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

Locke had originally expected that a sea voyage to Lashain or even Issara might be necessary to secure the final pieces of his Sinspire scheme, but conversation with several wealthier Verrari had convinced him that Salon Corbeau might have exactly what he needed.

Picture a seaside valley carved from night-dark stone, perhaps three hundred yards in length and a hundred wide. Its little harbour lies on its western side, with a crescent beach of fine black sand. At its eastern end, an underground stream pours out of a fissure in the rocks, rushing down a stepped arrangement of stones. The headlands above this stream are commanded by Countess Saljesca’s residence, a stone manor house above two layers of crenellated walls - a minor fortress.

The valley walls of Salon Corbeau are perhaps twenty yards in height, and for nearly their full length they are terraced with gardens. Thick ferns, twisting vines, blossoming orchids and fruit and olive trees flourish there, a healthy curtain of brown and green in vivid relief against the black, with little water-ducts meandering throughout to keep Saljesca’s artificial paradise from growing thirsty.

In the very centre of the valley is a circular stadium, and the gardens on both sides of this stone structure share their walls with several dozen sturdy buildings of polished stone and lacquered wood. A miniature city rests on stilts and platforms and terraces, charmingly enclosed by walkways and stairs at every level.

Locke strolled these walkways on the afternoon of his arrival, looking for his ultimate goal with a stately lack of haste - he expected to be here for many days, perhaps even weeks. Salon Corbeau, like the chance-houses of Tal Verrar, drew the idle rich in large numbers. Locke walked among Verrari merchants and Lashani nobles, among scions of the western Marrows, past Nesse ladies-in-waiting (or perhaps more accurately ladies-weighted-down, in more cloth-of-gold than Locke would have previously thought possible) and the landed families they served. Here and there he was sure he even spotted Camorri, olive-skinned and haughty, though thankfully none were important enough for him to recognize.

So many bodyguards and so many bodies to guard! Rich bodies and faces; people who could afford proper alchemy and physik for their ailments. No weeping sores or sagging facial tumours, no crooked teeth lolling out of bleeding gums, no faces pinched by emaciation. The Sinspire crowd might be more exclusive, but these folk were even more refined, even more pampered. Hired musicians followed some of them, so that even little journeys of thirty or forty yards need not threaten a second of boredom. Rich men and women were haemorrhaging money all around Locke, to the strains of music. Even a man like Mordavi Fehrwight might spend less to eat for a month than some of them would throw away just to be noticed at breakfast each day.

He’d come to Salon Corbeau because of these folk; not to rob them, for once, but to make use of their privileged existence. Where the rich nested like bright-feathered birds, the providers of the luxuries and services they relied upon followed. Salon Corbeau had a permanent community of tailors, clothiers, instrument-makers, glassbenders, alchemists, caterers, entertainers and carpenters. A small community, to be sure, but one of the highest reputation, fit for aristocratic patronage and priced accordingly.

Almost in the middle of Salon Corbeau’s south gallery, Locke found the shop he had come all this way to visit - a rather long, two-storey stone building without windows along its walkway face. The wooden sign above the single door said:

On the door of the Baumondain shop was a scrollwork decoration, the crest of the Saljesca family (as Locke had glimpsed on banners fluttering here and there, and on the cross-belts of Salon Corbeau’s guards), implying Lady Vira’s personal approval of the work that went on there. Meaningless to Locke, since he knew too little of Saljesca’s taste to judge it . . . but the Baumondain reputation stretched all the way to Tal Verrar.

He would send a messenger first thing in the morning, as was appropriate, and request an appointment to discuss the matter of some peculiar chairs he needed built.