fear very much, my good Don Salvara, that shall be the case.”
“Hmmm. Well, we can speak of that in a moment. Here’s Conté; I should quite like to show off what my lady has newly accomplished.”
Conté carried three silver bowls on a brass platter; each bowl held half an orange, already sliced so the segments of flesh within the fruit could be drawn out with little two-pronged forks. Conté set a bowl, a fork, and a linen napkin down on the tree-shelf to Locke’s right. The Salvaras looked at him expectantly while their own orange halves were laid out.
Locke worked very hard to conceal any trepidation he might have felt; he took the bowl in one hand and fished out a wedge of orange flesh with the fork. When he set it on his tongue, he was surprised at the tingling warmth that spread throughout his mouth. The fruit was saturated with something alcoholic.
“Why, it’s been suffused with liquor,” he said, “something very pleasant. An orange brandy? A hint of lemon?”
“Not suffused, Lukas,” said Don Lorenzo with a boyish grin that had to be quite genuine. “These oranges have been served in their natural state. Sofia’s tree manufactures its own liquor and mingles it in the fruit.”
“Sacred Marrows,” said Locke. “What an intriguing hybrid! To the best of my knowledge, it has yet to be done with citrus…”
“I only arrived at the correct formulation a few months ago,” said Sofia, “and some of the early growths were quite unfit for the table. But this one seems to have gone over well. Another few generations of tests, and I shall be very confident of its marketability.”
“I’d like to call it the Sofia,” said Don Lorenzo. “The Sofia orange of Camorr—an alchemical wonder that will make the vintners of Tal Verrar cry for their mothers.”
“I, for my part, should like to call it something else,” said Sofia, playfully slapping her husband on his wrist.
“The Planting Masters,” said Locke, “will find you quite as wondrous as your oranges, my lady. It is as I said: perhaps there is more opportunity in our partnership than any of us have foreseen. The way you seem to make every green thing around you malleable… I daresay that the character of the House of bel Auster for the next century could be shaped more by your touch than by our old Emberlain traditions.”
“You flatter me, Master Fehrwight,” said the doña. “But let us not count our ships before they’re in harbor.”
“Indeed,” said Don Lorenzo. “And on that note, I shall return us to business. Lukas, I fear I have unfortunate news for you. Unfortunate, and somewhat embarrassing. I have had… several setbacks in recent days. One of my upriver debtors has reneged on a large bill; several of my other projections have proven to be overly optimistic. We are, in short, not as fluid at the moment as any of us might hope. Our ability to throw a few thousand more crowns into our mutual project is very much in doubt.”
“Oh,” said Locke. “That is… that is, as you say, unfortunate.”
He slid another orange slice into his mouth and sucked at the sweet liquor, using it as an artificial stimulus to tilt the corners of his lips upward, quite against his natural inclination.
2
ON THE waterfront of the Dregs, a priest of Aza Guilla glided from shadow to shadow, moving with a slow and patient grace that belied his size.
The mist tonight was thin, the damp heat of the summer night especially oppressive. Streams of sweat ran down Jean’s face behind the silver mesh of his Sorrowful Visage. Camorri lore held that the weeks before the Midsummer-mark and the Day of Changes were always the hottest of the year. Out on the water, the now-familiar yellow lamps glimmered; shouts and splashes could be heard as the men aboard the Satisfaction hauled out another boat full of “charitable provisions.”
Jean doubted he could learn anything more about the items going out on those boats unless he did something more obvious, like attacking one of the loading crews—and that would hardly do. So tonight he’d decided to focus his attention on a certain warehouse about a block in from the docks.
The Dregs weren’t quite as far gone as Ashfall, but the place was well on its way. Buildings were falling down or falling sideways in every direction; the entire area seemed to be sinking down into a sort of swamp of rotted wood and fallen brick. Every year the damp ate