“Leave,” said the man on his right. “Leave! Now!”

“Hey, how does a Karthani find out his wife is having her monthly flow? He crawls into his son’s bed and the boy’s cock is already wet. Ha! Oh, have you heard the one about the Karthani who claimed he could count to five—”

The man on Locke’s right pushed his chair away from the table and stood up. Locke grabbed him by the lapel. The man halted, glowering. Locke didn’t have the strength to drag him back down if he decided to fight, but the crucial insult of the uninvited touch was already given.

“Where are you off to?” said Locke. “I haven’t finished my sensitive cultural exchange.”

“Remove your hand from my coat, you obnoxious—”

“Or else what?”

“We take this to the master of the house.”

“I amthe master of the house,” said Locke. “And you already know it. You’ve been sent here to watch for my coming. See the hefty gentleman ten yards behind me? He’s the other one you’re looking for. Take a long, careful look, children. I don’t doubt that your mistress expects a detailed report.”

The man jerked away.

“Come now,” said Locke reasonably, taking another swig from the wine bottle. “No men with any quantity of self-respect could have borne the abuse I’ve just given you. If you were gentlemen you’d have called me out, and if you were roughs you’d have punched me in the teeth. The fact is, you’ve been paid a tidy sum to sit here spying on me, and you were all confused as hell about what to do when I pissed on your dignity.”

The two men across the table started to rise, and Locke gestured sharply for them to remain seated.

“Don’t do anything stupid now, sirs. There’s no retrieving your situation. Lift one finger in an unkind act, and I guarantee it’ll take six months for your bones to knit. I’ll also have fifty witnesses swearing you had it coming.”

“What do you want with us?” muttered the man on the right.

“Haul your pathetic carcasses out the door. Be quick and polite. If I ever see you within shouting distance of Josten’s again, you’ll wake up in an alley with all your teeth shoved up your ass. That goes for your absent friend, too.”

Locke put his hat back on, stood up, and strolled casually away. He spared a smile for Jean, who raised his coffee cup in salute—the scrape of chairs against the floor behind him told Locke that the men were departing in haste. He and Jean watched them leave.

“You really are a vulgar little cuss when the spirit moves you,” said Jean.

“I’ve got worse,” said Locke. “Stored on some high shelf in my mind like an alchemist’s poisons. Got most of it from Calo and Galdo.”

“Well, you were venomous enough for our obvious friends.”

“Yes. Obvious. A fine thing to chase out the conspicuous spies. Now all we have to worry about is the capable ones.”

9

LOCKE DESTROYED an excellent luncheon for six—Jean contented himself with a small corner of the feast, and came away grateful for not losing any limbs—then dozed fitfully in their suite of rooms, alternating naps in a lounging chair with episodes of furious pacing.

As the sun set and the tiny fragments of sky visible around the window curtains turned black, men from Morenna’s delivered the beginnings of the promised wardrobe. Locke and Jean examined the new coats, vests, and breeches for concealed needles or alchemical dusts before hanging them in the massive rosewood armoires provided with the rooms.

At the eighth hour of the evening maids and porters appeared with tubs of steaming water. Locke tested each tub with a finger and, when his flesh didn’t peel from his bones, allowed that they might just be safe for their intended use.

By the time Nikoros knocked forty minutes later, the two Gentlemen Bastards were cleaned up and comfortably ensconced in clothes that fit perfectly.

“Gentlemen,” said Nikoros, who had substantially upgraded his own clothes, “I’ve brought you some useful things, I hope.”

He passed a leather portfolio to Locke, who flipped it open and found at least a hundred pages inside. Some were covered with dense scribbling that was surely Nikoros’, others with flawless script that surely wasn’t.

“Deep Roots party financial reports,” said Nikoros. “Important membership lists, plans and minutes from the last election, lists of properties and agents, matching lists for what we know of the Black Iris, copies of the city election laws—”

“Splendid,” said Locke. “And you took all the steps I discussed earlier?”

“My scribe’s still working, but everything else is seen to. If the earth should open up and swallow my offices, I swear I won’t be losing anything irreplaceable.”

“Good,” said Locke. “Want a drink? We’ve got a liquor cabi— No, wait, I haven’t examined the bottles yet, sorry.”

“I’m sure anything provided by Josten is perfectly safe,” said Nikoros, raising his eyebrows.

“It’s not Josten’s faithfulness I worry about.”

“Well, let me assure you that we don’t throw parties in Karthain for the purpose of staying dry.” He reached inside his coat and drew out two ornate silver lapel badges attached to green ribbons; an identical ornament was on his own left breast, though his was gold. “As for that, I mustn’t forget your colors.”

“The official Deep Roots plumage?” said Jean, extending a hand for his pin.

“Yes. For the party tonight, Committee members wear gold pins, Konseil members wear jade, privileged others wear silver. These will mark you as men to respect, but not men who need to be followed around and remarked upon, if you don’t wish it.”

“Good,” said Locke, decorating his lapel. “Now that we’re properly garnished, let’s serve ourselves up to the family.”

10

THE ENTIRE character of Josten’s main room had changed for the evening. The number of attendants at the street doors had doubled, and their uniforms were far more impressive. Dark green banners hung from the rafters and down the varnished pillars. Carriages could be heard coming and going constantly, and Locke caught a glimpse of several more attendants outside, holding their hands up to a party of well-dressed men without green ribbons. Clearly the party was a closed affair .… Were the men on the pavement legitimately uninformed late diners, or some sort of opposition mischief? There was no time to investigate.

A string quintet was bowing away pleasantly in one of the upper galleries, and all the visible fireplaces had huge kettles for tea and coffee bubbling before them. Curtained tables held thousands of glass bottles, and enough decanters, flutes, pitchers, and tumblers to blind every eye in the city with the force of their reflected light. Locke blinked several times and turned his attention to the men and women flowing into the room.

“This is already well more than a hundred and fifty,” he said.

“These things happen,” said Nikoros, giggling energetically as though at some private joke. “We plan with s-such restraint, but there’s so many people we can’t afford to offend!”

Locke peered at him. Nikoros had changed, somehow, in the few minutes between their room and the party. He was sweating profusely, his cheeks were flushed, his eyes darted around like little creatures trapped behind glass panes. Yet he wasn’t nervous; he was beatific. Gods!

Their straight-arrow trade insurer, their liaison to the Deep Roots upper crust, was a taker of Akkadris dust. Locke smelled the sharp pine-like odor of the stuff. Damn! Akkadris, Muse-of-Fire, the poet killer. Liquor soothed and loosened wits, but dust did the opposite, lighting fires in the mind until the dusthead shook with excitement for no discernible reason. It was an expensive and incrementally suicidal habit.

“Nikoros,” said Locke, grabbing one of his lapels, “you and I need to have a very frank discussion about—”

“Via Lupa! Via Lupa, dear boy!” A ponderous old man with a face like a seamed pink pudding bore down on them, witchwood cane tapping the floor excitedly. The man’s white eyebrows fluttered like wisps of smoke, and his lapel badge was polished jade. “Nikoros of the wolves, so-called for his profit margins. Ha!”