The Lies of Locke Lamora - By Scott Lynch Page 0,54
the poor. But have you heard of any bags of gold being dumped in the street in Catchfire lately? Any charcoal-burners or knackers suddenly walking around in silk waistcoats and embroidered boots? Please. The Thorn is a commoner’s ale-tale. Master swordsman, romancer of ladies, a ghost who walks through walls. Ridiculous.”
“Your doors are locked and all your windows are barred, yet here we are in your study, m’lord.”
“Granted. But you’re men of flesh and blood.”
“So it’s said. We’re getting off the subject. Our thief, m’lord, would trust you and your peers to keep his activities concealed for him. Hypothetically speaking, if Lukas Fehrwight were the Thorn of Camorr, and you knew that he had strolled off with a small fortune from your coffers, what would you do? Would you rouse the watch? Cry for aid openly in the court of His Grace? Speak of the matter in front of Don Paleri Jacobo?”
“I… I… that’s an interesting point. I wonder—”
“Would you want the entire city to know that you’d been taken in? That you’d been tricked? Would men of business ever trust your judgment again? Would your reputation ever truly recover?”
“I suppose it would be a very… difficult thing.”
The scarred man’s right hand reappeared, gloveless and pale against the darkness of the cloak, one finger pointing outward. “Her ladyship the Doña Rosalina de Marre lost ten thousand crowns four years ago, in exchange for titles to upriver orchards that don’t exist.” A second finger curled outward. “Don and Doña Feluccia lost twice as much two years ago. They thought they were financing a coup in Talisham that would have made the city a family estate.”
“Last year,” the scarred man said as a third finger unfolded, “Don Javarriz paid fifteen thousand full crowns to a soothsayer who claimed to be able to restore the old man’s firstborn son to life.” The man’s little finger snapped out, and he waved his extended hand at Don Lorenzo. “Now, we have the Don and Doña Salvara involved in a secret business deal that is both tempting and convenient. Tell me, have you ever heard of the troubles of the lords and ladies I have named?”
“No.”
“Doña de Marre visits your wife in her garden twice weekly. They discuss alchemical botany together. You’ve played cards with the sons of Don Javarriz many times. And yet this is all a surprise to you?”
“Yes, quite, I assure you!”
“It was a surprise to His Grace, as well. My master has spent four years attempting to follow the slender threads of evidence connecting these crimes, m’lord. A fortune the size of your own vanished into thin air, and it took ducal orders to pry open the lips of the wronged parties. Because their pride compelled their silence.”
Don Lorenzo stared at the surface of his desk for a long moment.
“Fehrwight has a suite at the Tumblehome. He has a manservant, superior clothes, hundred-crown optics. He has… proprietary secrets of the House of bel Auster.” Don Salvara looked up at the scarred man as though presenting a difficult problem to a demanding tutor. “Things that no thief could have!”
“Would fine clothes be beyond the means of a man with more than forty thousand stolen crowns at his command? And his cask of unaged brandy—how would you or I or any other man outside the House of bel Auster know what it should look like? Or what it should taste like? It’s a simple fraud.”
“He was recognized on the street by a solicitor, one of the Razona lawscribes who sticks to the walls at Meraggio’s!”
“Of course he was, because he began building the identity of Lukas Fehrwight long ago, probably before he ever met Doña de Marre. He has a very real account at Meraggio’s, opened with real money five years ago. He has every outward flourish that a man in his position should bear, but Lukas Fehrwight is a ghost. A lie. A stage role performed for a very select private audience. I have tracked him for months.”
“We are sensible people, Sofia and I. Surely… surely we would have seen something out of place.”
“Out of place? The entire affair has been out of place! M’lord Salvara, I implore you, hear me carefully. You are a financier of fine liquors. You say a prayer to your mother’s shade each week at a Vadran temple. What a fascinating coincidence that you should chance upon a needy Vadran who happens to be a dealer in the same field, eh?”