The Lies of Locke Lamora - By Lynch, Scott Page 0,56
down his book and his glass and opened a small wooden chest set against one of the Wardrobe walls.
“What’re you reading?” Calo had added a tiny silver and amethyst clip to the center of his tie and was examining himself in the small glass, approvingly.
“Kimlarthen,” Jean replied, working black thread through a white bone needle and trying not to prick his fingers.
“The Korish romances?” Locke snorted. “Sentimental crap. Never knew you had a taste for fairy stories.”
“They happen to be culturally significant records of the Therin Throne centuries,” Jean said as he stepped behind Locke, seam ripper in one hand and threaded needle in the other. “Plus at least three knights get their heads torn completely off by the Beast of Vuazzo.”
“Illustrated manuscript, by chance?”
“Not the good parts, no.” Jean fiddled with the back of the doublet as delicately as he had ever charmed a lock or a victim’s coat pocket.
“Oh, just let it out. I don’t care how it looks; it’ll be hidden in the back of my cloak anyway. We can pretty it up later.”
“We?” Jean snorted as he loosened the doublet with a few strategic rips and slashes. “Me, more like. You mend clothes like dogs write poetry.”
“And I readily admit it. Oh, gods, much better. Now there’s room to hide the sigil-wallet and a few surprises, just in case.”
“It feels odd to be letting something out for you, rather than taking it in.” Jean arranged his tools as he’d found them in the sewing chest and closed it back up. “Do mind your training; we wouldn’t want you gaining half a pound.”
“Well, most of me is brain-weight.” Locke folded his own tunic sleeves back and pinned them up as Calo had.
“You’re one-third bad intentions, one-third pure avarice, and one-eighth sawdust. What’s left, I’ll credit, must be brains.”
“Well, since you’re here, and you’re such an expert on my poor self, why don’t you pull out the Masque Box and help me with my face?”
Jean paused for a sip from his brandy glass before pulling out a tall, battered wooden box inset with many dozens of small drawers. “What do we want to do first, your hair? You’re going black, right?”
“As pitch. I should only have to be this fellow two or three times.”
Jean twirled a white cloth around the shoulders of Locke’s doublet and fastened it in front with a tiny bone clasp. He then opened a poultice jar and smeared his fingers with the contents, a firm dark gel that smelled richly of citrus. “Hmm. Looks like charcoal and smells like oranges. I’ll never fathom Jessaline’s sense of humor.”
Locke smiled as Jean began to knead the stuff into his brown hair. “Even a black apothecary needs to stay amused somehow. Remember that beef-scented knockout candle she gave us, to deal with Don Feluccia’s damn guard dog?”
“Very droll, that.” Calo frowned as he made further minute adjustments to his own finery. “Stray cats running from every corner of Camorr at the scent. Dropping in their tracks until the street was full of little bodies. Wind shifting all over the place, and all of us running around trying to stay ahead of the smoke…”
“Not our finest moment,” said Jean. His job was already nearly finished; the stuff seemed to sink into Locke’s hair, imparting a natural-looking shade of deep Camorri black, with only the slightest sheen. But many men in Camorr used slick substances to hold or perfume their hair; this would hardly be noteworthy.
Jean wiped his fingers on Locke’s white neck-towel, then dipped a scrap of cloth into another poultice jar containing a pearly gel. This stuff, when applied to his fingers, cleared the residue of hair dye away as though the black gel were evaporating into thin air. Jean dabbed the cloth at Locke’s temples and neck, erasing the faint smudges and drips left over from the coloring process.
“Scar?” Jean asked when he was finished.
“Please.” Locke ran his little finger across the line of his right cheekbone. “Slash right across there if you would.”
Jean withdrew a slender wooden tube with a chalky white tip from the Masque Box and drew a short line on Locke’s face with it, just as Locke had indicated. Locke flinched as the stuff sizzled for a second or two; in the blink of an eye the white line hardened into a raised, pale arc of pseudo-skin, perfectly mimicking a scar.
Bug appeared through the Wardrobe door at that instant, his cheeks a bit ruddier than usual. In one hand he held a