lesser nobles rob nearly everyone, and Duke Nicovante occasionally runs off with his army and robs the shit out of Tal Verrar or Jerem, not to mention what he does to his own nobles and his common folk.”
“So that makes us robbers of robbers,” said Bug, “who pretend to be robbers working for a robber of other robbers.”
“Yes, we do sort of screw the pretty picture up, don’t we?” Locke thought for a few seconds, clicking his tongue against the insides of his cheeks. “Think of what we do as, ah, a sort of secret tax on nobles with more money than prudence. Hey! Here we are.”
Beneath the Tumblehome Inn was a wide and well-kept quay with half a dozen mooring posts, none of them currently occupied. The smooth gray embankment was about ten feet high here; broad stone steps led up to street level, as did a cobbled ramp for cargo and horses. Calo Sanza was waiting for them at the edge of the quay, dressed only slightly better than his fellows, with a Gentled horse standing placidly behind him. Locke waved.
“What’s the news?” Locke cried. Jean’s poling was skilled and graceful; the quay was twenty yards away, then ten, and then they were sliding up alongside it with a gentle scraping noise.
“Galdo got all the stuff packed into the room—it’s the Bowsprit Suite on the first floor,” Calo whispered in response, bending down to Locke and Bug as he picked up the barge’s mooring rope.
Calo had dark liquor-colored skin and hair like an inky slice of night; the tautness of the flesh around his dark eyes was broken only by a fine network of laugh-lines (though anyone who knew the Sanza twins would more readily describe them as smirk-lines). An improbably sharp and hooked nose preceded his good looks like a dagger held at guard position.
Once he had made the barge fast to a mooring post, Calo tossed to Locke a heavy iron key attached to a long tassel of braided red and black silk. At a quality rooming house like the Tumblehome, each private suite’s door was guarded by a clockwork lockbox (removable only by some cunning means known to the owners) that could be swapped out from a niche in the door. Each rented room received a random new box and its attendant key. With hundreds of such identical-looking boxes stored behind the polished counter in the reception hall, the inn could pretty much guarantee that copying keys for later break-ins was a practical waste of a thief’s time.
This courtesy would also give Locke and Jean guaranteed privacy for the rapid transformation that was about to take place.
“Wonderful!” Locke leaped up onto the quay as spryly as he had entered the boat; Jean passed the steering pole back to Bug, then made the barge shudder with his own leap. “Let’s go on in and fetch out our guests from Emberlain.”
As Locke and Jean padded up the steps toward the Tumblehome, Calo motioned for Bug to give him a hand with the horse. The white-eyed creaturewas utterly without fear or personal initiative, but that same lack of self-preservation instincts might lead it to damage the barge very easily. After a few minutes of careful pushing and pulling, they had it positioned in the center of the barge, as calm as a statue that just happened to have lungs.
“Lovely creature,” said Calo. “I’ve named him Impediment. You could use him as a table. Or a flying buttress.”
“Gentled animals give me the bloody creeps.”
“Whereas,” said Calo, “they give me the fucking creeps. But tenderfoots and softies prefer Gentled packhorses, and that’s our master merchant of Emberlain in a nutshell.”
Several more minutes passed, and Calo and Bug stood in amiable silence under the punishing sun, looking the part of an unremarkable barge crew waiting to receive a passenger of consequence from the bosom of the Tumblehome Inn. Soon enough, that passenger descended the stairs and coughed twice to get their attention.
It was Locke, of course, but changed. His hair was slicked back with
“So that makes us robbers of robbers,” said Bug, “who pretend to be robbers working for a robber of other robbers.”
“Yes, we do sort of screw the pretty picture up, don’t we?” Locke thought for a few seconds, clicking his tongue against the insides of his cheeks. “Think of what we do as, ah, a sort of secret tax on nobles with more money than prudence. Hey! Here we are.”
Beneath the Tumblehome Inn was a wide and well-kept quay with half a dozen mooring posts, none of them currently occupied. The smooth gray embankment was about ten feet high here; broad stone steps led up to street level, as did a cobbled ramp for cargo and horses. Calo Sanza was waiting for them at the edge of the quay, dressed only slightly better than his fellows, with a Gentled horse standing placidly behind him. Locke waved.
“What’s the news?” Locke cried. Jean’s poling was skilled and graceful; the quay was twenty yards away, then ten, and then they were sliding up alongside it with a gentle scraping noise.
“Galdo got all the stuff packed into the room—it’s the Bowsprit Suite on the first floor,” Calo whispered in response, bending down to Locke and Bug as he picked up the barge’s mooring rope.
Calo had dark liquor-colored skin and hair like an inky slice of night; the tautness of the flesh around his dark eyes was broken only by a fine network of laugh-lines (though anyone who knew the Sanza twins would more readily describe them as smirk-lines). An improbably sharp and hooked nose preceded his good looks like a dagger held at guard position.
Once he had made the barge fast to a mooring post, Calo tossed to Locke a heavy iron key attached to a long tassel of braided red and black silk. At a quality rooming house like the Tumblehome, each private suite’s door was guarded by a clockwork lockbox (removable only by some cunning means known to the owners) that could be swapped out from a niche in the door. Each rented room received a random new box and its attendant key. With hundreds of such identical-looking boxes stored behind the polished counter in the reception hall, the inn could pretty much guarantee that copying keys for later break-ins was a practical waste of a thief’s time.
This courtesy would also give Locke and Jean guaranteed privacy for the rapid transformation that was about to take place.
“Wonderful!” Locke leaped up onto the quay as spryly as he had entered the boat; Jean passed the steering pole back to Bug, then made the barge shudder with his own leap. “Let’s go on in and fetch out our guests from Emberlain.”
As Locke and Jean padded up the steps toward the Tumblehome, Calo motioned for Bug to give him a hand with the horse. The white-eyed creaturewas utterly without fear or personal initiative, but that same lack of self-preservation instincts might lead it to damage the barge very easily. After a few minutes of careful pushing and pulling, they had it positioned in the center of the barge, as calm as a statue that just happened to have lungs.
“Lovely creature,” said Calo. “I’ve named him Impediment. You could use him as a table. Or a flying buttress.”
“Gentled animals give me the bloody creeps.”
“Whereas,” said Calo, “they give me the fucking creeps. But tenderfoots and softies prefer Gentled packhorses, and that’s our master merchant of Emberlain in a nutshell.”
Several more minutes passed, and Calo and Bug stood in amiable silence under the punishing sun, looking the part of an unremarkable barge crew waiting to receive a passenger of consequence from the bosom of the Tumblehome Inn. Soon enough, that passenger descended the stairs and coughed twice to get their attention.
It was Locke, of course, but changed. His hair was slicked back with
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