Scott Lynch - Red Seas Under Red Skies

"Strozzi came in just yesterday. Said he swooped down on a brig with bad legs and was about to pluck her when he found one of your prize crews waving at him. This was about sixty miles north of Trader's Gate, just off the Burning Reach. Hell, they might be crawling through Trader's Gate as we speak." "More power to them, then. We came in through the Parlour."

"Not good," said Rodanov, looking less than pleased for the first time since he'd come up. "Heard some strange things about the Parlour lately. His Eminence the Fat Bastard—" "Shopbreaker," Konar whispered to Locke

"— sent a lugger east last month and says it got lost in a storm. But I hear from reliable lips that it never made it out of the Parlour."

"I thought speed would be the greater virtue coming in," said Drakasha, "but next time back, I'll use the Gate if it takes a week. You can pass that around."

"It'll be my advice, too. Speaking of which, I hear you want to call the council tomorrow."

"There's five of us in town. I" ve got… curious business from Tal Verrar. And I want a closed meeting."

"One captain, one first," said Rodanov. "Right. I'll pass the word to Strozzi and Colvard tomorrow. I take it Ranee already knows?" "Yes." "She might not be able to speak."

"She won't need to," said Drakasha. "I'm the one with the story to tell."

"So be it," said Rodanov. " "Let us speak behind our hands, lest our lips be read as the book of our designs, and let us find some place where only gods and rats may hear our words aloud." " Locke stared at Rodanov; that was Lucarno, from— "The Assassins Wedding," said Delmastro.

"Yeah, easy," said Rodanov with a grin. "Nothing more difficult sprang to mind."

"What a curiously theatrical bent you Brass Sea reavers seem to have," said Jean. "I know Ezri has a taste—"

"I only quote Lucarno for her," said Rodanov. "I myself hate the bastard. Mawkish sentiment, obvious self-satisfaction and so many little puns about fucking so all the Therin Throne's best-dressed twits could feel naughty in public. Meanwhile the Bondsmagi and my ancestors rolled dice to see who got to burn the Empire down first." "Jerome and I are both very fond of Lucarno," said Delmastro.

"And that is because you don't know any better," said Rodanov. "Because the plays of the early Throne poets are kept in vaults by pinheads while Lucarno's merest specks of vomit are exalted by anyone with coins to waste on scribes and bindery. His plays aren't preserved, they're perpetrated. Mercallor Mentezzo—"

"Mentezzo's all right," said Jean. "His verse is fair, but he uses the chorus like a crutch and always throws the gods in at the end to solve everyone's problems—"

"Mentezzo and his contemporaries built Therin Throne drama from the Espadri model," said Rodanov, "invigorating dull temple rituals with relevant political themes. The limitations of their structure should be forgiven; by comparison, Lucarno had their entire body of work to build upon, and all he added to the mix was tawdry melodrama—"

"Whatever he added, it's enough that four hundred years after the scourging of Therim Pel, Lucarno is the only playwright with Talathri's formal patronage whose work is still preserved in its entirety and regularly prepared in new editions—"

"An appeal to the tastes of the groundlings is not equivalent to a valid philosophical analysis of the works in question! Lucestra of Nicora wrote in her letters to—"

"Begging everyone's pardon," said Big Konar, "but it ain't polite to have an argument if nobody else knows what the fuck you're arguing about."

"I have to admit that Konar is right," said Drakasha. "I can't tell if you two are about to pull steel or found a mystery cult."

"Who the hell are you?" asked Rodanov, his eyes fixed on Jean. "I haven't had anyone to discuss this with for years." "I had an unusual childhood," said Jean. "Yourself?"

"The, ah, prevailing vanity of my youth was that the Therin Collegium needed a master of letters and rhetoric named Rodanov." "What happened?"

"Well, there was a certain professor of rhetoric, see, who'd come up with a foolproof way to run a betting shop out of the Hall of Studious Reflection. Gladiator pits, Collegium boat races, that sort of thing. He used his students as message runners, and since money can be used to buy beer, that made him our personal hero. Of course, when he had to flee the city it was whips and chains for the rest of us, so I signed on for shit-work aboard a merchant galleon—" "When was this?" interrupted Locke.

"Hell, this was back when the gods were young. Must be twenty-five years."

"This professor of rhetoric… was his name Barsavi? Vencarlo Bar-savi?" "How the hell could you possibly know that?"

"Might have… crossed paths with him a few times." Locke grinned. "Travelling in the east. Vicinity of Camorr."

"I heard rumours," said Rodanov. "Heard the name once or twice, but never made it to Camorr myself. Barsavi, really? Is he still there?" "No," said Jean. "No, he died a couple of years ago, is what I heard."

"Too bad." Rodanov sighed. "Too damn bad. Well… I can tell I" ve detained you all for too long nattering about people who" ve been dead for centuries. Don't take me too seriously, Valora. A pleasure to meet you. You as well, Ravelle."

"Good to see you, Jaffrim," said Zamira, rising from her chair along with him. "Until tomorrow, then?" "I'll expect a good show," he said. "Evening, all."

"One of your fellow captains," said Jean as Rodanov descended the stairs. "Very interesting. So why didn't he want our table, then?"

"Dread Sovereign's the biggest ship any Port Prodigal captain has ever had," said Zamira, slowly. "And she's got the biggest crew by far. Jaffrim doesn't need to play the games the rest of us do. And he knows it."

There was no conversation at the table for several minutes, until Rask suddenly cleared his throat and spoke in a low, gravelly voice.

"I saw a play once," he said. "It had this dog that bit a guy in the balls—"

"Yeah," said Malakasti. "I saw that, too. "Cause the dog loves sausage, and the man is always feeding him sausage, and then he takes his breeches off—" "Right," said Drakasha, "the very next person who mentions a play of any sort is going to swim back to the Orchid. Let's go and see how badly our friend Banjital Vo wanted his silver."

Regal awoke Locke the next day just in time for the noon watch change. Locke plucked the kitten off the top of his head, stared into his little green eyes and said, "This may come as quite a shock to you, but there is just no way in all the hells that I'm getting attached to you, you sleep-puncturing menace."

Locke yawned, stretched and walked out into a soft, warm rain falling from a sky webbed by cataracts of cloud. "Ahhh," he said, stripping to his breeches and letting the rain wash some of the smell of the Tattered Crimson from his skin. It was strange, he reflected, how the myriad stinks of the Poison Orchid had become familiar, and the smell of the sort of places he'd spent years in had become intrusive.

Drakasha had shifted the Orchid to a position just off one of the long stone piers in the Hospital anchorage, and Locke saw that a dozen small boats had come up along the larboard side. While five or six armed Blue Watch held the entry port, Utgar and Zamira were negotiating vigorously with a man standing atop a launch filled with pineapples.

The early afternoon was consumed by the coming and going of boats; assorted Prodigals appeared offering to sell everything from fresh food to alchemical drugs, while representatives from the independent traders came to enquire about the goods in the hold and view samples under Drakasha's watchful eye. The Orchid temporarily became a floating market square.