The Gentleman Bastard Series 3-Book Bundle: The Lies of Locke Lamora, Red Seas Under Red Skies, The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch Read Free Book Online Page B

what?”
    “I said I distract them any way I can. You going deaf, Jean?”
    A line of tall countinghouses slid past on their left, each displaying lacquered woodwork,
     silk awnings, marble facades, and other ostentatious touches along the waterfront.
     There were deep roots of money and power sunk into that row of three- and four-story
     buildings. Coin-Kisser’s Row was the oldest and goldest financial district on the
     continent. The place was as steeped in influence and elaborate rituals as the glass
     heights of the Five Towers, in which the duke and the Grand Families sequestered themselves
     from the city they ruled.
    “Move us up against the bank just under the bridges, Bug.” Jean gestured vaguely with
     his apple. “His Nibs will be waiting to come aboard.”
    Two Elderglass arches bridged the Via Camorrazza right in the middle of Coin-Kisser’s
     Row—a high and narrow catbridge for foot traffic and a lower, wider one for wagons.
     The seamless brilliance of the alien glasslooked like nothing so much as liquid diamond, gently arched by giant hands and left
     to harden over the canal. On the right bank was the Fauria, a crowded island of multitiered
     stone apartments and rooftop gardens. Wooden wheels churned white against the stone
     embankment, drawing canal water up into a network of troughs and viaducts that crisscrossed
     over the Fauria’s streets at every level.
    Bug slid the barge over to a rickety quay just beneath the catbridge; from the faint
     and slender shadow of this arch a man jumped down to the quay, dressed (as Bug and
     Jean were) in oil-stained leather breeches and a rough cotton shirt. His next nonchalant
     leap took him into the barge, which barely rocked at his arrival.
    “Salutations to you, Master Jean Tannen, and profuse congratulations on the fortuitous
     timing of your arrival!” said the newcomer.
    “Ah, well, felicitations to you in respect of the superlative grace of your entry
     into our very humble boat, Master Lamora.” Jean punctuated this statement by popping
     the remains of his apple into his mouth, stem and all, and producing a wet crunching
     noise.
    “Creeping shits, man.” Locke Lamora stuck out his tongue. “Must you do that? You know
     the black alchemists make fish poison from the seeds of those damn things.”
    “Lucky me,” said Jean after swallowing the last bit of masticated pulp, “not being
     a fish.”
    Locke was a medium man in every respect—medium height, medium build, medium-dark hair
     cropped short above a face that was neither handsome nor memorable. He looked like
     a proper Therin, though perhaps a bit less olive and ruddy than Jean or Bug; in another
     light he might have passed for a very tan Vadran. His bright gray eyes alone had any
     sense of distinction; he was a man the gods might have shaped deliberately to be overlooked.
     He settled down against the left-hand gunwale and crossed his legs.
    “Hello to you as well, Bug! I knew we could count on you to take pity on your elders
     and let them rest in the sun while you do the hard work with the pole.”
    “Jean’s a lazy old bastard is what it is,” Bug said. “And if I don’t pole the barge,
     he’ll knock my teeth out the back of my head.”
    “Jean is the gentlest soul in Camorr, and you wound him with your accusations,” said
     Locke. “Now he’ll be up all night crying.”
    “I would have been up all night anyway,” Jean added, “crying from the ache of rheumatism
     and lighting candles to ward off evil vapors.”
    “Which is not to say that our bones don’t creak by day, my cruel apprentice.” Locke
     massaged his kneecaps. “We’re at least twice your age—which is prodigious for our
     profession.”
    “The Daughters of Aza Guilla have tried to perform a corpse-blessing on me six times
     this week,” said Jean. “You’re lucky Locke and I are still spry enough to take you
     with us when we run a game.”
    To anyone beyond hearing range, Locke and Jean