And obviously, there was me. I’d been five years in Black House, the last three in Special Operations. My rise was nothing short of meteoric, to be commented on and railed against in the coffee houses and bars where my colleagues blew off steam. There were lots of theories to explain my rapid ascent. I was the Old Man’s child from the wrong side of the sheets, one went – though anyone who knew him knew he didn’t have time for anything as frivolous as sex. Another said that I’d saved the Old Man’s life, and this was how he repaid me – though here again, a cursory knowledge of the boss’s personality made it clear gratitude was no more in his make-up than lust.
The truth is, I was just better than any of them, and for all his catalog of vices, the Old Man could recognize talent. My existence simplified his, gave him an extra set of hands on his projects. I was competent, and ruthless bordering on amoral, and by the Old Man’s way of thinking these were the highest traits to which humankind could aspire.
Between the five of us, which is to say the two of us, what needed to happen to ensure the continuation of the Empire, happened. Obviously not officially – the High Chancellor still served at the pleasure of the Queen, the Old Man at the pleasure of the High Chancellor, and me at the pleasure of the Old Man. And the obvious decisions, the things that made it into the broadsheet, the average, which is to say ignorant, man on the street thought were important – these were mostly taken care of by people officially slotted to do so. But the framework had been erected by the Old Man, and was kept standing by our continual machinations.
The meeting, slated for two hours, was stretching past its third, and my head was starting to hurt. I poured myself a cup of lukewarm coffee from the spread on the table, and examined the handful of stale pastries that sat beside it with a critical eye. The Old Man could say a word and a diplomat on another continent would wake up tomorrow dead, but he was unable to ensure us an edible working lunch. It’s a strange world.
‘I just think it’s crucial that the niceties be observed in every detail,’ Bohemond was saying. His voice oozed out of his throat like syrup from a tapped maple.
‘Of course,’ the Old Man responded with equal unctuousness. Not quite equal. Close.
‘It is a delicate situation, after all – the Nestrians are still our allies.’
‘Bosom brothers,’ the Old Man answered.
‘We wouldn’t want to do anything to jeopardize our relationship.’
We were in the process of making the decision to plant dirt on a Nestrian official who was giving us some trouble. In fact, the decision had already been made, it was just a question of allowing Bohemond, and by extension the High Chancellor, to feel as if he had some role in making it. Actually, this accounted for perhaps sixty or seventy percent of our time in these things. One of the many facets of the Old Man’s genius was that he operated absolutely without ego. So long as his decision was ultimately carried out, he cared very little who received the credit. In fact, I think he preferred to work through intermediaries – easier to cut them loose if trouble came up.
‘The furthest thing from my mind,’ he answered pleasantly. ‘So it’s decided.’
The committee was informal, there was no roll call and no official vote of any kind – the thought of ever having to take responsibility for his decisions was a concept that threw Bohemond into a cold sweat. All decisions were by custom unanimous, the Old Man first amongst equals, stewarding the discussion, but not imposing his will. It was a polite fiction, but one that we all upheld.
‘While we’re on the Nestrians,’ the Old Man switched topics glibly, ‘where are we on identifying this … operative they seem to have planted in our midst?’
Counter-intelligence was primarily Crowley’s department, and he was well suited to it. He was dogged and thorough, and he didn’t care about being hated, a necessity when your job largely consists of investigating your own people. Nor did he mind putting a person to the question, if he thought it would get any information. He didn’t really seem to mind putting a person to the question regardless, if we were to be honest.
‘We’re close,’ he said.
I whistled tunelessly. Crowley snapped his gaze over to me. ‘We are,’ he insisted.
This was before my simmering rivalry with Crowley had turned into open hatred, which explains why we were able to sit across from each other without him trying to stab me with a fork – though even at the time our relations were frosty bordering on glacial. Crowley didn’t like the fact that I was smarter than him, that I’d usurped the position that he thought should be his. Beneath that, he didn’t like the small confidences the Old Man offered me, the perceived closeness between us. That the Old Man could no more bond with another human being than he could grow wings and take flight seemed not to have occurred to Crowley. For my part, I disliked him for being a brutal, thuggish oaf, with a propensity for violence bordering on the unprofessional. He was also very easy to provoke, an activity I enjoyed participating in for its own sake.
‘As close as you were last week? And the week before that?’
‘He’s out there, dammit, I can smell him. The frog-eaters have been a step ahead for too damn long. They’re getting an earful from somebody.’
That we were allied to the Nestrians, had backed their fading horse against the Dren, had given them a share of the spoils after they’d bailed out of the Great War early on account of general incompetence, did not alter the fact that they ran operatives within the Empire proper. Deep cover, often as businessmen or within their legitimate diplomatic apparatus. We had the same on their end of course, a ring of spies led by a quiet, uninspiring figure who owned a shop selling used books in their capital, spoke in perfect regional dialect and ran a network so efficient we knew what King Louis ate for breakfast by dinner. Said operative was picking up some disturbing chatter the last season or so – that the Nestrians had someone high up in our ranks, ferreting out crucial bits of information before we were able to act on them. I wasn’t sure I believed him, to be frank. The primary purpose of any organization is to perpetuate its own existence. Deducing, or inventing, a threat like that would be proof against budget cuts for years to come.
‘Three months you’ve been telling us you’ve got a line on the Nestrians,’ I said. ‘Six months you’ve been running around like a bull with the scent of blood, knocking into actual operations in the misguided belief you’re on the way to something solid.’
‘They figured out we had our hooks into their archduke, and they rolled up the network we were setting up in Barruges,’ Crowley said, referring to two recent reverses. ‘That’s no fantasy of mine – how the hell do you explain that?’
‘Maybe the mail boy’s been kicking out our secret memos. Maybe Śakra the Firstborn visits the dreams of King Louis every evening and tells him our innnermost plans. I have no fucking idea Crowley, because it’s not my question to answer. I’m not in charge of counter-intelligence, you are. But if our positions were reversed, I can assure you that I wouldn’t come in here every week promising that next week’s meeting would be the one where I finally did my job.’
The Old Man watched over our feud without a dip in his smile. It served his interests to have his numbers two and three at each other’s throats. He would have encouraged our enmity if it hadn’t developed naturally. ‘So that would be a “no” then, on whether any progress has been made in ferreting out our mole?’
Crowley grunted.
‘Lovely. Our next order of business would be …’ The Old Man turned to Raynald.
Raynald took out a sheet of paper from his folder, though I was certain he knew the details without looking. ‘Lood De Burg, former colonel in the Army of the United Dren Commonwealth, forcibly retired along with most of the rest of his comrades since the armistice. He’s founded a political party called Het Eenheidsfront that seems to be getting some traction.’
‘We let them have political parties?’ Bohemond asked, an attempt at humor.
The Old Man laughed polite
ly, then nodded at Raynald to continue.
‘It’s the usual pot of revisionist bitterness flavored with conspiratorial nonsense. They claim the war was lost by traitors on the home front, a fifth column which overturned their efforts. By this they appear to mean the Commonwealth’s population of Asher and Islander. Their platform consists of curtailing the rights of the aforementioned, an end to payment on the war debt and a policy of rapid rearmament.’
‘He sounds like a lovely fellow,’ the Old Man said. ‘What exactly do we want to do with him?’
‘I’d like to give him a few thousand ochres,’ I said.
There was silence. ‘Would you now?’ the Old Man asked eventually, mostly out of politeness. The Old Man was very polite, something he’d developed to hide his lack of empathy.
‘Through intermediaries, of course. It would go pretty firmly against their policy to get in bed with us openly. But we’ve still got a few Dren nobles on the payroll. I think it’s time one of them becomes De Burg’s silent backer.’
Bohemond scoffed. ‘You want to get into bed with these … zealots?’
‘No – I want to fuck them.’
‘I’m afraid I’m having trouble following,’ Reynald said.
‘Let me lay it clean to you – sooner or later, the Dren are going to realize that there are five million more of them than there are of us, and that they might have better luck on a second go-round than they did the first. But right now they don’t know that, or at least they can’t see it. It would be best to keep them in this state of ignorance for as long as possible – in fact, I would go so far as to say this is the primary foreign aim of this office.’
Bohemond made as if to clean out his ears. Bohemond had a rather broad sense of humor. It was one of the many things I disliked about him. ‘If your purpose is to keep the Dren from starting a second war, then why in the name of the Scarred One would you want to encourage the growth of an organization trying to do just that?’
‘The armistice prohibits any nationalist party from holding seats in congress. The current government will be forced to crack down on them.’
‘So?’ Bohemond asked.
Crowley growled in the corner – even he’d managed the thread by this point. ‘So they can’t very well make war on Nestria if they’re caught up killing each other.’ He gave a quick jerk of his skull. ‘I like it.’
‘It’s risky,’ Reynald said. Everything was too risky for Reynald, he had the balls of a schoolmarm. ‘What if the Dren government gets wind of our support?’
‘Who would believe them? Het Eenheidsfront in the pocket of their most hated enemy? A conspiratorial fantasy, meant to undermine the good work of De Burg’s minions.’
‘And what if …’ the Old Man began unexpectedly, ‘your plan succeeds?’
‘Perish the thought.’
‘I’m quite serious. The men currently running the Commonwealth are … pliable, if nothing else. This one, by all accounts, would not so comfortably acclimatize to our wishes.’
‘Exactly. Fanatics don’t gain power. He’s too rigid, he won’t be able to broaden support beyond his base.’
‘Don’t underestimate the willingness of any large group of people to leap off a cliff.’
‘It won’t happen. Even the Dren aren’t that mad.’
‘And if they are?’
‘De Burg wouldn’t be the first person who didn’t live forever.’
The Old Man chuckled. ‘No, I suppose he wouldn’t.’
‘I still say it’s too risky,’ Reynald broke in.
‘Yes, we heard you,’ the Old Man answered, gracing his secretary with a smile that shut his mouth before turning back to me. ‘Two thousand ochres will be deposited in the usual slush fund. You’re to dispose of it as you see fit.’ He folded his hands. ‘Is there anything else?’
‘Just one outstanding piece of business,’ Reynald turned over the next leaf in his file. ‘Coronet.’
The atmosphere strained noticeably. Bohemond began to look extremely uncomfortable. Concrete knowledge of anything was anathema; he’d made a career out of not noticing things. ‘Shouldn’t someone from the Bureau of Magical Affairs be taking part in this conversation?’ Forced out of active ignorance, he preferred to dilute responsibility to as many parties as possible.
‘They know what they need to,’ the Old Man said.
‘I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess we’ve yet to see results?’ I asked.
‘Carroll insists we’re close,’ the Old Man answered.
‘An objective observer, if ever there was one. This is a waste of our resources.’
‘It won’t be if it works.’
‘It won’t work.’
‘Carroll seems to disagree.’
‘What’s he going to say?’ I asked. ‘“Sorry, you’ve pissed away five thousand ochres in the misguided belief I had any idea what I was doing”? Guarantees don’t mean anything. Results are what we’re looking for – looking for in vain, I might add.’
‘But the possibilities …’ The Old Man trailed off, smiling.
‘It’s possible my next shit will be twenty-four-carat gold, but the bank won’t take it as security for a loan.’
‘Your vulgarity is laudable, as always. That said – we’ve come this far. It seems reasonable to see if something more will come of it.’
‘I could introduce you to any number of vagrants with similar investment strategies. And besides – there are costs here beyond the financial.’
‘Oh?’ He batted his eyelashes, waiting for me to continue, innocent as a schoolboy.
I gritted my teeth. ‘Carroll is as frugal with his test subjects as he is with our money.’
The Old Man nodded at this slowly, his baby blues depthless. ‘The costs are … unfortunate. Honored volunteers, their suffering to the greater good of the Empire.’
‘You can’t volunteer for suicide.’
‘In point of fact – several hundred thousand of you did, during the war.’
I’d have struck a different man for saying that, though it more or less echoed my own feelings on the conflict. ‘Death is a possibility one reasonably ought to foresee in joining the army,’ I said, ‘not when signing up for a supposedly harmless medical experiment. Death,’ I added, ‘and worse than death.’
To my left Bohemond was growing steadily grayer, if we kept at this much longer he’d have been vomiting on the table. I’d violated protocol by speaking so openly in front of him. The Old Man rapped a hand on the table, a casual gesture, but nothing he did was ever less than deathly serious. ‘That’s what makes their sacrifice so noble.’
I was a fool to have even mentioned the casualties. They meant nothing to him, I knew that. All I’d done was demonstrate weakness. ‘Do whatever you want,’ I said abruptly. ‘It’s not coming out of my ends.’
‘I think it’s important to reiterate that the Chancellor could never condone doing anything that might injure a subject of the Throne,’ Bohemond said, as if the specifics of Coronet were new to him. ‘I think it’s important that that point be made clear.’
‘Of course he wouldn’t,’ the Old Man said, smiling. ‘Neither would any of us. Coronet doesn’t exist – it never did. My friend and I are having a theoretical conversation, engaged entirely in the abstract. It affects no concrete reality that the Chancellor will ever encounter.’
Theoretical. Abstract. He wasn’t wrong. Somewhere along the line people reduce themselves to numbers in a ledger, and at that point you’re truly damned. It’s a rather concise definition of power – when you no longer need to look at the names.
‘Now, I do believe that takes us to the end of our list for today. Thank you all for coming, and for your hard work.’
Class was dismissed. Four men started for the door with as much speed as age and dignity allowed. The fifth was the Old Man, and the Old Man, as a point of pride and principle, did not hurry anywhere, for any reason.
‘If you could allow me just one more moment,
’ the Old Man said, halting my egress.
Crowley didn’t like that. More than anything else, it was the fact that I’d edged him out of the chief’s favor that he really held against me. Odd, but no matter how high you rise in the halls of power, it’s impossible to escape the conviction that our collective fates are largely determined by the petty jealousies of overgrown adolescents. He didn’t argue though. No one argued with the Old Man except for me, and even then, unsuccessfully.
The two of us were left alone, staring at each other from opposite ends of the table, over the picked carcass of the lunch tray. He’d asked for a word, but he didn’t offer one, just sat there beaming at me. It was like looking into the sun: do it long enough and you start to get a headache, do it longer and you go mad. I broke first, but then someone had to. The Old Man would have happily continued at it till we both dropped from dehydration.
‘What exactly can I help you with?’
‘Regarding Coronet – it’s important we remain on the same page,’ he said.
‘Of course.’
‘Any concerns you have, these would best be shared between us and us alone.’
‘I understand.’
‘There’s no need for Bohemond to be exposed to anything which might make him … anxious.’
‘I’m sure he’d agree.’
‘Then we understand each other?’
‘Hand in glove,’ I answered.
‘Very good,’ he said, standing and ushering me out. ‘And do give my best to Albertine.’
Hearing her name in his mouth made me faintly nauseous. But I smiled through that and followed him into the hallway.
My promotion to Special Operations had brought with it a shitty little office crammed into a corner of the third floor. It was hot in the summer and cold in the winter, but it smelled of mildew and old paint regardless. The window was stuck, had been since my arrival.
There was a stack of papers on my desk that needed looking at. There was perpetually a stack of papers on my desk that needed looking at, as if at night elves materialized from beneath the floorboards and undid everything I’d finished during the day. I spent twenty minutes in my chair, chain smoking and pretending I was about to get to work. Then I gave up, stuffed out my butt, locked the door and left. It was almost quitting time, anyway. I figured I’d stop off and see Albertine. Catch her before she left work, take her out to dinner.
She Who Waits (Low Town 3) Page 14