She kept her doubts to herself as she left the room. Bajingan was the logical suspect, if his controller wanted to cause chaos rather than help one side to actually win. He was meek and mild, compared to his fellows. He didn’t have any real enemies on the council, which meant he was unlikely to be purged if the hardliners took control. And... he controlled the paperwork. Emily detested bureaucracy - she’d hated having to grind her way through the endless mountain of paperwork in Cockatrice - but she understood the importance of keeping everything straight. A traitor in the bureaucracy could easily do everything from misdirecting royal funds to simply ordering armories to provide weapons to the rebels.
Maybe that’s how they started to slip weapons into the city, she thought. The bureaucrats bought extra weapons, perhaps with funds provided by the rebels, and arranged for them to go missing along the way. The king’s men never realized because they got what they thought they’d ordered.
She groaned, inwardly. If she was wrong... she’d have to leave the city or risk running afoul of revolutionary justice. She had a feeling she knew what that meant. She’d have to fight her way out or submit tamely to execution... she shook her head. She could sneak back into the city, perhaps search for the real traitor... she heard the guns booming again and knew time was short. Dater was going to storm the city, sooner rather than later. She didn’t want to be caught in the middle of a full-scale war.
Hedrick looked up as she entered the dining room. He looked... colder, somehow. Emily scowled. Hedrick had probably spent the last hour brooding on his stepmother’s death and what it meant for the royalist cause. She suspected she was about to disappoint him. If he’d hoped the rebels were going to offer him the crown...
“We’ve been ordered to be out of the city by midnight,” Emily said. Silent hadn’t been ordered out, but she doubted the maid would want to stay. She’d made it clear she’d been instructed to remain with Emily. “Pack your bags. I’ve got one last task to do, then we’ll be leaving. We can’t stay any longer.”
“The rebels will hardly let us leave the city,” Hedrick said, snidely. He waved a hand at the walls, indicating the rebels beyond. “Do you trust them to let us through their lines?”
“We’ll teleport,” Emily said, flatly. She reached out and touched the wards. Lady Barb had done good work, but they’d be easy enough to dismantle from the inside. “I’ll take you back to Dragon’s Den, then... you can do whatever you want.”
Hedrick scowled. “Take me to the army.”
“I’ll take you to Dragon’s Den,” Emily snapped. She felt a hot flash of temper. She didn’t have time to deal with Hedrick. Whatever happened, if Bajingan was the traitor or not, she wasn’t going to put up with the prince any longer. The rebels might let her stay, but she’d take Hedrick back to Dragon’s Den anyway. “Go pack.”
She glanced at Silent as the maid emerged from the kitchen. “Pack everything in the trunks and put them in the sitting room,” she ordered. Thankfully, they hadn’t brought that much in the way of supplies. Hedrick had brought more than the rest of them put together. His collection of trunks might have to be abandoned. “We’ll have to leave in a hurry when I get back.”
Silent curtseyed. “As My Lady commands.”
Emily looked at Hedrick, who hadn’t moved. “Go pack,” she repeated. “Put everything essential in one trunk, just in case we don’t have time to teleport everything. Hurry.”
Hedrick stood. His voice dripped sour honey. “Yes, My Lady.”
Emily chose to ignore his tone as she grabbed her cloak and headed back to the sitting room. Aiden was waiting, her face grim. She was risking everything on Emily’s word... Emily promised herself, silently, that she’d make sure Aiden was safe if all hell broke loose. She could teleport Aiden to Heart’s Eye and ask Caleb to look after her, or Kuching and Cat... Cat would probably find Aiden interesting. He could certainly teach her how to use a sword properly.
“Bajingan set up his chambers in the Lord Chancellor’s old haunt,” Aiden said, wrapping her cloak around her. “I think he’ll be there.”
Emily nodded. “Will he see us?”
“He’ll see me,” Aiden said. “I don’t know about you.”
“We’ll find out,” Emily said. She walked to the door and opened it. The sound of guns was suddenly a great deal louder. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
THE STREETS WERE DARK AND SHADOWY, only a handful of civilians and soldiers visible as the guns continued to boom. Emily saw flashes of light in the distance, where the walls and barricades were being prepared for a final desperate defense. Dater could smash his way through them, if he had the ammunition and the willingness to reduce his capital city to rubble. She shuddered to think of the carnage to come, even if she proved Bajingan was Master Lucknow’s puppet. Events had taken on a mind of their own.
Tension echoed in the air as they walked through the streets. She spotted a handful of men drinking heavily, laughing and joking in a manner that suggested they knew they weren’t going to survive the next few days. A pair of lovers were making out in an alleyway, the man’s hand slipping up the woman’s skirt as they kissed passionately. Emily guessed they felt it was going to be their last night, too... she turned her head away, giving them what privacy she could. Aiden showed no reaction as they circumvented the palace and picked their way through a maze of government buildings. Emily was mildly surprised the Lord Chancellor had been allowed to live outside the palace. King Randor hadn’t been anywhere near as accommodating.
She tensed as a line of troops marched past, carrying muskets as they made their way to the barricades. They looked young, too young. She was sure most of them were going to die, either in the fighting or the executions afterwards. Dater wouldn’t show the rebels any mercy. How could he? A handful of carts followed them, crammed with weapons and supplies. Emily reached out with her senses, testing the carts for unpleasant surprises. She sensed nothing... she cursed under her breath. It was meaningless.
“That’s odd,” Aiden said. “What are they doing?”
Emily followed her gaze. The courtyard in front of the treasury was dominated by a massive bonfire, the flames flickering green as they consumed charmed parchments and papers. A dozen clerks were carrying armfuls of paperwork to the bonfire and tossing them into the flames, watched by a pair of armed guards. Emily thought a couple of the clerks were female, but it was hard to be sure. The scribes had never allowed women to join. The rebels might have been a little more open-minded. Bajingan certainly had every interest in developing a faction loyal to him personally...
“I need you to question him,” Emily said, “while I check for magic.”
Aiden scowled. “Can’t you just cast a truth spell?”
“It depends,” Emily said. “If he’s a willing traitor, then yes. If he’s been enchanted... the truth spell might be useless. Or worse. Let me try to figure out what’s happening before we do something that might be impossible to fix.”
“Understood,” Aiden said. She grinned. “You do realize half my reporting involved listening to gossip?”
“I’m surprised they never caught on,” Emily said. “Did they never suspect you?”
“Everyone knows Aiden the Broadsheet Writer is a man with a manhood so long it stretches from one side of the city to the other,” Aiden said. “There were girls who claimed to have slept with him... hell, there were noblemen who claimed to be him. One of them even got beaten halfway to death by someone who believed him, after I exposed his... tastes... in print. No one ever looked at me and saw him. Why should they?”
Emily had to smile. “Why indeed?”
Aiden walked up to the gate. “Councilor Aiden, here to see Scribe Bajingan.”
The guard put a hand on his sword. “The scribe is very busy,” he said. “He’s seeing no one.”
“I have to see him,” Aiden insisted. She put enough iron into her voice to scare anyone who wasn’t entirely sure his boss would support him. “I
mmediately.”
“The scribe is very busy,” the guard repeated, coldly. It had the air of something he’d learnt by rote. “He’s seeing no one.”
Emily held up her hand and cast a minor compulsion spell. “He’ll see us,” she said. “You’ll take us to him.”
“I’ll take you to him,” the guard agreed.
He turned and marched towards the treasury. Emily followed, painfully aware of Aiden’s eyes burning into her back. The spell - the Jedi Mind Trick, she thought with a flicker of humor - was nowhere near as powerful as the spell used on Fran, but it was still dangerous. The guard could have resisted, if he’d realized he’d been enchanted, and that could have damaged his mind. She promised herself she’d do something to make it up to him, after he’d taken them to Bajingan. Her fingers touched the coins in her pocket. Perhaps she could give him enough coins to bribe his way out, if the city fell.
The interior of the building was a hive of utter chaos. Clerks ran everywhere, carrying files and documents, tearing them apart and dropping the remains in piles on the floor. A handful of men were carrying bottles of foul-smelling potions into the building, positioning them near the piles of paperwork. She heard a man shouting about needing to misfile everything, saw a man sitting by the wall crying like a baby. He clutched a file to his chest, refusing to let it go. The rest of the clerks ignored him.
“This was once the heart of the kingdom,” Aiden commented, quietly. “There was meant to be a file for everyone, with a list of everything they owned and the taxes they owed and... everything. And now it’s being destroyed.”
Emily made a face. She doubted the king had kept a file for everyone, but it would be enough to list the farms, properties and everything else that produced food and money. There’d probably been records of serfs and slaves as well as freemen and aristocrats... she had to smile as another clerk ran past, carrying files to throw on the fire. Whatever happened, whoever won, rebuilding the kingdom’s tax base would be extremely difficult. The people would have plenty of time to plan how best to hide things from the king’s assessors.
The guard stopped in front of a solid wooden door and knocked, hard. There was no answer. He rattled the knob, then turned it. The door was locked. Emily reached into her pocket and found a handful of coins, tipped the guard and sent him back to his post. She hoped he’d never quite realize what had happened to him, when the remainder of the spell faded into nothingness. The coins would buy him a whole new life if the worst happened.
“You...” Aiden sounded half-angry, half-scared. “What did you do to him?”
“What I had to do,” Emily said, curtly. She already felt guilty. “Give me a moment...”
She poked the lock with magic, then cast a spell to unlock it. There was a click. She pushed the door open, tightening her wards. The chamber looked as through a bomb had detonated inside the walls, smashing dozens of wooden filing cabinets and leaving piles of paper scattered on the desks, chairs and the floor itself. Bajingan stood in front of a cabinet, going through an endless series of files. He spun around to face them, eyes going wide. One hand twitched towards his belt before he stopped himself.
“Aiden,” he said. “And Lady Emily. What can I do for you?”
Emily didn’t need to look at Aiden to sense her sudden doubt. Bajingan looked strikingly genial for a potential traitor. It was hard to believe he could be guilty of anything, beyond - perhaps - putting his finger on the weighing scale. He closed the battered cabinet and, carrying a pair of files under his arm, made his way back to the desk. The chair was piled high with files. Bajingan shoved them onto the floor and sat down.
“We have some questions for you,” Aiden said. “What are you doing here?”
Bajingan smiled. It made him look years younger. “When I was a boy, I used to fantasize about burning the royal records,” he said. “And now I finally get my chance.”
Emily had to smile in return, despite everything. The scribes and accountants had been drilled, practically from birth, in handling the traditional letters and numbers. She’d heard the stories. Bajingan would have been woken at dawn, forced to memorize a bunch of letters and all their variants, with his teacher ready to strike him the moment he got a single one wrong. The monkish existence produced men who were rarely, if ever, capable of holding an original thought in their minds, men who’d resisted change because it would render their suffering meaningless. Bajingan was the most genial scribe she’d ever met, and yet...
Aiden sat on a chair and rested her hands on her lap. “There have been a string of attacks across the city,” she said. “All of those attacks involved terrorists and traitors getting through seemingly impregnable defenses. How would you explain it?”
Bajingan shrugged. “There are traitors everywhere.”
“Yes,” Aiden agreed. “And yet, if everyone involved was a traitor, there’d be more traitors than rebels.”
“It wouldn’t be impossible,” Bajingan said. “The king was apparently involved in some of the plots against him. A handful of rebel factions were effectively operated by the king’s men, allowing him to pick off the real rebels or direct them into more useful roles. I think, judging by the records, that the king actually wanted Lord Charn dead. He was a plotter in his own right, but the king couldn’t take a swing at his neck without solid proof...”
Emily listened to the argument as she reached out gingerly with her senses. Bajingan had a handful of protective charms woven into his clothing, including a couple so subtle she wasn’t sure what they did. She probed them gently, trying to figure them out before she risked touching Bajingan himself. One of them looked like a charm against drunkenness... she frowned in puzzlement. Bajingan should know better than to get drunk, even if he wasn’t the traitor. A drunk scribe could do a hell of a lot of damage.
“Those attackers had paperwork provided by you,” Aiden said. She sounded as though she really believed it. “The guards had no reason to interfere if they thought the terrorists had every right to be there.”
Bajingan gave her a sharp look. “What are you implying?”
Emily pushed her senses forward, brushing against Bajingan’s mind. There was something there, something subtle... she narrowed her eyes as she started to analyze it. She’d seen something like it, but... where? It wasn’t just a compulsion spell. It was something else, something...
“I think you’re the traitor,” Aiden said. Her voice hardened. “It was you who provided the paperwork to allow the terrorists to get into position. It fooled the guards because it was real. It was...”
The magic surged. Bajingan’s hand lanced into a desk drawer and came out holding a flintlock. Emily swore and expanded her wards, an instant before he pointed the pistol at Aiden and pulled the trigger. The bullet bounced off the wards and cracked into the ceiling. Emily froze Bajingan in place a moment later, then took the weapon out of his hand. It was proof enough, she supposed, that he’d been the traitor. And that he hadn’t been acting of his own free will.
Aiden swallowed. “What...?”
“Someone enchanted him,” Emily said, curtly. She heard running feet behind her as she hurried around the desk. “Keep them out, whatever it takes.”
She pressed her fingertips against Bajingan’s head, muttering a countercharm as she thrust her magic into the enchantment. If she could remove it, Bajingan could testify... if she could get a sense of who’d cast it, she could try to use it as proof someone had been meddling in the kingdom’s affairs. The magic felt oddly familiar, as if she’d sensed the caster’s magic some time ago. If...
Emily let out a curse as she pushed harder. She’d hoped the enchantment had been put together in a hurry, like the spell that had been used on Fran. It hadn’t. It was old, old enough to have threaded its way through Bajingan’s mind until the poor man barely had any will of his own. The caster had enslaved him, yet... Bajingan had believed he was truly free, that he was doing whatever he wanted. She shuddered in horror. The spell was vile. She wasn’
t even sure where to begin pulling it out of his mind.
I have proof that a powerful magician is involved, she thought. And yet...
Her mind raced as she tried to remove the curse. It predated the end of the war... just like the charmed book at Laughter. She shuddered at the memory. Someone had started the plot well before she’d defeated the necromancers, then... then what? What was the point of taking over a rebel movement? Master Lucknow had to be out of his mind, if it was Master Lucknow. Had he intended to discredit her? Or was he up to something else? She had the feeling she was seeing fragments of something much greater, something...
The air grew warm. Emily yelped and jumped back as Bajingan burst into flames. She swore and ran for the door as the fires spread rapidly, the chair, desk and papers turning into an inferno. She cursed her oversight as the clerks started screaming, warning their comrades to run for their lives. Simon had burst into flame, too, when she’d tried to capture him. She should have expected whoever was behind the whole affair to cover his tracks.
“What did you do?” Aiden caught her arm as they fled down the stairs. Clerks followed them as the flames burnt ever brighter. “What happened?”
“The enchantment was designed to destroy the evidence,” Emily snapped. She heard something crashing behind her as they ran through a large room crammed with desks and chairs, then out into the courtyard. “The moment I started to pull at the enchantment, to free him, it killed him.”
She gritted her teeth in frustration as she turned to look at the towering building. The walls were made of solid stone, but the interior was covered in wood and crammed with thousands upon thousands of documents and files. They were all going up in flames, leaving only the stone walls behind. Part of her knew it wasn’t a bad thing - the taxpayers would be cheering her - but she knew she’d failed. Again. She’d lost the proof she needed to convince the White Council that someone had been meddling.
The ground shook. Something crashed, inside the burning building. Emily guessed the floor had just given way, dumping the fire into the basement. It wouldn’t be easy to put out the fire, even if anyone wanted to try. Bajingan wasn’t the only person, she was sure, who’d dreamed of burning the royal records. The clerks had been doing just that before the building went up in flame. They’d probably be glad to sit back and watch it burn.
The Right Side of History (Schooled In Magic Book 22) Page 32