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Ships’ berths, gutted out of their old homes, were stacked against one of the walls. Diaphanous curtains half hid them from the main floor; as they passed, Kel was aware of movement behind the curtains. Figures, writhing in the small compartments—muffled gasps and rustling, the occasional gleam of light on bare skin or dark velvet.
“The doxies here work for Beck,” Jerrod said as they crossed the room. “It pays well, and we Crawlers protect them. As long as you keep spending money at the tables, their services are free.”
The edge of a diaphanous curtain twitched back. Kel saw a girl: pale-purple curls, an indigo velvet mask. An arm looped around her from behind, a hand sliding down into her bodice. Her eyes fluttered shut as the curtain fell back in place.
Kel thought of Silla, and of Merren. Of Lin. He had been kissing far too many people lately, he thought. He was in danger of becoming some sort of romantic bandit from a Story-Spinner’s tale, of thehe kissed her, then vanished mysteriously into the nightvariety.
He’d enjoyed all the kissing—kissing Lin had been surprisinglypleasant—but knew enough about himself to realize he was seeking something he had not yet found.
Nothing about the berths here enticed him, regardless. There was something a little desperate about such public debauchery. As he and Jerrod headed toward a velvet curtain at the far side of the room, they nearly collided with a young Malgasi sailor as he staggered by, rolling down the sleeve of his copper-colored jacket. Not before Kel caught sight of the puncture marks along his forearm, though. They looked fresh. The boy glanced at him briefly; his pupils were vastly dilated, like black dinner plates. This was how it started, Kel thought; soon enough he’d be one of the emaciated addicts staggering around the Maze.
“So, is this Beck’s headquarters?” he asked as they ducked past the curtain and found themselves in a stairwell. Rickety steps led upward. Lamps swayed from hooks on the walls. Stacked crates of bottles with bright-green labels that proclaimed it to beSinging Monkey Wine. A peculiar name for a vintage.
Jerrod led the way up. “One of many,” he said. “Beck’s not like your Ragpicker King, with his Black Mansion and his pretensions of being agentleman.He owns a score of buildings, each running a different business, and moves among them. A manufactory one day, an old temple another. It’s clever, really.”
“And how’d you end up working for Beck?” Kel asked. They had reached a small landing.
Jerrod, though, seemed to have run out of patience with small talk. “None of your business,” he said, shouldering open a door whose rusty hinges screeched like an owl.
Another short corridor before Jerrod led Kel into a room that seemed to have once been an office. It had a nautical feel to it, the walls painted dark blue and hung with dusty maps of faraway ports. A carved walnut desk took up most of the room.
On one side of the desk was an empty wooden chair; on the other sat a man who glanced quickly from Kel to Jerrod and nodded. “Good,” he said, in a guttural voice. “You brought him.”
So this was Prosper Beck.
Beck was a big man—much bigger than Kel had somehow imagined. Barrel-chested and broad-shouldered, he had a thickened nose that looked as if it had been broken more than once. Dark stubble shaded a lantern jaw. He wore an elaborate coat of scarlet-and-silver brocade that seemed somehow at odds with a neck the size of a tree trunk and fists the diameter of dinner plates. In fact, Beck overall was the opposite of what Kel had pictured.
Well, that was what one got for making assumptions.
Kel studied him, wondering what to say. Long ago, when he had first been learningetiquetaat Marivent, he had complained to Mayesh that he did not understand why he needed to memorize the hundred different ways to greet foreign nobility, the correct way to deflect questions without giving offense, the different bows appropriate to different occasions.
“Politics is a game,” Mayesh had said. “Manners give you the tools to play that game. And it is a game as deadly as any swordfight. Think of etiquette as a sort of armor.”
And so Kel, in his mind, put on his armor of manners. The greaves and gauntlets of polite smiles, the vambraces of careful answers that gave nothing away, the helm and visor of unreadable expressions.
“May I sit down?” he asked.
Beck indicated the seat across from him. “Sit.”
Kel settled himself in the wooden chair. It was uncomfortable. He was aware of Jerrod, standing against the wall, arms crossed. He was not foolish enough to think Jerrod was the only observer here, the only one ready to leap to Beck’s defense should Kel prove troublesome. Though Beck looked as if he could defend himself.
“You are the Prince’s cousin,” rumbled Beck. “Anjuman of Marakand. What message does the Palace have for me?”
“I do not come on behalf of House Aurelian,” said Kel. “Only on behalf of Prince Conor. And he does not know I am here. No one does.”
There,Kel thought. He had laid out a vulnerability, like a card on the table. He was unsupported by the Palace. He was alone.
“Ah,” said Beck. “Are they aware of Conor’s debt? The ten thousand crowns?”
“Only I am aware,” said Kel. “Once the King knows, the situation slips beyond my control. One does not know what he will do. But he has an army at his disposal, not to mention the Arrow Squadron.”
Prosper Beck smiled a little. “You are threatening me, but sideways,” he said. “Amusing. Now let me ask: Why are you doing all this for Conor Aurelian?”
“Because,” Kel said, carefully. “He is my family.”Surely criminals understand family.
“You and the Prince are close, then? You’re in his confidence?”
“Yes.”
