Welcome back. I wish you one hundred years of health for you and your children. Let's see how the Gentleman Bastards are faring this week.

Summary

Interlude: Jean Tannen

A new boy, Jean Tannen, arrived at the temple. Locke thought he was too soft and middle class. Locke made fun of his size and insulted his family. Jean was enraged and beat him up. His family had just died five nights ago. At dinner, Chains brought out calculating machines and gave Jean and Locke problems to solve. Jean is a whiz at it, while Locke struggled. If Locke kept messing up, he'd get no dinner. Locke apologized and had to serve them before he ate. The gang might need someone to impersonate an accountant, and Jean was the perfect one for the job. He did all that without glasses.

The next night, Locke talked to Jean. Locke knew his mother because she died, but he never knew his father. His mom never talked about him. He stole some optics for him, but they were the wrong kind. Jean wanted Locke to teach him how to steal for an offering to the Benefactor. Locke would if Jean taught him how to use the Determiner’s Box.

Chapter 6: Limitations

Locke is brought to the Floating Grave to meet Capa Barsavi. Someone had murdered Nazca and left her in a cask of horse urine. Locke suspects a scorpion eagle clawed and stung her neck first. There was a note, too, instructing him to meet with the Gray King at the Echo Hole in three nights. Locke and Jean will accompany him along with more of the gang.

Locke suspects a Bondsmage working with the GK. (He already knows but can't say.) He will come back to do the death rites as a priest tomorrow. Locke knows he'll be the one impersonating the Gray King and can't be two people at once. He might be able to fool Capa.

Galdo wants to leave town immediately with the money and some supplies. The Falconer will find them anyway, so what's the use? The Gentleman Bastards make a plan. Locke was going to summon the Falconer with the candle, but he snuck up on him in his room instead. Locke chews him out for killing Nazca, and the Falconer responds by painfully locking his legs and body to remind him that the GK owns him. Locke readily agrees. The Falconer can talk to Locke telepathically.

Locke attempts to bury his sorrows in a brothel, but it doesn't work. Felice isn't his sweetheart who lives one thousand miles away. One of the other Bastards told her. It seems like everyone in Camorr knows.

Interlude: Brat Masterpieces

Chains trained them how to fight, how to know when to hold em, when to fold em, when to walk away, and when to run. Locke would have to attack from behind if he expected to survive. He uses their strengths to balance out their weaknesses. Jean could be a real bruiser with practice. Chains gave him a wallet with the seal of the House of Glass Roses to attend classes in martial arts.

Jean was terrified of the catbridge and the imposing tower. He was taken to the Garden without Fragrance which was full of glass roses covered in blood. Don Maranzalla taught a class of noble boys in fencing. After the others left, he insulted Jean to test his temper. He promised to make Jean work for his knowledge.

Chapter 7: Out the Window

They strategize their plans for Locke to get out of being with the Capa. The Sanzas visit the black alchemist Jessaline d’Aubert and her daughter Janelline. They're looking for something that will make it look like Locke is deathly sick but can recover quickly. Take the powder in the red pouch with water to make him vomit and then brew up tea from the other pouch to help him recover.

The powder works. Locke gets good and sick. When Barsavi’s sons come to summon him, he's weak and in bed. They leave him there. Locke brews up the antidote tea. Locke hates being trapped with no way out of the Gray King's plot.

They leave via the Vine Highway, which are vines growing along The Last Mistake tower. A man and woman were fighting, and she threw him out via the vines. They couldn't take the weight of three men, so it broke. Jean and Locke climb in the window while the woman screams at them to get out. Another man accused her of cheating. Don Maranzalla taught Jean well, because he beat up the boyfriend Gathis. They escape, the scorpion hawk nearby.

Interlude: Up the River

Locke is sent to a farm called Villa Senziano for a three month apprenticeship. He might have to pose as a farmer or a villager someday. Blackjackets, i. e. soldiers, come from the north. They have a rivalry with city born Yellowjackets. Chains told him that he used to be a Blackjacket. He was only one of three from his town that survived. He had a wasting fever and was left with priests of Perelandro.

Vandros was a fellow soldier and was given a piece of land to farm. The other soldier is Don Maranzalla.

Chapter 8: The Funeral Cask

The funeral procession wends its way through the city but not to the Hill of Whispers but to Echo Hole in the abandoned Rustwater district, rumored to have Eldritch, uh, Eldren horrors. (What a great disguise.) Nazca wasn't in the cask but back at the ship, preserved for later. The other GBs outfitted Locke in his disguise. Bug and Jean will hide under the floor.

Right People surrounded him. A force field protected Locke/King from arrows. The Falconer is listening like Cyrano de Bergerac but doesn't need to give Locke many words. A man named Eymon walks towards him and is able to touch him. Then Locke is pinned down by others until Barsavi is face to face and punches him. He can be bruised though.

Eymon used to work for the Gray King but defected and told Barsavi the secrets of the spell. The Gray King stopped paying the Bondsmage. Locke is so screwed. (The mage must have found out he was fired after the first part of the meeting.) His sons beat him up then forced him into a cask of horse urine and dumped it into the river.

Interlude: The Half-Crown War

The boys were initiated at the other eleven temples to learn their secrets then pretended to die so they could leave. One day they encountered the Half-Crown gang led by Tesso Volanti. They expected the GBs to bow to them and give up their money. The three boys lost the fight to the six Half-Crowns.

Chains already knew about the fight. He suggested they get Jean to help and for Locke to scheme up something. The next day, Jean Tannen let them have the brunt of his newfound training. The war went on all summer. Locke devised an ambush for Tesso with a snare built into his coat and Jean hiding in a cockleboat nearby. He could be hit all day until Jean got there. He had changed the rules.

Part 3: Revelation

Chapter 9: A Curious Tale for Countess Amberglass

Sofia Salvara visits the dowager Vorchenza in Amberglass tower. There is a glass terrace with guard rails outside. Sofia had come for some advice, as is the night tea tradition. The chef had made an edible tower for them. They drink tea that glows with alchemical light.

Sofia tells Doña Vorchenza that they're being robbed, and that Midnighters are involved. She knows that the Doña will pass on the story to the right channels.

Doña Vorchenza climbs to her solarium full of files. She asks the captain of the Midnighters if they had visited the Salvaras lately. Nope. She goes over her research with him, and they plan a trap for him when the Duke has a feast in his tower. Doña Vorchenza is the Spider that runs the Midnighters.

Interlude: The Schoolmaster of Roses

Don Maranzalla trained Jean with various weapons on a leather stuffed dummy/woundman. Jean is skilled with thieves’ teeth, which are two curved knives but even more enamored with the hatchets. He threw one straight into the head of the dummy.

Miscellaneous

Marginalia

If you want to stand on the glass floor of a skyscraper irl, go to the Skydeck in Chicago.

Come back next week, March 12, where co-ReadRunner u/Meia_Ang will do Part 3, Chapter 10 to Part 4, chapter 14.