‘Say, mister?’ the boy asked.
‘Yeah?’
‘You got a spare copper?’
‘No.’
They looked at each other for a moment, then the boy turned back up to me. ‘Well, fuck you then!’
‘Yeah.’
The girl giggled as I walked off.
11
That night was another busy one. A lot of busy nights lately, it seemed. The ale flowed quickly, and the talk was loud and meaningless. The more obvious it is things are collapsing, the more desperate folk get to ignore it. I guess there’s no point in pinching copper when the world’s about to catch fire.
The man who came over to sit next to me was near faceless, successfully cultivating anonymity. If he’d punched me and run off, I couldn’t have given a description beyond his sex, and even that I wouldn’t have been a hundred percent on. I was fairly certain who he was working for, but I figured I’d wait for him to prove me right.
It didn’t take long. ‘I’ve got something to show you,’ he began.
‘You aren’t gonna flash me, are you? Cause I know what a dick looks like.’
He held his hand open below the table, and I took a peek. Nestled in his palm was a sky blue jewel in sterling silver. A beautiful thing, the setting alone worth more than an honest tradesman would see in a year. Of course, you couldn’t have found a pawnbroker to take it, not the most crooked back-alley fence, not for two coppers on the ochre.
Because what the man was holding was only a piece of jewelry in form – in function it was the power of the Throne made manifest, and only those deputized by it have the right to hold one. The Crown’s Eye, they call it, the foremost possession of every Black House Agent. They aren’t easy to make – there’s a handful of Artists who have a permanent commission, laboring for six months or a year on each piece. Using it isn’t easy either, but that’s another story.
They’d broken mine when I’d been cast out of Black House, smashed it with a hammer, held me down and made me watch. At first there was a flash of pain like I couldn’t imagine, and I’ve been stabbed before. Then there was nothing – not nothing, the absence of something, a void I could feel around the edges for months after. I still thought about it, sometimes.
I shook the past away and faced the present. ‘Yeah?’
‘The boss wants to see you,’ the agent said before slipping the eye back into his pocket.
‘I don’t want to see him.’
He looked tired, shopworn. This was a waste of both of our time, but I figured I had more of that to spend than he did. ‘What you want don’t really enter into it. He would prefer this was done quiet, but he’s insistent it be done. I can walk back to Black House, gather a couple of savages, bust up your bar and jail anyone in here with a warrant – which is everyone, I suspect. And you’ll end up talking to him just the same.’
I knew all of that. The Old Man got whatever he wanted – but you have to give the ice a certain level of pushback or they start to think they can muscle you just for fun, and that’s a slippery slope to being a straight snitch. I finished what I was drinking, put on my coat and followed him out.
We walked in silence for a couple of blocks. As a child I’d loved the fall, the smell of rotting leaves, the colors. Lately autumn seemed to get squeezed tighter and tighter between the moist unpleasantness of summer and winter’s bitter chill. ‘This isn’t the way to Black House,’ I said, after that fact became clear.
‘We’re not going to Black House.’
‘Why not?’
‘You’ll know if he wants you to know,’ said the agent. He was a good time-server, a happy, or at least willing, fixture in the machine – just like the Old Man liked them.
We stopped at a two-story building in one of the duller neighborhoods near Brennock. It was the architectural equivalent of the man who’d guided me there, utterly without distinguishing features. The agent tapped twice on the door, paused, then tapped once more. It opened in response.
Two agents stood in the doorway, heavy men with dull eyes, eyes that weren’t impressed with your reputation or how hard you thought you were. They patted me down with a thoroughness that came close to violating basic rules of hygiene.
The corridor was dark, the only light coming from a small sconce. In its distant glare I could make out the curve of a staircase. ‘He’s upstairs,’ the faceless one said.
I had something pithy on the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed it. I’d need everything I had for the fellow at the top of the steps.
The room was almost identical to his office in Black House, which was to say, dismal near barren. A worn table, two chairs, a bookshelf largely empty. All furniture of the institutional sort, to be found across the breadth of the Empire wherever an owner doesn’t much care what fills his space. The walls were a soulless sort of gray, more the absence of color than a color in and of itself. No, you couldn’t say there was anything particularly noteworthy about the setting. It was the man that gave it character, and that character was unpleasant to the point of terrifying.
The first time I’d met the Old Man I’d decided I was going to become him. He’d never forgiven me for changing my mind. There was no one else in the room, which was unexpected. We’d only spoken a handful of times since I’d been cast out of Black House, but in the past he’d preferred to have someone standing near by, implicitly offering violence. Or, often, explicitly. I wasn’t sure what to make of this development, or the change of venue.
‘My boy,’ he began. ‘What a fond pleasure it is to see you again. Please,’ he said, pointing at a chair opposite him, ‘take a seat.’
I’d known the Old Man for most of my adult life, since I’d come back from the war and joined Black House. The line you heard about him as a rookie – that he was the chief architect of the Empire, that he molded souls like clay, that he knew your next step before you got around to standing – did not seem to hold when you met him. He looked like someone’s grandpa, as if at any moment he’d reach out to tussle your hair. He had bright blue eyes, eyes that smiled whatever the rest of his face did. He had salt and pepper hair in a neat but not severe cut. He had strong hands with long fingers. He had a vacant spot somewhere down inside him, where a person was supposed to be.
It was one of the Old Man’s many strengths that he did not appear to be what he was. And what he was was evil, pure and undiluted. I’ve broken cultists on the rack, tracked serial killers to their workspace and sat down with every syndicate heavy worth his carving knife, and never have I met anyone to come within pissing distance of the Old Man. He was one of a kind, and you can thank the daevas for not making any more.
I was used to all that, of course. I’d known what he was even when I’d worked for him, and it had been a long time since I’d had a reason to pretend he was anything else. But there was something new, and it took me a moment to put my finger on it. The Old Man looked old – he’d always looked old, but old like an oak, ancient when you were born but sure to outlive you. Now he just looked regular old, not quite feeble but far from whole. Like a man past his date, over the final hill.
I guess nobody’s immortal – though I wouldn’t give odds to anyone trying to prove it on the Old Man.
And indeed, when he spoke it was with the same easy lilt he’d always had, like the issue at hand was barely a passing concern. ‘I appreciate you seeing me on such short notice. No doubt you were in the middle of some sort of pressing business, for which I do apologize.’
‘Why aren’t we in Black House?’
‘I wanted a change of scenery.’
‘A man gets called in by the chief himself, he expects a certain amount of formality.’
‘We own everything, my boy,’ he said, taking a moment to inspect his nails. They were very clean. ‘This house, your inn, the Old City, the Palace. The mountains, the ocean and the sky. There is no spot of ground in the Empire which is any less mine than is Black House.’
‘That’s not an explanation.’
‘It doesn’t have to be. I don’t have to explain the things I do.’
He did not. I took out my makings and started rolling a cigarette.
‘I’d prefer if you didn’t smoke.’
‘But I’m going to anyway.’
‘That’s rather petty.’
‘I take what pleasures are available.’
He thought about this for a moment. ‘I suppose we all have to.’
I punctuated his observation by lighting a match on the table, then puffed along in silence. He’d get to what he wanted at his own pace, there was no point trying to hurry him.
‘Why do you think you’re here today?’
‘An agent came into my bar and threatened to discontinue my existence if I didn’t.’
‘But why do you think I sent him?’
‘You’re in the mood to pick up an ochre of vine?’
‘You caught a man following you yesterday, a man sent by the Sons of Śakra.’
‘Did I? I have trouble remembering back that far.’
‘He’s going to return in the next few days.’
‘You read palms too? Cause I’d love to find out if I’m ever gonna get married.’
‘He’s going to ask you to take a meeting with his superior.’
I shook my head, almost bemused. ‘By the Firstborn, did you call me in here to tell me to stay out of politics? You really think I’m stupid enough to get in the middle of whatever you’ve got going with the Sons of Śakra?’
‘I think you’re incredibly stupid,’ he said flatly. ‘And if you interrupt me again, I’m going to have the boys downstairs come upstairs and cut off one of your ears.’
The Old Man did not make empty threats – it was part of his gag, like his smiling eyes and easy manner. I determined discretion to be valor’s better half, and went back to smoking my cigarette very, very quietly.
‘As I was saying – I didn’t call you down here to tell you to stay away from the Sons of Śakra. Quite the opposite. Sometime in the next few days, their Brother Hume is going to approach you a second time. He’ll ask that you take a meeting with his boss. You’ll agree to do so. During that meeting his boss will ask that you take on an assignment.’
‘And?’
‘You’ll agree.’
‘To what?’
‘Whatever he asks you to do.’
I stamped out my cigarette, then started to roll another, slowly, trying to work out the Old Man’s deviousness – though I could have twisted up a year’s supply and not have run my way through all his angles. ‘What if they ask me to kill the King?’
‘They won’t ask you to kill the King.’
‘But what if they do ask me to kill the King?’
‘Whatever task they assign you, I’m sure you won’t be able to complete it without the sage counsel of your friends. I would imagine Agent Guiscard, in particular, would be a useful asset to you in these troubled times of confusion and despair.’
I lit my second smoke. The Old Man frowned unpleasantly. He was quite the prude, though that wasn’t much vice stacked against the fact that he was also an amoral lunatic. ‘I’m not so sure I’ll get a second bite at the apple. I somewhat … forcefully declined it the first time.’
‘You underestimate the persistence of Mr Hume and his ilk.’
‘What use could I possibly be to the Sons?’
‘I’m sure we’ll discover the answer to that, as the situation progresses.’
‘But whatever it is, I’ll have your backing?’
‘We wouldn’t want to make it too easy for you. Guiscard will offer what advice he can, and he’ll involve me as he sees fit. But I’m afraid you’ll need to be operating without Black House support for the time being. We couldn’t very well sell you as a credible aid to the Steps if you carried a squad of agents in your hip pocket.’
‘You trust Guiscard to do his job?’
‘Implicitly,’ he said, wounded on behalf of his subordinate. Though of course he trusted no one – hadn’t trusted me, even when he’d been willing to turn the shop over.
I puffed little ringlets of smoke in his direction. He twitched his nose but gave no other sign that he’d noticed. ‘So you’re asking me to get in tight with the Steps, then wait for the opportunity to fuck them?’
‘You’ve a vulgar way of putting things, as always. But in essence, yes.’
‘Then I suppose I’ve only one question.’
‘I wait patiently to hear it.’
‘Why would I do anything to help you?’
The Old Man leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers together. ‘I can think of several reasons. First, you’re not doing anything for me – you’re doing something for the Crown, the Empire, and the nation. The Sons are fanatics, a few steps from howling at the moon. They’re also well funded, highly organized and competently run. Sad though it is to say, they are popular amongst the rabble, and amongst the wealthy that are like rabble. If they aren’t stopped, the ramifications could be … quite unfortunate.’
I looked at him blankly for a moment. ‘Did you really just make an appeal to my sense of patriotism?’
‘Second,’ he continued without answering, ‘I’m not yet starved of resources. Your cooperation in this matter would be directly beneficial to you, in the most pecuniary fashion.’
‘I’ll let you in on a little secret – people love drugs. Really, it’s not that much work getting rid of them. Which is to say, I got money.’
‘You never did take to the carrot, did you?’ Said in a way that almost made me feel bad about it. ‘Here’s the stick. If you don’t do what I’m asking, I’ll be forced to take – how shall I put this without sounding melodramatic – rather vigorous steps against you and yours.’
‘Yeah, yeah, burn down the bar, massacre my people, lay their corpses at my feet. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this song. It’s starting to lose its novelty. And dead I’m no help to you.’
The Old Man fell silent, though it was clear from the simple fact that he hadn’t yet gotten what he wanted that our conversation still had a way to go. He turned and stared out the tiny window at the alley below, though it was too dark to see anything. At least, it was too dark for me to see anything. Who the hell knew what the Old Man was capable of?
‘There is, of course, a final reason,’ he said, after the silence had started to drag.
‘That’s good, cause the first few weren’t doing much for me.’
‘Albertine Arden is back in Rigus. She’s working for the Sons.’
‘I’m in.’
The Old Man nodded happily. ‘I thought you might be.’
12
Alistair Reginald Harribuld the Third did not like me.
Didn’t like the set of my jaw, the tan of my skin or the color of my eyes. Didn’t like that these last stared back at him unwavering, without the dip customary to men of his stature. Hadn’t liked it when I’d knocked at the entrance of his Kor’s Heights estate, three solid raps on the main door. Didn’t like my ice blue uniform, didn’t like that my wearing it meant I couldn’t be sent away by the butler.
No, Alistair Reginald Harribuld the Third did not like me – which was all to the good, because I fucking hated him.
‘I’m afraid what you’re asking is absolutely impossible,’ he said in his slow, patrician drawl, as if the concept of haste to him was as foreign as the earth is the sea.
‘Squaring a circle is impossible,’ I answered smiling. I smiled a lot in those days, an affectation I’d stolen from the Old Man. It was easy to smile with the full weight of the Crown at your back. ‘What I’m asking is well within your capacity.’
‘My capacity, certainly. But contrary to my disposition.’ We were sitting in his drawing room, one of several public spaces within his mansion – the one he kept for entertaining riff-raff, baronets and foreign princelings. On the walls were a series of paintings depicting the Duke in various elaborate situations. The Duke on a battlefield, the Duke at h
unt, the Duke overlooking his lands, the Duke on the shitter. I made up that last one. The furniture was fantastically uncomfortable, the antique chair I sat in could have been ensconced in a torture chamber. But they were old and fabulously expensive, and for a man like Harribuld, that was all that really mattered.
‘Motivation is the issue?’
‘In a sense.’ Harribuld was nearing forty and doing everything he could to convince the world otherwise. His shoulders were still broad, and he was admirably fit for a man who did nothing for a living – but the buttons on his shirt were taut from holding in his gut, and his hair was too dark to be anything but a dye job, midnight blue-black. The fashion at court that year had tended towards the intricate, and he was well in keeping with it. His mustache drooped down almost to his shoulders, and his goatee had been waxed to a rapier point. I didn’t care to guess how long it took him to dress every day, but certainly it would have been impossible without the best efforts of the small army of stewards, butlers and pages that kept supplied his every conceivable need.
‘My understanding was that relations between you and Lord Aekensheer were less than cordial.’
‘It’s not a question of how I feel about him,’ Harribuld said. He had this way of enunciating his words like he thought Rigun was your second language. ‘It’s a simple matter of honor – there are certain things a gentleman simply does not do, and informing on a fellow gentleman is one of them.’ He took a delicate pinch of snuff out of a silver box on the table and brought it to his nose. A good deal of it was caught by the wire-mesh barrier of his facial hair, but I thought it impolite to point that out. ‘I wouldn’t imagine you’d understand.’
‘Loyalty towards your peers is admirable,’ I said. ‘But trumped by fealty to the Crown. I tell you in strictest confidence, the avenues we’ve been investigating would shock, I say shock, the conscience of even the most jaded villain.’ This was not true, as I remember. Lord Aekensheer was involved in some vaguely shady financial dealings, and we were going to use those to swing him in the direction we wanted on an entirely different issue. It was pretty standard stuff, really.
She Who Waits (Low Town 3) Page 10