“The woman was about to stick one of these two with a poisoned knife, Protector. I thought you’d prefer to have them both intact for the time being.”
“Hmmm. A pair of assassins. Were you at the Sinspire tonight?”
“Yes,” said Jean.
“Well, it wouldn’t be Requin, then. He’d simply have taken you while you were there. So it’s some other business. Something you should have told me about before, Kosta?”
“Oh, begging your pardon, Archon. I thought that between your little friends the Bondsmagi and all the spies you must have slinking about at our backsides, you’d know more than you do.”
“This is serious, Kosta. I aim to make use of you; it doesn’t suit my needs to have someone else’s vendetta on my hands. You don’t know who might have sent them?”
“Truthfully, we have no bloody clue.”
“You left the bodies of these assassins on the docks?”
“The constables have them by now, surely,” said Merrain.
“They’ll throw the bodies in the Midden Deep, but first they’ll inter them at the death-house for a day or two,” said Stragos. “I want someone down there to have a look at them. Note their descriptions, plus any tattoos or other markings that might be meaningful.”
“Of course,” said Merrain.
“Tell the officer of the watch to see to that now. You’ll know where to find me when you’re finished.”
“Your will…Archon.” Merrain looked as though she might say something else, then turned, opened the door, and hurried out.
“You called me Kosta,” said Locke when the door had slammed closed once again. “She doesn’t know our real names, does she? Curious. Don’t you trust your people, Stragos? Seems like it’d be easy enough to get your hooks into them the same way you got them into us.”
“I’ll wager,” said Jean, “that you never take up your master’s offer of a friendly drink when you’re off duty, eh, baldy?” Stragos’ attendant scowled but still said nothing.
“By all means,” said Stragos lightly, “taunt my personal alchemist, the very man responsible for me ‘getting my hooks into you,’ not to mention the preparation of your antidotes.”
The bald man smiled thinly. Locke and Jean cleared their throats and shuffled their feet in unison, a habit they’d synchronized as boys.
“You seem a reasonable fellow,” said Locke. “And I for one have always found a hairless brow to be a noble thing, sensible in every climate….”
“Shut up, Lamora. Do we have the people we need, then?” Stragos passed his papers over to his attendant.
“Yes, Archon. Forty-four of them, all told. I’ll see that they’re moved by tomorrow evening.”
“Good. Leave us the vials and you may go.”
The man nodded and gathered his papers. He handed two small glass vials over to the archon, then left without another word, sliding the door respectfully closed behind him.
“Well, you two.” Stragos sighed. “You seem to attract attention, don’t you? You’re certain you’ve no idea who else might be trying to kill you? Some old score to settle from Camorr?”
“There are so many old scores to settle,” said Locke.
“There would be, wouldn’t there? Well, my people will continue to protect you as best they can. You two, however, will have to be more…circumspect.”
“That sentiment is not exactly unprecedented,” said Locke.
“Confine your movements to the Golden Steps and the Savrola until further notice. I’ll have extra people placed on the inner docks; use those when you must travel.”
“Gods damn it, we cannot operate like that! For a few days, perhaps, but not for the rest of our stay in Tal Verrar, however long it might be.”
“In that, you’re more right than you know, Locke. But if someone else is after you, I can’t let it interfere with my needs. Curtail your movements or I’ll have them curtailed for you.”
“You said there’d be no further complication of our game with Requin!”
“No, I said that the poison wouldn’t further complicate your game with Requin.”
“You seem pretty confident of our good behavior for a man who’s all alone with us in a little stone room,” said Jean, taking a step forward. “Your alchemist’s not coming back, is he? Nor Merrain?”
“Should I be worried? You’ve absolutely nothing to gain by harming me.”
“Except immense personal satisfaction,” said Locke. “You presume that we’re in our right minds. You presume that we give a shit about your precious poison, and that we wouldn’t tear you limb from limb on general principle and take the consequences afterward.”
“Must we do this?” Stragos remained seated, one leg crossed over the other, a mildly bored expression on his face. “It occurred to me that the two of you might be stubborn enough to nurse a bit of mutiny in your hearts. So listen carefully—if you leave this room without me, the Eyes in the hall outside will kill you on sight. And if you otherwise harm me in any way, I repeat my earlier promise. I’ll revisit the same harm on one of you, tenfold, while the other is forced to watch.”
“You,” said Locke, “are a goat-faced wad of slipskinner’s shit.”
“Anything’s possible,” said Stragos. “But if you’re thoroughly in my power, pray tell me, what does that make you?”
“Downright embarrassed,” muttered Locke.
“Very likely. Can you, both of you, set aside this childish need to avenge your self-regard and accept the mission I have for you? Will you hear the plan and keep civil tongues?”
“Yes.” Locke closed his eyes and sighed. “I suppose we truly have no choice. Jean?”
“I wish I didn’t have to agree.”
“Just so long as you do.” Stragos stood up, opened the door to the corridor, and beckoned for Locke and Jean to follow. “My Eyes will see you along to my gardens. I have something I want to show the two of you…while we speak more privately about your mission.”
“What exactly do you intend to do with us?” asked Jean.
“Simply put, I have a navy riding at anchor in the Sword Marina, accomplishing little. Inasmuch as I still depend on the Priori to help pay and provision it, I can’t send it out in force without a proper excuse.” Stragos smiled. “So I’m going to send you two out onto the sea to find that excuse for me.”
“Out to sea?” said Locke. “Are you out of your fu—”
“Take them to my garden,” said Stragos, spinning on his heel.
2
IT WAS less a garden than a forest, stretching for what must have been hundreds of yards on the northern side of the Mon Magisteria. Hedges entwined with softly glowing Silver Creeper vines marked the paths between the swaying blackness of the trees; by some natural alchemy the vines shed enough artificial moonlight for the two thieves and their guards to step easily along the gravel paths. The moons themselves were out, but had now fallen behind the looming fifteen-story darkness of the palace itself and could not be seen from Locke and Jean’s position.
The perfumed air was humid and heavy; there was rain lurking in the creeping arc of clouds enclosing the eastern sky. There was a buzzing flutter of unseen wings from the darkness of the trees, and here and there pale gold and scarlet lights seemed to drift around the trunks like some fairy mischief.
“Lantern beetles,” said Jean, mesmerized despite himself.
“Think on how much dirt they must have had to haul up here, to cover the Elderglass deeply enough to let these trees grow…,” whispered Locke.
“It’s good to be a duke,” said Jean. “Or an archon.”
At the center of the garden was a low structure like a boathouse, lit by hanging alchemical lanterns in the heraldic blue of Tal Verrar. Locke heard the faint lapping of water against stone, and soon enough saw that there was a dark channel perhaps twenty feet wide cut into the ground just beyond the little structure. It meandered into the darkness of the forest-garden like a miniature river. In fact, Locke realized, t
he lantern-lit structure was a boathouse.
More guards appeared out of the darkness, a team of four being half led and half dragged by two massive black dogs in armored harnesses. These creatures, waist-high at the shoulders and nearly as broad, bared their fangs and sniffed disdainfully at the two thieves, then snorted and pulled their handlers along into the archon’s garden.
“Very good,” said Stragos, appearing out of the darkness a few strides behind the dog team. “Everything’s prepared. You two, come with me. Sword-prefect, you and yours are dismissed.”
The Eyes turned as one and marched off toward the palace, their boots crunching faintly on the gravel underfoot. Stragos beckoned to Locke and Jean, then led them down to the water’s edge. There, a boat floated on the still water, lashed to a little post behind the boathouse. The craft seemed to be built for four, with a leather-padded bench up front and another at the stern. Stragos gestured again, for Locke and Jean to climb down into the forward bench.
Locke had to admit it was pleasant enough, settling against the cushions and resting his arm against the gunwale of the sturdy little craft. Stragos rocked the boat slightly as he stepped down behind them, untied the lashing, and settled on his own bench. He took up an oar and dipped it over the left gunwale. “Tannen,” he said, “be so kind as to light our bow lantern.”
Jean glanced over his shoulder and spotted a fist-sized alchemical lantern in a faceted glass hanging off his side of the boat. He fiddled with a brass dial atop the lantern until the vapors inside mingled and sputtered to life, like a sky-blue diamond casting ghosts of the lantern’s facets on the water below.
“This was here when the dukes of the Therin Throne built their palace,” said Stragos. “A channel cut down into the glass, eight yards deep, like a private river. These gardens were built around it. We archons inherited this place along with the Mon Magisteria. While my predecessor was content with still waters, I have made modifications.”
As he spoke, the sound of the water lapping against the sides of the channel became louder and more irregular. Locke realized that the rushing, gurgling noise slowly rising around them was the sound of a current flowing through the river. The bow lantern’s reflected light bobbed and shifted as the water beneath it undulated like dark silk.
“Sorcery?” asked Locke.
“Artifice, Lamora.” The boat began to slide gently away from the side of the channel, and Stragos used the oar to align them in the center of the miniature river. “There’s a strong breeze blowing from the east tonight, and windmills at the far side of my garden. They can be used to drive waterwheels beneath the surface of the channel. In still air, forty or fifty men can crank the mechanisms by hand. I can call the current up as I see fit.”
“Any man can fart in a closed room and say that he commands the wind,” said Locke. “Though I will admit, this whole garden is…more elegant than I would have given you credit for.”
“How pleasant, to have your good opinion of my aesthetic sense.” Stragos steered them in silence for a few minutes after that, around a wide turn, past hanging banks of silver creeper and the rustle of leaves on low-hanging branches. The smell of the artificial river rose up around them as the current strengthened—not unpleasant, but more stale and less green, somehow, than the scent of natural ponds and rivers Locke recalled.
“I presume this river is a closed circuit,” said Jean.
“A meandering one, but yes.”
“Then, ah…forgive me, but where exactly are you taking us?”
“All in good time,” said Stragos.
“Speaking of where you’re taking us,” said Locke, “would you care to return to our earlier subject? One of your guards must have struck me on the head; I thought I heard you say that you wanted us to go to sea.”
“So I do. And so you shall.”
“To what possible end?”
“Are you familiar,” said Stragos, “with the story of the Free Armada of the Ghostwind Isles?”
“Vaguely,” said Locke.”
“The pirate uprising on the Sea of Brass,” mused Jean. “Six or seven years ago. It was put down.”
“I put it down,” said the archon. “Seven years ago, those damn fools down in the Ghostwinds got it into their heads to make a bid for power. Claimed to have the right to levy taxes on shipping on the Sea of Brass, if by taxes you mean boarding and plundering anything with a hull. They had a dozen fit vessels, and a dozen more-or-less fit crews.”
“Bonaire,” said Jean. “That was the captain they all followed, wasn’t it? Laurella Bonaire?”
“It was,” said Stragos. “Bonaire and her Basilisk; she was one of my officers, and that was one of my ships, before she turned her coat.”
“And you such a pleasant, unassuming fellow to work for,” said Locke.
“That squadron of brigands hit Nicora and Vel Virazzo and just about every little village on the nearby coast; they took ships in sight of this palace and hauled sail for the horizon when my galleys went out to meet them. It was the greatest aggravation this city had faced since the war against Camorr, in my predecessor’s time.”
“I don’t recall it lasting long,” said Jean.
“Half a year, perhaps. That declaration was their downfall; freebooters can run and skulk well enough, but when you make declarations you usually end up in battle to uphold them. Pirates are no match for real naval men and women when it’s line against line on the open sea. We hammered them just off Nicora, sank half their fleet, and sent the rest pissing their breeches all the way back to the Ghostwinds. Bonaire wound up in a crow’s cage dangling over the Midden Deep. After she watched all of her crew go in, I cut the rope that held her up myself.”
Locke and Jean said nothing. There was a faint watery creak as Stragos adjusted the course of their boat. Another bend in the artificial river was looming ahead.
“Now, that little demonstration,” the archon continued, “made piracy a fairly unpopular trade on the Sea of Brass. It’s been a good time for honest merchants since then; of course there are still pirates in the Ghostwinds, but they don’t come within three hundred miles of Tal Verrar, nor anywhere near Nicora or the coast. My navy hasn’t had anything more serious than customs incidents and plague ships to deal with for nigh on three or four years. A quiet time…a prosperous time.”
“Isn’t it your job to provide just that?” said Jean.
“You seem a well-read man, Tannen. Surely, your readings must have taught you that when men and women of arms have bled to secure a time of peace, the very people who most benefit from that peace are also the most likely to forget the bleeding.”
“The Priori,” said Locke. “That victory made them nervous, didn’t it? People like victories. That’s what makes generals popular…and dictators.”
“Astute, Lamora. Just as it was in the interests of the merchant councils to send me out to deliver them from piracy,” said Stragos, “it was in their interest to wring my navy dry soon afterward. Dividends of peace…they paid off half the ships, put them up in ordinary, loosed a few hundred trained sailors from the muster rolls, and let the merchants snap them up. The taxes of Tal Verrar paid to train them, and the Priori and their partners were happy to steal them. So it was, and so it is, with the Sea of Brass at peace, the Marrows squabbling, Lashain without a navy and Karthain far beyond the need to even consider one. This corner of the world is calm.”
“If you and the Priori are so very unhappy with one another, why don’t they just run you out of funds completely?” Locke settled back against his corner of the boat and let his left hand hang far over the gunwale, trailing in the warm water.
“I’m sure they would if they could,” said Stragos. “But the charter of the city guarantees me a certain minimal budget, from general revenues. Though every finnicker and comptroller in the city is one of theirs, and they contrive some damned elaborate lies to trim even that. My own ledger-folk have their hands full chasing after them. But it’s discretionary funds they won
’t cut loose. In a time of need they could swell my forces with gold and supplies at a moment’s notice. In a time of peace, they begrudge me every last centira. They have forgotten why the archonate was instituted in the first place.”
“It does occur to me,” said Locke, “that your predecessor was supposed to sort of…dissolve the office when Camorr agreed to stop kicking your ass.”
“A standing force is the only professional force, Lamora. There must be a continuity of experience and training in the ranks; a worthwhile army or navy cannot simply be conjured out of nothing. Tal Verrar might not have the luxury of three or four years to build a defense when the next crisis comes along. And the Priori, the ones who prattle the loudest about ‘opposing dictatorship’ and ‘civic guarantees,’ would be the first to slip away like rats, loaded down with their fortunes, to take ship for whatever corner of the world would give them refuge. They would never stand or die with the city. And so the enmity between us is more than personal, for my part.”
“While I’ve known too many grand merchants to dispute your general idea of their character,” said Locke, “I’ve had a sudden sharp realization about where this conversation has been going.”
“As have I,” said Jean, clearing his throat. “Seems to me that with your power on the wane, this would be a terribly convenient time for new trouble to surface somewhere out on the Sea of Brass, wouldn’t it?”
“Very good,” said Stragos. “Seven years ago, the pirates of the Ghostwinds rose up and gave the people of Tal Verrar reason to be glad of the navy I command. It would be convenient if they might be convinced to trouble us once again…and be crushed once again.”
“Send us out to sea to find an excuse for you, that’s what you said,” said Locke. “Send us out to sea. Has your brain swelled against the inside of your skull? How the screaming fucking hell do you expect the two of us to raise a bloody pirate armada in a place we’ve never been and convince it to come merrily die at the hands of the navy that bent it over the table and fucked it in the ass last time?”