The Republic of Thieves

“You know how actors make a living between engagements?” said Calo. “Believe me, some of them are flash fucking cardsharps. I learned some of my best stuff from—”

“What I mean,” said Locke, “is that we should all just be actors, and only actors. I’ve been thinking about this. No games of opportunity on the way. No more picked pockets. We should draw a line between the people we are in Camorr and the people we are in Espara. When we go home, anyone thinking to follow us back to our real lives should find nothing. No hints, no trail.”

“Seems … sensible,” said Galdo.

“And it starts here,” said Locke. “It means we don’t do anything to make ourselves memorable. You really think your yokel friends will simply let you clean them out and send us on our merry way tomorrow morning? Someone’s going to get cut, Sanzas. Everyone in this village will be after your skins, and our guards won’t save you. They have to work this route week in and week out. They need these people.”

“He’s right,” said Calo. “I knew it was a dumb fuckin’ plan, you bald degenerate.”

“It was your idea, you greedy turd-polisher!”

“Well, at any rate,” said Calo to Locke. “We ain’t following through on it.”

“Then why not start boiling dinner? Or better yet, if you really want to drop a coin in the village, see if you can hunt down some meat that doesn’t come in the form of a brick.”

The Sanzas received this suggestion with enthusiasm, and vanished once again down the winding track to what passed for Tresanconne’s high street. Locke and Sabetha faced one another in their absence, and Locke detected a sudden coolness in her demeanor.

“That right there,” she said, “would be one of the obstacles I mentioned.”

“What?”

“You really didn’t notice?”

“Notice what? What am I meant to realize?”

“Think about it,” she said. She crossed her arms again, this time with her shoulders hunched forward. A protective, unwelcoming gesture. “I’m serious. I’ll give you a moment. Think about it.”

“Think about what?”

“Years ago,” said Sabetha, “I was the oldest child in a small gang. I was sent away by my master to train in dancing and manners. When I returned, I found that a younger child had taken my place.”

“But—I hardly—”

“Calo and Galdo, who once treated me as a goddess on earth, had transferred their allegiance to the small newcomer. In time, he got himself a third ally, another boy.”

“That is purest— Why, Jean is devoted to you, as a friend.”

“But not as a particular friend,” she said. “Not as he is to you.”

“Is that your obstacle?” Locke felt as though a heavy object had just spun out of the darkness and cracked him on the head. “My friendship with Jean? Does it make you jealous?”

“You listen about as well as you observe,” said Sabetha. “Haven’t you ever noticed that suggestions from me are treated as suggestions, while suggestions from you are taken as a sacred warrant? Even if those suggestions are identical?”

“I think you’re being very unfair,” said Locke weakly.

“You saw it just now! I couldn’t dissuade the Sanzas from drinking arsenic on the strength of mere common sense, but they trip over themselves to take your directions. This is your gang, Locke—it has been since you arrived, and with Chains’ blessing. You’ve been shaped and groomed as garrista for when he’s gone. And as … well, as a priest. His replacement.”

“But I … I had no notion, or intention—”

“Of course not. You haven’t really questioned anything since your arrival. You’ve assumed a position of primacy, which is easy to take for granted … until you’re quietly shuffled out of it. After that, I find the matter never quite leaves one’s thoughts.”

“But—I have been worked and tested as sorely as you,” said Locke, fighting to keep his voice down. “As sorely as anyone! Do you remember how long it took me to pay this off?” He reached down the front of his tunic and pulled out his shark’s tooth, ensconced in its little leather bag. “Gods above, I could have a city house and a carriage for the money I poured into this damn thing. And I served as many apprenticeships as—”

“I’m not talking about your training, Locke, I know what Chains has done to us all. I’m talking about the way you accepted everything as you accept your own skin. Something natural and undeserving of reflection. Well, let me assure you that the only woman in a house of men has frequent cause for reflection.”

“This is a complete surprise to me,” said Locke.

“I know,” she said softly. “That’s a problem.”

She stared up at the sky, where one of the moons was emerging from behind a low haze of clouds, and Locke had no idea how to begin responding to her.

“A week to go,” she said at last. “A long, slow week of all the pleasures I named earlier. We’re going to be tired, sore, smelly, and bitten half to death by the time we reach Espara. I would … I want to talk to you again, Locke, but I can’t bring myself to make it a subject of hopeful anticipation night after night under these circumstances. Neither of us will be at our best.”

“And this merits our best,” he said grudgingly.

“I think it does. So can we keep it simple while we’re traveling? Eyes on the ground, asses in our seats, and all of these … matters tabled until a later date?”

“You think it’s fair to dump this in my lap and then request a conversational truce?”

“I don’t think it’s fair at all,” she said. “Just necessary.”

“Well, then. If nothing else, it seems I’ll have a lot of time to ruminate on an explanation for you—”

“An explanation? You think what I want out of you is some sort of defense? Surely you can see that I’ve explained you already. What comes next is—”

“Yes?”

“I won’t say. I think I need you to tell me.”

“All you have to do is—”

“No,” she said sharply. “I’ve told you everything you need to know to figure out what comes next. If my words really are like smoldering coals, Locke, then let these ones smolder. Sift them, and bring me an answer sometime after we reach Espara. Bring me a good answer.”

3

ESPARA, FORMERLY a seat of prestige only one step below Therim Pel itself, had descended from its imperial years the way some men and women descend into middle-aged lethargy, discarding the vigor and ambition of youth like a suit of clothes that can no longer be wriggled into.

Locke caught his first glimpse of the place just after noon on the tenth day, when the caravan turned the bend between two ruin-studded hills and entered the familiar, irregular green-and-brown whorls of a farming landscape. On the southern horizon lay the faint shapes of towers under curling gray smears of smoke.

“Espara,” said Anatoly Vireska. “Right where I left it. No more stops for rest, my young friends. Before the sun sets you’ll be in the city looking for your actor fellows.”

“Well done, caravan master,” said Locke, who had the reins while Jean was snoring gently under the tarp at the rear of the wagon. “Not what I’d call a scenic tour, but you’ve brought us through without a scratch.”

“When the crop of bandits is thin, it’s a restful little walk. Now it’s back to dodging carriages, breathing smoke, and paying rent for the beds you sleep in, eh?”

“Gods be praised,” said Locke.

“City creatures are the strangest of all,” said Vireska with a friendly shake of his head. He moved off to visit the rest of the wagons.

All the Gentlemen Bastards, more or less as footsore, ass-sore, unwashed, and drained of blood as