Page 14 of The Ragpicker King
Kel stood motionless for a moment, where he could still smell the lingering scent of her perfume. Where he could imagine her still there with him, a handsbreadth away.
But he had a duty to his friends. A duty to his Prince and city. He could not mope about in a brothel like a lovesick student preparing to write reams of poetry about his delicate feelings.
Kel stomped his way up the Caravel’s stairs in a very poor mood. He wished he had not thought the wordlovesick.He prided himself on never having been in love, and his situation with Antonetta could not change that.You have no rights here,she had said, and she was utterly correct. He had no rights where she was concerned, and no chance to be anything other than a friend—one her husband was unlikely to be enthusiastic about.
He could not love her; therefore, he did not love her. So he told himself as he arrived at the library door. He could hear raised voices from within. One sounded very much like Montfaucon’s. Under other circumstances, Kel would have made himself scarce, but therewas no chance of that now. What he needed to know was more important than manners.
Kel opened the door quietly. The lamps were not lit; the city light that poured through the windows was the only real illumination. It turned Montfaucon and the man he was arguing with into silhouettes, like clever paper cutouts.
“Raimon,” Montfaucon was saying, “you’re being unreasonable—”
Raimon snorted. He was a head taller than Montfaucon, solidly built, with white flecks in his dark, close-cut hair. The moonlight picked out the lines in his face—a harsh spiderwebbing. Kel was surprised; he looked quite a bit older than Montfaucon. “Am I some kind of joke to you, then?” he was demanding. He had the accent of lower Castellane: the docks and the Maze. “I’m not bloody going on some stage and hitting people for the benefit of those posh fuckers you call your friends.”
“It’s nothing to do with thinking of you as a joke.” Montfaucon’s voice was a soothing purr. “I want them to see how skilled you are. To see the great Gray Serpent in all his glory.”
“I am not that man anymore.”
“You are still a fighter,” said Montfaucon. “One I wish them to admire.”
“You wish them to admireyou,” said Raimon. Kel, in the doorway, ducked his head to hide a smile—not that either of the men had noticed him yet. Raimon certainly seemed to know Montfaucon well. Kel wondered how long they’d known each other. Which made him think of the Shining Gallery slaughter. His smile vanished.
“I’m leaving,” Raimon growled. “I never wanted a part of this in the first place, Lupin. You told me yourself, city business and Hill business should stay separate.”
He turned on his heel, brushing past Kel in the doorway, as if his presence there was of supreme unimportance. As he shoved his way into the corridor, Kel caught sight of a dark tattoo on his neck, above the collar of his shirt—the inky S shape of a hook.
Not a tattoo then, but a brand. The Tully brand that denoted a convicted criminal.
Montfaucon turned on Kel, scowling ferociously. “What’s wrong with you, Anjuman? Why’ve you been standing there like an idiot during what was obviously a private conversation?”
Kel was too distracted to answer. A Tully brand—so Raimon was a convict, then? That was interesting. It was difficult to find employment when you bore a prisoner’s brand. Many such men and women turned to mercenary work to keep food on the table.
With a disgusted noise, Montfaucon shoved past Kel into the corridor and hurried downstairs. Kel waited a few moments before going after him. He doubted Montfaucon would take well to being followed at the moment.
He found the main room of the Caravel in chaos. Raimon was not there, and Montfaucon was on stage arguing with a bulky man, stripped to the waist, carrying what looked like a bear mask under his arm. “I don’t care if he’s run off,” the man was saying, “or if there’s no one for me to box. I expect to be paid—”
“I’ll box you,” called someone—Ciprian?—drunkenly from the crowd. Everyone was milling; Kel looked briefly but did not see Antonetta. Good. She was the only one likely to notice if Kel left. “Let me on stage!”
“I won’t fight amateurs,” said the man with the bear mask, clearly outraged. But the crowd had already started shouting—Fight! Fight! Fight!—which was bad luck for the bear man but excellent luck for Kel. He pushed his way through the distracted crowd to Merren, who was in a corner talking to a courtesan named Audeta about the chemical composition of perfume. Audeta looked as if she was considering fleeing. “Merren,” Kel hissed, grabbing his friend by the back of his coat. “We’re leaving.”
“Oh, thank the Gods,” said Audeta. “Kel, why is Montfaucon trying to get someone to fight that bear?”
“You’d have to ask him,” Kel muttered, and he hauled Merren away through the crowd.
Outside, the footman wanted to know if he should fetch Asti, but Kel was already hurrying Merren across the street to where a black carriage with scarlet wheels waited, Ji-An perched atop the driver’s seat. She gestured to Kel just as the carriage door flew open and Jerrod leaned out, saying, “Someone just took off in Montfaucon’s carriage, so move it, you loitering bastard!Come on!”
Hoping the footman would chalk his behavior up to “strange things rich people do” and think no more about it, Kel dashed across the road and leaped in through the open carriage door just as the wheels began to turn. They rattled away into the Castellane night.
Laurent
There have been sea caves along the rocky coast of Castellane for as long as anyone can recall. Historians generally agree that they have been there since the naval battles of the Sundering, and that part of the reason for their enormous size was the subsequent mining of Sunderglass from the rock, which left the coast wall pocked with holes like Detmarch cheese.
Every few years, an enterprising crusader among the Castellane merchants decides that it is time to clear the caves of smugglers and their loot once and for all. These attempts are never very successful: The piracy and privateers have been there as long as the caves themselves, and any official in Castellane who might otherwise be interested in clearing the caves has long since been bribed to look the other way. The legal business of trade is far too entangled with its illegal cousin, smuggling, to ever be extricated from it. Then of course there are the superstitions that hang about the caves like sea mist: that their depths are haunted by the souls of dead sorcerers, who would sicken and kill any who disturb them. It is a convenient tale for the smugglers, who want to be left alone and cheerfully repeat the tales of vengeful ghosts to anyone in the Maze who will listen.
The cave in which Laurent Aden has chosen to berth his ship, theBlack Rose,is one of the largest of its kind. Vast and hollow as the inside of a drum, it is dimly lit by veins of glowing Sunderglass weaving their way through the rock. The towering masts of the galleon are lost in the shadows overhead; the ship bobs quietly in the dark water. If one were of a suspicious mind, one could imagine the ghosts of dead Sorcerer-Kings among the stalactites above. But Laurent Aden is not of a suspicious mind, and he knows perfectly well that the flitting shadows are bats.
Generations ago, a long wooden dock had been built along the curving side wall of the cave to facilitate the loading and unloading of illegal cargo and the comings and goings of crewmen. Aden, unwilling to go far from his ship, has spread a Marakandi rug on a portion of the dock, onto which he’s placed two chairs and a small table. The table holds a bottle of wine, already open, and two fluted glasses.
He’s only just settling himself in one of the chairs when he hears the splashing sounds of the small boat entering the cave and tying up nearby. Boots ring on the dock as the newcomer to the cave paces toward him; when the long shadow of his visitor falls across him, Aden looks up, feigning surprise as he takes in the familiar figure: the polished leather boots, the brass-buttoned admiral’s coat (no doubt thieved from some actual admiral), the piercing, steady eyes.
