The Traitor Baru Cormorant_The Masquerade

by Seth Dickinson

  * * *

  BEFORE the Masquerade seized Lachta and made it Treatymont, the Fiat Bank had been a huntsman’s hall, full of hardwood rafters and smoky charm. They’d left the stag heads up on the walls, and Baru considered them with a certain fascination, counting the branches of their antlers.

  “Pointed horse,” she said. “They’re pointed horses.”

  “Excuse me?” the man at her side croaked.

  The Treatymont garrison kept a unit of regulars on guard here, their loyalty doubtless gilded by performance bonuses, but where they’d bristled at the column of Lapetiare marines gathered in the plaza outside, one impatient wave of her purse—the technocrat’s seal glaring at them from the steel chain—melted their line. Now Aminata and a file of marines stood watch over the exits as Baru wrote out her requests.

  All ledgers, general and specific. Make copies for yourself, and provide me the originals.

  All orders to and receipts from the moneyprinters. Make copies, provide me the originals.

  All account standings, as above—

  A hand count of all physical holdings by my officers—

  The Principal Factor for the Aurdwynn Provincial Fiat Bank stood beside her and his makeup ran with his sweat. Bel Latheman was a handsome man by Falcresti eyes, young, by all reports talented, and dressed in such exquisite fashion that she took it as a sign of honesty—no one would advertise corruption so blatantly, would they?

  She hadn’t asked for his papers and marks. It would give the impression that this was personal.

  Save for the quiet sound of her pen, silence took the floor. The clerks and factors sat stiffly under the eyes of the marines. She found it hard, very hard, not to savor their faces, each and individually, like candies in a rack—all united in trepidation, all afraid that she might find something, guilty or innocent—

  Maybe this was how the teachers had felt. Maybe this was how Diline had felt.

  “I admire your animal heads,” she answered the Principal Factor, signing the palimpsest in Aphalone letters. “I’ve never seen the like. Take these orders and execute them at once. I’ll wait in your office until you can bring me the records.”

  He pursed his lips and struggled visibly to keep himself reasonable. He’d been sweating since he saw the chained purse—thinking, perhaps, the last two died; this Accountant was mad to take the post. “The records I can, of course, provide, though this is most irregular. But we cannot open the vaults for a hand count. Especially not for these soldiers—Your Excellence, they will be leaving the country within a week and will feel at liberty to steal. It would be criminally irresponsible.”

  “A salient point.” He had the diligent, precise mind his bearing and presentation suggested. She laced her gloves in thought. “Lieutenant Aminata, you will have ample time to search Lapetiare during your return to Falcrest, correct? Keelhaul any marine found with contraband.”

  She had no power to dictate military justice, but Aminata saluted smartly nonetheless. Baru smiled coldly at her, and only had to hide the warmth.

  The poor assailed Factor went down into the old ice cellars to open the vaults for inspection and left Baru to make a restless pacing home in his office, wondering at the wisdom of acting so viciously so soon. A pale Stakhi-blood woman in a ruffed bearskin coat offered her beer (the Aurdwynni did not, as a rule, seem to trust their water) and quiet words through pursed lips: “Bel Latheman is very scrupulous. Things were so confused under His Late Excellence Olonori, however, that I do worry—please be kind to him. He’s never bent a rule in his life.”

  “The numbers will speak to that.” She wanted to apologize at once, out of pity for Latheman, and out of respect for the loyalty his staff showed him.

  But the woman in the bearskin coat only bowed and extended the heavy mug. Her downcast eyes were dark as thunderheads. “I am Ake Sentiamut, liaison to the moneyprinters. Whatever you find, Your Excellence, I ask this: be good to Bel Latheman. He has been kind to us.”

  Sentiamut. She remembered that name from tax records—a family from the north. Baru felt a twinge of empathy for Ake, who must have left her home behind to serve in Treatymont. But Baru could not be soft. “He is the Factor of this bank. Responsible for everything and everyone within it.”

  Ake Sentiamut held the bow. “Of course, Your Excellence. I only fear that Latheman would take on blame better left with others.”

  She left the mug and went before Baru could reply.

  At length the Principal Factor returned with a parade of secretaries carrying waxed records and palimpsests reeking of oat bran. She waited in silence for them to set the records out and begin the copying. After a few minutes she found a pen and joined their sullen ranks.

  She had seen rebellion in the eyes of Tain Hu and Xate Yawa. Glimpsed it in the maps and histories. But the stink of it would be here, in the numbers, rotting on some back page.

  Aminata’s touch on her shoulder snapped her out of her work trance. “The count’s proceeding apace, Your Excellence. The vaults are full of metals and jewels gathered for tax season, so it will take time.”

  How deep would the rot run, how high the rebellion reach? Could Ffare Tanifel’s arrangement, the corruption Su Olonori had been so desperate to root out, still be marked in the ledgers here? Was the Imperial Accountant still the key to the plot?

  When would the rebellion come for her, to court or kill?

  “Thank you, Lieutenant.” She tapped Aminata’s hand, once then twice, the deliberate rap of a schoolteacher. “Mind your familiarity.”

  * * *

  IT took all day and every clerk in the bank to finish copying the ledgers, and another night for the marines, working in shifts, to count the vaults. Late in the evening Muire Lo arrived with coffee and a train of servants, and with their help Baru began shuttling the originals back to her office.

  By the letter of the law she’d gone too far. The originals had to remain on the Fiat Bank’s premises. But Baru would take the risk. She needed these records, and she needed them untampered with. If the Imperial Accounts could not be kept in order she would be powerless and blind. Without a strong arm and a sharp eye, Aurdwynn would throw her overboard and drown her.

  In her tower she found Cairdine Farrier napping behind her desk. He woke at the sound of the door, eyes slitted lazily, and considered her in smug silence for a moment. “You wanted an appointment with me?”

  Oh, to snap at him, to say the first and least wise things that occurred: That’s my desk; get out, get out of my tower, get out of my province. Or tell me what you sent me here to do.

  She unbuttoned her greatcoat with slow deliberation, folded it, and set it aside. Wine and goblets stood ready on a side table. She poured something red as if she’d picked it herself. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said. “Please, find a seat.” A new one.

  He chuckled and stood with a low groan. Dark half-moons hung beneath his eyes. “It’s a very nice office. Lovely vaulted ceiling. This was Stakhieczi stonework, built for the new Duke of Lachta—he’s vanished, by the way. Even his sister Yawa doesn’t know where he’s gone, or so she insists. They call him the Phantom Duke, though I suspect he’s just very bashful, probably due to excessive childhood exposure to Yawa—where was I? Masonry, yes. The Stakhieczi are unparalleled, they have masonry in their bones. Shame about the previous Accountants, isn’t it?”

  “Immaterial to me.” She circled the desk to claim her own chair. “My job is to perform my duty to the best of my ability. The unhappy fates of Olonori and Tanifel are only history. Knowing the last Imperial Accountant was murdered would only have been a distraction.”

  This was her rebuke: why didn’t you tell me? But Cairdine Farrier did not rise to it. Instead he shook his head in reproach. “History is never only a distraction.”

  She shrugged with affected weariness, studying him, his round face and flat nose, the weight he’d gathered during years on Taranoke. The hair at his temples had silvered. He would probably die before he
r, and when that day came, what would she think?

  “I can’t control history,” she said, “so it’s not part of my job.”

  “Control. Good.” He drummed his fingers at the edge of the desk. “When you speak of control I know you learned the right lessons from Taranoke. But history must be part of your job.”

  “You made me an accountant. Not a scholar.”

  “We do have an emperor, you know.” Cairdine Farrier sniffed his wine. “He sits on a throne in Falcrest with nurses to feed him mush and wipe his ass. When he dies, another one’s installed, and behind that mask no one can tell the difference. It might be a new man every day. Do you ever wonder why that is?”

  “He’s a figurehead. Parliament is the real power.” Except Cattlson hadn’t thought so. A theater for the mob.

  “That’s a schoolchild’s answer.”

  His disappointment looked real and hard, not a pedagogue’s theater. Baru remembered things she had seen in his eyes, in years long past, and mastered a shiver. “You chose the school.”

  “You’ve always been bored by history. It’s your greatest weakness.”

  “I am the Imperial Accountant of Aurdwynn,” she said softly, “and you are a merchant, Cairdine Farrier. No matter what I owe you or what patronage you’ve provided, now you must show me due respect.”

  She knew as she said it that it was a stupid and childish posture to assume, because he couldn’t be only a merchant. But she hoped to bait his pride.

  “When the revolution came,” he said, “all those years ago, we—I say we although I hadn’t been born yet—resolved to tear down the aristocracy and build a republic for the people. But no one believed a Parliament could rule with authority. No one believed they could act with unity and decisiveness when the Stakhieczi came down out of the north, or the Maia rose again, or the Oriati federations fell under one lord and found new ambition, or—forbid it—the whispers from east across the Mother of Storms came true. Parliament would dissolve into corruption, patronage, and graft. So the chemists offered a solution.

  “Every five years we would choose a wise and scholarly citizen to be emperor, and he or she would drink a secret potion—a draught of amnesia.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “Behind the Emperor’s Mask, he would be unrecognizable; and behind the fog of that potion, he would not recognize himself. He would retain his knowledge of the world, its history and geography, its policies and pressures. But he would have no idea who he had been before he was Emperor.”

  Baru watched him, wondering if this was the pride she’d probed for, or the history she should’ve mastered. He sat back in theatrical satisfaction. “Clever, no? A man who does not know who he is cannot have self-interest. Without family or wealth to lure him from the common good, he would rule fairly. When his term ended and the potion wore off he would return to his station, whether pauper or merchant prince, suffering from or benefiting by his own policies. Behind the Mask, the Emperor could be just.”

  “But the potion is a lie,” Baru guessed. “The chemists never learned how to make it.”

  “Of course.” Cairdine Farrier snorted. “The coronation of the Emperor is simpler than that—it involves a pick through the eye socket and a great deal of drool. But the mob believes in the potion. They believe in the Mask. They think the vegetable on the Faceless Throne is one of them.”

  “You’ve written your own history.” The point was blunt but she fed it back to him anyway, although it was a concession. “And it gives you power.”

  He might have sighed in exaggerated relief, in another, more playful mood. But he did not. His voice was sharp, empty of ornament. “If you want to excel, if you want to have the station you think you deserve—” He gestured with his wineglass, and his eyes narrowed in the lamplight. “If you want to understand real power, the kind of power that made us lord of your little land, you will learn to manage all its forms.”

  The candles on the desk danced briefly in the draft.

  “Who are you?” she whispered, too curious to resist the direct approach. “Really?”

  He set down his glass and held up his empty hands. “Parliament,” he said, lifting his right palm; and then his left. “And the Emperor on the Faceless Throne.”

  He left the rest of the exercise to her: filling in the negative space between them, the head behind the empty hands.

  “Aurdwynn will rebel,” she said. “Rebellions are expensive. That’s why you made me Accountant. So I could follow the money to the proof.”

  Cairdine Farrier took a long drink of wine. “You know,” he said, swallowing thoughtfully, “I have a bet with my associate Hesychast. He believes that your race is fundamentally unable to rule. That your easy island life and culture of unhygienic appetites has left you soft and biddable, and that you are all fit primarily for farming, fishing, and pleasure. He maintains that we rule you because it is your hereditary destiny to serve.”

  She set her glass down with soft precision. “And you?”

  “I have wagered that you will stop the rebellion,” he said and, smiling, lifted his glass in toast. “And now I take my leave. You have work to do. I’ll see you in Falcrest, if you make it.”

  “Who killed Su Olonori?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve made no effort to find out.” He paused by the door. “The same people who’ll try to kill you when you get close to stopping them, I presume.”

  * * *

  WHEN Cairdine Farrier had gone, she found herself sick with the awful need to know. She had learned what she could about the Throne and Farrier’s colleagues, about their tests. But there were other secrets, closer and more terrible, and she could not delay the confrontation forever. She was part of this now, the apparatus of rule.

  She had to confront the beast that had eaten father Salm.

  She went to the Cold Cellar unannounced, white-masked, gloved, flashing the technocrat’s sign to the gate guard, printing her mark in the logbooks. Passed through layers of vigilance and examination into white acid-washed walls, concrete, clean, buttered in lamplight.

  The heart of Jurispotence Xate Yawa’s power.

  From the conditioning cells came soft bell chimes. Near the surgical theaters a quartet of musicians played oboe and lute. A sign by them: PLEASE DO NOT DISRUPT THE SOOTHING MUSIC.

  Baru walked the transient wing. “For minor corrections,” the functionary at her side explained, a plump Falcresti woman, plainly brilliant, precise and brisk. “This woman, for instance.”

  A gaunt Stakhi commoner, strapped to a metal chair, watching nude men approach and depart through the far door. Some of the men—paler, middling height, their features shaped by hasty makeup—stopped a handbreadth away, and a soft, warm note played. The woman’s embarrassment softened, and she lifted her lips to draw some drug or draught from the pipe mounted near her head.

  But when other men—darker, taller, more muscular or more beautiful—came close, the cell filled with terrible harsh buzzing and a stink that filtered out beneath the door.

  “She volunteered for fidelity conditioning to repair her marriage,” the functionary explained. “Wise. Two of her social proximates reported on her behavior. She could have been found responsible for hedonic sociopathy or hereditary misconjugation.”

  “The method?”

  “Simple conditioning. We pair pleasant stimuli with facsimiles of her husband. If that fails, we’ll proceed to paired-icon behavioral coaxing, manual stimulation, or sterile proxy conjugation. The final option is a diagnosis of hereditary nonmonogamy defect and sterilization.”

  Baru found herself grateful for the mask. “What about surgical intervention?” she asked, thinking of Aminata’s warning, of the nauseating threat. “To render conjugation joyless? Do you conduct those here?”

  Tain Hu had looked into her eyes, smiling, her lips drawn like a recurve bow, the motion of her breath slow and assured in her shoulders and chest, and she had not seemed at all nauseated or afraid—

  But that had been a
trap. Baru stamped on the image and the thought with silent, urgent efficiency.

  “I’m sorry, Your Excellence. The somatic intervention wing is closed to visitors without the Jurispotence’s direct approval.” She gave Baru a cool sidelong gaze, assessing, and Baru saw Xate Yawa’s eyes behind hers. “Our behavioral work here is equally important. Aurdwynni family structure requires strict corrective action. Especially among the Maia bloodlines.”

  On the way out they went through the holding cells, full of men and women waiting to be processed and assigned to judges. Strings of stamps marked their charges, their risk assessment, the nature of their arrest:

  COLLECTED BY SOCIAL HYGIENE PROFILE.

  REPORTED BY SOCIAL PROXIMATE.

  FAILED UNDERCOVER LOYALTY SPOT CHECK.

  REPORTED BY SOCIAL PROXIMATE.

  REPORTED BY SOCIAL PROXIMATE.

  REPORTED BY DEEP COVER INFORMANT.

  COMPLIED WITH ENTICEMENT CHECK.

  In another conditioning cell, a man sat in a drugged stupor, manacled to a chair, moaning in chemical bliss, while a functionary in a bone-white mask stared into his eyes and recited: “Falcrest. Mask. Hygiene. Incrastic. Loyalty. Compliance.”

  A crash of hidden cymbals. The functionary raised a smoking censer to the man’s face, poison-yellow, as the crash came again, again, again. “Rebellion,” the mask said, as the man began to shriek. “Revolt. Devena. Himu. Wydd—”

  The new carriage they gave her for the ride home had a drunken old man for a driver. Rattled, she barely acknowledged his greeting—“They call me Gray, for the beard. I know every street and sewer in the city.”—and it took her minutes to realize he’d been driving her in circles.

  “You should be more careful, Your Excellence,” he admonished her. Passing lamplight caught his blue jungle-crow eyes. “I could’ve taken you into Northarbor and given you to a diver with a knife. The last Accountant I drove came to such a fate.”

  “Xate Yawa will hear of this,” Baru hissed. Her mind was still fixed on the Cellar, and on the thought of Salm, taken in the night to some waiting camp, or pit, or the hold of a receding ship, to be remade with drug and knife, or (better? was this better?) snuffed out in agony.