Wrath of Empire

by Brian McClellan

  Meln-Yaret smirked. “You make a very persuasive argument, Michel Bravis. But what you ask … it would be very difficult.”

  Michel gingerly touched the side of his head. It hadn’t occurred to him that the minister of scrolls might not actually be that powerful of a position. If Meln-Yaret was simply a hound used to find enemy spies rather than a spymaster in his own right, Michel may have badly misplaced his bets. He needed a powerful patron if he was going to find Taniel’s informant.

  “On the other hand,” Meln-Yaret continued after a moment’s silence, “I may be able to work with your demands. Tell me, why should I trust you? You’ve already admitted to being a spy. Shouldn’t I assume you’re still working for the Fatrastans? This could simply be your way to get into my good graces.”

  There was a glint in Meln-Yaret’s eyes that Michel didn’t particularly like. He swallowed, holding Yaret’s gaze. “Give me the chance to earn that trust.”

  “Why? Why shouldn’t I just torture you for your information? Or hand you over to the bone-eyes?”

  Michel tried not to let his fear show at the mention of bone-eyes. He knew what a bone-eye was capable of, but that information was something he didn’t want to let on. “Because I came to you in good faith. You offer a reward for service. Is this the reward of which you speak? Because if it is, word will get out sooner or later. Even sympathizers will grow wary of you, and rumors will spread that the Dynize ministers are not true to their word.”

  Yaret exchanged a glance with Tenik, tongue in cheek.

  “He has balls,” Tenik said with a shrug. “But he’s still a spy. What good is goodwill if it is used against us?”

  “Goodwill is a double-edged sword,” Yaret admitted.

  Michel leaned forward, ignoring the blood dripping from his chin. “Do I seem like someone who would be more useful as a willing participant, or forced to aid you under duress?”

  Meln-Yaret did not answer the question. “Can you tell me where Lindet keeps her personal files?”

  The question caught Michel off guard. “I can’t.”

  “Can you tell me where the gunsmiths fled, so that we might capture them and use their expertise to improve our armies?”

  “I can’t,” Michel answered again. For all his bravado, he knew he was on shaky ground. Meln-Yaret obviously had goals. If Michel couldn’t help him with those, then Meln-Yaret might just hand him off to someone else. Someone like Forgula.

  With each answer, Meln-Yaret looked increasingly doubtful. He sighed, shaking his head. “Caches and safe houses are not enough. You’re asking me to put a lot of trust in you, and in return all I receive are promises. Give me something, Michel, and we can begin a relationship. Until then …” Meln-Yaret trailed off.

  Michel wracked his brain. His bluster about seeing a lot as a spy had been mostly that—bluster. He certainly knew some secrets, and he had no doubt that he could be useful to the Dynize in the long term. But immediate evidence of his good intentions? His eyes fell on the Gold Rose as Meln-Yaret turned it over and over again between his fingers.

  “Tell me,” Michel said, “did Lindet destroy the third floor of the Blackhat Archives when she left?”

  Meln-Yaret stopped twirling the Gold Rose and looked up sharply. Michel had hit upon something. “She did not.”

  “Do you know what’s up there?”

  “We have … an inkling.”

  “Secrets. A lot of them. I assume it’s heavily warded. It will take your Privileged months, if not years, to break into it without destroying the contents. You want goodwill? You want trust?” Michel took a fraction of a second to study Yaret. His expressions and composure reminded him once more of Captain Blasdell, and Michel decided to take a gamble. “The Gold Rose is a key,” he said simply. “It’ll open the gate to the third floor. It worked for me. I don’t see why it wouldn’t work for you.” He silently prayed that Lindet’s Privileged hadn’t had time to change the wards before they fled the city.

  Meln-Yaret looked down at the Rose in his hand. “Well. As simple as that?”

  “As simple as that.”

  The two Dynize exchanged a glance, and Meln-Yaret addressed Tenik with a clever smile. “Sedial will be furious. All right, Michel. Assuming this works, I will put you on a leash and let you go to work. You’ll have freedom of movement, a Household, protection, and the backing of my name. I’ll see what I can do about the families that we have rounded up. The more results you get me, the more likely I’ll be able to free noncombatants.”

  As simple as that. Michel barely allowed himself to breathe. “Is there anywhere you want me to start?”

  “There is. I have several hundred men combing the city to find out who’s responsible for the recent bombings. We’ve captured countless Blackhats and partisans, and not a single person can tell me who carried out or ordered them. A Household Captain of the Guard was killed less than an hour ago, and it has the ministers nervous.”

  “I’m not an investigator,” Michel warned. “If it’s not the Blackhats, I won’t be able to help you.”

  “Then rule them out,” Yaret responded.

  Michel hesitated. He already suspected that the perpetrators were a Blackhat cell, but he didn’t have the slightest idea where they were holed up or who they were led by. Perhaps the mysterious Gold Rose? Regardless, he had to say yes. Michel needed to gain stature within the Dynize as quickly as possible—lengthen that leash and get to know the Dynize officials. The more he infiltrated their government, the more likely he was to find Taniel’s informant.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Michel promised.

  CHAPTER 16

  Is spying always this boring?” Tenik asked.

  Michel stood at a window in a stuffy tenement room in the industrial quarter of Lower Landfall. He gazed through a slit in the curtains, watching the entrance of a tenement across the street while he listened to the sound of the midafternoon traffic. Before the war, this whole district was choked with smoke and the sound of carts, people, and factories. Now it was almost quiet with the factories empty and the traffic sparse.

  Michel turned away from the window just long enough to glance at the man sitting in the corner behind him. Devin-Tenik looked even more like a Palo once he had shed his turquoise uniform for a brown cotton suit and flatcap, and he lounged on the floor as if it were more comfortable there than in a chair. Michel answered the question, “Most of being a spy is waiting, watching, and listening. So yes, it’s always this boring.”

  Tenik flipped a coin in the air and caught it. He slapped it on the back of his wrist but didn’t bother looking at the result before flipping it again. He’d been doing so for about four hours, and Michel wasn’t sure whether to strangle him or find something to take his own mind off the tedium.

  “Are you supposed to follow me everywhere?” Michel asked.

  Tenik smiled. “That’s the idea. Your Gold Rose opened the third floor of the Millinery. You have earned Yaret’s trust, and you are now part of his Household. But you’re still a foreigner. For your safety, I am to be your bodyguard, guide, and assistant.”

  “Bodyguard, eh?” Michel muttered. Tenik didn’t appear to be a soldier, but he was lean and fit and walked with the confidence of someone who knew how to handle a fight. Michel suspected that his job was less “bodyguard” and more “guard.” Michel wondered how long it would take for him to become fully trusted. Years, perhaps. He didn’t have that much time. Until then, he could make use of an assistant and guide.

  “What do you mean when you say ‘part of Yaret’s Household’?”

  “Dynize society is based around Households,” Tenik explained. “A Household revolves around a Name.” He flipped his coin, caught it, and pointed a finger at Michel. “You are the newest member of Yaret’s Household.”

  “Yaret is the Name of the Household?” Michel asked. He kept his attention on the road and the entrance to the tenement across the street, but he listened carefully. He suspected that much of his downtim
e the next few weeks would be spent learning about Dynize society. He needed to enter and climb it as quickly as possible.

  “It is. Ah!” Tenik felt around in his jacket pockets for a moment, then withdrew a card and handed it to Michel. “This belongs to you. It marks you as a member of Yaret’s Household and entitled to the protection of Yaret’s Name. If we are ever separated and you are questioned by soldiers, you can show them this and they will escort you to Yaret’s home.”

  Michel took the card and turned it over in his hand. It was on a heavy stock, coated in wax and decorated with a stylized golden trim. There were words in Dynize at the bottom and a red thumbprint in the center. He immediately wondered how hard it would be to counterfeit. If he’d gotten hold of one of these as a Blackhat, doing so would be his first concern.

  “Handy,” he said.

  “It is, but you should be careful.”

  Michel glanced at Tenik sharply. “Of?”

  “Remember Forgula? She belongs to a rival Household. Yaret’s protection is meant to be sacred, but in reality it is only as good as the power of his Name. Forgula attempted to snatch you out from under us, and it’s possible that she will do so again if she thinks it’s worth angering Yaret.”

  “Her Household Name is stronger than Yaret’s?”

  “Her Household is stronger than everyone’s.”

  “And whose is that?”

  “Sedial.” Tenik’s expression darkened. “Ka-Sedial is the emperor’s appointed ruler on this continent. Be wary of him. Be wary of the bone-eyes.”

  “Why?”

  “I …” Tenik hesitated, as if remembering that he was talking to someone he shouldn’t completely trust. “Just be wary of them. Prove yourself to Yaret and in return you’ll be taught all you need to know to be a useful member of his Household.”

  Michel was surprised to receive such a warning from a Dynize. They seemed so organized and in-step that he had expected the division among them to be minimal. Household rivalries sounded like something he could use. He would have to learn more about them.

  “Do people ever change Households?” he asked.

  Tenik’s penetrating stare told Michel a great deal. After a moment, Tenik answered, “All the time. Marriages. Trades. Formal requests. Both Household Names must agree for it to be done formally.”

  “And informally?”

  Tenik’s expression softened and he resumed flipping his coin, as if carefree, but there was a glint in his eye. “Concern yourself with finding this Gold Rose you promised your new master.”

  Michel slowly turned back to the curtain. “Right.”

  A few minutes later he heard Tenik get up and cross the room, coming to stand just behind Michel and craning his neck to look outside. Michel stepped to one side, allowing him the view.

  Tenik asked, “How does starting here help you find the person responsible for the bombings?”

  “I thought you worked for the minister of scrolls,” Michel responded, pulling away to get a good look at Tenik’s face.

  “I do. What of it?”

  “And you don’t know anything about being a spy?”

  Tenik let out a soft laugh. “You think Yaret is some kind of spy?”

  “That …” Michel hesitated, thinking of his conversation with Emerald. “That’s what I was led to believe. Well, not a spy himself. But a spymaster.”

  “I don’t know that word.”

  Tenik knew far more Adran and Palo than Michel had expected, and their conversations took place in both those languages as well as Dynize. Michel tried to think of a Palo word for “spymaster,” but settled on “one who commands those who watch your enemies.”

  “Ah, I see,” Tenik said. “Yes, I suppose that works. The minister of scrolls traditionally oversees government information—history, census data, that sort of thing—but Yaret wanted to be involved in the invasion. He worked to expand his position so that Sedial didn’t have complete control of the war.”

  Census data could be useful, if it included the names of Dynize citizens here in Fatrasta. “The emperor doesn’t have a designated spymaster?”

  “I believe he does,” Tenik recalled, “but they only oversee threats against the emperor’s person. Government spies were purged after the end of the civil war, and we needed something new when we turned our eyes outward.”

  Michel considered the information. He had a thousand questions about the things he was just told, but he couldn’t risk being too curious. He needed to pick his questions carefully. For now, it was enough to know that Yaret was more akin to a record keeper than a spymaster. Shrewd, perhaps, but not seasoned. “So what are you? A census taker?”

  “No, no,” Tenik said, “I am one of Yaret’s cupbearers.”

  The term sounded archaic, and it was not the first time Michel had heard a Dynize use it. He seemed to remember that it was an honorarium in the court of Kressian kings. “I’m not familiar with the term. What is your role?”

  “I have no role—and I have every role,” Tenik said, spreading his arms. “A cupbearer is a trusted member of the Household who takes on whatever the Name needs doing. I have been many things. For now, I am your bodyguard and assistant.”

  “It’s an honored position?”

  “Very.”

  “Looking after me seems … beneath you.”

  “Not at all. You were a high-ranking member of the Blackhats. Your place within the Household has yet to be determined, but you are not a slave.” He paused. “No, what is the word for the lowliest member?” He said something in Dynize, then “commoner? Is that the word?”

  “I think I get your meaning,” Michel said.

  “Good. By the way, you never answered my question.”

  “Which one?”

  “How does this help us catch the culprit behind the bombings?”

  Michel pulled himself away from his myriad of questions and nodded to the tenement across the street. “I’m waiting for someone.”

  “Who?”

  “A woman named Hendres. We worked together for a brief time after the war started.”

  “How will she be useful?”

  “Because she knows that I turned. I’m willing to bet that with me gone, she will have spent the last couple of days tracking down the highest-ranking Blackhat in the city. With any luck, it’s a Gold Rose who, if not personally responsible for the bombings, will probably have a good idea who is.”

  “You were friends with this Hendres woman?”

  Michel decided not to mention their time as lovers. “Partners. We were trying to figure out how to save the families of Blackhats from your purges.”

  “And why did you stop being partners?”

  “Because I decided that joining you was more efficient.” Michel didn’t much like this line of questioning, and hoped that it came across in his voice.

  Tenik didn’t seem to notice. “How do you know she’ll come here?”

  “I don’t,” Michel said. A glance at Tenik’s face revealed the other’s skepticism, and he continued. “Hendres isn’t a spy. She was an enforcer, then a bureaucrat. Everything she knows about sneaking around she learned from me in the last month.”

  “And?”

  “And we worked from the same list of safe houses. The safe house across the street is one of the few we never discussed using as a backup. Hendres is smart enough to have ditched our backup safe houses and will only use those she thinks I’m less likely to search. If she doesn’t show up at this one tonight, we’ll check one of the others tomorrow.”

  Michel gave the explanation offhand, and it didn’t occur to him until he’d finished speaking what, exactly, he’d just revealed. He risked a quick glance at Tenik, whose eyes were still focused on the street. He was just beginning to think Tenik hadn’t noticed the slip, when Tenik asked, “How does Hendres know that you’re working for us?” The question was posed in a quiet, thoughtful tone.

  Michel licked his lips. “It’s complicated.”

  “I thin
k I could follow an explanation.”

  Michel grew even more cognizant of the fact that Tenik had been sent to keep an eye on him. Everything he shared with Tenik would be revealed to Yaret, and might affect Michel’s standing. Carelessly giving away information, he decided, would be a stupid way to end his short stint with the Dynize.

  “Hendres accused me of being a spy for the Dynize,” Michel said. “She tried to kill me.”

  “You became a traitor because you were falsely accused of being a traitor?”

  Michel didn’t like the word “traitor.” It ignored the complexities of what being a spy actually meant. “Yes,” he said.

  “And why did she think you were a traitor?”

  “Because one of our safe houses was raided by Dynize soldiers while I was away. She barely escaped, and only the two of us knew about the safe house.” It was close enough to the truth for Michel. He added a twist of anger to his words—also real—and clicked his tongue. “Speaking of which, do you see that woman with the brown hair down at the end of the street?”

  “I do.”

  “That’s her.”

  Michel took a deep breath to calm himself as he watched Hendres mill about the intersection at the end of the street, checking subtly for a possible ambush. Her body language was tense and she checked the street, rooftops, and tenement doorway several times before finally coming down the street and heading inside. It seemed she was still spooked from coming back to the Dynize stakeout last week.

  “She didn’t see us,” Tenik observed.

  “She didn’t check the windows at all,” Michel said. “She really needs to learn to do that.”

  “What next?”

  “You don’t have to whisper,” Michel responded. “Even if she was still in the street, she wouldn’t hear us.”

  Tenik cleared his throat and his cheeks flushed. “So what next?” he asked in a normal voice.