“Why is Capa Raza so concerned for my safety?”

“Your personal comfort likely means nothing to him,” said Locke. “The safety of the Meraggio, however, is of paramount importance. An assassination contract has been taken out against you, by Verrari commercial interests who wish to see Camorr’s fortunes diminished. Raza has been in power for four days; your assassination would shake the city to its foundations. The Spider and the city watch would tear Raza’s people apart looking for answers. He simply cannot allow harm to come to you. He must keep this city stable, as surely as the duke must.”

“And how does your master know all of this?”

“A gift from the gods,” said Locke. “Letters were intercepted while my master’s agents were pursuing an unrelated matter. Please dismiss your finnickers.”

Meraggio pondered for a few seconds, then grunted and waved his attendants away with an irritated wrist-flick. They backed off, wide-eyed.

“Someone very nasty is after you,” said Locke. “It’s a crossbow job; the assassin is Lashani. Supposedly, his weapons have been altered by a Karthani Bondsmage. He’s slippery as all hell, and he almost always hits the mark. Be flattered; we believe his fee is ten thousand crowns.”

“This is a great deal to swallow, Master…”

“My name isn’t important,” said Locke. “Come with me, down to the receiving room behind the kitchens. You can talk to Benjavier yourself.”

“The receiving room, behind the kitchens?” Meraggio frowned deeply. “As yet, I have no reason to believe that you yourself might not be trying to lure me there for mischief.”

“Master Meraggio,” said Locke, “you are wearing silk and cotton, not chain mail. I have had you at dagger-reach for several minutes now. If my master wished you dead, your entrails would be staining the carpet. You don’t have to thank me-you don’t even have to like me-but for the love of the gods, please accept that I have been ordered to guard you, and one does not refuse the orders of the Capa of Camorr.”

“Hmmm. A point. Is he as formidable a man as Barsavi was, this Capa Raza?”

“Barsavi died weeping at his feet,” said Locke. “Barsavi and all of his children. Draw your own conclusions.”

Meraggio slipped his optics back onto his nose, adjusted his orchid, and put his hands behind his back.

“We shall go to the receiving room,” he said. “You lead the way.”

BENJAVIER AND the guards alike looked terrified when Meraggio stormed into the receiving room behind Locke; Locke guessed they were more attuned to the man’s moods than he was, and what they saw on his face must have been something truly unpleasant.

“Benjavier,” said Meraggio, “Benjavier, I simply cannot believe it. After all I did for you-after I took you in and cleared up that mess with your old ship’s captain…I haven’t the words!”

“I’m sorry, Master Meraggio,” said the waiter, whose cheeks were wetter than the sloped roof of a house in a storm. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it…”

“Didn’t mean anything by it? Is it true, what this man has been telling me?”

“Oh yes, gods forgive me, Master Meraggio, it’s true! It’s all true, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…please believe me-”

“Be silent, gods damn your eyes!”

Meraggio stood, jaw agape, like a man who’d just been slapped. He looked around him as though seeing the receiving room for the first time, as though the liveried guards were alien beings. He seemed ready to stagger and fall backward; instead he whirled on Locke with his fists clenched.

“Tell me everything you know,” he growled. “By the gods, everyone involved in this affair is going to learn the length of my reach, I swear it.”

“First things first. You must live out the afternoon. You have private apartments above the fourth-floor gallery, right?”

“Of course.”

“Let us go there immediately,” said Locke. “Have this poor bastard thrown into a storeroom; surely you have one that would suffice. You can deal with him when this affair is over. For the now, time is not our friend.”

Benjavier burst into loud sobs once again, and Meraggio nodded, looking disgusted. “Put Benjavier in dry storage and bolt the door. You two, stand watch. And you-”

The service-door guard had been peeking his head around the corner again. He flushed red.

“Let another unauthorized person, so much as a small child, in through that door this afternoon, and I’ll have your balls cut out and hot coals put in their place. Is that clear?”

“P-perfectly clear, M-master Meraggio, sir.”

Meraggio turned and swept out of the room, and this time it was Locke at his heels, hurrying to keep up.

GIANCANA MERAGGIO’S fortified private apartments were of a kind with the man’s clothing: richly furnished in the most subtle fashion. The man clearly preferred to let materials and craftsmanship serve as his primary ornaments.

The steel-reinforced door clicked shut behind them, and the Verrari lockbox rattled as its teeth slid home within the wood. Meraggio and Locke were alone. The elegant miniature water-clock on Meraggio’s lacquered desk was just filling the bowl that marked the first hour of the afternoon.

“Now,” said Locke, “Master Meraggio, you cannot be out on the floor again until our assassin is sewn up. It is not safe; we expected the attack to come between the first and fourth hour of the afternoon.”

“That will cause problems,” said Meraggio. “I have business to look after; my absence on the floor will be noticed.”

“Not necessarily,” said Locke. “Has it not occurred to you that we are of a very similar build? And that one man, in the shadows of one of the upper-level galleries, might look very much like another?”

“You…you propose to masquerade as me?”

“In the letters we intercepted,” said Locke, “we received one piece of information that is very much to our advantage. The assassin did not receive a detailed description of your appearance. Rather, he was instructed to put his bolt into the only man in the countinghouse wearing a rather large orchid at the breast of his coat. If I were to be dressed as you, in your customary place in the gallery, with an orchid pinned to my coat-well, that bolt would be coming at me, rather than you.”

“I find it hard to believe that you’re saintly enough to be willing to put yourself in my place, if this assassin is as deadly as you say.”

“Master Meraggio,” said Locke, “begging your pardon, but I plainly haven’t made myself clear. If I don’t do this on your behalf, my master will kill me anyway. Furthermore, I am perhaps more adept at ducking the embrace of the Lady of the Long Silence than you might imagine. Lastly, the reward I have been promised for bringing this affair to a satisfactory close…Well, if you were in my shoes, you’d be willing to face a bolt as well.”

“What would you have me do, in the meantime?”

“Take your ease in these apartments,” said Locke. “Keep the doors tightly shut. Amuse yourself for a few hours; I suspect we won’t have long to wait.”

“And what happens when the assassin lets fly his bolt?”

“I am ashamed to have to admit,” said Locke, “that my master has at least a half dozen other men out on the floor of your countinghouse today-please don’t be upset. Some of your clients are not clients; they’re the sharpest, roughest lads Capa Raza has, old hands at fast, quiet work. When our assassin takes his shot, they’ll move on him. Between them and your own guards, he’ll never know what hit him.”

“And if you aren’t as fast as you think you are? And that bolt hits home?”

“Then I’ll be dead, and you’ll still be alive, and my master will be satisfied,” said Locke. “We swear oaths in my line of work as well, Master Meraggio. I serve Raza even unto death. So what’s it going to be?”