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

‘Try again,’ said Jean. ‘Perhaps the eighteenth time’s the charm.’

‘I used to be so damned good at this one-handed shuffle.’ Locke began plucking up cards and reorganizing them into a neat pile. ‘I bet I could do it better than Calo and Galdo, even. Damn, my hand aches.’

‘Well, I know I pushed you to exercise,’ said Jean, ‘but you were a little out of practice even before you got hurt. Give it time.’

A hard rain was falling around the jouncing black luxury carriage as it threaded its way along the old Therin Throne Road through the foothills just east of the Tal Verrar coast. A hunched middle-aged woman worked the reins of the six-horse team from her open box atop the cabin, with the cowl of her oilcloak pulled forward to protect the smouldering bowl of her pipe. Two outrider guards huddled in misery on the rear footboard, secured by wide leather straps around their waists.

Jean was peering over a sheaf of notes, flipping parchment pages back and forth, muttering to himself. The rain was beating hard against the right side of the closed cabin, but they were able to keep the left-hand window open, with its mesh screens and leather shutters drawn back to admit muggy air that smelled of manured fields and salt marshes. A little yellow alchemical globe on the padded seat beside Jean provided reading light.

They were two weeks out from Vel Virazzo, a good hundred miles to the north-west, and well past the need to paint themselves up with apple mash to move freely.

‘Here’s what all my sources say,’ said Jean, when Locke had finished recovering his cards. ‘Requin’s somewhere in his forties. Native Verrari, but he speaks a bit of Vadran and supposedly he’s a genius at Throne Therin. He’s an art collector, mad about the painters and sculptors from the very last years of the Empire. Nobody knows what he did prior to twenty years ago. Apparently he won the Sinspire on a bet and threw the previous owner out of a window.’

‘And he’s tight with the Priori?’

‘Most of them, it appears.’

‘Any idea how much he keeps in his vaults?’

‘Conservative estimate,’ said Jean, ‘at least enough to pay out any debts the house might incur. He could never allow himself to be embarrassed in that respect - so let’s say fifty thousand solari, at least. Plus his personal fortune, plus the combined goods and fortunes of a great many people. He doesn’t pay interest like the best counting houses, but he doesn’t keep transaction ledgers for the taxmen, either. Supposedly he has one book, hidden gods know where, amended only by his own hand. This is mostly hearsay, of course.’

‘That fifty thousand doesn’t cover anything but the house’s operating funds, right? So how much do you presume the total contents of his vault would be worth?’

‘It’s pure entrail-reading, without the entrails, even, but . . . three hundred thousand? Three hundred and fifty?’

‘Sounds reasonable.’

‘Yes, well, the details on the vault itself are much more solid. Apparently, Requin doesn’t mind letting some of the facts get out. Thinks it dissuades thieves.’

‘They always do, don’t they?’

‘In this case, they may be on to something. Listen. The Sinspire is about fifty yards high, one thick Elderglass cylinder. You know about those - you tried to jump off one about two months ago. Goes down another hundred feet or so into a glass hill. It’s got one door at street level, and exactly one door into the vault beneath the tower. One. No secrets, no side entrances. The ground is pristine Elderglass; no tunnelling through it, not in a thousand years.’

‘Mmmm-hmmm.’

‘Requin’s got at least four attendants on each floor at any given time, plus dozens of table-minders, card-dealers and waiters. There’s a lounge on the third floor where he keeps more out of sight. So figure, at a minimum, fifty or sixty loyal workers on duty with another twenty to thirty he can call out. Lots of nasty brutes, too. He likes to recruit ex-soldiers, mercenaries, city thieves and such. He gives cushy positions to his Right People for jobs well done, and he pays them like he was their doting mother. Plus, there are stories of dealers getting a year’s wages in tips from lucky blue-bloods in just a night or two. Bribery won’t be likely to work on anyone.’

‘Mmmm-hmmm.’

‘He’s got three layers of vault doors, all of them iron-shod witchwood, three or four inches thick. Last set of doors is supposedly backed with blackened steel, so even if you had a week to chop through the other two, you’d never get past the third. All of them have clockwork mechanisms, the best and most expensive Verrari stuff, private designs from masters of the Artificers’ Guild. The standing orders are, not one set of doors opens unless he’s there himself to see it; he watches every deposit and every withdrawal. Opens the doors a couple of times per day at most. Behind the first set of doors are four to eight guards, in rooms with cots, food and water. They can hold out there for a week, under siege.’

‘Mmm-hmm.’

‘The inner sets of doors don’t open except for a key he keeps around his neck. The outer doors won’t open except for a key he always gives to his major-domo. So you’d need them both to get anywhere.’

‘Mmm-hmm.’

‘And the traps . . . they’re demented, or at least the rumours are. Pressure plates, counterweights, crossbows in the walls and ceilings. Contact poisons, sprays of acid, chambers full of venomous serpents or spiders . . . one fellow even said that there’s a chamber before the last door that fills up with a cloud of powdered Strangler’s Orchid petals, and while you’re choking to death on that, a bit of twist-match falls out and lights the whole mess on fire, so then you burn to a crisp. Insult to injury.’

‘Mmm-hmmm.’

‘Worst of all, the inner vault is guarded by a live dragon, attended by fifty naked women armed with poisoned spears, each of them sworn to die in Requin’s service. All redheads.’

‘You’re just making that up, Jean.’

‘I wanted to see if you were listening. But what I’m saying is, I don’t care if he’s got a million solari in there, packed in bags for easy hauling. I’m inclined to the idea that this vault might not be breakable, not unless you’ve got three hundred soldiers, six or seven wagons and a team of master clockwork artificers you’re not telling me about.’

‘Right.’

‘Do you have three hundred soldiers, six or seven wagons and a team of master clockwork artificers you’re not telling me about?’

‘No, I’ve got you, me, the contents of our coin-purses, this carriage and a deck of cards.’ He attempted a complicated manipulation of the cards and they erupted out of his hand yet again, scattering against the opposite seat. ‘Fuck me with a poleaxe!’

‘Then if I might persist, Lord of Legerdemain, perhaps there’s some other target in Tal Verrar we might consider—’

‘I’m not sure that’d be wise. Tal Verrar’s got no twit-riddled aristocracy for us to fool around with. The Archon’s a military tyrant on a long leash - he can bend the laws as he sees fit, so I’d rather not yank his breechclout. The Priori councils are all merchants from common stock, and they’ll be damned hard to cheat. There’s plenty of likely subjects for small-time games, but if we want a big game, Requin’s the best one to hit. He’s got what we want, right there for the taking.’

‘Yet his vault—’

‘Let me tell you,’ said Locke, ‘exactly what we’re going to do about his vault.’

Locke spoke for a few minutes while he put his deck of cards together, outlining the barest details of his scheme. Jean’s eyebrows strained upward, attempting to take to the air above his head.

‘. . . So that’s that. Now what do you say, Jean?’

‘I’ll be damned. That might just work. If—’

‘If?’

‘Are you sure you remember how to work a climbing harness? I’m a bit rusty myself.’

‘We’ll have quite a while to practise, won’t we?’

‘Hopefully. Hmmm. And we’ll need a carpenter. One from outside Tal Verrar itself, obviously.’

‘We can go looking into that as well, once we’ve got a bit of coin back in our pockets.’

Jean sighed, and all the banter went out of him like wine from a punctured skin. ‘I suppose . . . that just leaves . . . damn.’

‘What?’

‘I, ah . . . well, hell. Are you going to break down on me again? Are you going to stay reliable?’

‘Stay reliable? Jean, you can . . . damn it, look for yourself! What have I been doing? Exercising, planning - and apologizing all the damn time! I’m sorry, Jean, I really am. Vel Virazzo was a bad time. I miss Calo, Galdo and Bug.’

‘As do I, but—’

‘I know. I let my sorrow get the best of me. It was damned selfish, and I know you must ache like I do. I said some stupid things. But I thought I’d been forgiven . . . did I misunderstand?’ Locke’s voice hardened. ‘Shall I now understand that forgiveness as something prone to going in and out like the tide?’

‘Now that’s hardly fair. Just—’

‘Just what? Am I special, Jean? Am I our only liability? When have I ever doubted your skills? When have I ever treated you like a child? You’re not my fucking mother, and you’re certainly not Chains. We can’t work as partners if you’re going to sit in judgement of me like this.’

The two of them stared at one another, each trying to muster an attitude of cold indignation, and each failing. The mood within the little cabin turned morose, and Jean turned to stare sullenly out through the window for a few moments while Locke dejectedly shuffled his cards. He attempted another one-handed cut, and neither he nor Jean seemed surprised when a little blizzard of paper chits settled into the seat beside Jean.

‘I’m sorry,’ Locke said as his cards fluttered down. ‘That was another shitty thing to say. Gods, when did we discover how easy it is to be cruel to one another?’

‘You’re right,’ Jean said softly. ‘I’m not Chains and I’m certainly not your mother. I shouldn’t push you.’

‘No, you should. You pushed me off that galleon and you pushed me out of Vel Virazzo. You were right. I behaved terribly, and I can understand if you’re still . . . nervous about me. I was so wrapped up in what I’d lost, I forgot what I still had. I’m glad you still worry enough about me to kick my arse when I need it.’

‘I, ah, look - I apologize as well. I just—’

‘Dammit, don’t interrupt me when I’m feeling virtuously self-critical. I’m ashamed of how I behaved in Vel Virazzo. It was a slight to everything we’ve been through together. I promise to do better. Does that put you at ease?’

‘Yes. Yes, it does.’ Jean began to pick up the scattered cards, and the ghost of a smile reappeared on his face. Locke settled back in his seat and rubbed his eyes.

‘Gods. We need a target, Jean. We need a game. We need someone to go to work on, as a team. Don’t you see? It’s not just about what we can charm out of Requin. I want it to be us against the world, lively and dangerous, just like it used to be. Where there’s no room for this sort of second-guessing, you know?’

‘Because we’re constantly inches from a horrible bloody death, you mean.’

‘Right. The good times.’

‘This plan might take a year,’ said Jean, slowly. ‘Maybe two.’

‘For a game this interesting, I’m willing to spend a year or two. You have any other pressing engagements?’

Jean shook his head, passed the collected cards to Locke and went back to his sheaf of notes, a deeply thoughtful expression on his face. Locke slowly traced the outline of the deck of cards with the fingers of his left hand, which felt slightly less useful than a crab claw. He could feel the still-fresh scars itching beneath his cotton tunic - scars so extensive it looked as though most of his left side had been sewn together from rag parts. Gods damn it, he was ready to be healed now. He was ready to have his old careless agility back. He imagined that he felt like a man of twice his years.

He tried another one-handed shuffle, and the deck fell apart in his hands. At least it hadn’t shot apart in all directions. Was that improvement?

He and Jean were silent for several minutes.

Eventually, the carriage rattled around a final small hill and suddenly Locke was looking across a green checkerboard landscape, sloping downward to sea-cliffs perhaps five or six miles distant. Specks of grey and white and black dotted the landscape, thickening toward the horizon, where the landside of Tal Verrar crowded against the cliff-edges. The coastal section of the city seemed pressed down beneath the rain; great silvery curtains were sweeping past behind it, blotting out the islands of Tal Verrar proper. Lightning crackled blue and white in the distance, and soft peals of thunder rolled toward them across the fields.

‘We’re here,’ said Locke.

‘Landside,’ said Jean without looking up. ‘Might as well find an inn when we get there; we’ll be hard-pressed to find a boat to the islands in weather like this.’

‘Who shall we be, when we get there?’

Jean looked up and chewed his lip before taking the bait of their old game. ‘Let’s be something other than Camorri for a while. Camorr’s brought us nothing good of late.’

‘Talishani?’

‘Sounds good to me.’ Jean adjusted his voice slightly, adopting the faint but characteristic accent of the city of Talisham. ‘Anonymous Unknown of Talisham, and his associate Unknown Anonymous, also of Talisham.’

‘What names did we leave on the books at Meraggio’s?’

‘Well, Lukas Fehrwight and Evante Eccari are right out. Even if those accounts haven’t been confiscated by the state, they’ll be watched. You trust the Spider not to get a burr up her arse if she finds out we’re active in Tal Verrar?’

‘No,’ said Locke. ‘I seem to recall . . . Jerome de Ferra, Leocanto Kosta and Milo Voralin.’

‘I opened the Milo Voralin account myself. He’s supposed to be Vadran. I think we might leave him in reserve.’

‘And that’s all we have left? Three useful accounts?’

‘Sadly, yes. But it’s more than most thieves get. I’ll be Jerome.’

‘I suppose I’ll be Leocanto, then. What are we doing in Tal Verrar, Jerome?’

‘We’re . . . hired men for a Lashani countess. She’s thinking of buying a summer home in Tal Verrar and we’re there to hunt one down for her.’

‘Hmmm. That might be good for a few months, but after we’ve looked at all the available properties, then what? And there’s lots of actual work involved if we don’t want everyone to know right away that we’re lying through our teeth. What if we call ourselves . . . merchant-speculators? ’

‘Merchant-speculators. That’s good. It doesn’t have to mean a damn thing.’

‘Exactly. If we spend all our time lounging around the chance-houses cutting cards, well, we’re just passing time waiting for market conditions to ripen.’

‘Or we’re so good at our jobs we hardly need to work at all.’

‘Our lines write themselves. How did we meet, and how long have we been together?’

‘We met five years ago.’ Jean scratched his beard. ‘On a sea voyage. We became business partners out of sheer boredom. Since then we’ve been inseparable.’

‘Except that my plan calls for me to be plotting your death.’

‘Yes, but I don’t know that, do I? Boon companion! I suspect nothing.’

‘Chump! I can hardly wait to see you get yours.’

‘And the loot? Assuming we do manage to work our way into Requin’s confidence, and we do manage to call the dance properly, and we do manage to get out of his city with everything intact . . . we haven’t really talked about what comes after that.’

‘We’ll be old thieves, Jean.’ Locke squinted and tried to pick out details of the rain-swept landscape as the carriage made its final turn down the long, straight road into Tal Verrar. ‘Old thieves of seven-and-twenty, or perhaps eight-and-twenty, when we finish this. I don’t know. How would you feel about becoming a viscount?’

‘Lashain,’ Jean mused. ‘Buy a pair of titles, you mean? Settle there for good?’

‘Not sure if I’d go that far. But last I heard, poor titles were running about ten thousand solari, and better ones fifteen to twenty. It’d give us a home and some clout. We could do whatever we wanted from there. Plot more games. Grow old in comfort.’

‘Retirement?’

‘We can’t run around false-facing for ever, Jean. I think we both realize that. Sooner or later we’ll need to favour another style of crime. Let’s tease a nice big score out of this place and then sink it into something useful. Build something again. Whatever comes after . . . well, we can charm that lock when we come to it.’

‘Viscount Anonymous Unknown of Lashain - and his neighbour, Viscount Unknown Anonymous. There are worse fates, I suppose.’

‘There certainly are - Jerome. So are you with me?’

‘Of course, Leocanto. You know that. Maybe another two years of honest thieving will leave me ready to retire. I could get back into silks and shipping, like mother and father - perhaps look up some of their old contacts, if I can remember them right.’

‘I think Tal Verrar will be good for us,’ said Locke. ‘It’s a pristine city. We’ve never worked out of it and it’s never seen our like. Nobody knows us, nobody expects us. We’ll have total freedom of movement.’

The carriage clattered along under the rain, jostling against patches where the weathered stones of the Therin Throne Road had been washed clean of their protective layers of dirt. Lightning lit the sky in the distance but the grey veil swirled thick between land and sea, and the great mass of Tal Verrar was hidden from their eyes as they rode down into it for the first time.

‘You’re almost certainly right, Locke. I think we do need a game.’ Jean set his notes on his lap and cracked his knuckles. ‘Gods, but it’ll be good to be out and around. It’ll be good to be the predators again.’