The Republic of Thieves

“You’re right,” said the crossbowman with a sigh. “These fellows ain’t no highwaymen.”

The driver and the guard climbed down from their seat and walked over to where Locke stood over Jean.

“If you could just help me haul him to his feet,” said Locke to the crossbowman, “we can try and bring him around.”

“Beg pardon, stranger,” said the crossbowman, “it’s plain foolishness to set a loaded piece down. Takes nothing to set one off by accident. One nudge from a false step—”

“Well, just point it away from us,” muttered the driver.

“Are you drunk? This one time in Tamalek I saw a fellow set a crossbow down for just a—”

“I’m sure you’re right,” said the driver testily. “Never, ever set that weapon down for as long as you live. You might accidentally hit some fellow in Tamalek.”

The guard sputtered, sighed, and carefully pointed the weapon at a patch of roadside sand. There was a loud, flat crack, and the quarrel was safely embedded in the ground up to its feathers.

Thus, it was accomplished. Jean miraculously returned to life, and with a few quick swings of his fists he eloquently convinced the two guards to lie down and be unconscious for a while.

“I am really, really sorry about this,” said Locke. “And you should know, that’s not how it normally goes with us.”

“Well, how now, tenderhearts?” shouted the man within the carriage. “Shows what you know, eh? If you had any gods-damned brains you’d be inside one of these things, not driving it!”

“They can’t hear you,” said Locke.

“Marauders! Sons of filth! Motherless bastards!” The man inside the box cackled. “It’s all one to me, though. You can’t break in here. Steal whatever you like from my gutless hirelings, sirrahs, but you’ll not have anything of mine!”

“Gods above,” said Locke. “Listen up, you heartless fucking weasel. Your fortress has wheels on it. About a mile to the east there are cliffs above the Amathel. We’ll unhitch you there and give your box a good shove over the edge.”

“I don’t believe you!”

“Then you’d better practice flying.” Locke hopped up into the driver’s seat and took the reins. “Come on, let’s take shit-sauce here for the shortest trip of his life.”

Jean climbed up beside Locke. Locke urged the well-trained horses forward, and the coach began to roll.

“Now wait a minute,” their suddenly unwilling passenger bellowed. “Stop, stop, stop!”

Locke let him scream for about a hundred yards before he slowed the team back down.

“If you want to live,” said Locke, “go ahead and open the—”

The door banged open. The man who came out was about sixty, short and oval-bellied, with the eyes of a startled rabbit. His hat and dressing gown were crimson silk studded with gold buttons. Locke jumped down and glowered at him.

“Take that ludicrous thing off,” he growled.

The man quickly stripped to his undertunic. Locke gathered his finery, which reeked of sweat, and threw it into the carriage.

“Where’s the food and water?”

The man pointed to a storage compartment built into the outside rear of the carriage, just above the tailboard. Locke opened it, selected a few things for himself, then threw some of the neatly wrapped ration packages onto the dirt beside the road.

“Go wake your friends up and enjoy the walk,” said Locke as he climbed back up beside Jean. “Shouldn’t be more than a day or so until you reach the outer hamlets of Lashain. Or maybe someone will come along and take pity on you.”

“You bastards,” shouted the de-robed, de-carriaged man. “Thieving bastards! You’ll hang for this! I’ll see it done!”

“That’s a remote possibility,” said Locke. “But you know what’s a certainty? Next fire I need to start, I’m using your clothes to do it, asshole.”

He gave a cheery wave, and then the armored coach service was gathering speed along the road, bound not for Lashain but Karthain, the long way around the Amathel.

III FATAL HONESTY

I never knew any more beautiful than you:
I have hunted you under my thoughts,
I have broken down under the wind
And into the roses looking for you.
I shall never find any
greater than you.
—Carl Sandburg from “The Great Hunt”

INTERLUDE: AURIN AND AMADINE

1

“WHY IN ALL the hells do you take this abuse?” said Jean as he and Jenora sat together over coffee the second morning after the arrival of the Gentlemen Bastards in Espara. “Dealing with Moncraine, the debts, the bullshit—”

“Those of us left are the stakeholders,” said Jenora. “We own shares in the common property, and shares of the profits, when those miraculously appear. Some of us saved for years to make these investments. If we walk away from Moncraine, we forfeit everything.”

“Ah.”

“Look at Alondo. He had a wild night at cards and he used the take to buy his claim in the troupe. That was three years ago. We were doing Ten Honest Turncoats then, and A Thousand Swords for Therim Pel and The All-Murderers Ball. A dozen full productions a year, masques for Countess Antonia, festival plays, and we were touring out west, where the countryside’s not the gods-damned waste it is between here and Camorr. I mean, we had prospects; we weren’t out of our minds.”

“I never said you were.”

“It’s mostly hired players and the short-timers that evaporated on us. They don’t have any anchors except a weekly wage, and they can make that with Basanti. Hell, they’ll happily take less from him, because at least