The Complete Ivory

by Doris Egan

  "Please. Extra sauce."

  He left for the cookshop, and I went to hunt up a rag and do some thinking.

  We made our report to Jusik the next day. He was sitting in the garden beside the pond, a small table beside him with a pot of tah on a warmer and an empty cup. He was wearing a silver outerrobe covered with tassels—funeral clothes.

  Ran sat on a boulder to the left of the table, and I sat on one to the right. Jusik didn't acknowledge our presence; I'm not certain whether he knew we were there or not. He may just not have cared. After at least five full minutes, Ran said, "Our sorrow dwells with yours on this day."

  He glanced up. "Thank you."

  The funeral had finished an hour ago. Firebowls were still set around the garden, and an arc of silver metal rose from a black pedestal nearby. The arc was just a remembrance, left out for half a year after a death, to bring the thought of the dead person back to mind. Silver streamers hung from it, from today's ceremony, but they'd soon crumble or blow away. There are no cemeteries on Ivory, and no monuments, except for emperors.

  Lord Porath showed no inclination to pursue the conversation. My husband, however, is not one to allow the exigencies of real life to get in the way of business. After what he considered a decent interval, he said, "Noble sir, we must speak with you regarding our investigation.!"

  Jusik raised his eyes to Ran's like one performing a rote task. "You have arranged a meeting with your employer?"

  Ran's right hand, half-hidden in his robes beside the low table, clenched, and by that I knew his temper had been scratched. His voice was nothing but courteous when he said, "Noble sir, I'm afraid you yourself are my only employer. It's for that reason we've come to you to present such findings as we have, rather than to one more closely concerned with them."

  Mild interest flickered in Jusik's black eyes. "Who is more closely concerned with them than I?"

  "The true target of the sorcerer who caused your son's death." Jusik sat up straight and fixed his gaze on us both. Now that he was assured of an audience, Ran hauled out his facts as though Lord Porath were any other client who'd asked advice on a matter of magic. "We know that the sorcerer who killed your son was a hired market mountebank with a stall in Trade Square. He was using the name Moros when last heard from. He initiated his attack from Catmeral Bridge, where he waited till the boat was within range and his victim in line-of-sight."

  "And you allege this victim was?" Jusik rapped out the words.

  "We haven't completed our investigation, but at the moment the likeliest victim seems to be one of your security guards—Loden Broca Mercia."

  I broke in here. "We'd like your permission to warn him, noble sir."

  Jusik glanced at me briefly, then said, "And how did you come by this farfetched theory?"

  Ran said, "Are you familiar with a blue ring Kade was laid out still wearing? Your steward will confirm it if you're not."

  Jusik looked startled. He nodded, and Ran told him the rest of the story, leaving out one or two details of minor interest. Jusik said eagerly, "So you traced this sorcerer to his lair! What did he say? Who hired him?"

  Ran and I looked at each other. Ran said, "We didn't actually finish the trace. Moros seems to have left town."

  "But you can follow him, can't you, now that you've got the ring?"

  "I really don't think he's likely to ever turn up," Ran said firmly.

  Jusik sat back. "I see." He looked at me. "You agree, I suppose, that this witness won't be back."

  "I would be very surprised," I said.

  Jusik had returned once again to being the First of Por-ath. He picked up the tah pot and poured a new cup, his eyes far away. Ran looked at me and shook his head. I really don't know how he knew I was going to ask about warning Loden again.

  After a moment Jusik said, "Are you willing to stake your reputation on this? That Kade's death was accidental?"

  Ran said, choosing his words slowly, "I would stake my reputation on what I've just told you."

  Jusik put down his cup and smiled, as though a silver arc no longer hung behind his head. "Then there's no reason to believe my family is involved with this at all."

  "One might say that the use of your boating party as a murder location was an insult to you," said Ran, tentatively.

  The smile grew slightly broader. "An insult if I choose to regard it as such. I choose to be tolerant."

  Behind Jusik, I saw the short form of Auntie Jace make its way across the garden. She approached the silver arc, folded her knees, and sat beneath it in an attitude of respectful meditation. I wasn't sure if she was scoring points with the family or just wanted to hear what we were saying.

  Lord Porath leaned forward. "May I speak frankly to you, my brother First?"

  "Please do," said Ran, in an absolutely toneless voice.

  "My House is… distracted," said Jusik, spreading his hands. "We have our attention in other places right now. Coalis needs seasoning, experience; and then there's the matter of Eliana, and your brother-in-law."

  "Yes," said Ran.

  "If you had come to me with some other scenario— hypothetically, if you had come to me with some news of a House enemy, who had killed Kade deliberately—I would have met with this enemy and tried to accommodate him.

  I don't want our name involved in this anymore. I don't want our attention on it, or our money poured into it. I want to cut free of it altogether."

  "I see."

  Jusik stood up, and manners required that we stand up too. He extended his hand. "You bring me good news," he pronounced, more loudly. Ran allowed his hand to be grasped for a moment in fellowship, then slid it away. Jusik bowed to me, and I inclined my head. "We will discuss some fair recompense in a few days, when the initial mourning is over."

  It was a dismissal, but I lingered. "Noble sir."

  "Ah—yes, gracious lady?"

  "You haven't officially given us your permission to notify Loden Broca of the danger he's in."

  He appeared mildly surprised. "Your task is over, is it not?"

  "But he could be killed at any moment. And he's never done anything to you."

  "I never said he had," he said, bewilderedly.

  Ran took my arm. "My wife takes a different attitude to these things."

  Jusik wore a look I'd seen before, a look of one at a loss before barbarian ways.

  Ran smiled. "I hope you'll indulge us by granting permission."

  "Well… of course. It's nothing to me. But make it clear to anyone who's interested that my House wants to stay out of this."

  "Naturally," agreed Ran. He started steering me around the pond before I could say something else.

  I threw a glance behind me as we left and saw Jusik standing, looking across the garden toward the distance, the tah service beside his feet. Behind him, I saw that Auntie Jace had finally gotten off her knees.

  "He seemed thrilled to pieces to get rid of us," I said. We were standing by the door, waiting for the steward to accompany us down the path and out to the front gate. Our official leavetaking, and hopefully the last time we (or I) would have to step foot on these cat-consecrated grounds.

  "Understandable," said Ran. "We're useless baggage tying him to an incident he wants put behind him."

  "I'm surprised he even believed us, considering how set he seemed to have your guilt in his mind."

  He made a face. "I'm sure he'll check up on his own to confirm." He sighed, ran a hand over the top of his head, and skid, "But he'll get confirmation. The case is over."

  I stopped. "What do you mean, over? Who killed Kade?"

  "Do we care?" he asked, in honest puzzlement.

  "You care! You spent a quarter of an hour telling me what a useless excuse for a sorcerer he was."

  "Well, and so Moros was. And now he's dead. Good for the profession."

  "But who hired him?"

  Ran paused with the look of one who is trying to translate each word into some obscure dialect. He said, "Jusik is satisf
ied. We've exchanged favors. He'll give us a break with this marriage business. I'm sure the question of who killed Kade is an interesting intellectual exercise—"

  "This intellectual exercise nearly had us both knifed in Trade Square!"

  "That wasn't anything personal, Theodora."

  I'd taken it damned personally. I still have occasional nightmares about it. "What if they try again?"

  "Why should they? Once word is out that the case is closed and we're no longer interested. It's really none of our business, sweetheart."

  The last sentence came out in a slightly reproving tone. He sounded as though, if one weren't being paid for it, looking into a homicide was an invasion of the murderer's privacy. As though it would be rude to pursue it.

  All right, this is an Ivoran, I told myself. Give him a reason that means something to him. "Won't it look bad for our reputation if people still think you're the one who knocked off the first son of Porath? While a guest in their house?"

  He bit his lip. "Jusik won't support that rumor."

  "Some people will still believe it."

  He said, "Look, Theodora—"

  The door opened. Eliana, Coalis, and Leel Canarol piled out. I took a step or two back.

  Coalis' eyes went at once to mine. "Theodora! Is it true? You found Kade's murderer?"

  Eliana, meanwhile, had zeroed in on Ran. But still affecting modesty (or maybe it was real), she didn't want to leap on him and shout for his attention, so she tugged urgently at her chaperone's sleeve. Leel Canarol stepped forward and addressed Ran (she was, I saw, slightly taller than he was): "Is it true, gracious sir? Kade wasn't the victim at all, it was meant to be that nice-looking guard on the boat?"

  Ran winced slightly at the latest woman in his path to comment on Loden's looks. Kylla had had more than a few things to say on that subject in his hearing.

  "Fast work," I murmured. We'd only left their father and Auntie Jace about four minutes ago. She must have raced inside and flew upstairs to pass the word.

  "You'll have to speak with Lord Porath about it," said Ran firmly. "I would not presume to comment on the affairs of your family—"

  "Oh, come!" said Coalis. "He never tells us anything. And if it's not really anything to do with our family, shouldn't we know that we're not involved?"

  Ran began, "I'm sorry—"

  Coalis sniffed through his thin, aristocratic nose. He did that very well, I thought. "Stereth will tell me," he said.

  "You're at liberty to ask him," said Ran, "if you think he knows."

  Coalis said, "I think if he doesn't know, you'll have to tell him when he asks."

  Looking as though he'd just swallowed something bad, Ran turned and went down the steps without waiting any longer for the house steward or giving his farewells. It was verging on bad manners, in which he almost never indulged; and saved from that only by the fact it was deliberate. A reply to what he considered presumption.

  Eliana and her defensive chaperone seemed taken aback. I shrugged hurriedly, said "Sorry, noble lady; bad day," and clattered over the porch and down the steps after him.

  There was a Net message from Stereth Tar'krim waiting for us when we got home. Ran put it on permanent hold, unread, with a privacy code beside it. Yes, I was very curious. But considering my recent adventure with privacy codes and Net messages, I thought it best to stay away from it.

  Chapter 12

  We duly warned Loden Broca that evening. His lodgings, in a cheap inn in a nasty part of town, were not on the Net, and this being the kind of message one doesn't like to give to a courier, we were compelled to visit him at home.

  Climbing the dark and dirty stairs to his room, Ran said, "Theodora, whenever you get me involved in one of these affairs—"

  Catch that?

  "—no matter how high the birth of our client, we always seem to end up rattling around with the dregs of society."

  I stepped up the steep stairs behind him, noting how airless the place was. "This time we have a nice house to go home to at night, and you're not wandering around penniless."

  "Mmm, there is that." On the fourth floor the stairs ran out and we emerged into a hallway every bit as brilliantly lit. He counted off the doorways. "One, two, three, four— five." He hit the flat of his hand against the door.

  We waited. He pounded again. I said, "He's probably not home. If I lived in this place, I'd spend as much time away as I could, myself."

  "I refuse to come back here again," said Ran, making yet more noise, as though he would conjure Loden Broca home and available through force of will alone.

  The door to number four opened. A woman in a nightshirt appeared, her black hair caught back in a long fall. She looked in her thirties, and she appeared unaware that her legs were on display from the knees down. Perhaps she didn't own a nightrobe. "Do you mind?" she said. "I'm trying to get a few hours' sleep."

  It was still early evening, but Ran said politely, "I beg your pardon, gracious lady."

  She blinked and peered at him in the dimly lit hall. I don't know if I've mentioned it, but my husband is one of the better looking creations in the universe. She said, "Oh," as though in reply to something. Then she said, "He's not home. And if he were home, he wouldn't answer. Nobody comes but creditors."

  "You saw him go out?" asked Ran. I could tell he was trying to keep his gaze up around face-level. You don't often see legs on Ivory, except on performers in a few dance shows.

  "Heard him. A couple of hours ago. He's probably at a tith-parlor, that's where he spends his time."

  "Do you know which one?" I asked.

  Her eyes went to me, then shifted back to Ran. "No, sorry, could be any of 'em," she said, as though he'd asked the question.

  Ran said, "When does he usually come back?"

  She shrugged and slowly wiped one hand against her thigh as though it had jam on it. "Depends on how much money his friends have on 'em. Or if he got paid today. Or if he meets somebody and goes to her place—that means he won't be back at all." She paused. "If the money runs out, he could show up any time. If you want, you can wait at my place—"

  "Thanks for your help," I said warmly. "We'll carry on from here. Please don't let us interrupt you."

  "No trouble," she assured Ran, still not looking my way.

  It would be undignified to check and see where he was looking, so I confined myself to surreptitiously jabbing him in the ribs. I heard the intake of breath, but he gave no other sign. Then he smiled at our informant, bowed, and echoed, "We'll carry on from here. Please don't let us interrupt you."

  She sighed, shrugged again, and went back into her room. Ran turned and looked at me. "What?" I said.

  "I'll be black and blue in a couple of hours."

  "I have no idea what you're talking about."

  He took my hand. "You're not usually this hair-trigger. Does the council agenda have you that nervous?"

  I was going to deny that, but he pulled my hand, and the next thing I know I had my head against his chest and we were holding each other in Loden's ratty hallway, and I was having trouble talking. "Kanz," I said, finally, "I don't know. I don't know. It's just that—I don't have any place to go. I left Pyrene, and I left Athena, and I don't regret it… but this business with the council, somehow that's not what I envisioned when I took on your family."

  "You're not leaving Ivory."

  "I know."

  Reassured as to my sanity—nobody leaves Cormallon, you get thrown out or you're in for life—he pushed back my hair and said, "Listen, this custom of multiple wives isn't the horror you seem to think it is."

  "Kylla doesn't seem to be looking forward to it!"

  "I wonder if it's the marriage she minds or the fact that she'd be junior wife. That's not the point, though, the point is that of course if it bothers you so much, we won't do it. Nobody can marry into a pair unless the senior wife accepts her in full ritual during the ceremony."

  "People have consented to wedding ceremonies before, who didn
't want to. Because of pressure."

  He smiled. "I'd like to see them pressure you, foreign-barbarian-without-manners. ''

  "They'd pressure you, that's the problem."

  He was silent. I said, "Should I wait while they figure out sneaky Ivory ways to make your life as difficult as possible? And while all the time you know yourself that any confusion over succession rights is not a good idea for the House."

  Finally he said, "The marriage is young. The council is overconcerned. We have plenty of time."

  "We only have the time they're willing to give us—"

  Footsteps on the stairs made us step apart. We faded into the shadows at the edge of the hall, aware that if Loden Broca had creditors his first reflex upon seeing anybody would be to fly down the stairs again. And if it weren't Loden, who knew how friendly this particular tenant would be?

  That second one wasn't a problem. Loden appeared at the head of the stairs, walking easily but not quite as steadily as he had yesterday morning on duty. The smell of bredesmoke accompanied him.

  We waited till he had his door open and then Ran stepped forward on one side of him, and I took the other.

  He started to bolt inside—a bad move if we'd really been after him—but Ran got a foot in the door and grabbed hold of the shirt beneath his short outerrobe. A minute of undignified back-and-forthing gave Loden time to see who we were. He stopped, looking confused. "Sir Cormallon," he said. He peered my way. "Gracious lady. Uh, what are you doing here?"

  "May we come in for a moment?" asked Ran.

  Loden hesitated. Then he said, "Of course, gracious sir, but it's kind of a mess." He held open the door.

  It wasn't kind of a mess, it was a total mess. Rolled-up piles of robes, shirts, and trousers were sitting in mounds over the floor. You'd almost think he was a university student back on Athena, except if he'd been Athenan books would have been mixed up with the clothes. A flute was on the tiny windowsill, beside a glass with something old and encrusted in it. A bag of half-eaten apples lay open on the floor beneath, the apples spilling out over the dusty floorboards. There was a bed and a stool, standard issue from the innkeeper; no other furniture or pictures.