by Steven Brust
“Oh?”
“If you ask it, I might answer it. And if I answered it, the answer might appear as gossip in your lovely little sheet. And if that happened, I would have to kill you.”
He looked at me and seemed like a frightened old man again. I stood up and walked out without a backward glance.
* * *
I TOLD YOU THEY were getting tired of seeing me at City Hall, which was another problem, so I tried out a disguise. The first problem was my mustache, so it went. It took a lot of time, too, because even after you shave it off, you have to scrape quite a bit at the whiskers to make sure they don’t show at all. The next problem was my height. I found a cobbler who sold me some boots which he then put about eight extra inches on, leaving me about Aliera’s height, which I hoped would be good enough. Then I had to practice walking in them and taking long strides. Have you ever tried walking in boots with eight extra inches of sole? Don’t. Then I broke into a theater to steal a wig with a noble’s point and get some powder to hide the traces of whiskers, then I bought some new clothes, including trousers long enough to hide the shoes but not long enough to trip on. I practiced swaggering just a bit. Kiera, this was not easy—I had to keep my balance, take strides long enough so it wouldn’t look funny with my height, and swagger, for the love of Verra. I felt like a complete idiot. On the other hand, I didn’t draw any funny looks while I was walking around, so I figured I had a chance of pulling it off.
I hid my clothes and my blade behind a handy public house half a mile or so from City Hall. So I did all that, dressing myself up like a Chreotha so people would feel free to push me around. You can learn a lot letting people push you around, and it’s always nice knowing that you can push back whenever you want.
I told Loiosh to wait for me outside, which he didn’t like but was unavoidable. Then I walked into the place like I knew my business, went up a flight of stairs to take me past the nice Lyorn who’d been helping me so far, found another flight of stairs, turned right, and looked down to the end of the hall. There were three or four people sitting on plain wooden chairs in the hall. Three men, one woman, all of them Orca except for one poor fellow who seemed to be a Teckla.
I leaned against a wall and watched for a while, until the right-hand door opened and a middle-aged Orca walked out. A moment later, as she was walking past me, one of those waiting went in. I walked past and entered the door to the left.
There was a sharp-looking young Dragonlord sitting at a desk. He said, “Good day, my lord.”
How long was I a Jhereg, Kiera? Hard to say, I suppose; it depends when you start counting and when you stop. But a long time, anyway, and that’s a long time spent getting so you can smell authority—so you know you’re looking at an officer of the Guard before you really know how you know. Well, I walked through that door, and I knew.
He was, as I said, a Dragonlord, and one who worked for the Phoenix Guards, or for the Empire; yet he was dressed in plain black pants and shirt with only the least bit of silver; his hair was very short, his complexion just a bit dark, his nose just a bit aquiline; he rather looked like Morrolan, now that I think of it. But I’ve never seen Morrolan’s eyes look quite that cold and that calculating; I’ve never seen anyone look like that except for an assassin named Ishtvan, who I used a couple of times and killed not long ago. It took me about a quarter of a second to decide that I didn’t want to go up against this guy if I could avoid it.
I said, “My lord, you are looking into the death of Lord Fyres?”
“That’s right. Who called you in?”
“No one, my lord,” I said, trying to sound humble.
“No one?”
“I came on my own, when I heard about it.”
“Heard about what?”
“The investigation.”
“How did you hear?”
I had no idea how to answer that one, so I shrugged helplessly.
He was starting to look very hard at me. “What’s your name?” he said. I was no longer his lord.
“Kaldor,” I said.
“Where do you live, Kaldor?”
“Number six Coattail Bend, my lord.”
“That’s here in Northport?”
“Yes, my lord, in the city.”
He wrote something down on a piece of paper and said, “My name is Loftis. Wait in the hall; we’ll call you.”
“Yes, my lord.”
I gave him a very humble bow and stepped back into the hall, feeling nervous. I’m a good actor, and I’m okay with disguises, but that guy scared me. I guess I’d been working on the assumption that the Imperial investigators were on the take, and I’d gone from there to the assumption that they must be pretty lousy investigators. Actually, that was stupid; I know from my own dealings with the Guard that just because one of them is on the take doesn’t mean he can’t do his job, but I hadn’t thought it through, and now I was worried; Loftis didn’t seem to be someone I could put much over on, at least not without a lot more work than I’d put in.
So, of course, I listened. I assumed that they’d be able to detect sorcery, but I doubted they’d be looking for witchcraft, so I took the black Phoenix Stone off and slipped it into my pouch—hoping, of course, that the Jhereg wouldn’t pick that moment to attempt a psychic location spell. I leaned my head back against the wall, closed my eyes, and concentrated on sending my hearing through the wall. It took some work, and it took some time, but soon I could hear voices, and after a bit I could distinguish words.
“Who do you think sent him?” I wasn’t sure if that was Loftis.
“Don’t be stupid.” That was Loftis.
“What, you’re saying it was the Candlestick?”
“In the first place, Domm, when you’re around me, you’ll be respectful when speaking of Her Majesty.”
“Oh, well pardon my feet for touching the ground.”
“And in the second place, no. I mean we have no way of knowing who sent him, and if we’re going to do this—”
“We’re going to do this.”
“—we should at least be careful about it. And being careful means finding out.”
“He could have given us his right address.”
“Sure. And he could be the King of Elde Island, too. You follow him, Domm. And don’t let him pick up on you.”
“You want to put those orders in writing, Lieutenant?”
“Would you like to eat nine inches of steel, Lieutenant?”
“Don’t push me, Loftis.”
“Or we could just dump the whole thing on Papa-cat’s lap and let him decide our next step. Want to do that? How do you think he’d feel about it?”
“I could tell him it was your idea.”
“Sure. Do it. I’m sure he’ll believe you, too. You know as sure as Verra’s tits I’ll roll on this as soon as I have a good excuse. Go ahead. My protests are down in writing, Domm. How about you? Did you just shrug and say, ‘Hey, sure, sounds like fun’? Probably. So go ahead.”
“Lieutenant, sir, with all respect, my lord, you tire me.”
“Tough. You’ve got your orders, my lord lieutenant. Carry them out.”
“All right, all right. You know how much I love legwork, and I know how much you care about what I love. I’ll wait until his interview is over, then pick him up. Should I bring some backup?”
“Yeah. Take Timmer; she’s good at tailing, and she hasn’t stirred her butt since she’s been here.”
“Okay. What should I tell Birdie about the interview?”
“Play it straight, see what he has to say, and try to keep the bell ringing.”
“Huh?”
“Battle of Waterford Landing, Domm. Tenth Cycle, early Dragon Reign. A border skirmish between a couple of Lyorn over rights to—”
“Oh, now that’s extremely useful, Loftis. Thanks. Why don’t you skip the history, and the obscure references, and just tell me what you want Birdie to do.”
“I mean Birdie should try to get him talking, and then j
ust keep drawing him out until there isn’t anything left to draw.”
“And if he won’t be drawn?”
“Then that’ll tell us something, too.”
“Okay.”
“You got to admit this is better than just sitting here day after day pretending. At least it’s doing something.”
“I suppose. Mind if I put him in front of the queue so I don’t have to wait all night?”
“Yeah, I mind. Nothing to make him suspicious. You can put him in front of the Teckla if you want.”
“Okay. Hey, Loftis.”
“Yeah?”
“You ever wonder why?”
“Why what? Why we got the word?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s a laugh. I haven’t been doing anything but wondering why for the last two weeks.”
“Yeah.”
They stopped talking. I moved my head forward, replaced the Phoenix Stone around my neck, and didn’t look as someone I didn’t recognize walked out of the door and across the hall. An instant later he came back. I watched him, as did all of the others who were waiting, but he didn’t look at me at all. Assuming that was Domm, my opinion of him went up a bit—it isn’t easy to avoid taking even a quick glance at someone you’re going to be following in a few minutes. I got the uncomfortable feeling that I was dealing with professionals here.
I sat there trying to decide if I should skip out now, which would mean I wouldn’t have to worry about losing the tail and would give them something to wonder about, or if I should go ahead and let them interview me, and hope to pick up more information that way. I decided to gamble, because, now that I had a better idea of what was going on, as well as how they were going to handle me, I felt like I could maybe learn a bit. I was glad Domm had demanded the explanation for “keep ringing the bell,” because it would have been a mistake to have asked Loftis myself.
Someone else showed up, went into the room I’d just come out of, then emerged and took a seat next to me. We didn’t speak. None of us had so much as made eye contact with any of the others. But as I sat there waiting for about an hour and a half planning what kind of story I was going to tell them, I didn’t get any less nervous.
When they finally called out “Kaldor,” it took me a moment to realize that was the name I’d given them. I tell you, Kiera, I’m not made for a life of deception. But I shuffled into the office, still taking long strides and swaggering, but shuffling, too, if you can imagine it, where sat a fairly young, competent-looking Lyorn behind yet another desk. I’ve been seeing a great number of desks lately—it makes me miss my own. I don’t know what it is about a desk that gives one a feeling of power—perhaps it is that, when you are facing someone behind a desk, you don’t know what is concealed within it; the contents of a desk can be worse than a nest of yendi.
The chair he pointed me to was another of the inevitable plain, wooden chairs—there’s something about those, too, now that I think of it.
He said, “I am the Baron of Daythiefnest. You are Kaldor?”
Daythiefnest? Birdie. I didn’t laugh. “Yes, my lord.”
“Number three Coattail Bend?”
“Number six, my lord.” Heh. Caught that one, at least.
“Right, sorry. And you have come in on your own?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Why?”
“My lord?”
“What brought you here?”
“The investigation, my lord. I have information.”
“Ah. You have information about Fyres’s death?”
“Yes, my lord.”
He studied me carefully, but, as far as intimidation went, he was nothing compared to Loftis. Of course, it wouldn’t do to tell him so; it might hurt his feelings.
“And what is this information?”
“Well, my lord, after work—”
“What sort of work do you do, Kaldor?”
“I mend things, my lord. That is, I mend clothes, and sometimes I mend pots and pans, except my tools got took, which I reported to the Guard, my lord, and I mend sails for sailors sometimes, and—”
“Yes, I understand. Go on.”
“I know that you aren’t the gentlemen who are going to get my tools back, that’s a different outfit.”
“Yes. Go on.”
“Go on?”
“After work . . .”
“Oh, right. Well, after work, on the days I have work, I like to go into the Riversend. Do you know where that is?”
“I can find it.”
“Oh, it’s right nearby. You just take Kelp down to where it curves—”
“Yes, yes. Go on.”
“Right, my lord. Well, I was in there having a nice glass of ale—”
“When was this?”
“Last Marketday, my lord.”
“Very well.”
“Well, I’d been drinking a fair bit, and I’d gotten a kind of early start, so before I knew it I was seeing the room go spinning around me, the way it does when you know you’ve had more than maybe you should?”
“Yes. You were drunk.”
“That’s it, my lord. I was drunk. And then the room spun, and then I must have fallen asleep.”
“Passed out.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Well?”
“Yes, my lord?”
“Get on with it.”
“Oh. Yes, my lord. I must have been sleeping five, six hours, because when I woke up, needing to relieve myself, you understand, I wasn’t nearly so drunk, and I was lying on one of the benches they have in back, and the place was almost empty—there was Trim, the host, who was in the far corner cleaning up, and there was me, and there were these two gentlemen sitting at a table right next to me, and they were talking kind of quiet, but I could hear them, you know, my lord? And it was pretty dark, and I wasn’t moving, so I don’t think they knew I was there.”
“Well, go on.”
“One of them said, ‘If you ask me, they didn’t get anything.’ And the other one said, ‘Oh, no? Well, I’ll tell you something, they got a lot, and it’s going on the market next week,’ and the first one said, ‘What’s it going for?’ and the other one said, ‘A lot. It has to be a lot. If someone is going to lighten Fyres, especially after he’s dead, and not take anything but a bunch of papers, they must be important.’ And the first one said, ‘Maybe that’s what he was killed for?’ And the other one said, ‘Killed? Naw, he just fell and hit his head.’ And then, my lord, I sort of figured out what they were saying, even though I was still maybe a bit woozy, and I knew I didn’t want to hear any more, so I moaned like I was just waking up, and they saw me, and they stopped talking right then. And I tumbled out of there, singing to myself like I was even drunker than I was, and I went out the back way and I beat it for home as quick as I could, and I didn’t even settle up with Trim until the next day. But, as I was walking out, just at the last minute, I took a quick look at the two gentlemen. I couldn’t see their faces too well, but I could see their colors, and they were both Jhereg. I’ll swear it. And that’s what I have, my lord.”
“That’s what you have?”
“Yes, my lord.”
He stared at me like I was a rotten pear and he’d just bit into me, and he thought for a while. “Why did you come and see us now, and not two weeks ago?”
“Well, because I heard of the reward, and I was thinking about my tools that got stole, and—”
“What reward?”
“The reward for anyone who gives evidence about how Fyres died.”
“There’s no reward.”
“There’s no reward?”
“Not at all. Where did you hear such a thing?”
“Why, just yesterday, down at the Riversend, a lady told me that she’d heard—”
“She was deceived, my friend. And so were you.”
“My lord?”
“There isn’t any reward for anything. We’re just trying to find out what happened.”
“Oh.”
I tried to look disappointed.
He said, “How did you learn to come here, by the way?”
“How, my lord?”
“Yes.”
“Why, the lady, she was a Tsalmoth, and she told me.”
“I see. Who was this lady?”
“Well, I don’t know, my lord. I’d never seen her before, but she was—” I squinted as if I was trying to remember. “Oh, she was about eight hundred, and sort of tall, and her hair curled, and she was, you know, a Tsalmoth.”
“Yes,” he said, nodding. “Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but there isn’t any reward.”
I looked disappointed but said, “Well, that’s all right, my lord; I’m just glad to have done the right thing.”
“Yes, indeed. Well, we know where to reach you if we have any more questions.”
I stood up and bowed. “Yes, my lord. Thank you.”
“Thank you,” he said, and that was it for the interview.
I walked out the door without seeing anyone except those who were waiting for their turn, and I took my time going down the stairs. As I went, I said, “Loiosh?”
“Right here, boss.”
“I’m going to be followed, so stay back for a while.”
“Okay. Who’s going to follow you, boss?”
“I don’t know, but I think the enemy.”
“Oh, we have an enemy now?”
“I think so. Maybe.”
“It’s nice to have an enemy, boss. Where are you taking them?”
“Good question,” I said. “I’ll let you know when we get there.”
6
I STOOD ON THE street, just outside City Hall, not looking behind me and trying to stay in character while figuring out where to go and what to do. You don’t get tailed all that often, at least when you know it’s happening, and an opportunity like that ought not to be wasted.
“I’ve spotted ’em, boss. Two of ’em. Pros.”
“What are they doing?”
“Waiting for you to do something.”
“Good. Let them wait.”
I’d done what I actually set out to do, of course—it was easy to fill in the missing pieces of Loftis’s conversation with Domm, and the missing pieces said that they were faking their way through the investigation and putting out the results they were told to, and that was confirmed by the way the other one, Daythiefnest, had been more concerned with how I knew enough to find them and why I wanted to than with the information itself. But what now? Knowing the investigation was faked brought up the possibility (although not the certainty by any means) that Fyres was, in fact, murdered, but it got me no closer to learning who was pulling the financial strings, or who in the next few months and years would be.