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

‘Has everything gone more smoothly for you ladies and gentlemen since last night?’ asked Requin.

‘Fighting’s ended in the Sword Marina,’ said Jacantha Tiga, youngest of the Inner Seven. ‘The navy is on the leash.’

‘The Mon Magisteria is ours,’ said Lyonis Cordo, standing in for his father. ‘All of Stragos’s captains are in custody, except for two captains of intelligence—’

‘We can’t have another fucking Ravelle incident,’ said a middle-aged Priori.

‘I’ve got people working on that issue myself,’ said Requin. ‘They won’t go to ground within the city, I can promise that much.’

‘The Ambassadors from Talisham, Espara and the Kingdom of the Seven Marrows have publicly expressed confidence in the leadership of the councils,’ said Tiga.

‘I know,’ said Requin, smiling. ‘I forgave them some rather substantial debts last night and suggested that they might make themselves useful to the new regime. Now, what about the Eyes?’

‘About half of them are alive and in custody,’ said Cordo. ‘The rest are dead, with just a few thought to be trying to stir up resistance.’

‘They won’t get far,’ said Tiga. ‘Loyalty to the old Archonate won’t buy food or beer. I expect they’ll turn up dead here and there once they annoy the regulars too much.’

‘We’ll have the rest quietly disposed of over the next few days,’ said Cordo.

‘Now, I wonder,’ said Requin, ‘if that’s really so very wise. The Eyes of the Archon represent a significant pool of highly trained and committed people. Surely there’s got to be a better use for them than filling graves.’

‘They were loyal to Stragos alone—’

‘Or perhaps to Tal Verrar, were you to ask them.’ Requin placed a hand over his heart. ‘My patriotic duty compels me to point this out.’

Cordo snorted. ‘They were his shock troops, his bodyguards, his torturers. They’re useless to us, even if not actively seditious.’

‘Perhaps, for all of his vaunted military understanding, our dear departed Archon employed the Eyes inefficiently,’ said Requin. ‘Perhaps the business with the faceless masks was too much. They might have been better off in plainclothes, as an enhancement to his intelligence apparatus, rather than terrorizing people as his enforcers.’

‘Maybe for his sake,’ said Tiga. ‘Had he done so, that intelligence apparatus might have foiled our move against him yesterday. It was a close thing.’

‘Still,’ said Cordo, ‘hard to keep a kingdom when you no longer have a king.’

‘Yes,’ said Tiga, ‘we’re all so very impressed, Cordo. Subtly mention your involvement in passing as often as you like, please.’

‘At least I—’

‘And more difficult still to keep a kingdom,’ interrupted Requin, ‘when you discard perfectly good tools left behind by the former king.’

‘Forgive us our density,’ said Saravelle Fioran, a woman nearly as old as Marius Cordo, ‘but what precisely are you driving at, Requin?’

‘Merely that the Eyes, properly vetted and retrained, could be a significant asset to Tal Verrar, if used not as shock troops but as . . . a secret constabulary?’

‘Says the man in charge of the very people such a force would be charged with hunting down,’ scoffed Cordo.

‘Younger Cordo,’ said Requin, ‘those are also the “very people” whose interference with your family business is kept to an acceptable minimum through my involvement. They are the very people who were instrumental in delivering our victory yesterday - carrying your messages, filling the streets to detain army reinforcements, distracting Stragos’s most loyal officers while some of you were allowed to approach this affair with the air of amateurs dabbling at lawn-bowling.’

‘Not I—’ said Cordo.

‘No, not you. You did fight. But I flaunt my hypocrisy with a smile on my face, Lyonis. Don’t you dare pretend, here in our highest privacy, that your disdain somehow absolves you from your involvement with the likes of me. You don’t want to imagine a city with crime unregulated by the likes of me! As for the Eyes, I am not asking, I am telling. Those few who were true fanatics for Stragos can conveniently trip and land on swords, yes. The rest are too useful to throw away.’

‘On what grounds,’ said Tiga, ‘do you presume to lecture—’

‘On the grounds that six of the seven people sitting here have seen fit to store goods and funds in the Sinspire vault. Items that, let us be frank, need not ever reappear in the event that I begin to feel anxious about our relationship.

‘I have an investment in this city, the same as you. I would not take kindly to having a foreign power interrupt my affairs. To give Stragos his due, I cannot imagine that the army and navy in your hands will inspire a great deal of awe in our enemies, given what happened last time the Priori governed during a war. Therefore I see fit to hedge all of our bets.’

‘Surely we could discuss this in just a few days,’ said Lyonis.

‘I think not. Inconveniences like our surviving Eyes have a habit of disappearing before arguments can broaden, don’t they? It’s a busy time. Messages might be lost, or misconstrued, and I’m sure there’d be a perfectly plausible reason for whatever happened.’

‘So what do you want?’ asked Fioran.

‘If you’re going to take the Mon Magisteria as an administrative centre for our shiny new government, I would imagine that a suite of offices would be a good start. Something nice and prestigious, before all the nice ones are gone. Plus I’ll expect a rudimentary operating budget by the end of the week; I’ll set down the rough finnicking myself. Salaries for the next year. Speaking of which, I will expect at least three or four positions within the hierarchy of this new organization to be placed entirely at my discretion. Salaries in the range of ten to fifteen solari per annum.’

‘So you can pass out sinecures to some of your jumped-up thieves,’ said Lyonis.

‘So I can aid them in their transition to life as respectable citizens and defenders of Tal Verrar, yes,’ said Requin.

‘Will this be your own transition to life as a respectable citizen?’ asked Tiga.

‘Here I thought I already was,’ said Requin. ‘Gods, no. I have no desire to turn away from the responsibilities I currently enjoy. But it just so happens that I have an ideal candidate in mind to head our new organization. Someone who shares my qualms about the manner in which Stragos employed his Eyes, and who should be taken all the more seriously for the fact that she used to be one.’

Selendri couldn’t help smiling as the Priori turned in their seats to stare at her.

‘Now, Requin, hold on—’ said Cordo.

‘I see no need,’ said Requin. ‘I don’t believe your six fellows are actually going to deny me this very minor and very patriotic request, are they?’

Cordo looked around, and Selendri knew what he was seeing on the faces of the other Priori: if he formally tried to stop this, he would be alone, and he would weaken not only his father’s borrowed position but his own future prospects.

‘I think her starting compensation should be something handsome, rather handsome,’ said Requin cheerfully. ‘And of course she’ll require use of official carriages and barges. An official residence; Stragos had dozens of houses and manors at his disposal. Oh, and I think her office at the Mon Magisteria should be the nicest and most prestigious of all. Don’t you?’

They kissed one another for a very long time, alone in the office once the Priori had left in various states of bemusement, worry and aggravation. As he usually did, Requin removed his gloves to run the brown, pocked skin of his hands over her, over the matching scar tissue on her left-hand side as well as the healthy flesh on her right.

‘There you are, my dear,’ he said. ‘I know you’ve been chafing here for some time, running up and down these tower steps, fetching and bowing for drunkards of quality.’

‘I’m still sorry for my failure to—’

‘Our failure was entirely shared,’ said Requin. ‘In fact, I fell for Kosta and de Ferra’s line of bullshit harder than you did - you retained your suspicion the whole way. Left to your own devices, you would have thrown them out of the window early on and avoided the entire mess at the end, I’m sure.’

She smiled.

‘And those smirking Priori assume I’m inflicting one last grand sinecure on them where you’re concerned.’ Requin ran his fingers through her hair. ‘Gods, are they in for a surprise. I can’t wait to see you in action. You’ll build something that will make my little coteries of felantozzi look tawdry.’

Selendri stared around at the wreckage of the office. Requin laughed. ‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘that I have to admire the audacious little shits. To spend two years planning such a thing, and then the business with the chairs . . . and with my seal! My, Lyonis was throwing a fit—’

‘I’d have thought you’d be furious,’ said Selendri.

‘Furious? I suppose I am. I was rather fond of that suite of chairs.’

‘I know how long you worked to acquire those paintings—’

‘Ah, the paintings, yes.’ Requin grinned mischievously. ‘Well, as for that . . . the walls have been left somewhat under-decorated. How would you like to go down to the vault with me to start fetching out the real ones?’

‘What do you mean, the real ones?’