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

At the tenth hour of the evening on Duke’s Day (which of course, Jean corrected himself, the Verrari called Councils’ Day), Jean found Locke staring down a bottle of fortified wine at a back table in the Sign of the Thousand Days. The place was spacious and cheerfully lit, noisy with the bustle of healthy business. It was a naval bar - all the best tables, under hanging reproductions of old Verrari battle pennants, were filled with officers whose social status was clear whether or not they were wearing their colours. Common sailors drank and gamed at the penumbra of tables surrounding them, and the few outsiders congregated at the little tables around Locke.

‘I thought I might find you here,’ said Jean, taking the seat across from Locke. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

‘I’m working. Isn’t it obvious?’ Locke seized the wine bottle by its neck and gestured toward Jean. ‘This is my hammer.’ He then rapped his knuckles against the wooden tabletop. ‘And this is my anvil. I am beating my brains into a more pleasant shape.’

‘What’s the occasion?’

‘I just wanted half a night to be something other than the captain of a phantom fucking sailing expedition.’ He spoke in a controlled whisper, and it was plain to Jean that he was not yet drunk, but more possessed of an earnest desire to be so. ‘My head is full of little ships, all going round and round gleefully making up new names for the things on their decks!’ He paused to take a sip, then offered the bottle to Jean, who shook his head. ‘I suppose you’ve been diligently studying your Lexicon.’

‘Partly.’ Jean turned himself and his chair a bit toward the wall, to allow him to keep an unobtrusive eye on most of the tavern. ‘I’ve also penned some polite little lies to Durenna and Corvaleur; they’ve been sending notes to the Villa Candessa, asking when we’ll come back to the gaming tables so they can have another go at butchering us.’

‘I do so hate to disappoint the ladies,’ said Locke, ‘but tonight I’m on leave from everything. No ’Spire, no Archon, no Durenna, no Lexicon, no navigational tables. Just simple arithmetic. Drink plus drinker equals drunk. Join me. Just for an hour or two. You know you could use it.’

‘I do. But Caldris grows more demanding with every passing day; I fear we’ll need clear heads on the morrow more than we’ll need clouded ones tonight.’

‘Caldris’s lessons aren’t clearing our heads. Quite the opposite. We’re taking five years of teaching in a month. It’s all jumbling up inside me. You know, before I stepped in here tonight I bought half a peppered melon. The stall-woman asked which of her melons I wished cut, the one on the left or the right. I replied, ‘The larboard!’ My own throat has turned traitorously nautical on me.’

‘It is something like a madman’s private language, isn’t it?’ Jean slipped his optics out of his coat pocket and onto the end of his nose so he could examine the faint etching on Locke’s wine bottle. An indifferent Anscalani vintage, a blunt instrument among wines. ‘So intricate in its convolutions. Say you have a rope lying on the deck. On Penance Day it’s just a rope lying on the deck; after the third hour of the afternoon on Idler’s Day it’s a half-stroke babble-gibbet, and then at midnight on Throne’s Day it becomes a rope again, unless it’s raining.’

‘Unless it’s raining, yes, in which case you take your clothes off and dance naked round the mizzenmast. Gods, yes. I swear, Je . . . Jerome, the next person who tells me something like, “Squiggle-fuck the rightwise cock-swatter with a starboard jib,” is going to get a knife in the throat. Even if it’s Caldris. No more nautical terms tonight.’

‘You seem to be three sheets to the wind.’

‘Oh, that’s your death warrant signed, then, four-eyes.’ Locke peered down into the depths of his bottle, like a hawk eyeing a mouse in a field far below. ‘There’s altogether too much of this stuff not yet in me. Get a glass and join in. I want to be a barking public embarrassment as soon as possible.’

There was a commotion at the door, followed by a general stilling of conversation and a rise in murmuring that Jean recognized from long experience as very, very dangerous. He looked up warily and saw that a party of half a dozen men had just set foot inside the tavern. Two of them wore the partial uniforms of constables, under cloaks, without their usual armour or weapons. Their companions were dressed in plain clothing, but their bulk and manner told Jean that they were all prime examples of that creature commonly known as the city watchman.

One of them, either fearless or possessed of the sensibilities of a dull stone, stepped up to the bar and called for service. His companions, wiser and therefore more nervous, began to whisper back and forth. Every eye in the tavern was upon them.

There was a scraping sound as a tough-looking woman at one of the officers’ tables pushed her chair back and slowly stood up. Within seconds, all of her companions, uniformed or otherwise, were standing beside her. The motion spread across the bar in a wave, first the other officers and then the common sailors, once they saw that the weight of numbers would be eight-to-one in their favour. Soon enough, four dozen men and women were on their feet, saying nothing, simply staring at the six men by the door. The tiny knot of folk around Locke and Jean stayed planted in their seats; at the very least, if they remained where they were, they would be far out of the main line of trouble.

‘Sirs,’ said the oldest barkeeper on duty as his two younger associates reached surreptitiously beneath the counter for what had to be weapons. ‘You’ve come a long way now, haven’t you?’

‘What do you mean?’ If the constable at the bar wasn’t feigning puzzlement, thought Jean, he was dimmer than a snuffed candle. ‘Came from the Golden Steps, is all. Fresh off duty. Got a thirst and a fair bit of coin to fill it.’

‘Perhaps,’ said the barkeep, ‘another tavern would be more to your taste this evening.’

‘What?’ The man seemed at last to become aware of the fact that he was the focal point of a waiting mob’s attention. As always, thought Jean, there were two sorts in a city watch - the ones that had eyes for trouble in the backs of their heads, and the ones that used their skulls to store sawdust.

‘I said—’ the barkeep began, clearly losing patience.

‘Hold,’ said the constable. He put both hands up toward the patrons of the tavern. ‘I see what’s what. I already had a few tonight. You got to forgive me, I don’t mean nothing. Aren’t we all Verrari here? We just want a drink, is all.’

‘Lots of places have drinks,’ said the barkeep. ‘Lots of more suitable places.’

‘We don’t want no trouble for anyone.’

‘Wouldn’t be any trouble for us,’ said a burly man in naval tunic and breeches. His table-mates shared an evil chuckle. ‘Find the fucking door.’

‘Council dogs,’ muttered another officer. ‘Oathless gold-sniffers.’

‘Hold on,’ said the constable, shaking off the grasp of a friend who was trying to pull him to the door. ‘Hold on, I said we didn’t mean nothing. Dammit, I meant it! Peace. We’ll be on our way. Have a round on me, all of you. Everyone!’ He shook out his purse with trembling hands. Copper and silver coins rattled onto the wooden bar. ‘Barkeep, a round of good Verrari dark for anyone who wants it, and keep what’s left.’

The barkeeper flicked his gaze from the unfortunate constable to the burly naval officer who’d spoken earlier. Jean guessed the man was one of the senior officers present, and the barkeep was looking to him for a judgment.

‘Grovelling suits you,’ the officer said with a crooked grin. ‘We won’t touch a drink with you, but we’ll be happy to spend your money once you’re out that door for good.’

‘Of course. Peace, friends, we didn’t mean nothing.’ The man looked as though he might babble on, but two of his comrades grabbed him by the arms and dragged him back through the door. There was a general outburst of laughter and applause when the last of the constables had vanished into the night.

‘Now that’s how the navy adds money to its budget,’ yelled the burly officer. His table-mates laughed, and he grabbed his glass and held it up toward the rest of the tavern. ‘The Archon! Confusion to his enemies at home and abroad.’

‘The Archon,’ chorused the other officers and sailors. Soon enough, they were all settling down into good humour once again, and the eldest barkeep was counting the constable’s money while his assistants set out rows of wooden cups beside a tapped cask of dark ale. Jean frowned, calculating in his head. Drinks for roughly fifty people, even plain dark ale, would set the constable back at least a quarter of his monthly pay. He’d known many men who’d have chanced a chase and a beating before parting with that much hard-earned coin.

‘Poor drunk idiot,’ he sighed, glancing at Locke. ‘Still want to make yourself a barking public embarrassment? Seems they’ve already got one in these parts.’

‘Maybe I’ll just hold fast after this bottle,’ said Locke.

‘Hold fast is a nautical—’

‘I know,’ said Locke. ‘I’ll kill myself later.’

The two younger barkeeps circulated with large trays, passing out wooden cups of dark ale, first to the officers, who were mostly indifferent, and then to the ordinary sailors, who received them with enthusiasm. As an afterthought, one of them eventually made his way to the corner where Locke and Jean and the other civilians sat.

‘Sip of the dark stuff, sirs?’ He set cups down before Locke and Jean and, with dexterity approaching that of a juggler, dashed salt into them from a little glass shaker. ‘Courtesy of the man with more gold than brains.’ Jean slid a copper onto his tray to be sociable, and the man nodded his appreciation before moving on to the next table. ‘Sip of the dark stuff, madam?’

‘Clearly, we need to come here more often,’ said Locke, though neither he nor Jean touched their windfall ale. Locke, it seemed, was content to drink his wine, and Jean, consumed by thoughts of what Caldris might challenge them with the next day, felt no urge to drink at all. They passed a few minutes in quiet conversation, until Locke finally stared down at his cup of ale and sighed.

‘Salted dark ale just isn’t the thing to follow punched-up wine,’ he mused aloud. A moment later, Jean saw the woman seated behind him turn and tap him on the shoulder.

‘Did I hear you right, sir?’ She looked to be a few years younger than Locke and Jean, vaguely pretty, with bright scarlet forearm tattoos and a deep suntan that marked her as a dockworker of some sort. ‘Salted dark not to your taste? I don’t mean to be bold, but I’ve just run dry over here—’

‘Oh. Oh!’ Locke turned, smiling, and passed his cup of ale to her over his shoulder. ‘By all means, help yourself. My compliments.’

‘Mine as well,’ said Jean, passing it over. ‘It deserves to be appreciated.’

‘It will be. Thank you kindly, sirs.’

Locke and Jean settled back into their conference of whispers.

‘A week,’ said Locke. ‘Maybe two, and then Stragos wants us gone. No more theoretical madness. We’ll be living it, out there on the gods-damned ocean.’

‘All the more reason I’m glad you’ve decided not to get too bent around the bottle this evening.’

‘A little self-pity goes a long way these days,’ said Locke. ‘And brings back memories of a time I’d rather forget.’

‘There’s no need for you to keep apologizing for . . . that. Not to yourself and certainly not to me.’

‘Really?’ Locke ran one finger up and down the side of the half-empty bottle. ‘Seems I can see a different story in your eyes whenever I make the acquaintance of more than a glass or two. Outside a Carousel Hazard table, of course.’

‘Now, hold on—’

‘It wasn’t meant as an unkindness,’ Locke said hurriedly. ‘It’s just the truth, is all. And I can’t say you’re wrong to feel that way. You . . . what is it?’

Jean had looked up, distracted by a wheezing sound that was rising behind Locke. The dockworker had half-risen out of her chair and was clutching at her throat, fighting for breath. Jean immediately stood up, stepped around Locke and took her by the shoulders.

‘Easy, madam, easy. A little too much salt in the ale, eh?’ He spun her around and gave her several firm slaps on the back with the heel of his right hand. To his alarm, she continued choking - in fact, she was sucking in absolutely nothing now with each futile attempt at a breath. She turned and clutched at him with desperate strength; her eyes were wide with terror and the redness of her face had nothing to do with her suntan.

Jean glanced down at the three empty ale-cups on the table before her and a sudden realization settled in his gut like a cold weight. He grabbed Locke with his left hand and all but heaved him out of his chair.

‘Back against the wall,’ he hissed. ‘Guard yourself!’ Then he raised his voice and shouted across the tavern: ‘Help! This woman needs help!’

There was a general tumult; officers and sailors alike came to their feet, straining to see what was happening. Elbowing through the mass of patrons and suddenly empty chairs came an older woman in a black coat, with her stormcloud-coloured hair drawn into a long, tight tail with silver rings. ‘Move! I’m a ship’s leech!’

She seized the dockworker from Jean’s arms and gave her three sharp blows against her back, using the bottom edge of her clenched fist.

‘Already tried,’ cried Jean. The choking woman was flailing against him and the leech alike, shoving at them as though they were the cause of her troubles. Her cheeks were wine-purple. The leech managed to snake a hand around the dockworker’s neck and clutch at her windpipe.

‘Dear gods,’ the woman said, ‘her throat’s swelled up hard as a stone. Hold her to the table. Hold her down with all your strength!’

Jean shoved the dockworker down on her tabletop, scattering the empty ale-cups. A crowd was forming around them; Locke was looking at it uneasily, with his back to the wall as Jean had insisted. Looking frantically around, Jean could see the older barkeeper, and one of his assistants . . . but one was missing. Where the hell was the one who’d served them those cups of ale?

‘Knife,’ the leech shouted at the crowd. ‘Sharp knife! Now!’

Locke conjured a stiletto out of his left sleeve and passed it over. The leech glanced at it and nodded - one edge was visibly dull, but the other, as Jean knew, was like a scalpel. The leech held it in a fencer’s grip and used her other hand to force the dock-worker’s head back sharply.

‘Press her down with everything you’ve got,’ she said to Jean. Even with the full advantage of leverage and mass, Jean was hard-put to keep the thrashing young woman’s upper arms still. The leech leaned sharply against one of her legs, and a quick-witted sailor stepped up behind her to grab the other. ‘A thrash will kill her.’

As Jean watched in horrified fascination, the leech pressed the stiletto down on the woman’s throat. Her corded neck muscles stood out like those of a stone statue and her windpipe looked as prominent as a tree-trunk. With gentleness that Jean found awe-inspiring, given the situation, the leech cut a delicate slice across the windpipe just above the point where it vanished beneath the woman’s collarbones. Bright-red blood bubbled from the cut, then ran in wide streams down the sides of the woman’s neck. Her eyes were rolling back in her head, and her struggles had become alarmingly faint.

‘Parchment,’ the leech shouted, ‘find me parchment!’

To the barkeeper’s consternation, several sailors immediately began ransacking the bar, looking for anything resembling parchment. Another officer shoved her way through the crowd, plucking a letter from within her coat. The leech snatched it, rolled it into a tight, thin tube and then shoved it through the slit in the dockworker’s throat, past the bubbling blood. Jean was only partially aware that his jaw was hanging open.

The leech then began pounding on the dockworker’s chest, muttering a series of ear-scalding oaths. But the dockworker was limp; her face was a ghastly shade of plum, and the only movement visible was that of the blood streaming out around the parchment tube. The leech ceased her struggles after a few moments and sat down against the edge of Locke and Jean’s tables, gasping. She wiped her bloody hands against the front of her coat.

‘Useless,’ she said to the utterly silent crowd. ‘Her warm humours are totally stifled. I can do nothing else.’

‘Why, you’ve killed her,’ shouted the eldest barkeeper. ‘You cut her fucking throat right where we could all see it!’

‘Her jaw and throat are clenched tight as iron,’ said the leech, rising in anger. ‘I did the only thing I possibly could to help her!’

‘But you cut her—’

The burly senior officer that Jean had seen earlier now stepped up to the bar, with a cadre of fellow officers at his back. Even across the room, Jean could see a rose-over-swords somewhere on every coat or tunic.

‘Jevaun,’ he said, ‘are you questioning Scholar Almaldi’s competence? ’

‘No, but you saw—’

‘Are you questioning her intentions?’

‘Ah, sir, please—’

‘Are you naming a physiker of the Archon’s warrant,’ the officer continued in a merciless voice, ‘our sister-officer, a murderer? Before witnesses?’

The colour drained from the barkeeper’s face so quickly Jean almost wanted to look behind the bar, to see if it had pooled there. ‘No, sir,’ he said with great haste. ‘I say nothing of the sort. I apologize.’

‘Not to me.’

The barkeeper turned to Almaldi and cleared his throat. ‘I beg your absolute pardon, Scholar.’ He looked down at his feet. ‘I’m . . . I’ve not seen much blood. I spoke in wretched ignorance. Forgive me.’

‘Of course,’ said the leech coldly as she shrugged out of her coat, perhaps finally realizing how badly she’d bloodied it. ‘What the hell was this woman drinking?’

‘Just the dark ale,’ said Jean. ‘The salted Verrari dark.’

And it was meant for us, he thought. His stomach twisted.

His words caused a new eruption of anger throughout the crowd, most of whom had, of course, recently been drinking the very same ale. Jevaun put up his arms and waved for silence.

‘It was good, clean ale from the cask! It was tasted before it was drawn and served! I would serve it to my grandchildren!’ He took an empty wooden cup, held it up to the crowd and drew a full draught of dark beer from the cask. ‘This I will declare to witnesses! This is a house of honest quality! If there is some mischief afoot, it was nothing of my doing!’ He drained the cup in several deep gulps and held it up to the crowd. Their murmuring continued, but their angry advance on the bar was halted.

‘It’s possible she had a reaction,’ said Almaldi. ‘An allergy of some sort. If so, it would be the first I’ve ever seen of anything like it.’ She raised her voice. ‘Who else feels poorly? Sore necks? Trouble breathing?’

Sailors and officers looked at one another, shaking their heads. Jean offered a silent prayer of thanks that nobody appeared to have seen the dockworker taking the fatal cups of ale from himself and Locke.

‘Where the hell is your other assistant?’ Jean shouted to Jevaun. ‘I counted two before the ale was served. Now you have only one!’

The eldest barkeeper whipped his head from side to side, scanning the crowd. He turned to his remaining assistant with a horrified look on his face. ‘I’m sure Freyald is just scared shitless by the commotion, right? Find him. Find him!’

Jean’s words had had precisely the effect he’d desired: sailors and officers alike scattered angrily, looking for the missing barkeeper. Jean could hear the muffled trilling of watch whistles somewhere outside. Soon enough constables would be here in force, sailors’ bar or no. He nudged Locke and gestured at the back door of the tavern, through which several others, plainly expecting much complication, had already slipped out.

‘Sirs,’ said Scholar Almaldi as Locke and Jean moved past her. She wiped Locke’s stiletto clean on the sleeve of her already-ruined coat and passed it back to him. He nodded as he took it.

‘Scholar,’ he said, ‘you were superb.’

‘And yet completely inadequate,’ she said, running her bloodstained fingers carelessly through her hair. ‘I’ll see someone dead for this.’

Us, if we linger here much longer, thought Jean. He had a nasty suspicion that the hands of the city watch would offer no safety if he and Locke vanished into them.

Further arguments were erupting throughout the room by the time Jean finally managed to use his bulk to knock a path for him and Locke to the tavern’s rear entrance. It led to an unlit alley, running away in either direction. Clouds had settled across the black sky, blotting out the moons, and Jean slipped a hatchet reflexively into his right hand before he’d taken three steps into the night. His trained ears told him the watch-whistles were about a block to the west and moving fast.

‘Freyald,’ said Locke as they moved through the darkness together. ‘That rat-bastard barkeep. That ale was aimed at us, sure as a crossbow quarrel.’

‘That was my conclusion,’ said Jean. He led Locke across a narrow street, over a rough stone wall and into a silent courtyard that appeared to border on warehouses. Jean crouched behind a partially shattered crate, and his adjusting eyes saw the black shape of Locke flatten against a nearby barrel.

‘Things are worse,’ said Locke. ‘Worse than we thought. What are the odds that half a dozen city watch wouldn’t know which bars were safe for off-duty hours? What are the odds that they would come to the wrong fucking neighbourhood?’

‘Or drop that much pay on drinks for a bar full of the Archon’s people? They were just cover. Probably they didn’t even know what they were covering for.’

‘It still means,’ whispered Locke, ‘that whoever’s after us can pull strings in the city watch.’

‘It means Priori,’ said Jean.

‘Them or someone close to them. But why?’

There was the sudden scuff of leather on stone behind them; Locke and Jean fell silent in unison. Jean turned in time to see a large, dark shape hop the wall behind them, and the slap of heels on cobbles told him that a man of some weight had just landed.

In one smooth motion, Jean slipped out of his coat, swung it in a high arc and brought it down over the man’s upper body. While the shadowy shape struggled with the coat, Jean leapt up and cracked the top of his opponent’s head with the blunt end of his hatchet. He followed this with a punch to the solar plexus, folding the man in half. It was child’s play after that to guide the man face-first to the ground with a shove on the back.

Locke shook a tiny alchemical lamp, little more than a thumb-sized vial, to life. He shielded the wan glow against his body and let the light fall in only one direction, on the man Jean had subdued. Jean obligingly took back his coat, revealing a tall, well-muscled fellow with a shaven head. He was dressed nondescriptly in the fashion of a coachman or servant, and he threw a gloved hand across his face as he moaned in pain. Jean set the blade of his hatchet just beneath the man’s jaw.

‘M-master de . . . de Ferra, no, please,’ the man whispered. ‘Sweet gods. I’m with Merrain. I’m to . . . look after you.’

Locke seized the man’s left hand and peeled his leather glove off. By the pale lamplight, Jean saw a tattoo on the back of the stranger’s hand, an open eye in the centre of a rose. Locke sighed and whispered, ‘He’s an Eye.’

‘He’s a bloody fool,’ said Jean, glancing around them before setting his hatchet down quietly. He rolled the man onto his back. ‘Easy, friend. I pulled the blow to your head, but not to your stomach. Just lay there and breathe for a few minutes.’

‘I’ve been hit before,’ huffed the stranger, and Jean could see that tears of pain gleamed on his cheeks. ‘Gods. I marvel at the thought that you need protecting at all.’

‘We clearly do,’ said Locke. ‘I saw you in the Thousand Days, didn’t I?’

‘Yes. And I saw you give up your glasses of ale to that poor woman. Oh, fuck, my stomach is like to burst.’

‘It will pass,’ said Jean. ‘Did you see where that missing barkeep went?’

‘I saw him enter the kitchen, and I never looked for him to come back. Didn’t have any reason to at the time.’

‘Shit.’ Locke scowled. ‘Knowing Merrain, does she have soldiers nearby against need?’

‘Four in an old warehouse just a block south.’ The Eye gasped several times before continuing. ‘I was to take you there in case of trouble.’

‘This qualifies,’ said Locke. ‘When you can move, take us to them. We need to reach the Sword Marina in one piece. And then I’ll need you to carry a message to her. Can you reach her tonight?’

‘Within the hour,’ the man said, rubbing his stomach and staring up at the starless sky.

‘Tell her we wish to take her up on her earlier offer of . . . room and board.’

Jean rubbed his beard thoughtfully, then nodded.

‘I’ll send a note to Requin,’ said Locke. ‘I’ll tell him we’re leaving in a day or two. We won’t be around much longer than that, in truth. I’m no longer confident we can walk the streets. We can demand an escort to fetch our things from the Villa Candessa tomorrow, close our suite, put most of our clothes into storage. Then we’ll hide in the Sword Marina.’

‘We have orders to guard your lives,’ said the Eye.

‘I know,’ said Locke. ‘About the only thing we’re sure of is that for the time being, your master means to use us, not kill us. So we’ll rely on his hospitality.’ Locke passed the soldier’s glove back to him. ‘For now.’