In the Palace of Shadow and Joy

by D. J. Butler

  Indrajit was grateful for the resistance to his suggestions. He didn’t really want to carry out a burglary. “The deadline tomorrow morning is just to get Orem Thrush’s bonus pay,” Indrajit said. “Mind you, I do want to get that bonus pay. Okay, I think that means our last best lead is to go lean on Mote Gannon, find out why Holy-Pot chose him, how he knows my name, and anything else he can tell us about the plan to kill Ilsa without Peer.”

  “Or kidnap,” Fix added. “Kill or kidnap.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “I don’t actually want to beat people up,” Indrajit said. “I mean, if someone deserves it, fine. If I need to hurt someone to protect myself, fine. If someone attacks me, then he has it coming. But I don’t want to hurt people for money.”

  “We don’t have to take jobs like that,” Fix said. “Like collection.”

  “Could we have the notary write that into our charter? That we just do, I don’t know, romantic rescues?”

  “I don’t think that’s a recognized category in the Auction.”

  “We could do it privately. For wealthy and deserving patrons who are star-crossed in love.”

  “That feels like a small market. Maybe, in addition to that, we also make ourselves available for Auction work.”

  “Maybe we should go listen to an Auction and find out what the categories are. When is it, tomorrow? Do they let just anyone in? Or maybe there’s a fascicle somewhere, where you can read the list of contracts that are available.”

  “They won’t let us in,” Fix said. “The Auction House is always heavily guarded, but especially during the Auction. I think the heads of the seven families go in person. And I don’t know all the contract types, but that’s fine—the way to get Auction work is to be known to the seven families. Or their ministers. People like Thinkum Tosh, I suppose.”

  “And Grit Wopal?”

  “Maybe. And we shouldn’t have to take any job we don’t want to. We can avoid collections. Including tax collection, I guess?”

  “Unless the collection is from a bad person, and we’re collecting on behalf of someone who is really needy and worthy.” Indrajit listened to his own words for a moment. “I guess that’s probably silly.”

  “You did collections for Holy-Pot, didn’t you? How did you do it?”

  “Badly. The guy didn’t have enough money, but I let him off without breaking his legs anyway. And then I felt bad about it, so to console myself I went drinking. And I was hungry, so there was no way I was ever going to be able to resist that roasted fowl. And there were dice being thrown, and of course that seemed like a great idea. I think maybe, in my drunken state, I thought I could win the difference between what the man had given me and what he really owed. Pay his debt myself, out of my gambling winnings. And that’s how I spent all the money I had collected.”

  “Which is why Holy-Pot wanted you dead. Or at least was willing to see you killed. No collections,” Fix said. “No assassinations or kidnappings.”

  “Wait, are those even options?”

  “Not legal options,” Fix said. “But once you start running everything in your city by small companies of armed men, some of those companies are going to get put to nefarious uses. If not by the seven families, then by others. Not all murders in Kish are committed by the House of Knives.”

  “No assassinations or kidnappings,” Indrajit agreed.

  “Exceptions only as unanimously agreed between the two partners.”

  “Right. And no else gets a vote. They can always leave if they want, but you and I decide what jobs we take.”

  “And I think there’s a whole class of other, similar jobs we can rule right out as a matter of course. Arsons, intimidation, burglary. We’re going to be strictly on-the-books jobbers.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Indrajit said. “But let’s be heroes. If we’re going to agree to break the law, let’s try to do it for a noble purpose.”

  “That might be a good name for a company,” Fix said. “The Heroes.”

  “Hmm. Not totally convinced, but not repulsed, either. I feel like you’re close.”

  “So, what’s our noble purpose here?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Indrajit felt genuinely surprised. “Save Ilsa. Stop whatever wicked plan is behind all this mayhem.”

  Fix was quiet for a moment. They passed from the Spill up into the Crown. “You’re thinking about how you’ll be written into the Epic, aren’t you?”

  “Of course, I am. One of my responsibilities is to find and teach a successor. But another is to bring the Epic down an additional generation. That is to say, to my grandfather’s generation. Necessarily, especially in recent centuries, a central figure of each generation’s account is the Recital Thane who trained the predecessor of the composing Recital Thane.”

  “Did it used to be different?”

  “Anciently, according to the Epic itself, everyone knew the Epic by heart. It was the curriculum of my people’s education, our sacred text, our principal guide in peace and in war. The central figures of those times were noblemen, high priests, and war leaders. But we became fewer, the world became more complex, and the Epic became the preserve of the Recital Thanes.”

  “So, the person trained by your student will eventually write about you, and you want to be the noble hero.”

  “Also, being the noble hero is the right thing to do.”

  “Yeah.” Fix stared off into the deep afternoon shadow piling up on the east side of a gambling hall. “Being the noble hero sounds like a good idea.”

  “The ladies like it,” Indrajit said.

  “Do they?” Indrajit thought Fix’s expression brightened, but only a tiny bit and only for a moment.

  “Speaking of ladies,” Indrajit continued, “how exactly do you think our employer—”

  “Client,” Fix said.

  “What?”

  “Employees have employers. We are an independent partnership, and we are engaged by clients.”

  “I don’t see the difference,” Indrajit admitted, “but I’m happy to learn and adopt the language of the professionals. How do you think our employer has Mote Gannon’s home address?”

  “I assumed they were once lovers,” Fix said. “But that’s probably that, being an aspiring lover myself, I tend to see lovers in everyone around me.”

  “Maybe that’s why the best she could say about him was that he was bonded and acceptable,” Indrajit suggested.

  Fix nodded.

  “If you are wondering,” Indrajit said, “I am not anyone’s lover.”

  “No,” Fix agreed. “That seemed obvious enough.”

  “Hey!”

  “I didn’t say it was impossible for you to have a lover.” Fix shrugged. “It just seems pretty clear that you don’t at this time.”

  “I haven’t met any Blaatshi women here.”

  Fix nodded. “Many men have not been held back by a similar limitation. But in any case, I suggest that you refrain from asking Mote Gannon whether he was Frodilo Choot’s lover.”

  “I guess you also think I shouldn’t ask him whether Frodilo Choot is a man?”

  “Correct. As a former Trivial, I believe I can definitively assert that that is useless information.”

  “Fine.” Indrajit shook his head. “So there’s no registry of jobber company captains? Maybe Choot just looked his address up in a book?”

  “There is a registry, according to the Auction House notices. But the registry can’t contain captains’ home addresses, for exactly the reason that jobber captains do not want surprise visitors. No one wants surprise visitors, perhaps, but jobber captains, accumulating enemies as they successfully serve clients and as they fail to serve clients, are more likely than others to be accosted by unexpected visitors with hostile intent.”

  “First of all,” Indrajit said, “there are too many registries.”

  “You were the one who asked the question.”

  “I know, but still. Why are there so many registries?”
/>   “Before the great families can tax or control anything, they must have it all written down, so they know who to go after and how much to take.”

  “And writing facilitates this.” Indrajit tsked and shook his head. “You see? Not only does writing render the mind feeble, it also enables great wickedness in government.”

  “Or great efficiency.” Fix shrugged. “A state that writes nothing down builds no sewers or great walls and cannot field an army.”

  “That all sounds fine to me,” Indrajit said. “But second, implicit in what you are saying is the likelihood that Mote Gannon, even in his home, will be tough. This is no simple extraction of a sea snail; poke and you pull him out. No, Mote is likely to be deeply sunk into a thick, horny shell, with strong, sharp claws to protect him—”

  “He will have armed guards,” Fix said. “Do you feel at peace with the idea of physically assaulting Mote Gannon?”

  Indrajit considered. “Morally, yes. His men knew my name and wanted to kill me. He is clearly in on the plan to set me up, and also to set up my partner, the learned scholar Fiximon Nasoprominentus Fascicular. But as a matter of physical risk, it may be wiser to try another tack.”

  “Of course.” Fix nodded with his head. “This is his building, right here. Keep walking and look casual.”

  They strolled past.

  The building where Mote Gannon lived looked like the palace of some lordly family, four dizzying stories tall, with windows and iron-balustraded balconies starting on the second floor. At the four corners, towers rose an additional two stories; their windows suggested that the towers also contained residential apartments.

  A gate wide and tall enough for a carriage opened over a short lane paved with cobblestones. Within the gateway stood two guards. A window in the wall of the gateway arch suggested the presence of a guardhouse, and possibly more security.

  Without turning his head, Indrajit’s wide vision allowed him to see into the cool, shaded depths of a courtyard beyond, thick with ferns and littered with marble benches and statues. He also caught a glimpse of a walkway at the second story, from which doors entered into individual apartments and onto which windows opened. The whole thing was covered with a coral-pink plaster, bricks peeping out here and there where the plaster had been knocked away.

  They passed the end of the building and kept walking.

  “All things considered,” Indrajit said, “nicer than the places where I’ve been staying.”

  “Me too.”

  “But you have money.”

  “I have money because I haven’t been spending it on nice places to sleep. There is wisdom for you in this very point, O Recital Thane, if you are willing to let your mind dwell upon it.”

  They turned and walked around the block in which the apartment building sat. “Climbing seems tricky,” Indrajit said, “notwithstanding our delightfully light armor. Do you think we’re too heavily armored to claim to be messengers?”

  “It might get awkward.”

  “Well, we have the one Handler tunic.”

  Fix looked startled. “What Handler tunic?”

  “I took it from the Zalapting. The guy who went poking into the latrine. I have the two orange tunics too.”

  “I might fit into a Zalapting tunic,” Fix said thoughtfully. “The height is about right, and if the tunic is baggy enough, I could squeeze in.”

  “A few torn seams will probably escape casual notice,” Indrajit said. “If you’re slightly too big.”

  “Do I say you’re a messenger?” Fix asked.

  Indrajit thought about it. “Say nothing unless asked. Then glower rather than explain yourself. And if anyone’s really interested, say I lost my tunic.”

  “That’s the plan, then.”

  In the mouth of a dark alley behind a wooden puppet stage, Fix shrugged into the gray Handler tunic, making a face at the lingering smell. Then they hiked back around to the front of the block and walked into the gateway.

  The two guards standing in the gate stepped forward to challenge them. They were dressed lightly, with leather jerkins under dusty tunics and kilts. On his tunic, each man had the circular glyph of Gannon’s Handlers. Each held a club in his hand, and at their belts they had swords.

  One of them stepped forward, pointing at Fix’s tunic.

  Oops.

  “They’re Handlers,” Indrajit murmured. “Forget the plan.”

  Indrajit admired the instant flexibility of Fix’s reaction. Leaping forward as if fired out of a crossbow, the former Trivial slammed his steel-encased forehead into the bridge of the first Handler’s nose. The man crumpled, bounced once on the cobblestones, and lay still. As the second man raised his arm to swing his club, Fix grabbed the raised arm by the elbow, snapping the elbow forward in a direction it was not designed to go. At the same moment, Indrajit wrapped his fingers around the Handler’s throat, cutting off the cry of pain and surprise before it could escape.

  The Handler thrashed, trying to escape, but together they lifted him off the ground and pushed him against the wall. Indrajit choked harder, pinning the man’s legs with his body and his left hand with Indrajit’s right, and Fix did the same on the other side.

  When he stopped kicking because he had passed out, they threw him to the floor in the guardhouse. Mercifully, there were no other guardsmen there, and they dragged in the second Handler as well. Shoving both men into a corner where they were invisible from the gateway itself, Fix stood guard while Indrajit quickly cut the soft jerkins into strips, tying the men’s wrists and ankles and gagging them.

  When Indrajit returned to the gateway, two men in riding boots were walking in. He and Fix bowed pleasantly and told the men, when asked, that there were no messages. Once the men had passed, Fix passed the gray Handler tunic back to Indrajit. “Do we run up to his apartment and break in, now?”

  Indrajit thought hard. “You know the number, right? We’re probably early, but let’s go knock on the door. If anyone answers, we attack. We hide the bodies inside and wait for Gannon, if he’s not there.”

  “And if no one answers?”

  “We come back down here and wait. Follow him up when he arrives.”

  They climbed, in a fashion simultaneously as quick and as casually as they could manage, to Mote Gannon’s door. It was at the base of one of the towers; it was locked, there was no peephole, and no one answered.

  They returned to the guardhouse. The two Handlers were still unconscious. Indrajit and Fix stood in the gateway, smiling at each person entering or leaving.

  “What lie do I tell next?” Fix asked.

  “Say nothing to anyone, if at all possible.”

  “But if I have to talk?”

  “I have no idea,” Indrajit said. “It depends on who you’re talking to, and there’s a pretty good chance we’ll get it wrong.”

  “So…be ready to fight.”

  “Be ready to fight, and watch for Mote Gannon. How do you know what he looks like?”

  Fix shrugged. “I’ve seen him in the Paper Sook.”

  Indrajit nodded. “Also, this might be a good time for you to get religion. Does Spilkar, God of Contracts, have dominion over situations like ours?”

  “You mean, because we’re trying to fulfill a contract?”

  “Yes. Or should we turn to the Unnamed, Queen of the New Moon, patron of thieves and assassins, because, notwithstanding the fact that we are heroes, our actions have the superficial appearance of being the actions of rogues?”

  “I don’t believe in either.” Fix shrugged. “So I say, let’s pray to both.”

  Indrajit nodded. He didn’t know the formal prayers, so he improvised, spitting onto the cobblestones by way of offering.

  A matron in green silks asked if she had received any messages, and Indrajit truthfully told her he had nothing for her.

  “But your aspiration in life was never to be a jobber captain,” Fix said.

  “No. Neither was yours. I need to recruit and train a successor; you need
to win a lady love.”

  “Win her back,” Fix muttered darkly. “But getting a career launched as a jobber company captain might help me. How does the jobber company help you?”

  “Income,” Indrajit said. “And visibility. I’ll put it about that I’m looking to recruit a poet. And extra eyes—our jobbers can let me know if they see anyone who looks enough like me to investigate as possible kin.”

  “They can also look for Blaatshi women.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “We should take long breaks,” Fix said, “to give you the time you need for your search.”

  “Then everyone will make less money,” Indrajit said. “You only get paid when you’re working.”

  “Hmm,” Fix agreed. “That’s a dilemma.”

  A heavy man with rubbery skin and ears like a donkey’s asked them to hail a sedan chair. Indrajit cheerfully flagged down a sedan and took the two bits the man offered as a tip.

  “How do we recruit other jobbers?” Indrajit asked. “I’ve never been a leader. Never hired anyone, or gave anyone directions.”

  “You’ll get over that quickly, once you’ve got an apprentice. Also, the fame of our deeds will eventually bring in many would-be team members.”

  “Yes, but until then. Do we post an advertisement somewhere?”

  Fix shook his head. “Maybe.”

  Then the shorter man stiffened and threw an elbow into Indrajit’s side. Indrajit realized that they had arranged for no signal to indicate to each other that Mote Gannon had arrived. Also, he realized that if Fix recognized Gannon, Gannon might also know Fix by sight.

  The man who entered was serious-looking, with curly brown hair going gray and the fair complexion of someone with northern blood. He wasn’t tall enough to be from Ukel or Karth, so that suggested an Ildarian. He was wrapped in leather, including knee-high boots and a long leather jerkin with bronze discs riveted to it; bright red silk sleeves puffed out at the wrist made a stylish contrast to the armor. He had two swords at his waist. Gannon wore spectacles, and as he walked, he read from a sheaf of papers in his hand, pinned together.

  Frozen hells, not a sheaf, Indrajit realized.