The Republic of Thieves

“It’s not just any cake,” sobbed Locke. “It’s my master’s birthday confection, ordered a month in advance. It’s a crown-cake from Zakasta’s. All kinds of alchemy and spices.”

“Zakasta’s,” said Jean with an admirable impression of awe. “Damn! This is awful luck.”

“That’s my pay for a year,” burbled Locke. “I don’t get to claim a man’s wages for two more to come. He’ll have it out of my hide and my pocket.”

“Let’s not be hasty,” said Jean soothingly. “We can’t get you a new cake, but we can at least give your master his crown back.”

“What do you mean, ‘we’?” The target rounded on Jean. “Who the devil are you to speak for me, boy?”

“Jothar Tathis,” said Jean, “solicitor’s apprentice.”

“Oh? Which solicitor?”

“Mistress Donatella Viricona,” said Jean with the hint of a smile. “Of Meraggio’s.”

“Ahhhh,” said the target, as though Jean had just pointed a loaded crossbow directly at his privates. Mistress Viricona was one of Camorr’s best-known litigators, a woman who served as the voice of several powerful noble families. Anyone who slung parchment for a living was bound to know her legend. “I see … but —”

“We owe this poor boy a crown,” said Jean. “Come, we can split the sum. I might have stumbled into you, but you certainly could have avoided him if you’d been more careful.”

Locke suppressed a grin that would have reached his temples if it hadn’t been checked.

“But—”

“Here, I carry enough as pocket-money.” Jean held out two gold tyrins on his right palm. “Surely it’s no hardship for you, either.”

“But—”

“What are you, a Verrari? Are you that much of a scrub that two tyrins is an imposition for you? If so, at least give me your name so I can let my mistress know who wouldn’t—”

“Fine,” said the man, holding his hands up toward Jean. “Fine! We’ll pay for the damn cake. Half and half.” He passed a pair of gold tyrins over to Locke, and watched as Jean did the same.

“Th-thank you, sirs,” said Locke with a quavering voice. “I’ll catch some hell for this, but not nearly what I would have had coming.”

“It’s only reasonable,” said Jean. “Gods go with you, both of you.”

“Yes, yes,” said the older man, scowling. “Be more careful next time you’re hauling a cake around, boy.” He hurried on his way without another word.

“Guilt is such a beautiful thing,” sighed Locke as he scooped up the toppled mess of the boxed cake—a horrid conglomeration of old flour, sawdust, and white plaster worth about a hundredth of what the unfortunate mark had handed over. “That’s a solid tyrin apiece for tonight.”

“Think Chains will be pleased?”

“Let’s hope it’s the Benefactor that ends up pleased,” said Locke with a grin. “I’ll just clear this mess up and find someplace to dump it so the yellowjackets don’t break my skull. Back home?”

“Yeah, roundabout way,” said Jean. “See you in half an hour.”

3

“SO THEN this fellow backs off like Jean’s started juggling live scorpions,” said Locke, just over half an hour later. “And Jean starts calling him a scrub, and a Verrari, and all kinds of things, and the poor bastard just handed over two gold coins like that.”

Locke snapped his fingers, and the Sanza twins applauded politely. Calo and Galdo sat side by side atop the table in the glass burrow’s kitchen, disdaining the use of anything so commonplace as chairs.

“And that’s your offering?” said Calo. “A tyrin apiece?”

“It’s a fair sum,” said Jean. “And we thought we put some effort into it. Artistic merit and all that.”

“Took us two hours to make the cake,” said Locke. “And you should have seen the acting. We could have been on stage. That man’s heart melted into a puddle, I was so sad and forlorn.”

“So it wasn’t acting at all, then,” said Galdo.

“Polish my dagger for me, Sanza,” said Locke, making an elaborate hand gesture that Camorri only used in public when they absolutely wanted to start a fight.

“Sure, I’ll get the smallest rag in the kitchen while you draw me a map to where it’s been hiding all these years.”

“Oh, be fair,” said Calo. “We can spot it easily enough whenever Sabetha’s in the room!”

“Like now?” said Sabetha as she appeared from around the corner of the burrow’s entrance tunnel.

The fact that Locke didn’t die instantly may be taken as proof that a human male can survive having every last warm drop of blood within his body rush instantly to the vicinity of his cheeks.

Sabetha had been exerting herself. Her face was flushed, several strands of her tightly queued hair had fallen out of place, and the open neckline of her cream-colored tunic revealed a sheen of sweat on her skin. Locke’s eyes would ordinarily have been fixed on her as though connected to the aforementioned tunic by invisible threads, but he pretended that something terribly important had just appeared in the empty far corner of the kitchen.

“And where do you two get off teasing Locke?” said Sabetha. “If either of you have any hair on your stones yet, you’ve been putting it there with a paintbrush.”

“You wound us deeply,” said Calo. “And good taste prevents us from being able to respond in kind.”

“However,” said Galdo, “if you were to ask around certain Guilded Lilies, you’d discover that your—”

“You’ve been visiting the Guilded Lilies?” said Jean.

“Ahhh,” said Calo with a cough, “that is to say, were we to visit the, ah, Guilded Lilies, hypothetically—”

“Hypothetically,” said Galdo. “Excellent word. Hypothetically.”

“Oh, I don’t know. It’s just like you two to make someone else do all the work, isn’t it?” Sabetha rolled her eyes. “So what’s your offering, then?”

“Red wine,” said Calo. “Two dozen bottles. We borrowed them from that half-blind old bastard just off Ropelayer’s Way.”

“I went in dressed like a swell,” said Galdo, “and while I kept him busy around the shop, Calo was in and out the rear window, quiet as a spider.”

“It was too easy,” said Calo. “That poor fellow couldn’t tell a dog’s ass from a douche bucket if you gave him three tries.”

“Anyhow, Chains said they could be used for the toasting after the ceremony,” said Galdo. “Since the point is to get rid of the offerings anyway.”

“Nice,” said Jean, scratching at the faint dark fuzz on his heavy chin. “What have you been up to, Sabetha?”

“Yeah, what’s your offering?” said the twins in unison.

“It’s taken me most of the day,” said Sabetha, “and it hasn’t been easy, but I liked the look of these.” She brought three polished witchwood truncheons out from behind her back. One of them was new, one was moderately dented, and one looked as though it had been used to crack skulls for as long as any of the younger Gentlemen Bastards had been alive.

“Oh, you’re kidding,” said Galdo.

“No, you’re fucking kidding,” said Calo.

“Your eyes do not deceive you,” said Sabetha, twirling the batons by their straps. “Several of Camorr’s famously vigilant city watchmen have indeed misplaced their convincing sticks.”

“Oh, gods,” said Locke, his guts roiling with a tangled mess of admiration and consternation. His self- satisfaction at squeezing half a crown out of the poor slob in the Fountain Bend vanished. “That’s … that’s a bloody