The man ran his tongue desperately up and down the wall, gagging every few seconds, which would bring another crack of the Demon's whip. The man was a bleeding, retching nervous wreck by the time he was finally hauled from the arena floor. So it went, all morning long.

"Gods, why do they bear it? Why do they take this?" Locke stood in the free gallery, alone, staring out at the wealthy and powerful, at their guards and servants, and at the thinning ranks of the living pieces in the game beneath them. He brooded, sweating in his heavy black garments.

Here were the richest and freest people in the Therin world, those with positions and money but no political duties to constrict them, gathered together to do what law and custom forbade beyond Saljesca's private fiefdom — to humiliate and brutalize their lessers however they saw fit, for their own gleeful amusement. The arena and the Amusement War itself were obviously just frames. Means to an end.

There was no order to it, no justice. Gladiators and prisoners fighting before a crowd were there for a reason, risking their fives for glory or paying the price for having been caught. Men and women hung from a gibbets because the Crooked Warden had only so much help to give to the foolish, the slow and the unlucky. But this was wanton. Locke felt his anger growing like a chancre in his guts.

They had no idea who he was or what he was really capable of. No idea what the Thorn ofCamorr could do to them, unleashed on Salon Corbeau, with Jean to aid him! Given months to plan and observe, the Gentlemen Bastards could take the place apart, find ways to cheat the Amusement War, surely — rob the participants, rob the Lady Saljesca, embarrass and humiliate the bastards, blacken the demi-city's reputation so thoroughly that nobody would ever want to visit again. But…

"Crooked Warden," Locke whispered, "why now? Why show me this now}"

Jean was waiting for him back in Tal Verrar, and they were already neck-deep in a game that had taken a year to put together. Jean didn't know anything about what really went on at Salon Corbeau. He would be expecting Locke to return in short order with a set of chairs, so the two of them could carry on with the plan thed'r agreed to, a plan that was already desperately delicate. "Gods damn it," said Locke. "Gods damn it all to hell."

Camorr, years before. The wet, seeping mists enclosed Locke and Father Chains in curtains of midnight grey as the old man led the boy back home from his first meeting with Capa Vencarlo Barsavi. Locke, drunk and sweat-soaked, clung to the back of his Gentled goat for dear life.

"… You don't belong to Barsavi," Chains said. "He's good enough for what he is, a good ally to have on your side and a man that you must appear to obey at all times. But he certainly doesn't own you. In the end, neither do I." "So I don't have to—"

"Obey the Secret Peace? Be a good little pezon? Only for pretend, Locke. Only to keep the wolves from the door. Unless your eyes and ears have been stitched shut with rawhide these past two days, by now you must have realized that I intend you and Calo and Galdo and Sabetha to be nothing less," Chains confided through a feral grin, "than a fucking ballista bolt right through the heart of Vencarlo's precious Secret Peace." "Uh…" Locke collected his thoughts for several moments. "Why?"

"Heh. It's… complicated. It has to do with what I am, and what I hope you'll someday be. A priest in the sworn service of the Crooked Warden." "Is the capa doing something wrong?"

"Well," said Chains, "well, lad, now there's a question. Is he doing right by the Right People? Gods, yes — the Secret Peace tames the city watch, calms everyone down, gets less of us hanged. Still, every priesthood has what we call mandates — laws handed down by the gods themselves to those who serve them. In most temples, these are complex, messy, annoying things. In the priesthood of the Benefactor, things are easy. We only have two. The first one is, thieves prosper. Simple as that. We're ordered to aid one another, hide one another, make peace whenever possible and see to it that our kind flourishes, by hook or by crook. Barsavi's got that mandate covered, never doubt that.

"But the second mandate," said Chains, lowering his voice and glancing around into the fog to make doubly sure that they were not overheard, "is this — the rich remember? "Remember what?"

"That they're not invincible. That locks can be picked and treasures can be stolen. Nara, Mistress of Ubiquitous Maladies, may Her hand be stayed, sends disease among men so that men will never forget that they are not gods. We're sort of like that, for the rich and powerful. We're the stone in their shoe, the thorn in their flesh, a little bit of reciprocity this side of divine judgement. That's our second mandate, and it's as important as the first."

"And… the Secret Peace protects the nobles, and so you don't like it?"

"It's not that I don't like it." Chains mulled his next few words over before he let them out. "Barsavi" s not a priest of the Thirteenth. He's not sworn to the mandates like I am; he's got to be practical. And while I can accept that, I can't just let it go. It's my divine duty to see that the bluebloods with their pretty titles get a little bit of what fife hands the rest of us as a matter of routine — a nice, sharp jab in the arse every now and again." "And Barsavi… doesn't need to know about this?"

"Bleeding shits, no. As I see it, if Barsavi takes care of thieves prosper and I look after the rich remember, this"11 be one holy, holy city in the eyes of the Crooked Warden."

"Why do they bear it? I know they get paid, but the defaults! Gods… er, Holy Marrows, why do they come here and put up with it? Humiliated, beaten, stoned, befouled… to what end?"

Locke paced agitatedly around the Baumondain family's workshop, clenching and unclenching his fists. It was the afternoon of his fourth day in Salon Corbeau. "As you said, they get paid, Master Fehrwight." Lauris Baumondain rested one hand gently on the back of the half-finished chair Locke had come in to see. With the other she stroked poor motionless Lively, tucked away inside a pocket of her apron. "If you're selected for a game, you get a copper centira. If you're given a default, you get a silver volani. There's also a random drawing: one person per War, one in eighty, gets a gold solari." "They must be desperate," said Locke.

"Farms fail. Businesses fail. Tenant lands get repossessed. Plagues knock all the money and health out of cities. When they" ve got nowhere else to go, they come here. There's a roof to sleep under, meals, hope of gold or silver. All you have to do is go out there often enough and… amuse them." "It's perverse. It's infamous."

"You have a soft heart, for what you're spending on just four chairs, Master Fehrwight." Lauris looked down and wrung her hands together. "Forgive me. I spoke well out of turn."

"Speak as you will. I'm not a rich man, Lauris. I'm just my master's servant. But even he… we're frugal people, damn it. Frugal and fair. Some might call us eccentric, but we're not cruel."

"I" ve seen nobles from the Marrows at the Amusement War many times, Master Fehrwight."

"We're not nobles. We're merchants… merchants of Emberlain. I can't speak for our nobles, and often don't want to. Look, I" ve seen many cities. I know how people live. I" ve seen gladiatorial fights, executions, misery and poverty and desperation. But I" ve never seen anything like that — the faces of those spectators. The way they watched and cheered. Like jackals, like crows, like something… something so very wrong."

"There are no laws here but Lady Saljesca's laws," said Lauris. "Here they can behave however they choose. At the Amusement War they can do exactly what they want to do to the poor folk and the simple folk. Things forbidden elsewhere. All you're seeing is what they look like when they stop pretending they give a damn about anything. Where do you think Lively came from? My sister saw a noblewoman having kittens Gentled so her sons could torture them with knives. Because they were bored at tea. So welcome to Salon Corbeau, Master Fehrwight. I'm sorry it's not the paradise it looks like from a distance. Does our work on the chairs meet with your approval?" "Yes," said Locke slowly. "Yes, I suppose it does."