Hollow Empire

by Sam Hawke

  “And what is the treasure?” the translator asked, smiling down at her, apparently charmed by my niece’s enthusiasm.

  “Oh, you don’t find out till you win,” Dee said unconcernedly. “There’s a big prize for first, but everyone who submits a list before the time runs out gets something.”

  “Did you not wish to play? You have the list.”

  “Oh, no. I just took it to read. I don’t like running,” she said, tucking it away back in her tunic, but although Abaezalla nodded in agreement, I wondered if that was anything more than an excuse. Dija’s brothers were too old now and hadn’t wanted to be seen to play a children’s game, and Davi was too small to be of any use with the clues even if he could have kept up with the race around town. I felt guilty my niece had made no friends since her move here that she could team up with. But it wasn’t just the intensive nature of her work keeping her from bonding with her peers; Dee was an unusual child, talkative with adults but awkward and shy with people her own age, and more interested in her own observations about the world than in getting to know other children. “I wanted to make a lantern anyway. It’s very pretty, you know, when everyone carries them in the dark, and did you hear, this year there’s going to be a light show?”

  Abaezalla looked a bit bewildered as we joined the big central table and collected supplies, Dee instructing her cheerfully about folding and the best colors to paint the waxed paper and barely drawing breath, but I was grateful for the source of distraction. I said casually, “I heard relations between Perest-Avana and its neighbors have improved in recent years. That must mean more work for diplomats like yourself?”

  “Yes and no,” she said. “My specialties are in other countries, so it makes little difference to me. There is less need for translation and interpretation when it comes to our immediate neighbors, you see. And I saw that you met some of the men of my region the other day, so I am sure you see there are disadvantages to a closer working relationship.”

  I thought of Duke Lago and his sly looks and Prince Hanichii’s arrogance, and returned her rueful smile as she continued.

  “Besides, I must confess, it is for farther places my heart yearns.” She ducked her head as if embarrassed to have admitted it.

  “I understand. I hope to be nominated for the Ambassador position in Talafar myself.” Doubtless she already knew that, but I wanted her talking about the Empire. She’d been in the Leaning Lady when I’d been turned away; Perest-Avana was using this opportunity to discuss something with Talafar. “We haven’t sent a female Ambassador to Izruitn before, though, and there are cultural differences of some concern. His Majesty Prince Hiukipi may be … unused to dealing with women in government positions.”

  She made a face, and dropped her tone. “I am only an interpreter, no one of consequence, but he looked at me in such a way…” She gave a little shudder, then glanced at me with her lip caught between her teeth as if worried I might have taken offense.

  I felt an answering shudder of revulsion. I’d been on the receiving end of one of those looks myself, and I also remembered how Hiukipi had treated the women at the masquerade. But I pushed down my sympathetic urge. We hadn’t originally thought Perest-Avana a truly viable threat because of its size and relative powerlessness, but we might have underestimated the extent to which the western nations were capable of working together. Or could an ambitious general be looking to make a deal with, say, a reckless heir who longed for expansion of his father’s great empire? Abaezalla had admitted to spending considerable time in Izruitn, so she could have established many significant contacts. Additionally, it occurred to me, stealing sidelong glances through my lashes, that sending someone who looked like her to a man with an apparent weakness for women would certainly be one way of broaching the subject. Perhaps such a deal was already in motion?

  On the other hand, perhaps I was simply projecting my suspicions on an innocent woman. Certainly it was hard to detect any guile in her manner, and while I remained on alert it was difficult not to enjoy her company. Dija, too, seemed genuinely to be enjoying the conversation. Abaezalla had a shy charm difficult to resist; she was a warm and interested conversationalist, and never showed any sign of deception as we chatted and made lanterns together. It was hard not to succumb to the pleasant natural energy of the final festival day. The weather was perfect, with a scrubbed blue sky clear of clouds and the winds too light to dislodge anyone’s crown. We’d given out a good half of our ribbons and our crowns were now a riot of colors and textures. Surely it wasn’t such a crime to just enjoy myself for an hour or two.

  Everyone else seemed to be in good spirits as well. If Tain had invested too much of himself into making this karodee a success, the results showed. The atmosphere was more subdued than a few days ago, but still merry; sore heads and unsettled stomachs had settled, and there was an air of pleasant anticipation for the end tonight. We saw only one small scuffle, which broke out between a young person carrying offerings for the Darfri shrine and a shrill older man with a cane and a supercilious attitude, the former claiming the latter had deliberately tripped her. Though both parties ended up being hit with the cane a few times, the argument never got much further than raised voices, because a pair of Order Guards broke it up before it could.

  “Mind yourself, uncle,” one Guard said firmly. Her companion was a big enough fellow to physically pick up the old man under the armpits and set him back several paces as if he were an inconveniently placed ornament on a table.

  “Be careful with that cane, eh?” she warned him.

  “Wouldn’t want to see any more accidents,” the big Guard rumbled, and the man scurried back from him.

  “What color should I make my bird, Dee?” I asked her, holding up my attempt.

  “Oh! Is that a bird, Auntie?” She took off her spectacles and rubbed them on the side of her tunic. “I thought you were drawing some kind of root vegetable.”

  I laughed. “Cheeky little—” I stopped. “Dee?”

  Her whole body had stiffened. The glasses she’d taken off to clean dropped to the table, splattering into one of the little tubs of paint.

  “What is it?”

  She took a sucking, shaky breath. Her eyes were wide and fixed. I started to pivot toward the direction she was staring in, but her hand shot out, fast as a strike, to catch my wrist. She shook her head, still silent, still terrified, and gave a tiny jerk of the head. For a moment she looked so much like Etan that a wave of confused grief overpowered my alarm. Then, because it was what we were trained for, what Etan had taught me, I controlled myself, forced my body to relax, daubed some paint on my blob of a bird, and shifted position so Dee could shrink back behind my frame. Only then did I glance over where she was looking. The old man had moved on and the smaller of the two Order Guards was helping the Darfri youth pick up their charms while the big man stood by, arms folded, scanning the crowd with a practiced, methodical eye. The crowd moved around them, adults and children alike, but nobody I recognized. And nothing to suggest the cause of her fearful, shocked reaction.

  “There, I think I’m done, what do you think?” I held my painted paper aloft, giving me another excuse to look around at the meandering people in the market. Abaezalla’s pretty nose wrinkled with the effort of thinking of a compliment about my poor artwork, and while she nobly pretended to admire it, Dija leaned in to breathe in my ear.

  “The Guard. Auntie.” I could barely hear her. “That big one. He was the one in the mask, the one who—the one who took Uncle Jov.”

  My own breath turned a bit shaky. I turned to her and helped her clean her paint-splattered spectacles. “Are you sure you want to use the blue there?” I asked, pointing at her painstakingly neat pattern of flowers and leaves. I thought I recognized a plant from our own little poison garden, though I couldn’t remember what it was called.

  Even scared, she was smart and attentive. “I’m sure,” she said firmly, her voice barely shaking this time.

  “It’s a fu
nny place to put it, is all. It’s a leaf. You wouldn’t expect to see a blue leaf, would you?”

  “Yes,” she said quietly. “You wouldn’t expect it. People might mistake it for a flower, but it’s definitely a leaf.”

  “All right.” I gave Abaezalla a tolerant shrug, as if I were indulging my niece, and she smiled back, apparently unaware of the undercurrents. I chanced another glance at the Order Guards. My eyes drifted to the big one’s hands. He’d strangled Tuhash with those hands. The dead man’s face flashed before my eyes and I felt a wave of nausea so intense it almost buckled my knees. “Oh, Dee, you’ve got paint into the metalwork,” I exclaimed. “If this dries we’ll have such a time getting it out.” I turned my most charming smile on Abaezalla. “Your company has been a delight, but these spectacles were terribly expensive and they’re very delicate. We’ll have to go and clean them back at the apartments, we have the materials there. Perhaps we will see you later? Look out for blue leaves and vegetable birds, won’t you?”

  And I spun Dee away and into the crowd, leaving Abaezalla standing with a paintbrush in one hand, the ribbons in her hair blowing back from her face in the spring breeze.

  Our own guard, Lara, looked at me quizzically as she followed a few lengths behind us. I shook my head at her, forcing a smile I didn’t feel, then turned away from her to speak softly to Dija. “You’re absolutely sure? I thought he was wearing a mask.”

  “He was, once they moved him,” she said, “but in the house, when they first jumped on him, they weren’t. I got a good look at his face. It’s definitely him.” Her hand in mine was sweating, trembling.

  An Order Guard. Shit, shit. “What about the other one? The woman?”

  She shook her head firmly. “That’s not the woman he was with that day.”

  “All right.” I tried to calm my breathing. The Guards were moving on, and we trailed at a short distance; fortunately the big one was so tall he was easy to keep track of in the crowd. He had a kind of prowling grace despite his size; the look of a confident man of violence, I thought. So these Hands had infiltrated the Order Guards, or recruited within it. The thought was more than troubling. Order Guards could be armed, they could go anywhere and carry authority with them. We would have looked to them to assist us in protecting Tain, not as a source of potential threat.

  “We should go tell Uncle Jovan, shouldn’t we?” Dee asked anxiously. She was turned toward me but her gaze seemed fastened to the man’s back, as if she couldn’t pull it away.

  We did need to tell Jov, but I needed to think, first. “We need to know who he is. As much information as we can get.” They would be setting up for the closing ceremony in a matter of hours. If there was someone—or more than one someone—on the city’s own security staff who could be part of the threat, we needed to know exactly who they were so we could know where they might otherwise be. My hand was half-raised to beckon Lara to us, but then it dropped. If they’d infiltrated the Order Guards, who was to say they couldn’t have done the same with private houseguards? I liked Lara, but she’d only been in our employ six months. How well could we really know her, in that time?

  “We’ll follow them for a bit, get a name if we can.”

  Dee stopped walking, her grip on my hand loosening. For the first time she took her eyes off the Guard and stared at me instead. “I don’t … I don’t think we should,” she said. Her voice sounded very small. I remembered suddenly what had happened last time she’d decided to follow someone. I felt an idiot, and a cruel one, for even suggesting it.

  “I’m sorry.” I dropped down to bring myself to her eye level. “You’re right. I know this is scary. I won’t make you come, but I’m going to have to do this. I can’t risk him walking away and us not being able to identify him.”

  “He’s so big, and he’s on duty right now,” she protested. “The Captain will be able to look up who he is.”

  “There’s lots of big men in the Guard,” I said. “And you told Chen he was wearing a mask. We’re going to have to find some other way of convincingly identifying him, and that means knowing something about him. Look, you go back to the lanterns and stay at the table until I’m back. I’ll send Lara with you. You’ll be safe there, just don’t leave the table.”

  She hesitated, and I tried not to show her any impatience. The Guards weren’t moving fast, I had time, and she needed to make the decision.

  “I’ll come,” she said, and squared her jaw, once again reminding me of my uncle. A surge of pride filled me. She was only thirteen, and she’d seen something terrible, but she was an Oromani, and she already prioritized duty over safety. Or maybe she just didn’t want to be left behind.

  “We won’t be doing anything dangerous, I promise.”

  “I trust you, Auntie.”

  Squeezing her hand, I moved us through the crowd. It was easy enough to blend in; I encouraged Dee to comment on things and people we passed, just as if we were out enjoying ourselves as originally planned. The chatter distracted her, but not completely; her hand still sweated in mine despite the mild weather.

  We got lucky before we even left the market square; the woman called him by name—Sukseno. An unusual one, enough to identify him, surely. Was it enough? I glanced up at the sun’s arc. There weren’t many hours until the closing ceremony. The guilt was back, but I needed two people for this play. “Dee, I’m going to ask you to be really brave for a second, all right? Do you think you can do that?”

  * * *

  Dija was too young for tattoos, and I was grateful for it. To the big Guard she was just a kid, indistinguishable from any other. I’d asked her to cause a minor disturbance, something to distract him. Instead she was standing right before him, bold as anything, holding her treasure hunt list and asking earnest questions as she pointed to various city landmarks. I heard him laugh—actually laugh—at something she was saying.

  “That was nice work, back there,” I said to the female Order Guard, gesturing roughly behind me, keeping her attention on me and away from her partner. Dee might be anonymous but I wasn’t, and she wouldn’t remain so for long if he saw us both in the same company. “With the Darfri lass. It could have gotten ugly if you hadn’t stepped in.”

  “That’s what we’re here for, Credola,” the Guard said briskly. “Keeping the peace, like.”

  “I’ve heard things have been tense, since the fire.” I adopted a vaguely gossipy tone, the sort of tone the Reed cousin had used on me earlier. I wanted this conversation short and as forgettable as possible. “This sort of careful management is just what we need. Will you and your partner be working the closing ceremony tonight? We need cool heads, you know.”

  “Mm.” Her interest had quickly dissipated and her gaze was back to roaming the crowd, eyes out for trouble. “No, Credola, ’fraid not. Just looking out for you all here this morning. Plenty of good people looking after everyone tonight, don’t you worry.”

  I chanced another glance at Dee. She was still talking to the Guard but we couldn’t have much longer. Shit. “You know, I think I saw you and your partner doing just as good a job during the masquerade the other night, weren’t you?”

  “Not me, Credola.” Her patience for the conversation was clearly wearing thin.

  I interrupted the intake of breath that promised to tell me to have a bounteous and fortunate season, scrupulously polite as it would be, with a hurried, “Your partner then, I’m sure I saw—”

  “Not our usual work, I’m afraid,” she said, a note of irritation at last creeping in. “We’re jail guards, usually. Looking after folks like this is easy compared to the types we’re normally handling, if you get my drift. So you see, you’re mistaken. Look, Credola, I’d best be back to work, eh?” She tipped her head and escaped me with barely concealed relief, and I coughed loudly to signal Dee. She joined me moments later, stuffing the list back in her tunic. Her hand was shaking so hard it took two tries.

  “I was scared,” she said. “I was so scared he was going to kno
w me somehow.”

  “You were right to be scared,” I said, “but you were absolutely brilliant. We can go tell Jov now and decide what to do.” At least, I told myself as we left the market square and hailed the nearest litter, at least he’s not scheduled on guard duty for the arena tonight. Dee was quiet in the litter, and would not meet my concerned gaze. “He was so nice,” she whispered at last. “He killed that man for no good reason at all. He hurts people and he works for those horrible people, but he was so nice to me just now.” A gleaming tear trickled out from under her glasses and she hastily scrubbed it away with her sleeve. “He helped me solve a clue.”

  I swallowed. It felt like a replay of something that had happened before, us marking out the same familiar steps. Bad, brutal people who wouldn’t hesitate to murder could be gentle to children, could as easily believe themselves to be decent. “People aren’t only one thing,” I said, putting a hand on her shoulder. I kept my voice low; the street was noisy but litter carriers could be paid to listen, same as anyone. “You’ll see that, as you grow up.” Especially growing up doing what we’re doing, I thought grimly. I had struggled to reconcile the generous, faultlessly polite Marco with the traitor who had killed my uncle and the Chancellor, who had taken people from the streets and cut off their heads all to help fuel both sides of a rebellion that had cost us so much. “Sometimes they’re good actors. Sometimes they just don’t see what they do, following orders from evil people, as being wrong.”

  And sometimes, of course, they know it’s wrong and they don’t care. They do what they want for their own ends, and be damned anyone who gets in their way. The scar on my abdomen seemed to burn, even though I knew the damage was long healed. It was all in my mind. The knife going in. The water closing around my face. The man’s big hands flashed in my head again; I imagined them closing around Tuhash’s pale neck, squeezing, squeezing. Then it turned into Aven’s face, and it was her hands around my throat.