The Book of Jhereg

by Steven Brust

  “No.”

  “Who is?”

  “A fellow named Nath.”

  “Where can I find him?”

  “Are you going to kill me?”

  “Not if you keep talking.”

  “He lives above a carpetmaker way to the west, just north of the Easterners’ area. Number four Shade Tree Street.”

  I said, “Okay. Do you plan to tell Herth about this talk?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll have to tell him what you told me.”

  “He’s very understanding that way.”

  “In that case, I need a good reason for leaving you alive.”

  “You said you would.”

  “Yes, that is a good reason. I need another one.”

  “You’re a dead man, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “A dishonest dead man.”

  “I’m just in a bad mood. I’m usually a very honest dead man. Ask anyone.”

  “Okay. I’ll keep my mouth shut for an hour.”

  “Would you keep your word to someone who lied to you?”

  He considered that for a moment, then said, “Yes.”

  “Herth must be a very understanding fellow.”

  “Yes. Except when his people are killed. He doesn’t understand that at all.”

  I said, “Okay. You can leave.”

  He stood up without another word and walked out. I replaced my dagger, left the one in the body and walked back out into the main room. The host didn’t give me a second glance. I made it onto the street and headed back toward my office. I could feel Loiosh’s tension as he strained to look into every corner of every alley we passed.

  “You shouldn’t have killed that guy, boss.”

  “If I hadn’t, Bajinok wouldn’t have taken me seriously. And I’m not certain I could have controlled two of them.”

  “Herth will be after your head now.”

  “Yes.”

  “You can’t help Cawti if you’re dead.”

  “I know.”

  “Then why—”

  “Shut up.”

  Even I didn’t think that was much of an answer.

  5

  . . . klava stain from upper lft. . .

  I TELEPORTED TO A place I knew in Nath’s neighborhood, so I wouldn’t have to waste any of Bajinok’s hour. Then I wasted a good fifteen minutes while my stomach recovered from the teleport.

  Shade Tree Street must have been an old name. There were a few stumps in the ground to the sides, and the hotels and houses were set back quite a ways from the crude stonework curbing on either edge of the street itself, which was as wide as Lower Kieron. The width indicated that the area had once had a lot of shops and markets, and that later it had been one of the better sections of town. That was probably before the Interregnum, however. Now it was a little on the low side.

  Number four was right in the middle, between number fifteen and number six. It was of brown stonework, two stories tall, with two flats in it. The one on the bottom had a chreotha crudely drawn on the door. I went up the wooden steps and they didn’t creak at all. I was impressed.

  The door at the top had a stylized jhereg on it, etched on a metal plate above the symbol for Baron. “Was I quiet enough, Loiosh?”

  “I think so, boss.”

  “Okay.”

  I checked the spells on the door, then checked them a second time. I’m a lot sloppier when I’m not actually about to kill someone, but there’s no reason to be too sloppy. The door held no surprises. The wood itself was thin enough that I could handle it. I let Spellbreaker fall into my left hand, took a couple of careful breaths, then smacked the door with Spellbreaker and, at the same time, kicked with my right leg. The door flew open and I stepped into the room.

  He was alone. That meant it was likely that Bajinok had actually kept his word. He was sitting on a low couch, reading the same tabloid that Cawti had been reading. I kicked the door shut behind me and crossed to him in three steps, drawing my rapier as I did so. He stood up and stared at me, wide-eyed. He made no effort to reach for a weapon. It was possible he wasn’t a fighter, but it would be stupid to count on it. I held the point of my weapon up to his left eye and said, “Good afternoon. You must be Nath.”

  He stared at me, his eyes wide, holding his breath.

  I said, “Well?”

  He nodded.

  I gave him the same speech I’d given Bajinok about not leaving or trying to reach help. He seemed to find it convincing. I said, “Let’s sit down and chat.”

  He nodded again. He was either very frightened or a good actor. I said, “An Easterner named Franz was killed a few days ago.”

  He nodded.

  I said, “Herth had it done.”

  He nodded again.

  I said, “You pointed him out to Herth.”

  His eyes widened and he half-shook his head.

  I said, “Yes. Why?”

  “I didn’t—”

  “I don’t care if you suggested the killing or not. I want to know what it was about Franz that you told Herth. Tell me quickly, without thinking about it. If I get the idea that you’re lying, I’ll kill you.”

  His mouth worked for a bit, and his voice, when he spoke, was a squeak. “I don’t know. I just—” he stopped long enough to clear his throat. “I just told him about them. All of them. I said what they were doing.”

  “Herth wanted to know names?”

  “Not at first. But a few weeks ago he told me to give him reports on all of the Easterners—their names, what they did, everything.”

  “You had all that?”

  He nodded.

  I asked, “Why?”

  “I’ve been here for most of the year. Herth heard rumors about this group and sent me to check on them. I’ve been keeping track.”

  “I see. And then he tells you to give him the names, and two weeks later Franz is killed.”

  He nodded.

  I said, “Well, why did he want someone killed, and why Franz?”

  He said, “I don’t know.”

  “Guess.”

  “They were troublemakers. They interfered with business. They were always around, you know? And they were giving reading lessons. When Easterners—” He stopped, looking at me.

  “Go on.”

  He swallowed. “When Easterners get too smart, well, I guess it doesn’t help business any. But it might have been something that happened before I came. Herth is careful, you know? He wouldn’t tell me more than he had to.”

  “And Franz?”

  “He was just one of them.”

  “What about Kelly?”

  “What about him? He never did much that I could see.”

  I refrained from commenting on his eyesight.

  “Boss.”

  “Yeah, Loiosh?”

  “Your hour is about gone.”

  “Thanks.”

  I said, “Okay. You get to live.”

  He seemed relieved. I turned, walked out the door and down to the street and made my way through some alleys as quickly as I could. There was no sign of pursuit.

  “Well, what do you think, Loiosh?”

  “He wanted to kill one of them, and Franz was as good a choice as any.”

  “Yeah. I think so, too. Why did he want to kill one of them?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, what now?”

  “Boss, do you have an idea how much trouble you’ve gotten yourself into?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I was just wondering. I don’t know what to do now, boss. We’re close to the Easterners’ area, if there’s anything you want there.”

  I started heading that way as I thought about it. What was the next step? I had to find out if Herth was going to keep after them now, or if he had accomplished whatever it was he hoped to accomplish. If Herth wasn’t going to do anything to these people, I could relax and only worry about how I was going to keep him from killing me.

  The street I was on d
ead-ended unexpectedly, so I backtracked a ways until I found one I knew. Tall, windowless houses loomed over me like gloating green and yellow giants, with balconies sometimes almost meeting above me, cutting off my view of the orange-red sky.

  Then, at a cross street named Twovine, the houses became older, paler, and smaller and the street widened and I was in the Easterners’ section. It smelled like the countryside, with hay and cows and manure where they were selling cow’s milk on the street. The breeze became sharper with the widening of the avenue, in swirls that kicked dust up in my eyes and stung my face.

  The street curved and twisted and others joined it and left it, and then I saw Sheryl and Paresh standing on a street corner, holding that same damned tabloid and accosting passersby. I walked up to them. Paresh nodded coolly and turned his back to me. Sheryl’s smile was a little friendlier, but she also turned away when two young Easterners came by, holding hands. I heard her saying something about breaking the Imperium, but they just shook their heads and walked on.

  I said, “Am I off limits?”

  Sheryl shook her head. Paresh turned and said, “Not at all. Do you want to buy a copy?”

  I said I didn’t. He didn’t seem surprised. He turned away again. I stood there for a few more seconds before realizing that I was making a fool of myself by standing, and I’d look stupid leaving. I addressed Sheryl. “Will you talk to me if I buy you a cup of klava?”

  “I can’t,” she said. “Since Franz was murdered we don’t work alone.”

  I bit my tongue when a few remarks about “working” came to mind, then got an idea.

  “Well, Loiosh?”

  “Oh, sure boss. Why not?”

  I said to Sheryl, “Loiosh can stick around.”

  She looked startled and glanced at Paresh. Paresh looked at Loiosh for a moment, then said, “Why not?”

  So Loiosh hung around and got his revolutionary indoctrination while I led Sheryl into an Easterner klava hole located right across the street. It was long, narrow, darker than I like except when I want to kill someone; everything was of wood in surprisingly good condition, considering. I led us all the way to the far end and put my back to the wall. That isn’t really a useful way of protecting yourself, but on that occasion it made me feel better.

  I had promised to buy her a cup of klava, but actually it came in a glass. I burned my hand on the side when I first picked it up, then, setting it down, slopped some onto the table and burned my leg. I put cream in to cool it down, which didn’t help much because they warmed the cream. Tasted good though.

  Sheryl’s eyes were wide and bright blue, with just a hint of freckles around them. I said, “You know what I’m doing?”

  “Not exactly,” she said. There was the hint of a smile about her lips. It suddenly occurred to me that she might think I was making a pass at her. Then it occurred to me that maybe I wanted to. She was certainly attractive, and had a bit of the innocent wanton about her that I found stimulating. But no, not now.

  I said, “I’m trying to find out why Franz was killed, and then I’m going to do whatever I have to to make sure that Cawti isn’t.”

  The almost-smile didn’t waver, but she shook her head. “Franz was killed because they’re scared of us.”

  There were a lot of snappy answers that I didn’t make. Instead I said, “Who is scared?”

  “The Imperium.”

  “He wasn’t killed by the Imperium.”

  “Perhaps not directly, but—”

  “He was killed by a Jhereg named Herth. Herth doesn’t kill people for the Imperium. He’s too busy trying to keep the Imperium from finding out that he kills people.”

  “It may look like that—”

  “All right, all right. This isn’t helping.”

  She shrugged, and by now the smile was gone. On the other hand, she wasn’t looking angry, so it was worth continuing. I said, “What was he doing, in particular, that would threaten a Jhereg trying to make money, in particular?”

  She was quiet for a while, and at last said, “I don’t know. He sold papers, just as I was doing, and he spoke at meetings, just as I do, and he gave lessons on reading, and on revolution, just as I do—”

  “Wait. You also give reading lessons?”

  “We all do.”

  “I see. All right.”

  “I guess what it was is that he did more of everything. He was tireless, and enthusiastic, and everyone responded to that—both we, and people we’d run across. When we’d travel through the neighborhoods, he always remembered people better than the rest of us, and they always remembered him. When he spoke, he was better. When he gave reading lessons, it was like it was vital to him that everyone learned to read. Whenever some group that I was in was doing something, he was always there, and whenever some group that I wasn’t in was doing something, he was always there, too. Do you see what I mean?”

  I nodded and didn’t say anything. The waiter came and poured more klava. I added cream and honey and used the napkin to hold the glass. Glass. Why not a cup? Stupid Easterners; can’t do anything right.

  I said, “Do you know any of the Jhereg who operate around here?”

  She shook her head. “I know there are some, but I wouldn’t recognize them. There are a good number of Dragaerans, and a lot of them are Jhereg, but I couldn’t tell you ‘that guy works for the organization,’ or something.”

  “Do you know what kind of things they have going on?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Are there places to gamble?”

  “Huh? Oh, sure. But they’re run by Easterners.”

  “No, they’re not.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I know Herth.”

  “Oh.”

  “Are there prostitutes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Brothels?”

  “Yes.”

  “Pimps?”

  She suddenly looked, perhaps, the least bit smug. “Not anymore,” she said.

  “Ah ha.”

  “What?”

  “What happened to them?”

  “We drove them off. They’re the most vicious—”

  “I know pimps. How did you drive them off?”

  “Most of the pimps around here were really young kids.”

  “Yes. The older ones run brothels.”

  “They were part of the gangs.”

  “Gangs?”

  “Yes. Around here there isn’t much of anything for kids to do, so—”

  “How old kids?”

  “Oh, you know, eleven to sixteen.”

  “Okay.”

  “So they formed gangs, just to have something to do. And they’d wander around and make trouble, break up stores, that kind of thing. Your Phoenix Guards couldn’t care less about what they do, as long as they stay in our area.”

  “They aren’t my Phoenix Guards.”

  “Whatever. There have been gangs around here for longer than I’ve been alive. A lot of them get involved in pimping because it’s about the only way to make money when you don’t have any money to start with. They also terrorize a lot of the small shopkeepers into paying them, and steal a little, but there just isn’t that much to steal and no one to sell it to.”

  I suddenly thought about Noish-pa, but no, they wouldn’t mess around with a witch. I said, “Okay, so some of them got into pimping.”

  “Yes.”

  “How did you get rid of them?”

  “Kelly says that most of the kids in the gangs are in because they don’t have any hope of things being better for them. He says that their only real hope is revolution, so—”

  “Fine,” I said. “How did you get rid of them?”

  “We broke up most of the gangs.”

  “How?”

  “We taught them to read, for one thing. Once you can read it’s harder to remain ignorant. And when they saw we were serious about destroying the despots, many of them joined us.”

  “Just like that?”

 
; For the first time she glared at me. “It’s taken us ten years of work to get this far, and we still have a long way to go. Ten years. It wasn’t ‘just like that.’ And not all of them stayed in the movement, either. But, so far, most of the gangs are gone and haven’t come back.”

  “And when the gangs broke up, the pimps left?”

  “They needed the gangs to back them up.”

  “This all fits.”

  She asked, “Why?”

  I said, “The pimps worked for Herth.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I know Herth.”

  “Oh.”

  “Have you been involved for ten years?”

  She nodded.

  “How did you—”

  She shook her head. We sipped our klava for a while. Then she sighed and said, “I got involved when I was looking for something to do after my pimp was run out of the neighborhood.”

  I said, “Oh.”

  “Couldn’t you tell I used to be a whore?” She was looking hard at me, and trying to make her voice sound tough and streetwise.

  I shook my head and answered the thought behind the words. “It’s different among Dragaerans. Prostitution isn’t thought of as something to be ashamed of.”

  She stared at me, but I couldn’t tell if she was showing disbelief or contempt. I realized that if I kept this up, I’d start to question the Dragaeran attitude too, and I didn’t need anymore things to question.

  I cleared my throat. “When did the pimps leave?”

  “We’ve been chasing them out gradually over the last few years. We haven’t seen any around this neighborhood for months.”

  “Ah ha.”

  “You said that already.”

  “Things are starting to make sense.”

  “You think that was why Franz was murdered?”

  “All the pimps gave some portion of their income to Herth. That’s how these things work.”

  “I see.”

  “Was Franz involved in breaking up the gangs?”

  “He was involved in everything.”

  “Was he especially involved in that?”

  “He was involved in everything.”

  “I see.”

  I drank some more klava. Now I could hold the glass, but the klava was cold. Stupid Easterners. The waiter came over, replaced the glass, filled it.

  I said, “Herth is going to try to put the pimps back in business.”