The Republic of Thieves

lights grew fewer. “Look, that’s a graveyard, this Gloriano’s has to be close.”

They found it not a block down, the best-lit structure for some distance in any direction, though the illumination was perhaps unwise given the things it revealed about the condition of walls and roofs. A pair of city watchmen, looking soaked behind the misty glow of their lanterns, were standing in the turn to the inn-yard and impeding the passage of the Gentlemen Bastards’ wagon.

“Is there a problem, Constables?” called Jean.

“You don’t actually mean to turn in here?” said one of the men warily, as though he suspected himself the butt of a joke.

“I think we do,” said Jean.

“But this is the way to Gloriano’s inn-yard,” said the constable, even more warily.

“Pleased to hear it.”

“You delivering something?”

“Just ourselves,” said Jean.

“Gods above, you mean it,” said the constable. “I could tell you ain’t from here, even if I never heard your voice.” He and his companion stepped out of the way with exaggerated courtesy and walked on, shaking their heads.

Locke first heard the shouting as Jean brought them in under a sloping canvas awning that was more holes than fabric, next to a dark stable that contained only one horse. The animal looked at them as though in hope of rescue.

“What the hells is that noise?” said Sabetha.

It wasn’t any sort of row that Locke recognized. Fisticuffs, theft, murder, domestic quarrel—all of those things had familiar rhythms and notes, sounds he could have identified in a second. This was something stranger, and it seemed to be coming from just around the right-hand corner of the building.

“Jean, Sabetha, come quietly with me,” he said. “Sanzas, mind the horses. If they have any brains they might try to bolt.”

It didn’t occur to him until his boots hit the mud that he’d again done precisely what Sabetha had railed against: presumed leadership without hesitation. But damn it, this wasn’t a time for putting his life under a magnifying lens; it was a time for making sure they weren’t all about to be murdered.

“I shall break you, joint by joint,” bellowed a man with a deep, attention-seizing voice, “and drink your screams like a fine wine, and burn in brighter ecstasy with every … fading … whimper from your coward’s throat!”

“Holy shit,” said Locke. “No, wait. That’s … that’s from a play.”

“Catalinus, Last Prince of Amor Peth,” whispered Jean.

Side by side, Locke, Jean, and Sabetha moved carefully around the corner. They found themselves facing a courtyard, the interior of three double-storied wings of the inn, with a vast ugly hole in the middle where something had been torn out of the ground.

A man and a woman sat off to one side, out of the light, watching a third man, who stood on the edge of the muddy hole with a bottle in either hand. This man was a prodigious physical specimen, surpassing Father Chains in girth and breadth, with a rain-slick crown of white hair pasted down around his creased face. He wore a loose gray robe and nothing else.

“I shall grind your bones to powder,” he hollered, transfixing the three Gentlemen Bastards with his gleaming eyes. “And with that dust I’ll make cement for paving stones, and for a hundred years to come you’ll have no rest beneath the crush of strange wheels and the tramp of strange boots! Drunkards will make their unclean water upon you, and I shall laugh to think of it, Catalinus! I shall laugh until I die, and I shall die whole in body, wholly revenged upon thee!”

He flung forth his arms, perhaps intentionally, perhaps at random, and when he seemed to realize that he still held bottles in his hands he drank from them.

“Excuse me,” said Locke. Thunder rumbled overhead. The rain grew heavier. “We’re, ah, looking for the Moncraine Company.”

“Moncraine,” yelled the white-haired man, dropping one of his bottles and waving his arms to keep his balance at the edge of the hole. “Moncraine!”

“Are you Jasmer Moncraine?” said Jean.

“I, Jasmer Moncraine?” The man leapt down into the hole, which was about thigh-deep, raising a dark splash of water. He scrambled up the other side and came toward them, now thoroughly be-mucked from the waist down. “I am Sylvanus Olivios Andrassus, the greatest actor in a thousand miles, in a thousand years! Jasmer Moncraine wishes … on his best day … that he was worth a single drop … OF MY PISS!”

Sylvanus Olivios Andrassus shambled forward, and put his empty hand on Jean’s shoulder. “Stupid boy,” he said. “I need you to let me have … five royals … just until Penance Day. Oh, gods …”

He went down to one knee and threw up. Jean’s reflexes were sharp enough to save everything except one of his shoes.

“Fuck me!” said Jean.

“Oh no, I assure you, that is quite out of the question,” said Sylvanus. He attempted several times to stumble back to his feet, then once again noticed the remaining bottle in his hand, and began to suckle at it contentedly.

“Look, sorry about this,” said the woman who’d been watching, as she emerged from the shadows. She was tall, dark-skinned, and wearing a shawl over her hair. Her fellow spectator was a thin young Therin man just a few years older than the Gentlemen Bastards. “Sylvanus has what you might call rare ambition in the field of self-degradation.”

“Are you the Moncraine Company?” said Locke.

“Who wants to know?” said the woman hesitantly.

“I’m Lucaza de Barra,” said Locke. “This is my cousin, Jovanno de Barra. And this is our friend Verena Gallante.” When this elicited no response, Locke cleared his throat. “We’re Moncraine’s new players. The ones from Camorr.”

“Oh, sweet gods above,” said the woman. “You’re real.”

“Yeah,” said Locke. “And, uh, wet and confused.”

“We thought— Well, look, we didn’t think you existed. We thought Moncraine was making you up!”

“Took ten slow days in a wagon to get here,” said Jean. “Let me assure you, nobody made us up.”

“I’m Jenora,” said the woman. “And this is Alondo—”

“Alondo Razi,” said the young man. “Weren’t there supposed to be more of you?”

“The Asino brothers are minding the wagon, back around the corner,” said Locke. “So, we’re flesh and blood. I guess the next question is, does Jasmer Moncraine exist?”

“Moncraine,” muttered Sylvanus. “Wouldn’t shit on his head to give him … shade from the sun.”

“Moncraine,” said Jenora, “is why Sylvanus is … um … making a clean break from sobriety at the moment.”

“Moncraine’s in the Weeping Tower,” said Alondo.

“What’s that?” said Jean.

“The most secure prison in Espara. It’s Countess’ Dragoons on the doors, not city watch.”

“Aw, hell’s blistered balls,” said Locke. “He already got taken up for debt?”

“Debt?” said Jenora. “No, he never got the chance to be hauled in for all that mess. He decked some pissant lordling across the jaw this morning. He’s up for assaulting someone of noble blood.”

CHAPTER SIX: THE FIVE-YEAR GAME: CHANGE OF VENUE