Her visitor was a large, round bear of a man with a distinctly Northern style of hair. He didn’t looked pleased, but there seemed to be no room for pleasure in the chiseled lines of his face. He did not, however, storm out in a huff, and he offered Finch the Northern equivalent of a bow before he exited the office proper.
Finch, however, had turned to James. She held out both hands, and he placed his, briefly, in them. “I’m so grateful you came,” she said, in a voice that would have been at home in the West Wing. “I’ve been huddled in my office worried sick.”
His hands tightened. “Vivi went home, but she’s fine.”
Finch paled. “Charlie?”
James Varson closed his eyes, and Finch’s eyes rounded. She turned to Lucille as Lucille headed into the back room. “I don’t think he’ll have much appetite,” she told the older woman, “not for food, but if you could—”
“Already done, dear.” To James she added, “Go in and sit down; it’s likely the only peace you’ll have for the next week.”
Finch released his hands, slid an arm through his, and gently guided him toward Jarven’s office. She glanced once at Jester, and nodded emphatically toward those doors; he moved to open them. She lifted a hand in swift den-sign; he almost missed it. Follow.
Since curiosity was a character flaw, he did.
• • •
As it was Jarven’s office, the old man’s presence was no surprise, if no delight; the second desk in the office, however, almost made Jester miss a step. Jarven smiled beatifically.
“It’s a good desk,” he said, with a fond smile at Finch. “I chose it myself.”
“It is,” James replied, assuming Jarven spoke to him. Frowning, he added, “It’s almost exactly like yours.”
“It is exactly like mine,” Jarven agreeably said. “Finch is in all ways indispensable, but a word to the wise: she is not to be left in charge of furnishing her own office. She prefers the drab and the mundane, and none of my efforts to change this have borne fruit. Come, James, join us. We meant to celebrate Finch’s promotion, but given the events today, are forced to let it pass without fuss.”
James nodded and took the chair Finch all but pushed him into. Jester, watching the three, felt like an outsider. He generally did, but this was unwelcome, because at the center of this group was Finch.
“You were right,” James said, laying both of his arms against the cushioned rests and sinking into the chair.
“That does happen from time to time,” Jarven replied. The door opened; Lucille came in bearing a heavy tray. A teapot sat at its center, which made Jester grimace; a bottle of something entirely more welcome sat by its side. There were both teacups and cut crystal glasses, and Lucille brought the tray to Jarven’s desk.
To what Jester assumed was Jarven’s desk. He cast a furtive glance at Finch, but she was watching Varson with genuine—and obvious—concern. If Lucille mothered, she was a harsh and disciplinary parent; Finch was softer and more soothing. Jarven watched as well, but spared a glance for Jester; he was amused by Jester’s discomfiture.
“When you’re wrong, ATerafin,” James replied, “one always has to look at the advantage you accrue from being wrong.”
Jarven’s eyes crinkled as his lips folded into their familiar, paternal smile. It was an expression Jester disliked. “I was wrong about you,” he offered. “The advantage to me in that?”
James look confused.
“Jarven,” Finch said, in a voice that sounded surprisingly similar to Lucille’s. “I’m not sure today is the right day for your teasing.”
It irked. A day that included Jarven was always difficult; Haval had compounded it. In the presence of these two old men, Jester felt young and incompetent, a sensation he did not enjoy.
Sharing a title with Jarven would have been unthinkable two weeks ago. Sharing power with Jarven remained, to Jester’s mind, impossible. Jarven was aware of this; the desk was an extreme way of staking Finch’s claim. It was not junior to his; it was not shabbier or less expensive. The office had been rearranged so that the desks were side by side, but tilted slightly toward the window so that they almost faced each other on a slant. The shelving remained flush against the wall; Jester suspected that Jarven’s office was the same magical fortress that Teller’s was.
There was nothing to mark Finch as junior besides the obvious: her demeanor and her age. Even her clothing, to Jester’s eye, was sharper, the colors more saturated. Her hair was drawn up in the netting favored by the fashionable, and he saw a glitter of diamond in it.
Yet she looked like Finch, to Jester. A mouse in wolf’s clothing. And he knew, as of today, that she wasn’t. That he would have to look more carefully, and see more clearly. No mouse, no matter how precious, could occupy the desk she now occupied. No mouse could survive Jarven, and Finch had done more than that.
Jarven was, as rumor oft suggested, fond of Finch. Finch adored Jarven. Adoration in either case had not dimmed the clarity of their perception; it had only blinkered Jester’s. If he were to be honest, and he seldom bothered, it was this fact that he found most annoying. He lived with Finch, and had failed to see in her what Jarven had seen.
But he saw it now. Not in Finch, but in the reactions of those around her. In Ludgar. In Ruby. And yes, in the drab and upright James Varson, whose entrance into an office that was famous for the occupant of its single desk showed no sign of surprise at all. Which, given Varson, meant he wasn’t.
Yet Finch showed no signs of the cool poise that defined Verdian, no signs of the militant suspicion that defined Ruby, and no signs at all of the draconian territoriality that defined Lucille. She did not take the seat behind her desk, as Jarven had, but instead, had pulled up a chair so she could sit a comfortable distance from Varson, to whom she was speaking in the softest of tones. She was genuinely concerned for him.
“I am so sorry I sent the documents today,” Finch was saying. “I had no idea, when the morning began, that events would play out this way.”
“You had no idea that they would play out today,” Varson corrected her—but gently. “You did try to warn me. The documents in this scroll case are the documents that support your suspicions?”
“They’re the most critical ones,” Finch replied. “I have a few others, but they’re much grayer; they need to be seen in context.”
“Will you retain them?”
“Will you not open the case and read them for yourself? I have experience only with Terafin concerns; yours is the broader knowledge and experience.”
“I forget sometimes that you’ve only worked within the Terafin merchant arm.” He nodded in Jarven’s direction. “But Jarven’s formative experiences were much more general. He must have offered you his opinion on your findings.”
“I have indeed,” Jarven told Varson as he lifted a cup of steaming tea. “But she feels that I am somehow incapable of being entirely objective. Me.”
“You are incapable of being disinterested,” Varson replied. He took the drink Finch now handed him; it was not tea. “But you are entirely capable of being objective.”
“And perhaps young Finch will take your word for it; she seems to trust it more.”
Finch made a face at Jarven. That single expression, more than any other, told Jester that Finch was at home in the Authority. As at home as she was in the West Wing.
“You understand that if I agree with your suspicions and the manifests, in my opinion, bear them out, I will have to go to the magisterial guards and the Kings?”
Finch glanced once at Jarven before she exhaled. “We hoped things could be taken care of in a less obvious fashion.” Jester realized that Finch was lying. He understood then why Varson had been the recipient of whatever documents the scroll contained. He was so straight and narrow a subtle political solution would be beyond him.
Unlike the dens, Varson assumed safe
ty lay in the magisterial guards, rather than in avoiding them. Nobody in the poorer holdings believed that.
“Were you alive in the Henden of 410?” James asked gently.
“I was not only alive, but working in this office.”
“We do not want—we never want—another Cordufar.”
“May I remind you that none of Cordufar’s financial transactions broke the laws?” Jarven asked. He dunked biscuits into his tea.
“It was possibly the only thing he did that didn’t.”
“A number of prominent merchant families did quite well out of Cordufar before the tragedy. I do not believe they were forced to endure the magistrate’s court.”
“Jarven, please.”
“Do not,” James said severely, “develop Jarven’s cynicism or his bitter sense of humor. And you are—no doubt deliberately—incorrect.”
“That’s unnecessarily unkind,” Jarven said. “I am older and my memory is not what it used to be.”
“The families who had benefited directly from Cordufar’s patronage or assistance were subject to investigations; the Crowns ceded supervision of the necessary accounting to the Merchant Authority Council, but they were accompanied at all times by members of the Royal Trade Commission. One of those members was ATerafin, that I recall.”
“Devon?” Jester asked, although he had intended to remain on the outside of this particular conversation.
“Yes. It cemented his position in the Royal Trade Commission. He did sharp work, there.”
Jester had had nightmares that made more sense than this—at least while he was in them. He felt relatively certain that he was awake, but wished he weren’t; going back to bed and restarting the day had a very strong appeal.
“No one objected to his House affiliation at the time?”
“Given what had happened to Cordufar, no one dared. One or two houses approached the Authority Council with this concern; they were told in no uncertain terms that the investigation was to proceed as planned at royal request. The Order of Knowledge was also involved.”
“Oh, they’ll be involved in this,” Jarven pointed out. “I expect you’ll be hearing from senior members of the Order sometime today.”
James rose, drink in hand. “I had best be getting back, then. The documents you prepared deal with difficulties in five disparate locations?”
Finch nodded.
“And we’ve seen four hit.”
She nodded again.
“You consider the Terafin arm safe?”
“For the moment?” Jarven answered before Finch could. “Yes. If you insist, we’ll keep the documents in the office. I do ask that you at least peruse them now, however. If our offices are hit in the same way the Authority Council’s were, they are likely to be lost, to no one’s benefit.”
James exhaled. “Very well. But reading them and having them in hand are not, as you are well aware, the same; I cannot point to them as proof if they cease to exist.”
Finch rose. “I’ll leave you some privacy while you do. Sit at my desk; no one will disturb you except Jarven.”
He hesitated, which Jester considered prudent. Finch, however, had anticipated this; she took his arm and guided him toward the desk Jarven said he’d chosen himself.
James shook his head. “Anyone would think you didn’t care for this desk.”
“I understand why it was required,” she replied, “but I find it a touch ostentatious. I would have preferred to have my old desk moved here. Jarven felt it would lower the tone of the office.”
James, however, nodded. “You can’t stand in Jarven’s shadow for the rest of your life. Especially not now.”
“James, I’ve been standing in his shadow since I was sixteen. I hardly know it from roof, anymore. Everyone assumes that my position here is entirely at Jarven’s request; they know that Jarven’s is the desk—in this office—that counts.” She pushed him gently into a chair that had also, no doubt, been chosen by Jarven, and retreated to the doors.
Jester followed like her shadow, half expecting Jarven to comment; he didn’t. He was watching, however, as Jester threw him one backward glance.
• • •
Finch went immediately to the office she had occupied for four years, and to the desk she professed to prefer. Jester followed, closing the door behind him.
“I’m sorry,” she said, sitting on the outer edge of the desk’s surface, rather than the empty chair behind it.
“I won’t say an apology isn’t due, but I’m curious to know which one I’m receiving.”
She exhaled. He was angry, and she knew it. “How many things do I have to apologize for?”
He lifted his hands in den-sign, and she reached out and covered them with hers. “Don’t tell me it’s nothing.” Since that had been more or less what the gesture was meant to convey, he was silent. She knew; it was the catch-all we’re family.
It was a way of avoiding conflict by offering a rough type of forgiveness. He could no longer remember who’d come up with it—Lefty or Lander. It wasn’t one he used often because he’d always had other ways of avoiding conflict.
“Don’t ask stupid questions, then.”
“Fair enough.” She leaned back on her hands, still refusing to put the desk between them. There was, her stance implied, enough between them already. “You delivered my messages?”
“All but the last one; Varson wanted it returned, unopened, to you. He didn’t seem surprised to see your desk in Jarven’s office.”
“Technically it’s our joint office,” she replied. Her voice was soft, even pensive. “Did anything happen with Ludgar or Ruby?”
“If we’re playing games, I don’t see why I should answer that question.”
“Games?”
“You have a good idea of exactly what happened. You know what you wrote, and it’s now my guess that you know the intended audience better than I do.”
“I know them differently. I’ve never gone drinking with Ludgar, and I spend as little time in Ruby’s company as it’s possible for a member of the House Council to spend.”
“Everyone spends as little time in her company as possible,” he countered. “Finch—what game are you playing here?”
“The same game that’s always been played in the Merchant Authority.”
“Random offices in the Merchant Authority don’t generally explode.”
“There was nothing random about the offices chosen, and I had nothing to do with this particular upheaval.”
“The letter you sent to James Varson references it—before the fact.”
She straightened her shoulders. “Yes. I offered him warning, based on investigations done within the Merchant Authority. The warning, however, did not come with solid proof of our suspicions, and without such proof, the Authority Council as it’s currently constituted would fail to act.”
“You counted on that?”
“I dreaded it, Jester. Had Jarven been the head of the Council, action would have been taken. It would have been oblique,” she added, “not confrontational; the nature of our proof before the fact was tenuous.”
“Proof of what, Finch?”
“The usual,” she replied. “Demons. Rogue mages. Great merchant Houses and assassinations.”
He stared at her.
“We won’t keep the House,” she told him quietly, “if we can’t win at least half of the games now playing out across this city.”
“Can you avoid playing them?”
She shook her head. “You’ve no doubt heard that one assassination attempt has already been made.”
He considered acting surprised, and decided against it, because she was laying her cards on the table. That they were cards he had never suspected she had in her hand didn’t change that fact—it only made him feel more stupid. “Yes.”
“You’re not surprised.”
“I was, when I first heard of it.”
“And now?”
“Early tea with Ruby has made clear to me that I might be the only person who is surprised.”
“Jester—”
“Jay wouldn’t be playing these games.”
“Jay wouldn’t have to play them. There isn’t an assassin alive that could take her down. She can’t be poisoned; I’ve seen it tried. She just doesn’t eat—or drink—the food. I’ve seen her ignore it, once. I don’t have that option. I have to do things the normal way. You were there when we discussed holding the House for her. You were there.”
He had been. He remembered it. But he couldn’t get from that discussion to this one following the general rules of conversational logic. “Holding the House—”
“How do you think the previous Terafin held the House?”
“Instilling terror in the ranks.”
Finch spread her hands, palm up. “You see? It’s not—at the moment—an option I have. It’s an option I need, and there’s only one way to get it. With Jay gone, people are jostling for position, within and outside of the House. The demons that were sent to kill her were—most likely—sent by external enemies.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it.”
“No.” She turned to inspect the surface of her desk. “Neither would I. I’d like to be able to, though. It would help me sleep at night.”
“Sleep at night?” He almost laughed. “Finch—you’ve set a target on your forehead. I can mitigate some of Ludgar’s anger, but Ruby considers you a serious threat.”
“Yes. But, Jester, I am. To her, I am.” When he failed to answer, she continued. “Ruby’s merchant concerns are weaker at the moment than they’ve been in the past decade; they won’t stay that way. The war in the South worked to our advantage, but it’s over. She won’t throw in behind us with Jay gone. I don’t think she would have thrown in behind us had Jay stayed.
“Ludgar’s in Haerrad’s camp, but he’s not immoveable. He doesn’t see me at all; he sees Jarven. I’m invisible.”
“Given Ludgar, that’s the best possible outcome.”
Oracle: The House War: Book Six Page 10