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‘It’s a lamentable business,’ said the Thiefmaker. ‘That’s what it is. To have some of our own brothers and sisters snatched into the unforgiving arms of the duke’s justice. Damned deplorable that they were slackards enough to get caught! Alas. As I have always been at pains to remind you, loves, ours is a delicate trade, not at all appreciated by those we practise upon.’
‘For crimes of the body you shall suffer death of the body,’ continued the herald. ‘You will be suspended above running water and hanged there by the necks until dead, your unquiet spirits to be carried forth upon the water to the Iron Sea, where they may do no further harm to any soul or habitation of the duke’s domain. May the gods receive your souls mercifully, in good time.’ The herald lowered his scroll and faced the prisoners. ‘In the duke’s name I give you justice.’
‘The bastard,’ said Jean as he threw open the door to the suite’s inner apartment. ‘The motherless Lashani reptile. The greedy son of a piss-bucket and a bad fart.’ ‘My keen grasp of subtle nuance tells me you might be frustrated,’ said Locke.
‘This glass for the patron and protector, the Crooked Warden, our Father of Necessary Pretexts.’ Chains carefully pushed the glass aside from the others. ‘Tonight he gives us the return of our friend, his servant Sabetha.’ Chains raised his left hand to his lips and blew into his palm. ‘My words. My breath. These things bind my promise. A hundred gold pieces, duly stolen from honest men and women, to be cast into the sea in the dark of the Orphan’s Moon. We are grateful for Sabetha’s safety.’
Chains grinned at him and raised his glass. ‘Deep pockets poorly guarded,’ he said. ‘Watchmen asleep at their posts,’ said Sabetha. ‘The city to nurture us and the night to hide us,’ said Calo. ‘Friends to help spend the loot!’
‘All the outward virtues of liquid shit,’ said Chains, musing on his empty glass, ‘and a taste like pure joy pissed out by happy angels.
‘Some things are much more interesting when alchemists get their hands on them,’ said Chains. ‘Your head, for example. Black sherry is renowned for kicking like a mule.’
I know life’s not fair. But I thought . . . I thought . . . you were.’
‘I, uh, well, it’s not . . . uh, crap.’ Locke made a desperate grab for eloquence and came up with empty hands as usual.
‘Don’t hang your head like a kicked puppy. Just keep it in mind. If you’re going to live here, staying civil is as much a duty as sitting the steps or washing dishes. Now, while I bask in the glow of another moral sermon delivered with the precision of a master fencer, hold your applause and let’s get back to last night.
You can bitch all you like about how things could have been more favourable for you, but rest assured things can always be worse. Always. Understood?’
I’ll be moving along in the crowd beside you, looming over your performance like a merciless god. Cheating will be dealt with in a thoroughly memorable fashion. Go, go, go.’
watching Sabetha handle people was as good as watching any other girl in the world take off her clothes.
It turned out the woman was quite pleased to let them in. Not, of course, without an embarrassing full-body search, or their marks on parchment, or an inventory of their purses, or a forty-minute wait. But that was all for the best, Locke thought. Only prisoners were ever granted easy passage into a prison.
What followed was a pandemonium of finger-pointing and hard words in which the intelligence, birth city, artistic capacity, work habits, skin colour, dress sense, and personal honour of every participant were insulted at least once.
convinces man to impale himself on his own hard-on.
‘You know, self-pity is the only thing that smells worse than four days of road sweat.’
‘Dinner,’ she said softly. ‘And a contractual option for . . . subsequent complications. At your discretion.’
Between whatever he’d been drinking and the ‘adjustments’ of the Bondsmagi, Nikoros probably had the free will of a sponge.
‘I gather from your rather forthright aroma that you gentlemen have been unable to rest for several days.’
‘Push your luck, gorgeous, and eventually luck pushes back.
‘Just to be clear, you’re suggesting that I should discard an approach which has already brought me one considerable success, and continue the fight at a level more suited to the restraints of your own, well, inadequacy, and I should do this because it’ll make me feel the warm glow of virtue?’ ‘I suppose if you discard the lovely emotional resonance of my suggestion and pin me down on cold hard meaning—’
‘You’re a difficult woman, Sabetha. But then, difficult women are the only ones worth falling in love with.’
‘One showy exit was amusing; two would be gauche.
‘I practise selective deafness to hurtful remarks, young woman.
The twins were alive, though they were liquored out of their wits and had clearly lost a fight with those potent joint antagonists, vomit and gravity.
Yet anyone who has ever pretend-held an intensely desirable other person will know how little it assuages the longing for genuine contact, genuine surrender, and so even this improvement was no balm to Locke’s mood or desires.
‘Years passed. Then came the unpleasant business involving my son. It brought you to our attention. You and Jean were carefully examined. Particularly Jean, since our possession of his red name made things so much easier. Imagine the intensity of our surprise when he told us that his closest friend, a Camorri orphan, had confessed to the secret name of Lamor Acanthus.’
‘I would inquire if you’d slept,’ said Jean, ‘but I’ve learned to recognize silly questions before I ask them.’
