Jhegaala (Vlad Taltos)

by Steven Brust

“How did you know they hadn’t killed him?”

  “Red lips? A ‘witch’s mark’? There are a thousand ways to kill someone using the Art. Why pick one that would point right at them?”

  He nodded and I went on. “Who wanted Zollie dead? And who wanted the Coven blamed for it? Whoever fit that was almost certainly who killed my family.”

  He looked down.

  “Except that I was wrong.”

  “You were?”

  “Yeah. I’ll try to explain my thinking. My first idea was the Guild, just because they’d been ordering me—through Orbahn—to stay away.”

  “He told you he was with the Guild?”

  “No, he tried to say he wasn’t. I didn’t believe him.”

  “Oh.”

  “I kept coming back to why. The Merss family lived here all their lives, for generations, and then I show up, and they’re killed. What did I do? What did I say? Who did they think I was?”

  I sighed.

  “I saw the Count and got nothing but an invitation to visit the mill. I tested him with a story of coming from the Empire to see if he was the greedy sort, and he was. The invitation scared me; I didn’t accept it. I was right to be scared, but it didn’t help.”

  I was quiet for a while; I hadn’t realized talking about it would hit me like that. He waited, not looking at me. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I had a whole plan for pulling the information I wanted out of the people who had it. It got as far as my first contact with the Guild. You see, they knew my name.”

  He looked up. “Your real name?”

  “Yes.”

  “How could they know it?”

  “My name flashed through my head during the spell, so if someone was watching me, well, it could be done.”

  “What spell?”

  “It doesn’t matter. A minor Working.” It was embarrassing, that part.

  “Okay.”

  “So, the next question was, why was the Guild watching me so closely? By then, I was pretty much convinced they were the ones who had killed my family, and Zollie, but there were things about it that didn’t make sense. To get my name, they had to employ a witch. Just what was the relationship between the Guild and the Coven? They ought to be enemies, because the Coven was the one craft Guild they hadn’t absorbed. But if they were working with the Coven, why try to blame them for Zollie’s death? And what about Count Saekeresh? Zollie thought being under his protection made him safe. Why was he wrong? So, I wasn’t sure enough to act.”

  I shook my head. “It was quite the muddle.”

  He nodded.

  “I’d learned some of the history, by then. You should too, sometime. Find Father Noij and shake him until he tells you the real history. It’s something you should know.”

  He frowned, started to say something, but didn’t.

  I said, “I learned, at any rate, that the Merss family had been part of a group of witches with either a different Coven than the one that had survived, or no Coven at all. Covens like that frown on independent witches, and so they either die, leave, or give up practicing the Art, except perhaps in secret. The Merss family had, in parts, done all of those, including changing their name to Merss.

  “And there was more, going back to when some poor bastard found an old, old manuscript, or engraving, or, well, something, that told how to make high-quality paper cheaply, in quantity. Up till then, there were different Guilds, like there are most places. But with the paper mill, most of those in the Guilds started working for the Count for cash. And what was left combined into one Merchants’ Guild, both to make it easier for the Count to bargain with, and to have more leverage bargaining with him. It ended up functioning as the town government as well. The Guild has been fighting with the different Counts Saekeresh for generations—over laws that help trade versus laws that help industry, and over who has jurisdiction over what. The merchants are all Guild, which is what gives them any sort of power at all. The mill workers have His Lordship as their protector and enemy at the same time; an odd situation to be sure, but the cheaper he can convince the merchants to set the prices, the less he has to pay the workers. He has to protect them because he needs them. And, in all this, there are the peasants, who are caught in the middle because Count Saekeresh doesn’t really need them anymore. He gets more money from the mill than he ever did from ground rent. To him, they’re just a convenient way to feed his workers. And the Guild doesn’t care about them at all; when I went into a shop and was taken for a peasant, I was treated as if I were a thief.”

  I shook my head. “What a mess. In the end, the only ones the peasants had to turn to were Father Noij, and the Coven.” I shrugged. “It’s led to all sorts of conflicts between those working at the mill and those who still farmed—”

  “That’s why you asked me about that? To find out—”

  “Yes.”

  He looked unhappy. I shrugged. “In the past—back when this started, it led to conflicts among the witches, the breaking up of the old Coven and the formulating of a new one. And it ended with a three-way balance of power. Three groups that didn’t trust each other, that schemed against each other, tried to get the advantage over each other, and needed each other.”

  “Needed each other?”

  “Each needed another to keep the third in check.”

  I gave him a moment for that. I could see him going over things he knew, looking at them from that viewpoint. Finally, he gave a hesitant nod.

  “And that is the situation I, the most suspicious-looking fellow this town has seen in a hundred years, walked into, all innocence. Meehayi, do you know what ‘paranoid’ means?”

  He shook his head.

  “It’s a mind-sickness. It’s when you think that everything going on is a conspiracy against you.”

  He thought that over and nodded. “And that’s what you believed?”

  “Not enough. No, that’s what everyone believed about me.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

  “The Count believed I had come to town to steal the secret of paper-making. The Guild, seeing my familiars, assumed I was with the Coven. And the Coven, when they realized that witchcraft wouldn’t work on me, jumped to the conclusion that I was working for the Count.”

  “Oh. How did you figure out all of, well, that?”

  “From the questions they asked me. The Count had me first, and his questioner drugged me and asked me things that indicated he thought I was there to steal his secret.” I snorted.

  “Oh. But you couldn’t tell them anything.”

  “No, and the questioner finally believed that, at which point he turned me over to the Guild. He’d worked with them to get me in the first place.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Orbahn was part of the set-up. And so was Tereza. They both work for the Guild.”

  “But you said Orbahn worked for the Coven, too.”

  “Yes, he reported to them, but he wasn’t in on their councils, just a paid spy in the Guild. But that’s how he learned that my jhereg would have to be distracted, and about making sure the amulet I wear had to stay on me.”

  “So, His Lordship was working with the Guild?”

  “That far, yes. A deal. Probably something like, ‘You help me take him, and I’ll question him and tell you what I learn.’ ‘What if you don’t learn anything?’ ‘then you can have him, I don’t care.’ Probably a lot like that. And he carried out his bargain. The Guild’s questioner had me when Saekeresh’s was done.”

  He looked away. Then he said, “What did the Guild think?”

  “At first they were afraid I was from the King; that the kingdom finally started caring about what happened out here in the West. Then they didn’t know, and set about trying to find out. Of course, they didn’t believe that I’d just come to visit my family. A flimsy story like that, who’d believe it? And the more I stuck to it, the more frightened they got.”

  He nodded.

  “The other
thing that helped me put it together was just the way they got me. It involved all of them: Saekeresh to lure me there, the Guild to play out a little comedy to distract Loiosh and Rocza, and the Coven, though all unknowing, to give Aybrahmis the knockout drops to slip into my glass on behalf of His Lordship.”

  He stared at me. “The physicker?”

  I nodded. “I surprised a flush out of him when he wasn’t expecting it. And I knew the Coven wasn’t involved directly, because they wouldn’t have made the mistake of telling me my familiar was dead without confirming it. But a witch was certainly involved on some level, because they recognized at least some of what my amulet did and made sure I couldn’t remove it. Anyway, after that, it was just a matter of confirming it, and fixing it.”

  “Fixing it,” he repeated.

  “Yes. After I was taken out, we were playing a little comedy. His Lordship isn’t a bad fellow, really, and when he saw what had been done to me, which he’d never planned on, he actually wanted to help me recover. The Guild didn’t dare do anything, because Saekeresh was watching them, all ready to send his troops in. The Coven couldn’t do anything, because everyone was suspicious of them for Zollie’s death, and if I died too things could get ugly for them. They sent their youngest witches to help Aybrahmis; witches who wouldn’t know enough to ask about why the Art wouldn’t work on me, but—”

  “Why won’t it?”

  I shook my head. “Long story. Never mind. But the witches did their best to cure me, and the Guild stayed out of the way, and all of them hoped this would just blow over and things could go back to normal. It didn’t. Like I told—I mean, it was like a stool with three legs, you know? Kick one in, it all goes down.”

  He thought that over. He finally said, “Why didn’t Count Saekeresh destroy the Guild before?”

  “They were protected by the witches.”

  “I thought the Guild didn’t like the Coven?”

  “They don’t, but they needed each other to fend off Count Saekeresh. Saekeresh could take the Guild, but he knows his family history. His grandfather had a lot of trouble with witches, and he didn’t want the same sort of trouble.”

  “Well, but why did the Coven need the Guild?”

  I smiled. “They didn’t exactly need them. The Guild knows that—excuse me for this—that peasants, even when they may practice witchcraft, don’t trust Covens. They, you, tend to blame them for things. According to my grandfather, that’s why the leaders of most Covens stay secret, because sooner or later there will be a bad year for crops and it’ll be taken out on the Coven. So the Guild had managed to discover at least some of the leaders of the Coven, and so they had that to hold over their heads. Whenever they needed to keep the Coven in line, someone would die with a ‘witch’s mark’ on him.”

  He thought that over, and finally said, “Oh.” Then he frowned. “But you—”

  “Yes. I gave myself the witch’s mark, just as the Guild gave it to Zollie. Probably almost the same way, too, if I had to guess.”

  “So you used me to—”

  “Yes.”

  He looked at me with an expression I couldn’t read. Then he shook his head. “How do you know all this?”

  “I confirmed it in different ways, talking to different people. I wasn’t sure about the connection between the Guild and the Coven until I learned there are certain diseases common to prostitutes that aren’t a problem here. To prevent it takes a witch. There you have the foundation of a business arrangement.”

  After a while he said, “But who, who was it who actually, that is, who—?”

  “Who killed my family? Who lit the fire? That was witchcraft; natural fires don’t burn that way. I couldn’t say who did the Working. Maybe Orbahn. It was the Coven, though.”

  “But I don’t understand why.”

  “None of them trusted each other. They were always watching each other, finding each other’s spies, pushing for advantages, careful none of the others got advantages. So I came in with an obvious lie about looking for my family, they all ‘knew’ I was up to no good. And that was fine, they just watched me, none of them daring to touch me until they knew whose side I was on. I might, after all, be from the King, and getting the King mad at them wouldn’t be in anyone’s interest.”

  He was watching me, his eyes fixed to my face, listening in silence.

  I said, “When I started asking questions about the Merss family, they thought it was just to look good, and they kept watching me to see what I’d do. But then—okay, here I’m speculating, but it makes sense. The Guild pointed me at Zollie. It was a test, I think—they wanted to know how far I’d push my cover story, or else they wanted to see what I’d do when I’d used that up by finding them. So they arranged for me to see Zollie, who they knew would direct me to the Merss family and answer my questions.

  “The Coven heard about this, through their spy, Orbahn, and became scared. The Merss family, after all, had been, years and years ago, their enemies, and now a man they couldn’t touch or investigate with witchcraft was about to make contact with them. They didn’t know what I had in mind, but it couldn’t be good, and so they acted.”

  He nodded. “And Zollie?”

  “The Guild.”

  “Why?”

  “For the same reason they killed Tereza later. Once the Merss family was killed, they panicked. They were still afraid to touch me and they knew I was going to come back to Zollie and ask more questions. They were pretty well convinced now that I was working for the King, and that I had wanted to see the Merss family to learn the history of area—and they didn’t want me to know it. Bastards always hate people knowing history. It scares them. So they had Zollie killed, and tried to make it look like the Coven had done it. Not to fool Count Saekeresh, but to fool, well, you.”

  “Me?”

  “People. Peasants. The mill workers.”

  “What could we do to them?”

  “You could make things uncomfortable for the merchants, for one thing. For another, you’re always a threat against the Coven, a good chance to keep them in line.”

  He chewed on his lower lip, then nodded. “How did you figure all of this out?”

  “What you should be asking is, why didn’t I figure it out sooner? I don’t know. I guess because I’ve spent so much time around Dragaerans, that—”

  “Who?”

  “Elfs.”

  “Oh.”

  “I didn’t think my people—humans—would be a serious threat. There is an entire family dead because I didn’t start asking the right questions soon enough. I have to live with that. You think I’m bad because I killed those responsible. I think I’m bad because I didn’t kill them earlier.”

  He looked down. “What are you going to do now?”

  “Well, if you don’t kill me, I’m going to hide until I can move again.”

  “Hide? From who?”

  “The people who’ve been chasing me all along.”

  “Who are they?”

  “I made an enemy of a large criminal organization among the elfs. They want my head.”

  “Oh.”

  “So I’ll hide for a while, and when I can move again, I’ll leave here and go back where I belong, back where I know the rules, and the only people I get killed are the ones who deserve it. I’ll be a bad man among other bad men.”

  “I’m not going to kill you,” he said.

  “That’s good to hear. Because it might be that you could right now, and there aren’t many I’ve said that to.”

  “But what you did is still wrong.”

  “Is it? Why? Who says someone should be permitted to hurt me with impunity?”

  “It’s bad to carry hate around with you.”

  “I’m not carrying it around. I got rid of it. I put it to good use.”

  “All those people you killed.”

  “What about them?”

  “They had family. Mothers. Brothers. Lovers. People who cared about them, and who didn’t do anything to yo
u, and who you’ve hurt.”

  “Let them come for me, if they care to try. In a year or so, anyway.”

  “That isn’t the point.”

  “I know.”

  I dropped it there, because I didn’t have a good answer. I still don’t. I won’t play the hypocrite and make some crap-filled remarks about how sometimes people get hurt and it’s just a necessary part of the cost. I don’t know, and I don’t care. I know those bastards couldn’t get away with what they did, and they didn’t, and I’m happy about it. Whatever that makes me is what it makes me. You decide; I’m done thinking about it.

  “Do you want some more food?”

  “In a while. Right now, I just want to close my eyes.”

  I did so, and presently I heard his footsteps, then the door closing.

  “Was that true, Boss?”

  “Eh? Most of it.”

  “No, about hiding for a year, then going back.”

  “Oh. Almost.”

  “Almost?”

  “I’m not quite done with the town of Burz. There’s still Saekeresh.”

  “Boss—”

  “Relax. It’ll be half a year at least, probably more before I’m in shape. And I know the town now. No one will even see me.”

  “Okay, Boss. If you have to kill him, okay. But—”

  “I’m not going to kill him, Loiosh. That would be much too kind.”

  I think I fell asleep somewhere in there; when I woke up again, we had arrived in the City.

  EPILOGUE

  T A D M A R : Noble Boraan and good Lefitt have

  Once again this eve

  Shown that murder cannot prevail—

  If that’s what you believe.

  Our criminal led off in chains

  The stern Magistrate to face;

  While here the jars of gratitude

  Are in their accustomed place.

  For when all the lines have been spake

  Though to distant towns we’ve ranged

  We return you now to a theater plain

  Amused, we hope, and changed.

  We introduce the players now

  Who have delivered each their lines

  So we may at last get off our feet