“So you are saying you are certain of Mister Stooke’s involvement?” Ambassador Althir asked. “That is… concerning.”
“Without doubt,” Indree said. “And it felt like he has to know we know he’s here. To be that brazen with the elixir… He knows we can’t say anything about him without jeopardizing our leave to investigate. And Stennig volunteered his story very eagerly. He’s clearly being offered up as an alternative to make it harder for us to credibly accuse Endo for this.”
“Endo does have the money to make someone’s gambling debts go away,” Tane said. “You think it was worth it to Stennig to take the fall on this rather than have some leg-breakers throw him out a window or something?” It was hard to imagine going to prison for murder being a reasonable trade, but it wasn’t impossible.
“The amount he owes, it’s not out of the question,” Indree said, but she didn’t sound convinced. “It might be something else, though. When I tried to use a lie detection on him, it gave me nothing. Not a mask, but a total non-reaction. He had a signature, but it was completely inert. What could cause that?”
Tane frowned, thought it over. “Nothing that I know of. Some new kind of masking Endo’s developed? I don’t know. But I don’t like it. Anything that makes it harder for us to find solid proof leads to Belgrier believing Audland is behind the crash. We’re basically guilty until proven innocent. And even if we find something, knowing who to give it to might be a problem.” He explained the trap he and Kadka had found, and the conclusion that led to.
“So Endo has an agent or agents with some kind of authority here,” Indree mused. “But why would anyone of consequence in Belgrier be willing to work with a man who wants to rule a magical empire?”
“Is same thing I ask,” said Kadka. “Don’t know yet.”
“Maybe someone just doesn’t like how mages are treated here?” Tinga suggested, a slight note of hope in her voice.
Tane hated to dissuade her, but it didn’t seem likely. “You don’t make it far here as a mage sympathiser, I’d bet. Whoever it is probably has less pure motives.”
“Surely there is good news here as well, though,” said Ambassador Althir. “The fact that someone knew of the sabotage in advance proves Audland didn’t provide faulty plans, does it not? Even if you cannot prove who did it, it serves our purpose well enough to prove that we did not.”
Tane shook his head. “They’re not going to accept that. Not with the man who witnessed the guards on the engine room dead, and only our word to go on for the rest of it. If the Guard is already being pressured to ignore us, we need decisive evidence.”
“The event tonight might give us something,” Indree said. “I’d like to know more about Duke Detehr. This wouldn’t be the problem it is if he hadn’t been on board that airship. I’m interested in how the Kaiser’s closest friend wound up there.”
Tane nodded. “Right. There should be plenty of people there important enough to know things we don’t. But we need to remember that any one of them might be working with Endo. We can’t be too blunt.” He gave Kadka a pointed glance there.
She gave him a toothy grin. “You mean is bad to ask if they put traps in airship? Always such clever advice, Carver.”
“Alright, alright. Just… making sure.” Tane looked to Tinga, then. He almost felt guilty, but there was no way around it—they couldn’t bring an uninvited guest. “And Tinga… I’m glad you were there to help Indree today, but…”
Tinga sighed. “I know. Stay here.” She waved them away glumly. “Go on, have fun without me. You all need to get dressed if you’re going to make it on time.”
_____
Kadka tugged at her overly starched collar. The embassy had provided her with clothing fit for the occasion—she didn’t own anything fancy enough. She was dressed in a white buttoned shirt and a dark blue topcoat with matching trousers, all of it stiff and uncomfortable. She’d never felt so out of place. She wasn’t built for diplomatic intrigue and foreign courts. All she wanted was to be back in Thaless, helping people who actually needed help and spending her nights with Iskar and the dragonlings.
Besides Ambassador Althir, she towered above every other person in the elegantly appointed reception hall. The nobility of Belgrier were uniformly human—she couldn’t have blended in worse if she were a dragon herself. No one had much to say to her, they just gawked like she was one of the monsters in the Thaless conservatory. A tamed beast, there to amuse them.
This was why she hated Belgrier.
“Ah, so you used his arrogance against him! Splendid.” Kaiser Gerrolt was speaking with Carver, taking great delight in stories of mages being bested. He didn’t seem to much care for Kadka’s part in those stories, though. She would chime in now and again, and he would nod politely, and then go back to questioning Carver.
She’d lost track of Indree—she was somewhere in the room, mingling and questioning. Ambassador Althir was hard to miss, towering three feet above everyone else, but she too was engaged in conversation with some noble or another. Which left Kadka with nobody who wanted to talk to her, and nothing to do but lurk at Carver’s shoulder—a prop to provide color to his stories.
She craned her neck about, looked for the nearest person carrying food. That was the only good part about this entire night so far, and even then it was only small, needlessly ornate morsels. There was a tray, carried by a servant in clothes as fancy as Kadka’s. She started through the crowd toward him.
Halfway there, a hand on her shoulder stopped her. She turned to see a tall man with greying brown hair. Henred Klenn. The Kaiser’s cousin, the one who’d stared at her like he’d never seen an orc before. Maybe he hadn’t.
“Excuse me,” he said in Belgrian, translated by Kadka’s earpiece. “Miss Kadka. Of Clan Nadivek, wasn’t it?”
She shook her head. “Is just thing they say to give me fancier name. Is not my clan for long time.”
Klenn seemed taken aback by that. “Ah. But it was, at one point? I assume it wasn’t chosen at random.” He smiled slightly.
She nodded. “Was. No more. You are Henred Klenn. Kaiser’s cousin. You counsel him on the airship crash. Important man to stare at me so much.”
His face went red at that. “Ah, forgive me. I… I see so few orcs. Half-orcs, rather. That is right, isn’t it? You are half orcish?”
“Is true, yes.”
“But you lived in Sverna? Not many leave the orcish homeland. I wondered if I might ask you about it.” His interest seemed genuine, surprisingly enough.
It was possible that he was Endo’s mystery agent, trying to get information out of her, she supposed. It certainly wasn’t usual for a Belgrian to show much interest in where she came from. She usually avoided talking about her youth—painful memories—but she was bored enough to humor him. If he was a spy, he wouldn’t find anything useful in her childhood stories. “Is fine,” she said with a slight shrug. “Ask.”
“I suppose I wonder what life is like there,” he said. “It seems a harsh place.”
“Is not so hard when you grow up there. Learn to hunt, fight, stay warm. Useful things.”
“Yes, they say every orc is trained as a soldier. From the stories I hear of the Magebreakers, you learned well.” He frowned. “I wonder, was… forgive me for asking, but was that difficult, as a half-orc? The rest of your kind must have been stronger, and I can’t imagine they were gentle.”
She appreciated the conversation, but that was getting a little bit closer to the parts she didn’t like talking about. “Nothing is gentle in Sverna,” she said. “Makes me strong. Was fine.”
“Of course,” Klenn said. “I just thought… you must have had an unusual life. Considering how isolationist Svernan orcs are, it can’t be common to have a human parent. Surely there is a story there?” There was a hopeful note to the question.
And that was her limit. “Is not story to tell here,” she said firmly, and made to step by him, towards the food.
Klenn held up his
hands. “I’m very sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. My curiosity got the better of me. Please, let us change the subject. Perhaps you have questions about Belgrier?”
Kadka relented, let him stop her. He seemed well-intentioned enough, and it was going to be a long night if she walked away from the only person in the room inclined to talk to her. Besides, he was one of the Kaiser’s councillors. Even if he wasn’t working for Endo, he might know something useful. “Airship,” she said. “Kaiser says you are eyes and ears for it. What do you think makes crash happen?”
Klenn took the question in with a thoughtful expression. “Do I believe it was Audish sabotage, do you mean? No, not truly. I am not so fearful as some, I suppose. That is why I am involved in the project. My cousin and I share an interest in magical technologies, and the ways they might better our country. I believe an alliance with the Audish is to our benefit, if such amazing devices as airships come of it. Not everyone on the council agrees.”
“This Duke Detehr must, yes?” That was what Carver and Indree had wanted to know more about—the man whose death had caused the diplomatic crisis. “To fly on early test of airship.”
“Oh, no.” Klenn shook his head. “He was strongly against the supposed risk of any magical device. Detehr and Gerrolt agreed on most everything, but not that.”
That was strange. Kadka raised an eyebrow. “So why is he one to fly?”
“Gerrolt was quite eager to do it himself, actually,” said Klenn. “The council advised him against taking the risk until more tests had been done. It was Detehr who talked him out of it, but I believe taking his place was part of the bargain. I suppose if my cousin could not go, he wanted to have someone he trusted aboard.”
“And he trusts Duke Detehr more than others? Says they are friends since boys.”
“Longer than that, I would say. Since they were crawling. The Angred family has long been a close ally of the Vurgens. Detehr was largely raised here at court, so that my cousin would have a companion his age.”
Kadka’s ears perked at that. “Lived in palace? Must have rooms here then, yes?” She glanced back at Carver—he’d be nudging her in the ribs for coming across too obvious, but Detehr was dead. It shouldn’t be any secret where he’d slept.
Klenn gave her a curious look, but nodded his head. “Well, yes. He slept across the inner courtyard from Gerrolt, when they were boys. I stayed often as well. We would sneak across to play at night.” He sounded wistful, remembering. “He visited often even when we were grown, and used the same rooms. I would often find them talking in the garden.”
Kadka attempted a sorrowful expression. “Is very sad, if they are so close.”
“Yes, quite a tragedy,” Klenn agreed. “Gerrolt has been…” He hesitated. “Well, it isn’t my place to say how my Kaiser feels. But I will tell you that he is very interested in the results of your investigation.”
Kadka nodded absently. Her mind was already elsewhere. Courtyard, gardens. She had to imagine that wouldn’t be hard to find. “Where is privy?” she asked.
Klenn didn’t blink at the abrupt pivot. “That way.” He pointed over her shoulder at one of the doors out of the hall. “Left and all the way to the end.”
“Will be back.” Kadka turned and wove her way toward the door, trying not to draw any more attention than her presence did naturally. The important thing was that anyone watching assume she was only going to relieve herself.
She slipped out the door and headed down the hall, only veering around the corner and toward the heart of the palace once she was sure she was out of sight. There were guards here and there, of course, and she took care not to be seen, but it wasn’t difficult. No one expected intruders to get past the gate, and there were plenty of nooks and halls and side rooms in a building so large and so old.
Private chambers would be further in, she guessed, beyond prying eyes. She passed through the throne room where they’d first been received by Kaiser Gerrolt; it wasn’t very deep inside, really. Better for receiving guests, she supposed. It was empty and cavernous in the absence of the court, and her footsteps echoed dully as she crossed by the massive golden throne.
On the far side, branching halls led past various rooms of more official purpose, some open and some not—offices and the like, mostly. Through one partially open door she caught a glimpse of a larger room, empty and open with a long table at the center. It had the look of a meeting hall. The council chambers, she guessed.
Not far past that, she found the courtyard Klenn had mentioned. It was hard to miss—a number of large windows had clearly been placed to show it off. A frozen pond was the centerpiece, shaded under a tree whose wide-spread branches had long since shed their leaves. Flowerbeds sat empty and barren, abandoned to the cold. The ground was dusted with a thin layer of snow. It would have been lovely in the spring; here, at the onset of winter, it looked somewhat dismal.
She ducked low and crept up to a window, stole a peek across the courtyard and through the other windows surrounding it. On the far side, a pair of guards stood watch over a room—presumably the Kaiser’s—but the halls on the left and right were empty. The quarters she was looking for had to be on one side or the other.
She went down the left-hand hall first, tried the door. It opened. Peeking inside, she saw a large, well-furnished set of chambers, clearly intended for honored guests. And just as clearly unused, of late. No trace of personal effects or clothing, not a chair out of place or a paper atop the desk. If Duke Detehr had been so important to the Kaiser, she doubted that all trace of the man would have been cleared away so quickly.
The right-hand door opened as easily—no point locking the rooms of a dead man, she supposed—but looked recently occupied. A man’s spare boots sat by the door, and a topcoat was draped over the back of a chair at the desk. A few books sat atop the desk’s surface, with a quill and inkwell nearby.
Kadka slipped in, and quietly closed the door behind her. A quick search of the rooms didn’t turn up anything useful for the investigation, just the traces of the part of a man’s life that had been lived within—a telltale divot in the cushioned seat of a preferred chair, a vial of dye near the washbasin that might have been used to hide greying hairs. Crumpled under the bed, she found a set of what were presumably Duke Detehr’s undergarments. Which did tell her that the room hadn’t been touched by any cleaning staff, at least. Perhaps the Kaiser had wanted it preserved as it was.
It wasn’t until she went through the duke’s desk that she found something useful. The second drawer down contained two letters, already opened and read but carefully stowed back in their envelopes. They were both addressed in Belgrian, but she recognized the names—they used the same characters to write here as in Audland, even if the words were different. Both were to Duke Detehr, one from Kaiser Gerrolt himself and another from Henred Klenn. Klenn had mentioned that he’d spent time with Detehr when they were boys, so she supposed that wasn’t out of the ordinary, but still she wondered what he’d had to write about. She took both envelopes, slipped them into her waistband beneath her topcoat, and then tucked her shirt over them.
The other drawers didn’t yield any useful discoveries, and there weren’t many other places to look. The letters would have to do. No point in trying to read them now without someone to translate—the artifact in her ear only worked on spoken words. She didn’t have time anyway; she’d be missed in the hall if she didn’t get back soon. She ducked back out the door, closed it carefully, and made her way quickly back to the gathering.
Coming around the last corner, she found herself face to face with the scowling face of Chancellor Urnt.
“There you are,” Urnt said. “Where have you been? The Kaiser is waiting. He wants the Magebreakers beside him at dinner.” He glanced down the hall she’d come from—not a place she was supposed to be—and raised an eyebrow.
“Was looking for privy,” Kadka said. “Is big place. Found one this way.” She wasn’t worried about being caught in the lie—t
here was always a privy. Even nobles had to bow to that necessity.
He gave her a sour look. “Ask one of the footmen to show you next time. There are nearer facilities for guests, and we can’t have Audish orcs wandering freely about. Do keep in mind that you don’t belong here, and act accordingly.”
“Is not easy to forget.” Kadka gestured over his shoulder. “Kaiser is waiting, you say?”
“Indeed. Come.” Urnt turned on his heel and strode on his way.
Kadka found herself imagining how satisfying it would be to grab the man and shake him, but she controlled the urge. Instead, she followed him back toward the banquet hall.
When she entered, too many eyes turned toward her. The people nearest the door backed away slightly to create space, as if they needed to keep a safe distance. Carver and Indree were already sitting at the high table beside Kaiser Gerrolt; there was an empty seat between them. A seat at the center of attention, where everyone could stare at the Audlander’s well-trained pet while she ate their dainty, unsatisfying little dishes, and didn’t speak unless spoken to.
With a heavy sigh, Kadka started through the crowd toward her friends.
Chapter Ten
_____
TANE COLLAPSED ONTO the couch beside Indree and unbuttoned his collar with a relieved sigh.
“Well, that was interminable,” he said. “Did anyone manage to get anything useful out of anyone? Because I certainly didn’t.” He’d been at Kaiser Gerrolt’s beck and call all night, introduced to one Belgrian dignitary after another. If any of them had any particular insight into the crash or subsequent investigation, they hadn’t been talking about it—although he hadn’t had much opportunity for pointed questions between requests for stories of old cases. And the Kaiser hadn’t been very keen to talk about Duke Detehr, either, on the few occasions Tane had tried to steer the conversation in that direction.
The Spirit Siphon (Magebreakers Book 4) Page 8