Epitalus descended from the elevated gallery to a round of applause that shook the rafters. The musicians started up again.

“What do you think of the old boy?” said Jean.

“He’s got a strangely sunny view of ten years of defeat,” said Locke, “but if I get killed in the next six weeks, I want him to speak at my funeral.”

“Not to piss on the good cheer,” said Jean in a much lower voice, “but did you notice that our friend Nikoros—”

“Yeah,” sighed Locke. “We’ll straighten him out later.”

The mass of well-dressed Firstsons, Secondsons, Thirddaughters, and the like returned to its previous knots of conversation and besieged the silver platters of food which were now being uncovered at the back of the hall. Performance alchemists in bright silk costumes emerged from the kitchens, some to mix drinks, others already juggling heatless fire or conjuring glowing steam in rainbows of color.

“My compliments, Nikoros,” said Locke. “Your party seems to be a smashing success. Something tells me we’re not going to be getting any bloody work done before noon tomorrow, though.”

“Oh, Josten’s your man for that,” said Nikoros. “He, ah, he mixes a hangover remedy that’ll knock the f-fumes right out of your brain! Alchemy ain’t in it. So I think we can help ourselves to another glass or two with a clear—”

It was then that Locke noticed a new murmur from the crowd near the main doors, not the low purr of drunken contentment, but a spreading signal of unease. Men and women with green ribbons parted like clouds before a rising sun, and out of the gap came a stout, curly-haired man in a pale blue coat and matching four-cornered hat. He carried a polished wooden staff about three feet long, topped with a silver figurine of a rampant lion. A tipstaff if Locke had ever seen one.

“Herald Vidalos,” said Nikoros warmly, “D-dear fellow, have you come at a fine time! You must, must take a little something against the chill! Help yourself.”

“Deepest regrets, Nikoros.” The man called Vidalos had a curiously gentle voice, and it was obvious that he was in some discomfort. “I’m afraid I’ve come on the business of the Magistrates’ Court.”

“Oh?” Nikoros stiffened. “Well, ah, perhaps I can, I can help you keep it discreet. Who do you need to see?”

“Diligence Josten.”

By now a wide circle of the floor had cleared around Vidalos. Josten pushed his way through the crowd and stepped into the open.

“What news, Vidalos?”

“Nothing that gives me any pleasure.” Vidalos touched his staff gently to Josten’s left shoulder. “Diligence Josten, I serve you before witnesses with a warrant from the Magistrates’ Court of Karthain.”

He withdrew the staff and handed the innkeeper a scroll sealed inside a case. While Josten broke the seal and unrolled the contents, Locke casually moved to stand beside him.

“What’s the trouble?” he whispered.

“By the Ten fucking Holy Names,” said Josten, running his eyes down the neat, numerous paragraphs on the scroll. “This can’t be right. All of my fees are properly paid—”

“Your license for the dispensation of ardent spirits is in arrears,” said Vidalos. “There’s no record at the Magistrates’ Court of the fee having been received for this year.”

“But … but I did pay it. I certainly did!”

“Josten, sir, I desire to believe you with all my soul, but it’s my charge to execute this warrant, and execute it I must, or it’s my hide they’ll have off on Penance Day.”

“Well, we can settle the business about the records later,” said Josten. “Just tell me what I owe and I’ll pay it right now.”

“I’m forbiddento take fees or penalties in hand, sir,” said Vidalos. “As you well know. You’ll have to go to the next Public Proceedings at the Magistrate’s Court.”

“But … that’s three days from now. Until then—”

“Until then,” said Vidalos quietly, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to disperse this party. After that it’s your choice, whether we seal your doors or remove your liquor. It’s only a few days, sir.”

“Only a few days?” hissed Josten, incredulous.

“Oh, Sabetha,” Locke muttered to himself. “You gods-damned artist. Hello to you, too.”

INTERLUDE

BASTARDS ABROAD

1

THEY WERE FORTY miles beyond the border of greater Camorr, on the third morning of their journey, when they passed the first corpse swaying beneath the arching branch of a roadside tree.

“Oh, look,” said Calo, who sat beside Jean at the front of the wagon. “All the comforts of home.”

“It’s what we do with bandits when there’s a spare noose about,” said Anatoly Vireska, who was walking beside them munching on a late breakfast of dried figs. Their wagon led the caravan. “There’s one every mile or two. If the noose is occupied, or it ain’t convenient, we just open their throats and shove ’em off the road.”

“Are there really that many bandits?” said Sabetha. She sat atop the wagon with her feet propped on the snoring form of Galdo, who’d kept the predawn watch. “Beg pardon. It’s just that there doesn’t seem to be anyone actually lurking about.” She sounded bored.

“Well, there’s good and bad times,” said the caravan master. “Summer like this we might see one once a month. Our friend here, we strung him up about that long ago. Been quiet since.

“But when a harvest goes bad, gods help us, they’re in the woods thick as bird shit. And after a war, it’s mercenaries and deserters raising hell. I double the guard. And I double my fees, heh.”

Locke wasn’t sure he agreed that there was nothing lurking. The countryside had the haunted quality he remembered from the months he’d once spent learning the rudiments of farm life. All those nights he’d lain awake listening to the alien sound of rustling leaves, yearning for the familiar clamor of carriage wheels, footsteps on stone, boats on water.

The old imperial road had been built well, but it was starting to crumble now in these remote places between the major powers. The empty garrison forts, silent as mausoleums, were vanishing behind misty groves of cypress and witchwood, and the little towns that had grown around them were reduced to moss-covered ruins and lines in the dirt.

Locke walked along beside the wagon on the side opposite Vireska, trying to keep his eyes on their surroundings and away from Sabetha. She’d discarded her rather matronly hood, and her hair fluttered in the warm breeze.

She hadn’t kept their “appointment” the second evening. In fact, she’d barely spoken to him at all, remaining absorbed in the plays she’d packed and deflecting all attempts at conversation as adroitly as she’d parried his baton strokes.

The caravan, six wagons total, trundled along in the rising morning heat. At noon they passed through a thicket like a dark tunnel. A temporarily empty noose swung from one of the high dark branches, a forlorn pendulum.

“You know, it was novel at first,” said Calo, “but I’m starting to think the place could use a more cheerful sort of distance marker.”

“Bandits would tear down proper signposts,” said Vireska, “but they’re all afraid to touch the nooses. They say that when you don’t hang someone over running water, the rope holds the unquiet soul. Awful bad luck to touch it unless you’re giving it a new victim.”

“Hmm,” said Calo. “If I was stuck out here jumping wagon trains in the middle of shit-sucking nowhere, I’d assume my luck was already as bad as it gets.”

2

THEY HALTED for the night in the village of Tresanconne, a hamlet of about two hundred souls built on three marsh-moated hills, protected by stockades of sharpened logs. It was the only kind of settlement that could flourish out here, according to Vireska—too big for bandits to overrun, but too remote to make it worthwhile for parties of soldiers from Camorr to pay it a visit for “road upkeep taxes.”