Bargaining Power

Home > Other > Bargaining Power > Page 23
Bargaining Power Page 23

by Deborah J Natelson


  The remainder of the information, I’d learned in the past few months, when I’d really dug in. Turns out that college classes can be pretty watered down too.

  The purpose of this historical research, however, was not to disparage either biased schooling or the current conference system, but to discover if there was any precedent for the conference being held somewhere aside from the prescribed prefecture. The answer was yes: twice, the conference had been moved due to natural disasters; four times for murky political situations; and once because of a bomb threat. So it could be done.

  “True,” Edenfield said, “but in most of those cases, the impetus for moving the conference came from the host prefecture. The flood of ’77 in Fjordland, for example. And in that case, the conference was moved after it had begun and to the nearest available prefecture. This is more like the bomb threat against Tey. But how am I to convince the other prefects of the danger? Or that the answer is to come here? I’m not,” he said with self-conscious humor, “the most respected of my peers.”

  My boss had sworn up and down that there must be a set procedure for moving the conference, one that any prefect could initiate, because this sort of thing always had a set procedure. But then, like I’ve said, my boss’s genius does not extend to an understanding of people and especially not to laziness.

  “You could tell them there was something essential the king see in Edenfield,” I offered. “Is there something essential he see?”

  A shadow passed over Edenfield’s brow. “Yes,” he said shortly. “But no doubt the others feel the same—and, you understand, there’d be no point in him seeing it if (as you say) Lindo seeks revenge and believes she will succeed.”

  That was as close as he’d come to admitting that he knew the score. I nodded to acknowledge but not push, and kept laying out options.

  I was on option number four (Edenfield had shot down numbers two and three also) when a knock interrupted us.

  “That’ll be my assistant, my brother Francis,” I told Edenfield, springing to my feet. But when I swung open the door, I found myself looking up at a complete stranger.

  I recoiled before I knew what I was seeing. It wasn’t so much that something was wrong with his face as that everything was wrong with his face. It might have been sculpted by a man who’d seen a human face only once, distantly, and was working from memory. The effect was utterly repugnant, made the more so because there could be nothing clearer than that its appearance was natural.

  I have no doubt whatsoever that the man saw my reaction and judged me for it, even as he swept past me.

  “Torben,” Edenfield said guiltily, pushing himself to his feet. So this was Edenfield’s head knight. I had seen his name many times but had never been able to find a satisfactory picture of him. No wonder. “I thought you were checking out the patrols. Don’t you have a lot of work to get done before the conference?”

  “Olaf called me,” Captain Nass replied, in a voice like the rustling of dry leaves. “He believed that you might be in danger.”

  From behind, away from that face, the rest of the man came into focus. He wore Edenfield midnight purple and ice blue, with a head knight’s stars. His boots were soiled with forest mud. He had tightly curled ash-blond hair, a runner’s build, and casually perfect balance. For all that he had passed me and turned his back to me, I sensed that he was exactly aware of my presence and location and every move I made.

  He had also not come alone. Sitting alertly at his feet waited a small fluffy white dog, its curly tail vibrating against its back, its black nose twitching. It gazed adoringly at its master, hoping for permission to explore.

  He wants something beautiful to love him, I thought, and was immediately ashamed of myself. But it might have been true, all the same.

  “That was a misunderstanding,” Edenfield said, annoyed, but holding out his hand for the dog to snuffle. After looking to Captain Nass for permission, which he gave with a quick motion, it trotted forward, wriggling delightedly. Edenfield scratched behind the upright triangle ears as he explained, “This lady was on an important mission, and Olaf wouldn’t let her pass. I’ll vouch for her.”

  “He wasn’t meant to let her pass,” Captain Nass said. “You were on absolute lockdown, as we agreed.”

  “As you agreed.”

  Captain Nass pressed his hand downward, conciliatory. “For your own good. We discussed this.”

  “And what a lot of good it’s done me! I might have missed Ms. Cartier’s message, and that would have been disastrous. Tell him,” he urged me.

  Captain Nass turned pale eyes on me, their greenish-white the color of Spanish moss. I let my gaze unfocus from the rest of his face and tucked my hands behind my back, acutely uncomfortable and pretending I wasn’t. “That information was for your ears only,” I told the prefect.

  Edenfield tsked. “Torben Nass is my head knight. My ears are his. Anything you can tell me, you can tell him.”

  No doubt. Silvertip and Avior had certainly managed to get their head knights in on their schemes, and it was impossible for Lindo to have gotten as far as she had without her head knight at her side. I licked my lips and deliberated on what to say.

  “She works for the CSS,” Edenfield told Captain Nass. “You know what that means.”

  “I do,” Captain Nass said noncommittally. “Your identification, please.”

  There didn’t seem to be any way around it. I dug my work ID back out and handed it over, careful not to touch Captain Nass’s long, thin fingers—though they were perfectly ordinary, as fingers go.

  Captain Nass received the card with exaggerated care. I knew he despised me for my reaction, but I couldn’t help it. Besides, who was he to judge me? He must have known the effect he had on people. He must have been used to it. It wouldn’t have killed him to try to put me at my ease.

  “Well?” Edenfield prompted, with an eagerness I didn’t understand.

  “It’s either genuine or an expert fake,” Captain Nass admitted. “These cards are designed not to give much information to the casual viewer, however; I’ll have to run it to learn more. Unless Ms. Cartier would care to enlighten us?”

  If he wouldn’t smile, then I would, a professional smile tied with wide-eyed innocence. “Certainly,” I said. “You’ll find the card is genuine. Go ahead and run it. Every record will show the same thing: I’m no one and nothing special. A mere personal assistant to a cryptanalyst—not that cryptanalysts are allowed to have assistants, normally speaking. But I’m no one interesting. No one to look at twice or raise a single eyebrow.”

  Captain Nass’s hand clenched around the card.

  Edenfield laughed. “Of course you are,” he said, winking broadly. “Of course you are. Well done, madam.”

  “Have you gone mad?” Captain Nass asked coldly. “She’s playing you.”

  “What,” I said, hand fluttering to my heart. “You’re not saying you think I’m not a lowly personal assistant, surely.”

  “Surely,” said Captain Nass, “I think you are a fake. I will run this.” He tucked my card in his jacket pocket.

  “Really, Torben,” Edenfield said reproachfully. “So suspicious.”

  Captain Nass was about as bothered by that as an ancient oak is by nightfall. He didn’t twitch a leaf. “What has she been trying to get you to agree to?”

  Edenfield shrugged. The guilty look was back, like a young child confronted by his parents. “Nothing bad,” he said. “Nothing you wouldn’t approve of. Apparently, the king’s also nervous about holding the conference in Lindo. Agrees with you that Graça’s unstable. He’s sent Ms. Cartier to get me to move the conference to Edenfield.”

  “You want to move it here.”

  “It makes sense! I was sure you wouldn’t object.”

  “If you were so sure,” said Captain Nass, “then why were you sneaking about, trying to change it without asking me?”

  “I’m the prefect here, not you,” Edenfield snapped, flushing. He straightened
abruptly, banishing the dog. “I don’t sneak, and I don’t need your permission.”

  “Security is my responsibility.”

  “We’re perfectly secure!”

  “I see,” Captain Nass said sarcastically. “And you don’t see any possible security risk in changing long-standing plans involving the prefects and the king on the say-so of a complete stranger? One who might easily be, for example, a spy from Vela or Akter? Or even, since we’re on the topic, from Lindo?”

  Edenfield pressed his clenched fist to his stomach. “You haven’t a chivalrous bone in your body.”

  “Chivalrous,” said Captain Nass, tasting the word and spitting it back out. “Is that what we’re calling being emotionally compromised by beautiful women nowadays?”

  It was hard to tell how old Torben Nass was, but I guessed somewhere between twenty-five and thirty-five—about half Edenfield’s age. “Do you feel emotionally compromised by my beauty, Captain Nass?” I asked him sweetly.

  He sneered. “What trait of yours am I supposed to consider beauty—your lies, your blatant manipulation, or your pathetic attempt at impersonation?”

  “Enough, Torben!” Edenfield shouted, purple with fury. “I will not have you speaking to my guest that way!”

  Spanish moss eyes turned slowly from one of us to the other, and I saw the face behind them tucking away the anger, closing itself off from emotion.

  So that’s where Olaf had learned it.

  “You have been looking for an excuse to defy me,” Captain Nass told Edenfield, “and she’s provided one. It won’t do you any good.”

  And I thought Edenfield had been outraged before. “Are you threatening me, sir?”

  “I’m the one protecting you against threats—or trying to. But you seem determined on getting yourself killed. How am I supposed to guarantee your safety when you won’t obey the simplest instruction, when you hide your activities from me?”

  Some of the high color faded from Edenfield’s face, to be replaced by fatigue. “I’ve kept my bedroom door and window locked, like you suggested. Doesn’t that make you happy?”

  Personally, I doubted that anything could make Captain Nass happy. But this did give me a clue, one that would explain both Edenfield’s and Captain Nass’s behavior, and one that didn’t involve them finding the spy equipment: the intruder who’d crept into Edenfield’s bedroom while I’d watched.

  I stepped forward. “Your head knight’s concern is valid; the security here is minimal, especially for the conference. My assistant and I will therefore stay on as an extra line of defense. I believe this manor has a spare room that will accommodate us?”

  “What an excellent idea,” Edenfield said. “You see, Torben? Nothing to worry about. Now get off and run that card to soothe your conscience. No need to return if it checks out; you can send it with Ms. Cartier’s assistant. Send your apologies with him too, if you can bear to make them. We,” he said, smiling at me, “have work to do.”

  No head knight can disobey a direct order from his prefect unless the imminent destruction of the prefecture is at stake. Captain Nass bowed and went, his puppy bounding after him.

  The instant the door closed, Edenfield turned to me. “Tell me what to do,” he said, all hesitation gone from his voice, “and I’ll do it.”

  Interlude

  It was not, King Emil reflected, entirely bad, being made of glass. The many facets of his skull acted as a focus for thought, allowing him much greater clarity than anyone else in the world. It often amazed him how befuddled ordinary people became over the simplest issues. The sand inside him no doubt helped as well, sand being pre-glass and therefore a worthy part of his royal person.

  “Your Majesty,” said his high marshal, briefly dropping to one knee, “forgive the intrusion, but I have urgent news. The prefects have moved their conference to Edenfield!”

  King Emil lowered his spoon. Although it appeared to be made of metal, close inspection revealed it to be only cleverly disguised plastic, and therefore no danger to him. Emil had also taken to having his food precut for him (and his bread pre-buttered) to eliminate the dangers associated with sharp edges, serration, and fork tines. It had never occurred to him to wonder why a man made of glass might need to consume buttered toast or lemon-baked cod, and he would not understand the dilemma if anyone did point it out.

  “Moved it to Edenfield! That is good news,” the king said, glancing up briefly from his lunch. “Whose idea was it? Our lord chancellor’s?”

  “No, sire. I mean the prefects themselves chose to move the conference, without reference to your royal self. I only just received the message from one of my spies. You see—”

  The high marshal began his story, and persevered despite the fact that the king wasn’t paying attention. He restarted it when the royal secretary arrived halfway through, and then again when the chancellor burst in.

  “Edenfield!” cried the chancellor, when the high marshal had finished. “That is strange—and suspicious.”

  “You think so?” inquired the royal secretary. “I find it the most predictable thing in the world. What other response did you expect from His Majesty’s treating with Prefect Lindo? She must have realized what was behind it, and chose Edenfield to assure us of her good intentions. Where is more innocuous than Edenfield? Where more distant from Lindo?”

  The chancellor shook his head. “Then why did the prefects not ask us instead of informing us? Why not make the changes sooner, and through the proper channels? Why not tell us of their reason for the change instead of staying tight-lipped? No,” the chancellor concluded. “This bodes ill.”

  “Only if you aren’t familiar with the concept of diplomacy,” the royal secretary said. “Their silence implies respect; an explanation would imply they believed the king, ah, weak.”

  “And making changes to the king’s protocol without his permission is how one reacts to strength?”

  “I know the reason for their move,” King Emil put in mildly, secretly chuckling at how densely and opaquely his advisors saw the world. “It’s clear as day. Prefect Lindo was unable to complete the repairs to her manor in time, and so she wanted the conference moved to a more fitting location.”

  “Then why not say so?” the chancellor argued.

  “Come, come,” said the royal secretary. “If the prefects were going to be treacherous, they wouldn’t make such a large and obvious change; they would be subtle. You see conspiracy everywhere.”

  Emil did his best to tune the argument out. His fish was getting cold, and the nagging guilt that invariably accompanied any reference to Prefect Lindo was not helping him get his food down. He wished his chancellor and royal secretary would relax. People were always pushing him, wanting him to decide in one way or another, before the time was right. It was utterly wearying.

  The king’s advisors eventually realized they had lost their audience, and the chancellor sat down across from the king, where Emil could not ignore him.

  “We must act,” the chancellor insisted. “We must mobilize this minute, before the prefects have finalized their plans, before they have arrived in Edenfield. Allow the high marshal to collect his kingsmen, alert his knights. We can arrest them as they travel and before evening. We can put an end to this.”

  The royal secretary crossed his arms and scowled, then straightened as the king looked to him. “It’s nonsense, of course,” the royal secretary said, “but if it gives Your Majesty peace of mind—if Your Majesty thinks such excess necessary and wise—then I cannot argue with it. If only we knew what would befall our nation after such a melodramatic move! We would not want to cause division between your royal self and the prefectures.”

  King Emil brightened at this hint. “But we can know what will befall,” he said. “The Tree could tell us. Where is the seidkonur?”

  “The skald would know,” the chancellor put in quickly. “I’ll call him.”

  The king blinked in surprise. The chancellor was seldom helpful about anything
, when it came to the Tree.

  The Tree stood in the innermost courtyard of the innermost ring of the palace, quite alone. No benches, no shrubs, and certainly no other trees inhabited that courtyard. No grass sprouted around the Tree’s roots, and no sunlight ever reached it—for the once-open ceiling had long been covered over, to make way for an upper level.

  The Tree itself was a massive thing of uncertain origin, with a vast spread of black branches clawing the air with twig fingers. It was quite dead and had been dead for decades, but death had not weakened it. If there was any rot in its heart, it had not spread; and even the most fragile twig had petrified as hard and rigid as quartz.

  In the soul of Emil’s childhood, that Tree loomed impossibly large. He had been able to forget it for a time in his manhood, when he’d been distracted first by the navy and later by a wife and newborn. But in recent years, the Tree had drawn him to it again and again, as if its claw twigs had embedded themselves in his chest and would not release him.

  The Tree had terrified Emil, but whenever it had called, he’d come. And then one day, the seidkonur had walked in on him as he’d stood staring, awestruck and trembling before the Tree. He had looked around to her and found himself struck by the recognition of what he ought to have known all along. She was its key, the conduit by which the Tree would speak to him. Instead of banishing her, he therefore invited her forward, to be his interpreter and his guide.

  That moment also ended his terror of the Tree. He revered it still, but he triumphed that it should have chosen him. That it alone, of black quartz and rotten heart, had recognized the glass within him.

  “But where is the seidkonur?” he wondered aloud. “Has she not gotten my message?”

  “She has,” said a pleasant voice from beyond the Tree, “but she was in town. She’ll be here shortly.” A gangly young man emerged, grinning toothily at the king and his advisors, hands casually stuffed in pockets. Everything about him was casual, for that matter, from the unruliness of his hair to the suede of his jacket to the slouch of his shoulders.

 

‹ Prev