosta and de Ferra, batting little improvisations back and forth for the sake of any prying ears. It was just after midnight when they stepped out into the familiar quiet order and high walls of the Savrola. The place was artificially clean - no knackers here, no blood in the alleys, no piss in the gutters. The grey brick streets were well lit by silvery lanterns in swaying iron frames; the whole district seemed framed in bright moonlight, though the sky that night was occluded by a high ceiling of dark clouds.

The woman was waiting for them in the shadows on Locke’s left. She matched pace with him as he and Jean moved down the street. One of Locke’s sleeve-stilettos fell into the palm of his hand before he could control the reflex, but she stayed a full yard away, with her hands folded behind her back. She was youngish, short and slender with dark hair pulled back into a long tail. She wore a vaguely fashionable dark coat and a four-cornered hat with a long grey silk scarf that trailed behind her like a ship’s pennant as she walked.

‘Leocanto Kosta,’ she said in a pleasant, even voice. ‘I know you and your friend are armed. Let’s not be difficult.’

‘I beg your pardon, madam?’

‘Move that blade in your hand and it’s a shaft through the neck for you. Tell your friend to keep his hatchets under his coat. Let’s just keep walking.’

Jean began to move his left hand beneath his coat; Locke caught him with his right hand and swiftly shook his head. They were not alone on the street; people hurried here and there on business or pleasure, but some of them were staring at him and Jean. Some of them were standing in alleys and shadows, wearing unseasonably heavy cloaks, unmoving.

‘Shit,’ Jean muttered. ‘Rooftops.’

Locke glanced up briefly. Across the street, atop the three- and four-storey stone buildings, he could see the silhouettes of at least two men moving slowly along with them, carrying thin, curved objects in their hands. Longbows.

‘You appear to have us at a disadvantage, madam,’ said Locke, slipping his stiletto into a coat pocket and showing her his empty hand. ‘To what do we owe the pleasure of your attention?’

‘Someone wants to have a conversation with you.’

‘Clearly they knew where to find us. Why not simply join us for dinner?’

‘Conversation should be private, don’t you think?’

‘Did a man in a rather tall tower send you?’

She smiled but said nothing. A moment later, she gestured ahead of them. ‘At the next corner, take a left. You’ll see an open door, first building on your right. Go there. Follow directions.’

Sure enough, the promised open door was waiting just past the next crossroads, a rectangle of yellow light casting a pale twin across the ground. The woman went in first. Locke, conscious of the presence of at least four or five nearby lurkers in addition to the rooftop archers, sighed and passed Jean a quick hand signal - easy, easy.

The place looked like a shop, disused but otherwise in good repair. There were six more people inside the room, men and women in silver-banded leather doublets with their backs up against the walls. Four of them held loaded crossbows, which neatly quashed any thoughts of resistance Locke might have been teasing around inside his head. Even Jean couldn’t balance those odds.

One of the crossbowmen quietly closed the door, and the woman who’d led Locke and Jean in turned. The front of her coat fell open and Locke could see that she, too, was wearing reinforced leather armour. She held out her hands.

‘Weapons,’ she said, politely but firmly. ‘Smartly, now.’

When Locke and Jean glanced at one another, she laughed.

‘Don’t be dense, gentlemen. If we wanted you dead you’d already be pinned to the wall. I’ll take good care of your property for you.’

Slowly, resignedly, Locke removed one of his stilettos from his pocket and shook the other out of his coat sleeve, and Jean followed suit with his matched pair of hatchets and no fewer than three daggers of his own.

‘I do like men who travel prepared,’ said the woman. She passed their weapons to one of the men behind her and drew two lightweight cloth hoods out of her coat. She tossed one to Locke and one to Jean. ‘On over your heads, please. Then we can get on with our business.’

‘Why?’ Jean sniffed at his hood suspiciously, and Locke followed suit. The cloth appeared to be clean.

‘For your own protection. Do you really want your faces out in the open if we drag you through the streets under guard?’

‘I suppose not,’ said Locke. Frowning, he slipped the hood on and found that it put him in total darkness.

There was a sound of footsteps and the swirl of moving coats. Strong hands seized Locke’s arms and forced them together behind his back. A moment later, he felt something being woven tightly around his wrists. There was a louder tumult and a number of irritated grunts from beside him; presumably they had ganged up on Jean in heavy numbers.

‘There,’ came the voice of the woman, now behind Locke. ‘Now step lively. Don’t worry about falling over - you’ll be assisted.’

By ‘assisted’ she clearly meant that they’d be seized and carried along by the arms. Locke felt hands close around his biceps and he cleared his throat.

‘Where are we going?’

‘For a boat ride, Master Kosta,’ said the woman. ‘Don’t ask any more questions, because I won’t answer them. Let’s be on our way.’

There was a creak as the door was thrown open once again, and a brief whirling sensation as he was pushed around and reoriented by the people holding him. Then they were moving back out into the muggy Verrari night, and Locke could feel heavy beads of sweat begin to slide their ticklish paths down his forehead.