The Liar's Key

by Mark Lawrence

  The modern standing behind the abomination that Davario seemed so proud of offered me the thinnest of smiles and watched me with dead eyes.

  “Charmed,” I said. All of a sudden I wasn’t sure which unnerved me most, the monstrosity of corpse and metal before me, or the white-faced man standing in its shadow. Something was seriously amiss with the man. A coward knows these things, just as the cruel and violent have an instinct for seeking out cowards.

  Without further remark Marco led the clockwork soldier from the room.

  “He’s a banker then, this Marco?” I asked as the door shut behind them.

  “Among other things.”

  “A necromancer?” I had to ask. If the House Gold were extending the use of their clockwork soldiers by means of such crimes against nature then I had to wonder who was doing the work for them and if the Dead King had his bony fingers in their pie.

  “Ah.” Davario smiled and showed his small white teeth, too many of them, as if I’d made a witticism. “No. Not Marco. Though he has worked closely with our practitioners. Necromancy is an unfortunate word with overtones of skulls and graveyards. We’re much more . . . scientific here, our practitioners adhere to strict guidelines.”

  “And what of Kelem?” I asked.

  The banker stiffened at that. A nerve touched.

  “What of him?”

  “Does he approve of these . . . innovations? Of your practitioners and their arts?” I really wanted to ask if Kelem owned half of Red March but perhaps I didn’t want to hear the answer to that question.

  “Kelem is a respected shareholder in many of Umbertide’s institutions.” Davario inclined his head. “But he does not control the House Gold nor make our policy. We are a new breed here, Prince Jalan, with many profitable associations.”

  Davario took a piece of parchment from his drawer, heavy grade and cut into a neat rectangle. The thing had been marked all over with precise scrollwork and an exquisitely detailed crest of arms. He took his quill and wrote “100” in a clear space near the middle, signing his name below.

  “This is a credit note for one hundred florins, Prince Jalan. I hope it will be sufficient for your needs until your great uncle’s paperwork is certified.” He slid it across the desk to me.

  I picked it up by the corner, and shook it as I might a suspect letter. It hadn’t any weight to it. “I do favour cold currency . . .” I turned the note over, the reverse decorated in more scrollwork. “Something more solid and real.”

  A small frown creased the flesh between Davario’s eyes. “Your debts aren’t currency, my prince, and yet they’re every bit as real as your assets.”

  My turn to frown. “What do you know about my debts?”

  The banker shrugged. “Little more than that they exist. But if you sought to borrow money from me I would know far more about them by sunset.” His face became serious and despite our civilized surroundings I felt little doubt that in the matter of collecting what might be owed to the House Gold Davario Romano Evenaline would be no more inclined to show mercy than Maeres Allus. “But I wasn’t talking about your debts: it’s your Uncle Hertet’s debts that are the stuff of legend. He’s been borrowing against the promise of the throne since he came to his majority.”

  “He has.” I managed to stop the words becoming a question. I knew the heir-apparently-not liked to spend and had several ventures on the go, including a theatre and a bathhouse, but I had assumed that the Red Queen indulged him in recompense for her failure to either be a doting mother or to die.

  Davario returned to his theme. “Debts are very real—they’re not hard currency but they are hard facts, my prince. This note is a promise: it carries the reputation of the House Gold. The whole of Umbertide, the whole of finance, runs on promises, a vast network of interlinked promises, each balanced on the next. And do you know what the difference is between a promise and a lie, Prince Jalan?”

  I opened my mouth to tell him, paused, thought, thought some more, and said, “No.” I’d uttered plenty of both and the only difference seemed to be the side you looked at them from.

  “Well and good, if we ever found someone who did we might have to kill them. Ho ho ho.” He spoke his laugh, not even pretending humour. “A lie may prove true in the end, a promise might be broken. The difference might be said to be that if a person breaks one promise then all their promises are suspect, worthless, but if a liar tells the truth by accident we don’t feel inclined to treat all their other utterances as gospel. The promise of this note is as strong, or weak, as the promise of every bank in this broken empire of ours. If it breaks, we plunge into the abyss.”

  “But . . . but . . .” I grappled with the idea. I’m an easy man to put the fear of God into . . . unless it actually is God you’re talking about, then I’m rather more relaxed, but this notion of kingdoms and nations standing or falling on the reputation of a collection of grubby bankers took more imagination than I could muster. “Any promise can be broken,” I offered, trying to think of anyone whose promise I might actually stake something on. For a promise that benefited me rather than the other person I could only come up with Snorri. Tuttugu would try not to let you down, but that’s not the same as actually not letting you down. “Most promises are broken.” I set the note back upon the table. “Except mine of course.”

  Davario nodded. “True, just as every man has his price, every promise has a fault along which it might be fractured. Even the bank has its price, but fortunately nobody can afford to pay it, and so to all intents and purposes it is as incorruptible as the holy mother in Roma.”

  And that took my faith in the paper away again in a stroke. Even so I took it, and left with the necessary pleasantries, once more turning down the idea of an escort.

  In the lengthening shadows and narrow alleys of Umbertide I almost regretted the decision not to have a mechanical monster walk me home. To find necromancy waiting for me in the city’s innermost circles did nothing to settle my nerves after the narrowly avoided horrors of my journey. At each turn I felt hidden eyes upon me and picked up my pace a little more, until by the time I reached my lodgings I’d almost broken into a run and my clothes were soaked with sweat.

  I wondered about Hennan too, lost on the road, and about Snorri; was he in Vermillion now, a broken man, the key taken from him?

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Despite my fears I settled into Umbertide life like a gambler taking his place at a card table. I hadn’t come for the night life, to attend the balls, to savour the local wines, nor for the opportunities to climb the local social ladder, not even to find a rich wife—I’d come to take the money. Of a certainty I would be interested in many of those other things, wife-hunting excepted, in due course, not that a banking town like Umbertide had much of a seedy underbelly to explore, but I can be surprisingly focused when it comes to gambling. My ability to spend twenty hours a day at a poker table for seven days straight is one of the reasons I was able to pile up so prodigious a debt to Maeres Allus at such a tender age.

  A number of major trading floors punctuate the map of Umbertide, some defined by the Houses that control them, others by the nature of the trades conducted there. I started on the House Gold floor so I could receive instruction on the basics from Davario’s white-faced and humourless underling Marco Onstantos Evenaline.

  “Stakes in business ventures of modest size are sold in twenty-fourths, shares in larger enterprises, even the banks themselves, can be purchased in ten thousandths. Though even a ten thousandth of a concern like the Central Bank will be beyond the pocket of many private traders.” The man had a voice that could bore goats to death.

  “I understand. So, I’m ready to play. I’ve got stakes to sell in three of the finest merchantmen beneath sail on any ocean anywhere, and an eye to buy.” I looked out across the traders: a mixed bunch, House Gold men in the majority but interspersed with independents from many distant sho
res. The House Gold traders wore black with gold trim and smoked constantly, pipe and cigarillo, in such quantity that a pall of acrid smoke floated above the traders’ heads. Can’t abide the smell myself. Tobacco remains one of the few dirty habits that holds no appeal for me. “I think I can wing it from here.”

  “Stakes are purchased using the calendula paddle to attract the seller’s attention,” Marco continued as if I hadn’t so much as twitched my lips. “Both parties then retire to one of the transaction booths after contracting a House Gold witness to officiate the paperwork. The sale must then be registered at—”

  “Really, I understand. I just want to get start—”

  “Prince Jalan.” A prim and reprimanding tone, the first colour to enter his voice in my hearing. “It will be several days before you’re ready to make any purchase on this or any other floor. Davario Romano Evenaline has charged me with your education and I cannot in good faith allow you to trade in ignorance. Your licence will not be forthcoming until I say you are ready to purchase.” He clamped his pale lips together and craned his neck until it made the most unhealthy creak. “For sales greater than one thousand florins in value a senior witness, indicated by the green flashes on the lapels of the trading coat—”

  “What about the clockwork soldiers?” I cut across him. “Is there a ‘concern’ that specializes in those? Could I buy a piece of that?” I didn’t want to make any such a purchase but the only time I’d seen a flicker in those blank banker eyes of his was when Davario was discussing his ghoulish pet project, dead flesh on metal bones.

  “Ownership of the soldiers rests in the hands of many private individuals and business enterprises. There is no central regulation, though the state, in the name of Duke Umberto, hold the rights to the Mechanists’ knowledge—”

  “The rights to knowledge that nobody understands . . . I think I’ll pass on that one. But tell me—how many ten thousandths of House Gold would I need to own before I got to have a say in what goes on in your laboratories? How much would I have to pay over to find out just how far the Dead King’s hand reaches into the things that get built below Davario’s office?”

  If possible Marco’s face grew even more stiff and more pale at my impertinence. “The utilization of cadaver material on our mechanical frames is perhaps . . . commercially sensitive in detail, but not a secret in general. We contract input from independent experts in the field. Again, their names are not classified information.”

  “Give me one then,” I said, grinning as broadly as I could, trying unsuccessfully to spark an echo on lips so narrow and bloodless that I doubted they even had the ability to smile.

  “I can give you three, one of them newly arrived in town.” He hesitated. “But all information has value in Umbertide and nothing of value is given away.”

  “So would a thousand florins purchase the names of your specialists?”

  “Yes.” Marco reached into his tunic and drew forth a sale bill, no expression on his face but the speed with which he moved was enough to know that even the heart of a juiceless creature such as him beat a little faster at the thought of a thousand in gold. He placed the bill on the table and reached for a quill so I could sign.

  “No,” I said, holding out my hand. Marco studied it quizzically.

  “Prince Jalan, why are you hold—”

  “So you can give me my licence, Marco. You must consider me ready to make purchases since you just offered to sell to me.”

  I heard his jaw grind and click as he pulled the document from his tight black overcoat and handed it to me.

  “Don’t feel bad, Marco, old boy, I was born for places like this. Got an instinct for them, don’t you know. This time next month I’ll own the building.” I slapped him on the shoulder, mostly because I thought it would annoy him, and walked off rubbing my hand. Despite appearances the man was built like a rock.

  • • •

  That night in my room at Madam Joelli’s I dreamed of Hennan, running scared across a dark and stony field. It seemed I chased him, getting closer and closer until I could hear the ragged panting of his breath and see the flash of his bare feet in the moonlight, dark with blood. I chased him, hard on his heels but always out of reach—until I wasn’t and I reached forward. The hands I caught him with were hooks, black metal hooks, cutting into his shoulders. He screamed and I woke, sweating in the black night of my room, finding his scream my own.

  • • •

  I spent several days watching the ebb and flow of things across House Gold’s trading floor and made a few trades, small bets against the price of olives and salt. Salt is traded on huge scales, a seasoning for the rich but an essential preservative to everyone else, and despite Umbertide having a salt mine in the hills that could be seen from its walls, the city still imported significant amounts of the stuff from Afrique. Once I had the feel for the mechanics of the business, I moved on.

  I graduated to the Maritime Trading House, a large sandstone edifice fashioned rather like a domed amphitheatre and situated on the edge of an extravagantly green park near the middle of the city’s financial quarter. I call it a quarter but it’s closer to two-thirds.

  Each day from first light to midnight crowds of the wealthiest men in the Broken Empire gather within the airy confines of the Maritime House and shout themselves hoarse while runners, normally young men with quick minds and quicker feet who hope one day to be doing their own shouting, carry trades back and forth. It’s not so very different from betting on fights back at the Blood Holes in Vermillion, except the fights are just the differences of opinions about the value of cargoes being brought into various ports by ships which the vast majority of the traders will never see or care to see. Ships with the most distant destinations and which have gone unsighted the longest time attract the largest odds. Perhaps that ship will never be heard of again; perhaps it will turn up in three weeks laden with nuggets of raw gold, or barrels of some spice so exotic we don’t have a name for it, just an appetite. Ships about which some information is available—maybe a sighting a month back by another captain, or some word that it was fully laden with amber and resin when inventoried off the Indus coast in the spring—those ships are safer bets, with lower odds. And you don’t even need to wait until your ship comes in to take your profit or endure your loss—any bet can be sold on, perhaps at considerable gain or perhaps for far less than it was purchased, depending on what new information has come to light in the interim, and how trustworthy said information is.

  • • •

  For my first two weeks I bounced along, breaking even by the second. Despite my natural flair for gambling, good head for figures and excellent people skills, even swinging the sizeable financial stick that my great uncle’s ships represented, I couldn’t quite beat out a profit. Some might say that working the markets is a science, a trade that takes years to learn as you build your networks and develop understanding of the various trading domains. To my mind though it boiled down to wagering, albeit at the largest casino in the Broken Empire, and what I really needed was a system. Also more sleep. Between the long hours and the recurring dreams of Hennan meeting one grim end after another, I was wearing myself thin.

  Week three found me nearly two thousand florins to the good and back at House Gold depositing my collection of certificates of sale. I still had to wait in line, intolerable on two counts, firstly no prince should have to stare at the sweaty back of another man’s neck and wait his turn—unless of course that man is a king, and secondly I sincerely doubted any of those ahead of me would be bringing quite such wealth to the counter, and surely any sensible bank should give priority to the rich.

  I’d made most of the money on an arrangement to buy harbour space in a Goghan port. By the complex magic of my system I wouldn’t actually have to do the buying until much later on. Never, if I timed my exit from the city properly. A cough to my rear startled me from my contemplations.
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  “Prince Jalan, how are you enjoying your time in Umbertide?” The mathmagician I’d met on my first visit joined the queue behind me. He wore a striking robe of interlocking shapes, alternately black and white, a pattern that both fascinated the eye and told you the man’s home lay very far from here.

  “I . . .” The fellow’s name escaped me but I covered it up pretty well. “Well, thank you. Profitable shall we say, and that’s always enjoyable.”

  “Yusuf Malendra,” he said, offering me the black smile of his caste and inclining his head. “So you’re changing your skin I see.” He ran an amused eye down the length of my attire.

  I frowned at that. Kara had said something similar. I’d adopted some of the local fashion and spent fifty florins on fine silk shirts, brocaded pantaloons, high calfskin boots, and a good felt hat complete with ostrich feather.

  “Style never goes out of fashion, Yusuf.” I offered him a rich man’s smile. A handsome fellow like me can carry off most looks, and although a prince is always in fashion it never hurts to put on the right display.

  “You’re a rich man now?”

  “Richer,” I said, not sure I liked the implication that I’d arrived as a beggar.

  “Perhaps you’ll be buying yourself some protection now that you’re rich . . . er? A wealthy man cannot be too careful, and a man that makes his money so fast must be running risks. We have a saying in my homeland. Taking risks is risky.” He shrugged apologetically. “It doesn’t translate well.”

  “Perhaps I should.” The idea had occurred to me. I missed having over six and a half foot of Norse killing machine beside me. I had only to bump into the wrong person in the street and I could find myself at the sharp end of an argument that no amount of money in the bank could save me from. And besides, annoyingly, Yusuf had the right of it: my system wasn’t exactly the sort that would please the authorities if it came to light, and some muscle at my side might buy me time to get away if things ever came to a crunch.