Sanzas had a firm grasp of conversational Vadran, Chains began having them instructed in the art of accents. A few hours each week were spent in the company of an old Vadran sail-mender who would chide them for their “fumble-mouthed mangling” of the northern tongue while he drove his long, wicked needles through yard upon yard of folded canvas. They would chat about any subject on the old man’s mind, and he would fastidiously correct every consonant that was too short and every vowel that was too long. He would also get steadily more red-faced and belligerent as each session went on, for Chains paid him in wine for his services.
There were trials—some trivial and some quite harsh. Chains tested his boys constantly, almost ruthlessly, but when he was finished with each new conundrum he always took them to the temple roof to explain what he’d wanted, what the hardships signified. His openness after the fact made his games easier to bear, and they had the added effect of uniting Locke, Calo, and Galdo against the world around them. The more Chains tightened the screws, the closer the boys grew, the more smoothly they worked together, the less they had to say out loud to set a plan in motion.
The coming of Jean Tannen changed all that.
It was the month of Saris in the Seventy-seventh Year of Iono, the end of an unusually dry and cool autumn. Storms had lashed the Iron Sea but spared Camorr, by some trick of the winds or the gods, and the nights were finer than any in Locke’s living memory. He was sitting the steps with Father Chains, flexing his fingers, eagerly awaiting the rise of Falselight, when he spotted the Thiefmaker walking across the square toward the House of Perelandro.
Two years had removed some of the dread Locke had once felt toward his former master, but there was no denying that the skinny old fellow retained a certain grotesque magnetism. The Thiefmaker’s spindly fingers spread as he bowed from the waist, and his eyes lit up when they seized on Locke.
“My dear, bedeviling little boy, what a pleasure it is to see you leading a productive life in the Order of Perelandro.”
“He owes his success to your early discipline, of course.” Chains’ smile spread beneath his blindfold. “It’s what helped to make him the resolute and morally upright youth he is today.”
“Upright?” The Thiefmaker squinted at Locke, feigning concentration. “I’d be hard-pressed to say he’s grown an inch. But no matter. I’ve brought you the boy we discussed, the one from the North Corner. Step forward, Jean. You can’t hide behind me any more than you could hide under a copper coin.”
There was indeed a boy standing behind the Thiefmaker; when the old man shooed him out into plain view, Locke saw that he was about his own age, perhaps ten, and in every other respect his opposite. The new boy was fat, red-faced, shaped like a dirty pear with a greasy mop of black hair atop his head. His eyes were wide and shocked; he clenched and unclenched his soft hands nervously.
“Ahhh,” said Chains, “ahhh. I can’t see him, but then, the qualities the Lord of the Overlooked desires in his servants cannot be seen by any man. Are you penitent, my boy? Are you sincere? Are you as upright as those our charitable celestial master has already taken into his fold?”
He gave Locke a pat on the back, manacles and chains rattling. Locke, for his part, stared at the newcomer and said nothing.
“I hope so, sir,” said Jean, in a voice that was soft and haunted.
“Well,” said the Thiefmaker, “hope is what we all build lives for ourselves upon, is it not? The good Father Chains is your master now, boy. I leave you to his care.”
“Not mine, but that of the higher Power I serve,” said Chains. “Oh, before you leave, I just happened to find this purse sitting on my temple steps earlier today.” He held out a fat little leather bag, stuffed with coins, and waved it in the Thiefmaker’s general direction. “Is it yours, by chance?”
“Why, so it is! So it is!” The Thiefmaker plucked the purse from Chains’ hands and made it vanish into the pockets of his weather-eaten coat. “What a fortunate coincidence that is.” He bowed once more, turned, and began to walk back in the direction of Shades’ Hill, whistling tunelessly.
Chains arose, rubbed his legs, and clapped his hands. “Let us call an