The Lies of Locke Lamora (59 page)

“You can have the ten crowns, for what it’s worth. We can eat off the silver for a long time.”

“Well,” said Locke, “that’s something.” He heaved himself back down on the sleeping pallet and sat with his chin resting on both of his hands. His eyebrows and his mouth were turned down, in the same expression of aggrieved concentration Jean remembered from their years as boys. After a few minutes, Locke sighed and looked up at Jean.

“If I’m fit to move, I suppose I’ll take seven or eight crowns and go out on the town tomorrow, then.”

“Out on the town? You have a plan?”

“No,” said Locke. “Not even a speck of one. Not the damnedest idea.” He grinned weakly. “But don’t all of my better schemes start like this? I’ll find an opening, somehow…and then I suppose I’ll be rash.”

The White Iron Conjurers

IT IS SAID in Camorr that the difference between honest and dishonest commerce is that when an honest man or woman of business ruins someone, they don’t have the courtesy to cut their throat to finish the affair.

This is, in some respects, a disservice to the traders, speculators, and money-lenders of Coin-Kisser’s Row, whose exertions over the centuries have helped to draw the Therin city-states (all of them, not merely Camorr) up out of the ashes of the collapse of the Therin Throne and into something resembling energetic prosperity…for certain fortunate segments of the Therin population.

The scale of operations on Coin-Kisser’s Row would set the minds of most small shopkeepers spinning. A merchant might move two stones on a counting-board in Camorr; sealed documents are then dispatched to Lashain, where four galleons crewed by three hundred souls take sail for the far northern port of Emberlain, their holds laden with goods that beggar description. Hundreds of merchant caravans are embarking and arriving across the continent on any given morning, on any given day, all of them underwritten and itemized by well-dressed men and women who weave webs of commerce across thousands of miles while sipping tea in the back rooms of countinghouses.

But there are also bandits, warned to be in places at certain times, to ensure that a caravan flying a certain merchant’s colors will vanish between destinations. There are whispered conversations, recorded in no formal minutes, and money that changes hands with no formal entry in any ledger. There are assassins, and black alchemy, and quiet arrangements made with gangs. There is usury and fraud and insider speculation; there are hundreds of financial practices so clever and so arcane that they do not yet have common names—manipulations of coin and paper that would have Bondsmagi bowing at the waist in recognition of their devious subtlety.

Trade is all of these things, and in Camorr, when one speaks of business practices fair or foul, when one speaks of commerce on the grandest scale, one name leaps to mind above and before all others—
the Meraggio
.

Giancana Meraggio is the seventh in his line; his family has owned and operated its countinghouse for nearly two and a half centuries. But in a sense the first name isn’t important; it is always simply
the
Meraggio at Meraggio’s. “The Meraggio” has become an office.

The Meraggio family made its original fortune from the sudden death of the popular Duke Stravoli of Camorr, who died of an ague while on a state visit to Tal Verrar. Nicola Meraggio, trader-captain of a relatively fast brig, outraced all other news of the duke’s death back to Camorr, where she expended every last half-copper at her command to purchase and control the city’s full stock of black mourning crepe. When this was resold at extortionate prices so the state funeral could take place in proper dignity, she sank some of the profits into a small coffeehouse on the canal-side avenue that would eventually be called (thanks largely to her family) Coin-Kisser’s Row.

As though it were an outward manifestation of the family’s ambitions, the building has never remained one size for very long. It expands suddenly at irregular intervals, consuming nearby structures, adding lodges and stories and galleries, spreading its walls like a baby bird slowly pushing its unhatched rivals from the nest.

The early Meraggios made their names as active traders and speculators; they were men and women who loudly proclaimed their ability to squeeze more profit from investors’ funds than any of their rivals could. The third Meraggio of note, Ostavo Meraggio, famously sent out a gaily decorated boat each morning to throw fifty gold tyrins into the deepest part of Camorr Bay; he did this every day without fail for a complete year. “I can do this and
still
have more fresh profit at the end of any given day than any one of my peers,” he boasted.

The later Meraggios shifted the family’s emphasis from investing coin to hoarding, counting, guarding, and loaning it. They were among the first to recognize the stable fortunes that could be had by becoming facilitators of commerce rather than direct participants. And so
the
Meraggio now sits at the heart of a centuries-old financial network that has effectively become the blood and sinews of the Therin city-states; his signature on a piece of parchment can carry as much weight as an army in the field or a squadron of warships on the seas.

Not without reason is it sometimes said that in Camorr there are two dukes—Nicovante, the Duke of Glass, and Meraggio, the Duke of White Iron.

Orchids and Assassins

LOCKE LAMORA STOOD before the steps of Meraggio’s Countinghouse the next day, just as the huge Verrari water-clock inside the building’s foyer chimed out the tenth hour of the morning. A sun shower was falling; gentle hot rain blown in beneath a sky that was mostly blue-white and clear. Traffic on the Via Camorrazza was at a high ebb, with cargo barges and passenger boats dueling for water space with the sort of enthusiasm usually reserved for battlefield maneuvers.

One of Jean’s crowns had been broken up to furnish Locke (who still wore his gray hair and a false beard, trimmed down now to a modest goatee) with acceptably clean clothing in the fashion of a courier or scribe. While he certainly didn’t look like a man of funds, he was the very picture of a respectable employee.

Meraggio’s Countinghouse was a four-story hybrid of two hundred years’ worth of architectural fads; it had columns, arched windows, facades of stone and lacquered wood alike, and external sitting galleries both decorative and functional. All these galleries were covered with silk awnings in the colors of Camorr’s coins—brownish copper, yellowish gold, silver-gray, and milky white. There were a hundred Lukas Fehrwights in sight even outside the place; a hundred men of business in lavishly tailored coats. Any one of their ensembles was worth five years of pay to a common artisan or laborer.

And if Locke set an unkind finger on so much as a coat sleeve, Meraggio’s house guards would boil out the doors like bees from a shaken hive. It would be a race between them and the several squads of city watchmen pacing this side of the canal—the winner would get the honor of knocking his brains out through his ears with their truncheons.

Seven white iron crowns, twenty silver solons, and a few coppers jingled in Locke’s coin purse. He was completely unarmed. He had only the vaguest idea of what he would do or say if his very tentative plan went awry.

“Crooked Warden,” he whispered, “I’m going into this countinghouse, and I’m going to come out with what I need. I’d like your aid. And if I don’t get it, well, to hell with you. I’ll come out with what I need anyway.”

Head high, chin out, he began to mount the steps.

“PRIVATE MESSAGE for Koreander Previn,” he told the guards on duty just inside the foyer as he ran a hand through his hair to sweep some of the water out of it. There were three of them, dressed in maroon velvet coats, black breeches, and black silk shirts; their gold-gilded buttons gleamed, but the grips on the long fighting knives and clubs sheathed at their belts were worn from practice.

“Previn, Previn…,” muttered one of the guards as he consulted a leather-bound directory. “Hmmm. Public gallery, fifty-five. I don’t see anything about him not receiving walk-ins. You know where you’re going?”

“Been here before,” said Locke.

“Right.” The guard set down the directory and picked up a slate, which served as a writing board for the parchment atop it; the guard then plucked a quill from an inkwell on a little table. “Name and district?”

“Tavrin Callas,” said Locke. “North Corner.”

“You write?”

“No, sir.”

“Just make your mark there, then.”

The guard held out the slate while Locke scratched a big black X next to TEVRIN KALLUS. The guard’s handwriting was better than his spelling.

“In with you, then,” said the guard.

The main floor of Meraggio’s Countinghouse—the public gallery—was a field of desks and counters, eight across and eight deep. Each heavy desk had a merchant, a money-changer, a lawscribe, a clerk, or some other functionary seated behind it; the vast majority also had clients sitting before them, talking earnestly or waiting patiently or arguing heatedly. The men and women behind those desks rented them from Meraggio’s; some took them every working day of the week, while others could only afford to alternate days with partners. Sunlight poured down on the room through long clear skylights; the gentle patter of rain could be heard mingled with the furious babble of business.

On either side, four levels of brass-railed galleries rose up to the ceiling. Within the pleasantly darkened confines of these galleries, the more powerful, wealthy, and established business-folk lounged. They were referred to as members of Meraggio’s, though
the
Meraggio shared no actual power with them, but merely granted them a long list of privileges that set them above (both literally and figuratively) the men and women at work on the public floor.

There were guards in every corner of the building, relaxed but vigilant. Dashing about here and there were waiters in black jackets, black breeches, and long maroon waist-aprons. There was a large kitchen at the rear of Meraggio’s, and a wine cellar that would have done any tavern proud. The affairs of the men and women at the countinghouse were often too pressing to waste time going out or sending out for food. Some of the private members lived at the place, for all intents and purposes, returning to their homes only to sleep and change clothes, and then only because Meraggio’s closed its doors shortly after Falselight.

Moving with calm self-assurance, Locke found his way to the public gallery desk marked “55.” Koreander Previn was a lawscribe who’d helped the Sanzas set up the perfectly legitimate accounts of Evante Eccari several years previously. Locke remembered him as having been a near match for his own size; he prayed to himself that the man hadn’t developed a taste for rich food in the time since.

“Yes,” said Previn, who thankfully remained as trim as ever, “how can I help you?”

Locke considered the man’s loosely tailored, open-front coat; it was pine green with yellow-gold trimmings on the flaring purple cuffs. The man had a good eye for fashionable cuts and was apparently as blind as a brass statue when it came to colors.

“Master Previn,” said Locke, “my name is Tavrin Callas, and I find myself possessed of a very singular problem, one that you may well be able to lay to rest—though I must warn you it is somewhat outside the purview of your ordinary duties.”

“I’m a lawscribe,” said Previn, “and my time is usually measured, when I am sitting with a client. Do you propose to become one?”

“What I propose,” said Locke, “would put no fewer than five full crowns in your pocket, perhaps as early as this afternoon.” He passed a hand over the edge of Previn’s desk and caused a white iron crown to appear there by legerdemain; his technique might have been a little bit shaky, but Previn was apparently unacquainted with the skill, for his eyebrows rose.

“I see. You
do
have my attention, Master Callas,” said Previn.

“Good, good. I hope that I shall shortly have your earnest cooperation, as well. Master Previn, I am a representative of a trade combine that I would, in all honor, prefer not to name. Although I am Camorri-born, I live and work out of Talisham. I am scheduled tonight to dine with several very important contacts, one of them a don, to discuss the business matter I have been sent to Camorr to see through. I, ah…this is most embarrassing, but I fear I have been the victim of a rather substantial theft.”

“A theft, Master Callas? What do you mean?”

“My wardrobe,” said Locke. “All of my clothing, and all of my belongings, were stolen while I slept. The tavern-master, why, confound the bastard, he claims that he can bear no responsibility for the crime, and he insists I must have left my door unlocked!”

“I can recommend a solicitor that would suit, for such a case.” Previn opened a desk drawer and began hunting through the parchments that lay within. “You could bring the tavern-master before the Common Claims court at the Palace of Patience; it might take as little as five or six days, if you can get an officer of the watch to corroborate your story. And I can draw up all the documents necessary to—”

“Master Previn, forgive me. That is a wise course of action; in most other circumstances I would gladly pursue it, and ask you to draw out whatever forms were required. But I don’t have five or six days; I fear I have only hours. The dinner, sir, is this evening, as I said.”

“Hmmm,” said Previn. “Could you not reschedule the dinner? Surely your associates would understand, with you facing such an extremity.”

“Oh, if only I could. But Master Previn, how am I to appear before them, asking them to entrust tens of thousands of crowns to the ventures of my combine, when I cannot even be entrusted to vouchsafe my own wardrobe? I am…I am most embarrassed. I fear I shall lose this affair, let it slip entirely through my fingers. The don in question, he is…he is something of an eccentric. I fear he would not tolerate an irregularity such as my situation presents; I fear, if put off once, he would not desire to meet again.”