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

Jean found his frock coat on the ground and threw it on, grateful for the added coverage even if it was as sopping wet as the rest of him was. He thought quickly. Trav looked like a fairly meatless fellow and Locke was lightly built . . . surely they were no more than three hundred pounds together. Jean was sure he could hoist nearly as much to his chest, perhaps even above his head. But in the rain, with so much at stake?

His thoughts turned to the carriage, nearly a quarter-mile distant through the woods. A horse would be a vast improvement on even a strong man, but the time it would require, and the trouble inherent in unhooking, calming and leading a beast whose master had been clubbed unconscious . . .

‘Fuck it,’ he said, and went back to the cliff’s edge. ‘Leocanto!’

‘Still here, as you might have guessed.’

‘Can the two of you make one of my ropes good and fast to your waistbelt?’

There was a brief muttered conversation between Locke and Trav.

‘We’ll manage,’ Locke yelled. ‘What do you have in mind?’

‘Have the idiot hold tight to you. Brace your arms and legs against the cliff once you’ve lashed yourselves to one of my lines. I’ll start hauling on it with all I’ve got, but I’m sure your assistance won’t hurt.’

‘Right. You heard the man, Trav. Let’s tie a knot. Mind where you put your hands.’

When Locke looked up and gave Jean their private hand signal for proceed, Jean nodded. The secured rope was Jean’s former belay line; he seized the working end just before the coil that lay on the wet ground and frowned. The sludge underfoot would make things even more interesting than they already were, but there was nothing else for it. He formed a bight in the rope, stepped into it and let it slide tight around his waist. He then leaned back, away from the cliff, with one hand on the rope before him and one hand behind, and cleared his throat.

‘Tired of dangling, or shall I let you have a few more minutes down there?’

‘Jerome, if I have to cradle Trav here for one second longer than I absolutely must, I’m going to—’

‘Climb away, then!’ Jean dug his heels in, allowed himself to lean even farther back and began to strain at the rope. Gods damn it, he was a powerful man, unusually strong, but why did moments always come along to remind him that he could be even stronger? He’d been slacking; no other word for it. He should find some crates, fill them with rocks and heave them up a few dozen times a day, as he had in his youth . . . damn, would the rope ever move?

There. At last, after a long uncomfortable interval of motionless heaving in the rain, Jean took a slow step back. And then another . . . and another. Haltingly, with an itching fire steadily rising in the muscles of his thighs, he did his best impression of a plough-horse, pushing deep furrows into the gritty grey mud. Finally, a pair of hands appeared at the edge of the cliff and in a torrent of shouts and curses, Trav hoisted himself up over the top and rolled onto his back, gasping. Immediately the strain on Jean slackened; he maintained his previous level of effort and just a moment later Locke popped over the edge. He crawled to his feet, stepped over beside Trav and kicked the would-be bandit in the stomach.

‘You fucking jackass! Of all the stupid damn . . . How difficult would it have been to say, “I’ll lower a rope, you tie your purses onto it and send them up or I won’t let you back up?” You don’t tell your bloody victims you’re just going to kill them outright! You come on reasonable first, and when you have the money you run!’

‘Oh . . . ow! Gods, please. Ow! You said you . . . wouldn’t kill me!’

‘And I meant it. I’m not going to kill you, you cabbage-brained twit, I’m just going to kick you until it stops feeling good!’

‘Ow! Agggh! Please! Aaaaow!’

‘I have to say, it’s still pretty fascinating.’

‘Aiiiah! Ow!’

‘Still enjoying myself.’

‘Oooof! Agh!’

Locke finally ceased pummelling the unfortunate Verrari, unbuckled his harness belt and dropped it in the mud. Jean, breathing heavily, came up beside him and handed him his soaked coat.

‘Thank you, Jerome.’ Having his coat back, sopping or no, seemed to salve some of Locke’s wounded dignity. ‘As for you. Trav - Trav of Vo Sarmara, you said?’

‘Yes! Oh, please, don’t kick me again—’

‘Look here, Trav. Here’s what you’re going to do. First, tell no one about this. Second, don’t fucking go anywhere near Tal Verrar. Got it?’

‘Wasn’t plannin’ to, sir.’

‘Good. Here.’ Locke reached down into his left boot and drew out a very slender purse. He tossed it down beside Trav, where it landed with a jingling plop. ‘Should be ten volani in there. A healthy bit of silver. And you can . . . wait a minute, are you absolutely sure our driver’s still alive?’

‘Oh, gods, yes! Honest truth, Master Leocanto, sir, he was breathin’ and moanin’ after I thumped him, he surely was.’

‘So much the better for you, then. You can have the silver in that purse. When Jerome and I have left, you can come back and take whatever we leave. My vest and some of this rope, for sure. And listen to me very carefully. I saved your life today when I could have killed you in a heartbeat. Sound about right to you?’

‘Yes, yes you did, and I’m so very—’

‘Yes, shut up. Someday, Trav of Vo Sarmara, I may find myself back in these parts and I may need something. Information. A guide. A bodyguard. Thirteen help me if it’s you I have to turn to, but if anyone ever comes to you and whispers the name of Leocanto Kosta, you jump at their word, you hear?’

‘Yes!’

‘Your oath before the gods?’

‘Upon my lips and upon my heart, before the gods, or strike me dead and find me wantin’ on the scales of the Lady of the Long Silence.’

‘Good enough. Remember. Now fuck off in the direction of your choice, so long as it isn’t back toward our carriage.’

Jean and Locke watched him scamper away for a minute or two, until his cloaked figure had faded from view behind the shifting grey curtains of the downpour.

‘Well,’ said Jean, ‘I think that’s enough practice for one day, don’t you?’

‘Absolutely. The actual Sinspire job’ll be a bloody ballroom dance compared to this. What say we just grab the two spare coils of rope and make for the carriage? Let Trav spend the rest of the afternoon out here untying knots.’

‘A lovely plan.’ Jean inspected his Wicked Sisters, recovered from the edge of the cliff, and gave them a possessive pat on their blades before slipping them into his coat pocket. ‘There, darlings. That ass might have dulled you a bit, but I’ll soon have you sharpened up again.’

‘I hardly credit it,’ said Locke. ‘Nearly murdered by some halfwit country mudsucker. You know, I do believe that’s the first time since Vel Virazzo that anyone’s actually tried to kill either of us.’

‘Sounds about right. Eighteen months?’ Jean slipped one wet coil of rope around his shoulder and passed the other to Locke. Together, they turned and began to trudge back through the forest. ‘Nice to know that some things never really change, isn’t it?’