by Ian Sales
Norioko chopped a hand in the air. “No. We have bigger fish to fry. One prole means nothing.”
“Gyome, he could be important. I believe he is.”
The baron shook his head ponderously. “Merenilo’s chief reason for coming to Darrus was likely something else—”
“You know something I don’t,” Finesz stated flatly. She had suspected—no, known—as much.
Norioko chuckled. “Of course.” He shifted in his chair. His brows lowered. “While you were gallivanting about Amwadina, I was meeting agents of Viscount Tadris. Shortly after you left Shuto, he was spotted acting suspiciously friendly with Malis. There is the possibility he is involved. If yes, then there’s your reason for the regimental-lieutenant coming all this way.”
“And?” This was characteristic of Norioko: he ordered his underlings to chase the minor conspirators while he went straight for the prize.
Norioko made an airy gestured with one hand. “It was all unofficial, and very amicable. The seneschal has no reason to suspect his liege. Tadris’s finances are entirely aboveboard… but for a tendency to license monopolies to businesses in which he is a major shareholder, like Gin Illimirat. But Darrus is his fief: he can do as he pleases here, and ethics be damned.”
“What about Tadris’s interests on Shuto? He spends all his time there, doesn’t he?” Finesz had not met the viscount at his court, since he was at the Imperial capital.
“He has none. Officially, that is. He’s a house-guest of Ariman umar Vonshuan, Duke of Ahasz.”
“Ahasz?” Finesz was surprised. No, shocked. “Tadris has very powerful friends.”
Before being recruited to the OPI by Norioko, Finesz had been the baron’s mistress. And before that the mistress of another noble. And so on. But she had never moved in the same rarifed circles as the Duke of Ahasz, head of one of the oldest and most powerful families in the Empire, and a personal friend of the Imperial Family.
Finesz smiled grimly. “He’s harbouring a snake in his bosom. If anyone is above suspicion, it’s Ahasz. He was to marry into the Imperial Family, after all. Well, until Princess Flavia, ah, ‘died’.”
The baron grunted. “He’s no longer so favoured: he’s been on parole for the last three quarters.”
“What in heavens for?” Away from the capital for a year, and Finesz had missed a big, juicy scandal. She could not help feel resentment.
“He invaded Nevola’s fief with his personal guard, took the marquess into custody. Claimed Nevola’s treatment of his proles offended all sensibilities.”
“Surely that would only make him more popular?” asked Finesz.
“Come now, Sliva, you can’t send troops into someone’s fief just because you don’t like the way they look after their proles. If Nevola was flouting the Subjects’ Charter, then it’s our job to investigate and indict.”
“Did we?”
“No complaint had been made.” Norioko grimaced. “Because we police the law, we’re bound all the more tightly by it.” He slapped his thigh with a meaty thwack. “It’s immaterial anyway: we’re investigating Tadris. He may have some strange bedfellows—Ahasz on the one side, Malis on the other—but we’ve no evidence tying him into this conspiracy. I was hoping to find some here… But Tadris has too many connections to send the Provost branch thumping in. It had to be done carefully. Discreetly. My trip here could well have been a wasted journey.”
“So why come?”
“To light a fire under your backside, my dear, among other things. It seems to have worked: you’ve learnt more in the past four days than in the previous two weeks.”
“Only because Merenilo chose to make his move,” Finesz protested. “He was waiting for Divine Providence.”
“I’m not convinced of this connection. I fail to see how a data-freighter is involved. Merenilo was likely here to make contact with an agent. I suspected someone in Tadris’s entourage, but I’m no longer so certain.”
When Finesz left the baron ten minutes later and returned to her waiting staff car, she was curt and abrupt with Assaun. It had not been a good meeting. Norioko had ordered no refreshment and she wondered if he were disappointed in her. He would not speak of his displeasure. He would show it in small, trivial ways… such as not offering wine. It hurt all the more because he made no fuss.
Thinking back over her conversation with Norioko, Finesz found herself close to anger. He had rubbished her belief that Ormuz had some link to the conspiracy. It was, he maintained, a thing built by nobles and yeomen. Proles could play no part in it.
And Norioko’s reason for visiting Darrus—a “friendly chat” with Viscount Tadris’s seneschal—was so flimsy an excuse, Finesz herself was disappointed in the baron for offering it. If Norioko had more than mere suspicions, he would have sent in the OPI, no matter how club-fisted the Provost branch. Rumours were no justification for a 325-day journey from Shuto—and that was 325 days of elapsed time, only six weeks shorter than a year.
Norioko had given Finesz her orders: she was to discover as much as possible about Merenilo’s murder and then return to Shuto. If the regimental-lieutenant’s mission was to remain a mystery, then there could be a link to the conspiracy through his assassins. Finesz, however, had no intention of doing as the baron instructed. Divine Providence’s next listed port of call was Ophold and Finesz planned to be there to meet the data-freighter. Ormuz was the key, of that she was convinced. If only she knew in what way…
The autopsy report told Finesz nothing she did not already know: Regimental-Lieutenant Kyrel demar Merenilo of the Imperial Regiment of Housecarls had been killed by the insertion of a blade through his back to puncture a chamber of his heart. The report described the murder weapon as a narrow double-edged blade of military-grade steel. Its wielder was right-handed and approximately six feet in height. Light bruising beneath Merenilo’s chin and across his upper neck suggested the assailant had first hooked an arm about the regimental-lieutenant’s throat to hold him steady for the blade. Fibres, but no skin, had been found beneath Merenilo’s fingernails, and identified as a material so commonplace as to offer no clues. The regimental-lieutenant had been in excellent physical shape, but for bruises about his ribcage and on one forearm. These were several days old and probably a result of his fight with Divine Providence’s crew. Trace evidence gathered from Merenilo’s clothing and body tallied with the movements he had made while under surveillance.
The report of the autopsy on Lihik was a duplicate of Merenilo’s, although the OPI trooper had been a less-imposing and less physically fit man than the Housecarl. The blade used to kill Lihik had been identical in size and shape. The murderer was right-handed and approximately six feet in height.
Finesz cleared her console’s glass and called up the scene-of-crime report.
Analysis of the ground at the murder scene confirmed that Merenilo had entered the alley from Haribi Street and was approaching the exit on Mahattë Street when he was attacked. Further analyses had revealed that two people had left the crime scene via the Haribi Street entrance. Minute traces of soil found near Merenilo’s and Lihik’s bodies, but not on the corpses of the two victims, contained particles of complex lubricant molecules, suggesting the assailants had recently been in the vicinity of Minadar… as they would have in order to arrive on Darrus. No other trace evidence could be linked to the assailants.
Rubbing her eyes, Finesz sat back in her chair. The three reports told her little she had not already guessed. Merenilo’s assassins were as mysterious now as they had been before, despite the scientific resources of the Office of the Procurator Imperial. The OPI would investigate further, but she thought it unlikely they would learn more. It had been two days since the murders and the assassins had probably left Darrus as anonymously as they had arrived.
Rafeer’s murder had been handled entirely by the county constabulary. It was an open-and-shut case. The entry wound to the top of the trooper’s spine matched the profile of
the sword sheathed at Merenilo’s hip. Oddly, the sword had not been regulation Housecarls issue, but a plain blade without regimental badge or decorative work. Finesz knew that Housecarls—most regimental officers, in fact—were much attached to their swords and wore them at all times. Constables had searched Merenilo’s suite at the hotel but no other sword had been found.
Finesz’s gaze slid from the console glass and fell on the escutcheon she had found in Merenilo’s pocket. She peered at it thoughtfully… Whose was it? What did its presence on the body mean—
A knock sounded at the door to Finesz’s office. She called out, “Come in.”
Assaun opened the door and entered.
“Yes?” asked Finesz.
“Constabulary handed over Merenilo’s personal effects to a bailiff. Sent them to the Housecarls’ garrison on Shuto.”
Finesz stared at the trooper in disbelief. “What?”
“Merenilo’s personal effects: gone. Ma’am.”
“What in heavens did they do that for?” Those personal effects were evidence. The OPI had yet to study them. The constabulary had been keeping them because Rafeer’s murder gave them priority over the murderer’s possessions.
“No choice. Bailiff represents the viscount. Constabulary is a county force.”
“They’ve gone all ready?”
“Shipped out first thing this morning.”
Finesz was furious. “Get me that bailiff’s name. I’ll have him on charges for obstructing an OPI investigation.”
“He was following orders, ma’am.”
“Who signed the warrant?”
“Seneschal.”
Norioko. An unkind thought, but Finesz couldn’t help it popping into her head. The viscount’s household had no reason to interfere… unless they harboured an agent of the conspiracy. And Norioko had interviewed the seneschal, who ruled Darrus in his liege’s name. Perhaps Norioko had “suggested” that the seneschal return Merenilo’s personal effects to his regiment. Finesz could imagine it happening. Without the regimental-lieutenant’s possessions, she was forced to concentrate her investigation on his murder. And once she knew all that could be learnt from that, she would return to Shuto.
She slammed a palm down on her desk-top in anger. No! This was her investigation. She would conduct it as she saw fit. The baron had all ready left Darrus and was en route to Shuto. He was effectively incommunicado. By the time he discovered she had disobeyed her orders, it would be too late to do anything.
“We concentrate on the data-freighter,” she instructed Assaun. “I want a team on the crew at all times.”
“They lift tomorrow.”
Finesz smiled grimly. “Let’s see what we can do about that.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Fiend! You know you’ll never get away it.”
“Oh, but I will, my meddling knight—”
“Viscount, actually.” Ormuz withdrew his sword from its scabbard with one smooth motion. “The Emperor Himself presented me with the patent.”
“I would offer my congratulations… but they will be short-lived, given your impending demise.” The Grey Prince raised his own sword, and adopted a fighting stance.
Ormuz touched his blade to his enemy’s. The two swords whispered an inch or two up and down each others’ lengths. “Should you kill me—and that’s an exceedingly remote possibility—my elite militia will make short work of you and your henchmen.” They waited in the wings, a highly-trained force superior even to the best of the knights stalwart and the knights militant. It had taken many years to recruit and train them.
The Grey Prince raised an eyebrow. “A personal militia? I’m impressed. They’ve been banned by Imperial fiat for over a thousand years. And yet you’ve created one.”
“I saw no other way of ensuring your defeat.”
“Tell that—” The Grey Prince pulled the point of his sword back, and lunged for Ormuz’s abdomen— “to the Emperor!”
Ormuz parried the thrust with a clang of steel. “I’m a loyal subject.” He rotated his wrist and flicked away the Grey Prince’s blade. He made to stab his opponent in the left shoulder but was rebuffed. “I’m sure He’ll forgive me.”
“No matter. My army of clones will defeat your personal militia.”
“Fiend! Cloning has been illegal for thousands of years.”
“Only for some… or have you not noticed the Emperor’s remarkable resemblance to his father?”
It was a gibe too far. Reaching behind, Ormuz pulled his bollock-dagger from its sheath in the small of his back. Now he had a second blade to parry the Grey Prince’s attack. The advantage was his—
“Excuse me?” said a voice.
The Grey Prince was a master swordsman but Ormuz was expert in the use of sword and dagger—
“Hello?”
Ormuz focused on the two figures standing before him at the foot of the stairs to Divine Providence’s airlock. Lost in his daydream, he had not seen them approach. He would have to finish the epic sword-fight between himself and the evil Grey Prince another day.
“Is Captain Plessant about?”
He saw two women, both dressed in black—not the black hooded cloaks he had seen on the more conservative Darrusï women, but uniforms of some kind. The mailed fist of Imperial justice was emblazoned on one shoulder.
The speaker was tall, blonde and clearly in charge. She wore jacket, trousers and boots. An officer and a yeoman, Ormuz guessed. The other was skirted, and possessed typical Darrusï colouring: olive skin and black hair.
The blonde smiled.
“Can I help you?” Ormuz asked.
“Is your captain aboard?”
Ormuz nodded.
The woman continued to smile. Ormuz smiled back.
“Could you let her know there’s someone here to see her?” she asked at length.
“Oh. Yes, of course. Er, who are you?”
“My name,” the woman replied, “is Inspector Finesz.”
“You’re constables?”
Finesz’s smile faded a fraction. “We’re OPI: Office of the Procurator Imperial, not the local constabulary.”
Ormuz rose to his feet, bobbed his head, and hurried up the ladder to the airlock. He found the captain in the cargo-master’s office, discussing arrangements for the delivery of the agricultural protocols with Tovar. Through a large port into the hold could be seen the huge vats in which Divine Providence carried her cargo of information. There was something ominous about the enormous tubs and their nebulous contents. Knowledge, in physical form.
“Captain?”
“Go away. I’m busy.” She did not look up from the text she was reading on a glass.
“There’s an Inspector Finesz wants to see you. Out on the apron.”
“What? Who? Corruption!” Plessant glared at Tovar, then at Ormuz. She sighed. “What does she want?”
“She didn’t say,” Ormuz admitted.
Muttering under her breath, Plessant left the cargo-master’s office and made her way for’ard to the airlock. Ormuz followed. He watched as the captain stomped down the ladder to the pair waiting at its foot. He didn’t think he’d be invited to join in, so he eavesdropped from within the hatch.
“Yes?” Plessant snapped.
“Captain Murily Plessant?” asked the inspector.
“Yes.”
“I’m afraid I’m serving a lien—this ship belongs to the OPI until we’ve determined you’ve discharged your debt of knowledge to an ongoing investigation.”
“What investigation?”
“The murder of Regimental-Lieutenant Kyrel demar Merenilo.”
“Never heard of him.”
“Perhaps you might remember being assaulted by a man in Amwadina three nights ago? That was him.”
“Doesn’t mean we murdered him,” Plessant said flatly.
“Oh, you’re not suspects, just helping with our enquiries.”
“We had
nothing to do with it, and you bloody well know it.”
“I’m afraid we’ve determined you’re involved,” Finesz replied. “It’s no good swearing at me, the decision has been made. Our investigation is not yet complete, and we will need to interview your crew.”
“I’m launching today,” Plessant replied flatly.
“Not any more.”
“For how long?” Plessant demanded.
“That, I’m afraid, I can’t say at this stage of the investigation.” Finesz did not sound apologetic.
“Every day I’m delayed, it costs me.”
“You know full well, captain, what the lien entails: the ship belongs to the OPI for its duration, so we will pay all charges.”
“There are other costs,” Plessant insisted mulishly.
“Such as?”
“Penalties for delayed shipment.”
“I wasn’t aware you had a cargo. You certainly haven’t declared one. Your next stop is Ophold, is it not?”
Plessant did not reply. Ormuz, who could not see Finesz, Plessant, or Finesz’s assistant from his hiding place, imagined his captain glaring at the inspector. She had a way of answering questions with just a look, especially those questions where she was aware the other person knew the answer.
“May I ask what takes you there? It’s not on your usual route.”
“Special commission from my liege.”
“Ah. Well. That could almost be true, couldn’t it?”
Again, no answer from Captain Plessant.
“Never mind. The bureau will be in contact with you in the next day or two to arrange interviews with yourself and your crew. Make sure you get your stories straight before you’re called, uhm? You wouldn’t want to be delayed too long, would you?”
“Humph.”
Heavy footsteps climbed the ladder to the lock. Ormuz scrambled into the passageway in a vain attempt to get out of sight before he was spotted. He tripped on the lip of the hatch, stumbled, and caught himself with a hand to the passage wall.
“Cas!” Plessant roared.
