“Oh, uh—”
“At
“Oh, I, uh, I don’t have any idea what you—”
“Yes.
2
“NIKOROS,” MUTTERED Locke, bleary-eyed and fog-brained, as he swung the apartment door open in response to a frenzied pounding. “What the hell are you about, man? It can’t be anywhere near eight yet.”
“It’s just after five.” Nikoros looked as though he’d been boot-stomped by a gang of hangover fairies. His hair was undone, his clothes haphazard, and the bags under his eyes could have been used for coin pouches. “They’ve got my office, Lazari. Just like you said.”
“What?” Locke blinked the glue from his eyes and ushered Nikoros inside. “Someone burned your office down?”
“No, it’s not arson.” Nikoros nodded to Jean, who’d come in through the connecting door from his side of the suite. Jean wore a black silk dressing gown and was carrying his hatchets casually in his right hand. “The Master Ratfinder’s office cordoned off my whole bloody building for a suckle-spider infestation. Sheer luck I wasn’t there when they showed up, otherwise I’d be getting an alchemical bath in quarantine.”
“Your scribe?”
“He dodged them too. Almost everything was copied or removed in time, but now they’ll be fumigating with brimstone for three days. Can’t use the place until they’re done.”
“I don’t suppose you’d ever seen so much as one hair on a suckle-spider’s ass?”
“The building’s two years old! Clean as an infant’s soul.”
“Another how-do-you-do from our friends across town. How many people work for this ratfinder?”
“A dozen or so. Alchemists, sewer-stalkers, corpse-hunters. They handle all things pestilent and sanitary.”
“How are they regarded?”
“Master Bilezzo’s a hero! Hells, I mostly think so, too. Keeps the city damned clean, compared to a lot of other places. Forty years without a plague in Karthain, not even cholera. People notice that sort of thing.”
“This is touchy, then,” said Jean. “We can’t be heavy-handed dealing with this or it’ll snap right back at us. Sa … someone in the opposition keeps choosing delicate instruments to poke us with.”
“We need some delicate instruments of our own,” said Locke. “We’re not going to have any time to deal with the election if we have to run around pissing on these distractions.”
“Do you think you can get my office back?”
“Hmmm.” Locke scratched his stubble. “No. Look, Nikoros, no offense, but if we’ve got you and your files, we don’t need your office. Let them smoke it out. Our job as far as this Master Bilezzo is concerned is to make sure Josten’s isn’t closed down for similar treatment.”
“Very well,” said Nikoros. “But I, uh, my rooms—I suppose I’ll have to board here for a few days.”
“That might not be a bad thing. This place is our castle, and the siege has started. Speaking of which, after we deal with the Magistrates’ Court, get me some actual solicitors. Trustworthy sorts. I presume the party has a few?”
“Of course.”
“Have them join the menagerie here, in the best suites Josten has left. Next time someone walks in with writs or warrants or gods know what, I want real paper-pushers on hand to spin authentic nonsense.”
“We seem to be off to a bad start,” said Nikoros.
“We are.”
“And I must apologize … for my, uh, you know. It’s just an occasional thing, you understand. Keeps me working through the long nights. I can … stop, if you—”
“Do. Throw that shit away. We need you steady and reliable. Dustheads are neither.”
“I’m not a dusthead—”
“Save it. I’ve seen more dustheads, gazers, pissers, burners, and stonelickers than you can imagine. I’ve even crawled into a bottle myself, once or twice. Don’t try to placate me; just do us all a favor and stay off it. Get pickled on booze like an ordinary Deep Roots man.”
“I can … as you say. I can do it.”
“And don’t sweat our situation. By tonight, we’ll be walled in with brutes and solicitors, most of the locks will be changed, Josten will secure his staff.… You’ll feel better once our basic defenses are in place. Now get a room, get what sleep you can. Master Callas and I will fetch you at eight. And hey. Tell whoever’s on duty we want enough coffee to kill a horse.”
When the coffee came a few minutes later, the maid delivering it wore a gleaming brass chain around her neck.
“That was quick work on Josten’s part,” said Jean, pouring two steaming cups. “The chains, I mean. You don’t believe it’ll keep out real mischief, though? Wouldn’t stop either of us, I should think.”
“It’s not meant to,” said Locke. “It’s a simple obstacle for the witless and unlucky. The less time we have to waste on idiots, the more we can devote to everything else Sabetha does.”
3
IT WAS a cool, mist-haunted morning. Water trickled down every window, and the pavements were slick. A few minutes before eight, Locke and Jean hustled Nikoros, who looked as though sleep had been scarce, into a carriage. Locke gnawed indelicately at half a loaf of bread stuffed with cold meat from the party. This breakfast was disposed of by the time they made their first stop of the morning, at Tivoli’s, to reinforce the coins in their purses with a few hundred comrades.
Next, they rattled north to the Casta Gravina, the old citadel of Karthain, whose interior walls and gates had been knocked down years before to make more room for a government that didn’t have to fear anything so mundane as a hostile army at its doorstep. The plazas and gardens were so beautifully laid out that the fog might have been just one more decoration, artfully conjured and shaped by crews of overambitious groundskeepers.
“Magistrates’ Court,” said Nikoros, leading the way out of the carriage. “I know the place. If you want to make any money in my business, you’ll end up party or witness in your share of lawsuits.”
Locke and Jean followed him across a circular plaza, into the clammy silver mist that opened a few paces ahead of them and swallowed their carriage an equal distance behind. The fog echoed faintly with the sounds of the city coming to life—doors opening, horses and wheels clattering, people shouting to one another.
“Clerks’ office is just over here,” said Nikoros.
“OOF!” A woman came out of the fog to Locke’s left before he could react. She collided with Locke, steadied herself against him, and was then snatched away rather ignominiously by Jean.
“Gods above!” she cried. The voice was creaky, middle-aged, Karthani.
“It’s fine, Master Callas, it’s fine,” said Locke. He patted his purse and papers, verifying their undisturbed state. The collision might or might not be innocent, but the woman seemed to be no pickpocket.
“A thousand apologies. You startled us, madam,” said Jean, releasing the woman. She was a few inches shorter than Locke, broad and heavy, dressed in a dull but expensive fashion. Her gray-dusted brown hair was pinned up under an elegant four-cornered cap, and her face was lined with whatever cares had chased her through life. Locke prayed silently that they hadn’t just upset one of the very clerks they might want to
